The Stories We Carry

Lately I've been contemplating the many, many ways that we hold and carry our stories.

For me, it would include the dozens of journals we keep stored in the basement.

The dear old friends (who are more like family) who have journeyed thousands of miles of road with us already.

The siblings who are the only people who ever shared the idiosyncratic homes of our childhood.

The photo albums that fill our book shelves with images of each major milestone preserved behind a plastic cover.

The land and landscape around us that can at times feel more like our own DNA than our own tribe.

The books, movies and songs that we re-read, re-watch and re-listen to 2, 3, or 200 times because it feels almost magical that someone else has captured the essence of our story within their own art. 

Our very own physical bodies that carry the C-section scars across the belly. The dull pain in the right hip every time it rains.  The scar on the right knee from the bike accident in childhood.  The 3rd earring hole only on the left ear because fainting occurred before the other could be pierced.

Yes, these are all ways we carry our stories.

And I could very well write a post about each and every one as their individual value to me is that great- that meaningful.

But just for today, I'd like to consider the therapeutic relationship as a holder or container of our narratives, our histories.

As a psychotherapist by day, I actually don't generally write here, in this blog, about the topic of therapy.

There are probably a lot of reasons for that; one being, psychotherapy is my Monday through Friday day job (that I love), and in the ether of the virtual world I like to explore other interests of mine.

And even today, it is actually not my plan to share with you my reflections as a therapist, but rather in my experience as a patient or client.

Because you see, in the spring of this year I learned that my longtime therapist had died.

I wasn't working with her at the time, yet the loss and grief I felt was there just the same.

Of course the death of someone you care about always has its usual challenges, but I've found having my therapist die has been a different kind of experience.

I'll tell you why.

For those of you who have ever worked with a therapist for a longer period of time you may understand this better when I say, that after learning my therapist died, it was a very strange feeling to know that the keeper, the holder, of my story was not here anymore- here on earth.

As someone I had worked with on and off for over ten years from the period of time right after I got married until my mother's cancer just a year and change ago, this woman had the largest breath of my intimate history next to my husband and 2 childhood friends.

But unlike my husband and two friends, and I only realized this after she died, my therapist and I had the both explicit and implicit agreement that she would help me hold my whole story- the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Because, you see, sometimes the dark parts of our story are just too heavy to carry on our own. 

In fact, sometimes, I think it was the sheer weight of the new event (or the old event that I was finally ready to contend with) that would bring me back to her office again and again.

It would be like when my husband and I have a big household chore to do that feels too big for one of us alone, so he will say to me: Let's double-team this one. 

Except, our story is not something concrete that can be held in hand, but rather something ethereal that is more likely to be held in the heart and mind in the company of another.

And I really don't think I'm alone with this need.

I recently went to a wedding, and at one point late into the night I decided to take a break from the crowd and the dance floor to take a breath.

And as I sat there, just a few steps away, I had this sensation of awe for all of the hard-won stories that were being carried around out there on that dance floor.

For example, a woman in her twenties who had just lost her father in a plane crash.

A couple who had lost the baby girl they planned to adopt after 2 years of being her parents everyday.

A man, not yet 40, with a beloved father of only 67 with rapidly advancing early-onset Alzheimer's.

The adult child who's mother took her own life when she was just a baby, leaving her without ever having had the experience of having her very own mother.

All of these complex stories weaving in and out on the dance floor- carried inside each human body.

Watching them made me realize, though I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, my therapist acted as a carrier for me of my own story, my own history. 

I began to imagine her as one of those huge barges I had seen out in the middle of the sea. 

Flat ships, not really moving anywhere, jam packed with large wooden crates filled with all of my historical cargo. With all the appearance like, they (the barges) seemed just as content to stay out there indefinitely.  No where to go. Nothing to do. Just saying, "yeah, I got this."

Through all those years of pregnancies, jobs, losses, and just life, I didn't fully appreciate what a gift it had been for her to help me carry the historical weight for so many years (whether I was actively working with her or not) so that I could continue putting one foot in front of the other in the next set of life experiences.

Having had this experience, I now find that I have a much greater appreciation for the sacred (I know that is a big word) quality that is present when someone leans into vulnerability in order to share a part of their story, and when someone agrees to respectfully listen to, hold and honor someone's story.

This new appreciation reminded me of a quote I once heard.

"Listening is an act of love."

I heard this said in an interview with the creator of the radio/podcast show StoryCorps, David Isay, which is essentially an entire program dedicated to the loving and respectful holding and preservation of our American Stories- literally holding them in The Library of Congress.

An act of love.

Even though as a therapist myself I had already bought into the power of deep listening, still, since I've reflected on the significance of the therapeutic relationship with my own therapist after learning of her death, I now believe, know, this truth at a much deeper level.

And that has changed me.

Just yesterday I was in a long conversation with the new student intern I'm working with at the hospital, and she began to tell me a little bit more about her own story- what brought her to our shared field of mental health and psychotherapy. 

And as her  story unfolded, I felt a much deeper appreciation come forward--almost as a sort of meta-awareness--as she opened up to me.  And I have to tell you, it felt generous and authentic. 

It felt like mindfulness.

I want to thank my therapist, Joan, for all of the stories she helped me carry, and even now, for continuing to participate in my own personal transformation.

Blessed be.

Forgivng Our Ancestors Part II: A New Paradigm of Imperfect Love

For decades I have been stuck in a matrix of resentment, disappointment, rejection, and anger. A matrix of my own making.

You see, I had constructed a paradigm of forgiveness that was organized into a tightly packaged, rigid dichotomy of: good & bad, success & failure, right & wrong.

The funny thing is, as the word "matrix" suggests, I didn't know it.

It was like what 20th century Japanese contemplative D.T. Suzuki wrote in his Introduction of Buddha of Infinite Light: The Teachings of Shin Buddhism, the Japanese Way of Wisdom and Compassion:

Based on [a] fundamental error, we construct a world with words and concepts infused with our emotions. Our life, then, becomes filled with polarities, such as good and bad, like and dislike, love and hate, black and white, mine and not mine, enlightened and not enlightened, ad infinitum. Such is the world of 84,000 delusions.

But then, one evening during this past summer, while at my last 5-day silent retreat, my teacher Heather said the following sentence during one of her many Dharma talks:

Your friends and family will love you imperfectly, and you will love your friends and family imperfectly.

You know when someone says something that is so obvious and so true that it is like "WHAMMO" right between the eyes? That's what happened to me that very same night.

As D.T. Suzuki says:

We are made to acknowledge this life of fabrication when our reality is illuminated by light. This light focuses on each of the 84,000 delusions, making them transparent and powerless. Light is symbolic of wisdom in Buddhism, and this light is none other than the Buddha of Infinite Light (Amitabha).

After years of being completely frustrated with my absolute stuckness in the process of forgiving and letting go (because, you see, they go hand in hand), all of the sudden I could see with utter clarity how I had imprisoned myself in a static Paradigm of narrow perfectionism.

But I must stress, this realization was not met as a baseball bat to the head, it was more like a long, slow exhale.

Again, D.T. Suzuki:

Since the light is not harsh, cold, and distant, but soft, warm, and proximate, it is felt as a compassionate working.

Compassionate working.

I realized I had confused my feelings and judgments about my relationships for the relationship paradigm itself; without realizing it of course.

And you know how once you gain insight or discover something new, suddenly that novel object of your attention  is everywhere?

Well, it was this past summer.  Even in the most ordinary of ways like watching movies and television.

For example, when my children and I rewatched the Disney movie Maleficent with actress Angelina Jolie as the bitter and betrayed lover who takes her revenge on an innocent child whom she, overtime, comes to love as her own, I saw imperfect love.

Or when my children asked me if Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi hero of the first 3 Star Wars movies, was "a good guy or a bad guy?" as he appears to love his wife and soon to be twin babies, but is also engaging in death and destruction, the most fitting answer seemed to be: imperfect love.

And when I binge watched the entire first 10 episodes of season one of the National Geographic series Genius about the life and times of 20th Century Nobel Prize winning physicist Albert Einstein, and I had an awareness of exquisite painful as I watched the way he engaged with ideas and the world in such an enormous way that was virtually breathtaking, while at the very same time completely missing the boat in his most primary relationships that were truly dear to him, I thought, imperfect love.

And finally when I watched the 2016 film A Quiet Passion that dramatically depicted the excruciating life of 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson played by actress Cynthia Nixon I was startled by the utter obviousness of the theme of imperfect love which played out among all of the Dickinson family members and their close friends and partners.

In fact in this movie there is a very moving scene that is well into the film when, through tears, the poet incredulously asks her only sister who has been her caretaker, friend and confidant over decades of the poet's physical, emotional and psychological struggles:

How can you go on loving me?

And the sister simply replies through her own tears:

Because you are so easy to love.

I must say though, even with all of these examples that seemed to be everywhere this summer, it is still unbelievable to me that one artful sentence could unlock such a distorted, yet powerful, long-held belief system that kept me locked in captivity where forgiveness seemed all but impossible.

Whereas now, I can see a pathway through.

I can see how good vs bad, success vs failure, and right vs. wrong just don't work, and maybe never even applied to the relationship paradigm, because now I know and accept that this pathway is necessarily fluid, complex and dynamic.

Your family and friends will love you imperfectly, and you will love your family and friends imperfectly.

Several months now since my teacher Heather said these words to me--words that I've been repeating often as a sort of prayer to memorize on my heart that I wish I had been told years ago--I feel a sensation of being released (or at least a loosening of my grip) from my old paradigm of good vs. bad.

It has become a jumping off point of sorts for an entirely new paradigm of relationships and intimacy with self and other that is grounded in realistic and humanistic functional behaviors such as: empathy, compassion, patience, integrity, remorse, authenticity,  and radical acceptance.

And even though I honestly don't know what this new Path will look like, I am willing to try to walk the Way anyway.

How about you?

(Please stay tuned for the next post: Forgiving Our Ancestors Part III.)

Poetry 116: Cleaning House

Cleaning House

For my dear friend S.

Cleaning House

I wake. 

As if from a dream (a nightmare)

in the middle of the night. 

The harsh wind swirls around me

pushing hard against my pale skin.

Is it cleaning me out?

Making room for the new. 

A whoosh.

A gush.

A tight panic in my chest 

as a tree limb breaks;

as the patio umbrella
is painfully yanked out
and blown across the lawn.

The sound is frightening and calming at once. 

God's own voracious lullaby.

Will the house I know be blown away?

Or, will I be swept up 

to the Emerald City?

Complete with mythological monsters

and all.

Yet,

crazy though it seems,

I want to stand
in the middle of the storm. 

I want to rid myself
of all that is un-wholly.

I make the decision. 

(Or the decision makes me.)

Alone,

I walk to the center of the earth
in prayer-

in devotion. 

I stop,

and stretch my whole body wide.

North. East. South. West. 

4 balanced points of intersection
with that which is real. 

Legs rooted, 

arms extended beyond my reach,

the sensation begins. 

A mighty rush of hot breath and air 

begins to build and blow through me-

I shake. 

I cry. 

I  am offered new life

as I let go 

of that which no longer serves me-

maybe it never did. 

Holding still-ness,

I squeeze my eyes shut 

and let the words of god

cross my lips. 

May you be safe

May you be happy. 

May you be peaceful. 

May you live with ease. 

May it be so.

-Me

What is Saving You?

A couple of weeks ago I had an irregular EKG.

It was my yearly physical with my primary care doctor, but since I am now the big 4-0, part of best practice preventative care apparently for my new age box includes a yearly EKG.

And it was my first, so I was a little scared as the nurse hooked me up to the machine with all of those wires and stickers to take that picture of my heart that looks more like a card they show you during psychological testing.

But then, when my doctor came in to the examining room, and made a quizzical face as she reviewed the piece of paper with all of the squiggly lines that showed how my heart is beating, I went from a little scared to afraid.

So now I'm scheduled for the first time to see a Cardiologist later this month, and while I'm in this limbo period I'm contemplating one of the titles of American Buddhist nun and author Pema Chodron's many books: Comfortable With Uncertainty.

Because, really, how on earth do you get comfortable with uncertainty?

Pondering this question led me to think about a Zen Story that Western Buddhist teacher and author Sylvia Boorstein frequently refers back to when she is giving dharma talk that I listen to via Dharmaseed podcasts.

It goes something like this...

A person is walking through the forest  and encounters a tiger. 

To escape the tiger, the person runs through the forest until they can't run any further because they have reached the edge of a cliff of a nearby ravine. 

The tiger still in pursuit, the person decides to climb down into the ravine by grasping a vine.

Momentarily feeling safe from the tiger who stands at the edge of the cliff, the person, who is holding tight to the vine while hanging down into the ravine, now notices two mice (one white and one black) are beginning to gnaw the vine apart.

With the tiger above, the vine being chewed apart by the mice, and while hanging on the side of a cliff, the person spots a luscious strawberry growing out of the cliff-side. Grasping the vine with one hand, the person plucks the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

I like this story a lot.

As a person who is a problem-solver by nature, in-between-times (particularly during stressful events or crisis) are particularly difficult.

Like sitting in a waiting room while a loved one is in surgery.

Waiting for the phone call about your blood work.

Waiting for the response to your well-thought-out email or text.

Waiting for the radiologist to read your child’s X-Ray.

Or in my case, waiting for the next doctor appointment to find out if I have a heart condition like my grandfather had...

Nothing to do but wait.

Dr. Seuss once wrote about waiting in his book Oh the Places You’ll Go in something he called the “waiting place.”

THE WAITING PLACE 

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,
or a plane to go or the mail to come,
or the rain to go or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

Unless, there happens to be a "luscious strawberry" nearby.

I must tell you, it is completely counterintuitive for me to consider eating, and dare-I-say enjoying, a "luscious strawberry" during times of distress.  No, if problem-solving was not possible, I was taught to linger, dwell and ruminate on every single god-forsaken second of the distress.

(Talk about a sure fire recipe for suffering!)

So what could be my luscious strawberry? What could be my salvation?

Salvation.  I like this word.

As someone who was not raised in any religion and who is not Christian herself, in the most respectful way, every so often I like to try on religious words to see how they fit.  Lately, it has been "salvation."

Twentieth Century Christian monk Thomas Merton said this about salvation in his 1961 book New Seeds of Contemplation:

It is a pity that the beautiful Christian metaphor 'salvation' has come up to be so hackneyed and therefore so despised. It has been turned into a vapid synonym for 'piety'- not even a truly ethical concept.

'Salvation' is something far beyond ethical propriety. The word connotes a deep respect for the fundamental metaphysical reality of man. It reflects God's own infinite concern for man, God's love and care for man's inmost being...

It is not only human nature that is 'saved' by the divine mercy, but above all the human person. The object of salvation is that which is unique, irreplaceable, incommunicable- that which is myself alone. This true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescence.

I love the idea of "god's own infinite concern" and "god's love and care for man's inmost being" as salvation- especially during those times of distress.

I was actually first introduced to the word salvation though through Barbara Brown Taylor's 2006 book Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.

In the very last chapter of the book Ms. Taylor writes about a question she was once posed at a church gathering: Tell us what is saving your life now.

She writes:

It was such a good question that I have made a practice of asking others to answer it even as I continue to answer it myself.

Then, she goes on to define "salvation," in her own felt experience of the Christian word.

Salvation is so much more than many of its proponents would have us believe. In the Bible, human beings experience God's salvation when peace ends war, when food follows famine, when health supplants sickness and freedom trumps oppression. Salvation is a word for the divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places where their lives are at risk, regardless of how they got there or whether they know God's name.

Sometimes it comes as an extended human hand and sometimes as a bolt from the blue, but either way it opens a door in what looked for all the world like a wall.

I love that phrase: divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places...

The tiger. The cliff. The vine. The mice.

Ms. Taylor ends the book by listing some of the "luscious strawberries" that were saving her life at the time she wrote the book. She included:

*teaching at a college,

*living in relationship with creation,

*observing the Sabbath,

*encountering God in other people, and

*committing to the task of becoming fully human.

While re-examining Ms. Taylor's  fantastic list, and waiting for my Cardiology appointment, I've been contemplating: what is saving my life right now?

For the time being, I would have to say, my list probably would not include the big stuff, the salvation I really aspire to. 

Instead, it would most likely include mini-salvations, like snack size.

For example, A bike ride,

A field of golden rod,

Dawn,

Great food that is pretty too,

Meditation by the river,

Meditation by the ocean.

 

And going to church.

However, even when I am able to notice that moment of salvation for what it is, I think what can still make this list hard for me is that I forget to remember that:

1.) it is not merit based, and

2.) it is not indulgence to engage these experiences during stressful times.

Author Anne Lamott reminded me of these two obstacles in her 2014 book Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace when she said:

In my thirties, my system crashed. I got sober, because I had gone crazy. A few women in the community reached out to me. They recognized me as s frightened lush. I told them about my most vile behavior, and they said, 'Me, too!'...I couldn't seem to get them to reject me. It was a nightmare, and then my salvation.

Hugh.  So the salvation, the luscious strawberry, is not merit based and not indulgence...  Very counterintuitive. Very tricky for someone like me.

On the other hand, when hanging on the side of a cliff, with a tiger above, and mice eating the vine I hang from, what have I got to lose?

Maybe I should just go ahead and eat the gosh-darn strawberry, and dare-I-say, enjoy it?

May it be so.

Little Zen Teachers: Part IV

Everyone is Human

 

My 3 year-old daughter calls everyone "human."

Man, woman, child.  Different race.  Different age. Short. Tall.  Stranger. Acquaintance. Doesn't mater.

And I have to say, I find it completely delightful because the word "human" feels so inclusive, respectful and dignified when referring to personhood.

We will be walking down the street, and she will see a person riding a bicycle, working in their garden, or playing basketball, and with total egalitarianism for each and every person, will say, "look at that human!"

We have a children's book that she likes to read over and over that she has to guess what is behind each flap on the following page.

And when we get to this page that says: Who could be hiding in the igloo?

Her answer is always: "A human."

Even after she sees this picture:

Even after her older brother reads the word "eskimo" aloud.

I know that she will soon begin to replace "human" for pronouns, descriptions about appearance, and even just "person" or "people." 

But in the meantime...everyone is human.

Which Way to Die?

This past week I watched the 2012 film, The Life of Pi.

It was on On Demand, and having small children that tends to be the only way I get through an entire movie because I can watch 30 minutes, get interrupted, and then resume watching hours later.

One morning though, my 8 year-old son asked me to tell him about the movie I was watching.

For those readers who have not yet seen the movie, I will try not to spoil it because for me it definitely was a must-see.

But I will tell you, what I told him, or asked him I should say.

Well, it is a story about a teenage boy who is stuck in a row boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean miles from any land.  And on the row boat with the boy is a huge tiger!  And there are sharks swimming all around the row boat. 

So, I asked my son, what do you think the boy should do?

My son being my son, first paused quietly to take in the information.  Then he asked questions to review and confirm the facts.

So, he is in the middle of the ocean?  And so forth.  Then, he took a second pause.

After a moment, my 8 year-old looked up at me, and said completely matter of factly: I guess he will have to decide which way to die.

Hugh, I thought, that isn't  where I thought he would land...But, I went with it.

So, how does the boy decide to die?

My son paused again, his third up to this point.  Then he said: By the sharks.

Why the sharks? I asked him.

Because tigers are endangered. And if  people heard a news story about a teenage boy being eaten by a tiger, they might get mad and try to kill more tigers. But, if people heard a teenage boy was eaten by sharks, because sharks do that all the time, people wouldn't try to kill more sharks. And if they did, there are more sharks still in the world.

Now I was the one to pause. Dumbfounded.  Mouth hanging open.

Still looking at me expectantly, I knew I had to respond to him with something parental. 

Finally, I came up with an inarticulate: Okay, good answer.  I wouldn't have thought of all that myself.

My son didn't say anything more, and walked on.

Equanimity

Last winter my family went through a month of back-to-back-to-back illnesses.

Nothing major- with the exception of the Lyme Disease scare. 

But by the end of the 4th flu diagnosis and the 6th day I had to call out of work, I was beginning to lose my you-know-what.

And in one particular moment, I was also doing a less than terrific job of camouflaging this meltdown in front of my 3year-old daughter.

However, rather than melting down right along with me because she was feeling vulnerable and crumby too, instead, she imparted this bit of wisdom to me in the most calm and relaxed manner:

Sometimes I'm sick. Sometimes I'm better. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. That's how it goes.

Well, I thought, there you go.  Equanimity en vivo.

Nuff said.

Good Enough

There are many times throughout the day when I feel stretched too thin and in too many directions.

For example, I want to be there for my children to meet their physical and emotional needs. While at the same time I want to perform well at my job and do meaningful work. While at the same time I have a strong desire to better myself as a person. All the while, wanting to be a partner and friend to my husband, with the added responsibility of managing some of the affairs of my parents and in-laws.

And sometimes, when I don't "succeed," I just feel so defeated.

As a person with just a touch (or more) of perfectionism, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see how my goal to juggle all of these balls at the same time could be a recipe for disaster when, at the end of the day, I don't feel like a success.

Well, just recently on one of those days when I happened to be dropping a lot of those ball all at once, I groaned out loud to my 8 year-old son who happened to be my only witness at the time:

You know how it is when your best is not good enough?

I had said the statement more rhetorically, not intending a discussion (or an answer) from a 3rd grader.

But my son took in my statement/question, knit his eyebrows together to show me that he was seriously considering what I had asked, and then came back with this very matter-of-fact response:

No, I don't.  Your best is always good enough.

Wow, I thought.  That is not the message I received, and not the tape I continue to play and replay in my head.

So there we are.  Little Zen Teachers.

Spiritual Lessons From Nature Part XIII: Abundance

Yesterday morning I headed out to my backyard to see what vegetables were ripe for picking, and I was astounded to find all of this abundance...

I can't tell you what joy it brings me each and every time I see the bounty that mother nature creates each summer in this tiny backyard vegetable garden.

Even though I know in my reasonable mind that it is the perfect algorithm of sun, water, soil, seeds, and photosynthesis that allows a vegetable to grow, I still get so giddy and excited to see all the dark reds, oranges and greens because it feels somehow magical.

I think that "magical" feel is because I do little to nothing to help this garden, and being the human-centric control-freak that I am, somehow that feels impossible to be true.

I am not someone with a "green thumb," and I'm fortunate that I do not rely upon my garden for my sole food source- or unfortunate I suppose depending on your perspective.

And so when I find the time to weed the garden, or remember to water it when it has not rained in a few days, or I am able to get some organic fertilizer in there, it is actually just a bonus.

This combination of factors makes my vegetable garden feel like the grace of earth science.

What's more, the joy extends into generosity beyond me and my family because the abundance is so great, that I am able to bring vegetables and herbs to friends, family and coworkers. 

I never knew the act of giving away vegetables and watching others receive home-grown vegetables could be such a delightful spiritual practice.

As someone who often operates from the restrictive mind state of scarcity purely based out of longstanding habit, the opportunity to live from a mind state of abundance has felt quite freeing.

Perhaps next summer you may try this spiritual practice as well! And enjoy.