Living in a State of Discomfort

Posted on by sereichert

I’ve been thinking a lot about pain lately. I fell, earlier this week. Hard. Like too hard for a 46 year old who already had problems with her lower back. Hard like my soul left my body for a few seconds and I had to reorient my brain to the five foot change in altitude I took within seconds. Like I immediately wondered if my dog would know to go home and get help or if she’d just cross the street to the goose-poop strewn park to get her fill of the foul treats. Like I knew my 10k race plans were blown to hell within seconds, after months of training.

I made it home. I iced my tailbone. I wrote the doctor to tell them I’d been an unusually brutal dumbass and should I be concerned. Not peeing blood and nothing was numb so… it was a wait and squirm day of trying to manage pain and try not to think too much about what this damage will feel like in the next twenty years. But being in pain, less now than yesterday has also made me think about discomfort. And how we, as humans, seem to do anything in the world we can to avoid it. We live in a culture that fears death and pain and hides from it. But it doesn’t stop us from experiencing it. It can be the loss of a loved one. It can be in the form of disappointment or rejection. It can simply be in the form of everything, in our lives and around us being subjected to inevitable change.

And my how things are changing these days, aren’t they? The advent of technology that is quickly superseding our ability to control it. Threats of nuclear and world wide warfare, on the daily. The rise and fall of our stock market, admittedly a irrational and imaginary play of numbers that dictates the cost of our continued living. Never knowing what next ridiculous, volatile, dementia-riddled thing will come out of his mouth next. Not knowing if our kid’s meningitis vaccine will be covered or trying to combine your pancreatic shadow MRI with your possible coccyx breakage scan so you won’t risk angering the insurance gods… We’re in a constant state of discomfort. And the prevailing consensus is this is not normal.

I had a lovely breakfast with one of my only favorite humans (one of maybe 7 in my life) and we could only shake our heads over greasy-spoon diner coffee at what the solution could be. What do we DO in these upheaved states of matter? What CAN we do? The answer was as nebulous and unshaped as the over-easy eggs on our plates. Where does an artist, a philosopher, an intellectual, an absurdist do when the world becomes a dark, stupid, unthoughtful, ridiculous mass of chaos? No one is listening. No one is reading. No one is thinking. That’s how we ended up here. No one was paying attention. They were face down in screens and algorithms, creating universes out of their own system-fed narcissistic tendencies to equate worth and purpose and meaning with views and likes… and the resulting discomfort begs for relief. For us to DO something.

So, what actions can we cling to, to not be lost in the madness ourselves? I could only offer the lame simplicity; we keep writing. We keep loving each other. We keep finding reasons to laugh. We keep telling our unread truths. We adopt street dogs and write bad poetry. We postulate dreams of buying a cabin in the woods and fly the bird at the world on our way out of society. But ultimately? We learn to sit in the discomfort, and rather than be embittered by it, let it make us softer. More artistic, more loving, more silly. We embrace fully the stupid human condition that is both finite and extinguishable. We embrace the mess we are. We embrace each other. Because what else can be done? The end will come, pain and discomfort will find us. We will lose the ones we love. We’ll be lost ourselves. Our words may never find pages or readers. Our thoughts might die on our aging laptops. But for now, in this breath, across this table, in this ever-present radiating pain from my backside, we’re alive. And being consciously alive, especially in pain and discomfort centers us in the beautiful now. That’s all we really have. Warts and all, the beautiful, irreplaceable now is an unprecedented cosmic accident that may never happen again.

So breathe it in. Have one more cup of coffee, and linger a little while. Be in the moment, with who you love. I can’t predict what the coming months will bring. But I do know, I have enough heart to live in all of its discomfort, and still embrace the wonder of it all.

From the Muck and the Mud

Posted on by sereichert

“Like the lotus flower that is born out of mud, we must honor the darkest parts of ourselves and the most painful of our life’s experiences, because they are what allow us to birth our most beautiful self.”

– Debbie Ford

If we are to know growth, compassion, and peace, we must first understand and embrace suffering. It is only through accepting and living with burdens, sorrows, and disappointments, that we can let go expectations and learn to live in the skin and environment we’re in. The mud. The muck. The lessons and trials that come to us all. They teach us about patience, about failure, about acceptance and resilience. They teach us about our pain, and through it, others’ pain. And when we feel this suffering, we can better understand the suffering of others.

This is a New Year, and last year put me through some of the deepest, darkest, muddiest waters I’ve ever had to traverse. It gave me months of anxiety and pressure. Worry and loss of time and opportunity. It, in some ways, took both of my daughters away from me. But in other ways, it taught me how to keep them close even in the darkest of storms. It taught me who to trust, and who I could love better at a distance. It taught me that my heart is tender and that it should be. That it has been one of my biggest faults, in the past, to harden it every time it was broken. It taught me that a compassionate heart knowingly takes in pain, and breathes out hope.

So with all of the muck and mud I have sat in, the darkness that has surrounded me, I am in so many ways, seeing the first rays of sunlight bouncing on the surface above me. I am feeling my petals arching towards it, strengthened and supported by the loam of life that has taught me that all things along my journey have mattered, have fed me, have taught me…have shown me, just how beautiful and unpredictable and precious this life really is.

What are my plans in this dawning new year? Well, first I’ll happily tell you that I have no expectations. Because holding expectations is a sure-fire way to get the universe to prove them wrong. So I’ll just say this. I’m going to be kind. To myself and to others. I’m going to be conscious. Where I spend my time and my energy. What I allow into my life, and what I close the door on. I am going to be honest. About what I want, and what no longer serves me. I’m going to be quiet and listen more. I’m going to go outside more. I’m going to be alone more. I’m going to write more and email less.

I’m going to look for ways to hand over the obligations I took on out of ego, to someone who can carry them instead, with heart. I’m going to let go the trappings of the ‘hustle’ and embrace the comfort of the ‘nestle’ instead.

This last year was hard on my heart, my body, and my soul. So this year, in as much as I can and the universe allows, I will be softer to myself. I will remember my roots, and what has built them. And I will reach, always, and upward, towards the light.

How about you?

Divinity

Posted on by sereichert

First…an important disclaimer: this post isn’t about sugary egg whites. (Might I suggest Pinterest? You can find anything on that fucking site. Good Ol’ Fashioned Divinity)

No, this post is about an often-divisive subject, so if you’re easily offended, PLEASE keep reading and stretch that narrow mind. I promise your brain won’t fall out, no matter what the bumper sticker says.

This week’s post was inspired by my daughter’s study of religion in her 6th grade Social Studies class. What I can deduce from her thoughts on the class and the homework itself, there’s a definite sway towards Christianity happening.

And that sticks in my craw.

I have no problem with her learning about religion in school.

But I do have an problem with one religion being given more attention than the rest.

I have no problem with kids of other faiths sharing thoughts and ideas about their beliefs, in fact, I encourage the exchange of ideas.

But I do have a problem when other kids criticize my daughter because we deliberately do not attend church. Persecution, even from the under 12 crowd, should not come as a shock in our current state of affairs, and yet witnessing it happening to your child first hand for something so deeply personal makes me ill.

I choose not to attend church.

It doesn’t not mean that I don’t know about world religions, or hold any misgivings about what they espouse.

On the contrary, I minored in Religious Studies and majored in Anthropology. If anyone has a good handle on different peoples, cultures, and faiths, it’s me. It’s because of this knowledge, that I don’t practice Christianity. I could write an entire book about the whys and why nots, but that’s a discussion for another week.

So when my daughter asks if its wrong that she doesn’t attend church I have to take a deep breath and explain…

No. It is not wrong.

Your dad and I decided when you were born, that we would let you make up your own mind about what you believed. If you ever want to go to church, I will gladly take you. I will also ask that you attend other services in other religions, so that you can understand them across the board.

I would like you to believe in something, whether it be divine intervention, natural energies of the earth, physics, magic, god, goddess, Zeus, Harry Potter, Giant Donut in the sky, or aliens…as long as whatever you believe makes sense to your heart and feeds your soul.

Because religion practiced out of fear of eternal punishment does not do those things.

Because religion that bases its forgiveness and kindness towards others on if they’re judged worthy of these gifts, does not do those things.

Because religion that puts you in your place, makes you feel less than, or takes away your autonomy or ability to chose what’s right for you, does not do those things.

In other words, I want you to understand that Divinity resides in you. The system of belief that you surround yourself with must honor this Divinity.

Because you are the Divine.

Your brain is capable of phenomenal things. It visualizes and conceptualizes. It controls your body, it’s thoughts, your will and it drives your existence. It’s so amazing that it can create gods, and myths, and religious systems, and therefore, god is in all of us and we are god.

So You Are The Divine.

And when you understand this, you will also understand that so is everyone else.

Divinity resides in all of us.

(I call this the “Everybody loves their babies and mommas” theory. No matter what faith, race, ethnicity, country, political party—all of us love our babies. All of us love our moms. Not a one of us wants harm to befall those we love—no matter if we pray five times a day towards Mecca, or say fifty Hail Mary’s for last Saturday night).

We all benefit by recognizing the divinity in one other and understanding the connection we share.

We would not hurt the divine.

We would not alienate them for what they do or don’t do on a Sunday morning. We would not spew hateful rhetoric in their faces for who they love, or for how they show their divine, or the color of the carton they’re contained in.

We would treat them worthy of their divinity just as we would treat ourselves in ways worthy of our Divinity.

So gentle readers, I don’t care if you worship in a synagogue, a church, a temple, a meadow, or in your boxers on the couch watching Star Wars all Sunday morning (Side note, Star Wars; highly Buddhist…look it up, fascinating stuff. Buddhism and Star Wars.)

I don’t care how pious you are or what percentage of your paycheck you’re throwing into a golden plate every week.

I care that you are honoring what should be the cornerstone of every religion; treating others as you would like to be treated. Loving one another. Forgiving one another.

I care that you stand up when you see injustice. When you see someone hurting another, when you see someone defiling the divinity in someone else.

That’s all that really matters.

That’s what the beautiful divine in each one of us is for.

So study the religions, know what they’re about and what they espouse. Then come back to your own heart and, as Whitman once so artfully wrote,

“re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul;”

Stay Divine.