Simplify

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When are we satisfied? How do we know? How do we gently yet clearly winnow our lives down to what is essential? Not only what is essential in a material way but also, how do we traverse our difficult relationships with greater simplicity?

We humans are the only animals that can override our body signals & sensibilities. We are easily seduced when discerning what is enough because we often confuse a “want” for a “need”. Couple that with missed experiences of being heard, seen, supported, etc and it becomes even more complicated.

“Hungry ghost” is an image used in Buddhist psychology to represent our habits of devouring without ever being satisfied: the image is that of beings with tiny pins for mouths and huge bellies. It’s constant craving, but at some point we don’t even know for what. We lose track of ourselves.

Our world can no longer sustain hungry ghosts

When we turn within, we find clues that lead to greater self compassion toward our endless hungers.

What are the body sensations that inform our intention to act and how do we know when they have resulted in satisfaction? How do we recognize the signs of being sated, content, nourished?

“When we give a subtle and careful attention to our bodies, we are able to stay in touch with the experience of our deeper selves.” ~Sensei Peter Levitt

That contact with our deeper selves allows us, with time, to discern between “want” and “need”. Often what we want from others or the world around us, is something we do not know how to offer or receive from ourselves. ~MR

What Color Is Your Heart?

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If I invite a person of color to bring their gentle listening hand to my white person heart, what would they hear, sense, or discover?

If I as a white person, am invited to bring a gentle, listening hand to the heart of a person of color, what will I hear, sense, discover, about them? What’s available in this wordless, kind touch?

Try this in your imagination. Just start there.

Listen within for when to lean into this experiment and when to draw back. This is the art of building emotional resilience. We listen within ourselves paying attention to body sensation: it will tell us the truth of our experience in any given moment. It’s not a special gift of the chosen few. That deep river of listening is always there, awaiting our return, available to anyone.

This experiment arose quietly for me. I grappled with what to say in this blog post: what can I say that hasn’t been said about racism, classism and the need to reclaim a part of our collective soul? Maybe I don’t need to say anything at all. Maybe all I need to do is listen, listen with my full bodied humanity.

What might the next phases of our collective work be like if they are shaped by the memories of a heart met by an open listening hand?

Gifts of Uncertainty – Part 3

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This series ends but uncertainty continues! So here we are, many of us in some form of limited contact. There are times when I don’t know what day it is and I’m not alone in that. I trust this humble blog post finds each of you well, safe, and with what you need to continue on with this journey: that you are able to ask for what you need and offer what you can.

What are more gifts of uncertainty?

I’ll start by acknowledging the immense amount of suffering in our world right now. Unearthing gifts in times of trouble is meant to take us deeper into our interconnectedness with all life, our vulnerability, and courage. It is not meant as a jolly way of avoiding anything. Quite the opposite.

Recognizing the Immensity of Time

This is an important gift Joanna Macy names: We are a vital part of an older earth system. We go way back. Life on earth has waxed and waned over millions of years. Which points to the fact that we don’t really know whether we are in a conversation with our next disappearance or on the verge of a whole new way of being.

We. Don’t. Know. And we are creatures that want to know.

What we do know is our ancestors made it. Yours and mine. If they hadn’t I’d not be here writing this nor would you be there reading. At least a few “someones” survived. Time is immense. It stretches further forward and back than our soundbite driven world of instant gratification.

A Need For Simplicity & Discernment

This gift of uncertainty helps us sort out what is ours to do? Again, here Joanna Macy’s wisdom shines through: She names three general areas where we can each find a role:

On the frontlines: This includes the doctors, nurses, health care workers of all stripes, and those who are actively engaged in changes to our educational, health care, and financial systems. (especially here in the USA)

Those who support the people on the frontlines: therapists, healers, educators, the non profits, the volunteers, etc.

Those who attend to the systems necessary for holding the transitions: people engaged in creating barter systems, transitional local economies, sharing food or other resources, etc.

There is no role that is too small. There’s a place for anyone who wants to help. I will add here my own perspective that we are in a much larger transition than most of us can imagine. Pacing ourselves is important. Self compassion is key to developing wisdom.

And in closing…

At the root of our angst is the fear of our own demise and those around us. I’ve been having “death dialogues” in my journal. These dialogues bring me clarity. I give death a voice and let it write through me, then I respond, and then death responds:back and forth I go.

It is a somatic practice in that I listen with my whole being. I track my body’s sensations, whisperings, concerns, and joys—those things that live within the heart and soul of each of us. I recommend you give it a try. Go gently. _Allow for what wants to happen, knowing you get to decide your levels of tolerance for this kind of practice.

I express my work in the world in a way that is congruent with how I live: moving at the pace of guidance. I have some offers for you that are percolating and inner wisdom suggests later this year is a better time. And that’s to say again, we may navigating these transitions for quite a while. Reach out if you need support or if you have suggestions for what you’d like to read or hear from me. I am here to be of service to you.

The single greatest gift of uncertainty is how it brings us into the present moment. It reminds us of how both fleeting and beautiful this life is.

Gifts of Uncertainty – Part 2

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Just one month ago, I began to share the gifts of uncertainty as presented by Joanna Macy: whole systems thinker, eco philosopher, spiritual teacher. You can read Part 1, here.

I cannot think of anything more relevant right now than naming the gifts of uncertainty. This perspective is not offered to gloss over challenging times but to recognize what we can learn. Resilience is the potential that uncertainty offers. Resilience is learned. Uncertainty is the sand in the oyster of our wish for things to remain the same and can awaken us to the need for resilience.

Here are two more gifts:

Recognize our solidarity and interdependence with all life

We are not alone. We are a part of one whole living system.

As emotionally mature people we recognize our interdependence, with other humans and all beings with whom we share this earth. We are part of one system. A pandemic reveals our interconnectedness and our mutual need for belonging, safety, and protection. We are knit together in a living system joined by vulnerability and courage. Our lives are intimately entwined.

Befriend our pain physical or psychic & the mystery that it holds

One of my first spiritual teachers, Stephen Levine, made a clear distinction between healing and curing: we can be cured of a disease and not be healed of our pain. And we can come to the end of our lives, healed.

We could find a cure for COVID-19 and not glean the teachings of these times. We could cure the disease but miss the metamorphosis that it offers. To befriend pain and confusion is the work of “the healing we took birth for” as he phrased it. That is what is being asked of us. Now.

Our collective resilience depends upon our personal resilience; our personal capacity to withstand higher levels of uncertainty. This requires befriending ourselves and our circumstances, on behalf of the well being of all.

Building Resilience

Resilience grows when we gently increase our capacity for uncertainty. We grow our resilience incrementally. This gradual process itself is an antidote to panic. When we attend to how we do what we do, we nourish the parasympathetic nervous system.

The parasympathetic nervous system returns us to calm.

Calm is important right now: not passivity, but calm.

One of the easiest ways to engage in nourishing ourselves is to attend to body sensation. Fear is a body based experience. When we turn toward those sensations of fear with curiosity, openness, even kindness, there’s a neurological re-set that happens. We begin to include all of our experience. This is the heart of somatic education: trusting body sensation as a resource. Emotional resilience is the result of learning to befriend body sensation. It is a trustworthy practice for many of us.

Gifts of Uncertainty – Part 1

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This New Moon, I draw upon teachings of a beloved mentor, Joanna Macy. She is a scholar, eco-philosopher, and whole systems thinker who brings a breadth and depth of perspective needed now. She nourishes me and my intent is to share the nourishment!

In my work I support people in waking up to what has been silenced, anesthetized, or sanitized in their lived experience. And I support people in awakening to the wisdom that is ever present to guide, repair, and illuminate a path forward.

Our singular and collective body is being savaged. The pain of that insight can be a gateway of fearless communion with the living world. Our pain and our love for this world is the same. As Joanna suggests, we do not need to pathologize our pain, rather it is a measure of our humanity and nobility.

It means we give a damn.

What are some of the gifts of uncertainty?

  1. The present moment is a gift of uncertainty: only in this moment can you feel what you feel and respond accordingly.

  2. A fresh recognition of the power of intention is another gift of uncertainty. In other words we don’t wait until we are “in the mood” to do something. It keeps us on track.

  3. Befriending our pain whether it’s physical or psychic and the mystery that it holds, is another gift of uncertainty.

  4. Recognizing our solidarity and interdependence with all life. We are not alone. This is a gift.

  5. Appreciation for the immensity of time.

  6. A need for simplicity: discernment. What is mine to do?

In this blog post, I’ll take on two of these gifts and leave others to future posts. I am right there in this contemplation along with you and welcome the time it takes to consider the nuance of each gift.

The Gift of the Present Moment

This is self explanatory: only now can we feel what needs to be felt and only in the present moment can we respond. Longing for “the good old days” (which actually never were) or projecting our fears into the future leads to inertia.

A Fresh Recognition of the Power of Intent

What is our motivation for acting or not acting? This is another gift. Too often the power of intent gets tangled up with controlling outcomes. We have no control over outcomes. The complexity of life doesn’t guarantee an outcome. Intention helps us to remain patient. We have no idea how or when our seeds of intention will push their way into the light. We can trust our intention.

In this era of instant communication, it is easy to lose track of the fact that no matter how rapid our technology, life on earth continues to move at the speed of an epoch, not a sound bite. Slowing down, being present, knowing that what we need to know waits to reveal itself in our life, that’s good medicine.

What other gifts of uncertainty come to mind for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Just Connect

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“When we know what changes our own hearts, we have a clue about the world we’d like to inhabit and how each of us can contribute to that vision.”

Getting right to the heart of it here, this month I offer reflections about “dismissive positivity”. Some of you may know what it is and know how it feels in your body when you express or receive it. It’s important to name it. An example? I reached out to my sister recently and began to express my frustration about our living situation here in Santa Fe. We are still in transitional housing, living with my daughter and grandchildren. The Santa Fe real estate market is challenging, workable, but challenging. That may sound like a lovely family scene in her fantasy life, especially since she lives far away from her grandchildren. This living situation has been quite the learning curve for me.

Dismissive positivity implies that someone is living the ideal life and if they have troubles there’s something wrong: they haven’t meditated enough, they haven’t prayed enough, they haven’t got their diet just so, they don’t have the right guru! Maybe the feng shui in their house is off? Maybe they just don’t appreciate their lives enough? We can’t cut them much slack because we often don’t cut ourselves much. We are all in pursuit of some ideal that doesn’t exist.

My sister then texted me platitudes about “how everything happens for a reason and we will find the perfect house and she looks forward to visiting soon!” I felt the old familiar (familial) frustration of not being received. It rose up like a rush from hot chili peppers and simultaneously, I could appreciate her limits. I don’t have to be defined by her limitations. What I experience isn’t diminished by her inability to receive me in that moment. Ah! I remember now! Noted!

Empathy is not dismissive positivity.

When I sugar coat someone’s experience with a cheery comeback they are invisible to me. Check it out the next time you catch yourself doing it and notice your body sensation. And notice what it is to be on the receiving end of it too. Do I have the expectation that everyone I meet will respond with empathy? Not hardly. It does mean I can own my experience and “self regulate” and be discerning about what my expectations are of others. It can be quite simple. We don’t have to feel overwhelmed by connection or take on the suffering of the entire world. We can—just connect. When someone is struggling we don’t have to know the backstory, we could still respond with comments like “I see that you walk with some big challenges.” Or “That must be difficult, I wish you well.” Sometimes a comforting silence is enough. It’s a practice, an art, and we will get it right sometimes and be way off other times. The practice of empathy provides us with healthy boundaries and the chance to acknowledge our shared humanity.

We are pack animals, social creatures who thrive on connection. The neuroscience is right there to back that up: when we are met with empathy, when we are seen, heard, valued, there’s a shift in the nervous system. Even for just a moment. Most of us don’t want platitudes. It’s like living on a diet of empty calories. A little boost of empathy can be a feast for anyone!

When we know what changes our own hearts, we have a clue about the world we’d like to inhabit and how each of us can contribute to that vision.

Seeing in the Dark

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At the end of a long year, I take solace in and share with you these words from Bill Plotkin:

“In the long winter darkness of the Northern hemisphere, we gather around hearth-fires to share stories of a tumultuous year. The news regarding Earth’s climate and cultural systems is bleak, yet there are also many remarkable and little-known stories of people coming together to tend our precious and heartbroken world.

As mystics, poets, and lovers of the dark know, it is in the dark times that “the eye begins to see.” It is when systems collapse into disequilibrium that new possibilities emerge. For us human creatures, when our certainties are no longer certain, when our egoic identities grow threadbare, we are likely more receptive to the wild gods or strange angels who knock at our doors, bearing summons from the mystery.”

May you find ways to remain open to the mystery & your deepest healing.

Mercy

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What does it mean to you?

Stephen Levine was one of my first spiritual teachers. His teachings were filled with the word “mercy”. That word is back in my vocabulary and it startles people when I use it. In some languages it translates into “pity”, in others it means “grace” or “unrelenting kindness”. The word “mercy” has a religious quality to it and perhaps that’s one of the reasons it’s not heard as often these days.

There’s a young woman with beautiful blue eyes who sits across from me and remembers a sexual assault decades before by a man three times her age. She has blamed herself for years. She’s done work in psychotherapy, but body memories impact her even more.

My work as a body centered guide is shaped by Depth Psychology, Internal Family Systems, and Hakomi Body Centered process. These approaches hold that at the heart of each of us is an essential, brilliant, self that is untouchable. That said, we are having a human experience and life is difficult. For all of us.

It’s a journey to even acknowledge our essential self. It’s another step to be curious from that place and ask: Where do I stand in relationship to this part that has been harmed? How have I internalized that experience? What body sensations offer clues to my relationship to these parts of myself? What parts wish me well and can offer me mercy & safety? When we endure what our mind cannot comprehend, our body keeps track. As psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk says “Human memory is a sensory experience.” We can’t think our way through these memories. To tend the body is to mend the mind and heart.

How do I begin to allow myself back into my own good heart?

That for me, is an inquiry that leads to mercy and an important element in healing: it is tender & patient work.To have mercy on ourselves is to become more intimate with ourselves. To become intimate with ourselves is to restore faith in our emotional lives. We can discover our heart is large enough to hold all of who we are. It’s “the healing we took birth for”, as Stephen would say.

Movement & Self Image

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“Your movement is as good as your self image.”
~Moshe Feldenkrais

A gentle soul came to me recently, frustrated by limits in his movement. His movement teachers had an idea of what he should be doing, but they could not offer him guidance as to how to access their ideas. He was discouraged and assumed he had a “defective” body.

Notice how quickly we internalize other peoples’ limits and take them on as our own! And also notice right there, how body sensation gives shape to an emotional state.

As it turns out, this person had spent the first four years of his life in corrective leg braces. He didn’t “remember it” but his body and brain did.

No one had thought to ask him about early life experience! He developed successful strategies for navigating with leg braces but he came up against his limits when asked to do something that wouldn’t fit that strategy.

The movement image being asked of him did not live in his brain map. He described the sensation of feeling like those muscles of were “not there”. Of course they are there, but in his movement experience, they didn’t exist. If a movement doesn’t exist in our imagination, then the muscles and bones might just as well not be there.

We revisit early movements

Together we explored movements that occur before crawling. It was as if he’d entered a foreign land: this was unfamiliar terrain for him. The amazement shone through his face. Sadness showed itself itself too. There was a loss for what he’d not been able to do and memories of a chaotic, negligent home life. It was no wonder that he’d “forgotten” those young years.

Self image arises from our lived experience

Our journey to mature adulthood includes physical and emotional integration. Sometimes that means taking a few steps back in our developmental process so we can move forward with confidence. Human memory is built on our body sensation and our interpretations of those experiences. It’s not that we are defective but rather the conclusions we draw are limited. My client thought there was something wrong with him. Not knowing how to access what we need only means we don’t know. To become aware of the conclusions we draw about life when we are in a place of not knowing, is key. As for my client; he’s doing much better as he reclaims long forgotten parts of himself in his daily expressions of dance, song, and life.

Navigating These Times

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I’ll get right to it…

We must all take good care of ourselves. It’s quite simple. Those of us with the good fortune to tend our inner lives, nourish our hearts, and give back to others, must.

Here are a few suggestions:

First, limit media exposure. Regardless of whether news is from the left or right on the political spectrum, all media outlets traffic in soundbites and less than factual statements. The complexities of our world cannot be conveyed in soundbites. Like junk food, this might fill a hole but let’s not confuse it with facts. Stay informed and dig deeper if you want nuance. And avoid the media “spin cycle”: that’s when regurgitation of a story happens over a series of days but no new information is offered.

Second, maintain or begin contemplative practices, whatever they may be: walking, listening to beautiful music, reading or writing, tai chi, yoga, painting. Find inspiring podcasts! These practices feed us and none of us can be of assistance without first feeding ourselves.

Third if there’s a cause dear to your heart and you have the ability to act, then act. None of us alone are capable of saving the whole blessed world. If you are overwhelmed take time away from the 24/7 blast of information. Really, you’ll feel much better.

Fourth, chop wood & carry water. If you ascribe to the view of interconnectedness, the quality of our attention to the details of our lives, matters. It’s in the steadiness of repetition that patience is born. Yes, we need patience. That’s a call to skillfulness, not passivity. How we do, what we do, matters.

Fifth, weed out your email box. Histrionics are not welcome in my email box. Yes, I am aware of the issues we face. I’m aware that I am not motivated by stories that tell me the sky is falling. It saps my energy and focus.

A quote from a Tibetan teacher comes to mind here: “If you can do something about a situation, why worry about it? If you can’t do something about a situation, why worry about it?”

We need to embody courage now; there’s no time for worry. Our simplest gestures matter. What you do, matters. These times reveal that each of us makes a difference and if we are fortunate, we have free will in how we direct our energies. The insight that each of us makes a difference arises naturally from our inner work. The fruit of that labor is a way we love the world.