-Eckhart Tolle
Adjusting to a Less than Favorable Situation
I want to assist my child adjust to university and dorm life. She has identified herself as "shy and awkward' even though she has many friends and acquaintances. "The problem", according to her, is that her friends are not in the same dorm with her. The other problem is the communal gender neutral washroom situation as is the reality in most dorms these days. She is avoiding things like that washroom...driving off campus to her friends' and has yet to go to meal hall or participate in house activities because she hasn't met any friends yet. She seems to have a lovely room mate but "the problem" is, according to her, that her room mate appears to be shy as well, creating an ' awkward barrier' between them.
In her mind she is suffering an awful, unliveable situation while everyone around her, who are obviously not as unlucky or as defective as she, are adjusting and having an easy, fun time. They are living the life she expected of college life. She is therefore in pain...the pain of
discomfort, anxiety, and adjustment to an "awful situation" she does not think she can endure. :)
As a Mom, I want to fix it or at least help her in some way. I already attempted to do it on the physical level by attempting to change the situation and then, at least, the environment. I did too much and feel like I stepped over my bounds. I just feel her 'pain' and I want to relieve it for both our sakes.
Pain?
The thing is, I know pain is irrelevant and nothing more than a temporary and fleeting ego illusion. Just as my daughter is not shy or awkward, she is not in pain. Her identifying herself as these things is what limits her. My identifying her as a victim to these very minor life situations is what limits me.
There are several causes for her ( and my) perception of pain
- Identifying Self with minor past personality quirks (shy and awkward) and seeing Self trapped in past personality identity. She isn't shy and awkward. She simply felt shy and awkward in the past and acted according to that but she is not her past either. Past behaviours do not define who she is right now anymore than personality does!
- Unrealistic comparison. A comparison game goes on when we find ourselves in a less than favorable situation. We assume everyone has it better or easier, don't we? My daughter assumed that everyone had a bigger room and a better living situation because they have a bathroom or are with someone "they know well". They aren't "all alone" as she put it. She also assumed that no one felt like she did. In her comparison everyone felt comfortable, adjusted and confident. No one was as awkward as she was...everyone else was meeting friends and having a better time because they all had the skills she didn't possess. She seriously did not take into account how uncomfortable others feel too...how universal that anxious feeling is for most students starting university for the first time. Many, many others are feeling alone right now...including her room mate. She doesn't, at this point, take that comparison lamp and shine it the other way...to all the others who may be having a harder time.
- Expectations! We, as human beings , have created these expectations for life that go way beyond what life is, lol! I think kids have these unrealistic expectations about how certain life events should be. Orientation week should be exciting and fun and many friendships should start. One should feel excited and happy throughout it all! The room should be big and spacious...like home, only better. The bathroom situation should be ideal ( regardless of the fact that there are 20-40 students on each floor). We should be able to make many good friends this week. Going from home to the dorm should be a breeze.Man...this is a major turning point in all their lives requiring one of the biggest adjustments they will ever make: growing up and leaving home for the first time. Grief is going to be a part of it! Anxiety over all the change, commotion that goes on is going to be a part of it! Fear...confusion...exhaustion...man...it isn't supposed to be easy lol. Or on the other side...they may expect the worse and see only the worse because of that expectation. The point is...expectations make accepting what is a lot harder to do
- Resisting what is! Instead of settling in to the moment and the present life situation we are facing, many of us put up our hands in resistance of it. "Oh...I can't believe this is like this! I can't believe the bathroom is like that. I can't believe the rooms are this small! I can't go because I don't know anyone. I can't live like this. etc etc" We look to another moment, another situation, and other place to get us out of the moment we are in when it would be so much easier to just accept it as it is. "Sure right now...it sucks to have to use a coed bathroom and I feel uncomfortable and anxious. This is a tough adjustment but this is where I am right now and this is what it is. " We need to accept the moment for what it is and what it has to offer if we ever want to find peace in our present set of circumstances.
- We fail to see pain for what it really is. It is just an emotional energy inside us that will flow right through if we let it. Of course, I couldn't explain it that way to my daughter at this point lol...but I can say..."Just allow yourself to feel uncomfortable and be here anyway. The feeling won't kill you...and it won't last forever. Don't run from it or this situation because it makes you feel uncomfortable."
- We fail to see life situations for what they really are. Life circumstances are not Life...they cannot make us or break us. And like our emotions they will pass right by us if we do not identify with them too much. "So what, you are in a dorm with a communal bathroom...that's just a situation. It isn't your life. It won't kill you." We do have a tendency to see the less than favorable things around us as having so much power over us, don't we, by saying, this is my life? I think it is only when we make that distinction and detach from the situation that we will be inspired to act to change what needs to and can be changed. The only thing negatively impacted by a situation is body and mind...not Life.
- We fail to see who we really are. We identify with the body and mind and assume if either of these suffer Life is suffering. We fail to see the Self that is immune to all that is happening around us as who we really are. Instead we identify with the self or "little me" and own all its ideas that there are problems. It tells us: "This living situation is a big problem and you just can't do it. You can't make friends. You can't learn to be comfortable with this washroom situations etc etc. You are, after all, too shy and awkward to survive this dorm life. In order for you to be happy and whole you need all the external circumstances to be 'good'...perfect if possible. If they aren't, well you will suffer because that is what self does."
Who is You anyway? Who is telling the you that there is a problem? Could there possibly be a presence beneath all this complaining that is perfectly okay with things as they are? When we realize who we are...all this stuff just doesn't matter.
Like the illusion of silver in mother of pearl, the world appears to be real only until the Supreme Self, the immutable reality behind everything is realized.
-Swami Vishnu-devananda in The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga (1988), page 300
Anyway, these are the real challenges for my daughter and for all of us to overcome...not the situations or circumstances that flow into and out of our lives. I know, at this point though , I cannot get my daughter to see it that way. She has her own growing and learning to do to get from a perception of 'discomfort' to the reality of comfort.
I will step back and let her figure it all out. But if she asks and really seems ready to try to see beyond the physically obvious...I will definitely be here and ready to share the bit I am realizing. That is the only real 'help" I can offer her.
It is all good. All is well in my world.
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