Sometimes the Foundation Cracks

I’m celebrating a record-winning streak of irksome life challenges. This recent phase feels like a relentlessly tight, itchy wool turtleneck of unease strangling me as I struggle to take one clear breath before the next wave of hardship rises. It’s complicated to decipher if the drowning feeling comes from a bumpy timeline of job loss (construction flood); injury (neighbor’s dog pierced my elbow like that dog in the movie Dog); illness (what the heck is PANDIS?!); misfortune (exploded my 4th toe bone on the leg of the futon I planned to donate); a general nauseating fury over human rights.

I’m no stranger to dreary phases in life, familiar with the spirals of highs and lows. I’ve been on a lengthy healing journey long enough to know that suffering is universal and everything is impermanent, including this phase. But, heck. This chapter is turbulent, and I’m really needing some ease.

Amidst my mental self-flagellation over life’s struggles is when my higher-self winks slyly from around the corner. It reminds me of the infinite people, relationships, experiences, lessons, and growth I’ve been gifted, steering me to a place of deep gratitude.

It feels like I'm a cartoon, with a little red devil and white angel both on my shoulders giving me different advice. My consciousness is in a stand-off, and the devil reminds me of the fire and intensity of life's hard times. The angel perched on my other shoulder reminds me I have the tenderness and ease of purpose and gratitude.

The two voices are like a scale, trying to find stability amid life's madness.

Yet, one thing levels the swaying scales, softening the lows and providing meaning and inspiration behind the highs.

The through-line is my Reiki practice, and the introspective, conscious processes as its core.

The meditations and principles in the lineage of Reiki steer me towards embodying the bittersweet duality of life.

You may think that’s a breezy claim, worthy of an eye-roll: “Oh sure, it’s that easy. So glad that solved everything.”

It's not a breeze - it's damn hard. And Reiki “solved” nothing — I still lost a job I cared about; I still got injured (twice!); I still got sick.

Reiki helps keep us mindful, present, and non-judgmental. It’s a turning towards the bittersweet duality of life with wisdom when we want to turn away and run.

As Judith Hanson Lasater states in her poem, “Life is Not to be Lived on the Edges®”:

“Life is to be lived from that paradoxical edge which is found in the center.

That center line exactly between yin and yang, black and white, giving and receiving.

If you root there, you will find that every moment is richly bittersweet.

Every moment throbs with great joy and great sadness.

Wisdom is the refusal to run away from either.

Wisdom is the bittersweet heartbeat of the Universe.

Wisdom is embracing, allowing, being this bittersweetness.

Miss nothing.

Refuse nothing.

Embrace everything.

You are infinite and hold all the answers.

You are finite and know nothing.

Both are true.

But bittersweetness is the highest truth of all.

Be it.”

— Judith hanson lasater

My commitment to this embodied practice for the benefit of myself and others is a daily choice I make to honor life’s paradoxical nature. Reiki tempers my reaction to my suffering, leveling my irksome lows and gifting me presence during the highs.

Reiki creates a through-line, a steady, supportive energetic practice of presence that helps us honor the dichotomy of life and all its messy human-ness.