Your only way out is the witness. Keep letting go by being aware that you are aware.
Michael Singer
A Weakened Boxer in a Ring?
Challenge, challenge and challenge. Certainly feeling a little woozy cuz I am feeling like a boxer in the ring with a modern day Mahammad Ali. Hit after hit after hit...and just when I am catching my breath, that rope I was leaning on...my writing and the hope for it...weakens and frays to the point I am even more unsteady...vulnerable to going down after another hit. In the midst of all this chaos, I get a rejection for the book I have out there and my readership here is next to nothing. Man...I feel like I am punch drunk and going down. The rejection means little to me...I have been writing long enough to not be too attached to such outcomes but I had some weird hope in me that my writing would be the thing that would allow me to pull myself up again....financially, socially redemptive wise and as family matriarch who could assist with members in need. It is obviously not the rope I should be clinging to. :) My books and therefore my writing may not be good enough to make a living on.
I think I feel worse when there is no readership here...only because this type of teaching is what I am being called to do and I am just following the call. Regardless if there are readers or not...this is where I will be...while the hits keep coming. And they will keep coming. Life will be Life, after all. I keep telling myself ," if I had the validation that I was at least doing some good here...maybe...maybe I could ground myself...balance myself enough so I can stay upright when the next hit comes". I do get some positive comments and I am so grateful and at the same time so embarrassed that I am still egoic enough to want or need such validation. But ego says, " it is not enough"! And I weeble and I wobble.
Down for the Count
I just don't want to keep getting knocked down because I fear the time will come when I will be down for the count and I won't be able to get back up. Sigh. The hits do knock me down but I have always been, up until now, one to crawl to the ropes and pull myself back up. Again and again and again. The ropes are those things I place my hopes in. But the ropes too are really starting to wear. They will not be able to pull me up forever.
The Lesson: No Rope, No Being Trapped in the Ring
Hmm! But there is a lesson here. I know there is. I don't need the ropes because, I, who I really am, am not the exhausted and badly beaten boxer in the ring. I am a spectator of that which seems to be going on in "my life" and that which is really going on in my mind. If the ropes break open, I won't be caught in this ring. I will be able to get out of it and walk to a seat in the audience and sit down. From there, I can observe and watch instead of wobbling around up on the platform taking these hits, feeling each hit, struggling against each hit, nor will I be desperately seeking and clinging to ropes that are not necessary or even real. There won't be so much suffering...I mean there will definitely be challenge, and blows, and pain but the suffering that comes with feeling and believing we are the boxer, that there is no way out of this ongoing beating...will disappear when I am seated in the seat of objective observation, in witness consciousness.
No Boxer, No Ring
When we are able to crawl out of the rings the mind creates and attempts to keep us trapped in, we will see that Life is not a boxing ring and we are not the boxers up there taking a never ending beating from Life. There is just Life, which we are a small but integral part of, unfolding in front of us, doing what Life does. We do not have to get lost in the drama, the trauma, or the story that goes on in our minds. We can create some distance between us and it, observe, learn and grow as we watch. Life is not out to punch us or beat us or hurt us. It challenges us , yes,...but only so we grow, expand and learn to flow with it instead of against it.
Sweet Surrender
The last two weeks have been extra challenging for all kinds of reasons. For a moment there, I felt like a boxer in the ring trying to stand up to Life...to fight that which I could never win. I believed I was beaten, bruised and bloody. I was using the support of the ropes to hold me up when I found myself exhausted from the fight I never had to fight. All along, there was another option. I could have thrown the white towel in the center of the ring, shook Life's hand, bowed my head in Namaste and walked off. I could have taken my seat and watched as Life, like an amazing Bee or Butterfly, danced in front of me. That would have been far less painful, far less exhausting and far more enjoyable. Hmm! It is never too late to practice what we learn. Life for me, as the objective observer, begins now.
All is well.
I am so grateful that surrender has taught me to willingly participate in Life's dance with a quiet mind and open heart.
Michael Singer
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