Life Lessons – Page 9 – Life In Limbo

Sit With It

February 23, 2015

One of my very favourite yoga concepts is the idea of sitting with things. When you’re holding a yoga pose that is challenging or annoying or otherwise uncomfortable, yoga asks you to just stay with it, to be there with those irritating feelings. It doesn’t tell you to try to fix or change the situation in any way, and it doesn’t offer you any tips for avoiding that discomfort. It just says: Can you be here with this right now? Can you feel this irritation and not react to it?

Obviously, this idea is helpful beyond the yoga mat.

This is a pretty counter-intuitive idea for me, the idea of tolerating things I don’t like or that don’t feel good. I think that for a lot of us, it’s very, very difficult to avoid the temptation to do something about the things that bother us or stress us out. And yes, often we’re right to take action – if our problems can be solved by sending that one email or changing our shoes, then of course we absolutely should. Except that I think by always doing something every time we face an annoyance or issue, we’re out of practice for those times when there is nothing that can immediately be done.

Right now, I’m 5 weeks out from leaving Korea. I have a to-do list full of logistics to sort out, things to buy, and details to arrange. I’m making progress, slowly but surely chipping away at my list, but a bunch of my tasks have to wait until I know more or when it’s closer to my departure. I hate that. I want to check off everything, right now, clear my plate and get my ducks in a row. I constantly feel like I should be doing more and preparing more and getting things lined up before I start traveling.

Today, I realized that what I really need to do is sit with this. I don’t need to try to eliminate the (inevitable) feelings of stress by running around putting out fires and trying to get things done before their time. I don’t need to hassle people for answers or worry myself about whether or not I need certain documents. I just need to sit here, acknowledge that it’s sometimes overwhelming, and give myself permission to not do anything about it for now. Recognize that I’ve always gotten everything done before and will again, in time. Let things proceed at the pace they’re meant to. I just need to breathe, sit with it, feel the feelings, and try to let them go.

Talent Is Universal, But Opportunity Is Not

February 4, 2015

This is a repost of an article I wrote for Guinea Pigging Green.

I just finished reading A Path Appears by Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof. Their book is a smart, well-researched guide to some of the major problems the world faces in terms of issues like health, education and violence, as well as how we can best help others both with our money and our time. I’m still processing everything I learned from it, but I recommend it highly.

The book is really making me think about how I can help more effectively both financially and in person. It’s also enlightening me about what the problems really are, and the sometimes-surprising best ways to help others. Long story short: it’s rocking my world and I’ve gotten so many new ideas about how to help more going forward.

One quote that stood out to me was: “Talent is universal, but opportunity is not.” Hope is not, either. Safety is not. Justice is not.

It’s really hard to learn about how some of the most preventable or cheaply curable health conditions keep so many children out of school because they can’t afford the treatment. It’s hard to read about fathers drinking away two thirds of their family’s income while their children starve or can’t afford to go to school. It’s hard to learn about all the horrifying trafficking that occurs worldwide and even at home.

But this quote reminds me of the humanity, passion and skills that exist worldwide. People don’t only need our money, they also need hope and jobs and more opportunities to learn and grow and develop to their full potential.

I think sometimes we in developed countries have this misconception that our individual success is a product of our work ethic and talent and drive to succeed. And while that’s partially true, it’s important to recognize just how much of our success in life is a product of where we were lucky enough to be born. We should never assume that people who did not have the same luck are stupider or less talented or less hard-working just because they may seem less “successful” by our standards.

I don’t know yet what the best way to help is and I’m thinking about it a lot. But more and more lately I’ve been feeling a pull to give where and what I can, and this book is making the path towards that goal a bit clearer. It’s actually so inspiring and exciting! As I continue to think about these ideas, I want to keep this quote in the front of my mind: the idea that the most important thing we can do is spread and create opportunities for talented, capable people worldwide to spread their own wings.

You can see a great interview with the authors on MarieTV here. You can get this amazing book here.

On Staying Present

January 28, 2015

Living abroad for a year is an interesting lesson in presence. It asks you: can you be fully here now, without worrying about the future or wishing for something else? I don’t think that question is unique to living abroad – in fact I think it’s always being asked of all of us in one way or another – but you can hear it so much more loudly when you only have one year of living somewhere.

For me at least, it’s often a struggle. Let me be clear: I love my life here in Korea and am so grateful for the opportunities it’s given me. Yet at the same time, with two months to go, I feel like I’m ready for the next stage in my adventure. Striking that balance of appreciation and presence vs. planning and looking forward is hard. Staying present, both in everyday moments and in this broader chapter of my life, is hard.

One of my favorite quotes is from Meryl Streep: “I want to feel my life while I’m in it”. And I do think that the magic happens in the moment, not after it’s passed. I think happiness happens now, not after some distant milestone in the future. And on a deeper level, I recognize that we only really have this moment, right now – though this idea is much easier to grasp conceptually than it is to apply it in the real world.

Still, I don’t want to sleepwalk through my life and I don’t want to be on autopilot. I want to be fully conscious, even if that means experiencing the hard things and the boring things and the tedious things. Because as Brené Brown says: “We cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.”

And I think that being caught up and just going through the motions every day is a form of numbing those negative emotions of boredom and anxiety. It’s so, so easy to go through a day without having a special, positive experience to light it up. And of course, it can be incredibly hard to choose to look for those moments or be open to them. When I’m late, when I’m tired, when I’m stressed and overwhelmed, or when the children are screaming and running around the classroom, it’s easy to shut down and tune out and think only about me me me.

In fact, staying present and choosing is probably the hardest thing I’ll ever try to do. There’s a speech by David Foster Wallace that I come back to again and again in my life that talks all about this, and it’s definitely worth a listen.

Some days I succeed at noticing other people and seeing lovely moments and finding the humour and actively appreciating. Other days go by in a haze of headphones and distraction and little-to-no eye contact. Some days I remember to make an effort and other days I am so caught up in my head that I totally forget to even try. Most days are a combination of both. It’s helpful to remind myself that I am always trying my best, whatever my best is on that given day. I think that working on staying present is a daily lifelong challenge, or as Laura says, “a mountain with no top”.

This week on the podcast, we’re talking all about presence: practices that help us stay in the moment, quotes that offer us perspective, why presence matters so much, how it can improve our relationships, and how it can make us happier. You can find the episode and the show notes here or subscribe on iTunes here.

Affirmations for Uncertain Days

January 21, 2015

Earlier this week, I took to my journal and wrote what I really needed to read at the time. If I’m being honest, there will probably never be a time when I don’t need to write & read this. I titled it “affirmations for uncertain days” but considering the title of my blog and my life, it should really probably just be called “affirmations for everyday.” I’m sharing it here just in case maybe you need to read it too today.

[TL;DR: You’re doing a great job. It’s the truth.]