We tend to think of the moment as being something beautiful, peaceful and lovely. As I wrote in an earlier post, it is beauty and the contemplation of beauty that most easily brings me into the moment.
What about being fully present in the moment when it is difficult and challenging?
I have decided to write about this today, because I am being challenged today by pain in my lower back. It seems to have come through a shock to my system that I had today when I discovered that my telephone was not working properly. I was shocked because it happened last week also and I had time-sensitive calls to make and couldn't make them. I was suddenly frightened that I wouldn't be able to handle living in such a remote location, wouldn't be able to have the amenities that I have come to depend on. The fear rose up in me and I became very upset. My back became filled with pain and I became chilled and felt 'frozen' in my muscles and in my responses to events as they unfolded. It is always amazing to me how quickly we can succumb to fear! Even when we know better. Fear is still very strong in us, on the physical level.
So, I'm sitting here in considerable pain, although I dealt with the chill and feeling of being frozen by taking a nice hot bath. Pain-killers will eventually do the trick, I imagine.
I was angry about all of this until a few minutes ago. I had hoped to have a pleasant day, as I have been very busy lately and wanted to enjoy a relatively quiet few hours. I was in complete resistance to the difficulties of having my telephone suddenly stop giving me a dial tone and the complications that arose from that. I was about as far from acceptance as I have ever been! I struggled to regain my balance. It didn't really work very well and I felt like I was spinning my wheels in a useless endeavour as well as being imbalanced.
.... I have stopped struggling. I am out of balance. I am accepting that right now. Remembering my own advice to a friend just the other day, "We need to begin where we are." Right now, I am out of balance, feeling the effects of the upset which occurred earlier that sent adrenalin rushing through me. I'm in the 'crash' phase now, my body feeling weak and unable to cope with much of anything at all. Breathe and accept where you are in the moment. You can only go on from where you are. Eventually, my situation will change, but for the moment, this is what I am experiencing. Acceptance is key.
The other day, I was contemplating an upcoming event where I would be addressing strangers. Public speaking. In my second language. Not English, but French. I felt fear and uncertainty. I felt self-doubt. It had been quite some time since I had felt those. At first, I was doing what I've always done in such times, trying to get away from the difficult feelings. I tried to distract myself with a television program and had absolutely no luck with that. I tried pretending that I wasn't feeling afraid. That worked for about 30 seconds. I was getting ready to try another approach that I've used in the past - pour yourself a big glass of wine and become numb. (It doesn't really work; the numbness is not very deep or long-lasting and of course, it doesn't address the root cause of the discomfort.) I decided to try something else instead. I decided to accept it.
I decided to be in the moment with the fear, the self-doubt and the uncertainty. I sat down on my front step and said, "Here I am, Fear. I'm sitting right here with you and I'm looking right at you and I'm not going away. I'm not asking you to go away either. Let's sit together. How bad can it be?"
Right away, I felt better. I wasn't in opposition or resistance. I was being with what was there in the moment. It actually wasn't very intense at all, although I had thought that it would be. I said, "Look, I see you and I acknowledge you. And there you are, making my body perspire and my heart beat faster and filling my mind with images of personal failure. So what? I'm still going to go out there and talk to those people. Why? Because that is what I choose to do. If you are still there when I do it, I'll just do it scared."
It reminded me very strongly of something I had experienced before. I used to suffer terrible bouts of depression. I was extremely afraid of them, as my brother had been diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and eventually died as a result of his terrible suffering from that imbalance. I feared the power that depression seemed to have over me. It could seemingly stop me in my tracks and bring me very low, very very low. After going through many bouts of depression, I eventually came to realize that I would survive them and that they couldn't really hurt me. Finally, I came to understand that I could meet them head on instead of trying to pretend that they weren't happening, or to 'make them go away.'
One day, feeling the tell-tale signs of incipient depression haunting me, I sat down with it and said, "Let's just do this together. Let's just BE together, you and I. I am depressed. That is what I am." And when I did that, everything changed. It was a moment of total acceptance of my life, my every experience up until that moment. It was an acceptance of my limits and my strengths and my living, breathing being. In effect I said, "This is what I am. I am not something else. I am this." And as it was then, so, it is right now. I am experiencing pain. This is what I am. This too is being in the world. And as I choose to be in the world, I choose to experience all that that entails.
With the fear coursing through me the other day, I sat and accepted it in its totality, in all its permutations of self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy. And it lost all its potency, all its ability to stop me. By acknowledging it and tellling it that I accepted it, but would proceed regardless, I both honoured the fear and proclaimed myself to be the master of my own response to it. I accepted the fear completely, but I also accepted my desire to engage in this public speaking event. This strange combination of acceptance and defiance brought me to the point where I was able to speak very well to the people I didn't know, in French. I actually had a really good time doing it!
The French have a saying, "Bon courage!" It translates to, "Be of good courage." Sit with whatever experience presents itself to you in the moment - disabled telephones and aching backs, and anything else that comes along. This is life! And we chose it, and choose it again and again each time we get up to face a new day, but more of that some other time.
Bon courage!
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