Trusting Ourselves

I had a lovely conversation with a friend recently about “why things happen”. We agreed there is the possibility that things are just random. Stuff happens – and it is our lot to sort out how we’ll respond, given this or that in our lives.

I lean toward thinking that we may have something to do with our lot in life, though. Not in the pejorative way that many of us were taught to believe; ie: roiling with guilt about what we did wrong to bring this craziness into our lives. But rather, that there is a natural trajectory to the things we think, say and do. There are consequences of the sort that to push a ball in one direction is to increase the likelihood it will move in that said direction. There are other parameters to deal with. The slope of the land. Whether the ball is full of air and so on. But still – our action has an influence.

And so it is in our lives – any given tendency toward which we lean is likely to reap some sort of benefit, for better or for worse.

The secret for many of us, laden as we are by the aforementioned guilt, is to unhinge from the self-splattering we can get into in response to the circumstances of our lives. The same lines of reasoning would inform us that to beat ourselves up is to provoke another whole set of circumstances in which we are the victims of our own brutality. And, I notice, that is what often happens.

In our good-hearted search for the lesson to be learned in the conundrums of our lives, we tend to cast blame. “Why did this happen?” is often construed to mean “What did I (or you) do wrong to get this mess?” To dig deeper in the undoing of the maladaptive messages of our own mind is to question that premise at its base. Forget that sort of figuring out.

Ask, instead, “Given this (and this and this), what is the best/kindest/gentlest response I can come up with here?” What I find is that if there is some awakening to be had in terms of that which I may have done to provoke any given situation, it will most likely be revealed in a useful manner under these conditions. A gentle environment in which to come to revelation.

Let that be our goal, then: to be safe enough with our own selves that we dare to reveal that which we most need to see. Plenty will come out of hiding fast enough when we do this. Because we have proven ourselves to be trustworthy where it matters the most: to our very own selves.

Getting Rid of Ego

I recently heard a spiritual pundit admonish his audience to “rid themselves of ego”.

Call it ego, but this runs counter to what I find helpful. I like what Jack Kornfield says: “Enlightenment must be lived here and now through this very body or else it is not genuine.” Not that the body is the ego, but we do feel the many nuances of our “ego” in the body. Every fear we have, every thought, every miff is defined in the body as the sensations we experience. It is through our bodies that we recognize ourselves as individuals in the vast mix of life on this planet. Self who is separate. This sense of being separate defines, in loose parlance, our ego.

It instantly gets complicated.

Because the thoughts and beliefs we embody as a separate self are often cluttered with debris of prior traumas and unkind things taught to us (about ourselves). And every single thought or idea we’ve embraced as part of that “self-who-is-separate” gets involved in every future interaction we have in life. The good, the bad and the ugly. Fears get compounded and aggravated by experiences that line up with our worst thoughts about ourselves and/or life.

Here’s what I’ve noticed. Unless I am really gentle with that place in me that gets all riled up with these threats-to-myself, it only makes matters worse. If I pound on my fear – my ego – with the stern hand of one who is trying to get me in line, to eliminate all this malarkey, I REALLY quake inside. And then go into hiding so I won't notice.

The brutal voice of “reason” is, itself, only another manifestation of ego, of course. That which is separate who “knows” how we “should” be. But, it, too, needs kindness. If we turn around and get into a big fat argument with that part of ourselves it quickly escalates into an all-out war.

See what I mean about being complicated?

So, I notice that the remedy on every front turns out to be kindness. Those Buddhists are on to something when they talk about loving-kindness. It IS the way out. By being gentle and curious, patient and kind, with every single aspect of ourselves that shows up bruised, broken and afraid, we stand a chance for the deep healing we crave. We find we can stand up without fear in this vast world of ours. To take up space and breathe some precious air. To smile and be brave and glad we’re alive.

As the separate entities that we – at least for now – are.

Changing the Patterns

Those who take my Mindful Eating class know that I insist that we not talk about weight loss. We focus, instead, on the roots of what we’re carrying around – whether it’s weight or something else – that is not something that we want. The first– and sometimes difficult - part of that is to love ourselves as we are. When we really get a good handle on that, when we can look at ourselves and where we’ve been and see it with great compassion, we are on our way home. “I know how I got here; I see what my experience has been –“. Not just as a neutral statement, but with heart bursting with compassion. As if we could see that earlier self, right now, enduring, doing all (s)he can just to survive. We aren’t focusing on “fixing” our weight, but rather on letting that scared, hurt part of us experience safety and what it feels like to be cared about.

We need to be extraordinarily gentle with ourselves when we feel afraid. And not have an expectation of self that is not realistic as well. Sometimes we can’t come back to inner balance until we get out into the car, or get home, or sit with our diary, or go for a long walk, or overeat - or whatever we need to do to get to a place where we can sit down with ourselves and say, “OK, let me get down to the root here and what do I need to do for me? What am I going to do to take care of me? ” And – not selling ourselves out as fodder to buy permission to exist.

As soon as we wake up to the pattern, itself, it starts to shift. We need to allow for the possibility that it can be different – especially if we’ve had a long-term condition. This can be one of the biggest challenges for us in making the necessary changes to authentically get out of the mire. To allow room for whatever it is – overweight, a chronic ailment, an ailing relationship - to be different. Whatever it is where we feel like “that’s the story of my life.”

Click here: http://www.maryanniyer.com/articlehome.html for the full article, which includes a meditation for integration: “Finding Your Innocence”.