No Such Thing as a Problem

Your car gets towed, you have $21 in your checking account and your spouse left you.

Kick drama to the curb. This is life. No such thing as a problem.

Just handle it: Surrender the car to the towing facility. Or borrow money to get it out. You have minimal funds. Do you need to get a second job? Start a yard sale? Your spouse is leaving. Take care of your own finances, shelter, and food (the basics). And wish him well.

If you see each “difficulty” as a problem, then you will have a life full of problems. If you see each event as an opportunity to practice creative problem-solving (even though it’s not a problem), then you will be more creative than you ever imagined!

High School is Short-Lived

B is for Barbs

In high school, our mascot was “the barbs”

– that’s short for barbed wire – which was invented in DeKalb, IL.

barb = sharp, bristly, obviously unpleasant…

causing inflamation and swelling. High school was constant stress over

grades, posturing and “success,” whatever that was.

My home life was more of the same, pure misery.

I felt invisible all the time. Nobody saw who I was, they saw who they wanted to see.

(Mostly, they were disappointed by what they saw!)

But I survived. I’ve actually thrived.

And you will, too. Hang in there. High school is temporary.

barbed

Wave Your White Flag

Acceptance of what is real is one of the main precepts of freedom, according to the great spiritual thinkers. Most of us have not met complete inner peace because we resist reality. Our egos take over and react: We complain about things that “happen to us.”

Practicing full surrender to reality means accepting (completely) the fact that you have to take your car into the garage for the second time in two weeks (this time, to fix the tail lights).

It means that you are not disappointed or frustrated when technology fails, when your plane gets delayed or when you realize you sent the wrong email to the wrong person.

Full surrender means you accept that you just got canned and you’re now unemployed….you accept the sudden death of a loved one or that you lost your (fill-in-the-blank) competition.

If you can accept all that life brings you, then you are well on your way to true happiness.

Principles

One of our vocabulary words in my fifth grade class this week was principle: “a personal or specific basis of conduct or management.” Basically, I told my students, principles are your personal beliefs and values and they dictate how you act.

My sister in Silicon Valley emailed a news article to me. Santa Clara officials have “declared the teen suicide problem an urgent health care problem” due to the episodes of suicide clusters in that area. High school students (many from affluent homes of highly educated parents) are committing suicide in staggering numbers. They jump in front of trains, they jump off overpasses and buildings and they hang themselves. A Yale psychologist who has studied this phenomenon says that, “on average, rich offspring experience serious levels of depression and anxiety at twice the national rates.”

Why are children who seem to have so much promise taking their lives?

The experts have identified two factors: overwhelming pressure to succeed AND a broken or non-existent bond within their families. These youth are showing signs of mental illness and their parents are in denial. The principles, then, of these parents are simply high achievement, excellent education and then successful careers for their offspring. Absent is the principle of unconditional love and acceptance.

At this moment, our country is experiencing high tension: racial violence and racist rhetoric not seen since the civil rights movement is now a reality. The principles in our current federal administration seem to be tax cuts for the wealthy, protect the KKK and bully people into submission. Again, absent is the principle of unconditional love and freedom. Absent is the principle of peace and equal rights (for women, LGBTQ, immigrants, etc.)

With such principles, only disaster can result.

It is up to each of us to do our own part to right this wrong.

Vote hate out.
Join the NAACP.
Join NPR.
Subscribe to the NY Times.
Volunteer at a community organization that serves people in need.

Any other ideas? Feel free to add!

On Marriage

“Your partner is your mirror…to think your partner is anything but a mirror of you is painful. When you see him flawed in any way, you can be sure that that’s where your own flaw is. The flaw has to be in your thinking, because you’re the one projecting it.”

Byron Katie

Katie tells a story in A Thousand Names for Joy about the time she came home, excited to eat her snack which she carefully placed “on the top shelf, to the right” in her fridge. But it was gone! Her reaction: she chuckled. “If I had believed stressful thoughts such as he’s so inconsiderate! He knew it was mine…he ruined it all, then I would have been annoyed, resentful and even angry with him.” Instead, Katie laughed at her plan gone awry. She chose to not believe those destructive thoughts. “…It turns out, I bought it for him.”

My marriage is a very good one. My husband and I share plenty of laughs, but I can get into ruts where I am bothered by something he is doing (or not doing). We have four cars right now with only two drivers in the house (him and me). He can’t let go of his Alfa Romeo, which is beyond repair. I tried to think of what I could say to get him to get rid of it. I started to feel a bit resentful as I imagined an argument and then I stopped.

Just let it go. Do not fall for these thoughts! He’ll release it when he’s ready.

The thought continues to intrude…we have a car outside in the 114⁰F heat, because we have a three car garage and FOUR cars!

So what?

I decide to chuckle.

My husband is sentimental. He appreciates that car. He loves that car.

And I love him. I love this life.

Katie’s assertion that marriage is really your relationship with yourself is spot on.

True Suffering

Until I started studying spiritual philosophy, I had a narrow definition of suffering which encompassed mostly physical pain: headaches, cancer, childbirth, broken bones, etc.

But I have realized that suffering is really what we do to ourselves with our (negative) thinking. Anxiety is suffering. Depression is suffering. Guilt and regret are suffering. Worrying is suffering!

In the path to non-suffering, one essential practice (according to the Tao, Buddhists and other spiritual practitioners, such as Eckhart Tolle) is to refrain from resisting reality. For example, if you are planning an outdoor party and it rains as your guests arrive, you do not resist reality (the rain). Instead, you simply move the party indoors and continue your celebration. If you complain and cry out against the rain, will it stop? No. But you pollute the environment for those around you (family and friends) with your resistance.

I propose a concerted effort to watch one’s language in this pursuit: eliminate the words “I wish.”

“I wish it wasn’t so hot in Phoenix!” [forecast: 110°F today]

“I wish my children were better at (fill in the blank)”

“I wish my spouse/co-workers would…”

Wishing for something that is counter to reality is inviting misery, disappointment and anguish.

Laziness #3: Pema Chodron

by Jason Rosewell

Chodron’s third kind of harmful laziness is the “Couldn’t Care Less” form. This is a harder, tougher version of “Loss of Heart.” For in this type of apathy, we are hardened and angry at the world. We are “aggressive and defiant.” If someone tries to cheer us up, we lash out at them. We use “laziness as a way of getting revenge.” But really, we hurt ourselves the most.

Until we decide to investigate and objectively look at our intentions, we will continue this destructive pattern. We will continue to have our “problems”: health, relationships and career.

It’s simple, but not necessarily easy. Sometimes, we don’t want to “get real.” We are comfortable in our habitual patterns of laziness. But the benefits of doing the work will greatly outweigh any temporary comfort.

Laziness #2: Pema Chodron

Yesterday’s post was a review of Pema Chodron’s take on laziness (part one) from her book The Places That Scare You. Chodron asserts that there are three “debilitating habitual patterns” that we often partake in.

The second type she identifies is “loss of heart.” One symptom of this form is when we tell ourselves something like, “I’m the worst. There’s no hope for me. I’ll never get it right.” (Chodron, 90).

When we become lazy with loss of heart, we avoid interacting with the world. We retreat and we watch lots of TV (or surf the net). We eat, drink, smoke and watch the screen mindlessly. We have forgotten how to help ourselves.

The remedy for Lazy Type 2 is the same for Lazy Type 1. Get curious. Ask the right questions (hint: one wrong question would be, “why me?”). Notice that you don’t have to subscribe to negative thought or belief patterns. You can choose differently.

We often condone our behavior. We say we are “happy” and deserve to relax. But in reality, we are “haunted by self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy.”

Why concern ourselves with these notions of laziness? As Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor, 161 – 180 AD) reminds us in The Meditations, our lives are short. There is no time to waste.

The Ledge

Anxiety and responsibilities set me down on the ledge of my life.

I save myself with exercise, yoga, and reading.

Let It Go Through You

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I am practicing something I’d like to share with you. It’s been so effective for me!

Eckhart Tolle advises that you do this in order to stop letting things and people bother you.

When faced with a comment, a gesture, or an event that upsets you, imagine yourself transparent and imagine this offending element going through you. It just goes through you. You don’t resist it, you don’t react, just let it go through you.

Let me know if this works for you.

Kismet

Daily Practice

depression