Life is hard.
Moments That Change Life As We Knew It
There’s a theme that comes up in many of the conversations I’m having – life is hard.
I remember the first time I experienced the shock of anguish, “[an] almost unbearable and traumatic swirl of shock, incredulity, grief, and powerlessness”* that knocked the wind out of me — a sudden threshold into liminal space and a new awareness that material security is not trustworthy, that life is way harder than anyone ever told me it would be.
We all have had or will have moments like these when we get news that changes life as we knew it and leaves us wondering if we even really savored our “before.”
A Threshold Into Liminal Space
My first one happened in September 2001 when I was in my late 20’s.
Through it, I came to understand that sometimes beautiful things emerge in these experiences, too.
I became suddenly acquainted with the deepest, truest place in me. All pretense falling away left no room for bracing against fear, lingering in self-doubt, or waiting for external permission to be myself.
I did some intrepid things in that season. I let go over and over; I rode the wave, living in the immediacy of the moment and the intimacy of being held by Love and by other humans who were Love incarnate. There was something about that time that allowed me to taste what it’s like to live from my deep self.
Here, in the presence of my own suffering, I felt more attuned to the suffering of others, a deeper kinship than I’d known before.
And, just as the uncertainty of that season abated and I was on fresh, seemingly steady ground, another major life crisis arrived without warning. This one left me more adrift and disconnected than I had ever been. This time, I lost the thread of myself. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get me back.
The long-term stress of those two subsequent seasons diminished my capacity to be grounded in present-moment safety.
Coming Home to the Sacred Ground Within
For the past nine years, I have been “coming home.” I don’t think I ever really left home, but I lost my sense of the sacred ground within, the place where I perceive the ways I’m connected to Self, Spirit, and every other being.
A More Rounded, Substantial Becoming
Coming home has happened slowly over time and, occasionally, it has also arrived in poignant moments — inner shifts that invited a spacious new emergence of my becoming. John O’Donohue said:
“Beauty isn’t all about just nice loveliness. Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming. And I think when we cross a new threshold, that if we cross worthily, what we do is we heal the patterns of repetition that were in us that had us caught somewhere…we cross onto new ground where we just don’t repeat what we’ve been through in the last place we were.
Beauty, in that sense, is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life."
Moments We Would Never Ask For
Life is hard.
There are moments we would never ask for:
when someone we love dies or betrays us
when someone close tells us who they are or what they need from us, when we don’t know how to love them and ourselves at the same time
when our inner drives for connection and protection are both trying to save us, when we are longing to be known but cannot relax into the arms that are reaching for us
when we’ve caused harm and realize that inside of us there is another layer of shadow and suffering to turn toward, when we’re terrified that looking at it will break us
when we realize that security is an illusion, that neither money nor life hacks will insulate us from being broken open
when there is no good option and, still, we must choose
Spirituality Is Not A Side Project
Spirituality is not a side project. It’s about opening more deeply to our lives (over time) and holding on for the ride. It’s about noticing what’s happening within us without having to figure it all out.
If we’re lucky, we discover the ways we hold unresolvable tensions within.
We are, at once, both:
longing for and wary of connection
bracing against and softening into our experiences
so done with it all and also moved by fleeting glimpses of an “allusive aliveness*” that is real and wonderful
Love’s Exquisite Facets Emerge in the Constrictions
Cynthia Bourgeault writes, “Only when love enters the constructal givens of this world and encounters the constrictions of choice, finality, separation, tragedy, betrayal, and heartbreak do its most tender and exquisite facets begin to emerge – qualities such as steadfastness, tenderness, commitment, forbearance, fidelity, and forgiveness.
These mature and subtle flavors of love make no sense in a world where everything simply flows. They are cured on the rack of time.”
It’s Sort Of All We Have - Cinematic Wisdom from Garden State
A few scenes from the 2004 movie Garden State have stayed with me all these years.
In this one, Sam says to Andrew, "My mom always says that, when she can see I'm like working something out in my head, she's like, 'you're in it right now,' and I'm looking at you telling this story, and you're definitely ‘in it.’"
In another, Andrew says, “Fuck, this hurts so much.” and Sam replies, “Yeah, I know…but that is life. If nothing else, that’s life, you know. It's real, and sometimes it fuckin' hurts, but it’s sort of all we have."
If you’re “in it” right now, you are in good company. I’m sending you so much love.
Would you like some company as you attune to your life with courage and compassion? I’d love to hear what’s stirring in you. I offer spacious accompaniment and trauma-informed spiritual direction.
