Being with Things As They Truly Are
I haven’t written in this blog for a while because my household has been doing what I call “Immunity Boot Camp.” All of us have had multiple illnesses since our daughter started preschool in January. Needless to say, writing here was on the bottom of the to-do list. It may still be a low priority for a while, but today I have something on my mind and nobody is sick and somebody is napping, and I am here writing.
In addition to our recent three-month slog through the germs, our infant son has decided recently that sleeping is not something we do at night. I have not met with this new development gracefully. In fact, there have been many nights in which I’ve ranted and cussed about it to my husband at some ungodly hour, which turns out to not be helpful to anyone involved.
Recently, during one of these screamy wakey nights, I remembered something that I read in a book about Buddhism some years ago. It said that in any situation you dislike, you cause yourself much more suffering by wishing things were different than how they are at present. That night I realized that I was making things much worse by holding onto the idea that my son should be sleeping and that I should be as well. I had not accepted that I was, in fact, awake and that my son was not going to suddenly allow me to sleep.
The moment I accepted this fact, everything changed. I relaxed a little. I was no longer busy trying to change the truth of the matter. I made the statement to myself that I was indeed awake and that I might be for a while, and that there was no other reality than that. I’m not saying that I suddenly handled my son’s sleep issues gracefully. It was still loud and screamy and frustrating, but fractionally less so than it had been when I was wishing things were different.
My anger was replaced by two things: compassion and a slight bit of clarity. I felt compassion toward my son and recognized that he wasn’t screaming with the sole intent of keeping us awake. He really wanted help with something and his only way of saying so was to scream. I went into problem-solving mode and was able to help him eventually calm down enough until he could sleep. While I did not get a full night’s sleep, and probably won’t for a long time, I no longer feel tense and angry when he wakes up crying. I’m learning that the quality of sleep, no matter how scarce, is much better when I am not feeling anger and tension during the waking hours.
This lesson can be applied to many areas in life. No matter what you are going through, if you are holding onto an idea of what it “should” be rather than dealing with what it is, then you are suffering more than necessary. This doesn’t mean that accepting the truth will release you from all suffering, but it does mean that your suffering will be reduced if you are not fighting the truth of the situation, and your energy will be freed up to tackle whatever needs tackling.
You may also find this post interesting: