Yesterday was a difficult day. I’ve had a lot of them lately. I’m not fishing for sympathy; I’m just allowing the stewing challenges I have going on inside my body and brain to see the light and be shared with people that I know care, including people that would likely read this blog. Sharing really helps.
If you’ve read any of this blog, you’re probably a seeker like I am. You probably know the beauty of the world yet are frustrated by how you can’t seem to feel it a lot of the time. You know the richness of your life, the sheer blessings that you have, yet the struggles that you seem unable to get outside of or get beyond.
I digress. Yesterday I gave myself grace. I’ve had several of these moments lately, where something just comes across like a lightning bolt, an epiphany, a satori. It feels like something just clicks, and feels like it won’t easily un-click. I realized that I’m doing the best I know how right now. I think I’ve even written about that before in my blog, something to the effect of just assume everybody’s doing their best—even your so-called mortal enemies, even the people that seem like they’re going exactly 180° in the wrong direction or inflicting hurt and unnecessary dislocation. We’re all just trying. Well, not everybody (smiley face), but I realized that the physical challenges I’ve had in the past year plus, centering on my low back, and then the emotional dysregulation that I’ve experienced, which has been a lifelong challenge anyway, has become more difficult to manage.
But I kind of got it—that right now, I feel like if I look inside my physical body, it’s hurting. If I look inside my mental body, it’s hurting. If I look out towards many of my friends and family, they’re hurting. If I look out into my community, out into the world, it’s hurting. For me, some of the things that cause a lot of difficulty are related to the unknown.
I don’t know what my back is going to be like in a year or in ten years. I don’t know if this recent bout of emotional regulation challenge will ever resolve itself. I don’t know if AI is going to simply destroy all entry-level jobs, gobble up all of our natural resources of energy and water, all so that I can more easily dictate my thoughts for a blog post. I don’t know if the current war that we’re in will grow and grow and grow. I don’t know if our unprecedented levels of national debt will mean that the future is an economic wasteland. I don’t know if I’m financially secure or insecure. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hike these insanely beautiful paths through the Pacific Northwest before wildfire smoke pushes me back inside. I don’t know how my 22-year-old daughter will find her way in this challenging world if I can’t even seem to with a lifetime of knowledge.
I don’t have a great track record of self-grace. I am usually my most severe critic. I know that I am behind to way behind on so many things that I am working on. But, maybe that is just as good as I can do right now. Maybe next week will be better, maybe not. I don’t need to worry about justifying this to anyone including myself. I don’t need to worry about whether I am alone in this struggle, in a small minority, or in the (ever growing) majority. I’m determined to add to my tool box a new component of cultivated consistent self-grace. I haven’t found myself doing this automatically at all, so maybe it is time to consciously schedule a few minutes every day to do this, just this. 🙂
