None Of The Above

 

Have you had an experience like this one? You've been asked to fill out an intake form for a new doctor and it asks mental health questions where none of the options fit your response. Instead, you are thrown back in time to taking standardized tests where no bubble was the right one to fill. (I know I am dating myself with pencils and bubbles). Questions like: 

In the last two weeks have you felt nervous, anxious or on edge?
In the last two weeks, have you found yourself worrying too much about different things?
In the last two weeks have you felt down, depressed or hopeless?

The options are: 1) Not at all 2) Several days 3) More than half the days, or 4) Nearly every day.

These questions and answers left me curious about what is considered a "normal" amount of worry, anxiety, or feeling down. I'm not sure if I know anyone who doesn't worry about more than one thing throughout a day, let alone two weeks. And most people I know, including myself, have anxious moments daily. Does that say something about me or does it just mean I am human? 

At a Saturday morning meditation just after I filled out this form, I shared a daily contemplation from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's book Your True Home, which felt like the perfect response, if only it were an option on the intake form. In it he says, "For forty-five years, the Buddha said, over and over again, 'I teach only suffering and the transformation of suffering.' When we recognize and acknowledge our own suffering, the Buddha -- which means the Buddha in us -- will look at it, discover what has brought it about, and prescribe a course of action that can transform it into peace, joy, and liberation. Suffering is the means the Buddha used to liberate himself, and it is also the means by which we can become free." It was a relief to hear these words. They remind us that suffering is a natural consequence of being alive. Not something "wrong" and not a reason to have to be fixed but something we can work with. It is a part of life. It becomes a problem when we think it is "wrong" to be feeling what we feel.

My invitation this week is to meet your undesirable feelings with ordinariness. If you worry, have anxious thoughts, feel sad, or down, doubt or have low energy, you belong. You are human. You are alive and experiencing all of what it entails. No one is exempt from loss, from suffering. What we do with it is what matters and where our true freedom is found. When we feel these things, that's when care is needed. Not to fix it, but to listen to what it wants us to know. There is always something. In that something lies our deepening and is where the gift can be found. Again and again throughout our life, we will be presented with suffering and the gifts of freedom as we find our way through.

If you get a form with questions like this I invite you to smile and remember what the Buddha taught. However you answer the questions, there is nothing wrong with you, simply an opportunity to take a pause with any suffering that might be there and let it have a place at the table without adding on to it. 

Warmly,
Jean

An Empty Nest and an Unexpected Guest

 

(This is not a parenting story).

My first empty nest year has come to a close. It's hard to believe that my kids have completed their first year of college. "Hang on," I want to say as they and all their stuff return for the summer. I'm still processing this change. It seemed more straightforward at first. I wasn't in any turmoil over their leaving. I welcomed the peacefulness of a quiet house and the calm. Oh my gosh, the calm. The simplicity! There was no coming or going at all times. No coordinating schedules, meals, wheels, and no worrying about what was or wasn't happening. No more rushing. Two gone at once and it was like spacious fairy dust had descended on my life. It wasn't until months into the school year that I found myself a bit more turned around.

It wasn't their leaving or their not needing us, (for much of anything!), that displaced me. It was the many changes that were running into each other and compounding which gradually left me in unfamiliar territory. Looking back, in a year and a half my mom had passed away (I was now parentless), we moved, the kids left, and when I looked in the mirror, I wasn't recognizing myself. I had gradually changed my hairstyle and its color is doing its own thing. My body's shape is shifting, but deeper than all of that, I was picking up on something else in my reflection.

Looking at myself at 51. No longer a daughter to anyone here on earth. I'm still a mother, but the role has changed significantly, as if there was a reorg in the corporation. My body is doing the middle-aged thing. I'm aware that the milestone events to come in life are not "mine" anymore. Of course there will be some notable things, but it will be my kids, my niece and nephews, and friends' kids who I will largely be celebrating. It's the natural progression. I see that, even in the fullness of what I do, I am more of a minor player than a major one. Yet, it is still surprising. It seems like just yesterday when I was in my twenties trying to figure out my dreams and plans, with what felt like a long, open path ahead with people older than me cheering me on. Here I am now, settled, no longer striving to get somewhere. There is something wonderful about it and something less wonderful that I still can't quite find the words for -- this is what was surfacing months after the kids left. As I looked in the mirror, beyond the lack of recognition, I saw a sadness in my eyes, something heavy. And so, I started leaning in to understand.  

My vocation is still rich with meaning and purpose. My relationship with my husband and kids is as loving as ever. I live in a house I absolutely adore. My health is strong. There is nothing externally I am in want of. But what I am recognizing, that the mirror couldn't hide, was that Loss had come to visit and she made herself a room in my house a couple of years ago. I hadn't really acknowledged that she moved in -- more like a squatter than a guest. With the kids' rooms empty, this visitor became real and she has not told me when she will depart. 

This is an email about grief. Try as we might, we can't get away from it in life. When we lose what we love -- a person, a relationship, a dream, what was giving us purpose, our connection to something vital, Loss takes up residence in our house of self and she will stay as long as she needs. I knew that intellectually before. But, now I really know it. Sometimes she brings with her all the past losses that have yet to be fully dealt with. They, too, are asking for recognition, a seat at the table. 

I share this for any of you who have experienced a significant loss, change, or disappointment and haven't been the same since, and if it is happening at the same time that your life is changing in other ways, just know it's ok if you feel something you can't even name. We don't have to fix anything, but we do need to listen if we want reconciliation. Reconciliation with ourselves, which involves acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, understanding, love. There is nothing wrong with us. We all face a lifetime of letting go of things. If we have the courage to look, of course, who we see in the mirror appears different. Life has changed. It will change again. But, for now, it's like this and it's where we need to be. 

The person I see in the mirror is still Jean. I've matured. I'm not as light and carefree as I'd like to be right now. But I am real. I feel grounded. I am learning that being a good host means I will keep making a place at the table for Loss until she chooses to depart of her own accord. I doubt I'll even see her walk out the door. It won't be dramatic. More likely, it will be a subtle, gracious departure that I will sense one day when I am looking in the mirror as I wash my face and smile.

In the meantime, I am taking in the spring. Delighting in the trees and flowers, the return of life in the house with everyone home. While Loss is here, my goodness, so is Abundance. 

Warmly,
Jean