All things pass

I’ve had lots of opportunity in recent months to reflect on my relationship with instability. Our move across the country was punctuated by a robbery in Selma, CA, a car accident in Santa Rosa, NM and a severe migraine that left me five pounds lighter by the time we arrived on the East Coast. It was a transformative trip. Since then, the challenges of finding a house and the recent scare of colon cancer (that turned out to be an adenoma, not cancer) have driven home the awareness of our fragility and the temporary nature of all things.

In all of this, the background cadence of “this, too, will pass” has been a soothing drum-beat. At no time has it felt like there was a “mistake”, or an omen of a wrong turn or punishment for some things not done “right”. And, through each event, a goodness ensued. Beyond the obvious relief I felt from the pathology report being noncancerous is the joy I feel in knowing without a doubt that I am so unafraid of death. Only by staring it in the face for a few days as a real near-term possibility could I have arrived at the solidity of this knowing.

The loss of the many things on our trip across country left us even more aware of what matters to us – and grateful for what we do have. The difficulty finding a home served to both strengthen my resolve to not sell myself short under the pressure of compromise, and introduced us to a fantastic builder with whom we can actually create what we want.

I notice that any given circumstance can open to greater awareness, rather than feel like oppression that just won’t stop. Often in my professional life I have met individuals who seem to prefer maintaining their status quo, miserable though it is, over making the changes necessary to create true and lasting peace for themselves. On some level, our gut knows full well when the habits, relationships or situations we are in are hurtful. We know when we hurt. In an odd, paradoxical way, this is sometimes part of the attraction. Why is that?

There is no simple answer to this. But it may be helpful to consider a few thoughts. If we look closely, we see that there are sometimes hidden, presumed benefits from our pain and struggle. Being seen as a victim has a lot of bennies associated with it. For one, we get attention. For some this may be the only way they know to establish their worth in the world. Overcoming the victim stance requires great strength and courage because it has to be one of the most ennobled positions in the world. Victimhood is sinuously close to martyrdom, a revered state in many cultures. The trouble is, to keep getting the benefits associated with being a victim, we have to keep reinventing the drama of it – and experiencing the dastardly consequences.

There are indeed sometimes difficult circumstances in the world we must face. It is the way of this planet for all events and situations to come and go. Some are painful in their occurrence; some in their passing. How we frame these events in the matrix of our own psyche depends in large part on our acceptance of our experience as we have it. So long as we explain the passing events of our time as “our fault” or “punishment” or some other judgment–based picture, we will suffer an added blow to the original experience. Again and again, until we see it differently.

When we realize deeply that the ways of this world are in constant flux and that our experiences are potential openings to greater self-awareness, understanding, depth and acceptance, all these plays of our lives take on a different meaning. We learn to be curious about the event, and open to our experience. We learn to love ourselves in it all, and embrace ever again the possibility of deepening contact with that most precious ongoingness of life, Itself. Underneath all this is the fluid self-acceptance we can find by knowing that we, too, are temporary on this earth. We matter as we are – right now.

Noticing that all things – for better or for worse – are temporary phenomena is powerful medicine for overcoming resentment. Living in gratitude for the moments we do have – as we have them – is a payoff that beats victimhood hands down.

The Original Sin

It was a shock to discover my mother disliked me. I had blamed myself for all our mutual shortcomings from the beginning of time as I knew it. Of course. It was what she taught me was true.

When my mother had her stroke, I was the one who took care of her, mending her as best I could – both as a dutiful daughter and as her physician. It was all I could do to hold myself together – in pieces sewn in the fabric of “never-good-enough”. My efforts to teach her to talk, with the help of the best therapists I knew of, were in vain. It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was her effort lacking. Not mine.

How does this happen? This tendency, especially in women, to denigrate their very own being – and then to pass it on? I think of the Original sin as that time when we first turned against ourselves. When we began to believe – in some part of our psyche – that we were not O.K. When we, in effect, turned against ourselves and therefore against that life we represent.

This begins a war with ourselves that is long-ranging. Brother against brother (Cain and Abel). Mother against daughter. And, most especially, against our selves. We have found fault, because the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” represents our capacity to judge. To decide, in our minds, that some things are good and some bad (“evil”). Ever since that fateful day – and what did that really represent? – we have been in trouble within ourselves. Suffering.

Because the things we judge most represent our very own selves. We decide upfront, based on some external standard, what parts of us are “good” and which “bad”, and then turn against ourselves for those things we wish were not true about us. We designate part of us as off-limits. Unacceptable. Repugnant. To be eliminated. And the flagellation we endure in the name of this judgment can be harsh, indeed.

Many of the so-called self improvement programs on which we embark are really studies in self-punishment. Continually trying to rid ourselves of one thing or another. One characteristic or another. Trying to “better ourselves”.

Buddhist psychology describes this is another way; we crave or hate. The dual functions of wanting what we don’t have and not wanting what we do show up in every religion as the bane of our existence. The cause of all suffering.

When my mother died, I was with her. Rocking her, as her breath became more labored and she could no longer resist. I reminded her: “Right here, God loves you. The Angels are holding you. You did nothing wrong. You are innocent.” She finally began to lighten in the last hour, tears streaming down her face (and mine). As I felt her relax in my arms, I felt a huge chunk of resistance to letting myself be loved melt away, too.

The flash of her exit was also a flash of recognition for me. I know – absolutely know - that coming to a place of self-acceptance is the road back home. It may be arduous getting there, but is instantly easier when that first step is taken. I am also certain that it is not me that my mother hated, but the lot in life in general that she found herself conscripted to. I was but a bit player in that schema.

Amazingly, accepting her more deeply has also expanded my heart in acceptance of myself. Firmly and surely, I know that I am my mother’s daughter. And that is a real fine thing to be.