What is your life’s devotion?

The entirety of my adult life has been devoted to two threads…. To be free from the daily pain I experienced being alive. And to actualize a deeper sense of innate potential.

They are not, by design separate.

Yet, for the sake of writing, each requires acknowledgment as its point of focus. A man, and friend in my life whom I respect, isolated down to the dance between ‘healing’ and ‘expanding’.

Over twenty years, I’ve walked through each day and moment living these focal points. At any given time, the conscious and unconscious questions were that of….

• Am I hurting less / more?
• Am I growing?
• Am I receiving what I want?
• Do I know what I want?
• Does what I want even matter?
• What do I need?
• What are needs?
• Do my needs matter?
• How much?
• Am I stuck?
• How am I stuck?
• Where am I stuck?
• What is my north star to guide me?
• Do I need a north star to guide me?
• What is enough?
• When am I enough?
• What seems to be the threat at this moment?
• What’s real?
• What’s not real?
• What matters right now?
• What doesn’t matter right now?
• Where am I going?
• What’s the point of this?
• Why am I doing this?
• What am I ready for?
• What have I had enough of?
• What is supposed to be pointing the way?
• Why am I still alive?
• What do I want to leave behind when I die?
• What’s in the way right now?

… And many more that I have consciously and unconsciously asked myself over twenty years.

Seeing in hindsight how much of this was all an underlying attempt to feel I was making good use of my life, time, and presence.

These questions hold within them the emotional entanglement that was often present at the time of asking the question(s).

Perhaps…

• A feeling of being completely disconnected from life. Numb,
• A feeling of anxiousness interpreted as something wrong, off, an issue,
• A moment of genuine curiosity and a sense of possibility.

No matter the emotion or question — what is clear in hindsight is this…. A near constant devotion to seeking clarity, direction, and a feeling of being on a larger course of life that appeared unexplainable.

Right or wrong.

Good or bad.

Irrelevant or not.

This has captured much of my seeking over the years. A seeking that has been woven into the fabric of darkness I have experienced and come to know quite well. And woven into a search for a light, a life calling me forward and towards something more whole. More loving. More complete.

It seems that hindsight offers the greatest eye of understanding. An understanding that seems neither accessible nor possible, as we stand at the edge of our lives, living into the unfolding mystery.

Thank you for reading.

Be well,

Matthew