Flow (state) Superior

 

It took me a good long while to acknowledge what is happening in my life and I must admit I'm not always in tune with it but when I manage to gain some quiet and reflect I realize my vision and dreams are slowly coming to fruition. Slowly is the key and hardest part for me to accept. I find myself constantly wrapped up in achievements and goals and an unrelenting drive for some bizarre idea of success. Forcing the universe to work in amongst my timetable hasn't worked yet so I don't know why I continue trying to make it bend to my will.

Slowly my dreams and aspirations are coming to fruition, it takes effort to slow down and be aware of what I'm creating for myself and it's all a bit vague still but slowly, the pieces are falling into place. A few years ago after my fourth or fifth trip to the psych ward sitting in rehab for the second time I had to get serious about my recovery or I wouldn't have been much longer for this world. I started to visualize the person I wanted to become and act as if. Sat at the back of the common area in the stabilization ward of the Royal Jubilee Hospital beside a folded up ping-pong table and a tower of dirty food trays holding what was leftover of our dinners; decadent cheese sandwiches of bread, margarine, a cheese slice, margarine, another slice of bread, possibly the remnants of a fruit cup, I was trying to draw some vision of my ideal future. Pretty far fetched from the shared room and squeaky gurney I slept in I wrote down plans of travel, learning to fly fish, building a better relationship with my family and folks around me, becoming more in touch with myself and my emotions, building schools, growing food and what I thought it might take to get there.

    Again I started to act as if. Going to countless AA and NA meetings that first year, listening instead of talking as if I had the necessary humility. Dragging myself to yoga classes when I didn't feel like it and acting as if I were that zenful yogi I envisioned. Putting my ass on the cushion and meditating or at least sitting with purpose as my mind would race acting as if I had a clue to what I was supposed to achieve. In under two years of acting as if I was on my way to Cambodia to build a school and drinking water systems for an impoverished village, emailing back and forth to my family, healthy, strong and flexible and unbeknownst to me more calm, mindful and easier to be around. 

I sit hear now with a familiar feeling of unknowing. Somewhere between a low vibration of anxiety, a patient calm, excitement, a trust in the future I've never had before. I can feel I'm on the precipice of another plunge into a future curated by a power much greater than myself. I've been given the experience and fortitude to take the next step and have faith in the ability of the universe to provide. My future has not revealed itself to me but a whisper of a shadow is starting to form, it's vary elusive and hand wavy but something is there on the horizon and I can tell it wants to take shape.

Big Dreams and Covid Creepies

    A perpetual game of cat and mouse within myself between any number of selves residing inside me creates a bit of a dilemma. A breeding ground for procrastination which induces any number of internal, generally negative dialogues between those countless selves. With so many ideas and inspirations added to the amount of time on my hands at the moment due to an injury that's keeping me from being my normal active self I feel spun out, unable to focus, wanting to reach out and connect while at the same time isolate and focus on my path. 

    After an incredible weekend away, in town, a Covid staycation filled with an abundance of food, dips in mineral pools, naps, great sex and even a couple NBA games thanks to the cable TV I woke up this morning rejuvenated and inspired. After a visit to the kinesiologist and physio I came home hung up my soaking wet clothes from riding the motorcycle in the rain and couldn't decide which way to turn. To calm my mind I entered what we refer to as The Amazon Room, as it's the boneyard of things delivered to us from our gracious overlord Jeff Bezos and unfortunately not the jungle Shangri-La I so whish it was, and lit a candle to sit in meditation and gain some focus and calm. I did not succeed.

    I'm thoroughly enjoying writing these blog posts and am shocked and honored when people take the time to read them and respond. Yet it oddly feeds the derogatory self inside that reminds me I'm no good, I'm no author, I'm not smart nor academic enough to write anything worthy of other peoples time. And somehow in that jumble of shelves within me the act of writing stops me from actually writing. 

I feel this dilemma constantly, pushed and pulled between catharsis and self judgment. A typical trait of an addict is delusions of grandeur and I think I've drank so much of the Kool-aid I can't lift a finger or think a thought without second guessing myself and my intentions. When am I sincerer in my actions and realizing a genuine connectivity and relatability I may have and when has the ego taken over. A bit of ego looks good on a young man, but having just passed 37 full rotations I'm afraid that ship has sailed and I'm still internally reeling from the chaos I created in my brash younger days any whiff of ego sends scuttling deep inside myself to overanalyze and judge. 

    The photos above were taken at two special places for me. The top, a haunt from my youth I've come to revisit. What I once saw and thought was so pretty it could be southern France or Italy I now see someplace so stunning it could be nowhere else. The second is a place of mixed emotions and lost flies. A great little trout river out passed Sooke it can be both peaceful, serine and a complete fucking piss off and waste of time. A cycle that can rotate at least three times with an hour.