Ahhh, life keeps throwing things at you, doesn’t it?
One week it’s not going on holiday due to missing passports. This week my Instagram account was hacked. Trying to get it back has been a magical mystery tour of Meta’s inner workings; i.e. they’re not interested.
(Apologies if someone appearing as me has tried to sell you cryptocurrency, by the way).
First world problems indeed – I am aware that if this is the extent of my troubles, then life is pretty sweet.
But no wonder life in the modern world seems so hard to so many people, mental health being what it is. Living in the world – when something goes wrong – can be a death by a thousand small cuts. The portion of the world that is a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare of looping around in circles of inability to get things fixed just piles on top of you, doesn’t it?
What to do?
I’ve pondered for a while the bible line, “Be in the world, but not of it”.
From that, I’ve wanted to align with that message of independence from the ups and downs of life:
To enjoy but not get lost; to play my part as fully as I can, but shrug my shoulders at everything that is out of my control; to be like the flexible and fluid willow, not the stiff and breakable oak.
Or maybe to put it another way:
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down” … Seems like the sweetest revenge of all is to float above it all; to remain untouched.
Sage advice for when you’re faced with just another thing that’s gone wrong, when someone has done you wrong.
But, what can you DO?
One of the first things my Ishaya teacher said to me was, “Prioritise your peace” – and it’s something that I’ve tried to remind myself of every single day.
I’m not proud of the person I become when I don’t.
I get shouty and hasty. I get anxious whether I’ve offended someone, I get angry at the people who have offended me. I waste so much time on stuff that’s really not important. I miss out on the life in front of me; on focusing on, and enjoying, what I can do something about.
Prioritising your peace doesn’t mean hiding or ignoring or sedating. It means putting your priorities first and foremost before all the other stuff.
You see, a while back someone tried to convince me that anger was an excellent fuel. But it always seemed to burn too hot, too out of control and it just hurt … me.
Anger, revenge, holding grudges … when wrong happens you want to lash out. It’s such a primal instinct.
But as good old Buddha so rightly put it:
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"Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."
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We’re the ones wide awake at night, over-thinking and grinding our teeth; we’re the ones shouting at those who least deserve it because we’re boiling over on the inside; we’re the ones who end up suffering.
Anger never works how we think it will.
So, what can you do?
Instead of wasting precious time in revenge fantasies, you could try what I did.
This will take practice and mindfulness, but the more you have a consistent practice and priority in this direction, the faster and easier you’ll get this.
Whenever I meet someone who I have an issue with – whether I’m disappointed, frustrated, angry, or even scared – before I DO anything, I picture them as being a part of me that I don’t understand well enough.
The way forward isn’t a barrier, even a mental/emotional one, but to drop all defenses and open up to them – internally.
And that’s all. Stay open. Drop the defenses, drop the attack.
Truly – that is it.
Just this alone will help you from being lost in the storm of emotion. It’ll help you let them go, to stop them being seen as a threat, to stop your monkey mind from fixating on them. Simply consider them a part of you. Bring them closer; don’t hold them apart or make them an Other.
You’ll find that what you practically do from there is a lot different from what you’ll do from anger or fear.
Give it a try?
As you know, you may well have countless opportunities to practice. And with all things in life we can do what we’ve always done and get the same results, or you can try something new and rise above to a different kind of perspective and life.
We all get angry and frustrated. The question is to find new skills to learn to live with it, and not hold on to it.
Because we’re the ones that get hurt.
Give it a shot and let me know how you get on. I’d love to hear.
Go well,
Arjuna