Spiritual Unfolding in Motherhood

During motherhood I unexpectedly began a spiritual unfolding. It was nothing I planned for, nor sought out.  In fact, you could easily argue the opposite, that it would have taken a bolt of lightning for a secular girl like me to have had a spiritual experience. Before motherhood I had already gone to an ashram in India, traveled from Mexico to the Silk Road of Uzbekistan, volunteered in service in the Peace Corps, taken myself to Kripalu Yoga and Wellness Center for retreats, spent years in a twelve-step program and attended a Unitarian Universalist Church for Sunday sermons, and in none of these experiences was I seeking a spiritual experience nor having a spiritual experience. It was not until I was 6 months pregnant with my son when I joined a church for the first time.  I was 31 years-old.

My experience was not to be an Eat, Pray, Love experience where a woman shares her spiritual awakening while traveling the world. This was not to be a Devotion experience where a mother chronicles her steps towards an authentic spiritual life for her and her son. Mine was, well, rather inconvenient timing to tell you the truth.  I was knee deep in scared-out-of-my-mind first-time (and unexpected!) motherhood.  How the heck was I supposed to fit in a spiritual journey too?

Well, if I’ve learned anything in these last 7 years it is this: I have yet to meet a person, including myself, who was actually able to pick out the day, time and life stage to meet god.  In our overly calculated, strategic and fundamentally control-freaky American society, this is just one life experience that we do not get to schedule in our iPhone.

I’ve been asked if I at least had a tug inside of me.  Some sort of emptiness or void that manifested as a restlessness to be full-filled. No. I’d say, no.  Probably because I had no spiritual or religious life growing up, I had no idea that anything was amiss or absent.  I did not feel judgmental about my secular life. I did not feel sad, angry or fearful about my secular life.  This was my normal.  I had no other reality to compare or contrast it to. I was not even an agnostic or an atheist.  Both of these positions suggest someone has a conviction about god and the spiritual life. I didn’t.  It was just a non-issue for me.

Not that I didn’t have an introspective life or interest.  I did.  I certainly did.  From childhood I always kept a journal and my family and friends would tell you I was often found quiet and reserved, off by myself in deep thought.  I was caught in a paradox though.  I could be contentedly both with myself and by myself for oddly long periods of time--kind of like one of my favorite childhood books Ferdinand the Bull.  At the same time, I was incredibly lonely.  As I got older, one-to-one deep conversations with complex people captivated me, and ultimately led me to my career path as a clinical social worker who practices psychotherapy. 

You could argue, maybe, that these earlier introspective experiences hard-wired me or primed me for what was to come.  But even if someone had fore-told it to me, I wouldn’t have believed them.  I think this is because 1.) I'm stubborn and 2.) You don’t know how rigid your interior life is, even a completely secular one, until it gets torn down.  It is not until you are standing there naked and exposed, when you know going back to how things used to be is not even an option, and yet you have no idea what is next that you catch on to what is unfolding. When you are brought to your knees in vulnerability—my least favorite of the human experiences—that you acknowledge your life is changing in a completely unexpected direction.  Enter, god.

So that is a little piece about the origins of my spiritual awakening.  How about yours? I would love to hear.

Meditative Blogs

If you are like me, and countless others, when you feel lost or restless, you may find yourself surfing the web.  My husband, he likes channel surfing the television with the remote control.  But that is not really my cup of tea.   I prefer to waste countless minutes (hours…) online in a quasi-vegetable-like state going from website to website looking for god-knows-what- please note the sarcasm!

I really don’t do this often.  I don’t have time to do it often.  But, undoubtedly sometimes I do go right down the internet rabbit hole.  This may sound strange coming from someone who writes a blog.  And as I write this, I would have to agree.  Alas, here we are…

But I have found some websites, specifically blog sites, that I can go to if I must be online.  If I must get my fix. In fact, just today I finished a post called “Meditation Yields Joy,” and then turned to Buddhist teacher and writer Jack Kornfield’s blog only to see him write nearly the very same sentiment just this month: “The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.”

So I picked several blog sites here that you may like too.  All are quality reading material.  Many of them “the greats,” in my humble opinion, who contribute to our meditation community through their wise words put to, not paper anymore, but techno-space.

1.)    Tara Brach: Buddhist teacher, writer, psychotherapist

blog.tarabrach.com

2.)    Stephen Cope: Scholar in Residence at Kripalu, writer, psychotherapist

http://kripalu.org/blog

3.)    Dani Shapiro: Writer

www.danishapiro.com

4.)    Jack Kornfield: Leading western Buddhist teacher and writer

jackkornfield.com/category/blog

5.)    Sharon Salzberg: Leading western Buddhist teacher and writer

sharonsalzberg.com

6.)    Brother David Steindl-Rast: Not a blog, but has many articles and word of the day

gratefulness.org

7.)    On-Being NPR Radio Show: Blogs written by host Krista Tippet and her staff

www.onbeing.org/blog

8.)    Unitarian Universalist Association: a Round-up of UU-friendly bloggers

http://bloguuworld.org/web/

9.)    Sylvia Boorstein: Not a blog, but does have many of her articles on Buddhism

sylviaboorstein.com/articles
10.) Karen Maezen-Miller: Mother, Zen Priest, Author of 3 books
karenmaezenmiller.com/blog/
11.) Kate Braestrup: UU minister and Author
www.katebraestrup.com/blog/

This list is in no particular order, and I’m sure there are many others.  If you have other blog sites you would recommend to me and others, please forward them on!  Some folks use Facebook and Twitter to get some guidance from their favorite gurus, but I find those sites too slippery to navigate, and instead stick to blogs. 

Happy reading!

Meditation Yields Joy

This past week I felt moments of a deep penetrating joy even though I was scouring my house for lice and experiencing holiday blues. How is this possible you ask? I would say, unquestionably, through practicing meditation.

Now you may be thinking, it sounds like this girl has been drinking the cool aid! And maybe I have been.  Maybe I have become a believer of sorts in the benefits of millennia-old practices in meditation. But hey, if it ain’t broke…

Some of you know, I recently went through the Jon Kabat-Zinn, UMASS-based, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction 8-week training this past fall. In the class, the teacher, Kate, said several nuggets of wisdom about meditation practice that are still working their way through me. 

One piece that I was reminded of in these last several days while I had time off from work and was spending time with my children, is that a meditation practice is like weaving a parachute. Each day you sit down and weave for 5 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour.  Any amount of weaving, any amount of meditation, contributes to a larger whole that leads to a greater sense of equanimity. This equanimity, or parachute, allows you to experience joy at times you would otherwise have been distracted by the external minutia that often overwhelms us.  Like, for example, doing loads and loads of laundry, changing bedding and bagging stuffed animals because my 5 year-old somehow got lice the day after Christmas.  Or, moving through the feelings associated with loss that show up each year at the holidays for me.  In the past, I am certain I would have been unable to notice that grounding joy inside me because my focus would have been elsewhere.

I have to say, I find this recent awareness about meditation very encouraging because it helps me increase my motivation and commitment (otherwise known as discipline) to continue a meditation practice even though sometimes it can feel like just one more thing to do in my already very busy schedule as a working mother.

Now for me, meditation practice has two other components: mindfulness and god.  I know it does not for everyone, as there is no one way to meditate.  But for me, this triad creates the whole.  Some people might call this “whole” a contemplative practice.

I first learned about contemplative practice from author Sue Monk Kidd. I was reading her book (one of my favorites!) When the Heart Waits, in which Ms. Kidd shares her earlier spiritual journey based in Christian Mysticism.  Recently, Oprah Winfrey re-aired her interview with Sue Monk Kidd on her show Super Soul Sunday, and she quoted from this same book: 

“There have been moments in my life when I sat in the utter quietness of a deserted room and had the noise of a firework show going on inside me.  And there have been rare times when I stood in a crowd of noisy people and tapped into a deep inner silence.  It is this interior quietness, a silence within us that is a door through which God can come to us.”

The past several days I was certainly not in the “utter quietness of a deserted room.”  My 5 year-old and 1 year-old were loud, my house was a mess from Christmas and lice-decontamination, and we had multiple gatherings to attend with the holidays.  But here’s the miracle, “the miracle of mindfulness” as Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says, at times, I still felt quiet inside.

I have heard Buddhist teacher and nun Pema Chodron use the analogy of leather shoes to describe the benefits of meditation practice.  She says we could choose to try to protect ourselves from the suffering of the world and our own emotions like fear and anger by exerting lots of effort to stay inside our little bubble of comfort as to avoid vulnerability.  Or, through meditation, we can cover our vulnerability, our feet, with leather shoes so that we can go out into the world and embrace our difficult feelings with the knowledge that we can tolerate it. We can handle it.  I’m coming to believe this too.

I’m also coming to believe that joy and happiness are two very different experiences. For me, joy is an ability to hold a deeper connection to what is most true and important in our lives (our children, our earth, our dignity, our own personal ethics, the fact that we are all here in this life for a relatively brief stay) no matter what else is going on around us.  Happiness, on the other hand, is a fleeting emotion.  Like sadness, fear, anger, boredom.  It comes.  It goes.  It comes again.  Meditation has also helped me to distinguish the differences between joy and happiness too.

The goal, then, for me becomes two-fold.  One, continue to meditate. Continue to weave my parachute- with as much frequency and regularity as I can muster.  And two, continue to notice the way mindfulness and god manifest as joy in my everyday comings and goings, whatever they may be.

I will conclude with this quote that sits atop author Dani Shapiro’s blogsite, and seems all together fitting this morning:

“Every day includes much more non-being than being. This is always so. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; washing; cooking dinner. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger.”

– Virginia Woolf

Maya Angelou & Other Marys

In the hospital where I work, I keep a frame in the reception area with a quote for patients to contemplate as they await treatment.  Not one specific quote, I actually change it several times a week.  Most recently I displayed a quote by poet, writer, activist and performer Dr. Maya Angelou.  It is a quote that you hear Oprah Winfrey citing on her shows in which Dr. Angelou says:“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”  

I really like this quote because of what it implies--a gentle understanding that we are all works in progress who are doing our best--but more so because it is Dr. Angelou who is saying it. A woman who spoke multiple languages, wrote 36 books, had 50 honorary degrees, worked with Civil Rights Leaders like Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor in 2010 by President Obama. This same woman, said she had made mistakes, struggled and acted from ignorance because she just hadn’t gained that bit of wisdom yet.

I desperately need people like this in my life.  But not just people, women.  I need wise women to guide me. To model for me the art of living.  Now, Dr. Angelou is deceased (May 28, 2014), and I obviously did not know her personally, but her life and words stand as an example for me just the same.  Women need other women, past and present, who can model how to navigate this journey we call life, but who do it in a warm, humble and compassionate way as Dr. Angelou’s words suggest. Women who are sturdy and solid in who they are, that to stretch themselves to make way for other women is actually no stretch at all.

I think of these women as “Marys,” as in variations of Mother Mary, La Virgen de Guadalupe, the Divine Mother, the Goddess, the feminine energy of god, or what have you.  As I’ve said before, to me, the name is just a label, just a word, a symbol; already something way too small and too human to represent something so enormous and vast.  But alas, words are what we have…

I see Marys as sages who walk among us, or who’s footsteps preceded us; women who are so grand that we can be held in their shadow alone.

I particularly need Marys at this time of year.  Not because she is on my mind per se with all of the singing about the birth of her son Jesus, but because I tend to have trouble Thanksgiving through Christmas. The holidays. I know I am not at all unusual in this way, and it actually wasn’t always this way for me. I have some really wonderful childhood memories of the holidays- however romanticized they may be now.  But the tendency toward the blues still seems to knock at my door each December just the same, and I long for a Mary to hold me, figuratively speaking of course. 

One of the ways I meet the need for this longing is I read the words of the real life women, like Dr. Angelou, who help me embody the compassionate but strong image that my Marys represent.  I try to close my eyes and draw into my heart the wisdom gained through generations of women who have struggled through adversity and came out, not on top, but with dignity, self-worth and kindness.

Another famous Dr. Angelou quote: "When you get, give. When you learn, teach" reminds me of one of my absolute favorite sayings that is an African American proverb: lift as you climb. It was the motto of the National Association of Colored Women founded in 1896. When I imagine one of the women I admire, I pull from that image.  It is not an image of a saintly perfectionist.  She is a real human being.  Who through blood, sweat and tears evolved and grew enlightened.  It is that image, that woman, who has room on her coat tails to pull you and me "onward and upward” (as my own mother used to say).  Even through the holiday blues.

Which Marys do you model your courage after today?  To name a few...

Letting Go of Judgment

I said to my husband yesterday that former catholics remind me of recovering smokers.  Now, before I offend my Catholic readers and my readers who used to smoke, though I may be too late for that, I must tell you that nearly all of my favorite people, including my children's god mothers were both raised Catholic and are former smokers. I realize I sound like a Seinfeld episode (my best friend is...) but it is still true.

My remark to my husband came after a baptism of our good friends' son held at a beautiful, if somewhat modern, Catholic Church last Sunday. We were driving out of the parking lot and I, the non-Catholic, was commenting on all the pieces of the ceremony and the church that I found personally moving and meaningful. But my husband, who was raised Catholic, was boo-hooing the ceremony with minor things like the clichéd long length of the service. Which makes sense, who knows how many long-winded priests he had to listen to while growing up. But it still seemed critical. Similar, in my experience, to how critical former smokers are of current smokers- far more critical than I who never smoked.

I think it can be hard to pull out the threads of an experience that are helpful and let go of the rest. It certainly is for me. And I've had to work at it for many (many!) years. But, I have to give myself credit and say, I've gotten better.

On Sunday at the baptism I certainly heard the part of the ceremony where the priest spoke about "baptized babies go to heaven" and when he asked the families to say in chorus that they "reject satan." Two ideas I personally reject. But I was also able to appreciate this gorgeous statue of Jesus Christ behind the priest in which his chest was turned upward toward the sky, his arms were thrown backward, and his head tilting back.  It reminded me of all the open-hearted yoga poses I have ever learned, and if nothing else, Jesus was open-hearted from everything I've heard.

I also enjoyed the elderly priest's sense of humor and found it quite intriguing to hear he had been a marine in an earlier life. Learning that tip of the iceberg forced me to avoid pigeon-holing the priest into one small box just because it is the easy thing to do when we are in a judgmental stance or mindset.

And lest we not forget, the stained glass windows. I love stained glass windows. I carried my one year-old daughter to them and she made her "this is amazing" face with her mouth hanging open and big round eyes. She reached out her hand to touch the colored, cool glass. The esthetic beauty of a Catholic Church reminded me of a saying I had heard once.  I was told, though I never confirmed it myself, in the Koran it is written: "god loves beauty. God is beauty." Having sat in the sterile Congregational Church for several years in childhood, I have always found the attention to the senses (visual, touch, taste, smell, hearing) in a Catholic mass and a Cathedral much more stimulating and worthy- a word that is the basis of "worship."

So how do we train ourselves to be nonjudgmental as we walk through our lives? So that we don't rule out or filter out a potentially meaningful experience just based on the little bit we can see or know on the outset? According to Mindfulness guru Jon Kabat-Zinn, taking a nonjudgmental stance is critically important and is something we can train in to get better at through mindfulness.

Twentieth century monastic Thomas Merton said true freedom, which would include freedom from our own viewpoints and narrow opinions, comes when we follow god's will. Now, "god's will" is still a term that I am trying to wrap my brain around- though I haven't yet...But I think it is fully participating in your own life and reality as it unfolds before you. The good. The bad. And the ugly.

One more way I've read recently to combat the magnetic pull of judgment is "Radical Openness."  I read this turn of phrase in a book I have referred to often in this blog: "One Buddha is not Enough."  A compilation of chapters written by monastics and lay people who follow the teachings of Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hahn. When I read these words: radical openness, I felt something shift inside of me. Almost like a voice inside of me quietly said a drawn out "Yyyyeeeesss."  A deep resonating. With the word "radical" meaning fully and completely. A letting go of all resistance, mental filters, preconceived notions, expectations, and prejudices. So powerful. So hard to practice.

This weekend, I challenge you to let go of the judgments that make you unable to see the fuller picture in which there is a piece of meaning waiting for you. I will try to do the same.

God Signs

Saw this on my drive to work and had to see it as a sign...

When lost, return to Pema

I'll just say it, I love Pema.  Love her.  I am referring of course to Pema Chodron, the American Buddhist nun who is the director of a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia and a writer of I don't know how many books.  I re-read a passage from her book The Wisdom of No Escape this morning.

I've been posting lately, maybe for a month or so, that I have drifted far away from the spiritual practices that had been nearly daily.  Practices that I have found essential for maintaining any sort of bare minimum sanity.  And without them, it has led to me feeling a bit lost.

So this morning, a Saturday when I don't have to head into work and get my son off to school, after nursing my daughter at 5 a.m. (her preferred time this morning, not mine!) rather than going  back to sleep because my mind felt too awake already (you know when the thoughts are already moving above the speed limit) I opted to pull Pema off of my bookshelf.

Now, The Wisdom of No Escape sits next to another Pema Chodron favorite on my bookshelf in the living room, The Places That Scare You.  This book, a paperback,  is so beat-up at this point from casual reading, furious reading, desperate reading that it has become sacred to me.

Yes, I used the word "sacred," but if you are wary of religious language from early childhood nonsecular scars, do not fret.  Though I may be a Pema groupie, I am not someone who turns humans into idols or gods.  Humans are just too human for that.  Having said that, I have found that some people seem to just have gained more wisdom in their single lifetime (to my knowledge...) than the rest of us.  People we all know about like Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Mohamed, Maya Angelou, Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, Aberham Lincoln, Anne Frank, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Ruby Bridges, Eleanor Roosevelt, & Thich Nhat Hanh to name a few.  But also people only some of us know about in our own very personal lives like my Great Aunt Bunny who died in October of this year.  For me, Pema Chodron is on this list.  Someone I can reliably go to for wisdom when I am feeling like the ground is moving beneath me and I need a hand to hold so I don't fall over.

This morning she was discussing a sign she had read on a bulletin board: "be open and accept all situations and people."  And the famous words of Zen Master Dogen who said "to know yourself or study yourself is to forget yourself, and if you forget yourself then you become enlightened by all things."

I had read this chapter in her book before, but I find that doesn't seem to matter at all. I simply take in her words and move into my meditation practice.  And with her discussion of openness and acceptance I decided to sit with my palms open and up rather than folded  in my lap which is how I usually sit. A symbolic gesture of sorts.

So today, as I go through my day, feeling alternately lost then found then lost again, I will come back to Pema Chodron. Her presence. Her words. The life she embodies, to find my footing once again- and again.

Today,  who can you turn to when you feel lost?

Presence is divine

I currently have 2 bottles of amoxicillin 400 mg in my refrigerator, one for each of my children. Two teaspoons for my son twice a day to treat pneumonia.  One teaspoon for my daughter twice a day to treat a double ear infection. Fun times...

Of course I am being facetious here.  There have actually been several quite heart-wrenching moments in these last few days.  Holding my children in my arms as they were miserable and in pain, and feeling completely helpless and inadequate in my ability to take away their suffering.  Because, for some reason, I still have not accepted yet--5+ years into the parenting experience--that I cannot take away their suffering. I can, however, be with them while they go through it.

I have recently been  thinking about whether or not the god of my imagination finds him or herself in the same predicament as I do as a parent.  Does god have the capacity to take away the misery and pain that we human beings suffer? Or is god merely with us in these dark times?  Unable to intervene. Unable to alter the course of things or take away the transgressions.  But fully able and willing to hold and rock and whisper to us as we go through this human experience.  Sometimes I think I know my own answer to those questions, but then I find myself on my proverbial knees praying for exactly what I want god to do for me?

I recently wrote this in the "Notes" section of my iPhone.  I do that sometimes to empty out all the words that swarm around in my mind.  I wrote: "god is in between the notes in the music.  god is in the transition from one yoga posture to another.  god is the breath of silence between two people in conversation.  god is present in the dawn and the dusk. god is in the moment just before a kiss.  god is there the hour before the doctor gives the diagnosis.  god is that untouchable, unknowable, untraceable mysterious space where anything is possible.  Where past, present and future converge into one stillpoint.  Where all is perfect.  Imperfect and all."

Reading this again, I still believe this.  But, upon deeper reflection,  I begin to knit my brows in wonder, "is god really in or is god with?" Which preposition is correct?  In my own personal theology I've come to agree with folks like Unitarian Universalist Chaplain Kate Braestrup and now deceased UU Reverend Forrest Church who had both talked publicly and wrote about their belief that god is not an interventionist in our human lives.  Which is another way of saying, like me as a parent, god cannot take away the pain and suffering of us human beings.  But god can, and does, show up as presence in our lives to love us as  we move through these seemingly unbearable experiences.  And to paraphrase Anne Lamott in her book Operating Instructions "it's not enough, except it is."

I will try to remember god is with me, just as I am with my children, during times of darkness. 

I will also try to remember god's presence in the next few weeks while a very important person in my life will have surgery to treat her recently diagnosed breast cancer.  I am scared for her.  And I am helpless.  But despite my powerlessness, I will try to not lose sight of the value of showing up for another in times of dread and devastation. Fear and frustration.  To be with her.  Knowing full well, "it's not enough, except it is."  After all, god does, right?

Embodying Christian Virtues

It's December, and Jesus is everywhere.  On front lawns.  Sung to, and about on the radio. To be referred to often in my church services as Christmas approaches.  And it causes me to pause, and reflect back on my growing admiration for this prophetic man.

I'm not a Christian.  Never have been.  My parents spent a handful of years bringing my sister and I to the local Protestant Congregational Church growing up.  Or, more accurately, one parent would bring us, the other would do the grocery shopping at Stop & Shop because both tasks were after all, chores.  But to their credit, as my parents approached most parenting tasks I think, they thought the act of having us attend church services and Sunday school for several years would help us later to know what religion is, and that would be a good thing.  Kind of like the equivalent of taking a book out of the library on religion.  Or the modern day equivalent, doing a google search.  A mere intellectual endeavor to be a more well-rounded person.  So I never got turned on to Christianity or Jesus through that experience.  I didn't get turned on to anything religious in that experience- though I did like listening to the bell choir...

In the past couple of years though, I've found some aspects of Christianity useful, even helpful, as far as JC is concerned.

The Unitarian Universalist Church I go to is historically a Universalist Church, and it was founded in 1821 in a nearby town.  When the church moved to it's current location, an enormous stained glass window of Jesus and his disciples came with the congregation, and it now fills the sanctuary.  For those of you who don't know much about UU history, this denomination has Judeo-Christian origins, but is now I would say not identified as a Christian Church despite it's lineage.  Though, Jesus certainly makes his appearances within the service, but then so does The Buddha, Mary Oliver and Howard Thurman.  I must admit though, I've come to kinda like when Jesus takes the floor.

When I first began to visit this church, I had just left a UU church which I would describe as Humanist and verging on Atheist in nature- to say the least, there was no floor to ceiling stained glass window of Jesus in the sanctuary.  And when I first entered my current church and saw the big man with his beard, long hair, and flowing robes standing center stage, literally right behind the pulpit, I was a little put off. I even began to have second thoughts about finding a new spiritual home in a church.  I thought, maybe my spiritual journey was meant to fly solo?

But I continued to go.  Not very consistently at times.  Not taking part in the Lord's Prayer section of the service.  Not too open to the services honed in on the Christian themes and history.  But persevering none the less because I decided my spiritual journey was not supposed to be taken all alone.

Somewhere along the way though, I found I began to like to hear about Christianity, well, more specifically, Jesus.  I became intrigued when I learned he died  in his 30's- I'm in my 30's.  My respect grew when I found out that he liked to hang out with the forgotten ones (in the year 2014 or 14, it seems 2 millennia has not changed this much) like prostitutes and the terminally ill.  I began to take part in the Lord's Prayer when some members, though certainly not all, recited it along with the minister after singing the prayer Spirit of Life.  I particularly liked saying the line: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" since forgiveness as a spiritual practice has always been a tough one for me.

In fact, the more I learn about him, Jesus that is, I was surprised to find out that his words (at least the words that have been passed down to me) really reflect a nonjudgmental and compassionate stance- 2 positions I generally more associate with Buddhism than Christianity since most of the Christians I've met seem to be extraordinarily judgmental.  But the story about Jesus seeing the group of people in the street with a plan to stone a woman, a prostitute I believe, to death, began to shift my thinking about the association I had been making between Christians and judgment.  Now, please forgive me if I am getting some of the details wrong here, that is not my intent.  But my understanding is upon seeing this group in the street about to murder this woman for her "sins," Jesus said to the mob, "he who has not sinned shall cast the first stone."  And with that, the crowd dispersed.  I love that story. It not only encourages a nonjudgmental stance, but also encourages us to see the humanity in us all with a spirit of humility- a virtue I very much value.

So maybe Jesus would be more of a friend than a foe if I were to meet him today?  Maybe we have more in common than I initially thought.  Maybe my first impressions were just that, first impressions.  Maybe there is a whole lot more there beneath the superficial surface of seeing Christians preachers on television on Sunday mornings and sitting in my Congregational Church as a child just for the point of sitting there.

In my last post I spoke of a book called The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope.  In the introduction to his book, as Mr. Cope is setting the stage to discuss the general plot of the Bhagavad Gita, an important yogic text, he refers to a quote by Jesus that I had heard before, but was glad to be reminded of: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."  This is from The Gospel of Thomas.

More and more I read about Jesus in the context of other prophets and traditions, like Thich Nhat Hanh's book Living Buddha, Living Christ (a great read if you haven't read it already), and I find that I might have been selling this guy short.  Just because to me he is no more the son of god than you or I, does not mean that I might not gain and grow from his teachings. Perhaps my own previously narrow thinking about Christianity is a reflection of the very judgment that I had looked down upon in what I perceived from some of the Christians I have encountered.

So this month, in celebration of Jesus, I will honor virtues such as: nonjudgment, compassion and humility.  But, since I am a UU, probably more important for us than celebrating a prophet and his teachings, would be embodying these virtues in my day-to-day activities.  That is the task.  That is the challenge.  Taking dogma to where the rubber meets the road as it seems all lasting prophets did and do.  I will try.  Will you?

Split in Yogic Doubt

My 5 year-old son has pneumonia. Temperatures of 104.1 and 103.5 have scared the heck out of me these last few days.  I fear sleeping at night for worry I may miss a dosage of motrin or Tylenol, or both when we've not been able to get the fever under control with just the one. During these times all I want to do is be with him.  Hold him. Watch over him. But today I had to go to back to work, and it felt terrible.

It's not that my son was not well taken care of, he was.  My husband was home with him- which means my son was being watched like a hawk and fiercely loved by a total papa bear.  But the point is, I wasn't home.  I wasn't in the place, and with the person, where everything inside of me felt I should have been today.  An awful feeling that crystalized for me when my boss asked me how my son was doing, and my only response was to begin to tear up- and I'm no crier.

These work-home dilemmas are so challenging, and I know not unique at all to me.  Feeling split between two obligations or two desires, or both, is at times heartbreaking.  My colleague frequently makes light fun of me because I am always looking for the win-win in any given situation. But so much in life just does not allow for a win-win.  Many times it is a win-lose, and sometimes we must accept the inevitability of a lose-lose. I hate lose-lose situations.  I know "hate" is a strong word, but "hate" is the feeling that truly captures my reaction to a situation that I cannot produce a desirable outcome at least for somebody, even if not for me.

I recently read the introduction to a book called The Great Work of Your Life: a Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling by Stephen Cope, Resident Scholar at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Western Massachusetts. I had read another book by Mr. Cope, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self which was one of those books where every other page I was copying down his words and reflecting in my journal about a thought he had proposed. So, I kinda knew I'd enjoy his other work too.  But, imagine my surprise when the first topic he brings up in the introduction alone captures the essence of my current struggle.

Mr. Cope begins to orient the reader to the story behind the Bhagavad Gita, a very important book in the yogic tradition.  After learning about the central personalities of Arjuna and Krishna, Mr. Cope introduces the reader to the theme of "doubt." He describes "doubt" as an area of suffering where we are stuck between two powerful pulls. The quintessential rock and a hard place.  Where win-win is impossible.

He says:

"Until I began to wrestle with the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, I thought that doubt was the least of my problems.  Grasping and aversion, the classic afflictions pointed to by the earlier yoga tradition, were much more obvious in my life.  However as I have begun to investigate the Gita's view on doubt, and as I begin to understand what doubt really is, I see it at work everywhere.  I've begun to see the ways-both small and large-in which I am paralyzed from action on a daily basis. Split. Replete with misgivings. Unsure. A foot on both sides of various dilemmas."

When I read this, I felt my own experience was being mirrored back to me in the most obvious of ways.  How strange when that happens. How serendipitous.

Mr. Cope adds that doubt in the yogic lineage is defined as a "thought that touches both sides of a dilemma at the same time...the paralyzing affliction." He says "it follows, then, that doubt is the central affliction of all men and women of action."  Compile that with a personality that is still caught at times in black and white categories of "right" and "wrong," and a perfect storm for inner conflict in the form of outward suffering has been created.

So what does one do? How does "a woman of action," as I am, not succumb to paralysis when making decisions between bad and worse or good and great? Where if one person wins, another will lose?

I suppose I'd be lying if I said I had the  answer to this. But I think there is value to posing the questions.  Maybe asking questions is a way to keep the soil loose and workable as in a garden, even if you are still far off from planting the seeds. Of course, having said that, if anyone out there has any wise suggestions, I'd be very open to that too!

Spiritual Inspiration from Civil Rights

The 3 C's: Courage, Compassion, Creativity. Civil Rights Activist Vincent Harding said these were the essential pieces of Dr. Martin Luther King's movement and philosophy. He also talked about Dr. King's "beloved community" and what he called a "love ethic." According to Dr. Harding, "love trumps doctrine every time." Dr. Harding died this year at the age of 82.

I think the legacy of his words and ideas, and others of like mind, are absolutely beautiful and lasting through time.  And I like to listen to veteran civil rights activists (from the 50's, 60's and 70's) talk about the spiritual and religious component to the Civil Rights Movement. That aspect of the movement, is one that was not part of my education as someone raised in a white, liberal, secular home.

Growing up I was taught a lot about the 19th & 20th century efforts for equality made in this country by people of color, women, and LGB folks (we didn't talk about T and Q folks yet).  Social activism. Civil rights. Gender equality. Anti-discrimination.  These were all very big themes to my childhood.  My parents, and particularly my mother, were adamant about me being well-educated on the history of oppression in this country, and particularly racism.  This meant I was to know about African American heroes like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and of course Dr. Martin Luther King. I was to know about the freedom rides, the rash of lynchings, affirmative action, and the middle passage. I was to understand the importance of Brown Vs. Board of Education and defacto segregation which dominated New England urban and suburban areas.

But now, it seems strange to me that the religious and spiritual core of the civil rights movement was all but absent from my education.

I was reminded of this rather large and significant hole at church this past Sunday.  Our Reverend was not preaching and we had a guest minister, an African American minister, in our vastly white Unitarian Universalist church (outside and inside). In the sermon the guest minister talked to us about the situation in Ferguson, Missouri in which people have had weeks of protest in the street to voice their disdain for another unarmed black person being shot and killed with no apparent justice to follow in the legal system. The minister used the word "hopelessness" to describe some of the feelings that many people of color and particularly African Americans may be contending with. He said the following day, Monday, he planned to go to Ferguson himself to march with the people of Missouri in protest and solidarity.

You could argue this action is an antidote to hopelessness.  But I think it could be more.  Not speaking for the guest minister of my church, but for some people, action steps to challenge oppression are embedded in spiritual practice.  Working toward a beloved community. Engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience.  Standing up and responding from a place of love rather than hatred.  All of these seemingly impossible tasks, to me, are squarely in the camp of hard core spiritual practice.

And honestly, wouldn't they have to be? For a movement to sustain over time without giving in to the quicksand of hopelessness, self-pity, victim-stance, and cynicism that could be arguably valid for any variety of reasons?

Personally, I draw great inspiration from the spiritual lineage of the Civil Rights Movement.  As in, I draw in a deep breath that clears my mind and focuses my attention on the tremendous possibility available to us.  If the veteran civil rights activists were able to maintain their 3 C's: courage, compassion, and creativity in the face of brutal oppression and at times, threats or attempts to murder, I believe that I can too in the face of far, far less.  It is actually a daring and radical choice to act from a joyful, hopeful, loving, and faithful place. I dare you to try it today...I will try too.

Becoming a Mystic in Motherhood

"Leave room for yourself." I read this recently. It was the advice of a 92 year-old woman to her 50 something year-old mentee.  Both women writers. Both women not your typical soccer moms, whatever that is.  I love the wisdom composed here. 

I think the message we get as mothers is there are only two poles where we can locate ourselves at any given time: good or bad.  As in: am I being a "good" mother or a "bad" mother. Because, it must be one or the other. But whoever came up with that duality was, I swear, not a mother. We are far more complex than that simplistic categorization allows for.  What's more, I resent the inherent set-up here, where we must face off with each other, mother to mother. What side of the line are you on? If I'm on good, you must be on bad. If I'm on bad, you must be on good.  All this judgment. All this criticism of self and other.

But the "leave room for yourself" suggestion feels outside this narrow box constructed above.

Tomorrow I go back to work at the hospital. I've been off work for 9  consecutive days. Spending time with my children. Sleeping. Drinking coffee more slowly. Slowing down to a manageable pace. In fact, I don't think I said "hurry up" to my 5 year-old even once this past week. It was more like, "take your time, we're not in a rush." And that included getting him to the bus stop for 7:45 a.m.  This past week it actually felt like I was doing one full-time job: parenting.  Tomorrow, I go back to doing two full-time jobs: parenting and employment.

When I was on maternity leave I remember watching a YouTube video of Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.  At that time I was breast feeding 8-10 times a day and was growing desperate to fill my brain with something concrete because it felt like it was getting fudgy.  In the video Ms. Gilbert was talking to an audience about an article she had read by self-help writer Martha Beck.  According to Ms. Gilbert, Ms. Beck broke down modern American women into 4 categories: 1.) those who put their career first and are conflicted about it; 2.) those who put their children first and are conflicted about it; 3.) those who put their career and children first and are really conflicted about it; and lastly: 4.) the mystics.

As I return to work tomorrow after my first stretch of time off since my maternity leave last winter for my now one year-old daughter, I can see quite clearly how squarely I had been sitting in the #3 category.  Trying so hard. Too hard.  Forcing. Pushing. And truly no one (my children nor I) genuinely benefitting from all the efforting (a word I recently learned and am loving!).

I think the only way for me to move from category #3 of Really Conflicted to category #4 of Mystic would be to "leave room for myself." It will not be as much room as I would like.  It never is.  But something.  Each day.  Time I do not ask permission for or offer appreciation for. A time I set aside and use however I see fit that particularly day.  Maybe I choose to go  to sleep early because I am just falling over exhausted.  Maybe I choose to watch back-to-back episodes of Grey's Anatomy.  Maybe I choose to read, pray, write, meditate, do yoga, write an email to a friend. Whatever moves me.  And I will not judge myself as good or bad as a result. I will instead compassionately say to myself: what do you need today?  I will not be compartmentalizing myself into a "good mother" or "bad mother" category.  I will just be taking a moment to remember myself.  Saying: "Oh there you are, you're there."

To all the working mothers out there: this week, let go of the internal conflict, and just allow.  And if you can, leave some room, each day, for yourself.

Micro Moments of Mysticism

I know I should be writing about some variation of the gratitude theme, but that is just not what is inside of me. Not because I'm not filled with gratitude, I am. I have so many blessings in my life that when I sit down to reflect on each, I am easily moved to tears thinking, "how could I be so lucky?"

But gratitude is easy stuff for me, spiritually speaking.  It is why I choose to host the Thanksgiving holiday in my family. Aside from the fact that my husband ended up working 26 straight hours till 10 a.m. Thanksgiving morning which caused some stress for us, I generally just really enjoy all the preparations involved with the holiday. I take off the full week from work so that I can take several days to prepare the house and the food and the decorations. Making my dinner a symbolic gesture of the gratitude I carry with me throughout the year.

But in the past few weeks I've felt in a bit of a spiritual slump. Nothing I can specifically put my finger on per se as the causal factor, more a feeling.  I did have my last Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class at the beginning of November, and sometimes there can be a feeling of letdown when a transforming experience comes to an end.  My infant daughter also began to wake up more often during the night and began to crawl and try to stand  up during the day, which has added an exhaustion factor which I wrote about in my last post. I'm not convinced though that these are the culprits of my spiritual lull. 

I think there could be a little bit of the proverbial what came first? The chicken or the egg in this situation.  I feel uninspired and fatigued, and therefore I meditate, pray, write, read and go to church less often.  And when I meditate, pray, write, read and go to church less often, I feel uninspired and fatigued.  Which came first though? Does it matter?

I have had some moments though. You know those moments in which it feels like time is standing still? Where you experience this heightened sense of, well, everything. When you look around you and for just those few seconds everything feels absolutely perfect just as it is.  Not because it is perfect, meaning: neat, tidy, in place. But because you experience this knowing that all is well.  For me, those are experiences of god. Are they the same for you?

I heard a rabbi named Lawrence Kushner speak on my favorite radio show "On Being" (apparently the only consistency in my life at this time...) about his definition of mysticism in terms of the Jewish mystical tradition Kabbalah, and he referred to these micro-moments of connection to god. I think he compared them to bite-size candy. Not a parting of the Red Sea.  Not a resurrection. A moment.  A moment so outwardly ordinary that an onlooker would not even  necessarily be able to notice the slight shift inside of you or me as the warmth washes over.

For me, in the last 2 days, these splendid moments have happened twice. Once while I was washing the wine glasses for my Thanksgiving table, and the second as I was holding my daughter in my arms as she fell off to sleep.  Now, on any other day I could be totally frazzled and overwhelmed with such everyday activities.  Or equally possible I could be completely bored with both, and escaping the minutia of such tasks by spinning off into the past or the future in my mind.  But for me, this is where grace comes in.  Because in each of those moments where I felt held and utterly still, I was making absolutely no effort whatsoever.  I was not trying or forcing, as I do in almost every other area of my life, it just happened. 

And you know what? I'll take it. Especially during these times of spiritual valleys, I will seize any and all experiences that god finds me to say hello, rather than the other way around.  And I will hold those moments in my heart for safe keeping.

All or nothing spiritual practice

Pure exhaustion. That's where I am. Like I could just close my eyes and sleep for 24 hours straight. A combination of difficult patients, a baby who won't sleep, a kindergartener with a lot of emotional needs, a house to clean, and a husband who it seems I just have enough time to say hello to and get the kid update. And that's it. All this has led me to totally fall off the wagon of spiritual practices, including this blog.

This is not to say I don't see how everything I just listed could be viewed as a spiritual practice in itself, it could. And some of the time I do. But I'm talking about the more obvious and direct spiritual practices like prayer, yoga, meditation, going to church, lectio divina, writing. Practices that I both enjoy and find highly effective for keeping me sane and grounded. But when do you just stop everything you are doing and catch up on sleep?

I only ask because I actually fell asleep during a church service two weeks ago. Not on purpose of course. It just happened. One minute I was listening to really beautiful music (because it was music Sunday at my UU church) and the next minute the minister was asking us to rise to recite our benediction.

Snoozing in church, and not over boredom, led me to reevaluate whether I'm trying to do too much? And since the answer to that question is a reverberating "yes," what do I do about it?

Well, I could cut. Cut what I consider to be nonessentials.  But when I look at the list, I notice everything "nonessential" is what nourishes me. Ever the caretaker, I kept the ways I nourish others-whether it be literally with my children or figuratively with my job as a psychotherapist. But why do I put my own nourishment on the chopping block? Because I will tell you, I have no interest in martyrdom.

I think my inclination to turn away from myself in times of stress is a combination of habit perpetuated by two thinking patterns: all or nothing thinking and shoulds.  To be sure, a more balanced approach to stress would be to cut back instead of cut out, and do it with some self-compassion and kindness.

I once heard a definition of stress as described by Richard Lazarus as: "a particular relationship between a person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his/her well-being." I like this definition of stress because it takes the importance of perception into the equation.  I have a hard time making allowance for perception in regards to stress, at least for myself. The over-achiever that I am, I say to myself "I should be able to do this, that and the other."  Even when my body is literally falling asleep on me.

To state the obvious, this is not a balanced, healthy approach to anything, let alone making time for spiritual practices. In fact, the word "should" does not even belong here, and I would like to substitute "should" with "valid."

A couple months ago I had an experience of losing two people in my life to cancer within a week, and someone said to me afterward: "everything is valid."  She was referring to my response to the deaths, meaning there is no right or wrong in grief. After she said it, it occurred to me that the phrase "everything is valid" was so contradictory to my own judgment of how I perceive experience including things like meditation and yoga. While this individual was suggesting valid, I was perpetrating the shoulds, and that difference stopped me right in my tracks.

So what if I were to let go of the shoulds with my spiritual practices when I'm exhausted after a sleepless night with my daughter or a challenging day with a suicidal patient? What if I were to let go of my all or nothing thinking playing itself out in my spiritual practices where I do meditation, yoga, spiritual reading and writing for 45-60 minutes a day several days a week or I do absolutely nothing at all and veg in front of the tv? What if I were to say to myself, "everything is valid?"

That black and white, either/ or response to stress is one choice. Or, I could compassionately, radically accept that though I am not able to engage in contemplative practice as I used to, either because I'm falling asleep or I'm strapped for time, I do not have to stop everything.
I could surrender to reality with willingness by letting go of how things "should" be and instead embrace reality as it is.

Now, when I'm less fatigued and not counting every precious minute of sleep, I may go back to my old routine because I enjoyed it and it worked for me.  But for now (one of my favorite expressions) I will see what I can do and let go of the rest.

What "should" can you let go of today? Is an all or nothing mindset interfering with your spiritual practice?

Transcending Emotions in Meditation

Have you ever watched one emotion transform into another inside of you? It is a little bit like trying to watch the movement of the sun as it sets at dusk. Or watching the pot of water on your stove turn to steam when it boils. We know intellectually what will happen. We see evidence of the facts of what is happening over the course of minutes. But in the actual moment itself the transformation seems illusive, mysterious and even magical.

We know this because each evening when it is clear, somewhere in the world someone is gazing out at the horizon as the sun goes down, and is saying nearly out loud with a sigh, "wow!" even though the sun does this every single night.

Well, our emotions do too. Multiple times a day actually our emotions will set on the horizon. And I have become more aware of those magical moments through the practice of meditation.

Not because I necessarily try to alter my emotions in any way in meditation. In fact it is the opposite, I try to just observe my feelings and let them be- which is of course very hard, especially with the painful emotions. But I've noticed, some feeling states evolve on their own when you just let them be. And for me, there is a certain relief to that. Just like external nature, just like the water boiling and the sun setting, my internal world will also transform on its own, even if I can't quite see it with my own naked eye.

I remember the first time I noticed this transcendent experience. I was sitting in meditation and a medium-sized wave of sadness came over me. Not totally uncommon, but in this case had to do specifically with missing the dear friends I had just visited. Goodbyes have always been tough for me, and the feelings that tend to accompany them like sadness, but also loss, loneliness and sometimes fear. In the past I have coped with these emerging feelings following a goodbye by distracting myself. Keeping busy. Moving on to the next thing. Which is fine- there is nothing inherently wrong with that approach- sometimes distraction may be exactly what we need to do.  But for me, I realized when I do distract from the painful emotions, I may be missing the opportunity to watch, for example, sadness evolve into a deep feeling of love as it did in meditation after visiting my friends.

I was reminded of this exquisite fruit of meditation recently when I re-listened to a radio interview from my favorite podcast "On Being" with Krista Tippett. She was talking with a woman named Joanna Macy who is, among other things, an environmental activist.

Ms. Macy described how she watches grief transform into love in respect to the catastrophic damage we humans perpetrate against the earth. She suggested that sometimes the grief can be so intense when we watch news about an oil spill or a nuclear explosion that we want to turn our attention away because it is too much, overwhelming. But, if we choose not to turn away, if we stay with the grief, over time, we will notice a transcendence occur where grief will evolve into love. Ms. Macy used the analogy of a parent who chooses to not turn away from their child who has leukemia. Though it would be understandable for the parent to react to their feelings of loss and sadness with avoidance, they don't. Instead, the parent moves toward their child in a loving manner.

I love this idea of transformation as a possibility if you stick with something, and in the case of meditation, you are sticking with yourself. But what I love more is the brief instruction to just be with the difficult emotion. That's it. The rest will take care of itself if "I" don't get in the way. So simple. So elegant. So difficult to practice for a do-er like me.

I will try though. Because the gifts to be received like compassion, love and forgiveness are too great to miss out on.

What about you? Can you try to stay with your difficult emotion long enough today to watch it transform into something else?

Balancing Family & the Spiritual Life

Tonight is my last Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class. The eight weeks of Monday night meditation learning and practice with the teacher, Kate, and my group of 40 other travelers is coming to a close. And I'm sad.  However, my five year old son is not-so-sad.

This week he asked me while we were driving in the car to daycare, "how many more classes do you have?"  I answered, "just one more," at which time he threw a fist in the air and cheered a long drawn out "Yessss!"  At which point my heart began to ache.

Making choices about how to spend our precious time on earth is always challenging, and working mom's are particularly aware of this. But what do you do when awareness is more like conflictedness?

Do I spend more time playing with my kids or building a career to financially support my kids? Do I nurture my spiritual life on a Sunday morning or clean the bathrooms? Do I spend money and time on a class to cultivate my contemplative life or do I spend my time and money on guitar lessons for my son?

Of course I'm saying either/or and it is not about either/or, it is about balance. But in the process of balancing the needs of my whole person (which includes being a mother, wife, psychotherapist, spiritual seeker, friend, aunt, daughter, sister, concerned citizen) I inevitably will be making choices everyday that leave one thing in and another out.  If I do this today, then I'm not doing that.

When my son was just born I read a book called "Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting." It was co- written by Mindfulness Expert Jon Kabat-Zinn and his wife Myla. I read it in a moment in time when I was coming to some reality acceptance as a working mom that I will be literally unable to do everything I would like to or that I need to, and unquestionably, everything will not be done perfectly. For veteran working moms out there, you will know I am stating the obvious. But for me, as a recovering perfectionist, this realization actually came down early in my parenting life as one of the harder lessons to learn. And unfortunately, it has also been a lesson that I've had to relearn several times over because as I've said before, my acceptance curve is apparently very slow and not limited to the work-parenting life balance because I equally struggle with the family-spiritual life balance too.

Recently, I read an article written just after the publication of that very book in which Mr. And Mrs. Kabat-Zinn share more nuggets of wisdom about this whole balancing act of mindful parenting that they went through in much more detail in their book. In the article Mr. Kabat-Zinn said: "I believe that spiritual practice is about life, not about retreat from life...The real meditative practice is to open up to the full range of what happens in life. And parenting is a fantastic arena for doing that kind of spiritual training."

Later in the article, Jon Kabat-Zinn goes further to suggest we embrace parenting moments as opportunities for mindful practice. He says "to look at your children as live-in Zen masters who can put their finger on places where you're resistant, or thinking narrowly, in ways no one else can. You can either lose your mind and your authenticity in the process of reacting to all that stuff, or you can use it as the perfect opportunity to grow..."  I couldn't agree more.

But for me, getting those moments (whether they be a day, an hour, a moment, an afternoon) to get a mindful meditation booster shot without the kiddos around is what helps me through those advanced placement parenting moments. Can't it be both? A time for spiritual practice in the context of parenting moments like getting a shoe onto a toddler's foot and a time for complete solitude on top of a local mountaintop quietly gazing out at the foliage?

As I said, I don't think it is either/or, it is both/and. I can choose to engage in my day to day parenting as a spiritual practice, and I can engage in the very sanghas and retreats and morning meditation practices that make the former possible.  So in the end, maybe I don't do everything in one day? So maybe I don't do everything perfectly? Parenting or spiritual practice. What I will aim for is an intention to have an over-all balance. I won't win every game, but I will shoot for a winning season.

The Kabat-Zinn's end this article with a list of 12 tips for Mindful Parenting that are all in their book. I will leave you with #8:

"Learn to live with tension without losing your own balance. Practice moving into any moment, however difficult, without trying to change anything and without having to have a particular outcome occur. See what is 'workable' if you are willing to trust your intuition and best instincts."

I hope these words are helpful to all of you out there who also identify as seekers who try to embody your spiritual life in both your work and parenting. If you do, I'd love to hear from you.

Emerging Equanimity

They say practices like meditation, yoga and prayer, when practiced regularly, can lead to greater feelings of trust, compassion, forgiveness, and kindness. Hearing this good news has always been a motivating factor to help me keep on keeping on in this spiritual journey- especially in moments of disillusionment or frustration. But I can honestly say, I hadn't yet experienced these delicious fruits of my labor in any sort of really noticeable way yet...Until recently, in the form of an emerging equanimity.

Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield said in his blog on September 23, 2014 that "Equanimity combines an understanding mind together with a compassionate heart."  He then describes a meditation practice that brings the intention of equanimity to the forefront of consciousness.

I think of equanimity as an attitude I try to cultivate and hold toward my day to day living that is responsive, not reactive. It is a way of attending to each situation in front of me with a sense of ease and confidence that everything will be okay even if I know not how.   Jack Kornfield equates equanimity as an internal "balance" in this same blog post. He says "we can feel this possibility of balance in our hearts in the midst of life when we recognize that life is not in our control."

This sense of balance Mr. Kornfield describes is what I've seen lately as a growing seed inside of me.

Take yesterday morning for example.

The day started early (like 3:30 a.m. early) because my daughter has been having so much trouble sleeping. A combination of teething and not liking the transition from the cozy curved shape of the bassinet to the flatness of her crib mattress. So I've been noticeably (to myself but to others too I'm sure) more irritable. Because the baby was up, I had to forego my morning meditation and yoga practice. Sometimes she will sit on the floor next to me and just watch me move from one yoga posture to another, but not yesterday. She was so tired and cranky herself, that a good snuggle was all she wanted.

When my husband got up a couple hours later he then told me our dog, who's an elderly yellow lab, had stained our gorgeous down pillows with blood because one of his many warts had opened up before he had laid down on the pillows which had fallen to the floor in the night.

With all of this commotion going on--still before the sunrise--my 5 year old son woke up early and wanted to be held. At which time the dog was barking to go out and have his breakfast, the cats were meowing for there breakfast, and my one-cup-of-
coffee-a-day-rule was quickly not seeming to be enough.

But...here comes the but...I didn't lose it. I didn't freak out. I don't mean out loud, I have never really been a person with outbursts. However, I am definitely capable of a good in-burst. It didn't happen though. I felt emotions. Frustration. Irritation. Disappointment. But the feelings weren't overwhelming. And I didn't hang on to them either. When the moment passed, it passed. Throughout the rest of the day I felt physically tired at times from lack of sleep, but I wasn't re-hashing the morning's events in my mind as had been my habit in the past. In other words, I was able to recalibrate to my center fairly easily because I never really tipped the scales of emotions to begin with. Which, to me, is the definition of equanimity.

I worry sometimes though about being able to hold onto equanimity. Like if I don't pay really close attention, equanimity will just slip through my hands. Therefore I must cling super tight to it.

Okay, are you laughing at me?! I am laughing at me. Clinging to equanimity is like holding on to a horse for dear life while riding so you don't fall off. I should know, I had a bad fall from a horse when I was 12 years old. The rigidness of the body that happens when you cling actually makes it more likely you will fall off- you know the ol' self fulfilling prophecy. So, the lesson here is no clinging to equanimity out of fear.

Then what do I turn to? Faith and trust.

Faith and trust are the seeds of equanimity that are always inside of me, always were in me, and will always be in me- no matter what. But if I want more than just seeds, if I want to grow an elegant peony, then I must water the seeds of equanimity. I must fertilize them and put them out in the sunshine by practicing meditation, prayer and yoga. I must cut back the weeds that may interfere with the growth of the flower- weeds like fear and worry.

A couple months ago I posted about a book called "First Light" by Sue Monk Kidd. It is a collection of her early spiritual writing. In it she tells the story of seeds that were thousands of years old found in the pyramids of Egypt. She writes that these ancient seeds sprouted after being planted. Ms. Kidd then concluded "seeds, I learned, no matter how old, are alive. Dormant but still alive. When the right conditions come along-the right amount of warmth or soil or moisture- they wake up and bloom."

I love that metaphor for emerging equanimity.  It helps me stay in faith and trust rather than fear and worry. That will allow me to let nature take care of the rest and equanimity will slowly blossom on its own.

What seeds are you nurturing inside of you today? What conditions or spiritual practices would help your seeds grow?

More Notes from a Meditation Retreat

One week ago my Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction teacher Kate started our full day meditation retreat by sharing aloud the following nuggets of wisdom to help us through our day of contemplative silence. I found them to be very helpful- during the retreat and over the course of the week as well doing day to day things like driving in thick traffic, chasing after a now crawling baby, and taking care of a sick cat. Perhaps you may find them helpful too.

Don't' believe everything you think.

A kind heart is the antidote to an unkind mind.

If we treated our friends the way we sometimes treat ourselves, we wouldn't have any friends.

Qualities of being--like kindness and happiness--can be cultivated.

What we practice, we will get better at. What we get better at, will become habit.

Ask yourself: am I watering the seeds of suffering by resisting this moment?

And, last but not least:

When the moment is over, it's over. Let it go.

The teacher also read poetry intermittently over the course of the retreat during transition periods between meditation practices. Two of the poems I've included below.

"Allow"
By Danna Faulds

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new channel.  Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in-
the wild and the weak; fears,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.

This next one is an oldie but a goodie. It is a poem I read to my patients when we are talking about emotions. But I have to say, I loved switching back into the listener role when the retreat teacher read it aloud to us. I was able to internalize the meaning of the words in a deeper way.

"The Guest House"
By Jelalludin Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Have a peaceful week everyone. You are in my thoughts.

Breaking Habits in Meditation

It seems to me that a meditation practice can be a fantastic playground for breaking our own personal habits in a self compassionate way. Rather than taking the heavy-handed approach, which in my experience only works in the short-run and generally leads to a poor sense of self, we use a light but honest touch to steer ourselves in a different direction.

I recently had a difficult experience in meditation that punctuated this lesson for me. I was sitting with a group meditating- this sit was about 40 minutes- and about a third of the way in I began to feel an intense wave of emotion come through me. Now, I say "come through me" because that is how it felt in my body. My chest got tight, my heart began to race, and my whole body felt extremely heavy. And as if that was not enough, emotions of sadness and fear were washing in like tides, in and out over the course of the rest of the meditation.

After it was over, I had the thought: what the hell was that? I discussed my experience with the teacher after class and she gave me some pointers for managing this type of situation in meditation should it present itself again, and at that moment I felt more relaxed about the whole thing.

But when I got home that night the body sensations and emotions knocked again.  My Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction teacher calls these moments "uninvited guests." And the wise instruction is to do as Sufi poet Rumi suggests in his poem "The Guest House."

...Meet them at the door laughing...invite them in.

Oh Rumi but that is so hard! As a more modern 21st century poet Marie Howe said, "presence is painful." I don't want painful. And so I turned away and sought refuge in my two old friends: carbs and bad tv.

It's funny though, my two go-to escape behaviors for difficult emotions didn't do their job as well as they used to this time, and I noticed that right away. I sat cross-legged on my ottoman in my living room in front of my evening soap opera, "Grey's Anatomy," and I still felt. Not so much the body sensations anymore, but the residual yuck of emotional distress was still there. This led to a combination of frustration that my escape behaviors did not work and shame that I engaged in the escape behaviors to begin with. So to sum it up, I made an already bad situation worse.

Or did I? Is there another way to view this scenario?

At my recent meditation retreat the teacher Kate talked at the end of the day about the laws of expansion and contraction. She said in a full day of meditation retreat one may practice expansion, or drawing what you want to you, and when you leave the retreat and re-enter the "real world" with families and jobs and traffic, you may notice contraction, or taking yourself away from what you want.

This instruction made so much sense to me, and it seems this dynamic may be a constant dance that we do as human beings and especially as seekers. Opening to growth or expansion. Followed by moments of shutting down, retreating or contracting.

When I think about my experience of coming face to face with difficult emotions and having the urge to run away, from this perspective of expansion and contraction being a law of the universe, I can actually shift from a self-critical position to a self-compassionate position. With this shift in perspective, or attitude, I can feel my whole body begin to soften and I actually feel lighter inside. As if my whole person let out an enormous exhale with an audible sigh of relief. "Thank god," I say to myself, "this is not another failure for me to chronicle and live through. This is just the nature of things- which means, I am no different from everybody else."

What's more, this new perspective of accepting the law of expansion and contraction highlighted by my recent meditation experience has the potential to help me (and maybe you too) with one of my most ingrained, well-versed habits: perfectionism.

One of my old behavioral patterns is to aim to learn something new very quickly and then do it perfectly every time thereafter. And when (not if) I inevitably don't do it perfect, I attempt to hide from the negative feelings that arise by engaging in distraction like food and tv like I mentioned above, but also sometimes shopping or seeking out reassurance or external validation from others like my husband. Then, I take the next step of sinking into self-loathing and shame about myself due to my poor coping style-which leads to what? More attempts at perfectionism.  Thereby completing the vicious cycle to guarantee I keep going around in circles. Forever stuck on my own wheel of what Buddhists call dukkha or suffering.

This very wheel was turning this morning when I sat down for meditation. I had had a rough night due to the residual emotion from the day before, including some additional feelings like irritability and agitation, which led to a pretty strong aversion to my sitting practice this morning. But I got on the floor anyway, aka "I pushed through," and began to read a piece by Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn to bring my mind into focus.

However, after I read, and his words are always so generous and kind, I surprised myself by breaking my perfectionist cycle and allowed myself not to meditate. I said to myself, "you do not have to do this. This may not be what you need right now."

But then, what would I do with myself?  In the past, if I didn't steam my way through a moment with force and self-aggression, I'd be retreating into my false refuges of carbs, tv, shopping, or seeking reassurance from others. And I didn't want to do that either.

At that moment my mind turned to a writer named James Finley. He had lived at the Abbey of Gethsemani  in Kentucky with Thomas Merton for six years in his youth, and went on to write a book called "Christian Meditation." In this book he wrote in part about how our daily lives, whatever they may be, can be a "monastery without walls" if that is our intention. So my days filled with tasks like driving, showering, feeding the baby, talking with my spouse, sitting with a patient or cooking a meal all could be done as a contemplative practice.

 With that thought, I stood up and walked out of my living room into the kitchen and I began to cook. Keep in mind this was still the before-dawn-hours of the day because that is when I usually meditate. So when my husband got up to take a shower before work he came into the kitchen and looked at me rather quizzically, but simply said: "watcha doin in here?" I merely responded with the obvious," cooking a quiche for dinner tonight." He looked at me cutting onions and slicing mushrooms, and said, "you don't usually do this at 5 in the morning, you ok?"  I said I had had some difficult emotions show up in meditation so I decided to switch gears.

At that moment he asked if there was anything he could do. When he asked that I knew I could gratify my desire for reassurance and external validation right then and there, but I didn't do it. Instead I paused, thought of Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein and said: "I think this one is an inside job" and I kept on cooking. With that one action, I took one step toward breaking my perfectionist habit.

What steps might you be willing to take today toward breaking habits? How might the ebb and flow of expansion and contraction present itself in your life?

Photos from Meditation Retreat

These photos are all from my first Mindfulness Meditation full-day Retreat. The first was a sign in the woods of the campus of the former monastery that I just loved. I wish there were signs like that in the "real world." The second is a shot of the labyrinth we walked silently as a group. The third is a statue of a madonna that was in an area of the campus next to this gorgeous pond where we did walking meditation.

Mommy-Guilt & Meditation

Yesterday I went to my very first all day meditation retreat. It was held on a campus of a former monastery on over 50 acres of New England woods. We lucked out with one of those perfect autumn days where the sky is this gorgeous shade of sea blue, the temperature is a comfortable low 60 degrees, and a soft breeze helps you hear the quiet rainfall of leaves dropping in preparation for winter. This made for a picturesque setting for our outdoors walking meditations.

Suffice it to say, the day was amazing. Something I've had on my wish list for many years. And something I plan to write about more in days to come. But something that presented itself early in the day, before I even got to the retreat, that was tricky to navigate and tolerate was mommy-guilt.

I suppose you could argue I should not have been surprised. Mommy-guilt is a plague as ubiquitous as the common cold in twenty first century working moms' lives. This always lurking, sure to ruin a good time, set of thoughts and feelings that generally confirm your unworthiness as a mother. And, if it truly is analogous to the common cold, then there is no vaccine and no cure. The best you can do is take care of your over-all wellness and boost your immune system.

How do we do this? For me, I choose to nourish and cultivate my whole person. Doing these two things truly does make me a better mother and human being in the long run. If I take time to develop
a deep rich completive life, I am a more balanced, grounded and compassionate human being- which absolutely makes for better parenting. Also, I want to model a spiritual life for my children. I once was told that social modeling (copying what you see others doing) is the number one way kids learn thought and behavior patterns. Well, if that's true I want my son and daughter to grow up to have lives that are meaningful and well rounded including, hopefully, a spiritual life.

But that is all the long view of course...The short view is a kindergarten age boy in his footy pajamas saying to me as I'm getting dressed to go out for a full Saturday of silent meditation after having worked full- time Monday through Friday, "mommy, what time will you be home? After it's dark?" And your heart breaks.

Of course I prepared. I pumped extra breast milk. I planned to do something extra fun Saturday night-a Halloween Parade-and I did more housework during the week so I'd be able to do quality time with my kids on Sunday. You know- overcompensation. But I still had mommy-guilt set in anyway as I pulled out of the driveway in the early morning hours.

It's hard, you know? To know one thing to be true, but to have your feelings betray you. A little ways back I had referred to some books I was reading by author Joan Anderson. She was a woman in her 50's who one day separated from her husband after her children were grown because she felt "unfinished." She described a chronic neglect of herself earlier in her marriage and parenting years that left profound deficits inside of her. She wrote in "A Walk on the Beach" that she had spent years, decades, confusing "serving" others with "loving"others.

I don't want that to be me. And it could in an instant. When we mothers are dutiful, meeting every need of our family's before it is even articulated, we are initially put on a pedestal of sainthood. And it can feel good for a while especially if we ourselves also volunteer some martyrdom to go on top- like a cherry topping off a sundae.

But I can tell you, it doesn't last. It can't. The more you are seen in a one-dimensional mommy way (both by children, spouse and you yourself) you don't ultimate become a hero, you become invisible. Your own desires, interests and dreams get swallowed up. The nuanced four-dimensional woman that was yourself is no longer recognized by others, and sometimes I fear by yourself as well.

So what are we to do? How do we and our families not confuse "serving with loving ?" How do we model a whole self for our sons and daughters, not a fractioned self?

I think walking this difficult path of four dimensional, rather than one dimensional, womanhood requires an ability to tolerate difficult emotions like guilt. It means letting go of our old people-pleasing M. O. in order to grow into the complex individuals that we are. It means pursuing our longer term life goals of equanimity and balance in the context of dealing with short term struggles like temper tantrums and anger outbursts- and the kids may have them too!

The pay-off will be worth it though. It was yesterday. I came home after the  nine hours of Mindfulness Meditation retreat and I felt renewed. I felt more attentive and kind to each of my children and my husband. At the Halloween Parade I took my little baby pumpkin and my big boy Thor to after the retreat I felt alert and awake- like my body, mind and emotions finally all showed up to the same place at the same time.

I told my husband, I felt like I had gone through a detox of the mind, and I know I will do this again. The meditation retreat is likely to be a  practice I do regularly. Whether it be a half a day or at some point, a full nine days. And as my children are a young 5 year-old and not quite 1 year old, mommy guilt will just be a part of that picture for a while.  And that's okay.  As I practiced yesterday at the retreat, I will just notice the guilt, let it go, and come back to my breath, in this present moment.

Perhaps you can do this too.