A Gentle Reframe

I’m 29 and sometimes feel like I should be moving at a swifter pace. You know, keeping up with trends, advancing my career exponentially, fitting in with others, making sure I’ve got it all figured it all out (while really only just pretending). You could say basically sacrificing my health and wellbeing to compete in the game of life (that  ends in the same way for all of us). 

I actually think this ‘keeping up with the times’ and ‘going along with the trends’ is actually the antithesis to our deepest experience of ourselves, each other, our existence on earth, and our very own worthwhile spiritual evolution.

I think we cut a part of ourselves off each time we complacently agree with what the culture tells us is truth and tradition and how we should be living.

We cease to exist when we can no longer think for ourselves and stand in our own ever-changing opinions and viewpoints.

We are a byproduct of an ideology, a society, and a culture when its ideas and truths become our absolute–when its ‘truths’ become a framework for how we live, what we say, what we don’t say, how we express, what we suppress, or how we repress.

I have to remind myself that it is a group of people that deliver ideas and laws and protocols. A group of human beings just like you that had their own opinions, declared them, installed and instated them into the culture. 

And you know, we can do the very same in our own life. 

We can have a set of morals and values, opinions and truths, that help us understand and navigate our life. 

We don’t have to absorb the opinions of others, thinking that’s what is virtuous or most high. You don't have to rely on that agreeableness to keep you safe and well received by your peers. 

Quite the opposite, I think. 

So now, I'm taking time to surround myself with communities and spaces in nature that remind me of my separateness from a culture that I don't totally resonate with. I'm reminding myself that sometimes we have to mindfully slow down to speed up. 

I'm being gracious with myself in these times of grave dissonance, uncertainty, and worry for the future. I allow myself to feel these depths instead of floundering in my own resisting. I commit to feeling the world around me and not numbing out or disassociating from harsh truths. And I maintain relations with my Creator. I weed the garden of my psyche and replenish it with loving connections, open conversations, soulful creativity, and a delicate dance with myself.