Explorations revisited

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be a platform for exploring all the different parts of me. For many years in my young life, I utterly despised myself - physically, emotionally, mentally - and in some unspoken way, carving out a bit of cyber space for myself was an act of atonement. Out of this place, 'Explorations of Elloaness' was born, and I envisaged in its emergence a place where I could write, express, and be myself without reservation, and perhaps where others could come and read and see a little of themselves reflected back to them.

In this space, and in my life, I have learnt - and relearnt, many times over - that who I am is okay, and that I am enough, just the way I am. These words, so easy to write, are perhaps the most profound lesson I have ever learnt in my life. Being okay with who I am is a state that a few years ago honestly seemed to be less achievable than finding a pot of gold at the bottom of the rainbow. Funnily enough, one of my first moments of spiritual awakening involved a humungous rainbow and a sudden awareness that the pot of gold was inside me.


Today, nine and a bit years after attending my first ever 12 step recovery meeting, it is the same fundamental issue that I meet on if not a daily, then at least a weekly basis. I am continually presented with notable moments in which a different choice is needed if I am to be at peace. These moments are usually intense, supercharged with ancient emotional baggage, and it matters little whether I'm in the northern or southern hemisphere, whether I'm single or engaged, whether I'm fat or thin - I've still got the same ranting, lunatic ego mind. (!)

Over dinner with friends a few nights ago, I learned that there are people who go into a period of silent retreat for three years. Three years?! "Bloody Nora", as Nige would say ('tis a northern saying, so I'm told). I have often wondered whether a complete and total escape retreat would solve all my problems, tying myself up in knots by fretting about my life, thinking it is supposed to be far more spiritual and exotic than it is (note the polarity in those two descriptors!). Recently, for perhaps the first time, I have begun to settle into the idea that my life is just right, just the way it is, that all the conditions that I need in order to grow closer to God - in other words, to remember the Truth about myself and others - are present right here, right now. 


I think it was sometime in the process of Nige's Experiment in Conscious Dying that an acceptance dawned on me that the quality of a life well lived is not how many countries you've seen, or how many dreams you've realized, but simply how present you have been to the everyday moments, the seemingly inconsequential acts of ordinariness: a smile offered to a stranger; a hello to a passerby; really listening to your partner, your friend, your colleague; a risk taken; a pause taken as I sit on the train home to just breathe a full lung's worth of oxygen into my body; a commitment made to pray and connect.

Exploring Elloaness has tonight brought me to this moment - a moment of gratitude and, yes, happiness! I am truly, truly blessed to be me, because for some unknown reason, I've been given the gift of awareness, and with awareness comes choice. And with choice comes freedom - the one thing I always wanted, having not known very much about freedom when I was a child and a young woman.

So I will continue to explore, unravelling the layers of unforgiveness, until all I am left with is the pure, the innocent and the beautiful - in other words, until I remember that "only the love is real in any situation." (A Course in Miracles)

I expect I'll make a few blunders along the way, sing a few bum notes, tread clumsily here and there - perfectly imperfect - but if you care to walk a while with me, I would love to share some of this crazy, wonderful journey called life with you.

Love,
Elloa xxx