Why we struggle
There is a rumor that Buddha said all life is struggle, but that is not what he meant. We struggle when we don’t accept what is. We struggle to change it, we struggle to wrest meaning out of it, we struggle to overcome it, and we struggle to not let what is change us.
I self soothe at night by thinking of all the many splendor things that I’m lucky to have – shelter, food, gas in the car, a car, health, a bed, a healthy child and love from friends and family. Every night there is a laundry list of all of the things I have to be grateful for. In the morning, I start all over again.
Last night, despite having overcome more than nine weeks of a virus, or multiple viruses that took most of my joie de vivre away, I struggled to assuage anxiety. Fear missives were coming from multiple directions – what if I cannot pay my mortgage, what if I cannot pay the light bill, what if we run out of food, what if something happens to someone I love, what if … I could not keep the poison arrows from piercing my flesh.
Finally, I fell into a deep slumber with dreams that collided with one another and woke to feel anxiety sitting comfortably on my chest. Such an old familiar weight I didn’t even bother to disturb it as I tied my tennis shoes to take Stella for a walk. Three miles we tread along the beach path, staring at the Gulf of Mexico, the Bay, with the wild sea oats still recovering from winter, the street deserted from a pandemic, and bird shadows skimming the wet sand.
I am an anxiety expert – I know it’s a creeper, waiting till I let down my defenses instead of rising up to meet the occasion. Anxious thoughts spread into the crevices of my mind and leak into my muscles and tendons. I felt it as I walked, laboring to keep my shoulder blades down and loosening the tight grip on the leash while unclenching my jaw.
A friend once wrote that the sea – Mother Ocean – knows how to self soothe, knows how to cleanse, knows how to be resilient. I looked intently at the water with barely a ripple on the surface and breathed into this wisdom.
