What's in the Way Is the Way: A Practical Guide for Waking Up to Life by Mary O'Malley

Author:Mary O'Malley [O'Malley, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Body; Mind & Spirit, Inspiration & Personal Growth, Self-Help, Personal Growth, General
ISBN: 9781622035243
Google: h-r7rQEACAAJ
Amazon: 1622035240
Publisher: Sounds True
Published: 2016-01-01T23:00:00+00:00

THE TREASURES OF DISCOMFORT

If you step back and watch Life unfolding, you can see that it is made out of the opposites of dark and light, and darkness has gotten a bad rap. We are all heat-seeking missiles in search of comfort and pleasure, and we mightily resist any discomfort. Has this ever brought you the peace you long for? If you were honest with yourself, you would say, “Maybe for a little bit here and there, but in the long run, no.”

What if you got it backward? What if the treasures of Life that you long for are hidden within the places that you see as uncomfortable? This theme is certainly present in nearly every myth passed down through the ages. The hero always has to go to the places he or she doesn’t want to go in order to get the treasure: the princess or the Holy Grail or the pot of gold.

The truth that discomfort is not the black hole you imagined is revealed in the yin-yang symbol, one of the most familiar symbols in the world. It shows the light and the dark nestled together, and there is a point of light in the dark and a point of dark in the light. Each of us is a mix of dark and light, and the people who have unhooked from the game of struggle are those who learned how to change their relationship with the difficult from resistance to curiosity and acceptance.

What would it be like to know that in the uncomfortable challenges of your life there is always a doorway into the light? In other words, your challenges are for you. They are not here because you have done something wrong, because someone else has done something wrong, or because the powers-that-be fell asleep on the job. The uncomfortable challenges are fuel for your awakening. As soon as you can embrace the uncomfortable, a door opens inside of you.

What we are talking about here is the theme of “The Guest House,” a popular poem by Rumi, a thirteenth-century Persian poet. In this poem, as translated by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi, Rumi talks about how all sorts of feelings move through us each day and the key is not to fight them. Instead, he says:

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

This poem speaks to so many people because it is about the art of alchemy, the power of letting go of resistance and instead opening to experience. Rumi speaks the core truth of consciousness: be grateful for your discomforts because “each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” In other words, your discomforts are not here because something is wrong. They are here as your guides through the clouds of struggle and back into the meadow of your being.

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