A WHOLE life ...

Robin Hoods Bay Sun Rise
Originally uploaded by jasontheaker
The incredibly poignant speaker in last night's meeting concluded her story with this simple yet powerful statement: "My whole life is not AA; I have a WHOLE life because of AA."

I have let that statement whir about in me, spiraling and cascading into the healing I received from a Kabbalistic classmate this morning and in my Impersonal Movement (IM) practice this afternoon. It was here when I could feel how I was connecting to these words. What the speaker was saying is what occurs for me during the IM practice: there is no longer a personal attachment to one "thing" or "relationship" or "outcome" that I am looking to as making my life complete AND, because of my recovery and my healing and my practices, I am experiencing myself and my life as WHOLE. All of the parts of me are felt and are not cut out any longer. There is a place for each aspect to occupy and, in the larger picture of the impersonal, these aspects are no longer separate or fragmented pieces -- they are collected and blended and felt as The One.

There is a phrase used in part of the IM practice: "Making space full".
I have more clarity about this statement in this moment than I have ever before. The fullness of space includes density (solid matter) and space (no matter); both are needed for fullness to exist. This is essentially the profoundness of the AA speaker's statement. Having a WHOLE LIFE includes the solid fellowship and program of AA but also includes everything else, how I go out into the world because of what I learned in AA, permeating each "facet" of my life. Densities, in this context, are things like:  relationships outside of AA; Kabbalistic work; teaching; walking the dog; a "juicy" interaction;  expressing affection;  sitting in prayer and dozens more. Space is the literal and figurative distance between all of these facets and the relationship of them to each other. The way, for example, AA principles play out when I am in an interaction with a difficult person at the bank. Or how a Kabbalistic healing works in me and how I show up for my students. Making space full, for me, is inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness. One person or one thing or one destination or one long term goal --if made the sole focus --will not then permit room for other people, things, destinations and goals to exist.

Feeling full and "enough" are indicators for me that I am experiencing a WHOLE life. Obsessive and compulsive worrying and other associated behaviors have lifted for the most part. Fear of abandonment and aloneness no longer seem to have a place. Concerns about the future and the unknown are not what keeps me up well into the hours I should be sleeping. There is a contentment and a peace and a groundedness that has even more assuredness and solidity than I've felt before. This feels like more of The Promises being revealed and fulfilled.

It is sometimes hard to fathom that I am just "getting" this half-way through my life. I say this both from a place of : "Wow, how incredible to experience this now" kind of way AND in a "What the hell took me so friggin' long" kind of way. I mostly feel marveling and appreciating rather than shame or embarassment.

In this moment, I now begin to understand a passage of my teacher's that I couldn't take in the past 2 days: "Awakening is the birthright of every created being. To know God is our destiny." He goes on to the end of this passage to make these statements: "If you let yourself feel this, many things will drop away. Those are the things you no longer need. What is left is the answer you were looking for and the reason you were born."

This felt too BIG to take in a couple days ago. I believe some of what I have pondered here is part of the thread linked to this passage. What I am feeling is that the fears and the stories I've held onto as my identity are those things I no longer need. And they DO drop away, just as I cited above. If I were to give an answer that I am left with and the reason I was born, it would be as follows in this moment: "To live in the FULLNESS of me in relationship to the world, my will aligned with God's intention for me, living a WHOLE life."