The Wall: Learning to Cope With Negative Experiences

I lost my voice last week.  A wicked virus signalled its arrival by leaving me exhausted on Christmas Eve.  I made it through Christmas Day, but woke up on Boxing Day, unable to make a sound.  Although Mr. DD was convinced I was hoarse from too much talking the night before, the next few hours proved that something else was happening.

I spent the next week in bed, pretty much.  Boxing Day gatherings, a family dinner, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations left me behind.  The children departed and the world kept moving without much of a contribution from me.

On top of this, a good friend is having a rough time and I am powerless to do anything but send good thoughts while he struggles.  Any words of sympathy I can extend won't help him ease his burden. 

It was all a bit much.  The next thing I knew, my literary "voice" had followed my literal voice.  Blogging, journalling, even simple thank you notes were beyond my capabilities. Meditation, knitting and spinning were out of the question.

What do we do when the world overwhelms us?  The traditional advice is to "buck up, look on the bright side."  Things will change and we know that, but when we're sinking in an ocean of tough experience, false cheer can seem more of an anchor than a lifeboat.

We experience emotions as physical responses to events, real or perceived. Objectively, anger and sorrow are as valid emotionally as are happiness and joy.  It's our labelling of the emotion and our reaction  and attachment to it that dictate whether our experience is positive or negative.  Rather than trying to play "Pollyanna" with unpleasant events, we can try to experience the event as it is, rather than how we feel it to be.

In other words, if we're sick, then we should be sick, fully and completely, allowing ourselves the time to experience what is happening, allowing ourselves time to heal, without fighting what is or being angry that we are not experiencing something else.  If we can't knit or spin, then we need to experience the reality of not spinning or knitting. Don't sulk because you'd rather be spinning than doing housework, studying, or being ill.  Just abide in whatever you are experiencing in this moment.

Simple, yes.  Difficult, yes, but if you focus your energy into being ill, you may find that the time you spend in illness before the next change occurs will be shorter than if you wasted energy fighting the inevitable.

It was only when I gave up, admitted that I had to stop moving for a while, and took to my sickbed fully, that I began to gather enough resources to feel better.  I missed a lot of fun last week, but at least I'm not suffering from anger or resentment from missing out.  I'm feeling much better now.

Sometimes, life sucks and we just want to punch a wall. That's okay - we may find that punching through that wall is what we need to move through our pain. The next time life deals you a blow and you feel like punching a wall, go ahead.  Just remember that some actions are better done in mind only!

Namaste.

Lessons in Impermanence

The snow is melting more each day as we flirt with near normal April temperatures.  Many of us thought the snow would never go, but it is and it will.

We live with impermanence.  No matter how we try, we can't stop change.  Our best approach to change is to embrace it.

This is a "Buddha Board."  I bought it a few years ago.  It's great fun.  Similar to the Etch-a-Sketch that some of us played with as kids, you use water and a brush to "paint" on the board:

In seconds, the painting fades and soon disappears:

You enjoy using the board more if you learn to enjoy these changes.

Some changes aren't that much fun:

These are socks I knitted from hand spun Perendale wool dyed with lichen.  (I thought it was logwood dye, but no.)  They're pretty, I think.  I made them around 1997, so they've done well.  But, they've changed:

I'm not bothered by the repairs at the heels.  Those are standard for me.  Look at the toes.  Do you see the fading?

These socks have been worn and washed dozens of times over the years.  I was impressed with my crafting skills, because umbilicaria lichen, which gives fabulous colours, is a notoriously fugitive dye.  Not the way I do it, or so I thought. 

One day, I left the socks near a sunny window.  When I retrieved them, a few hours later, the colour at the point where the sun hit the toes had faded:

There you go-changes, whether I wanted them or not.  I could overdye the socks; they're still wearable, even as they are.  Some people think the changes are deliberate and I could pretend that they were.  Instead, I'm keeping the socks as they are, as a reminder that nothing is permanent.

And to remind me to close the blinds!