Our kids move home and then they move out
I’ve been known to joke that we need to install a revolving door on our house to make it easier for our adult children to move in and out. Truly, for the last several years, it’s been more than a bit unpredictable how many of us will be living here and for how long. In addition, watching what feels like all of my peers stretch blissfully into spacious empty nests can tempt me to slip into the mindset that our household should somehow be other than it is.
But deep down inside, I know that I wouldn’t have it any other way. While the reasons that our kids have moved home haven’t always been easy (that’s the understatement of the century), in the long run, the pleasure of having them here for family dinners and interesting conversations outshines the challenges. Our time under one roof with them has somehow come to feel like a grace – precious “found time” that we would not have had with them had they not needed to come home.
A glimmer of gold within the dust of discomfort
When I look back, I understand that being able to see grace within these challenges was far from instantaneous. It required all of us to live through some discomfort. It required us to get settled with the truth that we didn’t have a clear plan or timeline for our cohabitating. Each of us had to reacquaint ourselves with the people we thought we knew best in the world. Some of our own habits and preferences had to shift to make space for the routines of our new housemates.
In fact, it was important that none of us deny the discomfort of relearning how to live together. It was the effort of sifting through the “dust” of our struggles to settle into peaceful cohabitation that allowed the “gold” hidden within to shine even more brightly. In other words, because the joy of our togetherness was hard-earned, I think we enjoy its fruits even more.
Practice doesn’t change life, it changes you
For me, at least, the certainty that life is rarely all good or all bad, and is mostly both, has been as hard-earned as peaceful cohabitation with my adult children. For longer than I care to admit, I believed with all my heart that if I practiced long enough and hard enough and well enough, my life would be transformed into an oasis of peace and calm.
As impossible as it seems, these last long years when it felt like everything that could go wrong has gone wrong have taught me that my practice is not about changing my life – making life itself peaceful and calm. It’s about changing me and the way I navigate the upheaval and chaos of life. Life will not ever (at least not for long) be an oasis of peace and calm, but I can be (or at least try to be). Developing equanimity is the only way that I stand a chance of glimpsing the sparkles within the darkness.
Equanimity is a key to finding lasting peace within the chaos of life
The word equanimity comes up a lot in yoga classes – mostly when the teacher asks you to stay calm and steady while you try to do something with your body that feels impossible or even frightening. It is hard to achieve! It doesn’t take an advanced degree to see how that could be a helpful life skill to have.
Meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg, offers a different twist on the word. She writes that “equanimity cradles the immense sorrow and wondrousness of life at the same time.” If she’s right, equanimity is less about navigating something that is unpeaceful peacefully. It’s more about the peacefulness that washes through you when you accept that life is always going to be filled with both challenges and successes, joys and heartbreaks, and losses and new beginnings.
The revolving door may not be just for people. It may be for feelings too.
The notion of a revolving door on my house has helped me find equanimity in this unexpected and surprising stage of life. Equanimity allows me to welcome my children as they spin through the door into our home while also feeling daunted or worried or uncertain about what has brought them to me. Equanimity also allows me the strength to smile courageously through my heartbreak as they spin out through the door again on their way to whatever is next for them.
Mostly, though, equanimity has allowed me to see this unexpected stage of life as the gift it has been. Because I know this time together under one roof is finite in a way that was hard (impossible) to believe when they were teens, even in the midst of periodic discomfort I have had the equanimity to savor the golden moments of getting to spend so much time with my adult children. And these have been truly countless and priceless.
Equanimity (upeksha) is one of four qualities of the mind (detailed in verse 1.33 of the Yoga Sutras) that are needed in order for someone to find lasting peace. Equanimity is described as the practice of maintaining mental calmness or impartiality in the face of something difficult or upsetting. Please note that it is a practice, which means that it will not always go brilliantly. Thankfully, you’re allowed to flub it mightily and then try again. (By the way, the other three qualities are friendliness, compassion and delight.)