Acceptance, Resistance, and Prajna
Submitted by jacks_ashley on Mon, 03/19/2007 - 10:53pmTired and glad the day is coming to a close. Ready for sleep. Wanting to check in before departing the computer.
Today was a good day. I was able to handle things with a lot more clarity and acceptance than has been available to me for a while. After a lot of struggling, turbulence, and resisting, i re-read a chunk of There is Nothing Wrong With You yesterday and something clicked over inside me, some bit of truth about loving myself rather than beating myself up, and accepting my sensitivities and distress rather than resisting them, and letting go of all the "I should" voices bullying me in my head. Somehow I just got -- for however long it lasts -- that i don't go through hard times, sadness, and emotional extremes because i'm doing things wrong, so if i just did everything perfectly than i wouldn't have to go through this anymore. I just go through these things. Figuring it all out perfectly is impossible, and wouldn't solve, control, or prevent it all anyway. I get into these frantic states where I just want to find the thing that explains it all, the piece I'm missing, the action I could have taken to prevent this, the trigger I should have known about, etc etc etc. And that drives me crazy.
But what is the balance between acceptance and being willing to make necessary changes and adjustments?
this morning the folks at my AA meeting reminded me to pay attention to the third line of the serenity prayer, which I never pay attention to. I always think about the first 2 lines.
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference."
What I seem to lose, in those states of agitation, self-abuse, mistrust, and fear, is the wisdom to know the difference. In buddhism it would be called prajna. It is one of the qualities that meditation cultivates, one of the paramitas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramita). When we lose it, the doctors would probably say we're suffering from loss of judgment. It is one of the reasons I turn to friends, AA mentors, my therapist/shaman, and my homeopath when things get too crazy up there. I misjudge what is in my sphere of influence, and what is not. Where I should be active and what i have to accept. What I might have caused and what is far beyond my control. How small I am, and how big the world is. Discriminating wisdom. It is one of the first things that disappears when I start drinking or binging on my various substances of choice. It is one of the first things that goes when I fall into people-pleasing or taking too much responsibility for others, rather than being true to myself. I don't know, these days, how much of its loss is due to the constellation of factors that get labelled as "depression," and how much of its seeming return is due to a shift into "mania," or the emergence of certain hormones, or an increase in sunlight, or a decrease in sugar, and on and on and on. I can't pinpoint it all. it comes and goes. when i resist the changes, life is hell. When i accept them, life is livable, and often full of beauty.
Wish me luck with tomorrow.