pick up your microphone. listen in
"Do you know how unusual it is to see someone doing something like that? Like what you were doing, okay, that’s so open and honest and weird and you’re not making fun of them in your mind." (Girls, season 1, episode 8)
You know that experience where you are observing someone embody who they are meant to be? Truly living their purpose, their dharma, their reason for existence?
I have a visceral reaction when I witness these moments. I get squirmy, often cry, and even feel a bit twitterpated, but not for a fluffy bunny or a sweet doe and instead by the sheer idea of bearing witness to talent/desire/purpose in it's raw form. It's like someone is standing naked before you, and you think, "Hmm. Yes, you are totally nude. I can really see all of you now", then they proceed to unzip their skin from head to toe, only to reveal an inside that is completely different than what lies within you or I, but it shines like the brightest damn light there ever was, rendering you blissfully blind.
I imagine it would be the same for the entire audience at a Jimi Hendrix, Prince, or Perfume Genius show, being on set with Daniel Day-Lewis or Meryl Streep, or being a fly on the wall, watching Frida Kahlo create.
I know we all go through life experiencing these moments, yet some of us have more of them than others. Why is that?
I believe this is due in part to each and every one of them being more in tune with their dhi.
Say what?!
Dhi.
Gut. Intuition. Inner voice.
The sanskrit word for this is dhi. If intuition is a sailboat, dhi is the wind that moves the sailboat across the sea, getting you to the right place, at the right time.
We've all experienced what happens when we listen to our dhi- when we finally go to that class we have been meaning to go to and everything about it is just so perfectly in sync with a goal we have been mulling over, a change we have been working up the guts to embark upon, or when we just have a strange feeling that we need to turn right instead of left and end up witnessing the beauty of a stranger, or run into a friend we have not seen in a long time and something inside us feels like a spark is being lit; two rocks that have been banging against one other have finally created a flame, and all our insides are aglow.
Ah, if only it were so easy. But maybe, just maybe, it can be...
Dhi exists, always. It is innate. It IS. The hard part is whether or not we listen and tune in.
When I think of dhi, (and most things, really because this film is just so damn genius), I think of the movie, Inside Out. Specifically, where Joy realizes that she needs both her and sadness to become unstuck, create change, and allow love to arise. It's not that those who listen to their dhi do not experience fear. Fear is a natural human emotion, one that can paralyze us, sure, but also one that has the ability to keeps us safe from harm AND propel us into a future that we have always wanted, but never had the guts to try; to stand atop a waterfall and hold hands with both fear and love before you jump.
And how does one cultivate this dhi?
ENJOY THE SILENCE. Okay, maybe you don't enjoy it, at least not at first. Maybe you already do? But we all need it to truly HEAR.
Hear what? Our inner voice, light, teacher, guru...whatever you want to call it. It is when we become still- when our body becomes soft, our mind becomes quiet, and our breath becomes balanced, that we are more able to hear what she has to say. The more we hear, the more we remember who we are. The more we remember who we are, the more we feel a desire to be in sync. The stronger the desire, the higher the probability that we will act. The greater the action, the more we live our purpose. The more we live our purpose, the more we shine. (I completely forgot about this video...oh, the '90's! Daisies, crushed velvet, and shoulder pads for life!)
Let's face it, most of our day is a bunch of noise- alarms, email alerts, text messages, phone calls, cars honking, cats meowing, lawnmowers, kids letting you know that they need to poop and pee at the most inopportune time...
Pick a time to start- in the morning, before everyone else is awake in your home, on your drive to work when you normally make a call, listen to that podcast, or put on Spotify, on your lunch break, which you usually take at your desk, or, right before you crawl into bed, exhausted from a long day- then, sit. With the sole purpose of holding space for silence. Less doing, more being. Ssssshhhh, you are getting very silent.
*This post is dedicated to my love- never stop playing*
