The "Crappy" Stage of Waking Up

 Enlightenment consists not only of the seeing of luminous shapes and visons, but in making the darkness visible. The latter procedure is more difficult, and therefore, unpopular. 

Carl Jung

Still clinging! Still grasping! Still looking for something out there to make me feel better in here...but I am doing it less and less.  For the most part, I find myself sitting with what is and saying to myself, "Well this sucks!" Well...maybe not to that extreme lol... but  I do find myself feeling a bit 'hope-less' and sad. I am at the "crappy" stage of waking up, I guess.  

The Crappy Stage

When we give up our old conditioned ways of getting through the day, what are we left with?  The reality of what is.  And what if that is less than pleasant, as it 'appears to be'  in my case?  The old conditioned mind would say,  " Well find something out there that you can fix or change to make your situation better.  Or at the very least find something you can look forward to in the future or fall back on some pleasant memory of your past. Just don't stay here in this moment.  It sucks!"  This is also what we are encouraged to do by psychology and society, is it not? "Don't lose hope! Stay positive!  Look for the bright side.  Find your happy place.  Think of a pleasant memory. Focus on some future goal." There is no, "Notice, allow, accept, embrace, learn, grow  from what is right here, right now...even if it sucks and you feel miserable inside." 

I am at the point of my understanding where I truly realize that nothing "out there" can make me feel good inside and nothing "out there" is responsible for making me feel yucky. It is purely an internal game. But  without the veil of ignorance that once convinced me otherwise I am looking smack dab into the eyes of reality.  I am left to face some less than pretty things in my life. I am left to face the yuckiness of my insides...the discontent, the resentment, the frustration, the fear...the 'suffering' . There is no more hiding behind this veil (a pseudo sense of happiness derived by denying the reality of the moment). At this point of the juncture it does not feel good being so exposed. I know the peace is there beneath all these things that I stuffed on top of it  over the years  and I do know, without a doubt, that I will get to it when I finally rid myself of all these samskaras...Let me rephrase that, I am falling into peace as the knots within me untangle, come to the surface and are released. But as of now...I am still falling as these things come up into my conscious awareness. I am  bumping into my stuffed emotion and it hurts. This leaves me feeling very 'unsteady'. 

When we feel unsteady or uncomfortable in the moment...what does the mind want to do? Escape! Despite what I know, I still occasionally fall back into the old ways of grasping and clinging...wanting to numb or escape the moment.  I have been going to Netflix and Crave every evening with a plea, "Save me from this feeling, this moment!" I catch myself doing this.  I watch myself doing this and I willingly go there instead of just sitting with this "yuckiness" inside. I suppose the fact that I am calling it yuckiness is an indication of my lack of advancement.  It isn't "yuckiness"...it is just feeling, emotion, thoughts, story that may not be pleasant. Part of me still says if it isn't pleasant..."it is wrong, bad  or shouldn't be!" And I resist it.  I catch myself doing it...I do...but I have yet to commit to sitting with "even this" level of intense emotion. I know that it is only through allowing this sense of suffering to be and by going through it will I get beyond it...but part of me still resists. 

I still judge and resist my moment. And then I catch myself resisting the fact that I am resisting. So, I start there. I gently release the hold I have on those habits of beating up myself for not being where I want to be. I say to the resistance of the resistance, "It is okay.  Come up here and sit with me for a while.  I hear you. I feel you. We don't have to be 'there 'already, though, k? .  It is a process. It all unfolds one layer at a time.  It is all good. We will just keep falling back into what is and with curiosity and awe , we will just watch what happens."

Hmmm! Learning, learning, learning. Growing, growing, growing.

All is well!