Core Story Work

Core Story Work –

I am full to overflowing with ‘not knowing’, open to whatever guidance comes. The answers appear as they will, often in the moment in which action must be taken and not before. It is clear that it is inappropriate, silly, futile, a waste of time and energy to try to answer the question before it is fully formed, ripe.

We spend precious hours of our lives planning, weighing options, wanting to know because it feels safe to know what tomorrow will look like and then we are living in a moment that hasn’t come instead of this moment and living in an unreal fantasy. It takes practice and courage to have that much faith. One does get better at it. Living in the not knowing develops a comfort zone with it.

The only thing the universe understands is action, when you physically take the plunge, jump into the abyss. Intention without action is empty and meaningless.

My normal MO has always been that I would feel some discomfort in my body/heart/mind and I would breathe into it and identify it and then often journal for quite a few pages about it in order to integrate it. It’s been interesting that for the past few months, when material has come up for me I’ve been able to write a few sentences about it and integrate it. That combined with daily meditation has kept me in a pretty peaceful state of mind and a state of acceptance including the acceptance of probable sickness and possible death. I have frequently experienced non abiding awakening, a connection to all that is, a realization that there is just this incredible rich and beautiful oneness and that nothing anywhere is ‘wrong’. Hard, yes. Painful, yes. Wrong, no.

The other thing that I’ve noticed is that my relationship to life has shifted dramatically. This has been a process that has taken years. When I was first diagnosed I felt like

‘Ok, well f*** it then, I’m outta here’ (and good riddance really was the underlying emotion). The corollary to that was, ‘Life has been hard, I’ve done my best to be a good human and a good parent, be honest and compassionate and helpful and loving and THIS is how you treat me? It hasn’t been that fun. I’m totally down with my departure and the next adventure.’

Simultaneously, I’ve also been aware that this entire life thing has been a conspiracy to do the healing work that would allow me to awaken from the dream state. And I’ve referred to myself as the most blessed man on the planet. I know that I am very much loved by lots of people and certainly by wildness that has supported me in so much of my life. I’ve been given these lovely gifts of love all along the way to support and nurture me in my work.

I’ve come to the point where although I’m not attached to being here on the planet, I really do appreciate and honor the experience of being alive. I’ve grown fond of it. Previously there was a tenaciousness that wanted to squeeze every last drop from the adventure. That’s still there, but it’s coming from a softer place, more like life and I are nurturing each other.

So, yesterday? The day before? I had a melt down. I put T on the shuttle, cleaned everything like a maniac, went to bed ultimately and woke up the next day unable to get warm although the thermostat was set to 80 and I was wearing layers of clothing including a thick sweater and a jacket. I knew in that moment that my physicality was pretty severely compromised. This body is the master in many ways of my experience. If I want to stay here and participate, I have to do what it tells me.

So I did do what the body was telling me. Exceptional self care, pills and naps and hyperthermia and good food. I am certainly not fully recovered physically. In fact, the body still feels pretty weak and tenuous and I’m aware that I can’t back off on the self care for some days.

Simultaneously I listened to the Core Story audio by Adya. I had listened to it previously but got more out of it this time. My core story, like a lot of people’s is a sense of inadequacy, not good enoughness, no matter how successful one is at whatever one has done, there’s no way to fill that hole. In Zen this is called the hungry ghost, all mouth and no stomach. Stuff all of the success you want into it and the reflections by others of that success and it will never be satiated.

Our tendency is to drop into stillness and wholeness where we know this is not true, but that’s a patch. We don’t like pain and are programmed to avoid it if possible. The core story will come up again and again. Adya says that the core story has really driven all of our existence and our decisions about life and how we’ve lived it and I can see that this is true for me. It has driven my desire for relationship, my desire to be seen as helpful, spiritual. He says that when the core story work is completed you’ll know because your activities will no longer be driven by it.

So instead of avoiding it, we drop into it, hold it, keep it in our awareness. I have the response of ‘why in the hell would ANYONE want to do this work? It’s hard and it’s painful.’

The same day, I did a body talk session with H in which it came up that I am unable to fulfill most of what I learned about what it is to be a man. That definition includes ‘provider and protector’, the strong macho get it done guy (especially with the Aries sun sign, oh my god). In that sense I have very little to offer, in that sense. I have no value as a man. She identified my anger and frustration about this. It totally tags into who I am in relationships. And of course it totally tags into my precognitive programming of not being enough, the hungry ghost.

It is the desire for consciousness to be present within me that brings the illusions to awareness over and over again. Consciousness that brings up the often difficult and painful learning.

Pain comes and goes. That’s the way life IS! There is NO WAY to be alive and be free from pain!