 This is a different background than I usually have and it's not totally balanced so I apologize I am in my office I'm in my office but I'm in my bed there's a nap bed in my office where I take my daily naps and I've been bed ridden for this is the third day because I have had a foot infection and it's getting better thankfully but I haven't been able to work at my desk and so this is a different video environment here I want to share with you kind of my reflections on on this experience of having an unexpected illness I guess or incapacitation to just do what my usual rhythms are and if you've seen my other videos about life monastery you know I'm trying to create and stay with a rhythm of spiritual practice throughout the day throughout the week and you know I had I feel like I just barely got started with that rhythm it's been maybe like two weeks of trial a lot of trial and error and experimentation and then this this sort of illness and you know it's it's quite a bit of effort each day just to hop around just to hop around in one foot trying to you know do my hygiene and get get get food and you know work from bed and what's natural what's the regular pattern it would be because my life monastery rhythms have not been instituted yet after years of practice it's very natural just to forget about it and I was you know the first day of my illness I looked back after the whole day I'm like did I do anything from my spiritual practice today barely anything when the second day I was a little bit more conscious and I started doing it a little bit and then this is the third day now and hopefully I will be more aware of my rhythm my spiritual rhythms as my foot gets better but I just think about it this and like I want to have a regular spiritual practice I but no one is going to force me to do it like no one's gonna I mean I live with my wife I wouldn't want her to you know nag at me and force me to do something that I in other words probably as you we want the freedom to be able to decide and do our spiritual practices without I mean I guess it's kind of funny I'm talking about life monastery because in in a real monastery you you purposely give up freedom so that you have external structure to do your spiritual practice and that again some people are called to that I'm not I'm a householder so-called which means I'm giving myself the freedom which also comes with I need to give my I need to create that structure so with the gift of freedom comes the opportunity the responsibility for me to create my own structure of spiritual practice no one else is coming to save me and so but that's true of life in general I mean most of you watching this probably all of you watching this are not living in the monastery and you are the creator of your own life this life in this earth I'm not saying you're the creator of all universe but you are certainly in this incarnation in this moment you've been given the freedom to make tons of mistakes to not do the right thing or to do the right thing whatever the right thing means for you at the moment your conscience you know you align with that but it's such it's always so surprising to me and I always have to remind myself that the silence of life when we do it's like sure our conscience might come in but but so many of us have learned to ignore our conscience or to be overburdened by our conscience but it's like the larger silence of life though no one's telling you what to do you can listen to teachers you can listen to mentors but they're just one small voice in your life I mean you can make their voice large in your life if you want to but the more responsibility you take for your life the more you realize there's a giant silence in life giant silence of God is not speaking down from the skies in a megaphone saying now you will do this now you will do that God's always really the it's so funny I feel like the more people are connected to spirit the more I don't know I feel like sure some people might you know be channelers and they are deep divinely connected and it's like there's a microphone in their head from from God saying you should do this or from their angel guides or whatever I find it to be the opposite the more I've matured the more I've matured the more you know they call it the still small voice it's like the more the whisperer gets softer because the more I've been given the freedom and the sovereignty to do what is whatever it is I get to determine what's right and wrong the more I matured the more I've realized this no one else can determine for me what's right and wrong like I said yes there is God and yes the as we connect to divine source we might hear some guidance but my feeling about it is that God wants us to become adults and to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong and to suffer the consequences or to enjoy the consequences to understand the ripple effects of our actions and of our thoughts so once again I'm back to my bedridden rhythm where I can decide to practice my spirituality or not the unexpected will always come if we can expect anything in life it's there will be unexpected times and so for those of us who want to practice our spirituality regularly back to this idea you are the creator of your life no one is coming to save you no one's God's not going to use a big microphone and if God does use a big microphone it's because you really are struggling and you need a lot of help fine you God might use the microphone through other people they might give you an intervention but the more we mature the less interventions people need to give to us and so same with God the less God needs to intervene and say well now you got to create the structure I'm gonna create the structure for you because you can't do it on your own but the more we mature the more we want to be a creator of our life the more we want to rise up to be a leader in life then the more we have to decide well when the unexpected comes will we still create follow a rhythm because no one's gonna do it for us and the last thing I'll say is this the rhythm or your spiritual practice is always there available for you and we can always ease into it without a lot of you know flailing around or whatever like for example I can always come back to my energy reboot it only needs to take 20 seconds it's so gentle it's so simple and yet when I come back to it I've reminded it yet again of the deeper what I believe is a deeper truth of existence and what this is all about and so come back again and again and again to your spiritual practice because you are the creator of this life you get to determine your structures you get to determine how much you grow thanks for watching