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What I know now, that I didn't know before: Love is all you need. Testimonial Tuesday #6 Truly. And, yes, I’m aware that it sounds cliche, AND that it’s been said before, AAAND that love does not necessarily buy you food or clothing or put a roof over your head etc. But, once your basic needs are met, there is really only one other thing that can determine your level of emotional satiation…and that’s love, baby. For many years, I have chosen to overlook this fact. In the face of love, I have instead often chosen to pursue external goals. Book this show, live in that cool city, make ___ amount of money, look this way, weigh this much, have that particular kind of wardrobe, be this or that kind of person, be this or that kind of friend, be this or that kind of daughter/sister/partner/employee etc…only be a fraction of your real self at any given moment -you know, the fraction of yourself that is sure to scare away the least amount of people- be that fraction of yourself with one person, and then make sure to adjust the fraction for the next round of folks/co-workers/friends and so on. Sound love-y? No, it doesn’t to me either. In fact, it sounds exhausting and inauthentic, and feels childish and gross when you are doing it in the face of knowing better. I spoke about all of this in my recent session with Rachael. I told her that I was feeling childish. That I was feeling selfish and embarrassed about recognizing these parts of myself that I have never truly let out of the box WITHOUT judgement. The parts of me that have pursued material things and still want to do so, even though I know that, ultimately, no external successes can truly fulfill me. I revealed to her (Rachael) that it felt spiritually un-evolved to do or want any of the things listed above. That, as a person who has spent so much time working on personal development and towards the ‘attainment of enlightenment’ -which, I’m pretty sure is an oxymoron- that I felt like I was no longer allowed to have wants or strong opinions or to be confused or messy or that loud, annoying drunk girl at a bar who is letting lose with her friends. “Spiritual people don’t do that” I told her…. The conversation that followed was a long and highly informative one…and the bulk of what I absorbed centered around one very important message; ‘Spiritual people’ are spiritual people because they are authentic to their spirit. Meaning, that for some of them, letting loose at a bar IS a spiritual experience. And what’s more, the spirit gets to express itself in any manner/number of ways -as many as it sees fit. A spiritual person can -indeed- get drunk at a bar, sleep in her clothes, and go on a meditative hike the next day to restore her spirit. She/he/they can make mistakes and break old rules in the name of what her/his/their spirit needs in order to continue to grow. A person can be spiritual without doing yoga seventeen hours a day and drinking nothing but green tea while sitting quietly in their closet/in-home meditation studio… don’t get me wrong, I love all of those things, but the lack of them does not define the depth of anyone’s spirituality…only their need to stretch more and buy more tea. As Rachael helped me to filter out the ‘shoulds’ and get in touch with the current realities of my spiritual journey, I was left with one very strong and startling realization: recently, all of my ideas about what a spiritual person ‘is’, have left me feeling relatively un-spiritual. I have spent so much time attempting to live my perceived set of Spiritual Person rules, that I have yet to live as a women who is consistently authentic to her spirit. Perhaps, I have just been scared. Or perhaps, I have continually overlooked what has always been right in front of me (love). Either way, today, as I drove the long and beautiful sun-set drenched stretch of highway between San Antonio and Austin, TX (where I am spending my Thanksgiving Holiday) it hit me; none of it matters without love. None of it feels like anything without love. And I want it all to matter, and I want it all to feel… good. I want love. And so long as I continue NOT to go with-in, I will continue to go without. This revelation feels HUGE. It also leaves me feeling totally empty…which, I suppose, means that it is time to fill up :-) ‘Fill 'er up with love, please!’ How’s the love level of YOUR heart? What do YOU know now, that you didn’t know before?
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What I know now, that I didn't know before: Only time will tell... testimonial Tuesday #5It seems to be a common belief, that at any given moment, we know what we are doing with our lives…but in truth, only time will tell. We are relatively sure that when we wake up in the morning, our day is going to look like whatever we had planned the night before, but again…only time will tell. As the expression goes; “People plan, God laughs”… I suppose a good follow up question would be about whether or not God is laughing with us or at us, but again…even in this instance… only time will tell. It was not all that long ago that I was certain about who I was supposed to be (a musical theatre super star of sorts) and what I was supposed to do with my life (anything that involved being a musical theatre superstar of sorts), and it has only taken a matter of weeks for a good sixteen years of ‘planning’ to fade into the past, and take its place on the proverbial shelf in my mind labeled ‘distant memories’. As in; “hey, remember when you wanted to be a musical theatre superstar? Gosh that’s so funny…and feels like it was such a looooong time ago!” These are the thoughts that keep me up at night, wondering; am I the only one that is experiencing this? Or does everyone else feel the same way I do, and just not talk about it because of what it might mean about ourselves if we reveal to others all of the things that we were 'supposed' to be, and never became? Are we failures if we share, out loud, all of the things that we never accomplished? Or are we just human? How many people out there were -for many years- relatively certain about the direction that their lives were headed, only to wake up one morning and find that -seemingly overnight- everything changed? If you are reading this, and I hope you are, how often do you feel like you are living out the phrase ‘fake it ’til you make it’ while simultaneously hoping and praying that no-one finds out that you really-only-kinda-sorta know what you're doing? A dear friend of mine once suggested that I ‘say yes to everything, and stay one day ahead of the curve’. As in, when life offers you a new job/opportunity/experience etc., just say yes…and then figure it out. At the time, this particular friend had recently accepted a job as a music teacher for an all girls Catholic school, where she was to teach African drumming and guitar - two instruments that she did not know how to play. And so, the night before each class, she would teach herself whatever she needed to know, and then go into class the next day, and teach her students whatever she had taught herself the night before. And so it has gone for the better part of five years. Now, she is a stellar teacher, and has grown into an excellent musician as a bonus. Did she know that it was going to work out when she started? No. But she knew that there was only one way to find out, and only time would tell… Ever since she revealed her little secret, I have attempted to live by it honestly in my everyday life. It has brought with it great terror and exhilaration, and has lead me to do all kinds of things that I probably would not have previously had the courage to consider, including accepting a part in a musical based on my ‘ability’ to play guitar…and then learning how to play guitar, teaching large amounts of well known Jerome Robbins choreography to large quantities of non-dancing high school students, and flying half way around the world to vacation with friends in Bali. Each of those moments were terrifying in some capacity, but were also pivotal in my understanding of what is possible for every single human being in his/her/their lifetime. *** What about you? When was the last time you had to look your fears in the face in order to do what was truly in your heart? Did you commit to something you really wanted with no idea how you were going to make it happen? Did you plan a trip around the world at a time when you had seven dollars in your bank account? Did you tell someone that you loved them in the most unromantic of moments, simply because it just had to be said? How many of us are ‘faking it til we make it’, all the while believing that we are alone in doing so? And how many of us would feel SO much better if we knew that we were not alone in doing so? That everyone is just ‘figuring it out’ as they go along? Any maybe, just maybe, could we speed up the process of learning that WE are NOT ALONE IN DOING SO by starting to share our stories with one other? What are you waiting for time to tell YOU? What do YOU know now, that you didn’t know before? What I know now, that I didn't know before: The adventure is never over… testimonial Tuesday #4 Just because you choose to set your bags down for a hot second, it does not mean that your adventure is over... Hello, my name is Morgan, and I'm a move-a-holic. Since my high school graduation in 2002, I have moved my stuff approximately fifty-one times. Some of those moves have been large, some have been small, many have been into and out of other people’s homes to sit on and pet their animals, and all of them have included me and all of my belongings going from one place, to another place, and then back to the first place, or on to another place. It has been incredible, it has been exhausting, and it has taught me the value of being cared for so much by others that they are willing to make space for you. Also, the necessity of learning to ask for help, and perhaps the most challenging for me; the willingness to receive it. *** Gratitude. Fear. Exhilaration. Exploration. These are all words that I have associated with my semi-nomadic lifestyle over the past fifteen years. Also, tiring, draining, and unfulfilling. And more recently, un-necessary. After years of traveling and moving from place to place, what was once an adventure began to feel more like an excuse to avoid my life. It was as if I could validate to myself not having the things that I wanted because I was an ‘actress’ (I have been in musical theatre for all of the years since high school) and moving around and living an inconsistent lifestyle is just ‘part of the package’. However, when I left New York this past October (I returned to NYC for the months of February-October of 2017 in my third attempt at living there), I also managed to leave behind my incessant need to validate my existence by being on stage…and found myself at a loss for excitement. It was as if the adventure was over, and it was time to move home, buy a house, and have some babies. “Squirt out a few poop-shooters” as a friend of mine would call it. When I spoke with Rachael about this last Tuesday in our third session, the word ‘adventure’ came up a lot. "You are still wanting adventure" Rachael told me, "and some part of you is feeling like: now that you are home, the adventure has to be over". As in, 'now that I am home, I am no longer free to explore or expand or evolve the way that Rachael has been helping me to do for the past seven months'. Rachael referred to it as ‘extra credit’, revealing to me that often, when her clients are making great strides in their intuitive development, they will somehow find their way into an environment in which that growth is tested. *Moving back home is one example. *Living as an adult in your parents’ house is another. *Returning to the same company that you have worked for every time you have been home over the past twelve years is a third. She explained to me that in these moments, some part of us has chosen to put our souls to the test; to ‘return to the scene of the crime’ so to speak, and find out what we are really made of. Can we maintain our growth in the environments which once assisted in maintaining our title as ‘children’? Can we make new/more aligned choices when presented with old circumstances? How will we handle conflict and communication with old friends, as the new ‘us’? And perhaps, most importantly, how do we continue to walk the spiritual path, which has opened us to so many new and wonderful inner-personal experiences, in a once-limiting environment? How do we continue the adventure? That is what I am working on this week. What seems clear thus far is that adventure can look like a lot of different things. Adventure used to mean living all over the country and having a million external experiences. Now, adventure feels a bit more like staying put-ish and trusting that this new chapter will unfold before me in a way that speaks to my heart. Both involve taking chances and leaning into the unknown, and both are capable of leading us to unexpected outcomes. Leaning into the unknown…unexpected outcomes…those things, to me, lend themselves to an adventure one way or another. Only one way to find out :-) What is YOUR latest adventure? What do YOU know now, that you didn’t know before? What I know now, that I didn't know before: Life is messy, and love is a choice. testimonial Tuesday #3I grew up in a fairytale princess Universe, propagated by the creative minds at Disney World, who encouraged little girls to wait for their Prince Charming. I grew up believing that life was perfect; that my parents didn’t argue, that we always had more money than we probably actually did, and that so long as I kept dreaming them, my dreams were destined to come true. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned otherwise. I've learned that life is messy. That despite our best efforts to plan or get all of our ducks in a row, things can still fall apart at the drop of a hat. I’ve learned that Prince Charmings come in all shapes and sizes, can be men OR women or anything in between, and that when they show up, odds are good that they need rescuing just as much as you do. Truth be told, my parents were not perfect. Probably because it is impossible to know the precise needs of another human being at every moment of every day, and also -probably- because perfection does not exist. My parents were not perfect, but they were kind and they were loving and they did the best that they could in every moment of every day…even when it was messy. Even when I was being an absolutely unrelenting pain in the ass…they still loved me. My mother has always told me that ‘there is nothing I could ever do that would make her stop loving me’, and while this may be true to a certain extent, I’m pretty sure that there has been more than one occasion in which push came to shove, and she resisted the urge to push/shove/pummel me right out of a moving car. In the moments that I have pushed my parents to the breaking point, they have chosen love. Every single time. Even when I couldn’t recognize it because it didn’t look the way that I expected to, I know it now. (Even if I didn’t know it before.) Life is messy |
AuthorMorgan Faulkner is a writer and life explorer. She lives in New Mexico. Archives
April 2018
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