Day of Rest

Today is a day of rest, but I don’t feel rested. I feel depleted, disappointed, stinky, a little overwhelmed, lost, a bit lonely, and completely in love with the whole brilliant mess. I still have goals: get clean sheets on the bed, do a little laundry, meditate, take a shower, eat some food and drink some water, maybe finally put up my new desk, maybe do my homework for yoga teacher training, and most certainly make sure two dogs (and one boy) are fed, rested, cared for, and loved.

I’m sad. With my guest post for Be More With Less, I got a surge of new traffic and some followers. I felt like what brought them here was exactly right, that I write about exactly the kind of stuff they’d be interested in — when I’m writing. But right now I’m in a fallow time, when I’m so busy with other things that all I’ve been posting about is the new puppy, how hard it’s been, how cute he is in spite of that, how right it was that this particular boy is with us at this moment. Those new kind and gentle readers must have been so confused, like being invited to a lecture on mindfulness and showing up to find a kid’s birthday party instead, being led to the chaos and noise of a bouncy house when what you wanted was the peace and stillness of a meditation cushion. It feels like this huge missed opportunity, the most unfortunate of timing, even as it is exactly as it should be.

I am trying not to give in to external pressure, but rather trust my own inherent wisdom. There will be no “perfect puppy in 7 days,” (if ever), I won’t be as prepared as I’d like when I practice teach forward bends next weekend, (hopefully I’ll have my homework done), my CSU office is a wreck, (but I’m still doing good work), I feel heavy and most of the time my clothes don’t match and I’m lucky if they are clean, I’m not offering meaningful deep content on my blog or making any progress on my larger to-do list. I can barely remember what day it is and I’m not getting enough rest.

I forgive myself. I drink tall glasses of cold water. Sometimes when the puppy naps, I nap instead of doing whatever chore has been put off. I take a hot shower, floss my teeth, use the good lotion on my hands. I give myself permission to get rid of those jeans I don’t really like, that aren’t even comfortable. I remind myself that even if I do nothing, I’m good enough, worthy of love, deserving of ease. I assure myself that I can’t screw it up with Ringo, that no matter what I do or don’t do, things will turn out alright. I sit gently and compassionately with the underlying nagging fear that if I stay quiet, still for too long there will be no one left to listen or serve, that I’ll be left talking to myself, alone, no one to help me when I need it.

I do what Susan Piver always suggests and take a seat right in the middle of my life, just as it is, just as I am. When my mind wanders off, when I panic or worry, when I find myself lost, confused, generating my own suffering, I “let go, come back, take a fresh start,” the promise being that the number of fresh starts available to all of us is infinite. Take a deep breath and start again.

I mentioned yesterday that I wrote a guest post for Courtney Carver. In it, I listed seven steps that I took to rehab my life. When I read it for the first time on her blog yesterday, I immediately realized that I’d left three things off the list. I want to share the first one with you today.

8. Don’t give up. It’s tempting, I know. Being human is hard. We are born with open hearts, so trusting that we will be cared for and loved. It doesn’t always work out that way though, does it? We get feedback that the world isn’t necessarily a safe place. Family, friends, community and culture all communicate in various ways, subtle and direct, that we aren’t safe and that having an open heart isn’t “normal.”

We learn all kinds of ways to armor up, protect ourselves, close off, hide and numb out, and our culture makes it particularly easy to access methods and materials for shutting down, staying in our seemingly safe, stuffy and stinky cocoon. It takes effort, a willingness to be weird and vulnerable, requires practice to keep your heart open, especially after years of doing otherwise.

It’s hard to keep your heart open because it’s out of the ordinary, but also because you’ll find that being open means feeling raw and tender, putting yourself at risk. Bad things will happen, you’ll suffer, those you care about will suffer and you won’t be able to fix it, you’ll hurt and FEEL it.

The good news is you’ll have equal access to joy, love, and amazement. You will feel awake, alive. For example, you’ll go outside and feel the twinge or even ache of the cold, a temperature that is uncomfortable, but you’ll be in your body in the biting white glare of a winter day FEELING cold. Experience will replace being numb, disconnected. It might be hard to breathe it’s so cold and maybe the wind is blowing too, but maybe you’ll walk faster to warm up and notice the way the frost glitters on the ground, how the bare branches look against the sky, a cluster of small birds in flight startled as you walked by, the way the clouds reflect the light so differently when it might snow, how even though the top of the river is frozen, underneath the water is still flowing and sometimes you can even hear it, and you might see two boys walking on the frozen top like it were a path, and you’ll remember how magic the world seemed when you were a kid, and you’ll feel that again, see it that way.

But sometimes it’s the hard you’ll notice, get stuck in. Beings you love will get sick or even die, you’ll hurt each other and it will be hard to forgive. We get confused and generate suffering. We get a flat tire, they are out of our favorite yogurt again, the washing machine breaks, the dog is sick but no one not even the specialist can figure out why, there wasn’t time to make lunch before we left for work, we can’t find our keys, we had a horrible night’s sleep and it seems to be making everything too hard, we don’t have enough money to pay that bill, we feel lonely and a little bored. It seems like we can’t catch a break, start to believe things won’t ever get better, that life is just one bad thing after another.

Don’t give up.

Like a Bodhisattva, look around — where do you see suffering? (don’t forget to look at yourself, maybe that’s where you’ll find it.) What can you do to ease this suffering? (you can always do something, even if it’s simply to say “I’m here. I see your suffering.”)

It’s okay. Cheer up. You’re perfect.

Don’t give up. This has been my mantra in recent weeks. My life is in such a good place, with a new puppy on his way and starting yoga teacher training, but I can feel overwhelmed by what isn’t working, the suffering that is there too. I want to give up sometimes. As I open myself up to even more, practice being more present, allowing whatever might arise, I am aware of the risk, conscious of my vulnerability, and I want to quit. Wouldn’t it be easier to stay as I am? I already have a job, don’t need another income source, and working with people is hard, giving my weekends up to the training is hard. Why not just stay home, rest and be lazy? And why love another dog? At first it will pee in the house, cry, chew on things it shouldn’t, not know how to walk on a leash, and eventually it will get sick or old, or both, and die, break my heart like all the others. What’s the point?

The point is by avoiding the risk, I miss out on everything else. The chance to help, to heal, to grow stronger, the opportunity for community, joy, love, and that super duty heart bursting cuteness that only a puppy knows how to do, that soft bundle of warm comfort, the laughter and the tenderness that’s possible.

Don’t give up. Tomorrow, there will be Something Good.

P.S. My guest post for Courtney brought a lot of new traffic, more kind and gentle readers. Welcome! I am so happy to see you here.