The goal is equanimity

My intention for this blog and for writing in general has been to find meaning from life. Writing has become a meditation, a way for me to make sense (or at least make the attempt) of the experiences that make no sense.

The goal has never been as an outlet to vent or to place blame. This kind of writing and process is so easy. When I write, I am really trying to write from my own filter without being petty or mean. I wish to write with integrity and to tell my truth from my own experience.

And I recognize that my experience is my own and is only one side of a truth that may have many sides to it.

It is easy to tell myself that I am being attacked or another person is intentionally trying to hurt me. Even if this is the case, particularly in recent happenings on the songwriting business front, I can step outside of this storyline to look for the perhaps frightened or hurt being on the other side. I know that I have my own fearful being that has been hurting, despite my best efforts to practice non-attachment.

Change can be painful. Breakups tend to be difficult. Each day, I have the opportunity to tell a million stories in a million different ways.

As I was lying in bed with my sweetie tonight, we checked in about the day and how I was doing.

I feel terrible, I told him. I feel like I am being attacked.

But you may just be thinking you are being attacked, he responded.

He went on to tell me about Don Juan (Carlos Castaneda books), who taught us that everyone needs a person in their life who throws off their equanimity because that is where the true practice begins. I can say without a doubt that I have had many opportunities for this kind of practice in my life.

The practice, my love told me, is to be meditating all the time so that even if someone is intentionally attacking you, you can see their enlightened being within and address that being rather than the façade of their attack.

In the instance of the business breakup, my feeling like I am being attacked may just be a story of my own making.

And I do not have to respond in kind. I do not have to give up the right to a method of songwriting I helped to devise. I can send peace and good tidings to my former business partner as he struggles to find his own path and allow myself to carry on in my own direction. There is no blame, just two different beings trying to find their way.

I can sleep through the night without worrying about what kind of emails I may find in my inbox tomorrow because in the end, it just does not matter.

I will be a success at whatever I set my heart to. I have done so in the past, and I will continue to do so in the future.

I can be free.

I am free.