Help

We are on vacation on Mount Desert Island and I decide to take my kids for a small hike on one of Acadia National Park's stunning trails. I had gone on this trail last summer and was looking forward to sharing the views with them. I knew they would enjoy climbing some of the large rocks on the way up and they would have an amazing perspective of Long Pond from up high on the mountain. The trail does a loop and should have brought us back to the parking lot where we began. As we headed down, my kids were still having fun, but they were starting to slip on the rocks and pine needles and were getting tired. When I realized that we were now down almost at the level of the pond that just a short while ago we were seeing from high above, I knew we had missed some turn. What happened next could be out of a movie. 

Just as it was becoming clear that we had gone the wrong way, I saw a woman reading on a large boulder on the cliff at the edge of the pond. She turned when she heard us. I asked if she knew these trails and she quickly stood to help. She said that her husband was taking a swim down below and that he had a map in his bag. She offered to get it. I watched this beautiful woman nimbly disappear down the side of this rock and then reappear with a map in hand. We tried to figure out where we had gone wrong and it was clear was that we would have to go back the way we came, which inwardly produced a feeling of dread. Just then, her husband appeared. With his tanned, muscular body and glistening hair, he was equally as fit and handsome as she was fit and beautiful. He swiftly climbed up this boulder as if it was as easy as riding an escalator. He smiled and quickly assessed the situation and said, "we are parked at the end of the pond there. It wouldn't take long to walk there and we could drive you back." I hesitated and felt I couldn't accept this generous help. I didn't want to put them out of their way. The man saw my hesitation and said that yesterday he got very lost on the carriage roads and someone drove him back to his hotel. He clearly understood my feeling and wanted to assure me that it was okay. If I was alone, I would have found my way back. But for my kids sake, I gratefully accepted the offer. He asked if I could take a picture of the two of them, which made me happy to do.

We started our group hike on the trail back to where their car was parked and my kids chatted away with them. In the short walk, I learned that the husband was finishing medical school and would soon begin his residency somewhere and that she was a lawyer wanting a change. They were searching for where they wanted to live to start a family. In the meantime they were on their vacation here for the first time and loving it. We talked about rock climbing and kayaking. They drove us around the mountain, for what felt like a long time, to where our car was parked. From the back seat, I could see the man's smile light up in delight as my daughter, who becomes excited and outgoing in situations like these, told a story about camp in her sweet little voice. I felt the need to give back something on the way, so I offered tips of places I had learned from insiders on the island that they might enjoy. They were grateful. I thanked them and wished them well on their life paths.

As we got back in our car, Ella exclaimed, "so that's why you should have a map, Mommy!" Her almost 7 year old wisdom scolding me for my relaxed unpreparedness. (Of course, I think to myself, but if we did, we would have missed all of that!). I laughed and we all enjoyed the ride home and the adventure we had. I could have left the experience at that. Just a minor adventure on vacation. But, I think when we do that, when we don't reflect on our experiences in a greater way, we miss half the richness of what goes on. We lose an opportunity to appreciate. This is what I got from those two hours...

There I was, with my kids, in the woods of Acadia, wondering what to do next and this angelic couple appeared. It was as if they were there, in that moment, to help us and maybe there was something in it for them. It was truly a gift. The moment asked of me to be humble and to stretch to accept help, to be taken care of. In doing so, I was reminded that accepting help is a generous act. Generous to myself, the receiver, and generous to the one who offers it in letting the person in. In accepting a ride, I allowed this couple the opportunity to reciprocate the gift they had received from a stranger the day before. I could tell that it made them feel good. This is what gives life meaning. These exchanges and experiences of giving and receiving with people, and animals, and all living things is what we get to take with us. It is why we take the risk of loss, and sometimes rejection, to engage with others in large and small intimate ways. Even greater, when we can outwardly ask for help in situations where we may be deeply suffering, we are surrendering control and allowing vulnerability to bring us somewhere new, or to make a deeper connection with someone, or something, or possibly with ourselves. That is a courageous and admirable act, though it might not feel like it in the moment.  

As the couple drove off, a part of me wished that I had exchanged names and contact information. Somehow they felt like a part of my life in that brief 20 minutes. I wanted to hear, over time, how their young lives would unfold. And yet, there was a part of me that knew that what we shared was complete and enough. They are a part of my life, as everyone else is on this earth. I can send them good wishes on their paths and know that our lives entwined for a moment in time. How beautiful that is! What a gift to be received in taking the "wrong" path, and in taking another's extended hand. What a relief to recognize that life doesn't get better than these moments. There is nothing else we need to do, but make ourselves available to them.

Pit Bulls with Babies and Maine

I am on vacation in Maine and beginning that slow process of unwinding. I feel the need to read my own blog post Permission Slips to remember that I am, in fact, allowed to take a break. I am recognizing that I could use some practice at "not doing." Suddenly the phrase I often find myself saying at home, "I am so busy," has a stale, overused quality to it. I don't want those words to be my "mantra" anymore. I am here to practice doing less and hopefully to return home with a new mantra, or at least an openness to the arrival of one.

When we arrived here, I felt overwhelmed at being alone with two children and a car packed full of stuff, staying on a part of Mt. Desert Island I was not yet familiar with. I had the image of a mother bird with her baby birds looking up at her chirping. What was the plan? Where was the food? How do I get where I need to go? What do we do next? So many innocent and excited questions being asked by my kids, but I had too many myself to have patience to continually answer theirs. I desperately wanted another adult around that could help make a decision. My first night in Bass Harbor was hardly a night of vacation excitement. I had driven 10 hours the day before. I was exhausted and anxious. I went to sleep hoping for a better outlook in the morning. I had the day mapped out in my head and wanted it to be fun and adventurous for my kids. My wishes were granted and the day was just that. But still, I had not calmed down. I could feel the tension in my body had not shifted.

The next day, I got the kids off to their new vacation camp in the morning and had much of the day to myself. I was now reoriented with the roads of this big island and went for a run in one of my favorite spots. I jogged immersed in the beauty of fragrant pine, with views of water and trees all around, as the soundtrack of flowing creeks and birds played. I ran, but was still disconnected from the place and wondered what it would take to help me arrive on vacation. I was still in doing mode. I then stretched and meditated on some rocks along Northeast Harbor and as I sat there, I felt the unease with being at ease. I kept going and drove to the pond I love to swim in. Surprisingly for this time of year, I found myself there alone. I slowly eased into the fresh water and floated out in the silence of my breathing. As I left the pond, I understood that unplugging does not happen instantly. Just because I had been physically removed from my life at home, I wasn't removed from the way I am in that life, from all that I felt over the past few months. This was going to take some time. I am here in my favorite place and this letting go of busyness would be a process. This is why I gave myself, for the first time ever, two whole weeks. I would need all of that time, especially after the weeks leading up to this vacation.

Shortly before I left for Maine, my beloved dog Wally made the unfortunate mistake of running out of his house up to a dog that was being walked on the sidewalk directly in front. What ensued landed Wally in emergency surgery to repair the wound to his neck. Part of me hesitates to say that the other dog was a pit bull so as not to perpetuate a negative image of the breed. I have known very gentle pit bulls and never before had a negative sense of them. And yet, they are known for their attacks on animals and people and for their ability to bite and not let go. In Wally's case, it took someone's brave hand prying open the dog's jaw and a third set of hands pulling Wally out, and the skilled work of a veterinarian to save his life. We were all left traumatized and in the days following I, recognized what I felt in other situations, but never knew was likely a mild form of post-traumatic stress. That day, a dog rescuing friend of mine posted a Facebook picture of a baby and a pit bull puppy sleeping together. The image kept returning to me as I thought about not wanting to label the breed  as being one way or another and yet, it was a pit bull that had my dog by the neck. I thought about the different traits we all have passed on to us. We do not get to choose many of the characteristics that make us up, but we do have an incredible ability to learn, to grow, and to nurture the traits we do want. We may even be able to counteract some of the ones we wish weren't passed onto us. Like a pit bull puppy can be nurtured to be gentle and to not use the killer instinct that has been passed on in him, we can self-nurture and practice being gentler, kinder and more loving to ourselves. I can soften my own "killer" instincts of doing too much and of not letting go. I can sit with an anxious feeling or the sense that whatever I am feeling is "too much" of this, that  or another thing, and not lose myself. Or, if I do, I can recognize when I've come out of it. I can get myself on vacation and begin again and the leave the pit bull behind.

I am here in Maine remembering the art of resting, of feeling spaciousness with no guilt, of having permission to be enough just as I am. I can go for a run and get lost and enjoy the fact that I saw a part of the island I would not have if I didn't venture further out of the area I knew. There is no rush to get back. Nowhere better to be. Nowhere else to arrive other than here in this moment. I can swim out to the rock in the pond and climb out and lay in the sun shivering until the sun warms me up, all along reminding myself that there is no rush. This is it.

Before I left, I took Wayne Muller's book Sabbath, Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest out from the library. I did not know at the time how much I would need the help of his words to give myself a break. My own wisdom, the wisdom that planned this vacation in the winter and the one that wrote Permission Slips, was not enough. We sometimes need that outside help to remember. It is our nature to forget. It is good to seek help. I am here in Maine remembering and, of course, I want everyone to remember, to share in this. Whether on vacation or not, we can create more space, more quiet, more quality time to wonder, to relax, to let go. It is not a luxury. May we all find rest in our days and not belittle our need for it. We can unclench our jaws and stop reacting from some fearful, protective, pressure-filled place and let live. Maybe we can even lessen the strength of that fighting, anxious, reactive gene that gets passed on and nurture the development of ones that make us enjoy getting lost on an island.

Summer Shedding

Lately, I've been noticing a certain type of tree is shedding its bark. Large pieces of curled wood lie all around these trees as if they are too hot to possibly keep so many layers on. The tree sheds its skin the way an animal sheds its fur, or the way we shed our winter layers at the first signs of spring warmth. When I pick up one of the fallen pieces of bark, I can feel the paper I write on. Suddenly the preciousness of trees and of our use of paper becomes more real. This post is not about saving trees, though I could certainly write one. I walked by one of these peeling trees in front of the train station on the way to run in the woods. As I began picking up my pace, I wondered if, like the animals and trees, I, too, should be shedding something in the summer months. Is that what we are all meant to be doing right now, shedding something?

I ran on with the question and wondered, if I could, what would I want to shed? There is so much I am grateful for right now in my life and I do not have much in the way of habits or glaring behaviors I want to be rid of. But, there is something that feels like it is weighing me down. There are some losses and a deep sadness around them that I cannot seem to shake. I am not one to push away grieving. I know better than to say that grieving has a time table it adheres to. But, I do wonder what would happen if in dealing with loss, I would at some point say, "I am going to lovingly shed this layer of loss and begin in a new skin." Could it be that simple? Can we drop from our beings those difficult places that feel as though they are lingering too long simply by deciding we want to? It certainly sounds exciting and liberating, but there has to be another piece or it would be all too simple and, possibly, superficial. Shedding anything, self-defeating habits, unhealthy relationships, destructive behaviors, limiting beliefs requires more than my brain saying I will change. My heart has to be on board, too.

If I imagine shedding the losses I have had, what lies before me is an empty, open road. It is quiet and I don't know where it goes. That not knowing produces some fear which, in some ways, makes holding on to the loss feel easier. The loss, at least, is familiar. I know what it is and what it does. Whenever we shed anything, we are exposing ourselves to something new. We are raw. Of course, it is not comfortable. Of course, there is fear. At some point though, we can decide to befriend the fear and go on the open road. There are other challenges to face on that road, but at least there are more possibilities. Staying with loss, an unhealthy behavior, or relationship, or habit keeps us comfortably stuck. When we are ready we can, with a trembling heart, let go. But, there remains the unsettled, imploring part that desperately wants to know what helps us to be ready? Two words emerge from this inner inquiry, words which were strangers in my childhood home. As is the nature of strangers, they take some warming up to. They are hope and faith.

A year ago, I launched into a search for an understanding of what enables us to hope. I read different takes on the subject from poets, artists, and spiritual teachers. I struggled to come to some meaning that resonated with me. What was strikingly clear is that to have faith and to hope is to let go of control. Hmmm...thanks anyway, I think I'll keep my loss, at least part of me wants to say. But, what if I was willing to be with the fear and try on some faith and hope? Wouldn't the potential of what could happen by letting go of the loss be worth the risk of not being in control?

When I accept what is, whether or not I want it that way, I am yielding to the flow and not colliding into things I cannot change. Brother David Steindl-Rast describes having hope as being "open to possibility." Yielding to and accepting what has gone on, I can soften to what is now before me. I can be in this new place, with this new skin I am now in. From here, there is possibility as long as I don't get swallowed in some fear that the hole that was left behind will not be filled. The way I know to do that is to hear the gentle words said by Thich Nhat Hanh. "Hello my fear, I know you are there. I will take good care of you." For me, taking care of my fear, means holding a space for it. Placing it softly in the palm of my hand and knowing it is a part of me, but not all of me. The rest of me is alive and laughs (a lot) and smiles and runs and is free. We can all do this. When we are mindful and willing to look and listen and stay, we can all remember hope and the "openness to possibility" and from there let go and be with what emerges next, fear and all. To do that is to have faith that ultimately we are coming from a whole, good, and loving place and we will be filled.

The next time I walk by the shedding tree, before the landscapers clean up the beautiful, fallen layers, I am going to pick a piece up and feel the texture of the bark in my hands and know it has been shed so the tree can be alive. We, too, can continue to shed what keeps us from being most alive and know that what we leave behind will be replaced as long as we have hope. Not hope in a better place to come, but hope that we will be open to the beauty of this life all around us and meet it with our own. In recognizing the beauty that is right here and in sharing what we have, we will be filled. I do have faith in that. Of course, like anything else that involves living more fully and in mindfulness, it takes practice. We can all be students. The alternative may be comfortable, but it holds us back from the expansiveness of this life. These trees I am seeing, they are tremendous. So are we.

Aloneness and Loneliness

The other morning I was doing my usual run alongside a wooded preserve. A river runs beside it and empties into a pond for a stretch and then narrows again returning to a river. This season I am seeing what I think is a cormorant in the pond. I am struck by cormorants whenever I see them because of their stunning ability, like loons, to swim under water for long stretches of time. They disappear and it becomes a guessing game about where they might pop up or when. Ducks and geese I always see in multiples, but cormorants, when I see them, stand apart and alone; there is something fiercely independent about them. On this morning, it was perched on a log resting in the pond with a couple of turtles. As I continued running contemplating this bird's apparent solitariness, a curve came in the road and my eye was drawn more to the grasses and trees. Then what caught my attention was a pair of mourning doves taking off in flight. Their muted brown bodies gliding softly away in perfect symmetry. Their togetherness stood out. On this particular morning, the juxtaposition of seeing the lone, fierce swimming bird immediately followed by the fair, gentler, coupled birds seemed like a perfect visual as I held the issues of aloneness and loneliness in myself.

In my hardest months of being newly on my own, I looked up the difference between being alone and being lonely. There are some beautifully expressed words on the subject. I won't be giving you those, but certainly if you Google the two words, you'll find them. The most immediate thing I can say without much thought is that loneliness is painful. Aloneness feels almost chosen and rings more peaceful and rather heroic to my ears. For some of us, we don't like either place and distract ourselves with work, food, the internet, alcohol, entertainment, drugs. It can work for a while and sometimes is just the right thing. Inevitably though, at some point, we do have to face our aloneness. Why not get some practice in now? We can build up our courage; develop some muscles. We can learn to love this life alone, when we need and want to be, without being separate.

I am someone who loves having a partner. I also love and very much need to have time to myself. For most people I know, particularly married folks with kids, they would love to be alone for a day, a half a day, even a couple of hours. If only they could have some of my aloneness they would be so happy! I love the spaciousness of not having to navigate the world with someone right next to me all of the time. I like to be able to feel, write, think, observe, and wonder without my energy being diverted and pulled. This is my aloneness I am appreciating. Aloneness is not a problem. Loneliness on the other hand is loaded. For me, loneliness is being alone with a suffocating, heavy layer of judgment on top. It is a judgment that somehow in being alone I am not okay. Something must be wrong with me. I am lacking. I could be doing exactly what I want to be doing and the moment I start to think that I shouldn't be alone, that no one else around me is alone, that I'll always be alone, well then, it is down hill from there. I slip down that mudslide and land in a mess. The tears start pouring down and mud is everywhere. It's not the prettiest sight you've seen, though it does have its own beauty of vulnerability, of surrendering. In that mudslide moment I've moved from being alone to lonely. From being okay and maybe even great to being all wrong. When I get some perspective, I see that suffering little girl sitting in the mud crying and I feel tremendous compassion. She lost herself. She lost sight of her beauty, and her joy, and her preciousness.

The next time I see that girl sitting in the mud pit crying, I am going to remember that she forgot who she is and I am going to take her by her hands and help her get up. I will wipe the mud from her face, tuck the hair behind her ears, look into her eyes, and remind her that there is a waterfall around the corner. All she needs to do is step in it. The mud will wash away and the wonder and joy will be hers to feel again. Alone or not does not really matter. What matters is our ability to be in touch with our own beauty. When we have that, we can see the beauty and connection around us. We can remember that to be alone is not to be separate. As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh says, when we look deeply, we know that everything is interconnected. Any move I make and the intentions behind my words and actions reverberate. It is impossible for them not to and in that way, we cannot be separate. How easy it is to forget this. It helps to have reminders from friends and strangers, from teachers, and from our practices. It is why a spiritual life, whatever we specifically choose to call it, is important. A spiritual life can simply be honoring love, seeing it in all things, bringing it out of others, sharing it. When we recognize our own precious, individual, beautiful life, we can see our place within everything else. It makes us able to see the cormorant that hasn't been there for the past three years. We can notice the mountain laurel that are now blooming in the forest. We can have interactions with strangers that make us no longer separate. How delighted I was the other day when I crossed paths with a man I had been exchanging waves with from afar for a year. The man plays frisbee with his black lab in the meadow as I run by from the road much higher up the hill. When we finally met face to face he suggested a path I might like to run on that is less rocky. Those are moments that happen when we know our own beauty and can share it. Loneliness doesn't fit in there. 

I am capable of being as strong and independent as a cormorant and as dependent and attached as a mourning dove. I might still be alone and still wanting a partner to do things with, but my joy is not shaken. As my friend reminded me, it cannot be taken.

Freedom

I had this thought about freedom last week and then realized what holiday was upon us. Perfect. I was running when this refrain came to me over a certain subject. I kept hearing myself say, “I don’t feel free.” When I caught the thought the way a child might catch a firefly, I took a good look. I remember, as a child, being disappointed that when a firefly was not alight, it looked like any “ordinary” beetle. As if anything could be ordinary! Fortunately my realization over the caught thought was not as disappointing. I asked myself what would it look like if I did feel free in that moment. After all, there I am running in the woods, a terrific act of freedom, choosing how long to go and which way to turn. There was no way around it, the only thing keeping me from feeling free was me.

After we have the basic freedoms we thankfully know in this country, the rest is what we create. My thoughts and feelings can imprison me or not. When I remember that, I know that no matter what anyone else says or does around me, an outside force cannot ultimately take my freedom away, but my thoughts around these things can. This seems so ordinary, but it is really profound. If we are given confines with which to live, as we all are to greater and lesser degrees, we can find freedom within them. When it doesn’t feel like it, it is because we have forgotten the bigger picture. We have identified with this body more than we should. Freedom doesn’t have a body. It is so much greater. Freedom is the ability to recognize our suffering and not be chained to it. Freedom is the ability to tap into that place inside that is naturally radiant. It is the ability to connect with joy to be alive that is not dependent on our conditions. It is to be able to see the sunset and smile. To see a child’s wonder and feel delighted. To sense the smoothness of a stone in our hand and enjoy the touch. To watch a puppy and feel joyful. To hear the rain dropping on leaves and feel peaceful. To make a connection with another human being and be appreciative. This is freedom.

Since this kind of freedom is not something someone gives us, it is our task to figure out how to cultivate it. One night this week, I was coming home from work on the train in the evening. A sinus infection had hit me like a ton of bricks and all I wanted was to be home. I got on the 9:50 train and expected to be able to spread out and not feel crowded in by another passenger on the seat next to me. It was a late train after all and usually there are plenty of empty seats. On this particular night I really “needed” the space to feel bad. Alas, I had forgotten that it is summertime and more people are commuting for fun, so sure enough a man sat next to me. I'm embarrassed to say that I felt instantly irritated. He did nothing wrong, of course. I hadn’t been coughing, but suddenly I started to. Now I really wished he wasn’t there. I was afraid he would get irritated and felt my defenses rise. After a few minutes, he reached in his brief case and pulled out two cough drops. One for himself and one for me. It wasn’t the kind of move that comes when someone is afraid of getting sick, when the person shrinks back away from you. This was  a simple gesture of kindness and was enough for me to shift my thinking. It woke me up to the fact that I don’t have to isolate, protect, or defend myself when I am not strong. This shift in thinking is freedom. It comes in unexpected moments like that and it comes when we pay attention and observe what it is we do. What thoughts am I believing? What feelings am I overly identifying with as if they are all of me? What habits have a hold on me, as if there is no other way? When I think there is something “wrong” with me or my life, I can pause the spinning in my mind and come back to myself unguarded and feel instead. I can say, “yes, this what I am feeling, and it is okay.” In other words, freedom is in living a mindful life. We can cultivate it if we choose. 

My sinus infection forced me to stop, but it didn't get in the away of my freedom. What did was fear and shame. Fear of not being able to work and some shame that I got sick. Fear and shame are the biggest blockages we have in this life. All our suffering comes down to them. It is when we recognize them that we heal. The recognition stops us from reacting, retreating, taking things out on others and ourselves. It softens the blow we are feeling so it can't damage us. It's like a ball being thrown at a piece of china or a pillow. One will shatter, the other will receive and rebound. My initial reaction to the man sitting on the train with me was to be a hard wall. His giving me a cough drop softened me. Sometimes we need the help of others. Other times, we can call upon ourselves to see what is going on and to soften with compassion. The world then opens up and the confines around us dissolve. 

The most exciting thing about this path of a mindful life is that there is no end to discovering greater and greater freedom. I have this inspiring wish that when I die, I will be so free I will fly. In the meantime, I won’t cling to that thought or it might just take my freedom away!

Making Room

Have you ever had the experience of someone suggesting some way of looking at something or doing something that felt true or that it might be the "right" thing, but it felt hard, if not impossible, to do? I don't mean from unsolicited advice (often criticism), but when we are seeking something from someone we respect and trust. It is one of those moments where you comprehend the new way of thinking or doing, but you can barely hold onto it. It is as though there is too much resistance pushing back from all sides of your brain, but you have enough insight that you can't ignore it. I had one of those moments recently where someone suggested another way of thinking about something in my life and when I heard it, it was as though I was trying to squeeze something into a bookshelf that is full. You pry open a space as the books keep pushing back on either side, but you just need enough room to hold it open long enough for it to fit. This is a wonderful thing. This happens in so many ways throughout our lives in the form of new opportunities presented to us that feel too big, frightening, or foreign. It happens in new relationships when we come up against making room for another's way of doing things or thinking about things. Or, in older relationships when the boat has been rocked and we have to adjust our habitual behavior for this new place. It comes up when we find ourselves wanting something, but thinking we will never be able to have it. It could never happen for me. It comes up when we find ourselves struggling and someone makes a suggestion or observation that we meet with a big "no way!" Something about it chews at us, irritating our sense of comfort. In that "no way," if we are paying attention, there is often something significant. The "no way" gives it away. We must pay attention. We must, at least try to make room.

What I know in those moments is that there is an inner struggle going on that involves growing. My larger self knows it is a good sign, even if it doesn't feel good. Last week I talked about stretching connective tissue. This week it's stretching in another way, stretching to keep that space open on the bookshelf so something new can fit in. I am finding that much like I practice anything else in my life, this too, is a practice. The image of the bookshelf helps me. Every time I would return to the sticky subject in my mind, I would ask myself if I could hold open the space just enough to slide in this new information. Even if I could not ultimately get the book in, if all I could do was try to create space, there would, at least, be possibility. Some stretching feels really good. This tends not to and part of the practice is to compassionately let that discomfort be okay.

Sometimes the new information gets revealed and the resistance comes in the form of my not being able to keep it long enough for it to stick. It is as though I am holding a tiny, delicate creature in my hand that could be crushed easily if I hold it too tightly and it is so small and slippery it could slide through the cracks between my fingers if I held it too loosely. These are the times when I need to trust that if it gets away, the lesson will come back stronger, in a more graspable form the next time around. If I crush it, then it was not the time for it to permeate my way of thinking. Something about me is needing the message in a different form. Either way, the right time and form will come.

I know I will have many more opportunities in this life to feel that specific kind of resistance to something that I intuitively know holds some truth. The next time it comes around, I am going to say the thing I have learned from my beloved meditation teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. I am going to say, "hello! There you are again. Welcome. Please sit down to tea with me." Then I am going to listen. It could be, that in the listening, I might hear the sound of books sliding over on the bookshelf behind me.

Pain

For some people the title of this post alone might deter them from reading it. The word “pain” itself can cause a kind of “ugh” feeling in the body as one says it. Try this, say the word “pain” and see what it feels like in your body. Then, add a word before it like incredible pain, or amazing pain, or beautiful pain. Doesn’t that change the way it feels? I think this is a great thing to know and it might teach us something about pain that could ultimately help us.

For the past few weeks, I have been serving as a model bodywork client for a small supervision group. I knew going in that the work would be deeper than I am inclined to receive, but the practitioner is a friend of mine who knows my body well after years of massage work in my dancing days and her touch and knowledge is highly skilled. I knew I was in good hands. She wanted to work with the connective tissue affecting the curves in my spine and thought it would be a good challenge and investigation both for her work and for the colleagues/students watching. Last week, as I laid there and felt the sensation of the stretching tissue, one of the observers closest to me noticed I was smiling and gently asked if the work tickled. The question made me smile even more. The experience has me thinking a great deal about our responses to pain. It doesn’t matter whether it is physical or emotional pain, our strategies are often the same. We can get angry at it, avoid it, distract ourselves, make a joke of it, cower from it, shut down in reaction to it, get busy trying to fix it, or maybe even smile at it. What I have learned with physical pain and what I continue to learn with emotional pain is that there is a way to be with what is uncomfortable that can either close us off or opens us up.

The first time I remember feeling deep physical pain was in high school when I sprained my ankle rehearsing for a dance performance. The physical therapist at school instructed me to submerge my ankle in a bucket of ice water and stay for 5 minutes multiple times a day. The ankle hurt to walk on, but nothing hurt like that ice water did. It felt like something was in the bucket breaking my ankle. Everything in me tensed up as I sat next to the bobbing, crackling cubes ready to moan once the sensation hit. I survived those few ice age days and my ankle was better in no time. After massage school, with my hands still not strong enough for the amount of deep tissue work I was doing, I had to repeat this chilly procedure with my hands and wrists. It was here that I started to work with my reaction to the painful sensation and discovered that we have an amazing ability to cope if we train ourselves to. I didn’t know how to do it in high school, but I now believe that all the years of meditation since then have taught me how. Since pain is going to keep on coming in this life, why not have it as a goal to keep training?

Back to last week…there I was, lying on the table as an un-lotioned fist was making its way through my pectoral muscles, I could have scrunched up my face, tensed up my legs, arms and fists, pulled my back muscles in and away from the table. All of that would have braced me against what was happening, but it also would have made it worse by adding tension to something that was already hard. I’d be creating more work and more pain. Or, I could do what I did, which was to surrender to the sensation, to let go and give in, softening to the benevolent hand treating me. Tensing up would have made this voluntary treatment feel like abuse or at the very least, as though something was forcing its will on my tissue. Instead, it was as though I said, “yes, you are welcome here.” I also removed the idea that pain is “bad” and chose to feel the sensation without naming it as something. This is what this feels like and that’s all. In doing that, I could actually feel how amazing the sensation was. If I could have said it out loud, it would have sounded like, “wow, that’s incredible.” Now if I thought I was in danger or if I didn’t know what was happening, I might have to take an action, but I wasn’t in danger. I could feel what I was experiencing and stay with it. This ability to stay with what is happening and not feel the need for a distraction or something to do takes concentration, but the there is a gift in it. It’s the gift of knowing that inside, I am okay. The pain is not all of me. When I, for the first time, experienced one of those back spasms that lasts for days, the kind where the simplest action feels monumental, I found myself laughing even more than usual. It was a profound experience of “holy cow, this is incredible! We humans actually go through this!” Of course, laughing with a back spasm is excruciating, but it would have been worse not to. When I was upset, it wasn’t the pain, it was the fear that I wouldn’t be able to work. The fear required more attention than the physical issue at hand, but actually the technique is the same. The relief comes in simply feeling what I am feeling as sensation and not adding labels on top of it. I can breathe with whatever is there and, in feeling acceptance and self-compassion, something inevitably shifts. 

The other morning, I had a painful emotion welling up in me as I sat in meditation. It was one of those dark feelings triggered by past events, casting ominous clouds over the future. Quick sand. But, I sat there anyway and tapped into the part of me that could observe and sense. I felt the darkness reside in the front of my head and I let it be there. Slowly more room opened and I could see that this was only one part, other things were also true. I could breathe with those parts, too. Though I didn’t want the darkness there, I let it be and gradually it opened the curtains, letting more light in. We can choose to stay with the sensation and stop resisting it until there is a solution. If we resist it, there is no room for change to happen. Even if it were to happen, we might miss it because our energy is still tied up in what was.

When we can find the “wow” behind anything difficult, we are doing well. For me, this is something worth working on. How can I, in those moments of emotional discomfort, get enough distance to say, with a spirit of delight, “wow, that’s painful!” Don’t laugh. I’m not being ridiculous. Well, actually, please do laugh because that is exactly what I want to be able to do. Laugh with my pain, taking in the sensation with compassion and wonder as opposed to resisting it with wanting something else. I will get something else, just maybe not in that very moment. And some days, we just can’t find that wonder, laughter, or delight in what is happening and that’s okay, too. Everything keeps changing, despite ourselves. Yesterday I couldn’t laugh, but today I can. That alone is a wondrous thing. This is the way life is…beautifully painful. It is awesome, in the true sense of the word.

My Latest Lesson In Love

I learned a lesson in love this week. Intellectually I could say I already "knew" what I am about to share; it is after all, what I teach, write, and practice on a regular basis. But, we all have those particular lessons in love that need to come out of difficult places relative to our past and to who we are now. They are the ones that move us into a deeper ability to love. Of all things, it came by going to my grade school class' 25th reunion. You might think, "who goes to such a thing or what kind of school has such an event?" I'll give some brief background and it is understandable if you don't relate to this part of the story. In the end, I think what awakened me is something we can all relate to. It happens in all groups, in all places; it is not particular to me. 
 
I went to a private school on the North Shore of Long Island from 3rd through 9th grade. It was a class of around 40 students and most of us were together for all of those years and many were there longer. Looking back I can say that the education was excellent. The school ended after 9th grade and most kids went on to boarding schools. My parents moved us to Florida after graduation and I was no longer in touch with this group of people with which I had spent these critically formative years. Something about my experience there was not easy for me. I never felt like I fit in. I was shy. I didn't belong to the same country clubs. I rarely felt like I had the right clothes and I always knew my life was going to take a very different turn. It did. 

When I got the invitation to this reunion, the first of its kind, I felt this surge of complex feelings run through me ending with the question, "do I go?" I'd be a single mom going with a history that would surely be "different" than most of the paths taken there. I had an artist's life. I struggled to get by. I lived in Brooklyn and now in NJ (saying NJ alone, turned some heads, which if you're from NY you know what I mean). I work hard and live simply. My fear in going was that I'd feel so apart from the group, yet again. My excitement in going was to return to this place, where I once felt so much struggle, with the sense of who I am now, which is much more confident, not so shy, joyful, and appreciative of the richness of my experience. I wanted to step onto those beautiful school grounds, walk through those buildings, talk with my past classmates, and feel good. I wanted some healing. Not healing from a bad experience or from being treated wrongly, of which I never was, but healing in the internal struggle I felt there, that I have never been able to reconcile. This feeling of being “apart.” It is a feeling many of us may know.

I pulled up alongside the old, tremendous trees that line the entrance to the school and was flooded with memories and an unexpected sense of joy, excitement, and familiarity. There is something about leaving what you know so well that makes returning magical. If we never leave, we lack the perspective to see anew. I drove through the gate and passed the playing fields that sent me reeling back in time to wearing those blue athletic shorts and gold shirts. I walked into the new building where the event was to be held and it was not long before I was greeted with a huge hello and a giant hug from a classmate of mine whose outgoing nature clearly grew even larger in the years away. It was such a welcomed relief to receive first thing upon arrival. Only a small section of our class was going to be at this reunion, but it was perfect. I can't say I was completely at ease, but as we all took a walk through the school and reflected and laughed at the times there, there was something warm and comforting about it. As I listened to people, I could tell my life was in fact way outside the bounds of theirs, as I always knew it would be. It still unnerved me as I drove the long drive home feeling that strange mixture of warmth and separateness again, even though they all made me feel welcomed. No one asked too much and so I never had to share the turns of my life over the past 25 years. As I drove, I imagined that, if they had inquired, I would be judged. That assumption kept coursing through me, perpetuating this old notion I had of the way things were. But then, an amazing thing happened. I slept on it and in the morning had the insight that if I put all of my defenses down, if I stopped that story that I was on the outside and instead took in these friends who never rejected me or hurt me and opened my heart to them, I could finally heal. If I stopped being afraid of being hurt and brought forward the person I am, with my openness, warmth, and kindness and shared it as I do with so many these days, I could, for once, enjoy this group I had spent my childhood with. Not only could I do it now, but I could do it retroactively. I can now appreciate those 7 significant years. I have permission to say, “wow, that was a gift of an experience.” 

We can choose to love. We have the amazing capacity to decide to let go of our defenses and love instead. I can stop the comparing and the judging that I was doing, thinking all along it was “them.” Even if any one of them were to judge my life or not include me in his/her circles then or now, I can still love and keep my heart open and offer kindness. I would have nothing to lose; love can't be hurt. When we are fearful, we limit our experience of life. It is as though we put a cage around ourselves in the name of safety, but in fact there is no tiger to guard ourselves from if we recognize that love and safety are inside us and are boundless. We often limit our freedom. Even a tiger coming at us can’t touch our love. It is the most powerful tool we have, greater than any shield, armor or weapon. 

Some part of me feels as though I owe an apology to my classmates for holding myself back out of fear all those years. I also feel that I owe myself a tremendous amount of compassion for feeling the way I did, for those years of not knowing who to play with on the playground when I wasn't outwardly invited to join in the game of foursquare or the anxiety of who to sit with at lunch. Kids don't do that! They don’t necessarily invite you. I am now teaching my children not to wait for an invitation, but rather to be the invitation. To share our love and life, laughter and pain -- that is what makes a rewarding life, at any age. It needs no invitation. When I think I am going to be judged, I am holding myself back and that is a lost opportunity. I can also see and value that my nature is sensitive, that I am an observer and a reflector, and that those years of feeling slightly apart set me up to do the work I do with people. There is nothing I would change. In fact this lesson will continue to serve me in new settings I enter, in teaching before a group, in giving a talk before strangers. It reminds me that it is not their acceptance I need, it is my smile and warmth I need to give and that is all. To be a monk walking in the rush-hour crowd at Penn Station. It is the same thing. No matter where I am, I have at the core of me love and I can move, think, act and feel from there. This is happiness.

Who really knows how different my path is from any of those classmates of mine. It appears different on the outside, but inside, we are all made of the same blood, flesh and bones. We have the same vulnerable hearts and the same wish for love. That is all we ever need to remember. I am grateful for my experience, for that school, for the teachers there, and for the boys and girls who made that grade. I could see their beauty at the reunion and my own. There is such healing in that. I am grateful that I had to leave and I am grateful that I came back.

Permission Slips

When we were little, we needed permission slips signed by our parents to go on field trips, or to stay late, or, as I received yesterday, to take a classroom guppy home. I'm not little and I'm not in school anymore, but lately, I'm wishing that as adults we could have permission slips signed by someone on our behalf. I'm imagining setting up a booth at Union Square where people could tell me what they needed permission to do. I could fill in the blank on a yellow slip of paper and sign it and the person could go on her merry way. No, I'm not talking about permission to buy car, or eat a third cupcake, or move to a tropical island, though those are all possible. It's the deeper and much more subtle internal requests that come knocking at our doors that need our blessing. Most of the time, I think we don't even know that we need to offer it. But, more and more, I am starting to believe that we do, in fact, need a permission slip signed.

The subject began when I found myself repeatedly asking my clients as they laid down to give themselves permission to let their weight fall into the table, that they didn't have to support themselves for the next hour. I ask them to acknowledge to themselves that they can let go. What I am seeking is their own permission because without it, we are running uphill from the start. And it's okay to run uphill, to not have permission, as long as we know that is what we are doing, and then we can work with that "no," which is the real issue. But, if we do get a "yes," the road is going to be smoother and we can get further than if we never asked.

So that's how it began, but it prompted me to think about the things I want and whether or not I give myself permission to receive them or even to want them. This might sound insignificant on the surface, but I believe it is huge. How can we possibly have what we want if we don't first give ourselves permission to receive? Without permission, we might actually get what we want or it might be staring us in the face, but we never feel we "have" it because that "yes" from ourselves was missing. The "yes" opens us up to it.

This week, for example, I am feeling a deep need to be inspired by someone. Not by nature or a thing, but by a person. I can ask myself, "Jean, do you have permission to be inspired by another person right now?" It seems simplistic, but when I truly ask myself out loud, it becomes more real and has an essential gravity to it. I am asking for something from my heart and granting it a big "yes." I do have permission to be inspired by another human being. I am much more likely to find that person because I have acknowledged the need and that I am worthy of whatever it is, and I can open my eyes and heart to discovering this person. If I want love in my life, for example, I need to ask, "hey Jean, do you have permission to be loved?" It's no small question. Try it. Ask yourself out loud right now if you have permission to be loved. What does it make you feel to be asked? Some part of me says "wow, do I?" Then, comes a response of "yes," and the significance of those three letters is that they open my heart to receiving. Or maybe I sense a tentativeness behind the yes and that becomes something to be aware of. What part of me doesn't think so? On other weeks it could be more prosperity in my work I want, or more ease in my day, or simply the chance to read a novel in a coffee shop. What I know now is that until I have my own permission, I can't possibly get what I want. If I offered permission to myself more often, I might actually be full.

How many of us know the experience of being so busy and of having too much on our plates for too long and then we find ourselves on vacation or a day off and we can't relax. We don't know how. Something feels disappointing in it. It's because we haven't gotten that permission slip signed yet. How about we decide to start mindfully asking and listening? We can ask ourselves throughout the day or week all kinds of things. Do I have permission to put the things I have to do on a shelf for one hour and let myself rest? Can I let this willing person take care of me? Do I have permission to want more from this relationship, job, experience? Do I have permission to not feel well? That's a really tough one. Whenever we feel a need or want arise, we can pause in the seeking and remember to first see if we are allowed to have it. I am learning not to assume it is automatically there. There is great awareness that happens in that moment of pausing and checking in with ourselves.

Asking for permission is ultimately asking if I can let myself receive. We receive with open palms and arms, chest exposed, with some cleared space in our minds to take in what we are inviting. When the request is genuine and when the gift is received with gratitude, not expectation, it is a vulnerable stance we take. It must be soft. If we are hardened, it bounces right off us. And to be vulnerable, we must let go of control, to be willing to not know what comes after the asking. We don't know what will happen, but we are willing to see. This is not such an easy thing to do, but when we practice it, the world opens up in a beautiful way. So to receive, we need permission and it's often closer than we realize. But, when you can't find it, as we sometimes can't, look for me around Union Square. I'll gladly give you my signature until yours comes available.

Nothing Greater

I had a poignant conversation with a dear client this week. He was talking about the latest treatment he was going for to seek an answer to his painful condition. His hope is resting in it working. He commented with certainty that the device is said to be the most powerful healing treatment around. I paused trying to hold back what instinctively surged up through me in reaction, afraid that what I know to be the most powerful remedy would sound like something from the movie Frozen or that maybe I'd belt out some Broadway song. I was afraid to be laughed at in ridicule by this super smart, all about science man before me, who has clearly done his research. We searched each other's eyes for what was about to happen next in the conversation and there was no other way for me to say, "the most powerful thing is love." So I said it, just like that. He didn't laugh.

I've spent 12 years working with people and their aches, pains, and sorrows. And, I've also witnessed their sense of relief, their joys, and openings. I've spent 39 years working with my own. I wish I could say I knew some external technique I could package or apply that would heal us of the things that cause us suffering. I have learned many tools and continue to keep learning, and they help, and of course, there are many medical treatments out there people need in order to survive. But, without a doubt, the greatest healing I ever received came in the form of love. It came from teachers, people in healing professions, friends, animals. The love came from them and filled me and it taught me how to love myself. "To love myself," those words sound so cliche, so over-used, so simplified. It is a basic truth, that this is what healing does, yet I know there is nothing simple about learning how to love one's self (and therefore to learn how to love others).

When I think back over the experiences that had the most profound impact on my overall health, there are people associated with them, not things or techniques. The first experience was with my 7th grade English teacher. He saw the beauty in me that I could not see and he was not afraid to say it, and to fight for me to see it. From then on, there were a series of people like this who gradually showed me, layer after layer, what I couldn't see. And each time, it was something slightly different. I didn't know, at the time, that what I was receiving was love and that I was learning how to love. Now, I recognize it when it comes, but I had to grow to that point of receiving. At first, we just need to be loved and feel what that actually is without knowing it.

The greatest thing and what makes me smile with excitement just at the thought is that we can all do this for each other. We can, on a daily basis, point out the goodness in another. We can genuinely seek and share the beauty we see and feel. I write this and am absolutely delighted. I want to do more of it. What better thing is there to do with our time? And what better thing to do than to continue to learn how to recognize when someone is giving to us? These days, when I feel a connection with someone, I don't let it slip away. Whether it is a teacher, a friend, a colleague, a therapist of some sort, a client, an animal, a flower or tree, I try my best not to take it for granted. Sometimes I do miss, but my eyes are open and eventually I hope I will see it.

Healing comes in the form of many techniques and some come in a packaged form, but lasting healing must come from love. That I do believe. My chronically tight back took years of healing, but the real change came when the person who worked with me didn't see my back, but saw me. Whether he knew it or not, that was love at work. 

It might seem far fetched to link love to healing extreme physical pain, but if we were to look at it closely, we can see how entwined love and healing are. So many physical ailments begin with some missing, neglected, overlooked, overused, parts of ourselves. They are never our fault. They begin and morph into a series of reactions over time so that their origin gets lost. We learn how to walk, move, hold, and how to care for ourselves a certain way based on so many variables. Some of it is cultural, hereditary, and learned. Much of it has to do with how we feel about ourselves and how we were/are cared for. So much of that comes down to love, being gentle with ourselves, and of others being gentle with us. And then, there are ailments that befall us that no matter how much care we took and others took, we had no control over their arrival. With those, the importance is in the love we take and know now. Not that we didn't before, but it is an opportunity to know love in an even greater way. All suffering has that as its gift if we choose to see it.

How do we learn to love ourselves? We gradually find those lives that see ours under all the outer layers, costumes, and shields we wear and we begin to learn. We start to see what they see. We start to see what is naked and true. It takes time. I am still, and always will be, finding those people who show me the bare truth of who I am.

If there is anything I can say I truly aspire to do in my life, it is to know and share love without reservation. I am grateful for this client of mine, as I am for all of my clients. He may be in pain, of which I wish nothing more than for it to subside. In his suffering, he reminds me of the necessity of love. Without it, we cannot heal. I wish him, and all beings, love and the relief it brings. 

After We Get What We Want

This week, after years of trying, I achieved a goal I had been reaching for in my work. I had booked the number of clients I aspired to have in a week. It was an ideal day when I realized I had arrived at this place. I walked my dog in the warm spring sun, under the blue sky, alongside the blossoming cherry trees and felt relief and joy. As is my nature, I started to reflect on the ever changing states of joyfulness and suffering. It can't simply be that I get what I want and the difficulty in me goes away. I know better. I walked on and really took it on. I imagined what it would be like if I had the things I think I want. For an American, I think my wants are rather humble. But even so, I played the game of what if. What if I had the relationship I want (even with its innate difficulties), if my one bedroom place suddenly had another bedroom, if I continued to have enough clients. I closed my eyes and imagined them suddenly being a reality and sensed what it would feel like in my body. I asked myself, "would there still be the ache of longing, or a subtle anxiety, an inescapable loneliness, or an underlying restlessness coursing through me, however mild?" I threw the question out there and the answer came boomeranging back, "yes, there would be!" I knew it was true so I threw it back out and asked the bigger question, "what do we do with this perpetual yearning?"

I then thought of my morning's parenting moment and saw my answer. I was walking with my 6 year old daughter to school and she was telling me how she was suffering over the fact that a friend of hers wasn't paying attention to her. That the girl was now playing games my daughter didn't want to play at recess, that she wasn't engaging with my daughter on line or talking with her between activities as she had before. This issue with her friend keeps returning. I could hear my daughter's hurt and how she was turning it into blame. I thought to myself, wow, this human condition of people pushing and pulling at one another starts at an early age. I wished my daughter could see that she didn't need to chase after anyone and yet, I knew the reality that we all go through this struggle throughout our lives. Hopefully we learn from the experiences as we age and handle them more compassionately and gracefully, but ultimately, as long as we are in relationship to others, we will endlessly face the challenge of meeting each others needs. All there is to do is to surrender to what we feel and in the softening find some peace. The answer to the struggle is to simply feel the struggle. Just like the answer to our desire for something more is to simply feel the desire. I know it's not what we want to hear (and I am not at all suggesting that we don't try to get what we want). Some days I can't hear it and that's okay, too. The gift is still there for us to receive when we are ready. Trying to explain that to a child is another story, but she was listening and often I think children get things faster than adults do.

Whenever I get in touch with wanting something I don't have, I think there is something I need to do about it. Can't I fix it? It is as if I were to fix the outside thing, the inside would be fine again. But, if there's something getting what we want shows us, it is that another want will arise. I could circle around on that never ending loop, or I can sit down and sense what is going on in my body and breathe with it, letting it be there just as it is. It is in practicing staying in the present moment that allows us to feel the unmet need, (longing, desire, unrest), and enables us to bare it and find its fulfillment. Its fulfillment is our own comfort. We can distract ourselves from feeling this place by keeping ourselves busy or wrapped up in crises (our own or others), in blaming people or things, or in perpetually fixing. But, if we are ever forced to settle down by some significant change, this place of yearning will present itself and when we can bare to stay present, there is an intangible reward it offers.

Though I may get what I need in life (actually, I often do, but maybe not in the form or time frame I expect it), some part of me is always going to long for something. In that understanding, I can breathe a sigh of relief. There is nothing more I need to do than continually see the gifts I already have. I can enjoy walking by a beautifully flowering tree or some ornate piece of iron on an old brownstone door, or the sensation of rain touching my skin, or cherishing the shared laugh with a friend, or appreciating the fact that I turn on the faucet and water flows. The comfort (peace, love, whatever we call it) we need to make us feel complete, and not in need of anything more, comes from within.

It could be that next week, I will have all the clients I need or it could be that my daughter will have her friend's attention. Either way the wanting will inevitably arrive at some point, but maybe we can find some refuge in the idea that the real answer is not in fixing it, but in feeling it and finding compassion. The rest takes cares of itself. 

Breathing With Bears

Last weekend, I took my children to see the Disney film, Bears. I thought we were seeing a typical animated movie, not a documentary, so I wasn't prepared for the 90 minutes of anxiety I had to sit with as I watched a momma bear protect her cubs from other large, four legged animals with big teeth, avalanches, and shortages of food. So much for a relaxing night at the movies. Two days later, I brought my kids to school and as I walked my dog before heading to the train, I again felt a subtle, but pervasive sense of anxiety coursing through me. I had to remind myself, that everything was really fine. The kids were safe, happy, and on time for school. I had a full day of clients to see. I had enough money for the week. I had a roof over my head, clothes, and food. I was healthy. I was going to be able to run. The sun was even out. Everything was in fact really good, so why the anxiety? Bears! That's why. As many experts on the brain tell us, we are wired that way. We live on shaky ground. Even if we're not physically located in an earthquake zone, we are perpetually up against rumbling forces, against inevitable change. So, of course we don't automatically relax just because a fox or tremendous bear isn't preying on us in the very moment. How does our whole being know to let our guard down? This is an interesting challenge and is something I keep exploring in my life and work. It's not enough to have the thought that I'm not in danger, and that I can be at ease, I need to connect the thought to my body. Only then, can I actually let go.

Having the intellectual understanding that I am not in danger is very different than literally saying to myself, "Jean, in this moment, everything is okay; you are safe" and then sense, not think, but sense a softening in my eyes and face, in my shoulders and chest. I can bring my attention to my inhale and exhale and feel my ribs and abdomen move and not hold them in as if wearing an invisible corset. I can choose to soften the shell that holds me and carries me through this life. To think we're okay is not enough, we must physically sense it for change to happen. The best way I know to do it is through conscious breathing. It's the greatest free app we have. All we need to do is click on it.

No matter what comes up that makes my mind and emotions spin like a top, I can come back to my breath, and it's as if I put my finger up against the whirling and the spinning top comes to a dead halt. If I am in a difficult emotional place, it doesn't stop the suffering, but from there, I can create enough space to say, "wow, I am really sad (or anxious, or scared, or lonely, or in deep longing), but even in this suffering, I am okay." From there I breathe in and out the sensations of these feelings with compassionate attention and not have to do anything more. I can feel my chest constrict, my field of vision narrow, my body feel heavy, but I can breathe into it and sense an okay-ness within the difficulty. And, I'll keep coming back to doing that for as long as the feeling is present. It might be throughout a whole day or it may be just an hour, or maybe it's a week, or a month, or a year where I have to keep reminding myself I am okay and can breathe.

When I lived in the city and went to the deep country on artist retreats, I would always contemplate what to do if I came across a bear. It was as if I was simultaneously wanting and dreading the experience. I no longer do that, but, in a deeper way, I am aware that the bear is always there. What matters is that I can breathe anyway; in this very moment, I am truly okay.