The process of healing is up and down and all over the place. There are times of fear, disappointment, and frustration. And there are times of progress, possibility, and wonder.
There are times when everything feels ruined.
Living through a global pandemic is up and down and all over the place. There are times of fear, disappointment, and frustration. And there are times of progress, possibility, and wonder.
There are times when everything feels ruined.
What I forget (over and over and over) is that every moment is new. Every day, hour, moment is a chance to begin again.
Five years ago, I wrote about this very thing.
March 13, 2016
There is joy and an important sense of renewal in each effort to begin again. ~ Sharon Salzberg
For a long time, I had a rocky relationship with radishes. But a few years ago, in a miraculous shift of events, I went from detesting the bitter, crushed-aspirin, sorry-excuse-for-a-vegetable things to dancing a little happy dance when the gorgeous Easter egg variety show up in the market. (You can read an essay about it here.)
You’d think I’d learn. You’d think I’d learn that just because I didn’t like something one time doesn’t mean I won’t like it ever. You’d think I’d learn that just because something didn’t go well once doesn’t mean I have to abandon it forever. You’d think.
But no.
The act of beginning again is the essential art of meditation practice. ~ Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness
The very first time I ever sat down to meditate; I listened to a guided practice by Sharon Salzberg. In it she says,
If you find your attention has wandered, that’s fine. See if you can practice being patient, being gentle and beginning again. … If you have to begin again a million times in the course of one sitting, that’s the practice. …If your mind wanders or you get lost, nothing is spoiled, nothing is ruined. Just begin again.
Almost every time I sit, I can hear Sharon’s voice in my head: Nothing is ruined.
Years ago when I started taking yoga classes, I found myself disliking one of the people I practiced with. I don’t know what it was exactly, but I got this dislike feeling and I stuck with it. I let the thoughts and feelings of dislike solidify. Like a hard M&M shell of No Like, I found myself avoiding her and setting up my mat on the other side of the room.
When I saw her, I felt like I’d swallowed a peach pit.
And what’s the sense in that? I thought. So I asked myself what would happen if I chose to like her. I greeted her when she came into the locker room. I asked her about her practice and listened when she talked about her job. And when she unrolled her mat next to mine, I smiled and (I realized with some amusement) I was genuinely delighted.
I do this. I think something – I hate radishes, I don’t like that person. — and then I take those thoughts really seriously. I forget to begin again. I forget that nothing is ruined.