Day 239: God Doesn’t Throw It Into the Nest
There's a Hindu saying, "God gives food to every bird, but he doesn't throw it into the nest."
While we may not sit in our nest waiting for food to be delivered, that is the way society is leaning.
We are being taught that all we have to do is pick up our phones and things will be there almost immediately.
We pay for convenience. We value getting what we want when we have the impulse that says we want it.
There is little impulse control anymore.
It used to be that you had to get dressed, drive to a store, possibly a second or third store, before you'd find what you needed.
It took effort on our part. We had to participate in the process.
And sometimes, that little bit of effort was enough to have us question if we really wanted that thing, or if we really needed to have it right now.
Now, we can literally have food thrown in the nest. We sit there and the food and everything else shows up at the door, from just about any place you want.
We don't have to check with ourselves to see how strong our desire is, what the emotions are around it. We just react.
And when we stop checking in, we stop noticing the difference between a true desire and a passing impulse.
We have become numb to what we are feeling and what our emotions are signaling to us.
Our emotions create the energetic vibration we send out into the Universe and what we receive in return. So, it's critical we stay in touch with our emotions.
I learned the power of being intentional, checking in with my emotions, and how to wait for things when I moved to Cabo in 1991.
It took a month to get a letter from the U.S.
There was one little video store that had some videos in English.
You went to the town square at 6PM and stood in line outside the little building where there were two booths with operators who would place collect calls to U.S. for you.
If your family wasn't there to answer, you'd come back the next night and try again.
For me, not being a meat eater, I would go to the little grocery store and 3-4 other fruit and vegetable stands to get what I needed to make dinner.
Everything was a process, and if you didn't have patience when you moved here, you'd quickly learn it or you'd leave.
In the village where the motorhome is, there is a little grocery store that doesn't have a lot of what I need, so buying produce is still a scavenger hunt, just like 35 years ago.
Patience. And getting out of the nest to go look for the food God provided.
These are the small community things I learned to appreciate when we had to drive around looking for people's cars, because there were no phones in homes. We would meet and share information.
Now we have a community Facebook group for that.
Where can I find mushrooms? Any news on when power will be restored? Who can clean RV A/C units?
We go out and find that food and while doing it we bond with people, build relationships.
That's why the food wasn't dropped in the nest.
The process is part of the provision.
We meet people in the process.
We learn what we're capable of in the process.
We discover what we actually want in the process.
As much as I enjoy being a hermit, there's another part of me that craves that community.
Not to go to happy hour or dinner, just to say hi as I walk the dogs, knowing people's names and their dogs, making small talk and knowing we are there for each other if the need arises.
Part of our personal and spiritual growth is how we are as fellow humans. How we contribute to humanity. And how we function in the world as a whole.
We were never meant to be solitary silos, paying to have inconveniences taken care of by other people.
Those inconveniences are what build us. We solve problems. We get things done. We figure things out, by working through issues that arise.
Those daily inconveniences that we move through are what makes us who we are.
People that remove themselves from the small things they can hire out or do online become incapable of handling life's challenges because they have let that muscle atrophy.
We need challenges to challenge us and make us smarter, stronger, more adaptable, and more agile.
The goal is not to have everything in our life delivered to our nest. It's get out there and find it.
The food may be provided, but we still have to leave the nest and participate in receiving it.
We have to solve problems, ask questions, talk to people, check in with ourselves, and learn the difference between a true desire and an impulse.
That's how we figure out what we really want.
That's how we learn what we love.
And that's how we become strong enough to go get the life that is waiting for us.
Today's Gentle Practice
Think about one small inconvenience you usually try to avoid.
Ask yourself:
What might this be giving me a chance to practice?
Maybe patience.
Resourcefulness.
Connection.
Confidence.
Trust.
You don't have to make life harder on purpose.
Just notice where a small inconvenience may be strengthening a part of you that convenience never could.
With you,
Lynn
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