wholeness:
the state of forming a complete and harmonious whole
the state of being unbroken, undamaged
I read something the other day that I’ve read so many times before — but just understood for the first time. I understood it because I am engaging in this monthly practice of wholeness. Essentially it said that we have to stop substituting fair seeming for right practice.
In other words, if everything looks good on the outside, we can just ignore the daily work we all need to be doing on the inside.
I started looking at the parts of my life that did not seem whole because I realized that, even though I’ve dedicated the last thirty years to my spiritual practice, there are areas of my life where I’ve been in total avoidance. Areas that I’ve tried my best to ignore. Areas where I fudge and cheat and deny.
I’m seeing this so clearly now because this is what I am seeing all around me. We have fudged and cheated and avoided and denied so many things about other people and our planet. So as I pray for the healing and wholeness of our planet, I get that I can’t ignore it any longer. None of us can!
We’ve all been sweeping things under the rug our whole lives — and here in America at least, we have come to hope that we’ll never have to really deal with it, because we can just keep getting bigger and bigger rugs.
Well, for the first time in many of our lives, we’re seeing that there aren’t any rugs big enough any more. So we finally have to get out our spiritual vacuums and dusters and dumpsters and garbage trucks and start cleaning house. Big time!
The only way our world is going to heal is if each of us does this work of lifting up that rug and looking at all the crap we’d sincerely hoped we could avoid.
And that’s why I’ve been doing this process every single day.
The past four months of practice have felt very hopeful and even joyous. This one is tough! I swept this stuff under the rug for a reason. I’m not thrilled to bring it back out into the light of day.
BUT WE HAVE TO DO THIS. The only way our world is going to be whole is if it is filled with wholeness.
Remember: Health, wholeness, healing, holiness — these all mean the same thing. They have the same root word. This is our work right now. There are no more rugs to sweep things under.
The whole reason I began this blog five years ago was to hold myself accountable to whoever shows up to read this blog each day. And to share my process in the hope that it might help others with theirs. So if you’re reading this today — please give this process a try. It’s a work in progress, but together we can co-create new ways of healing our lives and our planet.
Each day I look at something that didn’t feel whole and I work my way through these steps. Until I start the process, I rarely know what I am going to write. In fact, right now, as I am typing this, I have no idea what is going to surface. That’s the point! We have become so good at avoidance, that we no longer know we’re avoiding something.
You know how you can go up and down stairs without thinking. That’s what we do with stuff we don’t want to see. We pick up that corner of our consciousness and sweep unpleasantness away, all while having a conversation or cooking breakfast.
That’s why we have to clean house. Here’s today’s housecleaning (literally and figuratively):.
WHAT HAPPENED: I had a plan for yesterday afternoon. It was to take the afternoon off while my internet was down and thoroughly clean my little cottage.
WHAT I INITIALLY FELT: Excited to be doing something other than sitting at a desk, staring at a screen and entering data.
WHAT I INITIALLY TOLD MYSELF: This is going to be fun! You’re going to clean and clean and clean until this place sparkles.
WHAT I INITIALLY WANTED: To feel productive in a way that wasn’t computer related. To be doing something other than computer work. To have this sweet little place where I spend all my 22 hours a day feel sparkly and new.
WHAT I DID: I organized cleaned for about two hours. I cleaned the fridge and the bathroom and dusted and vacuumed. And as I did I realized that the actual cleaning was not nearly as fun as my idea of cleaning.
WHAT I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE DONE: I would have liked to have hired a cleaning crew to do everything for me. LOL!
WHAT FEAR SAID: This is never going to be sparkly and new. To have this be sparkly and new you’re going to have to work at this for the rest of the day. You have to wash the dog and wash the dog blankets and you have to clean the outside because you track pollen in each time to come. You have a lot of work ahead of you. And even if you did all that, what about the basement?!?
WHAT LOVE SAID: Who said perfect today? Who said you had to clean for eight hours? The fridge is clean. The bathroom is clean. The floors are vacuumed. Most surfaces are dusted. Your internet is back up. You found the dog toys that you’d never unpacked. Isn’t that enough? I think you’ve done great for today! And you can do a little more every single day. This is your life and your cottage — and you can learn to clean without it having to be “perfect”.
WHAT FELT UNTRUE AND/OR OLD: That anything other than perfect is a failure.
WHAT FELT TRUE AND NEEDS ATTENTION: I need to learn how to clean every day — and find the joy in the cleaning not the false goal of perfection.
WHAT IS NOT WHOLE: The ridiculous lie that whatever is not perfect should be hidden away, destroyed, avoided, denied, cause shame. Or that we can scrub the imperfect away. Human perfection was never the point. The point is that Love is perfect. The word perfect means absolute or complete. What’s another word for that? WHOLE. Love is Whole, and when we stop listening to fear’s false ideas of human perfection, we find we already live in the perfect Whole of Love.
HOW I WILL PRACTICE WHOLENESS:
Recognize that this lie of human perfection is a counterfeit for the true Wholeness of Love.
Change my standard from perfect to Whole.
Clean a little every day. Clean as I go.
The outward expression of perfection is fear’s ploy to get us to focus on fear instead of Love.
Listen ONLY to Love. Love is the Whole that already is.
Listen to Love
Live in Love.
Love as Love.
Clean a little every day. With joy, not worry or fear or shame.
Find the joy in what surfaces, not the shame.
Invite Love in to clean.
Rejoice in every opportunity to see what isn’t whole and know that that never was true.
See Love. Be Love. Live Love.
Always. All ways.
To hear today’s video practice. . .