This may sound shocking or\u00a0frightening, but we\u2019re never going to get our act together. We try. We visualize.\u00a0We sit in meditation. We chant. We do breathing exercises. We plead our case to\u00a0a higher power. We read spiritual and self-help books. We try to forgive and practice\u00a0compassion. But no matter how dedicated we are to finding a definitive solution\u00a0to our problems, they don\u2019t get solved. We can\u2019t just wash our hands of them. When\u00a0you complete something at the top of your to-do list, something else gets added\u00a0on at the bottom.<\/p>\n
Solutions are temporary. Things\u00a0come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and they fall apart\u00a0again. And on and on. Our job is not to try harder or reach for something that\u00a0will never be in our grasp. We have to change the way we\u2019re approaching it and lower\u00a0our expectations. The Buddha said, \u201cSerenity comes when you trade expectations\u00a0for acceptance.\u201d I think he was referring to letting go of how things \u201cshould\u00a0be,\u201d and striving to find peace in the moment, even when it\u2019s challenging. I\u00a0can\u2019t count how many times I\u2019ve thought to myself, If this one thing could get\u00a0solved, if only this thing would change, I\u2019d be content. That\u2019s not how it works. A difficult and aggressive neighbor of mine was troubling the rest of
the block. I kept hoping he would move and yesterday, he did. I was relieved, but\u00a0just when I thought my wish had come true and I could relax, my internet wentout.<\/p>\n
When we\u2019re striving for something\u00a0to change, no amount of grappling and pleading will make it so. But we can\u00a0learn to accept it. That doesn\u2019t mean we have to like it. It doesn\u2019t mean we\u00a0have to feel good about it. It doesn\u2019t mean we have to love someone we don\u2019t
love. It doesn\u2019t mean we have to see a situation as good when it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s\u00a0not about saying okay to everything. After the election, I was suffering and\u00a0complaining bitterly when a friend said, \u201cI feel exactly the same way you do and\u00a0so do a ton of other people. But you\u2019re making yourself ill. You don\u2019t have to\u00a0like it but you have to reach some acceptance. There\u2019s nothing else you can do.\u00a0You have to learn to tolerate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
At this point in my life, I see\u00a0acceptance as part of the texture of human life. There once was a monk walking\u00a0in the woods who came upon a flowing river. \u201cWhat a perfect place to meditate,\u00a0he thought. He sat down on a flat rock, closed his eyes and began to breathe.
But there was a problem. The sound of the water splashing against the rocks was\u00a0distracting. He just couldn\u2019t block it out and he was becoming anxious. He took\u00a0off his shoes, stepped into the icy cold water in his bare feet and started to rearrange\u00a0the rocks. They were extremely heavy, he strained his back and he fell into the\u00a0freezing water several times. He tripped on stray rocks under the water and he\u00a0got scraped. But he persevered. When he completed his task, he felt relieved\u00a0and proud of himself. He had done it. But when he got back to meditating, the\u00a0sound of the splashing had become worse. On top of that, his back hurt, his\u00a0clothes were cold and wet, his arms were bleeding and his feet ached. He saw quite\u00a0clearly that he couldn\u2019t make things better from the outside in. He had to do\u00a0it from the inside out. He closed his eyes, he got in touch with his breathing,
he stopped resisting and he used the splashing sound as a challenge to deepen\u00a0his meditation practice.<\/p>\n
Resistance causes anxiety. When I\u2019m\u00a0in that state, I find myself difficult to manage so I\u2019ve come up with a few\u00a0tools that help. First, I think about being present in my reality. In the now. Then\u00a0I picture my clenched hands and I imagine unfolding my fingers. I drop my
shoulders. I focus on my looping mind and try to slow it down. I feel the\u00a0tightness in my chest and try to relax it. Most importantly, I stop chastising\u00a0myself that I ought to be doing better or feeling differently. In the ballet, I\u00a0didn\u2019t like it when someone else got a role that I wanted or they performed a\u00a0particular combination better than I did. I felt defeated at first, but when I\u00a0stopped competing with my fellow dancers and started competing with myself, I\u00a0didn\u2019t feel good about it, but I felt more fulfilled and at ease. Along the\u00a0way, other roles came around that I got, and somone else was feeling like I had\u00a0felt.<\/p>\n
The concept of fighting isn\u2019t always\u00a0a bad thing but it can be misunderstood. I find it upsetting to hear, \u201cHe lost\u00a0his battle with cancer.\u201d I don\u2019t see dying as losing a battle. I see it as\u00a0something that we all do and there is a time to fight and a time to accept. That
doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re giving up. Stopping the war doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re quitting on ourselves.\u00a0Refusing to fight or argue doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re letting of what we believe. It\u00a0means that we trust ourselves to know when it\u2019s time to keep fighting and when it\u2019s\u00a0time to release our grasp on what we can\u2019t change. It doesn\u2019t matter if we look\u00a0weak or frightened to someone else. What matters is caring enough about
ourselves to step out of the line of fire and take shelter in our own kindness.<\/p>\n
Mark Twain said, \u201cA man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This may sound shocking or\u00a0frightening, but we\u2019re never going to get our act together. We try. We visualize.\u00a0We sit in meditation. We chant. We do breathing exercises. We plead our case to\u00a0a higher power. We read spiritual and self-help books. We try to forgive and practice\u00a0compassion. But no matter how dedicated we are to finding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2637,"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-2638","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\/2638","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=2638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2639,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions\/2639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}