There Is No Way to Do This
Weekly Reading Topic for June 1, 2019: There Is No Way to Do This
Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:
What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?
The answer was: “There is no way to do this.”
I found some of the concepts in this week’s reading personally challenging, and my mind is still swimming a little from the implications. As Alice would say, “curiouser and curiouser.”
What follows is your Weekly Reading.
Weekly Reading │ There Is No Way to Do This
Q: What does “there is no way to do this” mean?
A: “There is no way to do this” is a radical permission slip from the Universe or Your Own Mind or Divine Entities or God or Whatever Word You Use to Mean Something Bigger and Mysterious and Ineffable.
There is no way to do this means that no matter how you choose to live your life, you are right.
There is no way to do this perfectly, or blamelessly, or brilliantly.
That there is no “one right way” to live your life, and so the way you are living your life, now, cannot be, by definition, “wrong.”
Let’s sit with that for a minute, because honestly, that’s a scary thought, isn’t it?
What freedom that gives us. To really CHOOSE. To know that even when we choose something, let’s say less-than-healthy or less-than-kind or less-than-”good” we are still right to do so.
When the scriptures of various faiths remind us that we have something called “free will” what they mean to say is that we are free to ignore good advice as well as bad. We are free to know the “correct” thing and still do the “incorrect” thing.
We can choose. And our choice is the right one, even when it seems very wrong.
There are about a million ways this plays out. Sometimes one individual makes a series of choices that bring disaster upon themselves, and upon others — and yet also births a series of great insights, epiphanies, and works of art in the process. (Hint: the person inflicting pain on others is often not the person who benefits from their actions. The beneficiaries are often the sufferers, the ones who learn from that experience just how precious life, love, and freedom really are.)
Each of you has someone in mind, someone in your own life who has made life hell for others and also inadvertently inspired great, big, bold, beautiful acts of life and art. Truth through suffering, right?
Then there is the person who chooses the “correct” path and brings disaster upon their house and home, and pain and suffering to countless others, by being relentlessly dogmatic and ideological. Their enforcement of their “right thinking” leads to choices that often seem identical in effect to the person making “wrong” choices. It’s a snake-eating-its-tail chain of suffering begetting sublimity.
In other words, there is no way to do this.
There is no way to be good, or evil, alone. We are all combinations of so many flavors of both that we could never be pigeonholed into one definitive category.
It’s just not possible. We are all capable of all.
Now, everyone reading this on this beautiful summer morning is a person who intends good, and wants to bring love. I can feel that. And so why on earth are we talking about the propensity for not-good, not-love?
Because we all need a little break from the judgment war. The war we wage on our own minds, daily, relentlessly, the war of our hearts and minds, the war that breaks us apart, leaves us rocking in a foxhole, hands covering our ears, mud raining down on our heads.
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That humility — living close to the earth, down in the mud, bloodied and broken, deafened by our own roaring screams as we chastise ourselves for not doing well, not doing enough, not doing everything, not being all that we think we should/could be — that humility we feel is there for our use, not our punishment.
It’s to call our attention, to make us realize that There Is No Way to Do This. No. One. Right. Way.
Which means that we could do more of what WE think we should do.
We do NOT mean to say that doing bad things — things that you think are bad — are a good idea. Instead, we mean to make it very clear that there is no way to live on this planet without causing some pain of some kind.
There is a sect of monks somewhere in East Asia that study non-violence, and they breathe in and out as little as possible, with shallow breaths, because they have realized that even the act of breathing causes pain, death, and destruction to the tiny insects, viruses, and bacteria that can live in the air.
In the end, we must live with the consequences of living on this planet. Why not start now? When we acknowledge that there is no way to do this, when there is no way to live without inflicting pain of some kind, then we can start to choose with tenderness, and care, to be as kind as possible, in as many ways as ARE possible.
We have this particular trait as Americans, in particular, that values progress above all else. When we see a pattern repeat, no matter how big or small, we panic a little. Are we going backwards? Is this backsliding? Didn’t I already do/see/learn this?
And the answer is always, truly: no, nope, and not at all.
We can’t go backwards, but we can spiral around a behavior or issue, seeing it from different angles, understanding more and more as we circle ever-wider (or ever tighter).
We can’t backslide, because, well, because there is no such thing as forwards or backwards in our universe. Remember, it’s known: time and space are more of a mental construct than a physical reality. We perceive a linear progression from one time to another, from birth to death, but ACTUALLY there is no such thing.
In fact, it looks like there are multiple universes in which we live in the opposite direction — where time goes backward from our perspective. Like, next year, it’s 2018. Look it up!
Alice in Wonderland beautifully explores these themes, and this weekend, it’s a good idea to take a little trip down the rabbit hole with her. In chief, listen to the King:
“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any.”
Is there really no meaning in it? No. Not any meaning other than what we make of it. The King is simply reminding Alice that what she says, goes. If there is no meaning for her, there is no meaning for anyone else.
If there is no love for you in your own heart, there is no love from anyone else, either.
If there is no way for you to forgive yourself your trespasses, you will not be forgiven.
We are in charge of our own internal experience. The story of Nelson Mandela, sitting in a shaft of sunlight and loving his prison guards, because he wanted to be loving, even when they weren’t … that’s a story of True, Real Power. So is the Truth, in any situation: Real Power.
And so as we go about our lives this weekend, let’s give ourselves a rest from the endless barrage of self-doubt and terror. Let’s live into the idea that what has heart and meaning for ME is what is most important.
When we find value, we give value.
This is a Reading that is feeling very round and deep and full, and I hope it is of service. If it isn’t, try to give yourself more space. Imagine that you are deep in that foxhole, and the world is trembling, and suddenly, the rumbling thunder of artillery pauses. You hear only the ringing in your ears, and you feel yourself relax, just a little. Give yourself permission to remember in that moment.
There Is No Way to Do This.
There is no right way to live your life: only the way that you choose to. As the King says, you give the meaning, no one else.
So choose what you most want, and give yourself that gift. It could simply mean that you give yourself the deep breathing you need to oxygenate. It could mean you call your friend and apologize. Or it could mean that you take a long, well-deserved snooze.
Whatever it is, Be True, and Bold, and Yourself.
That’s what we’re all here for: to Be Ourself and to Bear Witness to YOU.
Glory, glory!!
I am always here to serve in any way I can.
Much Love to You!
Molly
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