Experience Life In All Possible Ways

I think in the self-help community, there's a prevailing idea that everything is supposed to be sunshine and rainbows, and unicorns are supposed to fly out of you know where... First off, that would be really painful if unicorns flew out of there! And second, things can't be good without the bad. They can't be up without down. All life exists in duality. And all is one. What a fun paradox :)

The craziest thing about it all is that by resisting whatever is coming up, it's much more likely to last a lot longer. So I've been working on allowing whatever comes up and just watching it. Have you ever noticed that everything passes on its own. There's not much that you really have to do other than be present.

Meditation helps. The first benefit I noticed from meditation was being able to remember people's names. But later on (I've been meditating off-and-on for 7 years now), I noticed that I can watch the arising and subsiding of emotions in my body. That's really cool to be able to watch anxiety come up and just sit with it.

There was a story I heard about a mystic who lived 3 days walk into the jungle. And he would always ask the same question, "What are you avoiding?" Then on the walk back out, the spiritual aspirant would have a chance to contemplate that and would gain some spiritual well-being in doing that. So I ask you the same thing:

What are you avoiding?