Lifelines – and why we cut them off.

Three questions:

• First Question: Are you aware of what nourishes you?

It may be soaking in warm silence with a loved one. Or laughing for no reason with a child. Perhaps honoring a calling like painting, or singing, writing or creating in some manner. Maybe its simply walking on the beach or watching a sunset. Or seeing a good movie.  Or eating at a particular restaurant. Playing with a dog.  Curling up in the hammock with a good book. Meditating. Exercising.  Playing a sport.

Any one or more of such spaces or activities may be nourishing for you.  Make your list.

• Second Question:  How often do you allow yourself this nourishment?

Are you conscious of what nourishes you and do you invest in this regularly? Or is it an indulgence that you treat yourself to occasionally? Is it like a lifeline to be called upon only when you find yourself drowning, on your last breath? Is that when you gift yourself just enough to keep you going until the next overwhelm?

• Third Question:  If you are one of the many people who shies away from nourishing yourself regularly, do you rationalize this to yourself?

There will be some convincing argument you will have. Either there is not enough time, not enough energy. Or there will be time – some time in the imagined future. Perhaps after some particular bank account, or salary, or designation has been achieved. Or when the house is paid for or the kids are done with college.Or you can finally afford to pay attention to yourself.

There will always be a way to explain this away.
Except perhaps that is all it is.  A way to justify it.

But consider this:

What if its not any compulsions, but the consequences that make you deny your self nourishment?

Have you ever noticed what happens when we nourish our self?
Gradually, we relax.
Our walls start coming down and our masks begin to fall away.
We start returning to our true nature.
We become loving, open, kind, considerate – even vulnerable.

And every time we glimpse who we really are, as much as it centers us, it throws us of balance.
It shakes the foundation of all that we have built thus far.
It makes clear what is of true value and importance and what is not.
What is permanent and what is not.
What is real.  And what is not.

That’s when we start seeing how little alignment there is between who we are and who we are pretending to be.

That is scary.  That raises the need for radical change.
For the willingness to lose all that we have chased so far, so that we can embrace our truth.
To step out of all the self imposed prisons that come from believing in brokenness and neediness.
To reclaim the wholeness that was and is always there in every moment.

It takes courage to do that.

Perhaps that is why we only nourish ourselves in small life giving doses – just enough to keep hope alive.  
Peering out of the prison windows, yearning for a glimpse of the free sky.
Without challenging all the illusions that keep us walled in.

I could be wrong.  But then again, I may be right.