Question: “I feel as if I’m losing my path and my practice. I have started smoking again, I know it’s a no no. I have stopped meditating, stopped doing yoga. And I feel like it’s hard to start again. I know in my head I’m defeating myself, tearing myself down, and not truly living the life or path my soul is calling for. Everyone doubts me and my beliefs. How do I start loving myself? How do u surrender? When everyone around me thinks I’m weird and hates what I’m doing.. Raising my child, I’m so lost”
Life is literally a giant experiment. Which means we need to actually do things in order to find out what works, what doesn’t and what can be changed. As we get older, our habits and personality changes, so do the things that we’ve taken interest in that have become a simple phase or two. Things come and go, that’s very natural.
I used to run a lot when I was in high school and first couple of years of college because I played tennis. Then I stopped for years, never really started working out again or anything until earlier this year. I used to be able to run around my neighborhood (about 3 miles) like it was a piece of cake. Now, I can barely run 1 mile! I feel like it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever put myself through. The same happened with my meditation practice. During grad school, I found it really difficult to really have any free time to myself and to my practice, so my daily meditations went from being 1-2 hours, to 15-20 minutes.
During times where I DID have the time, I felt unmotivated and lethargic. I didn’t want to meditate, I didn’t want to chant, I just wanted to do nothing! Then one weekend I went out of town and visited a Chinese Buddhist Temple. This temple was huge and looked like everything I’ve ever imagined when I saw pictures and videos of Chinese temples online. I sat down and listened as the nuns chanted the Diamond Sutra and it reminded me of why I even began my Buddhist practice. Of why I put myself through so much study and practice instead of just doing absolutely nothing and being “happy” about it.
So I had to do something. The next morning and every morning since then, I wake up at 5am to do a 30-minute meditation and chant the Great Compassion mantra and Heart Sutra, and do another 1-hour meditation and chanting in the evening.
So to do anything effectively in our lives, we must be committed and diligent, and make the effort to change. Without our own effort and commitment to change, then who else is going to do it for us? Absolutely no one. If you want things to get better and to change, then you better do it, because no one else is going to hold your hand for you and guide you.
Figure out what you want and do anything and everything you can to accomplish it. It might take days, months or years, but your efforts and aspiration to attain your goals is what’s going to make all the difference.
Smile and be well!