As Rumi wrote: “If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
But, honestly, and no offence meant to Rumi, I think it’s human to feel irritated by this process. Let’s be real. It’s not fun being sanded, shaped and polished. It’s not fun facing all our fears and pain and parts of us we don’t yet know how to meet with love.
Lately, with all the shit going down in the world, I’ve found myself worrying a lot about where it’s all taking us.
Fortunately I know that worrying is not an efficient use of my time on Earth. But what can you do about it?
Well here’s what I’m doing. I’m using my new “Can’t/Can Framework”. Maybe you’ll find it useful as well.
The other workshop attendees sit on the couch, while I sit alone at the dining room table. As I scan the room, pretending to be deeply engaged in everything I see, I feel the familiar clenching in my chest and throat. All my thoughts and feelings are slamming into each other in a kind of mental-emotional traffic jam.
In psychology speak, this is called “Emotional Flooding”. And in this case the flavour is: “anxiety”.
You wake up and…what’s that? A vaguely uncomfortable (or, perhaps, distinctly awful) feeling that you immediately want to get rid of.
No worries. You drown it with coffee, maybe even distract yourself with mantra meditations but, a few hours later, you notice it’s still there. You tell yourself you’re just bored, or restless. Maybe you need a “new” thing: a lover, job, hobby, TV series, iPhone.
