Radical Messiness
“Evolution is a messy process. So anybody who really wants to make the effort to strive for something new is going to have to be willing to make mistakes, take wrong turns, even fail, but never give up. The simple truth is this: if not failing is more important to you than genuinely succeeding, you’re never going to make it. If you really want to succeed, then you have to have a big heart, heroic will, tenacity, courage, and commitment to fearlessly engage with the evolutionary process until something profound, mysterious, and extraordinary happens that cannot be undone.”
Today I want to talk with you about being messy. I don’t think any of us have ever lived through such a full on, chaotic, down right messy period of human experience. I suspect there isn’t anyone paying attention to current events who isn’t faced with some form of messy thoughts, emotions, the physicalized messiness of body challenges or living spaces bursting with untidiness, or feeling spiritually all over the place - or all of the above.
When the discomfort of change and its accompanying messiness arrive, the impulse is often to rapidly tidy things up. If you look around, there are plenty of attempts to do just that, to quickly move things along. No mess to see here folks!
Here’s the truth though, when you’re in an experience of rapid, deeply transformative, shake-you-awake change - it’s going to get epically messy. It’s all got to break open so you can see the pieces and discern what gets left behind and which parts can be used to create the new.
Think of the most cluttered part of your house right now. In order to clean it up and bring it into a new state of order, can you imagine not taking it all out to assess the situation as a first step? In the early stages, it may look like you’ve made things infinitely worse. If you’re like me you might even plop yourself down in the middle of the mess and wonder, “What have I done?!” Right now, what we’re seeing in so many areas of life is a collective, “What have WE done?!” It’s messy. It’s also essential to the process of creating lasting, enlivening change.
Even when it’s welcome, wonderful, and generative, change can feel intense, uncomfortable, or unwanted - because it’s still change. I was reminded of this in my own life when I purchased a new car this week. A car that is needed, timely, and a significant source of stability and relief. You know what though? I’m a little grumpy and agitated by it. My son has been laughing at me because I’m upset the seat isn’t as comfy as my driver’s seat that is perfectly molded to my butt after 125k miles of driving. I’m irritated that the engine doesn’t have the oomph of my 15 yr old trusty turbo Volvo. There is NO reasonable situation where this new car isn’t the best thing ever - except in the case of the totally valid, sentimental longing I have for the familiar and my desire to hang on, just a little bit longer, to the comforts of the known.
I share this glimpse of my own personal messiness to say, you’re not alone. To be human is to accept and welcome the messiness because in the mess dwells the opening to a whole new way of being.
Life is messy right now. There are no clear-cut, simple answers to much of anything at the moment. The good news is that you're not failing by being messy, you’re showing up in all your truth-filled glory for the mystery unfolding. As Andrew Harvey recently said in a course I’m taking, “The outcome is IN the mystery.” The only way out, is through.
During this potent gateway of the solstice/solar eclipse/new moon, and each day forward, I invite you to embrace your radical messiness as though your life and the world depend on it, because they really, truly do.
