It is something I have always taken pride in, I can open almost any jar! Like seriously, beast hands. Or if something is trying to squirm out of my grasp I can cling on pretty tightly.
I mean this physically but I also mean this psychologically. Once my brain latches on to a thought it doesn't let it go.
As I talked about in my last blog, I am working through the book "Recovering Joy' by Kevin Griffin. I am now reworking Chapter 2. It is the perfect chapter for me because it describes me perfectly, it feels like it written about me actually (which in a way is soothing because that means there is someone out there that functions or struggles to function just like I do)!
In the first section of Chapter 2 (which is the only section I am concentrating on in this blog) it uses the word:
Renunciation:
"the act or instance of relinquishing, a repudiating, or sacrificing something, as a right, title, person or ambition".
This word normally has a negative connotation in the english language. We are society that is constantly striving to obtain more, not less.
I will admit this is something I struggle with more than most things. I constantly am wanting more. I am grasping for everything to be in my life, people, things and substances. I feel like if I completely saturate my life then somehow I will find that sweet spot everyone is looking for in life.
But as I started reading about renunciation I started realizing, that the complete saturation I was striving for wasn't lifting me up, it was doing the opposite, it was making me drowned.
I was living with this angry pit in my stomach and constant nervous energy buzzing through my body because I was constantly afraid I would loosen my grasp and lose something I was clinging to.
And I eventually I always did end up losing things, because everything in life is impermanent but that loss was crippling. It would bring up every emotion I covered up with my constant clinging to pointless relationships, things and substances.
But it took me a long time to realize this and what helped lead me to this realization is this:
"Happiness doesn't come from the things we have, but from the abandoning of the things we cling to, the things that hold us down and capture our minds".
Anya Khema, a famous Buddhist quoted this in her book "Being Nobody, Going Nowhere". "We experience great relief, the deep peace and pleasure that non-doing brings". She also talks about being a nobody.
These are not things that are socially acceptable in society today, we are pushed to have a title, to have a thousand hobbies, to always be going.
But for me, I can't keep going. If I keep going at the rate I was going, I would completely saturate myself until I sunk.
Releasing my grasp on the need to have it all and being OK with being just me, and living for me is actually what is giving me the peace I need to start living harmoniously in the world and putting love out into the world without having my own self-interests driving it.
I am coming to terms with putting myself out there and embracing everyday because I am realizing everything is impermanent and living a life that is constantly based on what is next and how long will it last does not feed the soul.
I am finally loosening my grip and giving my hands a rest from tightly grasping at the impermanent.
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