seeing light

"You are the light, You are the refuge, There is no place to take shelter but yourself."
--Inscription over Buddha's Ashes

There is something about this quote that moves me. In a recent conversation I had with friends we were talking about crate training dogs, and how the idea is to teach the animal to find his/her “happy space”. We joked that this would not quite work the same in childrearing. (This came up as someone said that having a dog is like parenting; several of us begged to differ – you just can’t leave little Timmy in a crate and go off to dinner and a movie.)

But there is something to be said for finding one’s “happy space”, and I think that this is what this quote is talking about. We live in a world filled with chaos. Most of us are constantly bombarded with noise, in the form of everything from television to music to newspaper headlines to idle chatter of the people nearby. These are not necessarily bad things, but it can get easy to be overwhelmed. Where can we seek shelter? A crate is probably not a good option.

Yet even if we are able to quite the exterior noises, there is still our inner voice. This is what we really need to tame beyond the telephone, television, talking, and traffic. This is the one thing we truly have control over, yet it can be so hard to do so.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

This is another one of my favorite quotes. So simple, yet so full of truth. If someone says something bad about us, it is up to us to interpret it. It all goes back to taming that inner voice and finding sanctuary within ourselves.

So often people will say, “she made me feel…”. This could not be further from the truth. No one makes us feel anything.

That is not to say if someone hits us (literally) over the head with brick that we are not caused physical pain. Nor is it to say that others cannot betray us. But truly they can’t make us feel anything. That is all up to our inner voice.

Another friend recently shared her experience with someone (an adult) who verbally attacked her. He literally called her names because he didn’t like how she looked nor that she called him on the fact that he felt the rules didn’t apply to him. But what is someone to do in such a situation? How can you not be upset?

Each of us possesses an amazing power within ourselves. We truly do create our own reality. Holding onto a belief that we will reach a goal or that we are good inside is what gets us through the tough times.

So in the above situation, ideally we would hear the insult and the voice in our head would say, “hey that’s not true, I am not x”. It might even go so far as to say that the person saying the offending remarks is an x, and is perhaps overcompensating for this.

Of course, I also think it is possible to go too far and close ourselves off to the world. That is what depression is all about. There is a reason it is so often referred to in “dark” terms.

We need to take refuge in ourselves to refuel. But when we start to see the light within us, we need to emit it. It is just a natural part of the process: light shines.


currently reading :: The Time Traveler's Wife