Brew from the Cauldron of Consciousness
I’m settled in my easy chair, wrapped in a fleece blanket. Usually, at this time of day I’m already in a flannel nightgown and cozy robe but we have one more - very quick - walk before I can settle in for the night.
The reason for our walk - my pup - is lying across from me on the bed, swaddled in blankets and sleepily blinking at me as my fingers fly across the keyboard. Today began the third deep freeze of the winter here in my corner of New England. It’s -6º (-21º c) with a wind chill of -20º (-29º c). I didn’t used to mind these kinds of deep freeze days when I lived a mile high in the Rocky Mountains - but - I didn’t have a dog then.
It’s easy, for me anyway, to resent my pup. I joke and tell people that I wish I had a magic wand that would allow me to turn her into a gerbil on days when it’s much too cold (or much too hot) for walks. She’s an energetic dog. I’m an older person with some of the familiar physical challenges of older folks. I want to be cosy and comfortable, she wants to run and chase squirrels and hawks and oppossums. She hasn’t met the local bears yet, I am hyper-vigilant on her behalf, but she will want to chase them too.
Resentment is just another way of saying: I don’t want to deal with an uncomfortable reality and I want to blame someone else for my discomfort. Even if it’s a dog. When we have resentment, and pretending, and blame all bubbling in the cauldron of our consciousness - we can easily slip into anger. I know it’s easy for me.
Because it’s never just one thing - there are no pure and singular thoughts or emotions, they’re tangled up with the past and the present and the future - with our hopes, and our fears, and our dreams, and our nightmares.
Resenting my pup is tied into when, and where, and how I found her and what my hopes were at the time and how my life changed inexorably since then and how the hopes turned to ash. It was no one’s fault, there was no one to blame - but I sure wanted to bleed off those emotions onto someone. And the dog is an easy target - she’ll love me anyway, even if it’s mixed with fear.
It’s my responsibility to manage all that. To decide what kind of effect I have - on my dog, my neighbor, a stranger, a friend - and how that effect ripples out to others and back to me.
A lifetime of:
- growing my self-awareness;
- choosing whether to indulge or corral my emotions and experiencing the consequences of my choices;
- practicing mindfulness;
- taking radical self-responsibility;
- engaging with prayer and contemplation
is what allows me to simply take a short walk in the frigid, wind torn night with my exuberant pup and enjoy those moments because I didn’t drink the brew of resentment from that cauldron today.