Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest."
~Rumi
Fiona writes: An organisation I am very deeply and personally involved with has (and is) going through a terribly difficult time.
It has caused me and others a great deal of sadness, stress, anger and disappointment. It has led me to question my involvement with the organisation at all, which feels almost unthinkable.
When I've asked the Buddha (or the Universe) for guidance during this time, I keep getting the same answer - 'stay open'.
Not 'run for the hills'. Not 'do something'. But 'stay open'. Not the answer I really wanted (the LAST thing I want to do), but there you are.
I often tell my psychotherapy clients in our first session that the times when they LEAST want to come to their sessions are the times that it is most helpful to do so. If our work together gets almost unbearable, then we are definitely onto something.
In my experience things often get more difficult before they get easier. A spot needs to burst, or something bubbles up asking to be healed. A situation repeats itself despite our best efforts. At these times, it is supremely tempting to think that 'the other' is bad for us, that it is all their fault, and that we'd be much better off without them (or any of the rest of the disappointing human race).
I wish there were some other way, I tell my clients. I wish there was an easier way.
What helps us to bear this difficulty? Chocolate cheesecake was helping me today. Talking to friends. Spiritual practice. Taking one day, one hour, one breath at a time. Knowing that you are not alone. This blog post should be small proof that you are not alone.
And faith too. If our faith in a person or a group of people is failing, try to remember that there is something much larger that holds us. If you can't believe in it, believe in the POSSIBILITY that it exists. This might just be enough.
"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest."
~Pema Chodron
Sometimes we have a soft landing when our nests disappear from under us with no warning, and sometimes we fall far and hard. It hurts. Ouch.
As Rumi reminds us, what hurts us also blesses us. (How hard it is to remember this, in the midst of our hurting). The deep deep darkness is the (only) way through to new light.
*
Photo by lynnmwillis via Creative Commons, with thanks.
17 comments:
Hi Fiona,
Thank you for this. Reading your post today felt very serendipitous to me -- it applies directly to my own life. There is a person I was deeply hurt and betrayed by, who not only hurt me but caused irreparable damage to some of my dearest relationships. I have since removed my life, but she is so entrenched in my greater social circle that I can't escape her entirely. She keeps creeping back in in all sorts of unwelcome ways! Clearly, there is a lesson in this for me, but I'm not quite sure yet what it is. "Wait and see" can be such a frustrating message at times! Sigh... I have a feeling that the answer, when I tune into it, isn't going to be pleasant for me. Thanks again for the insightful and relevant post!
Best,
Nicole
Thanks, I very much needed this today. :-)
I too really needed to read this today, especially the part about where things start to become really challenging is when the best work is possibly taking place. I have had to change so much about myself lately due to a very nasty separation and the loss in my life of someone who was very dear to me. I still find myself struggling to build this new life and have realised I need to almost hide myself even on the net, hence the name I use now. Things will improve but I know for sure there are alot of bumps in the road ahead still.
I am openly weeping reading this. Part because the beginning quote made me angry (not at you), but mostly because my chronic pain of 16 yrs is and has been unbearable. Every minute of every day and my heart begs "no more".
I don't see this as a blessing. Not when my children need a mother and my husband needs a wife. Not when I have dreams that have been dashed.
Silver linings? Yes, always silver linings. But the thing, the demon, the illness itself? I have a hard time wrapping my head around that idea.
I'm not sorry to be crying. I needed to read this right now, I know it. So the universe is working thru you to a "stranger".
I just wish the unbearable didn't hurt so much too.
xo
Another timely post, Fiona! I used to run or isolate myself. I've really understood recently that "doing" is a way of avoiding my feelings because they relate to the panic and terror I felt in childhood. It's empowering to connect with these feelings because there's nothing left to run from. I think the fear of staying with something/someone is less about them than it is about how I am with them and that's why I really appreciate the Rumi quote, and also because we spent a session on boundaries in group therapy today! Thanks, Fiona!
I am a cancer survivor and I was called back for a mammogram second look. I spent the weekend in agony, but it helped me decide to fit in a trip to visit my mother very soon, just in case. It turned out okay yesterday, but I'm not the same as before this happened. I've seen a few things differently. This message is so timely for me, Fiona. Keep open. Yes.
Laura Hoopes
I'm so sorry that you are in this place at the moment, but also thank you for being courageous enough to speak of it. There is much learning in it for me, especially today.
Thank you for being so open, Fiona.
Goodness i had to read this twice and check that you had not sent it to me personally. It couldnt have come at a better time. I am going through a redundancy process at work its all very unpleasant and I just felt like walking today. I will go in tomorrow and my mantra will be "stay open". Thank you
I think it also applies to our writing, that when it becomes very difficult, that can herald a quantum leap.
Alright Fiona, may as well join the group to thank you for being reminded of so many issues that seem to be showing themselves to a lot of us!Taking life one breath at a time, being patient with ourselves and our sets of circumstances and not doubting this process called life and being willing to hear our inner voice when it's yelling to be heard!
Nicole - sorry to hear about your situation. And I'm sure you're spot on with your not-pleasant-bit. Isn't that a bummer? ;) Go well.
Leslee - _/\_
Penelope - keep staying open, take care.
TCA - with situations like yours, it does feel difficult to suggest that the dark stuff can bring some kind of good. Maybe it's not always true. Or maybe there is more going on than we realise. Whichever, thinking of you in your pain, your comment made me cry so we're even now :)
ooliatr - _/\_
Laura - glad it was good news. Thank you.
Roz - _/\_
Ronnie - gosh, those processes can be SO difficult. Go well.
Rosemary - absolutely!
Mary - thanks.
Thanks all. Now I know I'm not alone either :)
I often get a response to my newsletters in the form of a poem from Thom Woodruff, and I'd like to share this week's with you all:
when you close down,you close/down
austerity shrinks possibilities
Stoicism is Martyrdom Lite
This is a world of expansion
This is a world of Seasons
Winter cold gives way to Spring
Every bird knows this/and sings!
Trees adopt new coats of green
(we can(at least)learn from them
And when we doubt,we fall from grace
Even if no safety net/we roll through space
on a burning rock with a singular sun
How delicate! How fragile!We come
into this world as a garden and a gift
Accept it.Dance with it.Stay open
Like a parachute..
Until now all your posts have been timely and moved me - but this one brings up my anger.
I once had to do a writing exercise to think of one of the worst experiences of my life and to write it with a positive angle. I chose being raped and the positive angle I could think to say about it was that it helped me to understand the coping mechanisms I had adopted as a child as a result of being sexually abused by my father.
For most experiences this way of thinking is probably very good, but it has its limits. To think that suffering abuse as a child is in some way a blessing does nothing but deny the truth of it. Children in this situation have never had a nest to be thrown from. As adults they don't know what it's like to have a nest, nests are for others.
Anon - yes, I can see why reading my post would make you angry.
Terrible things should be stopped, if we can stop them. Vulnerable people should be protected. I'm not one of those people who think that a person's cancer has been sent to teach them something (or because of something bad they've done).
Dukka - suffering - does exist. Sometimes difficulty brings good with it. Maybe sometimes it doesn't. It's important to acknowledge that.
Thank you so much for this post.
Aww Fiona, I'm sorry I made you cry! *Hugs*
This post...and my feelings....have stuck with me since reading it (funny how your work seems to do that to me *grin*)
Lorelei, you made such an excellent point of what I think Fiona meant--but your comment gave me that "aha" moment. I'm glad you are a survivor!
I found a breast lump when I was 30. I was terrified, naturally. I wound up having surgery to remove it and a suspicious area. It was all benign. But it left me with something more than a scar.....and that questioning of why *I* had been spared led to the answer--to have another child, which we had pretty much decided was not going to happen 5 yrs prior. I'd had terrible postpartum depression with my daughter--so badly it shook me to my core and we thought that was it.
So that hurt--the scare--blessed me with my son, who is now 10 :)
Thank you Fiona, and Lorelei, for helping me dig deeper past the quick emotions that rose.
(Happy Valentine's Day too! <3)
Glad it stayed with you. Happy Valentine's Day!
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