Stay Open

About this time last year, I was listening to a podcast where Glennon Doyle touched on the importance of her willingness to stay open.

 
It was so profound to me, it hasn’t left.

 
…willingness to stay open.

 
In four short words, she summarized what should be, my life mantra.

 
Maybe all of our life mantra’s.

 
As I listened, I was driving to Germantown, preparing for another field session in preseason with the Spirit.

 
I couldn’t help but think –

 
This is what’s happening in my life.

 
I’m waking up.

 
I’m listening.

 
I looked down at my dash, and there was one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite author’s, Anne Sexton – “put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.”

 
Why do we stop listening?

 
I think that was the draw back to Maryland – back to my roots.

 
Unfinished business.

 
The willingness to listen again.

 
And not to the parts I wanted to hear…

 
….to the parts I didn’t.

 
…to the things that needed to be dealt with in order for me to move forward with my life.

 
Over the course of a life, I think there are parts of ourselves we can either embrace or abandon.

 
The same is true with experiences.

 
We can own them or reject them.

 
We learn this.

 
But abandoning and rejecting don’t remove their existence.

 
If anything, we send these things to the recesses of ourselves, where they have more power to drive us in ways we didn’t see coming.

 
I’m starting to think the goal is as simple as awareness.

 
Followed by, transformation when needed, and acceptance when required.

 
Progress, transformation and growth –

 
Not always quick.

 
Not always linear.

 
And don’t always add up.

 
Figuring out our crap, sometimes feels like opening an IKEA box. We find the stuff labeled A, B, and F, scrambling to find C, D, and E, with an instruction manual designed for a crypto analyst.

 
But the single thing that we can continue to do, is acknowledge what’s going on within us.

 
To think about what we’re thinking about.

 
To pay attention to what we feel and when.

 
And to ask why.

 
Then listen. Listen, to the hard truth that sometimes sucks.

 
If we practice rigorous honesty – there will be times we won’t like what we find.

 
That doesn’t mean we reject it, or reject ourselves.

 
It means we bear witness.

 
We find our curiosity to understand.

 
We grab onto the same empathy we would have for another, and we extend it to ourselves.

 
We stop demanding something else or something different.

 
Because really, when we’re doing that, what are we doing?

 
We’re asking for perfection, and perfection is just another way to validate the lie that we aren’t enough.

 
Change, at least in my life, needs air to breathe.

 
I’ve never experienced internal transformation by grabbing something disturbing in my mind, duct tapping its mouth, throwing it hostage in the dungeon, saying “go away, or else!”

 
I’ve experienced transformation, when I’ve said : why are you here? What’s going on? What are you trying to tell me? What do I need to learn?

 
And when stuff gets real –

 
We all have decisions to make.

 
Some people blame. Deflect responsibly. Manipulate. Project. Deny. Avoid.

 
Then some of us, may detach. Numb. Try to check out.

 
When the desire to shut down and escape knocks on our door, promising us with the falsehood “this will feel better,” we have to remember it’s a lie that keeps us stuck.

 
It keeps us the same.

 
It keeps the hostage, duct taped in the dungeon, and requires all of our energy be spent trying to make it disappear, stay quiet, or even change its mind, convincing it that there’s no problem at all. Nothing to be upset about here.

 
Shutting down doesn’t just disconnect us with the things we want to disconnect from, and allowing us to remain open to the good.

 
Shutting down, shuts us down.

 
It dims our light.

 
It disconnects us from Self.

 
It quiets the voice of God.

 
One of the quotes I had in my bathroom in my twenties was a C.S Lewis quote that read:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possible broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it up carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

 
When we choose openness, we choose vulnerability.

 
We take risks –

 
We share who we are –

 
We put our ear down close to our soul, and we listen hard –

 
We acknowledge the truth of who we are and what we want –

 
We allow life to answer as it will, and respond by doing the thing we can – to just keep going –

 
My sister, gave me a book for Christmas, and the page that is highlighted and circled, with pages bent down, reads :

 
“You will get to a point in your growth where you understand that if you protect yourself, you will never be free. It’s that simple. Because you’re scared, you have locked yourself within your house and pulled down all the shades. Now it’s dark and you want to feel sunlight, but you can’t. It’s impossible,” (p. 61, Singer).

 
Openness is not a journey for the cowardly.

 
It’s a journey for the courageous.

 
For the truth seekers.

 

For the warriors.

 
For those of us, who want to stand in the sunlight, even when that requires that at times, we must bear the storms.

 
To stay open, is to embrace in the human experience fully.

 
And like anything else, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth it.