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.

The Narrow Place

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We live in a time of “the narrow place”.

Transitions are difficult and exhausting. The actual “transition phase” in childbirth is the most challenging and occurs just before the baby emerges from the most narrow of places, the birth canal.

Where do we look when the usual landmarks for ethical behavior have eroded, moral outrage seems endless, and we have the sensation of the walls closing in on us?

We look to our own intelligent hearts.

On our hearts are written the guidelines for ethical and moral behavior. When we cannot find such guidelines outside of ourselves we have to source them from within. Throughout history there have been times of moral decay. This is nothing new. And there are those who thrive and shine in such darkness.

Here is a quote I have highlighted, bookmarked, and read daily from Tibetan teacher Dzigar Kongtrul in his book “Training in Tenderness”:

“Tsewa (tenderness of heart) is the only thing that can give us strength and resilience to overcome the challenges that the world presents. Even though we all have this tender heart, there are always certain individuals, who because of their intense confusion and their ability to influence people, spread pain and chaos to many others. But when people develop the strength of tsewa, they act as buffers to protect others from such harm and influence. When many people put their trust in the good heart, it is like erecting a wall that prevents the fire of confusion from spreading.”

If we recognize our interconnectedness then everything we do, matters.

We are not laboring alone nor do we need to be heroic. There are times when our capacity to make great impact, is limited. What’s needed now is a subtle intelligence and an appreciation for the complexity of these times so that we know our part in them. When we are self aware we can wisely consider how we engage in this “narrow place”.

Photo Credit: Zoltan Tasi/Unsplash

Not Leaving Ourselves Behind

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A lovely woman in the midst of a somatic movement training came to me recently for a session. (everyone I work with is lovely!) I was instantly touched by her vulnerability as she shared with certainty that she has no emotional intelligence. Her openness conveyed to me that she had plenty of emotional intelligence.

The training she’s in, immerses her in developmental movement which simultaneously reveals what we hold in our unconscious. Awareness of body sensation gives us direct access to what lives just below the threshold of our busy mind. But in her case, there was no support for integrating what arose psychologically or emotionally. What was missing was the explicit message that we cannot separate body sensation from emotional and psychological experience; everything bubbles together.

“I know intellectually that I have these resources within me, but I don’t know how to access them”, she said. That is the dilemma many of us have today. We’ve lost connection to our “Internal Guidance System” as I call it.

Her experience of deficiency was real, but it was misplaced. When we can let go of blaming ourselves or others for what’s missing, and then name and ask for what we need, we suffer less. We can change our mind, our heart, and our experience. That is what neuroplasticity is all about.

We are losing support for much of the natural call and response within ourselves – an embodied literacy, that allows us to listen within, trust our body sensations, and stay present to the core beliefs they reveal. Uncovering these core beliefs is essential to our well being.

In a world that teaches us to compartmentalize our lived experience, we feel we have no choice but to leave parts of ourselves behind and when we leave parts of ourselves behind, it is easy to begin leaving the whole living, breathing, world behind too. Our inner integrity lends itself to everything we do.

When we reclaim the value of body sensations, breath, and the ground beneath us, we directly access our IGS or Internal Guidance System. At the heart of emotional and embodied intelligence is the wish to include all of who we are and to extend that belonging to others.

Preferences & Certainty

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“You do not need to know what is happening or where it is all going. What you need to recognize are the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope. The world is transparent and the divine is shining through all the time.” ~Thomas Merton

Recently my partner and I got our wills in order. It seems timely: we are no longer spring chickens. I affectionately refer to us as “autumn chickens”. We share a daughter and four grandchildren. A future without us meets our gaze through their young, bright eyes.

We did the “needful” as an Indian friend says. We barely knew the attorney; she was hired only for creating our wills. Another woman came in the room briefly to witness and notarize our signatures and in less than an hour everything was done. Our documents were slipped into a large plain white envelope and away we went. I was grateful for their competency.

What struck me was how our preferences create an illusion of certainty. I am fussy about my chai latte. I care a great deal if my veggies are steamed just right. I prefer salted butter over plain. Yet at some of the most significant junctures of our lives we are assisted by strangers. We don’t get to choose.

We live much of our lives insisting that our preferences be met and those preferences are driven by a need for certainty. How well can we do without our preferences being met? Can we discern between a preference and a necessity? Are preferences wrong? Of course not. The lesson it seems these days is to hold them lightly and open to the possibility that there is grace in limitations. It’s good to remember too, that such a life of “preference” comes with privilege. Choices are not an equal opportunity event.

There’s a story about places of worship that had been bombed in Europe after World War II. In some communities shards of stained glass were reassembled in a kind of crooked, scarred beauty; but the light shone through. It’s like that. To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, the crack is where the light enters. There are many cracks these days and no guarantee of what’s to come. What would it be like if we discovered enough space between our preferences that the ever present light could shine through?

Initiation

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Since January of this year I’ve walked closely with my daughter; her marriage exploded after many years of normalizing the abnormal with a partner who attempted to separate her from herself and loved ones. Despite my intentions to finish a book and do other tasks, I finally had to surrender that what is happening right in front of me is what’s mine to do.

The marks are all there

While she cannot see the larger picture right now, all the marks of initiation are there: the shattering of a marriage, the ordeal of moving through all the inner and outer obstacles of a divorce with four children, the wish to give up, the seemingly impossible next task, the disorientation, the siren call from an abusive partner who questions her sanity, the exhaustion: all of it. All initiations contain the same elements: a shattering, a loss of identity, disorientation, disintegration, darkness, surrender, a time of living and loving lean, then the renewal and reintegration.

How we moderns navigate

One experience that contributes to we moderns feeling so crazy at times is that we’ve lost touch with the underlying template of initiation that informs all life. We don’t have to take up exotic rituals or costumes, although some people do so. Have a baby! Accompany someone through childbirth, keep a vigil for a loved one dying, spend deep time in nature and observe the necessary chaos that is part of life. We’ve been seduced into believing that life should be just one untroubled moment after the next, which leaves us ill equipped for the inevitable ups and downs of life. When upheaval comes we are left feeling that we’ve been singled out or wonder what is wrong. Nothing is wrong. An initiation is at hand.

Humility

My daughter’s initiation offers healing to her daughter and to her descendants and ancestors. She’s doing the work on behalf of the many. She isn’t aware of that yet. I am aware of the ripple of healing across generations.

I am empowered by her courage, nourished by her companionship, encouraged by her efforts, inspired by her fierceness, and broken wide open by the depth of her moments of despair. All that I have endured up to this point in my own life allows me to be present to her in ways I could have never imagined.

A deep bow to the mystery of it all.

Holding Space

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I grew up with a strong “holding space”: I was held by the land upon which I grew, the air, birds, river, trees, thunderstorms, and winter snows. I couldn’t imagine a world where people didn’t experience this kind of “holding space”, where people couldn’t smell rain before it fell or hear the nuanced birdsong of morning, mid day, and evening.

A western psychological view of a “holding space” was developed by Donald Winnecott—a pediatrician & psychoanalyst expresses the idea that our first and necessary holding space was “mother”. That could be our actual mother or mother figure but that without that “holding space” of the original care giver, we’d not survive.

Most of Western psychology tells us we are stuck with our basic story of these original relationships and how we internalize this primal holding space. And that if our early attachment was poor, we were stuck with this imprint forever, that it cannot be changed or influenced.

Eastern philosophies tell us the mind, body, and experience are fluid. Cutting edge discoveries about neuroplasticity, and our capacity to reshape and reframe our experience arises from eastern and western mystical teachings. It’s a place where science, spirituality and the unity of mind & body meet. Our neurobiology can be affected and shaped by appropriate present day “holding spaces”; we can learn to hold space for ourselves and learn to recognize and trust all that holds us each day of our lives.

What is the value of a holding space or knowing how to hold space for another?

For me that answer comes from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner: A holding space reveals “the gnawing suspicion that the apparent discord, brokenness, contradictions, and discontinuities that assault us every day, might conceal a hidden unity.”

Where do you find a holding space? How do you hold space? What holds you? You may be surprised as you consider these questions.

You Are Not Alone

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“No, it’s not just you. You are not alone”.

There’s no story that has not been told or lived. There are teaching stories from various traditions that span thousands of years speaking to the joys and sorrows of life and how others have endured those circumstances.

Yet, when pain arises in our lives, it is personal. When we believe that our suffering is only personal we may remain feeling persecuted by events over which we feel powerless. When we identify too strongly with only the “world out there” we can feel dislocated and disconnected from our heart, mind, and body. A “ghost in a shell” as a friend calls it.

Often times we are at odds with what I call our ‘inner community”: those aspects of our wholeness that have been rejected, left behind, abandoned, disowned. These parts are left behind as we attempt to belong and stay safe.

Belonging and safety are primary needs. When we live our lives tamping down parts of our “inner community” it becomes more challenging to find or create safe and sane outer connections. It perpetuates the lie of separation which eventually is experienced as an estrangement from ourselves.

Exploring how we embody our personal story and how that intersects with the story of the world, offers a gateway for both personal and collective healing. It reveals to us our “place in the family of things”. It acts to break our trance of isolation.

We need the reminder over and over that our commitment to an awakened heart, mind, and body connects us simultaneously to all of life. If we are all connected, then our inner work is an offering to something larger than ourselves. It may not be the initial reason to seek support, but with time it becomes obvious that we are indeed never alone in our suffering.

What I know of myself and with those whom I have the privilege to work, it comes down to one breath, one gesture, and each moment of genuine connection that we and the world are restored.