When Our Best Falls Short

Isn’t there some universal truth that if we misstep, first, we hope no one notices? Next, we feel surprise (maybe), and shame or regret? But at the same time, we don’t necessarily see ourselves, or want to see ourselves anyway, as the one who’s caused harm?

Or is that just me?

If not, then how do we face what we’ve said or done? And how do we do that without making things worse for ourselves, and for those we’ve hurt? Maybe compassion and self-compassion are not so simple. Or maybe they’re simple but very much not so easy.

Transcript

Hi everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 412.

I'm back from Charleston.

What a cool town.

The reason for Charleston was that the Georgia Bar Well-Being Institute invited me to talk about the difficult ways that the law impacts us and how mindfulness can make a big positive difference.

And I actually couldn't sleep before the night before the program,

Which there was some jet lag,

But mostly it felt like anxiety.

And I don't usually have anxiety before talks these days,

But I did last Thursday night.

And it gave me plenty of time to think about the talk.

And one thing that occurred to me was to re-examine how I talk about my own experience.

I'm used to going to a certain level of vulnerability,

But also setting boundaries and if sometimes for the sake of what seems appropriate,

But sometimes it's out of fear of being found out.

So I decided to share a little more last Friday about what happened in my life in the law,

But also outside the law in part because I was practicing law.

And that led me to deepen my mindfulness practice.

So for the first time,

I spoke about a really terrible divorce that I went through when my daughter was 15.

And how we literally had to run for our lives from a terrifying situation where my ex was literally willing to burn down our house,

Not the actual house,

But the container that we had carefully created over a decade of really loving and hard work just to get what he wanted.

And how when I went to my teacher,

James,

Really in despair and asked him,

You know,

How do I make it through this moment?

This very long moment of that whole fall of uprootedness and confusion and sorrow and fear.

He gave me just one instruction.

He told me there was only one way by dying to all of it.

And I trusted James.

I had done for a long time and I do to this day.

So I did what he said.

Every night after my mom,

Who took us in and my daughter and the dog,

We eventually had to give up to my soon to be ex,

Had all gone to sleep.

I would lie down in the tiny hallway near the space on the floor where I slept that fall on a blow up bed that my aunt had brought over.

And I would die to all the feelings coursing through my body and mind.

Died to the anger,

Died to the fear of what would happen to me and my daughter.

Died to my own lapses in judgment and in compassion and wisdom that were part of.

Us being in my mother's apartment and me being in the hallway in the first place.

Died to my heart,

Which was breaking in so many different directions and also died to the lawyer in me who felt like somehow,

Some way I should have spotted the issues and then done things differently and then somehow been able to keep everyone safe.

And every night,

Just for that night,

I would find some way through.

Some way through to some kind of self-compassion and compassion for the other people.

In this dynamic,

My girl sleeping on the couch,

My stepsons,

Whom I eventually lost and still miss every day to this day.

My mom,

Who took a sin,

Which had not been part of her plan.

And even once in a while to a sliver of compassion for my ex.

In other words,

Rather than pulling myself together,

Which was the message I was getting from everyone else,

Including especially my law partners,

Right?

And also my friends and my family and even my therapist,

Who was also offering medication by the handful,

Which I'm happy I didn't take.

I followed James's instruction to let myself fall apart.

And he said,

You know,

As you do that,

Be self-compassionate and have compassion for everyone else and just see the situation for what it is,

Which is just sorrow in all directions.

Telling that story last Friday was a way of talking about compassion by pointing out the difference between the persistent instruction of our culture and times and certainly of the law to pulling together over and over the difference between that and the wiser,

More compassionate instruction James gave me,

Which was to let it all fall apart because that's where compassion lives.

You know how Leonard Cohen saying this is where the light gets in.

So towards the end of the program last Friday,

A young man raised his hand and he wanted to know how to be compassionate to someone like my ex,

Someone who had hurt him.

He said that to him,

It seemed like compassion in the form of the classical phrases I'd been sharing that that morning,

I see your pain,

I'm here and want to help,

This too shall pass.

They felt really disingenuous in a lot of ways to him.

And so,

You know,

I offered what I know now and what I didn't know very well then,

But learned the hard way that a person who causes harm probably doesn't understand how hurt people hurt people in the words Dr.

King and many others borrowed from Rabbi Yehuda Berg,

How they probably feel alone and afraid and that clinging to things and people and power and pushing away or running away from anything in the way of those goals,

Including burning down the house in the process will ease their pain and maybe even make them feel safe and happy,

That they probably feel that way.

And that if it's true that they feel that way,

They're missing that we inter-are,

As Thich Nhat Hanh says or Thay says,

That we belong to one another,

That everything we say and do matters and that our work in life as lawyers and as humans is to care for ourselves and care for each other.

And that,

At least in my experience,

It's not impossible,

It's not easy,

But it's not impossible to have compassion for someone who doesn't know this and for ourselves when we forget it as well.

And that I know that's possible.

I know that's possible from the nights in the hallway.

So that was Friday.

And then Sunday and Monday were the Jewish High Holidays.

It was actually this whole period of the Jewish High Holidays,

But Sunday and Monday was Yom Kippur.

And they're also called the Days of Atonement.

And in Judaism,

We only have to ask and we get a clean slate from God or whatever higher power we believe in.

But to wipe the slate clean with other humans,

We have to go to the people we've hurt and apologize.

Not to obtain forgiveness.

That's not the goal.

We're not necessarily even entitled to it.

Right.

But to learn to see how our contributions,

How we have to own those,

How each of us in small ways and in big ways,

Whether as ordinary humans or as lawyers,

Each of us is willing to burn down the house at times.

Right.

And then to say we're sorry when we have.

And so for me,

That means seeing when I'm the one causing harm,

The times I'm someone's difficult person,

The moments on the one hand that someone causing harm probably misunderstands,

And the moment on the other hand,

When I am that difficult person who misunderstands,

To see again,

As Tai urged us in his poem,

When I am the 12-year-old girl,

Refugee on a small boat,

Who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,

And I am the pirate,

My heart yet not yet capable of seeing and loving,

And then to bring as much wisdom in as I possibly can by acknowledging that harm to the person that I've harmed by expressing my own sorrow and apology,

And by doing what I can to make things right.

And so this is what happened to me.

I answered the young man's question,

Which he later told me privately was about his father,

And I saw how I am me in my story,

And also my daughter,

And also my sons,

And also my ex.

Some days,

I am that young man's father burning down the house,

And there's really nothing to do about all of it,

But die to it all.

Thank you for listening.

Let's,

Let's sit together.

Finding your,

Your posture,

Whatever will most support you today,

In this moment,

Whether you are the 12-year-old girl or the pirate,

Or both,

Finding a comfortable and also stable posture,

One in which you can find stillness,

Even if there is turmoil in the heart or in the mind.

And if there's not,

Wonderful not to manufacture that or call up a memory that will help you manufacture that.

Not at all.

But in case there is,

And then locating the breath or the sounds in your environment,

And inviting the attention to rest on the breath or on sound as a refuge,

And if there is something coming up that you want to look at,

Want to let go into,

Maybe want to dive to,

Carefully,

Lovingly,

Self-compassionately.

And if it feels safe and supportive to do that right now,

Then maybe doing that,

Not to see where you are to blame,

But to see where you've done your best and fallen short.

We're always doing our best.

We're never getting up out of bed in the morning and putting our feet on the floor and saying,

Today I'm going to do something less than my best.

We never do that.

We're always using whatever wisdom is available to us in any given moment.

And so can we,

Can we have some,

Some self-compassion with whatever it is that we're seeing,

Maybe putting the hand on the heart,

Tapping at the heart space,

Or simply breathing into the heart,

But also not flinching,

Seeing the 12 year old girl in ourselves,

Also seeing the pirate in ourselves,

And even,

Can we even fall in love with the little girl and fall in love with pirate,

Or might be a little boy,

Or might be another gender.

But fall in love with that young,

Innocent person and also fall in love with the pirate and begin to see with a lot of compassion,

The harm that the pirate has caused in the biggest possible container of self-compassion of,

Of love that we can possibly see it in.

And maybe to misquote Rilke to one day live into a,

A way of apologizing.

Thank you everyone for being on the Wake Up Call today.

Lovely to see you and to sit with you.

Have,

Take good care.

I'll see you next Thursday.