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Today I felt like I could conquer the world during Mat Pilates,
building core strength and reaching with strong open arms towards the ceiling sky. Then I went out to my car and saw this view of the real sky from my car window: threatening, looming over LA Fitness......over my errands......over my daughters birthday barbeque, over my optimistic conquering spirit. Then the words of Pema Chödrön popped into my head, and I saw the rain as my teacher.
I remember listening to her CD "Getting Unstuck" and feeling relieved to learn that the "negative" things in life make me balanced and without them I would be very arrogant. Her teachings include having a loving kindness towards ourselves, and therefore are very comforting to me. Here are a few of Chödrön's quotes:
"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest."
— Pema Chödrön
"Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody's eyes because you feel you haven't got anything to lose--you're just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We'd be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn't have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together."
— Pema Chödrön
"Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape -- all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain." (my addiction: food)
— Pema Chödrön
"When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently."
— Pema Chödrön
"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest."
— Pema Chödrön
"Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody's eyes because you feel you haven't got anything to lose--you're just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We'd be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn't have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together."
— Pema Chödrön
"Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape -- all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain." (my addiction: food)
— Pema Chödrön
"When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently."
— Pema Chödrön
and one more...........
"As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion. "
— Pema Chödrön I took a picture of these beautiful "perfect" flowers on a gloomy evening. They were behind two of my dead hanging plants that I neglected to water in a heat wave. I paused in my garden with loving kindness towards myself. I felt bad about the plants but I did not water any negative seeds. I did appreciate and delight more in these beautiful brown-eyed susans.
I thought about this again over the weekend after attending two parties with loving family and friends. It is wonderful to spend time with people who support and care about us. But life isn't always like this and thats okay. I wrote this poem Audrey's Gift, and although it reflects a painful time in my life, it has helped to make me the person I am today. Click on the link, then the "table of contents outline", then the the "Art of Nursing," then the PDF file under "Audrey's Gift."
http://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/toc/2009/08000#-237883829
Next time you are going through a difficult time, make sure you treat yourself with loving kindness and know that there are lessons that may help open up your heart if you are willing to stop and listen.
5 comments:
Thank you for your inspiring words and beautiful poetry. Why is it we know to be kind to others but not to ourselves?
thank you sherry! was so nice to see you. i was reading "journaling for joy", a book, of course about journaling, and i found an idea that is very uplifting. the author suggests that you write a conversation between yourself and a sort of imaginary friend who is very supportive, and what you get basically is yourself being supportive to yourself. every answer to your conversation should be answered as if you were a very supportive friend. after awhile it becomes more natural to stop shooting yourself down all the time. i found it to be helpful in learning how to be kind to myself. hope to see you again soon. enjoy your summer :)
Love it! Love you.
Never worry over birthday parties. haha
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I'm ready for the next blog already!
im a blog slacker!!
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