Living gratefully vs. telling yourself you should be happy

Telling yourself you should be happy....

...because three years ago I was in seemingly unending physical pain...not for a weekend...a year..but ceaselessly for years--and here i am sitting on my front steps listening to crickets and no pain.

...because so many people are suffering in this moment.

...because I am blessed with so many things, including the ones I care about more than my own life.

Etc. Etc.--this kind of should never produces happiness.

Yet, day by day, if I remember there is a new way, if I offer the best I can--in each moment---mostly in terms of mindfulness, willingness, a spirit of being present, of unity, in helpfulness--sometimes by smiling, sometimes by shutting up, sometimes by cleaning my bathroom floor--or taking a walk instead of looking up something useless online... these choices, and these compassionate or useful actions--no matter how I am FEELING--create a lif overall more peaceful and manageable, which in turn gives rise to moments of acceptance, peace, genuine feelings, genuine compassion, genuine friendship--

i sometimes miss the times of being run all over the place with my desires, with seeking, with the zest of acquistion, the satisfaction of controlling--but not the crashes that follow, the deep disappointments and crushing loss. Of course these still come in miniature bursts of I have to have--I can't stand this--and other strong emotions, in almost every day.

I have very little control, but I do have a choice, whereas in the grip of pain or illness or catastrophic loss and injury--it is choiceless.

For a few years now, since I decided to walk again, even a few steps at a time at first, I began to test the limits of what seemed a choiceless circumstance. Pain used to be a dealbreaker--not any more. And as I kept going in spite of pain, the pain diminished. Now I keep going--not just aimlessly,  and not with sheer willfulness, but with a new goal--and I keep going in spite of fear, dullness, anxiety, or any other negative emotion. My old goal used to be to get what I want or to avoid or annhilate what I did not want. Now it seems more about unity--with my higher power, with others, with a common goal, with my heart-- This new more conscious way feels awkward and seems to involve way too much discernment and effort at times--but when the fruits come, they are indescribably sweet--
to many, so subtle they might be overlooked. For me, something as simple as being with diverse people as equals in a circle--listening, and feeling part of--contributing sometimes solely by being present--
it is really impossible to explain, but to do this and feel at ease in body and mind, to feel useful, and part of--and not in control of the whole show--
this is the greatest joy.

Waking from nightmare

When I was a child,  something felt very wrong. I could not bare to witness the suffering of others or endure my own. I  tried to figure out this human world and my purpose. I was alone and terrified, helpless against dark forces, and yet I sensed a power inside me. I had a tremendous will.

No matter how far I might rise, I always crashed down. 

Beautiful things appeared, but I could not feel them. 

I  awakened within my dreams.  Oh, I'm dreaming. I can do anything.  So I'd fly. Across sparkling seas and purple mountains. I once woke up in Harlem, but I was embarrassed to just start flying in front of the normal people walking around. I found an alley to take off from. The last time I woke within a dream I thought: why do I have to fly just because I'm having a lucid dream?  I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I woke up.

I used to be a big sleepwalker and sleeptalker, and have awakened from nightmares screaming out embarrassing stuff.

Once I did that when all my relatives happened to be sleeping in my sister's one-room apartment.
It was a rare family get-together and we'd spent the day walking around New York. One of the family members, who was not among the sleepers, had shown up in my nightmare.

"You &%$!!!, I will KILL you!!" I screamed. My heart was slamming and I was punching the air, and the words echoed in the room of six sleeping relatives. But were they sleeping?

My sister's ancient blow-up mattress was totally deflated and so was I.

So I said, in this sweet tiny voice--sorry guys.

 An explosion of laughter. They'd all heard.

For what was left of the night, people took turns piping up:
 "I will KILL YOU!" And then: sorry guys.

I have also awakened to the sound of the dryer going and some guy in my room blasting a radio and guys in jackboots on my roof, these things woke me up, and I was awake, hearing it for a few beats, and it would go on for one or two more highly unnecessary beats and then I would realize none of it was real.
What is that?

Two years ago, when I was in the pit of  pain and insanity, I had the sense, each morning, of waking to a reoccuring nightmare.  My guards and torturers were invisible; they lived in my brain and body, although I sensed them in every corner of the world.

Everything about this nightmare screamed out to me to figure it out. How could I could rise to the challenge, without knowing what was being asked of me? At first, all my energy was concerned with getting out. Fixing it,  or escaping it, and neither worked. Later, I believed I was being asked to accept the suffering, and use the time of torture to help others.

At first, the nightmare was more real than the world. 

It was like that children's fairytale where the devil drops a mirror and a tiny piece of glass lodges in a little boy's eye, and he can only see the ugliness and pain in the world. 

He becomes cold, and frozen and stiff with pain. His little friend never left him, she followed him everywhere, determined to stay with him. He could sense her, but did not want her around, did not love her, and could not yet know the truth about her goodness. 

He knew only suffering as the truth, and he clung to it, because we cling to what we believe is true. And it was the love of  this friend,  that finally reached him. Her warmth, like the sun, bypassed everything, and he turned to this warmth and was thawed. And then he knew it was real. That the time of coldness and suffering had been a small perspective, and as eternal as it seemed, it was temporary. When he turned to the warmth of her love, and chose that, he woke from the nightmare.

When I succeed in turning to that which I never knew or trusted before-- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly,  a door opens which never opened before. I do not know how this works. But a way out appears--in some form. And when I feel my feet on the path of freedom, once again, I know a true aliveness that surpasses any dream of flight.