Whose life are you planning?

As much as I try to surrender and to be comfortable in not knowing, I continually plan!  I'm planning visits with my son in December, continuing education for January, classes and curriculum, and all the mundane too (when I'll vacuum, what I'll cook, where and when do I bike, etc).  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with all these plans spinning me around and around.  Will my son be available in December, can I afford to pay for the education, do I have the students and their interest, what in the world will I cook?  I then notice the discomfort of not knowing, actually not knowing a lot! And I notice I'm not surrendering to possibilities or opportunities, inspiration and divine guidance.  I have just surrendered to stress!

It's also so easy to share my thoughts about the directions of my children's lives.  After all, they introduced the topic.  But did they invite the conversation?  Not really.  So, if I'm completely honest (and this seems to make life so much easier!), my thoughts are really my suggestions and opinions.  And with a bit more honesty,  I never asked them if my suggestions and opinions were welcomed.  I did not even get a clear invitation in the form of "Hey Mom, what do you think?".  Hmmmm, good stuff to consider.  After the fact, it can be uncomfortable to impart my wisdom on someone who wants to live life their own way.  Who made me boss of their life anyway?  No one.  Well, someone, and that someone is me.  It just doesn't work.

Living in clarity, honesty, awareness of hidden motives and the awareness of how easy it is to be in someone else's business are some of the main cornerstones to my inner peace.  That peace is my business.  It has a ripple effect throughout my life and in all my relationships.  But, all this planning and attaching to outcomes is stressful.  It's the attachment, the need to know how it will unfold that becomes stressful.  It just doesn't work. Without needing to know how my life plans will look in the future, it becomes so much more fun, curious and intriguing to plan and welcome whatever may come.  And, it may not look like my plans at all.  That has happened a great many times!  The other thing that has happened a great many times, is I get something that is far better for my own evolution, my growth, my wisdom and experience.  That too has a ripple effect.  It may be due to a very difficult struggle, but I can honestly say that I have been shown and divinely inspired to greater understandings and being moved by grace.  

As for my children, what could I possibly know of their life plans and how their lives should unfold?  The things I had planned with them and for them look entirely different, or don't exist.  It seem truest of all to say that they have their own lives and it will look however it is going to look.  Divine Business.  And, more truth be told, it's certainly teaching me to respect their freedom to choose and live life their way (and I've been in places where it looked like dying in their way too).  Divine Business again.  I really don't want that kind of power to wield about life and death issues.  I can barely plan a week's menu and have it unfold dependably.  

So, what if the dreaming and planning can have space and time to unfold as it's going to be.  It's going to be anyway.  I could try to control it and experience tons of stress, or I can get moved and move as it unfolds.  Sure there are words, actions, invitations I can offer when it's a mutual agreement, when I'm staying in my own business.  It's a really fine line sometimes.  But it is a kinder and more peaceful line to walk.  My suggestions and opinions get welcomed and adopted as another's, or not.  Reality.  It's not the plan!  Arguing with that is never going to change how things actually are, and it all is going to change as that seems to be the natural way.  Non-attachment to my way and my time leaves a whole lot more possibility, and a whole lot more freedom.  It is there that trust is grown, trust that all unfolds with or without me, that to dive into another's business especially when uninvited and not welcomed is a sure recipe for suffering - mine and another's.  Can I just plan to approach life plans differently?  Yes, because peace is more enjoyable than thinking I know how my life is supposed to be and thinking how another's life is supposed to be.  Life will show me the way and the future can unfold as I take care of life,  in the present, now, just today, just this moment. 


Other thought provoking quotes by Joseph Campbell:  

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
​
Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.