The Book of Awakening

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I was looking through back issues of Oprah’s magazine recently, doing a late spring purge, when I found Oprah’s 7 Super-Soulful Reads. Although I haven’t read any of the suggestions in full, I knew most by name. One I didn’t know was Mark Nepo‘s The Book of Awakening, which is subtitled: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

I haven’t written about this yet—because I’m still deep within it—but the subtitle immediately spoke to me because there’s something I strongly desire for my life, something I know to be essential, that is out of reach right now. And part of me feels out of control of my life because of that. Naturally, the idea of being present to and loving this life as it is now, in order to have the life I want, appealed.

Nepo’s book came up again that same week during a conversation with my friend Cassandra (she wrote about it here) and, with her added recommendation, I ordered the book from Amazon and have been enjoying it ever since.

Oprah writes: “One of my all-time Favorite Things! Mark Nepo’s collection of reflections is a year’s supply of gentle daily wake-up calls. Like most of us, he has thought a lot about the meaning of life, but because he is a poet, a philosopher, and a cancer survivor, his insights are special—and beautifully expressed. A book to be kept on the nightstand at all times.”

I couldn’t agree more. Because it is a daybook and we’re halfway through the year, I opened to the middle despite my trepidations and it welcomed me right in. Each day offers a message of wisdom followed by an exercise in mindfulness. I’ve been reading it first thing in the morning and, often, again before bed as well.

Today’s message particularly spoke to me, and so I’d like to share it with you:

July 1 – The Heart’s Blossom

All courage is threshold crossing. Often there is a choice: to enter the burning building or not, to speak the truth or not, to stand before oneself without illusion or not. But there is another sort of courage we are talking about here—the kind when afterward, the courageous are puzzled to be singled out as brave. They often say, I had no choice, I had to run in that building for that child. Or I had to quit my job or I would have died.

Despite all consequence, there is an inevitable honoring of what is true, and at this deep level of inner voice, it is not a summoning of will, but a following of true knowing.

My own life is a trail of such following. Time and again, I have heard deep callings that felt inevitable and which I could have ignored, but only at great risk of something essential perishing.

It was this honoring of what is true that guided me through my cancer experience: saying no to brain surgery and yes to rib surgery, saying yes to chemo and no to chemo. Each decision appeared both courageous and illogical to my doctors. Since then, I have been called heroic for surviving, which is like championing an eagle for finding its nest, and I have been condemned as selfish for seeking the Truth, which is like blaming a turtle for finding the deep.

Courage of this sort is the result of being authentic. It is available to all and its reward, far more than respect, is the opening of joy.

• Meditate on a decision that you are struggling with.
• Rather than focusing on your fear of what might or might not happen, try opening to what feels true.
• Without strategizing or imagining the consequences of honoring what feels true, simply let the truth as you know it rise within you.
• As you move through your day, let what is true fill you, even if you don’t quite understand it.

Wow! Right?! If only I’d received this insight last year—before embarking on a trip to India that I knew I didn’t want but felt obliged to undertake—but I welcome this message and its insights now, in what I will view as its own perfect timing.

Aren’t there always decisions to meditate on and come into knowing about and acceptance of? As I have learned to hear my intuition, there have been times I have known but chose not to heed that knowing because of fear or others’ expectations. Mark’s reminder to be courageously authentic is just what I needed today.

If it also calls to you, I think you’ll find The Book of Awakening to be an answer.

Cheers,