Are we okay?

I started my morning like every other morning, waking up in the stillness of my room to the silence of this island I have so serendipitously found myself on. I perk my ears up seeking a noise from the house next door...

Is she up yet? Is she done with her morning practice? Is she okay? Are we okay? Has she decided that she doesn’t want to be with me over the course of 3 hours apart? Should I be shy to poke my head in? Should I let her come here first? Does she still want me?

Oh how the mind spirals on....

I hear the whistling of a songbird that could debatably be my girlfriend, followed by Jack Johnson’s “I’m lucky to be in love with my best friend”... I choose to see this as an invitation.

I skip across the hall to join my loved one for breakfast. We kiss and giggle and sing. We sit and chat and ask opinions and advice. Peace. Love. Laughter. Simplicity.

Then,
the triggers come.

Like wildfire. Just one spark and it ignites the obstacle course that consists of grasping at straws to try to bring the love back into the space that filled it just moments before. Where has it gone? But there’s no love amidst the rapid fire. Only isolation, protection, distrust, anger. Who are you? Go away! The inner child has been called to the stage, along with his imaginary friend, painbody. They’ve been anxiously waiting for the chance to play their parts; they’ve prepared your whole life for this moment.

The flood gates open and the walls go up. There doesn’t seem to be much hope to bring the morning back to the way it was. Like a clay castle in a thunderstorm, the mud slips through my fingers as I desperately try to hold it all in place. Please don’t fall, not again. It leads me to the question: Which form is the illusion? The mud? Or the solid clay? Was I naive to think the clay would out-stand the rain? Or naive in thinking that the mud could never dry and become stable again?

All the vulnerability we work through every day, every emotion we pick a part and sit in, the practices, the exercises, the hours we spend learning, choosing, to trust again, in an instant, all disappears. I observe myself hopping in the elevator of the triune brain. I step out of my primate/human brain and skip right past mammalian to reptilian . There’s no place for logic here. Walls are up, this is war, trust no one. I must kill you before you kill me first.

I’ve found myself in destruction once again. Is it my fault? Am I the toxic one? Has it always been me? I love this person, I don’t want them hurting, I should get them miles away from me.

If we both want the same thing why can’t it be easy? If we’re both in pain why can’t we just love?

There’s a lifecycle philosophy in the vedic tradition, it’s a circle of creation, maintenance, and destruction. It stems from the belief that we need a little destruction before creation. Just a reminder if you’re in the midst of destruction, creation might be just around the corner.

Space is being created, see it, surrender, and get excited for what this space is being created for.

Today, I choose to no longer see destruction as the end, but the beginning, an invitation to be better. The invitation doesn’t care if you accept or not, it’s there waiting for you. Today, with the help of Gayle GForce Murphy, I dare to be great. How about you?