1. Truth: Fear doesn’t cause suffering, my resistance of it does. When I resist fear, I panic and run away, or stay and struggle with it, or grab something to help me numb out, deny and avoid it. When I can relax with it, stay with the feeling, experience all the ways it manifests in my body–the tension in my chest, the pain in my stomach, the tightness of all my muscles, and the shallowness of my breath–and notice all the ways it lies and distorts the truth, I can feel it arise, be aware of it, but also notice as it naturally dissolves.
2. Truth: Impermanence doesn’t cause suffering, my rejection of it does. When I reject it, it keeps coming anyway, continues to happen without my permission–things change and are lost, uncertainty continues, beings die. My rejection causes me to suffer, telling me lies about how I have control (or none) and choices (or none) and responsibility. When I accept impermanence, I show up for whatever happens, vulnerable and raw and brokenhearted, but also brave, with a naturally occurring wisdom and confidence. In this tender place, I can be gentle with myself. I can mourn the losses, experience the grief, but without losing sight of how amazing life is, how much courage and beauty there is amidst the brutality.
3. Truth: Love doesn’t cause suffering, my attachment to a specific idea of it, my denial of its true nature does. Love can’t be faked, forced, controlled, or contained. Love requires great courage because it invites loss and grief–things decay, change, and even die, and you will one day be separated from everything you love. Love requires both bravery and vulnerability because to experience it, you must open your heart.
One wish: That we let go of our resistance, stop rejecting our experience–what we feel and how things really are and even who we are–that we can surrender to our life exactly as it is, exactly as we are. That we can open ourselves to love, in all the ways it shows up for us, as well as in all the ways it leaves us.
Don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Move the way love makes you move.
Move the way joy makes you move.
~Osho
It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for that is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.
3. This heartbreaking video. This was going around on Facebook last week, and I finally watched it. This is the real shit. If you’ve ever loved someone and lost them (especially if it was to cancer), and had to keep living after, you will feel this man’s pain, and at the same time be reminded we are not alone.
4. The impossible choice by Sunni Chapman on Roots of She. With everything that’s been going on with my Dexter, this post was pure medicine for me. Especially this,
Oh Life, you are so kind. Even if you had taken him from me, you are still so kind. Because you gave me the love of this dear sweet being, for as long as he wants to be with me, and for a million other reasons, as well. Thank you Life, for this gift of seeing, and thank you Life, for this greatest gift of LOVE.
6. The Renegade Craft Fair in London on decor8. I would have spent so much money at this. And p.s., I love Holly’s latest blog design, especially the new header and link buttons.
8. Living Into My Words from Erica Staab. And not just because she quoted me, but because of things like this,
How often do we assume that we are the only ones struggling with something, to wrestle alone with our thoughts, fears and doubts only to hear when we finally gain the courage and bravery to share…“Me too.”
11. My Creative Life: Tammy Strobel, an interview with Susannah Conway. I am reading Tammy’s new book right now, so especially loved hearing her talk about her life as a writer. Susannah also shared a few links in her Something for the Weekend post (where I get at least one thing for this list each week) to people living in tiny spaces (Tammy lives in a tiny house) which are making me, once again, want to purge, downsize, declutter, and simplify.
Susannah also shared a link this week to this gorgeous video, The Most Beautiful Lies sung by Clare Bowditch and a few other lovelies.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.
18. This quote from the Dalai Lama.
Hardship, in forcing us to exercise greater patience and forbearance in daily life, actually makes us stronger and more robust. From the daily experience of hardship comes a greater capacity to accept difficulties without losing our sense of inner calm. Of course, I do not advocate seeking out hardship as a way of life, but merely wish to suggest that, if you relate to it constructively, it can bring greater inner strength and fortitude.
1. Truth: Fear doesn’t cause suffering, my resistance of it does. When I resist fear, I panic and run away, or stay and struggle with it, or grab something to help me numb out, deny and avoid it. When I can relax with it, stay with the feeling, experience all the ways it manifests in my body–the tension in my chest, the pain in my stomach, the tightness of all my muscles, and the shallowness of my breath–and notice all the ways it lies and distorts the truth, I can feel it arise, be aware of it, but also notice as it naturally dissolves.
2. Truth: Impermanence doesn’t cause suffering, my rejection of it does. When I reject it, it keeps coming anyway, continues to happen without my permission–things change and are lost, uncertainty continues, beings die. My rejection causes me to suffer, telling me lies about how I have control (or none) and choices (or none) and responsibility. When I accept impermanence, I show up for whatever happens, vulnerable and raw and brokenhearted, but also brave, with a naturally occurring wisdom and confidence. In this tender place, I can be gentle with myself. I can mourn the losses, experience the grief, but without losing sight of how amazing life is, how much courage and beauty there is amidst the brutality.
3. Truth: Love doesn’t cause suffering, my attachment to a specific idea of it, my denial of its true nature does. Love can’t be faked, forced, controlled, or contained. Love requires great courage because it invites loss and grief–things decay, change, and even die, and you will one day be separated from everything you love. Love requires both bravery and vulnerability because to experience it, you must open your heart.
One wish: That we let go of our resistance, stop rejecting our experience–what we feel and how things really are and even who we are–that we can surrender to our life exactly as it is, exactly as we are. That we can open ourselves to love, in all the ways it shows up for us, as well as in all the ways it leaves us.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 