A Path Forward
IF YOU REMEMBER ONE THING from this column, remember this: Being out of harmony with your soul or with the demands of your spiritual nature is like having a rock in your shoe. It is going to bug you until you fix the situation. If you remember two things from this column, add this: Your soul is not about happiness. The rock in your shoe is not unhappiness. What our soul or spirit wants is to be fully present, innocent, and vulnerable to the vibrancy of life— to show up fully to life, whatever it brings.
To put this another way, love, pain, heartbreak, jealousy, envy, anger, happiness, joy, sorrow, and even what now seems an overwhelming epidemic of anxiety are all integral to living. Life is not good when it feels okay or bad when it causes pain. Life is about being fully alive to what is. Living in harmony with your soul includes ups and downs, from joy to sorrow, from suffering to ecstasy. Living in harmony with your soul starts with listening. Then it moves to setting goals and owning your destiny as best you can. Its end result is behavioral, in which you make intentional, ongoing choices about how you are in this exact moment and what you do right here and now. The overriding goal for these choices is called right practice.
“Being out of harmony with your soul or with the demands of your spiritual nature is like having a rock in your shoe.”
I grew up in the cold snow belt of Michigan. In the winter, we put on thick coats, heavy boots, and lined gloves, and we made sure the car had plenty of fuel before we set out on the 30-mile drive to the grocery store. We went prepared, and if the weather was really bad, we just stayed home. In other words, we made choices so we could avoid serious consequences like frostbite or worse. Those choices sometimes required us to slow down or stop and reevaluate, but never to be lazy.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that all procrastination is a form of laziness, and I think he’s right. Procrastination and laziness are time spent trying to get used to the rock in your shoe, but that doesn’t actually help. Instead, it’s a form of poison, like lust, greed, envy, jealousy, hate, anger, and indifference. Our soul knows this reality and knows we have the power of choice. We can feed our souls, bodies, and life experiences with poisons, or we can choose intentional spiritual practice— which are choices with love and heart.
Alcohol, for example, is a poison that continues to destroy Indigenous cultures, families, and lives—and it’s a poison that can be stopped by simply saying no to using it. I chose alcohol as an example because it pushes the most buttons. People love their wine, beer, and evening cocktails. Perhaps the word poison pushes you to rationalize your own drinking with words like, “Yes, but I drink only organic, free trade, ethically produced vintage wines as a lifestyle thing— and only in moderation.” Perhaps you follow the warning on the beautiful labels and “drink responsibly.”
But how do you drink something responsibly when it causes so many types of cancer, destroys brain cells, and impairs our impulse control, which is necessary to keep our lust, greed, envy, and anger from coming unleashed? How does alcohol help us to be better parents, employers, and friends? How does drinking show that we love ourselves and wish to care for our souls with love and responsibility?
Do we talk about child abuse in moderation? Jealous, angry outbursts in moderation? Indifference and violence in moderation? Pointing out that your friend is an ugly drunk may lose you a friend because the truth is ugly. Yet our soul asks us to “kiss the ugly.” Embrace the ugly if that’s what is real.
Being on a spiritual path of right practice is a responsible path where we embrace the idea that we have the power of choice in each moment. So the ongoing question right here and right now is whether our choices move us toward compassion and mindfulness or not. Whatever we choose, we need to acknowledge that is our choice and own it.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON A PATH FORWARD
1. Don’t accept my words as truth. I might be wrong. Maybe moderate alcohol use is healthy, for example. Jesus turned water into wine for some reason. Question everything! It is your choice.
2. Sit with the vision of your life: the reality of your past, the future you wish for, and where you are now. Accept it all. If your path seems defined by addiction, sadness, or broken relationships, don’t judge those experiences as good or bad. Accept them and find purpose in them to move you forward. As you look back, remember not to stare. The Buddha guided us to pull out the arrows of pain, addiction, grasping, and expecting and to get on with living.
3. Be courageous in your relationships. Recognize that all of life is about relationships, and relationships are messy. Sit with this mess and think about how relationships go wrong, with our friends, coworkers, finances, and even ourselves. Our first relationship is with ourselves, and we need to be accepting when we eat too much, drink excessively, or say something hurtful to someone we care about. As much as we try to come from a place of compassion, joy, connection, and spiritual values, we will often miss. Take risks in love and friendship like you will never be hurt—knowing of course that you will be.
4. Stay motivated. Set intentions and goals, and connect the dots to the future you want for your life. When we set goals and intentions, we are compelled to take responsibility for their manifestation. This, in turn, requires the discipline of responsibly integrating right practice and mindfulness into each breath we take, in every moment. Mostly, it takes commitment.
Paul Sutherland helps create mindfulness content for GAIA Conscious Media and character-based mindful parenting and teaching materials for stepiedu.com. You can reach him at paul@paulhsutherland.com.
