I sometimes see my personality quirks as highly expressive boils on the face of life. Too loud, too swollen, too festy. I’ve been feeling this way lately and have been backing away from things a little…to give the world a break from my boils. I could probably put this prettier. But it’s the picture that comes to mind. Many of us resent our quirks, especially those of us who’ve done “work on ourselves”. You know, all that “abandon the ego” stuff…But I’ve had a helpful insight today. I’ll explain….

Image via Favim

I was at meditation group Monday night, and my teacher Tim was sharing something about the different stages of transcendence or some such. I can tune out to such speak. I’m about 2984757 lifetimes off transcending. When I meditate I don’t sink blissfully into some ephemeral space where “Wow, I just zoned out…did 20 minutes and three semi-trailers really just pass by?!?”. I don’t drift off anywhere. Nope, my experience is a jerky, nervous, chattery one that is far from inspirational. I’ve written about this before here.

But Monday I tuned back in when Tim mentioned that one of the outcomes of steering oneself to transcendence entailed refining your personality quirks in a fresh way, such that you become more YOU and more LOVEABLE. Two bangs for the buck.

I have many personality quirks. I don’t know where to begin detailing them. I have a deep-seated inclination to flee. It’s a big part of why I ride a bike. So I can flee when the quirk strikes. I have to talk to strangers wherever I go. This always annoyed my mother.

I’m a control freak.

I think many of modern life’s ills stem from running away from quietness and lurching for something more. Constantly lurching, reaching out, not settling inwards. I think about this today as I bounce and lurch from task to phone call to the fridge and back again.

by Lizzy Stewart via “advice to sink in slowly”

We are so afraid of stopping and being quiet. I practice being in a quiet space each day by meditating. To sit and do nothing is noble. It takes smarts. Reflection. I don’t kid myself it’s easy. It is my life’s toughest journey: down and in.

As Oscar Wilde once wrote:

“To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.”

To sit with the silence, the nothingness, it’s a tug of brutal war. Every part of me wants to run from the quietness that my meditation mantra attempts to take me to. So much so, my right hip actually aches as I meditate. It’s my right leg that lurches out towards life. In many traditions, the right side of the body is seen as the “masculine” side. As in, the side that tends to be about lurching out, conquering, forcing, making things happen, doing. And so my right hip aches to move away, to do.

As an aside, it’s my right leg that attracts all my injuries – I’ve broken my right ankle twice, split open my right knee twice, broken my toe and torn a tendon… all on my right leg. And always when I’ve been forcing life too hard. When I’ve been doing and not sitting in enough quietness.

You might want to read about one of my favourite techniques for sitting quietly with myself here.

Why do we run from the quietness? Pscyhiatrist Neel Burton writes about the manic defence in The Art of Failure, The Anti Self-Help Guide:

The manic defence is the tendency, when presented with uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, to distract

During my recent travels I visited Moustier St Marie in Provence. There I did a meditation on a hill overlooking the town and a crackin’ storm blew in. Now I realise this sounds very faux atmospherique, but I’m trusting that  you know I don’t drop such deus ex machina stunts into my stories very often. Anyway, as lightening flashed and warm raindrops thudded the earth, I suddenly got overwhelmed with the idea of “stay”.

Which was funny, because I was about to take off again for another town, another country the next day. But, for some reason, on that hot afternoon in Provence, stay meant something else. I’ve been pondering it since. Playing with it.

Stay means to stick with exactly what I’m doing right at that moment, even if in that moment I’m moving onwards and upwards and outwards.