A Little More Ease, Please
“Mindfulness can play a big role in transforming our experience with pain & other difficulties; it allows us to recognize the authenticity of the distress & yet not be overwhelmed by it.”
Admittedly, I've been (even more) contemplative (than usual) lately. I could list possible reasons for this -- the shift from summer to fall energy, the heightened introspective High Holidays, the death of a beloved friend, the general cultural milieu where malaise isn't explicit but rather buried, like a potentially deadly electric wire.
If decades of mindfulness practice and no small amount of therapy, together with a few key relationships, have taught me anything, it's this: the reason for a thing doesn't always matter. Searching for a reason, an explanation, for my feelings or state of being can be a habituated way of distancing myself from my Self by intellectualizing rather than experiencing it.
Some inner monologue, overt or subconscious, starts up that goes something like: "If I don't feel this, it can't consume me, and if I understand its origins and focus on those instead, I can make it go away."
The first half of this reveals a belief -- a fear -- that sitting with hard emotions will have a catastrophic outcome. The second part suggests that feelings can somehow be mitigated by reason, i.e. I can talk my way out of my own discomfort by analyzing it.
Oh, how we make things so much harder for ourselves sometimes. In this category, my friends, I claim expert status.
Last night on the way home from picking up take-out for dinner, I had a little chat with myself in the car. Those of you who are comfortable with language of divinity might appreciate that I may have been talking to G-d. Maybe I was talking to the G-d that dwells within me, or the G-d of my hybrid Toyota Corolla (imagine if that was an option when you got a new car when you select your upgrades -- plastic or fabric mats, heated seats, preinstalled G-d access). Either way, I was talking out loud, as I find that the car is always a most excellent place to do that.
What I was saying had to do with life (see the first sentence again). And how the goal is not for life to be easy, because really why would we expect that? But to at least let the things that actually are easy be easy, let the things that are simple be simple, and not to make things that aren't actually a struggle difficult. Life brings enough hardship, disappointment, confusion, and loss our way; why add to it unnecessarily? Maybe this is the very definition of "no drama," i.e. acknowledging the parts of life where there is, in fact, ease and joy, and allowing those to exist if not flourish.
I went for a run yesterday morning. My pace was slow, probably more like a fast walk, as I haven't been running much this month, and I listened to the new album on Spotify by José González. Over the course of four miles, I noticed all kinds of thoughts -- in this way, running for me sometimes is a form of moving meditation, where I try to see if I can bring some quality of non-attachment to the endless array of scenarios, questions, images, and ideas that appear unbidden. The "why" question is rarely useful ("why is this thought arising?").
At one point, I was thinking about a friend I've lost touch with. I have wondered from time to time if I did or said something that hurt or offended them in some way but have also not wanted to create drama where there is none, so I've left it alone. I thought about writing them a text, in the spirit of the lingering energy of Yom Kippur, apologizing for any harm I've unknowingly caused. I even drafted the text when I got home. But I didn't send it.
Instead, I came inside. I started to tell Mani about this, saying that my instinct was to wait two weeks until I wasn't feeling so emotional before deciding whether to send the text, which I read to them. My voice broke up towards the last few words, the ones where I'd written, "I am truly sorry,": and next thing I knew, I was crying and Mani was holding me. "I think you're sad about Kerri," she said, and the truth of those words allowed the tears to fall freely.
There can be ease even in grief, by not pushing it away.
There can be ease even in uncertainty, especially when I notice what's tangible and grounding in the moment itself -- things I can hear, the feeling of where I'm sitting or standing, colors in my field of vision.
There can be ease in change, especially when I don't try to make it make sense or let it frighten me by assuming it will threaten me. What if I welcomed it? What if I was curious about it? What if letting things change -- whether those changes are quiet and internal, invisible to the naked eye, or outward-facing and bold, requiring no explanation -- was evidence of life itself happening?
Life can be so overwhelming. It takes real fortitude not to get swept into stress. Spend all of five minutes surveying the landscape that is American life and it's no wonder that, according to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, "Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year. Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, yet only 36.9% of those suffering receive treatment."
I've been taking an SSRI since I was 21 years old (I am nearly 48 now). The type and dose have varied. When I attempted to go off of this altogether a couple of years ago, it wasn't easy or pretty, and I did go back on. There is zero shame in this. What I would add, though, is that meds alone are not enough. Things like self-compassion, a sense of humor, a small group of trusted people, and some perspective, too, when it comes to where I'm "borrowing trouble," to use a phrase one of my friends sometimes offers when I'm forecasting in unhelpful ways, are all invaluable when it comes to staying present and grounded.
Several months ago, a friend said to me on the phone that she sees me as "always being so present." I laughed out loud in surprise, since so often, my inner experience of myself is anything but. And I realized that, like so many things about being a person, both could be true. That's why I always say, it's all practice.
Where is there, in fact, ease in your life today?
Where can you experience this, if not fully, then even a little more than you did yesterday?
What feeling are you trying to talk yourself out of?
What if, just for five minutes (use a timer), you sat with it, said hello?
Peace is not always readily available -- anyone who's paying attention feels that. The best we can do is get better acquainted with how we relate to ourselves, those closest to us, and the wider world, and where we can nurture even a little more ease, within and without.