If You Don't Take the Pause, The Pause Takes You
Dear Friends,
You might know from past emails that I've been taking time for a pause these last few months. The last two years have been challenging for me, and perhaps for you too. So often I found myself in an "argument with reality." There was the tremendous suffering that was going on AND there was an added level of suffering because of my insistence that this shouldn't be happening. I found myself feeling so many emotions: fear, grief, anger, blame, and guilt. I didn't want to accept reality as it actually was, but as I thought it should be. It was very, very fiery, and exhausting. And it didn't help me or the situation.
Often it's in this kind of suffering we finally find a willingness to look at other paths to take. Suffering can be a friend in that we become willing to say, "This hurts so much that I'm going to figure out how to let go of what's hurting me."
I was lucky to have the privilege to be able to come here to Italy, join my family, and simplify my life. Stress had really taken a toll on my body, mind, and heart. I began surrendering more, letting go of everything, and the silence and the space here have been so helpful. Over many years I've meditated, and that's what I turned to, letting go of everything I think needs to happen and resting deeply. A lot of surrendering happened, and is still happening. I've found that it's allowed Love to begin to heal quite a lot. A quote from the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh comes to mind:
The meditator breaths in and says, "Hello my fear, my anger, my despair. I will take good care of you.
In this pause I've also been doing more reading, and less doom scrolling. Right now it's Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons from Black Holes, Supernovas, and Other Wonders of the Universe, by Judy Cannato. Here's a paragraph that really speaks to me these days:
"...the Spirit that is Love takes up residence in us and uses us as a base of operations in our tiny part of the universe. But this love in which we we participate is not a soft, fluffy feeling that cushions us in comfort. It is a grit-filled grace that enables us to make difficult decisions in the face of a sometimes desperate reality, choices that either spring us forward in the evolutionary process or threaten to do us in as a species."
Thanks to this time to pause I'm noticing when I'm in the "fight with reality.", and noticing helps me to drop the argument. When I do that I can make better choices for my own evolution. And all of us have an amount of freedom to either move forward, or we can choose not to.
I'll be here one more month, and have been so enjoying being a grandmother and working remotely. Bruce is hanging in there; snow-blowing, keeping the home fires burning, working, and staying healthy in the greatest opioid epidemic in the history of our country. (He's meditating too!).
It's been great to be connected to you through time and space although we are in different places in the world. I'll be returning on April second, and when the warm weather comes there may be some outdoor yoga classes on the patio! We'll see how it all unfolds.
Sending lots of love,
Light and space from Porta Romana, built in 1327-28, one of Siena's oldest gates, just down the street from me.
