Another brick [in the] wall

Ever feel like there's always a wall you hit? Something not necessarily tangible, but rather an invisible obstacle?

I often meet that impediment in the morning trying to get out of bed because that simple action really hurts. Once I do get up, however, the barrier recedes, eventually disappearing. I face it again when I am stressed, overly tired, too busy or pressured. That – for all of us – happens constantly.

Maybe your wall is something else. For me, it's elusive, but never far away.

I've been ruminating on why I feel like the mainstream of our culture rushes in a one-way pattern and just how much energy, gumption, motivation and self-awareness it takes to swim against the current or divert out of it and into a calmer tributary. It exhausts me to even think about it, yet it requires a persistent, intentional action.

I've also been analyzing how I hold my body and why I don't move with the flow and grace I once did – or, at least, imagined. I do in spells, but not consistently. I'm sure age has something to do with it, but I also believe being so indoctrinated in our culture and forgetting what comes more naturally gets harder the farther we gravitate from childhood, when we let our bodies and nature speak more clearly to us.

While my soul searches for its natural place, my body struggles to keep pace. I want my physical self to catch up to my spiritual self or reside in the same vicinity. There is some disembodiment. That's a word I heard repeatedly at a recent conference and often from one particular young woman, who really understood this dilemma. I recall my massage therapist affirming my remark upon returning from an overseas trip that I really didn't feel here yet. He said I had physically traveled too fast for my body to catch up and performed his magic to bring me back together.

I can not keep pace with this world. Our family just returned last night from a 36-hour trip to Michigan for a wedding. It was a wonderful event, but so whirlwind I feel I didn't experience any depth. When we emerged from the car at the church and were immediately embraced by loving family, I could have used some transition from roadtrip grunge, kid-battling and exhaustion to being the loving person who could accept this marvelous gesture. Midway through the Mass, I had.

Modern life just seems to rev up and, at a time, when I am ready to slow down and actually enjoy the ordinary. Like being a kid in a group that stirs up the water in a pool so strongly in one direction, then tries to move in the opposite. It can be done after meeting with a lot of resistance.

I guess my wall is the grain of convention, against which I push, [or it's pushing against my nature] aiming away and toward where my heart and spirit call. Not easy, yet I can't conceive of moving anywhere else.


• Do I ever feel a wall, resistance or obstacle in moving toward where I am called in my life?
• How have I named, examined, removed or tamed it?
• Where do I naturally fit into the mainstream of life?
• Do I ever feel pressured to go with the flow?
• Where has that taken me?


so easy
to get
caught up
in the
wild tide


of
normal
life,
whatever
normal
means
or is



and,
at times,
much
less effort
to float
with
the
swift
current


than to
stop
and swim
the 
other
way


what
if the
other
direction
is my path?