When I wrote my post yesterday morning, the reality of being without job and paycheck during the government shutdown was just sinking in. Treating this experience as a gift, I set out to focus my intentions on three things that I have wanted to increase in my life. I wanted more exercise and healthier eating, more meditation, and to e-publish at least one of my books--The Game Called Life.
I am already feeling even better than usual. Maybe eating healthfully is a bit like riding a bike: our bodies remember. As soon as I passed up sugar a couple times, I found myself craving certain vegetables that I haven't bought for a while. When I wanted a mid-afternoon snack, raw nuts came to mind for the first time in months. Yet, this is a journey. I would be less than honest if I didn't say that when I sat down for dinner, I did miss my glass of red wine, abandoned because alcohol contains sugar, but having brewed a pitcher of fresh iced tea in the afternoon, wine was quickly out of mind.
Skipping the train, I walked 70 minutes while running errands on foot yesterday and 40 today so far. The chemicals that our brains release when we exercise kicked in right away, and by the time I was back, I was energized and joyful to get to work on my e-book.
After working a while, I took a meditation break. For over 20 years, I've meditated, and for much of that time, it was 20 minutes a day. In 2008 my life seemed to be thrust into fast-forward with many travel days ending with me falling asleep on my computer. Most of that time I still meditated 20 minutes a day, but at some point the exhaustion got the better part of me. I'd regularly fall asleep during my meditation, so I started staying in bed another 15 minutes. I'd still take 5 minutes to center myself before leaving my hotel room. The schedules and reasons have changed over the last 5 years, but the pace has not.
Occasionally, meditation has slipped, but most of the time it has been more like taking 5 or 10 minutes before I raced off to work. Yesterday, I took my full 20 minutes. Like taking a hot soak at the end of a hard day, I was enveloped in the warmth of Love from All That Is. How could I ever have imagined that skipping this was serving me? Only some kind of warped rationality could have convinced me that abandoning this in the middle of the craziness was a good idea.
I made good progress on the e-book yesterday and this morning. As a "project," it is definitely a success, but I am most certain that thinking it is a project is only an illusion. I write spiritual books--books that are written to help readers get back on their paths and to stay on them. I couldn't have imagined the impact of being up close and personal with this book--I have to touch every single word--that I've read at least 8-10 times since I wrote it would have on me.
There is a joke about turning one's life over to God. It goes something like this: When you turn your life over to God, the first thing you hear is, "Thank you!" The second thing that you hear is "Hold on!"
I am in "Hold on!" right now. Every page seems to give me a lesson that I need to re-member--to make a conscious part of me again. Perhaps most important right now is that The Game Called Life is a game and the point of the game is spiritual growth. Every thing that happens in our lives is an opportunity to grow, including furloughs, and every person that passes through, even for a brief time, is a spiritual learning partner, even trying bosses. I must have been spiritually comatose to have forgotten that when the busyness of my life distracted me from the things that matter most in my life--health, mediation, writing and spiritual growth. These are things that I truly know in my heart, but I've just not been listening enough lately.
The Game Called Life will continue to jar me from "the sleeping state that men call waking." (The Upanishads) And, I am holding on to see what other changes will be wrought in my life during this unplanned spiritual adventure.
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