Greetings! I am writing from sunny South Padre Island, where I’ve managed to lose my prescription sunglasses to the ocean, get stung by a jellyfish, and gain a mild sunburn. Yay! Time away from home means time away from treatment, so the week three milestone of TMS treatment is still on the horizon…(try to ignore the gross pun).
Last week was difficult. The practice manager told me that a dip in progress is not uncommon at this point.
As a wise friend put it, I reached a point where I had to admit complete defeat. And curiously, things began to shift when I did that.
It wasn’t like a magic switch. But once I stopped trying to resist so much, the living got a little less messy. And it was easier for me to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Slowly but surely, I’ve been reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering. He writes beautifully about the fact that there can be no lotus flower without all the mud:
If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses”
Thich Nhat Hanh
He writes not just about suffering, but how to suffer. And do it well. It’s definitely one of those books that everyone should read. It’s not a magic cure to anxiety and depression, but sometimes a tiny bead of wisdom from Thich is all I need to readjust my daily lens.
But we must remember that suffering is a kind of mud that we need in order to generate joy and happiness. Without suffering, there’s no happiness.”
From where I sit, it’s clear that as painful as this valley has been, it’s also overflowing with mud. And with that mud comes beautiful growth 🙂 I can’t exactly see the wildflowers yet, but I know they’ll be here soon enough.
Claire Paschal 