Trusting Audacious Intuition

Letting go of control and creating space for things beyond what we currently imagine possible is a hard thing to do.  Why?  Because it means leaving behind what we know and what is safe, even if it makes us miserable.  And it means leaving behind what is familiar for something you can’t even clearly see yet.  It comes up over and over again for my clients:  Do I choose to go on as I am now, for logical reasons like money or time? Or take a risk by leaving my job, my relationship, living with my family or [fill in the blank]?  Let me just include that I also see this when people are confronted with having to give up a way of being.  It is not just about giving up concrete things like a relationship or job, it can be about giving up the way you act in a relationship or the way you handle anger.  When people are asking this kind of question, to do what is logical/familiar/safe or to take a risk, it is usually because there is a level of discontent (at best), but underneath that, I suspect there is a deeper part of them that knows they need to take a leap.  **I should put it out there that someone who is often avoidant and has a pattern of running away might an exception to this. 

I also hear about and witness people having powerful experiences as a result of taking the leap.  I know of many stories where people have left a job without any prospects because they were so unhappy.  They chose their happiness over security and, just in time, when they were going to run out of money, another, better opportunity was presented.  It is not just their happiness that they chose, it was the inner wisdom that was coming through being miserable that they chose to honor.  That internal feedback is so important.  Sometimes that feedback comes in the form of unpleasant emotion because pain or discomfort is a powerful motivator.  This week, I want to share a section of David Richo’s book where he illustrates this very concept:

“A dramatic example of this occurs in the Odyssey when Ulysses, after leaving the island of Calypso, is shipwrecked.  He has lost his crew and his fleet and is alone in the sea holding onto a single plank.  Hope seems lost when suddenly Leucothea, a sea goddess, appears and tells him that the only way to survive is to let go.  His logical mind tells him that the tried-and-true method of maintaining flotation is holding onto the plank.  Yet his intuition, represented by the goddess, tells him to let go and thus invent a new and bold response to a here and now crisis.  He chooses (as he does throughout the Odyssey) to listen to the female part of himself and to trust audacious intuition.  He lets go of the plank and more: his garments.  He treads water without physical supports.  Then the goddess gives him a magical push that propels him effortlessly to his next destination.  Notice two features of the story are significant: Ulysses had just left the arms of Calypso, rejecting her offer of divinity and preferring to return to his wife, Penelope.  He chose not to be allured by the temptation of a quick and easy advance in consciousness but rather to continue his journey home gradually.  This was the first choice he made that prepared him for the miraculous rescue to follow.  His second preparation for empowerment was his hopelessness.  No intuitions came to him while he was safe at sea.  Marvels occur when there is room for them” (p. 200).

I especially love the last part: ‘no intuitions came to him while he was safe at sea’.  In the moment where we are uncomfortable because we are dissatisfied with what is happening, we forget that the pain (feeling hopeless, unsatisfied, miserable) is simply information.  We don’t need to take it super personal.  Feel it, it is real.  But no need to make it dramatic.  Sometimes I see my clients in the midst of this kind of process where their hopelessness is building and I want to ease their discomfort, but, in fact, the discomfort is an important part of the process and if I took it away, it wouldn’t be able to do the work it is there to do.  My hope is that in sharing this story, that it might catch you at that very moment where you are getting information about needing to take a leap or needing to let go so there is room for the miraculous so that this can be a gentle reminder to let the process unfold.  Let go, it is OK.  The new way, the next steps will appear.  And, they will probably be even more awesome than what you were designing in your mind or what you were living before.

*This post is written in response to a section in David Richo's book "When Love Meets Fear: Becoming Defense-Less and Resource-Full".  

This is a Gift

This week, I am going to continue talking about what David Richo calls “the void”, as he continues to discuss in the next section of the book.  One of the main points he makes when discussing the void is that there is nothing to do.  In the void, we are in suspense, not knowing how big it is or whether there will be something that comes next.  He says “all we can do is adjust ourselves to its midnight” (p. 90).

From what I understand, David Richo, in this section, is essentially saying the void is the experience of the ego dying.  In the void, we start to experience acceptance somewhere inside us that we are not in full control, that we are not exactly entitled to the comfort of feeling good or being in control.  The ego is entitled.  The ego insists that we have the right to be happy, to avoid going through things that cause discomfort.  The ego has lots of awesome tricks for finding ways around unpleasantness.   The trouble with these tricks is that they don’t work in the long run and sometimes foreclose on opportunities for growth.

Hold on, now.  Just because the power of the ego is dying in the void doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be happy or choose happiness.  It doesn’t mean that we should choose for things to be “hard” and to “suffer”.  No.  It means there is something much more out there for us than just happiness. At a retreat recently, one of the instructors was saying that people find a spiritual path and become involved with a practice with the intention of being happy in their lives (or something close to happiness).  But, he said, as we go further down the road and experience happiness, we see something off in the distance that is much more grand.  It is freedom.  Freedom to go through life experiencing fully and being at peace with our human experience even when it is seemingly unpleasant. 

So, the “void, then, really means void of ego with all its protective devices and boundaries” (p. 87).  The ego, what is familiar, is ending and what will come isn’t there yet.  And we are blind, there is no way to know what will come.  Knowing that would mean we had some control over the experience, some way to comfort ourselves.  But that is the point.  There is nothing in the void.  There needs to be nothing in order for us to be present to the space of the void.  “We drop that final, childish belief that there is always something that will do it for us, always a way around a given instead of a way through it” (p. 91).    We just be and let go of control.  There are forces much bigger than us at play.  When we let go of control, we can start to experience the power of those forces.  David Richo says: “the only obstacle to grace-access to a power beyond my own mind or will-is control” (p. 92).

Happiness and moments of comfort are a gift.  So are moments of discomfort as they inform us about what we need to realize.  The call to the void is also a gift.  In my estimation, it is the biggest gift one could possibly receive in this human life.  If we try to control either those moments of happiness, discomfort or the darkness of the void, we are interrupting an important process: grace.  Whether it is interrupting the impermanent nature of human emotion or the precious process of awakening, it is interrupting the experience of a tremendous gift in this life.  So be still.  Allow.  Be humble in the discomfort.  In these ways, we can experience the freedom of working with our humanness, removing resistance to our nature, which makes space for much bigger things.  As I write this, I am aware of the fact that I have to constantly remind myself of these gifts and remember not to reject or push away gifts that I don’t feel like accepting at the moment.  It really is a practice. 

*This post is written in response to a section in David Richo's book "When Love Meets Fear: Becoming Defense-Less and Resource-Full".  

The Void

For the next couple of weeks, the discussion is going to be about what David Richo calls “the void”.  We have talked about pausing before we respond to triggers and feelings, creating space rather than filling it.  We have talked about the evolution of the ego from pain to freedom.  The void is what David Richo says we confront when our neurotic ego (all the parts of us that were formed in response to pain) and functional ego (healthy human parts) surrender to the Self (part of a bigger consciousness). 

David Richo describes it as a spiritual crisis, a “spiritual stair that is not there” (p. 84).  It is not there because it is the void.  In that void, we are alone and facing emptiness.  It is space where there is nothing that can soothe the discomfort that accompanies the process.  It is when all that has worked before to bring you out of a dark place no longer works.  It is not a depression, but feels like one; it seems like it will never end.  While I can describe it to you and tell you what might be on the other side, this would not comfort you if you were in the process of what has also been called “the dark night of the soul” and “encircling doom” (p. 83). 

In this process, there can be the sense of hopelessness because the old ways of feeling better don’t work.  You are racking your brain to think about why you feel so bad and there is no clear reason.   There can also be a great deal of shame, an emotion I personally find virtually unbearable.  It is shameful because the ego is being dethroned and, for that to happen, we have to question everything about it so we can realize that it is a fraud that has caused a lot of drama and fear.  From what I can tell the shame comes in that process of questioning and doubting what we think is our real self (which makes sense because we have only known ourselves as the ego until we confront the void).

This is such a rich topic and I know I will need to revise this and write more about it in future posts, but I want to leave it at this for now.  I love the fact that there could be something occurring inside our experience as human beings that may be painful but does not mean there is something “wrong”.  Just like when babies are teething, they are crying because it is painful (hard objects are breaking through flesh!), however, it doesn’t mean there is something “wrong” with them.  It is not a “problem” that needs to be “solved”.  It is not “bad”.  It is simply a human process.  Not fun, but what is on the other side is awesome and necessary for healthy development.  Hey!  I didn’t design the system, OK!?  I’m just a part of it, observing it, and hopefully, helping people understand our nature so we can work with it more successfully rather than wasting our existence resisting it.

*This post is written in response to a section in David Richo's book "When Love Meets Fear: Becoming Defense-Less and Resource-Full".