There was a talk given by Reverend Sharon Foley, in which she excerpted from the book and incorporated Jones's ideas into an interpretation of her own life and of life in general. Rev. Foley is a soulful, intelligent, healthy, and vibrant woman with a talent for being openly generous with her musings on the very essence of life itself. In short, she is a role model for me!
Rev. summarized the concepts of the book as being the following:
- Life is a mystery
- Control is an Illusion
- What matters is how we choose to deal with that
Either way what I am doing is ruminating. Just like after a cow eats the grass but doesn't chew it all the way, then goes and sits down somewhere----where it comes back up mixed with his own stuff and he chews it again. :-P Mleck! A bit graphic, but a good analogy for what Reverend Foley may have done with Jones' book to prepare her talk. And what I am doing now with her talk after having listened to it. :-)
Sharon observed that a mystery novel keeps you involved and moving through it for the very reason that is does not give you the answers you are seeking. She called this "living in the awe of the sweetness of the mystery itself." I find that entire phrase strikingly resonant and wise in all its facets. And I like the idea of adopting it as an intention of being. I have for a bit of time now completely let go of many different intentions that I had originally put on my life. I recognized that many of the ways in which I wanted to control my own life were out of fear and not out of a true desire to be a certain way.
For example, I did not in my heart have a true desire to just simply have a job with a good income and a fancy title. But I felt fear that if I did not acquire something along those lines quickly that I would feel like nothing--that I would not respect or appreciate myself as a person and neither would anyone else I cared for or admired. Reading that fear in text, it looks as if it may startle a person, perhaps because that person has felt the very same fear (or an easily relatable one) but they abhor so deeply the idea of feeling unlovable for such a reason that they might read about my fear and reject it, denying it fervently. I would understand such a reaction. I am having it now. And I was having it every time I experienced such a fear in my life, day after day, for years on end. And that is why releasing such a fear, into the world, like a flock of black birds startled from my heart, releasing the desire to control the outcome of my life, has been so incredibly liberating and uplifting.
A way to practice living in the awe of the sweetness of the mystery of life (again Sharon's magical words, not mine) would be to continually ask yourself questions about your future throughout the day and respond to those questions by saying "I don't know" and then meditating on how that feels and what that does to your conception of your life. When will I be able to afford to buy a house? I don't know... When will I finally find a person to share my life with that I can love and support unconditionally? I don't know... When will my car be done getting fixed at the shop? I don't know... What should I do with my free time? I don't know... When will my sick loved one finally pass on to the other side? I don't know... What will I do once they are gone? I don't know. What do I do now...
It is not about the things you do not have the answers to. You may truly not know the answer to a lot of the questions that you ask yourself. But what does that process make you think of and what are you feeling more sure of? And if you can't control most things, but you can control yourself and your life, which is yours and yours alone, what will you do with it, right here and now? And if you have certain aspirations like owning a house or having a fulfilling career or finding a wife, do you truly deeply feel that if those things do not come into your grasp someday, you will have been empty handed all along in your search for them? And do you really feel that you will be a failure if you end up living your life differently from how you originally aspired toward living? Do you feel that if you do not prove somehow in your outside world that you can have the exact things that you believe that you want you are not full and whole? Would you want a friend or a loved one to ever feel that way about themselves?
From my perspective, the way to live in uncertainty is by knowing your own potential to love yourself fully and completely and passing that love forward out into the world without plan or desire for specific outcomes. As long as you are always able to do for yourself and others, whatever other aspirations you have or desires you move toward, whatever unexpected suffering, tragedy, or pain stops you in your tracks. Whatever uncertainty may come in and shift the ground you walk on. Your balance, your stability, your doorway to stand in is your love...
Sharon goes on to say that we don't always have to have a definite plan or an attachment to the outcome of something. She says, "Don't be fearful of the future. Be curious." And yet, we all experience fear as an inevitable part of our lives. Sharon says, "I can feel the fear and do it anyway." She refers to this as living with the fear as opposed to living in the fear. Not being afraid to say "I don't know," or "I'm not sure." Not stopping yourself from trying to do something because a fear exists in you. Fear can exist in you without stopping you. In the same way that anger, loneliness, sadness, and all the seemingly paralytic emotions can.
Once Sharon moves us through these basic ideas about uncertainty, that is when she gets really engrossing. She says that "The closest to being in control we will ever be is in that moment that we realize we are not." This is a very powerful statement. And if I really process it I can feel something deep inside resisting, pushing and fighting back against its very message. I cannot help but want to disagree with that. And yet, everything I have been experiencing has reinforced this idea as true. I have never felt more powerful than when I let go and release my conceptions about other people and how they should fit into my life. Than when I stop forcing myself to do one thing or another because I think it is what I should be doing and instead start living each day open to the possibility of something I didn't expect. Than when I accept certain things about my present life, set the intention to change them, and then detach from the results of that process--knowing that by turning myself and moving in a better direction, I have already moved forward and whether or not my outside world changes, I have improved myself in a way that is not quantifiable by moving forward in each new moment with an intention, regardless of what may change in the end.
To be perfectly honest, that is how I lost weight and got healthier. I did not do it by telling myself that I would not be happy unless I lost a certain amount of weight. I envisioned a healthy weight for myself and thought that moving closer to that weight would be a positive experience. I did not tell myself that I must absolutely exercise this amount of time each week in this way. I did not judge my body, but simply celebrated any little changes that came and seemed healthy and positive. I did not tell myself I had to eat a certain kind of food or a certain amount of calories. I gave in to the uncertainty of how much healthier I would become and gave myself over gratefully to the process of learning to become more healthy. And though failure was a possibility, once I forgave myself for that possibility, it never came. And once I reached a weight I wanted to stay, my diet and exercise changed again gradually. And I came to rest in a place of making new decisions each day with a new level of mindfulness. And I make all my decisions related to nutrition and activity as an act of self love. I do not let feelings of guilt or shame or thoughts of criticism enter into my relationship with my food or my physical activity anymore. And I am happy with how I look and how I feel.
"I feel a lot more like I will than I ever did before." --Sharon
Turning yourself over the process and possibility of growth and of positive change, and detachment from the ultimate outcome, is a constant challenge. But it is the best practice I believe we can do for living. Since life will always be uncertain. Always uncertain.
Pamela Joan Dillon
1988 - ?
"There is an art to living gracefully in uncertainty...Releasing the need
for control of the outside world."
...
"It might be that the only thing we have a chance to control is our next thought."
If we really acknowledge
that freedom of thought, own it,
that freedom of thought, own it,
and breath slowly in it, it is
a singular and endlessly prolific chance...
The chance to have power over
my next thought, gives me
more opportunity, more possibility,
more immediate wealth and fulfillment
than anything the outside world could possibly bestow...
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