Marjorie

September 30, 2015December 30, 2022

Do It! Free the Wily Fox

Decision made: Free the Wily Fox! Ran the numbers, had heartfelt discussion with hubby; selected a date. Then what does the wily fox do? – Huddles in a corner quaking in her furry boots.

Oh yeah .. committee in my head hears Jean Stapleton’s character in You’ve Got Mail telling Kathleen Kelly she’s brave when she decides to close her store:

“..You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn’t feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure now. But you’re not. You are marching into the unknown armed with… [pause] – Nothing. Have a sandwich.”

Okay, I’m armed with a little more than nothing, have an exit strategy (kinda) and some runway. But the fear is there – and struggles about failure; not being all I once thought I could be. I go back and forth, okay being me – and then not.

In his book Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm, Thich Nhat Hanh says:

“The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply.”

Meditation helps me acknowledge what I feel and look at its source. Amongst moments of awareness and deep looking these past five weeks were periods of escapism and my habitual stuffing with food, video games and TV – oh so not pretty. When I take the time to look though, fear is fascinating and personal. The coping mechanisms that saved my ass once-upon-a-time, are now just keeping me isolated and perpetually pissed off.

Culturally we’re taught to run or punch. My preference is to run, avoid and withdraw; less blood. Breathing in – breathing out; pay attention to my body. This isn’t easy, my habits and beliefs feel real; justified. Yet when I make the effort to be mindful, to question my ways and find their roots I’m calmer; uncomfortable, but calmer. Sitting in my discomfort; simply being present; no defense, no retaliation . . . there’s a shift. Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron both say compassion is the key; first compassion for myself; then compassion for others.

As Thich Nhat Hanh says “Hello, my fear. Hello, my anger. Hello, my sadness. I know you are there. I’m going to take good care of you.” Here’s to loving me.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” ― Rumi

September 6, 2015December 30, 2022

Open to Magic

Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon” dependably brings tears to my eyes. When mom died the tears just rolled down my face; I felt Puff’s loss of Jackie Paper in my bones – “Without his lifelong friend Puff could not be brave.”

Today; still tears but different. Curious; not feeling loss so much as appreciating that this separation is me from myself; and it’s an illusion. After being surrounded by enchanted people for five days in the Colorado Rockies I feel closer to my Puff.

Magically, mom drops pennies across my path to remind me she’s always near. As Terri and I left an afternoon session with Martha and the Team, she silently bent down and picked up a penny and handed it to me. Staying open to all possibilities—happiness drops in my palm.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” – William Blake

August 23, 2015December 30, 2022

My Feelings . . . My Need

When I’m squeezed between aspiration and reality, hearing Pema Chodron’s experience is encouraging. She recounts a moment of clarity during a habitual response to money issues. She shared how that illuminating moment was likely the result of –

“.. years of looking as honestly and uncritically as I could at my experience. Possibly it was also a result of all the meditation training I had done in seeing when I’d spin off and then just coming back to the present.”

Dang It – no shortcut! Gotta put in the foot work. “The key is changing our habits and, in particular, the habits of our mind.” She shares how she got it that day –

“Right there in the middle of a very habitual state of mind, I saw what I was doing. I not only saw what I was doing I also stopped. I stopped following through with my habitual plan to save the day. I decided not to rush around trying to avert disaster. I let the thoughts that “only I could rescue us” come and I let them go. I decided to see what would happen without my input-even if it meant that everything would fall apart. Sometimes you just have to let everything fall apart. Stopping my actions was the first step and the hardest one.”

“The instruction is to stop. Do anything besides rushing off in the same old direction, up to the same old tricks.” – Doing this “can bring about revolutionary changes in how we perceive things.”

Feeling the squeeze . . . in my reality I stop after I spin off; with all the pleasures of reeling in the repercussions of my big fat mouth … thankyouverymuch … start where you are.

Hearing Pema Chodron say this work helps us see that we “have no ground to stand on,” is on the other side of my cultural cozy zone.

Happily, there are parallels in the west, and I’m psyched when I find them. I picked up Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg Ph.D. This book is about “reframing how we express ourselves and hear others. Instead of habitual, automatic reactions, our words become conscious responses based firmly on awareness…” Sounds like mindfulness to me – very eastern and Buddhist. Seeing concepts crossing apparent boundaries reinforces my belief in the inter-connection of all things.

Dr. Rosenberg outlines the four components of the nonviolent communication process (NVP):

Observations – observe without evaluation. Stop the judging!
Feelings – take responsibility for what we feel; know that it’s not what we “think”
Needs – connect our feelings to our needs “I feel . . . because I need . . . “
Requests – ask for what we want, not what we don’t want

Pema Chodron says that “the instruction is to stop . . . do anything besides rushing off in the same old direction . . .” Marshall Rosenberg suggests the same.

There’s a great list of “feeling words” in Rosenberg’s book. Helpful. Being a thinker, I’m comfortable with thinking words. They’re very different than feeling words. Adding the “because I need. . . “ phrase is an added stretch! Where is that darn “because I need” list of words! Poo-di. The effort is worth it; especially if I want to have compassionate and empathetic conversations. Rosenberg says that “needs are at the roots of feelings” and that –

“When we express our needs indirectly through the use of evaluations, interpretations, and images, others are likely to hear criticism. And when people hear anything that sounds like criticism, they tend to invest their energy in self-defense or counterattack. If we wish for a compassionate response from others, it is self-defeating to express our needs by interpreting or diagnosing their behavior. Instead, the more directly we can connect our feelings to our own needs, the easier it is for others to respond to us compassionately.

Unfortunately, most of us have never been taught to think in terms of needs. We are accustomed to thinking about what’s wrong with other people when our needs aren’t being fulfilled.”

“Most of us have never been taught to think in terms of needs.” Could this be why there are so many pissed off people in the world? Needs can’t get met if we don’t express them. I can choose differently; I can accept responsibility for my feelings – even when the message I get is negative. Rosenberg says we have four options for receiving negative messages:

Take it personally – blame ourselves
Fault the speaker – blame them
Shine the light of consciousness on our own feelings and needs
Shine the light of consciousness on the other person’s feelings and needs

Well! Since number 1 and number 2 end up in my reality way too often – I must need me some more learnin’ … Hahaha! Right up my alley.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” – M. Scott Peck

August 12, 2015December 30, 2022

Getting Squeezed

While sharing the first five “transcendent actions” with Renee she asked which I found most difficult. Seeing my face scrunch with indecision she said “okay top two!” Hahaha! They’re all a work in progress, but today “generosity” and “patience” are my booger-bears.

Being generous with my real self invites the potential for rejection – who wants that? Okay … I want acceptance and to be known for who I am; nothing ventured, nothing gained. Patience is quite the challenge as I’m a take action freak. Sitting still when I could “be doing something about whatever” gives me the heebie-jeebies – like I’m some kind of human Mexican jumping-bean. Yes, I remain a work in progress.

Pema Chodron shares a story about Naropa, an 11^th century Indian yogi and his quest to find a teacher. Naropa kept getting squeezed … reality got in the way of his aspiration. While he knew about compassion intellectually, his practice fell short. He was like the professed animal lover who backs away from the stinking, flea-infested, mangy dog.

“We continually find ourselves in that squeeze. It’s a place where we look for alternatives to just being there.” – That uncomfortable or embarrassing place. “We’re so used to running from discomfort, and we’re so predictable. If we don’t like it, we strike out at someone or beat up on ourselves. We want security and certainty…”

The squeeze: that place between our aspiration and sitting still with the consequent heebie-jeebies. Next time the feeling hits, says Pema, “consider it a remarkable stroke of luck.” Bwahahaha……!!!

Pema Chodron; When Things Fall Apart – the first five transcendent actions:

Generosity: “the journey of learning to give” because “holding on causes us to suffer”
- Stop “cultivating our own scheme.”
- Give away “our dark glasses . . . our disguises” – “open ourselves and let ourselves be touched.”
- “Give away what we think we can’t.”
Discipline: “gentle yet precise”
- “Not being swayed by moods” or “any form of potential escape from reality.”
- It “allows us to be right here and connect with the richness of the moment.”
- “It’s a sort of undoing process that supports us in going against the grain of our painful habitual patterns.”
Patience: “antidote to anger”
- “Love and care for whatever we meet on the path” . . . “we do not mean enduring – to grin and bear it.”
- “The opposite of patience is aggression” – “the desire to jump and move, and to push against our lives, to try to fill up space.”
Exertion: “has a journey quality, a process quality”
- When “the brightness of the day … is bigger than staying in bed.”
Meditation: “allows us to continue the journey”
- “We connect with something unconditional.”

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” ― Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die