I spend much of my life working with people to release their firm grip on the metaphoric steering wheel in their lives, giving up the fruitless notion of control, surrendering to the absolute “OK-ness” of any given moment, since to fight against reality leads only to discontent. Or madness. The stuff of dark gothic novels and Greek tragedies. Not a place we should be going.
“This moment might be sad,” I say, “so let it be sad.”
“That experience might be confusing,” I say, “but it doesn’t have to be clear.”
“Yes, you’re frightened and you don’t know what will be. That makes sense.”
“Your child’s tantrum may go on for a long time tonight, but perhaps there’s a way to be OK with that, to breathe deeply into the moment and stay right there, letting each moment pass. Surely there will be another moment.”
I calmly offer up the idea that pain is OK, temporary, something to accept, not fight. That the best we can do is release ourselves into the pain, and it will transform into something else. I am a hybrid Lamaze coach and Eastern guru, willing the philosophy of acceptance to take hold. I believe what I say, and people believe my belief, finding comfort the way a woman at 41½ weeks finally succumbs to the reality that she is going to go through labor, and nothing can come along at the last moment to offer any other way out.
Many people are able to take in the idea of accepting, rather than fighting, pain, heed my notions, and restore a sense of dignity when they face their next painful moment. They thank me for this strange gift of allowing what’s happening to be truly awful and yet they come through it feeling better about themselves and their lives.
Their valor shames me, for when it’s my discomfort, I want not only a steering wheel but the entire front end of the vehicle under my control. I want extra tread on the wheels, to sit up higher to see everything on the road. I want a Hummer to move swiftly over and through any obstacle. I want the road cleared of everyone, everything. Sirens blazing the announcement that help is on the way. I want what I want, and that’s basically for this moment not to be happening – the unreality that has eluded each and every one of us since the beginning of humanity – that this moment doesn’t hurt. I want the pain to go away, for the situation not to be, for there to be some other way – come on, really, there’s got to be some other way and I will ABSOLUTELY make it happen. I don’t want to endure it, don’t want to let it wash over me, and certainly, certainly, I don’t want to learn a damned thing from it.