Inspiration for Moving Forward

Moving Through Pain to Wonder

By Mark Nepo

These 14 reflections, and the book they are abridged from, are meant to be of use. They all speak about spirit and friendship, about our ongoing need to stay vital and in love with this life, no matter the hardships we encounter. They offer ways to move through pain to wonder.

It is my profound hope that something here will surprise and refresh you, will make you glisten, will help you live, love, and find your way to joy.

Mark Nepo is author of The Book of Awakening (Red Wheel/Conari), from which this inspiration gallery is abridged. Mark recently sat down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey as part of her Soul Series on SIRIUS XM Radio. To learn more about Mark and his work, visit www.MarkNepo.com and www.threeintentions.com.

When Feeling Stuck

The same stream of life that runs through the world runs through my veins. -Rabindranath Tagore

We are so achievement-oriented that we think accomplishing things will complete us, when it is experiencing life that will. Yet, if we can outlast the urge to judge everything we encounter, a miracle starts to surround us in which painting, music, poetry, running water, flowers, wind through trees, open vistas—all touch and draw out their counterpart that lives quietly within us.

So, when feeling stuck or disconnected from the miracle of life, as will happen to us all, try to listen, see, feel, and just take in. Try to let the energies of life stir their counterparts within you. In order to be whole, suspend your criticism. For life is not a matter of taste but of awakening, not a matter of finding things pleasing or disturbing but of finding things completing, not a matter of liking or disliking but of opening the geography of one’s soul.

Exercise:

-Close your eyes and listen to a piece of music that is new to you.
-As you breathe evenly, allow yourself to feel your like or dislike for it, and try to let that go.
-As you breathe, allow yourself to meet the sheer energy of the music with the sheer energy of what is new in you.

To Hold Nothing Back

To hold nothing back in every breath is a spiritual practice.

For much of my life I have found that hesitation, more than anything, has been the invisible hitch that has kept me from joy. I’ve found that the moment with all its meaning often moves on by the time I reconsider whether or not to enter it. I’m not saying we should always be impulsive. More to the point, I’ve discovered, over and over, that I usually know what I need to do but just deny it, and it is this small hesitation, this small resistance to enter what is real, that makes life feel neutral or out of reach.

To hold nothing back in every breath means staying committed to letting whatever we experience make its way in and letting whatever is in make its way out. Simply and profoundly, our very breath can serve as a reminder that life is only possible if the exchange of inner and outer is undisturbed. Letting things in, feeling their impact, and, in turn, letting things out, expressing cleanly what we feel, is a spiritual practice that rinses the mind and heart.

Exercise:

-Meditate on a glass of water.
-When feeling centered, drink the water slowly without hesitation.
-Exhale deeply and say softly to yourself: I will hold nothing back in my effort to live. I will not hesitate to be.

The Need to Speak

Just by speaking I can break out of my self-made prison. -June Singer

So many times we suppose ourselves out of existence, imagining that if we speak our heart we will be rejected or ignored. I once watched a man reach to call a friend, excited to share a deep idea that had overcome him. But, as the phone was ringing, I saw him imagine a cool reception, saw him try on the pain of not being heard, and quickly, with a sigh of deflation, he hung up before the fourth ring.

Still, the expression—whether misunderstood, well-received, or rejected—matters. For the cost of not making the call is that a piece of us dies. Consider how fish swim and birds fly. They do so because it is in their nature. For it is the swimming and the flying that makes them fish and birds. Likewise, it is the speaking of one’s heart that makes a human being human. Even if no one hears us, it is the act of speaking that frees us by letting the spirit swim and fly through the world.

Exercise:

-Sit quietly and allow yourself to be as still as lake water when there is no wind.
-Breathe slowly and look into yourself. Look to your bottom.
-Inhale deeply and feel whatever rises from your bottom.
-Exhale cleanly and, though you are alone, speak what you are feeling, aloud to yourself.

The Way is Hard, But Clear

Though it is the hardest going, the way is clear.

The environmentalist Kevin Scribner tells us that salmon make their way upstream by bumping repeatedly into blocked pathways until they find where the current is strongest. Somehow they know that the unimpeded rush of water means that there is no obstacle there, and so they enter this opening fervently, for though it is the hardest going, the way is clear. The lesson here is as unnerving as it is helpful. In facing both inner and outer adversities, the passage of truth comes at us with a powerful momentum, because it is clear and unimpeded, and so, where we sense the rush of truth is where we must give our all.

As human beings, the blocked pathways of our journey can take on many forms, and—whether it be in avoiding conflict with others, or in not taking the risk to love, or in not accepting the call of spirit that would have us participate more fully in our days—it is often easier to butt up continually against these blocked pathways than to enter fervently the one passage that is so powerfully clear.

Exercise:

-Center yourself and bring to mind something you are avoiding. It might be making a life decision, or asking for what you need in a relationship.
-Breathe evenly and nose around the energy of the avoidance. What are you butting up against? Identify the resistance. Which part is coming from you? Which part from others?
-Breathe steadily and look for the rush of truth in all this. Feel for the clear and forceful way coming at you.
-For today, simply feel the power of the way that is clear and keep it before you.

Let There Be Light

Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live. -Goethe

In discovering the light bulb, Edison first engaged in a process of envisioning how an unseeable current of energy could be harnessed and turned into light. Like most of us, the vision came first. Once he understood what came to him, it took quite some time to find the precise material that would work as a filament in the bulb itself. Later, when asked if he ever grew discouraged or thought he was wasting his time, Edison said no, he learned something important each time he tried. He learned that there was another material not to be used.

The lessons here are very telling and transferable; especially to how we seek our calling in the world, and to how we seek out love. But perhaps the most inspiring part of Edison’s journey is how he didn’t view his many attempts as any type of failure, but rather as an inevitable part of the process of discovery. And finally, after all of this, we are challenged, scientist and lover alike, to use what we discover and live in the light.

Exercise

-Center yourself and, as you breathe, envision what you need to live more fully.
-As you inhale, commit to trying to find this today without judging what happens.
-As you exhale, commit to making use of whatever it is you discover.

A Game of See-Saw

The greatest defense is being who you are.

How often we are drawn into opposition with one another. Certainly, there are times that conflict is inevitable. There is only one parking space. There is only one donut left. There is only one job in view. But most of the time, on the inner plane, there is plenty to go around, and it is more a game of see-saw: to keep myself up—or to keep my sense of how I see myself up—I somehow feel the need to put you down.

This only diverts me from my path and sucks all my energy into a battle that often doesn’t matter. In truth, no amount of rearranging the world will make us feel worthy. The only response to adversity or misunderstanding is to be more completely who we are—to share ourselves more. Otherwise, we are always reacting and countering, and never being. Just look to the flowers and trees. They do not suppress each other. Even when crowded, they show themselves and grow in all directions, and so make it to the light.

Exercise:

-Sit quietly and consider someone who holds a position opposite to yours.
-Breathe evenly and allow yourself to feel the pull to discredit or invalidate this person and their position.
-Now breathe slowly and look for the string of heart that makes you think your opposite views are tied to each other.
-Use your deepest breathing to cut the string.

The Risk to Bloom

And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom. -Anais Nin

How often we thwart ourselves by holding tenaciously to what is familiar. It is instructive, if chilling, that in floral shops the roses that won’t open are called bullets. They are discarded because they will never bloom. They have turned in on themselves so tightly that they can never release their fragrance. Yet, as spirits in bodies, we have the chance to tighten and bloom more than once. But even spirits, if turned in on themselves enough, may grow accustomed to being closed. Unlike roses, however, the human chamber can be shut down for years and, still, it takes but one breath from the true center and we will flower.

It has always amazed and humbled me how the risk to bloom can seem so insurmountable beforehand, and so inevitably freeing once the threshold of suffering is crossed. I have a friend in recovery and when asked what made him stop drinking, he says, “The pain of drinking became greater than the pain of not drinking.” The same can be said for us all. We can flower in an instant, as soon as the pain of not flowering and not loving becomes greater than our fear.

Exercise:

-Try to identify what scares you most about being who you are in the world.
-As you meditate, imagine the God in you warming your fears open.
-Note what it feels like to have your center safely exposed, even for a moment.

Breaking Patterns

If I contradict myself, I contradict myself. I contain multitudes. -Walt Whitman

We create patterns that others depend on and then, the last thing we ever imagined happens: we grow and change and then, to stay vital, we must break the patterns we created. There is no blame or fault in this. It is commonplace in nature. Watch the ocean and shore do their dance of buildup and crumble and you’ll see this happen daily.

We know we are close to this threshold when we hear someone say, “You’re not yourself,” or “That was out of character for you.” What is difficult at this juncture is to resist either complying with how others see us or withholding who we really are. The challenge, which I don’t do well but stay committed to, is to say to those we love, I am more than I have shown you, and more than you are willing to see. Let’s work our love and know each other more fully.

Exercise:

-This is an awareness meditation. As you move through your interactions today, notice whether you are complying with how others see you or withholding who you are.
-After each interaction, simply breathe slowly once or twice and return to the fullness of who you are.

Being Sad

The best thing for being sad, replied Merlin, is to learn something. -T.H. White

The idea here is not to divert the sadness but to give it a context from life other than what is making you sad. Just as ginger can lose its bitterness when baked in bread, sadness can be leavened by other life. When feeling the sharpness of being sad or hurt, it helps to take new things in. This pours the water of life on the fire of the heart.

So, when exhausted from expressing all that hurt, listen to music you’ve never heard of, or ask someone to tell you an old story from before your birth, or take a drive down a road near a ridge you’ve always meant to look out from. Look with your sad eyes on things new to you that will give you something to do with your sadness. Your sadness is the paint. You must find a canvas.

Exercise:

-Sit quietly and breathe evenly and let your sadness rise gently.
-Breathe cleanly and let the things around you that are not sad teach you something.
-Just breathe and let the chair teach you about wood, let the wall teach you about being bare, let the window teach you how to let light in.

Off the Merry-Go-Round

No amount of thinking can stop thinking.

Over-thinking is an annoying reflex of being human. Often in over-analyzing a problem or replaying what to say or what to do, I feel like a cow shooing a fly that will never go away. We all do this. No one is exempt. Feeling insecure, I can endlessly repeat the things that should make me feel solid about myself, and, all the while, my esteem keeps unraveling. What is there to do?

I’m reminded of Einstein’s insight that the manner of thinking that creates a problem cannot be the means by which to solve it. In simple terms, when spinning out, the only thing to do, hard as it seems, is to get off the mental merry-go-round. This is truly the terrain of faith, jumping into the risk to stop in mid-thought, believing that some deeper knowing will wash over us. In truth, no amount of thinking about yourself will give you confidence, just as no amount of thinking about the sun will warm you; just as no amount of thinking about love will hold you. Confidence and love and the light of the world wait below all the labors of our mind.

Exercise:

-Sit quietly and center yourself.
-Allow your mind to start doing what it does.
-Breathe steadily and with each out-breath, practice stopping your thinking in mid-thought.
-With each out-breath, practice dropping beneath your thinking into your being.

Giving Up What No Longer Works

Burning your way to center is the loneliest fire of all. You'll know you have arrived when nothing else will burn.

At first this sounds rather somber, but, from Moses to Buddha to Jesus, the deepest among us have all shown that living is a process of constantly paring down until we carry only what is essential. It is the same in the human journey as in the natural world. As the center grows stronger, what once was protective turns into a covering that is now in the way, like tree bark or snake skin. And, sooner or later, we, as spirits growing in bodies, are faced with burning old skins, like rags on sticks, to light our way as we move deeper and deeper into the inner world.

When faced with the need to keep going inward, we are confronted with a very difficult kind of life choice: like carving up your grandmother’s table for firewood to keep your loved ones warm, or leaving a job that has been safe and fulfilling in order to feel vital again, or burning an old familiar sense of self because it’s gotten so thick you can’t feel the rain. In truth, the need to stay immediate by removing what is no longer real is the working, inner definition of sacrifice—giving up with reverence and compassion what no longer works in order to stay close to what is sacred.

Exercise:

-Sit quietly and meditate on the edge of your self that meets the world. Feel its thickness.
-As you breathe, feel the inner edge of your self that meets your spirit. Feel its softness.
-As you breathe, pray for the edge that is you to be as thin as possible and only as thick as necessary.

More Than Our Mistakes

The buffalo fed on the buffalo grass that was fertilized by their own droppings. This grass had deep roots bound to the earth and was resistant to drought.-David Peat

Try as we will, we cannot escape the making of mistakes. But fortunately, we evolve in spite of our limitations, and though we break and make mistakes, we are always mysteriously more than what is broken. We somehow grow from the soil of our mistakes. And often in the process, we strengthen our roots from digesting and processing our own humanity. Like the buffalo, what we trample and leave behind fertilizes what will feed us. No one is exempt.

I have been broken and have failed so many times that my sense of identity has sprouted and peeled like an onion. But, because of this, I have lived more than my share of lives, and feel both young and old at once, with a sudden heart that cries just to meet the air. Now I want to stand naked before every wind, and though I'm still frightened I will break, I somehow know it’s all a part—even the fright—of the rhythm of being alive. You see, no one ever told me that as snakes shed skin, as trees snap bark, the human heart peels, crying when forced open, singing when loved open.

Exercise:

-Light a candle. Sit quietly and focus on the blue part of the flame as you meditate on one loss you carry within you.
-Sift through the feelings that surround this loss and find one detail that seems worth saving.
-Holding this detail in your heart, look into the bluish flame and meditate on the gift you carry from what is gone.
-Now use this detail, if you can, to help you build what is presently before you.

When the Path is Blocked

When the path is blocked, back up and see more of the way.

We are each a mountain for the other to climb, and often our path to love is interrupted by a mishap or a problem or something unexpected that needs attending. We tend to call these unexpected things in life obstacles.

Often, the thing in the way comes from another person: a stubbornness falls like a tree blocking where we want to go, or a sadness comes like a flash flood to muddy the road between us, or just as we go to rest in the clearing we have prepared, we are bitten by something hiding in the undergrowth. In daily ways, we have this constant choice: to see each other as the stubborn, muddy, biting thing that blocks our way, or to back up and take in the whole person as we would a mountain in its entirety, dizzy when looking up into its majesty.

Exercise:

-Center yourself and bring to mind a loved one—a friend, a partner, or a family member—and focus on the one stubborn thing coming from them right now.
-Without denying this difficulty, inhale and widen your heart’s view. Back up, if you can, and see the whole person, stubbornness and all.
-Breathe deeply and feel both the difficulty that is theirs, as well as the entirety of their spirit which causes you to love them.