Well, hard times are good things. I mean, one of the things I’ve realized is that I only really learn anything when things are just disastrous. It’s the only time I’m able to actually be vulnerable enough to learn anything. Because the rest of the time it’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s good. I’ll do this. I’ll do that.’ It’s fun and exciting, but, you know, whenever everything just falls apart—it’s not that I look forward to it now, but I almost do.
– Laurie Anderson in I Do Love a Doomed Quest: We’re Going Down in Spin
Yes, it’s true in my experience that big shifts have sometimes happened when it feels like my life is falling apart. That’s when my system is more receptive and the asking for help – from life and the divine – is more urgent and sincere. (The initial oneness shift happened when I was sixteen and with a lot of teenage angst, and the Amma shift happened last fall on a night when I was falling apart because it looked like our Andes project was falling apart.)
At the same time, it doesn’t have to be big or dramatic. This morning, I woke up with a low-grade sense of dread and anxiety. It’s familiar and old and I know it’s more about the past (my childhood) than now. I know I can do things so it’s not so prominent in my sense field, which is fine and also somewhat of a missed opportunity. So I stay with it instead. I notice the sensations and the murmurs of images and words associated with it. I rest with it. I wordlessly and gently lean into it, welcome it, and meet it with some curiosity and kindness. It’s a familiar kind of contraction. I notice an opening up. Vulnerability. Receptivity.
In a way, these daily discomforts – the parts of me emerging that old patterns in my personality may not like so much – are hard times. These are the ones I can open to. These open me when I welcome and allow it.
We can make use of difficult times, whether they are big or small, to humanize, deepen, and find receptivity, curiosity, and willingness to receive help from life and the parts of us wiser than we are consciously.
We don’t need to invite them in since they come anyway. Life is hard enough so there is no need to make it more difficult. And when it’s here, it’s a kind of gift.