Living as a Monument

We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash. We get seduced by our own mantras (I'm a failure...I'm lonely...I'm a failure...I'm lonely...) and we become monuments to them. To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from our suffocating mantras--Eat, Pray, Love

Seduction is an apt description of what happens when we commit the mind to a particular state--it can be as strong as the pull of a body against which you want to press yourself, the warmth in which you want to lose yourself, as the senses dissolve all reason compromising the ability to think clearly.

The post before this one is from another blog I follow, Buddha of Hollywood--it's called Training Wheels and the author is writing about her daughter's accomplishment of riding her bike without training wheels and how adults slip into a comfort zone somewhere along the way when we run out of things that we must learn to do 'on our own'. I imagine this to be an imperceptible shift that fortifies its hold over us over time.

Ergo, with the help of my practice of yoga, meditation and overall mindfulness, I have been stepping up to, and in to, that which scares and overwhelms me.

I don't want to wear training wheels on my bike anymore--I don't want to be 'comfortable' at the expense of experiencing this ride.

I will no longer live as a monument to my fear, to the voice inside that attempts to minimize me. I am writing a new story about a warrior--a heroine of her own life who cools herself in her shadow now instead of cowering.

Sit with yourself.

Close your eyes.

Find your breath.

As you travel deeper within, dare to ask yourself...what?

What now?

What more?

What for?

Why not?

Then begin...take off the training wheels.

When we enter this world, we have no fear.

We learn to crawl because of sheer will and inspiration to move toward our object of interest. We learn to walk because we have no fear of falling and we learn to talk because we have no concept of proper pronunciation...we take chances because we don't yet know how NOT to.

Begin.

Namaste'