Stop trying so hard
On the wisdom of giving up the fight for control
Before diving in, I want to let you know of some ways that you can work with me in the coming weeks and months:
Holding space for hope and heartbreak: You’re invited to join me and my dear friend and incredible co-facilitator, Ekta Hattangady, for a donation-based series of Sunday sits starting this weekend, 3rd May – this offering is for all of us who are working with families in Palestine. It will be a place to mourn, meditate, share and support each other. Scroll down for more information and the registration link.
Spiritual caregiving: As part of my ongoing practice and training in Vajrayana Spiritual Care Foundations, I am opening up ad-hoc space to meet 1:1 with folks who are looking for some support and light-touch guidance to navigate personal challenges with their emotional and mental health. Scroll down for the details and how to get in touch if this speaks to your needs and desires.
Mentoring for writers: I know from many years’ experience that writing is a passion as much as a craft, a calling as much as a skill. For all these reasons, it is both glorious and frustrating, tough and exhilarating, as is anything that comes from a deep desire to do something with purpose and intention. Through my own work as a writer, editor and communications specialist, and from a long professional career working with others, I know what helps and I realise what hinders. And I know how satisfying it is to move through whatever holds us back and do the thing we desperately want but sometimes find we can’t quite manage alone. This 1:1 offering is for writers looking for some guidance with their process, whether that’s with developmental and/or editorial support. Details via my website are down below.
Now, on with the words! …
My friends and I often talk about the importance of balance, mostly when we’re about to joyfully hurl ourselves off the proverbial wagon to indulge in various pleasurable pursuits. I say joyfully because, contrary to that overused and unhelpful phrase, “guilty pleasures”, there is no guilt, we feel no shame. It’s in our nature – and we have nurtured ourselves and each other to heal towards this end too – to rebel against any kind of socialised notion of goodness or model behaviour. Because those notions are largely BS.
The kind of goodness I, we, do make space for and cultivate is that which allows us to appreciate the wonders of life and living, to feel deeply and see clearly. To live in relation to the world with our hearts and minds wide open. And the truth is that sometimes, we need some assistance to elevate our way there. Because so much of the rest of life, and the systems we are a part of, are rooted in patterns of control, restriction, limitation, judgement, repression, oppression and suppression.
And as many of you know I am fond of saying, f- that sh**. Or to put it more eloquently, those ways of being do a disservice to the ultimate desire that I believe we all share – which is to be free.
“We go hard” is a phrase we often use, which applies to all aspects of our lives; the times we’re “being good” hard working citizens and the times we let all that go, let ourselves go, and euphorically lose control (hence, balance, we do all of it, sometimes in extremes, mostly in the middle, until we go hard again). We care hard for the ones we love, the causes we support, the work we do, and the way we show up for each other and in the world.
I tend to think that it’s precisely because we try so hard, care so intensely, give so passionately, that we need and enjoy the release and the relief that comes from dropping out of things from time to time and tuning deeply into ourselves, to music, to higher states of consciousness.
I think it’s fair to say that for most of us, the greatest mental anguish, frustration, disappointment and hope comes from all the ways we fool ourselves into thinking that we can control the outcome of every relationship, work, project and connection that we invest in. In other words, going hard isn’t always such a helpful thing. And yet we do it, because we want things to be better than they sometimes appear to be.
In the spiritual circles (sanghas) that I’m a part of, I see and relate to the same thing – the effort and the emotional investment that goes into fighting injustice, wanting things to be better, believing we can fix them, hoping for change. None of which is wrong to do or a bad thing to aspire to. The trouble is when we insist and expect that our efforts will lead to the results we want. It’s the wanting, not the wilfulness, that causes us to suffer when we don’t get what we want, because it’s never entirely within our control.
I want my friends, loved ones and spiritual companions to be free of the heartbreak they endure, I want them to be happier in their skin and with their bodies, I want their choices to lead them towards greater happiness and away from suffering. I want the feckless men that my friends encounter on dating apps to be more honest. I want my friends in Palestine to get through a night and a day and eventually a life without relentless disruption and destruction. I want my relatives in Pakistan to not have their daily lives blighted by poverty and abuse. On and on the list goes, of desire, hope and despair.
I want, I want, I want, all of these things which I do not control. And in the wanting, I have to admit, while there’s good intention, there’s also the arrogance and the delusion of thinking that somehow, I know and can manifest what’s best. And there’s the desperate hope, in the case of global conflict and inequality, for the worst of humanity to do better than it clearly does. I know these things, and still, it doesn’t stop me from wanting the best for the people I care about. Again, not a bad thing in itself.
Back up, back off, then keep going
So, what’s the answer? One answer, and possibly a bitter and uncomfortable one, is what in the Buddha Dharma is sometimes described as “wise acceptance”.
Because the greatest difficulty of all, that we each face, is the struggle to accept the fact that that we cannot fix or control everything. This resistance causes the greatest suffering we inflict upon our heart-minds - the dogged insistence that we must be right, the well-intentioned delusion that if we keep pushing relentlessly on, we will get what we believe to be the best outcome for ourselves or the ones we love (and even loathe, when it comes to changing say, the political, social or cultural landscape).
At the heart of this matter – of what’s the matter wish us – is the belief that we are right, the attachment to the belief that we must be right, about our political views, our views on someone else’s relationship, our religious inclination, our thoughts about how anything and everything should be, whatever that might be.
And that is dodgy and unstable ground to stand on.
This is definitely not me making a case for apathy, resignation, nihilism, futility, desolation, dejection or bypassing. To leap to that thought would risk falling into the dualistic trap of thinking that things have to be this or that, rather than somewhere in between, which is the reality. It’s more of a call to ease up, back off, loosen the reins – from over-efforting, the strain of trying, and instead, approach things from a place of less expectation and attachment to the outcomes.
It's a call for balance in our perspective. For accepting that while we can and ought to influence positive change, that we can should do something, we do less harm to our own minds and to those of others (and the relationships we’re in) when we accept that we don’t have control or responsibility for everything or everyone.
And sometimes, when the thing we’re doing is insisting and engineering things to go a certain way – our way, what we believe to be the right way – then it’s better to do nothing.
As the Zen saying goes, don’t just do something, sit there! Which is to say, rather than get caught up in activity, with getting busy doing a whole lot of things to avoid the anxiety of our relative insignificance, face the discomfort, allow it rather than fight it, and thus do yourself, ourselves, and others less harm. And from that place of acceptance and humility, keep going.
if you do nothing
nothing will happen, and that
is freedom from everything
- Aliya Mughal Granted, that’s not easy. But finding our way to accepting the facts of life – nothing stays the same, we can want the best for others but cannot make it so, we will one day leave everything and everyone we love behind, this samsaric life is dissatisfying if we allow ourselves to get trapped in the merciless cycle of seeking, wanting, disliking and resisting – is how we can release some of the pressure that comes from resistance. In doing so, we give ourselves a chance to show up without the baggage of resistance and despair that taints any sense of satisfaction or contentment.
One of the regular practices I’ve adopted in recent years is that of saying an equanimity prayer nearly every day (or certainly when I remember and feel myself veering into controlling territory). Inspired by the words of the Insight Meditation teacher Ruth King, it’s an encouragement – and for me, a commitment – to:
see the world with quiet eyes; to let go of fixating or rejecting; to be free from preference and righteousness; and to see my limits with compassion just as I see the limits of others. (paraphrased and adapted from Ruth King’s meditation in her brilliant book, Mindful of Race).
Wise acceptance is respecting our limits, without being hampered or depressed by them. It’s about doing what we can, and knowing that we cannot do or fix or change or save everything or everyone.
As one of my aforesaid friends chatted while we bathed in the cooling calmness of the forest this weekend, in that moment, I heard back from a friend in Palestine who I and other sangha members have been doing what we can to emotionally and financially support. It had been a few days since I last heard from him (you can read about and support Haitham here) and I was beginning to worry. I sometimes send Haitham images of my surroundings, the animals and the land, letting him know that I think of him and sincerely wish, pray and hope for some hints and glimmers of peace in his and his family’s life.
In doing so, I wonder and worry that as well as my well-intentioned hope that these images and messages lift his spirits even an iota, that it might be a little trite, unhelpful, or worse, a blow in the face of his own drastically altered living conditions. Haitham messages me telling me he appreciates hearing from me, that he is glad to feel my kindness, that he is sincerely touched by what I share and say, and heartened to know I and others care to stay in touch with him.
And still, there’s a feeling of impotence on my part, and a knowing that yes, showing up like this matters, and at the same time, it’s a drop in the ocean.
My friend, an ally and advocate in matters of social justice especially with regards to our Palestinian friends, countered my ruminations telling me, “it’s all you can do, it’s all any of us can do - to show up and be there in whatever ways we can and to believe that it does make a difference”.
I like what the Zen Buddhist teacher Roshi Joan Halifax - who has spent her life as an anti-war, civil rights, and climate activist, as a caregiver of dying people, and as a volunteer with death row inmates - says about this, with regards to “wise hope”:
“We have to ask: What does it mean to hope in our fragile and fraught world?” she suggests. Ordinary hope is bound up fear - wanting something that we fear will not come. Wise hope, conversely, is about doing what we can knowing that things may not turn out well. We care, act and relate from a place of accepting the uncertainity and the lack of our control. What we fear may or may not come to pass - and those thoughts can inform but cannot stop us:
“I believe that coming from wise hope might at some point show us that what we do matters, even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, or even recognizing that it matters, are not things we can know beforehand.
Truly we cannot know what will unfold from our actions now or in the future; yet we can trust that things will change; they always do….
…it is also important for us to remember that our actions, how we live, what we care about, what we care for, and how we care really do matter all the same, no matter the outcome. We can’t know how things will turn out, but we can trust that there will be movement, there will be change. And something deep inside us affirms what is good and right to do.”
Pause, contemplate, feel
How do you suffer, what ruffles the feathers of your mind, disrupts your emotional state? What do you struggle to accept, what do you resist? How might it feel, and what do you need to do (or not do) to find a level of acceptance that allows you to show up in the world, in your relationships, for yourself, with more equipoise and less strain?
Please feel free to comment with your thoughts. We can support, nurture, inspire and challenge each other’s thinking and ways of being when we care to share!
I write and share for the love of it, so all my posts are free. If you wish to make a single/occasional gesture of Dana (the Buddhist practice of reciprocated generosity), I’ve got a Ko-fi page where you can contribute as you wish:
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Pal Solidarity Group: Holding space for hope and heartbreak
For those of us involved in social activism, who find ourselves in a role of caring for others, of actively being there alongside people who are enduring the cruellest consequences of our inhumanity, this practice of being with the difficulties of what arises and accepting that which we cannot control, while nonetheless committing ourselves to changing things for the better, it can be particularly destabilising and dispiriting. Because it is indeed exhausting, maddening, saddening and a cause for despair to see the relentless harm done to our fellow human beings, in spite of the efforts of the best of us. These are, of course, valid responses, even for those of us (me included) who like to think we have a handle on the notion of wise acceptance.
Myself and my dear spiritual friend Ekta Hattangady, have set aside time on Sundays after Ekta’s Metta Sangha to hold space for collective careful contemplation, and for honest, tender and difficult conversations if and as they might helpfully emerge. Specifically for the next two months, across May and June, this space is being held for people acting in solidarity with our Palestinian friends, whether that’s advocating for their welfare, holding space in our hearts and minds via our spiritual practice, or simply needing to be in a place od shared mutual regard, concern and understanding. Born of heartbreak, leaning on collective liberation principles, and steeped in Buddhist wisdom, this offering is a place to mourn and meditate. There will be an opportunity to share and support each other. Please share widely and join us.
Sundays from May 3, 1PM to 1.30PM ET on Zoom
Register at: bit.ly/Metta4Pal
Cost: please donate to bit.ly/TeamTamara
Spiritual Caregiving: 1:1 support with me for you
This offering is rooted in my own practice and commitment to liberatory principles, namely Yogic and Buddhist-oriented ways of being that can help us to see ourselves more clearly and unbind from unhelpful ways of thinking, behaving and relating to ourselves and others. My intention is to give you space, support, guidance, inspiration and encouragement to be yourself and find your voice.
This builds on my work as a mentor, where I work with individuals who wish to incorporate reflective methodologies into their practice, or need additional inspiration and tools to build on an existing practice. Note that this is not a therapeutic modality. Rather it draws on my experience, application and ongoing exploration of how to skilfully and wholeheartedly show up for others in a way that empowers folks to feel into the wisdom that sits beneath the confusion and the suffering of much – but not all – of our experience.
The pace and structure of these sessions is open to co-creation. As standard, it will be a 45-minute Zoom meeting. Low cost/PWYC (Pay What You Can) in the spirit of Dana, the Dharmic idea of generosity and reciprocity. Suggested contribution is £25-55 though folks with limited financial means are welcome to pay less. Email me to arrange a mutually convenient time: aliya@strongwordsmatter.com
Mentoring for writers: Professional services
For writers at all stages of their creative trajectory and work, I offer a separate service, supporting people to express themselves with confidence, clarity, courage, and greater freedom. To write is a wonderful, life-affirming, soul-nourishing thing. I’d go so far as to say that it’s an act of service, to oneself and - because of the inevitable ripple effects of cause and influential consequence - others.
As writers, we all want to be read, to be seen, to have people engage with our work (even if we might decry the effort and the strain of it all, we write because we believe we have something worth saying that deserves to be read). At every step of the creative journey, from navigating doubt and insecurity, to reclaiming their voice and story, from structuring their manuscripts to drafting and redrafting, I take pleasure and pride in being there for folks when they need a critical friend on their side.
Email me to set up a free 20 minute exploratory call to see if we’re a good fit: aliya@strongwordsmatter.com. The structure of our working relationship and my associated rates can be discussed at or after that call if we decide to proceed together.