I talked with a friend who is getting close to a big round number in age, and it brings up thoughts about how his life didn’t turn out the way he hoped or expected.
That’s very familiar for me too, especially from some years ago.
How have I digested it?
I know some of the surface ways I have explored it.
My ideas about my life are created by the human mind, they are not inherent in reality. A seed may not sprout. A seedling may not develop into a mature plant. A tree that didn’t get as big as other trees because of the soil, wind, or other conditions. They just live their lives, as those lives are. Reality just is, as it is. Our ideas of how it could or should have been are created by this mind.
These ideas are cultural. I have internalized expectations, ideals, and shoulds from my family, friends, and culture. Other cultures have other ideas about it. Some may see it as described above, that reality is free from all our ideas about it. Some may see acceptance as the greatest success, or kindness. Or making a reasonably good life with the ingredients we are given.
My life is multi-faceted. It’s not limited to the relatively few dimensions, areas, or criteria my shoulds are about. I have had many experiences and done many things. It’s a rich life.
When something comes up (regret, anxiety, blame, self-devaluation) in response to thoughts about my life, I ask myself how it would be to meet it with kindness, as I would a scared child or animal. This helps these sides of me to relax and feel seen, understood, allowed, and even loved.
I don’t know the paths I didn’t take. I don’t know what would have been on those paths. My trauma and hangups may have created knots there too. Life may have come up with surprises, some of which my personality wouldn’t have liked.
Those who live some of what I had wished for have their own complex lives. They may not be happy. They have their own struggles and longings. They may even wish for some of what I have in my life.
Life goes up and down and has twists and turns. I may be unhappy for a while, and then something changes and I experience more meaning, engagement, and enjoyment.
I have much to be grateful for. There are infinite things I can be easily grateful for. Right now, I have shelter, a full belly, friends, an upcoming journey, and so on.
What kind of meal do I wish to make out of the ingredients I have here and now? How would it be to make a good meal out of it? One that’s nourishing and meaningful?
For any one thing that happened, I can find one cause, and one more. I can always find one more. When I explore a specific event or decision in this way, I find innumerable causes going back to the beginning of time (if there is a beginning) and the widest extent of existence (if there is a widest extent). What happened, and what happens, is the local expression of movements of the whole of existence.
What do I long for? What do I wish for? How would it be to bring some of that into my life here and now? How would it be to embrace it as it is?
Where do I find my life? I can only find it in images of the past, possible future, a path, and my life now. Some of these images have a charge (they are associated with sensations), and they are still images. They are imaginations.
These are all outcomes of different processes over years and decades. I have often used inquiry (The Work of Byron Katie, Kiloby Inquiries), heart-centered practices (ho’oponopono, tonglen with myself, others, parts of me), Basic Meditation (notice and allow, notice it’s all already noticed and allowed), somatic explorations (TRE, Breema, Qigong), dialog (Voice Dialog, Big Mind process), and much more.
What’s helped me most is perhaps just noticing how I relate to my experience – including images and words about my life, distress, and so on – and find a more kind and wise way to relate to it.