SAYING YES TO LIFE
27.09.24 | By Andrea Fajardo
Can you hear your heartbeat, the sound of water when you bathe, or the sound of wind blowing through the tree branches? Do you notice the pulse of your heartbeat right now? What if you stop to feel it, perhaps placing a hand on your chest, on your neck or on your wrist. What happens in you when you stop to realize the life that runs through you, the life that surrounds you and the flow of life that you are being at this moment? What if you now stop to notice the rhythm of your breathing? Two rhythms in one body, one life, two rhythms in one body in the midst of other rhythms and other bodies.
I was used to associating saying yes to life with saying yes to suffering. I have been very good at navigating it and staying there. I have spent many years putting down roots and building inner villages around what is perceived as dark and I thought that there was nothing more after it, that my life revolved around the density and the slow and catatonic rhythm of my shadows: sadness, fear and pain and above all the history that I had lived, my family and my ancestors. I had not realized that I was being a sheep in the middle of a flock, hiding in the midst of the messages and conditioning I received of how I should be, of my wounds and my role in the different contexts of which I have been a part. Does it resonate with you?
Well, it seems obvious, but a few days ago I had a great discovery: I realized how much I was tied to this village, to the contraction of life and everything related to death, I was not willing to let go of the pain and my identification with it. And then I had the opportunity to live an experience that pushed me to stop and listen to the rhythm of my body and it asked me to move, it asked me to flow, it asked me to be a river, to be water and to let myself be carried away by the waves of my body's energy. He asked me to let sounds flow from my throat, to move my legs, my hips and my chest, not to stay in the village, but to set sail to other territories. I found myself in a limbo: who am I if not the one who suffers? The mind is full of stories, most of them backed by real experiences lived in other moments that condition how we perceive and experience our present reality.
I chose to question those stories and let myself be carried away by my impulses: a yes appeared in my body towards life, my movements felt pleasurable, and I risked making contact with other bodies, with other lives, from what felt fluid in my body. I found innocence, curiosity, pleasure, and an expansion in my heart. I realized that I wanted more of this, I wanted to taste the food more, smell myself more, dance more, listen more to the wind and the infinite sounds of the birds, feel my blood run through my body and my heart beat like a drum. I felt immense and I realized that to get to this place, I had to say yes to feeling the pain, to go through my no to letting go of it, so I could reach the pleasant vibration of the vital energy that runs through me, that composes me. Saying yes to life is an invitation to feel everything and then to let it go, to allow the undulation between life and death, pleasure and displeasure, because in the midst of this undulation and this rhythm is our rhythm, unique and unrepeatable, the one that invites us to transform ourselves from sheep to lions in order to be masters of our jungle, to choose to be masters of our existence.
And you, do you want to follow your impulses more? What does your heartbeat say now? Is there a longing that is palpitating? What would it sound like if you gave it a voice, what color would it have if you brought it to light? This is clearly a path whose end is uncertain, however, I want to invite us to open ourselves to feel our flow and what blocks it, where we get stuck, to feel what we need in order to follow our own undulation, our yes and our no in a perpetual continuum: life in its constant impermanence, yes, life!