23. Hard Work
I use ‘centering’ as a verb, to mean a continual process of uniting the opposites. Centering, for me, is the discipline of bringing in rather than leaving out; of saying yes to what is most holy as well as to what is most unbearable. The severity of that, as a discipline, is not widely understood.
— M.C. Richards
Trusting, for those of us who first learned not to trust, is no simple task. Thomas Merton says it well: "Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone." There are many days when I’m forced to realize that my heart is hardened and that I’m unable to even consider trusting in love.
Here is the learning: the most unbearable can (and must) be brought into direct contact with the most sacred; the orphan needs to finally come home. It is here that we discover a hidden alchemy.
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It is precisely in these moments, when being met seems impossible, that I am learning to choose the discipline of inviting Presence. This is the hardest work I know.
And it is no work at all.
The hard work is that I must choose to allow the unbearable (a dark memory or a seemingly impossible circumstance in my current life) to come into focus. The "no work" is that I realize it's no longer up to me. I'm learning to allow AND (hidden wholeness emerging in this new moment) to do the deeper work - often at a level my conscious mind can't fathom. I sit inside the pain, but I no longer sit alone.
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In practical terms, how do I do this? I stop doing. I simply allow my breathing to slow to a gentle pace. I ask this next tender breath to meet me in the darkness of the painful ordinary.
[Click image to watch]
Breathing Exercise - simple
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Above Video: Tender in-breath, tender out-breath, tender in-breath ... whether for 30 seconds or 30 minutes, this is the hidden-in-plain-sight gift of finding a simple, always available practice. (More on this in the conclusion.)
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This moment, exactly as it is (good, bad, or ugly), is met with this tender breath.
The tough news: In certain moments "the most unbearable" will inevitably emerge. The good news: There is a radical difference between sensing "the unbearable" while feeling alone in the darkness ...
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... and experiencing the same sensation with-in the holding of a tender breath.
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This we have now is not imagination.
This is not grief or joy.
Not a judging state, or an elation,
or sadness.
Those come and go.
This is the Presence that doesn’t.
— Rumi