Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. ~ Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton's quote makes me think about all the times I've chased happiness. "If I only had this, If I only did that, If I could only go there, If I had more education, If I lived in a bigger house, If I ...I'd be happy." Chasing things outside of myself to fulfill me has left me feeling very empty and not very happy!
In part this is I why I started meditating at mid-life. There was a storm brewing beneath the surface outside of my conscious awareness in a place that I couldn't access by ordinary means, therapy didn't get it, exercising couldn't touch it, religion tasted like cardboard and life was a laborious chore. I began to rage at the world around me. The undertow inside of my being was wreaking havoc on me body, mind and soul.
The force of nature better known as my own constitution seemed to have a mind of its own...to wipe me out, figuratively and literally. A therapist labeled my existentialist angst as a mid-life crisis. A label on me? A mid-life crisis? "Isn't that what balding middle aged men are going through when they leave there stable 25 year marriage, buy a little red sports car, have a hair transplant and marry a trophy wife 20 years their junior?" ..."Sure that's one of the symptoms." To go skydiving or ride a bull like the song "Live like you were dying" suggest seemed trivial. But I tried it at least in my own way! (I"d already been skydiving in my thirties and wasn't so insane as to take up bull riding in my forties). First I became a private investigator (but it didn't last) I took writing classes and got published, took voice classes and acting classes to secure an agent, got bit parts in several movies and commercials, even won a modeling award - at 43! For me, it was an unavoidable reality. The undertow and my insistence on trying to ignore it only allowed it to rise with unstoppable intensity to the surface into my conscious awareness.
Instead of shattering into a million pieces I decided to analyze and discard, contemplate, organize and assess. I was looking for my voice or so that's what the literature I'd read on mid life crisis seemed to have concluded on the subject. Mid-life is a time for reconciling the parts of ourselves that we've denied or ignored. The shadows, good and evil, happy and sad, right and wrong had to be integrated into my conscious awareness - they had to come into the light - my conscious awareness. Self actualization - being the person I was intended to be was not an easy job. The struggle was violent - I wanted to just give in and let my ego have its own way.
Fortunately, that is not what happened! The synchronization or balance that I was searching under every rock and log for was within my own being. Meditation has afforded me so many gifts. The gifts of being present in the moment, the ability to be honest about my struggles, the emotional balance, psychological balance and spirtiual balance are beginning to become a way of life. The Universe or my Higher Power or the God of my Understanding gave me the grace to learn by trial and error, storm and strife.
Today through meditation I can see if only for a brief moment that life is about balance. Meditation allows me to let go of grasping and become aware of the undertow, it gives me the ability to choose whether I'm going to feed the good wolf or the bad wolf! The balance comes in a similar way that saving ourselves in an undertow occurs...you don't struggle in the current, you swim parallel to the beach. Body, mind and soul become synchronized ...balanced and you become whole.
Try this simple meditation for seven days and let me know what happens:
1. Sit quietly in a comfortable position with your eyes closed.
2. Follow your breath in and out until you can be at peace with the world around you.
3. Passively, objectively become an observer of your thoughts. Make note of the ones that seem to repeat themselves.
4. After you've reached a place of calm bring yourself back to consciousness and take notes!
5. During the 24 hour period between meditations - observe the messages that your intuition is trying to send you!
