Wild is the Ride

If we are paying attention to life and to our lives, it doesn’t take much observation to realize that it’s all capricious: often unpredictable, disruptive at times, and a mixture of the proverbial ups and downs. That’s not a critique of the nature of things, merely an evidence-based awareness.

Honestly, life cares nothing about our opinions of it, it is above our value-based judgments of it. Life will be and do what life wishes.

In contrast, most of us have an unrealistic expectation that our experiences should all be pleasant and comfortable. Rhondell, the spiritual teacher, said that was the root of most of our discontent. When all we want is a nice little cavort through the day, every day is likely to be frustrating, annoying or even frightening.

Some time back it occurred to me that a rollercoaster is an apt metaphor for the nature of things. And the only difference between terror and exhilaration is in what we bring to the ride. (Click here to read the blog.)

On the twelve-step recovery side of my practice, there’s an entire body of work around “expectations inventory.” While you may not be an addict, the underlying principle is applicable to most all of us. If we can get a good look at where our expectations are a mismatch to reality, we can alter our experience quite dramatically.

Life on life’s terms is the motto in the rooms of recovery.

Yet the most challenging aspect of this kind of thinking is not in understanding it. Rather, it is our all-too-human tendency to find someone or something to blame for our upsets.

Brene Brown, the researcher and wisewoman, determined that as soon as we blame, which is to place judgment or to condemn, our minds close to any curiosity or openness. We get an emotional discharge from whining, complaining and accusing, which then prevents us from looking within ourselves to what we bring to the upsets, i.e. what expectations we may have based on our beliefs and perceptions. (If you wish to understand the science and psychology of this “ladder of inference,” here’s a mini-workshop I delivered on it.)

Here’s the amazing part though. Seeing and understanding within ourselves the source of our difficulties is a magic elixir for putting things to peace. It’s the great secret that Viktor Frankl articulated so well: that no one and no thing can take our meaning and purpose from us. That our experience is wholly ours to bring forth.

Just imagine - we have within us everything we need to thrive. No matter what.