Embracing Change and Suffering<\/p>\n
I woke up this morning in a bad\u00a0mood. Some people call it getting up on the wrong side of the bed, but today,\u00a0there wasn\u2019t a right side. It was all about the time change. I know it\u2019s petty,\u00a0it\u2019s only one hour and there are so many more serious things in the world to be
upset about, but I resent anything getting in the way of a comfortable routine I\u00a0created around time and experience that makes me feel safe.<\/p>\n
I know change is supposed to be\u00a0good for me. It\u2019s supposed to wake me up, exercise my brain and give me a new\u00a0outlook on life. It’s supposed to alter a kind of rigidity that often sets in when\u00a0we live alone and even when we don\u2019t. It\u2019s supposed to teach me how to be more\u00a0flexible, go with the flow, let go and let God, surrender to what is, and some\u00a0other pertinent clich\u00e9s. But I still don’t like change.<\/p>\n
Most of us humans don\u2019t, even\u00a0though change is one of the few things we can count on. It feels like I\u2019m\u00a0always scrambling around, looking for solid ground in a world that is\u00a0perpetually spinning through space. I don’t like discomfort, unpredictability\u00a0and I don\u2019t like things to end when I\u2019m happy with them just the way they are.<\/p>\n
But what remains true, what I can\u00a0always be sure about, is the fact that there are things that I can’t change, no\u00a0matter how hard I try. It\u2019s the serenity prayer from AA, about changing the\u00a0things I can and accepting what I can\u2019t. But it\u2019s not so easy. It’s a dilemma I\u00a0can’t quite unravel. How can I be at peace when life is giving me what I don\u2019t\u00a0want and not giving me what I do want? It brings me back to the idea that I\u00a0have to make my choices and lead my life accordingly. If it doesn\u2019t work out, I\u00a0can make a different choice next time.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m reminded of a story in which a\u00a0young monk is meditating by a river bed. He\u2019s trying to stay focused but the\u00a0water is hitting some large stones and making a distracting sound. He gets\u00a0annoyed and decides to move the rocks. They\u2019re heavy and awkward to move, he
huffs and puffs, he slips \u00a0and falls into the water, soaks his robes, stubs his toe and twists his knee. Finally, he\u2019s finished rearranging the stones and he sits back down to meditate in peace. But his robes are wet and cold, his knee and his toe are throbbing, the water is splashing against the stones louder than before and his suffering is much worse.<\/p>\n
The moral of the story: You can’t change\u00a0what\u2019s outside of you. You can only change what\u2019s inside of you.<\/p>\n
Teacher Pema Chodrom says that when\u00a0we resist change, it\u2019s called suffering.<\/p>\n
But when we can let go and not\u00a0struggle against it, it\u2019s called enlightenment.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve come to understand that the
idea is not about getting rid of suffering. It\u2019s part of the human condition. It\u2019s\u00a0not about resisting change. That only causes more suffering. Instead, let\u2019s\u00a0learn to accept what we can’t change and stop trying to push it away like the stones\u00a0in the river. Let\u2019s learn to soften enough to accept the present moment in all\u00a0if its truth and rawness and remember that the difficult stuff changes too.<\/p>\n
I do my best. I expect you do, too.\u00a0I try not to fight the tides, to ride the horse in the direction it\u2019s going and\u00a0find some peace to lessen my suffering. The fact of our shifting changing\u00a0emotions is something we will always feel, so why rage against it? It doesn’t
matter how angry we get, it\u2019ll still be there. It doesn\u2019t matter how sly we\u00a0become. We can’t hide from it. It doesn’t matter how many times we rearrange the\u00a0stones. The distractions won\u2019t go away. I try to accept all these things as\u00a0best I can, but you know what?<\/p>\n
I still don’t like change.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Embracing Change and Suffering I woke up this morning in a bad\u00a0mood. Some people call it getting up on the wrong side of the bed, but today,\u00a0there wasn\u2019t a right side. It was all about the time change. I know it\u2019s petty,\u00a0it\u2019s only one hour and there are so many more serious things in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2239,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions\/2239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}