When we experience deep emotional pain our first impulse is to get away from the feelings as quickly as possible….just make them go away.  Escape is accomplished in a variety of ways. We may, for example, distract ourselves through TV, books, or movies.  Or….when the pain is particularly acute and pervasive, we might find ourselves seeking out the help of prescription or non prescription drugs. Alcohol can also become an effective means of escape.  In truth, the culture supports all of the above  mentioned activities as ways of coping when life gets hard.  And…lets be honest, these coping mechanisms do work.  Furthermore, we sometimes do need some temporary relief from unbearable emotional states. The problem is, in my view, that the relief is often just temporary. If no time and energy is invested into discovering the source of the pain, it will keep on coming back…and back…and back.  To make matters worse, the pain can resurface with more intensity…like a splinter that has lodged itself under the skin and now has become infected. So…what can we do?  How can we face intolerable emotions such as anxiety, fear, shame, and anger without becoming overwhelmed with the emotion itself?

     In his book, entitled  “Emotional Intimacy”, the relational psychologist Robert Augustus Masters suggests that the key is to gently move “toward” our pain, rather than away from it.  We must find a way to get close enough to the pain so that we can observe it in great detail, and yet we need enough distance so we can feel that our pain is only a part of us…not the whole of us.  Dr. Masters advocates that we become “intimate” with the feeling and texture of our emotions, as a  “participant observer”.  This is different than merely talking about emotions, which keeps the experience up in our heads…to be analyzed over and over..to no avail

Becoming a “Participant observer” is a skill that we can learn from the teachings of mindfulness meditation. In this meditation practice, the meditator learns to step back from his experience and “observe” what is going on in the physical  body as emotions are experienced.  For example, during the anxiety state, my pulse is racing, my palms are sweating, and I can’t breathe.  If we can “drop down” into our bodily sensations and simply “be with” them, without judgment, we are automatically not “in” them in the same way.  We have created the necessary separation to feel them, and yet place them more into the background of our experience rather than the foreground.  With the feeling more in the background, we can turn it around in our mind and examine in from all sides.  Where does this feeling come from?  When did I first have it?   Can I bring some compassion to myself so that I can begin to heal?

Developing the “participant observer” stance to your emotions does not mean that you won’t still have challenging emotional episodes where you will feel overwhelmed.  Dr. Masters cautions against believing that we can somehow ”transcend” emotional states and wipe them out from our experience. He calls the attempt to do this the “spiritual bypass”. We are, after all, not gods, only very flawed human beings doing the best we can..and that isn’t a bad thing.

Facebook can be a great way to make new friends, stay connected with old friends, and reconnect with even older friends.  I  sometimes wonder though, if all of the incessant social networking we do can have some unintended consequences. My fear is that as we spend more and more time “connected” as it were, we will begin to lose touch with the experience of being silently and deeply connected to the one person we really need to understand..that is ourselves…Here is why I am concerned:

What If Your Best Friend Could Be Found In The Mirror?  

        There is a universal human need, I think, to be connected to other people in a deep and intimate way.  We all long to be loved, accepted, and deeply understood, by one or more true friends in whom we can confide our deepest secrets.  Old friends are particularly valuable because of the history we have with them. They have seen us at our ”best” and at our “worst”.  Through it all they continue to love us, and the memories we share provide a sense of meaning and continuity in our lives.

      Consider then the one person who has been with us from the very beginning.  It is, of course, our very personal “yours truly”.  It is us.  Because we are conscious, and able to form elaborate short and long term memories of our experiences, we can think about what is happening and consider how we feel about it. The way I see it, we actually have a relationship with ourselves, and like all relationships, it takes time and careful nurturing to make sure it’s a positive and supportive relationship. Ideally, I would say, we want to become our own “best friend”. We want to know, understand, accept, and yes, even love ourselves. From this strong foundation of self  love and self acceptance I think we can have the best chance for healthy relationships with others.

       I know some people will automatically cringe when they hear the words “self love”.  Often this term conjures up the image of the typical “narcissist”….the man or woman who is completely “full of him/herself”. It’s actually quite the opposite.  In the Greek legend, Narcissus is a man who is constantly fascinated with his own image in the river. Narcissists need to have their “greatness” constantly reflected back to them by other people, so they “use” people for this. In fact they are internally “empty”, and they can never be filled up enough.  Underneath their outward conceit and bluster, there is very little self love.  True self love, and self esteem are very different from narcissism. It has to do with acceptance of all of who we are, the admission of flaws, failure, and vulnerability.  I think it also has to do with the constant quest for self understanding. Through such understanding we can create a sense of worthiness that comes to us from the “inside out” rather than the “outside in”

    So, back to facebook again, my concern is that having a million “friends” on facebook, will create the illusion of connection while allowing the constant user to neglect the most important relationship of them all. How ironic would it be if we spend so much time “checking in” with others, that we stop checking in with ourselves.

In 1962 President John F. Kennedy declared that before the decade ended, we would land a man on the moon. Specifically, the president’s words were “We choose to land a man on the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard”. Although JFK would not live to see it, his dream was realized on July 20^th 1969, in the nick of time.  His words were challenging and spurred on an amazing accomplishment.  I found myself thinking about the true meaning of these words just the other day when I was at the gym of all places

The idea of something being unbelievably hard occurred to me as I attempted to complete just one “Push-up”, then one “squat”, and one “lunge” during my “Old ladies” personal training session. My stated goal is to gain upper body and “core” strength, and just to feel better and stronger.  I thought this would be quite straightforward, but was totally unprepared for how friggin hard it would be…just plain physically painful and hard….not fun at all. My trainer for this project is easily half my age, but he is teaching me that developing a strong body is much the same as developing a strong mind, a courageous spirit, or a resilient emotional life. All of these endeavors take persistent practice, and incredible determination.  The muscles get fatigued, my trainer tells me, but this is good because it encourages them to grow.

I think it is much the same with “pushing” ourselves in other areas of life.  As a long time sufferer of anxiety, I know that, among other things, anxiety is a disorder of avoidance. What I mean by this is that, in order not to feel the anxiety, us anxious people will go to great lengths to avoid those things that will, or may, make us anxious. This explains how people develop persistent fears of flying for example, or leaving the house. It is, after all, just human nature to avoid these things if we can, in favor of safer and less risky things…like staying home, watching TV, or  using  substances like alcohol.

Insidiously, overcoming many anxieties means moving toward the exact thing that makes us afraid…much like me moving toward completing that “push-up” even though every fiber of my being is protesting loudly. Does it hurt?  Absolutely!. It has been explained to me, though, that there cannot be any gain without the pain.  The trick is to push just hard enough to get that gain without pushing so hard that injury results.

I like the fact that muscles grow best when the strength training is every other day, rather than every day. It seems to me that our psyche also needs periods of rest in between periods of pushing beyond our comfort zone. The periods of rest allow for integration and assimilation of new experiences at a slow and measured pace. Like the tortoise, slow and steady wins the race.

So, the way I see it, only one important question remains.  What is the “walk on the moon” that you would like to accomplish?… My advice?  Go for it, but don’t expect it to be easy.  Choose it precisely because it is hard.

The Civil War section of the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland

Typically on Memorial Day I engage in activities that welcome in the summer.  My family uses the extra day to ready our family cabin for summer visitors, and/or I may attend a neighborhood barbeque. This summer was different.  I stayed home, but then when the Monday holiday dawned and was cloudy and drizzly, my husband and I decided to do something we had never done before. The greyness of the day seemed to dictate that we participate in a somber activity, so we chose to attend Memorial Day services at our local cemetery.  Mountain View cemetery is quite well known in Oakland.  Designed by the designer of Central Park, Frederick Olmsted, Mountain View Cemetery is the final resting place for local luminaries such as Julia Morgan, Bernard Maybeck, Henry Kaiser…and many many more. Veterans from all of the wars are also interred at Mountain View…dating back to the Civil War.  I have always felt that this is a very sacred place, very holy.  I felt this as I sat down for the ceremonies on Memorial Day.

     What I realized, as I listened to members of various branches of the service speak in behalf of soldiers lost in battle, is that the living always owe a debt of gratitude to the dead.  Its not that I glorify war—because I certainly don’t.  I have my own political views on the “rightness” or “wrongness” of particular wars.  However, it seems to me that regardless of anyone’s political view, these soldiers put their lives on the line for what they felt to be a “greater” cause.. There is honor in that, regardless of any judgment about that cause. I was happy to honor all of the soldiers, and felt badly that I had not taken time to do this before.

At the end of the ceremony, one of the Mountain View docents, a wonderful storyteller and newspaper man named Dennis Evanosky gave us a tour of the Civil War section of the Cemetery.  Dennis regaled us with stories about how these Civil War veterans ended up being buried in Oakland.  They had all survived the Civil War and then went on to lead colorful and adventuresome lives, making their way across the country, being involved in local politics, marrying their sweethearts,….and then finally their lives were over..and they are buried here….right beneath where we were standing.

What really impressed me about this storytelling was that Dennis had fired up my imagination…and I was there!  I was imagining the lives of these people and it was real.  He was making it real and alive and teaching all of us the value and the joy of remembering the details in the lives of people long gone.

So what I’m thinking now is that I’m connected to all these people who were brought alive by Dennis.  They are all in some way my ancestors..if not directly then in some way indirectly.  After all did we not share the same air, the same land, the same world?  In short, I would not be the same person in the exact same world as I am right now…if it were not for all of them. They are all part of the same grand tapestry that I am a part of, which actually combines all of our stories into one grand story

So my intention now is to remember to remember each year, as well as throughout the year.  As I take my meditation walks through the beautiful Mountain View gardens, I will think of the stories  of the people who are buried here and feel my connection to all of them.

A Case Of Mistaken Identity

 My earlier blog entitled “Who Are You?” featured the infamous Cheshire Cat of Alice In Wonderland fame. Our feline friend asks a question of Alice that we ask ourselves many times in the course of a lifetime. “Who are we” at the core of our being?  It can be a difficult question  when we are constantly shifting and changing roles in response to changing life circumstances.  I suggested in this earlier blog that as we grow older it becomes increasingly important to spend time getting to know ourselves at a deep level.  It is vital to keep asking  who we are in the midst of the “storm” that is constantly swirling all around us, and within us. We want to have a solid sense of ourselves, I think. The only way I know to really develop a relationship with oneself is to engage in a “reflective” practice, such as meditation, prayer, or journaling.

    So, as I was following my own advice and reflecting upon who I am at this moment in time, an uncomfortable thought seemed to invade my consciousness.  It occurred to me quite suddenly that I often resist quiet contemplation because I don’t in fact really like myself a lot of the time.  I don’t always want to look too deeply for fear of what I might find there. Furthermore, I don’t think I’m alone in this.  I know that the Dali Lama has said he is perplexed at the degree of “self” hatred he sees, particularly in the American character.  As hard and judgmental as we may be in regard to others, according to his “Holiness,” it pales in comparison to how hard we are on ourselves.  So, where does this come from, and what can we do about it?

My particular answer to this question, unsurprisingly, comes from Buddhist thought.  I have recently been re reading some books written by the Zen teacher and Buddhist Monk Cheri Huber.  She runs a monastery in Murphys  California, and also a teaching center in Mountain View, California.  It is Cheri’s view that negative self image is laid down very early in our childhood as we are being socialized and “conditioned” by well meaning adults. We are taught to “be this” but “not that.”..to “suppress this” but “express” that.  We are mostly socialized with simple behaviorism, and this method, if you think about it is pretty negatively tinged.  Consider, for example, the mother, yelling across the public swimming pool at her children in order to “control” them. ”No Johnny..no no…you are swimming too far!  Be carefull  of the deep end!   It’s dangerous out there! Help your brother!  No! No! No!…don’t fight!  Does this not sound familiar?  By the time we reach adulthood, those “adult” voices are the voices in our own head, telling us who to be, how to act, who we are, who we are not.  I love what Cheri Huber says about our internalized “voices”.  Her view is that we are all in a constant state of internal dialog with these different voices.  We have the “mean voice”, the “compassionate voice”, the “critical voice”.  The dialog is unrelenting, and our “mean voice “is often louder than the rest.  It is Cheri’s view that these voices are best viewed as existing outside of our “true self”.  They are talking to us….but they are not us.  We identify the voices as us, but they are not.  She calls it a case of “mistaken identity”.  The inner work of discerning the voices and starting a new inner conversation based on compassion, empathy, and patience, is the crux of Cheri’s Self Acceptance practice.  Cheri argues that when we can turn our attention to the voices of  self love and self acceptance, we can turn down the volume on self hate.  We can let “Life be in charge” as we give up our attempt to control anything.

And that…..my friend….is the secret to ending our anxiety..once and for all

The cheshire cat

“Who are you?” intones the Cheshire cat as he looks down upon Alice in Lewis Carroll’s classic tale “Alice In Wonderland”.  Alice has fallen down the rabbit hole and had a series of adventures.  She was at first very large, and then she became very small.  Who indeed is she? She has lost herself in a strange new world.

Perhaps we are all a bit like Alice, as we fall down our own individualized “rabbit holes” and ponder who and where we are, and how we got here.  The reality is that our identities are always shifting and changing as we shed old roles and assume new ones, virtually all the time.  We grow up, grow old, get divorced, watch children leave home…and the list goes on.  It can be challenging to retain a stable sense of ourselves in the midst of all of this change as we are constantly asked to define ourselves in new ways. So…I ask again…who are you?

This is not, I think, a trivial question…but rather an existential crisis of identity that we are all engaged in all the time.  Underneath our many roles…wife, mother, daughter, student,  there has to be an essential “me-ness” that allows us to actually recognize ourselves.  Consider, for example, that many years ago my five year old daughter was very distraught after a haircut.  “Mommmy….I hate it!…she wailed”. “I don’t look like myself!”  Wow…already an identity crisis! Inevitably none of us will have a life that looks the same over time…and we certainly won’t look the same. Our life will not be the same physically, interpersonally, or geographically.  We may long for a time gone by, but we can’t re-create it

The essence of this constant crisis of identity is perhaps that, in spite of the storm that is raging all around us all the time, we must somehow retain a “felt” sense of ourselves.  We want to be able to say, “Yes, that is me”.  I know who I am at my center. The “calm” at the center of our “storm” is our solid, non negotiable “core” self.  But how do we keep that center solid?

The only way I can think of to do this is to constantly check in with ourselves, and just simply ask the question: “Who am I now?”  “What do I stand for?”  “What is important to me”  The relationship of the self to itself becomes ever more important as we age, I think.  The world around us changes at rocket speed, it seems to me, but we don’t need to.  Self recognition ensures we won’t get lost as the world becomes “curiouser and curiouser”, to quote Lewis Carroll, again.

You can do your “check in” in a number of ways, such as prayer, meditation, journaling….anything that is a “contemplative” practice…anything that forces you to slow down and relflect.. This is a cheap and easy practice, but incredibly rewarding.  Just focus on one central question:  “Who are You?”…Don’t you really wanna know?

I’ve had a series of   disturbing dreams lately.  When I wake up my heart is beating fast, and only slows down after I do a “reality check”.  “Thank god that was only a dream”, I tell myself.  I certainly don’t want to dwell on the content.  Nevertheless, as my morning progresses I’m still left with this lingering feeling of anxiety, fear, shame, or disgust…usually some combination of these uncomfortable feelings.  Added to this, I feel a sense of failure because I’m actually trying to do dreamwork again.  I meet with a dream group for the purpose of dream interpretation, but I’ve yet to present a dream. I have created this “bind” for myself where I am afraid of the content of my unconscious, even as I profess to invite it to reveal itself.

What I do know, however, is that recurring “bad” dreams occur because our unconscious is trying to send a message through to us.  The message is usually about something we need to attend to. The dreams will continue to occur, and in fact may broadcast louder until we pay attention to the message.  This, I believe is the psyche reaching toward wholeness and growth.  In dreams the language of the message is symbolic.  So, for example, a symbol of death may appear in a dream.  It may actually mean I need to let something die in my life.  Perhaps I’m maintaining a relationship that no longer serves.  Maybe I need to let a “role” I have assumed, or a burden I have carried, die off.  The death needs to occur to allow for new life to emerge.  Letting this aspect of myself die is a good thing for my inner growth, but my awake and conscious self may be afraid that if I change I will no longer be accepted…or even loved.  It feels risky.  This is where the “shadow” comes in.  Basically, I believe that by the time we all reach adulthood we are socialized by our families and the culture to only identify with, or “own”, if you will, certain aspects of ourselves.   Other parts, we may learn, are “bad”, or in my case “unladylike”.  Being human, we are of course going to feel these “bad” things anyway, but we quickly learn to “disown” that which people will not love us for.  These aspects get shoved down into our “shadow”, where they are largely unconscious.  We can glimpse our shadow selves when we find we are reacting strongly and judgmentally to the things other people do.  Strong reactions are often, although not always,  a “projection.”…that is  to say, we may attribute to others that which we cannot see in ourselves.

I think we also get to see our shadow selves emerge in dreams.  When we invite ourselves to remember dreams, the shadow self demands to be seen, heard, and felt. I think my strong reaction to remembering my dream had to do with some “shadow” material that was trying to come though.

I also believe that if we make room for the “shadow” self, and give it a “place at the table” so to speak, we can begin to integrate those less comfortable parts of ourselves. Bringing these parts into the “light”, so to speak, we will find that they are not so scarry…..Its when they remain in the dark that they continue to have unmanageable power over us.

Ok….now I’ve said it…I’ve committed…Bring it on shadow! I’m ready for you now

Letting Go means learning to forgive

Last week was a difficult week.  The massive senseless violence left me shocked and dismayed.  I also found myself rethinking the struggle of the “soon to be” butterfly within his cocoon as he struggles to break free. (See my previous blog entitled “Lessons From A Butterfly”).  As I struggled with my own negative and sometimes judgmental feelings about the events in Boston and the explosions in Texas, I began to realize that we humans are all, in some way struggling within our own self made cocoons of misery. It seems to me that many of us are trying to change our lives, “let go” of old belief systems that no longer serve, “let go” of anger directed toward our culture and/or those who have hurt us, “move on” to something better and healthier.  But I think we get stuck.  I know I do.  This  “Letting go” thing can be really hard.  I know it is for me, especially when I feel really justified about what I believe.  Problem is, feeling “justified” does not mean feeling happy, or feeling “at peace”…and that’s what I really want.  So, what can we do then?  How can any of us help our own selves move through the anger, the anxiety, and the angst that feels so real within us. I have a couple of ideas to try out on you.

My first idea draws upon a verse from the Bible.  This is a very familiar verse, memorialized by the Byrds in their famous song “Turn, Turn, Turn. It is actually from Ecclesiates verse 3 of the Bible.  Here’s how it goes :

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to break down, and time to build up

A time to laugh, a time to weep

A time of war, a time of peace

This is just a small part of the entire verse, but it goes on in a similar vein.

For me this verse offers comfort at times of great turmoil because the message is that all our life experiences are part of the whole, and there is an appropriate “season” for them to show up in our lives.  Perhaps the concept can also be extended to the people who show up and then die, or people who leave us in cruel and unimaginable ways…or horrifying events which make no sense at the time they occur.  It can be easier to grasp the meaning of an event after some time passes and we get some perspective. This is when we may get an ”aha” moment and appreciate the lesson learned, but at the time the event is happening our struggle is to just accept it.

In the meantime, I would like to offer  one other idea, which can be a very powerful spiritual practice for dissolving anger, guilt, resentment, and other toxic emotions that can keep us in the “deep freeze” of arrested emotional growth.  This is of course, the practice of forgiveness…the ultimate “letting go”.  Its easier said than done, of course, but I think if we can consistently practice all parts of it, it can be really effective.  The idea is to spend quiet time within your own mind, on a regular basis and repeat these three forgiveness intentions:

1. For all those I have harmed, knowingly or unknowingly, I am truly sorry…forgive me and set me free.
2. For all of those who have harmed me, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive them and set them free
3. For the harm I have done to myself, knowingly or unknowingly, I am truly sorry.  I forgive myself and set myself free

So, that’s it.  I think the three parts are all important,  as well as the inclusion of “knowingly and unknowingly”.  Truthfully, we don’t always know how we have hurt people, nor do they know they have hurt us. Also, we often don’t acknowledge the harm we do to ourselves. Nevertheless, the hurt is done…and needs to be addressed

I’m hoping I can take this practice into my own healing this week.  I hope you can too.