When Things Fall Apart...Relax Into It?

There comes a time in each of our lives (some of us more than others!) when "things fall apart," when nothing seems to be going right, when our lives are a mess, and we wonder if we'll ever "get it right." In times like these, we often feel lonely, depressed, confused. Yet we also tend to feel exposed and vulnerable. If we can go deeply enough into this vulnerability (which is in essence our humanness), we can find the gift of greater intimacy with ourselves—and the world.

As Pema Chodron writes in Things Fall Apart, "we can use these situations either to wake ourselves up or to put ourselves to sleep." She says "it's a kind of testing...that spiritual warriors need in order to awaken their hearts."

Since in the last six months or so, I have felt my own life "fall apart" (having to leave a place I love due to financial difficulties, being injured in a bus accident, and more), these words come as a comfort and a much needed answer to an essential life question. Just be with it, Chodron guides, stay on that brink of not knowing, of not being sure of anything, really. Just relax into that uncertainty, that impermanence, that eternally changing nature of things, and learn to find peace in the midst of it all.

I had been wondering what higher purpose or lesson could come from the recent series of disappointments in my life, things not turning out the way I thought they would—and the resulting feelings of loss and sadness and even failure. And then, I read these words from Chodron:

"Things are always in transition...nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs."

Well, I certainly feel in that "off-center, in-between state"(!) in my life and I am learning to view it as an "ideal situation," one from which many gifts can come, such as a re-evaluation of what's really important, needed resting time, and a chance for rewarding inner work (and who knows what else?). So I'm choosing to allow this situation to "wake me up" and open me to both my pain and my tenderness, both my sorrow and my joy, and to let myself lovingly, compassionately, become more intimate with myself, and therefore with all of creation.

Play Time: How have you allowed (or could you allow) a seemingly "bad" situation(s) to "wake you up;" to open your mind and heart to new possibilities; to connect you more to yourself, to others, to God; to help you cultivate more love, tenderness, and compassion in your life? How could you view where you are right now as an "ideal situation?"