Did y’all know they improvised the whole movie This is Spinal Tap? As many times as I guffawed over this movie, I did not know this fact until recently. (For those of you that haven’t seen this comedy classic and are in need of a shoot-Co-Cola-out-of-your-nose laugh after a “s*** sandwich” of a day, go ahead, buy it and a cucumber, while you’re at it.) The point of my bringing up This is Spinal Tap is this: Brilliance can be effortless with proper preparation.
How often do we wish we had gone with our initial gut instinct? In the same breath, we may lament not a having a more developed intuition. Here’s a hint that, admittedly, I must remind myself over and over again: Your first thought, before lust or avarice or manipulation, is YOU—your Higher Self, a.k.a, your intuition.
Either or neither, not both. Black or white. Not gray. Not mediocre. It simply is. Not, “It is what it is,” says the chiding voice in your mind or someone trying to be helpful. To me, this “is what it is” is a tone that drones with dismissiveness, not acceptance. Further, I say decisiveness without a cavalier flavor of despair, rules out regret, regardless of the outcome. There is a certain comfort, win or lose, in “leaving everything out on the field.”
We’re seeking healing, right? We desire to feel better about ourselves and the way we go about relating to ourselves. Healing comes from acceptance—the heart of forgiveness. So how can we accept what we’re not aware of until or unless we become aware of it?
We all have the God-given ability to parse out our decisions daily with meditation. Yes, there is a purpose to meditation—a benefit, if you don’t apply guilty pressure, thereby making it more like MEDITATION. How daunting does typing meditation in ALL-CAPS feel? Can you identify with being haunted by the specter of what should be, could be, and would be, not to mention what they’redoing next door?
To be clear, I’m not talking about guilt versus innocence here. I’m not talking about the guilt that keeps us from making the same mistake twice. I’m talking about the guilt that hamstrings our every waking moment without our ever realizing it unless we pay attention. This is why I preach meditation on the reg.
Still, sometimes, no, often times, acceptance leads us to embrace what we’ll call the space-in-between. Now, there’s a more apt way to describe this illusive guilt. Guilt, in the sense I’m talking about, is predatory by nature. Relentless. Hungry. Judgmental. Brutal in its subtle charms. It takes whatever form you’re married to and stalks you from the whispers of the savannah grass.
We more often apply a negative connotation to this space-in-between by calling it a rut or a feeling of stuckness. This stuckness feels like the heart of suckness, no doubt. However, it’s merely a side-effect of being human. I know it’s difficult, because this is the no-mance land I discovered myself floating in recently. How long have I been that way? How long have I held myself back and called it caution? God knows, but I only unearthed certain insights because of daily introspection. And it’s something only I can do. Oh yes, you can get readings from someone like me (thank you, Sarah) and/or go to a therapist for help, but, like golf, it comes down to an individual undertaking.
I can hear it now, because I’ve heard it all before. I’ve seen it in the expression of others. “I have no time for guilty pleasures such as meditation.” I’ll not argue that point because I’ve experienced clients digging in further—myself included. What I will say is this: Can two things be true at the same time? Why must things always be so binary—so mutually exclusive? Can a person not be super nice, but also annoying in their daftness? Can we not operate our daily lives, as we see fit, while observing our feelings at the same time? This amounts to walking and chewing gum at the same time. Have ye so little faith and hope in your attention span that you’ll not seek out the spawn of your ego? Are you afraid of the guilt you’ll feel that may come with peace-of-mind? It’s likely you’re not afraid of work if you’ve read this far. It’s difficult at first, but you have your whole life to master it. Notice I said master, not destroy.
So, what’s the action plan as I ping-pong you around my mind? Understand this process of identifying the guilt that motivates us to being just okaycan be intimidating. It’s why many abandon or ignore the ugly, unruly side of the whole while forging a truly holistic journey. Finding the guilt that pressures us to jealousy, greed, rudeness, indecision and other predators of similar ilk, is a process worthy of undertaking. Why? What else have you got to do? What if you succeed in getting what you want? What? What if you succeed? What then? Will you feel guilty? The secret is to love your Gremlins not water them.
I recently watched an interview with the actors from This is Spinal Tapand they mentioned that Sting, of Police fame, told them he didn’t know whether to laugh at the humor of the movie or cry at the truth. The way these actors adlibbed a whole movie, including selling said movie, was learning every intimate detail of their characters. The difference between thoughtful and thoughtless, stupid and funny, is the brilliance of this work of art.
How will you paint your tapestry?
