Divergence

Lives diverge. Things have natural life cycles. It’s a hard thing to not only notice and honor, but reconcile. In the current age, when lives diverge it seems to be even more stark than it was before. It takes serious discernment to be able to see when this is happening and honor and allow it without letting all of the negative programming around quitting drown you.

I was never a quitter. In fact, it has always been hard for me to quit anything. As a constant fixer and problem solver, I was sure I could augment anything so it wasn’t necessary to quit it. Quitting was akin, for me, to giving up. It had so many stories and limiting beliefs around it. I thought it was disloyal to quit. But really what the core of it was, was being afraid to change. Change meant instability and uncertainty. For so long I would do anything I could to avoid that uncomfortable place. I was the kind of person who would know a breakup was necessary and/or coming (sometimes months in advance), and in order to not quit, I would let it play out, let the other person finally sever it.

I wore not quitting as a badge or honor, but that badge ended up being a a thousand pound weight on my chest. It kept me in situations where nothing was working, but I stayed because I didn’t want to quit or be seen as a quitter.

I know now, that this was a lack of the practice of discernment. It was also a way to not have to make a choice. And now, discernment is one of my most common practices. And it is so with the current time. The cultivation of knowing that underlies discernment allows for a truth of self. The ability to know yourself enough to know what is right and what is not and to take compassionate action to put yourself in the path of something that fits. Instead of holding out for the moment people change, I changed myself. I turned inward instead of focusing outward. I practiced from the inside out instead of the outside in. And this has made all the difference in how I experience the world and every situation including divergence.

Now, I let myself quit. I always do it with as much compassion as I can, but I no longer let situations that don’t work for me run rough shod over my life. I am clearer for it. I have more space because of it. I may have less “things” and people in my life, but I no longer feel the crush of resentment for staying too long because I couldn’t quit.

I can mark a specific departure point when this started to change for me. It was in the summer of 2017, while in an advanced yoga teacher training at a renowned center (that will remain nameless). I was scheduled to be at the training for 2 or 3 modules, either 4 or 5 weeks depending on how it sorted out. But part way into week one, I was reeling. Everything felt wrong. I tried to ignore it because I thought I just had to “push” through the discomfort. I thought it was part of the learning process. I didn’t want to lose my money. But most of all I didn’t want to quit. I didn’t want to admit it was wrong, that I was wrong.

There were a number of things I didn’t listen to at the outset for the same reasons. They specifically said “do not arrive at training if you are sick”. From all the years of traveling, my immune system has always been pretty sturdy, but about a week before training I got a summer cold, something that had never happened before. I started to wonder if I should go. A few other things happened in that same time period that made me ask that same question. But I ignored them all and arrived at training extremely under the weather.

It was so bad that one night at 3 am I left my room because I was coughing so much and didn’t want to disturb my 7 other roommates (all who were in the same training and had to be at class at 6 am). The person working the overnight shift at the desk, saw me walk by and then heard me in the lounge coughing my guts out. She brought me a cough drop, asked if I was ok and then offered me a single room for the remaining hours of the night, so I could try to sleep when I told her I was trying not to wake my roommates. At first I didn’t take her up on it, but after another half hour, I did. To this day I am so grateful for that kind offer. That time, in the room alone, coughing and trying to sleep shifted something for me. The next day I decided I would only complete only one module of the training. As soon as I did, I felt lighter. I was able to engage more with my fellow students, and I got better.

I am sure through the course of life I had quit other things, but I just didn’t remember any of them. I had never quit something so soon and that felt like this. I dropped the “shoulds,” and all of the judgement from the outside that I would be met with and just did it. Being so run down, I didn’t have the energy to resist what clearly needed to happen, so I embraced it. Writing this now I realize that this also happened to me when I was sick during my trek in Nepal. Both times it was a surrender to what is, and a circumnavigation of my ego.

This seemingly small decision paved the way for discernment. It helped me to quit other things. Now quit might be a harsh word here, it’s more like I closed loops that were flailing wide open and didn’t need to be. It helped me to release and complete. It helped me to be open to what works for me and what doesn’t, and to be honest with myself about that. So now when divergence occurs, as it is on a mass scale right now, globally, but also for me personally, I discern, I allow, and I complete with love and compassion.

(For another angle on this, head over to the Podcast and catch episode 7)