Cassie’s post this week has had me thinking a lot about meditating through difficult times… and the guts it takes to blog about it, too. I’m low on sharing vulnerability, but I’m going to take a line from Cassie — the part about meditating through psychological paralysis — and take a chance. So: this past month I’ve been through an unaccountably painful breakup, and just last week one of my closest friends was sentenced to 20 years in prison for a crime he committed in self-defense. Shit has not been easy. And meditating? That’s been pretty hard, too — but, at the same time, one of the only things (besides vegan cookie dough ice cream) that’s really helped. (Also helping: this orangutan.)

Spirituality, however we choose to practice and define it, is one of those things we take refuge in when times are hard. I’ve been burning lots of incense, sitting in front of my dresser/altar, trying to cultivate some compassion for the world, watching the unhappy trainwreck of my mind. It makes me feel better to be sort of “doing” something about it (as much doing as there may be in meditation…), as opposed to lying around feeling sorry for myself, or burdening my friends with repeat accounts of how unfair the world is. But, as much solace as I may find in meditating, it’s also been hard — I’ve been too sad to focus, and often too distracted to stay with a single breath — and the meditation itself, when my mind does quiet down, has been showing me things I’d rather not see — putting me in touch with emotions so conflicting I can’t articulate a thing. I’m angry at the judge who sentenced my friend, Florida’s for-profit prison system, and the lying witnesses who, as my father put it, “ganged up on Chris in the bar that night, then ganged up on him again in court.” But a minute later, I’m cold — this is not my problem, none of this is my fault, I wasn’t even there — and coldness, temporarily, is an easier way to feel. I make plans to visit Chris in prison, to cheer him up if I can, then spend an hour thinking only of myself. Equanimity and compassion come up briefly, then go.
It’s the same for the jumble of feelings toward my latest ex — I’m keeping a lid on four disparate and briefly justifiable sets of emotions at once: attached love, vengeful pain, some honest-to-God metta, and an impulse toward renunciation (“seriously, fuck relationships”) that I know is rooted more in anger than wisdom or discipline. In short, I’m a mess. It’s a typically human response to trauma to feel so much at once, going up and down. I’ve been accepting every social invitation and alternately isolating myself. Both cheerful (as John Gardner would know it) and depressed.
In meditating through all of this, one of the hardest things to accept has been my own massive self-centeredness lately. On top of everything I’m upset about, I’m criticizing myself for being selfish, and then criticizing myself for being judgmental, too. But selfishness often comes with unhappiness. We withdraw into ourselves, and get preoccupied with our egos and their self-contracting stories. Pain demands attention. I think our brains must be wired to focus on wounds (to keep our ancestors from bleeding to death, I suppose), but when the injuries are emotional, all we end up doing is obsessing over them. Instead of asking my friends about their lives (and finding escape, for a while, in the company of others’ worlds) or paying attention to life around me (movies? politics? watching the birds in the tress?), I’m thinking about me, my supposedly unique situation, and what a stupid selfish mess I am. And on top of all that I’m blogging about it, too.
The good thing: it’s all temporary. Even 20 years. It may not get less painful, but I know eventually it will pass. So thanks for reading. Much metta (when I can),
Eva