The Fruits of Suffering Are Not Always Sweet.

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." 

~Helen Keller

When you visualize a person who is suffering, what do you see?

Most of us see an image of someone laying in a prone position and immobile. The oppression of suffering completely absorbs them. Their trial will not have an end in sight, and they can only lay there and hope for the comfort of death.  But Helen Keller's words above seem to depict the exact opposite. Her words resonate with me, and my experience.

Suffering is a verb that activates the soul.

As I shared on Monday, suffering is not pain or discomfort. Suffering is an ongoing event that one carries for the long haul. It does manifest itself in outcomes and demands a reaction. It makes us act, think, respond and plan differently. Some people call this the 'fruit' of suffering. When I think of 'fruit,' I see something of value that is delectable. And in this case, the fruits can be downright nasty, especially when we come to realize initially that we are being placed into a time of 'long-suffering.' I wonder how the fruits of Helen Keller's initial dive into the realization of suffering tasted? I would surmise they were far from sweet.

We are often moved from the sour grapes of suffering by 'gardeners' who appear in our lives.

We might look for them, or they find us. These compassionate souls who have a gift for empathy, patience, and mercy.  Often, they understand suffering, but not always. They see our plight, recognize our worth, and assure us we can be productive again. They help us prune off the negative fruit, and support us in propagating the good stuff.

But we have to accept them in and be open to listening. 

While we are choking on the bad taste of the fruit of suffering in the early days, our ears are not always open to hearing about how we can directly impact change. It's the day we realize that while we didn't choose the suffering, we can choose the outcomes, which we begin to experience a little of what the dear Miss Keller describes.

Or,

We can choose to roll around in the rotting fruit and ferment our soul - 

Or,

Watch as our character soars. 

Cheers. 

Do you know how to suffer?

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning the suffering.”

~Friedrich Nietzsche

My Grandpa always told me it was a good idea to allow plants to suffer a bit...

In the hot sun of the Central Valley of California, the ground would dry up fast, and the leaves of the vegetables and cotton plants would wilt. Your first reaction is to water, water, water and freshen them up. But Grandpa explained that this would only create foliage, not the all important fruit. The lack of water made the plants think they were dying, and they would push out their fruit in an effort to create before death. It works.

I was reminded of this as I considered taking a week of a closer look at ‘suffering.'

A close friend asked if I would take up the subject and shine my joyous perspective on it. They were seeking some hope in dealing with suffering in their life. As I mused about the word and its meaning, it occurred to me that I should start with what suffering truly is, and what it is not….

Suffering is not just being in pain or discomfort emotionally, physically or spiritually.

When you are in pain or discomfort, you have a potential for a solution. You have options for healing. There is hope there. When we are suffering, there are no answers for the suffering - at least that can be seen or found by us. Like the plants, we can only see this suffering as ongoing and continued. We are here in this place, and there is nothing that can take us from the suffering. While you will hear people say, "Oh wow, I am suffering from this cold.", or, "I am suffering from loneliness.", they are just sick or sad, and they can get better from these things.

Suffering is not likely to ever end. 

When we are truly suffering, it's a situation or circumstance that we can't resolve. People who understand this know the difference. They may even slightly chuckle to themselves when the hear the word misused. They know that suffering produces something that pain or discomfort never will. 

Suffering is not usually self-imposed.

We are not likely to put ourselves willingly in a place of suffering. It doesn't jive with the will to live and survive. We can hurt ourselves, damage ourselves emotionally or damn ourselves spiritually, but we don't throw ourselves into suffering. 

Suffering happens to us. 

And then we realize we need to get busy learning how to live with it.

And that's when we see the fruits of it.

Cheers. 

Balance comes from strength...

“Good enough is the new perfect.”

 ~Becky Beaupre Gillispie

I started doing Yoga a year ago. 

I immediately learned why I had been concerned about starting it before. Standing on one leg it hard! It looks so easy when you are looking at a photo of someone in a peaceful repose on one leg - but until you've tried it - you have no idea...  I stressed and struggled when I first started, falling far more than I stood up.

I asked myself, "Why is this so hard? What is holding you back?"

You see, I wanted to master this balance. That's the way I am - I don't do things halfway. I don’t think I’m very different than most people in this. Anybody who is going to take on a new practice of something wants to be good at it, right? But where my personality has often gotten in my way in the past is my drive to be Mary Poppins in most things – “Practically perfect in every way.”

I wanted to find my ‘perfect balance.'

For months, each time the Yogi Teacher would work up to ‘Stand strong on your right leg and lift your left leg…’, I would feel my insides tighten. I was going to do it, this time, come what may. And as I practiced, I got a little better, but I still wobbled, and the peace that was supposed to envelop me was far from happening. I began to get a little discouraged. Then one day, a new Teacher said something that helped everything come together, and I discovered something I had not considered about ‘balance.' 

"Think about how you are feeling... You are standing strong on one side of your body,

 and floating on another..."

I was thinking too much about floating side and not enough on the strong side!

My balance needed to come from my strength, not my weakness. How many times in life had I insisted on making my weakness stronger than it was capable of being in the name of perfection? Now, I focus on what is strong about me and push it just a little bit harder. It compensates for the weak parts of me and brings me the balance I need.

I may never put my floating leg behind my head, but that's ok...

My good enough is my new perfect.

Cheers.

One Minute of Joy on Balance: If you fall a few times....

"Life is a balance of holding on and letting go."

~Rumi

Growing up, my Mother always used to call me "Grace", but she met the opposite....

I was one of those little girls who always sported a skinned knee, bruised shins, and scratched up arms.  If there was a crack in the sidewalk or a hole in the grass, I was going to be the one to find it. So in considering to take a look at the deeper meanings of 'balance' in life, I had to wonder how my perspective would look. What could I say about how I have learned about balance in my life?

The Rumi quote above gave me the inspiration and direction I needed to begin my week's journey.

What I had learned in all those injurious falls was pretty significant. Indeed, most of our lasting life lessons are learned in those moments between when we are sailing along without an issue and when we find ourselves flattened on the ground. Take a second and remember how it felt in those microseconds that you tried, and failed, to catch yourself.  Did your effort make the fall better or did it worsen it in the long run? 

I submit that it was the lack of willingness to just 'let go' and prepare for the best outcome that can cause us a greater injury.

As Rumi states, balance is about finding that middle ground, and an awareness of both sides of the issue. You cannot just forget about the gravity that is pulling you down, but neither should you let it define your walk. Remain aware that there's a ground beneath you - but soar at the same time.

That's my joyous perspective on falling.

Moreover, finding balance.

Cheers. 

Avoid the flocks, be an Eagle.

We must never be afraid to be a sign of contradiction for the world.”

 ~Mother Theresa

I’ve felt like I was different ever since I was in elementary school...

When my personality started to settle and I came to realize I didn’t look, think, feel, learn, or act like my peers. Looking back, I don’t think I was all that different, but I began to believe I was. Moving every few years just meant few people got to know me that well. I was often the ‘new kid’, and that made me different. I experienced a lot of bullying, and in my younger years, I responded with my fists. 

So yeah, this Caucasian blue-eyed blonde understands being treated differently because of who I was.

In high school, I wanted to have friends and be a part of something; I wanted to feel like I wasn’t a freak. I tried hard to fit in, but trying to be something I wasn’t became emotionally draining. I was just different, and I had to accept that. I didn’t get invited to a lot of parties, and I didn’t go to many of the date dances. I was a big, brazen and opinionated woman. Not a lot of men can handle that.

My High School counselor could see this and told me: “Ducks fly in flocks and Eagles fly alone.”

He was right. And even after I left High School and got married at an early age, I continued to push the boundaries of every group I became a part of. I loathed being looked upon as a part of the ‘flock’. I still do.

That’s why it still pains me so much to see people attempting to make us all into groups again.

It tears us apart more than it brings us together when we lose our ability to see differences. Yes, it may be easier to walk by a group of people who look alike and make a decision about who they are. And as you walk by, they are more than likely doing that to you because of your inability to morph into their presence.

But this eagle still likes throwing a wrench into their expectations.

The flock wants you to be what is best for them, not what is best for you. The more they attempt to categorize me, the harder I push to show how I’m different. The more I am told about how their differences are more important than any others, the more I point out how this makes them a flock.

Be eagles. Fly above the fray.

Contradict the trends. 

Cheers.

Do our differences really make a difference?

“Live your life for you not for anyone else. Don’t let the fear of being judged, rejected or disliked stop you from being yourself.”

 ~Sonya Parker

It feels like lately, everyone wants to make me see their differences.

It's as though they have elevated what makes us 'different' from each other to a whole new special place of honor. Our commonalities are no longer vital to our working, living or banding together. In fact, if my differences are not the same as their differences, then there's a good chance we simply will not be able to come to any accord. We are then destined to live across a chasm from each other, focused on what it important to the others who share our differences, and seeing who can out-scream, out-wit or out-snark each other. 

It's a bizarre form of segregation - very subtle, but powerful.

Most sad to me is that those who are 'different', who live those differences out loud and proud, are often the ones who help drive real change in our world. But when they form a gang mentality against the 'others' around them, their message gets lost. And alas, people don't grasp the opportunity to grow in the new understanding of differences, and we are more apart than ever. 

Our current common culture is one that values acceptance from the group we align with over self-acceptance.

Celebrating and expressing how we are different from others is not made more powerful by blending into a group of others claiming those same proclivities. Sure, it might make us feel powerful to be in a herd, but we certainly become less seen. The only true way our differences can make a real difference is to stay rooted on our path and share with those who cross it naturally.  

Only when we resist the urge to put up walls and hide behind assumptions that we will not be accepted by the group can we grow in the courage of our convictions. 

We have to accept everyone's differences, especially ours, on our own.

That's when our differences will indeed make a difference.

Cheers.

Looking Past the Probable Excuses to the Likely Desires.

"Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be; the deeper must be its foundation."

~Saint Augustine

For the better part of 5 years, I knew I needed to make a change...

I remember looking at pictures from my son's wedding and taking a deep gulp. How had I allowed myself to become this overweight? More than just the increase in my size, I also knew I was beginning to feel the physical effects. My joints hurt, and felt out of breath when trying to climb stairs, and I had high blood pressure. It wasn't like I'd never been this size. My life was a virtual ping pong game of weight loss and weight gain. The last time I had worked on 'losing weight', I was doing it with the support of my son who had just joined the Army. We were encouraging each other. I was so excited for him to come home before his deployment so he could see how great I looked.

But he didn't make it home. 

So the next seven years found me excusing the need to stay healthy. Why try? We are all going to die someday. Why waste my time when I knew there was a high probability that I would only fail again and be right back where I started?

The reality is there aren’t any guarantees. Every decision to change carries no certainty with it.

Certainty is an illusion that comes from comfort and security, but just because something’s comfortable, or we are secure in our 'plan',  that doesn’t mean it’s permanent. I knew this, and knew it well, so I continued to cling to what I knew was safe, albeit unhealthy. The excuses that come from our fear of the uncertain outcomes can be overwhelmingly powerful. We will even mask them behind feigned self-acceptance or self-amusement. We are fine, we say to the world, just like we are. 

We can either cling to what feels safe, avoiding potential disappointment, or realize the worst disappointment is the type we have in ourselves.

When it finally comes to a head, and you can't quiet the feelings of frustration and anger in what you've allowed yourself to avoid, you are left with a decision. Not a decision to change or not to change. That's further down the road. The first decision is to admit you are preventing yourself from realizing your full potential. Your calling.That’s what happens when we ignore our calling; we may feel more secure for not taking a risk, but we also feel unhappy with ourselves for not finding the courage to do it.  For me, the weight was but one symptom of what was stopping me from realizing my calling. I needed a complete healing. That was the 'right' decision for me. 

That’s what it means to make the “right” decision. To do what feels right, right at this moment, the only one that’s guaranteed.

The guarantee was that my desire for healing to realize my calling was stronger than my excuses. It also didn't carry a timeline or a goal. Healing from the inside out might take a lifetime. And I was ready for however long that would be.

Let your past become the impetus for why you are an expert, not a failure.

We can’t ever know what the results our efforts will be, but we can know we dramatically increase our odds of achieving our desires if we make it a priority to do what we know is right, no matter where it leads us. One step at a time. Each day a new beginning, and the continuation of a journey to your calling - your highest desire.

Look past the probable excuses.

Cheers.

Getting Past the Excuses to the Reason.

“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses…The gift is yours—it is an amazing journey—and you alone are responsible for the quality of it.” 

~Bob Moawad

If we try, we can always find an excuse not to do what we want to do, 

and it can seem perfectly valid.

We can convince ourselves that we're smart, realistic, or safe, or that we don’t even really want it. We’re great at justifying the status quo because we know what is there, even if it’s dissatisfying. The unknown can seem terrifying. But somewhere in that same realm where anything could go wrong is everything that can go right.

So many times in my life, I’ve finally pushed myself past excuses to do something and then wondered, “Why did I wait so long?” If I had known the benefits would far outweigh my fear, discomfort and every excuse, I would have pushed myself sooner. But we can’t ever know that in advance. We can only realize that our reasons to do something are greater than our excuses not to.

We have to realize what’s behind the reasons to move past the excuse.

There are the easy ones to find first: Time, money, know how, people who need us…. But for me, those usually can be dealt with if my reasons to do something are that important to me. I’ll find a way to compensate and do it well. It’s the biggies I call them that are the excuses which haunt me more often than not. They are more personal and driven by experience. Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the first one which is ‘probability.' 

The reality is there aren’t any guarantees.

Getting past that excuse can be daunting. 

Not wanting to fail, especially if it means a repeat performance can be a show stopper.

What’s your biggest excuse not to do what you want today? 

Take a minute to see what’s behind it. You deserve to know.

Cheers.