Good Enough

I am a perfectionist. I am sure it's not just my assessment. I do like things to look perfect. I strive for perfection as much as possible in all that I do. I think I was like that as a child. Well mainly about school work and making my parents happy. They never expected it but I was happy when they were and made it a point to keep it that way. I guess I have been like that all of my life until a few years ago.

It's not that I started becoming a less of a perfectionist because of the toll it took on me. It was that life forced me to be and accept less perfection. I have chronic pain. It started as only headaches. Then it became constant. Then the shoulder and neck pain kicked in. Then the knees got a bit wobbly. Then tinnitus started and recently my sciatica issues started. 

Over the years Iv'e had to adjust my life and how and what I saw as perfection. I no longer could do things the way I once used and to the way I once did. I used to love cleaning my house. It was something I took pride in; to have a beautiful place spick and span, floors gleaming and everything in place and organized. But with time I realized I could no longer do it. I had too much neck pain and shoulder pain and my knees could no longer support me as and when I wanted them to. So I had to adjust. I first adjusted to doing less at once, spreading things apart so I don't exhaust myself in one go. But then with time even that got difficult. It didn't matter if I had time in-between cleaning, all other activities started to weigh in on me. So then we decided to have cleaners come in twice a week. It was not easy I can say. People don't clean the way you want them to. So I had to adjust my idea of what cleaning should be like. At least they cleaned the entire house in one go, which I couldn't do. Also they cleaned things that I never used to do. So why the big fuss. But because they came every other week I would resort to an in-between clean from time to time. But over the last year or so I have learnt to be ok with no cleaning between the cleaners visits. It's not easy for me. It's certainly not easy to cook leave stove top uncleaned over the weekend so that they would do it. But I have had to learn to do this. I have had to learn to say 'good enough'. 

I used to meditate everyday. I used enjoy the total silence that envelops you in meditation. But when the tinnitus kicked in, I felt like life robbed me of something so precious; my silence. It was incredibly hard to to cope with the constant noise in your ears/head. It took me almost 4 months to come to terms with it and stop wishing I were dead. Then I learn to meditate with it. With the noise filling up my meditative space. Then with time I learnt to be ok with and then with more time and as meditation progressed I realized the noise vanishes its own for the duration of my meditation. So once what was perfect was no longer and I had to learn to be ok with it. I had to learn to say 'good enough'.

With constant pain, I can no longer do things at the pace that I once used to. So I have to pace myself and what I do during the course of a day. It must sound insane to you. I am only 44 years old and I feel like I am in a body of a 80 year old. I am constantly having to resent my expectations of myself and body. I am constantly having to resent my head and emotions. I've been pretty sad lately. Mostly because of the pain and toll it's taking on my daily life. 

I feel like this is not how it should be. I feel like I am too young to to be 'not able'. I am no longer perfect...I never was but for some reasons I feel I am less than I am supposed to be. This is a hard bullet to take. I feel miserable and inadequate. I compare myself to others and feel that they do so much and I cane barely move a finger without hurting. I know there are people who are worse than I am. I have told myself that and have been able to move and adjust and go forward. But now I feel like I have reached a point where I cannot do that. At least that's how I feel now. I am sure I will be able to at some point. I really hope so. I mean I have always come through but this feel like a new low that I am unable to navigate myself in and out.

It is also frustrating to always having to say 'this is good enough'. I feel like I Have done that for so long. Perhaps this is the best. The 'good enough' is the best. I don't know. I don't feel like it. How can I say to myself 'this is good enough' when I am in pain and I cannot do things and function normal? I don't know how. 

So I feel like I am at cross roads or even back to square one feel. It's very frustrating and I feel incredibly sad. I don't know how to deal with myself and m emotions. It's like a cyclone and I feel like I am spinning out of control. Saying this is how it ought to be or 'good enough' is something I cannot do right now. It's not good enough right now for me. 

Pain

I have chronic pain. Its not just in one area of the body but in many. It comes and goes. But lately it seem to come and stay. It's been a tough 2 months and its only seem to getting worse. Pain is never easy. Physical or otherwise. I am sure all of you would have felt both at least once in your lives. Its no wonder to me that pain medicine is called "pain killers". Ironically pain feels like it's killing you a little bit at a time. 

To me what has become unbearable is the fact that it seems to drown me now. Before one thing stops another begins. So over the last few months I have had pain almost every day in one more more parts of my body. Some days I have managed to withstand and other like the last few days I have lost it.

Usually I am able to put things perspective and change how I feel by looking at what I go through, experience differently. I usually recognize that there people in this world at any given moment in time feel pain. Some most likely a whole lot more than I do. Some probably feel not just physical but mental agony. I also remind myself that there are people, who may have all that and have to suffer from hunger, thirst, loneliness and may others. So I have been able to keep my feelings from overwhelming me by recognizing that I need to put my pain in perspective. But over the last couple of weeks, I seem to be unable to do that. 

I feel like I am drowning and there is no shore in sight. I feel so much despair and sadness in my heart that I don't know if my pain is partly aggravated by my mental suffering. Either ways it's not a good place right now to be in. I have been prescribed many medications and injected and received and continue to receive physical therapy. But my body does not seem to want to respond. At least that's how it looks like right now. I am at a loss as to what to do with myself and how I feel. I cry quite a bit of the time. Sometimes I feel better after a cry, like today morning.

I have a meditation room at home. But I haven't sat for meditation for a while now. Mostly because of the pain. But today I went in and sat in front of the Buddha picture and cried my eyes out. I know He is not here to hear me or see me or help me out. But I feel His strength is out there. His kindness and compassion is still out there. Right now I don't feel any of it but I cried hoping for some of that in the universe to come and heal me and lift me up...at least a little. 

Buddha spoke of suffering as part of life....like being sick as I am now with pain. He said that one cannot do much about the suffering of the body. The body follows nature. One days its good and another day its bad. One day it's alive and another day its dead. SO the body follows nature. There is not much I or one can do about it. But He said that we can do something about the mental pain. This is where I am struggling now. My mental pain is like an arrow that is stuck in my mind. It's sticking and I feel like I have no control over it. But the Buddha said that this the only thing that I have control over. My feelings. Cause feelings come and go unless you look at it through aversion and greed. I suppose right now I am looking at it through aversion. SO I am angry on top of my physical pain. See the thing is it's easy to write that down but feeling it and allowing my mind to recognize it beyond me at the moment. 

I am sure this will pass at some point. I am about to go on holiday on an African safari. We've planned it for almost a year and now that it's only a few days away before I leave, I am struggling with pain. Life is an irony. It's sometimes cruel...or maybe that's just how it is. So today this is me. All messed up and sad and wondering what to, how to and when. I am planning to take a note book with me so I can write my thoughts down. Let's see how it goes. 

I hope I don't drown and suffocate. I hope that I come out of it strong. But thats a hope. Only time will tell how things span out. But I intend to hold what the Buddha said close to my heart. As unpleasant as it is right now, it has to end at some point. I just hope I can find a way not to wait. 

Life is Endurance

Strength of a life depends not on its length, health, gains, successes....it’s strength lies in its ability to endure. Wow!!

Endure through it’s ebbs and flows, hills and valleys, good and the bad, happiness and u happiness, successes and failures, tragedies, haeqrbreaks, triumphs, losses, gains all of it. Cause all that is life. No matter the situation,no matter who we are with, no matter how we feel and what we experience they all fall into any one of the buckets that wrote above and there are more. Actually let me correct that. The Buddha outlined them in his first sermon very clearly.

The reason why it seems hard, unfair, overwhelming is cause one cannot endure through it all. We don’t have enough cushioning around our hearts to endure through it all....isn’t that incredible?! Is this the answer to my questions earlier?! Maybe

Endurance can only be done through kindness and understanding for the suffering we all face including myself. Fighting, judging, anger is like fuel in a fire. It creates such a blaze and it burns everything down and that is not endurance. Endurance is more subtle and clam and gently and long lasting and time taking.

What is the meaning of life?

Almost 10 years ago I asked Ajahn Vayama what is the meaning of life. Her answer was so very simple. She said “it is to be a bit more beautiful each day”. I don’t think I understood her answer and 10 years later I am unsure that I do so either. 

I have tried to give my best and be my best as much as I can. I am sure we all do to the degree that is possible. But yet there is no end to it. When I say an end it it I mean there is never a quietening of the noise that’s constantly present. It’s like a roaring thundering fall. Is that what life is? A constant roaring thundering waterfall? Or does it have those times when it’s quiet and slow and gentle?

As I’m typing this I find answer to my own question. Yes it has all. Like the mighty Victoria falls has its peaks and lows so does life. Then why am I feel unease, maybe even confused or perhaps I am tightened?! Of what I ask? I wonder

Am I scare of the roaring thunderous flow of life? Or is it the never ending seasons of highs and lows. Why do u seem to struggle with it? What am I not seeing over and over agin?

There are times it feels so overwhelming and today feels like that for whatever the reason. I am 35000 feet above ground on a plane flying from Florida to Chicago and I am in pain? Confusion? Fear? Or perhaps a a mixture of all of that?! And I don’t know why...

Maybe I will never know or maybe it’s not to be figured. Maybe it’s this flux that I have to learn to comfortable with?!...the very thing that puts me at dis-lease over and over again. I don’t know how....

Every time I get on a plane it makes me think of life. At some level I relate a plane journey to life journey. Once you are onboard you are in for the ride no matter what. It might be smooth, it might be turbulent, it might be short or long or comfortable or uncomfortable...nevertheless you are in it and you move forward.

Somehow I see life to be like that. You have to move forward and onwards. I find that in life exhausting at times. I find plane journeys exhausting at times too. What do I do? How do I respond to it? I don’t seem to have an answer....somehow that is scary?! Is that what I feel?!

Is it the not knowing and not knowing how to respond or how to face things that’s making it all so overwhelming?! I wonder...I think there is some truth there. What am I scare of? The finalities, what ifs, how tos....what’s the point anyways...don’t things happen whether you like them or not or whether you want them or not? So then why worry?

I remember Ajahn Brahm saying no matter what you can be kind. Am I lacking in that department? Don’t I have the cushioning to withstand the bumps of the ride of life? Is that it? Or is it that I don’t have sufficient understanding? Or perhaps it’s a mixture of both?! Or is it my wanting to control? Is it my controlling nature that’s pushing me and egging me to have these fears because I cannot control enough or long enough to make things as smooth as I want it to me. Or am I controlling because I don’t have the understanding and the kindness to withstand and face me accept all that is different and changing...the ebbs and flows? The constant flux of life...

I hope for clarification. I yearn for clarification or some form of illumination within me....