Simply Blessed

“I could care less.”  It’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it?  Often used as sort of a flippant response to information that you’ve just received.   But the actual words contradict the intention behind uttering them.  In essence, one is actually saying that you *could* care less.  And this is where I begin, in caring too much and caring less.

Within the system of the Chinese Elements, there is the element of earth, yin and yang earth.  Yin earth is the archetype of Mother.  It’s the mother’s job to care, to nurture and to support.  This is a big part of who I am, yin earth, it’s in my core destiny, which is revealed in my birth date via the 9 star ki.  It’s also revealed in the shapes and curves of my particular facial features.

Every element has a front and a back, challenges and strengths.  We don’t get to choose just the strengths, but we do get to choose how we evolve through both the strengths and challenges.

Among the Mother’s or yin earth’s challenges:  caring too much to the point of excessive worry, worst case scenario type thinking, meddling in other people’s right and responsibility to figure things out for themselves, and trouble with just saying no sans the – omg, I said no, what will they think of me now – guilt hangover.  If I’m being completely frank here, welcome to my world!

My girl friend told me she was starting a 30 day process of caring less.  Caring less, is not to be without caring, but to care without the suffering.  This really piqued my interest.  When she feels overtly concerned about something, she tells herself – she could care less about this, and then finds and inhabits the feeling place in the body of caring less.  I would add breathe into the feeling place as if it’s a gentle wave lifting you up and carrying you into that sweet place of relief.

The next morning after she and I talked, I woke up and lay in bed.  This seems to be a time when I most kick into worry, worst-case scenario mode, followed by how-can-I-fix-this mode.  Truth is 99% of my worst-case scenario thinking a) either never comes true or b) is what 12 step calls stinkin’ thinkin’.  It’s just not true, period.  The other truth, if there’s any fixing to be done, unless I’ve got the power to spin the planets today (I checked, I don’t) get out of the way and let something far greater than me, reveal the greater picture.

And that leads me back to what I did that morning of worry.  I said to myself, I could care less, took a deep breath and imagined myself as if I was a camera with my focus up as close as it could possibly be.  Then I brought the focus back, back, back, as far as it could get.  Here, I could breathe even easier.

Another friend of mine once explained it as looking at a beautiful quilt hanging on a wall. Walk up to it and press your nose into one tiny square of that quilt, the beauty is lost in a blur, your nose hurts and you can’t breathe very well either :). Step back several feet and you can see the entire image of that tapestry we call life, clearly.

That tapestry is what’s mine and mine alone to live and experience. It’s as unique as my fingerprint and it has my fingerprints all over it. And something else is all over it, the hands of Divine Wisdom, carrying me every step of the way, even when I think I’m the only one with my hands on the levers of life.