On Being Human and Finding Grace

Hello, friends. I hope you are well today, and if you find yourself struggling, let me offer you some compassion and grace. This being human is a hard road.

I have been out of sorts for the last week or so, and I couldn't quite put a name to any specific feeling or anything that was overwhelmingly bothering me. It was just this pervasive sense of dissatisfaction. I think this is one of the hardest feelings to identify because it's so common, so gradual. It just sits in the background like a shadow—you can't quite see it, can't quite look at it unless you catch it in your peripheral vision and ask, "What is that?"

That's where I found myself.

I do my practices and meditations. I have many tools in my toolbelt. Yet it still catches me sometimes because I'm human, and I was having a very human past couple of weeks.

Do you ever feel like that, friends? This underlying sense of dissatisfaction—is that what you would name it, or do you think of it as something else? When do you realize that it's there in the background?

I finally got tired of it. I was weary of it. So I sat and journaled, pouring out all the thoughts in my head—my queries and curiosity about these nameless feelings—to see if I could identify the source.

What I found was this nameless dissatisfaction. That's the one that gets me most of the time. It's no longer overwhelming anxiety. It's no longer deep depression. What lingers is the very human notion of being unsatisfied with the way things are. I think sometimes we hope: if only things were better, if only things were different. Oh, if only... all those wonderful "if onlys."

So what did I find dissatisfactory? The real answer is not much. A few things were worrying me a little—some anxiety, some unease, and this slight concern about the unknown future of things. So, what to do about all that?

I gave myself grace for being human. I gave myself grace for feeling these feelings. I gave myself grace for worrying, for my anxiety. I gave myself grace for wondering and dreaming about the unknown future. I just gave myself some grace. And acceptance.

I've realized something very interesting about self-care, and I've come to appreciate the importance of deep self-care the older I get. But one of the things that's missing from a lot of self-care is what Tara Brach calls "radical self-acceptance." Accepting that this human life comes with dissatisfaction. It comes with heartache and sorrow and sometimes anxieties and a lot of worries. That's our human brain trying to keep us safe and protected. Unfortunately, the side effect is dissatisfaction—continuous worry and anxiety, being uncomfortable with the unknown, being uncomfortable with the way things are, and the nature of things to always change. The idea of impermanence.

And it's imperfect, and really, none of this is personal. We like to think it's personal because, of course, we're living our lives, and the things that happen have to have meaning. As humans, we are meaning-makers, and we make up stories for all the holes in our unknowing. It's these stories that create 99% of our suffering. We do it to ourselves. Our brain does it to us. We're just wired that way—being human with our big, beautiful prefrontal cortex and all its problem-solving ideas and patterns, and meaning-making. It can tend to make us a little crazy.

So give yourself some grace today and realize that you are just having a human experience. This, too, shall pass. Take exquisite, compassionate care of yourself. Just let yourself be and do the things you know will help your heart feel better. Take the walk. Eat something nice. Do things that feel good and comforting. Take a nap and read a chapter of your favorite book, or paint, or dance, or hang out with friends and drink that glass of wine and eat the cake—because you're beautiful and perfect and just having a human experience.

My love to you. May your day be filled with grace and ease.