Being with What Is

Last night I saw an ad that said buying this car will allow you to live more in the present moment. So, we’ve all been saved! All we need to do is buy a car to know more joy and peace in our lives!

All kidding aside, this ad points to a very limited view we have about living in the present moment. We believe that if we just figure out how to ‘do’ living in the moment correctly, we will know endless peace and joy. Instead, this idea keeps us caught in the land of struggle, trying to be present, only to fail miserably because ‘trying’ takes us away from the moment.

The tricky thing is that the moment contains both joy and sorrow, ease and challenges, delight and despair. Because of this idea that living in the moment is endless bliss, we are woefully unprepared to stay open to the challenging times of life, which we will all have. When we discover how to stay open to the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows, then we will discover how to relax into life, being available for whatever life brings us.

I would like to share with you how I stay open to the difficult times. A couple of months ago I had spine surgery and have experienced many hiccups along the way. And yet this surgery is so very healing, and I don’t mean just for my body… healing for my mind and my heart too.

What do I mean by that? Well, the pain that came from the surgery showed up in numerous ways. Sometimes it was Charlie horses in my hamstrings that were so painful I couldn’t sit down, even on the toilet! Sometimes the pain was electric shocks on my tailbone that truly felt like I was being tortured. Sometimes it was the muscles in my buttocks so on fire that it was impossible to lie down, even with pain meds. (Thank God for lidocaine patches!)

Now that it’s all settled down to an ache in my tailbone, I have to be very careful how I move, or it screeches at me. But the greatest pain came from my mind’s insistent resistance to what I was experiencing. This can clearly be seen in the newest discomfort, which is a continuous low-grade nausea. I tried yesterday to lower my pain meds thinking maybe that was causing the upset in my stomach. But I woke up this morning with the pain screeching at me. It feels like the choice is nausea or pain and boy does the mind hate this!

This morning my mind was caught in angry, frustrated despair. It had just had it!  I find this the most challenging state to be with for it is so adamant. Imagine somebody who is so angry they are stomping around and flailing their arms and screaming at the top of their lungs. That was where my mind was this morning.

The few moments where I identified with this state were so painful. It was like being a parent of a two-year-old who was having a meltdown and getting down on the floor with them and having a meltdown too. But remembering that my mind needed me, just like a young child needs us when it is overwhelmed, I softened my belly and invited my mind to notice my breath. Of course, my attention popped right back up into this very intense state of mind. But slowly, with gentle persistence, I invited my mind to rest on the breath, to be rocked by its rhythm.

Slowly, rather than being alone in its angry despair, my mind realized it wasn’t alone.  I was there with it, acknowledging its fear and frustration! It felt met and understood and slowly the anger calmed down. Then, what was fueling this fiery anger showed itself – helpless and hopeless despair. There was a lump in my throat and a tightness across my chest that was trying to stop what felt like an ocean of tears. But this despair wanted to be seen too, wanted my loving attention. I was with the despairing one just as I was with the angry one and the tears calmed down and my heart flooded my whole being with care and tenderness.

Words cannot describe the joy that comes from being caught in any state of mind and then coming back home to my heart. In one moment, I would be in hell, resisting the pain and feeling so overwhelmed. But in the next moment I would be in heaven for my heart would open and flood the pain with deep and abiding tenderness.

To discover how to relate to what is happening in your mind rather than being identified with it takes time.  Stephen Levine, my main mentor, described it as a gradual awakening.  It is discovering that who you really are is that which can see the stories in your head. You are not the stories themselves. They were just conditioned into you when you were very young.

The more you see these stories of anxiousness, doubt, judgment, anger, despair, desire, grief and resistance, which move through you all day long, the more you can meet them with kindness so they can calm down and you can live from the wisdom of your heart rather than the struggles of your mind.