La piñata

These past few weeks I’ve felt like a piñata. Trying to meet deadlines and a launch date and it all kept going wrong. So many stressful little things kept happening and then came the 2x4s. From my computer giving out (whack) to my new computer being defective (whack). In the course of one week, I accidentally poured freshly boiled water over my hand (whack), got the worst food poisoning I’ve ever had - resulting in 20 consecutive hours of vomiting - (whack, whack, whack), and my car decided to stop working in the middle of the interstate, needing a tow that took 4 hours to arrive, and over $700 in repairs and expenses (W-H-A-C-K). That was the blow that finally did it. I retreated. I’d had enough. My nerves were shot and my guts were starting to spill - and they weren’t candy.

Over the course of a few days, I went through a few stages. First, I was the victim - life, god, the universe, whatever it is, was beating the crap out of me. Why? How many beatings was I supposed to take? Why did I become the punching bag? What did I do to end up on the universe’s shit list? I noticed a lot of deep resentment and dread - what’s next? How far will this go? Will I be pushed past my breaking point?

Then, I got mad - furious, actually. I went from being the piñata to holding the proverbial stick and I started swinging. Of course there was no piñata for me to hit back since god/source/universe is such an abstract construct. I was just swinging into empty space - hurling my frustrations and curses into nothingness. It was so exhausting and, frankly, even more infuriating.

Next, I decided I was tired of the game. I didn’t want to play anymore. Bills, responsibilities, my project - all got pushed to the side as I binged Kdramas and chocolate. Reality was really sucking and I needed a break. It’s easy to get sucked into distractions, especially when you’re in a state of sheer overwhelm. I let myself disconnect, but I also knew I had to deal with it all sooner rather than later or I’d just be making things a lot harder on myself.

“It could be worse” - I really hate it when people tell me that. Of course it could be worse, but the situation at hand isn’t so swell either. When someone tells me that ‘it could be worse,’ it feels like they aren’t acknowledging how challenging and hard it already is; like they’re dismissing or discounting my experience and my feelings around it. What would be helpful is someone saying, “Wow, that’s awful. Is there anything I can do to help? I’m just glad the situation's not any worse.” ‘That’s awful’ acknowledges the experience and how I feel about it. ‘Can I help?’ can feel like a lifeline even if there’s nothing they can do. ‘I’m glad it’s not any worse’ allows for some space to open up in order to hold gratitude that it isn't any worse. The way we word things really does make a difference. 

I don’t like being a victim, being the person trying to hit an invisible piñata isn’t satisfying either, and just taking myself out of it all by burying my head in the sand with distractions can only work for so long. I decided I needed a new way to look at things. If my suffering is connected to my thinking, to my perceptions, then that’s where I have to shift. I think it begins with curiosity. I find it curious that so many challenges came up one after the other and then some of them completely stopped me - the food poisoning kept me in bed for days, the car left me stuck - all at a time when I needed every hour in order to launch. What message was I not getting that those cosmic 2x4s had to come in? Needless to say, the universe has my attention. I guess it’s time to turn off Netflix and figure out what it’s been trying to say.