Free

Yesterday I was out of town for a few meetings and I stayed with a very dear friend of mine.  She took me to her Buddhist Philosophy class at the community center. 
The class was taught by a Buddhist Monk.  The lesson was on the Eight Worldly Concerns.

1. Attachment to getting and keeping material things.
2. Aversion to not getting material things or being separated from them.
3. Attachment to praise, hearing nice words, and feeling encouraged.
4. Aversion to getting blamed, ridiculed, and criticized.
5. Attachment to having a good reputation.
6. Aversion to having a bad reputation.
7. Attachment to sense pleasures in general.
8. Aversion to unpleasant experiences.

The monk was a lovely, serene woman. She sat cross legged and led us through a mediation before her talk.  She was saying that it isn't bad to have material things, nor to be happy with praise, pleasure and a good reputation.  It is attachment to these things that causes us problems.  It made me think about my own attachments to these things.  She asked us to name the one that REALLY wound our axles.  I think mine is reputation. I want everyone to like me.  And when someone doesn't like me, or is annoyed with me, or thinks that I have done wrong, it eats me up.  I can't even focus on anything else.  Because I am so closely linking my identity with what other people think of me, instead of what I know to be truly inside myself, it causes me pain, discomfort, stress... And it costs me countless hours that could be better spent.  

The other thing she said, that really got me is that things either go your way or they don't.  Its a fifty fifty shot.  Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. And obviously they can't ALL the time because in a room full of people, all our ways couldn't all be achieved at once.  Sometimes my way contradicts someone else's way.  So I thought about the hardest part of my day.  Getting my kids in their coats, snow pants, boots, mittens, hats, jackets and scarves EVERY day when we leave the house. 

Sometimes this goes my way. Everyone gets dressed and we go out without a hitch and when I get into bed that night, I think 'this was a good day'.  But sometimes this does not go my way.  Then Lucy throws her boots off after I struggled them on, or Coen takes what feels like seventeen years to put one leg into his snow pants.  Or Lucy fights me and I have to chase her down with her coat, or Coen can't be pried away from his Legos or his drawing to get moving.  Those days are frustrating. And sometimes on those days, I lose my shit.  I yell and stamp and I am an impatient, yelling, meanie.

Those days, when I go to bed, I think, 'this was a bad day.' But I never think it was a bad day because my kids took long to get moving in the morning.  I think so because I was a jerk face mom.

So anyway, this class was free, as was the wonderful time and incredibly great conversation I had with my friend after.  And I feel a little freer too.

Tomorrow, if it goes the way I don't want it to with all the coats and boots and everything and my kids take forever and I feel impatient, I'm just going to try to remember: Sometimes it goes my way, and sometimes it doesn't.  This is just one of the times that it doesn't.  And try not to lose my shit.