This is a very basic living realization, and one that is – in many ways – a turning point. (One of many turning points, or new chapters, in our experience of life.)
It doesn’t have to go away.
We are trained to think that we need to try to escape certain experiences or make them go away….. through distractions, going into thought, eating, finding pleasure, and more.
And yet, is that true? Most of us have tried this for a lifetime, and although it may seem to work for a while, it doesn’t really work. If I am honest with myself, I have to admit it doesn’t really work.
What if I tried something else? What if I tried the reverse? What if I felt the sensations, and found curiosity about the words, images, and sensations that seem connected into an unpleasant experience.
What I find here is that it doesn’t have to go away. When I hold it in presence, find love for it, feel the sensations, and inquire into the images and words, I see that it’s all OK. It can really be there. It’s already here so why not?
Also, I see that whatever is my experience here and now, is who and what I am. If I try to push it away, I am pushing parts of myself away. I am rejecting parts of who and what I am. Why not instead see what happens if I hold it in presence, meet in in love, feel the sensations, and inquiry into the words and images?
One of the things that happens if I do this, is that there is a softening or release of identification with the unpleasant experience. It happens, and I don’t have to act from reactiveness. I can find a more sane way of relating to it. I can find a more sane way of living my life.
Another is that I realize how much of the suffering (all of it?) was created through trying to escape from it, or make it go away. The suffering came from the struggle. And it was experienced as suffering, in a very basic sense, because I was struggling with myself, with who and what I am in the moment.
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initial notes…..
– it doesn’t have to go away
– when met with love + curiosity, is OK, more than OK
– not identified with, don’t need to react to it, act on it