No Mud, No Lotus

I’ve been searching for context.

As I’ve been navigating through the land of a thousand tomorrows, it was pretty easy to begin looking at everything that’s taken place with eyes of judgment.

Heading down the path of breaking myself down, especially after everything that’s happened this past year, has been pretty easy.

The Critic has been vicious at times.

But even in all of that, I don’t know where I would be if I had just given up or even continued down the path I was on. Both of those options would have been disastrous.

Even if I wasn’t ready to take on what I needed to, there’s a strange feeling in arriving at a place that you know will change the foundations of your life.

It’s hard to describe. There have been a handful of times in my life where I thought big things would change if I did this or that. But there has never been anything like this.

I think that’s been the biggest part of the challenge. I’m not being asked to do something simple or easy. I’m being asked to do the hardest thing of all – let go of who I have been and embrace the tearing down and simultaneous rebuilding.

And that’s a bit scary.

It’s exciting, sure. But still scary.

The Judge wants to make me feel like I haven’t accomplished anything in all of this time because I’ve had difficulty getting started on all of this.

There have been many seeds of guilt, regret, and depression that I’ve had to be incredibly aware of, picking those out of the ground before they could take root.

At times they have, and life doesn’t feel all too good when that happens.

But through it all, I’ve maintained course no matter how delayed movement has been. The intention is still there. The will is still there. I’ve just got to get it right once.

The context I had to start placing all of this in goes back to something I learned from one of my coaches a long time ago.

The truth is, we are all beginners.

When we grow and shift, we reach new depths of life where we have to learn all over again. When the expectation exists that we are “experts,” that’s when all of the criticism comes.

And when I look back on why I’ve struggled so much moving consistently on this path, it comes down to the fact that I’ve had to let go of years and years of previous ways of thinking and acting that solidified themselves deeper than I could have ever imagined.

I did this to survive. These are the remnants of a previous life where I was at war.

It’s been hard letting go of that. To tell myself that I’m no longer in battle and now I can rest. That’s been the most challenging aspect – learning to let go, get out of the way, and let the process take care of itself.

There’s still a significant amount of conscious choices that are required... but the brute force and expenditure of energy is no longer necessary nor required.

So it’s back to being a beginner again.

I learned in a past life how to exert my energy in such a way that could move mountains.

Now, I have to learn how to conserve that same energy in such a way that will still... move mountains.

Yin and yang.

Just have to let go.

Piece by piece.

Let the garden unfold as it’s meant to.

Evan Sanders