Stability - A Perspective

Recent interactions I had with people close to me had me thinking about life, how we live, how we make choices and what motivates them. Stability, for example, is something that everybody is longing for, and think they need to achieve to be any kind of successful, accomplished, secure or even safe in life.

I was thinking about stability and what it means. Does stability come from the repetition of a similar action, such as living in the same place for a long time, going to the same job every day, doing similar tasks with the same people, eating lunch at the same time, in the same place, from the same menu? Or is is simply a state of mind, like feeling okay about things, even in situations where experiences are fleeting, and there is nothing familiar, typical and fixed in your day to day experience? Is our idea of stability simply about doing the same thing over and over again each day? Are we willing to settle for that, or is it something more?

Most people seem to be yearning for this one ultimate outcome in life. The one job, the one house, the one best friendship, THE ONE. And when they find it/them, then cling onto it/them as if it were the rock, the anchor, the answer, the be all and end all of their life, their stability, and therefore, their success. That thing, that ONE thing seems to be the trophy of life accomplishment....even when many people are unhappy and unfulfilled with it all...they are willing to still 'settle' for it, because apparently it is the right thing to do.

Personally, I was living alone without my parents since the age of 16. I left my country, went back, then left again. Over the years I have travelled far and wide, moved countries, between cities, studied, then switched fields, had careers and switched....and then switched again. I have been married, divorced, had children, then settled again. I have grown, I have evolved, walked different paths of life, seen so many crazy and unbelievable things, and I have changed in many ways, yet in others remained just the same.

Through all of that I have reflected on what stability means time and time again, during times of feeling stable, and again times of feeling unstable. I realised that stability need not rely on consistency and familiarity, being rooted or fixed on one idea or outcome. On a deeper level, stability is more about allowing yourself to remain rooted in the core values of who you are, while allowing the creative expansion of your life, your desires, and all that you dream of becoming to unfold, and then flow through you in the form of ideas, inspirations and urges. All the while guiding you to new experiences, new places, new truths and insights, new people, and into all the new and different versions of you.

True stability comes from surrendering to, and then remaining anchored in life's movement. It is about supreme surrender, trusting in the ebb and flow of your Soul urges, and in the creative energy which guides and shapes who you are. You can be rooted in the flow of expansion, your experience, your existence and who you are with it, unafraid of letting go of all that once represented who you once were, yet still holding onto all that counts, and what you stand for all at once. The fickle nature of my life taught me that. Practicing yoga also taught me that. No matter what was going on, where I was, or what time it was, I could always return to that quiet place of certainty within myself as I visited with my Soul through asana, breath and meditation on my yoga mat. Yoga offered a still, constant and balanced freedom and flow that I could align with wherever, whenever, whatever.

The typical human experience in our system, the control, the drive for the ego based power over other people and things, the need for external recognition, the way we constantly give our power away to others when we blame, shame, judge their life, and even our own too, does not give space to allow such a flow, a freedom, a stability in this sense to emerge and guide us in our life. On the contrary, the typical ways we are raised to live obscures it.

The things I speak of here are quite backward in terms of how we typically live in our world. However there is a gentle awakening to the power of the soul, intuition, love, and to the quiet, yet profound power that exists in receptivity, fluidity, and releasing the need to grasp onto places, things, people and ideas that fill us with a false sense of stability. Only when we let go of all the things that we are afraid to, or at least, release the fear of losing them, then are they truly ours. Then we are truly free, and then we are truly stable within who we are first.

Until next time,

Be realistic and daydream often.

Ashleigh XO