Year ending and a new year beginning is a time when many of us are looking at the long view.
You’re likley looking behind to take stock of the last 12 months and looking ahead at what you would like to create, put into motion, let go of, or begin a new. It’s time when you pause to visualize the coming year with certain outcomes; maybe you even come up with an intention or a word that will direct you throughout the new year.
Some of us go into a prayer full time or a time of meditation wanting to set the energy or the tone for the coming year – listening inside to guidance or direction.
I like the long view…
One of the reasons I love living in the high desert at the feet of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range is the long views. On clear days, and we have a lot of them here, you can see forever – mesas, mountains, valleys, buttes, barracas, and the incredible colors: red, black, orange, purple, brown, grey earth – and then there is the sky – vast, unlimited, stretching from horizon to horizon. There is no ceiling in the expansiveness of space in the long view where I live. If you like to project yourself into the heavens, this is where nothing stands in your way to stop you.
I know that some people are a bit intimidated by this much space with no boundaries, but, what I have discovered living here for over 30 years is this:
“When the world around me is limitless the only boundaries I come in contact with are the ones I set for myself.”
Now, some of those boundaries are needed and wanted. Setting a boundary, a place inside to rest, to stop, to change course or pause – these types of boundaries are necessary for when you swim in such an expansive space and time. For example, when I am in creative mode and then set a boundary to rest – it creates a balance in my days. Creating the next blog, workshop, or event can be manic at times unless I set it up inside with grace and ease and flow – boundary qualities.
But, other boundaries are limiting – such as getting fixated on a certain goal or expectation and putting all of your energy into it so that everything else that is going on – the long view – is missed. Tying yourself up in knots because xyz didn’t happen or so and so did not return your phone call or email. Watching enrollments, sales, signups, (or whatever drives you in these times) to such an extent that your long view disappears and your obsessive tracking narrows you to this one activity. When this happens you lose the soul stirring inspiration of seeing with eyes that see beyond your normal sight…this is when you can become sullen and joyless.
Because of this, my life is dedicated to the long view and my calling or sacred ambitions.
Cocreating heaven on earth – which is my sacred calling – is an eternal calling over life times. And on many days this vision, dream, sacred calling is not apparent. In the short view of the minutia of the day and all the various activities that it takes to run a business – I can easily forget the long view. On other days the whole hugeness of heaven on earth completely overwhelms me – you know the feeling of running in place and getting no where? So on those days I must set a boundary – this breath…this breath…this breath.
So what can you do when it seems that you have lost that long view experience that sources your energy, your life force and your inspiration?
Here are a few suggestions for these situations…
1. Create a practice that expands your awareness beyond the physical body – meditation, contemplation, body based practices like yoga, prayer.
2. Get comfortable in the vastness of who you are
3. Develop the inner seeing that sees beyond this normal reality
4. Step back, pause, rest, dream, visualize often – especially when you feel joyless or stuck
5. If you like to write or draw or paint – some kind of creative expression create something that represents that energy of the long view for you and put it somewhere where you can see if everyday
6. Let go often – loosen you grip and let all the pieces that you are holding fall to the floor – lay down that need to control – take a break, unplug, and then, after a while – re engage with new eyes.
[su_quote cite=”Marcel Proust”]We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.[/su_quote]