The "Work" of Beingness
Plus Knowingness vs Belief; Negative Polarizer as Leader
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Beingness. I’ve got a bit of free time since my return from overseas, and I’m working on simply being. It feels harder here than in Southeast Asia. Granted, I was a tourist there, everything was novel, the tropical weather and water was amazing, I didn’t feel quite so on guard all the time. Honestly, I felt more alive there! Well, I do hope to go back soon. Thankful that I can practice telehealth therapy from anywhere.
Since coming back, I too quickly fell into lifeless doomscrolling, online shopping, and other anesthetizations. I recognize the pull of wanting stuff as a counter to the pull of wanting experiences. The former feels more shallow and unsatisfactory than the latter, for sure. At least I am power-walking up San Francisco hills lately as a new activity. It feels good that I can diversify my explorations at home and not just abroad.
Of course, if it were easy to remain steady in beingness we wouldn’t have all these practices like meditation to help us shift into this state. It’s actually a trip how wild the mind can be, especially fed on our modern diet of near-constant info grazing. One thought I’ve had is all those years of beating myself up for procrastinating about writing, I could have just embraced beingness more.
The struggle becomes avoidance. I do believe inner conflict often acts as a stand-in for the ultimate existential challenge: the fact of our mortality, the inevitability of death. I do think that is at the core of our dysfunctional patterns as a species. That all the destructive behavior we unleash upon the world collectively and individually functions as a decoy to distract us from this most fundamental anxiety.
An inner transition I have made as of late is from thinking of myself as a lifelong aspiring writer to seeing myself as a lifelong spiritual seeker first and foremost. As someone gifted with the tools of wordsmithery, I now see this being in service of my spiritual quest rather than an end in and of itself. What helped me get to this realization was first validating myself that I actually have a few books under my belt; basically, that I have arrived at my goal of being a published author. And then being honest with myself that while I still experience transitory beguilement from the fantasy of rockstar-level authorly recognition, I have known for some time that my true passion lies in the far-out experiential search for esoteric truth.
Now, it’s not a binary proposition. I am still planning on writing more books and continue to revel from day to day in a world of words as both a reader and writer. It’s as much realizing that there is only so much time in a day that I can be preoccupied by writing. That writing can be noble doing, but is nonetheless still doing. And having proven to myself that I am no longer a perpetual procrastinator, my life needn’t carry the miserable undercurrent of a dream deferred. Somehow, it all circles back into beingness. I sense that is where true freedom lies.
Yet old habits die hard. For a moment, I found myself approaching the idea of a new writing project with that same desperate and worried energy from my past. It’s true, publishing the memoir, Adrift in Adulting, was as much about crossing the finish line on a book-length creative writing piece as it was about perfecting a literary work. I am proud to have accomplished it, as one is proud to get started on one’s creative path and proud of the output that started it all. A retrospective exhibition of an artist’s oeuvre tends to track a trajectory where earlier works experiment around certain themes and stylistic techniques, leading to a climactic work that coalesces these aspects, before slowing down for a late period focused on things like reverie and regret. I expect even as I am starting in my fifties, that these stages apply to just about any creator’s journey within a given medium.
So for Adrift and Adulting, the thought was, “Just get it out there. Finish this manuscript you’ve been working on for years. Exorcise the story. Get it to be good enough, then publish.” Mind you, by that point I had achieved official authorship through a couple of self-help books I had been commissioned to write. But they hadn’t been my creative babies, especially since I was asked to adhere to the publisher’s detailed outlines. Hence, there was limited capacity for creative license.
Now as I endeavor to launch a new creative writing project, I am trying something different. I feel it as a trust exercise with the universe. To let myself sit with beingness. Instead of the constant anxiety that I need to be utilizing my free time in some outwardly generative way, ever-prioritizing writerly production. It’s a deep trust in the self-evident nature of life as a process to be present with, to witness, experience and mindfully participate in. To not just go through the motions to prove something to my egoic self. Instead, to invite in even more of the mystery and magic. And to embrace patience, curiosity and openness as I wait to receive whatever channeling of words and ideas want to come through me.
Still, it’s a big thing to change my mindset in this way. To really trust the notion that I will be called to my next book. The signs and synchronicities, the assists that have healed me and kept me safe, the everyday miracles that have uplifted, expanded and connected me to All That Is—if it has worked in every other dimension of my life, why wouldn’t divine inspiration work in this arena too?
And so I embark on this reframe and recontextualization. Away from typical writer anxieties like, “Always write it down right away or you will lose it!” or “You must write every day! Don’t lose momentum!” to a place of letting go into greater trust. Like how I used to be so uncomfortable in water and it would take everything I had not to sink. And now I just relax and float, completely supported. Steeping in abundance, enoughness, allowing the allowing. My inner writer is definitely one of the last holdouts when it comes to a more kind and gentle process. Time for her to get aligned with my inner therapist in this respect.
A few more thoughts to share…
To know versus believe
To know involves deep trust in your knowingness. It is a felt sense, the wise mind of intellect and intuition jibing together as one. It does not require belief, but rather encourages balance, discernment, and questioning.
Belief is more constricted to the narrow band of the cognitive, dissociated from the body. It insists on blind loyalty, and takes offense to any skepticism. In this way, it betrays its falseness as a concept. It is part of the illusion outside of unity.
The Power of the Negative Polarizer
The power of the leader as ultimate negative polarizer lies in how easy it is to infect others with the same energy. So when attempting to disarm his potency, it’s easy to fall into the trap of becoming negatively polarized yourself. You can’t fight fire with fire. You won’t win that game, because he’s the best at it. Yet collectively, we are still in the midst of that pointless struggle—trying to fight hate with hate. How to battle from a place of love? I have no practical answer, just a strong sense that we will need to overcome the paradigm of polarity in order to move through the darkness. Like it or not, we are all in this together. Interestingly, my oracular readings as of late have repeatedly landed on the idea of spiritual cleansing and purification. My mind is not yet grasping, though my imagination has been full of visceral images of the body matrix releasing parasitic energy and contaminants. These days, I often wonder what things will look like on the other side of this collective process. What will the hindsight of time and experience bring into our awareness? I think a lot too about unintended consequences and domino effects within this web of our highly interconnected reality.
In the Law of One books, it is said that one’s soul can transcend to the next level of reality by either embodying the positive side of the force with 51% of your full energy. Or you can also transcend through the negative side of the force if you achieve 98% negativity in your embodiment. I would dare say that some leaders of our species are trying to ascend the hard way, by being in the top 2% of negative polarity. I can’t say that I wish them well in those efforts! There are many more on earth who are embracing the positive. May the love and the light prevail.