Dwelling in the consciousness of stability and peace

Over the past year there was a constant pull in my thoughts: “Move, Tre, just keep moving…don’t think…just keep moving forward…You need to get this done, that done, that done. Don’t pause, regroup or analyze. Just move’

It was kinda like some mechanical authority, a machine like admonishing– churning and churning – without ever allowing permission to pause and take a breath.

The result? Ongoing focus on the outward, external thing I was striving for rather than pacing with my now, appreciating the qualities that ‘thing’ represents, valuing all aspects of the process of reaching the goal, refusing to resent an ounce of it.

And the result of that kind of behavior: frustration, impatience, and a whole lotta anger–frustration — because I’m not where I want to be in thought, impatience – because I know better than to allow my right now be so manipulated and steamrolled, anger — because sometimes it’s easy to dump on yourself and be angry with your decisions.

I’m not talking obtaining things. I’m talking more about learning life’s lessons. The hardcore coach in me dictates:

‘Thorsen, let’s learn this, let’s get this down. C’mon Thorsen, let’s get your act together once and for all.’

But guess what? I remind myself. When you’re proving spiritual substance moment to moment, the sculpting of your life happens that immediately….or rather than intentionally…and yes, honestly, that slowly if you look at it like this.

Okay…so what that means….I’m reminding myself as I wake in week 3 of a very temporary living situation I would have never expected myself to be amidst, this immediate will change. The moxx style dwelling place is not the forever.

I remind myself of a few really important images…gentle reminders of the value of staying focused and present in the right now….

As a child I had a few favorite past-times….I adored spending hours at the beach on Key Biscayne. Back then, Crandon Park Zoo was right next store and I was too innocent of a mind to comprehend the cruelty of animals behind bars. (Thankfully, a group of very courageous consciou souls created the Metro Zoo years later where animals are still be contained for educational purposes but roam free—a must see if you visit Miami.

I used to go to that Zoo, see all the animals, and then beg to run on the beach. And that was a no brainer because my sister chimed in and pleaded with my mom as well. And mom always had her dozens of copies of The Miami Herald she’d piled in her everything bag along with a few granola bars ready to feed her mind and our tummies at a moment’s notice.

(Commercial break: REMEMBER NATURE VALLEY GRANOLA BARS? Two per pack even! YUMMYness. )

So off I’d go beelining it for the hot sand somehow kicking off my sandles, forgetting how blistering hot the sand would feel til I made it to the water’s edge just to cool off the toes before taking another plunge and diving into the water.

Meanwhile mom planted it in a beach fold out chair — also always in the trunk– grab her bag of literary and culinary feasts and plunk down in the sand while my sister began her work carving a mote for what would become our sand castle creation for the afternoon.

Amidst such a scene—splashing in the waves or building on the sand, I lost all sense of time. My concerns were how to hold my breath under the water, how to dare open my eyes, where was the largest wave to body surf, or if crafting a sandcastle, how to build sound structures that wouldn’t cave into the surrounding mote.

Another fave: climbing trees…and just read my ‘about me’ entry….it’s all about me climbing trees as a kid and to this day I have made a vow to myself I will learn how to build an actual functioning home (not a fort) in the trees somewhere. Of course I’d prefer it to be in the palms and good luck finding a forest full of them unless I move to the Caribbean somewhere—not a bad thought though. 😉

And the 3rd past-time I adored was drawing and coloring. I wasn’t that great at it. Coloring books bored me after a time — the rebel in me boycotted the ‘have to stay within the lines’ stricture. So I started asking for unlined paper and drew my own collection of made up fairies and goddesses and unicorns and fantasy creatures. Again, pressing needs during those moments were which color to use on the fairy’s eyes or hair or how to create depth in the sky so the unicorn had somewhere to fly. Surely, I wasn’t thinking about anything else but that moment and the task at hand.

Those 3 activities: playing at the beach, climbing trees, coloring for hours, taught me as a young girl the power of focus, the beauty of imagination, the freedom and limitless creativity one has when all else is shut out from thought.

Good reminders to the big grown up I’ve become today. Because for the past year or so–kidd you not–I’ve been earnestly praying about a right sense of home and dwelling space. There’s places I adore and would never leave for a second (ie: the lower Keys and the Miami Beach coastline). But my work draws me elsewhere for rightful now reasons.

Couple that internal (where to be) struggle with other details: loved ones across the country, financial ability right now, weather conditions, preferences on size of space and area, where my heart sings and soars vs where I’m kinda just okay.

I counted the other day…I have lived in far more different spots in the last year than there are months to a year. That’s being completely honest. And through it all as I’ve tried to keep my thoughts on the goals I have and hold dear, my blog has become a safe space….a resting nook if you will….a sanctuary.

But the constant pulls contradicting inner peace that I’m continuing to battle down are:

A sense of homelessness, a sense of victim, a sense of belonging nowhere, a sense of helplessness, a sense of ‘age’ (ie: I should be further along by now), a sense of being completely and utterly alone often or all the time….

I could go on and on.

But with each one of these pulls: I know this: these feelings are all based on conclusions drawn from looking only at externals. And often, it’s this critique of external, or material view of life that would separate you / me / anyone from a sense of oneness, completeness with Spirit.

This view would base the worth of your life and being on your career status, your relationship status, your financial worth, whether or not you’re a parent, whether or not you’ve done this, that, the other with your life right now.

All of this external measuring of your worth fails at the very onset to render the worth of your being because it bases the significance of your life on the material…not the spiritual.

When measured with the source of one’s being, Spirit, who you are this moment as an expression of this source, is wholly good and pure and complete this moment. You are not simply a historical summary of so many years of choices and decisions. You are at your essence a complete idea this moment, with every aspect of fulfillment you will ever need, right at this moment.

I know this may be a huge redirect or a complete shifted view. And I’m surely not trying right here in this post to teach you how to completely shift your perspective from material reasoning and rationalizing to spiritually scientific based thinking.

But I am advocating for doing so. And I am not because I’m simply trying to ignore what would otherwise appear a somewhat wayward at times empty life. No. I’m simply offering that when you reason spiritually, there’s no gap, nothing missing, nothing lacking, ever.

Being is a summation of the qualities of life we define for ourselves and outwardly live and express. You have and I have within our capacity right this moment to live the expression of each one of the qualities of life you treasure and hold dear.

So for me…for my right now, I am striving to really wrap my mental arms around the meaning of home….each aspect of it, each quality of it. And as I’m doing this, I’m defending the idea that right now, I am a ‘home owner’ when I conceive of home as consciousness and defend that I dwell there, in thought, every moment. And I am sifting though my thoughts each hour and expunging the claims that deny this truth.

A really good source of instruction for how to reason spiritually is Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health.

In it, she asserts “Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.”

So I’ve been doing that little by little with my sense of what constitutes home and defending I include—what we each include—right this moment a sense of sanctuary, peace, safety, warmth, lodging, nourishment, a mental space of respite and comfort.

It’s been a great effort to FOCUS on those qualities and essences rather than the way the pressing urges will sway. And it’s been humbling too.

And little by little, I’m reminded yet again that to the degree I define the spiritual substance of my life there yields a confidence, a sweet peace, that removes the mental pulls to define one’s lot by the surrounding picture.

Seriously. Think about it. Is your home or anyone’s the structure you’re residing in for this moment? When you leave that place are you ‘homeless’? If circumstances change are you removed from care and comfort? Well, I guess it depends on how you define the source of that care and comfort. And I’m learning that to the degree I find the source of these in Spirit, I can’t ever be removed, kicked out, separated from them.

There is NEVER a moment when anyone of us are separate from the truth of our spirituality. And often it takes stripping away all the details, all the muck all the baggage of our lives to really find that core and cling to it. And I’ve realized for a while now that this is what this time is about for me.

More on all this soon….For now, lemme know your thoughts, if you’ve ever felt displaced, how did you remedy it? What would you recommend to others feeling displaced right now? Thanks for reading! And be well.. ? Tre ~~~