Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.
Rachel Naomi Remen
A quote from my favourite book of last year on a similar theme to Monday’s post on loneliness.Wisdom begins with clearly seeing the dynamics which operate in the ways that society portrays happiness.
The common myth that is perpetuated in society is that the normal person is happy, balanced and integrated – otherwise there is something wrong with them; maybe they’re mentally unstable. We’re even alarmed by unhappy people. Everyone in the media is smiling and cheerful. The politicians are all smiling, cheerful. confident; funeral homes even make the corpses up to look smiling, cheerful and confident.
Meanwhile however, perhaps you’re not smiling and you don’t feel cheerful and confident. You know you can’t live up to any of the images of the model person. You don’t have the right appearance or status symbols, your performance doesn’t cut it, you’re out of touch with the latest trends, or maybe you are just poor – someone whom society doesn’t want to acknowledge. Unhappiness in Western culture is often treated as a sign of failure. Others think, “They’re not happy, maybe they didn’t do enough. And maybe they’ll want something from me so I’d better steer away from them”
Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth
The third step demands a little more thought: Simplify
Today’s world is full of information and complications. Decide what is essential in your life and make space for that by moving away from as many of the unnecessary things as possible. Focus on one thing at a time. Do less. Get rid of clutter. Say no. Reflect on what is “enough” in your life. Deconnect more.
Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify. Henry David Thoreau
Happiness, anxiety, joy, resentment — we have many words for the many emotions we experience in our lifetimes. But deep down, there are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.
We have to make a decision to be in one place or the other. If you don’t actively choose love, you will find yourself in a place of either fear or one of its component feelings. Every moment offers the choice to choose one or the other. And we must continually make these choices, especially in difficult circumstances when our commitment to love, instead of fear, is challenged.
Elizabeth Kubler Ross
The second step also seems easy: Create Gaps
Take moments during the day to stop and touch in with your breath. Maybe at transition times between activities. Or going to a meeting. Schedule your day so that you have spaces between things. Practice pausing, or creating a gap. If you find things becoming a bit rushed, stop and take a few conscious breaths. Allow some space into your mind and into your body. Touch into life in the here and the now.
Went walking this morning early in the forest around the Sources of the Allendon. It was particularly beautiful in the early morning light. The freshness of nature, the trees covered in moss, the noise of the river and the familiarity of the place relaxed and softened my heart. Nature is often like that: It creates those moments when we connect and feel spacious. It is not so easy in our everyday life with people: we have learnt to contract and pull away. The beauty of the walk brought to mind this poem by Mary Oliver:
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity, while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes
Mindfulbalance 