Fullness, From Within
Awakening To The Dream of Fulfillment
Even billionaires are miserable.
This truth is the biggest threat to the “American Dream” and most dreams of the modern world.
The beliefs that drive our everyday choices are all dreams with imagined consequences and possibilities. We cannot possibly grasp the world-to-be, so we depend on “if-then” dreams for guidance.
Sometimes dreams deliver in the real world–“little by little I saved in my 401k and was able to retire at 55!” Sometimes they don’t–“my 401k, and the global economy, tanked at 54 1/2 and now I’ll work till I’m dead.”
Two people, guided by the same dream, can experience extremely different outcomes.
Life is unpredictable. Period.
Yet, we’ve dreamt up a world of control. When our experiences don’t match our expectations (or dreams) we act like gods whose absolute power has been undermined. Traffic is an outrage, pain is intolerable, lines are unbearable, restaurants take too long, work is too difficult…the list goes on.
It’s easy to judge billionaires who are miserable, until we look in the mirror.
The average person in the developed world experiences more indulgence, decadence, convenience, and opportunity than the elites only one generation prior. If Hitler had an E-bike to cruise on through the German mountains, Amazon same day delivery, Ashwagandha supplements for stress (is that even what it does? ha), and a TikTok to learn about the effect of childhood trauma…maybe the 1900’s would have panned out very differently…
…too soon?
I understand why we dream of absolute control, we have more power than we’ve ever had to kill pain, dodge traffic, skip lines, stay home, avoid discomfort, maximize choices, and “work” from wherever we want. There’s a pill for everything.
Yet somehow fulfillment seems scarce, especially in the developed world.
We follow imaginary storylines with the confidence of the all-powerful for our health, finances, work, relationships, and spirituality. Many of these dreams don’t offer fulfillment. Most create dependence on a world outside of us. Dependence on life to be delivered just how we’ve dreamt it.
Friends and loved ones who must keep our relationships conflict free. Bosses and co-workers who aren’t allowed their own interests. Food that’s not too hot, too cold, too slow, nor too expensive. Economies that shouldn’t let us down. Pills without side effects. Bodies and minds that don’t break down nor require our care and attention. Gods who must answer our prayers or a Universe that must fulfill our manifestations.
Until, at some point, for each of us, the illusion of control is shattered: a loved one’s death, a diagnoses, a tragic accident, financial hardship, a broken relationship…
These experiences are not earned, though, unfortunately, they are inevitable.
When this happens, sometimes we double down on the dream of control and blame someone or something…or everyone and everything. Leaning into our demands and dependence on the external world.
And sometimes we soften.
“Awakening is a series of softenings” — Richard Rudd
Awakening To The Dream of Fulfillment
To accept our fragility and vulnerability.
To release our dependence on the world “out there”
and center on the world “in here.”
To surrender the illusion of control
and hold sacred all that is–here, now,
the people around us and the work in front of us.
To heal from the inside out.
Releasing all the layers of control and dependence
to reveal the loving, joyful, open, free being
within each of us.
Finally able to express its full self.
All change is rooted in ideas. As stated earlier, the beliefs that drive our everyday choices are all dreams with imagined consequences and possibilities. If we change the dream, or underlying beliefs, that guide everyday choices, we can change anything.
This does not mean that changing to live the dream of fulfillment is problem-free. Fulfillment transcends the volatile world because the dream of fulfillment is created from acceptance, not dependence.
We’ve been taught for too long to “look at the bright side” or “see the glass half full,” instead of just seeing the glass. Its “emptiness” and “fulness,” never in equal parts, create its wholeness.
There’s no such thing as an empty cup, and it cannot be half-full. Liquid is no more a “thing” than air. At the basic level everything, even emptiness, is something. Just because it’s not what we’re looking for doesn’t mean it’s not there.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees, takes off his shoes.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning
To live the dream of fulfillment is to recognize the fulness of every experience.
It’s all once-in-a-lifetime. It’s all fleeting and impermanent. Today’s health challenge is tomorrow’s life purpose. Yesterday’s broken relationship opened our hearts to love. Or closed it momentarily to heal and strengthen for the next expansion. Each struggle and opportunity pushes our evolution, growth, and expansion.
The dream of fulfillment is sourced from within. Within every challenge, every moment, every opportunity, every set back, every mundane task, every pleasure and pain. It is within the release of the “if-then” plot-lines, “should’s” and “shouldn’t’s,” and the most misleading “if only…’s.” If only I were richer. If only I were in a relationship. If only I had a different job. If only ______ would change.
If only we could accept the fullness of life.
Fulfillment is the experience of fullness. To meet life with mind (thoughts), body (actions), and spirit (meaning). To live in alignment. Our full/highest way of being, believing, and behaving regardless of the circumstances.
Sometimes the highest way of being is allowing life to fully unravel. To be angry and bitter. It is not “better” to hide behind platitudes and pretend not to hurt. Fullness is often accepting and feeling our brokenness. Fulfillment is truest when what is to be filled is first emptied.
To live in fulness is to accept and allow life’s natural cycles. Like our breath and pulse rhythmically expanding and contracting.
So long as we are alive there is breath moving in and out of our lungs and blood pulsing through our veins…an experience beyond our wildest dreams! Lungs expanding from air we didn’t create, blood nourishing each cell, distributing energy through millions of chemical reactions. Lungs then contracting and expelling CO2, blood cycling to oxygenate, through millions of opposite processes.
Each breath mystical, beautiful, and full of life. Fulfillment is fullness throughout expansion and contraction.
There is no fullness until we can learn presentness. That the simplicity of breathing and doing one’s daily work…being…is always full.
It is not something to be found, it’s already here. Everywhere. In every thing and every one.
We are so busy that we are rarely satiated by what’s here, longing instead for what’s next. Running from one experience to the next is not fulfilling, it is fleeting.
If this sounds like nonsense, there is hope! It’s when fulfillment seems like a distant dream that we are actually closest to it. We can only understand our full potential when we are stretched, at the upper limit of what we thought we could tolerate.
It’s in our most fragile states that we gain clarity to see beyond who we thought we were, to discover everything we are.
We are love.
We are powerful.
We are infinite.
What we can offer is profound and beautiful because it is finite…that which is only ours to fulfill, through our unique expression of mind, body, and soul… here and now.
Our hearts call us to turn inward. To discover our fullness from within.
Quietly led by the dream
that’s already here, within each one, every one.
