On Transcending Misery
by Arden Martin
In recent days, I’ve noticed myself feeling really and truly miserable. Not just for a fleeting moment, but for hours or days at a time.
Despite having a consistent meditation practice for the past ten years, and knowing intellectually that misery is a fleeting sensation that doesn’t have to consume me, I’ve been stuck in a mental and emotional trap of suffering.
Is my menstrual cycle playing a role? Highly likely.
Is it okay to just feel your feelings and let yourself be miserable now and then? Most definitely.
But it’s also true that misery is a spiritual invitation.
The moment you observe yourself in misery, a door opens for you to expand beyond it, without bypassing or ignoring it. One way to do this is to simply remember where misery comes from: the human attachment to not feeling pain, loss, and all the other “ugly” experiences we’ve been conditioned to resist.
What would happen if you recognized those attachments for what they really are: a subjective reality that your mind constructs?
From this place, you have a shot at expanding beyond that narrow perception of reality. This doesn’t mean you should bypass your misery, it means you can get curious about it and begin exploring ways to unhook yourself, rather than let it consume you.
Vedic Meditation supports this process in two ways:
It provides a direct experience of “the self” beyond the body and mind (a.k.a. transcendence). Transcendence in meditation implicitly teaches us that we can transcend waking-state experiences, too. This comes in super handy when we feel stuck in misery, or any other mental-emotional experience. Whether through meditation or in the field of activity, we can make choices that create inner shifts.
It provides witnessing practice. Although meditation can be a transcendent experience, it also allows us to witness whatever thoughts, feelings, and sensations arise during the 20 minutes, with no agenda and a neutral attitude. Witnessing in meditation helps to create healthy space between the self and whatever experience the self is having, misery included.
From here, “I’m miserable and I’m stuck” can more easily shift into “I’m noticing myself get caught up in misery. I also know that life is so much more expansive than that. How might I be able to shift my experience? Is there something I’m attached to that I can begin to release?”
As Pema Chödrön says in Things Fall Apart, “Beyond all that fuss and bother is a big sky.”
The next time you feel swallowed by misery, I invite you to get curious about it! Ask yourself what attachment it might be rooted in, and see if you can make a choice — by sitting down to meditate or taking action in the waking state — to create a shift. Sometimes, simply knowing we have the power to shift our inner experience is enough to begin.
With love, Arden