How Do You Want To Meet This Winter?

There has been frequent use of the phrase “the long, dark winter” in talking about what is coming next. What we think has a lot to do with what we manifest and what we experience. Do we have to have a long, dark winter ahead? Some of it is up to us. Yes, the virus in increasing here in NJ and restrictions are beginning again. Yes, the holidays for many will lack the usual gatherings and traditions. Yes, it will get colder and socializing, even out-of-doors, will get harder. I get all of that, but none of it is taking us by surprise like it did in the spring. The question is, what do we want to do with this information? Knowing what we know, how can we make something out of the conditions we have? How can we remember to see all that is beautiful and joyful just as this life is? What is possible?  Take a moment to try this on. Read this and close your eyes and see what answer comes. Ask yourself, “what is the feeling (not the thing I do, but the feeling) I love most that comes about by the holidays and/or winter months?” See what word or phrase comes that best captures the whole of it. It might take asking the question a couple of times for the answer to arrive, but when it does, try it on to make sure it fits. If it doesn’t, stay with it and search some more. Once you know what feeling describes it best, then ask how you can create that out of the conditions that are here or might be here. Make a list of things you might do, ways of being/thinking, steps you might take, etc. Once your are done, see if contemplating the coming months feels any different. Maybe it’s not your ideal, but it can still be good.  We can get our minds to recalibrate. When we stop resisting what is here, we can open to what else is true. We are adaptable. We can find possibilities. We are resilient. We don’t have to have a “long, dark winter.” Wishing you all an open heart and mind that will help you enjoy these months. We don’t get them back later, so let’s savor them now while we are alive to experience them.

An Election Over: What We Can Celebrate - Talk From 11/8/20

This is the talk given at meditation on Sunday, November 8, 2020.

ll things change. After a week fraught with uncertainty, we have a new president. And though the candidate I wanted to win did, and though there is much relief inside me and Saturday night I felt a tremendous cloud lifted, there is a large part of me that is conflicted in the triumph. When the half the people lose, it feels hard for me to wholeheartedly celebrate. 

What I was left with this week was the feeling, once again, that no side has been listening very well. Each side makes their demands; thinks they’re right; thinks their values are better.

This week I came to the realization that if half the people voted differently than me, then I need to reconsider how I am thinking about all of it. Half the people can’t be wrong or bad or have values that don’t align with mine. What it does mean is that half the people have different experiences, different stories, histories, and their perceptions are different than mine because of them. AND they matter. They’re going to have different fears. Some may be the same, but some may be opposing. What I am taking in more fully than ever before is that if I don’t give consideration to these differences, I will start believing half the people in this country are “bad.” In my heart, I know that is not true. We are all unique individuals with specific experiences that shaped who we are and how we think. What if we gave everyone not our judgement, not our opinions, but consideration? What if we valued all beings as thinking/feeling vulnerable beings - and that means even if they are waving flags and guns. What if we could be steady and listen even then with wonder about what they are needing to feel safe and take it seriously?

What does seem true from this election is the presence of a whole lot of fear, all of which is valid. We fear terrorists. We fear freedom being taken away. We fear diversity. We fear racism. We fear the police. We fear the lack of policing. We fear restrictions. We fear the lack of restrictions. We fear the faltering economy. We fear greed. We fear climate change. We fear making sacrifices. Ultimately, we fear change and the evolution of humanity - the unknown of it. How can we reach greater understanding and unity if we don’t tend to all of the fears on both sides and not berate the other for having them but get truly interested in the what and the why underneath them? I suggest an even bigger inquiry is here…are we willing to hold the opposing views, fears, feelings that exist inside ourselves. We are all complicated.   

If we are really on a path of awareness, we must learn to hold greater and greater complexity and change judgement to curiosity. This week, a shift has taken root in me. It is a move away from us vs them thinking, seeing in black and white, moving away from right/wrong; good/bad. Those concepts won’t bring peace or understanding. We know from our own experience that they don’t work within ourselves…when we fail to hear and be with all the parts of ourselves and make room for the complexity within us, we suffer. When we judge ourselves, when we make ourselves good/bad, right/wrong, we suffer.  

We have a fresh start before us as a country. We can also have a fresh start with ourselves. I’ve said it before but if we can work with “the impossible” in ourselves, we can work with what seems impossible in others because we have developed that muscle that can hold opposing sides, that listens, that makes room for and tends to both. We can be with all of ourselves. When we do this, all of us feels heard. This is the only way to dissolve fear. And when we dissolve fear, our actions are open, generous, loving. We can approach everything outside of us in the same way. We can strengthen this muscle.

This is a whole other way of being. When I try it on, it feels like the embodiment of equanimity. I invite you to try it on as well. What if we embodied equanimity? This would mean that instead of reacting in judgement we would lean into the complexity and nuances of the other’s story. What if we got curious about them, trusted their experiences, their histories because that’s what is true for them. What if I don’t try to change them, but be with them. We can’t convince people to think like we do. It doesn’t work. What has greater impact is when we are truly present, listening, bringing in compassion, holding their truths even if they are different than ours.

I know this won’t happen overnight for me, but this is the next place I want to nurture in me. What it means is that I need to be able to be steady, because I will have to face the forces in me that want to resort to the old way of thinking that I am right. The image that comes is in the story of the Buddha on the night of his enlightenment with Mara shooting arrows at him to distract him and when they struck him, they turned to flowers. What if, we could be like that? What if we trusted ourselves enough to have the strength, the courage, the wherewithal to be that?

The country is ushering in change and growth. We know that growth or the birth of something is rarely easy or elegant. If you are celebrating, please enjoy it. But, let’s also know half of the country is not and we can’t disregard that. We have work to do inside ourselves. We can choose to see it as the work of enlightenment. The opportunity is exciting because winning an election is not the final accomplishment. There is no real winning. Becoming a more aware, loving, compassionate person with all living things - well now, that is something to truly celebrate. We can do that. 

It's Like This Right Now

I returned from my workout on a beautiful fall morning and sat on my back steps for a few minutes to meditate. My breathing was still fast from having exercised. I found myself saying the words to my Zoom meditation which was planned for an hour later. I said, "my breathing is like this right now." My feeling was slightly anxious because my kids had braces put on and tightened the day before. They were both uncomfortable and one was particularly grouchy about it because she didn't sleep. The energy in the house was rocky. I took a breath and very neutrally said, "my feelings are like this right now," followed by, "and my kids are like this right now." The fresh, fall air felt good on my skin and I said, "the sensation is like this right now." No fight. No fixing. No expectation that anything should be other than it is. What a relief.

So much of the time we fight what is. It's not the kind of fight that accomplishes anything. It's more like a resistance to what's here and it ends up causing us more suffering. It pervades our body with tension, with the effort of armoring up and closing off. We can do it with simple things like not liking that's a rainy day or larger things like losing a job. We can even do it around things that aren't happening to us, but to those around us. But thankfully, there is another way. How different it feels when we can let go of the fight or resistance and be present to what is here! Remembering that all things change is what allows us to do that. It's not always going to be this way. The leaves are falling now; they won't always be. It's like this right now. (If a part of you resists this idea by saying, "but some things we need to resist like racial injustice, abuse, a threat to democracy," whatever it might be...know that this isn't about not taking action, but it is about being real and present to what is here right now. To really feel and experience without layering on more than what is here. The next right action will come, but not out of pushing away what is here now).

I invite you to try it on for a day. Whatever arises, simply take a breath and observe with equanimity, "it's just like this right now." Find that space to notice without judging and without adding more onto what's there (like saying it's cooler today, that means it's going to be cold soon). Simply let yourself be with what is and notice how it feels different. Life is just like this right now. Please let me know if this simple mantra brings some ease. 

The Power of Trying Something On

This weekend, we went to the mall to pick up the jeans my daughter ordered that I thought were being delivered. I am learning that nothing operates quite the same way these days, so I am practicing going with the flow. Since I was there, I figured I might as well look in a department store to find pajamas. My attempt to purchase some online reminded me that while online shopping is great, some things you need to try on. Searching the racks in Macy's for pj's that don't look like I am trying to be 25 years old or that make me look 80 years old, I found a couple to try and then discovered that the fitting room was closed. Sigh. Going with the flow. We need fitting rooms. We need to try things on. And not just clothes...

The power of trying on a thought, an action, or visualizing something going well is no small thing. Athletes and performers, of all types, know this power well. I remember auditioning for a dance company that I so desperately wanted to get in. It was my dream for years and I finally had my chance. The movement fit me like a glove and so I went on that first day and for whatever reason, I couldn't learn the movement phrase the choreographer created. I just wasn't picking it up. Years of training with him and his dancers and suddenly I felt like a fish out of water. Somehow, I didn't get cut and they invited me back for the 2nd day. I remember sitting on the subway, on the way to the studio the next day, closing my eyes and taking myself through the phrase, feeling myself do all the parts smoothly. That day went great. I had it down. This is the power of trying something on and we can all do it for all kinds of things.

In my groups and workshops over the past two weeks we delved into setting ourselves up for the fall. What I loved was hearing participants share how they wanted to enter the season. I asked them to imagine how they wanted to meet the fall, how they wanted to be in themselves, with what kind of energy did they want to approach their everyday lives. The answers were inspiring to hear. They included wanting to be flexible, in the moment/savoring, feeling confident or having courage, feeling light/palyful, being steady, being quiet, accepting, being more real. I then asked them to try it on in their bodies, to visualize themselves moving through the day with that specific energy.

I know if I imagine myself meeting my daily moments with an energy that is slower and goes with the flow (the words that came to me), I have a greater chance of doing it that way...or at least somewhat. Every time I imagine myself with that intention, I am strengthening that part of me. And, because I can imagine it and really sense what it would be like in my body, that means I already know how to do it. It is already possible. It's in me. So what is possible in you this fall? How do you want to meet it? Can you take a moment to try it on? Bring forth what you want to bring forth. Your fitting room is not closed.

A Mindful Life for High School Students

3 years ago, I offered my first and only meditation and mindfulness workshop for teenagers. While I had a lot to learn from that experience and would approach it differently now, there are two moments that stand out when I revisit it. 

The first was a loving-kindness exercise where I asked the students to write down three loving-kindness phrases for themselves based on what they listed as stressors in their lives. For example: 

May I have peace of mind

May I feel more ease in my days

May I be free of worry.

I then asked them partner up and do a meditation where they exchange what they wrote and offer the phrases to their partner. When we regrouped what was expressed was how nice it was to wish their partner something they needed. It was a surprising and beautiful moment and the feeling was palpable. 

At the end of the workshop, when I asked what they wanted to see more of in their world of friends, family, society they all had very meaningful shares. I am reminded why I want to offer this again, but in a different format. For this reason, I am calling on all high school aged students who want to learn how to manage their stress and connect more deeply with other students in a safe space. 

Understandably, you might be thinking students already have too much time looking at a screen in the day, especially if their schooling is virtual, but this will be a different experience. It will be a place where they can:

• Feel grounded in the present moment through meditation and mindfulness practices
• Let go of the pressure to perform and let go of others' expectations
• Have a place where they can be themselves, share meaningfully, and interact with other teenagers 
• Train their minds to lean toward what is well/positive and not get lost in worry and fear
• Gain self-awareness around their feelings and what's going on inside

Stress is high for students today. Let’s create a safe, peaceful place for teenagers in the midst of some challenging years.

Join me for A MINDFUL LIFE FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS starting October 8^th. This four-week Zoom group will be a safe place for high school students to gain tools to manage stress and feel supported. Please share this with your high school student. They might want to gather a friend or two, or come alone. Either way, they will have a chance to make new friends. 

🌻
Jean

P.S. Heads up to parents! Encouragement may be needed, but pushing a student to do it won't help them. This works best if a student wants to help themselves or wants greater connection with others.

Forget Me Not

Why is it so easy to forget? We watch the news and forget. Our child says or does something we don’t agree with and we forget. We mess something up and we forget. Whenever fear takes over, we forget. A great deal of of what any contemplative practice does is to help people to remember. We already know; we already have the wisdom we need. We simply lose it temporarily. It’s true of all of us. We are of the nature to forget and we need tools to remember to bring us back. And the coming back almost always means getting out of fear.

So, what do we need to remember and to get out of fear? 

• We can remember that we can slow down and in the slowing down find insight. 
• We can remember that we can allow and accept what is presenting itself and take the next right action once we stop resisting it. Stopping resisting needs to happen first. 
• We can remember that we are all connected. What seems separate from us, isn't. 
• We can remember that love, compassion, generosity, and kindness trump everything. 
• We can remember that if we follow a fear down its rabbit hole, what we find is that it’s ok, even at the bottom - that even in our worst case scenario, it's just an experience. We are still connected because we are made up of everything that is not us and we are part of everything else. We can still breathe, even there at the bottom, knowing it, too, is temporary.

What fear, in you, needs reminding that what is here has come about for many reasons, many of which we cannot possibly fathom, and that we needto be here. We may not know why yet, but the conditions are like this right now. How do you want to meet it? If you slow down, what do you know about love, compassion and kindness that will help you navigate these waters? Can you breathe with this fear and know it is not all of you. You are much bigger, more complex than any fear. Remind yourself who you really are. We all forget and that's ok because we will remember again.

Acknowledging Where We Have Been

I was walking through the grocery store this week and had one of those moments of awe, looking at everyone with masks on doing their shopping, at how we have adjusted to this way of living for now. It is amazing what we have come through and yet, it is so easy to not see what we have managed.

Often in my A Mindful Life groups and workshops I will have us do an exercise that asks us to reflect on what has already gone on in a day/week/season/year. These exercises seem like the antithesis of mindfulness meditation which asks us to stay in the present moment. But, there’s a purpose to these specific tasks of reflection - it’s not just ruminating or rehashing. We can so easily roll through our accomplishments, events, small and major moments, and move onto the next without pausing to realize - wow, I actually got tenure, or I opened a business, or I survived a critical moment, or I moved somewhere and started a new path, or I received all that goodness! The very thing we were moving toward arrives and when we get there, out of fear of what’s next, we often don’t stop long enough to savor it. The problem with this is that we never feel full because we haven’t taken in what we have done, what we have received, where we have landed, what goodness has already arrived. 

The same is true not just of what we have done and what we have received, but also of our resilience. Resilience is only useful when we recognize that we have been resilient. And we weren’t just resilient once, but many times. In fact, every day we are resilient. But we need to acknowledge where we have been to be able to see how we have grown. 

I invite us all, right now, to take such a moment. Think back to March when this pandemic hit and lockdown took hold. Think of the fear, the unknown, the uncertainty we all faced. We listened to the news of death tolls rising. We watched our kids struggle with roughly orchestrated online schooling and we struggled with them in our homes. We didn’t get haircuts or go to the dentist; our businesses closed (temporarily or permanently); we  struggled to figure out the best way to get groceries; we saw empty shelves of toilet paper and soap. We went on unemployment, applied for PPP loans, and we figured out how to work just as efficiently online. We did amazing things. We got creative and resourceful; we supported others; we meditated more; we walked more and dogs were - oh so happy! We found new ways. And though it is not over yet, we could do the kind and generous thing - we could, in this moment, stop and take in how resilient we have been. And maybe, with a bow of gratitude, we can acknowledge that, “yes, we pulled through.” We are no longer in the same place. Everything changes. 

There are more trials to come, but for right now, why not take a moment, even just a few minutes to rest, truly rest, in your own strength, power, and resilience. Look at what you have done. I invite you to make a list of all that you went through since March. All that you made possible since then, all the obstacles overcome, and all the connections, joys, possibilities you discovered. This is no small thing. You have grown. Like the flower growing through the concrete. If you are an artist, you can draw/paint it all out on one big piece of paper.

Now you can use this. The next time you notice a wave of anxiety about the future, you might call up this resilience and realize there is more in you. You’re not just resilient, but you have grown and are stronger from this past wave. You have it inside you to meet whatever challenge comes next.

Jean

P.S. This is the kind of work we do regularly in A Mindful Life. Click the link to find out more.

A Simpler Life

I’ve been sitting with a growing feeling. My beloved, enthusiastic nutritionist gave a lesson in growing micro greens yesterday. I have the image of this feeling sprouting and spreading much like those micro greens will if I ever get around to planting them. I know what’s growing and it feels wrong to admit it. It is a fear of this time ending. Who wouldn’t want a pandemic to end? Of course I do because I don’t want to see any more suffering or dying, or our economy in shambles. But, there is this other side of me that has some dread about life retuning to the way it was. I think to myself, my gosh Jean, how bad was it? I used to feel a similar dread when I lived in the city and we would go to the country for a retreat. On the last day I would cry not wanting to return to the life I had. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my life either! Then it was a mixture of the pace of city life, pressure to produce, and the lack of nature that I didn’t want to return to. What is this dread now? It has something important for me to know. It’s telling me that it’s time to pay attention. As much as I am resisting leaning into what is there, I must. The hesitation is that it will ask something of me that will scare me. That’s what dread is, isn’t it? It will ask me to take a risk or to step up in a way that frightens me. It’s almost easier to stay in the dread than to see clearly what is being laid at my feet. Once I look, the path will be cleared before me and I will have no choice but to follow it. Of course I do have a choice, but I know myself well enough to say that if there is an opening I will have to see where it leads, scary or not.

What do I not want to return to? The busyness. The running around. The setting up of everything. So much setting up!  The effort. In these pandemic weeks of lockdown, I don’t feel as though I am working less. In fact, my work feels more involved, more challenging. But there is a simplicity to the way it is right now - the way life is right now that I am deeply appreciating. Simplicity. As I typed the word, it resonated through me. Yes, it is simplicity I am wanting to hold on to. Maybe wording it in the affirmative rather than the negative would be more useful…not focusing on the dread, but what I am drawn to. A simpler life. 

Outside of lockdown, what makes this a simpler life? Grocery shopping only once a week for starters. That’s easy enough. Small in actuality, but huge in its impact. Working from home. Who knew I would like it so much? No rooms to set up, no big transitions to make, no place to drive to. More spaciousness in the day. Having more meals as a family. I love making the kids warm lunches and having them sit at the table to eat, all of us taking a break from our work. Seeing people walking and knowing people are in their homes. Less honking horns and speeding cars down our residential streets. More quiet. Less pressure to do, to be, to get somewhere, to move ahead. We have no where to go right now and what a relief that is. A simpler life indeed.

So I think to myself, how do I maintain simplicity post-pandemic? The grocery shopping shift is easy enough, but the rest? That I am not so sure. It feels like a bigger shift is in the works, one I can’t yet imagine. So many things I could never have imagined have happened in my life. I need to remember that. Then, I need to get some clarity over what I really want my life to look like, unabashedly admit to what I truly desire, which feels different than it did back in January when I wrote my yearly intentions. Everything has changed. Can I say what I want in this new place and not hold back from it because I “don’t deserve it” or because I am “not good enough” to do it, or because of financial fear. I do trust that if the changes I make come from a good motivation; if they bring more goodness to the world, then they are possible. They need to be honored. 

What has this time inspired in you? By the time it is over we will have gone through a process.  It will be different for all of us depending on what we witnessed, what we were asked to let go of, what we made of it, how we grieved, what we learned. We can return to life as it was - just move on with business as usual, which might be good enough. Or, we can lean in to this place that is not the same and invite ourselves to meet what is here with an open, courageous, loving heart and be curious what the universe is asking of us all now.

Circling Back Around

It has been a while since I have blogged or blogged steadily. A conversation with a dear friend on a recent morning reminded me of a post I wrote 7 years ago. I went back, read it, and heard the very thing I needed to hear. After that post, I looked at another and another from years past. Besides getting the message I needed, what also struck me was the judgement that I can’t write like that anymore. “You’ve lost it” is what she says. “Maybe I have,” I say. But, there was something so fulfilling about reading those posts that even if, now, I can’t write so articulately, with such intentionality, my will has been fired up. She is determined to make a go of it. It feels, suddenly, necessary.

I wrote then because I had to. It was life or death at the time. It kept me alive and not just alive, but growing and moving in ways I didn’t even know. Maybe I am at that point again. Not life or death, at all, but maybe I am, once again, at a place of growing into knowing myself. Maybe the words that need to be said will come again. What I can see, in how I used to write, is the very thing I was speaking about in Sunday night meditation. That in “naming” what was alive in me at the time, I got some space from it and could see more clearly what was there. I could make explicit what I knew about it, what was true for me. I could make sense of it. I never thought about it before, but writing can be another another tool of mindfulness.

I am in new place, yet certain themes circle around, like the planets around the sun. “Yup, this one’s back…” There is that annoying saying that we get presented with the same life lesson until we learn from it. It circles around and around, not at a dizzying speed because each visit needs time to digest. But come around…it will. This is what I am getting to understand…each time it comes, it is different. A little less painful (emphasis on “liitle”). A little more interesting. Just as perplexing. Of course it is. It’s perplexing because we are exploring another aspect of it, another nook and cranny we didn’t know was even there. That’s exciting, really. Another opportunity. Why else are we here if we are not learning and growing more into who we really are and sharing from this place, from our true selves - even if the whole process is painful.

A pandemic will set into motion all kinds of ripples. Waves more likely. I am letting it move me. Do we have any choice? I suppose I could drop the anchors and try to stay in place, but how dull would that be? Besides, my ship will only get battered and no distance will have been made. Why not let my ship get battered, but arrive somewhere new?

“Here we go,” I say to myself. Write I will. See you soon.

Why Practice? The Darkness Always Falls

This morning we had a contractor scheduled to come to our house to take a look at a couple of leaks that we have been putting off dealing with. Up until he arrived at 11:30, I was working on the outline to a possible presentation I will be giving on hope and mindfulness. Though I tend not to use the word “hope” very much, I was curious about the subject and so I spent the morning hours exploring ideas around it and how it relates to mindfulness and Buddhism. I wanted to find what rings true or not about my experience with hope. I was on a roll and felt inspired as I worked. I found relevant quotations from teachers. It was starting to feel like a fascinating subject when the doorbell rang. The contractor had arrived. I put the computer aside and invited him in. He took a look at the bathroom and, more or less, said the pipes are very old and likely shot. They are leaking into the concrete and though we could patch it, ultimately, the whole bathroom needs to be gutted. This means plumbers, electricians, permits, inspections, a non-functioning bathroom for 3 weeks (and our only full-bathroom) and the worst part...money. 

I have two vulnerable spots. Well, probably more, but two that I know well. Places where I can go dark most easily. Finances have always been one of them. When difficulties like this arise, I can’t imagine how it will work out; I feel alone with it, though I am not; I see no possibility; I can’t reason or think logically. Basically, I go to a despairing place. After the contractor left, I watched myself sink into that hole. It was dark. Was this the same woman writing on hope 30 minutes earlier? So much for all those words, right?

Not really, because this is what I found next. Mike and I went to the woods to go do our usual Sunday ritual. I went running on the trails, as I do. It wasn’t a mindful run by any means (no being in the moment feeling the ground underneath me, experiencing the trees, etc.). But, as I ran, I did watch my emotions gradually shift. Endorphins were being released, energy expelled, thoughts worked out, and by the time I met up with Mike, I was much more like myself. I was still overwhelmed, don’t get me wrong, but not despairing and not dark. In the past, that might have taken me out for days, not just the despair itself, but then the shame about being in despair (which was even worse!).

I share this to remind us of two things. 1) We say it often in mindfulness and meditation, all things change. Our emotions which feel so strong, so permanent, do shift. This is what we are asked to observe again and again when we meditate…not to attach to our thoughts and feelings, not to push them away, but to experience them with kindness and compassion and let them move on. We can trust that they do. Circumstances change, people change, our bodies change, minute by minute. 2) This one, I can’t emphasize enough. It is so easy to think that what we are after in our meditation and mindfulness practice is to get to a place where we don’t get so dark, where we don’t feel things as hard as I felt them this morning for an hour. But it is not true, we will always hit these lows, these bumps, these places that feel impossible. That is a given. It is life. This is good news. It helps us stay humble and it connects us to our common humanity. And when we haven’t had any bumps in a while, it is easy to think, we moved passed them, until something rears its head and we find ourselves knocked down again. A sickness, a job loss, a divorce. But there is a difference between practicing a mindful life and not practicing and it is a significant one. What we are doing when we practice is training ourselves for these moments. Because even when, in the thick of them, it feels as though all that wisdom is gone, what we find is that we move through the mud more quickly and it doesn’t scar us. This work we do in meditation, work that can seem so subtle like…“I’m just sitting here and watching my busy mind,” is actually much deeper than that. The training is underground working and will help you when you need it. Not help you always feel peaceful, but help you find your way back to what peace is. So keep sitting. Hope is at work when we do. 



"In practicing meditation, we're not trying to live up to some ideal -- quite the opposite. We're just being with our experience, whatever it is. If our experience is that sometimes we have some kind of perspective and sometimes we have none, then that's our experience. If sometimes we can approach what scares us and sometimes we can't, then that's our experience. 'This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it is always with us' is really a most profound instruction...Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives."  --Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Inner Life

Every summer when we go to Maine, I have my kids take an electronics break. They get screen time for the whole 10+ hours it takes to get there, but once we arrive, everything goes away. In place of screens, it has become a tradition that they pick out a new puzzle to do in their downtime at the house where we stay. Over the years, the puzzles have gotten more complex and much bigger. We now do 1,000 piece puzzles and have 6 days to get it done. From the get go, my daughter seemed to have advanced puzzling skills. She can quickly tell whether the shape of one piece will fit with another by a simple glance and the shake of her head at me. I am more like the sous-chef of puzzles. I help find all the end pieces, the ones with the flat edges and I hand them over to her. Then, I start grouping by color. Every time we start the puzzle, I have the same experience. It seems completely overwhelming. How we could possibly get these pieces, which all look the same with only slight deviations, to form a whole picture. There is a part of me that wants to give up before we even start. But then I remember my job. Just gather the frame of the picture and start grouping large sections of color. I start to see what might work, one piece at a time. When I find myself getting stuck, when no pieces have come together in a while, I move to a different color. When I come back, something magical happens, and I find the pieces start to fit again. In those moments, I cheer myself on and say out loud, “go mommy!” The kids chuckle (or roll their eyes) at my self-enthusiasm.

I never did puzzles growing up. I see now, with my adult eyes, they are the perfect metaphor for the unending process of “growing up.” Unlike a puzzle, we don’t have the box cover that shows us what the whole picture will eventually look like. Instead we just get to take steps and maybe we have a vision. We find that some pieces start to come together. Sometimes we are convinced we found the piece that will work and then realize it doesn’t actually fit. It happens in schools we choose, marriages, careers, places we live, all relationships, our spiritual life, etc. Everything is an unfolding and a discovering of what fits and what does not. What moves us in the direction we want to go and what does not. At almost 45, I can start to see a blurry picture, but I can’t know the final version. When I am 70, 80 or 90 will it come into clearers focus? Maybe. What I do know is that taking time to reflect on what the whole picture looks like so far is a worthwhile practice. It can tell us a great deal about ourselves, our inclinations, our habits of judgement, our tendencies toward something. Only then can we ask ourselves if we want to repeat a certain thing, yet again. Only then can we see how much we have gone through and how it shapes who we are and what decisions we are making now. Only then can we appreciate ourselves and everything outside ourselves which has made us who we are — all of our experiences, the ones that felt good and the ones that were challenging. We can be grateful for them all, for the qualities, insights, gifts we now have. It also reminds us to enjoy the process, to not be in a hurry to see the picture. Like a puzzles, we don’t get to take it with us anyway. It gets dismantled when we leave. How often do we take the time to simply reflect, recall, appreciate, and process — not so that we can rehash old stuff, but so that we can see the larger picture, the evolution of our beautiful life?

I think it is no coincidence that this post starts with the removal of electronics to bring us to piecing together a puzzle, a whole picture. How can we have time to be with ourselves, truly be  with ourselves: reflecting, ruminating, imagining, constructing the pieces if we are always glued to a screen, to a constant influx of readily available news which, in the past, would have come in much more slowly, if at all. How do we have an inner life, as Sebastian Smee so articulately expressed in his 2018 essay, Net Loss: The Inner Life in the Digital Age. If we don’t diligently reserve time for our inner lives, make that conscious choice, we can get lost in the pieces and miss savoring it all. This is what we could call Right Effort (Right Diligence) on the Noble Eightfold Path or could easily fall into the category of Mindful Consumption, the 5th Mindfulness Training. How are we doing this life and what are we consuming that waters wholesome or unwholesome seeds? 

When we went away, I got in touch with seeing wholesome and unwholesome seeds in me when I, too, disconnected from my phone, from social media. It felt like a relief. I knew I was watering wholesome seeds because it felt spacious. Having that experience was important information for me to pay attention to. To do things like write, meditate, walk without a purpose or direction, to dream is to have an inner life. What I know is that if I do these things with my phone on me, or with the feeling that I should check my email, or capture a picture, I am not really connecting with myself. There is a part of me that is still attached, still being driven by the endorphins that get released every time I open my email when it dings, click a “like,” check the weather, etc. 

What I am finding is that to keep this going now that I am home and back to my busy life requires making a deep commitment to myself to be clear what it is I want and, like going on a diet, not to lose weight, but to get in a groove that feels right once it becomes a way of life. I’ve been listening to a number of Tim Ferriss’ podcast interviews with very accomplished entrepreneurs. What I am learning from them is the clarity they have around what they do, how much they do, what they don’t do, and their schedules. Whether it is about watching TV, checking emails, posting on social media, not being on any social media, reading, journaling, sleeping, limiting the number of engagements they say “yes” to, they are clear on what matters to them. It is inspiring and I do think they are on to something. It feels challenging to change these habits. Anxiety arises about being out of touch, of people leaving, of not doing enough, of not being enough — the usual players come in the arena. I also know that once I get in the routine, those feeling will diminish which will bring the whole fallacy to light…the notion that I “need” to be in the know, to be connected in that particular way. I am working on what that schedule looks like…when I allow myself to be online and when I don’t and to practice Right Effort and Mindful Consumption. There is joy in this as I feel excited to return to this other way of being in the world before I let phones and the internet control it. 

You can try it on for yourself...what would it look like to reserve more time for your inner life in your daily life? It might not have to do with your phone or social media. What would you do, or not do, to have more space for yourself? You can start with asking what brings you some anxiety, or often feels urgent, or has some dependency associated with it? If there is something there, then maybe this is a place that needs watering or a place that needs to stop being watered. What, if any, commitment would you like to make? It can’t be half hearted, but it also can’t be so rigid it brings suffering. Right Effort should be joyful. It should feel good to commit.  It will take some time for me to figure out what my boundaries are, what I want to put in place, what I want to eliminate. I am starting by writing it out and then…I am going to get myself a puzzle.

The Big Jump: a reflection on fear

This is a version of the talk I gave at Sunday Night Meditation 8/25/19. It is also recorded and can be found on my website.

Every summer we go to Acadia National Park in Maine. There is a place on one of the ponds where we swim where you can, illegally, jump from the surrounding mountain. There is a lower ledge and a much higher ledge which I estimate to be about 20 feet high. I would see people jumping from the other side of the pond and I would be both awed and excited as I watched. When my kids came for the first time and witnessed it, they thought it was crazy and exciting, too. My son asked if he could do it. At the time, I said, “absolutely not.” The following year, I found the way to that spot, going a little bit off the beaten path. I stood at the top alone taking it in. It was so peaceful, beautiful, and thrilling. I took my husband and kids there the next day. I gave my kids permission to jump from the lower rock which was probably 6 feet up. My son was nervous, but he did it, as did I. That was exhilarating enough for me. My son asked if he could do the big jump the next year and I said, “maybe,” which I find is always the good parent answer to put something off. The next year arrived and a week ago we were, again, at that place on the mountain, at the pond. My son jumped a few times from the lower rock until he asked the dreaded question, could he do the big jump? I sighed and we climbed to the top and stood there. I looked at him and said, “James, if I said yes, if I gave you my permission and wasn’t in your way, would you really do it?" I could see how nervous he was as he kept looking down at the water and shifting his weight back and forth. His response was a quiet, shaky, “ahhh…I don’t know.” So I gave him permission, secretly hoping he would skip it. Just then a family arrived. They turned out to be locals, which you could tell from the ease at which the kids climbed to the high ledge. The girl, who, turned out to be 12 also, got up there, took three purposeful steps and jumped. No apparent fear, just confidence. After that, James said definitively he wanted to do it. Of course he did. Now, my hair was getting grayer by the second. The aspect to this jump that made it frightening was that at the top you were on a slant to begin with, so you already felt like you were falling, unstable, and the water below looked so very far away. But besides that, you had to clear the lower ledge which you couldn’t see from up there, which meant you had to propel yourself far enough away from the cliff. I asked the family, who were now down below, for any tips. The father was happy to offer this, he said, “once you decide to do it, just don’t hesitate.” I looked at James. He nodded. So we stood there for a while as James wrestled with himself. Realizing we could be in this place all night, feeling tired from a full day with a cold coming on, I finally said, “okay, how about I count down?” He agreed. I started at 10 and slowly made my way down to 1 going slower and slower, at his request, which was fine by me. I had no idea if when I said 1, if he would actually go. To my surprise he did. In a second it was over. That was enough for the day. We all rooted him on. The father kindly sent me the burst of pictures he took of him jumping from down below. I had the video from up above. I had to color my hair when I got home. I could tell James was so pleased with himself that night.

It gives me goose bumps when I tell this story. Watching someone do something they want to do, but are also terrified to do it is inspiring. When we have these moments in life when we are faced with an opportunity that we know will give us something in return — we might not even know what it is it will give us, just something we need, we become willing to look fear in the eyes. We say, “yes” despite the fear, and we don’t hesitate. This is a moment of feeling fully alive. It doesn’t need to be a physical feat. It can emotional, relational, creative, spiritual, but it is some calling that scares us and enlivens us just by the prospect of it being there. 

Facing fear is the subject of tonight’s talk. Most of us aren’t deciding to jump from high heights, but all of us will always have fear to face. Learning how to face it is what we do in here, what we do when we practice coming into stillness, when we let ourselves be silent, and we face ourselves. When we face ourselves, if we are doing it honestly, we come up against fear because we start to see what it is we do to avoid it…how we push away what makes us uncomfortable, how we protect ourselves with judgements and defenses, how we shut down, how we distract ourselves with busyness, worries, habits. This work of coming into stillness and awareness and staying takes courage. It might not sound as exciting as jumping from a cliff, but it is just as impactful. The fear of not being enough, the fear of being alone, the fear of being dependent, the fear of letting go, and the largest letting go, death…all of these lie waiting for us and not to pounce on us (they are not a threat), but lie waiting to be cared for. That is what our fears are really wanting. When we can look at them with the curiosity that only comes when we can slow down and breathe and give a little space, when we are not reactive…and when we can give the voice of fear some room to be heard, the panic subsides. We just need to listen and say, “I hear you” and offer compassion. That alone shifts everything. But, most of the time we are afraid to even go there because we think if we really visit the fear we won’t survive; it will consume us. But that is not what happens when we can truly listen and not react. That is what we are practicing in here when we don’t react to every feeling, sensation, and thought that arises.

We will sit in silence now and I invite you to work with the practice of noticing when you get pulled away. Can you get to the bottom of a fear that might be there. Of course, not every thought has a fear, but many do. Can you acknowledge it…”I know you are there; I hear how hard this is. I don’t want us to suffer either.” Can you be on its side. Then return to your breathing having made this space. Nothing more to do. You can do it multiple times if you find you are pulled away again. Practice not reacting, giving space, and offering compassion. Practice taking the big jump.