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My Little Broken Buddha

My best friend gave me a little figurine of a meditating Buddha. Its head was still on.

I meditate and I really like Buddhism. In a nutshell to me, it’s about letting go of our need for things to be just-so.

Our first big excursion to the mountains since my last concussion, a long road trip to the Canadian Rockies. . . . I was really nervous as we prepared to leave, because travel is my thing and mountains are my best friend’s happy place . . . but my concussion on our last adventure had done a number on me, and each month since then had felt hard, sad, gloomy–anything-but-adventurous.

So I brought my little Buddha along. To remind me not to hold on too tightly to my expectations for the trip. To help me know that it would be okay if everything didn’t end up being just-so. Its head was still on.

Things did NOT go just-so.

Morning, middle-of-nowhere, Saskatchewan, my adventure buddy’s wrist started hurting where a few days earlier she burned it on the stove. It started getting red and it became a small bump. By the end of the day it was a not-at-all-small bump, the entire arm too painful to use much. We checked into our Canmore hotel and after several frustrating calls to insurance we drove to the local emergency room where after a quick glance the doctor hooked her up to an IV for antibiotics.

Four visits to the emergency room in three days. Fevers, dizziness, red lines starting to spread, needles, blood draws, tubes installed in my best friend’s arm, a panicky midnight outing to find a thermometer interrupted by my phone ringing and my best friend telling me that she was now shaking so violently she could hardly hold onto anything.

Honestly, it was scary as hell. I think scarier for me than for her. It got a lot worse before it got better, and I knew that an infection going bad isn’t a thing you want to experience.

Just out of the woods, day two or three–the days became a blur of emergency room and hotel room–I hopped in the car to go pick up some groceries–completely drained of every kind of energy. I grabbed my little Buddha and held it in my palm as I drove, more for its vague feeling of comfort and familiarity than for anything else.

I hopped out of the car at the grocery store and tossed my little Buddha into the center console, and heard two things bouncing around. I picked it up. Its head was gone.

*feeling when your heart sinks but even sinkier*

I broke my little Buddha. :(

And then I sort of grinned. No sh**, may as well, everything else is broken. I guess it’s exactly appropriate that my little token of not-holding-on-too-tightly broke.

At first I thought about replacing it, but more and more it seemed perfect to me that it stay broken. Because now–every time I see it on my desk–I remember just how much holding on too tightly doesn’t work. That “broken” is only “broken” in the context of my need for things to be just-so.

In the 5th century BCE, a man named Siddhartha Gautama lived in what is now Nepal. His family was wealthy, but he was struck by the pain and suffering he saw in the world, so he tried being intentionally-poor instead. It didn’t “work” for him, so he embraced “the middle way”–a life of moderation: not desperately seeking ease and pleasure, but also not seeking pain and self-abasement. In all this practice, he learned a lot about life and then he taught the people around him a lot about life and then he became known as “The Buddha.”

“Dharma,” the teachings of The Buddha, have at their heart the “four noble truths.” Dukkha, Samudaya, Nirodha, and Magga. And the first three are why I love my little broken Buddha.

Dukkha: Suffering is a thing. It’s a part of life.

Samudaya: Why is suffering a thing? Because we think things are supposed to be just-so. We crave pleasure, we desperately try to control, and we hold on too tightly to what we think we want or need or love. Attachment.

“According to Buddhist psychology, most of our troubles stem from attachment to things that we mistakenly see as permanent.” ~ Dalai Lama

Nirodha: There is an antidote to suffering: Letting go of attachments, obsessive cravings, and desperate control, and living–not in a bitter past or an anxious future–but fully in the present, one day at a time. Acceptance.

What are you holding onto too tightly?

I still bring my little broken Buddha with me whenever I go out of town or when I have a big scary thing that I think needs to go just-so.

It’s a perfect reminder not to hold on too tightly.

Things break. Things hurt. Things fade.

Life is weird, and needing it to not be weird will only lead to frustration.

But life is also beautiful. And a strange and strong beauty and peace can be felt when you let go of your need for things to be just-so. . . . when you remember not to hold on too tightly.

“The root of suffering is attachment.” ~ The Buddha

7 Inspiring Quotes for Your Next Year

For some reason, Thanksgiving always brings out the new-year-spirit in me. Maybe because it seems like a time of thankfulness is a time of reflection and a time of reflection is a time for dreaming and inspiration. And maybe because I think a year ending deserves a whole month of reflection and appreciation and celebration.

I’ve been reading a lot of other people’s words lately, looking for little gems of encouragement and hope. A lot of times “quotes,” little snippets of a writer’s original thoughts, sometimes out of context, often leaving so much more to be explored–a lot of times quotes don’t say enough. But a lot of times, they say exactly just enough to give you courage, to give you drive, or just to give you peace and hope and something to hold onto.

Here are 7 quotes I love about living your life. If any or all of them resonate with you, bring them into your next year.

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – attr. Buddha

“The greatest act of courage is to be and to own all of who you are–without apology, without excuses, without masks to cover the truth of who you are.” – Debbie Ford

Kahlil Gibran - out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” – Kahlil Gibran

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

000 Soren Kierkegaard - not to dare is to lose oneself

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” – Søren Kierkegaard

Terrie Davoll Hudson - the things that excite you

“The things that excite you are not random. They are connected to your purpose. Follow them.” – Terrie Davoll Hudson

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” – Neil Gaiman

Monsters until you flip the light switch on

Andrew Gide - Very few monsters warrant the fear we have of them

Happy Halloween!

What or who did you think was a monster until you flipped your light switch on?

When we think that a thing is dangerous, unknowable, or scary, and we try to not look at it, it stays scary. It’s why, as kids, we think the stuffed animal under our bed or the shirt in the closet is a monster. They will only stop being scary if you flip the light switch on. And only when they stop being scary do you find freedom.

Fear of vague unknown potentialities keeps us from chasing our dreams. Fear of who-knows-what a bully might do if you upset them keeps us from sticking up for ourselves and others. And the fear from seeing someone in your life as a monster to be afraid of, instead of a person to decide what you think about, keeps you stressed and nervous and sometimes even paralyzed.

Monsters are scary. When you see the world as one big monster, your dreams are scary. When you flip the light switch on and see that there’s really a lot of good happy safe stuff in life, and that everything is usually okay, the scariness fades away and you find freedom to do what you want to do.

Monsters are scary. On the other hand, flesh-and-blood people you decide that you don’t like or don’t want controlling your life are not scary. They stop being scary when you look at them in the light, look at them honestly, look at them plainly. Most people who have scared you are just people. You sure don’t have to like them, support them, or keep them around. But if they’re keeping you up at night or controlling your feelings, flip the light switch on and see them for who they really are. They are not monsters and so they don’t have any mysterious power over you.

I have found a lot of freedom in trading away the monsters I thought were waiting under my bed, for normal life stuff, and for finite, human, limited people who couldn’t really control me.

If you think you, too, might find some freedom in flipping your light switches on, go for it! All the stuff that scared you is normal to someone else. And all the people that you thought were monsters, who you thought you had to be scared of, whose power you thought would affect your whole life–they’re just people. You can choose to stop seeing them as scary monsters. You can be free from the fear.

You can find the courage to choose what you want.

Not Saying It

It feels like it will hurt LESS to NOT say what we want, than to SAY what we want and not get it.

But that’s just not true.

NOT saying it hurts WORST.

To never express it, to smother yourself, to give up without a chance. That is the loneliest and the saddest, in the end.

You are loved and your feelings are okay. You should at least say what you want. Even if it doesn’t work out right now, doesn’t match someone, doesn’t happen.

And maybe it WILL happen.

Don’t smother your voice. Being yourself WILL feel better, during the yes times and the no times.

You’d be surprised how many of us are broken.

Hey friend,

I’m asking you to take a closer look.

The world asks us all to put our best foot forward. To be fun, to be chill, to be cool, to be strong, dependable, easy to get along with.

Work demands our game face. We’re competing constantly. At all times on display, being assessed, critiqued, counted on. Competing every day for the chance to bring home groceries again next week. Even when we’re really good at competing, we always know we’re one misstep from it all being taken away. So we tread carefully. We hide our struggle.

Our friends and families may be a little more understanding. But when we show our weakness, sometimes their pity and patience only last so long. Some of us just can’t be bothered with another’s feelings, but I think far more often, it’s just that we’re fighting our own battles, too. And sticking around to watch his battle might make hers a lot harder. So when we overshare, over-need, our lifelines start to distance themselves, and we quickly learn to hide our struggle at home, too.

Hiding. Always hiding. Doing fine. It’s all good.

But please, look closer. We’re deep creatures. With deep happiness, but also with deep sadness. Deep fear. Deep pain.

And the constant fear that our deep feelings will get us kicked out of each other’s good graces means that our fear and pain and sadness and anxiety and depression and trauma and stress and anger and panic and burnout and insecurity and heartbreak get deeper and deeper and deeper. Because it’s dangerous not to hide.

So when you see a smile, look closer.

When you see success, look closer.

When you see beauty, look closer.

When you see laughter, look closer.

Sometimes you’ll find the smile is real. Sometimes you’ll find that underneath the smile, there’s a dam about to break. Sometimes you’ll find that the smile and the struggle are both very real together.

And sometimes, the person you were most sure has it all together, turns out to be barely holding on. I feel like I see this again and again and again.

So please, practice looking closer.

There are happy people. There are healthy people. There are people without mental illness, trauma. People who aren’t as fragile as others. People whose smiles are a lot deeper than their frowns. I think.

But what I know is that if you’re willing to look closer, you’ll be surprised how many of us are broken.

The longer I live, the more I see this vision of an earth crawling with a bunch of anxious creatures who just desperately need someone to give them a hug.

Brokenness isn’t all there is. There’s beauty and happiness, adventure and connection, accomplishment and excitement. There’s so much good in this world. It’s the stuff that we talk about all the time! That thing went well! Way to go at this! Look where I did a thing! We don’t often hide the good stuff.

So please, when you see the good stuff, don’t forget that underneath may be someone who really needs you to ask if they’re a little broken, too. Someone who might need a hug, a smile, a shoulder, a chat.

What about you? What are you hiding?

We’re all in this together, friends. Let’s be brave: Hide less. Hug more.

And every chance you get, take a closer look.

P.S. And if you can truly hear this yet, please know that your brokenness is okay. You are exactly you, and that is a good thing. So maybe “broken” is the wrong word…