18 Dec The Practice of Not Taking Life Personally
I’m learning new things about body expereince as I pass through the interest life phase of menopause. I wake up at night with body sensations that could easily be labeled as anxiety — yet I don’t feel anxious. Or I feel a pressure, an internal beating, a drive …toward what I don’t know.
Often I’m awakened by these sensations and lie there “watching” them, noticing them, irritated at them, wanting them to go away so I can go back to sleep and get some rest. Yet my body has a life of it’s own and is being orchestrated through this phase of life regardless of my wishing it to be different.
The times when I can get curious and be more interested in the process are when I end up feeling grateful for all the exploration I’ve done inside myself up to this point. I can certainly see why menopausal women have gotten a bad rap. It’s extrordinarily easy to translate these wide ranging sensations as emotional upset or unease. These sensations of anxiety or chaos or turmoil could push me into an emotional reaction.
Instead I’m practicing watching the push-pull inside me, this drama of fires burning and winds raging and soundless cacophony.
How much of our everyday dramas are propelled by these underground terrains that we have not yet learned to ride? What if we learned a different language translating the internal vibrations and movements into something that isn’t personal, isn’t about drama?
This coming year I’m making explicit a practice I’ve been doing for the last couple years. This year, 2012, I’m practicing not taking life personally. When things happen inside me, around me, to me, I’m practicing seeing it for what it is, becoming curious about it, and having it not mean anything about me. Nothing good — and more importantly, nothing bad.