Ch 1. Wherin I discuss Dandelions and Paint
"Icarus"
by Anna Carroll
My inspiration:
A Muslim Story
Mulla Nasrudin decided to start a flower garden. He prepared the soil and planted the seeds of many beautiful flowers. But when they came up, his garden was filled not just with his chosen flowers but also overrun by dandelions. He sought out advice from gardeners all over and tried every method known to get rid of them but to no avail. Finally he walked all the way to the capital to speak to the royal gardener at the sheik's palace. The wise old man had counseled many gardeners before and suggested a variety of remedies to expel the dandelions but Mulla had tried them all. They sat together in silence for some time and finally the gardener looked at Nasrudin and said, "Well, then I suggest you learn to love them."
My Thoughts:
As part of my therapy for the anxiety I had to deal with after leaving my husband I learned a lot of Zen Philosophy. One of these concepts is called Radical Acceptance. When we look at the defining of radical in the dictionary (I prefer Mirrium Webster’ Dictionary radical is defined as changing the fundemental nature of something and acceptance is defined as the action of consenting to receive or undertake something.
We are taught that suffering = pain + non-acceptance. So when we don’t accept the pain we are experiencing we prolong our suffering. This is not to say that we don’t go thorough the regular grieving process (anger, denial, bargaining, and acceptance) but radical acceptance is the process in which we come to peace with the situation. I use radical acceptance a lot in my life.
So does radical acceptance meant that I say “it is as it is” as my friend Neil used to do. It is what it is and so I have to do nothing but sit here and not deal with the situation. NO!! Radical Acceptance is about accepting that it is what it is and then change our behavior to do what we can to lessen the “pain” of the situation (pain, anger, annoyance, frustration). I love the example of the paint (of course when I tell this story the room is orange)
It's that purple room again...If the room is purple and I hate purple so I pretend it's pink instead, I will never repaint the room a color I like. I can't jump from knowing the issue exists but not accepting it for what it is -to changing it.
When Marsha Linehan talks about acceptance and meditation she talks about how she used to treat clients who needed to learn anger management. She says that all anger stems from the belief that something should be a certain way. We get mad at our spouse because they SHOULD take out the trash, our kids because the SHOULDN’T throw a fit in the store. Marsha says the things that happened should happen because if they shouldn’t happen they wouldn’t of happened. She tells a story about a little boy riding down the street and a person runs a red light and kills the boy. This is a awful painful thing. But it should of happened. Now one can eventually accept that it happened. But how do we take the next step and change things. Well` nothing can change the situation that caused the pain. The boy is dead. But you can work to make sure it doesn’t happen again to other children.
A very very important factor in radical acceptance is an attitude and policy of non judgment. This means that NOTHING is good and NOTHING is bad. There are two main reasons for this. One is that good and bad are subjective and don’t give enough information and that good and bad are a slippery slope.
A lot of people in my group objected to the things are not bad. Hitler, Hitler surely is bad. Well that doesn’t tell you enough. Hitler was responsible for the murder of 6 million people of the Jewish faith and countless soldiers on both sides of the war. Hitler made choices that were harmful. Hitler made choices with devastating consequences. These are more objective descriptions for what occurred. And give the person you are taking to about Hitler more information about him.
Well okay, that is bad. What about good. Surely things are good. Here is where the slippery slope comes in. If things are good then they SHOULD be. Good sets up a standard by which the opposite of the good thing can be labeled as bad. Good also objective and does not give enough information.
The last part of judgment is that we never know what is going on inside a person. For example I haven’t done my dishes this week. I SHOULD do the dishes. But does this mean I am bad? Is the action of not doing the dishes bad. Well certainly it is not a desirable situation. Certainly I am sure that myself and the people who are in my home would prefer that I had done the dishes. So if we are not judging the question is why didn’t I do the dishes? Well the pharmacy ran out of my medications. And my job messed up my paychecks for the month. So I couldn’t take my medicine for almost 2 weeks. Without my medicine I slipped into a state where I slept 12+ hours a day and since there are only 24 hours in a day there was only so much I could accomplish, going to work was just so much more important to doing the dishes. So if you look under the surface it is so much easier to understand the situation and accept it.
However, not judging and accepting does not change the situation or remove the consequences. While what happened is understandable, but I still need to deal with the consequences. Dishes left for a week are way harder to wash.
posted by Anna at
1:30 AM
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