This is me taking a deep breath as I sit down to write in 46 days. When I wrote "What I Know For Sure", I was overwhelmed and barely keeping my head above the churning waters of my life.
Another deep breath. I want to cross the threshold of the new year with a lighter load. The first step? Naming the experiences of the past 46 days with curiosity and compassion. On one level, I feel like I've been abducted by aliens (who just recently returned me to earth). On another level, I feel more engaged with the ingredients of my life than ever before.
The ingredients include family, children, teaching, practicing.....perhaps, as writer David Richio states, "serenity comes not only from accepting what we cannot change by from giving up trying to be in control."
It takes 40 days to change a habit and 90 days to confirm that habit. These days between 40 and 90 have been all about control. Even as I have kept up with the practice, I have been tempted, hounded and plagued by all manner of situations that have demanded my attentive presence and resisted my attempts at control.
The threshold I'm crossing? One that moves from the 90 days of confirming a habit to the 120 days where the new habit is who I am. I'm really attentive to the words, the mantra I'm repeating 150 times twice a day. I AM GRACE OF GOD.
This mantra is an affirmation that retrains my mind. It is a consciously chosen thought. It is a tool for transformation and, I feel, will carry me across this threshold. Richio speaks in his book THE 5 GIVENS OF LIFE, of Grace as "the spiritual complement to effort", a source that "grants us the gift of transcending our ordinary limits." "Grace means that we are not alone; we are always accompanied."
Day 60: Thanksgiving. My father-in-law came up for dinner. It was clear that something was wrong with him physically....his health seems to be deteriorating.
Day 62: Henry's 11th birthday. It didn't live up to his expectations ("not enough present"). I'm still opening my heart to that experience. I felt crushed. Michael, my father-in-law came up for the celebration. We knew that something was wrong.
Day 64: Michael's kidneys are failing. Tests.
Day 67: Michael admitted to the hospital. Mike, my husband, cares for him. The boys and I are on our own for the time being.
Facing the bluntness of reality is the highest form of sanity and enlightened vision....Devotion proceeds through various stages of unmasking until we reach the point of seeing the world directly and simply without imposing our fabrications....There may be a sense of being lost or exposed, a sense of vulnerability. That is simply a sign that ego is losing its grip on its territory; it is not a threat.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Michael is home from the hospital now. My mother -in-law returned from her sister's in Arkansas. They both need a lot of care from Mike. We've celebrated Calvin's 13th birthday and my 46th. I've passed 90 days of of continuous practice. Christmas was peaceful.
I feel useful.
Blessings to you as you prepare to cross your threshold,
Lisa
