Choosing & Embracing All of Life.

By Ilda Dashi

My latest trip out of my country this last month brought the sun’s rays inside me to warm me up from a cold, dark winter that happened inside my inner world two months ago.

It also helped me to understand and realize in a very profound way that life is much bigger than what we think it is.

We are made of this life, because we are life itself.

We breathe and our breath connects us with everything inside and outside. There’s life happening inside of us every frame of a second and there’s life going on outside as well.

Life goes on all the time. It goes up, never down (even when it seems like it is going down at times).

Any fall that happens is there so we can rise higher after we stand up again and again. Life is all evolving, it never remains the same—not one second is the same. Have you noticed?

Life rises her wings higher and higher all the time and it is up to us to hear its calling to flow with it or not. It is up to us to listen to its silent peaceful voice and go with it wherever it may take us, or we can step back and remain stuck or resist its calling to move forward.

Life is much bigger than our limited perspective and concept about what life is all about. I doubt we know deeply and profoundly what and how life is all about.

We know it only superficially.

We know it only mediocrely.

We know it to be a small box that may be empty or full of chocolates.

Well, I feel and understand that it is much more than what we think or feel it is.

Life is ever expanding and it is inviting us every sacred moment of our everyday lives to play with it, to participate in it, to be it, to swim with it, to float with it, to dance with it, to celebrate with it, to hug it—because it is us in the end.

We may often think in terms of me and “my life.” I used to think in these terms. Well damn no, there’s no my life, there’s only life, one life inside and outside of us.

Our egos like to separate us from life itself, creating empty words like me, mine, my and so on.

Life is big, yes big. It is not small. It cannot remain small as it is ever evolving.

It is calling us to be that big as well—to get out of our small boxes we have put ourselves in and fly into the big endless sky. We sometimes respond halfway to this call of life, or we don’t respond at all, or we do so once in a while.

Those that are the most courageous of us just jump with it, with a deep trust that life will take care of them as it takes care of little birds and the trees and everything else in this whole Universe. Most of us don’t like to change, or to get out of our small conditioned lives because of fear(s), because of 1,000 what ifs, or should and shouldn’ts.

We’d rather be safe inside our shell, than get out. It is more secure we think.

It may be more safe, but it will never bring us joy and laughter if we stay inside it for too long or forever.

Safety and security are ways that society uses to tell us what is best and what is not. They are our conditioned states of being since our childhood when we didnt know what life was. As adults we can start witnessing ourselves and life in general to gain a wider perspective of what is life all about, who are we, why we are here, how to live, etc.

It is our responsability to grow higher than our old conditioned structures that keep us small inside the boxes.

Is it scary? Yes it can be scary at times, but we can let our fears be there and jump into life’s wings and fly with it anyways. Or we may chose not to. It is up to each and every one of us and what choices we make in life.

When life calls us we don’t listen to it. It can call us once, twice, or many times. I believe it is calling us all the time, but we hide or pretend we are not hearing it. We instead may respond to its calling with playing games or remaining inside our egg shell.

Then life may call us much longer with a stronger voice in ways that may shake us off the ground, in ways we may not like or in ways we may feel threatened, or at risk, or suffer, until we start to listen to it. Life’s ways are all for our own benefit, for our own growth and maturity, even though sometimes its ways may seem or look harsh or not fair, as we may call them at times.

Life does so because it loves us tremendously. It wants us to shine, to have each our own unique light, to rise up, to step up into the ladders higher and higher and to be the best we can be, to fulfill our greatest potential—not to remain small.

If we decide to remain small, then there should be no complaints anymore. We need to accept our own choices and possible consequences.

Or we can trust life and hear its callings. It all depends on us. What we decide to do next, what we choose is what defines the quality of our lives, and nothing and no one else can do this for us.

I chose to respond to life’s call five months ago, as I have never done before. Was it easy? The first three months were not easy at all. I went through the darkest period of my life. I thought I was going insane or going to die in a way. The darkness was so deep that I felt I was drowing in it deeper and deeper in an endless sea of tears and pain. What I thought to be my life and my priorities came crashing down. They were ceasing to exist. I remained empty,—alone with no map in the roads of life.

Then meditation, nature, traveling and meeting new people helped me in a tremendous way to gain a new perspective on my life and on life in general.

I’m realizing and understanding more and more each day that when life calls me it means my breath, my heart, my being is calling me to rise higher and to move forward, while going gradually in a process of letting go of what was and focus on the present and vizualizing and working on my goals and dreams trusting that they may come true one day if it is for my best.

Life is us and we are life. Period.

We need to release the need to say my life, as if we owned our lives or life in general. What life do we own?

Do we know how we came here? Do we know when we are leaving? Do we know how many breaths we will have yet? Do we know how long our hearts will beat? Do we know what will happen the next moment? Do we know why we are here?

The truth is that we know nothing. We think we know, but we don’t and we don’t feel comfortable with not knowing, hence we go on pretending we know this or that.

We are being given a precious gift—a life to live. I’m starting to see it as a gift being given to me, because it is so.

We think we have this problem and that problem, and most of them we create ourselves. Nothing is happening now. Even the fears we have, the insecurities, our phobias, depression, anxiety may be happening now but their roots are in the past, because our minds often live in the past or in the future most of the time.

We never take time to notice ourselves, to truly see our selves and life inside and outside us.

We are so busy digging in our minds as if there’s life in there. There is not. The mind as many spiritual masters have said since the beginning of times can a beautiful servant but a dangerous master.

We never take time to ponder on the reality and truth of things. We’d rather play 1000 roles, to escape reality and life.

I have been doing this over and over again until I realized enough was/is enough. I had to stopped being a ‘’victim’’ of life and I did stop. I decided to stop. No one could do that for me.

Because, I long to be filled with joy, smiles and laughter and to share all these values with others.

Joy makes me a better person, or should I say a radiant being. Maybe because my core being is joy, covered by the dust of the thinking mind. Joy, I trust, is the only criterion of a life fulfilled, of a life worth living.

We can choose at any time. And I know we will have to chose pain and suffering until we will have enough.

We need to experience pain first to know what joy is. Maybe this is the paradox and the irony of life in itself. Without the darkness we cannot know light, but this does not mean that we have to follow the darkness forever.

Life is calling me again, to shed my old brown leaves and to start watering the new green ones that are rising up inside my tree.

Do I feel scared? At times ,yes and it is natural to feel so sometimes and it is okay as well.

Even though I know nothing, one thing I know for sure: Life is guiding me from within, and all I have to do is follow it and trust that it is all for my best, to better me, to mature me.

I have already refused to live in a small box.

I’m choosing each moment to become big as life is and go with it, because the old box where I lived for many years is already to small for me.

Ilda Dashi is a seeker of truth in life. She has been accumulating things that she thought really matter in life, until she realised that nothing is of greater importance that finding her own self, and her own path; in other words her own soul. She is continuing to seek new ways of dealing with her own stuggles and understanding her own unique path and her own uniquesness which sometimes scares her. But she can’t follow any other path other than the path her soul is calling her to follow. She is a lover of nature and silence. She loves to be still and meditate, because in those moments she tastes glimpses of her own truth above the veil of dust filled with conditioning and ignorance from the past. She is a dreamer and she likes to reach the stars. You can follow her on Facebook, her blog and her YouTube channel.