....spinning

Yogis,

You know that voice inside your head?  The one that never seems to be at a loss for words?  As soon as you wake up it begins its monologue, tags along with you all day,  and somehow incredibly hasn’t lost its steam as you lie your head down on the pillow.  If someone could invent internal ear plugs to provide some peace and quiet they would be a millionaire!

That’s your ego and it’s job is to continually reinforce that you are the center of the Universe.  Bolstering up your self-importance is its 24 hour a day job, and it does it quite well.

It has an opinion on absolutely everything, including your body, your hair, each and every outfit you put on and the company you keep.  And your own weaknesses……oh boy can it push those buttons.  Every decision you make creates full blown debates, and for each turn you take in your path it warns you about the possibility of failure – yet 10 minutes later it has you strutting down the street convinced you are better than them (whoever ‘them’ happens to be).  It loves to complicate things.

Sometimes because of the ego’s work I feel like I am the axis of a spinning top with the world circling around me.  But there are two problems with this:

• First the ego, even though it seems to be the only one who gets a word in edgewise, isn’t me.
• Second, nothing else is spinning around me.  I am simply surrounded by millions of other spinning tops, all believing I am spinning around them as an axis.  All of us working hard at staying upright.

A friend sent me a poem this week by Czeslaw Milosz and here was the first stanza:

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

The line that has been playing through my head all week is – “you are only one thing among many”.   Uh oh, the ego is not going to be happy. 

What if we could live that way?  What if the daily pressure from ‘the voice’ to do more, be a better parent, look younger, try harder, show them whose boss and satisfy others opinions of us took a short break so we could hear a bird and a tree say hi. Calling us friends.

I am testing stepping back to look at myself from afar as if I am a distant thing. Creating space so the voice is more faint.  Noticing it is separate and isn’t me.  When I do this my own top slows down and most likely will tip.  But that is ok.

The true axis of the big spinning top of life is the Universe.  All of us – the many – are swirling around its center.  If we let go, she will continue to hold onto us and we will have our arms free to be able to fly with the bird. Who wants to join me?

One among many,
SARAH