At the Gate

Where the mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful.
Lao Tzu (as translated by J. Legge; 1891)

So what did you think of Verse One?  Did it touch you or did you find yourself saying: "WTF(front door)?

Hmm!  I don't know if there is a right or wrong way to make sense of the Tao conceptually.  I just read it, feel it, then I jot down what I believe each line to mean right off the top of my head.  I do not want to over think it...because when we do that we lose the way.

This first Verse , I believe, is talking about the spiritual path which is the way or the Tao Itself.

Stanza One

It states in the opening line that this 'path' is not necessarily a physical path that one can trod upon.  Unlike things of the physical world it is eternal and unchanging. What is eternal and unchanging?: spirit, essence, the non physical.

It is also not something that you can reduce to a label, a thought or a 'name' because again  it is eternal and unchanging.  The Tao is not something we can truly understand and experience  with our bodies and minds.

Stanza Two

In the second stanza Lao Tzu goes on to say (according to this translation) the Tao takes us between the physical and non physical realms.  Having no name it goes beyond what is created as form to being the  Creator (Originator) of form and formless (heaven and earth).  We can look at Tao then  as God, Life, The Field etc. The Tao is spiritual and divine. It is non physical.

Then Lao Tzu goes on to say when It  has a name...when we give it a name ( and therefore understand it conceptually with the  mind) the Tao becomes or is the mother of all things....creator of form and form itself. It is earthly. It is physical.

Stanza Three

The third stanza is speaking to where we, the seeker, must be if we want to truly understand the Tao. We need to be without desire.  Without craving and superficial seeking.  Sounds a bit like the Buddhist ideology, doesn't it? We cannot expect to find it if we want it with the limitations of our human mind or ego .  It is too deep for that.  And if we seek it from there we will never hear it.

If we remain with desire, with ego craving... we will only ever catch glimpses of its outer fringes at best.  We will never get beyond that superficial understanding of it.  We will never experience it or know it completely.

Stanza Four

In the forth stanza where  Lao Tzu's words are  translated as under these two aspects, I assume the two aspects to be the physical and non physical aspects of the Tao, the nameable and the nameless. Possibly  meaning that there is no duality...no two...just one when he says it remains the same. It is only when development takes place that It receives different names or distinctions.  I am not sure if 'development' here refers to worldly development, ego development, development of the mind or something else?

Together we call them the mystery.  So regardless if wed ivied them with our minds and no matter what we call them... they are one  mystery.  The Tao is a mystery...the world of form and formless is a mystery.  Life is a mystery. Of course, a mystery is something that is challenging to figure out, to know and understand with the mind.

Where is this mystery the deepest? Where is there less knowing with the conceptual mind? It is at the gate...right at the gate that leads us inward.  We might think that the closer we get to understanding something,  the less mystery there would be but Lao Tzu is saying it is deepest...there is more mystery, less knowledge right at the gate. Again...maybe conceptual knowledge is not needed to understand the Tao.  It is beyond what we can understand with our limited human minds.

I think of this quote from Einstein:

"We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books . It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranges and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations." - Albert Einstein(Goodreads)

What lay beyond this gate?  The subtle (the ordinary, the plain, the easily bypassed) as well as the wonderful( the extraordinary, the amazing, all that causes wonder and awe.) So we get right up to the gate of experiencing Life and it is there where the mystery of Life is deepest.  Could this mean that the mystery is greater in that space  between 'thinking about life' and experiencing it? 

I really got hung up on that 'and' in this translation.  When we read  the subtle and wonderful we are not making distinctions between them.  We include all Life behind the gate of our understanding. But what if Lao Tzu actually meant 'between'...what if he was referring to the  gate between the subtle and the wonderful...that would change the whole context of this stanza wouldn't it? Oh...oh thinking too much lol.

So in a nutshell...what message do we carry away from this Verse? It doesn't matter if we name it or don't name it; think of it as physical or non physical or if we understand it or not with our conceptual minds (well we will only be able to understand it superficially that way)...the Tao which is the way, the Life force within us, the truth, the  true spiritual path will always be the Tao...eternal and unchanging...a mystery.

Well that is how I see it.  :)

All is well.

References

Goodreads: http://www.alberteinsteinsite.com/quotes/einsteinquotes.html

J. Legge(Translator) (1891) Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu. From the Sacred Books of the East, volume 39. Retrieved from https://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm

The Tao Te Ching

I decided to read the Tao Te Ching again and to try a different translation.  The thing about these beautiful ancient texts is a deficit may arise in the translation of them.  To go from the archaic Chinese to English takes a great level of expertise. Much could be lost based on the translator's interpretations. 

I decided to try this old version from a real expert.  Now I have the added challenge to translate from 19th century English lol.

I will only put a few verses out of the 81 here. This is, of course, Verse One. Just read it for yourself ...see what happens inside you  and tomorrow I will give my interpretation of it. (For what it is worth, lol)

1

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.
The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.

(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven
and earth;
(conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all things.

Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be,
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.

Under these two aspects, it is really the same;
but as development takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them the Mystery.
Where the Mystery is the deepest
is the gate of all that
is subtle and wonderful.



J. Legge(Translator) (1891) Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu. From the Sacred Books of the East, volume 39. Retrieved from https://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm

A True Teacher?

A true Mahayana teacher should be someone who enjoys simplicity, yearns to be anonymous, and as Tibetans would say, hides in solitude like a wounded animal.
-Dalai Lama ( from my desk top calendar for February 27, 2019...Andrews McNeil publishing/Kansas City)

Funny this should come up for today after I wrote what I did yesterday about teaching. Funny that my superficial self would automatically interpret it as something meant for 'me'.  lol  Still got a big fat ego, don't I?

Let's cut 'me' down to size using the above quote from his holiness.

Teacher?

I do like to think of myself as a teacher.  It is a role I identified with long before I began to awaken so it is a part of my personal history and therefore a part of the little 'self'.  As I have mentioned before, I believe we are all teachers and therefore I do not claim any 'special' status. So yeah, on a  superficial level and on a deeper level  I am okay calling myself a teacher.

Am I a 'true' teacher?  What is a true teacher lol?  I like to teach truth but I don't know truth yet...still learning.  I am not sure where that puts me.

I am not a Mahayana teacher. That is, I (as the little self)  am not a Buddhist trained in the Mahayana tradition.  So I definitely can't own that one. I greatly respect the years of training and devoted practice that a trainee goes through to establish that expertise.  I also love to listen to such teachers in the Mahayana and Zen traditions. But...I cannot pin those credentials to my chest. Besides, I look at Buddha's teaching as a philosophy and wonderful way of healing the mind. I don't seek the religion in it.

Simplicity?

I do enjoy simplicity.  I really do.  I am so tired of all the drama and the chaos...the busyness this world demands. I want the quiet, the solitude and the peace of simplicity.  I am not a renunciant, however. I haven't given up all my materials....but luckily for me, my income and a lot of material assets have been removed from my life by circumstance.  I can live without.

Anonymous?

Do I yearn to be anonymous?  Hmm...I don't want to be famous or even popular...not really.  As a teacher, I want the message I offer to be read and  heard.  As a writer, I do want publication.  There are times in the height  of feeling bad about myself ( when  ego is in charge)  I do look to redeem myself with my writing and think  ego things like "When I get published, they will see that I had something to offer...they will understand me .  I will redeem myself " etc. Silly I know. 

I may never get that and that is okay.  The true writer in me just wants to write and I can usually push both shamer and redeemer ego off my computer chair when I do sit down to write.  So I do not write to be famous. I write to write.  In fact, most of my writing is done using a pen name...so I do remain partially  anonymous. I am a fairly shy person by nature, so I don't like to put myself out there too much lol.

I do, however, have an ego like I mentioned before and my ego likes to see  readers on my stats.  I do not feel comfortable with a lot of readers though...but anything around 30, 40 or 50 a day makes me think, " yeah I am getting through to somebody somewhere".  (Actually, I am okay with ten or more) I question the statistic calculations on this site...so I never truly know just how many readers I am getting.  I went so far at one point of adding Google analytics to ensure proper tracking.  Silly ...ego stuff I know.  Obviously, I do not wish to be that anonymous if I am doing that.

Hiding?

I love the last part lol.  I do hide in solitude like a wounded animal.  I am forever using the analogy that I am off hiding in a corner away from society licking my wounds.  So that applies.  I do like to hide here in my reclusive healing comfort zone.  I know I can't stay here but for now, until I am healed, I hide away like a wounded animal.  :)

So I don't know what that makes me.  And does it really matter because it really isn't about 'me' anyway, is it?  It is about the Deeper I...the greater Self that lies beneath all this superficial stuff.  Now that part of me is a true teacher.  That part of you is a true teacher as well.

All is well in my world.

Anger

In the presence of anger, peace is impossible.
-Dalai Lama

Getting Angry

We all get angry from time to time don't we?  Someone says something insulting or steps in front of us in line ...and something inside gets triggered.  We feel the heat coming to the face, the chest tightening and the fists clenching.  The sympathetic nervous system is turned on and we straighten up, tense up and prepare to do the first thing on the agenda...fight! We gear up to fight, don't we?  Testosterone, the aggression hormone, is said to rise with the cortisol during times of anger.  We automatically and instinctually prepare for attack when anger gets triggered.

What?  Someone just stepped in front of us and we are going off to war? That doesn't make sense.

The Reaction and The Waking Beast

Well what is actually happening is that we reacted to some external thing, be it an action of another or a thought...a deeper seated and repressed ball of emotion got poked.  We woke up the little entity inside us, what Tolle refers to as the pain body.  We have given it something to eat and like the Gremlins who get fed after midnight, this sleeping beauty becomes a beast. It feeds off of this minor little thing and possesses us rather quickly taking over our thinking mind.  We then react emotionally or behaviourally as a result. In that moment, peace is impossible.

Attack

We attack. And of course, if another individual with ego is involved, they will react to our reaction  because their pain body gets awakened by ours.  Our pain body will grow stronger and more warrior like with their attack and we will react back. The pain bodies will just grow and grow.

Pain bodies are hungry and cranky when they are awakened abruptly. So it becomes a battle of ego against ego...and in the case of a thought trigger within one individual...it becomes a battle between  self and the world.  We are indeed at war.

And if this is a collective pain body activation...then we see real war manifesting in our world.

Anger is just an emotion

The thing is... anger is just an emotion.  It is nothing more than a wisp of energetic breeze blowing through our psyches.  It isn't good.  It isn't bad.  It just is.  If we just allow it to be and then let it pass through...it is gone and does no harm.  It is when we cling to it, hold on to it, struggle against it, resist it, deny it and avoid it that it becomes a problem.  Stuffed anger gravitates to that ball of repressed emotion inside us, giving it a fire that will burn us alive if we aren't careful.  Anger itself is not the problem. Our inability to just let it be...is.

Calming the Beast

• The trick is to become aware of the pain body within us...just be aware of it.  Know that it is looking for a reason to manifest and fight.  It thrives on drama, war and chaos.
• Be aware of what triggers and activates it for you.  What are your anger triggers? What types of things p*&^ you off?
• Watch yourself when you become angry...just mentally  step out of the situation and become the conscious awareness.  "Oh my look at me...I am getting all rawled up, aren't I? " That isn't always easy to do being that the reaction often happens so fast and is so all consuming we can get lost in it.  Just keep practicing.
• Practice being the witness in other areas of your life.  The more present you become in other situations, the more likely you will be present in the midst of an anger reaction.
• Remind yourself that it is peace you want, not what pain body  offers.
• Accept and allow the anger in this heightened state of awareness.  Be present first .
• Embrace it gently
• Let it go...forgiveness works here.

We all get angry but we do not need to get lost in it and react because of it. We can always choose peace rather than it.  The more peace we can create in ourselves, the more peace the world will experience.

All is well in my world.

References

Eckhart Tolle (April , 2012) Dealing with Anger, Resistance, and Pessimism. Eckhart Tolle TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqX5IFKYFWk

It's Not What You Are Doing...

The beauty of embracing deep truths is that you don't have to change your life; you just change how you live your life.  It's not what you're doing; it's how much of you is doing it.
-Michael Singer from the untethered soul (page 160)


A Reminder:

Take what I say with a grain of salt and question, question, question.

I am not an expert in any way shape or form.  I am not a spiritual master by any means nor do I wish to be.  I am a teacher only because we are all teachers and I have learned through my many years of school that teaching is the best way to learn something.  I so desperately want to learn.  :)

I also cannot stress enough that I am no further ahead on this journey than anyone else. I am far from enlightened.  I still have a big fat ego lol. For example: Though I am not actively promoting what I do here nor am I seeking to get compensated  for it...I do check my stats daily to see how many readers I get. I know if I get through to just one or two people that is all I need to do, so ego has no place in this.  Tell that to my ego however lol.  Sigh...Ego gets all inflated   when I see 40 + readers in one day like I did today and gets somewhat deflated  when I notice that I only have one or two.  I do, still very much react to external circumstances.  Maybe not as much as I used to but I still have some work to do there

So if  I am not a master and I simply do more learning than I do teaching, and  if even my ego is getting little to nothing from this, why on earth do I feel compelled to come here everyday? 

Why am I not out there living a bunch of exciting experiences...checking off all the things I have on my bucket list like rock climbing some great mountain, bunji jumping or sky diving.  Why am I not packing my bags and going off to explore  Africa and Australia...among other continents I have only read about?  Why am I not gearing myself to shoot for National Geographic or getting my writing out there at all costs?  Why am I not working for the Peace Corps or Habitat for Humanity?  Why do I not have a PhD in psychology by now? Why haven't I visited a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayans, had a stay in an Ashram in India or drank some Ayahausca with a Shaman on Machu Picchu?

If I am working towards transcending my fear restrictions for the freedom of enlightenment and therefore attempting to live fully, shouldn't I be 'doing' these types of things?

Ahh...but that is just it, isn't it?  It's not what you are doing; it's how much of you is doing it. I don't know why I do this other than feeling compelled for some reason to do it. I have really no idea what motivates me to keep coming here, to keep learning and to keep sharing.  It doesn't really matter what I am doing here, I guess.  I just know that when I am here...I am here 100 % .  All of me is here. Hmmm....that is a sign that I am embracing Life, isn't it?

Maybe you can do the same.

All is well.

Singer, Michael. (2007) the untethered soul. Oakland; New Harbinger

A Mild Bruise

You must look inside yourself and determine that from now on pain is not a problem.  It is just a thing in the universe...But if you do not learn to be comfortable with it, you will devote your life to avoiding it.  If you feel insecurity, it's just a feeling.  It's just a part of creation.  If you feel jealousy and your heart burns, just look at it objectively, like you would a mild bruise.  It's a thing in the universe that is passing through your system.  Laugh at it, have fun with it, but don't be afraid of it.  It cannot touch you unless you touch it.
-Michael Singer from the untethered soul page 103

Hmm! Them there are mighty powerful words aren't they?  Do you agree with them or do you instinctively pull back defensively when you hear them?

The Instinctive Reaction To Pain

Most of us will pull away from them and from anything that tells us pain is not something we have to react too, right?  Why? We are conditioned socially and biologically to instinctively react  to pain or anything that is deemed uncomfortable.  You unknowingly put a hand on the hot  burner and a reflex arc takes over so quickly you are not even aware of it.  You pull your hand away. 

Well our minds are the same.  If something disturbing touches  the mind, its tendency is to retract, pull back and close off  in order to protect itself.  Life circumstances, situations, the things our bodies or what other bodies do  sometimes disturb us. And sometimes the truth itself  is disturbing.

The Truth is seen as painful

The truth that we do not have to stay stuck in our suffering is disturbing to many of us.  The reason for that is what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain body and what Carl Jung would have called the collective unconscious.

Huh?

Within us is a body of repressed pain collected over the course of our life time (easy to accept right?) and collected over the course of many generations (maybe not so easy to accept lol). Pain, like all the experiences life provides for us,  is simply a current of energy that enters and exits if nothing blocks it.  If the mind is resistant  to the experience, however, we may block it through a host of defense mechanisms including suppression, repression, denial, and avoidance. We then unconsciously cling, struggle against, project outwardly through blame and rage, stuff down, and/or ignore it. None of these reactions permit the experience of pain to pass through.

A Hungry Little Beast

Many believe that blocked energy accumulates and  forms an invisible mass inside us like a separate little entity (Tolle). And this little entity is always hungry...always looking to be fed so it can continue to grow.

 

What does it feed on?

It feeds on our new emotional experiences and our thoughts especially the negative ones.  It feeds on the reactions from others and this idea that Life isn't going the way it should. 

When it is feeding, when it is triggered and reactive, it is all consuming...We get lost in it; we become it like we were possessed by it.  The mind appeases it by providing more and more negative thoughts for it to munch on. It goes out into the world around us searching for food in the form of grievances, resentments, what's wrong etc .

The pain body (that big accumulation of repressed pain)  comes to the surface to feed on what it is given by the mind. It is hard to fill. It needs more and more and more.

Addictive Quality to Human Pain

That is why there is almost an addictive quality to human pain.When we are lost in our pain, we don't want to be free of it.  It is who we are, right?  We wonder:  if we get rid of the pain who will we be?  We often subconsciously resist getting better. Try telling a person in the height of their possession  by repressed pain that there is a way to be free of it and see what happens.  You will probably meet with something akin to  Linda Blair's rotating head.

Of course this is all happening at the subconscious level and happening as quickly and as automatically as the nerve impulse from the burning hand is being carried to the spinal nerves and back. It is a reaction. All because we have come to see pain as a problem and something to with draw from.

So what do we do about it?

• The trick is to change the way we see pain.  To stop labelling it as something bad.  Pain is just something in the universe. It is neither good or bad...until thinking makes it so.  It is no big deal until we make it a big deal.
• We have to be aware of these hungry little beasts, past pain,  inside us so we stop feeding them.  Once we shine the light in their faces they shrivel up and become small.  We are less likely to react.They are creatures that like to do most of their nasty work in the dark.
• Don't avoid or repress or numb from pain. Be aware of your tendency to do that...just be aware .
• Allow pain to simply be what it is.  Don't fight or struggle against it.  Resistance only makes it stronger. Remember: it is just a feeling.
• Take it a step further and do what Buddhism teaches...gently soothe,  hold and embrace your pain like a mother would hold a crying baby.
• You can take it in even farther when you are ready...to laugh at it and have fun with it just as you would a comical, fun experience.
• Don't be afraid of it.  Don't withdraw from it because it is uncomfortable. 
• Learn to relax into it and see it more as a way out than something that keeps you trapped inside.
• Know that it won't hurt you unless you strike out at it.  embrace it and hold it gently in your being instead...so that it will eventually feel the compassion it needs to leave and move on.
• Let go
• Be present: The unhappy me that lives through past and future dissolves when we become present. (Tolle)

Pain is just a mild bruise that will heal on its own if we give it the opportunity to do so.

All is well in my world.

References

Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. Oakland: New Harbinger

Eckhart Tolle (Sept, 2017) The Pain Body.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gzoooxb6M4

You Are

You Are...

Your story written on pages
that are now tattered around the edges
 and turning yellow...
does not describe who you are.

The photos with the turned up corners
 and fading images
that you display in albums
on your coffee table...
do not show who you really are.

The memories that dance
 through your scattered dreams
 and the wishes for something more
 that  fill you with a pain 
and an expectation
 you will not let go of...
are not you.

This aging body
with its lines,
creases
and ailing organs
is just a shallow carcass
housing something greater...
it is not you.

The title you pin to your chest
 or hang in a frame with  black casing
 on you wall
is only a role you play...
it isn't you either.

The judgements
and interpretations 
 you make of  the things
 that pour through your senses
and jumble around in your frontal cortex...
are not you.

The noisy  and ceaseless
 thinking  in your head
that constantly competes
with the thumping of your heart...
is not you either.

Your pain,
your sorrow,
your hope
for something better tomorrow
are just mental wisps
that are meant to move through you
before they disappear...
they are not you.

Your seeking,
your clinging,
your resisting,
your struggling
against all that is ...
is not you.

This world you live in
that seems so solid and tangible
is nothing more
than vapour and mist
and all that you think
you are within it
is nothing more than smoke...
it is not you.

You are beneath all this...
a stage for all this....
a backdrop of perfection
created in
perfect stillness,
perfect quiet,
perfect awareness.
 
You are what  watches
without disturbance
all the forms that dance
around upon you,
that play and act the parts
the world of form scripts.

You are what is aware
of the drama,
the beauty,
the suffering
unfolding
without judgment
or critique...
just awareness.

The breath you breathe
is the curtain
that slowly opens and closes
over this world,
drawing you inward
to the space that is everything.
You are that breath.
You are that everything.

© Dale-Lyn (Pen) 2019

 

Knowing Who You Are Beyond the Form

True happiness is simply knowing who you are beyond the form-
Eckhart Tolle

So as we continue our search for healing we let go of these ideas of happiness that make it dependent on what happens around us, in us or to us. We also let go of this idea we have of self as the pain we experienced.  So if we do that and if we relinquish the  demands we place on the world, we just might find what we are looking for.

The demand people place on the manifested world is impossible: "Make me happy!" (Eckhart Tolle)

Frustration with our unmet demands on the world of form can lead to healing

Once we get frustrated enough in our search for happiness out there and in the future...discovering that it just doesn't work that way...we may finally become ready for healing. We may be  willing to become comfortable with things, places, people, our bodies  as they are.  We put away our expectations that they be different and we turn our attention elsewhere...to the quiet space of who we really are beyond the world of form.

We are not the roles we play

In the world of form we take on identities and roles and too often we get lost in them.  We are not our family roles ( daughter, mother, father, brother), we are not our social roles ( friend, famous person, wall flower) nor are we the professional roles we take on ( doctor, nurse, teacher, electrician) .  We are the simply the spacious stage on which these roles are played.  The essence of who we are is formless and we manifest in form.  That's all.

Beyond the form to the formless

There is no way to truly 'get this' idea with the conceptual mind (which is form).  We need to go beyond the thoughts, feelings, ideas and concepts we identified with to that quiet space of who we really are to know this truth. To know who we really are we need to still and quiet the body and mind  and ask the question "Who am I?" Then we listen...not with our busy doing and thinking self... but with the quiet still Self that is always aware.  We go there.

Who am I?

Kim Eng, in a video by the same name as that imperative question asked by many sages throughout the ages,  takes us through a 20 minute meditation that helps us to connect to Self or at least sincerely ask that question. Please see the link below.

Tapping into that aware space of who we really are beyond form,  once or twice a day, will lead to true happiness and healing.

All is well.

References

Eng, Kim (Feb, 2019) Who am I? Guided Meditation. Eckhart Tolle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5dlmylOZk

Tolle, Eckhart ( March, 2019) Your Unhappiness is Optional .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOCsXSSLYjA

Let Go of Pain as Your Self Identity

To build an identity on past pain is a dreadful limitation.
-Eckhart Tolle

Hmm! On this topic of letting go in order to achieve healing...we go on to understanding the need to let go of our identity of self that we cling to in that little bag of ashes. 

Letting Go of the Idea of self as a carrier of pain

As the merchant kept his pain and grief around his neck in order to understand who he was through his suffering...many of us do the same.  We cling to past pain, memories and emotions to explain who we are. "I can't be happy because this or that happened."

Trauma exists.  Terrible things happen in this world.  We get hurt by others and sometime viciously so.  When humanity is so unconscious and so unaware of what it is doing...there is bound to be suffering and pain inflicted and received. We are not going to get through Life without pain.  That is a given.

But we do not need to keep the pain around our necks like dog tags that define and identify. We are not our pain.  We are not our thoughts, not our emotions, not what it is happening around us.  We are the silence and the stillness in which these things pass through.

Lost in Pain

Being lost in the foreground of our experience is a normal state for most humans.  Most of us are so absorbed in the 'seriousness' of our thoughts, feelings and external circumstances we do not notice the background.  Stillness, silence, presence is the back ground.  We are the background.

You are not the accumulation of memory and associated thoughts and emotions.  You are the eternal, timeless state of consciousness which is presence.(Tolle).

Thought is noise and sometimes there is so much thought, so much noise leading to feeling and attachment to external world understanding that we can't hear the silence. Pain adds a greater intensity to that noise because it allows mind to become more important.  It is very easy to become so absorbed in the foreground noise that we become lost in it.

Find the silence Beneath the Noise

Even though we get so busy in our heads that we cannot hear or feel the silence and the stillness...it never goes away.  It is still there. We just need to stop what we are doing and listen for it.

Between the words, and the worldly noise there are gaps that silence comes through.  Make it a point to listen ...to notice those gaps.  The moment you notice silence is the moment you become still inside.

Awareness of outer stillness leads to inner stillness. Awareness of outer silence leads to inner silence.  Why?  Because thought cannot see stillness or hear silence ...only our inner stillness can. when you notice silence and stillness you have gone beyond thought to presence. 

It is there where healing happens.

All is well in my world.

References

Eckhart Tolle (2017) Talk to your Thoughts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yrRHaE_7d4

Stop and Heal

 

Stop whatever you are doing that can lead to suffering.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Happiness & Healing

There is no way to healing; healing is the way.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

I am back and I am back on the topic of healing by letting go. 

Letting Go of Our Crazy Idea of Happiness

My last entry on this topic a few posts back stated that in order to heal we need to let go of this idea of happiness we cling to. We tend to look for the big highs, the big thrills that we assume all the others we are following on social media are experiencing in our search for happiness.  We assume happiness is a thrill ride that external circumstances provide and one we never want to get off of.  We place a lot of comparison and a lot of should and have tos on the experience of life that is unhealthy and self defeating when we do this. We diagnose our selves as being depressed and our lives to be  broken if we do not have butterflies in our bellies all the time. We are defining happiness by an 'image' that isn't real.

It's Our Thinking That Makes Us Sick and Unhappy

It is not a lack of a Life-provided roller coaster that brings unhappiness or that makes us 'sick'.  It is our thinking. There is no doubt about it...we are all a little 'cra-cra' when it comes to our thinking.  We all need healing because we do suffer. 

We are not 'sick' however because we do not have what we assume we 'should' have, that which we erroneously believe all 'the others' have.  We are sick because of our expectations and unhealthy seeking. We suffer because of our thinking, our dependency on life being a certain way, our constant seeking for something that isn't real, our past and future focus that takes us from the only Life there is...that  is here and now. We are sick because we are lost in our thinking.

Stop and Heal

The Buddhist solution for this, offered by practitioners in places like Plum village where Thich Nhat Hanh lives and teaches,  is to stop and heal.  Hanh's advice is to simply stop whatever you are doing that leads to suffering. (Healing is possible at every moment, 2013).  So if our thinking is causing our suffering, then we  just stop thinking. Makes sense right?

But...

Okay, I will admit...that this is too big of a mission for many of us to take on, especially as we start on this healing journey.  "How on earth do we  stop thinking when we are thinking up to 60,000 thoughts a day?"

 Well I believe we do not necessarily stop thinking...we simply refocus away from the mind stuff and back into the feeling and experiencing for a few minutes here and there, starting out until we are spending most of our time experiencing with little to no thought involved. So what we need to do is get out of our heads and into our bodies, our feelings, our lives for a moment or two.  Considering that our life is this moment than doing so brings us back to Life.

True Happiness Comes in Small Doses

We also have to put away this 'Big happiness or no happiness' mentality we cling to.  Most of true and real happiness comes in small tinctures or doses at a time.  We need to learn to recognize, be there  and create the opportunities needed to experience these small happiness's ....to revel and  appreciate a sunset, a flower blooming, the smell of salt water on  the breeze, or the feel of grass or sand beneath our toes. We need to feel the chords of the music of a great symphony, wind blowing  through the poplar leaves or the sound of robins on a spring morning vibrating through us, soothing us, energizing us. ...We need to revel in the joy that comes from a smile or a hug, and the peace that comes from being in silence or solitude or being surrounded by peaceful beings be they sentient or not. Then we need to be consumed by  love and the reason for being that comes from loving someone else, from compassion and giving.  I mean Life is all about these small but bountiful  joys, that are right here, right now all around us and in us.  Too often we don't even notice these things, let alone feel or experience them, because we are so lost in our heads or because we are too busy seeking the thrill that we assume is happiness.

How Do We Do That?

Healing allows for  happiness and it can be possible at every moment. There are steps we can take to get there:

1.  Let Go of this idea of happiness you have that keeps you seeking and searching, comparing and feeling broken. 
2. Know that all the conditions needed for happiness are already around you and in you 
3. Be willing to be open to the happiness Life has in store for you
4. Commit to a practice of healing and start 'now'!
5. Catch yourself suffering. Be aware of your thinking and your suffering generated by your thinking.
6. Breathe...this is the simplest and most crucial step to our healing.  We need to breathe and become aware of that life giving breath going into our bodies and going out. Whenever you find yourself ruminating or caught up in the NST(Non-Stop Thinking)...stop and breathe three big, beautiful breaths and just be aware of that breath entering your body on the in-breath and leaving your body on the out-breath. Breathe.
7. Reconnect with your body.  When we follow our breaths we automatically become aware of our bodies again.  We spend so much of our time disconnected from these vehicles that take us here and there , that allow us to experience the wonders of the world around us because we are so stuck in our heads or lost in our 'busy work'. It is only when they become sick or break down or start screaming at us with pain that we hear them.  We need to listen to them now. Each breath takes us back to the body and it is only through the body that we can become truly aware of the treasures around us, that we can sense and feel . We need to get back into our bodies in order to 'experience' life so we do not waste all that precious energy  'thinking about it." How does your body feel right now?  Scan it briefly from head to toe...what is going on in there?
8. Walk and connect to the earth. Hanh often teaches the value of walking meditation. It is a practice that can be done whenever we are walking anywhere.  We focus on breath as we walk and we focus on the feel of our feet touching 'Mother Earth' with each step we take.  We connect to the world around us .  We connect to the moment we are in.  We connect to Life.  That connection brings peace and happiness
9. Smile. Smile when you breathe; smile when you walk.  Smile when you see someone.  Smile when you look in the mirror.  The best way to discover the healing benefits of a smile for yourself and others is to practice it and find out for yourself.
10. Sit in mindfulness or meditation.  Make it a point for so many minutes a day to simply sit still, with back erect, and be quiet for a few minutes a day.  This may be the closest thing to 'stopping' the mind you will get to and that is okay.  You don't have to stop your mind from doing what it does...you just need to stop fighting it, stop believing it, stop being consumed by it. Your Life exists beyond your thinking...find it.
11. Be here and now. The most important thing we can do to create happiness in our lives is to simply allow ourselves to be present in this moment...the only moment there is.  Be here.  Just allow the now  to be whatever it is and find the beauty in it anyway.
12. Remember It is what is is.  That in itself is beautiful and can bring tremendous healing, tremendous peace and tremendous happiness.

All is well in my world.

References

Thich Nhat Hanh (2013, March) Healing is possible at Every Moment. Plum Villageonline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzCWBpS67jg

Sorry! Been away from my computer dealing with some family issues...so I haven't been able to write. My eyes and this small screen I have access to, do not support easy writing lol...all is well. I will be back when I can.  In the meantime I am still learning so much amazing stuff about life...always gathering grist for the writing mill....for the teaching and the healing. I will be back!

Life wants to support you but first you need to be open to Life.
-Eckhart Tolle


Relief


Ahhhhh! Relief...how wonderful and amazing that sensation is.  Relief!  To be free of the intense pain after four days of it (thought it would drag  me back to the start of my journey and leave me on the curb) and to see the crisis semi-resolved (for now) inspires this wonderful sense of relief.

I am so, so grateful...and not just for the relief experience but for the pain and the crisis as well.  I am learning to be grateful for everything Life puts in front of me.  I truly am.  I really do not know what my future holds...it doesn't matter really nor do I know  what will unfold tomorrow...What is important is what I do with today...with this moment I am in. And that begins with accepting and allowing Life to flow through.

That pain was something that had to flow through me and it did.  When I didn't close up to it, resist it and I just recognized and allowed it to be what it was without creating story and drama around it (okay...I will admit, it was challenging not to do that lol) it ebbed and flowed with its intense message and then it was gone.  Once again the point was made: it is not what happens to us or around us that causes this idea of 'suffering'  but our resistance to it or our desire to cling to it.

Suffering

Eckhart Tolle describes suffering as "another level that lies on top of the pain". There is pain and on top of that is this mind made suffering that causes the majority of our so called 'problems' with Life. The mind will build story around everything and thoughts will grow and multiply the more we believe them.  Ego likes drama and it  creates it. When we buy into those thoughts or that drama ego gains control and it is able to drag us away from the moment like it so wants to do.  We become lost in the sense of 'suffering' when all we had to do was experience the pain or the life event as it passed through. We then may do the usual human thing...we react, we deny, we repress, suppress, avoid.  We numb and we shrivel up under the weight of something that could have been as light as air blowing through us or as cleansing as water flowing within us if we didn't get lost in our 'thinking' about it.

Energy Needs to Flow

Physical pain is an energy.  The emotional response to crisis is an energy.  Relief  and peace and joy and bliss that we experience in response to what is happening to us or around us  are energies as well. All energy is meant to flow through. What happens though...when the experience is something we judge as negative or undesirable... is that we resist and struggle against that energy.  We put up blocks and barriers or we stuff it down real good with a host of defense mechanisms.  When it is something we judge as positive...like this feeling of relief I am experiencing...we may try to cling to it, hold on to it instead of letting it go so it too can pass through.  either way...we don't let it go, we don't let it flow through us as it is meant to do.

Samskaras: Blocked Energy

In Sanskrit, this 'impression on the heart' created by blocked energy patterns that we do not allow to flow through us are called Samskaras. Michael Singer in the untethered soul writes:

Hence two kinds of experiences can occur that can block the heart.  You are either trying to push energies away because they bother you, or you are trying to keep energies close because you like them. In both cases you are not letting them pass, and you are wasting precious energy by blocking the  flow through resisting and clinging.

Suffering is created when we judge something as undesirable and we resist it , not allowing it to pass through. We then create damns and heavy iron doors so we don't have to 'experience' it.. The heart contracts and we have energy blocks within us that can cause even more 'suffering' in the long run.  Repressed, suppressed, denied emotional experiences stay within us and manifest later as disease or post traumatic stress.  Believe me, I know all about this one :)

What Happens When We Don't Let Go

Most disease is caused from this.  There is a wonderful documentary on Netflix entitled Heal and it speaks to this mind made idea of suffering as the root of most disease.  If our minds are the cause, then our minds are also the cure, are they not?  Do you not think it was ironic that after dealing with such a traumatic crisis last week that I had no real time  to process through because I had to be 'the strong one'...that physical pain entered my body to knock me down?  Life wanted me to hear something and I wasn't listening.  It spoke, I ignored and then it shouted with the  cardiac symptoms which I have gotten very good at ignoring.  Then when I still wouldn't listen it whacked me with something I couldn't ignore. Hmm!  That brought me back to the here and now, let me tell ya!

The point is we need to let all experiences pass through us without resisting or clinging.  Just let go.  We need to stay open to Life.  It wants so badly to support us.  Maybe we should let it by staying open.

All is well.

References


Heal. (2017) Netflix documentary https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80220013

Singer, Michael ( 2007) the untethered soul. Oakland. New Harbinger

Tolle, Eckhart (n.d.)Eckhart Tolle Enjoying Every Moment Full Movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9o-l3t_FBw

Darkness is your candle

What hurts you blesses you. Darkness is your candle.
-Rumi

I was compelled to find something from Rumi that emphasizes the point that challenging external circumstances , though they can bring pain, can also bring a certain learning and therefore reason to be grateful. Pain, be it physical or mental, can bring light.

I think so called difficulty  brings light in terms of bringing 'clarity' to a situation, allowing us to truly see.

Emotions, I realize, are not personal...they are human.  Humanity shares these emotional experiences though we do not recognize that when we  are lost  in our 'little me' identities.  Pain  becomes 'my pain' rather than 'pain', my problem rather than a problematic perception shared by all; my hardship rather than simply  the challenge of being human.

.It doesn't have to be this way. When we face pain or 'difficulty' instead of curling up and away from the world...we can instead hold our suffering out in front of us like a candle, can we not? We can  allow it to light the way for others and for ourselves.

Just saying.

All is well in my world!

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what  is essential is invisible to the eye.
-The Little Prince

That little piece of wisdom from that lovely story may apply to my photo...I could not shoot a picture today if my life depended on it ...not even in auto...lol.  And then for the life of me I couldn't edit or download.

A Reminder: It Is What It Is

We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy.  It simply depends on attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people.  When it comes to personal happiness, there is a lot we as individuals can do.
-Dalai Lama

We would all be better off we if we  dropped all the drama and learned to live by: It is what it is.

This mantra has seen me through some very challenging times this week and I witnessed the effects of these words on someone else who finally gets their significance.  They are so, so powerful taking us through almost any challenge. We can accomplish remarkable things when confronted with crisis. My body and mind knew that so it allowed me to stay up and deal with what had to be dealt with.

I won't go in to detail about a  traumatic crisis that I faced on Monday night...I will just say I literally had not slept more than an hour at a time since Monday midnight because of it. As a result I feel like crap!  My ticker does not like stress, cold or sleeplessness and I had all in quantity so that, of course, was acting up with brady and sats in the low 90s, chest pain etc...you know the drill by now.:) So I know I  really need to come down into that quiet place of sleep so my rate, blood pressure and sats can go up.  That is the way it is for me.

 I reached a point where I was finally able to sleep and in my own bed.  Yeah!!!!

Well so I thought...2 am I awoke with the pelvic pain again.  I had almost seven days without it or the bleeding and I was like...it's gone...it's gone....whatever it was... is gone. But no...I was  reminded last night when I needed sleep so desperately, it was still there.   It is so wicked...into my back, hips and legs.  I want to cry. Anyway...I caught myself looking up saying, "Are you f&*^%$# kidding me?  You won't give me one night of sleep after all that????"

Then my mind went to the crazy fact that I cannot get the help I need for myself or my children.  There was no call back for an emergency consult for me as I knew there wouldn't be.  And as I showed up in ER on Monday night with my loved one...I knew too that nothing dramatic would be done then either.  Our system is really, really broken and I just feel helpless in it. I will never get the help I assume I need from outside sources.

I reacted  with negativity, desperation,  resistance but only for a moment.  I brought myself back to that simple mantra...It is what it is and I changed my attitude, perspective and my reaction.  Without resistance, without drama, without blame,  without denial, repression or any of the others...it simply is what it is. And accepting that is the biggest step in healing.

All is well in my world!

Throw Away the Old Way of Looking at Happiness

The situation you are in right now is exactly right for you to work with your spiritual awakening [happiness],
-Eckhart Tolle

Do you believe that?  Or are you still complaining about external circumstances not being right enough to make you happy?

The Wrong View of Happiness

One of the biggest ideas or wrong perceptions that we may have stuffed in our little bag of ashes is this idea we have of happiness.  What do you believe happiness is and what determines it?

Most of do not think beyond the superficial world around us...we don't go deeper than what we can perceive with our five senses.  Our happiness or lack of is determined by a set of  external circumstances. How easily we are disappointed when we do that. We see the  rain that gets in the way of the perfect picnic we were expecting to share with a romantic partner. So we become 'unhappy'.  We feel the cold air that gets in the way of the perfect ski date we planned with our friends and we become unhappy.  We taste too much spice in the soup we have prepared for our dinner guests and we become unhappy. The traffic outside our motel room is too loud and we become unhappy. 

Are you getting it yet?

For many of us, if external circumstances do not meet with our expectations of what they should be like, we often decide that gives us a 'right' to be unhappy. A right to be unhappy?

We have an idea in our head that happiness is dependent on what is going on around us. We seek to experience that elusive happiness by relying on external circumstances to work out for us.  We also may spend a lot of emotional, mental and physical energy into  trying  to manipulate and control those circumstances. 

Never knowing what the future holds, we may also rely on fantasy of  upcoming experiences to make it better, give us hope, distract us from the 'unhappy external circumstances' that are occurring in this present moment.

What are we doing?

Things in this world come and go.  That is the way of life.  There will be sun one day, rain the next. Cold one day, warmth the next.  There will be gain one day, loss the next. We can never predict what will happen in the future nor can we be free of imperfect external circumstances. 

The moment that we are in is the moment we are living.  So waiting for the future to bring us happiness doesn't make a lot of sense either does it? 

As far as the right to be unhappy...sure we have a right to be unhappy but would you rather be happy or self-righteously unhappy.

Let's face it...this idea we have of happiness does not serve us. We cling to it so we can be righteously grievant lol but it does not serve us.  We need to throw it away!

Do you want to be righteously unhappy or happy?

Would you not agree that it would be better to be independent of the need for things to go a certain way in our experience happiness seeking?  Wouldn't it be better to be happy in the rain and the sun, in the cold and the warmth, with whatever we taste, smell or hear in our external environment?  If things didn't turn out the way we wanted them to...wouldn't you rather be happy than waste all your mental energy on complaining about it, resisting it or fighting against it?

True happiness is freedom from external circumstances.  It is not a superficial experience but a much deeper one, a spiritual one .  It is also not fleeting like the external circumstances are. True happiness is everlasting.

How do we get there?

• The first step to changing our view of happiness is  being willing to throw out the old belief we cling to.  Just be willing to see  how that view of happiness doesn't serve you.
• Monitor your reactivity.  The old belief in happiness leads to a lot of reactivity.  We react mentally, emotionally and behaviorally to the fact that external  things are seldom the way we think they should be.
• Recognize yourself thinking, "Oh no!  This shouldn't be.  This is wrong. Why is this happening to me?" when something happens out there that doesn't match your expectations. Catch yourself getting irritable when someone isn't acting  the way you think they should be.  Listen to yourself complaining out loud when the line you are in is not moving fast enough.
• Be aware of the connection between your outer circumstances and your inner reactivity.
• Once you are aware,  practice releasing the need to complain, blame,  add drama and struggle or resistance to the experience.  The reaction begins with a judgment or a thought that says, "This shouldn't be." Let go of the tendency to say that to yourself or others.
• Start with the small little things and progress up to the greater things.
• Accept the present set of circumstances for being what they are...whatever that may be..."Oh the line is slow today.  I may be here for a while.  It simply is what it is." The 'this shouldn't be' gets replaced with "It is what it is". Practice that mantra over and over again.
• Allow the experience to be.  When you allow the experience to be you allow the moment to be.  It is in the moment we are presently in  where happiness is found...not out there or in some other moment.
• Embrace the moment...whatever it offers.  Look for something positive in it.  Maybe there is learning in the failure or mistake...maybe there is growth in the suffering...maybe there is a tiny thread of light making its way through the cloud cover.  Appreciate what Life gives us, knowing that it is exactly what we need
• Be happy anyway.

Hmmm!  Let's reach into those little bags of ashes we hold close to our hearts and throw out our old beliefs of what happiness is.

All is well!

References

Eckhart Tolle Freedom From External Circumstances (sorry cannot get into Google right now to get the citing information and link)

A Little Bag of Ashes

In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past but you will find yourself.
-Deepak Chopra

Okay...so I let her rip yesterday with a lot of detail about my own suffering.  That was just the tip of it. I have a lot to let go of. I could keep a person reading for days if I wanted to lol but that is not why I am here or why I relayed that.  Yes, I want to understand and heal from my  own dukkha but I also want to help others understand and heal from theirs.  It is an interdependent thing because we are, according to Buddhist and other religious/spiritual  doctrine...inter beings.

I know I also have a lot of dharma teachings whirling around my head  from the mouths and written words of the world's greatest dharma teachers.  I am in no position to interpret or 'teach' in this capacity.  Do you know how long it takes for  a Buddhist monk to become a  teacher? The  years of practice, reflection, meditation, retreats, isolation, sharing, devotion to the sangha etc that is required?  I am far, far, far from owning the distinction of dharma teacher!  I am just a silly little lay person getting something powerful from the teachings I haphazardly encounter and who has   a desire to share that learning. That's all.  

Anyway, back to the topic of letting go.  I am reminded of this story or parable that I believe the Buddha told to his disciples on the process of letting go. I think it relates to most of our experiences of resisting healing.

 

A Little Bag of Ashes

There was once  a  business man who lived in a small village with his  five  year old son. He loved his son more than anything and worked hard to give him all the material comforts of life.  Being a widower he often had to leave the little boy  alone at home so he could  travel away for business. On one such trip, pirates invaded the village and burnt many of the houses down, kidnapping young boys to use as slaves. His house was targeted and his son was captured and taken away. 

When the man returned home he was shocked and stunned.  He ran around the remnant of his once fine home in search of his son.  He found the burnt remains of a small body about the size of a five year old boy on the road in front of his house.  He immediately assumed that that boy was his son.  He fell to his knees and rocked back and forth in intense grief over this immense loss. 

Later he had the body cremated, as was the custom, and he took some of the  ashes, placed them in a small beautiful velvet bag and kept those ashes close to his heart at all times.  He couldn't bear to be without them. They became his most precious possession. He continued to grieve for months as he stroked the velvet bag and thought of his great loss. He was able to repair his house with the riches he had earned, but he was not able to repair his heart.

One day the boy was able to escape from those who had  enslaved him and he made his way back  home. 

It was late when he arrived and the man was asleep in bed tossing and turning between fitful dreams  about his son and his tragic loss. When he heard the knock on the door, he jumped up out of bed and said fearfully, "Who's there?"  He clung tightly to the little velvet bag to help ease his fear.

"It's me Father," the little voice replied.  "I am home." 

The man became even more afraid, clutching the bag tighter in his trembling hand.  "Is this some kind of a cruel joke?  My boy is dead.  I hold what is left of him close to my heart as I speak."

"No Father...it is not a joke.  It is me.  I have returned.  Please let me in."

The man refused to open the door, clutching the little bag of ashes as tight as he could.  "No!  I will not let you in.  Leave at once and never return. Let me be alone with my grief...it is all I have left."

The little boy tried for hours and hours to convince his father, until finally, exhausted from his months of torture and enslavement, gave up. He  did not know what else to do.  He turned away and left the village, never to return.

His father continued to cling to the little bag of ashes that sat close to a heart that never truly mended.

What Does it Mean?

 



Okay...that was my version lol.  What this parable relays is: when we cling to ideas, wrong views that keep us locked in chains of sorrow and misery, we may become so attached to those mental chains that we refuse to see the truth when it comes knocking at our doors.  Does the truth scare you and do you cling to your ideologies even tighter when you hear it at the door of your Life?

That truth could end all the suffering generated by an illusion or false belief. ...if we open up to it.

What are you carrying in your little bag of ashes? How much pain are you clinging to? Are the ideas that generate such suffering in you based on truth?  Would you not be better off, putting them down and opening the door to see that there was no need to grieve in the first place?  To see that the only thing that was leading to the suffering was actually an idea you clung to of something that wasn't true?

Just saying.  Just asking.  Just learning. :)

All is well in my world.

Understanding our own suffering

We need to go home to self and understand our own suffering , so we can understand the suffering of others...when we understand our own suffering, compassion begins to flow.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

Before I begin to discuss all those things we need to throw out I feel compelled to come back to the notion that in order to understand others, we need to understand ourselves; in order to have compassion for the suffering of others, we need to have compassion for ourselves in our own suffering; and in order to heal others, we need to heal ourselves.

Understanding My own Suffering

With my sincere desire to help others comes this awareness, sometimes not so sweetly and discreetly lol, of my own suffering.  I thought I dealt with my trauma pain...wrote some books about it, some poetry, talked about it etc...seemed to have it all wrapped up in a pretty box and bow.  I thought I was truly ready to step out into the world of helping others and then this realization hit me that I have only touched the surface.  So many more memories are coming from way below, so much more pain. It is like a tap that I can't quite turn off.  Menopause seems to be in control of the plumbing lol.

Writing Shame

Last night I awoke in the middle of a hot flash and right away my mind went to some writing experiences I had that caused  much shame that I had stuffed way down deep.  (Or so I thought.)I once wrote and self published  a little book of thoughts and photos  for my sister when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast cancer...just my way of saying I was there.  The grammar was atrocious because it was basically just a collection of old free verse poems where grammar was not the thing I was focusing on.  It was spiritual based (I was just beginning that journey) and could have been very offensive to some of the traditionally religious people in this community. I knew that. Still I did it for her in my attempt to offer compassion and comfort.  It really did not begin as an ego thing but it grew into one.

Someone else in my family said they  wanted a copy, and another person.  My ego started to get a little inflated. So I made a few others (these were not cheap to make) adding pages that I thought  might be supportive in recognizing the community agencies that could support the types of healing my sister needed over the years.  I thought the little books  were 'cute' but I was very, very aware of the imperfection in them. They were never meant to be sold or marketed.  Yet, as the requests kept coming  in I had to begin asking for payment because of the expense of publishing. My writer's ego did not want that but another ego that wanted some recognition maybe did?

Then I had someone, whose intention was to support my writer's ambition, suggest that I market them locally. My little girl ego, which was feeling stroked as lovingly as a prized show cat, agreed. My writer's ego, however,  stood on sideline tsk tsking the whole time, warning me not to.  This little girl in me or whatever ego that was...ignored it, the imperfections in the text and photos, and began to sell them.

Of course, it blew up in my face.  I lost a lot of money, became extremely over exposed when I was not ready to deal with it (for my sloppy writing, amateur photographs, poor grammar and my emerging views on spirituality that I was not ready to share.) It was like an outward expression of, "Who the hell does she think she is?"    That brought about a great deal of shame that I repressed successfully until last night.

The Spiral Begins

I woke up and boom...there was this shame and this memory. That memory instantly instigated a shame spiral related to another  previous publication experience  that backfired. It took me a layer deeper into memory and feeling.

It took  me back to the year I wrote for a press and for an editor who was 'forced' to take on as a correspondent from my area(me) when he did not feel it was necessary.  In order to prove that such a correspondent would be more detrimental to the paper than helpful, I was asked to send in my unedited work. I didn't have much time to write.  I had three children still in diapers and I was trying to work on the side. So my writing was sloppy. Still it was a writing gig.  I was hooked on the idea of being a writer.  Being so totally naive to what was happening and full of ego, I didn't question and assumed the grammar was not that important and my writing  would be edited by the editor. It  never was.  In fact, it was published again and again  with more grammatical errors than I myself had written. It was a set up.

It was a very, very challenging experience. I was shunned by the agencies I was suppose to get stories on, and literally told off by community officials  who swore oaths to be kind.  I was put on the hot seat and ridiculed and shamed in public more than once. I literally had people from the community calling me up to 'teach' me grammar and later had physicians I worked with telling me how they and their family got quite a kick out of reading my stories and counting all the errors.  Still...I was writing...so I kept going. When this blind little girl ego finally faded away for the reality of what was happening, I was completely humiliated. I had suppressed that experience and repressed the associated shame until last night.

Shame Likes to Be in Control

  That is really not traumatic, right? Why make it a such a big deal?  Shame does that. We wear shame  like a pair of black pants...picking up every hair of shame that is in the subconscious environment until we are embarrassingly covered with it. So the shame of the little book experience spiralled into remembering the shame of writing for that press. That then spiralled off into other shame memories last night. 

I remembered the experience of working with this physician who enjoyed critiquing my grammar and other 'critical' physicians  when I was my most vulnerable. I remember other nursing experiences where anxiety reared up its ugly head and  the shaming that led to.  I remembered the fear I had related to hurting others that was intense enough for me to lose my ability to nurse effectively. That led to remembering my experience as a patient under the care of those who witnessed my anxiety as a nurse. That led to remembering the trauma of dealing with my youngest sister's diagnosis and the loss of another sister so tragically to what I believed was a family condition that I was presenting with.  That led to the shame of my health seeking over the course of two decades and the deep penetrating shame related to that.  That led me back to my time  caring for my mother when she was dying.  She called me her little nurse but I was only 14 and so terrified of doing the nursing procedures on her that I was not trained or emotionally ready to do.  That led me to remembering saying the  rosary night after night around her bed and how hard it was not to laugh simply to relieve the tension. Then remembering being called a sinner for doing so brought me back to my religious upbringing....and that led me to earlier ages of my childhood where the true trauma began.

It was like boom...boom...boom as I fell from layer into the next and all in less than a couple of minutes. That's how quick our minds are and how determined shame is to get control. The thing that connects  all these memories to my deeper trauma...is the shame.  Shame and trauma go hand and hand as far as I am concerned. So remembering that little book shame brings up what my mind is allowing me to remember of the real trauma. I kept going down deeper, one layer at a time never quite touching the intensity of the real trauma. My trauma goes a lot deeper than those writing experiences and has many, many layers to it but by unraveling one little layer at a time, I will heal.

The Root

Of course, my first reaction is to try to resist, to dismiss, to repress those nasty feelings of shame that are exposed as each layer is removed. Last night I was aware of me doing that. I caught myself reciting this mantra out loud that represents my resistance to experiencing my memories fully with their associated emotions, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned." 

I realized how that is something I recite whenever I feel shame regardless if it comes in a fleeting moment of embarrassment or in a sustained recognition for something I have done to hurt another.  It doesn't matter.  When I feel shame for being less than perfect, I catch myself reciting this mantra from my catholic upbringing as if penance will make me worthy somehow or that it would at least take away my shame.  Ironically, I can now see the association my catholic upbringing had in relation to these writing experiences and in my deeper trauma. The root of my suffering is that, in my human imperfection, I see myself as sinful and unworthy.  I have not earned the right to  make mistakes, to seek recognition in a positive  light.   If I try to redeem myself I will be sinning and I will then experience more shame as a result.


The moral of this big long spiel

I know that was a long one...whew! There is a moral to all this .

The point I am trying to make is that I have to heal; you have to heal before we can heal others.  We need to look into our own suffering and understand its roots.  This faulty view I  have of self that was generated over years of experiencing trauma rests at the core of me.  When I feel shame I know that that belief is being poked.  Shame is the chief emotion I feel when it gets poked and at the same time shame is the poker. 

So if it is this way with me, could it be this way with a lot of people?  I can't be alone in this experience, can I? 

By understanding the source of my own suffering I can understand the suffering of others better. I can therefore  be more compassionate to my fellow humans, with beings in general.  My compassion can help  allow the seed of understanding to grow in others and in myself .  Can it not?

Let's go home to recognize, sit with , understand and gently release our own suffering so that we have more to give as human beings.

All is well in my world.