Category Archives: compassion

Getting Real with Gratitude

Posted on by
Reply

Today I’m sharing a note that the writer/teacher/healer Oriah Mountain Dreamer posted on Facebook, which one of my friends shared. I am grateful to have come across this (thanks, Victoria), because this season, leaving a job sooner than expected, I have a lot of emotions to acknowledge and honor.

Still, I am mostly grateful today.

Taking the “Should” Out of Giving Thanks

When I was a child being thankful was more about manners than real appreciation. When Aunt Lucy insisted that my brother and I take the candies she’d dredged up from the bottom of her purse covered in lint and other unsavoury and unidentifiable bits, my mother prodded us with a hasty, “What do you say?”

We of course responded on cue, our small voices chanting, “Thank you,” with compliance if not enthusiasm. We were not expected to enjoy the candies. We were not permitted to refuse them. We were expected to express thanks.

The confusing messages about gratitude didn’t stop there. Growing up, if I tried to get up from the supper table without finishing the peas that had been put on my plate (you know the ones – pale green, from the can and simmered for twenty minutes to finish off any texture or taste that might have survived the canning process) my mother would call me back with an admonishment about starving children on other continents who would be grateful to eat the peas I did not want. Once – and only once – I suggested that the offending vegetables should be shipped to those who could fully appreciate them.

Then there was the general principle of gratitude that was presented as one of a long list of “shoulds” emphasized if we wanted or asked for something. We should be grateful for what we have. We should be grateful that we are not starving, that bombs are not falling on our houses, that we have a long list of freedoms that others in the world do not have.

Expressions of gratitude that are compelled by rules are often reduced to empty gestures devoid of real appreciation. And the “shoulds” around gratitude don’t stop with childhood. Just today I’ve read two blogs that, in preparation for the American Thanksgiving, explicitly tell readers how and why they “should” be grateful. It’s not that I don’t think that cultivating gratitude can’t be done or that it isn’t a good idea. I just have doubts about our ability to experience the full joy of appreciation on demand.

Once, years ago, when I confessed to a therapist that I was disappointed – mostly with myself and some of what I had and had not done in my life – he cut me off before I could finish the sentence. “Well,” he said, “you know what the antidote for disappointment is, don’t you?” I waited. “Gratitude,” he said with a kind of fierce conviction. “Count your blessings. Be grateful, and you won’t be disappointed!” Feeling chastised I never brought my sense of disappointment to him again.

Counselling individuals who are often going through difficult times of confusion, ill health, financial crisis, divorce or other major losses, the statement I hear most often in initial sessions is: “I know I shouldn’t be feeling this sad (or angry or confused or scared.) I know I should feel grateful for what I do have. . . .” It’s not that people are unaware of those things of value in their lives. It’s not even that they aren’t grateful for caring family, or friends, or the job or home or health they may have. It’s that something else – some painful circumstance or choice or loss – is calling for their attention at the moment. And, if they feel they do not have the right to turn their attention to that pain because they “should” be grateful, they can neither fully appreciate what they do have nor take care of the painful inner or outer situation that needs tending.

Developing the habit of courteously acknowledging the things others do for us or offer to us is a good thing. It helps us live side by side. And, if I slow down and really see the other, I can put my heart into even simple words of common courtesy and convey real appreciation. Similarly, setting aside time on a regular basis – daily, weekly, and/or once a year – to do prayers or practices that acknowledge what is good in our lives can surely increase our ability to appreciate what life has provided. But, like all spiritual practises, if the intent has been lost in the rules, if we find ourselves having to deny the reality of the moment to try to feel something we think we “should” be feeling instead – it won’t work. Like most spiritual practises that bring us deeper into life this is not an “either/or.” It’s an “and/but.” It’s not – either I am grateful for my home or I am discouraged by my health. Some days it’s – I am discouraged about my health and I am deeply grateful to have a safe, comfortable place to live and rest.

Because the thing I am most grateful for, that aspect of life that I have learned to appreciate most deeply, is that it is large enough to hold it all. We do not need to wait until everything is perfect in the world or our lives before we make room for deep gratitude for being alive today. But we also do not need to deny the pain or confusion or despair that may be present in this moment in order to be deeply grateful for the life we have been given. Life can hold it all, can hold us all. And for this I am deeply grateful.

Article: This Is Your Brain on Metaphors

Posted on by
Reply

I found this article in the New York Times fascinating, particularly the information about how the brain confuses the literal and figurative.

Consider an animal (including a human) that has started eating some rotten, fetid, disgusting food. As a result, neurons in an area of the brain called the insula will activate. Gustatory disgust. Smell the same awful food, and the insula activates as well. Think about what might count as a disgusting food (say, taking a bite out of a struggling cockroach). Same thing.

Now read in the newspaper about a saintly old widow who had her home foreclosed by a sleazy mortgage company, her medical insurance canceled on flimsy grounds, and got a lousy, exploitative offer at the pawn shop where she tried to hock her kidney dialysis machine. You sit there thinking, those bastards, those people are scum, they’re worse than maggots, they make me want to puke … and your insula activates. Think about something shameful and rotten that you once did … same thing. Not only does the insula “do” sensory disgust; it does moral disgust as well. Because the two are so viscerally similar. When we evolved the capacity to be disgusted by moral failures, we didn’t evolve a new brain region to handle it. Instead, the insula expanded its portfolio.

Not only does the brain fail to distinguish rotten food from rotten behavior, it also fails to distinguish between being in need of a bath and dirty doings:

Another truly interesting domain in which the brain confuses the literal and metaphorical is cleanliness. In a remarkable study, Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto and Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University demonstrated how the brain has trouble distinguishing between being a dirty scoundrel and being in need of a bath. Volunteers were asked to recall either a moral or immoral act in their past. Afterward, as a token of appreciation, Zhong and Liljenquist offered the volunteers a choice between the gift of a pencil or of a package of antiseptic wipes. And the folks who had just wallowed in their ethical failures were more likely to go for the wipes. In the next study, volunteers were told to recall an immoral act of theirs. Afterward, subjects either did or did not have the opportunity to clean their hands. Those who were able to wash were less likely to respond to a request for help (that the experimenters had set up) that came shortly afterward. Apparently, Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate weren’t the only ones to metaphorically absolve their sins by washing their hands.

And — get this — holding a warm drink affects judging personalities as warmer!

Another example of how the brain links the literal and the metaphorical comes from a study by Lawrence Williams of the University of Colorado and John Bargh of Yale. Volunteers would meet one of the experimenters, believing that they would be starting the experiment shortly. In reality, the experiment began when the experimenter, seemingly struggling with an armful of folders, asks the volunteer to briefly hold their coffee. As the key experimental manipulation, the coffee was either hot or iced. Subjects then read a description of some individual, and those who had held the warmer cup tended to rate the individual as having a warmer personality, with no change in ratings of other attributes.

The author goes on to talk about what really ends bloodshed and creates peace. Highly recommended reading!

The joy of being a Five

Posted on by
Reply

I finally figured something out, something that has been fishy for a long time where I work, that no one will speak openly about, like a shameful family secret.

I have wracked my brain trying to figure out what makes sense about this situation, which has been rather crazy-making.

I went into a theta state listening to a new CD, and I got an image of being in a rowboat out on the water, and the large and long arms of a woman who remained submerged reached up and grabbed control of the boat.

Oh, and when the other chief instigator of crazy-making, the one who is not submerged but deeply connected with long-armed woman’s energy, came into my office to say hello, I just happened to be watching this hilarious video.

The image and that “coincidence” tell me a story about what’s really going on.

I’m going to use this blog post to address this shadowy, long-armed woman. Everyone else who reads it, please pray for the most wounded of the two women to find peace. We will work on the other one later.

I know who you are, and it is time for you to completely let go. Way past time. This is no way to be living your life, through someone else.

I am sorry that you are in so much emotional pain and carry such a great need to control things. There must be a great well of tender vulnerability underneath that furious need to control others.

Your path to true happiness — and it is as available to you as to anyone else — lies in fully acknowledging your vulnerability and your fear.

Life is short, time passes quickly, and with it our only chance. Soften.

Let go of the need to control, let down your guard, and heal your heart.

By doing this, amazingly, you become able to lovingly protect yourself, tend to your own life, and become the magnanimous, self-surrendering, courageous, forgiving person that you really are.

You can find the help you need.

Best wishes to you. Now go your own way.

The Egg, a story by Andy Weir

Posted on by
Reply

I’m sharing a story that I came across on Facebook and then googled to find the original source. Please skip if you’ve read it.

I like this story for the way it reframes everything about who we really are and why we’re here. If you read this and behave as if it were true, what will that do for you? What will that do for others you encounter on your life’s journey?

I invite you to try it on, and if you don’t like it or it’s not useful, go back to your old beliefs!

Thank you, Andy Weir, for writing and sharing this story.

The Egg

By: Andy Weir

 

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What…what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a…a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I…I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” you asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you God?” you asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids…my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the Almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” you asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh, lots. Lots and lots. And into lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” you said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well, it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” you said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” you asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

 

Trauma release heavy heart

Posted on by
2

Someone found this blog using those search words.

No doubt they found my post on trauma releasing exercises, from David Berceli’s book The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process. That post did not specifically address a heavy heart. I’m not sure if the exercises would help. They are designed more to help you heal from a terrifying fight-flight-or-freeze situation, and from chronic stress and deep patterns of holding tension in the body. But I don’t know.

If you find me again, this is for you. Heartbreak can feel traumatic. I know. I’ve been there several times.

In my experience, heavy hearts take time to heal. Give yourself time and be as kind to yourself as possible. Let trusted others know your heart feels heavy and allow them to be kind to you too.

A heavy heart led me to meditation. I tried to avoid the pain. It didn’t work. What was left was facing it. Because when your heart is really heavy, you want to feel some emotional movement. Heaviness has tremendous gravity. You don’t want to feel stuck with a heavy heart.

I don’t know, but I suspect you will move through this. You are resourceful enough to be looking for help, looking for change.

When I sat with my heavy heart and just faced it — noticed where in my body I felt it, qualities of the feeling, finding words to describe it — I noticed there was more to me than just my heavy heart. That lightened the load, began to put some space around my heavy heart.

Here are some other suggestions:

You can be just a little bit grateful that you are feeling this because it means you have an active, alive heart center. Some people don’t. You are responsive to life, which is sometimes heartbreaking.

You are also not alone. At any given moment, a million people and more in this world have heavy hearts. Even if every single one of them has retreated into their bedroom, you have a lot of company! Connect with them psychically. Be curious about them.

You can google and learn how to do EFT. You can take the homeopathic remedy Ignatia Amara. You can watch sad movies and cry, or just cry — tears are healing.

There is no instant cure. It takes time.

You can make a plan to do one kind thing for another person. Help a single mom have some private time by taking the kids out to a park. Help a homebound senior with groceries or cooking. There are thousands of nonprofits who need volunteers — in prisons, homeless shelters, food banks, children — there is simply no end to it, unfortunately.

And I don’t think it would hurt to do the trauma releasing exercises.

“Dear God, I’m in trouble” moments

Posted on by
2

I’m remembering this scene from the movie Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen/read it yet and want to preserve your innocence, stop reading now.

It came at a point when the main character — Julia Roberts playing Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote the book the film was based on — was recognizing that she wasn’t happy in her marriage and in her life. She looked around and felt like she had no reason to be unhappy — she had it made by certain standards. A nice cushy life, a good man for a husband, friends, professional success, a nice home.

The fact remained — she was unhappy. Unlike her friends blissing out about the arrival of their long-desired baby, she didn’t dream of having a family. She kept a folder of travel destinations.

Then Liz/Julia has her “dear God, I’m in trouble” scene. It is the middle of the night. Her husband is asleep in another room. She’s as alone as she has ever been. She may have been crying.

She kneels, tentatively places her hands in prayer position, and whispers that line to a God she has neglected and disregarded. “Dear God, I’m in big trouble.”

At least that’s how I remember the scene. I thought it was well-played. How often do we get to witness these moments in others’ lives?

Dear God, I’m in big trouble. That thought surfaced into my conscious mind during a time of too-much-busyness several years ago. An inkling that I wasn’t happy managed to get through during a brief pause. Something was wrong, or maybe not wrong, just not right.

I had no idea what to do with that piece of information. I also became aware that I was exhausted.

I had what I believed was a good relationship with a good man. I had a good steady job, volunteered with a nonprofit helping women in prison, and was also was editing an anthology of women’s writing. I owned a charming vintage house close to downtown in an up-and-coming creative Austin neighborhood. I had spent a couple of years processing my major childhood trauma and felt most of it was behind me.

In some ways, I thought I had (finally) arrived.

Yet here was news of difference, an inner voice (was it me?) whispering to God: I’m in trouble. This isn’t my right life.

Did I have any idea what my right life was? No! It was just not the life I was living. Did I do anything about it? No. I had no clue what to do.

And shortly after that, the shit hit the fan in my relationship, I resigned from my volunteer work, and I hunkered down, feeling like a mess.

The Universe did for me what I couldn’t do for myself.

I withdrew more and more from the world and started meditating. I discovered that although I was in emotional pain, I was bigger than that. Much bigger.

That was my India.

It became clear that I needed to focus on taking care of my health. I got tested for food sensitivities and learned not only that I had too much candida, but also that I was sensitive to wheat, among a dozen other things.

I cleared the excess candida by rigorously following the prescribed diet. I learned to avoid wheat, and I felt so damn much better getting it out of my diet. (In hindsight, it was probably from glyphosate that had been sprayed on non-organic wheat. I was not sensitive to gluten.)

That was my Rome. Instead of stuffing my face and having to buy bigger jeans, I lost weight, but I felt so much better.

I have spent time on Maui twice since then, so maybe Maui is my Bali. II have plenty of shamans available, thank you very much. I’m still waiting for my Javier Bardem to appear.

All of that started several years ago, in 2007.

In hindsight, I recognize that overworking, overdoing, is one of the ways I have distracted myself from talking to God, higher power, Spirit, Source.

I recognize that that voice that talks to God is full of innocence and beauty and should never be ignored.

I recognize that when I am stuck, the Universe shifts to unstick me…and I don’t always have to wait for the Universe — I can create shifts myself, or at least the shifts I think I need…and find out later if they took me closer to God and “my right life.”

in a way, it’s like sailing, which is constant course-correcting.

I recognize that one of the ways to hear that voice more often, to get more familiar with it, to converse with it, is to make a habit of sitting in silence every day so I can hear it. Even if it’s just 10 minutes, that is time well spent, because it could be all that helps me be more centered in my authentic life.

Update: It’s 2023. I went through another big shift in late 2010, which led to me selling my house and starting career change from technical writer to bodyworker, and although there have been a few bumps in the road since then, I’m doing my right livelihood.

I’m aware that another shift is underway. It’s not exactly clear yet, but daily sitting in silence as well as asking for help from my higher self and feeling gratitude for all that is right in my life are walking me through this part of my journey.

So, what do you blame your good fortune on?

Posted on by
Reply

My friend Katie has been playing with the concept, “What’s your excuse?” using her big mind. She asks:

What’s your “excuse” for making real the compassionate/wildly loving/identity changing/unrealistically abundant goals and dreams you have?

It seems we can all easily access lots of excuses for why we are the way we are (poor me), why others are the way they are (poor them), why we failed at something, why we’re not living at our full potential and capacity. Bad parents, childhood trauma, family history, DNA, born that way, hard-wired, didn’t know any better, lacking something.

Not that those experiences have no consequence, but how far is that bad parents excuse going to take you? How long will it last? What will it take for you to stop making it?

What if those bad parents provided exactly the life experience you needed to discern parenting skill levels in others and perhaps even become an awesome parent yourself?

What if your childhood trauma provided you with the exact amount of suffering you needed to develop a highly compassionate heart?

What if that trauma prompted you later to try to find out who you would have been had that trauma not occurred?

What if you realized the trauma had moved you in a direction you would not otherwise have taken, and the full glory of your existence included trauma and recovery?

What are your excuses for your misfortunes and for your good fortunes?

Katie responded to her own question thusly:

 Here are some of my excuses for greatness/expansion: Having the three best parents imaginable, seeing the green flash on the ocean as a teenager, my best friends, standing on top of Haleakala at sunrise and sunset 3 days in a row, the existence of the book The Structure of Delight, Spider Joe’s celestial spider pictures, the fact that I could go on and on 🙂

We have a mutual friend who “blames” her wonderfulness on the fact that she was energetically zapped by 12 Peruvian shamans! I like that one a lot.

I enjoy believing that all of you wonderful friends (and friends I haven’t met yet) have created a wonderful world just for me to live in and appreciate.

In fact, there’s so much to appreciate, I currently narrow it down to just the miraculous blue sky of this planet, and all the wonders it holds — stars, constellations, meteor showers, the Milky Way, cloudscapes, thunderstorms, lightning, sunrises and sunsets, moonrises and moonsets, rainbows, green flashes, oh yeah. And space, spaciousness, the spaces between things.

Thank you, my friends, for showing this to me, for creating it, for letting me play.

Here’s an experiment. Every time you notice yourself blaming something or someone and feel the contractiveness associated with that activity, pause. Take a moment. Breathe. Tell yourself:

This is a story I made up.

Then find a more creative story, a funnier story, a fresher story.

No one owns “the truth,” but you own your truth. Life is more delicious with really good stories.

Wonders of silence

Posted on by
3

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us to see their own images and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even a fiercer life because of our silence. ~ William Butler Yeats

I love this quote. Ran across it in a Yoga Journal post entitled Surrendering to Silence (http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/907?utm_source=Wisdom&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=Wisdom), by Catherine Ingram.

Reminds me of a passage in one of Martin Prechtel’s tales of living in a Mayan village where he says that the human mind makes a grinding sound that animals can hear, so that when we’re out walking in nature, they hear us coming and move away from us.

Stilling the mind can be learned with practice. Then, nature approaches. Butterflies, birds, and other creatures no longer flee.

Some would say we have become a vehicle that allows the universe to know and appreciate itself.

Pain and pleasure, pleasure and pain — side effects of living

Posted on by
Reply

Last month I woke one day with an aching leg and posted on whether pain is necessary for growth. A fellow yogi and blogger, Ben Ralston, commented that sometimes these issues can be due to birth trauma and/or inherited (“the family pattern”).

I was born prematurely, 7 weeks early and weighing 4.1 pounds, and my father walked with a limp due to having been born with a club foot that was straightened, but the treatment shortened his leg. Perhaps I picked up that energy pattern.

I want to explore these possibilities for healing.

Patrice, my acupuncturist, explained that my leg pain that day, not long after chiropractic work, signified a “crisis day” of my body’s moving toward being more aligned. Crisis day is when you think something is wrong, but you’re actually moving through a dysfunctional pattern to a new place that is more right than before.

She later did myofascial release work on my leg, and it feels great now.

Patrice has promised me a rebirthing session next time we work together. I will report on my rebirthing experience here.

Pain is a catalyst. Sometimes we let things go until the pain becomes great enough to change (laziness). And sometimes we let things go because we don’t know how to change course (ignorance). It seems that we may encounter pain (awareness), and only in hindsight understand that we were on a path that led to it (insight).

We may have to step in that hole several times (pattern) before understanding where we first went off course (great mindfulness), thus being able to avoid it the next time (learning) and from then on (mastery).

Life often does include “getting hit in the head with a 2×4,” as an old mentor used to say. When that unexpected, unwanted event happens, you can’t help but change direction. It changes your direction for you. Sometimes life is like that (more often when you’re young, have you noticed?).

The sweet trick is changing direction before the 2×4 looms large. And that’s being motivated to move toward pleasure.

Usually when we first experience a new pleasure, we are open to our experience, feel the pleasure, and then want more of that. We mark and savor pleasurable experiences in our memories. We hope and maybe plan to encounter it again (expectation).

Just remember. Smelling roses, newly mown grass in the spring, the approach of a storm, the scent of someone you love.

Tasting water when thirsty, the satisfaction of sweetness, a surprising new combination of tastes like watermelon and lime.

Feeling a caress, releasing muscle tension, the intensity of orgasm, air currents against your skin.

Hearing a particular tune, a whisper, a dog barking in the distance, crickets.

Seeing a sunrise, a double rainbow, catching someone’s eye, a funny sign.

Add your pleasurable memories here.

There are other pleasurable experiences in unnamed senses as well.

Experiences like these are catalysts for appreciation of this life, for gratitude. Each experience of pleasure may signify truly being here now, being in the right place at the right time, living your right life.

And they happen in the moment.

It’s when pleasure becomes the point, when we crave it, when we build our lives around it, that things get complicated. 

It’s hard to live without expecting to live another day. Expectation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When is it “appropriate”? When is it useful?

It may be that letting go of expectation only really happens when we are present in the moment, experiencing life as it is.

That’s what meditation is. A practice to train yourself to experience life as it is.

What a fine line, to enjoy pleasure, and not hang onto it, and not crave it, but just let it arise when it arises, savor it deeply, and let it go. Rasa, in Sanskrit

One more thing. Pleasure and pain aren’t opposites, they are on a continuum of sensation and meaning. They are side effects of having a nervous system.

And a tip: If you don’t label pain, but just experience an uncomfortable sensation and breathe through it, you have opened to your experience.

Absorbing a loss

Posted on by
Reply

Last Monday I went into work, and my boss came around, closed the door, and told me she had some sad news: my colleague Val had passed away on Sunday.

Val dead? I could not imagine those two words used in the same sentence. It was truly a shock.

This past week has been a tough week, absorbing the loss of someone I saw often over the past 6 years, someone I liked and admired. During this week, I witnessed my denial and acceptance dancing together, sometimes one leading, sometimes the other.

Val was one of my favorite people in the office where I work. All we had been told was that Val was out on “temporary but indefinite” leave. Somehow I had the impression that he was taking care of a seriously ill loved one.

I couldn’t imagine Val sick. When I was walking on the Town Lake trail regularly on weekends, I’d nearly always see Val running. He and his girlfriend took wonderful vacations — hiking on the Olympia peninsula, scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, a camel ride to the Great Pyramids.

My boss told me Val learned he had lung cancer in May and took leave, that he’d been on chemo, that he’d come through the first round with encouraging signs of improvement, that he’d been in a lot of pain on Friday, had a good day on Saturday, and died Sunday due to a problem with his stent (where they put the chemo drugs in). He was 50.

I found some old emails from Val with links to his vacation photos. I found one of him in Olympic National Park, wearing a floppy hat, smiling hugely. I printed that photo and taped it to the now-closed door of his office. It  just felt right. I wanted to remember him happy.

A director later sent an email about Val’s passing and used the phrase “absorbing this loss.” I like that. Absorbing a loss is a gradual process, like a sponge soaking up water.

We bring our losses into our memories, and they become part of who we are.

I went to bed that night vividly remembering Val — the way he teased me after seeing me out on a date — how I was so wrapped up in the conversation, I didn’t notice him (Val) trying to get my attention. Seeing him running on the trail on Saturday mornings. How he laughed when I demonstrated lion pose in yoga class last spring. That was the last time I remember seeing him laugh.

I remembered many smaller moments, of passing him in the hallway, a conversation in the kitchen or across his desk, being in a meeting with him. These memories were more about remembering his physical presence.

Tuesday morning when I arrived at work, I immediately noticed a new sound, a cricket. It was in the kitchen, not visible but very audible.

For a split second, I felt annoyed, and then that feeling dropped completely, replaced by happiness that this cricket had decided to visit and hang out in our kitchen and serenade us.

On Wednesday, someone told me that more photos had been added to Val’s door. By Thursday there were maybe a dozen photos of Val. His door had become a shrine.

On Friday my acupuncturist noticed my grief. It manifests on the lung meridian. She helped me with talk and bodywork, but some part just did not want to give it up yet. It was about more than just Val’s death. It was about change: accepting change and making changes.

I took a solitary walk Friday night, reconciling, integrating, absorbing. I needed that.

I remembered seeing Val before he went on leave and noticing that he seemed stressed, tense. I thought it was about a project he was working on.

With hindsight, I know that he was feeling physical discomfort. Pain from lung cancer.

Friday night I had a dream in which a helicopter crashed in front of me. Usually that means dropping denial.

Val must have gotten so fragile in those 10 weeks of battling cancer.

Saturday I attended a celebration of Val’s life at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden. His large family and many people from work came.

Words were said, smiles and hugs shared, tears shed, photos and mementoes displayed, poems read, songs sung, and hands held, under the trees and the big Texas sky.

I am grateful for having lived through this difficult, emotional, contractive and expansive week. I am grateful to Val for sharing my path a little way.

It seems that with every death, we process every previous death and every future death, including our inevitable own. We are more fragile than we like to believe, held together by an arrangement of chemicals and electrical currents, and when our life force moves outside that narrow range, we dissolve and disperse.

I’m so sorry about you losing your health, Val. You are free of pain and suffering now, and for that I am happy for you. I am grateful that you lived a good life, of work and love and adventure, and that I knew you. Thank you for sharing your many gifts.

I am getting out on the river today, doing some paddle-boarding, and doing it for me, doing it because of the model Val provided.

You never know what the future holds.