Searching for Ground.

Sitting in a big question can be excruciating. There is a profound dis-ease with not having a plan, a way forward, a place to hang your hat.

If you are doing the double-duty of not only being unemployed but also trying to answer the question - what in the heck do I REALLY want to do with my life - the "groundlessness" can seem almost unbearable.

To embark on a discovery of what is important to you, what that "means" and how you then manifest that in your day-to-day life is much like being an explorer - drawn to discover what's out there but not quite sure you have the courage to face what you find.

Our obsession with "finding ground", with stability, with knowing the "known unknowns" is cause for a tremendous amount of suffering. In my own life the need to try and control the essentially uncontrollable has led me to numb out, lash out and make desperate choices.

However, one of the sweetest advantages of my little paycation is to face this groundlessness head-on and see if it actually has any teeth. If you remove all the devices meant to keep you from staring into the present moment (the usual suspects - work, booze, sex, tv, a mindlessly full social calendar), you realize that the present moment is actually a pretty vulnerable place completely unnerving and completely tender at the same time.

To slow down, to bring to bear every ounce of attention and mindfulness you can to the moment you are in is probably one of the most shockingly simple yet devastatingly difficult things I have ever tried to do. In it, though, is the realization that it is all you have. Now and forever. And everything else can start to fade away.