[Sept 8, 2012] Turning the Yuck of Life Into Yum

Some of my best transformations have come when I’ve been confronted by the way I’m perceiving life, not seeing the possibilities, instead seeing only the pain and suffering.

You know what I mean?

There are certainly times I don’t always see the beauty within me or the beauty in others or life around me.  Those are the times when I have to apply all I know, be willing to let of being “right” about what I see or what I am experiencing, bypassing the external packaging and my internal response of yuck, terror, dismay, horror, disgust, contempt.

I’m learning, yet again (and I’ll probably be learning it over and over again the rest of my life which does make me feel a little old as I write this) that my reactivity is not usually the true experience of whatever “the thing” out there is.

The yucky experience tends to reflect the filter I have on the actual situation rather than the actual event.  What I experience is the perceptual lens through which I am seeing/feeling what’s going on.

We all walk our way through these kinds of misconceptions or misperceptions that we’ve erected to shield us from the disappointments and discomfort of life.

Here’s the backstory to all this.

I’m back this from a series of week-long retreats I am doing.  It’s all part of a multi-year retreat commitment that I am at times ready to throw out the window.

I made the multi-year commitment in part to hold me to my word.   I know when I get in the middle of something there will be times when I really, really, really can’t bear it anymore.  My flight impulse will take over.

Over years I’ve learned a tiny bit about how to discern when the situation I am in is really not what’s right versus when my heart is being nourished and guided despite the discomfort.   That inquiry into discernment, however, dear friends, will be a post for another time.

Today I want to continue exploring my twenty year plus practice of transfiguring yuck into yum.

Let’s take the example I encountered during three retreats in the past six months. There found I had some strong judgments toward someone. My mental conversation was not a poetic rendition. It was instead (hard to admit) mean-spirited and nasty.

After the first retreat I left rumbling inside, spending a lot of time in reflection.

Why was this person causing such turmoil in my heart and mind? Why was there this impulse to lash out? What was the quality that I was “seeing” in this person that felt so horrible and had me react the way I was?

With reflection I realized this person mirrored times when I was with teachers or authority figures who made me feel stupid, inferior, ridiculous. The quality inflaming me was the subtle tendency people in power have to “be the authority.”   I hated what this created in me.

Yet having this person mirror back that quality to me so strongly I had to confront that tendency, that urge in me, the one we all have, to “go one up” on another person, to be “better”, smarter, wiser, more ­­­­­­­­­­____________.  

Problem is, when one person goes “one up” there is a dynamic response.  Someone else, usually unconsciously, “volunteers” to go “one down.”

Or the other pattern is two people vie for the “one up” position.   You know the game, “I’m right!” “No, no, no! I’m right!!” Back and forth and all around with nothing happening. Hard to get free of it.

Knowing about how this role pattern happens I did a lot of internal scrubbing of my heart and mind and body and thought I was freer.   (Thanks to Yvonne Agazarian and Systems Centered Systems work for giving me insight into this.)

Guess what, though? The next retreat, six weeks later, dumped me back into the same pool. Yuck, yuck, double yuck!

Each retreat I tried not to go into the pool of yuck, but, gosh darn it, things just fell out of my mouth.  I heard myself going into almost every permutation of the pattern.  Cringe.  Cringe.

I left that retreat humbled, committed to exploring this, to getting to the root of this, to pulling this darn pattern out by the root.

I spent some time before the next retreat to find compassion and mercy for me, for these parts of me that need to carry these cloaks of protection.

Then, I spent a lot of time opening my heart this other person extending compassion, asking for forgiveness. In my experience this deep compassion flows from what the mystical traditions  call the One, the Divine reality.  I asked for clarification, asking for help to wash any need to separate from anyone, asking for help to soften, to let go of old, no longer necessary protections that shield my heart from love.

Then off I went to the next retreat crossing my fingers.

At this point I knew that if I fell into the same pattern I had done the groundwork.  I had the awareness so I could go underneath the healing that had already taken place, exposing how I was still separating myself from love, protecting me from the Real, the One.

The time arrived. I sat somewhere in the crowd with none of this really on my mind. I was come to a different place.

It started out okay; no triggers. I relaxed. Then, as it happens when we’ve done our inner work, the outside world became a wonderful, gorgeous experience where I felt returned to my heart of all hearts.   Fulfilled, nourished, I loved it.

Then the door opened further.

This person came and sat next to me at the meal. We talked and I confessed how much work I had to do on myself, all that was in my way, all that I had kept between me and this person who in so many ways is just like me. I spoke of the parts of me that I had projected on this person and how I saw those similar qualities in this person – the ones that I am not so fond of (and, okay, to be honest, the parts of me that beat the poo out of me and consequently the other person.)

We spoke long, honestly, and lightheartedly. Gratitude connected our hearts, our minds, our words, our bodies.

I am immensely grateful for all the years of walking on the path, of having teachers who have guided me back to myself to see what’s keeping me from awakening the heart of love that grows ever more calm, present, and radiant inside.

I’m grateful I live in a time when others are also walking their path, opening their hearts, allowing them to forgive me when I transgress in any way.

I am grateful for the impulse to bow my head and heart to the ground, to acknowledge how little I know, how many mistakes I’ve made, and how great is the Love woven into each and every fragment, atom, molecule, and empty gap that glues existence together.

Knowing about that allows me to explore my yuck — knowing yum is what happens when I walk through to find the other side.

May love prevail.

May we know that when we fall the heart of the world will catch us and hold us, now and forever.

If you’re resonating with this you might be interested in engaging with your own inner work.  If so, I’d love to have you join me in the Embodied Practices Virtual Retreat I’ll be doing the weekend of September 29-30

Your comments nourish the work that I’m doing.  It helps me see if I’m in alignment with you so don’t be shy!  Comment below and let me know what this brings up for you.