The Choice to Lean In

“You want an easy answer? Go Jesus, Go Allah, Go, go, go Atheist. I’m a Jew.
My obligation is to wrestle. It’s to engage. It’s not just to simply blindly believe.
I mean that’s how I see it... And maybe, you’ll never decide.”
~ Rabbi Dave, Weeds

During the course of conversation with new friends last night, the topic inadvertently at a few different points leaned towards religion/spirituality, and sex/sexuality. Near the end of the night, I made a comment that this is something that seems to happen often in my conversation circles... Wondering aloud if I thought that was more about myself or others, I answered with a laugh, “Well I'm the common denominator in those situations, so likely it's more about me!”

These are two areas of life that I have struggled with, grown from, and continue to be interested in – particularly the development of... And so I engage with them, wrestle with them, read and converse about them, share my journey's story and devour those of others' who are willing to share. But what stood out for me from that conversation last night was these new friends' acknowledgement that I choose to continue to engage and wrestle with these topics that I have struggled with; that many people would instead choose to turn away and avoid them.

I've never looked at it as a choice I made or continue to make. It's just something that I do as part of my life-long journey of self discovery and awareness; of the discovery and awareness of others.

I have a yoga teacher friend from whom – in reading her writings and attending her classes, even in our face-to-face conversations – I often hear a message about leaning into the difficult spaces: the yoga poses; the emotions; the intellectual and relational struggles that pop up like tiny pebbles and giant boulders along life's path. A message about how leaning in and facing them is the only way to truly move past them, to learn, to grow. And what relief and release is finally found when that pebble can be dumped from the shoe or the boulder pushed out of the way! When we are able to contort our bodies and souls to fit into those difficult spaces comfortably! Even if just for a short time...

So maybe it has been a choice I sub-consciously made. Or maybe it's one of those things that I feel I don't have a choice about because it's just in me to engage and wrestle. I do know I've found some of my most amazing conversations, friendships, and memories because of leaning in to those spaces; leaning into the struggles of those topics; leaning into my own spiritual and sexual development. And now that I know I have a choice about it – I'm going to keep leaning in!