cleveland yoga

Asking for Too Much at the Asian Grocery Store

I watched little balls of hail hit my windshield. Tears were running down my face. I was parked in the middle of an industrial zone in Cleveland. Sometimes it hit me that I moved back to this place, and in the midst of the cold, the gray, the ice falling from the sky, it felt impossible. A voice was coming out of the small speaker on my phone, saying a million things that didn’t make sense, a million things I didn’t want to hear.

I hung up the phone and drove a couple blocks to the Asian grocery store. After I got out of the car, I looked up at the sky, as I often do when I am feeling too much. The pain shot through me and I thought, “I still have to get groceries, go get groceries.”

I caught myself in a familiar thought pattern, one that had repeated in my mind a few thousand times over the past three years. Why can’t someone sacrifice everything to be the person I want? Why won’t they just push everything aside to be with me? I wanted someone to say, “I’m going to be what you need, regardless of my pain.” I could feel the toxicity of my thoughts, the warped and neglected place they came from. As I walked past the aisle with fifty different types of soy sauce, I knew what I was asking for. I was asking for a parent. I was asking for a parent who would sacrifice themselves for my well being, who would put their own desires aside to take care of me. Asking an adult partner to do that is asking someone to betray themselves.

Frozen steam buns, big packages of fresh herbs, five different types of mochi, and tending to another part of the little girl that’s so hungry for connection. The thing that I want isn’t okay to ask someone for, and in that moment I knew it, and what followed was a wave of peace.

I often follow the most taboo thought in my head. We all have them, I don’t hold mine back. I let myself watch the victim narratives, the unnecessary rage, the whiny brat, I don’t tell myself I shouldn’t be thinking this way, I don’t shame myself for the teen and child that live within me that throw temper tantrums.

I followed the immature desire to have someone betray themselves for me, and I found its roots in my body. Another symptom of neglect, another expectation that a parent should have fulfilled, and not a romantic partner. I’m replete with those.

By the time I made it to the instant noodles, my mind was quiet. I forgave myself and that trip to the Asian grocery store fundamentally changed me.

There is the practice I do in front of my altar. The deep breaths, the slow movement, the mantras, the breathwork, the self-pleasure practices, the silent meditation—all are excellent tools. But the most profound moments of self-awareness often occur in the midst of life's challenges, while shopping for groceries or walking the dog. Life itself is a practice, and human relationships are our greatest teachers.

The practices we do alone can only take us so far, and cannot be the only part of what is done to develop awareness. We have to live and love other people, we have to let ourselves get broken open and hurt, and infuse awareness into that space. We can’t turn away from our shame, the places in ourselves we find disgusting, that’s the place, that’s the spot that will teach us.

The sadness didn’t go away, nothing was fixed, but I knew myself a little better, and that is all I want, I want to be aware enough to cause less pain, I want to be aware enough that the broken places I’ve come from don’t take over. That’s enough for me.