What is True & Essential to All of Life? | Blog

What is True & Essential to All of Life?| Blog

“If you place two living heart cells from different people in a Petri dish, they will in time find and maintain a third and common beat.” —Molly Vass

In many ways, this week has been like lots of other weeks. I've traveled, met with clients and friends, had conversations that were rich with insight and laughter . . . and, at the same time, this week has left me speechless.

I've had moments when my mind wanders and goes very still and I fall into a depth of quiet. Where literally no words exist. Someone I know, members of our community, experienced a tragic loss.

Even now, sitting down to write, every time I try to go in another direction, my thoughts keep coming back to this family. This has been happening all week—in the middle of a meeting, a conversation, as I walked to lunch, brushed my teeth, or as I laid down at nightmy mind would find its way to a husband and father who has just experienced the cruel and shocking loss of his wife and two small children.

Unfortunately, like many of you, this is not the first time I've witnessed people I love experiencing the shock of heartbreaking loss. The experience of life altering heartbreak—when the incomprehensible happens—the shock of one moment that changes everything.

I have good friends that have also experienced the unexpected loss of their child or their partner. During those times, my experience was similar. I would have moments when it seemed like life faded away and I would just fall into this space, this place within that was connected to them. 

I can't pretend to know exactly how they feel or to even imagine all the implications of their losses; however, it does not keep me from feeling that somehow, in those moments, I am there with them. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but it feels true to me that in the midst of those times, our love for others, our compassion, penetrates beneath the surface of life and, in some small way, offers comfort. That somehow, beyond space and time, they feel us.

Those moments when life shocks us, when our lives are permanently rearranged, wake us up. Perhaps cruelly but no less profoundly. In those moments, we can't help but feel our connectedness to one another. 

Even in the midst of his pain, this husband and father was compelled to share and demand of all of us that we stop, listen, and feel the underpinning of all life. That which is invisible but essential.  

Max wrote a message and an invitation to us all. A message that is brutally profound and, if we allow it, opens us up to our connectedness, to our humanity, and to what is essential. You can read all of his post by following the link below.

Here is one small excerpt:

“So why do we do it? We do it because we feel the spiritual undercurrent in life. We know, not rationally, but intuitively, that there is something larger at play. That we are part of a divine process. That is the essence. That essence that is only glimpsed through love, through the touch of my child’s hand, through fully joining with someone in the climax of sex. That is the essence of life and the essence of identity. 

If I can say anything to anyone at this time, it is to be in that essence. Feel it. Stop moving around. Stop all your busywork. Live in the essence. Touch the people that you love. Hold quiet space with them. Feel them. That is all we have. It is all you have right now, it is all you ever will have. That is the whole point to anything.” 

These words speak to a truth that, when we allow it, has the potential to transform us. When we see that beyond the form of our bodies, our lives, our day-to-day activities, lies this spiritual fact: that which is invisible is essential. The essence of every living thing is our true nature. 

No individual exists independent of this deeper nature. This deeper nature is our common ground.

When we enter that space it's palatable. And we can't help but feel for ourselves the oneness, the sameness, of that spiritual nature. Like the interconnected roots of a tree that offer life, water, minerals, and energy to the thirsty one, we can do the same for each other.

And, in this moment, that is my greatest wish: that Max, his family, and everyone I know who has experienced unimaginable loss or heartbreak, can absorb and “drink in” the immense love and compassion we are all sending their way. That it offers comfort and strength and quenches their thirst in some small way, even for a moment.

As we move through our lives each day, we experience our amazing uniqueness; yet, when we take a beat, a moment to pause, we can fall into the coreour common center. 

When we really look, or when life shocks us into SEEING, this becomes obvious. We feel each other, we know each other, we recognize each other, and we are all part of something that is whole. 

In the experience of our humanity, we come to realize the felt KNOWING of our ONENESS, and we are lifted through the common strength of all of life.

Today I sit in the wonder, in the pain and in the gratitude of knowing that we are all in this together. I love you. 

If you would like read the raw, real, and profound reflections offered by Max, you can find them here.

“No individual exists independent of this deeper nature. This deeper nature is our common ground.”

Beneath all of life is our essential nature; a joining; a force that when touched changes us.

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Barbara Patterson is the owner of a global coaching and consulting company helping solopreneurs, entrepreneurs & leaders access more clarity, creativity, have greater impact and higher levels of fulfillment in work and life. She is the founder of Beyond Limits in Business, a global platform and community designed to point people to the source of human potential. That potential resides within and is experienced via our minds. Barb is also the host of the Real Business Real Lives podcast. You can follow Barb on Linkedin and Instagram. You can also subscribe to her weekly blog on her website at barbarapatterson.com 

 

 

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