Living the Questions, Blessing the Answers

A story is told. It's filled with a variety of complaints and challenges, drama and heartache...tears...fierce eyes... pleading eyes, the works. A story is told, and when we have no immediate resolution or new direction, no answers that scratch the itch of discomfort in our definition of a timely manner, we salt the wound to life a little more, telling it again to the next listener, even when the next listener merely has a different address inside our heads. And we wonder why sleep seems to elude us...

Why? Why Me?

It’s a question I hear a lot these days but no one actually uses those words. It’s the battle cry of adolescence in taller bodies everywhere. It’s a cry from the youngest part of ourselves, the part that’s tired of being a grown up, of handling all that we don’t understand or know how to do or believe we can keep up with.

It’s the cry of surrender when we’ve argued against everything and everyone, including ourselves, and still no answers appear that make sense, make us happy, or relieve our anxiety... except a little shift has occurred; the quality of our cry has changed. It’s softer and quieter. Not necessarily defeated, just softer. One could argue it’s because we have no energy left… no energy left isn’t always a bad thing... now our loudness can no longer interfere with our listening.

Resistance is useless against God’s grace.

‘Why Me?’ now becomes a question from the heart, a longing to know the truth with a different kind of willingness to stand before it and with it.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

This is one of my favorite quotes. It came into my life when I was in chiropractic school which, from the outside, was pregnant with possibility yet from the inside, turmoil was mucking about. It was a time of great family discord; there was dying and attempts at dying and a reconfiguration of family roles and the role of family in shaping one’s destiny. All of it set me up for who I am today, including the kind of healer and doctor I’ve grown to be.

Everything I knew to be true up until that point, everything I thought I could count on was stripped away. I stood naked, my heart exposed to myself in a way it hadn’t been before; with big questions, and lots of them, about the next steps my feet would take. Would they follow my heart or something else? And who was my heart following?

“Live the questions” was permission for me to remember that there is time.

There is always time. When I am arguing to stay the same there is time. When I’m sure I am right, there is time. When I’m sure I am wrong, there is time. When I am uncertain, there is time. When there are more questions than answers, I reconnect with the sage advice above, echoed a century ago by a poet who struggled with similar questions of the heart, and I breathe and remember that there is time. Time offers the opportunity to erase judgment and find our softness.

The key to living is breathing, and of course, more loving; inside your head, your body, your heart. Giving yourself breathing room, creating more space for grace to reside is a task worthy of your commitment. It requires time and trust; time for the steam swirling about in your mind and emotions to dissipate so you can see through the fog, and trust, well...trust is a tricky thing. It’s a rare being that doesn’t live on a foundation of fear first, practiced trust, second. So practice… until trust is simply your primary mode of operation and you trust it, and yourself.

So, the next time you hear yourself utter this age old question ‘Why Me?’ when your world feels chaotic, then place your hands on your heart and say thank you and consider listening for the answer because what appears to be chaos is truly a rendering and clarifying action designed to move us into the next best expression of our truest Self. Pandora’s Box becomes our Hope Chest and the answers that find us are born of this space and will be worth blessing.

Epilogue...

Why Me? Because somewhere in your history (long ago or simply yesterday,) you dreamt it, fantasized about it or wished it into existence. Somehow, in some way, you called it forward. Oh, the power we have and are afraid to admit to or use. Why Me? Because you have what it takes to live it, learn from it, embrace it, love it and move on.

Dr. Lauren Nappen, a natural born healer, chiropractor, spiritual intuitive, minister, visionary, witness and author of the multiple award winning book Wishing You, has been encouraging people to rewrite their personal story for the past 18 yrs. by sharing the benefits and wisdom of alignment with Self and Spirit. She is the creator of various workshops and seminars, including Wellth of Soulutions, a monthly spiritual gathering that focuses on the joy of the soul.

Holding advanced certifications in a wide variety of healing disciplines, she currently shares her gentle ahhhjusting style and spiritual ministry at her healing sanctuary, Ahhhjusting To Life, in Bucks County, Pa. where she lives and works with her 3 black beauties, Riley, Emma and Oliver. For inquiries, please visit her website at www.ahhhjustingtolife.com or call her. 215.794.0606