Something I didn't expect: I'm really growing up to be an optimist. I know that there is a dark, worried wrinkle in my soul – a part of me that believes the worst can and DOES happen. I'm not really my goal to flatten that out...it's just, in the recent months, I actually trust the universe, my future self, circumstances, whatever, more. I find myself saying the kinds of things that make people want to roll their eyes and making gagging sounds. For instance, I really am believing now that a lot of what happens in life is pretty good. That those things that aren't so great are usually much less terrible than I make them out to be before hand, and that even the small number of truly awful things that happen to me, I must simply find a way through, that no amount of anticipatory or preparatory suffering helps. Somethings are simply difficult and no amount of understanding, fixing, rejecting will change that.
Yesterday, on my way to work, I thought, today I'm just going to try and accept everything that happens to me without rejecting it. I mean, if it's something dangerous or harmful I can change, I need to address it. However, what lies at the heart of this is this dawning realization I've been having for some months that the vast, vast, vast majority of things are NOT in my control. If I can really see that in each moment, I can change what I need to...and try to accept and just move through the rest. As I did this, I realized the fear and dread I've been carrying around about swine flu has really shifted. I've been really queasy all week, but that was much easier for me to deal with than the mental/emotional suffering I was working with last week in the form of swine flu fear. Yet, I really think, just being present with that fear, really letting myself simply feel it – not get carried away by it, but not reject it – I think something shifted finally. Deb reminded me of something the Buddhist therapist and meditation teacher Tara Brach says, which helped. She talks about locating the suffering in your body and, without trying to fix it or do anything with it at all, you just send a stream of the word “yes, yes, yes, yes” towards it. This was surprisingly helfpul. It's actually kind of weird how it sort of made me feel different right away. Everything wasn't fixed, but I just felt more...relaxed?
At any rate, this week's barftasticness was much more manageable than the week of grappling with mental vomitousness. (How many ways can you name puke?) That's not to say that I'm not feeling any frustration or aversion around this. It's interesting how much this feeling ties me to my physical needs. I mean, I can be in the middle of something and...I just have to address my hunger, or bad, bad feelings will begin. This is a little irritating...let's just say, I can see my resistance to just having to be present with my body, to address it's need first, before anything else. (Ha ha! What is having a baby going to be like, I wonder!? )
So, it's a little touch and go with the whole food thing. Nothing is appealing. Really nothing at all...but I feel hungry. Weird. Very weird. I'm sort of a little irritated by this – I'm both nauseated by food and sort of constantly hungry. Such a funny and disconcerting mix. Oh, well. I guess I'll just keep eating...and not barfing it up...one little bite at a time! Wait, maybe I want some kind of cheesy pasta Alfredo...ugh...yet hmmmmmmmm. Oh, no, my mouth is watering...that either means I'm appetized or I am on the verge of really, really wanting to puke. This is SOOO fascinating and weird.
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