Authenticity and being consistent...round peg in a square hole?

      I started this blog based on a nudge. The first year and a half of posting weekly entries was surprisingly easy. Almost every week the Universe provided some experience that connected to new awareness, going deeper in old places or an opportunity to ask new questions.        
Some weeks writing a blog entry was close to effortless. I made the time to write, the Universe provided the rest. 

 Although I do have list of backup topics, I rarely used them. When I did write from that list  my engagement with the topic wasn't as immediate. The writing sometimes felt flat, even to me.
     A couple months ago my experience began to shift. What's moving in me these days is coming from a different instigator...my body. The motion comes more from instinct than from mindful observation or thought. I am equally moving and being moved. It feels like a different form of mindfulness that doesn't involve the mind.
    It's exciting, new, different and a walk in the unknown so a little scary at times. It's also a place of moving  more and having less to say about it. Which is fine, but doesn't make for good blogging.
   After the first couple weeks of feeling like I was really reaching to find something to write about, I didn't like how forced the writing felt. That opened up a pretty loud internal conflict. If I'm not coming up with something to write about every week, then maybe I should go to every other week.
    Part of what I committed to when I started this blog was keeping it authentic. I want to write from where I am. I want to keep using the mundane bits of a week or a day as an opportunity to embody the bigger picture. But if I only write when I'm nudged, that'll be pretty random. I need to be consistent. That's the way blogs work.
    I had a pretty good internal debate going about this for several weeks. Authenticity vs. being consistent. The two principles seemed so conflicting. One night as I was falling asleep I found myself wondering about the whole consistency thing. Some part of my brain seemed to think it was really important, but where did that come from? Do I value being consistent or was that some external value that I've unconsciously absorbed?
When I first moved to Taos, there was sign behind the cash register in my mechnic's shop that said something about how laws of commerce and business that work in the rest of the country break down in New Mexico. I believe it was a quote from FDR. Can't speak for the rest of New Mexico but yes, Taos is like that. Overnight shipping often takes two days. Manana is an operating principle. It's not unusual to drive up to a local business and find a sign on the door saying they'll be open in two hours or next week because they've gone somewhere else.
   Initially I found this puzzling and a bit frustrating. After living  here for fifteen years, the inconsistency is endearing and one of the things that makes Taos unique. When a business owner closes up shop to go camping it says to me s/he is more committed to having a life than to an external rule about how a business is supposed to function.
We're all unique in our need for stability, consistency and what that looks like. As a double Aquarian, I don't need much in the way of routine or consistent. Too much sameness usually brings out my rebellious side. It feels like a prison and a loss of freedom. That's one of the things I love about being a nomad and working for myself...every week is different. So why was I so hung up on being consistent with blogging?
The answers to that question came down to a whole lot of externals. Concern about what readers would think. Concern that I'd lose readers. So my worries about others expectations or at least my perception of others expectations. I felt a twinge of fear about stepping into another place where I was "breaking a rule" of how things are "supposed" to work. Yes, my life is filled with conscious rule breaking. That little fear flinch usually arises when I edge up to another one of those places where I risk being ostracized or marginalized by choosing not to follow a societal norm because it doesn’t fit for me.
Ah-hah! Being a consistent blogger vs. staying true to the spirit in which I started Viva la Duende and writing when I have something to say isn't a clash between being authentic and being consistent. It’s about being internally or externally consistent...and I've already made that choice.
When I'm internally consistent, I am congruent with myself. What I say, do and how I feel match. That's about my authenticity, which is worth more to me than fitting in or making others comfortable by adhering to social norms. I made the choice to be as authentic as I can years ago.
As with most choices about who I want to be, it's not a matter of deciding and poof...so it is. I have to embody that choice by living it. That means revisiting my choice to be authentic every time I have the opportunity to be more me. As Carl Jung once said, "I would rather be whole than good."

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Falling into Chaos

     We all experience spurts of chaos in our lives. In the past couple years chaos has visited me more frequently and with greater intensity. It doesn't surprise me as there's more chaos in the world in general. The latest chaos spurt began last week. I was going to start a new house and pet sit on Wednesday. Had my car all packed up to move houses and something came up for the homeowners that shifted their timing to leaving Thursday around noon. So I partially unpacked my car Wednesday evening and repacked it Thursday morning.
     The homeowners didn't get on the road till after 1pm. That gave  me just enough time to swing by the house after an appointment, unload my car and feed the animals  before I went off the radio station to DJ. Whew! That seems to have set the tone for this week, which is crashing along pretty chaotically.
     Sometimes the chaos in my life is of my own creation. Other times, stuff just happens.  No matter how carefully we plan and arrange, random happens. Life is by nature chaotic and unpredictable, even though we often organize ourselves into believing we have some control over how things turn  out.
How smoothly we move through these spurts of chaos depends on how we respond. Chaos cracks our illusion of control, bringing us face-to-face with the unknown...the ultimate reminder that we aren't in charge of squat. Many of us react to that reminder by working even harder to control what's happening. Chaos can't be controlled. Fighting it is pointless.
     Often falling apart is a prelude to things falling into place. So if we resist or attempt to stop the chaos, we miss the gifts it brings. While too much routine can be physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually numbing, chaos can be both intensely creative and liberating. When we're knocked out of routine, we have the opportunity to think, act and see things differently.  Many times a spurt of chaos has gifted me with some motion in a place I felt stuck,invited something entirely new into my life or allowed me to dump something that no longer works.
     Neither of those things makes chaos any easier move with when it's happening. Staying grounded, paying attention and falling into the chaos does. The idea of falling into chaos is a recent discovery. It came from a 5 Rhythms workshop I attended in May. Chaos is one of the five rhythms and we focused on that rhythm a fair amount in the workshop. At one point the teacher talked about the difference between leaping into chaos and allowing ourselves to fall into it.
     That caught my ear. I found myself thinking about it over and over for a few weeks after the workshop. As I mulled it over, I played with it when I danced. Instead of stretching to meet the intensity of the music in chaos, I experimented with sinking in and letting the music carry me. Then last week here comes an opportunity to see how that works with chaos in my life.
     Spurts of chaos feel like big, often tsunami sized waves. For years I've responded by psyching myself up to leap and surf the wave. That does work. It lets me move with what's happening rather than resisting it. However it's a lot of work, and as I realized this past week, surfing does involve a fair amount of ducking and dodging to keep my balance.
     Chaos is rarely a single wave. With each successive wave, I go through the process of psyching myself up again to leap onto it. After a few waves, that gets exhausting. Falling into chaos is almost effortless. I don't have to psych myself up. I don't have to jump. I can just let myself fall into what's happening.
     The difference is a bit tough to describe. Psyching myself up to jump into chaos was largely a mental exercise. Falling into chaos is more of an instinctive, body first mind catches up later thing. I simply went with what was happening rather than stepping back to think about it first.
Instead of surfing and skirting the top of wave, when I fall into chaos I am in the wave and can embody it. Rather than riding the wave, I am the wave. I've been  happily surprised to discover that being in the wave or being the wave means the chaos simply carries me along with it. I don't have to duck, dodge or fight for balance. All I need to do is stay in the moment and move with what's happening. I don't have to anticipate or get anxious. So far I'm liking falling into the chaos better than surfing it.
     Doing chaos from the inside makes the chaos itself look different. It's not a monster I have to fight my way through. It's just motion in an unexpected direction. And it's not as random as it seems. Being inside the chaos I can feel ebb, flow, rhythm and pattern in its movement.
I'm also accutely aware of what happens when my ego/brain wants  to jump in and "figure this out." So far I've felt pretty relaxed during most of this chaos. But when my brain jumps in, here comes the anxiety. As soon as I begin thinking about what's happening instead of being in it, I create friction. I lose my full body presence in the moment and pull my energy up in my head.
     Although I'm not actively resisting  the chaos, when I stop to "figure it out" I hold myself  motionless against the wave. The chaos moves on without me. Suddenly I'm left scrambling to figure out what to do next and how to get back into the wave so it doesn't crash over me. When I put myself in that scrambling place, I miss the opportunity to use the creative potential of chaos.
     From the outside the idea of falling into chaos looks risky, even threatening. If I'm in the chaos, won't I be swept away? Yeah, that's possible if I fall in and then resist. Falling into chaos is just another form of surrender; another avenue to being an active participant in this life I'm co-creating.

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