Ah, the first Sunday of this New Year.
I woke up this morning with the gentle sounds of Tigre, the family cat. I call her the family cat because she was initially given to Summer, my youngest daughter, as a gift while she was in high school. Well, time passed by and Tigre, or as I call her affectionately "T", has become my cat companion. She is a beautiful marble mess of colors and although getting quite advanced in age amazingly agile. She is many times my alarm clock because every morning she does the same routine. Around 5 a.m., she crawls up in the bed and meows right next to my head. If the sounds aren't enough to wake me up, she uses her paw gently pushing against my face. (When she first came into our home, she wasn't so gentle.)
Morning times are some of my most favorite times of the day. It is typically quieter. The sun peeks it regal head over the horizon. The nocturnal beings are moving into their safe places while the day time begins to play with the orchestra of birds, squirrels and rabbits. I have had my moment of spiritual celebration through my meditation. My physical body has been nourished with food; while my mind has been given some nourishment through my readings.
Either through design or desire, my path has moved into a realm of giving space. Space to breathe. Space to encounter. Space to grow. Space is not easy because it means a lot of letting go and struggling. Letting go of the regrets and pain from the past that we have carried into the present. Letting go of the roles in life that have served no purpose other than to minimize our own value while possibly being responsible for the exaltation of another. Letting go of being the victim or at the very least being the person that others use as an object of blame. Letting go of an illness that in some mysterious way now has become our identity. Our emotional fingers are locked into the fabric of failures of the past while we search for hope. We struggle with wanting to be more than what we may have become. We struggle against the identity that was falsely built in weakness of our past insecurities. We struggle like a new birthed foal trying to use our newly created legs. We wobble and fear that we will fall back into the interaction of a world filled with self-blame and ridicule. But as we learn to take new steps... we will learn to move with fluidity of faith. A faith in who we truly are designed to be. A faith that is fed by a daily interaction with the Divine. A faith in that we are growing into a person that reflects our greater self. A faith that does not give space for self-judgment but allows for self-assessment.
As I begin this annual journey, I am keenly aware of a message that is being "spoken" around me. A message that says that I need to challenge myself because growth is created in the efforts. It tells me that with each movement there is a valuable lesson that is being taught.
Self-criticism comes from not being able to leap over a "canyon of expectations"; while in reality all we really needed to do today is to search for the better path to walk into the "canyon".
This past May, Summer and I had walked in the Bolder Boulder 10k. That was a great event to do with her. The event was a great way restart my physical activities and it became my first step returning to running events. This past Tuesday night I participated, along with hundreds of other runners/walkers, in the Resolution 5k at Wash Park here in Denver. Since I was encouraged by my daughter to walk my first event, she is much wiser than I was at her age, this was my first running event since I had my cancer surgery in 2012. I knew that I had previously ran in a number of other events that ranged from 5 k's to half-marathons and I had some expectations. However, I mostly had reasonable desires. I desired to run this 5k not worried about what my time was going to be but just run it. I had some disappointments in this short run but more importantly I gave myself space. I allowed the disappointment to flow in and flow out. I smiled at the accomplishment of not just doing well but in that I just did it.
Where does this path lead? I have no idea. It is a path of being mindful in that I know where I have come from, where I am at in the present, and wherever I am going that is where you will find me.
Give yourself space to break script... see you on the trails... Namaste.
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