It takes work (ironically), to let things be as they are
Meant to be. Trust the path. Everything happens for a reason. The lord works in mysterious ways. All ways that people say "just take things as they come." That's a muscle I've flexed a lot on
Meant to be. Trust the path. Everything happens for a reason. The lord works in mysterious ways. All ways that people say "just take things as they come." That’s a muscle I've flexed a lot on this trip - a year and a half with very little in the way of plans, just taking things as they come. Some are "nice" experiences, some are "not nice", but all are experiences. The "nice" ones are pleasant, the "not nice" ones teach me something, then there's a lot of time in between to sit on trains or motorbikes or planes and just experience the place I am and whatever is happening at that moment.
I'm in South of France which is gorgeous of course and oh so very French. Had a dawn stroll along the ocean to a cafe for a pain au raisin et un café allongé. Came all the way to Europe to go to a Buddhist retreat but got the flu on the day it was supposed to start... such is life. But thought I'd spend some time reflecting on why I wanted to go to the retreat in the first place.
The draw of Buddhism for me is not about religion, but just about sharpening that skill. The skill of taking things as they come. Every moment has so much to teach us. Especially and maybe only the ones we'd actually like to avoid.
They teach us about what we're avoiding and if we can sit with the unpleasantness for just a moment, before we run or try to justify it away ("I shouldn't feel like that", "he didn't know what he was talking about", "if I'd just done better that wouldn't have happened"), they can teach us so much about the places we still need to grow. Those times we get overwhelmed or anxious or depressed or angry are like windows into our psyches, helping us to understand ourselves and to understand each other. To see the ways we're stuck and to have empathy for the ways others are struggling and trying and failing and just trying their best to be human beings just like us, always imperfect, always struggling, always trying to do their best.
What an adventure life is when we can think about it like that. Like a grand experiment that just keeps giving us opportunities to get better. We keep getting hit again and again with the same problems, in different forms and from different people, until one day we get into a situation we've been in a thousand times and we act differently. It's like a switch flipped. "Huh, that wasn't like last time at all." "I just showed up in a totally different way than last time that happened."
It feels like magic. But it's not magic. It's work. It's the result of the daily noticing of how we're reacting, and the tick tick tick tiny chipping away, until one day the rock just gives, and what feels like a profound change occurs. And in those moments you realize you're not stuck. That you don't have to be the person you've always been. Or that you can be the person you've always been but that person has grown. That a skin has been shed and there's more to shed, but stepping out of this one you see the world as a new place, with new possibilities, and new challenges to overcome. Like stepping out of a chrysalis, the world really does feel new. Like I'm seeing with fresh eyes, like a dirty windshield wiped clean.
I had one of these moments recently. I won't get into too many details or too much history, but suffice to say that there was a relationship I was in at some point in the not too distant past where I got angry a lot. She would get upset, I would take that as an indictment of myself, that it was my fault that she was upset because if a woman is crying I must have done something horribly wrong, then my nervous system would go into overdrive because I'm a human and humans hate to feel like they're bad people, and I would feel trapped and frustrated and overwhelmed and get angry, and she would get angry and more upset, and a tornado of emotion would build and grow. A tsunami of pain and anger and blame, frothing and crashing and suffocating us both until we were finally so exhausted we collapsed in our corners.
It was not what you'd call a healthy dynamic, and once I was out of it I pledged to never let it happen again. So I've been working. I've been working on relationships. I've been working on how I am in the world. I've been working on understanding that people's emotions and actions have very little to do with me, and all I can do is be there for them and allow them to work through. I've been working on sitting with unpleasant emotions in myself, feeling things that don't feel good and just letting them not feel good, instead of needing to find a reason and an outlet to unleash them on.
And I recently had a test of all that work, and I passed. I was in a hard situation, and I was able to sit with it. I didn't need to blame her and make her wrong. I didn't need to blame myself and make me wrong. I didn't need to fix it or find a reason or look for a solution. I just let it be. I felt one way, someone else felt another. And it was ok. I could just be there as witness and support, and that's all I needed to be.
It may not sound like much, and maybe some of you are thinking "you asshole!", because there are many opinions out there on the best way to be in relationship, but for me it was quite profound. I didn't even realize it until the next day. Didn't realize how different that was. And now I know that I have it in me to be that way, and life somehow does feel different. Like I've stepped into a new level. Small for some, big for me. We each have our struggles, and this was, and I'm sure will continue to be, one of mine, but now I know it's not forever, and there is a deep sense of peace with that feeling.
And that's the whole reason to do this work at all - to have those moments of realization and keep stepping forward.
It's a hard way to live in some ways, because it's a way that doesn't let you sit back and blame for the ways things are and the way you are. You're not allowed to be cynical or world weary or victimizing, because in this way of being all those "bad" things are the things that help you grow. Knowing they exist is a positive, because they give you a lens to show you where you’re stuck. Without them you wouldn't be the person you’ve become (and I bet that’s a pretty good person on the whole). You’d lack the complexity and empathy and kindness that are your core. Or you wouldn't lack them but maybe couldn't access them. We need struggle to help us understand ourselves and have empathy for each other. Things need to be hard for us to understand when they're not and to be able to see how things might be hard for others.
So whatever thing is happening right now that feels totally overwhelming or insurmountable or makes you say "WHY ME?!", maybe it's actually the most important thing in your life. Maybe you'll look back and say "if that didn't happen, I never would have...", "it was really hard at the time, but if things had kept going that way, I'd have never met...", "I didn't think I could handle it, but now I...".
It's not about loving pain, or being happy go lucky all the time and pretending things aren't hard, but about keeping in the back of your mind the idea that things will work out, as they always have. The sun will rise, you'll put food on the table tomorrow, and most importantly, the harder something is, the more you'll learn from it in the end. The more you'll know yourself, what you're capable of, what you can handle, and what you're here for.
Travel notes:
Was in Hong Kong for 10 days, which was a good experience and where my mentioned growth happened. Now in Europe, first in Paris, where my mentioned flu happened, now in San Sebastian Spain. Europe is beautiful of course, but I feel homesick for Asia. There's something so saturated about the experience of being there, and a feeling of calm, that I really miss.
