WHEN REALITY FALLS APART FREE

I sat there on my floor, the carpet wet from tears and I let wave after wave of suffering smash into me. There were times when pain was my constant companion, when the gravity of my situation seemed impossible, but I didn’t run and hide. I experienced death, divorce and serious illness in the one year. I’ve been through the dark night of the soul. And when we face up to ourselves, when we give presence to our suffering we can reduce the tight grip that suffering has over us. When life becomes unbearable we can seek an instant fix to numb ourselves or we can face up to our suffering. And for someone who likes to be in control, this was comforting. I couldn’t control the chaos that surrounded the destruction of my life, but I could control how I reacted. But I made an effort to peek inside every day. Usually just lying on the floor and taking a peek inside my turbulent mind. I prescribed myself sequences to soothe a broken heart, to shift stagnant energy and to release fear. When you lose everything precious to you, there’s really only one thing left. Then the tsunami of pain would hit but I never actually drowned in it. Some mornings I would wake and for a moment I was oblivious to the pain and suffering. I slept a lot and found peace in my dreams. Have you ever eaten so many salt and vinegar chips that your tongue hurts? My tongue hurt but it was better than the hurt of my new reality. It helped me to manage the intensity of the shock I was feeling that my world had been torn apart. It just keeps returning with new names, forms and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating to ourselves.”- Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart What do you do when things are unbearable?įor me, denial worked really well for a while. If we run a hundred miles to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem for us when we arrive. But what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. “Maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast.

WHEN REALITY FALLS APART FREE

The way to free ourselves from suffering is to fully experience our suffering. The book is a a pearl farm of wisdom but the central premise is that in order to deal with our suffering we have to face up to it. My whole world had fallen apart and I was looking for something to cling to. I started reading it when I separated from my husband.

I hope you’ll join this community of people committed to continuing and accelerating progress on some of the world’s toughest challenges.When things fall apart is a book title from Buddhist monk Pema Chodron. We’ll be sharing exciting success stories and talking about where the world still needs to improve. We’ll be joined by former President Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize laureates Malala Yousafzai and Leymah Gbowee, musician and activist will.i.am, and hundreds of other world leaders, experts, and celebrities. This is the message Melinda and I are taking to New York this week, where we’re co-hosting an event called Goalkeepers. It means you do what former President Bill Clinton calls “looking beyond the headlines for the trend lines.” Armed with an understanding of how many challenges humanity has overcome so far, you’re inspired to do whatever you can to help solve today’s problems and prevent tomorrow’s. It doesn’t mean you get complacent or ignore the world’s problems. Believing the world is getting better is not some Pollyanna view.

When reality falls apart