Creating Room For Internal Mess
May 31st, 2010
“Our wisdom is all mixed up with what we call our neurosis. Our brilliance, our juiciness, our spiciness, is all mixed up with our craziness and our confusion, therefore it doesn’t do any good to try to get rid of our so-called negative aspects, because in that process we also get rid of our basic wonderfulness.”
My yoga teacher, Scott reads this teaching a lot — and my guess is, not just because it’s kind to remind us of our basic wonderfulness. I think he returns to this quote because it butts right up against our natural human instincts: HUH? It doesn’t do any good to get rid of our so-called negative aspects? What are you talking about?!! Getting rid of scary stuff is what we evolved to do!
The human instinct to move toward safety and pleasure and way-the-heck-away from danger and pain is hard-wired into our brains. And it would be pretty satisfying if we could spear all our negative aspects and burn them to ashes in a primeval fire. If only it worked.
Reflecting on this natural propensity to “get rid of,” I asked each of my boys Owen (10) and Lucas (7), “What would you do if a scary monster was lurking outside your house?
Their minds, no surprise, spit out solutions at warp speed.
Owen came up with these, without stopping for air:
- We could ambush it from a tree fort with rocks and pine cones,
- We could nail it with the Nerf Heavy Duty Pumper dart gun,
- Lucas could wiggle around and distract it while I snuck up from behind and hit it over the head with a baseball bat
- We could blare really loud, annoying music at it.
And on and on he went. His mind, like all of ours, is a birring-whirring solution-producing machine.
Lucas, Zen master, said we wouldn’t have to do anything unless the monster attacked us, because we should only protect ourselves in self-defense. He then came up with his own staggering list of defensive options including the giggle-inducing idea of using the Wuxi finger hold a la Kung Fu Panda.
Scary monster problem? SKADOOSH!
I noticed neither one of my kids said, “We could try to make friends with it.” Or “Maybe he’s not as scary as he looks,” or anything of that sort. Their immediate instinctive responses to “‘scary monster,” were protective.
And, it makes complete, self-protective sense that we would want to get rid of, or fix, or be done with negative aspects in our inner world much like we would get rid of monsters lurking outside our house.
Loneliness? Fear? Grief? Sadness? Disappointment? SKADOOSH!
But what if our efforts at avoiding, getting rid of, and fixing internal monsters not only don’t work, but bring us suffering and keep us stuck?
What if we spend so much energy and time fighting our emotions that we’ve got nothing left to do the stuff that really matters to us?
For instance, maybe we try to get rid of emotional emptiness by overeating. Then we at least feel full, or numb. Anything but empty. We live in service to getting rid of emptiness. But the emptiness returns again and again, only it’s hungrier.
Maybe we attempt to banish anxiety by avoiding situations that might “trigger” more stress. We create artificial safety, but our lives get smaller.
Maybe we evade fear by procrastinating. We hide our imperfections, and in the process miss the chance to share our best stuff.
I’ve tried just about every emotional-avoidance maneuver at one time or another, and although I do get the highly sought after short-lived relief, the inner-emotional ICK is only temporarily mollified.
Within minutes or hours, the emotional ICK returns, somehow skewed, magnified, or more insistent by my attempts to evade it. “Mwah, hah, hah, I’m baa-acck!”
When I get all caught up in trying to control my internal space, I miss everything happening in the present. It’s like being on a hamster wheel, spinning-spinning-spinning, while I could be using that glycogen to do something I value instead.
In my experience, efforts to get rid of difficult emotions, thoughts, sensations, or urges lead to a life that gets constricted, smaller, airless.
If it doesn’t do any good to get rid of our so-called negative aspects, because in that process we also lose sight of our basic goodness, our brilliance, our juiciness, our spiciness then,
WHAT is the alternative ?!
For me that answer has been acceptance, or what I prefer to call willingness. (I don’t love the word acceptance, because it sounds too much like resignation to me, which it’s decidedly not. I like the word willingness which I borrowed from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Willingness sounds to me like an active choice, which acceptance decidedly is.)
Acceptance or Willingness is opening up, making space and room for emotions and sensations, allowing what arises to be there.
Rather than trying to avoid or control my thoughts, memories, emotions or sensations, my practice now, is all about allowing the stuff I can’t change right in the moment to be there — while making oceans of space for it all to float around in.
Which isn’t to say fix it/get rid of/control strategies never help us in our quest for inner peace. Because in some ways they sort of can:
- When I clear out the clutter in my home & office, it’s more likely I will feel more peaceful and I can work better.
- When I keep my kitchen stocked with healthy choices, it’s more likely I’ll experience less cravings and this makes it easier to choose eating well.
- When I go for a run or to a yoga class, it’s more likely I will feel more open, receptive and grounded the rest of the day, which makes it easier to love better.
In a way, these external structures and rituals are control strategies that help me be more open and flexible internally. I have many rituals, big and small that help me cultivate qualities I like.
But sometimes I can go through all the rituals and structures, and still, I feel sad, or angry, or scared. That’s where acceptance is really, really helpful.
My yoga teachers often say, 99% experiential wisdom 1% philosophy. And acceptance/willingness is one of those concepts I’ve had to practice to “get.”
I made a list of some of the things I have learned about acceptance/willingness from my experience. In sharing my list, my hope is I might help you consider an alternative to the endless stuck-in-the-muck struggle of wanting things to be different than they are right now, this second.
What I’ve experienced about willingness:
- Willingness is a choice. I may not want or like what I am experiencing, but here it is, and I can be willing to have it.
- Willingness isn’t tolerance. Tolerance is gritting your teeth, white-knuckling, holding out as long as you can. Willingness is the act of opening and allowing things to be as they are in the moment.
- Willingness isn’t resignation. Or wallowing. It’s an active intentional choice to allow uncomfortable feelings, sensations, urges, or thoughts which arise to come and go without struggling with them, running away, or getting entangled in them.
- I can’t see what needs to change if I don’t look. Willingness opens me up to see things as they are, which helps me contact what is important and meaningful to me. Sometimes discomfort is a sign that I need to make changes in my work, my relationships, my health, my living space, or some other area of my life.
- Sometimes seeing things as they are is exquisitely painful. There may be a big gap between my immediate reality and the vision of how I want things to be. I can’t close the gap right this second or the next. Ouch.
- Willingness is easier when difficult mindy-stuff has lots of internal space in which to come and go. When I’m on the yoga mat, or sitting in meditation, or on a run, I can create some separation between who I am and what I am experiencing. Even the most intensely uncomfortable emotions become less urgent and softer when I give them an expanse of space to move in.
- All the time and energy that was caught up in fixing, getting rid of and controlling my internal space is freed up to do what matters to me. Instead of stopping and struggling and being stuck in place, I can live a vital, engaged life, inevitably touched with natural human pain and awkwardness.
- I don’t have to embrace everything all of the time. Sometimes it’s OK to temporarily avoid, escape or ignore. As long as my avoidance or escape isn’t keeping me rooted in stuckness. Escape hatches are useful now and then when I hide consciously and with the intention to restore and renew my energy.
- I am still practicing, practicing, practicing.
What about you?
Does the difficulty of making painful emotions go away make your life feel more difficult?
Looking to your experience, what have you learned about acceptance? Have you practiced acceptance, and found your life, however painful at times, opens up?
Go to the Limits of Your Longing…(And Um, Hang On to Your Center?)
March 11th, 2010
Big loooooong out-breath, my 40 days of yoga, meditation and conscious eating is over.
And now I can do whatever I want.
I can sit still every morning, and open to what arises in my mind and body, with curiosity, and my best in-the-moment go at acceptance. Or not.
I can eat beautiful, fresh, whole foods. Or not.
I can consistently show up on my mat, and breathe and flow, and connect internally. Or not.
I can seek connection with yoga friends, giving them love and smiles, and receiving their love and smiles. Or not.
I have so many options before me that I can choose. Or not
And I see, ever more clearly, how these choices determine the quality of my lived experience.
Which brings me to the question I have been asked by friends:
“Oooooh, tell me Lauren, what did you get out of your 40 day experience?”
Oh, you mean, why was taking on the 20+ hours per week adventure of yogini/meditator/mindful eater worth every particle of space and moment of time it occupied?” I’m happy to share!
Because maintaining this 40-day commitment forced gently reminded me about choice. Discernment. And longing. And it invited me, again, to be willing to trust my own intuition. To captain my ship. And to trust my own answers to the big questions.
Questions like: How do I long to spend my time? What qualities do I long to bring into my life? What qualities do I long to give to the people in my life?
What allows me to flare up like flame and make big shadows that love can move in? (*Paraphrasing a Rilke poem)
And how the heck can I do all I yearn to do in a way that is sustainable, self-loving, and other-loving?
Because I tend to overextend. I’m scary-good at gritting my teeth and pushing through. Moremoremore is added until I have to start throwing things overboard. And I don’t want to be all gogogo if it means I’ll find my center has careened off to the left, or hurtled off to the right. If it means I’ll find my mind all tightly-wound, and my feet walking as if on slippery fishes. And I’d rather not hold my breath without reprieve.
I want to exhale. I’d like more yin to balance out the yang.
I’d like to create emotional balance and a deep sense of well-being. Consistently, resolutely. And to do that, I’ll need harbors to anchor in after long days out in the wind and the weather.
During this 40 day endeavor, I was squeezed by a giant time crunch. I said yes to many things: new clients, speaking engagements, copywriting projects, teaching opportunities, cool collaborations. Yes, yes, yes, I said.
And I’m a mom too, and a wife. A loving, fun, engaged mom and wife. Which involves saying yes every day. Because I like being there for my family. And this means being there-there, because when I’m not there-there, they notice. And I notice. And sometimes that’s o.k., but most of the time I would rather have containers around when I’m there-there for my family, and when I’m somewhere else. Half-way presence feels disconcerting.
And I want to say yes to other things too: my head-clearing runs, my yoga practice, my garden, living in a peaceful de-cluttered space, and occasionally being social with friends.
All those yes-es have been packed into not enough time and space. I’ve kept every commitment, by mapping them all out on a calendar, and summoning up energy from the deep. And by asking for help, and forgoing beloved sleep. And surrendering. Some good lessons in there. But I’ve also felt that dark sludge of resentment building.
And I came face-to-face with an embarrassing truth
Saying yes to all that stuff didn’t come from the most aligned place inside. I was saying yes because it was exciting to be wanted, all at once, in lots of different places. So I followed the calls – here, there, and everywhere.
And then, on the yoga mat, I noticed my flame was making piddly shadows, leaving little space for love to move in. And the resentment was oozing its way in. (Oh, yoga, I love you so, for all you invite me to notice.)
Resentment sludge? ICK. Big wake-up call. Time to step back.
It’s still a new thing for me to step back and say, hang on, what do I want? I am so grateful to be practicing this, but there’s no denying it feels awkward. I’m stepping up to a new place and I feel more responsible, more vulnerable.
But now that the wisdom is there, there’s no turning back. And the resentment-gunk must go.
So, I’m asking myself: How can I grow Basic Goodness (the business) in a way that honors my needs? How can I do the work I feel I was meant to do without overextending? How can I create containers around my life-life and my work-life so everything ignites bright and makes big shadows for love to inhabit? All the while, heading in a valued direction?
Synchronicity
And as I was asking these questions, (synchronicity alert!) my new friend, Eileen, was building a sailboat. The sailboat is her metaphor for a way to manage time — a schedule that holds things, but not too tightly. It’s a way to intentionally choose how to spend time, but in a way that is not pant-pant-pant overextending or soul-squishing.
And well, this metaphor works for me. I know sailboats. I spent every childhood summer on a 30 foot sailboat with my family, sailing to pretty ports on the East Coast. So, I’m going to build one too. A metaphorical one, that is. I am going to practice (and practice some more) intentionally deciding how to spend my time in a way that sustains me and helps me love big.
Once I build my sailboat, and set sail, I’ll blog about it. And yes! I get to decide what I bring on my sailboat (my rituals will board first)….And oh, what I love about this metaphor too, is my sailboat will only sail so far before it’ll throw down an anchor in a lovely, tranquil harbor. I’m feeling more seaworthy already…
Please, tell me about you. Do you interact with time in an intentional way? Do you rebel against structure, or do you love it? How do you find freedom and meaning in time? Where do you take refuge from the wind and the weather?
Self-forgiveness. And the Fragrance of Violets.
January 24th, 2010
Last week, out of the blue, I received a gutsy, powerful, heart-opening apology. I wasn’t anticipating this apoplogy, nor holding out for it. For the most part, I had made my peace with the whole situation. Although, admittedly, it wasn’t as if no harm had been done. When I was around this person, I created a kind of self-protective bubble, abiding a gut instinct to be cautious, and not completely open and free.
And ick, that’s just not the way I like my relationships with people to be. Not if I can help it.
So, about the gallant apology. The most refreshing part of it all was she really wasn’t expecting my forgiveness. She was doing what felt right and true for herself. She was completely clear about where she went wrong, why she went wrong, how regretful she was, and what she intended to do differently in the future. She even asked me what might help repair things.
And I got it. As she shared her genuine regret, I felt for her. I wanted to somehow wipe out her burden of wrong-doing, shake the etch-a-sketch, and clear away the regretful scribbles. And as I was listening, and receiving, and understanding *whoosh* the forgiveness came rushing upward in my chest, without pause or hesitancy.
And she got it. In that moment, we stood there, hearts humming, eyes moist, spirits uplifted. And it was like everything was new again, and fresh and hopeful.
I felt a kind of lightness and sweetness and dignity welling up. And oddly, I wanted to move. Move any which way — wiggle, hop, wave my hands in the air, run in circles, stretch my heart wide–do something with that fresh, uproarious, noble energy. But that might have stolen the moment, so I reached out for a hug instead. (While wiggling with dignity on the inside.)
The rest of the day, I carried that goodness and dignity within me, and I imagine she carried it too. Afterall, she was honest and courageous and generous, and how can that not feel good?
And sometime during that day, I started thinking about how true forgiveness feels. How it’s like a fresh snowfall, blanketing the world in sparkling grace and possibility.
I wondered, why can’t we forgive ourselves with the same suppleness with which we forgive others?
Is it because the self-apology comes first? Do we think an apology to ourselves has to be some guilt-ridden slog through the muck of self-loathing? That we have walk on our knees, a hundred miles through the desert, repenting? (Thank-you, Mary Oliver for that imagery.)
Or do we see self-forgiveness as a cop-out, a way to take ourselves off the hook, and shirk responsibility?
What if we could just forgive ourselves for being human? For not knowing? For being on our way?
What if we could take a rosy-glasses-off, clear look at what we regret, but do so with self-compassion and generosity?
In this way, self-forgiveness wouldn’t be a squeamish avoidance of the truth, nor would it be a punitive, “Oh, I’ll forgive myself, but not until I’ve made myself pay.”
One of my favorite teachers, Pema Chodron, an expert in self-forgiveness, encourages us to recognize our missteps and to be willing to take a clear-eyed look at what we do. She urges us to go ahead, and feel the clean knife-like pain of regret/remorse/embarrassment–but only for two minutes (or less)–and then, in the spirit of not sinking into the muck, let go. Let it pierce you to the heart, she says, and then, let go. Allow for a fresh start.
Anne Lamott refers to forgiveness as “giving up all hope of having had a different past.“ I love this. Past over. Accountability realized. Pain felt. Now, give up. Meet yourself where you are, she says, right here. Even if where you are feels sort of crappy. Because at the very least that acceptance gives you a chance to get untangled from the struggle.
And might this untangling free us up for the what-next?
It seems to me, that being mired in self-contempt keeps us stuck, entwined with struggle, and nowhere near the what-next. And that self-forgiveness, opens up some wiggle room…if not a fresh snowfall of possibility.
So maybe the next time we eat the plate of cookies, again, or procrastinate getting that valued thing done, again, or skip our beloved yoga class, again, we can agree to pass on the self-imposed mental flagellation. Maybe we can acknowledge we get confused, we are practicing, and ultimately, we are good.
And if, like me, you sometimes have a tough time arriving at self-forgiveness, maybe you can try something I learned from my teacher, Martha Beck. She suggests we make lists of things we’ve done right. Generous lists. Long lists. Lists that might start with “raising a healthy cat, posting on Facebook, not stealing many cars.” Keep going, she says, and we’ll eventually reach self-forgiveness–however grudgingly.
I’ve tried this. It works, and it makes me chuckle, everytime.
And oh, here’s what has to be one of the greatest forgiveness quotes ever, from Mark Twain, which, because it’s so beautiful, might inspire you to give self-forgiveness a whirl.
“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
Mmmm, I just love that.
What are your experiences with self-forgiveness? Do you want to practice with me?
If only to get a whiff of that sweet violet fragrance?