I don't have to put up with this anymore!

Have you ever heard yourself say this? Many of us have or we have said some variation of this declaration. And usually we tend to exclaim this announcement as a deal breaker of some sort. We simply feel as though we have had enough of something and we are about to end our agreement.  Perhaps it is with a spouse, a boss, a friend or even a situation. We declare, “I am done!”

We may recall the many times we have dealt with something we just can’t stand. Perhaps it is a spouse who doesn’t listen when we want them to or a boss who is gruff, impatient or micromanages your work, or a friend who never seems to get what you want or do what you need them to do. It could be a situation where you were willing at one time to care for someone or tend to something and you feel as though you have reached the end of your proverbial rope. You are fed up!

You decide to quit, pack it in and move on taking the dismal energy of being fed-up right with you. You thought walking was the path to freedom and you’d be free once and for all. You convince yourself things will be different after you jump ship and swim to shore. You console yourself bolster your conviction to jump by telling yourself you’ll do it differently next time. You’ll be more resolved once you unload the menace whomever and whatever you see the menace to be. Sadly, the truth, however, is that the source of the menace rests in the one who jumped overboard. But few are willing to see this truth. Most point a finger and pull the trigger of blame and react against the closest target that we mistakenly see as the source of our frustration.

No matter how strongly you put together a new scheme and no matter how much you convince yourself that it will be different somewhere else, it will be the same frustrating and disappointing situation in the water and new land as it was on board. Unless you do some serious interior work that builds capacity it will be the same old, same old. Maybe the names and faces will be different and you may even for while be lulled into thinking it is different in a new place with a new face. Unless that place is in you and you have indeed changed your face by confronting the inner problem you will in time be repeating what you thought you had escaped.

You need to build your facility to restrain yourself from blaming someone or something else. There is no one to blame, not even you. But there is work to be done so you need all the energy you can muster to do the work that will actually free you. It helps not to run. Staying put takes strength. It begins simply by telling yourself, STOP! WAIT. LOOK! It’s a lot like what you learned when you learned how to cross the street and make it safely to the other side. You know this drill but the difference is to LOOK at the traffic of stuff in your own mind that you need to let pass so you can safely make a move.

You need to understand the root of your frustration. Once you begin to see the traffic jam in your own mind you can WAIT! until it seems to clear up. You need to relinquish any blame of any kind on anyone including yourself. You need to find a way to change.

It’s a challenge because most of us have well trodden cow-paths that are short cuts in our mind to someone else’s barn door. It must be my spouse, my boss, my friend because I have a litany of proof that they are difficult and unbearable to live with or work with or even think about.  You declare to yourself, “I have evidence!” You may indeed have situations and events and life happenings that are difficult and that you’d like to whine and moan about to yourself and others. There is no need to deny it. Everyone has problems. But don’t run either. You have uncovered the weeds but fail to see roots.  

The moans and whines are smoke from burning mulch and leaves. Burning them takes up your time but doesn’t clear up the roots. You’ve just cut down whatever you think is frustrating you. Every year you muck up something and burn it thinking it will be the last time. They are harmful because they lead you to the packed down, slick path to someone else’s barn. It also means you are giving off negative sensations to yourself and others. The atmosphere around you stinks.

Don’t misconstrue this interior complaint as a method of solving a problem and seeking consolation and comfort. It’s not a motivation method either. It is a clear signal that you need to take stock of your limited perception of what is going on. You may think and hold to a view that there are situations that are untenable and you use this method of finger-pointing and blame as a way to let yourself know the one you currently find yourself in is one of them.

Don’t seek consolation and comfort. It is as the word suggests a consolation prize. It is far better to review your motivation by a silent, solitary appraisal of your intention and purpose. It may require that you own up to your own missteps and responsibilities and confess that your wish for the other to be something else is based on your mental imaginings. You are not getting what you want.

I knew someone who on all accounts was in a tough situation. No one would deny it. This father had an adult child who was chronically ill and needed serious care giving from others. The young man was unhappy with his lot and felt contempt for himself and his father. He tended to see only that the father was responsible for his birth which made him responsible for his chronic condition. The father wanted gratitude not blame. The situation no matter how many changes were made to the house, the setting, the caregivers, remained stonewalled. The father did not consider he wanted a son and had some involvement in his current circumstance and the young man was unable to put two and two together when it came to seeing his food, housing and care giving needs were provided for by the culpable father. The father wanted gratitude and the young man wanted consolation.

Both of them failed to see that all experiences are included on the road to freedom. Nothing is left out. There is no shortcut. You have to deal with it or find yourself repeatedly frustrated and declaring you’ve had enough.

But don’t dump blame on yourself either. It will smother the vitality of your discovery. You have merely found one of the basic characteristics of the human realm. You want something to be different than what you see and what you experience.  It is very much like a child who asks for a puppy and gets a stuffed toy.  It is a puppy but it is not what the child wanted. Stammering, stomping and pouting are sure to follow. The child did not get what he wanted. Parents are blamed. A pattern is fixed. The cycle begins.   

The cycle begins and continues until you reckon that you need a way to change it. When you are ready to withstand the disappointments of your life and to stay still in the middle of your discontent you are ready to build the capacity to emancipate the self in the middle of what arises. The capacity not to identify, to not pick and choose, nor categorize allows you to build the capacity to be in the middle of the thick and thin of life.

Initially you may not be able to do it. After all, the cow is used to plodding along a well-worn old trail often following another cow. This head down tailing does not bring about change.  You have to go against the herd. It may require strength and resolve to withstand disappointment, disenchantment and dissolution.

In order to build capacity that goes beyond survival and inborn instincts you first need to see you have enough. This requires an honest review and measure of what is enough and what it is that you think you need. Don’t eliminate this honest appraisal.  You need it as a ground to build capacity for the dissatisfaction that is inevitable.  When you know you do not need it to survive you are able to let it go. It steadies your gait as you traverse a capacity-building path.

Don’t run away. Don’t hurry. These reactive impulses merely burn your energy and take you in the wrong direction. Setbacks are foreseeable but not specifically predictable. It requires a readiness to carry on no matter what shows up.

It requires an unwavering albeit wobbly turn towards a sincere self-reflection of what is going on. You will need to be scrupulous with your moral foundation, tenacious in your considerations and fastidious in your study.  The path must be claimed as the way otherwise the temptations of the herd will lure you back to the beaten path. There may be times when you will drift off and find yourself back with the herd.

The method whether it is to return or begin is the same. It does not point to the content of your frustration for the content is the basis of the impediments that hold you back.  The method points to the act of getting loose from the content which includes any content that you identify as being. You may think or imagine yourself to be smart or stupid, moral or immoral, good or bad, sick or healthy which are only a few of the endless categories that human beings devise. We invent categories and then conform to them as you would slip a foot into a shoe. We want to fit so we find a label and stick it on in order to belong. The particular category does not matter it is the categorizing of yourself and others which impairs liberation. You will become that which you identify with and think you are. Although you may feel pleasant comfort for a time with a sense of “this shoe fits” this comfort will give way to the ever-fleeting world of reality leaving you bereft and shoeless.