About that writing thing....

Sometimes I sit up in bed propped by my three pillows, pen poised over paper, and nothing. Nothing happens. I forget words, I forget how to write, I forget what I know. Then I get shaky for a second, that it’s not true, I’m not a writer, I never was. All the words I ever wrote before this were a fluke, an aberration, or a gift that has now been taken away.

Then two things occur to me. One, I’m probably poised over the wrong notebook, it should be my journal instead. I need to download all the crap in my head. Heady crap is crap for sure. The second thing is, it is a gift. Everything is. No thought or word is original, or coming from me. That’s when I feel a sense of relief, and surrender. When there’s something to say I’ll be told what it is and then I’ll know to serve as a messenger. Messages are the fun unknowns. Where is the next one coming from? What will it be about? In the past, they’ve come from all over – a person, vanity license plates, ads on a billboard, crystal clarity from within, email signatures, or none of the above, straight to paper through ink through hand holding pen, bypassing all thought or consciousness. When this happens, I learn as much as I share. That’s how I know anyone can write. It’s the “becoming/being a writer” part that holds us up. Once, I found myself having this conversation on paper, with my self.

Write.
Write.
Write.
Write what??
I don’t know! Just start writing so we can find out.

For me, writing is a mirror that allows me to hold a greater degree of truth within myself. When I go days without journaling, I think I don’t need it anymore. When it becomes weeks, I’m sure of it. When it becomes months, the doors to a deeper consciousness start to close and I can’t quite make out their edges in the haze within. Ego shuts that door and I become disparate from words, which is the first lie. The voice of truth/Truth requires constant nourishment in order to keep talking. Not writing is not listening.

Writing is a language and a medium. It connects us to ourselves, other human beings, and the place of shared consciousness held by the SuperSoul. In yoga I’ve often heard “Don’t try to control your breathing. Let the breath breathe you.“ I offer the same for writing: Don’t try so hard to write perhaps, let the words write you.

The Guilty Places

Do you know where the guilty places live? I often find myself going there. A secret compartment, that feeds my sense of badness. I am unworthy. I fucked up. Maybe others know about my badness, but nobody knows about the torture room I reserve for Revisiting Badness Hours.

That place grew out of genuine regret. I actually did something that likely caused a little or a lot of harm. From that place of self-awareness, grew a regret, and then a “What if…”. And so that room was created labeled with a big sign of the Very Bad Thing I did. And now I can visit whenever I want.

I tend to drop by there when I’m feeling low. Why is that? Am I not low enough already? Red flag. When you’re feeling bad and you do something that you *know* is going to make you feel worse, you can choose. Choose to focus on the current bad, the past bad, or a compounded effect that feeds a narrative of my badness. This cocktail will really require much more than aspirin to recover. Or you can choose to pay attention to what’s happening in the present moment – “ I’m feeling regretful and now I want to give up and melt into a puddle of shame. “ Notice that feeling, and don’t give up on yourself. Noticing is an immediate act of kindness that can help keep you in the present, and prevent further self-harm.

The other thing is, this idea of “I fucked up” can be healthy to a certain extent of self-reflection, but can also border on or cross over into the land of Perfectionism. It’s true, none of us are perfect. And there’s no point trying to be “perfect” because that’s a subjective and mythical concept, definitely not a SMART goal. Try instead to have Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely goals that make a difference in your life or self that you can actualize.

Here’s the thing about the Guilty Places - I keep them alive by seeking them out. So what if I stopped visiting? I’m not suggesting locking up the door and throwing away the key. Then you just have a room full of junk lying around. It’s a waste of perfectly good real estate. I’m suggesting purging. It takes the will to get down with the dirty, dusty mess. Getting your hands greasy, your knees scraped, and looking at all your shit. And facing that nasty feeling – “How did I end up with all this crap?” But don’t, don’t go there, now you’re just creating another Guilty Place. Instead, look at what you’re looking at. And clean your mess up. It means sorting, filing, throwing, recycling, and learning how to do this better next time. It takes time, and energy – but not the draining kind of energy that it takes to keep from opening the door. The good kind of energy that comes from being productive. If you work through it, you will actually get through it. And it takes support and vulnerability. You might be afraid to let someone look inside that closet with you, but you’ll be relieved when you’re not alone in there with that musty smell. It’s also not their shit, so hopefully it doesn’t daunt them too much. Those who truly love you will not leave you there alone, once they know about that place.
And when that room is free, dusted, swept and mopped, you’ll breathe in cleaner air that will actually nourish you. You will have more room for to breathe because that place is inside you. It’s inside me too. I’m working on purging, one slow room at a time.

If you want to be a better person and not hurt someone else (again), then your chances of doing that are much higher if you stay in the present and give yourself opportunities to try new ways. And to pay attention when you start to cause harm. If you remain in the past and stuck in the Guilty Places, you are feeding a narrative of “I can’t be better than this. This is who I am” which is not helpful to any of us. Staying there makes you less able to notice now. So go on and do your work. Clean house. Let go. Forgive yourself and breathe more deeply. Do it for all of us because we need you to be present for what happens next – the possibility of joy lives on. Possibility always, and only, lives in the present.

Pain Blessings

Love hurts.

No pain, no gain.

I don’t believe in these kind of pain-normalizing idioms. BUT, I do believe that physical pain can serve as a blessing in disguise. It tells us what needs attention in our body, where, and usually an indication of how to fix it. It keeps us present.

The body hurts not because it has turned on you. How could it? It houses your soul. However, that is a responsibility the body-temple takes seriously. When we act, think, or feel in ways that are throwing us off balance, the body takes corrective action, instantly. We have a lot to learn from paying attention to our body’s needs and messages.

Take headaches, for example. For me, a headache is often the result of too much thinking, simply put. Being in my head, immersed in the past or tripping about the future, energy painfully concentrated in my brain. When I try dispersing that energy throughout my body, I notice my shallow breathing, stuck in the chest. I start to bring my attention back. I relax, and take deeper breaths. The pain eases.

Take deep breaths, for example. Breath nourishes life. When you breathe deeply you send oxygen into your gut. You are directly feeding your core, and the subconscious mind is then better able to communicate with you. The disguise part of the blessing is our spiritual challenge to understand and read the pain as a call for attention, an opportunity for growth, or simply to slow down and breathe.

Next time you experience pain, stop. Pay attention. Ask it why. Notice where. What do you intuitively do or reach for in order to ease the pain? When has this happened before? Notice your surroundings. Is this triggering something for you? Breathe. Your body is your friend, it loves you and wants you to treat it with love.

Love is all about care, attention , respect, mutuality, and trust. So listen to your body, respect its desires, and treat it with respect. Love doesn’t have to hurt :)

Presence

Presence

The present. A present. Being present. Presence.

Last week I heard Laura van Dernoot Lipsky talk in a workshop called “Secondary Trauma and How to Reconcile its Impact”. She draws from her book Trauma Stewardship, and I learned a lot! (Plus I WON a free copy of the book….with 20 other people who ‘won’ the same raffle, and 50 other people who got it for free, but I feel very special nevertheless – she said to notice your blessings, I noticed.) One of her many wise points that resonated deeply is about Bring Present.

“Bring to everything your Exquisite Quality of Presence!”

Me? I could have an Exquisite Quality of Presence? I have an Exquisite Quality of Presence? This was not a totally new concept to me, but there’s just something about the word “Exquisite”. It is a great word to describe what it is. And I love it when people say it well, with full attention and due respect. So anyways, Laura had me at Exquisite.

First of all, what does it mean to Be Present?

***Mind body spirit heart are all in the same place at the same time***

Here are the reasons I feel compelled to bring my EQoP –

WHOLENESS
That’s what mind body spirit integration feels like. My therapist describes this as everything internally and my body feeling “congruent”. When I am faced with a dilemma, I know exactly what I feel when I am coming from an integrated place. When I am experiencing joy, I am experiencing it at all levels which takes the joy to a whole new level. This builds resiliency too. When I am feeling pain, I experience that intensely too at all levels. That may not sound appealing, but if we have the capacity for it (or want to build it), then being present for it helps to fully experience and release it. By dissociating or being absent, we suppress the root cause or symptoms which is not helping to build our survival skills. Instead, it forms coping patterns which help us survive in the short run, and have long term side-effects. Pros and cons. You get to choose what to do when.

HEALING
"The more consciousness you bring into the body, the stronger the immune system becomes. It is as if every cell awakens and rejoices. The body loves your attention. It is also a potent form of self-healing." - Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now)

Eckhart really knows his stuff. He also talks about how being absent makes your body feel like an abandoned house – unwanted things creep in without our noticing and protection. This imagery was really powerful for me. I want my house to feel like a home. I want the place that I rest, the body that shelters me, to feel appreciated and nurtured in turn. I want to take better care of it, so that it can take better care of me.

GRATITUDE
"Be completely present for all things wonderful; If we are going to be present for life's suffering, we will need all the nourishment and rejuvenation that comes from life's beauty." Thich Nhat Hanh

Being present allows us to hold a more complete picture of ourselves, the various contexts we belong to, and the world at large. Yes, there is pain and suffering. But there is also beauty, love, and magic. Everything happens all the time, you get to choose what you want to notice and absorb more of.

EMBODY EXQUISITE
When I start to drift mentally, get lost in the past or caught up in the future (both places where I have no control), I sometimes catch myself and recall my Presence back into my body. When I do that, I notice myself throwing my shoulders back a little more, chin up, spine straightening, and an internal resiliency strengthening. Why? I’m not sure, something about the E word just demands that. And then I start to feel more Exquisite.

PRESENCE
It’s true, when I am present – mind body spirit all in one place – I feel a sense of peace and connection. A sense of calmness and depth, like a lake. Pema Chodron talks about giving ourselves that undiluted attention so that you can look at the bottom of the lake and see all the junk, instead of churning it up with thoughts/distraction. When you look at everything with clarity and compassion, you see Everything. Then you Know.

OPENNESS
Being present is about 100% experiencing, not recording impressions/interpretations of experience. When you can do that, you have much better chances of responding instead of reacting. Triggers are less triggery, buttons are not easy to push. You become somebody who offers spaciousness. That is likely closer to your best self, and allows the other person a great platform to do the same.

LETTING GO
Also integral to the idea of being present is letting go. The moment that has just passed, no matter how wonderful or how traumatic, has gone. Let it go. Also, then you can practice ‘aparigraha’ (from Yoga philosophy) or non-grasping. The next moment offers a new possibility.

The present is a gift. You have it Now. It’s up to you to be here to receive it.

Part 2: Ex-pression

So supposedly, ex-pression is the opposite of de-pression. Let’s examine.
Technically speaking, I can see it right away. Depress means to press down, to put energy into containing. And that visual also makes me think of internal pressure building up. To express is to externalize, to release, to let free. So it makes sense that that would de-escalate the internal pressure.

What lies beneath?

Expression requires a solid foundation – trust, validating yourself, letting go, and solid ground on which we take the risks to be out about who we are. Expressing more often helps us firm up the architecture. And trains our expressive muscles to develop. They really do need practice, like everything else in life. We practice things all the time, often without intention, often without action. But to reach the deepest potential of expression, we have to express often.

Depth of expression matters. When you release what’s on top, it only lightens the burden so much. It’s a good warm up though. And then, when you release the next layer, your breath is coming from a slightly deeper place. And then deeper, and deeper, and now you’re pretty close to your soul.

Expressiveness matters. The more authentic the expression gets, the more powerful, the more transformative the release. Sometimes you need to get creative, sometimes you need to get loud. Sometimes you need both at the same time. If it needs a picture, draw it. If it needs your voice, sing… scream… laugh. If it needs your body , dance… move….. run. If it needs space for a breakdown, clear the floor. If it needs movies to make you cry, rent them. Whatever you need, give yourself enough respect to ask, and then give yourself enough space to act. Act sooner than later because your body is housing your soul, it is safeguarding it. But it is also a pressure cooker with limited capacity. The more that our expression leaks out unintentionally, the lesser we will be able to hold on to ourselves with intention. We want to express, not explode.

For me, it’s writing (and dance. But dancing is a whole other story – we’ll come back to that one another time.) I am the closest to myself when I’m writing. When I feel what I’m feeling, I can write, I have to write. When I write, I understand more about myself. My mind comes back inside my body, the lake of my heart clears, becomes still, and I can feel the presence of my spirit. Often when I write, I don’t know what I “think” or “feel” at the beginning. But putting pen to paper allows a deeper honesty to emerge that bypasses the mind. It is more pure, and less afraid. It is an essence that comes through, evading permission, evading filters, and breezing out in pure freedom. It shows me more of who I am, and gives me comfort because the soul knows so much better than the mind.

Expression is not a showcase of talents, or it doesn’t have to be unless performing is a part of your authentic expression. It is a commitment to keep yourself open as a channel, for things that move in to have a safe and timely way to move out, leaving no toxic residues. Then we can be loose, limber, relaxed in our bodies. This relaxed adaptability has resilience in its calmness, and brings us back to our present, our presence. Expressing helps us go beyond surviving, to being more alive.

Part 1: De-pression

I read in this book called “Living Juicy: Daily Morsels for Your Creative Soul” by SARK that De-pression is the opposite of Ex-pression. Well, that left an Im-pression. Let’s investigate. This is part 1, looking at Depression.

This is what my intermingled Stress, Anxiety and Depression (notice that acronym? S.A.D.) looks like –

Waking up - I wake up, exhausted, not wanting to get out of bed, dreading the day.

Joyless - I drag myself out of bed because I have to. There’s work to be done. It feels joyless.

Overwhelm - There’s so much to be done. I’m overwhelmed looking at it, thinking about it.

Decision-making - It’s so hard to figure out what I should do first. I spend a lot of time organizing what needs to be done, but it takes forever because as I make the unending list, I keep going off on tangents trying to do easy/quick bits and pieces here and there, without accomplishing anything or really prioritizing.

Stress - By lunchtime, I’m dejected at the lack of progress, and now fewer hours to do the same amount. Stress level heightens.

Nutrition - So I delay lunch so I can “do something”, now I’m not eating on time, and probably eating crap. Feeling more tired and under-nourished as a result.

Life balance - In this overwhelming day, I cannot even get back to my therapist or schedule acupuncture. Let’s not even talk about yoga, or vitamins, or getting my car fixed. It’s working, the accident didn’t damage anything inside (self-diagnosed, since I haven’t gotten it inspected yet).

Getting by - The week drags on and every day I feel like I worked hard, did not get enough done, so must work harder the next day, and so I leave work with a tired sense and “tomorrow will be different”. But I don’t quite believe it anymore.

Connections - Now I look at my “Personal - Things to do” list and my heart sinks. I forgot to keep my phone date in the tight window between leaving work and driving to my next appointment. Yikes – I’m a bad friend too.

Consumed - The family and friends I am still regularly talking to – all they hear about is me being stressed or tired. Or when I’m really depressed – they don’t hear from me at all.

Self-judgment - And this whole time, I’m either venting or isolating, but either way I’m judging myself for being consumed with my stress, or for not responding enough, on time, or being really present.

Sleep - At some point of the night, probably 2 hours later than I should have, I crawl into bed to sleep. Or I should say, attempt to sleep. Now I’m stressing about the fact that I will only get 6.5 hours of sleep and I know I really need 8.5, every night – not to overcompensate on the weekend.

Body - Now I really feel the pain too. My lower back is killing me. I cannot get comfortable, forget pain-free. The frustration is overwhelming. My long day of unhappy uncomfortable postures is catching up.

Rest - I fall asleep at some restless point, wake up a couple more times in pain, too early for my alarm.

Groundhog Day - And when my alarm finally rings in the morning, I groggily try to open my eyes, unhappy about the rest-less night, and already tired at the thought of the long day ahead. A dreary deja-vu.

The motivation behind telling this story is – I have learned to recognize My Depression. It helps. And when you recognize it as Depression, you can begin to see it as an entity with a force of its own.

You’re still depressed, which means your energy is still zapped and the mind is a muddy lake. But now you can see the depression as the fog hanging low above the water. It is confusing things and making it hard to see/think clearly. But the fact that you can see it as fog means it is separate – it is not You. It is in you, with you, over you, on you. It is something you carry around, that is attached, sometimes when we don’t even know it. It talks. It talks all the time. Listening to it is frightening and exhausting. But hearing it makes me understand “It” as a Thing that I am dealing with. I can’t always switch it off – the voice that tells me things are hopeless and will never change, that I will not get anything I dream of or hope for, that I should just give up. It tells me it’s okay to eat popcorn for dinner because I have it so bad, that I can let go a little more. So I do eat the popcorn dinner, but don’t quite forgive myself for it - self- hate to garnish the lack of nutrition, ensuring I do not have the energy to shift things.

Depression plays on a set of circumstances bringing you down, AND, I say this next thing with ultimate compassion - it also furthers a victim identity. It makes us feel powerless, and then we become attached to the idea that bad things are always happening to us and we have no control or ability to change things. It gives us some relief – a reason to stop working so hard. So we stop trying. It feels like ‘letting go’, but really it’s giving up.

My friend gita once said “Sometimes its fucking radical that I get out of bed and have my day”. I agree, it really feels like that sometimes. And when it does, I just admire myself for being so fucking brave. And I treat myself, by writing about it so I can confess “I’m hurting. I need help”. That is more like letting go.

Once that happens, healing is inevitable.

Confessions

“ I have something to tell you.”

Who doesn’t love a story that begins with that sentence? I realized I love saying it as much as I love hearing it. Why? Because it is a doorway. Conversations are like mazes, you begin somewhere, start talking, start walking, feel your way around and end up somewhere. Good conversations follow many different paths through the maze, each one becoming a discovery, a shared exploration. So when we want to enter a pathway that feels more unknown, maybe a little scary, we preface it by saying certain things.

I’ve been wanting to tell you something.

I have a confession to make.

We need to talk.

There’s usually a pause, then an intent silence, when both people’s attention levels rise, and now there’s equilibrium, safety, trust. It’s a warning and a question and a request – “will you go here with me? Is it okay for me to go here? Will you really listen? Please listen carefully, gently. Please hold me with care as I make myself vulnerable.”

Once someone said the prefacing statement to me like this.

“I’ll tell you something. You won’t judge me.”

The part I really loved was “you won’t judge me.” Because it wasn’t an assessment, it was an order. She needed that in order to proceed with being honest, and she demanded it. I wish I knew how to do that more often.

So what kinds of things do people usually confess about?

Family. Love. Sex. Fear. Money. Guilt. Harm. Pain. Addiction. Abuse ….

I’m sure the list is endless. But in general, it’s Things we are ashamed of, traumatized by, afraid of, or embarrassed by. So then, why confess?

Cons

Judgement, vulnerability, risk, isolation, exclusion, backlash, violence, violation of confidentiality, misheard, misunderstood, loss.

Pros

* Letting go – whatever happens next happens.

* Being authentic - your whole self - speaking the truth, and being accepted for all of it, not

despite it.

* Risk being worth it –best case scenario, now you have positive reinforcement of trust.

* Giving someone an opportunity to – grow, explain, step up, transform the situation.

* HEALING – there’s nothing like it. the naming of Things is good for us. Of pain and joy. It rises up and out of our bodies, and is released – leaving us with a lighter burden to carry.

Isn’t that liberation? The ability to be yourself. The ability to see yourself as all that you are and still respect yourself. It doesn’t mean you are perfect, or need to become perfect. If you believe that, you will hold the same mirror to others – of expecting perfection – and I promise that they will ‘fail’ you. But what if everyone just tried to be less harmful, more loving? I would just love you for trying. The only reason or reward for holding on to perfection is to be better than others, in order to be able to ask that of others. And that, I learned from Cheri Huber’s “There Is Nothing Wrong With You” book, is a form of self-hate. It is a non-acceptance of your current self. Until you can relax into who you are, you cannot be “non-judgmental” of yourself or others.

All this to say, I recommend that you take a deep breath, make a confession, and then call your most trusted hotline to debrief! Here are some sample ways to begin –

“Dear Diary…”

“I realized something today…”

“guess what?!”

“whenever I look back, I really wish I hadn’t done that…”

“i’m not sure about this”

“I’m afraid that I will…”

“I’m afraid that you might…”

“I am sorry”

“I am hurting”

“I’m not happy”

“you’re not happy”

“ I think my relationship to __X__ is not great”

“I’m concerned about your relationship to ___Y___”

Ultimately, confessing is about being honest, authentic, and self-aware – hopefully in an environment of compassion. It requires trust and it deepens relationships. Until we start confessing, we cannot start dealing with what is. And seeing the very real possibilities of how to move from here. My confession for today is that I am learning to be more honest. I usually prioritize “niceness” or “safety” over truth, sometimes hard truths to face or to disclose. But then it’s not nice or safe to be inauthentic. And I trust my intentions and my compassion enough to continue taking more risks.

Confessions really are like doorways. You don’t know what path or room you’re entering, but that’s the risk and the opportunity.

Playlists

The other day I was cooking and feeling too busy/lazy to create a music playlist so I did this really risky thing - I put it on random shuffle! And then the most amazing thing happened. I learned something from it. Part of the joy of being a training junkie is that I learn something from most things. So here's what happened.

No attachment or aversion (as I learned from yoga). I didn't know what was on the list, so I wasn't waiting for a particular favorite song. Which meant, I wasn't waiting. I was just listening to what was playing, and appreciating it in the moment, because it was a surprise. Being present, another something I am TRYING to learn, and is constantly reinforced in yoga (yogis would never say rein'force', gentle loving encouragement is more like it). Also, when a song came on that I (thought I) disliked, I wasn't prepared so my 'dislike antenna' was down. So when it came on, I could actually listen to that too, and appreciate it. For a second, I had an impulse to skip ahead. But here was an opportunity to practice being open - I checked myself and let go of control. I decided to hear the song out. What did it have to say to me? And I heard whatever messages I was meant to, they surprised me, maybe resonated with my mood, maybe answered a question, and then I knew it was okay to let go and play music on shuffle. With this neutrality restored, lack of anticipation or dislike, there is no energy wasted in managing the situation to make it better. Not trying to make things better = contentment. I just enjoyed the whole listening to music while cooking experience so much more. That's life?

But of course, then there's the pleasure of creating a favorites list. It's magic. Pleasure of anticipation + a guaranteed positive outcome. Can't beat that. For example, a recent GC xmas staycation - good friends, good food, larry, dance movie - that is an ultimate highlights package. Who doesn't want that once in a while? Can't overdo it though, or it loses its charm. Plus it takes more/better to get the same high.

So what do you do if the playlist sucks? You're on a roadtrip for work, so it's a carpool situation where the driver is the DJ (duh!) and you are with coworkers you don't know very well, but they seem 'nice'. You don't like any of the songs, but each one sucks more than the previous one, you can't change the station, nobody brought CDs, and you are pissed off. You keep hoping the next song will be better but it just does not happen.

No control.

Frustration.

"Why me?"

Annoyed with others who seem to like the music, or are plugged into their own headphones/iTunes situation, what do you do? Okay, here are some options. You can -

* Switch off. Let your mind shut everything and everyone out. Relax into nothingness.

* Sleep. Maybe some MoonDrops could help?

* Change stations mentally. Think about what you would rather be listening to, or the fun things you'll do once you get out of this annoying carpool.

* Talk to one of the other passengers about something else, to distract yourself.

* Start complaining loudly about how the music sucks. Ultimately the driver feels bad enough that she changes the station.

* Call a friend not in the car. It's obnoxious for other people but you can take care of yourself. You prefer your known friend (attachment) to this group of carpool strangers who have bad taste in music (aversion). Also, you got to catch up with an old friend so you feel warm and fuzzy about reconnecting, but you lost an opportunity to connect with new people, to discover.

* Joke about how the music is not to your taste. You might find some other people in the car agreeing with you, and some disagreeing. Now there are those you identify with, and those you disidentify with ("other" from) - community of sorts.

Before you know it, or maybe you felt each and every second, or maybe you spent all the time evaluating/trying out the various options - the ride is over. You are now in a position to choose your own music. Happiness is within reach again.

Any other ideas for how you might navigate that bad-music-roadtrip?