A Season of Reconnection

Woke up early this morning to no electricity in the Pueblo. We are easing into the shift from dry season, November to June, to the rainy season, June to November. With the light showers that fell last night the world outside took on a fresh presence this morning. I've always loved the transitions from dry to wet, summer to fall, winter to spring. 

During the 70's I lived in southwestern Colorado and worked for an outfitter part time taking people on horseback pack trips and fishing trips in the Rockies. When winter came with it's great white blanket, I was always amazed how my own back yard would transform into another world. The same area I knew so well all summer was something else beneath the blanket of snow and the stillness of the Mountain winter nights. What I thought I knew so well was actually something else with a simple change of seasons. 

Today, I'm 52 years on Earth. The "me" that inhabits this body has lived many seasons and over the last few years has come fully awake to the magic and mystery of life's continuous transformation. The first 40 years I lived trying to find a comfortable spot to settle in and live happily ever after. Then I got to be such a mess that I was told I needed Rehab to get me on the right track. It took a couple months' consideration and I chose to go check myself into treatment. I really was tired of the way I felt being me, it really was that simple. 

In treatment I was offered lots of information about what I was, and what I suffered from, and what I had to do to be ok. Over time, I kept doing another piece of the "what I was told" and that piece was, to take what fits and leave the rest. I left more than I took, needless to say. 

As my life began to slowly but surely, shift to a new season, I became aware of a voice inside me that was not a voice of fear or Resistance or know-it-all or any of those too familiar voices that had ruled my mind and most of my life. This voice was something else. As I began to listen and sometimes follow this voice, I realized the voice knew me better than I knew myself. When I'd go with the voice, my life moved into a sweeter place, not always immediately, but always as a result of my listening and going with the feeling and guidance of that voice. 

That voice told me to listen to the woman who became my second wife and still does by the way. That voice whispered that if I'd take the chance and go on a journey to Mexico in 2002, (a journey I was on the fence about) that I'd find something I'd been missing. So I went and found Teotihuacan and my doorway to our Divinity. As I've lived with this voice as my guide, the voice has morphed into a feeling as well as a voice. 

Over the years aspects of myself have awakened that, for the first 40 years I'd lost all connection to. I'd lived a whole lifetime disconnected from at least half of my gifts as a human. Why all that happened is not very important now, so I'll just say that disconnection was an inheritance that nobody realized was being passed from generation to generation. I had simply inherited my share. 

Living my reconnection is what is important now and that has brought me full circle from believing and living with the belief that I could only be good enough if and when I lived up to all the expectations of the world. This old belief system was a powerful aspect of a lot of the recovery world that I was participating in as well. I was only as successful as I was compliant with the rules. I hated that. It was so easy for me to feel like a piece of crap and I wanted so badly to feel like I was just ok. 

Sounds like that should have been easy but it wasn't. As I learned to listen to my voice of guidance and feel my way through decisions, I came to realize that the being, "me,"  underneath all the knowing and thinking and story telling, was connected to something much sweeter and more loving and more honest than any of the little "me's" I had played out in the world for so long. Behind all the everything I thought I knew, and everything that was this world to me, there was/is a presence that needs nothing to be at peace. That presence is in me and I know today that presence is the "me" that I disconnected from so long ago in my trying to be good enough. My greatest recovery has been recovering my awareness. Without that I'd still be living for trying to be good enough. 

As I work in the Recovery business I often find myself seeing this work as a doorway for people to wake up to their greatest gifts as humans rather than a desperate attempt to get "it" right. Getting "it" right is that trying to be good enough all over again. The truth is we were never not good enough so chasing "it" will never get us back to what we've disconnected ourselves from. 

I have absolute faith in our wholeness and in the unique gifts that life bestows on each of us and for me this work of Recovery is all about our individual and collective awakening to those gifts and the magical ways that the truth of who and what we really are will be revealed to us. There is no fear in reconnecting to the truth of what we really are, there is only freedom and the courage to live from that place of divinity. This is not a journey just for those who go to rehab or need a program to support their changes, this is the way of the awakening of the Humanity and this is the opportunity for that awakening to be a season of grace and beauty to this world of ours. Vaya con Dios, Peace Be With You, Lee