Ever wake up with a case of "the ickies?"

This morning I woke up with a serious case of "the ickies." I felt tired but couldn't sleep, my coffee didn't taste as good as usual, even my morning game of spelling bee wasn't that satisfying. I felt myself making a conscious choice NOT to meditate before I needed to spring into action for the day, meaning that it would most likely not happen at any other point. Then I heard one of those helpful little voices in my head that I've come to regard them as my inner teacher. It said "dukkha, dukkha, dukkha." 

Dukkha means suffering in Pali. It does not have to be suffering with a capital S. More likely and more often dukkha is definitively lowercase: a subliminal, simmering degree of unsatisfactoriness. When you're feeling bored. When you're feeling restless. When there's nothing in particular going on and nothing you're looking forward to. That, too, is dukkha. Experiencing dukkha is human. It is inescapable. What happens when we experience it, though, that's when things can get interesting. 

That low-grade inflammation of dukkha can be like nails on a chalkboard for a lot of us. We, who love to identify the source of a problem and exorcise it, can be flummoxed by dukkha. Where does it come from? What causes it? It has to be something! For those of us living in the diet culture (aka, all of us), dukkha can lead us to trace our unsatisfactoriness to our bodies or our diets. We think we need to focus all of that restless energy on getting fit, eating differently, changing our hair routine, getting some new skincare products, buying another black skirt or pair of shoes. 

Now there is nothing wrong with moving our bodies, eating something that feels good, or buying something for ourselves. But when we do it with the intention of curing that ickiness, which it inevitably does not, we are chasing our tails. 

On the other hand, acknowledging dukkha as dukkha - part of life, something EVERYONE experiences, something that passes - allows us to work with it. Staying with the dukkha - not running from it, not trying to problem solve our way out of it, not discharging its discomfort into our partners or kids - that is how we learn how to be alive in this world. 

As the clock ticked down to my 7 am spring-into-action deadline and my inner teacher whispered "dukkha, dukkha, dukkha," I turned on my insight timer and sat for a mere 5 minutes. It was nothing special but it was a statement of "I will not abandon myself when I feel uncomfortable." And the rest of the day has progressed accordingly: nothing special, but nothing dreadful, with lots of opportunities for self-awareness, self-compassion, and even kindness toward others. 

Next time you're dealing with a case of the ickies, consider whether dukkha is at work.