Think back to a time when all four quadrants of your life were in balance, immersed in comfort. It is hard to choose just one. If I had asked you to name a time when you were most unbalanced, you could have named it in a hurry. The indecision declares that you have known way more comfort than discomfort. We find ways to ease discomfort that is physical (popcorn); intellectual discomfort can create space for denial and all the ways we keep too busy to think; overeating, drinking, drugs, etc. Emotional discomfort is the easiest to show, usually through anger first for that is the easiest emotion to express and can be a substitute for what is really wrong. Spiritual discomfort is a deep longing, a surface sense of loss and loneliness, and/or a sense that something is off, and seems to be taboo to talk about.
What connotates physical comfort for you? For me, it means no scheduled things, the ability to move through my different projects of the day, making art, baking, having a nap sometime during the day. A day of no dropped things, no tumbles, no snags, no restlessness. I make sure I have several projects to choose from. I do not like stressful time constraints. I like to have everything prepared for projects or classes, and to be on time if I do have to be somewhere.
Intellectual comfort is defined as not ever having to fill in forms. I have to say that I have anxiety attacks if I have to work on a computer glitch, doing taxes, etc. I am definitely out of my comfort zone for any of that. In my career I had a great deal of forms, of plans, of client program plans, professional forms, etc. etc. and I did them no problem, but, now, just the thought causes me to be anxious…sometimes to the max. I am most comfortable being able to talk to someone who has a professional background like mine. I come alive again and can feel that when I am in conversation with someone like that.
Emotional comfort is a high priority for me these years. I worked, for 23 years, in high stress environments and positions and did really well. After retirement, I began not to be able to tolerate what I quietly deemed “sapsuckers”. I have realized that I allowed, in my personal life, others to sap the emotional energy out of me for many years. I had to learn to deal with my own emotional balance and not carry others’ as well. Aging causes us to need to let go of many things. Two significant relationships were allowed to simply go. I stood in the tsunami of grief without the support of what had been, I thought, such close relationships. We have to learn to stand alone. We have to deal with our emotions without support betimes. I learned such late in life. There is emotional support and there are emotional burdens.
Spiritual comfort is totally unique and personal. If you do not have a personal relationship, with no mediators, with Creator, then spirituality is not comfortable nor comforting. In the mid=80s, I had a huge crises that led me to lose faith in organized religion. That loss was huge and very difficult to drop the cloak of conditioned belief. I set out in search of The Feminine balance of God. It found me. I gained more spirituality than I ha ever had. I came to the realization that I had thought of God as a monster out to get us. I stopped using the term “God” because it denoted that to me. I began using the term “Creator” and that represented a non-gendered creator and I began to learn about The Goddesses in Women’s Issues courses. It was if my soul sighed. I no longer needed a mediator; that token role that the feminine seemed to be given. I learned the stories of First Woman and the relief was huge. My spirit was like a small child who had her mother taken from her and they had found each other later in life. (True to my life story, as well.) Once I psychologically, disconnected more and more from conditioning, I found comfort…spiritual comfort… that I had never known before. I felt and still feel, the comforting presence of a feminine Omnipresent Being. I recognize that this is not for anyone, and that many find spiritual comfort within religions. It just never ever fit for me. I was spiritually lonely. I no longer am so.
While we tend to see counselling programs, empowerment ideologies, gatherings that tend to focus in on one area of the Medicine Wheel of our lives. As long as we do not work on all four quadrants, we cannot find a sense of balance. It is like our lives are running on a flat tire and there is not just the bump in the road, but an imbalance in the totality of who we are as whole balanced human beings. To begin to work on finding that balance, we begin to feel that sense of comfort in all areas. I wish you this. I wish you this!
©Carol Desjarlais 1.8.24
**The blank area in the art journal pages (two-page spread) will not stay blank. I will be copying this blog entry and tucking it in an envelop and adding it to the page.
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