Sleepless in...

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
-The Third Patriarch of Zen

I awoke at 430 with a hot flash and the mind was already to whirl away. I heard Rumi, somewhere in the background of my psyche, whispering, "Don't go back to sleep!"  I crawled out of bed, got myself a cup of hot camomile tea and plopped myself down here. Damn Rumi lol.

I have been reacting to some stressors: an unfinished basement project that is costing me more money than I have and also leaving me with this deep sense of incompleteness and hopelessness. My expectations for cost and time frame went way over what I was expecting they would and instead of making any return on my investment I am losing, and losing, and losing money I don't have at this moment, students and opportunities. Well, so it seems to my overactive mind. My youngest is having adjustment issues...I know she doesn't want to be in the program she is in right now but I need to let her figure it all out. I worry about my son and his future. The sentencing/bail hearing is definitely today for someone close.  My heart breaks and fears at the same time though I tell myself I don't want to think about it. I feel it all physically rumbling around inside me.  The reactive and unstable energy of Shakti is flowing in many directions at once. It "disturbs" me and my normal inclination is to want to fix it.

Singer tells us that en route to being more spiritually connected we go through three stages:

1. We notice that we are in here with all this stuff going on, with all the energy flowing around, all the mind stuff, the feelings, the preferences, the interpretations and judgments, the body symptoms etc etc.  We are in here with all this.
2. We notice how all this energy/Shakti/ cloud/ mental modifications react to the outside world...(what I am noticing as I write this). We feel "disturbed".
3. Then we ask, "How do I fix it, control it and make it all better so I no longer feel disturbed?" That is exactly why I got up and came here.

The problem is that most of us will try to fix it all by going to the outside world, that which seems to be the cause of all our disturbance.  For example you feel lonely...you pray that someone shows up in the outside world to take your loneliness away or you go looking for someone.  You feel unloved, you pray for someone to come around who will make you feel loved all the time or you go looking. You feel lacking  so you pray for material wealth or you set out to achieve it.

What we fail to realize is that the things we want...a sense of belonging, love and abundance are things that are already in us.  They aren't out there.  What we should be praying for is a connection to that feeling of belonging, love and abundance rather than the thing we assume will bring it.

I woke up disturbed by what is going on in my life and I wanted peace. I guess I knew I couldn't fix it out there...I had to fix my energy levels in here, where "I" am. It is an inside job that begins with accepting things as they are.

All is well in my world.

Michael A. Singer: Untethered Soul Lectures (sorry listened to a bunch of them and not sure which one)