We Help Ourselves Through Helping Others

I chatted with a friend of mine today and she sounded so cranky, annoyed with meaningless little things that we normally let pass unnoticed. But when your life takes a downturn those tiny details of existence begin to enlarge, gain in significance. So I felt her mood, like I feel it in my son occasionally, when he takes it out on me though I know I am not the source of his sorrows. I started digging and there were the things people said and did that offended her deeply and I know exactly why: she is angry with herself, disappointed for not being where she thought she would be, taking the blame for her failure to conform, to meet expectations, both their and hers. And all those people just voice her concern, her self-inflicted wounds she’s been trying to bury deep inside. She was feeling down because, like most of us, women, she couldn’t accept the difference between the anticipated and the real. We are not always handed the exact lot we envisioned, sometimes we can’t help the sense of wonder at how our lives turn out. And not always knowing what’s the next turn or when to expect it doesn’t help the matter much either…

Anyway, I sensed her mood and jumped to the rescue. I dug for true reasons, untangled the cause-and-effect thread, thought of ways to turn the problem around or at least re-frame it. I asked her to try not to sink. Or not to be sinking for too long: occasional luxury of allowing yourself to brood for a day or two is okay, as long as you don’t linger, don’t get sucked into the black hole of the life-sucks attitude. I told her things I tell myself when I am going down, or I wish someone told me. It’s all we really need sometimes: a true friend to care, to say “don’t feel bad”, because we forget to switch gears: and when you are stuck for too long, you don’t really realize you are stuck. Thinking the same thoughts, coming to the same conclusions, failing to see alternatives.

Today I came across a quote by a Buddhist monk: “You’re not good; you’re not bad; you just are”. And that’s what we tend to forget: to just be, to just be ourselves. To cease the self-punishment for being not good enough, or not having the right life (or even the right moment). Somehow you see it clearly when trying to reach out to a sinking friend, when trying to help because you know exactly how she feels. And soon you know that she feels better, and so do you. Because if you saw that the light is there for her, then it’s there for you as well. You shared the pain, and you shared its release. There is always someone who feels worse than you, no matter how low-spirited you get. Helping them up does not only distract you from your own sorrows, it helps you see the direction in which you, the person giving advice, should also be moving.

Obligation

Lately I’ve felt resentment about the whole “to-do” check list. As much as it’s nice to have some kind of a life plan, a well-defined road-map to happiness, it gets frustrating when the expectations are not fulfilled. Maybe you didn’t get married in your 20-s like most of your friends, or your career came to a dead end, or you decided to renounce some delusive principles – there are unwelcome moments of doubts, when you realize that not everything goes as you planned and you are clueless what’s next. Sometimes there’s simply no backup plan, just white space that you can fill with any possibilities not considered before.

We don’t always know for sure whether it’s time to call the defeat or we can still go on hoping and waiting for some extended time. Will things happen on their own, or only if we put effort in, or they won’t happen at all no matter what simply because they were not destined to be? How are we to know it’s time to close this chapter because we are stuck or it’s time to double the efforts because we are almost there? A friend of mine sighed recently, “I am 30 now and there’s no light in sight…” meaning her personal life is as stagnant as it was 10 years ago. People tell her to go out more, and I want to suggest getting the best of what she has now (or doesn’t have), because if it’s not meant to happen for another couple of years, blaming yourself for lack of results can only drive you to despair and cast shadow on simple daily pleasures of the present.

But who can tell me that “it’s not meant to be” so that I stopped the self-eating reproach of “I am not doing enough”. Who can define “enough” for me? Maybe whatever I have today due to my aspirations, luck, destiny and randomness IS enough? It’s a major paradox of life that we seek a stopping point but it’s always beyond the reach, hence we are unable to stop, nor are we ever satisfied with the incessant motion. I haven’t heard “you have to” statements from anyone but myself for the past several years. They think I have it all, so why can’t I? Why can't I tear up the check list and embrace the blessed moment of being, whatever form or emotional color it’s presently taken?

Chase

It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is.
Peter Beagle, The Last Unicorn

One of my most frequently repeating dreams is about encountering a tsunami: I see a slowly rising enormous wave, which I am struggling to escape but it sure gets me at some point. I've read one of the interpretations of the dream as dealing with fear of life. Hence this constant feeling of a never-ending chase: I run from hopelessness and despair, depression and apathy, disappointment and surrender. But when I am hit I am hit. I can’t pretend that there’s an easy fix, or “it’s all in my head”, or say bravely “shame on me for feeling this way!” It’s there, it’s been building up over time inside on the very deepest level; sometimes it takes an unexpected swift emotion to cause a stir, to move your inner planes so that the wave can no longer be stored within and it comes crashing out. Then you stop running and let it take over; but once it retreats the chase is resumed.

It’s not this constant running that bothers me so much, nor is the blow from the occasional despair that catches up with me and darkens my days. I’m mostly scared that one day I will forget where I am running to or from and accept the unacceptable. I will conform and persuade myself that it’s the best way and in this submission I will definitively lose myself. It often takes just one exception that you make, stepping on your principles just once and then the next exception follows, and the one after it. And before you know it your life is build upon exceptions even though you solemnly promise to go back to the old ways, to the truth that matters when it is time. And for a while you will know what that truth is, you will repeat it like mantra but without living it in real life it becomes blurry, till it’s gone. You don’t remember what it was. And then you don’t even remember that it WAS. Comfort, emptiness and longing for something that has no name are your daily drugs till someone wakes you up, reminds you of the lost road. If they ever will.

So I keep running, looking back with fear but also looking forward with hope. I disagree, I protest, I get defeated but get back on my feet in no time. As much as it hurts, I choose pain over forgetfulness, challenge over comfort. I may lose, and lose, and lose again, but as long as I remember my true face, I will always be the winner in this race of life.

Up

Every day I need a reminder. Even with an incredible amount of mental engagement whereas I read, process and act upon a hefty amount of information, I still find myself slipping into the dark well time and again. It’s like going scuba diving: you are given the equipment to explore and enjoy the underwater world – just remember to keep breathing. But once you panic, the marine beauty dissolves from your view: all you know now is that you’re deep under water struggling to draw a breath and you may never come up to the surface.

Similarly in life, we have the “equipment” to discover and experience happiness but panic and fear, bad news and lack of hope throw us into a frantic struggle not to drown (forget about happiness). We build up a solid wall using bricks of positivity but should one brick crack, the whole structure comes tumbling down. And then it’s time to start the process all over.

People with unstable emotional world but vigorous survival instinct seek powerful motivators, which they can resort to in times of diminishing hope and extinguished enthusiasm. Our little tricks to stay afloat, to mislead others to believing in our upbeat personality and positive attitude. We, who were not born all smiley and positive, who take effort in becoming and staying so, who fight the pull-down force on a daily basis.

I’ve met people who found strange satisfaction in their hardships, who almost worshiped them with the feeling of triumph: see! we didn’t think much of life and were proven right! Take out their misfortunes and they will have nothing left for indulgent whimper has been their way of coping for too long, leaving no space for appreciation and gratitude when good things occur. I’ve also met people with the most effortless aptitude for happiness and bottomless well of optimism, radiating positive energy and contagious glee. But most of us are in the middle: neither too happy but anxiously wanting to be so, nor too miserable yet always in fear of things to take a downturn.

If there was a scale for happiness, every day we would point to a different mark. But the goal is not to reach the highest number and stick to it rigidly – that is utterly impossible. The goal should be to stay higher rather than lower. So every day I retrieve the familiar or newly acquired reminders why I can and should be happy this particular day, and the more reminders I have in store, the easier I find it to fight the emerging gloom and push myself up the scale.

What Emotion Are You Wearing Today?

I often find my myself moving in a tight emotional circle: one day I feel happy, the next day sad or angry, then eventually the feeling of content finds its way back, just to be replaced by sadness shortly. Like waves in the ocean: rise, fall, rise, fall. But it’s got nothing to do with reality, it’s simply the shifts in the focus of our perception whereas we choose the strongest, dominating emotion and declare it the king of the moment. But do we always have the time and the eagerness to figure out what we truly feel? Someone could say - there’s nothing to figure out, you feel what you feel but I itch to disagree. I think we intentionally choose the most primitive emotional structure because it’s the most effortless approach. Something good happens – I’m happy, things start falling apart – I’m sad.

I was wondering if there’s a way to exercise alternating emotions, to expand the range, add variety and color to your daily moods. Is it possible to set up your mode like you choose the appropriate washing cycle on your washer by pressing the right buttons? Or maybe selecting the emotion "to wear" can be like picking out an item of closing: you rummage in your emotion-storing closet and choose what feels right, what will establish a barely perceptible emotional background that will impact how your day goes.

We usually wake up in the morning with our mind like tabula rasa – having zero feelings, or memories, or thoughts. It’s only a matter of seconds before all of it storms into your conscience, overwhelming you before you got even one foot from under the blanket. What if you tell yourself: today I want to feel adventurous. Visualize a shiny dashboard with soft buttons, various emotions imprinted on them all. You press the one that says “adventurous”. And let the day begin.

The next day you can choose “grateful” and feel how gratefulness saturates every small act of your daily routine. Even on what seems like dark days you may select “melancholy” over “sadness”: sense the difference of not saying “I’m so sad” but giving preference to “I’m rather melancholic” - some of the unwanted emotional weight will lift right away. On bright summer days you may feel childishly ecstatic, and on gray rainy mornings hit the “content laziness” button. Cancel out the unwanted "jealous" by hitting "blessed". Select "inamorata" and be crazy in love - with the sky, the trees, your life, everyone around you.

And when you feel like you’ve been wearing the same emotion for too long, maybe it’s time to toss it and go shopping for a fresh new feeling that would look better on you.

What Am I Afraid To See Within?

(I came across this not-so-simple and thought-provoking question on Corinne's blog EveryDayGyaan and absolutely had to answer it for myself)

I know exactly why I’m afraid to look too deep inside: I know for sure I will discover that I can do so much more with my life, that I have powerful resources to make tremendous progress and achieve success on so many levels. My huge potential – a sleeping giant that I’m so afraid to disturb. We all have those resources as well as our fears that come with the package: moving forward always means leaving the comfort zone, having to deal with often unforeseen consequences. Our ambitions and aspirations are encircled by the fear to FAIL, which frequently prompts us to hit the brake just as we are ready to take off and explore what's been waiting beyond the horizon. So we come back to the safety of comfort zone, which eventually turns into a confinement cell, because what’s not progress is regress.

But there is more in the dismal mix: sometimes we are afraid of the future victories for we can’t always know what price we have to pay and what gets lost along the way. As you sprint toward the finish line you anticipate excitement, delight from the upcoming celebration, but you end up feeling desolate, washed-out, indifferent to the prize. Was it worth burning yourself out like that?

Oh, and how much we are afraid to lose right after we win ( I may get a better job but what if I get laid off, whereas this current job of mine I hate so much provides enough security…) How frantically scared we are to expose ourselves to imminent pain we associate with risk taking. Isn’t it safer to secure your positions, to shrink, to become less visible, to keep to yourself, keep distance? But you should ask yourself if avoiding pain is the best way to pursue happiness…

I am afraid to look within because I am bound to find my suppressed inner voice that, once liberated, will scream: you need to change! You need to set upon the path of transformation, it’s time to take action, there’s so much work to do and life is so short!

I still find courage to look inside even if sometimes it’s more like momentary peeking. I learned by now that life is not about all or nothing, black or white. No one can transform overnight, or build a perfect living – it’s a continuous and scary process. But I can still take baby steps guided by those little hints I uncover from the quests within. I don’t have to see and absorb the whole picture right away, I am pretty sure I would get overwhelmed by the magnitude, bigness of what’s in there. I can explore the inner castle of thoughts, ideas, wishes, beliefs and feelings room by room, always on the go, always moving forward.

Good Luck!

I got into the waiting trap. For the whole month I managed to live my life like nothing was coming. I pushed the fear of uncertainly to the outskirts of my mind and went on almost carefree on happy projections. One day before the big event is the worst time one could imagine. You can no longer pretend you are as bold as ever and eventually you succumb to panic that makes you lose gravity and pulls you into the cosmos of uncertainty. And uncertainty breeds worst-case scenarios any movie producer would be jealous of.

So time stretches into endless units; I tell myself – I will know in 24 hours, in 20 hours, 15… but somehow the event is as far away as ever and I am stuck in every minute that drags feet like a stubborn mule, who was running fine just days ago. I do bless those minutes that I succeed to spend without thinking, when I manage to get distracted enough to make a leap in time rather than pity steps.

My insides are squirming and I doubt I will appreciate dinner much tonight. But I know things will change once it’s time to enter through the door. I will be brave and focused, and praying for luck, and thinking positively. One day before the big event… what a shakeup… Good luck!