Waking this morning with a "Thank you God for this day!" on my lips, I stretched and continued the dream I was having about a class offered to folks like me who have lived with body issues all of our lives. And even as I "taught" the class, I practiced and knew that I was learning as much or more than I was sharing, and that the core theme for the class was, "NO RULES."
This topic may be the theme of the message to my lovely church in Duluth, so this may be a preview for the service on the 18th. I never know, and have surrendered needing to know before I get there. It can change in a moment. One of my most profound experiences of true surrender has been my messages to the church over the years. I used to think I was in charge of my messages. I used to think there were rules.
It strikes me as ironic, alarming and hilarious that we are born to this planet steeped in rules and then spend the whole of our lives questioning them and deciding which of them we choose to follow and those we debunk or refuse.
Some rules seem to work for us. "Drive on the right side of the road," (at least in the USA)
works to keep us from annihilating one another. "Thou shalt not kill," works except when a government gives us permission to do otherwise. "Do not hit your children," has become a rule we've adopted, though we sometimes question its wisdom. I did not hit the child whose parents ignored his behavior in my home, no matter what he destroyed, but I picked him up by his arm and threatened bodily harm if he continued. My house, my rules. I would handle it differently now, but 46 years ago I was at a different stage of becoming. Rules change? No, we change rules.
Each of us, born of the Creator and endowed with all of Its Wisdom, already knows all things and therefore creates our rules. Ultimately, we realize that we need no rules.
Coming to terms with "no rules," related to my physical system, my weight, my health, is no easy shift. But this is where I am and I am grateful to have entered a stream of my own Wisdom that is filled with acceptance, gratitude, surrender, breath, love. No rules is a gift.
No rules is terrifying. "No rules" is a new neighborhood I am visiting.
This reminds me of a recurring dream I had as a child. I am walking up Spring Lake Road - ironically a road that has been renamed, but only in my neighborhood - and I know my house is close. I recognize the driveway, but all the houses are painted colors different from what I know they should be. I continue, though, and go the door and knock. Just as someone opens the door, I wake up. And I feel so sad, so curious, so childlike.
Was this a prophetic dream, as well as a dream borne of childhood anxieties? Here I am today in a neighborhood that feels like I know it well, but all the rules have changed. In fact, as the door opens to the place I call home - my body - I realize that no rules apply; I do not know yet who is inside nor how I will know myself. With no rules.
But I have signed on for this journey. Out of Wisdom I have created it. And through Wisdom I will breathe and bumping into each old rule, breathe again and ask if it serves me still. I know already that many do not. To be still and know myself without an old rule to guide me, to give me that momentary feeling of security that rules can provide, that is a journey I now embrace.
Each moment is a new adventure, learning to be at ease in a neighborhood familiar but changed. Each day knowing myself better as System, a state of knowing I am self-created.
Until next time, I am breathing into NO RULES,
As Phyllis, Still Becoming
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