Learning life lessons

Perhaps nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. Maybe the only enemy is that we don't like the way reality is NOW and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive. It keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us.

Where are we separating ourselves from reality? How are we pulling back instead of opening up? How are we closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter?
-- Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty

Learning life lessons. This seems to be my year for learning lots of difficult lessons. Divorce, loss of job, questioning my identity, questioning my orientation … it’s all hitting at once, and hitting hard, with lots of questions and little understanding of where I should go next, why this is all happening to me at once, and how to best proceed with the next tiny step forward.

Perhaps my goal should be to just sit in peace and listen to what the universe is now screaming for me to hear. With trepidation for how I might jinx myself, I could say that life couldn’t get much more difficult and confusing. Of course I know it could – someone could get sick or die. Please, goddess, don’t add that to my life right now. I promise to sit still and pay attention.

I could wish for life as it currently stands for me to go away! I am tired of struggling to understand, tired of trying to figure out what to do next, tired of thinking so hard I’m making my very brain hurt. I am tired, period. I don’t sleep well, I am worried, it’s draining to live in constant uncertainty.

And yet, in my deepest core, I understand that it’s time for me to learn a life lesson. Another fucking growth experience, my friends and I call it. My life is full of them right now. How will I sit still and listen?

I started drawing tarot cards. I have friends who use tarot very successfully to guide them in their lives, help them understand the choices they are facing, understand the challenges life is giving them, help them bring their unconscious out to conscious, to ponder and explore.

I am trying to be more deliberate about prayer. I am trying to light a candle each day, and think about someone who needs help, energy, kind thoughts, light, vibes, or is in need in any way. I am also trying to remember to be conscious and deliberate about sending out my cosmic requests for a fulfilling lifework that pays enough for the girls and I to live without discomfort, and for me to find a partner in life.

I am reading, reading, reading, trying to learn about some of the changes I’m going through, how to understand why I’m going through them, how I can best survive the experiences, and how to thrive in spite of the changes.

I am talking with friends. Processing aloud or in writing helps me. Talking about my experiences helps me. Talking with others who have had similar experiences helps me. I have joined some new groups specifically for support. One is a new online covenant group with the UU Church of the Larger Fellowship, where I am able to explore the spiritual aspects of where I am in life. Another is for women who are questioning. And I continue to stay in communication with some dear local friends and long distance friends who are either going through the same things, or have been there before me and can share resources. All of these groups of people in my life are helping me process in different ways.

And finally, I have made a commitment to writing on a regular basis, as a spiritual practice. I am journaling on paper, and blogging.

So I am here, universe. I am listening. I am ready to learn my lesson.