Cool Alone

· 231 words · 2 minute read

I just finished reading Pema Chödrön’s _When Things Fall Apart_ and recommend it to people who think about mindful acceptance.

I love this sentiment, which echoes a book about Enneagram I’ve been working through that talks a lot about the personality as an overlay on our essential self:

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. To the degree that we’ve been avoiding uncertainty, we’re naturally going to have withdrawal symptoms—withdrawal from always thinking that there’s a problem and that someone, somewhere, needs to fix it.

One of the core ideas of When Things Fall Apart is that of how to be alone. She talks about “cool” and “hot” loneliness in this excerpt:

Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It’s restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down.