Get tough and meditate. Meditate and get tough.

We meditate even on days when it hurts to meditate. Maybe it’s the body that hurts. Maybe it’s the mind or the heart. This sitting still and welcoming pain goes against what we have been taught—to distract ourselves from discomfort, find a way around it, or just muscle our way through. The bravest thing that I know to do when I experience pain is to go ahead and allow myself to hurt, be scared, be sad, and so on, without either reaching for the quick fix, calling up a friend who will tell me that it’s okay, or throwing myself a pity party. Some days we just need to get tough and meditate.

So what that you're scared? Meditate!

This moving up close to pain isn’t so different from training a puppy to stay. I once had a pug who loved mandarin orange slices. When I held one in front of his nose, his body quivered and he whimpered. But he stayed with all this discomfort until he heard “Okay." We’re not trying to be martyrs when we sit in meditation, but we are cultivating a strong sense of being with ourselves in every moment of our life, not just the ones that feel happy and easy. How can we expect to be with others who are in pain if we haven't learned to hold that space for ourselves?

The practice of being with pain, heartache, loneliness, and so on, is why I became a hospice volunteer—not because I’m so kind and loving, or because I thought that I could fix anything at all. Being with the dying has allowed me to be a student of mindfulness in a way that nothing else has. Someone dying is either lying down or sitting (prime positions for meditation). They are aware of most every breath (the instruction for meditation). And they live moment to moment to moment (bingo). As much as we may try to “live like we’re dying,” I can’t imagine that we will actually do that until we actually are. So for now, as we celebrate our life, maybe we can include even those moments when we quiver and whimper.

Sit, stay, quiver all you want

One day as I was telling my meditation instructor why I hadn’t been able to work on a writing project, she interrupted me with “Stop making excuses.” It stung to hear those words, and it helped. Staying present to what scares and hurts us can foster courage, confidence, and kindness. Bravo to the brave counselors, dear friends, and glorious teachers who are practiced enough to speak the truth in whatever way our ears can hear it.

Tired of Speaking Sweetly, by Hafez (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,

Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and

Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,

He would just drag you around the room

By your hair,

Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world

That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly

And wants to rip to shreds

All your erroneous notions of truth

That make you fight within yourself, dear one,

And with others,

Causing the world to weep

On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,

Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself

And practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants

To do us a great favor:

Hold us upside down

And shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear

He is in such a "playful drunken mood"

Most everyone I know

Quickly packs their bags and hightails it

Out of town.