Challenges

Challenges are a part of life.  And if we resist them, it takes us deeper into suffering.  But if we open to them, they open us and always bring us treasures.  There is no accident that all the treasures in our great myths are hidden in the difficult places.

Here is a favorite poem of mine by a writer that speaks exactly to this:

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark.  Go without sight,

And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

And is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry

One of the very practical skills when dealing with the storms that move through us around our challenges is to name our experience. When you name it, you are relating to it rather than being lost in it!

For example, we could name an experience “depression”…saying “depression is here.” rather than “I am depressed.”  But it can be very helpful to give it a different name…the word “depression” has so much loaded into it.  And if we understood that this state is keeping us distracted from what we are truly experiencing, we could call it “the guardian.”  As we simply acknowledge this guardian and get to know it…first by noticing the physical sensations that come with it…it will eventually open up and let us meet what it has been taking care of.

So the invitation is to live in the question – whenever we find ourselves close to or involved with a wave of compulsion – “What are you taking care of?”

Be light, Mary