The Direction of Intention

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I found a slip of paper tucked in an old journal. It carries a message to myself, a vow that I made on a weekend retreat several years ago. This is what I wrote: I will leave starving behind and orient my life according to the feast.

I used to create starvation because I used to fear starvation. Every choice I made, every experience I interpreted was understood according to the lens of fear. The fear was both literal – I would not have enough food (a lack story) – and metaphoric, that I was not enough: not powerful enough, smart enough, funny enough. I used to feel as if the world was too big and that I had no capacity or skill to negotiate it; I used to feel that the world was swallowing me!

My way of attempting to control the uncontrollable – of fending off the feeling of starvation – was to retreat from the world, to hide as if the hounds of my fear would not find me in my retreat. I was a Hungry Ghost: no matter how much I had or how varied and wealthy the experiences of my life, I was incapable of feeling satisfaction. I was incapable of experiencing the fullness of my life. I was starving to death. Starvation was my focus so starvation was my creation.

On the day I wrote the note to myself, I realized that I was starving myself – it was not “the world” that was starving me or my capacities relative to my desires – it was my fear that kept me from the table. The realization of my starvation-creation took my breath away.

Fear was my focus so fear was my creation. Starvation was my focus so starvation was my experience. Because I was seeing the world through a lens of starvation, everything looked barren and dangerous. When the world looks barren, the choices you make are different than the choices you make when the world looks abundant. The world did not change; what changed was my seeing. What changed was where I placed my focus.

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