Inquiry: letting your grown up out

“I don’t know what I’m thinking. I just feel awful. I wake up anxious. I overeat. I drink. I smoke. I have a dull job. I’m not sure what I’m doing in my life….How do I do The Work on all this?”

LOL. (Kind of. I know it’s not that funny when you’re in it).

I love how the mind looks at “all this” (your entire life) and keeps things foggy, uncertain, unclear.  Awareness is in a holding pattern of…..“I have no idea what’s going on, I just feel bad. Gosh.”

One thing that can help if you’ve had this overwhelmed uncomfortable feeling, is to first, focus on one troubled feeling at a time.

For example, if someone says they feel anxious (I can relate as a former anxiety junkie) I might ask “What does that feeling look like? What color is it? Where does it land in the body? What’s the temperature? What’s the texture?”

As the person focuses on the feeling, they’re turning towards it, not away.

If they feel MORE anxious for a moment, and they start to feel pretty nervous, I might do The Work with them first on the belief “I am not safe.” Or “Feeling this isn’t safe.”

Is it true?

No.

Who would you be without this story you aren’t safe right now, feeling this feeling?

 

And now….noticing you’re safe, if your feeling could speak, if you let it bring you the message it wants you to know, if you considered this feeling a gift rather than an enemy you need to get rid of….

….what does it have to say?

Sometimes, the awareness is instantly far more lazer sharp.

The other day, I watched my own mind follow this very inquiry, landing on the stressful belief.

My teenager daughter, off at college, is far less communicative than I anticipated. She rarely calls, she hardly ever texts, and I’m so curious about her daily life, her classes, her friends, who she’s meeting, what she’s learning, what she’s thinking about.

I have to wait, though.

Until a weekend break, or whenever she returns home.

I love her so much, and miss talking with her. I’m also awed by her independence and feisty strength. She’s not clingy, not needy, and has no desire for my opinion or consult. For now, this seems incredibly healthy and beautiful.

So the other night, I look at my phone before going to bed and realize this daughter, such a wonderful curiosity, called 45 minutes earlier.

Wow!

Even though it’s late and I was about to turn out the lights, I immediately return the call. (She naturally didn’t leave any message).

“Oh hi mom! I’m five minutes from home, just about to get off the bus!”

REALLY?!

She walks into the cottage moments later and I am so, so happy to see her. Big embrace. She’s doing a homework project, and since it’s a long weekend (Monday is a holiday) she’s home for 2 nights

Then, I say I don’t get why she didn’t let us know she was coming?

Her: I did let you know, jeez, I told you about this weeks ago!

Me: But I never knew you had actually decided to come, I had no idea. Plus I thought you said you were sick?

Her: Being sick has nothing to do with Not Coming, I only have a cold. I can’t believe you didn’t realize this, I told you I was coming, like, ten times.

Me:  I didn’t know! You should communicate more clearly!

Her: I did!

Me: You didn’t!

(Variations on the theme You Did and You Didn’t ensue).

My daughter and I eventually go through texts on both our phones, and discover she never received a few important texts from me, and I thought her replies back were matching other completely different questions, and the whole misunderstanding and confusion was based on text and cell phone tech failure.

It’s like the Who’s On First Routine.

So we laugh, and embrace again and agree it’s late and time for sleep.

Especially because her step-dad and I are leaving in the morning at 6:30 am for an overnight in Canada, just over the border.

As we load our little carry-on bags into our car in the beautiful early morning, I’m aware my daughter is sleeping soundly in her bed.

She’s home.

And we are leaving.

How did this happen? If I had known, I would have stayed in town. Rats.

Anxious flutter. Images of her being alone all weekend in the house going here and there and me not getting to cross paths with her, see her, listen to her. I think about how beautiful she looked, coming into the house with her gorgeous dark brown hair and grey blue eyes, grey tights, cute polka dot skirt and black jacket.

On the car ride to the pier where we’re catching an early boat, I feel jumpy. We shouldn’t be going. I don’t care about this trip. I get seasick. This won’t be fun. I need a massage, not a holiday. There are too many people in this line (the boat is sold out). I can’t meditate. Complaining.

But then rather than skipping around to generalized complaint mode, finding something wrong with the moment and my feelings in addition to whatever else is in the environment, I stay with the feeling that’s anxious.

And then….the true stressful belief appears….*ping*:

I need more time with my daughter.

People think this all the time in a very deep and troubling way with someone who is dying, or a break-up, or when saying goodbye for a long period of time.

I need more time with them than I’m getting.

So let’s do The Work!

I need more time with her, Is that true?

Yes! So true! I can’t BELIEVE I’m traveling AWAY from her when I want to get to know her more and….

Stop. It’s a simple question. Can you KNOW this is absolutely true that you need more time with anyone?

No.

How do you react when you believe you need more time with her?

Choked up. Sad. Longing. Images of the future. Images of the past. Melancholy. I feel like turning around and to hell with the money my sweet husband spent to surprise me with two days away.

As I’m seeing the present moment, the gorgeous high cliffs of islands, the Puget Sound, the misty rain, the white choppy waves, the magnificence of where I am located….I dismiss it. I think Somewhere Else is better (at home with daughter).

So who would I be without this very stressful thought that being somewhere else is better than where I am, and I need more time over there?

Who would I be without the belief someone else’s company, another location, a different experience, more time with a person who is not here physically….is required for my happiness?

Woah.

Laughing. Laughing at the absurdity of it all. As if my thoughts had control of the universe. Noticing that with the thought, I’m missing the beauty of this location (except fortunately, not really).

Without the belief I need more time with someone else, I feel the glory of being alive and having eyes, ears, fingers, breath. I remember my father, who died quite young it seemed, and how doing The Work on his absence gave me the incredible gift of having him here in my heart at all times, and no dad to miss.

Without the thought that I need more time with my daughter, I simply sit here, noticing I adore her.

Turning the thought around:

• I do not need more time with her.
• She needs to spend more time with me.
• I need more time with myself.
• I need more time with what I’m spending time with (look around).

I don’t need more time with her, because I’m aware that even if she’s home, she has mega plans with other people. Not me.

She needs more time with me? Yes, as the kind, listening, adoring mother I am. I could go visit her soon, instead of waiting for her to come home.

I need more time with myself, with reality.

There is no requirement for time, I notice, in the universe. Time is limited in this physical body. Sometimes, humans are here for a very short time. Only months, or a few years. Sometimes, 19. Like my daughter.

I need more time with my own thoughts, with my feelings, with myself, with my environment.

Yes. I get to notice the splashing drops on the window, the great vast salt water sea, the low hum of this clipper ship motor, the snow capped mountains sharply rising off one side of the boat, my appreciation for remembering to take Dramamine (motion sickness medicine) which my husband kindly asked for.

I get to notice how very much I love this apparent daughter, and how it is right that we are independent beings. She should be able to easily live without me, and I without her. It doesn’t mean love between us isn’t just as vast as this ocean I’m sailing on.

“That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs. Everything is in process. Everything—every tree, every blade of grass, all the animals, insects, human beings, buildings, the animate and the inanimate—is always changing, moment to moment. We don’t have to be mystics or physicists to know this. Yet at the level of personal experience, we resist this basic fact. It means that life isn’t always going to go our way. It means there’s loss as well as gain…

If you’re going to be a grown-up—which I would define as being completely at home in your world no matter how difficult the situation—it’s because you will allow something that’s already in you to be nurtured.” ~ Pema Chodron

Your answers, already inside you.

Let the uncomfortable feeling lead the way to the thought lead the way to growing up lead the way back home.