My\u00a0life looks enviable on paper. In my teens, I traveled the world with a renowned\u00a0 ballet company, I danced for Presidents and Princesses and I lived in my own flat in Monte Carlo. In my twenties, I acted on TV and in movies and I studied healing in the Philippines for ten years. Today, I live in a beautiful home that feels like an ivory tower with high beamed ceilings and vistas from every window. I\u2019ve written bestsellers for rock stars, movie stars and gold medal winners here. Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person in the world.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s\u00a0how it looks on paper. It\u2019s true that I\u2019ve had rare and extraordinary\u00a0experiences but because I learned to speak French from a Can Can dancer inMonte Carlo, (sounds like a hoot and it was), doesn\u2019t make me all that special.\u00a0It means that I can get depressed in two languages and my Ivory Tower can become
a sinking well. It pulls and pushes, it grabs and rejects and it\u2019s hard to determine\u00a0up from down. It\u2019s hard to stay connected to the good parts when my made-up\u00a0stories about the bad parts blow me around like a feather in the wind.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0friend once said to me, \u201cHow could that woman have taken her own life? She had\u00a0homes all over the world, she was married to a billionaire, she had two kids\u00a0and a nanny, she could buy anything she wanted and doors automatically opened\u00a0for her wherever she went.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u00a0see how all that looks but the things that you have are irrelevant when you\u00a0feel depressed. It doesn\u2019t matter if someone lives in an ivory tower. The ups\u00a0and downs of life are inevitable. It\u2019s called being human as we try to hold\u00a0onto the good stuff and banish the pain. But that doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
Pema\u00a0Chodron writes, \u201cThere\u2019s a common misunderstanding among all human beings who\u00a0have ever been born on the earth that the best way to live is to just try to be\u00a0comfortable. But a much more interesting, kind, adventurous and joyful approach\u00a0to life is to begin to develop our curiosity no matter if the experience is\u00a0bitter or sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u00a0have some trouble with that. I can\u2019t seem to wrap my head around the idea of\u00a0accepting the bitter stuff as okay. But I try. I know that being in the moment\u00a0is a good way to live but what if the moment sucks? How do I learn to manage
the suckyness and remember that everything changes?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u00a0think the aim is to try to stay steady along the middle way and allow all of it\u00a0to be there, to avoid extremes and do my best in both the bliss and the sorrow.\u00a0The middle way is a fundamental aspect of Buddhism. It may sound boring but the\u00a0Dalai Lama defines it as a blueprint for peace. It isn\u2019t boring to be able to feel\u00a0peaceful with oneself. If we want to stop struggling with pain and accepting it\u00a0instead, it takes a lot of work, but what else is there to do that means so\u00a0much?<\/p>\n
Yesterday,\u00a0I was happily watching TV when my electricity went off at 7 in the evening for\u00a0no apparent reason. I later found out that a tree had taken down four\u00a0electrical transformers and I spent eighteen hours with no refrigerator, hot\u00a0water or television. I was pissed off and a little bit scared. It was so\u00a0uncomfortable to realize how dependent I am on my comforts. Turning on lights.\u00a0Taking showers. Cooking food (even though I hardly ever cook), and figuring out
what time it is.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0the problem was finally fixed and the lights turned on, I saw how easy it was\u00a0to fall from the ivory tower into the sinking well. I decided to create a\u00a0reminder for myself so I\u2019m careful not to get too close to the rim of the well\u00a0and stumble into the downward spiral. I found a photograph of a large hole in\u00a0the ground and at the bottom of the picture, I wrote in bold capital letters,\u00a0KEEP OUT! I keep it near me to remember that I have a choice to live in heaven
or hell. I\u2019m not a victim. I chose the life I\u2019m living and my job is to live it\u00a0the best way I can. I can\u2019t change it to match my fantasies and expectations. Trying\u00a0to change myself is the opposite of accepting myself as I am.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0we fall into the well, no one can lift us up but ourselves. At the same time,\u00a0climbing the tower is no easy task. We meet ourselves on every step and we have\u00a0questions to ask and decisions to make. What is worth fighting for? What is\u00a0worth letting go of? What do we want and what do we need? Whatdo we think ofourselves? How do we stay om the path?<\/p>\n
We\u00a0might be angry or frightened or timid or jealous. We all feel all of these. The\u00a0work is clear:<\/p>\n
When\u00a0we hate these parts of ourselves and desperately try to escape and change them,\u00a0we\u2019re walking the path of the sinking well. When we accept these parts of\u00a0ourselves, stop trying to change them and have some compassion for ourselves\u00a0for being human, we\u2019re walking the path of the ivory tower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My\u00a0life looks enviable on paper. In my teens, I traveled the world with a renowned\u00a0 ballet company, I danced for Presidents and Princesses and I lived in my own flat in Monte Carlo. In my twenties, I acted on TV and in movies and I studied healing in the Philippines for ten years. Today, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2512,"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":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2514,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions\/2514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}