Resistance and Willingness

I've noticed something over the past few months - when I am in my willingness, in my surrender, good things happen. It can feel like the floor is going to drop out from under me, because I have been so invested in my own ego, my own little plans, my CONTROL over everything - I had just been so unfamiliar with surrender, it felt super uncomfortable at first!

But now that I am learning to trust my higher power and the experience of people who have walked this path before me, I am beginning to receive the gifts of willingness. Sometimes it means I have to (get to) do things I wasn't planning on doing. Like right now, I am driving for Uber and Lyft. Yes, me, in my beautiful BMW 328i, driving people around Los Angeles! But it's my way of energetically saying to the Universe, I am willing to do whatever it takes to support myself, to get out of my fear, out of my isolation. And now when I encounter resistance, whether it is from friends or situations, I can calmly sit with that and allow my higher power to guide me.

"Nothing is urgent" says my friend Karla, and the more I adopt that attitude, the easier it is for me to slow down, feel myself and set appropriate boundaries with others. I feel so calm compared to how I used to feel when I wanted to do it all, be the best, get ahead or whatever other mentalities I was in at any given moment. Now I know, and often experience, that if this little plan doesn't work out, there's probably something better that is going to happen. And even if there isn't, I am ok. I am here in the present moment, accepting reality as it is, flowing with the current of life, in joy, gratitude and peace.

Why is it so hard to meditate???

Everyone knows about meditation - most spiritual traditions believe it is essential, it often brings enlightenment or at least illuminates challenging issues, and yet, it can be really hard.

Right now, I meditate every day. But for years, I really struggled with meditation. I felt completely anxious and restless. My mind would race and I was extremely uncomfortable. Sometimes I would look at the timer and feel like scratching my skin off when less than a minute had gone by since the last time I checked. What changed?

I got out of my self-will. I stopped swimming upstream and started to listen to my guides (slash The Universe slash God.) Once I let go of wanting to do things "my way" or for my own selfish, contrived reasons, meditating became peaceful. These days, I welcome it, enjoy it and even crave it. Because not only does it feel good to just BE without needing to do, meditation actually gives me messages, opens the space for me to receive guidance. I couldn't receive that wise guidance when I was running around trying to do everything my way, to get validation from the opinions of others, to win, or whatever other hyper, crazy motives I had. I was blocking those messages with my self-will, and therefore meditation was pure discomfort. I had to surrender to the flow of the universe for things to start to make sense and be easy.

Showing up for what is

I'm on a spiritual path. I mean, fuck - I changed my name to Harmony!

What is a spiritual path? Well, first of all, it's a path, not one single place to stop and stay. So it's constantly evolving and what it is for me today is not what it was 6 months or a year ago, and I'm sure it will look different in the future.

That being said, my current understanding of a spiritual path is that I get to show up for what is. Whatever is actually happening, whether it's what I "want" or not. I've created so many plans and ideals in my head, that often I have a tendency to resist what is actually coming to me. In her life-changing book, Loving What Is, Byron Katie talks about accepting reality exactly as it is. I have had major resistance to this concept because often what has really been going on in my life has looked so different from what I thought I wanted. But now that I am learning to flow with the Universe instead of trying to push the boulder of my self-will up the mountain, I see that any experience can help me.

Let's say someone is doing something I don't like. My choices are to blame them and make them wrong, and stay as I am (self-will) or to examine what this is really telling me and how I can show up with 100% self-responsibility. That does not mean allowing unacceptable behavior from this person. It means drawing my boundaries and then looking at how I might be either contributing to the situation or what the situation might be telling me about where I have room to grow. (This is why I believe it is so important to have people in my life who have integrity, that way I can ask them to mirror my blind spots without worrying that they might be manipulating me.)

It may sound crazy or ridiculous, but I am actually grateful to the people who push on me in various ways because then I get to see my blind spots. When I think someone is "doing something to me" I get to take a step back and see where I am involved. And if I am truly 0% involved, I get to say simply and directly to that person, "I don't like what you are doing and I will not accept that behavior from you." But most likely, I do have something to learn and there is some way that I can show up for my life with more self-responsibility, and that is a gift the Universe gives me.

Thanks for reading - I welcome your feedback on this post!