Messiness leads to wholeness

Today I created a mess.

The paint was on the table.

A wet canvas fell against the wall.

Wet paper towels sat in a clump on the floor beside my chair.

The harsh reality is that every single time I cook, or do something creative I seem to make a mess. It's the kind of mess that seems to snowball before I know it.  I'll be in the middle of a project or cooking and all of a sudden I realize that chaos has exploded around me.  The mess isn't contained in one small area, it has bled over into the areas that I was hoping to keep clean.    Areas that are now going to leave me with more cleanup to address.

The mess often keeps us from moving forward, from doing the very thing that will eventually lead us to a place of wholeness; the place of centering.  We try to contain the messiness of our lives in one area. Most of us believe the past is in the past and it has no effect on us whatsoever. We tell ourselves we can separate what is happening at work from how we are doing personally.  We convince ourselves that the chaos of our extended families does not bleed into our sense of self-worth or the way we respond in crisis situations.    We like to believe that the messiness in our lives is neatly contained.  

I know that in the midst of the mess I have to keep going.  I keep measuring, spilling the flour or the vanilla on the countertop.  I keep letting the paintbrush float across the canvas streaking my hands with unwanted paint and letting the wet towels fall to the floor around my feet.  I keep going because I know that in the end, a recipe will be able to nourish my being.  I keep going because I know that the paint on the canvas will reveal a creation that was only once a hope within my being.  

When we have the courage to dig in and unveil the messiness in our lives, the real stuff that is happening: the disappointments that have left us comparing ourselves to others, the loss that is so painful we still feel the waves of grief when we least expect it, the hold that family members have on our psyche; the mess has the power to reveal that which we had only hoped for.  The mess has the power to nourish us in ways that we could have not anticipated.  In the going forward beauty is summed.  

The going, 

the making,

the pressing forward 

in the mess 

opens us the space to find my center.  

Today I created a mess, if I had only concentrated on the mess that consumed me in that moment I would have never sat down to create, to find my center, or to listen to my whispers inside.  As the canvas' was drying and I was picking up the crazy covering my table and cleaning the paint brushes, I was reminded that messiness is part of finding our center.

What mess is happening within you that you are working desperately to keep from encroaching into other areas of your life?  What mess within your soul needs is longing to be cleared out so that a new creation can come into its place?  What messiness is keeping you from moving forward in who you want to be?

Let the mess lead us to a deeper part of ourselves.