inspiration

I spend my time doing nothing, doing without doing, waiting—simply waiting.

Just for a little while now. Then maybe a little longer.

I don't really know what I'm hoping for, but something tells me to stay and learn to enjoy myself, like a fisherman on the horizon enjoying the nothingness.

And while I wait, I feel, I observe myself, I take care of myself, I love myself, I listen to myself. I can even observe what I’m waiting for as a thought of the future that, as I observe it, becomes the present.

I feel the energy in my body; I watch my wild thoughts screaming at me, “Stop waiting and take action!” In reality, they just want me to stop feeling what I’m feeling right now; they want me to run away from myself.

But I stand firm on the rock.

I'll wait. Maybe just a little while today, and a little longer tomorrow.

And I do this even as I talk with you, paying attention to myself while I pay attention to you. And my mind tells me, “Do something—don’t let him talk to you like that”… or “You have to help him”… or “He’s hopeless—you’d better leave as soon as possible.” These are the crazy conversations in my mind as I continue to feel my way through this moment, observing my interpretations of it.

And yes, maybe I'll say NO, or maybe I'll help you, or maybe I'll leave. It doesn't matter; it's irrelevant. Any answer is fine.

My heart guides me to keep exploring within myself. And I listen to it—sometimes just by trying, believing that waiting is pointless.
And sometimes by receiving—which is when total understanding and tenderness for this moment arise.
Everything is interwoven, and sometimes I don’t know when I’m waiting, and I don’t know when I’m receiving.

Waiting and the goal are one and the same. And both waiting and giving and receiving simply happen. You keep trying until it happens. It’s hard until it’s easy. It’s only my deepest will that decides. I wait, I receive, I give. In reality, it’s all the same.

What do I hope for? Understanding, clarity, and love

What do I give? The meanings of this moment

What do I receive? Life, gratitude, freedom.

And this is the cycle of the path of awareness. I enter and I leave. I wait and I receive. I get angry and I make peace. And in the meantime, quietly and stealthily, almost without a sound, the transformation takes place within me.

Life happens on the inside.

I'm tired of hiding.

I give myself, I receive myself, I love.

In reality, what I long for has already arrived; it is here. The waiting is Love. The waiting and the goal are one and the same, but the heart has not yet come to understand this.

I can observe everything I tell myself: when I have more time, when I achieve that, when I’m feeling better… I can observe my fear of waiting.

I reflect on my uncertainty about whether this is the right moment—here, as I wait, while I pay attention to all the sensations emanating from my body.

I wait in silence, feeling an energy that my mind calls anxiety, and I hear my thoughts rushing in, shouting at me, “Get out of there.”

But I'm staying a little longer. As I wait, I'm saying "Yes" to Life, to everything that's happening within me.

An average heart at rest beats 72 times per minute.

With every heartbeat, it pumps 0.07 liters of blood into the aorta—that is, 5 liters of blood per minute.

It beats 100,000 times a day, circulating 7,000 liters of blood at a speed of 2 km/hour. It beats 35 million times a year, 2,800 million times over an average lifetime.
Over an average lifetime, the heart pumps 453 metric tons of blood.

Red blood cells live for 4 months and circulate through the body 172,000 times.

The heart is the hardest-working organ in the body, the only one that doesn't get sore muscles, and the only one that doesn't get cancer.

When you listen to music you like, the diameter of your blood vessels increases by 26%.

The entire network of blood vessels that supplies blood to your heart as it pumps would stretch 96,000 km—14 times the circumference of Spain.

It has recently been discovered that it has more than 40,000 neurons and an electromagnetic frequency 5,000 times higher than that of the brain.

All of that is happening right now, without you having to do anything, without you having to make any effort

A Heart Taking Shape

You happening

Do you take care of him?

Tired of life. Tired of yourself.

Yes, I know that you often feel tired.

You seem to be telling yourself the same stories. Maybe with different names, different situations, and different music.

Do you remember the stories you used to tell yourself when you were a little girl or a teenager? Now you no longer talk about teachers, boys, unfair parents, or friends who weren't there for you.

But you feel just as wrong, inadequate, out of place—or perhaps just as overly correct, unheard, and out of place among the others.

Whatever the feeling may be, you recognize it—it's yours, it's truly yours.

Now we know how to express it more accurately, we know how to do it in a sophisticated way, and we even have grand theories that explain how we feel and what to do.

Sometimes scientific theories tell us that we’re lacking some substance or another; sometimes it’s motivational talk, and we come up with a new goal; and other times we believe what we tell ourselves through others: “You need to smile more, you take things too seriously, you just don’t commit, you commit too much, you lack patience, you should be more spontaneous, man, you really have bad luck! …”

And you listen and try, but that all-too-familiar feeling is still there.

You're still waiting for a change—maybe for that person to finally come along, the one to whom you won't have to explain anything, who will understand you just by looking at you.

Perhaps you're waiting for that career opportunity to come along that will make you feel more valued or more confident.

Maybe you'd just like the world to stop for a moment so you can climb onto it.

And you’ve already experienced all of that. That look then turned into “you’re not who you used to be”; achieving your goal and receiving recognition were never enough—you always want more—and when the world came to a halt because of that illness or accident, it scared you to death, and you longed to return to your routine.

Tired of life. Tired of yourself. You find yourself telling yourself the same stories. Maybe with different names, different situations, different music.

And you tried so many things… You tried shouting, and at other times, you tried staying silent. You tried running fast, and then you tried walking slowly. You tried being brave, and then you tried being cautious.

And there we are, still trying, looking for new strategies to silence that little voice that tells us something's wrong here. Please, just shut up!

Tired of life. Tired of yourself. Even with different names, different situations, different music.

And from this point on, you’ve become more sensitive. Your heart is exploring new possibilities that were once beyond your sight. That’s why you’re reading this. What if Love is for those who are weary? What if Life is simply waiting for you to let go of your game and stop looking where there is nothing?
What if you were always Totally Loved?

Yes, it’s the fear you felt when the world came to a standstill—the fear you don’t want to face, the one you don’t want to explore. It’s the fear of fear itself that keeps you from stopping to let go, to feel, to live.

What if we breathe out our exhaustion? What if we let go of all our interpretations of this moment?

Just a minute, just three, just half an hour, just the whole day. A little today, maybe a little more tomorrow. Just this moment. It’s never too much, it’s never too little. Time doesn’t exist for your heart; there’s no such thing as a mistake. Your decision is always Here and Now, and maybe someday you’ll start to realize that it was always you—you’re the one who made the wheel turn. Blessed wheel, blessed game.

Tired of life. Tired of yourself. In love with exhaustion. In love with Love.

I don't know why Saint Valentine was given that name; perhaps it's because LOVE requires COURAGE—the courage to venture beyond what we know, beyond our beliefs about love, about what a couple, a friendship, a mother, or a child should be.

When you LOVE the form that life offers you, it’s just a story, just a vessel—even if we insist that the vessel is love itself, which is fine, but it simply hurts.

Can you imagine what it would be like to love each other unconditionally? To love each other without needing anything in return? To the dichotomous mind, this is a contradiction and/or a utopia.

For the heart, it is a mystery that expresses itself only in the "Now" through your feelings; it is your natural state of joy; it is presence.

And from here, I can't help but imagine what a typical conversation might be like between many couples as they get to know each other, fall in love, and express themselves.

And then there are these three, which I call "Sleeping Fear-Love," "Conscious Fear-Love," and "Love-Love."

We all embody all three in some way; sometimes we go through all three states in a single day, and none of the three is better than the others, since “Love-Fear” is also an expression of “Love-Love”—it’s just that it’s still hidden from your view.

*** A typical Valentine's Day conversation from a sleeping Amormiedo

– Do you love me?

– I love you

– Will you always love me?

– Of course, sweetheart, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me.

– And will you still care for me when I’m lost? Will you still love me when I grumble and complain about everything? Will you still stay with me when I’m no longer the person I am now?

– Yeah, but be nice to me like you always are

(…)

*** A typical Valentine's Day conversation from a self-aware "Amormiedo"

– I love you

– I love you

– I'm afraid I'll stop loving you

– I'm afraid you'll stop loving me

– I feel confused. And I love you.

– I feel insecure. And I love you.

– I want to embrace the confusion. I want to love you; I want to love myself.

– I want to embrace insecurity. I want to love you; I want to love myself.

– Thank you for showing me my belief in confusion. Learning to love myself.

– Thank you for helping me see my own insecurity. I'm learning to love myself.

(…)

*** Just another conversation on just another day at AmorAmor

– Thank you

– Why?

– I don't know

– Thank you

– Why?

– Because I didn't know

(…)

Close your eyes. I invite you to die. It's not that complicated. You do it every night.

Get some rest. Close the store.

You've spent your whole life showing off all your charms and skills so that people will love you, so you'll be recognized, so you'll feel secure. Waiting for another pat on the back, waiting for that exchange of glances, waiting for something to happen that will stir you up—WAITING.

Run, run, just a little further—you're almost there.

Yes, you're almost there, even if you don't know where yet.

A thousand things to do, so much to take care of, so many problems to solve.

And the hands of the clock keep turning inexorably; birthdays come and go, the seasons change, another Christmas arrives… you watch your children grow up, and successes and failures, joys and sorrows, and people who come and go all pass through your life.

Run, run, just a little farther—you're almost there. Yes, you're almost there, even if you don't know where you're going yet.

Yes, I know you want to stop. Maybe you tell yourself that as soon as you have a little more time, once you achieve what you set out to do, or simply when you’re feeling better—what a curious contradiction.

You want to take care of yourself, you want to look after yourself, but first you want to solve the problem. As if your feeling of falling short needed to be pushed aside. As if your belief in danger didn’t need to be questioned. As if your rush and your anxiety weren’t worth listening to. Blessed teachers. And so the wheel of Life keeps turning. First the urgent, then the important.

Run, run, just a little further—you're almost there. Yes, you're almost there, even if you don't know where yet.

And it doesn't matter whether you stop or whether it might be Life itself that, with a wink, makes you stop.

Life is in no hurry; it always waits for you—beautiful and radiant—to join it, respecting your fear and holding you up.

She even laughs tenderly when you feel guilty for not standing up, or when you try to do so and think you don't know how.

And the cycles go by, the stories repeat themselves… and all the while, life keeps inviting you to open yourself to a moment when time relinquishes its tyranny to fade away into a feeling—a feeling of eternity, a nameless feeling, a feeling of freedom.

Who are you? Who am I? Who feels? Who runs? The big questions of this moment are emerging.

Anchored in your lightness in the face of the vast universe.

Run, run, just a little further—you're almost there.

Yes, you're almost there, and you can already sense where you're headed… to the place that can't be reached, to the only place—the Now.

Welcome home.

Thank you, haste; thank you, confusion; thank you, LIFE.

Close your eyes. I invite you to die. It's not that complicated. You do it every night.

Get some rest. Close the store.

You've spent your whole life showing off all your charms and skills so that people will love you, so you'll be recognized, so you'll feel secure. Waiting for another pat on the back, waiting for that exchange of glances, waiting for something to happen that will stir you up—WAITING.

– Who are you?

– I am a thought

– So what do you want?

– To confuse you

– What for?

– I don't know—you're the one who told me to

– I don't remember that

– If you remembered, you wouldn't want me to confuse you anymore—it's your game

– Well, I'll go with clarity

– Are you sure? You've always liked being someone

– Can't I just be myself and live with clarity?

– Can water possibly be fire? Can love be fear?

– I want to feel clarity, I want to see him at peace, I want to understand

– Well, watch me, hold me, love me. I'll leave when you no longer want me to be you

– So who am I?

– The one who observes, the one who embraces, the one who loves     

You look around and it seems like everything is a mess.

A stage for your life unfolds like a red carpet as you move forward.

Like a flea market full of odds and ends that catches your eye.

Rhythmic music lulls you to sleep. It numbs your being.

I have to... I have to...

Merchants entice you, promising a better life—younger, healthier, more, more, more.

They sell better versions—a secure future.

How many spotlights seem to illuminate this scene, all aimed at one another, each wanting to shine brighter, better, longer—before you do, today, tomorrow, 10 years from now.

I turn on slow motion.

I stop, I look around, I listen.

I'm letting myself go.

Be part of the scene.

I am part of it.

I walk toward you; I see your bright light, and mine too.

I look into your eyes, I enter your eyes, I join you in looking at us.

I can see your skin prickling just like mine; I see your heartbeat, your confusion, your fear.

Just like mine.

I keep watching the show go on around me, but here we are, you and me.

Who are you, and who am I?

The presence of feeling ourselves despite … or including everything that seems to be “more.”

Being present in the moment as the show goes on  

And I ask you … What are your struggles right now?

Just let a thought come to mind, and they'll appear.

Perhaps your struggles sometimes feel like a war against yourself for not having become the person you long to be.

Maybe it's just about survival, just a struggle to make ends meet.

There are struggles with your body, with your health, and with illness.

Battles

Then there are the struggles to get your partner to understand you and treat you the way you think you deserve.

And what about fighting for others, providing for your family, making the world a better place, making sure your parents—who may be getting on in years—take care of themselves…

Battles

There are struggles to earn respect, to be recognized, and to make a living doing what you love.

Fights to prevent the major powers from taking advantage of us

And then there are the spiritual battles, which are the battles within the battles.

There are battles that make a lot of noise, and there are quiet, intimate battles.

New battles that replace the old ones, and old battles that won't go away.

Epic battles and everyday struggles.

Personal struggles and collective struggles.

Every morning, your struggles rear their heads.

And no, there are no mistakes in them.

If you're honest, you'll realize that battles give meaning to their meaninglessness.

Until the nonsense makes sense, the battles make perfect sense.

Only when nonsense makes sense can the forgotten song be heard—that melody which, although it was always there, was ignored amid the clamor of battle…

It’s the notes that whisper… it’s the humming that lulls you… it’s the birdsong that greets you… it’s the mysterious crash of the waves on the shore… it’s the sound that vibrates among the clouds.

If it had lyrics, they'd be something like…

I love you … Rest … It’s over … Dance … Love

Can you hear this melody playing?

Keep listening

Let yourself be carried away by the melody

I Know the Melody

I love you … Rest … It's time … Dance … Love

Keep listening

 Yes, the battles are still there….

You don't need to get upset about the struggles … but can you hear the melody?

What would you like to discuss?

Battles that dissolve into the peace that was always there