' Control Lost' by Sam Flores

Fine. I’m willing to accept that maybe I was overly ambitious when it came to planning my trip “home” after all these years – 7 years to be exact. Maybe I was too confident, but I really did think the timing was right. And I really did think I was ready, over the course of four days, to:

a) meet my dad’s new wife’s kids and grandkids

b) see my 97-year-old grandmother who still, after all these years, manages to bring out every insecurity I have

c) visit with my dead mom’s best friend – who was always like a second mom and her daughter – my fake sister

and

d) face a bunch of  childhood ghosts whom I’ve been playing hide and seek with for years now

Evidently, I was incorrect in my assumption I was ready and I canceled my flight to NY 12 hours before the plane was to take off from SFO. It was dramatic. There were tears and possibly a panic attack involved. It wouldn’t be out of character for me to blame this emotional outburst on the full moon, but really, the bottom line is that I flailed in the face of potential discomfort. Ah, yes, there’s nothing like a healthy dose of humility to remind you you still have much work to do.

So I’ve been trying since that fateful day to reconcile what happened and also put the demons that I had in check, back in check. It’s not going so smoothly.

Demons, by the way, are not some scary mythical concept - not for me anyway. Everyone’s got them. Some people are better at keeping them at bay and some people be-friend them. Some people, I guess, too, get swallowed.

In the Budhist pracitce of  Chöd, which I’ve been reading about lately, you’re asked to not only be-friend your demons but actually sit them down and ask them what’s up. What do you want? What can I do for you?

The practice was originated by the eleventh-century Tibetan yogini Machig Lapdrön, and has been made popular in the contemporary West by Tsultrim Allione. There are actually five steps in the contemporary practice of Chöd, but once you find out what these demons really want and give it to them, they transform into guides or allies instead of big, scary weirdos that lurk in the corners reminding you how much you suck — that’s what mine do. I can’t speak for anyone else.

That being said, I have not yet put this practice to the test. My first step is to stop viewing this aborted journey home as a major setback in my personal evolution. That’s number 1. Instead I hope to see it as for what it really was: a change in plans.

After I  accomplish this, I think I’ll invite these demons to the table and see what’s up. It’s long overdue. In the meantime though,  I’m working on being compassionate and patient with myself. Last I checked compassion and patience are not things that are readily valued in our culture, so this in itself is a big challenge. Still, I think it’s do-able.