unconditional friendliness
We are having cooler weather in Florida and it is delightful. I took my dog, Poppy for a long walk yesterday and didn’t feel like I was wearing sweat pants in a sauna. Today I’m outside on my back porch with hot coffee and a pumpkin scented candle. Could it really be Fall? I am wanting to purchase weird Halloween decorations which sent me to stores like Big Lots and Michaels. (I like to refer to it as Jersey Michales envisioning a mash up where you can get a sub and glitter all at the same time.)
Two weeks ago, we attended my nephew’s wedding where my husband officiated and my son handed over the rings. I was beyond grateful to attend and to be in the presence of my family after such a long time. And then our hockey team won the Stanley cup! It is nice to celebrate some good news.
My cat is getting neutered tomorrow morning and we are hoping this makes him less prone to tearing off pieces of our skin while dangling from our arms. When he is cute, he is a marshmallow dream circled up on my lap but when he is a terror, he is something out of a Stephen King novel.
I’ve noticed recently when I am out that masks are less freaky looking to me and looking more like accessories. I find myself thinking…oh I like that one, huh that is interesting with that back strap, and oh that one looks like a speedo on his face, but her floral one is pretty.
How quickly we adjust.
I reread Pema Chodron’s, When Things Fall Apart again recently, and was reminded of the helpfulness of the Buddhist practice of cultivating unconditional friendliness towards what is unfolding and the uncomfortable feelings that arise within us.
When people say and do things that aggravate, annoy, and piss us off, what the heck do we do with that piping hot cauldron of mixed emotions? React? Respond while choosing our words carefully? I’d suggest not looking at our current presidential candidates for advice on this.
But nothing goes exactly as planned. And when something unexpected or unsettling happens, often irritation takes root and we wish things were different which only leads to more suffering. Sometimes we get frustrated with ourselves for our own emotions. Maybe we respond in a way we wish we hadn’t…we weren’t as understanding, stoic, mature, intelligent or as sensible as we would have liked.
Buddhism teaches us that we don’t have to like whatever arises but we can be open toward it, even friendly or curious about the sensations, emotions, and thoughts. The foundation of this is an understanding that everything changes, it is all fluid, and impermanent. And we can’t control the thoughts and emotions that bubble up but we can choose what to do with them.
Practicing Loving Kindness or Metta Meditation softens the edges.
Loving Kindness is sending positive attention towards yourself first. Then to people we easily and effortlessly love, and lastly and most challenging, to those we find more difficult. In Loving Kindness meditation we recite words such as: May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy. May I be at ease. May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be peaceful . Then you repeat the phrases by saying you instead of me and directing it toward others.
When I slow down long enough to practice this, I feel better, lighter, having contributed to a resolution not just the problem. I feel proactive, kinder, and better than being snarky or stewing in the icky abyss for days ruminating about what I could have done differently. I still do this more than I’d like but maybe not quite as much.
Recently, I heard about a study involving rituals practiced after loved ones die. The interesting thing about this study was that the rituals were made up and many of them were kind of absurd. But that didn’t matter, you didn’t even have to believe in the ritual, you just had to perform it to receive the positive benefits on the brain, heart, and body. This was great news to me since I have been creating strange rituals since I was a child! (or were those OCD’s?…that’s a post for a different day.) Here is a link to the podcast about rituals. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-power-of-a-made-up-ritual/id1474245040?i=1000474200031
So much is out of our control. And when we are triggered or thrown off course which doesn’t happen if you are doing something wrong, it happens if you are doing something right. It happens simply because we are humans living our very messy, confusing, and beautiful lives.
Practicing a meditation such as unconditional friendliness toward the internal discomfort we feel or reciting the phrases of a loving-kindness meditation, or even making up a ritual, feels like we are doing something to increase health and well-being. This is something we can control; not what happens to us but what we do with what happens. And this feels positive. Like we are moving in the right direction. And it works!
This morning, I thought of my friend Lisa who taught me how to perform a ritual when making matcha tea in the mornings. You use the whisk in a counter-clockwise direction and recite all of the things that come to mind that you would like to release such as worry, fear, self-doubt. And in a clockwise direction, you recite what you want to bring into your life: Love, health, compassion, acceptance, understanding, patience, more kindness, peace, freedom from harm and an ability to sit still and revel in the coolness and goodness that is within and all around us.