Desperation And Internal Gratitude

This March 13, 2024 talk was an Open Wisdom Wednesdays Insight Timer live event. These are irregular Wisdom Office Hours. I ask unplanned general & specific questions for your wisdom & you ask me.

In the meantime, we share openly -- likely from whatever is currently happening -- to get at our wisdom. This one addresses the often uncomfortable experience of desperation. One can benefit greatly though from meeting it and working through it skillfully. I also probed into the beauty and helpfulness of internal gratitude.

Transcript

Wholeness and welcome to another Open Wisdom Wednesday.

These are regular office hours and where I ask unplanned general and specific questions for your wisdom and you ask me.

And in the meantime we share openly likely from whatever is currently happening to get at our wisdom.

So today I thought,

Welcome everyone,

I was coming trying to come up with a topic and this notion of desperately wanting to come up with a topic and I thought,

Well what about desperation?

And this is kind of a bleak topic and so I was reflecting on it and so maybe I'll talk a little bit about it.

And good morning Tasha.

But the other thing that occurred to me of course the ending desperation or in dealing with it is positive too.

The other positive thing though is generosity.

And the one thing that just occurred to me about generosity is what about inner generosity?

What if no one else had to be involved?

What if I could just lavish upon myself internally everything that's needed?

So what are some qualities that I find lacking that I could just give myself generously?

We have to use our imagination here because sometimes it's not like it.

But most people if they would want anything in life,

Right,

We're kind of conditioned to want money.

But then let's say we were given a lot of money,

Then what would we do with it?

You know,

Some people that are more beneficial might say,

Well I would,

You know,

I would help people with it.

I would give to charities and things.

Well,

Specific things,

These are more challenging.

They're fun to dream about but then if it were actually to happen,

What would be the actuality,

The reality of it actually happening?

But for internal qualities,

What about,

You know,

How can I be more kind to myself is just as basic as that.

How much possibly could I give myself kindness to areas of my body,

My mind,

My spirit,

My heart?

You know,

What would that look like?

What would that feel like if I could just give like way more than even enough of these internal qualities that I desire?

Love,

Kindness,

Compassion,

Openness,

Attention,

Care.

Yes,

Self-worth and forgiveness.

Yeah,

How can I forgive myself?

When I first heard of that,

I was like wow,

I've always conditioned that I need to get forgiveness from the outside or I had to give forgiveness to someone else.

But what about giving forgiveness to myself?

Game changer,

Huge game changer there.

And it can't really be forced,

It just has to come at the right time when it's natural.

How can I put burdens down?

That's another way to look at forgiveness that's not as religiously charged.

It's okay if it works for you with religion too,

But this notion of how much of a burden am I carrying that I don't need to carry?

You know,

How can I put it down and pick it up when I need to maybe,

But also not pick it up when I don't need to?

Self-worthiness is huge,

Especially for our feminine qualities,

Right?

That,

You know,

One way I look at it is what if I didn't have to be,

Say,

Or do anything to be completely worthy of my own love of anything in the world,

You know?

My own self-worth.

That it didn't have to be earned or be a reward for anything,

But it was just inherently good in there.

And where does generosity come into this?

Can I give myself genuine self-worth?

The first thing is how do we define that?

I think there doesn't need to be any external thing or what,

You know?

This is a tricky and touchy one for many people,

So I don't know.

How do you guys look at self-worth?

You know,

What's helpful for gaining self-worth and not?

I know that for me,

My time is worthy,

More worth than any amount of money or value anywhere,

Because I'll never get it back.

I can always make more money and provide more value,

But this limited precious time we have is.

.

.

Can't put a price tag on it.

That's the way I feel anyway.

Now,

I want to jump into this notion of desperation.

This is a tough one.

I know I dealt with this in relational context years ago,

And now that my fiancé and I are together,

It's easier for me to look back now.

But,

You know,

What really turned the corner for me on this one is I heard a teaching about,

You know,

In the dating area.

Dating never really worked for me.

I just,

You know,

It just seemed too shallow.

Not that it doesn't work for other people,

But what turned the corner for me was when he said this,

And I realized I was doing this too,

That,

Yeah,

It's so common sense now.

Desperation.

No one's attracted to desperation,

Right?

I mean,

It seems so obvious,

But I just wanted to look for love everywhere,

You know.

I was just wanting it to be so with so many different people,

And that apparently is not too attractive.

It seems so obvious now,

But the other thing was wanting to give my heart away,

You know,

And I didn't realize that that scares people off too,

You know.

And the lessons for me is that I could,

Instead of turning this outward,

To turn it back into my own heart and lavishly,

Generously give my own heart kindness.

And so when I can,

So that's not desperate at all.

I can give my heart as much as I want,

And it doesn't have to be a consolation prize either.

And so when this self-love,

The self-care,

The self-nurturing comes,

Really sinks in deep in this hard to find,

Hard to discern thorn that tends to be buried very deeply in the heart,

Once that's located and removed,

Then a lot of this can heal.

And then we're content with how things are internally.

And not only then does that buffer against not finding external,

You know,

Partnerships or romance,

But it actually helps attract that too,

And be better okay when those things don't work out.

It's desperate for my own time and attention and my own care and love too,

But it quickly fades away when it's given,

And no one can give it to me.

And like,

I can give it to me,

You know.

There's a famous saying in Buddhism that you can search the whole world over and not find anyone more worthy of your love and attention than yourself.

And what people usually say is this,

Oh this sounds selfish,

You know,

You need to help others,

But we can,

You know,

Care for others.

And that's true too.

It's just we can't do that to the same degree if we can't have the same amount for ourselves.

The more we're able to give to ourselves,

The more we're able to give to others.

Kindness and care,

And because we love our own heart,

Since all hearts are connected,

We are actually showing kindness and care towards others by loving our own heart.

Tasha says we tend to receive the same energy back that our fear puts out.

The old biblical saying is we reap what we sow,

Right?

So in the Buddhist context,

Skillful actions have skillful results.

Unskillful actions have unskillful results.

So this is pretty easy for most people to understand,

Right?

That if we do something skillful,

It's more likely to have a skillful result.

If we do something wise,

It's more likely to have a very wise result,

And vice versa.

So fear is another big topic that Tasha mentions here,

And I think that is another subject for another day perhaps.

But what have you guys learned about desperation?

It's a really kind of sad topic.

But what are we desperate for in our lives?

It just doesn't have to be love and relationship.

We can be desperate to end desperateness.

It really shows the depth of pain in this life too that's possible,

And the care that's needed to address the pain.

You know,

The this notion of feeling lost,

Alone,

These type of really heavy challenging emotions.

There's always the polarity to these as well,

Though.

So when desperateness and loneliness,

Sadness seep in,

Then we have opposites like joy.

Togetherness,

Interconnectedness,

And I think maybe the opposite of desperation would be just kind of contentedness,

You know?

Fully being okay.

A deep sense of I'm okay.

And Susan says,

Good morning from Florida.

Hey,

Florida.

Sarasota was just there not too long ago.

Beautiful place.

I think I've said enough on desperation.

Beautiful place.

I think I've said enough on desperation and wanting to give one's heart away too soon,

And how to go back and care for ourselves.

So I guess I would just want to finish up here with returning to internal generosity.

I invite you guys to reflect for a moment.

What's something I could be generous with internally?

What's coming up or what's easy to give ourselves generously on our meditation cushion and in our inner lives?

And I think one of the things that comes up is just the remembering to do that,

To just remember to turn inward and ask the question,

You know,

What's needed inside?

How can I give myself more attention to the things that are needed in order for my own welfare and happiness and that of others?

You know,

Where are my challenges?

What weaknesses need strengthening?

And what kind of care and what's needed with those?

Tasha says,

Personal gratitude for just simple moments.

Gratitude has got to be one of the easiest,

Most easiest,

Most immediate ways to gain contentment in life.

I know I have a morning gratitude practice before even getting out of bed in the morning to just open up and randomly allow whatever thought to come in my mind of what's grateful for.

And,

You know,

Just basic simple things like Tasha was saying.

OK,

I have a bed to sleep in tonight.

I'm not out.

You know,

There's some degree of peace and stability in my life.

I have my basic needs cared for.

You know,

There's great things in my life happening in the lives of others.

I'm in a fairly peaceful country with a degree of freedom and movability.

I can have access to something as basic as the Internet,

You know.

Friends and family that are in my life.

This body can still move around and talk.

It won't always be like that,

Right?

And then if we can even be grateful for everything,

What can we find grateful in things that are horrible in the world?

Well,

For one thing is it wakes me up to the realities of life and that maybe I don't have to fight a war today.

And how can I help bring more peace to myself and those around me?

Tasha says,

I'm grateful to be able to see the beautiful,

Serene background you're in.

Well,

That's a great stopping point,

I think,

Too,

Since this is 15 minutes.

And yes,

I'm out here in Denmark today and it's so wild.

Look at that water.

It almost looks black to me,

But still in like a reflecting mirror and calm.

It's a little bit of a swampy area.

It's a little bit cool,

But yes,

The surrounds are quite beautiful.

And then,

Of course,

We've got evergreen forest to the right.

So with that,

I wish you all the most generous times of your lives and that when you meet desperation,

You will have innate wisdom and compassion arise to know how to view it and take the right action.

Bye.