The Rising of Self

Years ago, I became sober of all of life’s distractions and attempted to be in the present moment. I realized how much I had tried not to be in the present moment.

I especially found this to be true at work. I would come in preparing to escape presence; I looked for jobs that would be best for non-presence.

(Of course, I wasn’t consciously aware that I was doing this.)

There was an anger and a rebellion inside me in relation to presence.

–

The last few days, I’ve been bringing awareness to my thoughts when they feel particularly wild. I wrote on an index card with Sharpie: “Let go of the narrative.”

This morning, I looked at the index card while I got ready for the day. I took a breath and tried to sit in the present moment. It was perfect, free of monsters and villains. Just me, in a moment, applying lip gloss.

I felt anger and resistance well up inside me, a seeming voice that yelled, “Run!”

I brought awareness to this voice, to this feeling of needing to flee.

And I realized, in the past, my peaceful moments of presence had been interrupted so regularly. They’d been crashed into with bowling balls of another’s wrath or pain.

Perhaps in those moments of presence we find Ourselves. We find peace and revitalization. Moments of rest and recalibration.

The interruption of them causes disturbance to our innate sense of rebalancing towards well-being. Perhaps it causes disturbance in the development of Self – feeling comfortable in our internal seat of self.

And when the interruptions cease, we’re left with our reactive memory of them. Our response that springs up to protect our sacred self and sacred peace.

The self and the peace never left, never moved. They were always there. And our response was not to protect our “outer” self, but the most sacred inner self.

Knowing that one day, we would be able to come home again. Home to that inside peace that knows us so well. It knows all of our names and all of our hearts.

–

I spoke to this part of me that wanted to run, to protect the beautiful womb of peace within me.

It said, “How can you be sure it’s safe? What if it happens again? Perhaps we should be on guard. Perhaps we need to be somewhere safer. Perhaps we need to build a fortress. Don’t be quiet, don’t be peaceful. I don’t want the interruption to happen. I don’t want you to be scared. I don’t want you to be hurt.”

I couldn’t guarantee that something wouldn’t interrupt a peaceful moment. How could I? We live in a wild world of aliveness.

I prayed, “How do I live in the peace of the present moment and in the variability and wildness of life’s happenings?”

I suspect that I know the answer, and it currently lies beneath the language of words.

The answer is in the question itself. It’s awareness and consciousness coming forward to shine light on this very question. It’s replacing the scary “what if” with “I am.”

Life has no guarantees, it only demands presence. Fear can’t live in the same space as Presence. That’s why it tries to “kick it out”.

When these kinds of questions come up, it means you are already in the process of coming home. You are ready to rise (a continual rising) to reclaim yourself and your peace.

Your being is saying, “I’m ready.” And it’s a process. Every moment of tension is a moment to raise your consciousness, to bring your awareness forward and shine your light.

Have compassion for the younger You that was wise enough to know, “One day I’ll be ready. I’ll have scrapes and scars, but on the inside, I’ll be whole and well. And I’ll remember that those scars are not who I am, but what I had to do. I’ll remember how well I protected my Sacred self and I’ll give myself to myself once more. I’ll say, I’m here. And I’m ready.”

Have faith in the You that you are now. You are strong enough to rise to the occasion.

<3,

Heba

The Gift of Projection

Om Namah.

Om-ah.

Home-ah.

Home.

The present moment sounds like a return to peace. A long exhale in a cloud of hurried breaths.

I lived for a while in a modern-day cave, turning inward and finding my truth.

I saw clearly that the only thing we really have is the present moment. The right now. This, right here. *inhale*

*exhale*

All the plans and stories and aspirations are projections, movie reels that we play out on the projector of our mind.

These thoughts made me feel real. I was a real person with a past, with goals and dreams for the future. I had a mental image of what I look like, what I wanted to look like, who I was in the world.

And in the slurry of projections, the truth had become lost.

I was at the mercy of images, ideas, plans, and memories. Beholden to my perception of how others see me, what I was supposed to be doing or saying or being.

The Devil card in the Tarot represents the physical world. The world of illusions. Not just that, but an over-fixation on that world so that the truth behind the illusion becomes temporarily lost.

We become enslaved to fear, to conditioning, we lose sight of the truth inside and start to desperately seek it somewhere “out there”.

To live as a sage, a master, a mistress of the Origin Breath, is to live without planning. To wash away the previous moment and think nothing of the upcoming moment.

In absolute faith that all will come, and all will fall away.

Tending to needs as they arise, planning nothing. Not concocting anything for the future, but noticing when thoughts arise of what’s to come.

It was a relief for some time, to live as Nothing. The breath before my existence was given a name. Before people around me assigned me characteristics. I was alive, in sync with the nature around me, in sync with my body’s needs.

I had no aspirations, no desire to obtain money or status or success. As time wore on, I started wanting to Have Things again. I wanted to look a certain way, to wear certain clothes. I felt called to talk to certain people, to create things with my hands. And then I wanted other people to see those things.

The most holy path is to live like a sage, but we are not only holy. We are also gifted desire, projection, relationship with our world, contemplation, preference.

These attributes lay atop our undefined self like a blanket lays over a bed.

We are the present moment and the projection.

I am, I sit. Noticing how there is nothing but This.

And from this Nothing, I can conjure thought. I can collect those thoughts into a projection.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to go on a walk today?” And the mind automatically begins to visualize taking a walk. You see yourself there, having a walk. Or you feel the desire and intention and satisfaction of that walk.

Projection is a choice, it’s a gift.

When you lose sight of that choice, when your projection begins to overwhelm your sense of autonomy, it’s time to step back.

Step back into breath, step back into that Nothing space. So that when you emerge again, you remember.

The next time you are imagining, a joyful imagination or otherwise…remember that you are choosing this movie. Whatever is playing in your mind is a choice.

If you feel like it is not a choice, Pause. Breathe. Find the empty spaces between sound. Take a cold shower. Walk in nature. You are not your thoughts, you are the choice maker behind the thoughts.

Shift your perspective so that projection is fun again. It is a choice and a gift.

See your goals and aspirations as a gift, because they are. We have the ability to project through time and space and see ourselves anywhere, doing anything!

We can choose to see ourselves joyful and satisfied or angry and punishing. All in the deafening quiet of our own mind.

Which movies do you play for yourself in your mind? Do you set your scenes in a drama or in a comedy? Are you in love, or are you in vengeance?

<3,

Heba

Walk the Talk

Some time ago, I decided to let myself and my life free fall into a great Abyss.

(Decided might be a strong word here. You could say the water was already falling off of a cliff and I said “um ok fine I guess.”)

Letting go was a systematic process. A reversal of everything I’d come to learn and abide by as a functional person in s-o-c-i-e-t-y.

I was a good girl, a people pleaser, a hard worker. And behind that was my tortured shadow indulging in quiet addictions when and where I could.

I flipped everything upside down, like a desperate woman looking for her last ibuprofen at the bottom of an overstuffed purse.

I had help from the universe of course-destroying things in my life I didn’t even think to destroy. (Thanks?)

I swirled and screeched and squeaked like an old train with bad brakes pulling into its last stop.

Eventually, I had to pick up my new self and my new life and try to give society another go-around. I had to try things in a new way, from this new perspective.

The ride to hell and back had been rough, I would need some time to recover before I could try anything.

As my strength returned and I stopped looking like an unruly hairball pulled out of a shower drain, I decided to try “walking the talk”.

What had been the point of this conscious living, spirituality mumbo-jumbo if I couldn’t actually apply it in my life?

Did I really believe? Did facing my fears change me? Could I reach further than I could before?

Now was the time to try. I had to set aside my battle wounds and see if I could magnetize something wonderful into my life.

I tried to imagine the most wonderful feeling I could imagine. Every day I would spend some time in this feeling. I would imagine getting a phone call and from that phone call, I would feel this feeling.

The more I tried, the more I thought of other things I would feel when that phone call came in.

I came to know those feelings so well that I thought, ok, I’ll know I did it if something unexpected comes in that feels just.like.this. And I would say no to anything that didn’t feel exactly like that. (For the sake of my experiment.)

I hated this experiment.

I wanted to revert to my old ways. I wanted to struggle. I wanted to panic. I wanted to give in to options that I hated, but seemed logically like a good idea.

I wanted to fake a solution, to fake an answer. To say “um ok, this is good enough.”

It was hard walking the talk. It was hard walking in belief. It was hard not giving in to my old friends: Stress, Anxiety, Depression.

I had to Breathe way more. I had to take walks in nature often. I had to shift my mental focus constantly. I had to let go of judgements and anger and rivalries with people that were based on my ego’s need to feel important.

And worst of all, I had to feel Good. I had to constantly “tune up”, as I realized my resting vibration was mostly in the gutter. Hovering around worthlessness and disinterest.

Walking the talk was time consuming. It was exhausting. Exhausting to go from constantly expecting struggle to expecting Something Good.

I had trained myself so well in depression and self pity. And now I had to awaken some other muscles, to climb this mountain of Hope, Belief, Worthiness, and Joy.

So did I do it?

I did. I got the phone call. And I was terrified at the beautiful luck and blessedness that was pouring into my life. I questioned it every chance I could. I tried to bring my “bad mood” along with me, just so I could have a friend.

I had to constantly coach myself. To talk myself down from the ledge of rage that wanted to destroy this blessing. To tune back up when depression invited me to spend some time together.

These blessings came and went. And I knew what it took to walk the talk. It takes a lot to make your dreams come true.

It takes bravery and strength to let go of familar pain, to acknowledge that you hold on to pain just as much as you think it holds on to you.

It takes fortitude and training and practice to focus your attention, to keep allowing awareness to interrupt the looping of conditioned thoughts.

It takes something that’s undefined, to believe in your worthiness without condition. To know that you are loved without condition. Because rising in that knowing, means breaking through every painful moment life showed you otherwise.

It’s saying I know that happened, it taught me something incorrect, and I now claim the truth. And that shift hurts in a weird way.

Walking the talk is constant. The constant unraveling of the pain that keeps you heavy, and the will to bounce into better feeling spaces.

It is true faith, that constantly humbles me. How much do I believe? I could always believe more, trust more, practice Presence more.

But I’m human and flawed and lazy.

I love myself just as I am. As a robot scrolling through videos on my phone, as a gremlin reliving a past argument for no reason, as a being of light sending gratitude to a beautiful sunset.

We talk the talk so that we remember. There is always a choice. There is creativity beyond what our conscious mind can imagine. There is hope beyond what we’ve lived before. There is light behind the moving pictures of our lives.

<3,

Heba

The River

After my workouts, I try to listen to a Kirtan station to stretch and relax.

Today, this beautiful song plays:

Gayatri Mantra by Deva Premal

As I let my body move and stretch to the music, an image came into my consciousness.

I was laying in a river, floating, as the water rushed with purpose around me.

It took with it all my mental fog, all my fear, it took the pain from my body. And it all floated away.

The water filled and flowed through every part of my ethereal being. It freed me of my sorrows and concerns.

I felt light and free.

It made me remember that I didn’t have to hold on to the pain. I wasn’t a slave to mental anguish, I was a willing participant.

So I let go. I let my body move freely, and I released all my hang ups.

I released the attachment to the pain in my body.

I released my attachment to who I thought I was.

I became free in the river.

It cleansed me of who I wasn’t and left behind my beautiful body and eager, lively spirit.

I hope that you can find a song, (maybe that same song), that will allow you to move freely and let go of your pain…if only for a little while.

Life, in all of its beautiful specifics, can make us feel heavy. Heavy with thought and conclusions and expectations.

Remember to spend some time feeling light, and filling your body with that light.

Lovingly let go of the heaviness you carry, and surrender it to the willing flow of that river.

With Love,

Heba

No Guarantees

On the threshold of a big change, I felt the same fear and hesitation as I usually feel. Nothing was coercing me to change; I wasn’t fighting or running from anything.

I was just trying to reach that part inside that seems to yearn for More. The part that’s always nagging me to be happier, to play more often.

I ask, what do you want from me?? And that part says, “Fun.”

To do things for the fun of doing them. To play, to connect, to discover.

The lack of fun doesn’t seem to threaten survival. It’s easy to dismiss it as an important need. But the nagging of the heart doesn’t stop. It says, “don’t forget to breathe, don’t forget to play.”

The part of our survival that we need most is the breath of life that wakes us up every day. It keeps our heart beating and it shines the light behind our eyes.

It happens without our conscious involvement, so it doesn’t always play a role in what we perceive as “survival”.

Sometimes, we hold on too tight to the things we need to live: money, food, shelter. When we let go just a little, that effortless Breath of Life can uplift our body and life into even better circumstances.

I sat contemplating, “How much do I let go, how much do I hold on?”

How do I take a leap of faith into nothingness? Into the unknown.

What if I fail? What if I’m a joke?

I went about my day,  waiting for Spirit to reassure me. It might say things like, “Everything will work out perfectly. This is the most correct choice. Leap in with both feet. Expect no difficulties.”

But spirit didn’t say that at all!

As a thought passed through my mind, “What if it’s not perfect? What if I mess up? What if it’s hard?”

Spirit finally replied, “It might not be perfect. You might mess up. This might be hard.”

I was flabbergasted!

It went on to say:

“You’re human, you will continue to have human experiences. Some you’ll enjoy more than others. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re always changing. The fabric of life grows and morphs and transforms all the time.

Don’t demand perfection. Expect life. Life is a moving, breathing expansion. It won’t be perfect, it will be You. You- having an experience. Trying something. Maybe failing, maybe succeeding. Mostly enjoying the undulations of life’s Aliveness.

Jump because it’s fun to jump. Jump for the possibility of discovery.

Nothing is promised, but your presence is asked for. The only thing ‘demanded’ is presence.”

So I did it, I jumped in. With no guarantees and no cheerleaders, but with a fire inside that wants to Live, and Play, and Discover.

<3,

Heba