I am so totally unsettled again today
I can’t seem to find my way to balance
It was fleetingly here yesterday
It escapes me over the smallest of issues
The things that show up along the way
Push my buttons and create those inner rumbles
I am angry and loud, thrashing and impatient
I despair of ever walking with ease and grace again
How did I get here?
What missteps did I take?
Where do I go to find a break?
Is anyone out there who can help?
I wonder if I would even realize
If the road most needed appeared
In this morass of stress and pushing
I would probably just drive on by
No one really knows how bad it is
I keep this all under wraps
Except when I blow for no reason
Then I at least know, the jig is up
But interestingly, it all blows over
No one demands my resignation
No one confronts me on my arrogance
Am I the only one who registers the turmoil ?
My pattern of coping is crippled at best
I go to drinks, I go to smokes,
I go to food, I go to extravagance
They all leave me utterly empty
I really need to sit and be with all of this
I am always running away from looking within
I am profoundly afraid of what I will find
I may find I am unworthy of peace
What awaits me then?
I am touching bottom here
I am in fear of who I have become
I fear I have forever lost my way
I command in the help I need
I know it not within my daily world
I command in the love I have heard about
I need that love and I need it now
Dear Robbins,
Thank for you for these… raw and well-timed words.
Hi Amit! So pleased to know you are reading these posts and that the words were well-timed. Thank you for writing about the post and sharing with me.
i LOVE HOW YOU COMMAND IT IN HERE ROBBINS, ITS NOT A MEALY-MOUSED ASK, BUT A COMMAND. i DIDN’T KNOW WE COULD DO THAT UNTIL I MET YOU. THANK YOU. EILEEN
Eileen, so pleased that message has stayed with you!! It is because we are all Divine and human beings so that command energy is in there somewhere. We have to dig it out, dust it off and USE IT!!! Thank you for your comment. So delighted to know this information is still meaningful.
When I read this poem yesterday, it struck me that, yes, commanding in help is what needs to be done once you’re “there”… but what about not getting “there” in the first place?
These earlier two lines from the poem offer a clue on how that might be done:
“I really need to sit and be with all of this
I am always running away from looking within”
The question then becomes: what happens when we “sit and be with all this”? What’s the mechanism? Maybe another clue is within the following quote that I received today:
“If you try to avoid or remove the awkward quality, it will pursue you. The only effective way to still its unease is to transfigure it, to let it become something creative and positive that contributes to who you are. …Rather than banishing what is at first glimpse unwelcome, you bring it home to unity with your life… One of your sacred duties is to exercise kindness toward them. In a sense, you are called to be a loving parent to your delinquent qualities.”
—John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
I think there is wisdom in this and I suspect that the “awkward quality” that pushes many of us “there” is our desire to be someone greater than ourselves – to “be somebody” – and then to do too much to achieve it. In doing so, I think many of us get just plain tired… and then we go “there”.
Again the two lines:
“I really need to sit and be with all of this
I am always running away from looking within”
The writer of the poem is asking for love – love from someone else? And what kind of love are we talking about? Is it really love or is it simply recognition and validation? But whatever, if it arrives, it will only be short lived as that other person has else to do during the 24 hour day.
No, the writer knows that the answer is “within” – that’s good as it will save perhaps decades of searching and waiting. But the poet is afraid.
Now, maybe if the poet decides to risk it, to look within and focus, eventually the writer will loosen up and allow the already deeply loved self to emerge.
Then a decision will be necessary: will the poet decide to stop the need to achieve, to stop trying to be someone the poet is not? Or is being “there” ultimately more exciting and this vision, thank you very much, was just for the thrill of it?
Most of us choose being “there”, perhaps because being “there” is what we know the best?
Thank you for your in-depth response to The Struggle. I appreciate your sharing the questions and observations this piece raised for you. Good to hear from you!