Disclosure — I’m at my best, often, with myself and with groups, when contemplative. This post is one of those. No answers. No neat and tidy package. Just wondering. In some mess.
Wise teachers across many traditions have reminded us that the most personal is often the most universal. The stuff that we think is most embarrassing, or most deeply shaming, or most vulnerable — this is what is most commonly experienced, and hid, in others. These are the deep wounds, that actually can become our greatest learnings, when claimed and witnessed.
Now, I know that some things are meant to be private. And pretty much everything is personal. But, I’ve long been a person that has suggested that the personal and the professional should merge further together. How can the work of today not be personal?How can it not involve and require our most significant abilities to sense-make individually and collectively? This requires welcoming the personal.
Last night I watched a show on Amazon Prime. It’s a drama / action show. The story line of this particular episode was of a woman having a dream that she thought was innocuous. It turns out there was some shared consciousness stuff that was in play, showing up in her dream. That’s the kind of story line I really love. It points to what is underneath, the thing behind the thing. The thing behind the thing is always in play for me. Not to chase or fabricate. But rather, to get the deeper end of the pool.
Last night I dreamed myself, of an old roommate back in my colleague days from 30 years ago. This roommate and I were meeting anew in current time, and couldn’t quite place our history together. It took a few times of meeting with a familiarity to remember all of the history, to have it unfold for us. I woke when we figured it out. That dream stirred me. The simple detail of not being able to remember something that I think I should be able to — that stirs up some of the deeply personal in me. I fear this kind of not remembering.
I’m not sure even what all of this means. Just as it was for the character in the Amazon Prime show portrayed. I’m living in the universality now of hoping that what is individual matters. That learning matters. That the thing behind the thing matters. That this journey of humans in connection matters. That we are evolving together a consciousness that, clunky as it might feel, is needed now.
Hmm…
Funny how life stirs us, isn’t it? A show. A phone call. A day in the garden. When we are looking to be stirred. Perhaps that is one of the deeper layers — it interests me — the universality (and yet deeply personal) of how any of us can be so stirred by even the most simple of things.
I am, today.