January 11 Challenge: Work to Change Bad Realities

How's this for crazy making?
Yesterday's challenge included this line: 
"What would happen if we expected reality to be just as it is?"
And taken out of context, it would appear today's challenge is asking you to do the exact opposite.

Today, think about some social, political, environmental issue that raises your blood pressure.  And do something about it.

When faced with a problem, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy founder Marsha Linehan says we have four choices.  We can solve it, change our perception of it, practice radical acceptance (which is NOT approval, but releasing resistance to what cannot be changed-- touched upon in yesterday's challenge), or stay miserable.

Today I want you to think about a reality you find difficult to accept-- something outside of yourself.  Racism, poverty, current gun sales laws.  It doesn't have to be nearly that big.  Maybe you worry about classroom sizes, or lack of funding for the arts in schools.

Pick an issue, something you feel passionate about.  And then do something about it.  Write your local paper or local representatives.  Volunteer to do the thing you think needs to get done.  Change your behavior in some concrete way so you are contributing less to the problem or more to the solution.

Think about it.  It was the people's refusal to accept socially constructed realities around women's rights, interracial marriage, slavery, segregation that finally changed laws that supported this injustices.  When enough people make enough noise (or even more importantly, change their own behaviors), reality shifts.  In the last several years, we've been faced with such overwhelming complexity in issues like education, environmental change, and information privacy, to name a few, that many of us have thrown up our hands.  "What difference can one person make?"

Not much.  But many drops make a stream, and many streams a river.  And a river can change an entire landscape.

How will you begin?  What can you do today?

Let me know,
Jana
Today's quote:  “The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything” ~ Albert Einstein

The Imprisioned Voice

Drove to Eugene late Sunday night to visit gifted photographer/friend Maria.  I don't often have time in the car, and I forget to listen to the radio at home.  NPR was on the dial, with Krista Tippet (Speaking of Faith in the old days, and now hosting the more inclusively titled On Being) interviewing a biologist and Big Cat conservationist.  I was distracted and couldn't focus on the interview the first half of the drive.

I noticed the guest had a slight stutter-- so slight I wasn't sure I heard it until the third or forth time.  In the second half, I came awake, as biologist and explorer Alan Rabinowitz revealed that his love of cats started because watching them at a zoo was a rare respite for him as a child.  Rabinowitz was afflicted with severe stuttering as he developed language-- so severe that he was effectively electively mute until adulthood.  Friendless and locked in with a voice powerful but seemingly unable to be tolerated, he related to the tigers, lions and jaguars that paced their cages, made impotent by their environment.  His parents did their best to help, and sent him to psychiatrists and speech therapists.  At the time, stuttering was seen as a behavioral rather than neurological issue.  The therapeutic emphasis was on getting him to knock it off, which only made things worse.   When he was 18, his parents found a speech clinic which taught him to be a "fluent stutterer"-- to accept what was true about him and work with it.  It worked.  He is now an international speaker, and his voice-- for the animals, for conservation, for himself-- is a powerful and effective one.  As a child, he watched these powerful cats pace in their cages and said to them, "I'm going to get us out of here."  He has devoted his life to finding and preserving places for this animals to express their powerful voice and their genetic heritage.

Krista Tippet is a wise and compassionate interviewer, and has talked with many people over the years whose wisdom, like Dr. Rabinowitz,  was similarly hard won.  "When you talk about what helped you... becoming a fluent stutterer rather than denying it...It reminds me about what I hear about hearing and wholeness... that in fact being a whole person is about taking in whatever our wounds are and our fears are, and  integrating them into our identity... it's the work of a lifetime."

The story gets even more profound. In 2002, Dr. Rabinowitz was diagnosed with CLL (Chronic Lymphocyttic Leukemia), which has no cure.  As Krista pointed out, mortality is not at all special, but most of us manage to avoid looking at it while we are still living our full lives.  Yet even though hearing that living in the field, with its exposure to dengue fever, thyphoid, malaria and other illnesses, was likely to shorten his life, he decided that his mission was so important to his identity he would soldier on.  "Have the courage to live", said Robert Cody.  "Anyone can die."

This was a powerful and moving interview, and there is much to be learned from listening to it.  I encourage you to take the time.  Find it here:   http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/voice-for-the-animals/

Many of us have voices that long to be heard.  Find your voice, and use it.  Your wounds are part of your history.  Own them.  They are part of your power.

Related links on stuttering:  http://www.stutteringhelp.org/
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/stuttering.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj2IsxxCSS8

If you've not seen it, The King's Speech is a powerful film in which the protagonist stutterer finds and uses his voice.  

I'll close with a poem by a voice for the inarticulate:  Mary Oliver.

The Less Nosy Life: Further Notes on Anosmia

Mountian nose-gay.  I cannot confirm or deny its gaying effects, 

   Just finishing a tasteless fresh egg/sharp cheddar sandwich.  It's a little late for dinner, but I realized at bedtime I'd forgotten to eat it.  When nothing tastes like much, it's way easier to do.

I noticed today that I was doing a lot of acceptance talk in the office.  It's not really that unusual that what healers are addressing in their own lives creeps into their work.  Luckily we are talking universal themes here, so no harm done.  But I do want to pay attention when it happens.  That's part of the code of the field, to make sure we aren't just working out our own stuff instead of focusing on our clients'.  So I spent some intentional time thinking about how resistant I have been to this adventure in smell-less-ness.

Social worker and author Thom Rutledge sums it up nicely:  the mathematical formula for pain is the difference between our expectations and our performances.  If you substitute experiences/reality for performance, the equation is equally profound.  As teacher Byron Katie puts it, "When I resist reality, I suffer, but only 100% of the time."

The Buddhists refer to this discomfort of resisting experience as three poisons, aka causes of human suffering:  greed, anger, and ignorance.  When I want what I cannot have, rail against the God/gods because of it, and don't understand the nature of reality, I suffer.  Ruttledge, or was it  DBT theorist Marsha Linehan, or maybe Buddha (there is truly nothing new under the sun) said that pain is inevitable.  But suffering, which occurs out of resistance, is optional. 

Resistance equals grasping. When we try to hold on to what is not there, or attain what is unnatural, or maintain what is transient, we are grasping.  And it causes suffering.

But when we have a loss, it is human nature to grieve.  Whether it's a missed goal, a death, a function-- we are here in these human bodies with these human minds and egos, and it is natural and fitting to give notice and due to what has gone.  And then, sooner or later, we make a choice.  We can continue fretting about what isn't, or we can move forward with this present reality of what is.  When we start that--- when we move a little out of ignorance and anger and greed for what we want but can't or don't have-- we can start integrating an experience and seeing what is valuable and what merely must be tolerated/accepted.

I'd like to claim I do this at least occasionally with grace and dignity.  But truth be told, I often enter into unpleasant realities with kicking and moaning and resistance. 

Last night walking'  I passed a neighbor just as she was sniffing a rose she'd cut.  Immediately tears came into my eyes.  I was a little embarrassed when she met my gaze, but also able to be a compassionate witness to what was true for me in that moment.  I know that anosmia is not a big tragedy on big life terms, so I have gone back and forth about expressing it as an important loss.  But I feel it, and feelings-- well, they are what they are.

What's been sweet:  I've gotten some notes from folks who've read this blog, expressing understanding for what has felt true.  We need witnesses.  It helps to have somebody confirm our experience.  Here are some excepts:

."It feels insufficient to say I am sorry, but I am ..sorry that your olfactory life is on a hopefully brief hiatus.  I imagine your sense of smell is in a safe place, tucked away and protected for its eventual return to you."

"I'm sorry. This isn't whining or trivial in the least.  You talk and think about how things smell more than anyone I've every met.  You must feel a great sense of loss."

"Wow...I'm so sorry to hear about your olfactory tragedy.  I'm going to choose that it will come back."

OK, me too.  But if not, I hope to use it for some sort of growth.  I am currently focusing on increasing mindfulness and appreciation to textures and nutrient value of food rather than flavor.  I've long claimed big interest in the latter, but in a sort of martyr-y way unless it tasted fabulous.  I tolerated for the cause rather than appreciated things like raw radishes and kale.  But since not much tastes much at all, when it's healthy there's more sense of reward in eating it.  And some foods that were ho-hum to me (wheat berries!) have become much more interesting to my newly 2-D palate based solely on texture.

Other perks:  I no longer cringe when someone wears perfume/fragrant cosmetics or cleansing products.  Remember, I was a super-smeller, so what was appealing to others was very infringing to me.  I can concentrate a little better in restaurants and outdoors, because one source of constant stimulation is now quiet.  I am hoping this will take my pinball-like mind down a notch of activity.

Speaking of pinball, I decided to celebrate a deliberate move to more light-heartedness with an evening of same at our local Life-Long Learning Establishment, Squirrels.  I found two willing companions who agreed to let me beat the pants off them (ok, at least the first several games, and yes, J & L, I am still being cheeky about that).  When I was a kid visiting my aunt in Pawnee Rock KS (population 300-odd, depending on if there was something interesting happening down the road), she'd give me rolls of nickles to keep me out of her hair while she ran the county's sole tavern/restaurant.  It would be pitiful to say those were glory years, but I was indeed a wizard for a while.  Being much too schooled in the psychological I am well aware my desire to go beat up a machine was a regressive move to a simpler time, but it's less ridiculous and permanent than getting something extra pierced at my age.  With full acceptance entering my intent, I had a ridiculously delightful time, and my heart lost about 6 pounds of pouty puffiness in the process.

Here's to more fun, and since it's at least the current reality, less smells.  I'm going to stop railing a against it (poisonous anger) and get into it a while (decreasing ignorance and letting go of graspy greed) and just be a curious observer for what's new in this different world I've plunked down into.

Today's assignment:  when life gives you lemons, build a dopamine model using licorice sticks for bonds, and call it Good Art.  Or at least have a blast in the process.

I think I'll stick with the sensory deal for a while.  Coming up-- SUPERTASTERS EXPOSED:  Excellent Artists and Poets, Annoying Dinner Companions ---Especially if you're cooking..

Ill be smelling you in all the old familiar places (or at least imaging)...
Jana

Song of the day, a paean to times gone by (with buried reference as to why I'm not quite on my game).

Opening Your Heart Will Crack it a Little

love on the riverside-- rocks from today's walk

Nothing says Friday night middle-aged fun like watching an animated video in the basement.

For some reason no one in the house will own, Toy Story III arrived via our mail-vid account a few weeks ago.  Tonight my sweetie announced he was sending it back since apparently nobody was going to watch it.  I'm a child of waste-not parents and decided we better pop it in the machine.

We exchanged several sideways glances the first twenty minutes, trying to figure out if anyone was enjoying it.  It was typical Pixar goodness-- funny, with snappy writing, brilliant animation and the reasonable semblance of that Quest Tale/Hero's Journey plot essential to all good stories.  But something was obviously missing, and I finally narrowed it down:  utterances of the F-word, or a person under 12.

We bravely persevered, and it was a good antidote to a long work week.  I love my job, but it's neither mindless or light-hearted, so that's exactly what I want for entertainment.  No Oprah Book Club tearjerkers for me, thank you.  Give me Buzz Lightyear dancing the tango and Ken doll as the Original Metrosexual.

But even kiddo comedies tug my heartstrings. (Caution:  Spoiler Alert!)  I was in full on tears along with Andy's cartoon mom when she entered her son's room and saw it packed away for college, his boyhood toys in a box.  It was just a few months ago I played that scene.  Life's changes are bittersweet, with each advance a goodbye of some kind.

There are some things we say goodbye to unnecessarily.  I hope to never lose a sense of play, wonder at the natural world, and a love of learning.  Yet even as I type those last words I think of how reluctant I have become about adapting to new technology.  I don't even try to figure out how to turn on the television--why the hell one should need four remotes to watch a show is beyond me.  I feel young enough, but as I watched the animated tango scene I realized I will not be learning how to do that dance, because my sexy can no longer trump my clumsy.  I don't mind making a fool of myself most of the time, but I have my limits.

On the other hand, age has brought its benefits.  I grew up hearing people get more close minded as they age, but that hasn't been my experience at all.  The more I know, the less I know I know, and the less black and white the world becomes.  Judgement is replaced by compassion and certainty by a softening of the heart.  As a young idealist, I had lots of (self)righteous anger.  Although I talked about love and connection,  the world was full of "thems".  I can still get my Crank on, but I see how complicated things are, and how easy it is to become hoarding of the little piece of pie you think is available, or to make lousy choices based on resources that are or you perceive to be limited.

Wendy, from her website

And I get how life's sweetnesses are all mixed in with its sadnesses.  How you don't get one without the other.  You can have the kid you lovingly raise to be independent, and s/he will leave you.  Or maybe you have a child that can never leave you, and that brings a whole nother truck of sadnesses and joys. If you love someone enough to let them in all the way, they're in deep enough to cut you.  Most won't, at least not on purpose.  But it will ache some when things change, even when it's what's supposed to happen.
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Postscript:

This blog was lost in the shuffle after I wrote it last month.   Tonight it has a new meaning for me.  One of the first friends I met in Corvallis is moving with her family several hundred miles away, to be closer to her widowed dad.  Wendy's welcome helped our family know we'd found a home here.  She's been a source of creative support, gentle spiritual teaching and inspiring mothering. Take a look at her art at divinebitsofbeauty.com. I'm one of many who will miss her luminous smile and beautiful spirit, even as we wish her happiness on this new adventure.   Godspeed, Wendy, Peter, Ella and Buddy!
    
"You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."   -- Anne Lamott

Troubles and Happiness

       Happiness often shows up on the ridges of trouble.  I think it was Elizabeth Kubler Ross who reflected about the beauty of canyons,  formed only in harsh conditions.  Likewise, happiness has a bigger edge when there is something pushing it into contrast.
 
  Zen Buddhism speaks of life as 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows.  I can tell you for sure you have to be asleep or die young to pass up the last half of that bargain.  No choice for sorrows if you choose to live.   But sometimes we seem to think of the joys as trivialities.  As if This Life is Serious Damn Business, and Don't You Forget It, less you flunk the final.

Did I mention this mind-blowing Koan of DBT founder Marsha Linehan?  "Whether you are walking to the 7-11, to the alter, or to the execution chamber-- in that moment you are just walking."  I hated that when I first heard it.  My regular "let's be black or let's be white" mind heard it as the most idiotic form of denial.  Now I see it as possibility that living in the present can allow a moment of peace.  There is potential for joy or disaster (or banality) around every corner, and until we get to that corner, well, we're just walking.  We might as well look around and see if there is anything of interest here, where we are.  And be open minded that we cannot know what for sure on which side of the list of 10,00 joys or 10,000 sorrows the next checkmark will go.

About all we have the semblance of control is what we are doing in the right now-- where we are choosing our focus, such that advance sufferings (or happiness) can wait their turns.

It doesn't take much to bring joy.  This weekend alone I found comfort and pleasure in food shared with family, the new blooms in the garden, the exquisite brightness of young musicians (hit play button at end of post to here the amazing BEE EATERS).  In the latter, such genius brought me also to tears.  Real beauty can do that-- bring both those joys and sorrows smack in our heart in one harmonic package.  It takes no more than an open and curious eye to see wonders everywhere.  

Admittedly, one woman's wonder is another's horror.  After a few grumbling hours spent trying to subdue the invasives from my garden, I came upon a bursting mound of baby orb weavers.  They delighted me (see photo right);  my companion at the time was decidedly less pleased.

After diminishing the biomass to negligible effect, I'd been considering the sell points of an all-paved yard.  Seeing this clot of bristling life brought me straight out of cranky thoughts of dandelions, holly seedlings and springweed and into the present, and then a future where my garden would be delicately decorated with lacy mandalas, each with a stripy guardian.  It was a happy yank up from my grumbling.

Spring's bounty--an iris jutting out from under a miniature Japanese maple, the fiery pokers, a plethora of clematis-- maybe they are worth it, even when it's hard to see my intention for all the weeds.   So I'll potter around the garden, not knowing what will poke up around the next corner.  And what the heck,  while I'm potttering, might as well Be Happy.

yrs,

Jana

Resolution #15: Get to know an "Other"

It's Martin Luther King's birthday.  The real one, not that day some of you get off work.  In honor of his beautiful and powerful life work and inspired by Elizabeth Lesser's wonderful TED talk, which ends this post, today's resolution is to open our hearts to someone who is very different from us.  Someone who scares us, pisses us off or just challenges our comfort level.

I may have mentioned in a post here some time ago that a local retired physics teacher, Pat Canon, started a group to do just this during the period of the contentious Bush/Gore elections.  Concerned about the black and white, middle-school bullying nature of what should have been civic dialogue, he asked devoted members of both ends of the political spectrum to come together in dialogue.  Their goal: not to persuade, but to understand the view of the other.

In my work I come into intimate conversation with people of all sorts of beliefs.  I listen with as open a heart as I can muster to grasp how they have come to their views, so that even if I disagree with those views, their actions in light of them make sense to me.  For example, a gay son feels rejected by his evangelical parents.  But in their perspective, his orientation may forever separate them in the afterlife-- and their condemnation of him comes, believe it or not, out of love and fear, not hatred.

Most of the time, the more we understand about each other, the less fearful and reactive we will be.  In light of the recent events in Tuscon and their alleged motivation (here I am talking about political views, not mental illness), it is more important than ever to remember our common humanity instead of our separateness. It is time to get way past tolerance, and to understanding.

This video will give you some guidance on making it happen.

Related posts:
Resolution #12:  Accept Others
Xenophobia

Resolution #14: Accept Yourself

You knew this was coming, right?
We started with the easy stuff.  Accept small unpleasant realities.  Accept your emotions and thoughts. Accept differences in others.  Accept that you can't know everything/the future.
Those were training wheels.
Today's challenge is to work on accepting yourself, with all your present strengths and limitations.  Accept that like every other human being, you have inherent worth and dignity.  Accept that you are no exception to the idea that nobody's perfect, and that you should treat yourself as you believe others should be treated. Accept that you have feet of clay, and a perfectly luminous soul inside of an imperfectly human carrier.

Entering this practice does not mean we abdicate our morals, growth or right intentions.  It means accepting that sometimes we are hitting the mark, and sometimes we are missing it, and we are still worthy as long as we are willing to accept our mistakes, misunderstandings, lack of knowledge; as long as we are willing to make amends and keep trying.  Or maybe that even when we feel we can't keep trying, we are still worthy of love, of redemption.

Our human journey (and I am very probably repeating myself) is like moving toward a lighthouse.  We are being guided to a good place, and if we stumble in the dark, it is important to reorient ourselves to the light.  We don't necessary get all the way to the lighthouse, but if we follow that path, we are heading in the right direction.

Keep on truckin',
Jana

Related reading:  Radical Self-Acceptance by Tara Brach
Today's video:  It's a long one.  It's worth it.  Come back when you have time, or find it on TED.com

Resolution #13: Accept Uncertainty

I am being lazy for the 13th day, but hey, you get what you pay for.

Today's challenge is to accept unpredictability and what we cannot know.  Much unneeded suffering is caused by expectations that cannot or may not be met and our desire for predictable outcome.  Other times we suffer because the stories we tell ourselves about the future are horror stories.  And as I've mentioned before, if they never happen, we suffer for nothing; if they do, we suffer twice.

It's fine to prepare for a future based on reasonable prediction.  It's great to save for future needs, protect health now to enjoy later, invest in hopes of later return.  But none of this guarantees a particular outcome.  The most we can really know-- the answer to most of our questions is:  Don't Know.

Linked below, a repeat of a sermon (chat?) I gave at the local UU a few years back.


A Sermon on Uncertainty

Resolution #12: Accept Others

"It's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds,"  --President Obama at today's memorial for the victims of the Tucson political shooting.

I said these were going to be small and simple resolutions, but there you go--these last ones really aren't.Still, they are great practices that can increase your peace of mind, and I hope you will give them a shot.

Today's resolution is about accepting others JUST AS THEY ARE, whether you like them, agree with their thinking or behavior, or are comfortable with their limitations.  It's putting into action the idea that all human beings have inherent worth and dignity, and that ultimately we are much more alike than different-- we all suffer, have hopes and fears and gifts and shortcomings.

For this practice, I suggest picking someone who occupies more or less neutral space in your landscape.  Ideally we can practice with everyone, including family and partners-- but there's usually less baggage starting with someone with whom you have little history.

To start, notice negative judgment.  "She's lazy."  "He's short."  "She's bossy."  "He's illiterate."  Now separate facts from beliefs.  To do that, you need to articulate both.  "She didn't work out today" is a fact, while "she is lazy" is a belief.  Now look for the judgments behind the belief.  Let's go with the last one.  "He misspelled several words in his email" is a fact.  "He's illiterate" is a judgment, unless you've tested him.  "Everyone who posts on the internet should always use proper spelling, and people who can't spell are idiots" is a belief/judgment as well.  For this practice, choose to suspend support of your judgment, or at least question them.  Is it possible someone who spells poorly could still have very important things to say?  Could still be wise in other areas besides spelling?  Is it even really your business whether someone else is a good speller?

When we spend less energy judging others, we have more time to really see them.  Today, extend the grace of acceptance in imperfection to others.Acknowledge that you have no control over another's behavior, feelings, or thoughts.  This doesn't mean you don't have an impact (and thus responsibility), but that is another post.

Today's reading:  believe it or not, this prayer was printed in Reader's Digest.  It's Buddhist in origin but universal in intent (There is one law, and that Law is Love).  It's meant to be done as follows:  first imagine someone for which you have neutral feelings, say a checker at your local grocery.  Say the prayer for them.  Then think of someone of whom you are very fond, and say it for them.  Now think of someone with whom you have difficulty and repeat.  Then repeat for yourself, then for all people.  I have found this a very helpful way to find peace and compassion with someone with whom I am having a troubled relationship, because if they are free from fear and suffering, they are less likely to be treating me poorly.
May (see above)  be peaceful.
May (see above) beings be happy.
May (see above) be safe.
May (see above) awaken to the light of their true nature.
May (see above) be free. 

Resolution #11: Accept your emotions

 Yesterday we talked about practicing accepting little unpleasant realities (rain, lines, rude drivers) without resistance.  This one is a step up.  These are called practices because even with intention and repetition it is difficult to do consistently, let alone perfectly.  But it is easier with practice.

The key to emotional acceptance is the middle path-- neither indulging, reacting or grasping nor denying, stuffing, misinterpreting.  Emotions should serve as data, even as we remember that some data is noise, not signal.  In other words, moods can arise from physical events such as hunger, hormones and exhaustion.  They can come from psychological events such as bereavement and emotional stress.  Sometimes these are important, and we should pay good attention because they give us clues to take action.  Sometimes they are junk mail, and we should not get too excited about the message within. 

Here's a personal example.  About once a month, I get pretty negative and crabby.  I curse under my breath at drivers, I get offended by how people use their shopping carts to invade my personal space, I feel hopeless about the future of the economy and the world.  I get tearful if I see a cute puppy or a soldier or an elderly couple holding hands. For about 24-36 hours, I meet all the criteria for clinical depression, and probably a few for Intermittant Explosive Disorder. 

Believe it or not, it took me a few years to realize this is what happens to me every month.  It's called PMS.  And regardless of whether I do yoga, therapy, or nothing at all it disappears after a day.  Once I figured it out, I realized that interpretations I make during those days (life sucks, everything is stupid, I'm a failure) are completely suspect.  If I can remember what it is, I just don't get excited about the feelings-- I ride them out.

Moods are usually transient.  The really bad ones are deceptive in their intensity, as they somehow feel more real and more important than the good ones-- which are sadly also transient.  When they are persistent-- too high or too low too long-- they deserve investigation.  Otherwise, they deserve a cocked eyebrow, at most.


Today's practice:  Accept your emotions as they arise, and try not interpreting, judging or getting attached to them.  Mostly, try not to be really reactive to them.  Use this language:  I notice I am X.  I accept I feel X at this moment.

See what happens.

Related post:  You  Are Not Your Mood
 
Today's Video

Resolution #10: Accept reality as it is

This one is a tough one, so we'll be resolute practicing it for a few days. 

We are problem solving people, and perhaps this results from what writer Joe Quirk calls the bitch gene in his book, "It's Not You, It's Biology."  We go out, it's cold and dark, and we (or some ancestor, thank you) says hey, let's put some clothes on and make a fire.  Thanks to our tendency to notice what's lacking in reality, we figure out ways to make it more tolerable.

But some things we can't change.  And we spend lots of energy moaning about them.

Author Thom Rutledge says the mathematical formula for pain is the difference between expectation and performance (substitute outcome/reality).  I've also heard it said that pain is inevitable, but suffering results when we add resistance to reality. 

Today's assignment:  try to notice when you are resisting an unpleasant reality.  Make an easy one-- it's rainy and you wish it were sunny.  You didn't make the light when it was green.  Something little.  Practice on these smaller annoyances and simply accept the facts as they present themselves.  Here's the dorky formula-- dorky, but powerful.  "I wish (x) and I accept (y)."  "I wish it was sunny and I accept that it's raining." It's powerful because the energy we use to resist reality can be either put to rest or used to make modifications that make it easier to deal with.

Today's quote:  "It is what it is."
As in whatever, dude.