The thing about others' paths

So the thing about everyone’s individual path is, it is always right for them. As a spiritual seeker, I sometimes find myself falling into the trap of judging others for their missteps, and making judgments about the path another person has chosen. The typical judgment would be toward the speed or ease of another’s path. I.e., “Doesn’t he see that he is creating his own reality with his limiting beliefs?”; “Why doesn’t she practice yoga?”; “He should eat better”; “She would be happier and find peace more quickly if she just let go”; etc.

But how can we possibly know that our path is the best? Judgments of another’s path don’t make sense because the path is all about the journey; we are all headed toward the same destination but will experience the journey in a way that is unique and best-suited for us. It would be like saying my way of going for a mountain hike is the best because it is the quickest, and ignoring the fact that another route may have some very interesting twists and turns that would be missed by taking the shorter route.

Or, it would be like saying one movie is better than another movie because it is shorter! We would be ignoring all of the beautiful emotion and artistry that is invoked by watching the drama unfold on its own time.

You may find, as I have, that heartbreak follows unfulfilled expectations which come when others do not live up to the impossible ideals we have set for them. It can be difficult, but letting go of the judgments of others and giving them enough respect to live their own lives makes interactions with other humans a lot less heartbreaking.

We are all artists, and we create the artwork of our lives through our actions and beliefs. Even a person who seems to be creating a life of misery that could easily be avoided by following some of my poignant advice deserves my respect enough to let them create their art their way. And I hope I will receive the same respect in turn.

One thing I’ve learned from my career as an attorney is that almost anything can be argued either way. In other words, there is always an argument that can be found to support any proposition. Just because I believe it is best to do things one way, and can give several good arguments as to why I am right, does not mean that the same thing cannot be argued another way, with several good points to support that argument. We have to learn to start separating humans from their arguments, their judgments, and just love them for them. I have a tendency, which many humans suffer from, where I tend to dislike someone just because I disagree with the way they judge reality. How is that fair when reality can be judged in countless different ways, and our individual versions of reality are almost totally conditional upon our unique, individual life experience?

I believe that human interactions become easier when we start to recognize that every person acts in a way that makes sense to them, based upon their judgments of reality, which, again, come from their life experience and unique make up. You may agree with me. Or you may not. I'll try to love you for you either way.


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Healing personal relationships and dealing with sadness

Unhappiness happens even on the spiritual path. I’ve been accused of being unhappy despite my spiritual practice. The suggestion is that once you are firmly on the path, you should be happy all the time. But living in this world means dealing with the ups and downs of life. For example, when someone you love stops wanting to spend time with you, it may make you unhappy, even if you are firmly grounded in your belief that life is a learning experience designed for our own evolution; an evolution that leads to an understanding of the interconnectedness of the Whole. I'm dealing with some of this right now, so let's talk about human interactions, which can be difficult at times.

For me, being on the path means realizing that none of it is personal. I see how I’ve been on both the giving and receiving end of dissing a friend. I know that when I was the one doing the dissing, I was so caught up in my own personal problems and life drama that it was not personal; I didn’t even realize I was doing it. When I am on the receiving end of the dissing, I try to realize the same thing: it isn’t personal; deep down it has nothing to do with me. It may even be part of a larger picture: It is always interesting to me that when I am going through something shitty, it seems that other friends are having similar experiences. Sort of like the Universe deciding, “today there will be rain.” Today, there will be friend issues. Tomorrow there may be car trouble, but the day after that, skies are clear for some fun times.

It makes me take life less personally. Taking things personally makes the sadness “stick” longer in my experience. But how can we take anything others do personally? We all live in our own personal movie, our own dramas, where we are the stars. If I am angry at someone else, it is because of the story I have in my head about that person, based upon my perception of reality, which is shaped by my own unique life experiences, many going back to childhood. How can my anger really have anything to do with the other person? My anger is all about me. That does not mean the anger does not hurt or that, on a certain level, it is not justified. But being on the path means recognizing the cause and effect relationship of our emotions. It means recognizing the effect of karma. 

Karma simply means you reap what you sow. If you plant “Y” seeds, you will harvest “Y” fruit; if you plant “X” seeds, you will harvest “X” fruit. If you plant anger seeds, you will reap anger fruit. If you plant loving seeds, you will reap loving fruit. There does not even need to be a judgment about it. In other words, that planting “bad” seeds makes “bad” fruit or that “good” seeds make “good” fruit. One person’s good is another person’s bad. The Universe does not judge. You simply reap what you sow. If you plant seeds of blocking others out of your heart, then expect to reap fruit of others blocking you out of their heart. Not necessarily or even usually the same person. 

For example, block your mother out of your heart, and your best friend may block you out of her heart. Block your ex-husband, and your child may block you. We create stories for why we are justified in blocking our mother, our father, our ex-spouses: because they are assholes, they deserve it, they wronged us, etc. But all it does is create a cause and effect relationship. It comes back to us, and hurts us in the end. 

For me, the old way was to cut off someone who “wronged” me. I can look back over my life and see a history of break ups, not just lovers but besties, where something went wrong and I decided that person did not deserve my love or attention anymore. Now I am finding that is impossible. Even if someone decidedly does not “deserve” my love because of some perceived wrongdoing, I feel a deeper hurt from blocking the love than I do by letting it flow. Sadness, unhappiness come with the hurt, but they also pass with time. Like storm clouds, they pass with time.

Sometimes, we come under the mistaken impression that we can avoid heartbreak by cutting the object of our heartbreak out of our heart, thereby preventing the same heartbreak from happening again. But the heartbreak just reaps more heartbreak. And you may find, as I have, that it is impossible to cut someone out of your heart; you may find that you continue to think about that person and that they continue to be involved in your mind drama - whether it is the mind drama of sending them daggers of hate or light rays of love. Its our choice. Even when we are successful in physically removing someone from our life, I have found that we must still deal with that person on a mental, emotional level and that we cannot remove someone from our emotional life by deciding with our mind that they deserve our hate. All we will do is reap more hate. 

So being on the spiritual path does not mean never being unhappy; but it does mean looking for deeper reasons behind the unhappiness; looking inward at the cause and effect relationship of the karma I am sowing and the fruit I am reaping. How can I be mad at a bestie who does not want to spend time with me, when I am doing something similar to another bestie, for example? I truly believe that once I have healed all my own heartbreak, once I have torn down all my own walls that I have put up to justify blocked love, I will stop hurting so deeply when it happens to me. I don’t think it means that I will never be sad; but I do believe that by being connected to the deeper peace underneath the sadness that the sadness will transmute and leave me faster than it would otherwise. If we take the sad life experiences as a tool for learning, we can look inward and realize how we are reaping what we sowing, and, with that knowledge, empower ourselves to grow and change.

Even by just sitting with the pain and letting it be, or by trying to connect and feel love toward the object of your anger or sadness on a deep level (sometimes you have to go really deep!), you may find that the sadness lifts and the drama fades. You are really healing yourself; you are healing a bit of your hurt heart. You are breaking down a wall that you put up most likely as a child. 

Then (bear with me a minute while I geek out with this example), it is like the Legend of Zelda video game, when you unlock a secret and you hear that sweet little musical sound. You’ve figured something in one area of the game, and it has unlocked a secret passage in a whole different area of the game. Heal your own heartbreak, break down your own heart walls, and watch as a whole different area of your life opens up. Watch your relationships heal.


Check out my new and improved website: www.theyogalawyer.com

thank you, Alanis

It is officially one week back in America now, and it seems there are all sorts of problems. My car is busted. The mechanic told me before I left that fixing it would be like “performing open heart surgery on a 98-year old man.” No plans in sight to get a new one because I’m broke. (Though I am kicking around the idea of a gas-powered bike, electric skateboard, or electric scooter!). 

Being broke is temporary, but it’s still a pain in the ass. Speaking of pains-in-the-asses, my glute muscle, hamstring, and hip on the left side are wicked painful right now. The 7-hour work-related car ride on Tuesday did not help. Speaking of work, I am super busy for someone who is “cutting back” from the practice of law. I had a hearing Tuesday, I have another hearing today, and I have a board certification test next week. 

Trying to find time to study amidst all the chaos has not been easy, especially while dealing with jet lag from the ten-and-a-half hour time difference and getting a sinusy-thing as soon as I arrived home. 

The jet lag has messed with my sleep schedule. Right now I go to bed at 7 o'clock pm and wake up at 3am because my inner clock is all off. Not to mention that our home is in the midst of a renovation project that’s not quite done (its pretty awesome though, thanks love!) so I’m feeling the crunch of lots of life’s problems. Some of my friends have a ton of problems too, worse ones than me. 

More than my own mundane headaches, which really arent that bad, I've noticed that many of the people I am encountering day-to-day are bogged down in life’s problems. And they are suffering as a result. 

I’ve also noticed that I didn't see the same level of suffering in India. It is really eye-opening. In India, the people also have huge problems. Many of them live their live’s wrought with painful problems; yet the people don’t seem to suffer the same as we do here; the problems don’t seep down into their cores and conceal their happiness the way we let our problems get to us here. 

There is a quote I love from the I Ching:

Rain, after all is only rain; it is not bad weather. So also, pain is only pain; unless we resist it, then it becomes torment.

There is a man who hangs out by the coconut stand near the yoga shala where I practice in India who has two shriveled up little legs. He gets around using only his upper body with the aid of two blocks with handles. People toss him coins and he sits there most of the day, with the largest grin on his face. He seems happy just to be alive, though I am pretty sure he does not know where his next meal is coming from. 

Why is he so freaking happy? His life is full of pain; yet he is happy at his core. He is peaceful and content deep down. I have theories for why this is, but I’m not up for a soapbox lecture today. I don’t tell this story to try to make us feel guilty for thinking our problems are bad, i.e., “I guess I should shut up about my shitty boss when Kelli says the poor, starving, shriveled-legged man in India is happy.”

The point isn’t that we should feel bad about our pain or feel guilty that we are sad. The point is just to notice the dichotomy and start to wonder why?

I think humor maybe our ticket out of the hell hole. This morning while sitting in the car before work, my mind raced with all the things on my plate, and the sense of sadness I am feeling at all the suffering I am encountering. I tried to center myself. Alanis Morrisette’s, “Thank you, India” came on the radio. My first thought was, “Alanis is so dumb, her voice is weird and that ‘Ironic’ song made no sense - none of her examples in the song were actually ironic.”


I sink into the moment and start listening to the lyrics. “Thank you India. Thank you consequence, thank you thank you silence.” By the end, I am in tears, thinking how deep the song is, and whispering to myself, “thank you, Alanis.”

I had to laugh at my ludicrousness. One minute hating Alanis, the next minute surrendering and connecting with her deeper essence - and actually feeling the interconnectedness of the Universe through her song, which manifested on my radio at precisely the right second - perhaps to teach me something?

I’m going with that. That this whole up-and-down roller coaster ride of life is a learning experience, contrived by the Universe to help us become who we really are. 


Check out my new and improved website: www.theyogalawyer.com