How to be Ok when things are Not Ok
In the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha taught that life is suffering. What the Buddha was saying was that when we are getting what we want everything is great, and we are happy, however, when things are not going our way, we become distressed. In order to avoid this distress, we chase after what we want and do our best to avoid what we don’t want. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, the Buddha went on to explain that it is the very chasing after what we want and the avoidance of what we don’t want that causes us to suffer. In other words, we add suffering to an already difficult situation. Let me elaborate.
life is a river, always flowing. do not hold onto things - The Buddha
In an effort to create a life that is full of what we want we work extremely hard to get the comforts we think will make us happy, whilst being relentless in our effort to distract ourselves from what we don’t want. But avoiding discomfort keeps us in familiar situations, even if they are not necessarily good for us. Say we are in a relationship that we know isn’t working for us, we may prefer to avoid facing the truth because the alternative would require us to move into unchartered waters. So, we choose to stay, preferring to argue and mistreat each other rather than let it go because however bad it might be, it’s still familiar.
What about if we find ourselves struggling with a health problem? Or maybe we just hate our job. There are a million and one things that life will throw at us that will cause us some form of distress, this is all part of the human experience. Often our first reaction to things we don’t want is to run away or avoid them altogether. This might be useful in some situations, however, over time this very distraction can have a detrimental impact on our mental and physical well-being, turning our life into a constant battle because the things we don’t want will undoubtedly reappear.
Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force - lao Tzu
But what if I suggested that there is an easier way to be when things are not going our way? What if I said, “give up the struggle”? You might say “yes I already do that” or even think that to give up the struggle is weak. This reminds me of a discussion we had in one of the cancer support groups I was running a couple of years ago. The conversation started when one lady said that she was fed up with being told to fight cancer. It made her feel like she was giving up or that somehow, she was responsible for her cancer and she was a failure. The rest of the group joined in to reiterate that view, it seemed clear that being told to fight cancer was not useful, so we changed the narrative. Instead of fighting cancer, we focused on how to take care of yourself and how to practice self-kindness. We changed the slogan to “how to live well with cancer”.
From a young age, we are taught that to “fight” is strong and more conducive to success in life, but that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, scientific studies show that when we are in fight mode our body contracts and consequently compresses the organs in our body. Think about the long-term impact that might have on our physical health. Of course, this is a very simplistic description of what happens however I will leave it here as food for thought.
I’d like to offer some suggestions that might be more beneficial.
Acceptance:
Let me make it clear that acceptance does not mean giving up nor does it mean letting others walk all over you. Acceptance is looking at the problem or challenge from a different angle and removing the stories you have attached to the situation. And maybe reconsidering whether it really is such a big deal. However to do that you need awareness.
2. Awareness:
Authentic mindfulness teaches us to pay attention to what we are thinking at any given moment so that we can make better choices for ourselves, with the intention of developing a heightened awareness of our internal state. And when we become more self-aware we can begin to better understand what is behind our aversion to something or someone. Equipped with this deeper understanding of ourselves we can take more control over our lives by not being so easily swept up in our habitual reactions.
Let’s briefly return to Acceptance:
When we embark on this journey of inner exploration, we will begin to see every element of ourselves and maybe notice things we don’t like. It might be that we recognise that our words or actions are not always well intended and begin to think we are not such nice people. If this comes to the surface for you, what can you do? Well, my advice is to accept that you are human and as such, in that vessel, that you call “I” is a mix of good, bad and ugly. We all have the potential to be awful at times just as we have the potential to be loving and kind. So when we become self-aware we can work on changing what does not serve us and focus on developing the kinder, softer side of ourselves, without judgment.
3. Silencing the mind:
Now if you’ve ever tried to meditate you might have realised that the mind doesn’t like being silenced. You may even find that as soon as you try to shut down your thoughts, they become louder, so the best thing to do is give up trying to push the thoughts away and just let them flow. Then just sit back and watch your thoughts appear and disappear, without adding any stories. The more you do this, the more you will notice familiar patterns of thinking and it is here that you will begin to understand what drives you and why you react in a particular way. And now armed with that knowledge you can begin to reframe how you view certain situations. Maybe you can even remove the label “this is bad, this is good” and replace it with just “this is”.
I want to leave you with this. To be ok when things are not ok does not mean you should turn everything into something positive because that’s really a form of denial. What we can do is develop our capacity to stay solid even when things are not going our way, to not get dragged along with all the additional layers of thinking that we add, and to remember it will pass.