Day 16: It's not about you

I bloody love this face, I do

This is the thing I couldn't remember from the other day:

"It's not about you."

This came through loud and resolute, like a chant.

"It's not about you. You've got it all back to front. It's not about you."

It's an insistent voice that doesn't sound quite like mine.

Your feeling unfulfilled, unworthy or frustrated is just what is. It's not about you. 


Your feelings of joy and satisfaction, a heady rush of love or thrill of praise is just what is. It's not about you. Someone disappoints you and you feel betrayed and hurt; it's not about you. You let someone down and feel guilty; it's not about you. 

That's not fatalism or shirking of responsibility, but spiritual pragmatism. You still get to choose what you do, but lose the judgement, lose the shoulds and exhausting fucking standards. Just do what you need to do. It's not personal. It's not about you. That conviction is quite simply a waste of time and a huge distraction. 

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
in his youth

Pema Chödrön tells a story about her teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, conducting a wedding blessing. In it, he turns first to the bride and hits her repeatedly* over the head with a washi-washi - a sacred thingy that makes a shaky noise - and says "Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward" three times. Then to the groom he says "Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward" three times, also hitting him on the head in time with the words. And then to both of them: "Kindness, kindness, kindness, kindness, kindness."

 * And gently! I've just been reading about his provocative and quite upsetting behaviour so I felt the need to point this out. He was giving a blessing, not being a dick. Aaaand we're back to 'I'm being provocative on purpose and that just happens to involve me doing whatever I want for my own gratification" narcissists, as per Day 7: Ego Menagerie. 

And dressed as Elvis

 I joke about things being 'my next tattoo' but that, seriously, that is a reminder I need to hear every single day. That's a candidate for the backwards-written forehead tattoo, like the writing on an ambulance. Every time I look in the mirror, I need to remember this. My feeling bad today is not a measure of my worth in life, my success or my standing. It just is. My feeling good today, or having success, is also by the by. Move on. 


It's not just the Buddhists who say this (unless Rudyard Kipling was a massive secret Buddhist). This is from the poem 'If', which you'll find in full here. 

... If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;...

After a list of such wisdoms, it ends saying that if his son can do all of them, 'you'll be a man, my son.' You'll be a human being human. You'll be a person being real and fallible and wise. You'll be off the vicious hook you spend your time polishing and hanging off. Thanks RK. You were on the money.

Thanks, Rudyard Kipling, for your wise
words and your stunning eyebrows

So my holding back from doing things I want to do out of fear, or some sense of it being 'not my place' to do certain things, or because I don't think I'm good enough, is, frankly, a big old bag of shit. It's not personal. It's not about me. 

Somebody I thought I loved doesn't love me and it hurts. It's not about me. I don't love somebody who thought they loved me and that's painful for them. It's not about me. "Feel it, grieve it, love it, bless it. Just know that it's not about you."

Past traumas happened and made shapes in my life that I'm working to address, and right now, that feels tough. "Good. Well done. Keep going. It's not about you". 

I could waste my life on striving for perfection (and suffering from its lack) where it's not even possible to conceive of what perfection could possibly mean. "That's distraction. Be kind, make friends with that part of yourself that's hooked on that. Give it a lollipop  (made of juice and stevia and generic edible virtue of course) and a kiss on the forehead and send it out to jump on the trampoline for a few minutes till it feels better."

Except if you're me, and then it probably is because,
you know, I'm special. Gah!

In a culture where we're encourage to find out passion, make our mark, strive for our goals and be our own unique brand in everything we do, where we're suckled on individualism from the very start, topped up with comparison and fed a diet of consumer addiction to measure our worth and social standing, this is a hard sell, but it's also a massive relief.

This is permission to just feel it, whatever it is, and treat yourself with respect, to be the cell that joins with others to make up the minute pin-prick area of fingertip that's busy being shoved up a nose. It's not about you. Just keep going. It's not about you. 

And just in case you were wondering, it's not about YOU either.