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by Mary O’Malley
Before we can begin to be curious about
what we are experiencing and bring it the healing of
compassion, which is the doorway to our freedom, we need to
allow the possibility that our challenges are not here because
we have done something wrong. The belief that we are wrong is
so deep in our psyche that at first it may be difficult to let
in the truth that your challenges are here because they are
tailor-made to bring you to awakening.
I am not saying that you haven't done
unskillful things in your life, we all have. But we have a
choice in how we relate to our unskillfulness. To judge
ourselves keeps us caught in an ongoing prison of struggle. To
bring understanding and compassion opens us to the freedom of
connection and joy.
In order to make this shift, we need to
understand that everyone makes mistakes and everyone judges
themselves for doing so. I have worked with people for over 20
years and have never met anyone, including internationally
known teachers, who don't have to work with this feeling that
they have done things wrong and thus are wrong. The more I
awaken, the more I realize the truth in the Grateful Dead song
Scarlet Begonias, "I have seldom been right but I have
never been wrong." Or as I like to say it, "With all
of the mistakes you have made, you have never made a
mistake."
How can this be true? Agnes Whistling Elk
says, "Everything begins with a circle of motion. Without
the positive and negative poles, there would be no movement,
there would be no creation. Without your shadow side, your
beauty would not exist!" For years I couldn't allow this
truth in. I couldn't accept that I was made out of both dark
and light, strengths and weaknesses. I believed I had proof
that I had done wrong and thus I was wrong. It also appeared
to me that everybody else had it together and I did not. It
was like an oozing wound inside of me that I kept opening up
by my attachment to shame.
When I finally saw that I was wounding
myself where I was the most wounded, I began the slow opening
of my bruised but tender heart. For just this moment, allow in
the mercy of realizing that at every step of the way you have
done the best you knew how. Let go of the knee jerk reaction
of "I could have done better." And let the healing
of compassion in. We are all wounded in some way or another.
And when these wounds are brought close to the surface through
the ups and downs of life, we all react in unskillful ways.
The way out of this morass is to let go of the blame game. As
we discover a more compassionate relationship with both our
strengths and our weaknesses, the storms of struggle will calm
down enough for us to hear the voices of wisdom inside of us
that know the path to the healing we are longing for.
We have explored the hidden belief that
lies nestled in the heart of our struggling minds - the belief
that the mistakes we have made in our lives are proof that we
are 'wrong'. This belief causes so much heartache and is a
total misperception. Yes, we have all made mistakes, but that
doesn't have to translate into proof that we are 'wrong'. And
yes, we do need to make changes in our lives, but to make them
from the belief that we are 'wrong' only creates more
heartache in our lives. If we can instead see our mistakes and
imperfections as a part of being human and recognize that they
always come carrying information for our growth, they can
become our teachers rather than our jailers.
As Stephen Levine likes to say, "If
you take a step down the path of life, you go two feet; if you
fall on your face, you go six feet!" I would like to
share with you a parable that speaks directly to this:
An elderly Chinese woman had two large
pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across
her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other
pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the
cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this
went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a
half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of
its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of
its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half
of what it had been made to do.After two years of what it
perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day
by the stream.
"I am ashamed of myself, because this
crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to
your house." The old woman smiled, "Did you notice
that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on
the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about
your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path,
and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two
years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to
decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are,
there would not be this beauty to grace the house."
Each of us has our own unique flaws, but
it's the cracks and flaws that make our lives interesting and
rewarding. We need to learn how to be the Chinese woman with
ourselves. Are you willing to practice radical self
acceptance? Are you willing to say to yourself when self
judgment is there, "I am okay just as I am!"? Know
that there will be parts of you that will fight this, that
will try to prove again that you are not okay. Recognize those
voices for what they are, old tapes of self judgment, so you
can respond to life rather than reacting from it. If this kind
of practice calls to you, there is a wonderful chapter in my
first book, Belonging
to Life: The Journey of Awakening, called
"Disarming the Judger."
If you don't have the book and are not
interested in purchasing it, email me and I will send you the
chapter. It is full of ideas and techniques that have allowed
me to move from such deep self hatred that I didn't want to
live, to being a person who can look in the mirror and say,
"I love you just the way you are!"As we learn how to
see through self judgment, our attention is then freed to be
passionately curious about how our life is unfolding so that
we can gather all the treasures that are there - both in the
easy and the difficult parts of our lives.
Mary O’Malley is a speaker, an
author, and a counselor in private practice in Kirkland,
Washington. Her work focuses on curiosity, compassion,
trust, and the ability to be with whatever is showing up in
our lives in a spacious and attentive way. In the early
1970’s, she experienced an awakening where she saw through
the struggles of the mind, making contact with the joy and the
wonder of being fully awake to Life. Since then she has
dedicated her life to inviting others into the healing and the
creativity that come from being fully present for Life.
Through her organization, Awakening, she has evolved a
transformational approach to working with everything that
keeps us from being present for our lives. She is also
the author of Belonging to Life: The Journey of Awakening
and The Gift of Our Compulsions: A Revolutionary Approach
to Self-Acceptance and Healing.
Mary has taught extensively since the early
1980’s, speaking, leading retreats, doing individual
counseling and offering ongoing groups where people can come
together to experience the miracle of awakening. Her
strengths lie in her ability to be fully present in the
moment, integrating information, technique and insight with
simplicity and compassion.
Mary's website is www.maryomalley.com
Email is awaken@maryomalley.com
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