I Had to Learn - episode 205
Sometimes a surrender is small but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy. There was a time when Addie Cooley lived in India for five years. She was not used to the custom of unannounced visitors. Out the window went the American way of calling first or having a scheduled time. And to be a good host you needed to offer refreshments, to be gracious during the visit. So forget the things you thought you were going to get done that day. It took a while to surrender her old custom of planning. Through lots and lots of practice Addie did, and it helped her learn to live a more fluid life. In doing so she was able to thrive.
Addie has been on the show before in Permission to be Happy episode 77.
Don’t be so serious all the time.
— Addie Cooley, advice to her 10-year old self
Find Yourself There
Thoughts from I Had to Learn
Could you move like Addie did? I’m not sure I would have been eager to move far from home and land in a country very different from mine, much less commit to it for five years. Different is good, and I do appreciate variety, but I’m one of those people who is grounded by my home, my people, and a quiet life. Oh sure, sometimes it’s not so quiet yet I know there is a patch of silence coming my way. Soon. I just have to wait.
Are you okay with silence? Sometimes I crave it and other times I notice I fill it immediately with something - scrolling the newsfeed or checking emails, etc. That is not the same as silence to my way of thinking. I am looking to distract my mind, my thoughts with stuff, with information. All of this comes in but what is coming out? Not much. Sure I can recite the cast of many movies along with Kevin Costner’s new puppy’s name (Bobby by the way) but who really cares in the scheme of things. It’s trivial. Mildly interesting but not terribly important. Let’s face it. There is nothing all that impressive about having these inane facts at the ready. I simply am good at retaining these things and I don’t rehearse them. Like it or not they stick.
I find I want to spend more of the quiet time with what can come out. That means being thoughtful when I write these blogs or any other writing in which I check myself for what’s in my heart, what’s on my mind. Or when I meet in the groups I belong to when the focus is connection, in finding what is coming out for each, and collectively too. There is more value in that. It’s weightier, more essential to who I am. I find in this whirlwind of life I have to be far more intentional to take this time because I could fill it all too easily with the stuff I can pour in. There is nothing wrong with some fluff, there’s a place and a time. The trick is not to let it overtake. I want to maintain a balance that skews to the heftier, greater thing.
It looks like I have made a distinction between what goes in, and what comes out. Weighty things can certainly go in (think serious literature, analytical findings, spiritual writings, etc.), I just happen to think we are living in a time with so much information at our fingertips we will often opt for light, for trite. Hopefully we can balance it all out with a few things of gravitas. Then in the quiet we can ponder the depths of ourselves and what comes out can be expression, a pursuit of who we are at the core. Be sure you find some quiet. I believe you will find yourself there.
In the quiet you can find who you are.
— RCN
