One of my biggest lessons in being resilient and successful in my love life, friendships, career choices, and even conquering addiction—has been cultivating my own ability "to stay".
Most of us have a very low tolerance for being uncomfortable, and so we pick up our marbles and go when we are faced with an uncomfortable situation. Fleeing and closing the door, is way more comfortable for most people than staying with our fear, vulnerability, uncertainty, and even our anger.
When we choose to stay with something—sometimes well past what any normal person would do—we can open this magical place where incredible breakthroughs can happen. It can be the runner that completes the marathon, the marriage that survives the rough patch and opens to an entirely new place of loving, or an addiction finally conquered.
But learning to stay with our discomfort, can be a very hard practice to master. Sometimes, we have to
forgive in order to stay. Other times, it could mean accepting just for the time being something that feels very uncomfortable like a difficult boss, a slow building career, or even a scale that doesn't want to move in the right direction after days of dieting.
I have found since attending a workshop with Deepak Chopra, called
Seduction of Spirit, that sitting in mediation can help me cultivate my own ability to stay with all of kinds of uncomfortable feelings. Not only that, but it has helped me develop the ability to have more loving-kindness and compassion towards myself and the people around me. The practice of staying in
meditation has also allowed me to move closer to my own thoughts and emotions.
That ability to sit with my thoughts has also helped me get in touch with my body on a deeper level. It's been by spending more time alone with myself, in the quiet of my own inner dialogue that has supported me in my own practice of staying with discomfort—and moving past what might feel like immovable boulders in the road.
Perhaps, there is a self acceptance that comes from sitting in meditation that allows us to be more loving towards others. If we can accept our own imperfect selves, perhaps we can work with others imperfections and cultivate more patience. This is key in the ability to stay and to let go of harmful patterns such as going back to an addiction, letting go of New Year's resolutions, or leaving a relationship that still has richness in it for some other kind of quick fix high that never lasts.
The ability to stay requires a willingness to believe in the beauty of steadfastness and giving our attention to the present moment no matter how distressed we might feel in the drama of the day.
Pema Chodron has this to say about steadfastness and the practice of meditation to help cultivate it:
"Steadfastness. When we practice meditation we are strengthening our ability to be steadfast with ourselves. No matter what comes up-aching bones, boredom, falling asleep, or the wildest thoughts and emotions-we develop a loyalty to our experience. Although plenty of meditators consider it, we don't run screaming out of the room. Instead we acknowledge that impulse as thinking, without labeling it right or wrong. This no small task. Never underestimate our inclination to bolt when we hurt."
For me, the rewards of staying or steadfastness has helped me conquer infertility, celebrate 30 years of a mostly happy marriage, beat a food addiction, found a national organization, write and publish a book, and develop a brand new career in writing and coaching women. None of these things were easy for me. Lots of things every day are not easy for me. But learning to stay was the biggest success tool that I was ever taught, and learning the practice of meditation (even for a short time) has helped me to cultivate this ability within my self.
Perhaps it is all about facing our discomfort, and deciding that just like everything else in life— if we stay with it, it will pass into something else. And that something else may be magnificent and totally worth staying for!
