Vulnerability

You likely don’t have all the answers. But, never underestimate the power of holding space and just listening. Humans are inherently resilient, powerful and intuitive all on their own. When someone you love is struggling…just holding space and being intentional about making that space sacred and open for whatever comes up and out is often just enough to clear the blocks that have fallen onto their path.

You. You are inherently powerful. You are inherently intuitive. You are inherently resilient. And, together….there is nothing we can’t do.

You are meant for forward motion BUT not at the expense of stillness. I firmly believe one of the greatest lessons we have learned and are learning from the impact of a global pandemic is the value of stillness. The whole world literally had to stop so that we could all get on board at the same time to be faced with what can be found in the stillness.

For some of us that has meant confronting our shadow side. There is this unintentional discovery of the fact that for so long we have just been powering through our pain and toxic patterns. Stumbling and groping through a darkness that we can’t understand why it exists…what its purpose is….what lessons are we not getting from it and where did it come from is something we are collectively facing.

You are not in this alone. I’m going through it. My friends are going through it. Your family is going through it. Our neighbors and colleagues are going through it.

So what’s the good news in all of this? The good news is that this time of being forced to face the darkness….in the quiet of our minds is serving as a catalyst to get us all to a place that is much more….human friendly.

The old way of doing things….powering past the pain and sucking it up….is passing away…so that we are made new.

I believe we are all being made new in the light of an era that’s message is “it’s ok and healthy and encouraged to vocalize your pain and let others in on your acknowledgement of that pain and your desire to heal from it.”

In a world where capitalism and toxic masculinity has been the order of the day for thousands of years we are now facing a golden opportunity to learn the benefits of community, authenticity, vulnerability and tenderness.

I am ready for it! Are you?? Ready to heal. Ready to be vulnerable. Ready and willing to connect and lay down our armor and just….love!

It may look awkward. It may feel awkward. We’ve not been able to be like this for many lifetimes. So naturally as we become more intentional about connecting authentically and deeply there are going to be stumbling points and times where it feels unnatural or forced.

But my friends I am telling you…it is so worth it!

I encourage you today to dive into the awkwardness! Plant yourself right in the middle of awkwardness. I guarantee you there are people all around you just waiting to see you do this….so that they can too!

This, in my opinion is one of the highest forms of leadership. It is leading in a way that naturally inspires and organically creates space and connection that affect growth in the people that cross our path.

I wanna tell you that I love you. I love you so much. And I want you to love me too! Is that ok to say?? Yes. Yes it is.

And now here is a poem inspired by an amazing healing collaboration I just had with someone. Also, inspired by the storms rolling through.

I’m in pain. Can you see me?
Is it even ok to say I’m in pain?
Is it ok for me to ask you to be my guide?

Walking in the rain and feeling through the mist
The storm settling in as my woes I list

I didn’t know what would happen when I came to you.
I couldn’t have known you held my breakthrough.

It is amazing what happens when we pull together.
It’s as though we could make it through any kind of weather.

A new day has dawned and the skies are clearing.
Making the darkness conscious is abating all I was fearing.

I am a human…being.
No longer a human…fleeing.

Trapped in fight or flight
Not many could understand my plight.

Your humanity…has restored my sanity. And for that I am forever grateful 🙏🏻

Love,
Cozett

bettertogether

March 26, 2021 0

Joyful Abandon and the Face of Wisdom: The Tao Te Ching and Children Playing

I’m currently lying in the grass reading the Tao Te Ching and occasionally glancing at children play and it is giving me life. The subtle wisdom of the Tao Te Ching coupled with kids playing in the backdrop…the implications of this scenario isn’t lost on me. It’s so interesting watching them sled the hill. Some are natural daredevils and have no fear. They run and jump onto their cardboard get up speed then fall off and tumble the rest of the way down the hill. With all the bumps, mud, grass and scraped elbows they laugh with total abandon.

Others are afraid of gaining too much speed. They freeze up and the sled stops. Or, they won’t kick quite hard enough to build momentum. They look all around them estimating how close other kids are to make sure they don’t get collide. Often they will sit still on the sled for several minutes afraid to launch.

Some wanna be daredevils but are overthinking their short sled ride. They try out dozens of different angles and sections of the hill. They experiment with which end of their cardboard will glide best. They can’t seem to find just the perfect combination of slope, angle, and projected landing point. One will literally stop his ride to pick up the cardboards around him that other kids left behind. He didn’t focus on his sled ride but allowed it to be interrupted by what others left lying behind.

Can I just chime in here and show my solidarity with the overthinkers? I see you. The ride ahead looks amazing. But, it’s those “what ifs” that hold us back. In reality the ride is very short and in the long term it doesn’t really matter how you tackle the ride just that you DO tackle the ride! See where I’m going with this?

If I had a dollar for everytime I waged war with my what ifs, I would be a wealthy woman. I come from a family of engineers and it’s in my blood to engineer out every possible negative scenario before embarking on any adventure.

But, I can honestly say that because I know this about myself I always push ahead. I would rather do it and fail than deal with the longing unfulfilled due to fear.

So, while I am the overthinker of my peer group I still find myself with some jewels of stories that others could never imagine. I have adventure stories that I will take to my grave 😏. Where the unimaginable is…is where I long to be…and have been.

In short I wanna look back at my life as the kid who deep down was filled with fear but did it anyway.

Now. I gotta tell you the funny reactions from the adults/guardians of these kids. Tell me if you can find yourself in any of them??

Dad 1: (Flabbergasted) “you’re so dirty when we get home I’m just gonna beat you with a broom.”

Mom 1: (The tough parent) “oh c’mon now you said, “ouch” before you even hit the ground.

Mom 2: (I give up mode) “when we get home just stand in the driveway and we will hose you off”

Which kid are you? Which guardian are you?

In whichever ones you find yourself I hope that you find your awe in the sense of adventure and the loving willingness that says, “yeah you got really dirty. But I’d clean you up a thousand times if it means you get to experience joyful abandon.”

March 7, 2021 0

We Are All A Walking Eclipse

You…yes you. And I. As long as we are in this body we will be both darkness and light. The intensity of the darkness and light will fluctuate in intensity as we journey. That is because none of us are static. We are not fixed beings.

I don’t care how much work Jesus does in you. I don’t care how much inner work you do. How much space you hold. How many vices you conquer. You will NOT take your last breath in a state of 100% virtue.

Since that’s the case…why are we so freaking uncomfortable when we see both darkness and light in another person?

I am convinced if we are ever going to attain the pinnacle of what is possible for existence in a flesh suit…then we have to embrace non-dualism and surrender any inclinations we may have in whipping morality or high ideals into the people around us.

Morality, love, virtue…these are things that laws cannot create.

Why do I want to be a good person? It’s not because of my fear of being locked up or penalized if I don’t meet someone else’s expectations and measure up to their ideals.

It’s because I am inspired by the behavior of other good people. Not because there is a cop, a preacher, a sheikh, a Buddha or some other moral “authority” looming large over me.

When I see good and it’s impact…it’s the example not the threat that provokes me to aspire to do and be better.

I promise you this. Your light makes people jealous. Your darkness makes people want to capitalize on your weakness so that they appear more blameless.

Either way you go….you are going to make someone uncomfortable. You are going to make someone mad. You are going to encounter jealousy.

And, when you are comfortable letting other people see….really really see your nature that is both dark and light it will either push them out of your life because they haven’t grown to a point they are able to accommodate the grandness and the mystery that is you OR it will draw them into a place where they can FINALLY love and accept themselves and get unstuck in life.

The greatest gift we can give someone else is love. And, love is so much more expansive than we give it credit for.

I heard a quote recently from Hamlet. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

None of us have a monopoly on the understanding of the profundity and full implication of love.

Love is an ever unfolding multiverse in and of itself. The bounds of it can’t be found. So why do we want to bind people to what we should acknowledge is a limited and flawed philosophy of love?

I am pro human. I love and embrace your humanity. It is no threat to me. I celebrate the nuanced picture I am able to see of you. We all have non-congruent qualities. For many people….recognizing non-congruent qualities in another person often is taken as a red flag. But, the majority of the time there is no reason for that. It is a survival instinct. It is a base instinct.

All my life I have felt like someone on the outside of life looking in at everyone else. I have tons of non-congruent qualities. Sometimes that bothers me (particularly if I’ve spent any time around people who are naturally critical and easily offended.) Other times these qualities are a comfort for me, things that amuse me about myself that puts a sparkle in my eyes because I find myself so funny for holding so much darkness and light at the same time.

I am so tired of living life on the auto pilot that is political correctness. I am over living my life in fawn mode with a false sense of guilt over religious expectations. I will never be completely virtuous. And, you won’t either.

I will continue to live my life inspired and called by goodness rather than in mindless reaction to fear of chastisement. There is no fear in love right?

My greatest desire in life is to empower and encourage people to be who they are authentically without fear of some sort of being exiled for being who they are. Got darkness? Great!! Me too!! Got light?? Awesome!! Shine with me?? Let’s prove to the world that we are inherently both and that IS inherently ok.

November 11, 2020 0

“Hate to be so emotional
I didn’t mean to get physical
But when he pulled in and revved it up
I said you call that a pickup truck
And in the moonlight I throwed him down
A kicking, screaming, a rolling around
A little piece of a bloody tooth
Just so you know I was thinking of you
Just so you know I was oh….” Kings of Leon- Pickup Truck.

My new way of processing the hardships of life is stealing away in these hard to find moments to just sit in the pouring rain. Life has been so much I feel myself losing all ability to be apologetic. I am just so done with the prevailing criticism and unforgiving and merciless culture that our country has found itself in.

In my life love, mercy, compassion, accommodation, and hospitality rule. I have zero desire to analyze my fellow humans for the sake of pointing out perceived character flaws. I have zero desire to sensitize myself to potential offense.

Humanity is swampy. We are like one giant mosh pit of beliefs, traditions, cultures, philosophies, etc. It is inevitable we are going to crash into each other in this grand concert of life. It is inevitable someone is gonna sweat on us. Someone is gonna trip us, fall into us, push us. And if you can’t handle that and you’re so touchy then maybe the human experience isn’t for you.

And just like in the thrill of crowdsurfing at a concert someone is…..going to drop you. And if that is too much for you to handle then don’t bother going for the adventure to begin with.

I remember a concert back in my late teens. It was a grunge band. In this massive arena I was able to secure a spot on the floor and center stage of one of my favorite bands. There were people smoking, and screaming and moshing and just fully living the experience. I decided to jump into a mosh pit and found myself lifted up and crowdsurfing. It all happened so fast (life happens so fast.) It was such a rush!! I don’t even know how long I was above the crowd. It was so much fun and so wild and seemingly outta control. And I loved it. The people who were bearing me up in their hands were cheering and sweating and I felt so alive. But, it hurt. Their hands dug into my spine, bruised my back and my legs, cut my arm and I lost one of my shoes and then as quickly as I had been hoisted into the air as my favorite band roared about their own existential crisis (typical of grunge bands. If you know you know.) I was dropped.

I fell all my weight onto one of my knees and then some dude got pushed and he fell over me and stepped on my fingers.

And you know what??? I wouldn’t effin change that experience. Ever.

Are you kidding me?? A teenager. Front row, center stage. No. I am not going to complain. I am going to live.

There is a price to pay if you want to fully live.

There is a price to pay if you dare live out who you really are on the inside.

In life…you have front row, center stage with all the glory and frailty of humanity swirling around you.

Are you going to hone in on every person who accidentally crashes into your ego?? Because if you find yourself offended at someone else’s shortcomings and they’re not “measuring up” to your “reasonable” standards then that’s where you are. You’re in your ego. You’re in yourself. You’re foolishly squandering your front row, center stage.

And when you look back you’re not gonna remember the concert. No. You’re gonna remember, “well this person didn’t do this or that person didn’t do that or this person just isn’t a person of character. “

And all the while you’ve lost the big picture.

You surmise that the totality of a person’s nature can only be seen and measured by the moments they dropped you. By the moments they crashed into you.

Forsaking the understanding that we are all human and we are all doing the best we can with the time we have.

STOP living in perpetual offense! You have front row, center stage. The grunge band is roaring. You will never have this moment again. Can you hear my pleading??

Does anyone hear what I’m trying to say?? Am I alone in this??

In the rain at Renaissance Park in Chattanooga, TN

November 11, 2020 0

Reflections On Dualism: Transitioning Into Greater Dimensions

I’ve slept maybe 3 hours. I’ve thought all night about subjectivity and relativity. About vibrance and frailty. About the fading nature of seemingly pinnacle pursuits and how very much I’ve grown as a human and am growing. I have undergone major paradigm shifts in the last 3 years or so and pain and sorrow have been the catalysts for all of them. My philosophy about the human experience has always been a circumspect one. But there has been an added robustness to my circumspection over the last few years. I have shed and shed and shed old skin to the point that I often feel raw and vulnerable and uncertain if I have the toughness that comes with older skin to endure my journey onward.

But I truly understand now that while tough skin may feel more comfortable as it is harder to the elements it is also the epitome of an attempt to constrain something that is boundless and infinite in nature and that is my inner world. My inner self.

What a walking contradiction we each are.

The way our brains interpret the world around us and cobble together a conscious reality is fascinating, beautiful and brute all at the same time. We will only ever possess a fragmented reality at best. You will never fully know me and I will never fully know you. But blessed are they who journey inwardly. In as much that we might better know ourselves and grasp at the shadows and light that we all have within us with unashamed and unapologetic courage and tenacity.

It’s not enough to know yourself in your most basic survivalistic form. In fact if that’s all you ever know it’s a smack in the face and an insult to your purpose and your fleeting time in service to your fellow humans.

There is so much more to you….than the you that you currently know. There is an entire ether that lies below your skin and in between every cell in your body.

You are worth the discovery. And if you are not trekking through the no man’s land of your inner world, your shadow lands and exploring the brilliant multi-faceted and multi-dimensional landscapes of your soul then you are missing out on one of the most mysterious wonders of this world.

Today I call you to rise. You are capable of greater. You are inherently expansive. You are on this planet at this time for a grand reason. Find it. And once you find it….pursue it, hone it, experiment feeling in advance all the potential emotions that would accompany it.

Our emotions are not truths in and of themselves. But they are wonderful devices for alchemizing pain. And that alchemy can lead us to places where we continually set and achieve higher goals. Goals with ends that cannot be contained within fading contexts and ever changing realities.

There is more. There is so much more for you and to you.

In our current culture we are so set on analyzing every word, every movement and nuance we pick up on in someone else.

It is time to turn our gaze inward and realize that time spent analyzing someone would be better spent knowing yourself.

I urge you to pay attention to how much time you spend sizing others up and trying to determine who you think they are (because you will never actually know that) versus how much time you spend trying to discover parts of yourself that have lied dormant and neglected because you’ve invested so much time and energy determining why you should either demonize or saint someone outside yourself.

Continue reading →

November 7, 2020 0

A Less Verbose Life: A Meditation On Liminality

This week I will be welcoming a new little nephew into my life. We are on baby watch for my youngest brother’s first born. The cycles of life never cease to fascinate me.

Liminality. No matter where we are at in life one thing is constant and that is that we all are in liminal space. We are always on a threshold of some kind of transition.

I look around me and at once feel an awe-inspiring joy at the marvel of new life and a haunting sadness at the ever deepening reality that this life is fleeting and I will soon enough return to dust. All at once I feel this.

I find myself feeling so torn these days. An obligation to optimism and a dark sense of comfort in knowing that at the end of my life all I ever was….was animated meat. My spirit, my essence the soul of who I am gropes to find it’s most accurate and fulfilling means of expression in this skin I’m in. I will never be fully understood nor accurately perceived. And, neither will you. We each come at life with fragmented perspective at best. In spite of all the honing, discerning, street smarts and psychology of our day we aren’t omniscient. That’s probably not surprising but it is disappointing. This is where adventure comes in. This is one of the few points of human development that sets us apart from the animal kingdom.

Adventure. It is ontologically liminal. Matrices of thresholds if you will. All across the planet people are diving into one unknown from another. Showing up in life, departing in death, savoring the gamut of emotion we each have in varying proportion with every step in between the two spaces (life and death).

We really do exist on a continuum. Not one of us is static. Yet in the frenzy of what we know as life we each walk around with an internal, old-school Polaroid. Every person we encounter, whether familiar or unfamiliar, our brains get busy taking series of snapshots of them in order to put together as clear a picture as we can of that person. And guess what? The pictures we piece together are largely based on our subconscious and involuntary survival reflexes. These reflexes, these subconscious instincts that operate just below the surface of our awareness drive us, filter for us, and dictate everything we do and think without us having to “think.”

Most of the information we take in from conversations with friends to what we see on the news is processed just below the surface of our awareness and then projected back into our reality in the form of opinions, values, and motivations.

This is why it has become so important to me to familiarize myself with quantum physics, metaphysics, and learning about human vibrations.

You see before there was words, before there was written language…there was symbols and vibration. These things are part of our foundation as humans. They are the most ancient and the original forms of communication.

I am a poet. A true word nerd. One of my favorite books of all time is….a thesaurus. But lately I find myself with a deep ache to forsake all forms of known language and connect with the world around me via vibration only. I am a poet. But this life has become so verbose. And that’s exhausting. The nature of language is such that it has an innate poverty. That is an unchangeable fate for language I’m afraid. And as someone word oriented that pains me, it frightens me but it also stirs a sense of adventure. An eager curiosity to imagine what life would be like with no words.

I think about lions. I am endlessly fascinated with big cats. I see them lying and conserving energy out on some arrid terrain while unfamiliar animals and other big cats move through their territory. I see them yawn and stretch. And that to me indicates relaxation. But many animal experts say this is also a sign of defense and aggression. A warning to other big cats that they’re not afraid to engage them if they feel threatened. These cues are understood vibrationally. Finely honed instincts that pick up on the subtlety of the surrounding frequencies.

I have talked before about my people pleasing tendencies. I am realizing this was a pattern set in motion for me by multiple traumas throughout my life. I grew up saturated in terror. And it was such a normal part of my everyday life I learned how to structure my behavior in a way that would keep me as safe as possible from the chaos around me.

Those vibrations in my developmental years shaped the flow of my behavior in the same way water carves out canyons. Sometimes violent bursts of water overtake natural boundaries and in a flash the course of a river is changed forever. Other times it’s just the trickling persistence that causes a gentle erosion.

And this is where I find myself. With authenticity and vulnerability as my guiding principles and undercurrents of tumult that is always tumbling and shaping me.

I long for cohesion. Like you I have many layers. And nearly all of them (that I am conscious of) are non-congruent to each other. I’m an enigma. Humans will forever be mysterious. Who you are can never be fully expressed or accurately perceived in just one lifetime. The best psychoanalysts of our time will only ever get their toes wet when it comes to wading in the waters of you.

And so here we are. In this liminal space. This threshold. The cusp of adventure.

I want to do my next adventures differently. I want to come into them differently. And, I want to do that from a space of as few words as possible.

I want to jump because I’m ready to jump. Not because of how jumping is explained to me or how I’ve talked myself into it. I want to leap into my next season from a heart-centered, vibrationally sensitive space.

I want to look back knowing I lived my life without feeling the need to explain it.

As I prepare to welcome this new life, this new little nephew I am older than when the first baby was born that made me an aunt. In this season of my life this birth feels like a herald to me. A beckoning to come meet the spirit of life at the table of a sovereignty that can never be articulated. Only observed. Perceived. Then tucked away as unspoken understanding. An unspoken understanding that unfolds like the slow and unrelenting discovery of the macrocosm.

Less words from me. That feels most fitting. It feels most freeing.

Cheers to liminality.

Cozett

October 26, 2020 0

A True Catalyst

99% of who you are as a person cannot be touched, smelled, tasted, heard or seen.

Sure, we have this outer shell with fleshy inner trappings.

But, “who”….you are emanates from your consciousness.

We must take care of our earth suits. Its imperative if we are to live out quality consciousness.

But….I submit the inner work is weightier than the body. (See what I did there?) Tee hee hee.

And, the inner work….and what you produce on the inside directly impacts how your body is able to express your consciousness.

I am all the more determined to keep diving and evolving, diving and evolving. Free diving into the quarry of my inner world, mining it and then seeing what comes loose and rises to the surface of my conscious awareness.

Interesting thing about quarries, we know they are pits that are dug out and mined and when they become abandoned they will usually fill with water. Limestone quarries produce these oceanic colored pools that are to me, irresistible to dive in and swim.

And that’s what most of us are like, right?? Abandoned quarries. Filled with beautiful pools that if we could see we would be so eager to dive into and find refreshing.

I want to encourage you this week to intentionally reflect on these questions:

1. What would it feel like to take a deep dive inside myself thru sitting quietly for 15 mintues or so and see what comes up?

There will be mind chatter, yes. But, our brains have a great deal of plasticity and can be trained to “sit and stay.” With practice of course.

2. Is there untapped potential within me that I don’t know about it?

3. What would it feel like if I made some self-discoveries that could change the course of my life for the better? Or enhance what I already enjoy?

My friends. There is more! 99% more!! Please don’t rob yourself by neglecting the practice of meditation and quietness for herein lies a true catalyst.

If you would like some guidance with meditation or would like to join me in meditating let me know!

If you have stories about how meditation has profoundly altered the course and enhanced the quality of your life please share it with me!

February 11, 2020 0