I like to think of myself as an ecosystem.
A wild and natural landscape all its own. This world of mine is of course within a world, and that world is of course within a galaxy, and that galaxy is of course within a universe… and god only knows where that universe ends, or what it may itself be within.
Inside this little world of mine, there are symbiotic relationships in every moment. There is hope and joy like sunshine. And there is sadness, loss and cleansing storms and rain.
What grows inside THRIVES on this relationship.
This relationship of dark and light, hope and doubt, rise and fall. In ecosystems the changes that feel like destruction are a gift… it just requires enough time to see it. In the same way that a massive earthquake once ripped open the land like a wound, and then filled to the brim with sparkling sea water, and became Tomales Bay.
This is what happens in life.
It happens inside, and it happens outside, and outside that, and outside that, ad infinitum. Things die, and new things grow. This is the way of it.
But we humans judge ourselves as something that is outside this ecosystem impeding on it, instead of seeing that we are literally made of it, and are utterly inseparable from it, in the very same way all planets were born of exploded stars.
We judge these storms and earthquakes as personal failures, instead of receiving them as the gifts they truly are. But that doesn’t mean it’s supposed to feel easy, and painless or fun! Contrary to popular opinion, the truth is receiving gifts IS often painful, and triggering and uncomfortable in the samebreath as being full of joy.
So the point is not that you should NOT feel the full range of reactions to what happens in yourself and your business, it’s that you only need accept that they are, and always will be, part of this dance of life.
The point is, that everything is literally feeding and sustaining everything. Even when one thing starves or kills another, that itself, is birthing new life.
So the question is only: what do you want to feed and sustain?
In your body? In your life? In your business? In your world?
When storms come, learn to marvel in wonder, and ask yourself “I wonder what is being rinsed clear, and what is being restored?”
Learn to turn your horror at the lions hunt into a noticing of who is getting fed. Take your eye off what others are choosing to feed (which is out of your control), and choose what YOU will feed and sustain, so you may grow in your own direction.
Sometimes toxins come into our ecosystems, and they are washed away or slowly decomposed, but they STILL had their purpose and role to play there. Their destruction, results in some awakening.
But as you may have already noticed, mama nature don’t play by our rules, or on our time table. 😉 Her vision is ever evolving, and takes its time. Sometimes she is swift, and sometimes she is slow, but she is never, ever still.
Because even when it looks like an ecosystem is utterly still, it is actually in motion, in ways you cannot see or feel. Cells multiplying, atoms dividing, roots are spreading, and branches are reaching a fraction of a millimeter more towards the sun.
Invisible to the eye, but happening nonetheless.
What I want to feed, is people knowing and feeling their true essence and value in this world, not just because it’s the thing I’ve struggled the most with personally, but because what I absolutely love most is watching them then take that gift and SHINE, in new and far reaching ways.
To see how they go on to feed so many others, from that wellspring of knowing their cog in this infinite wheel of life.
We have believed that to shine means to have to OUTSHINE others. To BE the wheel, or to MASTER the wheel, but not to be a cog. And in doing so we feel lonely, and starved of real connection. We forget there is no wheel without the cog. We forget that the cogs don’t “make” the wheel, they ARE the wheel.
Each part of the ecosystem is the WHOLE FREAKIN’ ECOSYSTEM. It is a domino chain the likes of which we’ll never fully comprehend. Everything is turning together.
Did you know there is a massive dried up lake in the middle of the Sahara Desert whose dust is now literally FEEDING the jungles of the Amazon on the completely other side of the earth?
What seems dead or dying, what seems not connected at all, is intricately-so and actually thriving…you just have to know where to look.
Sometimes we don’t see it right away, but then — like those scientists who discovered the Saharan dust in the jungle — we do.
This balance of fully shining, not as the great master of the wheel, but as part of the wheel that is this universe itself, is the key to our felt sense of wholeness and happiness, in all that we ARE, and all we DO.
The good news is (and you can take a sigh of relief here), that you only need mind your own ecosystem. Not just because it’s the only one you CAN, but because you cannot separate the effects of that on the wheel… even if you tried like hell.
So wherever you are, and whatever you do, and whatever is *up* in your world…
You are whole, you are complete,
you are in motion…
all at once.
❤
P.S. If you’re looking for help or guidance on how to better care for and value your own ecosystem, you can find me at The Salty Olive, for everything from consulting, to courses, to branding & design.
[optin-monster-shortcode id=”nnuowpvzn5x7hgk9″]
