Embracing Vulnerability: The Hidden Gifts in Life's Challenges

Throughout our formative years, especially during early childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, we encounter experiences that can be overwhelming. Regardless of whether we consciously remember these events, they leave lasting impressions on the subcortical areas of our brains, which can sometimes make us feel vulnerable and inadequate. To cope with these feelings, we developed Inner Critics, which served as strict motivators, pushing us to conceal and address our perceived inadequacies. We believed that we needed these harsh internal taskmasters to be strong, intelligent, and resilient, as anything less would label us as weak, foolish, or overly sensitive. Such qualities were often considered undesirable and unacceptable by our caregivers and society as a whole.

When triggered, we may find ourselves outside our window of tolerance, trapped in a state of unworthiness that leaves us feeling disconnected from ourselves, others, and the world. A hallmark of this state is the belief that we are somehow lacking or inadequate. In response to these feelings of weakness or vulnerability, our Inner Critics become activated. They perceive their role as concealing our inadequacies by assuming the position of a stern inner taskmaster, urging us to be stronger, more intelligent, and more resilient. At its core, the Inner Critic fears that if we are perceived as weak, foolish, or overly sensitive, we will face rejection.

The Pursuit of Perfection

Our Inner Critic, in a misguided effort, tries to shield us from deep-seated feelings of unworthiness. However, rather than providing protection, it prevents us from connecting with the underlying vulnerability associated with our Inner Child. This results in a dissociation from the pain and leads us into a pattern of self-imposed expectations. We tell ourselves that we should eat better, exercise, stop drinking, or control our temper. Despite these attempts to improve ourselves, we fail to address the core issue of unworthiness, regardless of how many "shoulds" we impose upon ourselves.

To truly address our feelings of unworthiness, we must abandon the illusion that we will someday be perfect or have everything figured out. That day will never arrive. Additionally, we need to view our vulnerability in a new light. Until now, many of us have regarded it as a flaw to be conquered. By believing so, we inadvertently judge the inherent wisdom of the universe. We position ourselves against the natural order when we consider our pain to be a mistake. Instead, I propose that our wounds serve as sacred teachers.

My Story

Throughout my childhood, I received the strong message that displaying emotions was a sign of weakness. One day, my brother returned home from school, visibly upset from being bullied. His classmates had taunted him for his size, calling him fat. Wanting to be supportive, I told him, "Well, you are big, Scott." I intended to convey that he was strong, but my words only made him flee from the dining room table in tears. My father pulled me aside afterward, reassuring me that I hadn't said anything wrong; it was simply that my brother was too sensitive.

My brother embodied the family's sensitivity, experiencing emotions deeply. In contrast, my parents perceived me as the strong and easy-going one. However, when Scott committed suicide, I was overwhelmed by a torrent of grief, anxiety, and rage I had never encountered before. For the first time, I truly felt the burden of emotional pain. Despite this, I yearned to be like any ordinary college student—carefree and unencumbered.

Pursuit of Healing

So, I enrolled in self-help workshops aimed at healing my pain. While these encounter groups offered temporary relief, they eventually gave way to depression, leaving me feeling even more inadequate. In response, I fully threw myself into spiritual practices, like yoga and meditation, hoping they would help me cope. Although I understood that compassion was a crucial aspect of spiritual growth, I wasn't particularly drawn to those parts of the teachings. Instead, I found myself gravitating towards the parts that promised relief from the frustration of burdensome feelings.

In search of a cure-all solution, I embarked on a journey to India at the age of 20, with the intention of waking up at dawn and subjecting myself to a harsh yoga teacher who relentlessly dislocated my knees to help me sit in the lotus position. To be honest, I was captivated by the idea of a radical transformation. I firmly believed that if I dedicated myself to this practice, I could attain enlightenment in no time. My ultimate objective was to finally fix my anxious, lonely, and neurotic self once and for all.

As I endured several months of physical and psychological abuse from the guru, it began to dawn on me that subjecting my body to such mistreatment would not alleviate my emotional struggles. Late at night, as I lay in bed, unable to sleep because my knees hurt so much, I would question my choice to come to India. Would I actually get the relief I sought if I could just surrender to the guru? Or was I merely deceiving myself, running away from my emotions, seeking a quick fix? With each passing day, this torment only intensified my depression, leaving me feeling like an even bigger failure. It was disheartening to realize that I had traveled to the other side of the world in search of the holy grail, only to find that it had slipped even further from my grasp.

Feeling disheartened, I flew to Sri Lanka and enrolled in a silent mindfulness meditation retreat, hoping for a change of pace. Unfortunately, this experience turned out to be even more arduous than the last. As I sat in silence, trying to focus on my breath, my mind kept wandering back to my gut. The food they served on the retreat was so spicy I feared it would do irreparable damage to my esophagus.

Here I was, yet again, failing in my attempt to get relief. Was I doomed to chase an unattainable goal, forever seeking solace in practices that promised relief but never truly freed me from my deepest pain? The quiet moments of the retreat only amplified these thoughts, and I found myself questioning the very foundations of my quest for enlightenment. First, it was my knees, and now, a "weak stomach" - both reminders that my journey towards self-improvement was going to be a long and challenging one, longer than most.

In utter despair, I returned to the States, my health and well-being in shambles. For an entire year, I could barely consume anything but broccoli. The significant weight loss that ensued led to people who had known me for years failing to recognize me. My journey to India and Sri Lanka was meant to liberate me, yet I found myself unable to even nourish my own body. Repeated misdiagnoses and misguided treatments of my gut issues only served to magnify my depression.

My digestive troubles persist to this very day. They have become a chronic part of my life. In my relentless quest for healing, I have consulted numerous medical doctors and undergone countless examinations, with scopes probing every conceivable orifice. I've ingested more prescription, over-the-counter, and natural medicines than I care to admit. I have explored various diets, meditations, and yoga techniques. Driven initially by a desire to heal myself, I spent four years obtaining my master's degree in Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, which later evolved into a profession. Despite moments of respite, episodes of intense abdominal pain continue to recur intermittently.

After years of searching for a solution, I decided to collaborate with a psychotherapist a few years back. During a particularly distressing phase of our work together, where we explored painful memories from my childhood, we uncovered a strong correlation between my gut pain and deep-seated feelings of loneliness and unworthiness.

My parents struggled to accept my occasional melancholy and fits of anger. They constantly warned me that if I voiced negative or critical opinions about someone or something, they would send me away to a military academy. I was to only express nice, positive thoughts.

One vivid memory from my childhood stands out: I was about eight years old when I saw my father deeply saddened for the first time. A close family member had passed away, and I had never witnessed such emotional vulnerability from him. I remember how serious and frightening it felt to see him so affected. I learned from my parents that emotions were to be suppressed, as the important thing was never to appear weak. Moreover, whenever I found myself in a low mood, they would send me to my room, allowing me to return only once my mood had improved. Consequently, I internalized the belief that certain emotions were acceptable, while others led to isolation and loneliness.

I have a vivid recollection of a time when my frustrations, upsets, and hurts were amplified to an unprecedented level. It was during a family trip to Paris when my older brother's behavior became increasingly troublesome. He was caught sneaking out at night to visit peep shows and engage with prostitutes, which left my parents at a loss as to how to handle him. Despite their best efforts, including seeking help from psychiatrists, psychopharmacologists, and any other specialists he might need, my brother's mental illness seemed to be spiraling out of control.

The burden of having one son with a debilitating illness was already immense, but having two was almost unbearable. In an attempt to help my parents deal with the shame and embarrassment of having a son like my brother, I felt like I had to be the "perfect son" - always composed, always achieving. Even though my brother was older than me, I took on the responsibility of bringing him back home from Paris, as his mental illness had rendered him incapable of making the journey on his own.

The Burden of Perfectionism

A few weeks later, when my brother took his own life, the pressure to keep up this facade became almost unbearable. I couldn't afford to be depressed or sad or anything less than perfect, not when my parents were already struggling so much. I can see now that my spiritual practices became places where I was attempting to eradicate my perceived shortcomings. I gravitated toward them to become perfect. Rather than becoming perfect, though, I kept seeing the ways I came up short.

What made matters worse was that I hadn't given up on yoga and meditation after my initial trips to India. On the contrary, I had become a teacher and mentor for thousands of students and clients. Despite my dedication to these practices, a nagging question persisted: why, after all these years, was I still unwell? I couldn't help but feel like a failure, and when my gut would flare up in pain or when I felt depressed, the shame would intensify my suffering.

Embracing Imperfection

I came to realize that I’d been using my practices to destroy the moody, frustrated, lonely, hurting, vulnerable parts inside. Rather than embracing my imperfection and messiness, I resisted at every turn. Over time, I slowly started recognizing the value of these struggling parts inside me. Each time I sat down to meditate or practice yoga, I began keeping them company with curiosity. I could also start noticing the Inner Critic and its accompanying shame. They didn’t go away immediately, but I could question them. I could ask whether the judgments were accurate.

Gradually, I began to appreciate the beauty in my imperfections. One transformative moment stands out in the time I was working with my therapist when I felt a flare of pain in my gut. At first, I tried to ignore it and then attempted to alleviate it with natural medicine, but neither strategy worked. It dawned on me that instead of trying to suppress my discomfort, I could sit in meditation and allow it to surface. As I did so, I immediately felt a sense of shame and deep sadness about having a chronic illness. Rather than turning away from these emotions, I embraced them with compassion. I allowed myself to feel the sadness and acknowledged the pain, and as a result, tears flowed and I felt deeply fatigued. I sat with my exhaustion and over time, my energy returned and my gut pain lifted, along with my mood. This experience taught me that my body was signaling that I needed to listen to it rather than try to fix it.

Lessons Learned

As I continue to give space to my gut’s messages, I am still learning that my spiritual practices are not meant to destroy my perceived shortcomings or to make me perfect, but rather to help me embrace my true self – imperfections and all. It hasn't been an easy process, and I still catch myself falling into old patterns of resistance. I still cover and compensate by wearing a "good face" when my gut flares. At 49-years old, I still want my parents to be proud of me and feel deeply responsible as their only living son. I so want to project the image of having it together.

One would think that accepting this vulnerability would feel like a failure, but, in fact, it feels just the opposite. It feels more like a relief. With each passing day, I strive to be kinder to myself, to accept my humanness, and to see the beauty in my own journey. Of greater significance, I am beginning to ponder whether the enlightenment that I had sought when I traveled to India three decades ago had been within my reach all along. Perhaps it simply meant that I needed to come to terms with my humanity, flaws and all.

My journey has been a long and winding one, stemming from a childhood where I was taught that expressing emotions was a sign of weakness. What I’ve discovered along the way is that my wounds are not to be suppressed or dramatized, but, instead are teachers. They have been powerful driving forces in my life that carry hidden gifts. They have led me on a quest that took me from India to Sri Lanka and brought me back home to seek healing through various means such as diet, natural medicine, yoga, meditation, and therapy. While some of my efforts seemed to have gone to waste, others have proved to be highly valuable, and now equip me with the tools, knowledge, and insight to help me work with things I struggle with. Just as importantly, they help me to help others with their own healing journey.

Embracing Vulnerability

Embracing the gifts within our vulnerability, rather than striving to overcome them in pursuit of perfection, may be the key to finding balance and growth. By letting go of the notion that our pain is a mistake, we can begin to recognize its inherent wisdom. Our vulnerability continually pushes us to learn and evolve, leading us to seek out resources like this course, which enable us to become more adept at handling our emotions and empathizing with others who are also suffering. Without vulnerability, there would be no need for us to reach out for help and expand our potential. It is important to clarify that the initial pain experienced during those delicate developmental stages was not justified. No child should ever feel frightened, unwanted, unlovable, unsafe, or violated. However, pain can serve as a powerful catalyst for change and growth.

While we may never fully understand the complexity of our suffering, we can undoubtedly appreciate the advantages it brings. Our vulnerability fosters numerous positive attributes. It humbles us, acknowledging our inherent human fallibility, and makes us more relatable and compassionate towards others. Driven by our pain, we are compelled to seek healing, which in turn allows us to prioritize and focus on the aspects of life that genuinely matter.

Our vulnerability also cultivates empathy, self-awareness, and gratitude for the challenges we have overcome. Moreover, it helps create a sense of community and support as we recognize our shared suffering with others. Though challenging, our vulnerability ultimately contributes to our growth, resilience, and depth of character, enabling us to lead more meaningful and connected lives.

Vulnerability as a Curriculum

Indeed, most of us would rather not suffer, but we also likely would not trade in the understanding we've gained from our difficulties. We cannot have one without the other. Rather than a mistake, perhaps our vulnerability is our curriculum. As A.H. Almas writes:

The problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, "Look here! This way!" you are not going to go the right direction. The part of you that designed this loves you so much that it doesn't want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, and it will make you suffer greatly if you don't listen. What else can it do? This is its purpose. [1]: Almaas, A.H. Diamond Heart Book One: Elements of the Real Man. Shamabala Boulder. 2000.

Gratitude

Gratitude practice is the deliberate practice of strengthening the perspective that everything deserves appreciation, including our judgments, insecurities, anxieties and awkwardness. Gratitude helps us see that the things that cause us to suffer have a paradoxical nature. Not only are they difficult, but built into them are opportunities to keep discovering ourselves anew, to show us our path and purpose. That which causes us to suffer is not just bad news. It is also the stuff that points us in the direction of our authentic nature. It helps us reassess what's essential and forces us to wisen up. 

This is not to say that gratitude is always accessible to us. It is not easy to recognize the gift of our suffering. When we are in the middle of adversity, the challenges we face can be so daunting that we cannot possibly see the opportunity that is in front of us. When we practice gratitude, we hold space for the possibility that, at some point, the storm will pass. When it does, we will see ourselves and the world from the wiser, more awakened perspective that the poet Kalil Gibran points to here:

And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.

     And he said:

     Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

     Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

     And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

     And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

     And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

     Much of your pain is self-chosen.

     It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

     Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:

     For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

     And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.  [2] Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet. Knopf. New York. 1923

Holding this perspective requires letting go of our beliefs of what is right and what is wrong. In gratitude, everything is grist for the mill, including the tragic loss of a sibling; the mother who starved her daughter because she needed her to be skinnier; the father who shamed his son because he was too effeminate; or the boss who betrayed her employee's trust by sharing her secret with someone else. When we cultivate gratefulness, we hold the possibility that all suffering has its place and has the potential to be a sacred act of love.

Navigating Disappointment

I invite you to consider that you and I have been on a journey together of interpersonal transformation, where you're exploring your interconnectedness with all of life and how that interconnectedness has the potential to reshape your relationships with others. This adventure is meant to challenge you to rethink your assumptions and step outside of your comfort zones. The insights you gain along the way are meant to bring you closer to understanding yourself, others, and the world around you.

Each lesson on this journey is designed to offer fresh perspectives and insights, building upon one another to help you grasp the intricate web of connections that bind us all. The first lesson, exploring the concept of interbeing, highlights the interconnected nature of all things and the deep connections we share with one another. This foundational understanding informs the second lesson, which delves into the stories we create about others and how they shape our perceptions and experiences.

Armed with the insights from these two lessons, you're now prepared to navigate the complex terrain of relationship disappointments in the third lesson. Here, you'll discover how embracing interconnectedness and acknowledging the power of our narratives can help us better understand and address unmet desires and disappointments, ultimately strengthening our connections with the people we love.

Unfulfilled Expectations

As a society, we're often told that happiness and positivity are the ultimate goals and that life should be easy. But the truth is, life can be tough, and there are times when we'll feel pain, disappointment, and suffering. This is where the Buddha's First Noble Truth comes in - it reminds us that suffering is a natural part of the human experience and that it's okay to face our struggles head-on. By accepting the inevitability of suffering, we can cultivate greater resilience and compassion for ourselves and others.

Understanding the inevitability of suffering also extends to our relationships with others. According to the Buddha's teachings, suffering is born of desire. It's natural for us to want things in life, but when we become attached to our desires, we set ourselves up for disappointment and pain. This concept is particularly applicable to our relationships, where unfulfilled desires and expectations can lead to frustration, sadness, and anger.

Recently, I shared news of a new client I had landed with a close colleague and friend with whom I work closely. I was hoping for her support and enthusiasm, but to my surprise, she responded with a dismissive comment about how clients are not everything and how they come and go, so I shouldn't be so attached.

I expected my friend to be supportive, but when she wasn't, I felt disappointed, and my desire went unmet. It wasn't that she had any ill intentions, but my attachment to these desires caused conflict within me regarding our relationship.

This observation made me reflect on how relationships often follow a pattern, starting with an enchantment phase where everything seems perfect, but then unfulfilled desires in the form of expectations begin to pile up, causing the enchantment to fade. As our minds play tricks on us, generating expectations we may not even be aware of, disappointments accumulate, leading to a decline in trust and connection.

Phase 1: The Enchantment

I remember when my friend and I discovered our mutual passion for all things yoga. We spent hours discussing our favorite books, feeling as if we had known each other for a lifetime.

During the enchantment phase, we might find ourselves daydreaming about a perfect future with our friends, imagining every detail of our adventures together. We feel like we've found a kindred spirit, someone who truly understands us, and we can share our deepest thoughts and emotions with them. Conversations flow effortlessly, and we look forward to spending time together. It seems like nothing can go wrong, and we have found a lifelong companion.

Phase 2: Unmet Desires

When my friend and I were preparing the curriculum for the yoga retreat we were co- leading, I had assumed that we would be collaborative and co-creative. However, she repeatedly rejected all of my ideas, which left me feeling dispirited about the retreat and disconnected from her.

During the initial enchantment phase of a friendship, everything may seem perfect, and we feel deeply connected. But as time passes and unfulfilled desires and disappointments start to accumulate, we may begin to question the relationship. We may feel frustrated or disappointed and notice the differences between our friends and ourselves. Conversations that once flowed effortlessly may become strained or filled with tension, and the once easygoing connection may feel like hard work. What once seemed flawless now appears flawed, and we might start to feel like we have outgrown the friendship.

Phase 3: The Breakdown

Our conversations about yoga, which were once effortless, became tense as my friend repeatedly rejected all of my ideas during the retreat. This led to a distance between us, and our shared passion no longer felt like a strong bond.

The breakdown phase can be tough. Our perception of our friends becomes clouded by negative experiences, and we may focus on their faults and shortcomings. We forget the good times and the reasons we were drawn to them in the first place. As a result, we may pull away from the relationship, either emotionally or physically, to protect ourselves from further disappointment.

Phase 4: The Repair

After spending some time apart, we met up for tea to discuss our feelings about the retreat. By addressing how my ideas were repeatedly rejected and discussing our unmet expectations, we were able to rekindle our shared love for yoga and repair our friendship. This allowed us to move forward together in a positive direction.

When relationships reach a breaking point, it's easy to forget that both individuals are human and susceptible to making mistakes. Instead of assigning blame to each other for the breakdown, we want to take responsibility for our own actions and recognize the interconnectedness between us. We understand that it takes two people to create a difficult situation and that our actions can impact others in ways we may not fully realize. This step may be difficult, but it's essential to move forward, repair the relationship, and foster personal growth and healing.

To repair a relationship that has entered a phase of decline, it is important to identify and communicate our hopes and expectations that were not explicitly expressed. This requires getting clear about what we were hoping for or expecting of the other person and having the courage to communicate it. By owning our hopes and expectations, we recognize our part in the breakdown of communication and acknowledge the lack of clarity in conveying our desires to the other person in the first place.

It is crucial to recognize that the other person did not make us upset. Instead, we both played a part in the subtle and intricate web of connection that was disrupted. By seeing our part in the matter, we take responsibility for our actions and acknowledge that we were also part of the disturbance in the web of connection.

By acknowledging our role in the breakdown of communication, we can approach the situation with greater understanding and compassion. We can work towards repairing the relationship by focusing on our own actions and the impact they have on the other person rather than assigning blame or expecting the other person to change. In this way, we can begin to rebuild the connection and move forward together.

I- STATEMENTS

When we communicate, we don't want to be accusatory. Consider these two statements and see if you can detect what's different between them:

1. You never listen to me.

2. I feel unheard and frustrated when I share my thoughts and feelings with you, and I am telling myself the story that you're not listening to me.

Statement #2 appears less accusatory because it uses "I" statements instead of "you" statements. By saying, "I feel unheard and frustrated when I share my thoughts and feelings with you," we express our own feelings and experiences rather than directly blaming the other person for not listening. This can lead to a more productive conversation, as the other person is less likely to become defensive or feel attacked. Additionally, by acknowledging that we are telling ourselves the story that the other person is not listening, the speaker is also open to the possibility that their assumption may be incorrect, which can lead to a more collaborative and empathetic conversation.

ACTIVE LISTENING AND EMPATHY

Once we've communicated our disappointments, we want to be open to the other person's perspective and try to understand where they're coming from. We want to grasp their point of view and consider their own unmet needs and expectations. It may be helpful to ask questions to gain a better understanding of their perspective and express empathy for their feelings.

• In what ways have I impacted you that I may not have been aware of?

• What were you hoping for or expecting from me? How might I have disappointed or let you down?

The more we are able to empathize with someone else and see things from their perspective, the more important it becomes for us to let go of our preconceived notions and assumptions about them. By setting aside our own stories and beliefs, we allow ourselves to truly understand and appreciate the other person's experiences and emotions. This deepened understanding fosters greater connection, enabling us to better relate and navigate our relationship with compassion and open-mindedness.

Redefining the Role of Conflict in Relationship

Expressing our disappointments with one another can result in a profoundly transformational experience. When we experience shared communication of one another's hurts and disappointments openly and without defensiveness, we start to see our limited perspective. We see that our understanding of what generated the conflict was only partial. As we begin to recognize what was hidden from our consciousness, namely their experience or point of view, our feeling of separateness evaporates and is replaced by a strong sense of interconnectedness.

Moreover, as the relationship heals, the bond between us strengthens. The conflict then turns out to be a strengthening agent. This experience is so antithetical to the way we regard dislocations in our relationships. We tend to assume that conflict weakens relationships. In this perspective, the act of expressing our disappointments may actually exacerbate the conflict and further strain the relationship, making it more difficult to heal and rebuild the bond. As a result, we avoid conflict or minimize its impact rather than seeing it as a potential agent for strengthening relationships.

It's important to remember that repairing a relationship involves acknowledging that both parties make mistakes and taking responsibility

© 2023 CHAD HERST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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for our own role in the situation. We need to communicate our unmet desires and take steps to address them. Using "I" statements instead of "you" statements can help make conversations less accusatory and more productive. Active listening and empathy are also crucial in understanding the other person's perspective and needs. Finally, moving forward involves taking action and making changes to address concerns and communicate better. It's essential to approach the process with an open mind and a commitment to staying in communication.

As the Buddha said, life is suffering. So are relationships. They can be hard, and no relationship is perfect. It's natural to experience ups and downs. However, by acknowledging the phases that relationships often go through, we can begin to identify and communicate our unmet desires and disappointments. This process requires courage, vulnerability, and a willingness to listen to each other's perspectives. By doing so, we can repair and strengthen our connections with the people we love.

Summary:

The Buddha's First Noble Truth reminds us that suffering is natural and it's okay to face our struggles.

Unfulfilled desires and expectations in relationships can lead to disappointment and pain.

Repairing a relationship involves acknowledging mistakes, communicating unmet desires using "I" statements, active listening, empathy, and taking action to address concerns. Conflict can be a strengthening agent.

Inquiry:

The following questions aim to explore our relationship with the conflict. They prompt us to reflect on our personal tendencies towards conflict and encourage us to redefine conflict as an opportunity to recognize our interconnectedness. When facing a conflict, we might ask ourselves:

How am I relating to the conflict in this relationship? Am I avoiding, shutting down, blaming, deflecting or attacking?

How might I redefine this breakdown in communication as a potential agent for strengthening the bond or creating a breakthrough for myself?

What am I afraid I might say or do? What am I afraid they might say or do?

How do I define what I was hoping or expecting? In what ways have they disappointed me?

How do I express my disappointments and address unmet desires in a way that leads to a stronger sense of interconnectedness in relationships?

How willing am I to expand my point of view on the conflict to understand theirs?

Covid-19: The Perfect Teacher

This could be a random moment, one grand, human error where a virus jumped from an animal to the human population and where that population was woefully unprepared. That’s one way of viewing this experience we are all in together, a series of fuck ups with enormous ramifications.

I’m not suggesting we dismiss this perspective, but it is only that, one way of viewing this time. And it’s one that leaves me cynical, scared and hopeless, with only three options: being mad, afraid or falling into a pit of despair. These three basic human reactions generate more suffering in the world than is needed.

Another point-of-view-and not necessarily the only one or even the correct one-is that Covid-19 is the perfect teacher. The uncertainty it presents in our lives and the lives of our loved ones might be the ideal curriculum we need to wake up to our purpose, to find our unique path, to give our gift, our medicine. And for each of us, that’s going to be something different. For one person, it might be the calling to step up and lead. For another, it might be about taking a new career path, one that is more aligned with our values.

While humanity has never experienced a pandemic of such proportions, we know in our DNA, how to ride this wave. Crises are not new to humanity. Our ancestors were all once part of tribes, and when tribes got decimated, either by illness, war or famine, the survivors had to reassess. They couldn’t go on in the same way. And what did they do?

They struggled, but eventually, they went inward and touched the fear, vulnerability and grief. Deep below the heartache, they also found a well of hope and possibility, a place where discoveries could be made and where new and unique ideas and approaches could alter their lives and the lives of those they loved and were connected to. That’s one possibility for this moment, not just for the so-called elite or leaders, but for each of us. It might just be the ideal curriculum we need to wake up, to reassess our values and priorities, and to connect ever-deeper with the well of love and connection that exists beyond the rational mind, beyond the fear and hurt we carry.

To know that well, to touch it, requires patience, focus and presence. It requires going inward and wading through the whole catastrophe we are in until we find that spark of insight, of wisdom that we each carry as our birthright. I don’t know what this new time will bring us, but when I hold the possibility that this moment is the perfect teacher, I am profoundly hopeful we will find our way.

Spirituality That Includes Darkness

Life is a great mystery. In spite of the fact that people and religions claim to know its meaning or purpose, if we’re honest, each of us cannot help but admit that its meaning or even the reason for life is unknown to us. So much of it appears and can feel like a chaotic mess and can easily be regarded as a random series of failures, successes, joys and sorrows. Each of us both witnesses and experiences tragedy, loss, calamity and heartbreak, occurrences that appear so completely unfair and random that they blow apart our conceptual reality and the belief systems we hold onto as a way to make sense of life. In short, anyone who gets born cannot help but see that life, while filled with wonder and delight, is no cake walk.

So much shit happens, that it could so easily be seen as unfair, unjust, cruel and random. Deceitful people run our governments. Poor and innocents are stolen from. Minorities are incarcerated when they have not even committed the crimes. One of the primary contributors to the darkness we see in the world are, in fact, our corporations. While these entities are filled with individuals who care a great deal about our planet and might have strong moral compasses, corporations, nevertheless, function almost as sociopathic entities whose primary focus is doing whatever it takes—even if it leads to terrible consequences to humans, animals and the environment—to ensure that the stock price continues to soar and that investors profit.  

Each of us is filled with greed, darkness, and yet mostly we refuse to acknowledge this. Most of us fluctuate between denying the darkness inside or becoming so overwhelmed by it, that it makes us want to give up entirely. Our darkness and the darkness we see in the world and our associated suffering can make the very idea of spirit and spirituality a joke. Each of us cannot help but wonder how a God or orderly universe could create so much suffering? What sort of God would sit by as innocent children were caged for the color of their skin? What cruel God could possibly allow individuals to be wracked with illness from contaminated water? What sort of loving God could oversee the environmental decay we find ourselves in today?

Spirituality that denies the darkness is not actually spirituality. Instead, it is a sophisticated form of denial of the darkness. New Age beliefs, like the law of attraction, are a classic form of spiritual denial that forward the shortsighted belief that everything we want can be “attracted” into our lives. All we need to do is repeatedly think about it and “stay positive,” believing we can have what we want. 

What are we to believe, then, when unwanted things happen, like disease? Is it then not our fault? Did we not give enough time to imagining our lean, sexually attractive bodies glowing with light? Or was the light we imagined the wrong color?  Were we not positive enough? Or even worse, did we attract the illness by virtue of our innately negative thought patterns? This belief compels us to brush-off or ignore the obvious abhorrent nature of a situation or a person. 

Our disgust and hate, though, are not merely qualities to be denied. They are, instead, innate capacities that enable us to discriminate true from false, right from wrong, and good from bad.  Anyone with a slightly discriminating eye cannot help but see this denial afoot in all major religions. Just look at Spanish colonization throughout the Americas. Columbus and his followers believed that these lands were one vast kingdom of the devil. 

Their church embraced all their deeds. The rape of children, the violation of the earth, the destruction of all that was beautiful could be condoned by the halo of the faith. Men who had sex as if relieving themselves declared all native women to be whores, and branded the faces of children while the Pope debated whether or not they were human beings. Priests who exhaled disease declared pestilence to be the will of God. In their wake they left death. Three million Arawakans died between 1494 and 1508. Within 150 years of Columbus the aboriginal population of 70 million would be reduced to 3.5 million. In the Southern Andes of Bolivia, on a mountain of silver once sacred to the Inca, an average of 75 Indians were to die every day for over 300 years. (1)

While we tend to think that Buddhism is a peaceful religion, just look at the the 2016 Rohingya persecution in Myanmar where Buddhist armed forces have been accused of ethnic cleansing, genocide, gang rapes, and infanticide of this Muslim minority. 

How do we make sense of the suffering we experience and the suffering we see in the world? Is there a world order that includes not just the light but the dark as well? These are the very questions that we must contend with in order to face the question of spirituality with honesty. We cannot cordon off some aspects of life and say, “That just doesn’t fit into our concept of God, so it doesn’t exist.” We have to be brave enough to contend with the whole thing, light and dark, love and fear, greed and generosity. 

The Absence of Meaning

Otherwise, we might as well agree with the skeptics that the whole thing called life is random. For many, this is the only way to make sense of the confusing mess that life can sometimes be. Yet without spirit, without a sense of principles or meaning, we are left with no other choice but to take what we can in this lifetime, to consume, to steal, to rape. After all, if the whole thing is random, if there is no order to this thing called life, what’s the point of upholding values like honor, kindness, charity, or compassion? From the perspective of a world without spirit or meaning, there is no purpose or greater meaning. 

Without that meaning, we are no different than single-celled amoeba, tubes that consume, excrete, procreate and die. Nothing more. We, therefore, might as well consume as much as we can, to take what is ours' and not worry one bit about how that affects those around us. We can say, “Who cares if my choices and actions negatively impact the poor and innocent? Fuck them. I can do what I want.” We see plenty of individuals on the world stage with just that point of view, including our so-called world leaders. 

Intuitive Knowing versus Scientific Knowing

For many a dog-eat-dog worldview is just the way it is, and for them the very concept of spirituality is lost on them, unless, of course, they embrace a spirituality of denial that justifies their cruel behavior. But for many of us, such a worldview denies an intuitive or innate sense that this thing called life is not random. Many of us sense, if only in moments, that there is a kind of logic to life that while at moments is graspable, at other moments is far beyond our capacity to understand. 

In other words, life is a great mystery. What makes it mysterious are its dual qualities of being both coherent or intelligible and, at the same time ineffable or beyond our capacity to grasp. Our cultural drive toward a scientific worldview has forced all that cannot be seen or known into the categories of superstition, untruth, wives tales, or magical thinking. In other words, if we cannot see it in a microscope or science hasn’t identified it yet, it doesn’t exist. In our drive to understand and make sense of the world around us, we cling to only one way of knowing, that which is scientifically verifiable, and deny or suppress other forms of knowing, in particular, our innate knowing or our intuitive sense.

This latter form of perception has been given short shrift. Since the scientific revolution, we have overestimated the value of the intellect, which can only analyze, consider, debate, and understand. In turn, we have completely devalued our bodily sense of truth, our innate sense of grasping and knowing.

This innate quality of knowing was the very essence of our hunter-gather ancestors’ religion. Hunter-gathers still living today in remote parts of the world depend on their external senses along with their inner felt experience as a way of knowing the world around them. In fact, their very survival is predicated on the dual capacities of sensing and feeling. Without it, they run the risk of getting mauled by a cougar or starving to death.

As our ancestors shifted from a hunter-gatherer life to a more agrarian one, they relied less on their ability to sense the world around them for their survival. Instead, they needed to keep track of the amount of grain in their granaries, to understand the seasons, when they would harvest and when they would plant seeds. They needed to forge agreements with other farmers or landholders to share access to water.

Humans shifted from needing to sense the world around them to needing to understand the world around them. The world shifted from something directly known to something conceptualized. This approach to life became even stronger in the industrial revolution and now and especially, in the information age.  Slowly and imperceptibly, humans have lost touch with or even value their direct experience. If we sense the truth of something, we have little trust in it unless our intuitive knowing is backed by science. 

Iterative Meaning Making

In spite of the fact that we place such little value in this intuitive knowing, many of us cannot help sensing a greater meaning or purpose to this thing called “my life.” We innately sense that our lives matter, that our suffering is not just a random mistake, a glitch in our DNA, a lack of serotonin, a random fluke of nature or a broken and prejudice legal system gone awry. These facts of life are undeniable. The world is filled with a lack of justice, and yet many of us, if only momentarily, experience an intuitive understanding of an orderliness in the world and of our lives in which something intuitively makes sense.

That intuition, that sense does not always hold up to scientific scrutiny, nor can we reduce it to a simple formula or story. Mostly what we come up with intuitively are hypotheses, best guesses until more knowledge or experience comes along. In other words, intuitive knowing is iterative. We sense something, interpret it to the best of our ability only to realize that our initial interpretation was partial or incomplete. If we remain honest with ourselves, we stay present with the process of sensing from moment-to-moment because whatever we sensed and interpreted a moment ago has surely already changed. 

In other words, an honest approach to spirituality remains open and flexible. It’s actually a moment-to-moment encounter with life. It’s not fixed nor is it formulaic. It doesn’t deny the intellect or analytical knowing but it also doesn’t deny what we sense in our hearts and guts. It doesn’t leave out the darkness we inevitably confront in ourselves or the darkness we see in the world. It isn’t reductive either. We cannot reduce the great mystery of life to Four Noble Truths or Ten Commandments. While those instructions may be helpful, to rely exclusively on them is to stay stuck in concepts rather than confronting the direct, unmediated experience of life.

Contextualization

Spirituality, then might be thought of as the creative attempt to explore life by making sense of it. It is the innate drive within each of us to make our lives matter and to give them purpose and meaning. After all so much of what we both experience and perceive around us can so easily be passed off as cruel, unjust, and random. Nevertheless, we humans can make meaning of the most demeaning and inhuman experiences; in fact, when faced with such experiences, our ability to survive and thrive depends on this capacity.  However, making sense of it in such a way that either denies the darkness, passes it off simply as a test of survival of the fittest, or whittle it down to a five-easy-step formula is overly simplistic. 

An honest approach to spirituality requires that nothing is left out, the good, the bad and the ugly. At the same time, it necessitates that we stay at the razors edge of knowing such that we believed yesterday is no longer valid today. As Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist and author, Victor Frankl aptly commented about the horrors he saw and experienced in the concentration camps:

We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. (2)

Most importantly spirituality creates an order to our lives. It gives context to the apparent random nature of our experience. The words context comes from the Latin roots con- meaning with or together and -text come from the same root as textile. Context weaves apparently arbitrary interactions and experiences into a greater whole. When we contextualize our experience, we do so in order to create meaning or see patterns in what appears to be random squiggles. 

The act of weaving a greater meaning into apparent accidental nature of of our lives gives them order. At TED2018, psychiatrist Essam Daod tells the story of Omar, a five year old Syrian refugee who arrived on the island of Lesbos on a rubber boat:

Crying, frightened, unable to understand what's happening to him, he was right on the verge of developing a new trauma. I knew right away that this was a golden hour, a short period of time in which I could change his story, I could change the story that he would tell himself for the rest of his life… 

Omar looked at me with scared, tearful eyes and said, "What is this?" as he pointed out to the police helicopter hovering above us.

"It's a helicopter! It's here to photograph you with big cameras, because only the great and the powerful heroes, like you, Omar, can cross the sea."

Omar looked at me, stopped crying and asked me, "I'm a hero?"

Without this reframing, Omar likely would view this moment simply as an overwhelmingly frightening one. By contextualizing it as a “hero’s journey,” Daod is weaving meaning for this small, frightened boy. He’s giving dignity to the indignity he has to endure. 

We are not, as the saying goes, “human beings having spiritual experiences,” but, instead, “spiritual beings having human experiences.”  This perspective juxtaposes our regular, commonplace view of our lives. Instead of seeing them as a series of random mundane experiences interspersed occasionally with transcendence, we see the potential within each experience—even the darkness we face—as opportunities to grow and evolve, to fulfill an unseen potential inherent in each one of us. Sensing and touching this potential is foundational to any true experience of spirituality.

Footnotes

 (1) Davis, Wade. One River. Simon & Schuster. New York. 1996. Print

(2)  Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl, V., Beacon Press, 2006. p. 77.