A Reminder from Life

This is a little story on a lesson life taught me on radical self-acceptance.

I was having a bad day, a very bad day. You know, one of those bad days that isn’t just a bad day, it’s a bad life. I had obviously lived my life all wrong to get me to this point, and when I looked out into the future (of course projecting from this yukky place I was in), it was completely hopeless, with absolutely nothing to look forward to. Get the picture?

What was I to do? Because, of course, I had to DO something! Not “do something” to get me out of this place, because, remember, it was completely hopeless. (Getting out was not even a possibility.  I know you know the place I’m talking about.) But “do something” to completely distract myself from this completely miserable life I was having.

“I know!” the voice says, “I’ll write that article for IOP I’d been planning on.”  Don’t you love it? I was going to write an article on all the amazing insights I had at Cheri’s Radical Self-Acceptance workshop as a way to ignore what I was feeling.  Brother.

The only reason this idea was even a possibility was because I had a recording of a group discussion where I had talked about all these insights (and had the foresight to ask for the tape so I could use it as a springboard for an article). I had no clue what those insights had been (or even what the workshop was about!) but, by golly, I was going to listen to that tape and get my topic.

OK. Tape recorder in hand, I press play. Almost there. I’m up right after this person. Then: silence. Nothing. Nada. Dead air. What?! The recording had malfunctioned and had stopped working during the time I spoke. Is that too perfect or what?

I had nothing to fall back on. I couldn’t write the article. I had no idea what I said. (It was really good, too.) So, having practiced long enough to get it when life hits me over the head with a two by four (sometimes, at least), I turned my attention to my breath, to all of what I was experiencing and felt it.

I can’t tell you what it was, how long it lasted, or what I saw, because I don’t remember. (Just like I don’t remember those great insights I had.) The only thing I know is that it moved through. And that is really the only thing I need to remember: that the work is to stay with myself and experience whatever it is I’m experiencing.

So, no great insights. Just a nice reminder from life to feel what I’m feeling. I am continually amazed at the enormous resistance that arises in the face of this very simple act, which makes something so simple so difficult. What a relief when the resistance falls away.  (I think that’s why we call it practice.)

Gassho