DARE TO SHARE
“It went “Zip” when it moved
And “Bop” when it stopped
And “Whirrr” when it stood still
I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.”
(Tom Paxton “The Marvelous Toy”)
I know I’m procrastinating when I’m digging through the contents of obscure boxes and bags that, while benefitting from the clearer space left in their wake, are tasks that could easily have waited for a rainy day. If ever. But a part of me will apparently do anything to avoid mentioning a malaise that has hovered at the back, and sometimes the forefront, of my psyche for too many days. Compounding this resistance is the hardwired conviction that one doesn’t share their dirty laundry, or admit to any such weakness.
Having alternately blamed it on the moon phase, hormone replacements, hip issues, heart and blood pressure meds, diet, allergies, people problems or various and sundry conundrums, I’m coming to the conclusion that sometimes, for no explicable reason, I just feel out of sorts, impatient, anxious, blue, or other fill-in-blank moods. Do you?
What does one do to move through these unwelcome and sometimes deeply uncomfortable feelings? Though I have access to more mental health resources than many, I confess to not having any quick-fix remedies when such a mood besets me. One thing my studies have taught is that my answers are sometimes hiding in plain sight. Such as in the name of the song that came to mind as I admitted to myself that I don’t always know what’s causing my malaise, and sometimes never will.
A “marvelous toy” brings to mind the childlike wonder and awe of things that are unexplained and yet enthralling. Is it not marvelous that the human psyche has so many shades and complexities? We have a universe inside our minds. Indeed, much of what goes on in the psyche is inaccessible even to the one who possesses it. There’s a host of conditioning, ideas, opinions, impressions, egos and personalities that have an often unconscious influence on what we think and feel, say and do.
What could be “marvelous” about all this “not knowing”? I remember when we were at loose ends in Toronto during the recession in the 80’s. At one point in the autumn of 1987, my husband and I had no jobs, nowhere to live, and four young children to feed and shelter. A concerned friend said to me at the height of this uncertainty: “It must be very difficult not knowing what comes next.” to which I replied, “Given what I know now, the only thing worse that not knowing is knowing.” As convoluted as that sounds, there are times when one just has to get comfortable with uncertainty, insecurity, ambiguity and a host of other vulnerable feelings. Why might this be so? Because sometimes — most of the time —there’s just no alternative. And there’s purpose in this dirth of ways to escape.
In her article “Six Kinds of Loneliness”, Pëma Chödron observes: “In the middle way, there is no reference point. The mind with no reference point does not resolve itself, does not fixate or grasp. How could we possibly have no reference point? To have no reference point would be to change a deep-seated habitual response to the world: wanting to make it work out one way or the other. If I can’t go left or right, I will die! When we don’t go left or right, we feel like we are in a detox center. We’re alone, cold turkey with all the edginess that we’ve been trying to avoid by going left or right. That edginess can feel pretty heavy.”
Indeed it can.
The reality is, to quote Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” Given this unpredictability, it seems that the challenge is not one of imposing order and guarantees on a capricious world, (good luck with that) but rather we’re called upon to cultivate what Chödrön calls the middle way:
“The middle way is wide open, but it’s tough going, because it goes against the grain of an ancient neurotic pattern that we all share. When we feel lonely, when we feel hopeless, what we want to do is move to the right or the left. We don’t want to sit and feel what we feel. We don’t want to go through the detox. Yet the middle way encourages us to do just that. It encourages us to awaken the bravery that exists in everyone without exception, including you and me.”
Chödrön exercises this bravery, and cultivates this equanimity through meditation. By which she means learning to sit with our edginess, resisting our impulse to avoid or anesthetize ourselves from what could be seen, in a gentler light, as growth opportunities. Growth in the sense of mastering one’s emotional impulses and knee jerk reactions. Remaining quiet and still as we patiently make friends with our jumpiness and dread.
She concludes this teaching with advice that I subscribe to, as of this writing:
“When you wake up in the morning and out of nowhere comes the heartache of alienation and loneliness, could you use that as a golden opportunity? Rather than persecuting yourself or feeling that something terribly wrong is happening, right there in the moment of sadness and longing, could you relax and touch the limitless space of the human heart? The next time you get a chance, experiment with this.”
I can. I am. And it works!