The small choices in the small moments matter.
So well done for making the choice to sit.
Bring your shoulders up to your ears and circle them down your back.
Drop your right ear to your right shoulder.
Let your chin drop to your chest.
Bring your left ear to your left shoulder.
Let your chin drop to your chest.
Now lift your head and take a deep inhale.
Exhale.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
The emotional geography of this current moment is challenging,
To put it mildly.
And as I was thinking about that,
Three related words came to mind,
All that have a touch of the holy about them.
The first word is limbo,
Which according to the Oxford English Dictionary was originally defined as a region that exists on the border of hell.
So let's call limbo hell adjacent.
Limbo can also mean an unfavorable place or condition,
A condition of neglect or oblivion to which people and things are consigned when regarded as outworn,
Useless,
Absurd.
Maybe you feel like you are living in limbo,
Or maybe it feels like a vat of marshmallow fluff that you are trying to live in.
Maybe you are weary,
And I mean weary.
Why shower?
Why in the hell is the fridge filled with exactly the same thing that it was 10 minutes ago when I opened the door?
Maybe you are sick of every single lick of clothing that you own,
Or the sound of the dog's nails on the floor,
Or the way that person you are supposed to love brushes their teeth.
Maybe the question,
What's the point,
Is turning into a vulture eating away at your spirit.
That's limbo.
The second word,
Bardo,
Is a Buddhist concept for a state of existence between death and rebirth.
Our normal ways of living feel dead right now,
And here we are,
Waiting for rebirth.
It's the waiting that is so hard because we don't know when it's going to happen or what is going to happen next.
That's why I've been indulging in one of my secret habits right now.
I keep watching the same four or five romantic comedies over and over,
Because I know how and when they end.
It's difficult to hover in this state of what feels like the death of everything normal as we wait for the all-clear that will let us out and back into the world,
Just like we are being born again.
That's where there is an opportunity in this moment.
Unlike our actual birth,
We get to decide in this rebirth who we will be as we step into our new lives after this is over.
So can we take this time right now to sit,
To sift?
What's important?
Who do I want to be?
What do I need to do to be the best version of myself in the rebirth?
And finally,
The last word is liminal.
It's that boundary or threshold which is a transitional space between two states or situations.
There was before,
There will be after,
And in this space in between,
There is loss and bravery,
Fear and kindness,
Struggle and hope.
That is true in this moment,
And it has been and will be true in our lives at other times as well.
I said at the beginning that limbo,
Bardo,
And liminal all have a touch of the holy about them.
Often we have to get kicked out of the comfortable and the ordinary to a region which is hell adjacent.
Because when we find ourselves there,
Suddenly it can become absolutely clear what is important,
What matters.
Extraordinary challenges in whatever shape or size they come can show us what is real,
What expands our hearts and spirits,
What invites us to the new and the good,
That which is worthy of our hope and praise.
Namaste.
