Willingness has been a thematic undertone lately. Yesterday I spoke with 3 clients about willingness. Willingness is a spiritual principle defined as “the quality or state of being prepared to do something”, and I love it. I love willingness because it’s such simple action that I can take in the face of immobilization.
We often become immobilized upon our paths due to fear. My latest example is about online dating, which I have often had a bad attitude about, but things are changing in that realm due to willingness. About a week ago, feeling fettered by the land of online dating, I consciously bumped up against an unwelcome pattern. It seems I’ve historically radiated towards 2 different types of men in the last several years. The first is a man who looks good but is incapable of celebrating humanity and imminently rejects me. Man #1 checks his hair in the mirror more than I do. I attract the second type of man when I take my appreciation of humanity too far. Man #2 is on an entirely different playing field than me, playing an entirely different game and doesn’t even wash his hair. It’s ok to be on different fields than others, but while primary partnership shopping, I hope to find someone who shares my fundamental values.
For me, dating and intimate relationships with men has been a painful and arduous journey of trying to force square pegs into round 
holes – always beating the paths of most resistance. After recognizing this pattern, a visual appeared before my mind’s eye: the middle path. The middle ground. The ground of relatability, true humanity and “normalcy”. The path I have never trodden. The path that meets the other 2 relentlessly beaten paths in the middle. The path of least resistance. As I tried to visualize myself stepping onto this path, a fiery anger rose up in me and, like a child in the throes of a temper tantrum, my bad attitude swept in, spouting things like “I HATE online dating!”, “This sucks!”, “Ugh!!” (with accompanying eye-rolls and exasperated sighs). In my meditation, I could not bring myself to set feet upon this path, which felt shameful, ironic and self-deprecating. Why, upon finally seeing the path of least resistance, would I vehemently reject it, insisting instead on trodding through the stenchy muck of most resistance? It didn’t seem to make sense. I’ve been keeping myself, most forcefully, from that which I desire the most. Ouch.
After some shock and brief petulance, here’s the solution I came up with: I visually gathered my fuzzy blanket and slippers and I laid down at the outset of the path. Willingness. In the past, I would have tried to berate myself onto the path, shaming myself for what seems like avoidance of the obvious. In this shaming, I’ve propagated my own resistance to the path because I’m sure it comes as a surprise to no one that reproach and degradation have never proved progressive. And so today I’ve decided to relinquish those old, ineffective ways. Gently, I allow myself to get comfortable at the mouth of the middle ground. I give myself permission to be where I’m at – to not resist resistance. And lo and behold, a day or so after simply allowing myself to lie down and rest at the start of the path, my visual allows me to set foot on the path. Just one foot. Willingness.