I met with a wise sage yesterday.
It was, and it wasn’t comforting. Sometimes I want someone to tell me that I will one day arrive. Instead most people, especially if they are over 50, say life is always going to be this way.
I was complaining about feeling as if every time I get my feet under me something tears the rug right out beneath my feet. Be it an unexpected bill from the federal government, a friend saying “we need to talk”, or just the uneasiness of work. You would think by now these feelings wouldn’t destroy me. You think I would have learned a mantra, or a prayer, or a way to combat feeling like piece of sh*t.
But,
I keep returning to a new mindset I’m working on. It has to do with letting things in. This sounds new agey, but these practices go back to the desert fathers. Allowing all emotions in. You invite them into your head space, your body, your soul, and you let them sit, wallow, even walk around, and then you try to release them for what they are. (My twenty year old self would have called me weird and crazy) This is also how to capture every thought. It is what Paul tells us to do. But, it has been helping me, and allowing me to have dumb hard things happen, and my day continue to be good.
Disclaimer: I am still working on this, and I still have days that blow all my candles out, but (we all need more buts in our lives) I’m working on this. It is all a big game of learning, unlearning, trying, and doing it again. Now being in my third decade of life I have some track records. Not all good, none world record breaking, but I have been around the sun a few times or two.
What I keep hearing is life doesn’t change. If there are any altruisms that are all encompassing, these might be them. You will always have to pay taxes. Sometimes your bank account is going to start with zero. Not everyone is going to be your friend, or even like you. You will ruffle feathers, you will make people mad, not everyone will agree with you, and
It is going to be ok.
So, maybe we can try to let in the “bad” parts of life. Give them space to walk around. See them for what they are, and put them in their place so you may move on. It’s almost as if we can start to anticipate stuff sucking in life, get ready for when they do, but know consciously and subconsciously that it doesn’t mean we are bad people. It doesn’t mean all of life is now always going to be like this. It doesn’t mean that it is the end of all things good. With every dark night of the soul, there a dawn of hope. A new morning, and a new beginning.
There is more room in this life for good, and bad, and ugly, and joy, and fun, and laughter, and pain. It all belongs, it all has a place, and
It is going to be ok.
—
Trevor Ganz
Troughts 