This morning I was able to meditate and even when my mind wanders in those few minutes, acknowledging it, and bringing it back is still better then not taking the time to attempt to try and sit quietly. My mind has a tendency to be a hamster on a wheel. I can repeatedly think about the same thing over and over and over again (usually the past) but here I am still in the same present moment unable to do anything about that. I know I cannot change the past or future, but can only attempt to be present in the present and hope to make a difference Now. Easier said than done.
This weekend I was able to spend time with my parents. Without making their lives internet (ly) available, I will just say that the word miraculous cannot even begin to explain their current compared to their past relationship. They are friends today, which ten years ago I would have thought impossible.
The funny thing about God is that when you truly surrender and are ready to grow past the pain he allows you his grace and the ability to forgive. The past is past but it can never be forgotten, however today it is our decision whether we want to relive it over and over and over again like that hamster running around in that wheel. I think that the pain has to be great enough for us to have it stick with us… otherwise we would have no incentive to want to change or to do anything differently. That being said, once the decision is made to change, because we do not care to relive that pain…we can begin to let it go.
I have always heard that ‘pain is the touchstone to all spiritual growth’ but there are a few out there who follow it up with, ‘but suffering is optional.’ I agree with the second part as well. My college crew coach always said that ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body,’ and for a long time I held those words true for me. I disregarded the rest (the spiritual growth and whatnot) and just visualized myself as becoming a stronger person because pain is allowing this ‘weakness to leave my body.’ What I didn’t seem to understand was that Coach was not talking about emotions, he was talking about Physical pain in our physical bodies and my pain was taking a LONG time to get out. Having your emotions hurt, is not weakness. My entire life I have been taught to be strong, don’t cry in front of others because they will know they have gotten to you. But when I decided to form a relationship with God, He started to change my thinking about all of this.
I want to make one thing clear, I really don’t like having emotions. I mean I prefer it to the alternative, which would be a robot walking around going through the motions, however they are frustrating, annoying, troublesome, and unpredictable. But they can also be wonderful, exciting, liberating, and eye opening… It took a long time to see the positive ones. I don’t like not knowing when they will hit, to what extent, and what the heck I will do with them once they do come. Let’s get back to the pain… When I am hurt or feel hurt, my initial, gut check response is to stuff that feeling and don’t let anyone know about my ‘weakness.’ That thought is usually (unfortunately) followed by a thought of revenge or something evil in which I can return the hurt to the person or situation which caused me pain. Because in my world, I feel as though you all should feel my pain, because if I have to then everyone does. And now that I have come clean with my crazy immediate response to pain and hurt…I can change it before it is materialized.
Identifying the emotion, finding the root of it, seeing why I have come to this place (usually fear driven), and talking to God AND another person about all of this is just the beginning of me choosing to get off the wheel. Now that I get to that point…moving forward is the next logical thing. Even though I know that wheel leads no where I am wired to want to get on it, every day…maybe it will unhinge itself and I will time travel back to make things the way I planned, is the thought I frequently have. Not likely.
So if pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth, how then is suffering optional? Get off the freaking wheel! I have to stop torturing myself by playing out conversations and situations that I can’t go back to. Or better yet planning out the way a conversation will go when more times than not I never even see that person. All of the time and energy I spend trying to change things I will never control is wasted on this moment which is the only thing I can change. This lesson is something I continuously learn: “I control the amount of suffering I endure as a result to the pain I experience.” I say continuously because I do tend to think things will be different and stumble over the same stones over and over again until I hit my thresh hold for pain and uh like a light bulb this lesson comes back full circle. Today I am going to ask God to help me stay here, in this moment, so I can have an opportunity to grow through the pain and forgive the past. The only person I am hurting is myself and I don’t want to suffer, for today.
"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." ~Maya Angelou
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