Sometimes it takes hindsight to see most clearly how to move forward.

This morning I came across a Beyond Mastery Newsletter post from ten years ago. The title of that post is “You’re Pushin’ Too Hard.” Here it is:

I may have been affected by a week of flu, but these words to the song “You’re Pushin’ Too Hard,” by the Seeds, just keep rolling in my head: “You’re pushin’ too hard, what you want me to be, about the things you say, you’re pushin’ too hard every night and day…. All I want is to just have fun, live my life like it’s just begun.…”

In Jin Shin Jyutsu, pushin’ too hard is called efforting, and in ways perhaps known only to the soul, it is based on a lack of trust. I don’t often think of myself as lacking trust, and I often speak quite to the contrary, expressing ultimate trust in Divine Intelligence, or LIFE, or the Universe, what is sometimes in this culture called God. What does it mean, then, that efforting is oh, too, familiar….

An exercise I have invited myself and others to play goes something like this, “If you could have anything you wanted, what would that be? And if you had that now, what would your having it now allow you to do or have or be that you have seemed unable to do or have or be currently?”

Recently, I am very aware of the gap in ease I experience about that answer. I know my life would have an element of service in it, and yet, I am not called to anything concrete in the ways I used to be. I know my life would have time for balance of body, mind, and spirit. I would exercise, preferably by riding my bike most days. I would eat healthy food, and enjoy well-prepared meals. I would meditate daily, as well as join group meditation. I would write. I have come to recognize how much writing is central in my spiritual balance.

When I ask if I would work, I cannot answer that with perfect clarity. Would I teach? Maybe. Would I preach if I had the opportunity? Maybe.

One question that can still bring tears to my eyes has to do with a sense of failure. I know my mother felt she had wasted her life. At the time she was expressing those feelings, they struck me as so odd, after all, she had me! Perhaps she had been responding to a deeper dream that had not revealed itself in her doing. She was an amazing cook. She could make an eight-course meal look easy. Her own needs for food were minimal, but her need to feed those she loves was nearly insatiable. Meatloaf for one, roast beef for another. Lasagna. Cornbread. When the kids were all young, and several of them preferred the center of the pan of cinnamon rolls, she would make several, so everyone got a center!

I am not sure my soul needs that level of pandering to, but it does need to be heard, and honored, and allowed a say in what I do with my time and energy.

I shall give my soul pen here and see what is desiring to be shared!

What small gift can I bring?

• I can open the door for someone who is rushing in or out.

• I can listen to someone who is feeling alone or confused.

• I can remember to breathe when those around me are in stressful moments.

• I can pick up a piece of trash when I see it and not harbor a thought about how it came to be there in the first place.

• I can tip well when service was poor and tip even better when service is great.

What might it mean that I find no lofty goals when I look deeply inside? Perhaps nature has seeped into my being and contentment is being born where restlessness once whipped my moods like March winds working kites as delighted children watch with their eyes all aglow. I cannot imagine the roses pining or the Bluebird considering a life being lived a failure.

Maybe seen in its true light, even the greatest loss is really a gain. I am willing to think of it this way and give it time to see if that is what is happening.

Re-reading this is especially significant after the message I received during Darshan (a blessing from The Mother) during Remembering Wholeness with Barbara Brodsky yesterday.

I know you are familiar with the experience of shame. I don’t mean an intense horror “OH!” of shame, but just, “Oh, I only got 98 on that. I could have gotten 100. I could have put a little more love into it; I could have paid a little more attention.”

Sometimes being more perfectionist can be helpful — if someone is lazy or sloppy about things — but when one is already giving so much love, then being perfectionists is a way of negating the gift of the self. What does that mean?

I think it’s mostly an old habit, but not entirely, so, I’d like you to ask when you move into that sense of subtle smallness, that sense of, “I could have done it better,” to ask, “What do I gain by putting myself down in that way? Why can I not embrace my full radiance and power?”

And, especially I’m talking about power.

What if you are as powerful as I know you to be? What then?

I look forward to seeing what evolves as you start to open up to your power.

I love you, and I am with you.

When I read down my bulleted list from 2012, I can see that I live all of those desires. It is time for a new list….

What might evolve as I open fully to my power?

• I will welcome each day with expectancy that the power of the Holy Spirit is alive within me.

• I will give each experience room to reveal the Holy Spirit’s grace and gift that experience offers.

• I will worry less about dying and care more about living as a radiant expression of Holy Spirit.

• I will express exuberantly the power of the Holy Spirit for the good of all.

• I will see a 98 as “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

A monarch butterfly travels as much as 100 miles a day
during its 3,000-mile migration south.