Finding Center in Chaotic Times
Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
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The astrologists in my Instagram feed warned me that March was gonna be a doozy. Worst month of the year, astrologically, they said. They weren’t kidding. Our family rode some major waves. Big high highs. Heartbreaking lows. (I wrote about waves last week - check it out here)
What both the highs and the lows made me keenly aware of is what is most important right now. I tend to forget what’s important when I’m in the midst of my life. And then I go around pouring energy into things that don’t really matter in the long run.
The highs and lows ask: What do I place at the center of my Heart? At the Center of my life?
What is Center?
We talk about Center a lot in the yoga and mindfulness worlds. Finding one’s Center is a regular quest for folks who want peace in chaos. It’s something many of my coaching clients have as an ideal. We think that being centered is a good thing. Lots of times folks think that Center is something they find and then they’ve got it for life.
Lately I’ve been thinking about Center from a new perspective. Have you noticed that Center isn’t an actual place. Like, my friends who are anatomy geeks can’t point to it on a map of the body. There’s no singular point we can all name Center - and that makes “finding it” a lot harder.
Instead, what if we consider Center an experience. It’s an energetic vortex that you feel in your body; not something you point to in an anatomy book. Because it’s energetic,Center moves some. That means you don’t always “find it” where you left it. If you wanna connect to it, you have to be sensitive and pay attention. Sometimes Center will feel far away. Others it’s right here and you’re in it. Either way, you know Center by how it feels. Folks describe Center as peaceful, calm, focused, alive, clear…. what else? How do you describe when you feel centered?
“You are what your deepest desire is
As is your desire, so is your intention
As is your intention, so is your will
As is your will, so is your deed
As is your deed so is your destiny”
—-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV.4.5
What’s in the Center?
Right now, Center - and knowing what you place there- is of the utmost importance. Where you place your attention, that’s where your energy flows. That’s where your LIFE goes. It’s up to you to choose well.
If you don’t choose, the culture will choose for you. We know what culture will choose - Money. Power. FEAR. Anxiety. Division. That’s what’s being sown into the soil of our world today. You can decide if that works for you. It doesn’t work for me.
So when I ask myself what to put at the Center of my life - my answer always comes back: Love. I’m putting Love at the Center of everything. That means bringing loving attention to Center in myself, loving attention at the Center of my relationships, loving attention to the Center of my work, and loving attention at the Center of every circle and community space I hold. I’ve been trying to “Love my way through” life for a long time. Trying to live from the Love that I believe is holding the universe together “making the atoms go where they go and stick where they stick” as Robert Merullo These times are making my commitment to Love much more urgent.
That’s what I choose - you can choose whatever you want. But be sure to choose, because like I mentioned, if you don’t, something will choose you.
The power of placing something in the Center of your life is that it cuts through the noise of the culture. The never-ending drone that tells you what to think and feel doesn’t have as much sway when YOU claim what’s most important to you. Center also keeps your history, habits, and self-sabotage in check. When you rally around Center it’s like a beacon that keeps you on course in rough seas.
Your Values
In life-coaching language I could talk about choosing what to put in Center as “knowing your values”. It’s something I’ve helped a lot of women figure out - both in their personal lives and their professional ones. What I tell them, as we figure this out, is that pulling your values to the Center of your life isn’t static. It’s a process.
It’s choosing to move with towards it over and over again. If you’ve placed your value in the Center, then you hug into it and let it fill you. You infuse yourself with it by moving closer to Center. Then, only when you’re full, you can pour it back into the world. In physical yoga practice we’d call this drawing-in and shining-out from a focal point. In life, we do the same thing… move towards that which is most important - get connected, get filled up, get Centered - then offer it back out to the world.
It’s a process. It’s a cycle. It’s a wave. And it’s incomplete when you only do one side of it. I can’t pour Love into the world if I’m not also receiving Love from it, and even pouring Love into myself. Same for whatever feels most important to you.
Now’s the Time
Center is not a static point; it is dynamic, pulsating, alive. It’s not always in the same place. But I believe you can find it by becoming intentional about what you put there. Right now we need everybody to find more Center, and to act with the integrity that comes from our deepest intentions.
Choose what’s most important. Choose what you value. Place that over everything else at the Center of your Heart, the Center of your life. Let it be a magnet that leads you back to Center when you lose your way. Then, together we’ll be building the world we really want to be living in.
Acknowledging here that I’m working with ideas from a lot of folks in this post - Pat Buxton, Douglas Brooks, Martha Beck & Rowan Mangan, Josh Shrei, Nona Jordan, those quoted + my commingling of those ideas and embodied experience.