New Moon INSIGHT
INSIGHT On Letting Go without Letting Go of the Wheel
Dear Community,
Two weeks ago I wrote to you on the day of the full-moon lunar eclipse, from the Angeles Clinic, where I'd gone in for my biannual follow-up scans.
That writing was about finding freedom in the middle of it all. The discomforts that come with scans, the blood draws, and medical exams.
What hit for a lot of you, judging by the responses that came back, was the reframe. The result was always going to be what it was. The scan just takes the picture. That premise seemed to open a gateway into meeting your own unknowns in a new way.
What is, is what it is. And we can meet what is in many ways. With resistance, with denial, with acceptance, or with an ocean of presence. Each has its place, and the last two open a particular kind of opportunity in the present moment.
My scans came back that day, and they offered information worth paying attention to. Nothing dramatic, and I want to say that plainly before I say anything else.
There's a remnant of what was there before. It's small, it's moving, and it needs attention now, not later. That's the whole of it.
And to the point of the reframe, what showed up on the scan was already there. Now we can see it. That's a huge gift.
Being With What Is, Then Taking Action
It's one thing to release our grip on an outcome while we're waiting. It's another when the outcome arrives, calls us to attention, and asks us to act.
Non-attachment isn't the same as being hands-off.
Letting go of needing a particular result doesn't mean letting go of the wheel. If anything, the release is what lets us see clearly enough to move fast and move well, without the fog of panic or the fog of denial.
Sitting in that office two weeks ago, as we reviewed the images, my doctor started in on the careful version of the conversation. The one you deliver to someone who might be about to hear that their cancer is back.
About fifteen seconds in, I stopped him.
I said the person you're talking to isn't the same person you met in 2023. I don't need you to say everything you're about to say. Instead, let's put our energy into what needs to happen next.
He recalibrated. More than that, I sensed he grew more present. As thoughtful as he is, there was more of a human being in the room after that. Aligned, we got on with it. Next week we look with a finer-toothed comb and go from there.
The next day I sat with Lisa Viola, my dear friend and Divine Inflection medium, and clear guidance came through. It said what some part of me already knew.
"The time is now. Not later, not in a few months. Kevin can be stubborn. He likes to follow his own plan. This isn't the time for that. This is a remnant of what was, that's all. He has much to do still, and one of them is love."
And that's what I intend to do, alongside my medical team. Get right to it, and move through this with love.
Three things I'm taking with me:
A result that asks for action isn't a failure of practice. I did the work. I was present on that table and in that conversation with my team. Practice was never going to keep hard things from arriving. It just means I'm standing up when they do.
Stubbornness can look a lot like sovereignty. I'm good at setting my own plan. I like my plan. And somewhere in there is a version of self-trust that's really a refusal to be moved. Mine shows up right when I'm being asked to change course, sounding perfectly reasonable the whole time. This isn't the moment for that one.
A fact and a story aren't the same thing. The fact here is small and needs handling now. The story would be much larger, and it would want my whole identity in exchange. The fact gets my attention. The story dissolves as I come back to what's alive in the present moment. For me, that's the healing path.
So I'm going back in. Returning to the holistic protocols I set down in June of 2024, and we'll see which Allopathic ones I take up alongside them. Doing the thing while it's small. And finding out in a real way that clearing the calendar is its own kind of medicine.
As I wrote two weeks ago about that 96% full moon lunar eclipse, the sliver stays lit. The light remains.
Consciousness, the light of our own presence, stays lit too, regardless of what's temporarily passing in front of it.
New Moon INSIGHT In Practice
This one is for anyone holding a result that requires follow-up. A diagnosis, a decision that landed differently than you hoped, news with a call to action attached.
Sit for ten minutes.
Breathe until the breath is slower than the thinking.
Separate the fact from the story: Write one sentence that is only the fact. No adjectives, no future tense. Then write what your mind has been adding to it. Look at both, and notice which one has been running your day.
Ask what is actually yours to do: Not the whole plan. Just the next real action.
Then the harder question (well, it is for me): Where am I being stubborn? Where might my plan, my timing, or my pride be standing between me and the thing that needs doing?
Stay with the feeling a little longer than is comfortable. Let any insights arrive in their own time. It may not come in that sitting, and that's fine.
Then take the first step. Today, if you can. The action is where the practice becomes real.
And come back to the breath, and to the one that watches all of it. What the yoga tradition calls the Seer. That Seer is the eternal within us. It was never in danger, and it isn't now.
I'm well, I'm in good hands, and I'll keep you posted as there's anything worth sharing.
If you try this one, let me know how it goes. I read everything you send.
With love,
Kevin