Why Embrace Upheaval?

When you live a multidimensional life, you’re always aware that everything’s connected.

Or more accurately, you appreciate that some things are just more dense representations of patterns that exist at a subtle level.

For the past few weeks I’ve noticed striking connections between my emotions and my home.

And seeing connections is helpful because it can provide some guidance as to where to go from where we are.

While I was on a recent trip, my sweet husband decided to surprise me by doing some planned painting. He was going to have it done when I got home as a Valentine’s Day gift to me.

But things went awry. The paint was smeary and maybe bad. It’s a deep color and needed more coats than he thought. Doing the trim was more painstaking than he expected. He found it all discouraging because he so wanted to surprise me, but I assured him it was okay. I could help paint when I got back, in fact would enjoy that.

Discombobulated House

When I got home, everything was in disarray. The large buffet that was against the partially painted wall was in the middle of the living room. A bean bag chair we also keep along that wall was in the middle of my office, along with a large ottoman that we had put there when we moved a new recliner into the living room to try it out.

Since then, rather than get better, things have gotten worse. We’ve had issues with the bed we bought about 10 months ago so we have various beds in various positions now in the bedroom.

Long story short, our house is kind of a mess. It feels like when you’ve just moved. You’re not all the way in, and not all the way out.

Discombobulated Emotions

Interestingly, my emotions have been in a similar state. They’re all over the place, and not neat and tidy like I’d like them. Just like with the heavy furniture, I’m having to live with and adjust to their heaviness and insistence that they make themselves known.

And like the furniture, they’re not tiny little issues, they’re big ones.

But sometimes making changes and improvements, especially big ones, requires living with upheaval for awhile, both inside and “outside”.

It’s helpful and good if you can allow the resulting disarray to be okay; to recognize that it’s a necessary part of the process.

Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior.

~ Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

On a side-note, I find it interesting that in jyotish, the same house of the horoscope (the 4th) represents both our emotions and our home. They’re our private places. It’s also notable that I’ve got Mars transiting my 4th house right now, and go figure, the wall we are painting is a deep wine red, one of Mars’ colors. Mars is also the spiritual warrior.

Discombobulated Body

It’s no surprise that a few days after arriving home, I started to get a cold. According to Louise Hay in her book You Can Heal Your Life, colds can relate to “Too much going on at once. Mental confusion, disorder”.

I did an Emergence session with that, and got the clear message that as soon as I clear up my mental and emotional turmoil, the house would follow.

Of course, influence moves both directions, but my experience is that creation moves primarily from the more subtle to the more dense, i.e. emotional -> physical.

The state of my home is just a reflection and manifestation of the more subtle energies.

So my attention has been primarily on my emotional state … and even more subtle, on my spiritual state as well.

And if I get right down to it, I have to acknowledge that even these are simply indications of an even deeper pattern at the level of consciousness.

Surrender to Discombobulation

I could push through, pretend I know the answers to some of the emotional dilemmas that have been presenting themselves to me. But that’s not the answer.

Every part of me knows that for now, I need to sit with this. Let it all be a mess.

To just be in the not knowing for now.

Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.

…

Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit.

~ Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

It’s not helpful to just push everything back where it supposedly “belongs”.

The answer is to really connect with my being and from there, examine the root of it all.

And just like with the furniture, I’m asking the fundamental questions:

• What do I really need?
• What do I really want?
• What is working, and what’s not? Just because something used to be good doesn’t mean it still is.
• Do I really like that? Or have I been settling?
• What feels right?
• What matches with my envisioned future, and the direction I see myself moving?
• What works with my family as well as for me?

At the same time, I’m also practicing Emergence with some of my related patterns of consciousness that aren’t consciously accessible.

Big Disarray for Big Improvement

Even though inconvenient, I’m glad furniture is too big to “sweep under the rug”. That’s the easy way for lots of us sometimes. Oh, I’ll deal with that later. A later that never comes.

Sometimes things need an overhaul. Kind of like a spring cleaning, but even bigger. It’s not always necessary for it to all happen at once, but when it presents itself that way, it behooves us to go with it.

And again, even though inconvenient, I’m appreciating that I do have the time and space to give this examination the attention and depth that it deserves.

Well, truth be told, I’m making the time, because just like with heavy furniture, I feel the import and substantiveness of it.

I’m being patient with it and myself.

I’m living in surrender to what is, these days.

I’m learning to welcome uncertainty.

And even though tumultuous at times, I’m actually enjoying the process.

I know it’s good. And I know it will be worth it.