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 We have had wonderful rain almost every day this week. And the result is beautiful:






I took that last photo at 7 pm near where I am dog sitting. I felt very happy that those are the residual clouds from the rain storm and not smoke. I wish that all those areas that are experiencing wildfires could have this as well.

The scale said this morning that I am two pounds down for the month of July and the tape measure said that I have lost an inch on my hips. It was hard work but it felt good. I celebrated by buying some capri leggings at my favorite store in Bisbee yesterday. I will wear them for Zumba instead of my baggier capris.

Which leads me to my major thought for today but first a bit of an introduction. My cousin sent me a link to an interview with Pema Chodron and Bill Moyers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz-fB8e8LsM. Chodron is so down to earth and peaceful! One of the parts of the interview that was key for me—that I am chewing over—is her statement that people are hooked on avoiding suffering. I was confused at first by the statement that “we shrink from suffering but love its causes.” I listened carefully to the follow-up and took away that our means of “getting happy” to avoid suffering—whatever that suffering is—actually escalates the suffering. Well, that’s easy to understand in the “big” addictions like drugs. But I wondered about the addictions that we don’t often see as addictions. Or that don’t seem to cause as much suffering as drugs do.

In my own life, I thought of how I use food to make me feel loved, feel better and then I feel unloved because I am overweight. Or I buy things for the same reason and then worry that I have overspent. Or I binge watch crime shows to avoid delving into deeper things—crime shows and crime novels are often my Flow—and then I feel sad about the world, sad that I am not doing anything to help the world. That I don’t know the answers to why the world is the way it is. And I know that watching crime shows and reading crime novels won't give me the answer to the how and the why.

In the mornings I have so many good things I think of doing—courses to watch online, good books to read—that I just feel “whew, I need to relax a bit before I tackle that so I will just watch this crime show/read this crime book or some other escapist book for a bit.” And then that “bit” turns into hours and hours of avoidance. The evening comes and I feel frustrated that I didn’t do the “good” stuff but I am too tired at that point to tackle anything. 

I am wondering what that is. Is it what Pema Chodron talks about “shrinking from suffering but loving its causes”—treating myself to something “easy” to . . . but to what? What is it to be fully present in this world? Is there something I could be actually "doing" that I will never learn about because I am stuck in the world of crime....

Haha, aren’t you glad I wrote? I imagine you rolling your eyes and thinking, oh Val, this is so much a privileged person’s problem/dilemma. And you’d be right. But it’s still a dilemma….



Comments

  1. OneKidsMomJuly 18, 2021 at 10:34 AM

    Just because others might have it worse does not invalidate your own problems. So... sure, it's your blog, write what you need to write to get the insight that helps you identify and take the next step! I can see the sense in what you wrote.

    First world problems disappear when one enters the realm of the third world... I once participated in an exercise of the mind with soldiers returning from a war zone. It was to add to the list of "I'm going camping this weekend and I'm bringing..." fill in the blank. Those of us who were civilians gave answers like: "my favorite pajamas" or more fancifully, "my 13 foot camper-trailer"... the returning soldiers brought things like a shovel, a knife, or TP. Really made us aware of the contrast.

    Applying this learning to our choices in a given day may help us make better ones!

    ReplyDelete
  2. OneKidsMomJuly 18, 2021 at 10:34 AM

    P.S. Love the picture with the low clouds. It's magical!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJuly 18, 2021 at 1:20 PM

    I think the idea that we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing and/or enough to help ourselves and others haunts a lot of people in this world of hurt people and hurt people who hurt people. But, Pema is right -- I love to eat sweets but not the suffering it causes. There can be so much complexity to the phenomenon of why we do things that cause us to suffer and there are proposed answers in philosophy, religion and psychology (probably other fields weigh in, too). I believe each one of us who has the leisure to do so would benefit from wondering about that. Maybe it is the contemplation step of change?

    ReplyDelete

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