Rusting Bikes in Eden

I was on a call with a client a few days ago…

(As a form of shorthand, I say I have “calls” with clients. That’s not actually what we’re doing though.

In fact, none of us is ever just having a “call” with someone. 

Instead, we are being together. Always, when together, we're being together.)

So, I was being with a client a few days ago, and while she expressed her challenging situation, she referenced rusting bikes in the front yard as evidence that things are not going well. 

If only those rusting bikes weren’t there…

What are the rusting bikes in your life, those things that shouldn't be there?

What are those objects, people, or situations that stand as evidence that your life just isn’t as good as it should be?

Go ahead, answer the question! We've all got these rusting bikes in our lives, that if it weren't for them...

That problematic relative?

That drama at work?

That receding hairline?

That nagging worry in the mind?

For my client, it was rusting bikes in the yard.

What she got during our time together, however, was that yes there are rusting bikes in the yard, and the yard is no less an Eden because of them. 

It doesn’t matter what we look at. It’s what we see when we look at it that matters.

We are specks of life on a giant rock flying through space at 66,000 mph. A star 93 million miles from us is a key source of our life and energy. And no where else in the universe have we witnessed such an abundance of life that we see all around us on Earth. Even in gutters, in alleys, and growing up between cracks in city pavement, we see beautiful life sprouting and growing. We live in Eden.

My friend was no longer seeing a junkyard. She was seeing Eden. 

Nothing changed.

Nothing needed to. 

She got that she was creating a problem in how she saw her world, and the rusting bikes were a part of the problem she created. 

It sounds simple enough, yet these insightful moments poke us out of nowhere when in an intentional and committed conversation.

My client is no longer creating those bikes as a problem. She’s creating them as evidence for a beauty and profoundness in this moment that moves aside her former judgments that “it should be another way.”

True freedom and power are a consequence of owning our always-there capacity to create what we are seeing when we look at anything. We are constantly creating, just mostly unconsciously.

The way of mastery is learning to constantly, consciously create with grace and ease.

It takes work, and oh is this work worth it.

Much Love. ❤️