Our nature is expansive.
It's like we're mini universes, and we're constantly expanding. We're learning new stuff about ourselves, the world, and our relationship with this world and we want to try doing new things. What limits us is our attachment to the past. That means our old ideas and our beliefs about the world, what we think is right and wrong, and what the world tells us we should do and not do, as well as trying to please our parents.
We can get tangled up in all that stuff and really lose perspective, and we become small. We physically and psychically shrink, and it hurts. I've been learning, by being on my Southwest trip, about being expansive. It helps being out in the wide open spaces. They encourage my expansive thoughts.
I feel myself looking into my heart and seeing that same expansiveness within there. I want to support that feeling. So I've been finding that I've been making choices that involve really taking care of myself, and it makes me happy. And I'm discovering that it's a daily thing. It isn't that we or I expand and then that's it; it's a daily looking within and expanding out.
The question I ask is, "Here I am today. What's going to take care of me today? What's going to nurture me today?" I listen to the answer and set that as the guidepost of the day. And I notice the things that come up that are resistance to doing that.
That's the clutter; that's the restrictive element; the tangles. When those come up, question them. Ask "Do I need this any more, or can I let this go? Is hanging on to this going to support me today or can I let it go?"
So today I'm going out to Joshua Tree with my girlfriend for the weekend, and I'm taking care of myself. It feels good.