‘Sacred’ is a vastly different word than ‘special.’ Special implies unique and singular and treads carefully close to perfectionism. Sacred is the removal of the veil, a place that tends to heal and release our egoic mind. It allows us to access the richness of our human experience. Scared imbues respect, reverence, honoring, kindness and ceremony for important times of transition. It infers that every relationship in our life is an important aspect of life; it’s the opposite of making our life the most important thing.
Sacred removes individuality from our existence and reminds us that the relationships with ourselves and others are intertwined. We can isolate ourselves by not connecting to those around us or avoiding things that make us uncomfortable. We can think that we’re the only ones who are going to look out for our best interest. However, that way of thinking lacks connection to community, celebration (aka ceremony), and the wisdom that relationships add to our lives.
We either spend our lives believing that life is meant to make us happy, that somehow, we will figure out the secret to our own happiness, or we devote ourselves to something outside of ourselves, not in a people pleasing way, but by tending to our own wellness whilst being of servitude to our families and communities.This seeking for purpose, which I’ve also been intoxicated by, almost obsessed with figuring out what I’m good at so that I can feel worthy as a human, is solely driven by the egoic culture, by the need to stand out and be special.
Our true-life purpose won’t be revealed to us in our 20s, 30s, or 40s, it will be a slow unraveling of ourselves as we age. It will be an evolution of the choices we make coupled with how we choose to show up in the world. The point of your existence will be divulged to you in chapters, something that you look back on and understand with clarity and perhaps awe.
A life that’s lived in care of something greater than ourselves is and will always be wildly more enchanting than living for our own benefit.
But how do we make our lives sacred, how do we create a life that is the opposite of what our culture teaches?
We don’t have elders that teach us the importance of sharing stories, of celebrating the milestones in other people’s lives. We’re not guided by those who understand viscerally the importance of tending to our planet with immense care and respect, those who were themselves taught how to respect and care for all living things. We lack the discipline that living in a true community brings, the humility that comes from working together towards the wellness of all. We lack the reverence that ceremony teaches us.
Making small things important creates sacredness. Waking up and sitting for a minute to contemplate what brings you joy has become part of the “10 ways to be a boss of your life” instead of something we do because it profoundly impacts how we see and care for the world. We’re so caught up in biohacking and living youthful lives that we forgo the wisdom of listening to the trees and paying attention to the wind. These are acts of sacredness.
All the ways I’ve mismanaged my energy and attention have been taught to me by society. I’ve been seeking other ways to experience the world for a long time, but I’ve had to realize all the ways that I was trying to make myself special. Changing has been a slow process, unlearning those beliefs continues to be difficult. I can say with clarity that focussing my life on serving others and learning how to see the ordinary as extraordinary and making the small everyday things in my life worthy of attention has changed my life in beautiful ways.
We’re in a time of serious mental health crisis because we don’t prioritize practices in our life that invoke connection to ourselves and a reverence for the spiritual aspects of being human. Many yoga practices in the west are focused on fitness style classes or teachers that thrive off of being front and center, instead of places of devotion that invite curiosity and exploration. We need more places for ritual, for moving our bodies so that we can conjure feelings of connection to something outside of our own singular points of view.
Although we can say that we access the divine through activities such as running, biking, climbing mountains, etc. These things only help us move stagnant energy (and keep us physically healthy), they don’t help us see the awe in the mundane, they keep us craving more movement.
Reading books and listening to podcasts are great ways to learn, but they don’t allow us to show up in our messiness and work out our worn out beliefs in a way that can be healing and build connection to someone else.
It might be time to prioritize making our lives sacred. See how your life changes when you look at the people around you as if it’s the first time you’ve ever seen them. What are you missing by being caught up in your own struggles? Or the filters which influence your capacity to see something different, how are you missing everything that is worthy of awe?
Love, Noellec