“ If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom.
Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.”
The margin notes I make whilst reading this book more often than not inform the discussion points I post. For chapter 9 my margin notes look like they could make a chapter of their own such were the amount of “aha” light bulb moments and the number of times I asked my partner if we could have a chat about what I had just read.
I wonder if others reading along with me have felt the same, be they folks living with various challenges or folks caring for others that do?
For those playing at home that didn’t meet me when I first joined Treeleaf or have not either been on the receiving end nor witnessed some of my less tactful moments here, I think it’s fair to say that my language style is rooted in my working class background and my communication style is direct and unfiltered.
I mention this because the biggest takeaway for my Practice was the realisation that it is the narrative that my partner and I have created for ourselves that is the greatest impediment to our own acceptance of reality. We’ve held tightly the flawed expectations of ourselves which are informed by our parents and broader society’s expectations, especially in relation to the topics of what constitutes disability, disabilities that appear at a glance to be ‘invisible’, ageism, and deserving vs undeserving.
I realised that our relationship to the word “sick” was the primary cause of our suffering. We weren’t sick. We aren’t sick. For the most part we don’t look sick. We don’t act sick.
Sure my partner has Multiple Sclerosis and daily experiences near on the full spectrum of symptoms but she’s not sick. She doesn’t look sick. She’s too young to be sick.
Sure I’ve lived with chronic depression, anxiety, ADHD and Autism (the latter two not diagnosed until I was in my 40’s), have rubbish lungs, a spine that was fused 25 years ago, is deteriorating above and below the fusion, has a compression fracture of a vertebrae that can’t be operated on, is arthritic from head to tail and will help my local pharmacist retire early. But I’m not sick. I don’t look sick. I’m too young to be sick.
It’s clear from this that equanimity is not coming easy to me. My partner a little easier but not easy.
This is why I speak of changing the narrative here and why that seems to be the underlying current in Toni’s book.
Has anyone reading along with me found themselves having light bulb moments where what once may have been a barrier is a little less so now?
For those both living with challenges and those who care for those living with challenges, do you, like my partner and myself regularly feel that you are letting the other person down by either not being able to do what you once could or worry that you’re not doing enough?
Enough… I keep having to remind myself that I have never found anything to actually measure ‘enough’. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has wrestled with this random measurement.
So as Toni says to herself, I’ve started saying to myself that it’s OK to feel awful. That I need to say it multiple times a day when I can’t do strenuous activity is demonstrative that I’m pretty far from OK with it but I keep trying.
Have these teachings that Toni offers from her lived experience been helpful?
What in particular from the second half of chapter 9 has resonated the most?
The giving in instead of giving up is my current challenge not so much because I’ve given up but because, as mentioned earlier my personal narrative around being unwell has for 49 years been unhealthy. I wonder if this has been the same for others? Has your view of yourself and your relationship to sickness in any way it manifests been as skewed as mine? Have you viewed giving in as weakness and giving up as challenge, albeit a warped and damaging challenge that ultimately leads to further suffering for yourself and for those who love you?
I actually think that this is a really important point that Toni subtly talks about throughout, the idea that our own suffering can impact others so perhaps we should keep sitting while also working on being kinder to ourselves and more compassionate to ourselves while cultivating empathetic joy and equanimity.
Apologies for the lateness of my post but I’ve been unwell.
Gassho
Onka
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom.
Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.”
The margin notes I make whilst reading this book more often than not inform the discussion points I post. For chapter 9 my margin notes look like they could make a chapter of their own such were the amount of “aha” light bulb moments and the number of times I asked my partner if we could have a chat about what I had just read.
I wonder if others reading along with me have felt the same, be they folks living with various challenges or folks caring for others that do?
For those playing at home that didn’t meet me when I first joined Treeleaf or have not either been on the receiving end nor witnessed some of my less tactful moments here, I think it’s fair to say that my language style is rooted in my working class background and my communication style is direct and unfiltered.
I mention this because the biggest takeaway for my Practice was the realisation that it is the narrative that my partner and I have created for ourselves that is the greatest impediment to our own acceptance of reality. We’ve held tightly the flawed expectations of ourselves which are informed by our parents and broader society’s expectations, especially in relation to the topics of what constitutes disability, disabilities that appear at a glance to be ‘invisible’, ageism, and deserving vs undeserving.
I realised that our relationship to the word “sick” was the primary cause of our suffering. We weren’t sick. We aren’t sick. For the most part we don’t look sick. We don’t act sick.
Sure my partner has Multiple Sclerosis and daily experiences near on the full spectrum of symptoms but she’s not sick. She doesn’t look sick. She’s too young to be sick.
Sure I’ve lived with chronic depression, anxiety, ADHD and Autism (the latter two not diagnosed until I was in my 40’s), have rubbish lungs, a spine that was fused 25 years ago, is deteriorating above and below the fusion, has a compression fracture of a vertebrae that can’t be operated on, is arthritic from head to tail and will help my local pharmacist retire early. But I’m not sick. I don’t look sick. I’m too young to be sick.
It’s clear from this that equanimity is not coming easy to me. My partner a little easier but not easy.
This is why I speak of changing the narrative here and why that seems to be the underlying current in Toni’s book.
Has anyone reading along with me found themselves having light bulb moments where what once may have been a barrier is a little less so now?
For those both living with challenges and those who care for those living with challenges, do you, like my partner and myself regularly feel that you are letting the other person down by either not being able to do what you once could or worry that you’re not doing enough?
Enough… I keep having to remind myself that I have never found anything to actually measure ‘enough’. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has wrestled with this random measurement.
So as Toni says to herself, I’ve started saying to myself that it’s OK to feel awful. That I need to say it multiple times a day when I can’t do strenuous activity is demonstrative that I’m pretty far from OK with it but I keep trying.
Have these teachings that Toni offers from her lived experience been helpful?
What in particular from the second half of chapter 9 has resonated the most?
The giving in instead of giving up is my current challenge not so much because I’ve given up but because, as mentioned earlier my personal narrative around being unwell has for 49 years been unhealthy. I wonder if this has been the same for others? Has your view of yourself and your relationship to sickness in any way it manifests been as skewed as mine? Have you viewed giving in as weakness and giving up as challenge, albeit a warped and damaging challenge that ultimately leads to further suffering for yourself and for those who love you?
I actually think that this is a really important point that Toni subtly talks about throughout, the idea that our own suffering can impact others so perhaps we should keep sitting while also working on being kinder to ourselves and more compassionate to ourselves while cultivating empathetic joy and equanimity.
Apologies for the lateness of my post but I’ve been unwell.
Gassho
Onka
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