BATTLEGROUND CURIOSITY

     When I am first introduced to a new task, I have a tendency to go at it a bit vigorously. I am eager, and want to be successful, so I throw my gusto at it, and all of my energy and enthusiasm. I exhaust myself in too much flamboyant effort. In this first shot, I quickly burn myself out and develop a slight distaste for whatever it is I'm in the process of learning. I retreat and regroup.
     When I approach it for the second time, and for each successive time, I become ever more steady. I develop a rhythm, and relax some as the movements and approach become more familiar. It feels less painful in this phase, and more sustainable. I develop a kind of affection for what I am doing. My instinct to battle and confront at first contact, to force and urge and push my will, is self-protective maybe, and has its purpose, but I cannot get comfortable until I let the process work me instead of the other way around. And by then it's an old friend.
     Everything in my life seems to unfold this way, as a face-off and confrontation first, and then a struggle, and finally, a settling in. I'd like to spare myself the initial fighting if at all possible. Maybe if I approach new things with curiosity instead of a desire to conquer. Curiosity feels gentle and friendly- a quiet exploration instead of a challenge and a compulsion to take down. I prefer the energy of curiosity. At least, I prefer the idea of it. I invite curiosity into my life. I welcome it fully. I am willing to pause and look instead of jumping in with both feet. I am willing to consider options and possibilities beyond my instinctual, historical, first blast of attack.

Let me be curious today, and thoughtful. Let me be free from all battling confrontation, with people, with projects, and with anything new that I may face.

THE PULL OF MOODS

       I'm not sure about the truth of the saying "opposites attract"- maybe sometimes. More often, it seems as if we attract exactly what we are. Grouchy begets grouchy. Selfishness begets selfishness. Consideration begets consideration, and on and on. At home, when our teenagres sit to eat, they help themselves to the biggest and the best of everything. Their approach is to grab for all they can before anyone else does. This attitude makes for a sense of urgency among everyone. We all end up feeling like there is not enough, like we are missing out, or getting less.
     Every behavior has a pull to it. If someone is feeling down and dark and encounters someone up and full of light, usually one of two things will happen. The down individual is lifted up, or the up individual is brought down. Gandhi's quote that we have to be the change we want to see in the world is apt here, in a daily kind of context. If we are miserable, we will bring out the miserable in others. If we want happiness, we need to be happy and spread happy. We can be aware of what pulls at us and wants to drag us down. We can smile at it, or walk away if we cannot affect a change. As with most things, it all comes to awareness in the end.
     I will be aware of where I am emotionally and what I am sending out, as well as what's coming in and influencing me. I may have more control than I think I do. Perhaps I don't have to respond to selfishness by being selfish myself, or becoming upset or irritated if the person I am dealing with is behaving that way. Perhaps I can face it all with a smile. Perhaps I can respond to most things with love and kindness, in spite of whatever darkness is exerting its pull.

I will be aware of what or who wants to pull me in some way that I don't want to go, and I will be thoughtful and kind no matter what. I will be what I want to experience.

LOOSE ENDS

     It's a frequent happening in my life these days that I set out upon a task expecting it to take a certain amount of time, and it ends up being more complicated than I had anticipated. Like the handkerchiefs that come out of a clown's pocket, the seemingly simple job has layers of requirements and one part of it cannot be done until something else has been done first, such that lots of unexpected work gets accomplished, but the task itself can't wrap up the way I like it to, in short, orderly fashion. So something I think I can churn out in an hour ends up stretching across two or even three afternoons.
     Life is like that all over the place I guess, one thing being connected to another. It's tougher than it seems to separate one thing out and have it exist in isolation. All is process and slow development, and very few things can every really be checked off a list. One phase of something becomes complete, only for the next phase. Even with something as simple as groceries. It's a rare happening that I don't finish putting away everything I have just bought only to discover that I need additional things already... I should have picked up more butter too, or paper towels, or how did we get so low on milk? Or I thought we had more laundry detergent than that. I make lists. I am almost universally sure that I have marked down everything we need, and inevitably, there remains the thing that I have somehow missed.
     Rather than be frustrated with the unending life stuff that needs to be done, I can be amused by it. I can accept that "loose ends left hanging" are appropriate and normal. And I can accept as well that little bits of progress and accomplishment do add up over time to create vast change. I'm in the middle of it all, and from there, I have limited perspective. I can't see the next step of a process until I have taken the first step. I accept that though I might want a task to take one step only, or perhaps two, it may require ten or five or twenty. I can roll with it. I can smile and enjoy the crazy nature of the unseen processes of life, and trust that it's all unfolding just as it should, and that there is enjoyment to be found in each phase.

With good nature and a positive attitude I accept the way things unfold, not in one big sweep of clarity and accomplishment as I might prefer, but bit by bit and step by step, and right on time, and just as it's all supposed to be.

THE GIFT OF GIVING

     Many years ago I was struggling to make ends meet as a single mother, tough on the outside, and isolated from support and love on the inside. One day, on a recommendation from a friend, I took a fairly advanced yoga class. Though I was in excellent physical shape, it was challenging for me beyond reason, and I felt embarrassed. I had on the wrong clothes and my body wasn't flexible the way everyone else's was. At the end of the class, we all lay quietly in the dark room. Even there, I felt self-conscious and restless. I wanted to get up and get out. Unexpectedly, the teacher came up and covered me gently with a blanket. She snugged it under my chin and made sure my shoulders were covered. I was surprised by the loving tenderness of her act, and deeply moved by it. I was not used to being at the receiving end of such kindness, and I clearly remember the gratitude I felt. It made me cry on the way home, good tears, tears of having been blessed.
    I have slowly learned to receive tenderness and consideration from the man I love, but when it comes from other sources, I am generally startled and filled with a kind of sweet sadness. I don't expect it, and don't feel I deserve it, but here it is, like the yoga teacher all those years ago, and like my friend who has taken such care making CDs of music for my wedding. I feel the full effect of the gift, and of her kindness. It overwhelms me. That simply being me and simply being human allows me to receive such blessing and such joy opens my heart to love a little wider still.
     And I wonder, if  these acts of kindness, and others like them, have touched me so deeply, then perhaps my being kind and thoughtful to others gives them the same gift of gratitude and happiness. We can never know how our being loving and considerate can affect the quality of someone's day. It's a great reminder to me, and a powerful inspiration. Loving spreads love, and kindness spreads kindness. It feels good both ways and adds unconditional joy to the lives we live.

I give a little extra today on every level. I give a little extra time and consideration. I give a little extra thought to what I do and how I act. Never knowing the exact ways others may suffer, I am a little extra kind today, and everywhere I turn, I give a little extra love.

WAITING WITH ACCEPTANCE

     The pleasure of our wait is all about the attitude. We can wait impatiently and with irritation and tension filling our every nerve, or we can wait with curiosity. We can wait nervously and sweat from our palms, or we can wait without any sense of urgency whatsoever. We can fill the wait time with little doings, or no doings at all. We can clean out the car in a traffic jam and catch up on tabloid news in a grocery store line, or we can simply sit, or stand, and watch and wait, calmly, and with serenity.
     If we are impatient, what's our rush? Why are we full of discomfort and angst? Maybe we're hungry. Maybe we're tired of sitting, but we are where we are, and usually there's very little we can do about being there... if we are waiting... except for storming out in a big huff and not getting through something we need to get through. The truth in its most basic form is that when we are unhappy while we wait it is because we don't want to be where we are. We are resisting what is. It's the resistance that creates our tension, not the waiting itself.
     Acceptance is the answer. Stopping fighting whatever situation we find ourselves in will give us instantaneous peace. This is true with lines, with people, with ourselves, and with life. It's not the situation that's the problem. It's our not liking it. It's our wanting it to be other than it is. If we calm down and take a look around, and become quiet in our minds and listen, there is a certain peace always available to us, and it comes from inside. So whatever we are stuck in may not be what we would choose, but it has chosen us. We can resist it and be miserable and tense and angry and unkind, or we can go with the flow and trust that whatever it is will fill its time and place and then will pass away. It's our choice how we handle it. It's our internal state that pays the price if we resist.

I choose a patient, playful attitude for the day's situations. If I find myself getting tense and edgy, I take a deep breath and stop fighting what's happening. I look around and let it all be just what it is.

MONEY MATTERS

     If I sit and contemplate the reality of money, of coins and bills and stock portfolios, it seems more conceptual and symbolic than it does real. It's paper and plastic and numbers on a screen, and yet, it determines so much in our lives, both how we see ourselves, and how we experience our world. Money largely determines how others perceive us as well, and the choices we are able to make. It dictates the things we do, and the things we purchase. But we never even put our hands on most of the money that we make and spend. It's all representative, the moving of numbers on a page from one place to the next... all controlled by the great, giant tracking system.
     And this whole system has enormous power to upset our equilibrium and potentially fill us with more fear on a daily basis than anything else in our lives, except perhaps the fear of death. If we have money, we are afraid others will try to take it from us, or that we will lose it in some way and become impoverished, that the stock market will crash, that our investments will not pay off, that we will not be able to afford the taxes on our second and third houses. And if we don't have money, we fear for our livlihood. We envision some kind of ultimate punishment if we cannot pay our bills. From a practical standpoint, we worry that we may lose our house or not be able to eat, and from a more psychological perspective it feels like we might cease to have any value whatsoever, or else struggle forever in a state of dirt and misery.
     But it's all fantasy! Our worth is no more determined by the balance in our bank account than it is by the opinions of other people. Our quality is in our character. We can be poor and noble. We can live a simple and clean life with very little income. We can be kind and express love even if we don't have fancy cars or huge savings accounts. And the reverse is true as well. We can be rich and noble, or rich and miserable. It is really not money that determines the quality of our lives at all, but the quality of our lives that determines the worth of our money.

I have given too much power to money in my life. I let go of my attachment to fears of economnic insecurity. I realize that I can be happy and healthy whether I have millions or I live hand to mouth. It's in my attitude and my character that my real worth is determined.

BOUNDARIES FOR THE UNREASONABLE

     I want to put my logic and reason all over the behavior of other people so that I can understand what motivates them and why they make the choices that they make. I also have a desire to be helpful if at all possible, to point out what seems obvious to me such that their suffering may diminish, such that unnecessary harm may be eliminated, and wrongful views corrected. And sometimes, reasonable communication is just the thing to clear understanding and get everyone on the same page, but sometimes it is not. It takes two reasonable people to reach reasonable conclusions.
     But there is a whole other category of people in the world- among them the mentally ill, the emotionally sick, and the active addicts and alcoholics. With these folks, no reasoning is possible. They are driven by internal demons so deep and convoluted that reality as the rest of us experience it is warped for them, and we are the ones who seem wildly unreasonable and impractical to them. And it is not their fault that they are sick, or even that they perpetrate the harm they perpetrate, but their behavior takes its toll nonetheless, whether they mean for it to or not.
     A handful of these individuals have always populated my world, and perhaps they populate everyone's world in some way or other. The question is, how do I have compassion and protect myself at the same time, without guilt, and without sorrowful consequence? I think the answer lies in establishment and maintenance of boundaries, and in the honest acceptance of the sickness with which I am dealing. Sick individuals abound. They hold jobs and have families, and may seem normal in the right setting and the right context, but they are not.
     I used to believe that I could heal them with my love. I want to make their darkness and blindness and sickness go away, but when I have tried, instead of healing them, I have become sick myself. Some who are sick may be healed, but it is certainly not for me to dictate who or how. That is God's territory. And I have come to learn that some individuals are beyond help. This fact I find extremely difficult to accept.
     But if I do not accept it and set my boundaries, these sick individuals will traipse all over me and toxify my days. I have to surrender them to whatever God looks after them, and keep my interactions and dependencies on those who have proven reasonable in my life, and those who help me to be healthy. I don't want to be a victim or a statistic. I don't want to be abused or unwell.

I protect my sanity and surround myself with those individuals who can be reasonable. With the rest, I set boundaries, and remain vigilant and on guard.