Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like giant tree in the midst of them all. -Buddha The Buddha's wisdom is simple but not easy! Allowing emotions and outer events to swirl around us but not knock us over takes a lot of mindfulness and practice. As the storm encircles us, how do we learn to sway in the storm but not have our branches torn off or core ripped apart? How do we feel pleasure and joy without grasping it tightly?
When something inside or out triggers fear and worry, what is your default reaction? Does your adrenaline surge as you go into flight or fight? Do you shut down and become depressed? These are just a couple of the ways you may have learned to react when you are challenged or scared. Or you may hold onto pleasurable experiences in an addictive way, afraid to face other sides of yourself. Western culture believes in dualities: black or white, good or bad, this or that. This encourages a judgment and reaction to whatever we are experiencing and we may go back and forth from one pole to the other, never inhabiting the place of the palm tree that sways gracefully in the hurricane. Eastern philosophies are more non-dual ( like the yin-yang symbol),more of a both/ and. Or as Carl Jung called it, Holding the Tension of the Opposites. When we know that we are capable of feeling both ends of the spectrum, and that one doesn't obliterate the other, more patience and equanimity are possible. Resting in the middle and allowing all experience to flow around and through us makes life less tumultuous. Perhaps 2019 is a good time to practice resting like a strong tree!
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As the hours of darkness begin to slowly wane from the winter sky,
So too may the fearful places of your heart unclench their grasp on your life As the presence of light begins to grow with greater sureness with each passing day May your own courage blossom to open more brightly to truth and love. Let this be the year that you turn off the television and silence the talk radio chatter in order to pick up the writing pen, the paintbrush, and watch the candle slowly burn. May this be the year that you delight in seeing how much joy you can extravagantly spread. May you discover just how much beauty you can recklessly shower upon this thirsty world. May this be the year that you tune both the dusty piano in the corner and the inner listening of your care-worn heart So that both can play in harmony with the chorus of creation. May you break the invisible yardstick of impossible expectations and learn that just as you are, you are enough. May this be the year that you cease trying to march to an imagined ideal and instead, wrap your arms around the messy wonder your life really is, hold it close and do the tango. Let this be the year you befriend your soul in its radical particularity, not forsaking it yet again for the bland demands and cravings of the masses. Instead, may you elope with the wildness of your own true calling, marry your soul to its deepest longings and invite the hungry world to the wedding feast. - Kayleen Asbo The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. - Carl Rogers Most people who come into my office have a list of things they hope to change. They usually are not happy with themselves for not living up to a standard of how they want their lives to be and are tired of suffering. They often want me to tell them what to do, how to change, and how to fix their lives.
Many people find it hard to imagine accepting themselves as they are, when clearly they are not who they want to be, do not feel the way they want to feel and are not where they want to be in life. This leads to a lack of curiosity about their anxiety, depression, addiction or self-rejection. Sound familiar? It's easier to find a self-help book telling you how to change than one guiding you to accept yourself, to dig deep and find a place of compassion and love for yourself, just as you are. Paradoxically, this is the precursor to any lasting change. A solid foundation of self-regard and acceptance ( and maybe some humor about it!) will see you through all that you will face throughout your life. The idea that perfection is achievable or even desirable, will only create internal conflict in your life. Self-acceptance does NOT mean complacency; it "simply" means befriending yourself, creating an internal spaciousness to explore who you are and what your true desires are. This allows shifts to occur, sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic. In either case, change comes from a place of positive self-regard rather than despair, anger or self-recrimination. Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one's being, but by integration of the Contraries ~Carl Jung Many people come into my office struggling with seeming opposite feelings or beliefs, often thinking that they have to eliminate one or the other of them. They often label one as "bad" and the other as "good," wanting to eliminate the "bad" or troublesome part of their personality.
Black or white thinking is very prevalent in our culture; there is not a lot of encouragement to accept and be comfortable with ambiguity or with the wide range of "gray" in between the opposite poles of black and white. It's often hard to accept that you may feel both anxious and excited about something, fearful and courageous, loving and critical, vulnerable and protected, serious and also fun-loving. There is only a "problem" when the different parts are out of balance, or when you bounce back and forth between them, in an unconscious and uncomfortable way. Even addictive behavior has a message in it, if you can listen beneath the behavior to the need that is trying to be met. Carl Jung proposes that if you can sit with the "tension of the opposites," if you can tolerate the discomfort of this/and instead of this/or, another, previously unimagined way of feeling or thinking will emerge. If you can tolerate the seeming opposites in yourself, an integration will eventually take place. You will achieve a sense of wholeness, of being more truly yourself, without having to eliminate any parts of yourself. Get rid of the voices that are within you and soon you will be surprised to hear a still, small voice you have never heard before... then a sudden recognition that it is your voice. -Osho There is so much noise inside and outside of our heads, that it is often difficult to hear and make space for the still, small voice within. This is a culture full of stimulus and sounds from TV, radio, Spotify, podcasts, social media, texting, chatting, or spending time in loud busy places like gyms, bars, and restaurants.
There is usually a similar noise level within our heads as well; there are voices that are critical and judgmental of ourselves and others or that are playing over conversations that happened or rehearsing conversations that may happen. These voices feel like our own, yet are composites of things we heard and absorbed from parents and others. Meditation teachers have called this the Monkey Mind, as it tends to leap from thought to thought, and we can get caught up in its antics, identifying fully with it. Yet we are more than our minds and its thoughts. There is another voice that in volume can't compete with the loud chattering in our heads. It is the authentic voice, the voice of intuition, the voice that is the real you, beneath the layers of voices that have built up over the years in your mind. Especially at first, it requires effort and quieting the mind to hear that voice, and may be difficult to not only hear but to recognize as genuinely yours. It may not speak in an actual voice but may be a "gut feeling" or sensation that communicates wordlessly with you. The more you pay attention to it, the more attuned you will become to your true self! |
AuthorPeggy Handler, MFT, is a psychotherapist in San Francisco's Noe Valley Archives
December 2020
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