Putting all my eggs in one basketcase.
If you're the kind of person who dreads Valentines Day, please know that you are in good company. As it turns out, navigating the landscape of the heart, particularly those rocky paths which include the feeling of feelings, has been reported to be of humankind's most difficult endeavors. In a study* of approximately 6.75 billion people, less than 2% were found to be relatively unbothered by deep emotional scars, due in part to their average age of less than 3 months. Of the remaining 98%, strategies for healing vary. When asked whether she had ever experienced a woefully broken heart, one of our readers reports, "if I did, I blocked it out. I don't know, I might have. Yeah, I definitely would have blocked that out."
For those who have not yet mastered the skills required to suppress emotion, there seems little more hope than to learn to use the tools of compassion, not only toward those whose houses we may enjoy offering a vigorous onslaught of rotten eggs, but toward ourselves. It is argued by some, after all, that our emotions fall entirely within the range of our personal responsibility to manage. While it is not known who, exactly, makes this argument, I am certain that the houses of those people are regularly sandblasted.
Still, while the idea is absurd** that our anger, jealousy, bitterness, anxiety, fear, rage, despair, loneliness, agony, sorrow, disappointment, hopelessness, irritation, scorn, fury, abandonment, exasperation and general discontent cannot be blamed on others, let's not lose sight of the fact that the people clearly in the wrong here sure as heck can't be counted on to rectify the situation. That we know. So here we are, with ourselves. What next?
Well, next we sulk. We sleep all day, or not all at. We eat everything or nothing. We dream of revenge, we vow never to care again, we write letters we pretend we won't send. And then one day we realize, mysteriously, that we do not feel better. We would like to throw in the towel with the bathwater, kick two birds with one bucket and take a long walk off a short stack of wooden nickels. It is at this point that we must, I repeat: MUST put all our eggs in one basketcase and hire ourselves for the only job on the planet we can't outsource.
Friends, I hereby declare that I do not like to do this work. You know why? Because there's no guaranteed base pay, no clean up crew, and for chrissake no applause. Well, Rene will clap for me if I ask nicely, but the reward of practicing my inner stuff is, I hear, less agony. Sometimes I read self-help babble and spiritual soul-whisperers who say stuff about the inner spacious bliss of harmony with onesself, and I honestly think these guys are 1) joking, or 2) clearly nowhere near as deep*** as I am. I can get very tangled up about this stuff, so tangled I can barely do anything but lay on the floor, which reminds me...
Come to Yoga Now Gold Coast on February 14th for Forgiveness Yoga, an afternoon of Restorative Yoga, Singing Bowls, and Compassion Meditation. Details are on your right --> It's a Saturday, 1-3pm, and it's $30 unless you're broke, in which case you can choose to pay another amount. Please do come - it's lovely.
Hope to see you on Valentine's Day. In the meantime, I send my heartfelt feelings, as they are many.
*this study has not occurred
**and, unfortunately, true
***deeply disturbed
For those who have not yet mastered the skills required to suppress emotion, there seems little more hope than to learn to use the tools of compassion, not only toward those whose houses we may enjoy offering a vigorous onslaught of rotten eggs, but toward ourselves. It is argued by some, after all, that our emotions fall entirely within the range of our personal responsibility to manage. While it is not known who, exactly, makes this argument, I am certain that the houses of those people are regularly sandblasted.
Still, while the idea is absurd** that our anger, jealousy, bitterness, anxiety, fear, rage, despair, loneliness, agony, sorrow, disappointment, hopelessness, irritation, scorn, fury, abandonment, exasperation and general discontent cannot be blamed on others, let's not lose sight of the fact that the people clearly in the wrong here sure as heck can't be counted on to rectify the situation. That we know. So here we are, with ourselves. What next?
Well, next we sulk. We sleep all day, or not all at. We eat everything or nothing. We dream of revenge, we vow never to care again, we write letters we pretend we won't send. And then one day we realize, mysteriously, that we do not feel better. We would like to throw in the towel with the bathwater, kick two birds with one bucket and take a long walk off a short stack of wooden nickels. It is at this point that we must, I repeat: MUST put all our eggs in one basketcase and hire ourselves for the only job on the planet we can't outsource.
Friends, I hereby declare that I do not like to do this work. You know why? Because there's no guaranteed base pay, no clean up crew, and for chrissake no applause. Well, Rene will clap for me if I ask nicely, but the reward of practicing my inner stuff is, I hear, less agony. Sometimes I read self-help babble and spiritual soul-whisperers who say stuff about the inner spacious bliss of harmony with onesself, and I honestly think these guys are 1) joking, or 2) clearly nowhere near as deep*** as I am. I can get very tangled up about this stuff, so tangled I can barely do anything but lay on the floor, which reminds me...
Come to Yoga Now Gold Coast on February 14th for Forgiveness Yoga, an afternoon of Restorative Yoga, Singing Bowls, and Compassion Meditation. Details are on your right --> It's a Saturday, 1-3pm, and it's $30 unless you're broke, in which case you can choose to pay another amount. Please do come - it's lovely.
Hope to see you on Valentine's Day. In the meantime, I send my heartfelt feelings, as they are many.
*this study has not occurred
**and, unfortunately, true
***deeply disturbed
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