Impermanence

My daughter began her day with her favorite blocks and two Boston Terrier stuffed dogs. She created an elaborate two-story house for the dogs - complete with staircase and turret - and proudly showed her efforts to me and my husband as soon as we arose.

She told me she wanted to leave it up, and I complied... warily watching her colt-like movements as she danced, kicked, and flitted around the building (already leaning precariously to one side).

And then the not-so-inevitable occurred. Around 1pm, she unintentionally smacked into the structure... and down it toppled. At which point she began sobbing, in earnest, with very large tears rolling down her pain-contorted cheeks.

I held her and rocked her and kissed her tears... and after a while she calmed down - and then let go and moved on to something else, leaving behind her woeful protestations and her fervent wish to have it all back the way it was before.

Mirror. Mirror. Mirror.

It's been startling to me lately how many things in life provide opportunity for reflection if I am aware enough to notice something is very politely staring me in the face and patiently waiting for the epiphany of recognition.

Impermanence had already been in my thoughts. A possible post for yesterday, the unfinished page sat waiting in queue when I logged in, and so the event of the blocks, the crash, and the aching sadness seemed all too apropos to ignore.

While my little bunny struggles with the unpredictability of toys and the loss of things we love, I have been watching her race ahead into developmental territory so much more aptly described as "little girl" than "toddler." She gallops into greater physical, mental, and emotional dexterity... and then crashes back past her theoretically current state to stand startled and upset within the supposedly abandoned land of "baby."

This wave-like motion behind and beyond her present age has been a great reminder of the cyclical and ceaseless process of growth and personal evolution. Even more surprising is to step back a bit and realize the tidal flow of identity, maturity, and stability hardly remains confined to children and adolescents.

My career process has been a rolling ebb and wane of decision-making, hesitation, redirection, self-efficacy, values clarification, trust, and all manner of psychosocial minutia... as has my growth in the areas of intimacy, self-concept, spirituality, and intellect.

And while the impermanence of life skips across our path infinitely (seasons, emotions, friendships, finances, beliefs, bodies, feelings...), we sometimes have the tendency to forget (or perhaps deny) a few very important things:

• Life does not stand still; change unfolds before us in nearly all moments.
  
• There is no forever. Sometimes this is wonderful. Sometimes this is painful.
• We move back and forth across the spot we think we should be; every place we inhabit is.

I make the mistake of holding on too tightly sometimes, I think, to what I want instead of what is. And I get especially tense and clamped up when what is refuses to be still long enough for me to decide I want it.

Not so different, really, from sitting in the middle of the floor lamenting my disappeared building... insistent in my pain because my love feels greater than my loss - and neither were supposed to move without my approval.

I take a lesson from my daughter, who dives into her sadness with full-throated commitment and later emerges without looking back... pouncing on a new moment with present-focused gusto and a willingness to let go of the illusion of always.

May the ceaseless flow of your life bring you comfort and provide numerous opportunities to practice acceptance and release. May the folly of forever be met with humor and patience.

Possessions

Our house is cluttered with things. Items, doodads, pieces of paper, collected images and artwork, photos, movies, toys, souvenirs, music, gifts, heirlooms, and the incredible flotsam generated by a combined total of nearly 77 years.

To be fair to both my husband and daughter, I must admit most of it is mine.

In an effort to simplify our lives and clarify the tangible and physically-expressed aspects of our living, I have been making my way through some of this stuff—very, very slowly. I try to take each item and mindfully consider its place and purpose in our lives. Not only must each thing be considered on an individual level, but also how it impacts our collective experience as a family.

So, for example, if I decide to hold onto my collection of Victorian postcards, or the trunk full of clothes that no longer fits but I wish fervently someday will, or the hundreds of brochures collected for places I hoped to visit... what impact does that have upon the space we collectively inhabit as a family? Is my decision to keep those things based on my attachment to them worth the space (psychological, physical, emotional) they take up?

Occasionally, I go through spurts of empowered purging wherein I take entire swaths of squirreled memorabilia and unceremoniously dump them into the trash. Whole boxes of letters, cards, bookmarks, stationery, etc. – heaving them into the universe with only a twinge of hesitation.

Of the many things I've managed to relinquish in this fashion, only one or two items stick out as "regrets." I sometimes think about them, wish I could see/touch/read/etc. them again. But it is fleeting... and when I think about that emotional pause balanced against the weight of those items and how much better it feels to be free of them - a wee pinch of regret is well worth a greater sense of simplicity.

It was not until I began this process in earnest (a more aware, focused, and intentional approach to paring down - not the kamikaze spontaneity of the past) that I realized I defined myself, in part, through my possessions. My sense of self - and more especially the self I fashioned for the benefit and admiration of others (e.g., ego-driven, little "i" self) - was defined by the music I listened to, the books I read, the artwork I hung on my walls, the items I chose to display on my shelves, the bedroom linens I picked out, the furniture I decorated with...

And as I began to let go of these items, I was faced with the reality of having linked my identity to material, tangible, things. Probably the least important of elements through which one might express him/herself - and yet there I was, struck by the absence of my things and a slightly anxious void as I noticed the impact their departure had upon my sense of who I was.

The connection between what I own and who I am has lessened considerably since that realization. Yet, I am now daunted by the sheer mass of the remaining chaos that might easily fall under the headline things I do not really need.

I battle inertia in the wake of boxes unexplored for at least 10 years. STUFF I have carted around with me from place to place, relationship to relationship... past marriage, childbirth, and graduate school. My albatross of things drapes the corners of our house, fetidly rotting in each room as I hesitate to dive in and truly consider each item.

There is so much more effort in Seeing. Considering. Acknowledging. And eventually Letting Go. So much easier to take a tidal wave of fleeting effort and simply wash everything overboard into the waiting dumpsters beneath our apartment.

But I don't want to take the easy way out this time. I want to remain mindful and awake in my process of letting go and to all the little epiphanies that come floating up like dust as I shuffle through each attachment. It's a good reminder I am the possessor, and not the possessed.

May you consume, consider, and possess mindfully. May each item you keep have purpose and provide joy.

Control

I have come to believe control is an illusion. At least, my previously held notion of control. The one seemingly anchored in emotional wellbeing and inextricably linked to perception, mood, and all matter of day-altering filters. Control as will. Control as attachment. Control as power over other.

This type of control, I have noticed, is a means by which I experience failure repeatedly. It's a set-up for disappointment... because events, nature, others, whathaveyou don't tend to actually be swayed by my whims, whines, or wishing. Nor are these things impressed by my knowledge, intelligence, dedication, or effort.

It's like the concept of variables in statistics and research. Typically, in stating whether one's research has yielded a result or finding that is statistically significant, one aspect to address are the variables over which one had no control... the extraneous variables that might have influenced the process in such a way that the findings are a bit muddied and therefore must be interpreted within a larger context (with room for error).

Within this error lies chaos. The very heart of life. We use the name chaos for things we cannot control. We ascribe chaos with negative connotations and anthropomorphize potential error as horned or fangy, dark and sinister, snakelike and lascivious with ill-intentioned lips curling below smoky, piercing eyes filled with mean naughtiness.

My little epiphany today was the culmination of a slow awakening to the fact that, for 37 years, I felt able (even entitled) to exert my will - and actually believed this had some sort of effect on the world around me. But it does not. The exertion is important, because it is an aspect of my experience I do control. My view of the world is important for the same reason. But my actual ability to control any aspect of my life save my own perception and making of meaning is pretty nonexistent.

It's those extraneous variables. Too many to number and downright infinite when you think about all the possible iterations involved in any given human interaction or decision you might make. It's like stepping into a quickly moving stream and expecting you will be able to force the water to move against its nature.

Rather than being a depressing realization, or something to lament, I find this new understanding of control somewhat freeing. I am/have been quite a control freak thus far, which means I spend a lot of time falling apart when things don't go my way and even more time beating myself up when what I want is not what is.

It's a big thing to let go of though... and I notice myself reluctant to truly relinquish the illusion in times of stress or difficulty. I notice I hold on even tighter - as if clenching my will around a desired outcome will somehow ensure its success. Lately, I try to laugh at myself when I do that... think about how silly I am being and use humor to gently pry myself away from a myopic insistence on an as-of-yet indeterminate conclusion.

Today, there is stillness and freedom in relinquishing control.

May you see through the facades of control and discover that which is yours to alter. May you experience freedom in letting go and letting be.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a funny word. One that starts sounding strange and made-up when you say it often enough... rolling around in the mouth like a coin with a tinny, sharp taste.

I looked it up - on a lark - which led me to look up forgive instead. (Dictionaries should not be allowed to define a word using a variation of said word in the definition!) Of the several definitions, this is the one I liked best:

4. to cease to feel resentment against

Ah. I know resentment. I spend a lot of time in that feeling state... and it's something I've struggled to become increasingly aware of so I may decrease the number of times I end up in that cul-du-sac of an emotion.

And so, when I think of it this way - the relinquishing of resentment - it seems like a form of letting go. Releasing an attachment to the past in order to make clear-headed and open-hearted decisions about the present. After all, if someone has hurt you in the past and still continues to do so... you may be able to forgive them, but you probably want to let go in other ways as well.

I think it takes me a long time to forgive. Perhaps a little too long. I think it goes back to the difficulty of really letting go and allowing myself to be empty... which requires freedom from the past and the future.

The more I attempt to stay in the now, the greater my awareness of the incredible amount of time I spend somewhere else throughout my day. Imagining conversations with people who are not present. Re-living events or circumstances so I may re-experience certain emotions or write new endings in order to manufacture an emotional response absent in the initial encounter. Thinking about dinner, or what to do once Ari is in bed, or the weekend, or my career five years from now, or a trillion what-ifs that careen off in infinite directions - spiraling outward like a big, crazy, spider web. And there I am, caught right in the middle of it all, stuck without even realizing it.

I sometimes wonder if being more present in my life would allow a greater capacity to forgive. Would it really make all the small stuff smaller? Would more things roll off and recede faster and more easily? Would I be more patient? Less angry? More calm? Less anxious?

The true test of forgiveness for me, however, is not in forgiving others. I get to it eventually - sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes a few days, sometimes several years. But I do get there. I find a place of compassion and emptiness (a good kind of emptiness) wherein there is no past, and no future... just now. And that's a great place to be.

Where I get stuck, again and again, is in forgiving myself. This has become especially true now that I am a parent. My child has an incredible capacity for forgiveness. I see her wake up each day with a clean slate, holding onto to none of the mistakes of the previous day. Happy, open, trusting, and brave - she leaps into each new morning with exuberance. And each night, she kisses with commitment and care and deep sincerity... already letting go and looking into my eyes in the now.

I aspire to be as forgiving as she. I yearn to emulate her easy intimacy, trusting heart, and endless ability to let go and move on. It's truly amazing.

The last few days, I have been a mommy I do not want to be. Quick to lose patience, nit-picking and negative, always ready with a direction, correction, or strong suggestion... all of which nearly always sound like some form of reproach or distinct form of dislike.

And in the aftermath of this behavior, I feel guilty; I feel sad; I feel ashamed; I feel tired. I feel deeply disappointed with myself and so confused as to why I can reach a state of peace so easily in some areas of my life and yet - particularly in this one - continuously come to a grinding halt with my daughter: clenched up, unhappy, frustrated, and less than kind.

I know I am stuck... and I know I must forgive myself and let go in order to move. But the cyclical nature of self-recrimination and inner disappointment sometimes creates a little vortex within which I seem to start drowning all over again.

But I am committed to changing it... to seeing it through to a new place that feels so different, this place will seem distant.

One of my favorite quotes, which found me a few months ago, is based on a Japanese Proverb:

Fall seven times. Stand up eight.

And so... I will sit. I will be mindful of my actions in the moment. I will reset... allow myself a clean slate. And I will fully commit to each new moment, because each one offers a new chance to become exactly who I wish to be (for myself, for my husband, for my daughter, for my family, for my friends...).

May you reach a place of emptiness with a hurt you have been holding. May you let go of your past mistakes and walk a new path within the present.