IS: Love that frees
Upcoming events:
- Sunday May 11: Community Hub 18.6
- Tuesday May 13: The Oasis
- Friday May 16: IS Connection Call
- May 17 or May 18: Beyond Goals Intensive
Last week's newsletter was "Beyond Goals and Fractal Campus" and last Sunday's Community Hub call was "Practice Playground".
Preface: I have done a fair bit of inner work at this point in my life. I would characterize myself as mostly "running on positive fuel" (love, care, devotion, towards-ness) instead of negative (fear, approval, validation, away-ness) and my baseline levels of joy and equanimity are off the charts as considered by my ten-years-ago self. I feel more integrated, capable, and spacious than ever before, grounded enough to move with confidence and big enough to work with paradox and polarity.
But this week, a hypothetical question (thanks fig) provoked a sense of discovery in me, and I've been sitting with this:
What if the world didn't need me?
Bypass whether it does or doesn't and embrace the if: What would be true if that were the case? What would it be like to be me, what would change in my experience? What comes up for me is something like relief and relax and rest. More than I expected - this surprised me!
If the world didn't need me, that would mean that all its problems would be solved, its polarities managed, wise adults holding power at all scales, global harmony and thriving. In such a world, I wouldn't need to become bigger, or be big enough, to wrestle with complexity and unknowing and to work vigorously in service of the unfolding of life in the universe. I could let go of any responsibility, and there would be no such thing as "self-indulgence" or "wasting time". No tradeoffs between my impulsive embodied desires and my big picture values.
I would read more fiction and make more music. I would explore the world with my family, play with my kids, spend more time with friends. I would just do, and be, without needing to care about how it all "adds up" to anything. When I think about the world I'd love to leave to my kids and grandkids, it has similar qualities: freedom to follow their hearts and dance with life, secure in the safety lovingkindness of the universe around them.
I desire the arrival of the kingdom of heaven on earth. This is a good thing. And the hypothetical relief and relaxing I would feel if it were already here, the unwinding sensation, that indicates there's some part of me pouring contracted energy into tensing myself in the higher probability shape - something protector-ish with childish contraction when it comes to saving the future of the world.
The growth pattern here has never failed me yet: Any negatively-fueled protector part strategy can be supplanted (re-parented) by a positive love-fueled integrated holding that feels "clean" and is more effective. The thing-of-value is itself good, and the contraction is unhelpful and counterproductive.
Again, I love my life, I don't feel like I'm burning out, and I'm excited about my portfolio of efforts. It's more like a subtle drain, here, that's been revealed. I thought I knew "The world is perfect as it is, including my desire to change it" (Ram Dass) and I see there's another piece of pattern in me to love.
Yes, I believe there is work to do. Life does in a sense "need" us but in a non-contracted way. I feel called to service, as devotion, as vow, as love. What about... "sacrifice"? Ah, that word invites in me a binary lens that loses the potential integration. Those things I "would" do are not wrong, and the big-me that can stay in attunement to everything (from me up to the world) can be trusted with the time tradeoffs that integrate selfishness and altruism into one way of being. I can play, can be silly, can zoom into me and family and friends, and can stay grounded and connected to the whole world without needing to use "neediness" contraction to maintain that which flows freely when allowed and trusted.
How to allow this? Ah, I feel the pull towards more metta, more lovingkindness - not via discipline but via attraction, love calling forth love. Love the child/part, love the parent/self, love the world in all its pain, love the joy and pleasure, love being an embodied human, love service, love love.
Love,
James