4 posts tagged “zen”

Oh man.  I'm moving again.  I'm standing in my half-packed, half-unpacked, half-still-packed-from-the-last-move apartment realizing that the countdown has moved into the "weeks" range and I'm doing what I swore to myself I wouldn't do again at least for two years.  Moving.  I hate it.  But the frequency with which I do it suggests there's something I love about it.  Perhaps it's time to unpack that...both the apartment and the "stuff" surrounding it.

Last year at this time Meghan (hi Meghan) graciously agreed to search for new apartments with me.  What a trooper.  But she joked that I have a commitment problem and it's stuck with me; I think she hit on something of a universal , running truth for my life.  It's clear to me that I have a problem "settling."  I've never thought about it literally before but it's true.  The possibility that there's something better out there haunts my dreams.  It motivates my every move (including apartments).  It suspends me in something of a web of anxiety.  Searching, searching, searching.

So, here's the beauty of this move: It's a chance for me to do something I've not done ever, really.  It's an opportunity for me to allow this new place to become home and not just my "Tent on the Beach." (Wow...the implications of this are far-reaching...I might have to do a blog overhaul.)  I think, possibly out of sheer exhaustion, I need to stop searching and just learn to settle here...as the first settling in a series of settlings that, I think, I've been putting off for a long time.

Yesterday I read an article about contentment...I always read these things like I would an instruction manual: "How do I get this Contentment?"  The point was really good.  It basically said it's a matter of choosing it.  Contentment is always there for the taking.  It's being appreciative for what you have and letting the reins loosen on what you want.  It's a living in the present, I guess. It's letting go of searching so fervently.  Already I feel better.

What a nice thought: to fully believe that, in 3 weeks, I'm going home.

[Sigh of relief.]

Man, today is going to be one of those days.  You know the kind.  I woke up and knew I didn't want to get out of bed. And I'm fairly sure nothing is going to make it right today.  I'm just not going to let it.  And that's okay, I think.  If in all things there is balance, I'm due for a couple melancholy days after the past six days that were just filled to the brim with joy and fulfillment.  Melancholy isn't ever bad for me and I never really see it as the effect of suffering or want.  It's just a sadness or, even better, a grayness.  Everything looks gray.  I feel gray.  The world smells gray today.  And that's cool.

But, the thing about melancholy lately is that I've been pairing it with "letting go."  I used to have sad days and assume the sadness was coming from something; that it was caused by an event or conditions that created it.  Letting go allows me to disassociate sadness with events; it becomes just an ambient feeling.  And I rejoice in it, actually.  In a world that wants nothing but pre-packaged, shiny happiness all the time, moodiness presents itself as a familiar, comfortable friend.  I don't have to try nearly so hard. And it's not a bad friend.  There's coziness in it somehow.  And I don't have to worry about fixing it.  I can just be with Sadness and welcome it like any conversation I have with a friend.  Sadness and I drink tea together and lay under the red down blanket and talk about how things could be different but not wish them to be that.

And one of the greatest effects of Sadness is that it always brings with it the realization of Love, I think because the two are often juxtaposed.  Love is an easy sell when things are happy; we allow the two to go hand in hand.  But the Love expressed when Sadness is at the table is much more recognizable.  It works harder and stands out on its own merits.  It's uncovered as the hidden "good" in Sadness which we always try to run from.

Today I'm hanging with Sadness but I don't mind it.  Having said that I look forward to Happy's (more specifically Guffawing Laughing's) return.

This is a first.  In some ways, it's very exciting. In others, I feel a little defeated.  But I think not for long.

Usually when I write about finding Zen I do so in a reflective state; I've had hours to think about something and Zen helps clear me.  But I am having a moment in which I need Zen right now.  I'm not sure why but I just hit this moment that made me enter the early stages of panic.  Honestly, I'm beginning to think this is a Sunday night thing.  I get all caught up in that and the scope of the week which leads me to the scope of the year which leads me to the scope of my life and the scope of the universe.  I was just thinking that I wonder how far down in my lineage (should I end up having kids) that my (not existing right now) prodigies will encounter the end of the world.  I'm not kidding.  This was my thought.

So I did 20 minutes of yoga and I feel better...at least I'm headed back onto the right track.  But what's so amazing about this moment is how fast my brain gets away from me.  It's also being evil in an inter-personal way.  I've been nothing but surrounded by people for the past 5 days including today.  Today I even was surrounded by people all doing things we absolutely love.  It was a great day.  All of a sudden, my brain starts suggesting that I might feel lonely.  That my friends don't really like me.  That people are making excuses to not spend time with me.  WHAT?!? Where is that even COMING from?!? That couldn't be even farther from what has transpired over the past couple days. Shut up, brain.

I think that has been my new insight into Yoga that I've never had before but that has really taken hold this time around.  This is not a linear activity.  You don't reach a certain stage and then "graduate" to the next level.  It's catching yourself at every moment that this starts happening and going back to "letting go."  If I can manage to take things one step at a time and concern myself with only one step at a time then my whole world becomes much more manageable. Expectations, good or bad, cease to exist. That becomes a much more relaxed and able way of being.  That I can handle.

Courtesy of my moment of Zen. 

I was thinking on the train this morning.  This happens more often than not as the Metra continues to prove itself to be the most ridiculously quiet, ordered, "formal" sort of train I've ever experienced.  It makes the Red Line look like the lunch room at East Side High (random Lean on Me reference).  Oddly enough, I was thinking about my on-going journey to Zen.  How, since the last time I re-committed to letting go, the universe has once again opened up and given me what I need.  It's amazingly consistent that way.  But I had an unusual moment of clarity prior to 11am and my first cup of coffee, so in desperation to remember it, I record it here for later consideration.

I was thinking about love.  I know, sounds so girly.  But not typical You've Got Mail love, but the more whole, universal kind.  The kind that forms the foundation of those relationships that sustain us. Maybe for some that is the You've Got Mail kind of love but not for me at the moment.  Somehow, for me, love is always "tough love."  Perhaps this is because I don't like to be touched...I don't know.  Anyway, I was thinking about those times that those we love do things we really do not love.  For me those things are stubbornness (to the point of obstinacy), lack of concern, acting purely out of fear, lashing out, or cutting off.  Those things really get me.  I was reflecting about all the ways that I have to love "my people" despite these things.  I just have to ride the wave until they return.  Enter my revelation.

I wonder if real love is actually being able to love them, with the most compassion and understanding, for these moments.  One of my friends, years ago, said something I'll never forget.  I don't know if it was his or not but he said, "The opposite of love isn't hate.  It's fear."  I think I might have already discussed this on this blog before.  The more I think about it, it's absolutely true.  So, if in their moments of fear, my loved ones do things that appear unloving to me, perhaps it's not out of spite, but out of their own fear.  And compassion and love is the only way to attend to that.  So perhaps my goal shouldn't be to "ride the wave until they return," but to love them.  For these horrible moments that rattle me so foundationally.  Maybe that's the end that I should seek.  But I don't know.  It's a hard road, that's for sure.

And all of this before my coffee.  This could be a long day.