Chances are, since you’re human, you’ve had one or two of those times where you’re right at the edge of absolute despair and, looking over the edge into the abyss below, think the tumble might be worth it. You’re not about to find out. But you sure won’t mind when this all ends.
First of all, as someone who has the tattered tee-shirt from that place, let me tell you I’m sorry you had to feel that pain. I’m sorry any of us do. But we do. Every last one of us. It comes, it seems, with the package.
I was reminded of those bleak stretches of the road when I happened across a little wall poster that said,”Don’t you DARE give up now!” I was having a fine morning when I saw it, and it made me grin. Such a poke! Such encouragement in so few words.
“That’s right,” I said to myself. Then I watched a whole string of cliches roll through my mind:
Things change. Things get better. Light follows dark. Calm follows storm.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I thought. I don’t want to hear a bunch of truisms now. Not if I’m chest deep in the messiness of life. If that’s where I am, I’m hanging on to this big bag full of disgust and
sick-of-this-had-enough-ness. And somehow I can’t quite get myself to set it down.
So, you’ve probably been there a time or two, right? Sucks.
One of the best ladders I’ve found for digging myself out of that particular kind of a pit is Tara Brach’s mantra: “This is suffering. Everybody suffers. May I be kind.” Saying those words, for me, softens things, lets me let go of some of the stubbornness that’s holding onto my disgust bag. It’s one of those phrases I like to keep nearby to grab when I’m in trouble.
Now I have “Don’t you DARE give up now!” to add to the mix. It feels spicier. It’s bracing. It carries a challenge. Mind you, it doesn’t say you can’t take a rest. A nap might be just what you need before you take on the next round. It’s just saying that you need to take on the next round.
A scene from a movie I can’t remember comes to mind where these two men are having a raging fist-fight in the mud in a terrible downpour. The hero is taking a pretty bad beating. He slips in the mud and falls to his knees a couple times. Then he’s hit with a powerful blow to the jaw and falls whole body into the slimy mud. Calling on every bit of reserve he has, he pulls himself to his feet. “Why do you keep getting up?” the bad guy asks him incredulously. The hero looks him in the eye, his face covered with mud, and snarls, “Because I can.”
That’s one of the things that made him a hero. He didn’t give up. He kept on going, regardless of how bleak the odds seemed.
Things change. Sometimes – more often than we credit – things get better. And light really does come after darkness. So, yes. I’ll put this one in my pocket: “Don’t you DARE give up now!”
Stick one in yours, too. You never know. It might come in handy one of these days.
Wishing you a week where light dances gently all around you.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by TheDigitalArtist by Pixabay