February 13, 2014October 26, 2018 Kelsey Horton

How Alive Are You Willing To Be?

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“Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?” – Anne Lamott

Wake up.

Get frustrated with your alarm clock as if it should be ashamed for daring to wake you.

Realize your bedroom is too freezing to fall back asleep in anyways.

Grumble into your day.

Same mistakes. Same patterns. Same bad posture and questionable spending habits and burning questions that have haunted you for years. Same relationships. Same challenges. New people and scenery, same damn stories repeating themselves.

Some joy, sure. A flicker of hope here and there. Encounters with strangers that knock your breath away with the beauty and grace and truth of humanity.

Same questions. Same surface-level conversations.

Where has the time gone? How are you doing in this weather? Does my smile look weird in this picture?

So many of us live half-heartedly, repeating the same grooves as always in that frustrating space where things are average but not extraordinary. Not everything is drab in a half-hearted life — you’ve probably made some incredible friends along the way, achieved a few amazing things, racked up a few experiences that have left you in awe.

But maybe a dreamy little voice inside is asking you: Isn’t it time you kicked it up a notch?

Maybe that voice has been prodding at your heart for a while, or maybe it’s just now surfacing. Maybe you have ignored it for a decade. Maybe it’s time to heed its call.

We don’t need any obscure metaphysical methods to figure out what we have been creating in our lives. All we need to do is look around. Our jobs. Our homes. The way people approach us. Our family relationships (yes, even the difficult ones. Especially the difficult ones). The way we handle conflict. All of these things are manifestations of what we have been creating internally, and the pieces of our life are here because we said yes to them at one point or another.

But we can always choose again.

If this is what you are capable of in a confused and murky state, imagine what you could create from a place of full-tilt shining, of joy, of finally acknowledging your own power and feeling compelled to flourish. Imagine what your career would look like if it wasn’t created in an energy of impressing your parents, just getting by, or sleepwalking through major decisions because you were frozen and confused.

Every night before I drift to sleep, I visualize myself standing on a beach. The green sparkling water extends deep into the wisps of the horizon — and in my water, a few manatees splash around and play, but that’s neither here nor there. The water is abundance, goodness, opportunities, divine order, fulfillment, miracles. Everything we could ever want. Infinite substance.

I stand on the sand and hold up a vessel so I can catch the water and let it into my life. So often, we offer the Universe a teaspoon, a thimble, a tiny container to hold our portion of the goodness. We hold up our little thimble and say “Here, I’m humble, I’m dainty, I’m not important, this is the amount that’s Realistic.”

You’re probably busy. I figured she’d say no, so I didn’t ask. It’s okay. I’m not mad. I’m fine.

The ocean doesn’t coax us to upgrade to a bigger container – it just fills what we give it. We get what we ask for. When we look around, we see the results of our thimble in our finances, our career, the opportunities that we say no to because we are terrified. The aspects of our lives that are adequate but not electric.

In my meditation, I dip into the ocean with a giant container. Huge. Its shape and form changes depending on my imagination, but my vessel is always bigger than my self-confidence and bolder than what I think is possible.

I let the water engulf me. I let my vessel overflow.

The ocean doesn’t judge this either. The water swirls and dips and fills up my cup with a passionate, colorful, and unreasonable life that rocks my days and allows me to unfurl my soul. I drift to sleep, brimming with possibility that I can hardly understand.