Unwinding Productivity Programming
This Moon Cycle I have been keenly aware of how Lavender is continuing on from White Pine and then Chamomile with deep, DEEP support for the complete unwinding of my nervous system that has been running in high gear for decades. I’m pretty sure I am not the only one currently needing this!
White Pine supported me in gaining a higher perspective of my life and my personal responsibilities in the grand scheme of things. Chamomile showed me how to hold space for myself, to really witness my emotions and the messages my body was sharing and HONOR and LOVE them rather than rushing to fix or numb all that I judged was wrong or less than.
And lovely Lavender...well, Lavender asked me to breathe deep, to stop all my DOing, all my creative efforting, even in the direction of my joy, my Soulflower heartswork. She told me clearly, it is time for me to rest and restore. For now, I’ve done enough. More than enough. “My job,” she said, “is to BE.”
Think for a moment about what RESTORATION means to you.
When we restore something, a piece of furniture or a house for example, we strip it down to its bare bones, it’s “original essence” if you like, before we slowly build it back anew. Lavender has been asking me to return to my purest essence, my original blueprint, before all the layers of programming and beliefs, fears and labels obscured the truth of who I am. Who any of us are.
So in my work, and in all aspects of my life, I have been stripping away all the unnecessary busyness, and focusing on nurturing my most authentic self.
I have been asking myself all the hard questions. What do I really want? What do I really need? What do I really value? And I have been LISTENING to the answers.
NOT from my ego mind. NOT from the fearful voice that seeks the external gold star, that doesn’t want to be perceived as lazy, that wants to fit in, be lovable, be special, be praised for all my hard work, a successful and valuable member of society, etc. etc....I’m sure you know that voice too?
Instead, I’m listening to the voice, that soft loving voice, that says, “Oh yes Lisa, that would be dreamy. That would feel soooo good.”
And I let it be enough.
Just like ALL the flowers around us who ALWAYS model for us that we don’t have to DO anything but BE ourselves for us to radiate out our greatest medicine for all.
The flowers aren’t busy working hard at this or that in order to build a successful life. They don’t demonstrate that multitasking is a superpower, that they have to be the brightest, best bloom in the garden, or that they are somehow responsible for making sure all the other flowers are also flourishing. They just are busy being themselves.
Truly, when I really look at all the productivity programming I have bought into, embodied, for so long I realize how insidious, and how traumatizing it truly is. How could I have been so fooled?
Being busy, working hard, is seemingly a way we convince ourselves that we are in control of our lives when, in truth, life is something that we have absolutely no control over!
And unfortunately, satisfaction and the reward of busyness is fleeting. Like housework, or taking care of a garden, there is always, ALWAYS more to do. Work! Work! Work!
These past few weeks as the weather warms I have been called to spend more and more time in my gardens. My mind has a lengthy “needs doing” list but my body only has about an hour of energy to give. So I find myself just puttering and observing and dreaming and chatting with all the plants instead.
Truly it feels like a full circle. Like where I began this whole Soulflower journey, just hanging with my dearest friends.
Some mornings wandering through my gardens I am filled with so much peace, my eyes and my heart filled to the brim with all the beauty.
Other mornings I am overwhelmed with all that “needs” to be done, all the thirsty plants, all the “weeds”...
One is a state of flow with the rhythm of life and one is a state of attempting to control the same flow. And I have been blessed to see, or rather to clearly FEEL the difference.
I hear the familiar words swirling around my mind, “Nature never hurries and yet everything is achieved.” And my body relaxes, my eyes soften once more to the sublimity of the perceived “mess.”
I am remembering how to be an observer of my human experience, in both states (and every iteration in between), and to let go of the belief that one experience is right and one is wrong.
The garden is a dynamic co creation, an ongoing, always evolving and changing conversation between all the participants, including me, and the wild and messy beauty of it all is undeniably perfect. Why would I ever feel the need to control it? Or bend it to my will. When all I deeply desire is to flow with it...
This is the intrinsic joy of creative expression and this is our soul “work” in the world—and interestingly this is found in our BEing our authentic selves—which truly isn’t “work” at all!
Somewhere along the way however, we have separated and identified our work as the external physical effort we expend for meeting our basic needs (survival), the needs of our families (responsibilities), and our self worth and social status (personal power).
Our work in the world then ends up having nothing to do with who we are and instead is intertwined with who we are not! And this gets me thinking about all the ways that insidious productivity programming infiltrates and overruns my creative expression and robs me of my experience, my joy, of simply living.
Lavender washes over me and I feel the presence of all the flowers, all the trees and Nature holding space for me.
There is an extraordinary grief that arises when you realize everything you ever needed was within you all along. That life, and Nature, has always been showing you, reflecting back at you, the courage, the strength, the compassion, the EVERYTHING that you are under all the layers of labels, stories and beliefs of who we THINK we are.
There is an extraordinary grief that surfaces when you realize after so many years of feeling alone that you have always been loved and supported.
And there is an extraordinary grief that finally overcomes you when you realize after years of doing, doing, doing that you are enough simply in your being.
This is an invitation from Lavender to clear the slate, to wash away the old story and begin a new one.
We are moving from operating purely from our left brain ego minds to fully inhabiting our wise Earth bodies, following our hearts and honoring and integrating our right brain which is our connection to the Divine and our creative essence.
“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” — Lau Tzu
I’ve had this quote on my fridge for over 10 years. I read it every day and I finally believe I understand it’s meaning. It appears I’ve been too busy to be content!
Even following my heart, engaging in my “heartswork,” my ego keeps trying to assert control by telling me there is more to do. And there is ALWAYS more we can do. I’m not arguing the truth of that, but what if we allow ourselves to live from a place of contentment where everything is done that needs to be done?
It feels like we are fighting against and trying to control our true Nature. My higher self just wants to flow—to be embodied and experience life through form.
Lavender dissolves the tension caused by the perception of unmet needs, restoring our purest essence, so that we can remember how to let life nurture us. Lavender helps us to be fully present and to release and grieve the pain of holding onto high expectations and judgments based on potentials that are not even manifest.
In my life and in my work I see myself as a gardener, a steward of the little piece of Earth that is my body, a vessel for that fractal of Divine light, that essence which wants to be expressed through me, as me.
Just like all the flowers that fill my heart, I am also a perfect expression of divine light with a unique essence, and all I have to DO is to be myself. My full presence is enough.
The practice then, the doing that needs doing, is to intentionally summon all the forgiveness and unconditional love I can muster for my humanness and our human journey, and wrap myself in that healing/wholing frequency.
And breathe.
This is your invitation to breathe with me. We are all learning how to BE.
Welcome back!
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Also in Plant Spirit Deep Dives
Wintering: Coming Back to Life
Over the years, the Soulflowers have lovingly helped me to understand change to be the natural order of things. They have helped me to trust completely in the inherent intelligence of Nature and the necessity of all the seasons to support life, sustainably.
We are cyclical beings. Life (life force energy) is never lost—it is only constantly changed, transformed.
Finding Grace
“All suffering comes from resistance to the truth of who you are. All suffering comes from resistance to What Is.” Milk Thistle adds.
Let that truth bomb sink in.
Christina Cathcart
July 19, 2021
Wow! Though I’m much older than you, I feel such kinship; a true sister living, feeling, experiencing the same love of her gardens, her flowers. The conflict between flowing with the blyss of witnessing the seasonal progression and the angst/ Need to get more done in there. The shrubs that need cutting back white there’s time for new growth, the roses that are desperate for deadheading, the weeds. But the wonder of observing all the bees and other insects dining and dozing in the blossoms. Such a gift!