Joseph started a social skills group last week. We are calling it a playgroup but nonetheless it is a social skills group, led by a Speech Therapist named Daphne.

Joseph has been having some trouble parting from me when it’s time to go to school. It had become something of an issue, even bringing me to tears as he would cling to me outside his classroom, crying and pleading with me not to go. Picture the anxious kindergartener clinging to their parent on the first day of school, and you’ll get the picture. Except that Joseph is in third grade and it’s been happening every day this year.

This shifted recently, and the only things I can credit that to are time and the fact that I shifted, as well. I decided not to get anxious when Joseph got anxious, but to calmly kiss him, tell him I loved him and I’d see him later, and leave. This actually made a big difference, and I’ve been feeling really good about it.

So. We go to the social skills group for the first time. It’s just Joseph, Daphne, a boy named Luke, and a teenage helper. Luke’s mom stays in the waiting area, which is a very short walk from where the kids are meeting.

Joseph, however, will have none of that. I have to walk over to the room with him, which I do. Then I try my kiss-and-go approach, with the reassurance that I’ll be right in the waiting room.

Joseph will have none of that, either. Clinging, crying, embarrassed but determined, he says, “Don’t go, Mom! Don’t go! Don’t leave me!”

windowI don’t want to stay in the room with the group, so Joseph comes up with a plan: I am to sit outside the room in the hallway, facing a window that has the blinds drawn, so that he can occasionally pull the blinds aside and make sure I’m still there.

Sigh. I pull up a chair and sit in the hallway. I listen to the muffled sounds inside the room. I can’t see anything around the blinds. I am very thirsty but I don’t dare walk to the lobby for some water, in case he looks out and I am gone. I have no book, nothing to do but stare at the window for the next hour.

So I sit there and contemplate the fact of suffering.

Suffering, Gangaji says, comes from an idea we hold of being a victim. Whether it’s God we hold accountable, or circumstances, other people, ourselves or whatever, we have the idea that we’ve been wronged. Whenever we remember the wrong/s, there is thought, emotion, and momentum around it. What would happen, she asks, if we just let it go. Yes, we’ve been wronged — sometimes terribly so — but maybe it’s time to stop punishing the tormenters, even if they don’t deserve it!  She invites us to experience putting an end to victimhood and feeling joy instead of suffering, just for a change. That way, she says, if we want to go back to suffering, at least it’s a conscious choice.

So, the window seems to ask me, what’s it gonna be? Is this an hour of suffering or a chance to relax with me and enjoy some quiet contemplation?

It is tempting to feel wronged. Wronged by autism and wronged by an anxious kid who makes me sit and stare at a window for way too long. But I kind of choose the latter. I mean, it wasn’t too bad, really, sitting there for an hour. Eventually I even got someone down the hallway to bring me a glass of water.

What I’m saying is, I’m really looking at suffering and victimhood. I know that if I can work with my inner narrative, then no matter what is happening externally, I can be content. Yoga is all about living from the inside out, rather than the outside in.

It’s a funny thing, listening to Gangaji. The people who come up to speak with her are often full of suffering. They have stories of great sorrow, or mighty struggles going on in their lives. But by the end of their talk, they almost always end up laughing. Really laughing, I mean. Like they see it’s actually hilarious. Like they finally are in on the joke, and what a joke it is.

I fully expect to be staring at that window again this week. But this time I’m coming prepared. I’m bringing water, a book, and even more conscious choice. I want to laugh hilariously! I want to put an end to feeling like a victim and embrace the joy beyond the story. It is a great story — and what would I post about without great stories? — but, like the lady says, how wonderful to be conscious about whether or not one buys into the suffering.