Center.
Settle.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Welcome to a hit of hope and fair warning this one is a wee bit truck driver.
I've been doing these meditations for over a year and I began them in the snarliest valley of my life.
When I posted those early meditations some people responded that I sounded angry and harsh.
Yep,
Totally.
Because I began writing these meditations as a way to talk myself out of the devastation.
The pain at my heart was palpable and it stained my voice and spirit as I wrote and recorded.
With time I got better.
Life got better.
And I can still totally get hooked by the past and dragged back to what was.
To add insult to injury I then beat the shit out of my tender self saying this is what happens to losers like you who can't let the past go.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Recently I got a different kind of feedback from one of you dear souls.
Someone said the rebel in me bows to the rebel in you.
This took me aback because I've never thought of myself as a rebel.
For instance one time,
Yes one time,
I got a little drunk in high school.
My parents had no clue so I grounded myself.
So to be called a rebel?
No way.
It seems like I often let others dictate what I should do,
How I should feel.
Do you ever feel like that?
Maybe you also find that the past is a Napoleon,
One you continually follow into losing battles.
Notice how this Napoleon never drives you in a nice open-air carriage into the wonderful parts of your past.
The idyllic ones with currents in your scones and ducklings in your pond.
Ooh please pass the clotted cream.
Nope.
If your Napoleon is anything like mine you are dragged back into the battlefields of hurt and pain.
Where the scones,
If you can find any,
Are moldy and bug-ridden and the ducklings get eaten by the leviathans lurking just below the surface.
You get dragged back to the old ghosts and the deep longings that just will not let go.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I cannot answer why we do that.
Why we go back again and again to our battlefields.
Because believe me I've tried to figure it out.
In my own case I want to stop this shit.
But I'm not the only one who has noticed our habit of doing this.
In his book,
The Path of the Yoga Sutras,
Nikolai Bachman talks about ragas.
Considered one of the most powerful causes of suffering,
He says,
Ragas are emotional triggers that are based on clinging to past experiences.
A raga,
Which means stain,
Contains within it the fear that we will not experience something pleasurable again.
So even though the past can be full of hurt,
We knew that hurt.
And probably in the midst of that hurt or before that hurt there was all kinds of pleasure.
And that's what our Napoleons keep dragging us back to again and again.
So maybe that explains it?
I don't know.
But I think I know what's at the root of all of this.
Desire and not the good kind.
Napoleon was never satisfied with what he had.
He always wanted more.
And he chased that more so relentlessly that he wreaked havoc and left behind all kinds of pain and suffering.
And that's where that idea of being a rebel can come in handy.
A rebel is one who fights against,
Who resists.
I don't need to remind any of us that there are all kinds of rebels,
Just as there are all kinds of reasons to rebel.
But how do we know which kind of rebellion is noble and good and which is destructive?
One of my favorite mantras might help.
Your motivation colors your results.
Do you go back to your battlefields to celebrate the good?
To applaud how you fought hard to survive?
Do you go back to bring yourself joy and life to be the most you that you can be,
Regardless of what the world says?
And if the answer to any of those questions is no,
Then rebel.
Resist.
Do you give in to the messages of more?
More?
More?
Do you go to the suffering store and buy a huge bag of salt to pour into your old wounds?
Or can you rebel and say,
I will not live surrounded by the hauntings of old ghosts.
I will do what I can to live in love,
Not fear.
As I was pondering all of this,
I talked to a dear friend.
Well,
Complained more like it.
I wanted to know why I couldn't do this.
Let go of the past.
Why it wasn't easier.
He said,
You mean you want to know why you can't move past the human condition and into bliss?
Gee,
I don't know.
Perhaps that's the question that has plagued all of humanity for our entire existence.
Right.
So Napoleon will show up again and again.
And unless he is calling you to fight for the common good or to go after your best life,
Rebel.
Resist.
You do not have to let him in and you certainly do not have to follow him onto a tired old battlefield.
Tempting as it may be to tell him to suffocate on his own uvula,
Perhaps pat Napoleon's little head and give him a macrame plant holder that you made all by yourself.
Tell him,
Why not plant a seed and grow something beautiful and then send him on his way?
Or you could tie him up with the macrame plant holder until he shuts up.
It could be our own macrame rebellion.
Who's in?
Inhale.
Exhale.
Hey,
You.
Yeah,
You.
The rebel in me bows to the rebel in you.
Live light.
