When I'm Here, Not There

So this morning I was meditating on the idea of I’m exactly where I am supposed to be, right here, right now. I’ve often felt like once I got “there” things would be ok. And then when I got “there” it would no longer be good enough and I would then want to be “there” and this pesky game continued throughout much of my life. I remember looking up at the sky and seeing an airplane thinking, it would be nice to be on there and go wherever they’re going. And also feeling the same way when I’m on a plane getting farther away from civilization thinking it would be nice to be down there with them.

Is this the human condition? Or something requiring more thought? I’m not sure.

I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be even on and especially on the character-building days. The ones where I doubt that I can go own. The days where a 24-hour segment is far too long and I am eeking out my existence one second at a time. I remember 2006 as being the worst year of my life prior to the year I was bullied. And then I came to 2014. That was a bad year. Really bad. I thought I was going to get fired every day and I was bullied at work because I had stepped on the toes of my fellows and they retaliated. I had so much anxiety heading to work my stomach would hurt and I developed heart palpitations and had to see a cardiologist because of the symptoms and an abnormal EKG. He then ordered a stress test and an ECHO, both came back normal. So nothing was organically wrong with my heart, I was just on edge.

That’s an understatement. And yet I had not practiced the art of presence. I wanted to be past this. I wanted my peers to forgive me and I wanted us to all move on, yet that was not what was supposed to happen. It was there in the chaos and confusion that I grew and changed and in the discomfort I emerged a transformed woman. I began to understand that I played small so those around me could feel comfortable. I also realized that I needed to work on how I communicated with others. That my tone had to convey patience, kindness, peace, love and light. That I had nobody to blame but myself. Now hear me friends, I am not an advocate for shame and/or blame, yet this experience was a direct result or consequence of my own actions, I had to own that. And own that I did. Around September of that year, things started to shift. The Divine was working on behalf of all of our lives and things became more loving and kind around my birthday.

I am grateful that I experienced the first 8-9 months of 2014 because the lessons would not have been learned without that pain. Further, I would not have learned anything if I had attempted to go “there”. The image above does not necessarily look comfy or cozy, in fact, it looks like a mess. And that is where I was the year I was bullied in seventh grade, in 2006 and two years ago and  yet despite that pain and despair, something happened. Call it hope rising if you will, I decided to stay and grow through the pain. I decided to stay here and be here instead of yearning to be there. I simply surrendered.