Discipline + Freedom
DISCIPLINE and FREEDOM are lovers.
This was the beginning of an email by a writer’s organisation that popped into my inbox this morning. It was the exact message I needed to hear as tears wet my cheeks.
Living in ALIGNMENT is goddamn tricky at times. It’s a constant RE-MEMBERING. Bringing ourselves back into line. Like a reverse game of Jenga!
Putting our pieces back where they belong. Rebuilding the tower of Babel that falls constantly with the busy doing that life demands of us.
Too much discipline and we’re brittle as fuck. No SPACE. No JUICE. Our edges splintered so that we cut ourselves and others on them drawing blood. All linear thinking. Fixed activity. Robotic notions going through the motions of a life we are creating.
Too much freedom and we’re a POOL OF POSSIBILITY. And not in a useful way! No frame for the art that is our life. And I am all about living as art. LIFE IS ART AND ART IS LIFE. The masterpiece that is our unique expression unable to be tamed into something of wonder, beauty and magic.
Waking up this morning I put on music. It’s been a while. Starting the day with tunes and dropping back in. Deep. Deeper. EMBODYING my bones, belly, breath. Flesh finding its voice in shapes.
My HEART CRACKED open. Letting life in. Letting NOW in. And the tears came. Standing in my kitchen, fleecy blue robed, coffee on, and I started to weep.
This was the weeping of coming back home.
The weeping of landing back in my heart.
The weeping of RECEIVING. Receiving that cracks us open even more. I wept at the lemon and tangerine skins, post fruit devoured, on the counter. I wept at the 3 avocadoes, stubbornly refusing to soften to my command.
When we SOFTEN AND TENDERISE into re-membering we let more of life in. The beauty in the ordinary moments whacks us apart.
I’m wondering if LIFE IS A TIGHTROPE ACT between being in and out of alignment. Forgetting and then remembering once again. Over and over like the day follows night, and vice versa. Maybe we need both. Maybe this is part of the paradox of this strange thing called life!
Yet it helps knowing how it is for us to BE in alignment. What that means, feels, looks like, asks of us.
Same for when we’re in mis-alignment. The habits, addictions, seductions of our shadow.
We’re all a work in progress. It’s all OK.
And so, back to the day job. And I whisper to myself as I sup the bitter coffee, ‘Hey beauty. You just forgot who you are. Welcome home love X’
Aho X
“The Alignment Keys” is a program that shows you exactly how to do this! If you would like to know more, and book your place, then here’s some more information for you. (Next Program begins Monday 22nd May :-))
