Keep Choosing
by Jennifer Paros
“Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.”
Headaches have become a not so uncommon phenomenon in my life – often attributed to hormonal shenanigans, sinus something, or chronic self-criticism. I have great compassion for the headache-sufferer, myself included; it’s a lousy ride. Whatever their origins, I’ve noticed that as soon as I start to get one (or a “wave,” as I sometimes call those that rise and fall and don’t develop into anything more), I get quite upset, even a bit fatalistic – fast. This reaction troubles me because I know it only makes everything harder.
Recently I went to bed and awoke in the middle of the night with a bad headache. It was like awakening on a ship out of control in a storm; someone had to take the helm. Determinedly, I did a breathing technique that starts with slowly placing attention on my toes and feet and works up to my head. The headache didn’t go away completely but the intense energy that was driving it lessened. I was now in an altered situation and a better position. I felt the shifting effects on my body and mind and sleep seemed possible – a possibility that, to my surprise, soon became a reality.
In the morning, I still had a low level headache but understood that I needed to keep choosing. If I wanted to move in a new direction, I had to keep choosing a focus that at least leaned in a better direction than the stress reaction that had become normal for me. There’s no magic wand, but the effects of a new frame of mind steadily gaining strength, endurance, and reliability produce what can feel like magic.
This is not always an easy process, but it is restorative. It restores use of our inner system: never broken, just temporarily impeded from its natural balance. But balance isn’t found in one dramatic movement; it’s felt for incrementally. When we focus purposefully, not out of habit or reactiveness, we give ourselves an opportunity for a changed experience. It just has to be done with continuity. No story line “takes” until given enough time and attention to develop. Once given that attention, gradually we find ourselves writing and living a new story.
We can restore our sense of power through choosing. Our first choice starts the process of changing the dynamics and our vantage point. We are always keenly relevant in our experience though it’s easy to forget that our particular angle is what allows us to see and feel as we do.
“Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.”
The other day I stepped outside for a moment and witnessed blue sky and a rainbow to my right, gray sky and rain to my left, both part of the same whole. To see either I had to be in the right position, looking in the right direction, at the right time. Our openness to the possibility that there is something else to see, and our willingness to shift angles and surrender our current position, makes a huge difference in what we’re able to see.
My brain’s habit of rushing to disappointment and hopelessness means I’m forgetting the relevance of my own angle. Reality is alive and in progress. Even an outcome is not a finality. As long as we’re here, we’re not finished; we’re creating and the creative process happens through the way we focus now and next. Our path is laid by our attention and orientation.
In the book, Welcoming the Unwelcome, Pema Chodron, Buddhist writer and teacher, talks about hot and cool emotions. When we resist and try to run from feelings like boredom, loneliness, sadness, and anger, they become “hot.” The feelings minus any inner fight against them become cool. Chodron says allowing ourselves to feel those emotions in their cool form provides a portal to “emptiness” – an open mental space and a shift in our orientation, which allows change.
Like headaches, thoughts and feelings can also come in waves. It’s valuable to see ourselves not just as recipients of these waves but as part of the energy in them, and rejoin that energy through deliberate focus. When we get negative momentum going, like the kind that accompanies a headache, we’ve got a “hot” situation because we want out of it as soon as possible. What we’re trying to let go of, we’re fighting against and running from – an inherently failing strategy.
When we stop running an opportunity opens. Now we can choose – and keep choosing – what we want most and our path forward.
Jennifer Paros is a writer, illustrator, and author of Violet Bing and the Grand House (Viking, 2007). She lives in Seattle. Please visit her website.