Musings on Life and Growth

In admiring and perceiving the acts of other beings, I remember that I am I and they are they, as different as two grasshoppers munching away in a field. After a while I think that what I do is just as good as what they do, and vice versa.

I notice how, after many months of traveling, I do not appreciate the contrasts so much anymore. I don’t see the beauty or appreciate the novelty of clashing cultures as much as I did when I was fresh off the airplane.

I am so ready to leave this place. I am ready to be home, to see my family, to be normal again. To express myself fully, openly, for all to see, and not feel judged for it by people from another culture who don’t understand me. Maybe in having this experience, I can relate to other people who have spent a long time away from home, away from their native cultures. I am so fortunate to be able to return home. Some people cannot do that because their homes do not exist anymore, or it is not possible with life situations for them to return. For example, like immigrants or refugees.

There is something so palpable about missing your homeland. It really is the land, and the people, and the songs which wind through both.

The knowledge that I want to be the best person I can possibly be, to assist in the global transformation of Earth into a place of light and truth, requires me doing exactly what my heart wants. My heart really misses my family and wants to go home soon.

I remember how heart-opened and free I felt when I was first in Nepal, teaching English in Nakote village. My heart was carrying me. My love was carrying me. My heart is no longer carrying me in India, because it has already set its course for home. It has set its course on love, and is doing everything it can to draw love experiences to it because that is what it craves.

I deserve to be in love now. I deserve to see, feel, and express beauty, to enjoy myself. I am free to go and do what my heart desires, because God is at the center of my heart.

I wonder, too, if my heart is actually a higher-dimensional being than I am. It doesn’t always resonate with specific plans or actions, but rather with feelings, frequencies, and energetic vibrations. I think I am starting to live from here, from a purely energetic, higher-dimensional place. Maybe just getting tastes.

I love the feeling of self-acceptance and situational acceptance. I love being right here, right now. Inside the envelope of this moment are stories to be told, lives to be had, love to be felt. I am so grateful.

It is so strange to be in a place that feels so utterly foreign to me (India). The people and the society are so opposite to who I am. They are counter-intuitive. Because of this contrast, I can more quickly define myself and my boundaries. It is actually crucial to my sanity to do this; otherwise, if I wasn’t clear about only doing what I want, I would be torn apart by guilt, shame, fear, anger, and hatred in less than five minutes.
It is so easy to make the mistake of comparing myself to others. So easy to fall into the traps of the many misunderstandings I’ve had about the different paths of the many lives on this planet. Mostly, I am saying that it is dangerous to compare myself to other people. Doing this invites the judgments which might assert a whole host of viewpoints, like “I am better than he is,” or “She is better than I am,” or “He needs to stop doing that and be more this way so that I can feel more comfortable.”

Helambu is a beautiful land (where I volunteered last fall). Nepal, the Himalaya, astounding. But looking into my own eyes, I know the landscape of my own heart is also beautiful. Perhaps it is more beautiful than outer landscapes. It is a dreamscape, a soulscape, a lovescape. Planting myself there, in my heart, has been one of the most rewarding and difficult experiences of my life.

I desire to live from my heart with a sense of ease and grace. I am attracted to people who move through life easily and gracefully – I would like to find this in myself and make a habit of it.

Something had to get cleaned out of me by going to India. I had to make room for all the empty space to breathe in! I had to open up and let go before more love, joy, trust, and centered decision-making could happen.

I am realizing that a lot of this trip has been about learning what fear really is. I used to think that fear was just a nuisance; that it was usually an unfounded emotion just getting in the way of my true desires. I would push through fear and feel it out violently, as though it were some disease to be cleansed and purified out of my body.

Now my understanding of fear has shifted. I also see fear as a valuable sign, a tool which helps to guide me and lets me know what I am ready for and what I am not ready for. When the fear response is in balance and I am not working on clearing past fears, this fear response can actually be a guide to truth. The fear doesn’t show me the truth; it just points the direction, like a sign with an arrow. It points to the corner of my universe where beautiful things want to be happening, and if I allow my love and attention to go there, I can be surprised by the ease, breath, and grace I find.

Life, for me, does not have to be so hard. Clear discernment of the heart, connected with the body, and verified by trusted friends who have good intuitive sense, can guide me into clearer pathways of light. A different perception of time is also required here. I mean that grasping at the future is not a healthy way to get anywhere. Force and effort are exhausting. It is better to let my river flow in the direction it naturally wants to go.

It is entirely possible for good, healthy, enjoyable emotions to also be parts of myself which I have been denying. Maybe it has been a practice of mine to deny myself good things like comfort, ease, wealth, beauty, and simple pleasures. This practice is even more apparent in India, where the general environment is harsh, annoying, loud, unrefined, invasive, and obnoxious. My small acts of self-care really stand out in contrast to this environment. Maybe the environment here is a reflection of the way I have treated myself in the past, and in learning to do things in contrast to it, I am learning to distance myself from old patterns of self-criticism, forcing, and over-expending effort.

Perhaps I am creating my own meaning here, but I still think it is a useful metaphor for changing personal behavior patterns. Any new, life-supporting pattern is obviously going to feel totally different than an old, self-destructive pattern. The two energies are polar opposites. Perhaps I am in the middle of my own “Precession of the Equinoxes,” where my core operating system is drastically shifting poles from being life/self - destructive to life/self - supportive. I like this analogy a lot, even if it is mostly intellectual! Maybe I will watch my body and emotions to see if they can verify its truth also.

Ciao for now,
Melissa