THREE - What's in your suitcase?

It's a bit like "what's in your back pack" from Up In the Air. Also, closely related to the skeletons in the closet of your childhood. But, what's in your suitcase is just what you'd expect, baggage. Some baggage we wear like a big colorful hat for all to see. This would be your weight problem, alcohol addiction (sometimes), and dramatic relationship issues.

Inside the suitcase, locked up tight, are the issues that we rarely open up to have a look at. These are things that we wouldn't even recognize upon first inspection. Maybe you get irritated when the mail carrier delivers your mail much later then you think it ought to be delivered? What's that about? On the surface it seems like maybe you feel that the tax dollars spend on the U.S. post should equal a efficient, prompt service. But... if you look long enough maybe it has more to do with stress in your life and the desire to have what you see as a care free job of delivering mail... strolling along on a sunny day, dropping of the post at whatever time you happen to arrive. Or maybe not... but you get the point.

Maybe you're one of these people who has zero baggage; that huge suitcase you are lugging around is completely empty. If so, you really should just set it down and walk away from it; dragging it everywhere is a waste of valuable energy. The rest of us, if we dare, should open it up as often as possible and have a peek. Try to figure out what the heck is in there. I'm not one to give advice on what to do with what you find, but I think just finding it could help you out quite a bit in life.

If someone asked you what kind of baggage you have what would you say? We're not talking about your ex-husband/wife or financial issues. What kind of dysfunction is hiding beneath the surface that you rarely, if ever, look at? It's very easy to agree that "we all have baggage" and then quietly ignore whatever ours might be, never giving it another thought. It's much more fun to examine other people's baggage that you can't believe goes unnoticed when it's RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF THEIR FACE!

So, this is what I'm doing... having a look inside my suitcase. One of my major things seems to be that I want control and order in my life. When something is out of my control it creates all kinds of problems for me. It's much more complex than this, of course, but at the same time it's not. It manifests in many ways. For example, it's creates phobias and anxiety. It can make me into a hypochondriac. What if I get the swine flu or my kids get the swine flu and die? What if it's beyond my control to make them better? Or... I make a plan in my head... I'll go on vacation and have a relaxing time by the pool. If I'm not having a relaxing time by the pool maybe I'll feel depressed that it's not fitting my picture. And on and on... many variations on the theme. I don't want this to be about working out all my issues.. that's for me to sit with.

What to do with the dirty laundry? Well.. wash it! Fix it! Make it better and get away from it as quickly as possible, right? That seems to be the way we are wired, but I have my doubts about that approach. But.. I don't know the answer right now. I'll be sure to let you know if I discover the magic pill that fixes these things.
For now, I'm satisfied with learning to see inside my suitcase and trying to recognize what's inside. Also, taking the next step of trying to put these feelings into words or else just to sit and ponder them. I think the zen approach would be to do nothing and by doing nothing do something. Meaning to just sit with these feelings without trying to fix them. And after that.. sit some more.

That's my plan... I'm sure there are many other paths. I'll let you know how it works out.

TWO - Balance

Something I've been doing lately is trying to let go of my addiction to news radio during my commute. I mainly listen to public radio, but when the news gets overwhelmingly gruesome I switch to commercial nonsense talk radio. Occasionally, I listen to classic rock or just classical without the rock, but it's all external stimuli of some sort. So, the other morning I tried driving to work in silence. It was a bit uncomfortable at first and it felt more like I was punishing myself than giving myself a treat, but I also felt good about trying something different. I did this for a few days and quickly got used to it.

This morning I was craving public radio. First I thought... No, I can't cave in on this! And then... I can listen to the damn radio if I want to!! Well, of course I can; nobody ever said that I couldn't. Then I realized that it's just about balance.
It's not about being so rigid... don't listen to the radio.. only listen once a week or any kind of thing like that. It's just about finding a balance... having some quiet time to just relax as I commute and also enjoying some radio when I feel like it.

That seems simple enough, right? But I think the hard part is realizing when we are out of balance. It took me challenging my addiction to the radio to see that it was out of balance. Once I did it all seemed very simple, which it is.

So, this morning I listened for a bit, but found myself thinking of other things. My inner dialogue was competing with the radio so I just turned it off. I'm not sure that I would have even noticed that in the past. I would have just gone on thinking over the distraction of the radio; using extra energy and focus to compete for no reason.

My inner dialogue was about balance. We've heard that you have to take the good with the bad... that you need the bad in order to recognize or appreciate the good and all sorts of things like this. Even so, we still strive for good in our lives and do what ever we can to avoid the bad. If we got our wishes though and ended up with 100% good then it would cease to be good as we'd no longer have any way to measure "goodness" or happiness or whatever yow want to call it. What do we do? Strive for some bad stuff too? Haha. Of course not. I don't know for sure... I'm not a zen master... that's why this blog is called Becoming Zen. But... I think it's more about just accepting both the good and the bad... embracing them because they both exist and are interdependent on one another.

My next thought was about striving for good and how that relates to balance. I was thinking about how when I'm on vacation, which for me means that I have a weekend off, and I go someplace that is very relaxing. I think to myself.. If only life could be like this every day. If only I could wake up in the morning with nothing on my agenda, walk to the local bookstore and just read whatever I felt like at the time. And maybe I get a bit sad... Why can't I live here? And things like that.

Now, I look back at the times when my life WAS like that and I was saying... I'm so bored!! I want excitement! I want inspiration! Take me to the big city and set me free!! You first reaction might be... well, the grass is always greener. I agree with that to some extent, but I think the reason the grass is always green is because life is out of balance. I don't really need to move to the town that I vacation in. I don't really need life where I have nothing on my agenda each day. What I need is more balance. I need to find ways to have more days in my current situation where I can have nothing on my agenda or much less on my agenda. I need to make more time to relax. I need to go to my local bookstore once in awhile and read whatever I feel like reading with no judgments about it.

I wonder... I wonder if our lives were more in balance... if we found more time for play instead of work... if we ate more green, local foods instead of processed fast foods... if we read more and watched t.v less... if we walked more and drove less... slept more and stressed less.. and so on.. I wonder if we would still work so hard to manifest "good" in our lives or if we would just be more at peace and grateful of the good that is currently around us and also have more strength do accept the "bad?"

It's an interesting thought.

ONE - The begining of ANOTHER blog

If this blog turns out to be like any of my other blogs this may be the one and only post. But... you never know, this could be the one I'm inspired to continue.

Becoming Zen is the story of a 41 year old man with two children in grade school, a angel of a fiance and two cute puppies on the road to becoming a zen master.

Why?

1. I feel like I've always been on the road, a long bumpy road, to becoming a zen master. Do I expect to get there? In the spirit of zen, I think that if you arrive then you are not there yet.

2. I have a lot of fear, worry, stress and anxiety in my life and I would like to not have these things in my life or at least less of them.

3. I have a strong desire to grow emotionally and spiritually. I feel that zen is the right path to help me in this growth.

4. I'm often scattered, pulled in many directions; always worried that the thing I'm doing isn't the best use of my time. I believe zen will help me relax and focus. So, the fourth reason would be clarity.

5. I want to simplify my life; I think a zen practice will help me with that.

So, that's the plan. Is there room for becoming a zen master along side a full time job, a relationship, two kids, two dogs and many hobbies? I'm hopeful.