Learning to stay

I wrote this post awhile ago and I think that this is a good time to publish it.

I've been reading a book, "The Places that Scare You," by Pema Chodron.

While there is a lot of good stuff in the book, the key thing I'm learning is to stay with difficult feelings and not cower from them or medicate them away.

Chodron says that difficult feelings in response to an event are based on a judgement that something will likely be bad.

The reality is that we just don't know how things will work out.

The tricky bit is to have an open heart and mind and not assume that something will be good or bad. Just wait..."stay"...and see what happens.

In the book, Chodron tells the story of a small village and that an only child, a son, of some farmers was thrown from a horse and was injured. He was so injured that he would never be able to work on the farm to support his aging parents in the way that he had in the past.

Shortly thereafter, a call went out to all the men in the village to go fight a battle. Because the son was so injured, he couldn't go to fight.

As it turns out, all of those called to war were killed and the injured son, while not able to works as hard as he once could, was at least able to be there for his aging parents and care for them. They were grateful that he was still alive and he was grateful that he could help his parents.

You never know how something will work out.

I struggle to stay without judgement and see what happens in my situation with H.