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THE PARADOX OF INSECURITY

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We spend so much time and energy building boundaries, walls and secure places: maintaining relationships, jobs, collecting possessions… All with the idea that if I can get it all perfectly arranged somehow, that that will bring me real security and safety. Maybe that sense of safety and security can last for a while, but inevitably at some point something happens to disturb it all. Whether it is losing your job, a relationship break-up, illness, or some kind of tragedy. You have to eventually face the reality that nothing is certain. Nothing, or no one, can be relied upon to be here forever.
However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t dive into relationships, maintain jobs, or acquire possessions. Why not? Lose yourself completely in whatever you do, or whoever you are with, only knowing that you have nothing to lose really. This is the heartbreaking paradox of life: that because you have nothing to lose, you may as well lose it all.

~ Unmani

What have you got to lose?

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We spend so much time and energy desperately trying to make everything safe, secure and certain, but inevitably something comes along in life, to mess up our plans, dreams or ideas of how things are. It seems that the very nature of life is uncertain and insecure, and we really have no way of knowing how to live like that. This can leave us feeling lost and afraid in our daily life. We hold back from love, from expression of feelings, from grabbing opportunities, from taking risks, because we are terrified of losing safety and security. However, if we are willing to dive into our fear, and deeply acknowledge the true nature of life as uncertain and insecure, to acknowledge that we don’t ever have or own anything secure, this can actually free us up to play ‘as if’. We can go on making plans, promises and commitments, always knowing that it is only ever a play ‘as if’, but in the meantime why not play fully? Why not give yourself totally to life without holding back? You have nothing left to lose.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

Risk it all

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Life may not always fit into your ideas of how it ‘should’ be. It may not always feel comfortable. But there comes a point when you are just so tired of chasing temporary experiences of peace and love, and hoping for a perfect future ‘one day’. There comes a point when you acknowledge that your deepest longing is to wake up to reality no matter what. There comes a point when it is time to risk losing it all, and to courageously take a step into the unknown.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

The Push/Pull Game

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We make so much effort to be unique and different from other people, but at the same time we long for love and acceptance from them. It’s such a push/pull game. We want to stand alone and be independent individuals, but at the same time we want to melt and merge as One with all that is. This paradox of Life isn’t a problem to be solved, it’s just the way it is.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

‘Being Triggered’

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argumentSometimes things get triggered or touched, and then it all feels so overwhelmingly important. You notice that you are being drawn into a certain familiar energetic dance that feels tense or painful, and yet has a certain exciting flavour to it. It is all so mesmerising and trance-like…
You watch yourself play out the childish games to try to get what you think you want, or need. The need to be right, or to maintain a certain position becomes more important than what is real. You watch yourself react from pain or fear, but the cover-up-games mask the desperate longing for a resolution to that pain or fear.

And at some point there is a break in the clouds. A moment when you realise that there will never be a satisfactory resolution to the story being told. A moment when it is suddenly possible to risk being honest about what is really felt or longed for. The pain is acknowledged. The embarrassment or humiliation is felt. The body shakes, cries or laughs. There is a seeing of the whole dance.

Nothing wrong has happened. None of it meant anything about you. It was simply an old friend that came to visit for a while, and then left. Don’t worry, they will be back again some day. There is no need to, or no point in punishing yourself for being entranced or reacting like that. In that moment you couldn’t do anything else. The possibility for honesty was simply not there at that moment. When it was, it was.

As you see in more and more situations that it is hopeless to try to find a resolution in a thought-story or belief, the more there is possibility for honesty with what is actually being touched. There is the endless discovery that there is never any real satisfying nourishment from being ‘right’ or from proving a point. Although it can be uncomfortable, the only real nourishment is in acknowledging what is really here.

Unmani, 13th April, 2014
www.die-to-love.com

The Attachment Paradox

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Sometimes people talk about how we should not be attached to possessions, experiences, the body, places, people… But there is a natural attachment, or a being touched, by these things. It is natural to feel touched being with someone you love, or enjoying a new outfit, or new house. It is natural to feel hurt when someone leaves you, or annoyed when your favourite object breaks. It is not this natural ‘being touched’ that is the problem, it is the layer of drama around it. It is the story of ‘me’ around it that builds up this drama and makes it all seem, and feel, very serious and meaningful to ‘me’. When the thinking turns an experience or feeling into a ‘story of me’, or identity, it starts to feel dramatic and exciting. It starts to feel all about ‘me’ and how special I am. Then the natural ‘being touched’ is so overlaid by the story that the original feeling is no longer really felt.
Being without attachment, means being totally utterly touched by life again and again to the point that it cracks your heart open, and at the same time knowing that it is all totally and utterly meaningless.
The thinking can not do this. You can not try to make this happen. It is simply in acknowledging the awful truth of this paradox that you see that this is how life is already, whether you like it or not.