Taking really long exhales and feeling the exhaustion. After two weeks of racist and racial unrest on the Syracuse University campus prior to Thanksgiving break, we managed to get my daughter home on an earlier flight—only to have her return days later in a blizzard. Unable to change her ticket after hearing the horrible weather reports, we sadly dropped her off at O’Hare.
What should have been an easy direct flight became a ten-hour travel nightmare. Within minutes of trying to land in Syracuse, NY, the airport closed down, and her flight was diverted to Rochester. After hearing the plane was then going to return to Chicago, she found three other students, and they talked an Uber driver into taking them the 87-mile journey to the university in whiteout conditions!
Then what is normally a little over an hour trip became a near four-hour nail-biting wait for this distant mom. As her cell phone was down to dangerous low battery levels (and she left without a winter coat or hat!), she finally arrived in her dorm late at night. In over 150 years, Syracuse has only canceled classes four times.
And of course, my freshman would have such luck as a first-time solo traveler! Kudos to the Uber driver and grateful that throughout this stressful travel there were so many amazing blessings.
Building life experiences and cultivating the tools for living our authentic path is accepting the struggle in the journey. Letting the journey unfold is accepting that life has a bigger picture for us and the story is always unfolding.
"Buddha realized that true freedom lay not in withdrawal from life, but in a deeper and more conscious engagement in its process.”
—Manger Rinpoche
Living is all in the experience and each soul must be willing to take in the “whole of life” as hard as it is for the mind to embrace the learned fears. My mind can cause my heart to beat faster as I feel the heat rise in my chest because I am feeding it my habit of worry, doubt, and resistance. I spent the time feeling the mind wanting to take me into the rabbit hole. My past experiences were directing my emotions and memory was holding me hostage.
As a mom, I was trying to prevent future suffering by trying to reroute her flight, and yet she chose to go ahead with her planned itinerary. It was her decision to leave the airport and get in the car, and at some point, it is her fearlessness to go forward. Who am I to direct her life’s experiences?—even though I so want to do so!!
So I return to my practice to stay present. When I reinforce the emotion with memory and bad imagination, I am choosing to exaggerate it by going into my habit of creating drama. I only create a chain reaction of ripples. Those ripples take me into future suffering.
Instead, I stay with the emotions rather than turning to the reaction. I breathe into the emotion, and feel where it rests in my physical experience, and then allow my mind to settle into the feeling of being present. I accept my role, my emotions and instead of panic, which is my nervous habit, I let go. Trusting at some point, I’m powerlessness to be there physically, and I accept she doesn’t want nor need my reactive frustration.
Instead, I go to my practice. As I feel my body releasing the gripping fear and the tears of grief, I accept she is now on her path of adulthood. My emotions become my friends instead of my foes.
I can have a good cry and still be joyous about her courage. I am fully aware of the duality of emotions running through my mind. I am present, honest, and even though I might not LIKE the situation, I am allowing for the experience.
This is not easy to do without developing and refining the mind in meditation. Practicing daily for short spaces of time will help cultivate these better patterns when needed for the journey. Tools for living is the path of yoga.
Does it getter easier? I don’t know, but I am grateful today that she is safe at this moment and grateful that the sun is shining and all is good with my soul.
As we enter this holiday season, let’s commit to being kinder to ourselves. Know that we are all filled with emotions and feelings and that at times we will struggle to understand many of life’s painful experiences. To be able to hold our hearts with the acceptance that we are human, that we make mistakes, that we see wrong at times, and that we can forgive ourselves in loving kindness for learning wrong.
I hope throughout this season, you will practice turning on your “heart lights” and become your own friend to your stuff!! When I can laugh at myself and see myself as a good sitcom instead of a “lifetime” drama, I can be a better friend for all of you.
At this season of holding vigil for the light, let us continue to reflect on the spirit of gratefulness, always cultivating an opportunity to help and give back what we have received. We are collecting for DuPage Pads, and on the website is their wish list.
On my wish list is that each and everyone enjoy the wonders and the beauty that living fully presents, even within the daily struggles that might challenge our wellbeing. May all beings feel the gifts of being loved. Be Joyous!
Love and light,
Laura
