What Tolle, Rumi and Sombra taught me about offering my experiences rather than resisting them

One of my favorite authors, Eckhart Tolle, writes about the power of staying present. “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”

I read these words one evening before bed and fell asleep thinking about putting them into practice the next day. I will embrace the present moment and accept the day’s circumstances with intention, even joy.

Next morning, I woke up without my alarm. Odd. I must have set it wrong. The light filtering through the cracks in the shade looked suspiciously bright for the time it should have been. I squinted at the clock. Dammit. I’m late! I flew out of bed, threw on clothes and went to let Sombra out of her kennel where she sleeps. Dammit again, and … gross.

Her sensitive princess stomach couldn’t handle the ribeye snacks she’d wheedled out of us at dinner the night before. She had barfed in the corner of her kennel, on her bedding and all down into the crevices of the vinyl walls. I had to dismantle everything and lug the goopy, unwieldy parts outside to hose down. My plans for peaceful acceptance washed right away with the dog vomit.

With even less time now, I still had to get the boys up, fed and off to school. My already harried state led to cranky interaction, but there was no time for nice. I threw toast and sausage together for them and made myself a coffee. Rushing them to the table, I sat down with my full cup, anticipating my first sip of normal that morning. Immediately, I knocked the whole thing over. Hot, aromatic liquid pooled under the boys’ breakfast plates, poured off the table edge dripping into my lap and onto the floor. Shit! Pretty sure I yelled that out loud, too.

I sopped up everything with towels. No drop of caffeine remained to provide my daily system reboot. While lamenting my clumsiness and the loss of my Americano, my boys suddenly announced they couldn’t finish their toast because it “tasted” like coffee. You’ve got to be kidding me. With no time to make more breakfast – or more coffee – their diva palates ratcheted up my irritation to nuclear levels. “Fine, don’t eat!” I chunked their barely affected toast in the trash and yelled at them to hurry up and finish getting ready. “We have to go!” In the crunch of time and tension, not only did acceptance escape me, loving connection did, too.

Recently I discovered Rumi’s Sufi poem titled, “Pay Homage.”

 If God said,
“Rumi, pay homage to everything
that has helped you
enter my
arms.” 

There would not be one experience of my life,
not one thought, not one feeling,
not any act, I
would not
bow
to.

What if, just for a moment, I had bowed to my coffee-spattered table and clothes? Bowed to my sons’ rejecting their breakfasts and moving at sloth speed? Bowed even to my thoughts about how they should know better than to act this way? Rumi’s right. Every experience, if I let it, helps me draw closer to God. And not God as some incomprehensible authority figure in the sky, but God that is Love. Love everywhere – within me, within you, within all beings. God whose arms remain open wide to each one of us, every second.

I felt the truth of Rumi’s words the moment I read them. When I bow to my circumstances, reactions, and thoughts instead of judging them, I open to God’s flow of loving energy. And through that opening, I learn how to more skillfully and spaciously foster connection.

But bowing isn’t something I do naturally. Sombra, when not puking in her kennel, literally bows all the time. She excels at acceptance of the moment. She hums with enthusiasm for every experience. When I thought about Rumi’s poem, I imagined her adorable down-dog bow. Often, she bows with her stuffed bird in her mouth, too, as though making an offering. She does so eagerly with confident expectation of receiving my love in return.

I think Sombra has the right idea. God wants us to offer up our experiences and the truth of our feelings and thoughts, unstintingly and with total confidence in their loving reception. God accepts every imperfect morsel I have to give. In offering my experiences rather than fighting them, resisting them, or letting them control me, I clear my vision. Suddenly I can work with what is happening rather than against it. I can see the lesson, see the path to greater loving connection.

I did not yet have the benefit of Rumi on this particular morning, and the only offering I saw Sombra making was one of last night’s steak.  But I did manage to regain some presence after the boys and I got in the car. I could finally see the experience in its entirety and my hilarious lack of acceptance for every sitcom-inspired moment. As I backed out into the street, I started to laugh. I apologized to the boys for the poor example I’d set for them with my reactions that morning. I told them about Tolle’s advice to accept every moment as if choosing it and admitted my utter failure to do so. They graciously reassured me I’d done no permanent damage.

So no, I did not bow to the experiences of that meltdown morning as they occurred. But nothing stops me from bowing to them now. I offer them up and remind myself that I can always do so in the moment or whenever. And the minute I do, just like that, I feel the opening of God’s arms.

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