I was listening to Matt Kahn last night as I do some nights at midnight when everyone is asleep.
I love the silence of the night and the depth and breadth of the space. It was almost the half moon, as I could see it peeping in my kitchen window.
Ahhhhhhh, my heart says, breath out for the silence and the quiet.
I was thinking about a friend of mine, who is not on this awakening path.
I am not sure what his path is, but probably something like: let’s get up and do this life thing again today and see what happens.
This is fine, of course, and the zen masters might say he is right on track.
Except that this friend has a tendency to see problems and limitation, just like I do at times.
So when I tell him of my projects, which are stretttcccchhhhing me, he points out the problems and difficulties rather than exhalting in and celebrating the exciting possibilities in the realisation of these projects.
The other day, this made me feel like I am perhaps spending too much time around him, and I need to guard my energy more carefully so that I am not dragged down by the negativity in him.
Or is it the negativity in me, being accurately reflected back by him?
Then I listened to the wonderful Matt Kahn, who said
“The people who were not nice to me were more committed to their judgement and persecution that I was committed to myself.”
And then he said:
“When you fully commit to your life you are rarely touched and hurt.”
So I applied this to my situation.
If I am fully committed to my path of love, to showing up as love, to being love, to letting go of all judgement of self and others (and this, by the way, doesn’t mean that I can’t have a strong opinion, enforce a boundary or say no), to honouring my needs and asking for them to be met, and to letting love lead me into my deepest joy and satisfaction, then how can his negativity touch me?
How can it really affect me? It will be more like water on a lotus – it is there, but it doesn’t penetrate.
And perhaps his words are – like Matt Kahn said, doing the job of pulling me more and more into my incarnation, more and more into my being, so that I am able to fully embody and stand in my truth.
Perhaps this is what each and every person who is judgemental of you, who doubts you, who is abusive to you, or who loves you and then breaks your heart as they disappear – is doing for you. And perhaps, if you were not judgemental of yourself, doubting of yourself, abusive to yourself in some way, and disappearing on yourself (self-abandonment), then this person would not be in front of you mirroring these things.
They are effectively the universe in person form, sent to wake you up, to pull you more and more into your consciousness, to pull you more and more into your truth, to help you to embody more and more of what you came here to embody. To be more and more of yourself.
Perhaps it is like trees – like these ones in this incredible landscape in Zhangjiajie, China, which are have learned to live and grow and thrive in the most adverse environments. They are literally growing out of a rock, thirty metres high in the sky. As one photographer of the same formations exclaimed – “Avatar is real!” Life in this particular form should not be possible, but the vertical land somehow supports itself, and the trees somehow harness all their strength and overcome this adversity, growing roots miraculously into rock so as to stay upright.
Perhaps this is what the negativity of others does for us, it is like the compost for our growth, and helps us to anchor in more and more deeply to the truth of who we are.
This though, doesn’t mean that you should stay in the company of people who continually focus on the negative and so act as a kind of depressant for you. We do have the power to recognise the energetic dynamics of the people that we spend our time with, and given we have a limited time on this Earth, we need to be careful and mindful with who we share our energies with.
If it is a personal, intimate connection – where your friend or lover is consistently draining your energy and if you have addressed this with them and they are unable or unwilling to adjust (usually they will be unable), then you need to make your choice – do I continue to spend my time in this energy field or not?
We can say: Thank you for this lesson you have given me, thank you for the mirror, thank you for pulling me more and more into my own embodiment.
I am grateful for it, and I now choose to move on, with more of myself intact. And this other person will have also probably received the same or a similar gift as you.
IMG CREDIT: Zhangjiajie in China. Photo by Yun (@albedo on Unsplash.com)
