Dealing With Doubt

It's rare that I feel fear.  I've always been a person to kind of, work backwards.  I pick a goal or make a decision and commit to it, usually before I take time to analyze the logistics.  Pardon the cliche, but acting in this way is like taking a leap of faith.  It doesn't matter how big or grand or important your ideas are, if you never act on them or put them into motion, they remain nothing more than great ideas.  And are we ever really ready to jump into the unknown?  You can stand at the end of a diving board for 3 days, or you can just jump.  The longer you stand there analyzing the act, the more time fear has to build and the more opportunity your ego has to talk you right back down the ladder.

But isn't that what we're taught as spiritual seekers?  To set our intentions with the universe and let a higher power figure out the when and the how?  Sometimes when I talk to others about my plans or what I'm trying to do with my life, I am met with skepticism.  I'm met with doubt and I want to shake them and say...."do you see what I've done?! Do you know me at all?  How can you be doubting me?"  Unfortunately, no matter how much confidence I have in myself, after conversations like this I'm left with their contagious sense of doubt.  It takes me days sometimes to come back to my center of confidence, put the doubt and fear down, and get on with it.

There is a lot I want out of this life.  There is so much I want to do and contribute and learn.  In order to grow we need to challenge ourselves and take risks...even fail.  Don't let anyone snuff the spark of a crazy new idea or an ambitious or lofty goal.  Take their concern, evaluate it, and if it goes against your own inner knowing, simply let it go.  It's hard.  We're always looking for validation, support, and praise from others.  Dealing with the doubt and skepticism we receive instead feels bad.  For me, I just try to remember that that fear they're expressing belongs to them.  It's not mine.  It's not even about me.  The truth is, they just can't see themselves on my path, and that's ok.  This is my path, my progress, and my potential for great success.  

My Question to Buddha

I’d like to expand on the idea that there is freedom in letting go.  Freedom from attachment I suppose, means freedom from the potential for pain and of suffering.  But my question to Buddha would be, what is a life free from the highs and lows of attachment?  What is a life free of emotion?  How can one experience overwhelming joy without first experiencing the throes of despair?  That is life.  That is the living part; the feelings and the pain and the peace.  It is the awesome and the awful that we all keep coming back for time after time.  Loss after loss, we crave that rush of possibility and ride that euphoric wave as long as we can before it inevitably drowns back down into the sea and we wait for another to build and carry us home.  It’s a continuous cycle of reinvention; of living many lives within one lifetime.  The presence of any being, no matter how temporary, who brings us through a cycle of life is a beautiful manifestation and gift.  Perhaps in gratitude for this we can put away the pain of loss.  To have the opportunity to know these kinds of connections broadens the scope of what’s possible.  

Finding Freedom

When we are committed up to our eyeballs and working long hours or seven days a week, the word freedom sounds like a punch-line to a poorly timed joke.  Most days, freedom, that celebrated feeling of having time and choices and the opportunity to be spontaneous seems like an antidote just out of reach.  But does it have to? 

Recently I was forced to take a step back and really look at the people and things I have been attaching myself and my happiness to.  I’ve latched on to certain things with a white knuckle grip and, ironically, the tighter I hold on, the more that grip seems to slip.  When it comes to people, if we hold on this way, it becomes inevitable that we will overwhelm them.  When we rest all of our happiness in one person, we become heavy to them and no matter how much they care about us, they will only be able to hold our weight for so long before the relationship crumbles.

For me personally, I had to take a breath and realize that this thick sludge of work and fear and transition was a choice.  I made it this heavy.  That meant, I could also choose freedom. 

We are our own captors.  There is no one out there working to put limitations on us or physically tying our hands behind our backs.  We do that all by ourselves.  We become what we show to others that we are and have the ability to show ourselves to others in so many ways. We are diverse, eclectic creatures who have the astounding ability to reinvent ourselves over and over and over again.

Buddha preached detachment.  He believed that attachment was the root of all suffering and that detachment meant freedom and peace.  It makes sense from this perspective, that the more we allow things, people, and circumstances to flow in and out of our lives instead of forcing them into place, the more room we create for spontaneity and freedom.

We choose how we let others affect us.  We choose to advance toward change and take risks to better our circumstances.  We choose to stay put in a set of old circumstances.  We are not victims, unless we are victims of our own shortsightedness.  We can choose to be happy and to let go of the baggage and the notions holding us back from the light.  OR we can choose to dwell in the past or in regret.  We can choose to hang out in the pain cave or we can choose to haul a lawn chair out into the sunlight.

Let it go.  Let yourself have the freedom to enjoy this moment and all the possibilities it holds.  Do something with it...or use it to regroup.  Use it to breathe one last breath of life into the sadness and then let it die.  Grow out of that depressed ground into something solid, strong, and free.