#668 We Can Do Much Better Than "Quiet Desperation"

     Desperately hoping for luck, or special favors from god, nature, the universe is childishly silly, even from a religious / spiritual perspective. We waste our limited time & energies into trying to control largely or completely uncontrollable things & situations.
     Desperation feels like being a greyhound perpetually racing around the track after a fake fox, or like being a duck or buck during hunting season. Perpetually chasing or being chased feels anxious, fearful, tight, cold.

     Adult maturation to a large extent involves letting go of wishful, magical, egocentric thinking. Mindfulness practice trains us to accept things as they are now, with an open heart-mind. With this clarity, equanimity and loving-kindness, we can truly accept things we can't change, and intelligently change the things that can and need to be.

#174 Stuck? There IS a way out AND someone CAN help you!

     We've all seen overviews of individuals hopelessly lost, stuck in a maze. Because of our vantage point - the big picture - the way out or desired destination is clearly possible.

     It's sadly common for people to get stuck on life's journey. Many live 'lives of quiet desperation.' Yet there are far greater possibilities than Freud's neurosis or 'ordinary unhappiness'! Unfortunately, adhering dogmatically to ANY worldview - even "clever nihilism" - gives one a highly addictive sense of pseudo-control. Like all addictions, the control is fake, benefits short-lived, yet hard to outgrow.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."                    Hamlet, William Shakespeare

     Isn't life all about taking turns being stuck in a maze and finding one's way out, then having learned the overview, the bigger picture, we can help others out? Sometimes we require the help of therapists to extricate ourselves from the maze. But therapists themselves may suffer from, and require outside help for, the very conditions they treat in others.

     "When we accept the possibility of all things, ... then all things become possible. Trust builds a bridge between the known and the unknown and then allows us to temporarily cross into the other world. Faith does not manifest itself as acceptance of some dogma; instead it involves a willingness to go past the current limits of our knowing. The new world (ie that yielded by transformation) may not be revealed or reached without surrender and faith.”

       Hart T. "From information to transformation. Education for the evolution of consciousness." Peter Lang Publishing, NY, 2009.

     SEE ALSO: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/87-approach-embrace-challenges.html
     AND: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/85-phoenix-process.html