Living With Guidance: On Being Wretchedby Karen Murphy
May 11, 2011
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"Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness
inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that’s
all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big
deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and
addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness — life’s painful aspect — softens us up considerably. Knowing
pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right
into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose — you’re just there. The wretchedness
humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed,
discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each
other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” ~Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living
by Pema Chödrön.
My birthday was last weekend. On my special day I was loved and loving, two things
at the very tippy-top of my List of Awesome, but still I could not escape a nagging feeling that I should be doing something
different. Birthdays, in my experience as a spiritual teacher and mentor as well as having occupied space on the planet for
a good while now, are momentous. Significant. Your birthday is your Personal New Year, and I believe it is a good idea to
pay attention to what you create around it. I wanted to make my birthday mark something truly wonderful.
But all I could think about was lack. The things I am not doing but wish to be. The long
list that beckons to me daily. The path yet-to-be that is not yet unfolded, but that I can almost touch-taste-smell, so close,
and want desperately. The feelings of doubt around self-worth, and around simple existence. Do I deserve to even be on the
planet, let alone to work, to offer something to others, to be loved?
I wondered what I am calling in to my experience by this attention to lack and Not, but
I could not help myself. The feelings grew stronger. I fell deeper into them, so far I could not get out.
It's my own fault, of course. I take 100% ownership. I was enjoying the gloriousness of
life not long ago, caught up in the beauty of what I thought I was co-creating, and yes, just as Pema Chodron suggests, I
became arrogant. I thought I could stay in that place forever. I thought I had found a way out of being human.
It is this back and forth from gloriousness to wretchedness that makes us so exquisitely
human. I see it in others every day — mistakes, misunderstandings, sadness, despair — and see the beauty in it.
You are being human. Yay! Good on you. But me? I have yet to offer myself the same compassion I try to extend to others. I
believe I should be beyond mistakes, should live in gloriousness every day.
That is my undoing, and I know it. I was smacked in the face by it today. And I am having
trouble feeling grateful (yet) for it, but that too will come. I hope.
In case any of this is familiar to you, I'll share what I am doing about my feeling of
wretchedness.
Breathing. Seriously. Most of us do not breathe enough. I know I don't. So I am trying
to remind myself to now. Let's breathe together, shall we?
Getting out. It is glorious spring in Seattle, and it's a rare sunny day. Summerlike,
if you can judge by the number of people wearing shorts (it's 57 degrees). I am going out to look at my view of Lake Union
and the city beyond. Gorgeous. You can get out and breathe too. Hug a tree. Sink your feet into the grass. Smell the flowers.
Self compassion. The perfection I see in others is in me, too, otherwise I would be unable
to see it at all. I know that and so I am trying to hold the mirror of goodness up to me as well as the mirror of lack. My
arms ache from the trying but I will get there. If I take some space and remember that I am here on this planet to love and
be loved, I can allow myself to realize I am already doing my job and that nothing more is required. That won't prevent me
from trying to be a better person every day but it might help me see myself more compassionately.
Where are you this week? In gloriousness or wretchedness?
