Relieved.  Realigned.  Restored.  For Now.

I had a few super-crappy days earlier this week.
I was so dedicated to my misery.

Does anybody relate?

I was firmly and wholly committed to my misery.
There was zero/none/nada/no willingness in me 
To let go of my stance,
My posture of The Miserable.

The circumstances triggering 
My posture of The Miserable 
Are absolutely irrelevant,
As they were then.

When I hunker down 
Into that Martyr pose,
What seduction!

What is the payoff I get from that?

Hum.  Let’s ponder.
Then—I’m separate.
From you, from everything.
Then—I don’t have to deal with life.
Then—I’m ultimately alone.
Again.
Proving myself
Right.

Kind of like:

Fuck it.
Period.

A friend in 12 Step
Used to say:

God’s will be done.
Period.

An opposite posture?

Reality happens.
Get with it.
Or not—and suffer.

So, I chose to suffer.
And I did.

I did some of the right things, 
Sort of,
Half-heartedly.

(Talked to friends, blah, blah,
Prayed with a ¼ energy, sort of,
Blah, blah.)

Intervention did come.
Eventually.

Strangely, the precipitating event of transformation was
Of all things,
My flu shot.

Well, not the shot itself.
That would be a fabulous marketing benefit.
Get a flu shot—realign with your true self.

No, not that.

I was sitting in the pharmacy waiting area on my little folding chair.
Calm enough, and simultaneously miserable.

Life sent me two elderly folks, older than me.

She tentatively sat down.
He went to the window,
Where he navigated the paperwork for them.
After a few minutes he came back to her,
Two clipboards in hand.

And it happened:

He helped her.
He helped her with such focus and tenderness,
Leaning toward her,
Reading all the questions aloud,
Telling her how to respond,
Waiting for her to write in the answers,
Making corrections.

It was synchronistic and beyond-perfect
For me to witness.

Life gave me exactly what I needed.

To see caregiving with such easy practicality,
Such simple tenderness.
To see commitment in action.
To see the vow—for better, for worse,
In sickness, in health—
Alive and well,
Sitting on metal folding chairs 
In CVS.

It was a jolt of their kind and quiet love
That propelled me away from my self-centered fears,
Interestingly enough, related to caregiving,

And just softened my separateness.
My martyrdom, which by the way, 
Helps nobody.

I felt—
Relieved.
Realigned.
Restored.

For now.

Life does give me what I need.

The synchronicity of life
The things I am given
That we are given,
I believe
Are handpicked,
Specifically offered
To continue
To
Grow
Us.

Bottom line?
Life is coming 
To heal us.

Mostly I don’t recognize that.
Sometimes the circumstances
Suck,
The bigger picture obscured.

What is ours to do?
To keep
Walking
Through.

With
Kindness
To ourselves.

I say none of this, by the way,
To minimize the intensity of life,
The profundity of our experiences.

I say it to give us the 
Courage
To
Keep 
Going.
~~
Friends,
How are you handling your stress?
What is difficult right now?
Do you have strategies to soften around difficulties?
What is working well for you?

I’ve been worrying about the world probably too much.
I’ve been obsessing about politics, absolutely, tooooo much.
My commitment to myself today is to create and relax into a news-freer-zone.
I’ll keep you posted.

Playing for Change comes to mind.
Here is a vision for the world, to connect through the universality of music. 
I must share this with you:
~~~
“Playing For Change was founded in 2002 by Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke.   Mark Johnson was walking in Santa Monica, California, when he heard a street musician singing ” Stand By Me.”; it was this experience that sent Playing For Change on its mission to connect the world through music. 

Travelling the world with a small film and recording team, producers Johnson and Enzo Buono developed a mobile recording studio (originally powered by golf cart batteries) for recording and filming musicians live outdoors, and progressively editing all the separate artists, blending all into one performance as PFC travelled from artist to artist, country to country. Starting with a studio-made demo in the right key and tempo, ‘we would deconstruct [the track]’ as each recorded musician could listen with headphones to what had been recorded before them, and playing the same song, adding into the mix their own style.  For the project Johnson has recorded and filmed music in more than 50 countries across the world. 

More than 150 — mostly street — musicians from 25 countries have combined their talents to create a global phenomenon with millions of followers across the world.*”
~~~
Truly, this is the world that I choose to live in.  
Here is Jackson Browne and Folks:

~~~
Dear Friends,

Let’s pray for courage,
For willingness,
For strength.

For ourselves.
For each other.
For all.

Here, there, and everywhere,
May be find our way,
One step,
One breath,
One moment
At
A
Time.

May all beings benefit for our shared words.

Blessings and heart,
Aruni