To quote one of my continuing favorite lines from songs that sum up my day, “Mama said there’ll be days like this…”
The truth is, I don’t really know that my own Mama alerted me that there would be days that would make me want to run away and join the circus. I’d even volunteer to clean up after the elephants rather than deal with some of the things I dealt with today. At least with that job you’re expecting to have to deal with poop. And yet, at the close of this day I am still grateful for my life, the lessons I learn from even the difficult circumstances, and the enduring truth that tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to do something good in the world.
Right now I believe that I am in a cleansing cycle of sorts. A little over a year ago I did a nutritional cleanse with my acupuncturist back in California. (Those who were reading my blog back at that time will remember that I was extremely cranky the first day or two I was on the cleanse.) Anyway, whenever you undertake a cleanse you go into it knowing that you are detoxifying your body, purging it of a bunch of yucky stuff that stresses your liver and digestive organs and dampens the optimal functioning of your entire body. Sometimes the detoxing process is uncomfortable as your body reacts to changes that you’re making in your diet and habits. I think that the current disquiet in my life is a result of a spiritual detoxification process–my whole system is getting shaken up like one of those snow globes and all the little flakes that had been lying quiet and still start flying around. Eventually, of course, they settle into a new pattern and while some of the landscape is the same, it looks slightly different.
I shifted metaphors mid-paragraph, but both things–the spiritual detox and the snow globe both seem appropriate to what I sense is happening. And here’s the interesting thing: other people I know are also in the midst of spiritual detox and their snow is flying around them as well. I have mentioned this before and am still seeing it, a restless disquiet that people are experiencing either internally or externally–circumstances and events swirling around. I reckon that part of the answer to this is to be patient, sit still, and pay attention. There’s no point being overly anxious about the unsettledness; after all that’s not going to make it calm down any faster, if anything it’s more likely to slow the settling process. No, as with most things I am learning to embrace what is rather than be frustrated by or try to change it. When I can remember to do that, life’s a whole lot easier. When I forget it’s not pretty.
I do find, fortunately, that my periods of forgetfulness–about this at least–are getting shorter and shorter. And when I’m really fortunate, I get a specific reminder, like when my son called me out of the blue today to ask me a random business question and ended up lecturing me (and I was definitely listening) about remembering to stay in the present moment. It didn’t matter to me that I had lectured him on some of these same themes many times; what mattered was that he was reminding me to pay attention and get back to what I had already been practicing. Oh yeah. They say that the teacher will appear when the student is ready. Apparently I was ready today and my son appeared.
I am grateful for this sense of disquiet. I have learned that for me restlessness is often a sign of spiritual growth. Rather than grow stagnant, occupying a particular spiritual space for too long, “holy restlessness” comes upon me and I start reaching for new levels of awareness and clarity. Oh yes, Mama said there’ll be days like this, days that test your mettle in various ways, great and small. I am grateful that at the end of the day I recognize these days for the growth opportunities they are.
