The Urge to Slam the Door on Unwelcome Guests

I mentioned before that I’ve started taking this Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction class on Monday nights.

I’m pretty sure I hate it.

Why do you mock me, cotton swab puzzle?

Tonight was our second class and the combination of a cotton-swab puzzle and the instructor reading “The Guest House” by Rumi reduced me to tears. Not weepy-sobby tears in the middle of class. In class, it was more like a tear I had to wipe from the corner of my eye, a lump in my throat I swallowed down, and some sniffles I snorted back. When I pulled into my driveway and saw that the house was dark I cried for real, at least for a short time until I shut out the dark thoughts again.

I’m not big on crying at all, much less in public. And for some reason, I’ve set my classmates up as People I Don’t Like, even though I don’t even know them.

No, I know why I’ve decided I don’t like my classmates: it’s because the overriding feeling I have in that class is fear, and I’m much more comfortable hating everyone and feeling angry than I am feeling afraid.

I am so resistant to this class and the mindfulness practices we’re learning, even as I admit that they’re already helping me feel more calm during the week between classes. It just feels like I’m spending a lot of time doing nothing. Which I suppose is the point.

I can’t seem to get past the idea that the way to manage this layoff mishegas and uncertainty about where we’re going to live a month from now is to grab it by the neck and shake it until it yields some concrete answers. There has to be something I can do to resolve this situation, I keep thinking. And yet, there’s nothing.

I hate it. And I hate the mindfulness class because when I’m alone with myself and everything’s quiet, I can’t help but admit that I know nothing and I control nothing and any feeling to the contrary has been an illusion.

The Rumi poem is a lovely one, though, even though I despise the exclamation point in it. Other friends have reported this poem showing up in their lives recently, too. I suppose tonight was just my turn for it to take me by surprise. Here it is for you. The darned thing.

The Guest House

by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.