Life is troublesome. This can be a nice reality, one of many biggest truths. It’s a nice reality as a result of as soon as we really see this reality, we transcend it. As soon as we really know that life is troublesome — as soon as we really perceive and settle for it ~ then life is now not troublesome. As a result of as soon as it’s accepted, the truth that life is troublesome now not issues. ~ M. Scott Peck, MDA reader writes: I learn in one among your latest posts a citation from The Highway Much less Traveled about accepting the truth that life is troublesome. I am making an attempt to know the writer’s phrases however failing.
Is he saying that if we settle for that life is troublesome, it’s now not troublesome? Does that imply that the loneliness, sorrow, vacancy, the tears of grief will finish? Or does it imply that the ache of our loss continues, however is now not troublesome? Is that this one thing just like the idea of “mindfulness”? That is one other idea I am scuffling with. I want I may make these ideas work, I actually do. I might love to maneuver past this ache and resume one thing like a life.
My response: To me, Scott Peck’s assertion is all about expectations. Whether or not we’re conscious of it or not, we Individuals typically have the naive expectation that life ought to be simple or snug or great, that dangerous issues will not occur to good individuals, and that happiness is simply across the nook. My very own life experiences have taught me simply the other: Life might be fairly troublesome and unfair, and lots of instances, irrespective of how “good” I have been, or how laborious I’ve tried, or how a lot I’ll deserve for it to be in any other case, issues do not at all times prove the best way I count on or need them to be, and life for me continues to be ~ in a phrase ~ troublesome. (See, for instance, the Introduction on my Site’s Articles ~ Columns ~ Books web page.)
I believe Scott Peck is telling us that after we settle for the fact that life is troublesome, we are able to cease combating it, and we’re now not centered on the unfairness of all of it. We will select as a substitute to take advantage of the life we do have, and do what we are able to to arrange for and meet its challenges alongside the best way.
In her great e-book Robust Transitions: Navigating Your Means via Tough Instances, Elizabeth Harper Neeld explains it this manner:
One of many inventive and victorious outcomes researchers inform us we are able to count on when we’ve got navigated our method via a tricky transition is elevated knowledge. One piece of that new knowledge must be a recognition that we’ll by no means be completed with robust transitions. Sure, we’ll work our method via this specific troublesome time and that individual change. However we’ll by no means get to a spot in life the place there are not any extra transitions. We aren’t going to a spot in life the place there are not any extra transitions. We aren’t going to get so good on the talent of navigating via laborious locations that the modifications do not present up for us as a problem. Although I’ve studied, thought, and written about robust transitions for nearly twenty years, I nonetheless need to be reminded infrequently by individuals who love me that I’ll get via a selected troublesome transition. My husband will typically jokingly say to me, “You’ll want to sit down and browse your individual books.” There isn’t any life insurance coverage coverage one can take out and positively no writer one can catch on to that may carry freedom from the laborious work of coping with transitions. What can we come to know via our gained knowledge? That there’s a course of that may conclude with victorious outcomes and a way of Renewing. That I could make the selections and the alternatives that enable us to navigate as easily or as roughly via a tough time as is feasible at that second. {That a} transition is about a lot greater than what seems. Sure, circumstances and conditions round me change, and that launches me into the need to navigate myself via a troublesome time. However one thing far more profound is happening. I’m being modified myself. And people modifications in me stand to make me extra succesful, compassionate, and elevated in my capability to place life’s ups and downs in perspective. After I start one other robust transition, I’ve all these learnings and all these helpful experiences at my disposal (pp. 272‑273).
You additionally say that you simply’re scuffling with mindfulness, which is a useful gizmo that helps us to handle intense waves of emotion. It teaches us to decelerate, to carry our consciousness totally into the current second, to give attention to only one factor at a time, and to concentrate to our expertise with an angle of openness, kindness and acceptance.
Chances are you’ll discover this video with Dr. Jon Kabbat-Zinn to be useful in your efforts to higher perceive the idea:
I additionally encourage you to learn Mary Friedel-Hunt’s complete article, Meditation: Useful to These Who Grieve. You’ll discover extra sources on meditation and mindfulness within the Meditation thread in our Instruments for Therapeutic Discussion board, situated in our on-line Grief Therapeutic Dialogue Teams.
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