I am feeling quite stunned after last night’s HOA Owners‘ Meeting. The vote was to retain both Alvin and myself and expel Dell. That result was and is absolutely stunning to me. I was 100% ready to bid the post a fond adieu.
The last few months of HOA world have iterated and re-iterated to me how, truly, I can know NOTHING about how events outside of myself will go. I can guess and speculate all I want, but the humbling truth is that I can predict not a thing. Meaning, of cours,e that I can control nothing, exept myself.
I did much talking with F yesterday about the HOA situation. It was very valuable dialogue for me. I didn’t feel at all defensive, no need to justify myself, so that I was able to take in his insights and suggestions.
A key aspect for me is to generally move out of and away from guarded stances. To work with lenses that allow me to not be Frightened of others, to which Fear my habit is to respond by contracting. I smallen myself and shut the door to potential interactions, to movement.
This is an ancient pattern for me. A kid’s way of protecting himself. Often his only way of self-protection. But I am seeing that it is not the default program that I now wish to emply. It makes me inert, it puts me in a child-like state, it narrows my world. In essence this strategy, at this point, harms my well-being. It limits my range of motion.
I am working with similar issues regarding my LEFT SHOULDER. For the first time ever, I see that over the years I accommodated the muscular constriction in that part of my body by limiting my range of motion. At the boundaries of pain and discomfort, I would simply cease movement. My Practice now is to mindfully stretch into the zones of pain. Make friends with the muscular pain, to slowly remind the knotted muyscles how to perform these motions. It has been a very deliberate decision to discontinue the pattern of self-limitation. I want full range
f motion, period.
I am learning that the left shoulder pain (and all the lakes of emotional ain stored therein) is not, truly, frightening, like I always understood it to be. It is painful, but I can experience it, I don’t have to run from it. On the profoundest levels, it is about learning to sit with the emotional pain given to me throughout childhood by Zaiga and Armīns. I must FEEL it, instead of dissociating from it. The wounds are very real. They are not shamefu. I can and must rehabilitate myself to lessen their limiting impact.
Like with yesterday’s meeting and the months leading up to it: the key is to not dissociate into passivity, but to stay present and use voice. In the face of gargantuan Z & A energies. These dragons can’t mortally hurt me if I engage them mindfully.