Time to Ask the Right Questions...
Have you ever hear of being “loyal to your suffering” - attributed to Jack Kornfield, I find this phrase rings true for me on a weekly basis. Especially when I find myself in the depths of self-judgment and discover it’s from the “you suck” chant ringing in my ears.
This loyalty to our suffering completely affects our worldview, doesn't it? Like a really dirty window that we stare through every single day — and we don’t even know the view can be clearer.
The reality is, all the ways I motivate myself to ‘grow’, the things I choose to work on with my partner, the type of morning I have with my kids — all these things are predetermined by what suffering is fogging up the glass. And there’s always something.
The tail end of the poem “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver just feels like the right thing to put here:
When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
Now you are wondering what things are fogging up your glass too huh? I have a starter list of mine that may shake a few loose for you:
Am I a good parent?
Why am I always so cranky? And what can I do to fix it?
Am I too dependent on therapy?
Will my kids need as much therapy as I do?
Why can’t I let go of old sh*t?
Why am I always so close to getting it right, but just can’t be successful?
Insert our current status = pandemic, and I have reached a new level of crazy:
Am I a bad parent for not loving all this “extra” time with my kids?
Why have I withdrawn from talking to friends and family?
Once this is over will I ever want to leave the house again?
Will my 7th grader have to repeat this school year?
Will he be socially awkward because of the choices I have made for him?
Ugh, 😂 I’m glad I wrote these down because it’s pretty obvious that I can be asking different questions! OMG. 😯 How about ones that don’t start with me assuming the dirty glass is all my fault, that my suffering is all of my own making.
Maybe instead I can make a list of questions that assumes I am a plant on the other side of that glass that just needs water, and care to grow - and a bit more sun than what I am getting now.
So who would I be if there was nothing wrong with me? What if I were a perfect little plant that grew at just the right rate and got what it needed all the time without fail.
Kind of a wild thing to think about isn’t it. If I woke up every morning and asked myself that question I think my life would be drastically different. Fixing it is so exhausting.
If there was nothing wrong with me:
I would feel free.
I would go outside more.
I would do my thing…..and let my kids do theirs.
I wouldn’t yearn for the day to go well or to “just get through it” — because I would already be OK when it started.
And that laundry list of questions wouldn’t hold up to the blinding light of my freshly washed window. The world would be just right and I would have what I need: sunlight, water, and love.
After all, a plant doesn’t need to know it’s growing to know it loves the light.