Change: in my experience, it's sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes welcome, sometimes super hard, but nearly always, out of my control.
And yet, when everything is going swimmingly, I forget that. I’m like a dog with a bone: grrrrr - don’t take this away! When everything is sideways, I forget, too. I can’t wait for things to shift, or I’m pushing for them to shift, and sometimes pushing hard. When I forget that change is nearly always out of my control, there’s this subtle (or not-so-subtle) stress.
But there’s another option: remembering. When I remember that the bone is going to disappear one way or another (not even the best bone lasts forever), that the sideways moment will right itself somehow, that everything changes and there’s usually nothing I can do about that, then, paradoxically, there's a pause. Sometimes there's even an “ah ha.” And in that pause, that ah ha - in that rare but delicious moment of remembering - I don’t feel so protective of the bone, or so trapped by the tilt. I can relax.
Today's Wake Up Call is dedicated to my Dad, Lou, who died a year ago today. Yes, all things change, but missing you hasn't changed yet, Dad. Maybe it’s one thing that never will. I hope you're safe and at ease, wherever you are.
Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen, and this is Wake Up Call 447. Let’s keep talking about suffering.
As I mentioned on the last Wake Up Call, there are three “kinds” of suffering in classical mindfulness. The first one, which I talked about last time, is “ordinary” suffering. It’s the fact that as humans, we don’t get what we want, we get things we don’t want, and we have pain, sorrow, and loss in our lives. Of course, that’s not the sum-total of our existence: there’s also plenty of joy in this being human, helping others, being in nature, eating good food, loving other beings, success, everyday wins, sunsets, forests, oceans. There’s plenty to be joyful about, too.
One way to content with ordinary suffering is to wish things were other than they are. We get a cold or Covid and we wish didn’t have it. We lose a case and wish we hadn’t. We lose someone we love and ask, “why them? Why me?” We chafe at our lives. In my experience this just makes life harder.
Another way to contend with ordinary suffering is to relax with whatever is present and let go of wanting things to be different. Which doesn’t mean not trying harder next time when you lose this time, or not trying to make the world a better, more just place. It just means moment by moment, relaxing with what is. In some ways, I feel like this is not only a more mindful strategy, but also a more realistic one.
With the second kind of suffering, being realistic is equally important, or maybe even more important. The second kind of suffering is what’s called the suffering of change.
If you’re someone who generally likes change, your first thought might be, why would change cause suffering? New house, new car, new job, new haircut – all good! I’m somewhat like that: I generally like change. So it took me a minute to grok what “the suffering of change” is all about.
The suffering of change is about how everything is impermanent. How everything, including our lives, is just slipping through our fingers.
Maybe start by thinking about it this way. You love your apartment. Then the landlord decides to move in, and you have to move out. I’ve moved a lot and don’t always mind but I will say it’s disruptive. Everything is in its place and I want things to stay just so. Who doesn’t, in a nice living space? A change of space might ultimately be good but in the immediate moment, arg. I don’t want to have to deal. I don’t want the upheaval, the confusion, the days and weeks and months of reconstituting my home.
And yet we don’t get to hold onto our place if our landlord wants it back. Or maybe we own our own place so we think we’ve solved for that, and then it burns down, or falls down in an earthquake, or gets infested by termites or unexpectedly we find ourselves unable to afford our mortgage. Or our whole civilization crumbles and, like the ancients, our homes, our buildings, become dust in the wind. Things happen. Time disrupts what we prefer to think of as stable, unchanging. This can be really hard, for me at least: the stress of change. The suffering of change.
Or maybe we have a great job and then something happens: someone leaves and the character of office shifts, or we get targeted, or we’re passed over or discriminated against or simply feel, even though the job is great, that we don’t belong. Or maybe the whole company or organization or sector collapses. Maybe it’s over in a moment and the suffering of change happens quickly, or maybe it’s a long, disruptive period. Maybe we’re resilient and feel like ultimately, we’ll adapt; or maybe we experience feelings of being cast out, unmoored, for a long time. I’ve experienced it both ways, felts it both ways. Again, the suffering of change.
Or let’s say you’re in great shape and then you twist your ankle. Now you can’t run, you can’t even walk, maybe you can’t work out at all. Everything was good and now it’s not. Even though eventually the ankle will heal, it’s hard. I did break my ankle seven years ago and there was real suffering: I had to let go of my routine. It had felt durable, permanent, and then it wasn’t. The suffering of change.
Or we get a serious or even fatal diagnosis, or someone we love gets one. The impermanence of our very lives appears in stark relief. Change like this is probably the hardest of all: shifting from essentially counting on being here, to realizing we really are just here for a moment.
But there’s good news.
First, the things we don’t like, for the most part also change. Of course if we get a fatal diagnosis or someone we love gets one, change becomes a more philosophical or religious discussion. But the ankle will hopefully heal. The new job, or working in the new sector, will hopefully be good, maybe even better than the old one. The new home will be beautiful as soon as we get everything put away and all the art hung. Plenty of times, change is good.
But even when it’s not, there’s still good news and as usual from a mindfulness perspective, it’s all in our attitude, our approach to change. We can wish things were other than they are, and then, see above. Or, we can remember that change is inevitable. Our ankle will heal but then another body part will crack or fail. The new job is good but it’s also not forever. The new home is bricks & mortar, vulnerable as the last one. Whole civilizations and great monuments to their queens and gods have all already crumbled to dust. Someday ours will, too.
Sometimes I feel this less as suffering, meaning less as wanting it to be other than it is, and more as sadness. Change, as a fundamental law of physics or of the universe, and knowing I’m not exempt, sometimes feels really sad. But then I remember. I remember it’s also, always, possible to just take a breath, right here and right now. To look up at the sky or into the face of a being I love or down at a good job well done, and right in that moment, there is so much joy. So much peace. In fact, relaxing into the truth of impermanence, there is true peace. That’s why change is stress and suffering and also joy and peace. That’s why change is all the things.
