Between My Ears

All of us experience suffering in life. None is immune. I have learned over the years that at times I increase my own suffering, usually unintentionally, by how I think. Black can become blacker and dark can become darker depending upon the attitudes I adapt at given moments. Many people have been credited with saying, "It is not what happens to you in life that matters; it is how you react to what happens to you."

 

Tara Brach teaches that the two wings of Radical Acceptance are seeing clearly and holding our experiences with compassion. These days my prayer is often, "Lord, help me to see clearly." And I am learning to hold each of my experiences with compassion. Compassion for both myself and others.

 

Mary Margaret Funk wrote a book entitled Thoughts Matter. In it she says, "The work of every one of us is interior work, the practice of training our thoughts."

 

When life brings us discomfort we get to decide how to react to it. The most dangerous place I have found goes something like, "This is not what I wanted! This is awful. Why me?"

 

Joan Borysenko calls this "Awfulizing." She wrote in Minding the Body, Mending the Mind "Once you have begun to awfuize, engaging the fight-or-flight response, you tend to lose perspective. Once on track, the anxious mind does not deviate; it is hard to distract. One-track thinking is adaptive in cases where you are actually in an emergency situation and need full attention to escape. In situations that are only mentally threatening, however, this survival wiring becomes a trap. The worried mind engages the fight-or-fllight circuits. The muscles tense up. The question for any of us who become trapped by anxiety, is how to break the cycle."

 

When I broke my arm last summer just a few days before the Homeless Shelter project I thought it was awful. I could not lie in bed and read because I could not hold book! I began to listen to more and more books on tape. I spent most of the summer in a brace and then in physical therapy. Little did I know that was just a dress rehearsal for this year. I am almost certain the misery of 2013 has been a body-wide reaction to the Prolia injection. We may never know for certain. Looking back on these recent days, turned weeks, turned months of unrelenting itching and rash misery I can see that I have indeed learned something about how to best accept what happens in the course of my life. When I reached the point where I knew there was nothing I could do but take my medication and wait for healing and deliverance I still had the choice whether to relinquish my anxiety or continue to gnaw on it. It is easier to relinquish than you might imagine.

 

 

 

By turning loose of the thoughts about my condition I was able to just sit and distract myself through the worst of it. Prayer continued, but activities were canceled until my life was basically get through the day and try to do something with the grandchildren when the opportunity arose. As my activities resume I have gained a new focus. The writing life I have always wanted is coming clearer and the practice has begun. I am learning to guard my time and set boundaries around my life to explore this area for development.

 

Much of what troubles us in life occurs between our ears. What is going on in your head?

 

 

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