Warning: naughty language ahead!

I practice yoga. I meditate. Yet sometimes, I still want to throw myself down in the middle of the street and just rage.

I practice living in a space of divine love, compassion and forgiveness, yet at times I fall into harsh judgment of myself and others, leaving me angry and resentful.

Sometimes I feel like the Dalai Lama. Other times, like The Exorcist.

Like the tide, I ebb and flow.

I want to believe the best in people and I love to consider new ways of thinking and living. I am always seeking and hungry for more knowledge, more understanding. This is my practice most days. 

But it’s just that—a practice.

And I am always learning.

I am an empath. I have lived a duality of lives within this life on Earth, a plethora of experiences which have given me deep insight and understanding into human behavior—why we do the crazy things we do, how we cause suffering when we suffer, who we cling to out of fear of being no one, where we point the finger when things are going badly and when we are finally motivated to change.

Because I deeply observe myself, I understand and see much in others. And all I see really, is myself.

Even in the ugliest of people I have grown to understand that the potential is always there, within me, to become any of you at any given stage. The only thing that separates any of us is the illusion that our egos create. This is where my frustration is brought to life.

Most days, I see this. And when I do, I can greet most with compassionate love and understanding.

On other days, I am completely immersed in my human form—sometimes without realizing it—until I have slipped into a temper tantrum. I slip into judgement, fear, anger, separation and control. Non-acceptance of what is and resistance to everything. Worry creeps in. This is what happens when we allow the ego to slip into the driver’s seat. The coup-d’tat begins—I become an utter child.

In .02 seconds I can go from being blissfully accepting and loving, to acting like a possessed demon. Really….it can be that bad. I used to think having a spiritual practice and choosing a spiritual life meant I would become like a Zen Master. How misguided I was!

The best thing I could’ve done for my spiritual practice was to stop trying to be something I am not, and accept exactly what I am—a beautiful spiritual being discovering and accepting my humanness, as well as a clumsy human being discovering my spirituality. Yes indeed dear ones, we are both. To accept this is to reconnect the disconnection in ourselves, a disconnection that humanity is suffering from.

Life is easy when we are calm, connected, clear and centered. We accept. We love. We go with the flow.

Then something happens. We are challenged.

Maybe we handle it with dignity and grace.

Or maybe we are in ego and handle it like a bratty child, temper tantrum and all. We shut down in fear. We rage at God. We sink into self-pity. We bemoan our fate, and cynicism sinks in. We think about quitting. We shake our fists at the heavens, and ask why. Maybe the voices creep in—the old beliefs and programming from long ago.

“See, why even try?” 

“Life isn’t fair, it never will be.” 

“Can I just catch a break?!”

That’s when I draw the line, and I say “Fuck that. I will not entertain you. Anything is possible.”

The following words are the ones that get me through those days. The days I just want to quit because it all seems too hard. The days I just want to turn tail and run back to the safe cocoon of illusion that my ego has waiting for me.

“The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it.” ~ Cheryl Strayed

“I’d finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted to find was a way in.” ~ Cheryl Strayed 

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” ~ Pema Chödrön

“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.” ~ Pema Chödrön

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.” ~ Pema Chödrön

“Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?” ~ Pema Chödrön

“If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever.” ~ Dan Millman 

“You don’t need to control emotion,” he said. “Emotions are natural, like passing weather. Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes sorrow or anger. Emotions are not the problem. The key is to transform the energy of emotion into constructive action.” ~ Dan Millman 

“Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It’s a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.” ~ Eric Burdon 

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” ~ Ekhart Tolle 

I have come to believe that either way, whatever happens and however we respond or react to life on any given day, if we learn from it then it’s a success. Whatever occurs we look for the lesson. And even if I have a complete meltdown, if the meltdown is one iota less than my last one, well that’s improvement—and I give myself credit.

We must rediscover our ability to laugh at ourselves and stop taking everything so seriously.

After all like Eckhart Tolle says, “Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.”

Relephant read: 

I Found Freedom from the Curse of Anger. Here’s How. 

Author: Lindsay Carricarte

Editor: Nicole Cameron

Image: Flickr/Britt-knee