Zen and the Not Zen

Recently I have been working a lot, and while I find the balance of working 8 hours/then coming home and driving everywhere/feeding the horde/etc. almost impossible—hats off to everyone who does this all the time—the rhythm of being in a school, of working in an academic schedule, of a day broken into 40 minute blocks—all of these things are so delicious. There is zen in these moments, that sense of balance and peace that can be so elusive when everything in life is hitting the fan.

And when things are NOT hitting the fan, I feel acutely aware of how, in the words of Cosmo Sheldrake, “there’s no such thing as time to kill or time to throw away.” I have to use the time…

But I get stuck. I turn into a slug.

Maybe part of zen is accepting the moments of not zen, of accepting the stuck., of embracing the slug.

Ew.

I wonder if the Dalai Lama ever gets frazzled or overwhelmed by all the things? He is the most zen person I can think of. I wonder if he sometimes feels so much the weight of things, the old “the world is too much with us” reality.

The other day I did not have to go to school. My house was quiet and empty, the sky gray and cold. The hours before pickup #1 stretched out in a quilt of possibility.

Cue Slug Mode. 

Where was my do all the things? 

Where was my “no time to throw away”?

Sluuuuuuuuuuuuggy.

I made myself go on the exercise bike…when I know I have to exercise but feel like a slug, I know I can distract myself with YouTube while I get in 22 minutes on the bike. So I did. Building habits helps push past slug moments, even if in this case I was just a slug on a bike. 

I have not missed a day of yoga since January 1 (a goal for the year, even if it’s only 5 minutes)…so after the bike I decided to pick a quick yoga video. But hey, I said to myself, as I prepared to choose a yoga video on YouTube, first I’ll watch the new John Legend “Preach” video while I cool off for a second.

Fast forward 5 minutes to me in a weeping heap on my yoga mat.

Probably not Mr. Legend’s intention, but his artistic representation of how pain and injustice run rampant in our world flattened me. Literally to the ground, face to yoga mat, tears streaming.

How do we fix this? How do we end violence and strife and awfulness? How do we end the dehumanizing of each other? 

Does zen even matter? How do we fix this? 

I wish I could say that a blinding light appeared and an answer presented itself. 

Nope. 

I managed to scrape myself up and do some vinyasa flow to Brandi Carlile music, just trying to breathe, regroup, and settle my emotions.

15 minutes later, I trudged upstairs to my still empty house, a few less hours spread before me. My phone blinked a pile of notifications—

One of Dave’s family members had texted to share that a new baby would be joining the family in late summer.

And here, I CAN say that a light appeared, and in that group text flurry fest of hoorays and congratulations and smiles there was hope. Hope that life does go on, and families grow, and new beginnings keep beginning.

Awfulness still pervades so many daily interactions in America (and elsewhere). Injustice did not get fixed in that few minutes on a Friday morning.  But hope continues, and I could feel that.

Really—what came to me out of this day was a deep realization that it is ok to feel deeply. Maybe part of zen is NOT always staying completely unflappable—that is so outside the realm of my personality, I am flapping about all the time, a veritable Flappy McFlapmeister.

Even as we work to respond and not react to provocations both negative and positive—feeling deeply is good, and human, and honestly I think how God made us. Elie Weisel wrote about the perils of indifference, how NOT caring is worse than hate, more destructive and dehumanizing.  To feel deeply builds connection and wholeheartedness (to borrow from Brene Brown).  Freaking out-not healthy or productive. But the opposite of freaking out is not “I am a rock, I am an island.” I have tried that. That is misery, too.

My own quest for zen has, perhaps, been something of a quest to heal a lot of pain built up over a lot of years. Zen doesn’t mean being an automaton, or so deeply om-ing about that you disconnect from sorrow OR joy.  Zen isn’t hardening yourself so that you are impervious to stress (sigh). Maybe zen really means feeling the feelings, acknowledging that they are real, sitting with them, and continuing on may ultimately be what zen is all about.

Feeling all the feelings is hard.

Weeping over injustice and the pain of others, rejoicing in the joys of others—living life fully, engaging in the hard and the beautiful without getting sucked under—here is the challenge of zen.  I guess in my definition, zen really just means living in a state of shared humanity. Once again, in movin’ right along, I circle back to this. And once again, we return to zen as a journey, a progress, a path…living in a way that honors every other person as awesome. 

Phoo. I definitely need more coffee.

The Slug Returneth

I wish I could say that I missed a full week because 

           a)      I won the lottery
           b)      Tim Gunn called and said, “We should do lunch, let’s make it work!” and I spent the rest of the week figuring out what to wear.
           c)      We were so busy raising money/doing advocacy work/saving the world that I had No Time to Write.

Unfortunately, the correct reason is 

d)      I am a slug.

Even this photo is sluggy.

But if I try to get it perfect, I may retreat into utter procrastination again. 

I guess self-awareness is the first step to improvement, but ugh. Slug-o-ramba. 

I have words. 

I have plans for words. 

I simply had no oomph to sit and type words. 

Some weeks are more ugh filled than others, for whatever reason. Chemical imbalance + work stress + schedule stress + a lot of friends getting medically smote AGAIN + holidays on the horizon just left me wandering the house a bit and trying to breathe deeply. I did get a lot done, but I just could not rouse myself to write anything down.

That is ok.

Ok, so it’s really not, the whole POINT of a deadline, even a self-imposed deadline, is to create some self-accountability. But in the big picture of life—so what? I missed a few days. 

This can be a tough time of year. Last year at this time things were very difficult. We lost a few good friends to the same medical situation my daughters face.  Facebook kept reminding me of our terrible December 5 years ago (and the weeks leading up to that, which in retrospect read like a horror novel where you know something bad will happen as soon as the protagonist opens the door, and you are like NOOOOOOOOO Don’t open the door! But they do anyway…ugh).  The early dark really oppresses my brain.

In listening to a podcast last week, the speakers referenced how when we try to get ourselves together, all sorts of things hit the fan or pop up—this has so much been my experience the last month or so. But they went on to add that things come up so they can be healed and worked through. Woo! 

But yeah, it still is a WORK. 

This year I am in a better place mentally, physically, emotionally. Cadbury made a fall chocolate, which helped take the edge off the early dark and kept me going until the Christmas ones appeared at Target last week. Even so—I have to be ok with the occasional slug week. 

I read a pretty mind-blowing little meditation this morning, written by a man named John Hull.  He spoke of how he needed to set “little, immediate goals” to get through the days:

“I must be content with little answers. This requires the careful planning of each day, which must be broken into its compartments. Each hour must have its particular skills, its various techniques, its little routines which enable something to be accomplished successfully. Otherwise, I will have a sense of pointless desolation, a feeling of being carried helplessly deeper and deeper into it. This becomes so sharp that I am almost overwhelmed….one fights such a thing by minute steps. One adopts tiny techniques which help one to do tiny things step by step.” 

EGADS!

Get. Out. Of. My. Head.

I am not the only one.

Tiny steps keep us moving right along. And I am not the only one who some days can only take tiny steps, or who needs to actively map tiny steps forward (like, writing “walk dog” on my to-do list in my bullet journal so I feel like I got something done, even if I add it after I actually walked her). 

I am grateful for the podcasts and writings that push me forward, and for the bullet journal that gives me a place to organize my distracted brain.  I am grateful (AGAIN, times infinity) for the medical respite that allows me to work on getting in better shape mentally and emotionally.  I MUST use this respite to be there for our friends in the thick of the battle—to be there for my children, who are growing up (or already grown up) before I could even say “Bob’s Your Uncle”—to be there for myself instead of avoiding thinking about life. 

So slug week is past. Onward. I can do it. We can do it!

Peace out, friends.