Fear, Nourishment and Beauty

Last week my heart was nourished as I spent 5 days in Atlanta with family and friends. A place of intimate relationship and comfort with a dear friend of mine was restored. I am beyond words with gratitude. I am touched with love’s grace.

Fear
I also went to the oncologist with my dad and his wife to learn about his chemotherapy treatments that begin on June 5. It's time for me to make friends with cancer. I figure it’s here so we might as well get to know each other.

For me, being directly connected to cancer generates a lot of fear while also illuminating much beauty. I’m witnessing and am an integral part of this story where a cancer diagnosis of someone I love initiates transformation and growth to many in his circle… touching hearts wide open and inviting expressions of life and love to travel closer to the surface. For this I feel thankful. At the same time, I feel guilty for feeling thankful. (My judgment towards myself can be quite harsh.)

And still, there is the big fear of Cancer.

Being back in Seattle, I noticed last night that it feels good to step away from that fear for a bit. I also feel guilty that I am able to take a break.

Cancer is scary. Cancer is powerful. Cancer is unpredictable. Cancer is unknown.

What am I afraid of?

I’m afraid that my dad will fall into the sickness… that he’ll be taken over by being sick and fall away from being alive.

I’m afraid that I won’t have my dad in my life for a long time to come… that I won’t always be able to depend on him to answer my questions, to gather family together, to dazzle people with his charm, to be my little girl’s daddy. That’s a big one. The little girl inside of me won’t always have her daddy around.

I’m afraid of seeing him suffering… of being held hostage to the helpless feeling that there is nothing I can do to relieve his suffering… that he is in pain… that is the reality… and I must just accept and be with him in the pain. I’m afraid that I will be overwhelmed with my own pain… that I will be flooded.

Nourishment
My friend was recently at a workshop for compassion fatigue and she reminded me again of how we can’t take away another person’s pain. No matter how much we would like to, we can’t change what is for them.

Yet we can support them by making the space around them as nurturing as possible. We can be aware of where we focus our own attention and how we tend to their physical space, psychological space, relationships, etc.

I think about creating sacred healing space around someone who is ill (physically, emotionally, spiritually). To me sacred healing space does not mean that it’s somber and serious with New Age music playing and people in deep meditation. Sacred healing space varies for each person. What is sacred to you, what is healing for you? For my dad, I believe that having music playing is healing… it creates a sacred space. Sometimes that music is southern rock, sometimes folk, sometimes world, but music seems to churn his soul to a place of familiarity when it might otherwise be spinning in a realm of fear or anxiety about the unknown.

Sacred healing space has some element of comfort and familiarity. I believe it’s not just comfort for the obvious person in need of healing, but comfort for the whole. Who are the stable figures in the scene and what elements in the environment are a source of comfort for them? For me a prime space of comfort is in the psychological realm. I feel a nourishing deep breath of peace when I have some knowing of what is going on inside of others… when they communicate how they are experiencing our shared moment. This is healing to me, it invites me to surrender to this moment more fully, it expands my perspective to embrace not just my sense of the whole but also a validated knowing of how others are experiencing the whole. What makes an environment feel comfortable for you?

Beauty
If I could make a wish for my dad right now… it would be that his heart would keep opening and surrendering to life’s beauty and this moment’s preciousness. For me beauty is not an idea, it’s not even a perspective (“I find this beautiful, you find that beautiful”). For me, beauty is a profound and embodied resonance of YES!, WOW!, AHHHHH… Life’s Beauty is a sense of completion, perfection, harmony. I feel something is beautiful when my soul knows it. When I relate with something and as a result feel more alive, I know it is beautiful (or our relationship is beautiful).

Beauty is everywhere, everything is of the essence of life and existence. Regardless of how nasty and gnarly or evil and deceitful it is, it is of the fundamental patterns and origins of life. There is always a way to look into something and see the wholeness of what is currently in a not-so-whole state. To see the beauty in the pattern of a pile of shit… or the beauty of an innocent child and the brilliance of human defenses that have given way to a hateful adult. This is my optimist speaking, this perspective is the force behind my shaman. If I slow down and settle into the moment, life is cloaked in beauty and alignment with beauty and grace is effortless.

And so, of course, how can I have this wish for an opening, surrendering heart for my dad without it being a wish for me? At the core of my purpose, it is also a wish for you and all those that walk this earth now and in generations to come. How can we cultivate a sacred healing space for ourselves so that, in turn, we may help shape sacred healing spaces for others?

These are a few of the many questions and conversations keeping me company these days!

Developing New Habits

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?
By JANET RAE-DUPREE

Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

Brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.

But don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.

“The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,” says Dawna Markova, author of “The Open Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking Partners. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide,’ just as our president calls himself ‘the Decider.’ ” She adds, however, that “to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”

Researchers in the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively. At puberty, however, the brain shuts down half of that capacity, preserving only those modes of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.

This is where developing new habits comes in. If you’re an analytical or procedural thinker, you learn in different ways than someone who is inherently innovative or collaborative. Figure out what has worked for you when you’ve learned in the past, and you can draw your own map for developing additional skills and behaviors for the future.

“I apprentice myself to someone when I want to learn something new or develop a new habit,” Ms. Ryan says. “Other people read a book about it or take a course. If you have a pathway to learning, use it because that’s going to be easier than creating an entirely new pathway in your brain.”

“Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain,” Ms. Ryan notes in her book. “If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do. The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.”

“Try lacing your hands together,” Ms. Markova says. “You habitually do it one way. Now try doing it with the other thumb on top. Feels awkward, doesn’t it? That’s the valuable moment we call confusion, when we fuse the old with the new.”

AFTER the churn of confusion, she says, the brain begins organizing the new input, ultimately creating new synaptic connections if the process is repeated enough.

But if, during creation of that new habit, the “Great Decider” steps in to protest against taking the unfamiliar path, “you get convergence and we keep doing the same thing over and over again,” she says.

“You cannot have innovation,” she adds, “unless you are willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder.”


All of the text and image is from the New York Times article, Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? Image by Christophe Vorlet

A Song Can Lessen the Fear

Sderot, Israel is near the boarder with Gaza and is a city that experienced (experiences?) a constant threat of Qassam rockets being fired into the city. When a rocket is spotted, there is a "Red Color" alert that is sounded warning people to take cover.

Residents of Sderot have about less than a minute to get to a place of safety when they hear the warning "Red Color" announcing an incoming rocket (spotted by those who watch for them). Hearing a Red Color causes panic in many, especially children. ~ Source

“Children experienced real developmental regressions, some began bedwetting,” she said. “They were getting hysterical when the alarm sounded – some freezing in place, unable to seek cover. One day I felt like ‘now is the time’ and I took this song I'd made up to a kindergarten class.” ~ Source

It is not hard to believe that repetitively experiencing alarming threats to one's life from 'out of the sky' would cause trauma for children. The following video is an example of how one woman helped create change for many children. She could not change the threat of the rockets, but she found ways to shape the experience so that the children were not stripped of all of their power and understanding but could, instead, become active participants in the event. The song she created for the children to sing integrates EMDR therapy, somatic exercises and relaxation techniques to help the fear and tension of the warnings move through the children's bodies, and hopefully freeing them from some of the terror.



I am very inspired by this video. I wonder, what simple ways can we each use in our lives and with those whose lives we touch to gently reshape the ways we experience something, decreasing the impact of fear and unknowing?

Ever-changing States of Being

Life is a wild trip. A little over a week ago I was very busy, holding many different threads. I was working on many projects, bringing delicious things into being, maintaining my usual jobs and trying my best to stay balanced and keep up with it all. I was on the edge, close to being totally overwhelmed by all my involvements, but I hadn't tipped. I felt delicately balanced. For the most part, I was feeling content with how I was showing up.

Then I got some big news. My dad updated me about what-is in his life right now, a major health scare. His big news brought forth a whole lot of new information -- a full spectrum of emotions and thoughts, a stream of possibilities for what could-be in the short term and long term for me and people I love. My experience of being alive shifted.

One thing that I notice now is that my relationship with attention has changed over the last week. I need to focus on different things and in different ways. I don't have the energy or the interest to pay attention in the same ways and to the same things as I did last week. I find this fascinating. I've given over a lot of responsibility to others. I think this has been an important thing to do. I also feel guilty that I'm walking away from my commitments. And I know this is necessary (can you hear my uncertainty, mixed with certainty!!).

It is clear to me that I must slow down. Center. Breathe. It is essential that I connect with greater stillness and silence... living more intimately with what is happening right now. Sometimes it is hard for me to be in this way, to simply be. My mind races. Go, go, go. Do, do, do. I feel confused. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to be feeling? Slow down. Breathe. Center. Connect with the essence of this moment. Listen carefully to what is present now.

Planning for the future is very challenging at the moment. Holding together details for how to make things happen requires a lot of effort. I don't have nearly as much energy to give to others or patience for the little details. The fire of my passion and curiosity continues to rage.

Beauty, stillness, connection and curiosity are medicines right now. I am grateful that timing has been on my side and in a time of waiting-to-see-what's next, I've been on spring break from my job at the school and in a most sacred place to find stillness and reconnection. In general, I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude. May we all find peace along this journey.

We're Alive, Here Now

"Let there be no more holding back on
our commitment to our life on earth."

Quote by Helen Titchen Beeth in a comment at Seeds for a happy planet
Photo by St John found in Kids and Nature

Inspiration and Practice

A couple of inspiring posts in my feeds today:

"Change is not easy. It requires drive and commitment. It requires an unshakeable determination to overcome any obstacle."

These truthful words of inspiration come from Scott Rigsby. Last week he was the first double amputee to complete an Ironman Triathlon. That means he swam 2.4 miles without legs, then biked 112 miles and ran a 26.2-mile marathon with prosthetics.

"I started talking to myself: You have three miles to go; if you can just do three miles, you have an opportunity to really change the world. You can have an impact."

In an earlier interview, before having set this world record, Rigsby said,

"Since my last surgery, I have always had exceptional balance and an amazing ability to balance and run on prosthetic legs. In 2005, I started thinking of how I could use this talent to help pave the way and inspire other physically challenged athletes to reach their goals as well."

This inspires me to keep asking the questions:
Am I using my talents to help pave the way and inspire?
Am I reaching for my goals?

And then I read these practices offered by Jack/Zen, inspired by Thich Nhat Hahn’s breathing affirmation practices.

When feeling unhappy, disappointed, frustrated …

(breathing out) Everything in life happens
(breathing in) the moment it becomes fully possible

When feeling critical, crabby, annoyed, resentful, angry, regretful …

(breathing out) Whatever story I tell myself about reality
(breathing in) is only one possible story

When feeling stuck, anxious, distracted, bored …

(breathing out) Whatever I’m doing right now
(breathing in) is only one possible thing to do

When feeling procrastination, passive, stuck, uncertain, confused …

(breathing out) I don’t need a different reality
(breathing in) to do what else is possible right now

Do 8 rounds of breath then check to see what’s shifted. Be creative about which Truth to use with which situation.

I wonder what this would look like with some of the students I work with.


Thank you Cool Cat Teacher for the story about Scott Rigsby