“Good or bad, hard to say…”

5 Nov 23

Inspired by my mentor for Body Wisdom, Iggy Tan.

Often in our lives we can be overly attached to pleasure, the things we enjoy, like or want, and averse to pain, or that which we do not want.

However this can lead to a constant inner struggle of seeking for pleasure and avoidance of pain.

What we all come to realise though, is that life, every human life, is filled with both.

We will all have joys, we will all have sorrows, and whilst there is most certainly a spectrum of what can unfold within the journey of a human life, ultimately no human life is devoid from its challenges. How can it be when the purpose of our existence here is to learn, to evolve, to grow and to experience the richness and fullness of what it means to be a human?

So when we can seek to cultivate a deeper acceptance of whatever plays out across the screen of our conscious awareness, across the stage of the theatre of our particular human life, and bring in an attitude of “Good or bad, hard to say” we can live with less suffering and less resistance to what the present moment contains.

This philosophy also encompasses the fact that we are not always aware of the bigger picture or the higher vantage point for why things unfold as they do.

For example when I failed a medical exam towards the very end of my GP training, the normal response was to be disappointed. We say to ourselves “who wouldn’t be?” Which yes, of course is true, however the choice point lies in how long we stay in that. This outcome could easily have been seen as a “bad” one, however the trajectory it opened up for my life path was quite the opposite. That “bad” outcome ended up giving me the permission I needed to leave GP training, which was one of my best decisions. The career path I was on, was only serving to keep me stressed, unhappy, burdened and under much more pressure than what I wanted from a career. Where it then led me was to my present job in which I feel far more relaxed, less stressed and much more peaceful. So you see what could in one moment be labelled as “bad” actually turned into a very big “good”.

And it is this that applies to everything in our lives.

A difficult relationship can provide the invaluable lessons for what’s required to create a wonderful one.

The ending of a friendship can create the space for a new connection to enter our life.

There are so many ways in which life can give us what we think we don’t want, when it actually ends up serving us and giving us what we actually need.

And sometimes it will be far harder to cultivate this attitude, that is truth.

The loss of a parent, a child, a spouse, a sibling will no doubt leave a pain in our hearts that may in fact accompany us as we move through the rest of our life journey. And of course we are entitled to give ourselves as much time as we need as we move through the heartbreaking cycles of grief.

Yet there will come a day, no matter how long it might take, that we realise we have no choice but to accept what has happened if we are to continue to actually live our lives. Within us we will find the courage and strength in our heart to carry that person with us in spirit wherever it is that we go, knowing that in actual fact they will always be with us.

Life is a paradox. There will be joy. There will be sorrow. There will be light. There will be darkness.

Our only choice lies in how much we fight and resistant the current, or how much we flow with it and allow it to move us gently downstream.

The choice is ours.