Overcoming "Unbearable" Losses

Photograph: Summer Breeze by ~Ninruz

Instead of resisting to changes, surrender.
Let life be with you, not against you.
If you think “My life will be upside down” don’t worry.
How do you know down is not better than upside?

~ Shams Tabrizi

"Health decline is such a gift, isn't it?" a close friend said as we discussed a health concern I'm currently facing. I rolled my eyes as I muttered, "it's not exactly fun". We both had been training since years to accept life as it comes, to find meaning in events and connect to our heart's deeper wisdom so we can lead conscious awakened lives rather than getting stuck in the smallness of our minds every step of the way. So I knew exactly what she was talking about. "You're too serious, lighten up! Everything will be alright." She said sensing I was being grouchy. "The only reason why angels fly is because they take themselves lightly", she remarked. By this time, I couldn't help but smile. "What can I say? I'm not an angel, I'm a tubelight, I take time lighting up" I said and we both began to laugh. 

On the other hand, when the news broke around other places, it was met with, "this is very serious" to "oh my God! I'm so sorry! What will happen to you now, this is so sad" and ofcourse "Repent now so you can be saved (naturally followed by a list of supplications I could read)". The variation in the responses genuinely confused me so I tilted my head to make sense of it. "Serious" I thought. "Hmm.. how interesting" as I nodded. Suddenly my brain caught up with what was being said. It was almost as if there existed multiple personalities of me in my head. One of them covered in a duppatta (i.e. a long scarf-like clothing item) went off running with a jharoo (i.e a South Asian broom) panicked and screaming, "Ya Allah no! no! no!". Another, as I continued to observe, was a balding middle-aged man who watched that woman part of me run all over the place, slowly stuffing himself with popcorns with eyes wide open, he seemed to be amused. As I took my attention on him, he looked back at me. I was startled and decided to quickly move to the others that were present. There existed an over-sized woman with curly hair, angrily shaking her fist at me, giving me a to-do list while pointing fingers at me, saying how everything was my fault. I was plainly offended, so I decided to ignore her. I continued to tour the thoughts in my head and before I knew it, I was smiling at everything, while other people around me discussed the serious implications of it all. This is all very entertaining in my head, I thought. 

All of us have turning points in our lives where we experienced a loss of some kind, whether it took form in a loved one departing, or a loved one walking out of our lives. There's a sense of loss, losing our most prized possessions, our businesses, our bodies, our youth... but I've found, underneath it all, is the resistance to change and the grief that comes from the loss of the thought of the lives, we imagined we'd be living. We fall apart when we realize, life is happening to us, just not how we planned it would be. 

A lot people resort to bargaining with God. "Oh God, if You redeem me of this illness, I shall feed the poor for 10 months". "Oh God, if you bring my ex-girlfriend back, I'll give up smoking" and the list goes on. But no, there's no difference in the way the circumstances take place, leaving us angry and betrayed. We complain, "You aren't listening to me Lord!" while we continue to live in only- what if. We are scarred for life and our faith seems shakier than before. The other set of people start thinking in their heads, "this can't be happening! this can't be happening!". It's happening. "This can't be happening! this can't be happening!" It's still happening; leading their entire lives shut off from the acceptance of how things truly are. And most of us, we hit the replay button and keep watching the story again and again, somehow never really tiring ourselves out.

Anytime life does not go the way we plan, we find ourselves picking a bubble to protect ourselves from sensing the loss of what could have been. There's a sense of self at sake. A self that we have carefully woven over time whose symbolic death seems to cause us to shut down and cut reality out completely. It's too painful to literally watch who we think we are to fade away. We withdraw in our victim patterns slowly clutching on to whatever pieces that we can find. We've been split broken by life and there's absolutely no way it would ever look the same. 

Pain is something we all have been taught to avoid very well. There seems to be something completely dysfunctional when we experience it. Smile in front of others, don't let them see you. Tell people how happy you are, all the while you just want to put your burden down and hope someone sees through you, so you no longer have to pretend. No one does, so we continue to wear our masks, constantly carrying our pain with us silently until even we lose sight of it and its buried deep within our psyche, never really going away.

There's a strange surrender sitting with the real experience of it all, when we are not hoping for things to be any different than they already are. There's a subtle part of us that already has the wisdom to transmute the charge of the situation, all we have to do is stay with it. Sure, its hard looking at ourselves when we are in the grips of our emotions, sobbing uncontrollably with no sense of how our lives will look like, now that we are actually here. There's a constant fear that we will not be able to survive what we have just experienced. "It feels like dying", our minds keep screaming, "I can't take it". And there it is, the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Life is never really in our control. Its only when things go our way, we feel we have a sense of mastery and are accomplished beings. But in reality its unfolding how its meant to be unfolding, we are just in flow, without any resistance. There's no fear, of what will be, for us to tackle therefore we feel secure. But our true gift lies not in having a sense of control of our lives but really in letting things go and allowing it all to be. 

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "May be," the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be," said the farmer as he smiled. 

We all have our paths already cut out for us. The choice lies with whether we choose to walk or be dragged while we scream and shout. Because the truth is sooner or later, we will find our paths in front of us. Our only choice is what will we do with it once its there.

The human spirit is virtually indestructible. Even in the most apparent chaos, deep within us is a space nothing can really disrupt. There's a part of The Divine that drifts within our bodies. This part has the inner knowing, that no matter what happens, I'll be alright. That life is happening through me and there's always a bigger purpose behind what I am currently experiencing. This experience offers us gifts in the form of love, courage, strength, forgiveness and we evolve as a spiritual being. Suddenly we are born again and vitalized with a strength that we never sensed before. We hold out ourselves for the world to embrace and we find the freedom to truly live when our hearts are broken open.