The shortest path

to being fully alive

An enormous planter in front of our house once contained a very tall thin evergreen but is now filled with weeds. A few years ago during a pretty serious drought, the tree died. In August, it started to turn golden brown in spots. By December, the white lights we had put on it the year before cast it in a warm golden glow that only highlighted that the tree was now completely dead. We had it removed the following spring, leaving only a large stump pushing above the dirt.

We haven’t yet put a new tree in its place. Around the stump has grown a huge patch of dandelions that are THRIVING. I have removed them many times, only for them to burst forth again from beneath the mulch I put down. The daffodils in our garden are still ensconced in their delicate green cases. The grass seems to be waiting for spring to really arrive. Not the dandelions! They are back and ready to party.

While my son keeps reminding me that dandelions have many redeeming qualities, I just can’t help but think of them as weeds. And weeds always make me think of the way certain life lessons just keep coming back until you finally dig all the way down, deep to the roots and pull them up.

Most of the time, we snip off the tops or we pull them out while leaving little tendrils of life deep in the soil, lurking in darkness until they sense the opportunity to pop back up. Maybe we try planting around them or covering them with mulch. This is a mistake. They (life lessons and the dandelions) always come roaring back bigger and more powerful than before until we really, truly deal with them.

Frank Bowling, #4 To the Lighthouse, 2021

I have been thrown a lot of big life lessons recently, mostly around owning what I need in order to thrive, naming what I want in the world and really releasing my need to be liked by people (I still cringe as I type that but, yes, it has come up recently). These are things I thought I had worked through for the most part, but, clearly, I had not gotten down to the deepest of the roots. These lessons have come roaring back with a vengeance.

In these last few months, I have been given many chances to feel old patterns, old beliefs, and to painfully acknowledge how they have been in my life and then cast them off. With each lesson, I have said, “I do not want to shy away from this." I want to see this all the way down to its deepest hold on me.” The thing is, I wouldn’t trade the things that have happened. I am grateful for them. They are signs pointing me down the path toward a more alive way of being in the world. But these experiences hurt a lot.

I learned a long time ago that if I want to really dig it all up, I have to move toward the pain of the experience rather than trying avoid, numb, blame, lash out in anger, or wish that other people would change. When pain comes up, I cannot shy away. The pain is letting me know that there is something in me that wants to be seen so it can be reexamined and released.

I learned this orientation toward pain intuitively and also through the work of Richard Schwarz. More recently, I have also learned how to move toward the pain and recognize what it offers through Phil Stutz’s work. In his newest book True and False Magic, Phil writes:

“Pain is any event in which you meet the universe, and it hurts. It could be rejections, it could be failure, it could be loss, it could be encountering someone who comes onto you and acts badly. Put simply, pain is what you feel when you are not in harmony in the world and when the world is not receiving you in the way you would like.

Forget about avoiding pain. It’s impossible. Yes, we’d all like to live in a congenial world, but that’s just a fantasy. Also when you attempt to avoid pain you lose self-esteem, and self-esteem is essential for contending with life and realizing your potential. At its bare bones, the definition for self-esteem is your ability to expand your pain tolerance…self-esteem is important because it shows you that you’ve gone through this before, that you’ve built faith in your self-reliance.”

A few years ago, my husband and I were going through a series of big life challenges and it all felt relentless. I called my dad one day in tears (actually, big heaving sobs). He said to me, “the bad news is in the short term this is all incredibly stressful and it sucks. The good news is you have so much support around you from family and friends to get you through this rough time. The really good news is in the long run, you guys are going to be better than great. I don’t doubt this for a second.”

He didn’t try to take the pain away, he just reassured me that I could handle it. Pain is inevitable. Trying to find a way to have less of it or avoid it or convince myself there is a way around it - this is the source of suffering. Just feeling the pain is always easier, but it is incredibly uncomfortable.

It is funny how we all avoid pain in different ways. Some people may be able to push themselves to extremes physically but are overwhelmed by emotional discomfort. Some people can push themselves, take risks and experience rejection after rejection in work but with friends or with loved ones, they can’t handle the smallest rebuff.

The task is to find where you are avoiding pain. Then you can start building your tolerance so that you can fully engage with life.

I highly highly recommend Phil Stutz’s books The Tools and True and False Magic. They teach ways to engage with pain (tools for doing it!) that make it more and more tolerable until you suddenly feel more and more alive and connected to others and able to engage with life as it is, not as you wish it were. They are very slim and to the point and easy to read.