The past is not your fault. The circumstances, the desolate loneliness. It is not something you have to clean up quickly. Or be ashamed of. The shame of how lonely you were. The shame of feeling so neglected. So invisible. So manipulated. The shame of not having any tools to deal with whatever was coming at you. All this was not your fault. Not an indication that you were wrong. Defective. Unloveable. Unworthy. None of it.
The desperation of trying to fit in somewhere, anywhere – and not being able to – is not proof of inherent unworthiness. Being on the outs is not a badge of shame.
No one has power over you.
This is an illusion.
Not a denial of the “harsh reality of the world”.
Powerlessness, helplessness, despair want to be felt, included, loved.
Accept where you are. Don’t be in a hurry for change. New Year’s tend to activate this conditioning of ‘resolution’. New me. And this puts pressure on where you find yourself. Familiar patterns. Familiar habits. This is what’s happening. Trying to change that is what causes so much suffering. An ideal of what it should be like not what it actually is. And as the human that you are, you will fall short. You will fall short of your own expectations of yourself. Of other’s expectations of you. Of the spiritual ego’s delusional expectations of itself.
The hurry is what causes overwhelm. The hurry is what feeds dissatisfaction with the way things are. For things to run their course and given the time leave your system or not. You cannot override conditioning. You cannot override trauma. You cannot override the nervous system. The whole momentum behind wanting to override is fear. It keeps things looping. Not good enough, good enough, not good enough, good enough.
Part of this accepting is accepting that you’re not accepting. Feel the fucking frustration. The agony of the human dilemma of being conditioned. The agony of trying to override conditioning. The mere exhaustion of it. And notice that when a sense of acceptance happens, that it turns into a doing. I accepted last night, so where is this acceptance this morning. Trying to hold onto acceptance is also futile.
Where you are is where you are. That’s it. Disorientation. Disillusionment. Anger at teachers. Distaste for spirituality. Grief. Exhaustion. Not being able to be in the flow. Difficulty settling down. Impatience. Despair. Pointlessness. Meaninglessness. Bad person-ness. Falling short-ness.
You cannot force yourself to be better than you are. “More aligned”. All you can do is be true to where you are. Not trying to reach for the skies. Or sink in the earth. The trying is the exhaustion. The trying is the non-acceptance of where you are. The trying is the chasing of the ideal. The ideal that doesn’t exist except as an imagined self in the mind. An imagined self who’s doing it all right. Who’s got it all together. Who’s able to deal with it all. Internally and externally. The image of what the spiritual teacher’s imagined life looks like. The comparison to that imagination and assumption. And the feeling of utter failure for not measuring up despite all the work, despite all the effort, despite despite despite.
But reality tells a different story. I am shit scared. I am fumbling. I can’t get my shit together for 5 minutes let alone all the time. I am so tired of my shortcomings. I am so tired of feeling like a complete failure. I feel mildly disassociated and at the mercy of the rush of humanity. Slowing down has become a chore. And all my tricks have gone out the window.
That is the truth. That is the humbling. That is the reality of where you are at. You can sit and meditate and then the moment you get up, you’re right back at it. And then… the disappointment.
So let’s drop all these requirements, imaginations, chores. And just be where we’re at. Non-accepting, messy, fumbly, disoriented, pointless, tight-knotted, absent-minded, abhorrent, nothing to write home about’s.
