Ups and Downs

It's been an interesting week. I can't believe it's been almost four weeks that I've been here... woah.

This week brought some difficulty -- for me and seemingly for most of the people in my YSC group. Apparently week 3 is often challenging. For me this was about a couple of things:

1) The crashing realization that all the parts of me that sucked before I came here, still suck. Or to put it more compassionately, even when you completely change your circumstances and much of your lifestyle, a lot of parts of you, some of them less than lovely, stay the same.

2) Group dynamics in general. If you're at all familiar with group process theory, you'll know that groups generally spend their initial time together working hard to get along, being nice, showing their best selves, trying to like and be like. And then after a while, the cracks start to show. For me, this has meant that I've wanted more time to myself, and have started to feel annoyed with certain people. The challenge now is to handle that gracefully, and recognize that annoyance with people really isn't about there being anything wrong with them. It's all about my reaction to them.

One of the big lessons I've been learning is about acceptance. You get many different opportunities to practice acceptance when you live in a community. Often these are small things, but I think they're important practice for the rest of life. Let's say I have to spend the afternoon working with someone who pushes my buttons, for example. I can spend the afternoon feeling icky inside and wishing it were otherwise... or I can suck it up and accept it and make the best of it. Trust. I'm starting to learn that resisting what life has presented you with is pretty much futile. It all happens for a reason, and man do we ever spend a lot of energy resisting small things in subtle ways.

Also been thinking a lot about destiny. Whew, that's a big word, and one I hadn't ever given too much thought to. Still got lots of questions about it, but I'm starting to believe there's something to it. I'm starting to perceive that somehow my life is actually being guided, in a way that often isn't perceptible, but it's there. And it's a huge relief to me, to start to trust that. I'm doing okay. Thank God!