Hugging Your Humanity

by Ryan Biddulph

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I went to town on lunch yesterday.

3 sausage slabs. 3/4 of a bacon cheeseburger. Pancakes. The volume? Not insane by my standards. I eat like a bird usually. I ate like a house cat yesterday. But my body no likey rich foods and meat seems to be off of the menu going forward. Why? At about 9 PM last night I sprinted to the toilet to release the lunch not agreeing with me.

What did I learn?

I am human. I spend 3-4 hours day managing my energy through yoga, meditating and exercising but being human and not enlightened I did not observe the fear-greed-craving motivating me to order a rich lunch not agreeing with my bird-like diet. Funny too; my wife noted during lunch how I usually do not eat a thing, pretty much. She was right. I should have noted her astute observation. Alas, I paid the digestive piper 6 hours later.

Human beings mess up, screw up and flub up even if human beings live cool lives, live their dreams and spend hours strengthening their mind and expanding their awareness through daily rituals. I spend up to 1/6th of my day meditating, doing yoga and exercising. For a guy living a worldly life, that is quite a decent chunk of time to devote to expanding my awareness. I genuinely make wise, self-aware decisions MOST of the time but not ALL of the time because I am human, not God-realized, not enlightened, not beyond the world.

Being human helps you to……be…..human. Hugging your humanity largely dissolves:

guilt
self-judgment
embarrassment
shame
regret

among other fears arising in less than human moments. I am being mindful of sitting with perfect posture as I type but know 3 hours later my neck will feel a little stiff because I will not sit with perfect posture for all 3 hours. Why? I am human. I am not prepared to sit with perfect posture for 3 hours because I am:

not mindful enough of my posture
not a yogi aka yoga master
not beyond the tension of thought

I live a cool life. I am largely free from fears, constraints and limiting beliefs seemingly crippling humanity. But I am also human. Being at peace with my humanity – mostly – allows me to be mostly free of guilt, self-judgment, embarrassment, shame, regret and all insane concepts of an ego that does not accept the human, less than perfect, nature of a being not enlightened.

Stop making life hard on yourself. Hug your humanity. Laugh at your flaws. Stop taking yourself seriously. Lighten up. You and I will mess up. Learn from errors. Never beat yourself up for being human because by default, humans make some mistakes. Learn. Proceed. Be free of all the silly ego-whining based on ideas that human beings can be perfect, flawless, poised, balanced and serene. A few of those perfected human beings have graced planet earth for short periods of time but only because they gave it all up.

You and I do not have to question whether or not we are one of them; we are not because we'd be completely beyond living a worldly life, if we were. Have you given it all up? No. Congratulations. You are human. Laugh at your errors, learn from your mistakes and enjoy the human experience.