Into the vacuum, comes fear.

For a while, I have been under a cloud.  The cloud was not black, it was dark grey, and it moved like mist so that I could never really see it.  I have resources, I am strong, I know how to look after myself but this cloud was clever,  It sidled up to me and wound itself around me with such subtlety that I can't remember when the light around me changed.  There was a heaviness now, and a quiet sense of doom.  There was a worry in my stomach that should not have been there.  I couldn't name the worry and the sense of things being badly wrong would not lift.

I knew the source of this cloud.  This dark grey mist.  I have met it before and I suspect I will meet it many times in the future.  But the sense of powerlessness this time seemed different.  I struggled to make sense of what this all meant, and in the middle of it, I could not articulate to myself what I was so afraid of, and how there seemed to be no way through this mist.

I formed a plan.  I told a friend, and she was supportive and understanding.  This plan felt impossible to do, and yet it had to be done.  I could see difficulties before it, during it and after it.  I could see that I may be unable to carry it out.  It worried me.  It had to be done, it had to be done this way.  If it was done this way, I would feel better.  I may be released from the cloud.

And then, last night, longing for some relief, I sat in a quiet chair, and asked someone, something, out there, for guidance.  I will meditate on this, I thought.  I meditated into blackness.  I meditated into nothing, and nothing happened.  It was as if the power of the dark grey mist had shut out the light and nothing I could do would find a way through it.  There is no hope, I said.

But when I woke this morning, something had shifted.  There was a decision to be made.  Perhaps I could make a choice.  What do I choose?  Do I choose the plan I felt could not be done, or do I choose something else?  If I choose something else, will it matter?  What would happen if I changed my mind?  And what if, instead of the consequences being dire, they were kinder, and less stressful?

I realised then that fear that was keeping the light away.  My plan, the mist, the cloud, the sense of doom, was a reaction to fear, the whole situation was the result of fear.  So if I changed my plan, changed my mind, what then?  Well - it didn't matter.  The plan would never have worked, it was fiercely dependent on me getting my own way despite everyone else.  I was afraid and it clouded my judgement.  

There is no judgement though, if I change my mind, make a different choice, see the way the fear was blocking my compassion.  When I saw that my fear was keeping me away from people, was causing me to forget their needs, was allowing me to create a story about them that was distorted - I chose to let go, to say to myself, it really doesn't matter - it really doesn't, this plan is causing distress and a better plan is to ask what would really work, and see the stress and the imagined consequences evaporate.  What can I do, I asked the people concerned, to help you?  I have changed my mind, I said, and we no longer have to follow this path.  The simplicity of the way forward was always there.  There is a new plan, and it is flexible, and I have survived.  Nothing happened.  Except peace and kindness have returned.

The cloud had gone tonight.  I am released and there is no problem.  There are difficulties, yes, but they are not a problem.  When I asked what I could do to help, the light came back, and the answer was simple.  I had forgotten to love.  I had forgotten to love them, and then myself.  Into that vacuum came fear.  From fear came wrong decisions, loneliness, disconnection and the forgetting that when love is the basis of all our choices, somehow, there is strength and there is connection. 

But I acknowledge that in order to remember this, I had to forget it.  It is the experience of forgetting and all that goes with it, that makes the remembering all the more profound.  The thing is, I may not have remembered and come to this understanding.  The miracle here is that I did remember, and I am very mindful of power and simplicity of this lesson.  

And so, this evening, I am sitting on my bed, with a supper I really wanted to eat, and the sun shining through my window.  I have a scented candle that makes me smile with pleasure, and a new talking book to listen to when I have finished this blog.  I am happy, and I am free.  The sun shone through my window on other evenings, I lit this scented candle yesterday, and I had another talking book before this one.  The difference tonight is that love has come back.  I have made a kind decision.  It is making the sun more lovely, the candle more scented, and my talking book more exciting.

I have a passion for steamed veg, butter and garlic.  Yum.