Something's Gotta Give

I think we are all pretty tired of all of the talking points and pointed accusations that are being made on all sides on many issues. It's all too easy to repost, regurgitate, and repeat. The problem is mostly, people aren't listening. Everyone's just waiting to talk -- or not bothering to wait at all! -- or selectively listening for the parts that bolster our beliefs.

We all have strong beliefs on many issues. But if we're not curious about why others disagree and why our ideas are threatening to them and vice versa, if we're not curious about our role in all of it, we can't ask anyone else to be. If I can't acknowledge that my lens is necessarily unique and limited, I have no possibility of seeing the bigger picture. 

Maybe rather than demanding that other people listen to us, we could stop talking and listen to ourselves. Hear the tone in our own voices, feel the tension in our own bodies, acknowledge the deeper fears and hopes that we have. That we all have.

Maybe if we want people to listen to us, we listen to our own hearts and recognize that when we speak from our hearts, we are easier to hear. And maybe even if "they" don't listen to "us," we do it anyway. Because when I listen to you, we both are changed. Maybe rather than reacting and saying that "they" are crazy, greedy, stupid, wrong, we get curious about their lens. Maybe if we could stay steady and open long enough, we would realize that we have the same fears. Maybe then we can stop reacting out of fear and begin responding with love.

Because the truth lies in the middle. And the path of peace is full of ambiguity and acceptance. Because we all have our darkness. And we all have some incongruent ideas and actions. Let's make peace with our own complexities and own our true values with our actions. Let's go inside and ask the really difficult and only questions that illuminate the pieces we have control over: What is my piece? What am I willing to give up for the greater good? How would I be acting differently if I lived from the very inconvenient truth that all lives matter?

Together, we can practice peace. Because, seriously, something's gotta give! 

What my Motorcycle Crash taught me about My Truth.

Nothing like a brush with mortality to discover what you really think.  I had decades ago abandoned my belief in a God that plays favorites, The One that decides who gets to be homecoming queen or who wins the game, The One you can pray to or bargain with when the shit hits the fan.  Or The One who punishes you, thus creating the shit-hitting-fan situation that you deserve.  Instead, I adopted the yogic Atman philosophy that we are infinite souls traversing the universe in an ephemeral body.  Oh. So. Ephemeral.

So when I was riding my motorcycle, cruising down PCH at 50 miles an hour and a car was clearly about to make a u-turn right in front of me, I had an astonishing number of thoughts in those fleeting seconds before what I knew to be an immanent crash. 

“Holy Shit!” was the first…

… followed by anguish at my folly for thinking I was a safe rider so I wouldn’t crash, that I would be okay riding a motorcycle in LA.  Obviously, this wasn’t going to be okay.  And, in fact, I was certain nothing was ever going to be okay again.  But I quickly shifted gears, literally.  No time for denial and deals.  I surrendered to the reality of the moment and did my best to mitigate the damage. This is happening. Soften into it. Seriously? Seriously. I did not pray… just to hedge my bets.  It never crossed my very busy mind.  I was probably doing about 30 when I slammed into the car and flipped into the air, slamming my helmet once on the hood and then again on the ground after what seemed like an abyss of time floating in the air.   I skidded along the gravel presumably on my back? But there is a lapse in memory or consciousness because  I was already sitting when I got my bearings and had my next thought. 

Wow!  I’m still here. 

AND I’m sitting up.  My knee must be destroyed because the pain is excruciating. So that sucks.  And I’m not too sure where I am, so that’s not so great. (I do have the wherewithal -- or more likely survival instinct – to pretend like I have my holy shit together.) But in my first moments before all the details of the physical world truly registered, I had an utter sense of clarity that regardless of my physical situation, which was not looking so good, that “I” was still okay; that everything – whatever that is – was going to be okay because “I” am not really my body anyway. 

So hum.

For the first time, I knew I wasn’t full of shit when I told my yoga therapy students, “You are not your situation.”  I actually believe it.

The truth is, we are all the light of awareness that transcends any situation.

Namaste,

Leslie Kazadi