Chapter 62 : What I STILL Know for Sure that IS So
It is (way past) time once again to Stew on this!
Growing up during the Cold War, we had bomb drills during school. We would crouch down under our desks with our arms over our heads, apparently to shield ourselves from the nuclear fallout. Oh, to be young.
For me, when not crouched under my desk, life was business as usual – the business of being a kid. I remember feeling quite safe during all of it, with the possible exception of some of the kids in my neighborhood who were best avoided.
It is ironic that I feel so much less safe now. And it isn’t because of current world events, though they are no less scary.
It started in earnest during Covid. I have written about this before, but suffice it to say that over these past 6 years, the gap between me and the world seems to have widened considerably. Indeed, nearly everything that seems important to the world does not matter to me, and everything that is important to me seems to not matter at all to the world.
It is a weird, and sometimes anxious, place to be.
Lately, we have been bombarded by hackers in all our financial accounts. It seems as though I have begun every single morning these past couple of weeks talking on the phone with some company or other. I do not enjoy that kind of thing as my first thought or activity in the morning.
Besides some anxiety, I have also felt violated. Technology seems more worrying and invasive than the Russians ever did.
The other day I was listening to one of my all-time favorite songs: “Apeman,” by The Kinks. Somehow, though I have heard the song hundreds of times since it was written in 1970, it took on a whole new meaning this time.
To paraphrase part of the chorus, “I don’t feel safe in this world no more. I don’t want deal with PayPal no more. I want to sail away to a distant shore. And be like an apeman.”
The song reminded me that my unsafe feeling is not really about what is going on. It is more about all the worrying and catastrophizing I have been doing. I have been focusing heavily on things I “know for sure” that might very well not be so.
A huge part of the antidote for me has been Nature. As always, it provides a safe haven – where I feel a sense of connection, belonging, and “rightness.”
Also, I recalled that my last podcast of 2020 - probably the most “unsafe” year of my life - was about “what I know for sure that still IS so.” I came up with 10 reassuring things then, and they remembered that they were very helpful! So, I dug up the notes and have been reading them every morning. I share them with you once again below.
Not surprisingly, they are all about love. And, the list feels just as helpful and appropriate now:
I know that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, both from inside and outside, love is all there is. And whenever it seems to be missing it’s really me that’s missing - missing in action. I know that love can be withheld or forgotten or forsaken, but it’s never “gone”
I know that my best, most joyous and peaceful moments are spent loving and the worst are spent when I turn my back on love. I know that love is both my deepest desire and the truest description of the universe and of you and me.
I know that I tend to see what I’m looking for, and I know that I’m often either looking for everything but love or looking for love in all the wrong places.
I know that if can’t see love in the world, I can always look within and find an ever-radiating lovelight inside me. And somehow, though I don’t know how it works, whenever I plumb the depths of myself enough to find that source of love, I see it in you and in the world as well.
I know that when I do plumb the depths to find love in me and in you, that changes the world. I have no idea of the mechanism, but I know it happens in our hearts, not our heads.
I know the best way I can use #s 1-5 is to give more attention, time and energy to that which allows me to choose love in more of my moments.
I know that life comes in moments and that my experience of life is better when I do choose love in more of them.
I know I make that choice more often with a fuller gas tank of resilience and energy so it always behooves both me and the world when I practice self-care and nurture my soul.
I know that everything happens for a reason but I have no clue what the reason and therefore what’s going to happen next. So, I don’t have to spend time questioning why things happen or thinking they shouldn’t be happening. I can go directly to “how can I use this to unfold more of what I know that is so” without passing Go.
I know the only control I can ever exert is over my own consciousness and I don’t do that much of the time. So, I don’t have to spend time trying to understand (or change) you or the world.
Folks, the future has not happened yet. We get to co-create it. Let us create it together from a place of love, so we can be in the kind of world we want to live in.
And so I can feel safe!
Stew on that, and I shall see you next time.
We offer everything we do on a “love offering/pay the most your heart dictates” basis, just as we did in our chiropractic office. So, if this blog nurtures your soul and you’d like to give something back in exchange, send us an email at bittmanbliss@att.net.
Thank you Stew. Just what I needed to read x