What is Alive in myself?

It might be the way to break out of some old patterns, just to look for and listen to what is Alive inside myself. And of course, act on the life-affirming impulses.

This could be a confusing notion because we often think of the medical definition of being alive. According to medicine and even our laws being "alive" means having a pulse and perhaps some measurable brain activity. Is the person breathing? If they are then they are alive.

However this is only the ground-level understanding of being alive.

'The walking dead' might be a concept that goes beyond a good-old zombie movie (thanks, George Romero, for your zombie movies, and thanks, Josh for showing me some.). I'll start with me. In what ways am I "walking dead"? Anything I do automatically, and with regularity is a 'dead action', meaning there is movement to it, but it is without conscious thought. Like if I were to get up and turn off my alarm every day, and then go back to bed and fitfully burrow in and then jerk up to check the time every so often before finally getting up. Even though there is some physical movement in what I've described, if it's pretty much my routine then it's pretty zombie-like. I can easily imagine a zombie spasmodically sitting up and crashing back repeatedly into a grave in much the same way.

So I ask myself, "What is Alive inside myself?" and, "How can I recognize what is Alive?" The truthful answer might be that I can't fully know what is alive in myself because what is being born can't be fully seen. And when I can see it it has already happened, already old news...

The thing is, I don't want to walk through the rest of my life as a zombie. So I really would like to understand the hallmarks of something new versus just being stuck in a rut, even if the rut is comfortable. And I get the sense that when I am really taking these steps my fingers might not have to type so many words. Unless part of my contribution to the World is my writing, and this might just be so.

How can I go a new way when the old ways are so familliar?

I find myself at a point in my life where the old ways *must* (I pray) go. The old dreams, if they show up at all, will have a totally unique form. Things might need to be created from scratch. And even if they don't, I think that this is where I want to be. I want to be on the edge of creation of my own life. I want to be at the place where new things are born. I want to experience being Alive while living.

What is alive can feel good! Life is something that can be felt intensely or softly, and preferably lovingly.

Fear is dead.

This is a warning that I'm about to tap into an Alive part of myself. The fear comes in and says "Don't go there. You don't know what is going to happen that way." Fear tries to keep me in familliar places. The places I think I know I am not afraid in. It is in these places that I become like the walking dead. In familliar comfort I might play in the old daydreams.

So it sounds like making an ally of fear would be a good idea. Fear might actually show me where I need to go. The uninformed, or basic instinctual response to something fearful is to turn away from it. What if I could hold the hand of fear without flinching? What would I learn? What new experiences would this unlock?

This could be a step towards a life that is truly Alive.


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