you need opposites….to fly

As always, a little shuffling goes on in September for the Year of Inquiry program that just began. One person joined last week, one decided to leave, one switched to Eating Peace two weeks ago.

I suddenly realized something, with some of the thoughts in my brain about shuffling, in and out, joining and departing: I’m feeling unhappy about the instability, the lack of guarantee, the comings and goings….namely the “goings” part.

Again. Oh jeez.

I know that may sound like….well, of course. This is something to be unhappy about if someone withdraws, leaves or goes.

But it also sounded to me like the echoes of a belief I’ve questioned before about people leaving in general, and I thought “oh brother, here we go again.”

I need to know who’s in and who’s out. I need to know when, how, and where.

Temporariness is hard to live with, it seems, to my human mind.

But is it? Is this actually true?

The most gigantic temporariness I ever realized was under the spell of something to be feared, worried about, horrified with….

….was Endings.

In the form of death especially.

A huge Nooooooo shouted up at the sky for the “ending” of something. Over. Finished. Done. Wail!

This doesn’t have to be about the Big One (death). It can be about a relationship break-up, a job ending, the family home being sold, divorce, the end of a vacation, or like I mentioned the whispering sadness of a lovely person dropping a course.

Goodbyes are hard.

Is that true?

How do you feel, speak, react when you believe goodbyes are difficult, or unbearable, or an emergency, or must be stopped?

I’ve worked with so many people on this topic.

Huge inner stress.

This past week, I’ve been in northern Ontario province of Canada with a brilliant group of learners all gathering to talk about and inquire into wisdom, death and dying, connection, temporariness, life and living.

One topic brought forth was the act of saying goodbye.

Here comes the voice, the thought…I can’t stand goodbyes. I don’t like parting ways. I don’t want this to end. This shouldn’t be this way. I need it to keep going, and never stop.

Is this actually true?

Because, I notice, reality has goodbye and hello and goodbye and hello over and over again. Constantly.

Which means even if someone has not left, they might. So even worrying about something departing later, in the future, becomes frightening, and how I react….when I continue to believe that departures are bad.

I clutch. I grab.

I often looked at money this way. It needs to stay, and grow, and never say goodbye.

Is it even true that you need to keep the thing you’re worried about diminishing later?

You don’t have enough love (when this person leaves your life). Is that true?

You don’t have enough money, energy, support. True?

You don’t have enough clients, work, people in your retreat.

Is this actually true?

No. I find over and over again…..no, not true.

Perhaps very drilled into our bones, though. Such a common stress. I’ve experienced it time and again. I’ll look at so many little things like it isn’t enough, compared to “that” over there. I need to keep this, I need more, I need to take, I need to be connected, I need to have.

And I notice, when I think my empty nest house right now is not as good as the full house with a “complete” family in it, I suffer.

But can you really be sure goodbyes are sad, or bad, or to be avoided? Are you positive you don’t have enough people around, or love, or support? (Even if you’re sitting in a room by yourself)?

No.

How do you react when you believe “Goodbyes are bad!” (In my case, I’m thinking about people withdrawing from something I’m offering).

Woah is me. Pity party. I quit. Cancel everything. I can’t do it right. Why continue to bother.

Now….who would you be without this story?

Without any thought at all that what’s happening isn’t enough right now, that it’s off, that more would be better, or it was better before these changes? Without the belief that goodbyes are hard, or intolerable, or to be avoided?

I would be so much more clear. More present, more aware, more alive. More feeling full of the heart-break of departure and the joy of reunion, but somehow trusting it all and knowing it’s not up to me, and I can make a clean “goodbye”, or hear one, without regret. With trust.

I might even be laughing, without the thought that goodbyes are bad.

Without the belief in Bad Goodbye’s Good Hello’s I would notice the tide going in and out, and the emptiness of any moment, also full, in this world of both/two/duality/multitudes.

Maybe even laughing and then crying, almost at the same time, and allowing even this to be as it is.

Without the belief that goodbyes are ultimately bad, I’m aware of the equal and opposite advantages for any given moment, I become excited. Turnarounds are so thrilling and wild to try on!

This goodbye is not hard. I like this goodbye. I like this hello into something new that doesn’t involve the same format as before. This is NOT goodbye.

With the story of Not Enough-ness or “OH NO!”….

….I’m taking in information about what is, and maybe I make adjustments and changes not only to this moment as I inquire, but also to my program(s). Something new is created. I feel the “hello” along with the “goodbye”.

Without this story of being against What Is, I learn to move with the flow, and the sheer joy of this life not being mine.

This is not “mine”. Departures or communions, both not guaranteed to go as I think they should. Both not “mine”. Both definitely happening. Both in the hands of something that knows more than I do.