Thoughts

The Gift of the Dark Angel: Coping with Pain

My barn having burned to the ground,
I can now see the moon.
– Mizuta Masahide, 1688

*

Several years ago, I suffered through a painful 9 month course of chemotherapy.  The pain was so severe, and so relentless, that I didn’t know how I would get through it, and I seriously thought about quitting the treatment.

There were three things that helped me cope with the pain and I’d like to share them with you, because I know that some of you are going through very very hard times.

The first support was that my doctor gave me the choice of whether to continue the treatment or not.  He didn’t power struggle with me at all.  He was absolutely kind but there was no push.   So there was nothing for me to resist.  It was my choice.  His only advice in making my decision was to consider this:  “You never want to look back with regret.”

The second was a book that was given to me by a friend.  The book was The Gift of the Dark Angel by Ann Keiffer.  It’s an intimate portrait of one woman’s recovery from depression – and how she ultimately found blessings in her struggle.  The book made me look for meaning in my experience. It inspired me to try to look beyond the pain, to try to find my own dark angel’s gift.

The third support was given to me by a doctor-friend that had severe and chronic back pain.  He told me that anyone who lives with pain has to find their own way to cope, a strategy or tool that works for them.  No one can find that for you – No one can give it to you.  They can only tell you, and remind you, that it can be found.  They can wait compassionately beside you while you look for it.

He gave me a reprint of an article – I still have it – called What Good is Feeling Bad: The Evolutionary Benefits of Psychic Pain by Randolph M. Nesse.  The article talks about how pain is protective, like a messenger.  It gave me a kind of  respect and appreciation for pain, similar to the gift of the dark angel.  But where the Gift of the Dark Angel was warm and emotional, Nesse’s article was cognitive and analytical.  I needed them both.  Nesse inspired me to mentally distance myself from the physical pain, to learn to watch it from some other part of myself.

Ultimately, it was these three things: the freedom of choice, the decision to find the gift, and the cultivation of the “witness,” that helped me to cope with pain.

I’ll tell you another story from that time.  Perhaps someone close to you will read this post too, and understand something very special in it.

I was holding it together pretty well.  I’d gone through surgery.  And hemorrhaged more than a week after surgery – necessitating more surgery.  And I was still pretty calm overall, I think.  Until… “The Meltdown.”

My father had come down from New York to be a support and one night I heard only a portion of his side of a phone call, and I totally misinterpreted what was being said.  I started yelling and crying and ranting like a lunatic.  I saw real panic in my father’s eyes, but I couldn’t stop.  The dam had burst and the flood was loose.  I don’t think I was even making sense.  And Charles came towards me, and without speaking, he lifted me up like a child in his arms and carried me into the bathroom.  He set me down, while he ran a bath.  I was still yelling and crying.  He gently took off my clothes and set me down in the warm tub, and when the warmth seeped in and soothed me and calmed me, I was quiet.  All the while, he never said a word.

Photo by Simon Carrasco on Flickr Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Balance: Holding Center While the World Goes Round

I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.
— Thich Nhat Hanh

*

Our dear friend Tina talked to us today about how much she loves the Kai Chi Do movement called “Holding Center while the World Goes Round”.  The truly magical thing about the movement is that you can FEEL that balance between centeredness and motion – the balance between your connection to Source and Self  and your connection to the world around you.

So often we fall off center, so to speak – trapped in the busy-ness of it all.  Overwhelmed by the tasks…and the personalities…and the schedule…and the hubbub.  And it’s confusing and you feel scattered and kinda dizzy.

And then you react and rebel and say we need to get back to the garden.  We need to get more spiritual.  We need to sit in high lotus.

But God is not an escape.

We see people try to get rid of their ego in order to be more spiritual.   They think the ego is the enemy.  But it doesn’t work.  Naturally, the ego puts up a fight.  And then you’re trapped in a struggle – rejecting a part of yourself.

The ego is the mathematical mind.  It likes to organize and calculate.   It really just wants a job!   And it is capable of such diligent service!

So we put it to work.  The ego is assigned the job of making Spirit tangible, bringing it down to Earth.  Instead of an ego that separates you from your Self and others, we give the ego the job of creating union.  We give the ego the job of reconciliation.

“Holding center while the world goes round” is about keeping your balance.  It’s not about choosing between the physical and the spiritual.   It’s about filling your everyday life with Spirit.  It’s about integrating the Divine and the human aspects of yourself.

Tina says it sometimes feels “exquisitely beautiful and exquisitely painful at the same time.”

photo of HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche by Wonderlane on Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Thanksgiving: The Yoga of Gratitude

The rare moment is not the moment
when there is something worth looking at,
but the moment when we are capable of seeing.
– Joseph Wood Krutch

*

Flowers are coming to us.  I was talking a few weeks ago about how much I enjoy having fresh flowers in the house.  So Charles bought me flowers.  And we all ooohhed and aaahhed over how pretty they were.  And I pampered the arrangements.  And we placed them around the house, just to appreciate their beauty.  They always bring a smile.

We didn’t have any particular attachment to flowers.  We were just enjoying them. We didn’t mention it to anyone.  We weren’t angling to get flowers.  We didn’t send out a flower campaign or anything.   We were just appreciating them.

And the more we enjoyed them, the more flowers kept showing up.   Someone gave us a Smith and Hawken Amaryllis Bulb Kit.   Then someone gave us a magnificent blooming orchid plant with dozens of little white slipper flowers.  And Biana and Taz gave us two beautiful bouquets when they came to dinner – roses, baby’s breath, lilies, daisies, mums, ferns.  So many flowers, I was thinking, we really need to pick up a few more vases!  And, just today, a parent of one of Shanti’s friends said, I was going to bring you some flowers!

Our home is truly in bloom.

And we’re loving it.  So much beauty and life everywhere we look.  And from every one of those flowers we feel the gratitude and appreciation you have given us.

We love the lesson too.

Whatever you put your attention on, increases.  If you focus on what you love, you get more to love.  It’s not just for flowers – it’s for people too.  That’s really what appreciation is – It’s more than a thank you.  Appreciation is seeing the beauty in someone.

Just by acknowledging the beauty in someone, they get more beautiful.  Validation works miracles.  (Click this link to check out a sweet short story about getting validated.)

People just feel better and act better when you see the goodness in them.

Try it with your kids and you’ll see what we mean.

You feel uplifted when you see beauty.  They feel uplifted when you see beauty in them.  They might even be able to glimpse that beauty in themselves.  And you feel more connected to one another.

That’s the yoga of gratitude.  That feeling of union.

Energetically, when you’re grateful, your heart is open.  Energy flows freely within you and between you because you’re not rejecting anything.  Your focus defines your experience.  You keep your focus on what you appreciate, and only what you appreciate can come in.

That’s truly something to be grateful for.

Have a blessed Thanks Giving!

Photo by jeancliclac at fotolia.com

Environ-Mental Health: fixing the cracks in our consciousness

The chimney is getting a makeover today.  It’s mental health feng shui.  We’re catching up on home repairs.

The cracks in the chimney finally came to the surface of my consciousness.  It’s been crumbling for months.  I remember glancing up when I walked the dogs, and seeing the cracks, and it was like only my eyes saw them.  My brain took little notice.  I remember there was a single snippet of thought once, that “we probably need to get that fixed,” a millisecond brain check on whether we knew how to get it done, and then my attention was elsewhere.  Barely a blip in the radar.

But it was there.  Sending me a message.

Have you ever heard of the Broken Windows theory?  Malcolm Gladwell talks about it in his book, The Tipping Point.   The theory says that broken windows in urban neighborhoods send a message, and the message is that crime is tolerated.  It sends a message, “This place is neglected. ”  And where vandalism is the norm, crime escalates.  If you fix the broken windows, you nip the problem in the bud, so to speak.  You intervene when the problem is still small.  Fix the broken windows and you send the message, “Someone’s keeping an eye on what goes on here.  We care about this place and we’re keeping it orderly.”

It all starts with a signal, a meaning we interpret from the environment.  Research has shown that fixing the “broken windows,” fixing the environmental signals in a neighborhood, is more effective at reducing crime than misdemeanor arrests.  Prevention is more effective than punishment.

I think fixing the chimney is more than just a way to keep out the rain.  The cracks were sending us a subtle, below the radar, message – of tiny decay.  And fixing up the house, getting repairs completed, sends a different signal.  It’s a visual affirmation of well-being.

And the visual self-talk seems even more direct than words.  We feel it, rather than think it.  We fixed a little crack in our consciousness.

Do you have any cracks that need fixing?

Tree-House image by danimages @ fotolia.com

Action Cures Procrastination

Move and the way will open.
—  Zen proverb

*

We talk to so many people who avoid their spiritual practices when they are feeling lousy.  Then they regret not doing them, and feel guilty and then feel worse and feeling worse is more immobilizing and…they’re stuck in the struggle.  Call it spiritual procrastination.

Procrastination is draining – and it doesn’t help your fatigue.  It actually makes you feel more frustrated, more bored, more lethargic to avoid actions that you believe will be uncomfortable.  The belief is what’s limiting you.  You’re uncomfortable where you are but you’ve concluded that if you take action, it will increase your discomfort.  Then you feel trapped.  You feel that there is no way out.

Skip the struggle.  Quit trying to figure it out.  Don’t psychoanalyze.  Just move.  Do…something.

When we first moved to Florida, it was months before Charles found a job.  He was finishing his Master’s degree in counseling, but couldn’t find work in the field.  So he finally decided to take a job raking recycled roofing chips.  True story!  And – not surprisingly – he got a job offer in behavioral health a week later.

Action is medicine.

Once you recognize that you’re procrastinating, take the actions that are within range.  Do what’s realistic.

Don’t expect your dream job.  Don’t expect to scale Mount Everest and perform open heart surgery in the same day – If you expect so much of yourself that you’re bound to fail, you’ll end up in the cycle of hopelessness and self-criticism and more avoidance.  Don’t expect Nirvana – just expect to feel a little better (and that’s enlightening enough).

Procrastination is a lousy cure for fear of failure.  Your avoidance just confirms the belief that you can’t accomplish what you’ve hoped and dreamed of.  You never get to discover what will happen if you try – if you take action.  You never get to discover that you are capable of more than you ever imagined – more courage, more determination, more creativity, more brilliant uniqueness, more joy.  More sweat.

Do what’s possible, even if it’s not your ideal.  Even if it doesn’t look to anyone else like you’ve accomplished anything.  Take action, even if it’s just tiny small steps.  Action starts the process of movement – not just physically, but also energetically and emotionally.  Your energy starts to flow, and that’s invigorating.  Energy flowing leads to more energy.  Reducing resistance makes you open to receive.

Mind-body-spirit-relationships.  It’s all mashed together. Get your energy flowing in any part of your being, and you get the energy flowing to all of it.

Photo by Wayne National Forest’s photostream, on Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0