The beloved children’s book, “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” written by Michael Rosen and whimsically illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, has been a poignant reminder to me through many stages, and I often reference it while teaching.
Let me give you a brief synopsis.
An adventuresome family of 6 (Four older siblings, little toddler and doggie) decide to go on a bear hunt! They set out ostensibly to hunt a bear and encounter all kinds of interesting environments along the way. In the beginning, it is rather fun and benign as they traipse through long grasses, rivers and a bit of mud, but then they are confronted with dark forests and snowstorms!
Eventually, they get to the cave and discover an actual bear, which immediately sends them into a tizzy and they high tail it out of there, going back through all the aforementioned environments. Of course, the bear is following them home now. They get home, make it safely inside and run upstairs, only to realize they forgot to shut the door (sound familiar?) Anyway, they quickly run back down, shut the door before the bear enters and make it upstairs safely under the bedcovers, declaring that they are not going on another bear hunt again. Adorable. Especially when read/chanted in rhythm with repetition and movements…it’s loads of fun and is still one of my kids’ favorites.
There are many amazing parts, especially the illustrations, and particularly the contrast between the older siblings’ and the youngest child’s perspective as the day goes on. Hilarious and relatable. However, the greatest lesson to me, besides not setting out on a mission you don’t actually want to achieve, is the following refrain as they approach each obstacle:
“We can’t go over it.
We can’t go under it.
Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”
What wisdom. This is life. With the exception of when they actually confronted the bear, this family bravely went through it. Each and every obstacle. There are just some things we can’t get around. We can’t go over them. We can’t go under them.
When we are experiencing pain or difficulty in life, we often turn to something to distract us from our unpleasant experience, whether that is food, drink, medicine, television, social media, or some other habit to help us escape. Not all habits are that bad, but what is not great is our desire to escape our reality. Look, I’m a big proponent of escaping a little bit. By that I mean, in small doses, especially upon receiving difficult news, we may need to hibernate and not deal immediately. This is a protective instinct and can help us in the processing of difficulties by separating you with the cushion of some time. However, the problem remains waiting for you.
Ultimately, if we want to come out the other side, at some point, we have to go through it.
That means dusting yourself off and facing your problems. In the bear hunt of my life, I’ve had some moments that were mild stumbles in the woods, and other times that felt like being immersed in a swirling, whirling snowstorm. After an already long and tiring hike. Without any protective gear. I imagine that there are several people in the past year that have felt like they’ve encountered one obstacle after the other, and just when they are at their weariest and coldest, they then encounter a bear. Most of us aren’t looking for a bear, so it particularly sucks to find one. In the end of the story, this family makes a pretty sane decision to cut their losses and leave, though my kids often feel sorry for the bear who is depicted as sad and lonely as he wanders back to his cave by himself at the end of the story.
I’ve referenced this book and this particular lesson many times in my teaching. So often people come to yoga for the first time looking for help with pain, injury, disease…for some help with physical or emotional healing. Yoga is an excellent resource, not just for the innumerable physical benefits, but because it teaches us how to be with our pain. How to learn from it. How to face life’s vicissitudes with equanimity and forbearance (pun intended). This has been my personal experience and the experience of so many of my students. It is simply a tool that penetrates all aspects of ourselves and offers both a plan of action and a sense of peace.
As humans, we need both sides of this coin when coping with difficulties: we need both action and acceptance.
Look, it’s just a kid’s story from 1989, with an impressive lack of helicopter parenting going on (perhaps another lesson here?). But, I have often thought, while chanting “oh no! we’ve got to go through it!” sometimes with a tear in my eye, that yes, sometimes we’ve just got to go through it. And, if you have to go through it, it’s awfully nice to have your family and your dog by your side. And to have a home to come back to, with a big bed that, at the end of the day, you can pull the covers up over your head and have a snuggle with your loved ones.