Real
Life
“The
miracle of love comes to you in the presence of the uninterpreted moment. If
you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life.”
Byron
Katie
My
friend Garvice introduced me to this author—Byron Katie, who is, it turns out,
a female. She says and writes things that make you stop and think. One quote that
I came across is: “If you argue with reality, you will be wrong, but only
100% of the time.”
Another is, “Peace
doesn’t require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem
begins and ends there.” It reminds me of a question my own therapist used
to ask: “Who has a problem here?” If you answer, “I do,” then of course, the
problem belongs to you. Take, for example, having a spouse who snores and keeps
you awake at night. (Which I did) The spouse isn’t bothered by the snoring, but
you are. Whose problem is it, then? I wanted to make it his problem, expecting him to
take care of it. That way, I didn’t have to take responsibility for my sleep problem.
What I could have done, and eventually did, was to leave the room and sleep somewhere
else. That, in turn, engendered a middle-of-the-night temper tantrum on his
part. Now, whose problem is it?
I wonder what it is in
the human psyche that makes us want to delegate responsibility for our problems.
Why not be in touch with the reality that the problem belongs to us and is
therefore, ours to take care of. Are we just naturally combative? (Yes, and
competitive, and in many cases, spoiled) I will always remember how the Mayan people
I visited in Guatemala lived in small, enclosed compounds and all slept in the
same space—five generations sometimes. They didn’t look sleep deprived. And I
remember that they also had animals living within the compound—chickens, dogs,
a cow, rabbits. Surely, there were sounds made during the night. Yet, no one
left the compound so they could sleep better. No one expected a big, cushy bed
to sleep in alone and hog all the covers.
The miracle of love comes
to you in those moments when you realize you are right where you need to be,
and those around you are too. Even when they snore, and even when the rooster crows
before the sun is up. If we can stop identifying as a problem not getting our
ego-needs met, our personal space respected, our “rights” served, then there’s
every chance that we will find peace in our hearts. And, truly, there is no better place
for it to be.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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