Before you begin today’s reflection...
I wanted to share two pieces of joyful news.
First, after many months of creation, The Art and Practice of Sacred Listening, my new self-paced online course, is almost ready. I’ll be opening it publicly on September 9, and I’ll be sharing much more about it in a special newsletter very soon.
This course is for people who sense there is more possibility waiting to emerge in their lives, their relationships, their work, and the way they move through the world.
Second, I’m delighted to let you know that on August 20, I’ll be joining George Noory on Coast to Coast AM for a two-hour conversation about Sacred Listening. Here in the Seattle area, the program airs on KIRO. I’ll share complete listening information—including how to tune in from anywhere—as we get closer, and I’d love to have you join us if you’re able.
Now, on to today’s reflection…
Sometimes, at various points in our lives, the way seems blocked.
We get stuck. We stop.
A tree falls in our path.
A person we were married to stops coming home at night.
Shingles hit and abscond with a perfectly good back.
My husband is diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma.
I am diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Now, I am told I am bone-on-bone in my left hip.
No wonder I have such pain, and had such pain walking the cobblestone streets of the Roman medieval towns in beautiful Portugal.
I myself have schooled myself to make the interior perspective shift from “Oh, shit!” to Curiosity: “Well, that was a surprise!” as soon as I can. I am doing well with that. And since I’ve been including, rather than resisting, the pain, I can report it’s not so bad.
I’ll never forget my acupuncturist saying to me, upon hearing about my brain tumor, back in 2003, “You know, Amba? Sometimes the body has an intuitive wisdom. For your journey right now, this must be exactly what you need.”
And it was. I was on a journey that I needed to be on, one that resulted in a breakthrough in my work.
Leaving for Portugal in June, I had so many plans: with my newly published book, The Heart of Sacred Listening, starting to travel beyond my known friends, starting to make a difference in the lives of many who have never worked with me, with those friends sharing Sacred Listening with their friends.
For a year, I’ve been creating, ad shooting, my online course, The Art and Practice of Sacred Listening -- a five hour self-paced course, giving you an even deeper access to practicing the kind of listening that heals relationships, creates deep connection, allows you to generate self-compassion, and end the critical voice inside you, opening space to live a life of meaning and purpose. It is just about ready to go live.
I have had so many plans for unfolding life in a certain, specific way. And then life throws us a curveball.
“Man plans, God laughs,” is an old Yiddish saying. You might have heard me say this before.
Or, as my friend, Tommy Dixon, another superb Substack author, wrote to me today, “God uses everything to bring about our salvation.”
Or, as Krishnamurti said, “We cannot change the wind, but we can adjust our sails.”
I have been adjusting my sails, each and every moment
Sometimes, the “not way” shows THE way.
Sometimes, it takes moving oneself out of the drama of pain and into a larger perspective. And that is exactly what happened the other morning, when this poem came through after my morning meditation.
The Not Way
The house plants shout:
“Look! I’m alive!”
Forget your pain, your troubles.
Appreciate the Life around you,
flourishing everywhere.
The waves white with rising sun
roll gently
onto your beach.
Mary Oliver’s words beckon devotionally.
The Buddha has not stopped meditating.
Ganesh, provider of obstacles-to-teach, faces you in all his glory, saying,
“I am only doing my job.”
Even Durga, on her lioness, says,
“You are not broken. You are alive!”
This is only
an unexpected curve
on your long, listening, loving road to Home. Here is an Inquiry for you to reflect upon: What is your current “not way” that is THE way?”
Many of the poems and meditations that arise in my morning practice find their way, as well, into my paid Substack community, where we explore together what they might be asking of us. It felt right to share this one more broadly, because I suspect many of us know what it is to discover that the “not way” is, in fact, the way.
Before I close, I promised to share a few photographs from Portugal. Looking back now, I see them differently. At the time, I thought they were simply memories from a beautiful trip. Now I see they were also photographs taken along a road that was quietly preparing me for a different journey.
Lisbon
Beauty doesn’t disappear because the path changes. Sometimes we notice it even more.
Lisbon,
A city that welcomed us
Belem Tower
The vineyards
Generations have tended these hillsides one season at a time.
The river
The Douro in the morning each morning instilled such a sense of peace.
The locks
Watching the ship rise and fall through the locks, I found myself thinking that sometimes progress isn’t forward motion at all. Sometimes it is allowing life -- including our troubles -- to lift us to another level.
The Churches and Cathedrals
Fatima:
Paco Episcopal de Porto
Batalha:
“Medieval” streets:
On the Atlantic coast near Porto (it was hot, hot, hot!)
More medieval cities photos:
Assorted photos from life aboard the ship:
Looking back, I realize that Portugal gave me far more than beautiful memories. I was being quietly prepared for the next journey—an adventure I never expected to take.
If this reflection has spoken to something in you, I invite you to continue the journey with me even more deeply. In my paid Substack community, I share the poems, meditations, and inquiries that arise from my reflective practice. Together, we explore not only what they mean, but how they might change the way we live. When our perspective shifts, life looks different. And when life looks different, our actions begin to change as well.
Until next time...
May you discover that what appears to be the “not way” reveals itself, in time, as the way.
It helps to remember that "blocking" is part of the plan. You just don't go the distance until the shortcuts stop working anymore.
Rick, thank you. So deeply insightful.
I think about my story that began when my first husband simply stopped coming home at night. I had tried to take shortcuts and maneuver around a growing dissatisfaction in our marriage. Then he stopped coming home. There was no shortcut around that. I couldn't fix him. I couldn't control the outcome. I couldn't think positively.
So the question, "Who am I?" emerged—a question that began the real and deeper journey: awakening from the illusion that I was my roles, and from the illusion of my separateness.
Yes. The obstacle isn't merely something to overcome. It's the moment when the old way can no longer carry us, making room for a deeper way to emerge.
I almost titled this post "The 'Not Way' Becomes the Way." But then I'd be giving away the ending.
Each morning I read from Mark Nepo's "The Book of Awakening." Today's reading was about the chick breaking and eating its own shell as it is born. In the reflection, he writes:
"Transformation always involves the falling away of things we have relied on, and we are left with a feeling that the world as we know it is coming to an end, because it is."
So many shortcuts have stopped working.
Perhaps we are all in the midst of a profound transformation.
I know that I am. Thank you, once again, for your reflection. It invited me to dive more deeply into my own current life circumstances.