Recognizing A Shared Humanity

 

Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

Pema Chodron

 

 

 Before I get to the next ten lessons, which do apply very much to what I have been writing about of my personal experience, I  need to acknowledge this big "blob of thinking" that my body and mind keep taking me back to.

 

The Blob on the Page

 

 As I sit down to write, I keep coming back to  my present worry and frustration about a change that is taking place in my body and the circumstances that are surrounding it.  It is not something I would normally share.  Very few people in my immediate surroundings know about my experience. I am not sharing it, off the page,  because I have not been told what this is yet  and  have no intention of worrying loved ones with it until I have been. Yet when I come here to write about training the mind, which is ultimately what ACIM and all the teachings I am delving into lately are about,...out it plops onto the page...like a big blob of ink I cannot hide.  I cannot seem to ignore it so I write around it.

 

When I don't resist it from coming out  or when I don't beat myself up for spilling it all out here, I discover something. What seemed like an obstacle in the way of my understanding and my intention to share on a less personal level ... can  actually be  more of a doorway than a wall.  It can be  a doorway into  a greater understanding, and a portal into being able to teach at a higher level.  It could be an opening into  healing for me and others. Instead of being "blocked" by it, I can find a way through the worry and frustration and at the same time I can use it to do what I am here to do...teach and learn; learn and teach. That's pretty cool.

 

So how do I get through it and what do I  teach with it?

 

Compassion

 

I get through it with the thing that heals all and that is what we all need to teach and learn. That thing is compassion. Though, I really need to practice Maître ( loving kindness) toward myself which I honestly have a hard time doing when I am less than 100% productive,  I also have to realize that I am not the only one experiencing this. What a wonderful opportunity for all of us to learn to practice compassion.  I am going to use the Buddhist teachings and more specifically Tonglen.

 

First: Open to What is with Maître

 

Maître is all about being kind to self and whatever we are experiencing.  It is about accepting ourselves wherever we are at, lovingly and nonjudgmentally. We can use it in our compassionate practice as a first step in opening up to what is.

 

Once we  remove the  story, the words, concepts, ideas, judgments etc from around the experience, we need to simply feel what we feel.  We  need to compassionately sit with the physical pain, the worry, the fear, the frustration and the anger and resentment, without judging it or the self for it. I practice this but I don't always find it easy .

 

Staying Open to Physical Pain

 

My spiral, in this example of my personal experience, usually starts with pain. Physical pain is easier for me. I have a high pain threshold and I can tolerate a fair amount of pain.  I can naturally open up to it, allow it. I can sit with that.  What I am challenged by is how, when I become aware of the pain,  the mind just seems to automatically take off with it. It carries it into one thought stream after another. I suddenly, it seems without warning, find myself closed to the pain and all that follows. 

 

The trick is to know when I closed and keep bringing myself back to an open acceptance of what is in my moment.

 

Staying Open to Worry

 

Pain often leads me to worry. So I want  to catch myself before or during worry. If I realize I am worrying about what is going on and what the pain might mean, I want to be able   to just sit with the feeling...to allow all the words around it fade away and just sit with the worry.

 

The words, thoughts, story line will come back in throughout my practice again and again...and I just need to clump it all up into "THINKING" and gently, lovingly and kindly bring myself back to moment, body, breath...back to worry and from worry back into  the physical pain again if it is still in my moment. 

 

Accept  what is and allow it.

 

Staying Open to F.E.A.R

 

Sometimes, I don't catch it at worry and the spiral  escalates into a full blown fear response . I wake up and find myself there. The narrator in my head is even more persistent and dramatic at those times. Once again I gently remove myself and the feeling of  fear from the storyline created by the mind to keep it going.  I open to the fear, I accept it, I allow it and I  feel it until it subsides into worry Then I watch as  the worry eventually dissolves into physical pain again.

 

Staying Open to Shame, Guilt, Anger, Blame, and Frustration

 

Sometimes, the spiral pulls me so fast through worry and fear that I find myself frustrated and angry over the story created about my waiting and what is happening with the delays etc. I see that I  want to blame and lash out at others and life.  I catch myself there.  I breathe. I gently pull the anger, frustration or blame...whatever I am experiencing... from the story and I sit with that as the story slowly dissolves around me.  Guilt and shame might pop in...I sit with that. From there I watch as I am carried back to anger, blame and then frustration. From there I am guided back into fear and from there worry and finally back into physical pain. I am back in the body; back in my moment  and I breathe it out there.

 

This usually isn't an uninterrupted process.  Thoughts and story will often pop in, bringing with them a host of unexpected emotions.  Being open, means being okay with that...almost expecting the interruption  and allowing it. So we catch ourselves being carried away by story...that awareness that it is just a story allows it to dissolve.  We are left with whatever feeling is there and we stay open to that. Until the next interruption arises. We slip off, become aware that we have and we gently bring self back again ad again and again.

 

Be Open and Kind to Self First

 

Because this feels like such a big and heavy thing in the middle of my life it is hard for me to see around it to other people.  I know I have to put a great deal of my practice into opening up with Maitre before I can extend my compassion in a meaningful way outward to others.   

 

Just Like Me...

 

Once I am open I can begin to recognize and open up to  the suffering of others. I can breathe it in.  I remind myself that there are others going through what I am going through,  that are in some ways just like me.:

 

There are others out there that wake up in the morning with similar pain and who are being swept away by a series of thoughts and worries when they feel it...just like me. 

 

There are others who have experienced the same set of delays and circumstances I have ( I just need to think of the women who were in the waiting room with me that day)....just like me.

 

There are others who are wondering what is happening to their bodies  and feeling fear as a result. ...just like me.

 

There are others out there feeling powerless and at the mercy of the egos and decisions of others...just like me.

 

There are others who are frustrated with the system, angry, wanting to lash out and  blame others for being afraid  whether it is justified or not...just like me.  

 

 

Open up to the  Similar suffering of others

 

So if this is a formal practice I would meditate on breathing in the dark heavy cloud of the suffering of others with the wish or intention that they be free of it. If it is more of an impromptu in the moment  practice...every time I get a bout of pain I can think of others having similar pain and wish that they be relieved of it; every time I worry I can think of others worrying and wish that they be relieved of that worry etc.  Or anytime I run into someone who is experiencing something even remotely similar or any suffering in general...I can open up to that suffering, allow it into my being with a sincere wish they be free of it.

 

Extend compassionate thoughts out

 

In a formal practice I would breathe out light, coolness, fresh healing energy to all those who I imagine are suffering a certain way.  In the on the spot practice...when I feel pain I can wish that all those with pain are now healed and finding joy, well being, mobility, freedom, etc.

 

"The Bravest Step"

 

We can take this a step farther, only  if we are brave enough and open enough to do so.  We can say, "Since I am feeling this pain anyway, may I carry the pain for others.  May they feel less pain with the more I carry." I have done this before when I was much younger, not knowing then that I was practicing Tonglen, and it gave my pain purpose and meaning.  Though it did not take it away, it made it so much more bearable. 

Now I think I can do that with the physical aspect of my so called "suffering" right now.  I can take more physical pain for others. I am not sure I can do it with the fear though.  I am not sure if I am brave enough. And that is okay.  In my practice of maître, that is okay.

 

So those are the steps of getting through such experiences. I think I am finally ready to move on from this...at least on the page.  Hope my use of this example has helped someone else.  I know it has helped me.

 

All is well.

 

Pema Chodron (Sept, 2016) Good Medicine Part 1: How to Turn Pain into Compassion with Tonglen Meditation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gzMOY1AI_M

 

Pema Chodron (Sept, 2016) Good Medicine Part 2: How to Turn Pain into Compassion with Tonglen Meditation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h5vPerR87s

 

Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger

Many Paths

Many paths, one journey, same destination.

Unknown

 (Man...I have to get out there and shoot some more pics...this is an oldy)

I am going to get back to the next ten lessons in A Course in Miracles very soon.  I am aware that right now it might all seem very confusing.

As you can see ... I often go from ACIM philosophy to Yoga to Buddhism in my explanations.  You will also  see me referring to traditional Christianity, Taoism, Kabbala Judaism, Sufism in Islam, the teachings of aboriginal North and South Americans and so much more as I go over the lessons and teachings in ACIM.  Why do you think that is?  (Besides the fact that I am like a 10 year old kid with ADHD or a bad meth problem at times. :))

There is one universal truth in all the teachings I have stumbled upon over the years...One destination even though there are many paths.  I just happen to love learning from a variety of teachers in a variety of ways. I like a change of scenery so I skip from one trail  to the other on my way to that One destination.

A Course takes us toward the same destination, has the same elements to be taught as all the teachings do.  Sure there is different terminology, different approaches etc but the learning is universal.  For me, to share the learning I gained from ACIM, I cannot help but to bring up similar  lessons from different teachers.

It is not my desire to confuse you or myself.  It is my desire to fully learn all I can on this path to the One Truth.  In order to learn I must teach and in order to teach I must learn.  (Now that is a lesson A Course  definitely pushes.)

I am a pretty good teacher.  If you can trust that and be patient with the confusing parts I may just be able to get you through the confusion to what I believe  A Course in Miracles wants us all to walk away with. I can't say I will take you to that Truth...I cannot even say if I will ever get there.  I am very, very far from being enlightened or a guru of any kind.  I am simply just a chatty travelling companion with a mission. :)

And you, have to be willing and ready for what I share if you want to understand what I am writing here.  If you are not willing, not ready...that is perfectly okay too.  Take your time...enjoy the scenery on whatever path you are on and with whomever you are travelling with.

It is all good!

Healing the Mind and Body with Compassion

Compassion is what heals us...
Pema Chodron

A Recap

As I discuss the body in terms of the teachings of A Course in Miracles I want to make sure we are all on the same page ( whether we agree or not is irrelevant).    My goal is not to convince you of anything...just to share what I learned from the text and lessons, okay?

I know my last few entries are all over the place and I did not successfully accomplish what I meant to in the teaching for myself...so I probably didn't make it clear for others.

I was just trying, however poorly, to make a point that the body is not who we are.  It is something "we" are in...it is a vehicle that gets us from point A to point B. It is also a tool that the mind uses. 

It is different from the mind in the power it has over our lives.  The mind is powerful and creative.  It determines, in a great sense, what is going on in the world around us and in the body (check out past discussions on the nocebo and placebo effect).

The body does not control what is going on in the mind.   It doesn't create or think for itself in the way we are conditioned to believe it does.  It doesn't randomly attack us with disease and pain and malfunction. The only power the body has over our lives is the power the mind gives it. 

The mind, in terms of our belief, tends to make the body more powerful than it is. The mind convinces us that the body is all powerful. That idea is just an illusion.  As amazing as the body is...it does not create our experiences.  The mind does. In other words, the mind controls the body yet  we tend to erroneously  believe it is the body controlling our experiences.

The body , however, can help us understand what is going on in the mind.  When the body gets sick...there is something going on in the mind that needs to be corrected. The body then can be used as a learning instrument to help us correct the mind.

Does that, what A Course teaches about the body,  make sense so far?

Ultimately we are on a mission to heal the mind.  Right?

So what tool can we use to heal the mind...especially one that might fear what the body is doing and fear what Life is doing? (As in my personal example.)

We know we want to train the mind( and thus the body)  to behave differently. We want to step away from old habitual patterns of reacting and do something differently.  We want to partake in a practice  that is more effective in reducing our sense of suffering. We want peace over mental stress.

So what do we do?


Let's look at two things before we go farther:

What is the old habitual way the mind responds to "unpleasant" things?


The habitual mind is one so many of us get lost in.  It involves a pattern of building  story, narrating, judging our experiences, creating preferences that we open up to and  defining the unwanted things we judge as bad that we close up to.  In other words, we habitually tend to, as human beings,   go toward and cling to the pleasurable in our outer world experience, and close up and push away the unpleasurable.

We tend to outwardly seek gratification from life experiences that we have been conditioned to believe are  pleasurable and that do feel good when we experience them.  We do feel good when we find a soul mate .  We do feel good when we land our dream job.  We do feel good when others approve of us. Is that enough?

We also tend to avoid, close up to or push away experiences that we have been conditioned to believe are bad...like physical pain, shame, anger, fear, other people who trigger us, and circumstances that do not gratify us etc.

In terms of the body...we open up to things that make it feel good and do whatever we can to avoid or stop it from feeling bad.  We get a pain, for example ...we judge it as bad because we have been conditioned to believe it is bad. We then automatically begin to use the mind to complain about it or create story about it (when we create story, narrate, complain...what we are doing is taking ourselves out of the body where the pain is and into our minds...so in a sense we are detaching from the actual  moment and escaping into the unreality of our thinking about it). If that doesn't work we do whatever we can to "numb" the pain with substances or we look to something or someone outside ourselves to end the pain. We are closing up to the pain.

Now I am using the body as an example here but that thing we close up to  can be anything we deem as unpleasant  like a boring experience waiting, dealing with an angry boss, having a fight with a dishonest spouse, or feeling ourselves becoming irate as we deal with misbehaving children. It can be as it is in my situation dealing with other individuals who for whatever reason have a different agenda than mine.

But since we are talking about the body we will use the example of the physical pain I am experiencing in my body and the circumstances around it.


What is suffering then?

The habitual conditioned and collective mind will tell us that suffering is having to deal with all these unpleasant things.  Suffering is the pain, the illness, the terrible thing someone did or said.  Suffering is the shame and the fear, the anger and resentment.

A Course in Miracles, and most Buddhist teachings , I am thinking most specifically of Tonglen at the moment)  tells us differently.  It tells us that suffering is not that feeling or situation that is happening in our moment.  It is what we tend to do with it. When we judge an experience as bad and then attempt close up to it ...avoid it, resist it , struggle against it...that is where suffering comes from.

What if the thing we are trying to avoid actually made us happy and more peaceful in the long run...would you still want to push it away? No...it is still the same thing...but because it was not something we felt the need to push away, we no longer suffer.

The problem is not the experience...it is our attempt to resist it and close up to it that brings suffering. Why do we resist it and close up?  Because we have come to believe it (whatever that unpleasant thing is)  is bad and to be avoided.  Why do we believe this?  Because we made a metal judgment about it based on what we were taught in the past. We judged it as bad.

When we follow the habitual tendencies, we make judgments and preferences instead of looking at everything in a neutral light.  If we were not conditioned to believe pain was a bad thing and that it should be avoided...we would not avoid pain. We would not close up to it.  If we were not taught that fear was to be avoided we would not avoid fear.  We would not build story and narration around our experiences and we would just feel and deal with whatever showed up in our moment.

Yes I have physical  pain and my mind wants to convince me that is a bad thing. It drags me, when I allow it to, on a big long story making journey from one thought, one judgment about it to another.  That is how I resist the physical pain.  I get lost in a story about it.  I end up "suffering" more because of it.  I fear, feel stress, anger, frustration...all because I get a spasm of pain.

What we can do with pain instead of getting lost in a habitual pattern of reacting? Tonglen

Step One: Remove the story Line and Feel

We can stay open to the pain...we can just allow it.  We get rid of the story, the narration, the thinking we have built  around it and we just feel! 

I need to put aside my "this could be..."; and my "I can't get a diagnosis..." and my "He did this or that..." that take me out of my moment.  I must  just be willing to sit with and  feel the pain. I may notice fear as I sit here with my physical pain that prevents me from experiencing it openly...I take away the words around the worry  and I just feel the fear.  I may notice I feel anger and mistrust...I remove the story line and just sit with anger and mistrust. I sit and feel.

Step Two: Remind self that others feel the same

This is where the compassion comes in.  We sit and feel our own sense of pain but extend that feeling to all others out there that feel a similar pain. There were other women that day that had lumps, were fearful of what that might mean for them ,  and from what I have been told received the same lectures, and are therefore possibly feeling the same frustration and confusion that I am feeling.  There are others who have physical pain without knowing what the cause is ( the cause is the story...the pain is the reality). There are others who are feeling fear, worry, anger and frustration for whatever reason.  (The reason is the story, the feeling is the reality) . That could even include the person we may feel frustration toward...maybe they too feel fear, worry, anger and frustration and that is what is leading them to act in the way they are.

Step Three: Set your intentions for others as well as self

So we breathe in a genuine desire that all those who are just like us in their suffering  be free of such suffering and we breathe out the hope for a peaceful, healed mind and body for everyone.

That is Tonglen...that is a compassionate practice. That is what I wish to master.

All is well in my world.

Pema Chodron (Sept 2016) Good Medicine Part 1: How to Turn Pain into Compassion with Tonglen Meditation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gzMOY1AI_M

Getting to Know Fear

If you do not get to know the nature of fear, you will never know fearlessness.
Pema Chodron

So as we begin to understand the teachings of a Course in Miracles which beautifully echoes many old, wise and trusted teachings like Buddhism, we come to realize how fear stands in our way of being truly at peace.

The premise of A Course is to take us from what is unreal to what is real by changing the way we think of the world, ourselves and each other. We need to let go of old habitual ways of thinking and reacting so we can open up to the moment and all it is, regardless of what form it is taking. Of course it takes a bit of courage to do that.  It takes courage to see how our mind needs healing and be willing to do so. What does healing involve?   A Course teaches  All healing is essentially the release from fear. ( ACIM-T-2:IV:1:7).

According to Buddhist teachers like Pema Chodron, it is fear that keeps us stuck in the past and that prevents us from moving from a state of narrow mindedness to an open understanding of the world, from rigidity in belief to flexibility and from resistance to accepting . (Pema Chodron, ) Being willing to look at the errors of our ways so we can open up and expand beyond the habitual mind takes more than a bit of courage. We need to be willing to face our fears.

I don't know how brave I am but I want to use my health experience as a medium for growth.  I want to be able to sit with the fear I feel, the mistrust and confusion and let go of any resistance I have to it.  I want to just allow it all to be.  It isn't easy...I am goofing up big time but I am confident with practice I can turn this fear ( maybe not into complete fearlessness lol but...) into something I can grow from.

All is well in my world.

ACIM

Pema Chodron (April 2017) The Noble Journey from Fear to Fearlessness . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t_SGso_1PY

 

Place the fearful mind in the cradle of loving kindness.

Pema Chodron

The First Ten Lessons

This idea will release me from all that I now believe.
ACIM-W-10:4:3

As promised:

I will begin going through the lessons in ACIM but cannot stress enough this is my interpretation only.  If you are interested in learning through this curriculum, get a copy of the workbook and do the exercises yourself as expertly directed there.

A Summary of the First Ten Lessons ACIM: Workbook

The first ten lessons from A Course In Miracles basically signifies what the whole course is about: the importance of training the mind to get beyond what it has been conditioned to believe, to the truth of who we are.  I guess, it really isn't a training but an undoing of learning, a guide that allows us to see what is important by getting beyond our preoccupation with what is not important.  Each of the ten initial lessons encourages the student to look around their external world surroundings (very briefly) and then  into their minds to question what they see there. By so doing, the student should realize that what they see is never as it has appeared to them for so long. 

This teaching in regard to looking outward and inward to examine  reality is not unique to ACIM. Many wise masters throughout the years have taught the need to examine our reality. Socrates said "A life  unexamined is not worth living." Buddha taught, "We live in an illusion and appearance of things."  Patanjali taught that the entire outside world is based on our thoughts and mental attitude (Satchidananda pg 5)

Lesson 1-10

The things of the external world once examined do not really mean what we have come to believe they mean.   They in fact, don't  mean anything (Lesson 1) . We have given all objects of form  a false meaning and once we remove that meaning,  we realize we do not understand any of it. (Lesson 2 & 3)

If we take this questioning gaze into our minds we will realize that our thoughts are like the things we see and they too mean nothing nor do we understand them. (Lesson 4).  That means when we get upset about something we are never upset for the reason we think we are.  We have a  usual tendency to grasp at an external reason for our being angry, sad, offended etc and to categorize our  forms of upset into a hierarchy of degrees.  When we examine our thoughts and feelings  we need to remind ourselves that there are "...no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to our peace of mind." (Lesson 5) Whether we are upset by someone forgetting to put the toilet seat down or upset about a diagnosis of cancer...it has the same effect on our peace of mind.

We are upset because we see something that isn't there in each of these forms of upset. (Lesson 6).  And what we see is the past in each object and thought or upset we experience.   We think we know what a cup is, for example,  because we were taught in the past about a "cup".  Everything we label... be it an object, a thought or an emotion is based on what we were taught about it in the past so we really do not see it as it is now ( Lesson 7).  We seem to spend most of our  time stuck in thoughts of the  past and  we are usually so preoccupied with the past that we see nothing as it is now.  (Lesson 8) All the past conditioning, labelling, naming, and teaching that we received about the things we see now is in the way of us really seeing them. ( Lesson 9) 

Once we take each thought we are thinking and own it, recognizing that it doesn't mean anything,  we will be able to let go of some of that conditioning and the beliefs that hold us back. (Lesson 10)

Other teachings say the same thing

The initial lessons hint at the need to get beyond our preconceived notions about things, our mental modifications that stand in our way of finding the peace of mind that is our natural inheritance. This is also what yoga is all about. " If you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience yoga."(Satchidananda, page 3) It is also the premise of Buddhism that the root cause of  all suffering is in our minds.

So these very potent and effective lessons are just one way to get to a very universal truth.  If you want to explore this curriculum,  I encourage you to try them one at a time in the way you are instructed to by studying the workbook.

All is well

ACIM: Workbook, lessons 1-10

Satchidananda, Sri Swami ( 2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville: Integral Yoga publications

Body Thoughts: Real Evidence Appearing False Vs False Evidence Appearing Real

The Presence of fear shows that you have raised body thoughts to the level of the mind.
-ACIM


I just sat here, thinking I would write about some great learning from  ACIM but the following came out.  I then discovered I was  stuck on fear because body thoughts have risen to the level of the mind.  I realized that I have a situation in my life where there is Real Evidence Appearing False and  I am worried about it repeating itself in this recent health scare I have been experiencing. It is actually the possibility of Real Evidence Appearing False that is causing me fear right now.

Ongoing Evidence: Real or Unreal?

I am sometimes  lost in body thoughts again.  I am looking for evidence to rationalize my slips.

I am stressed. Stress makes my body sooo tired.  It has this strange effect on my pulse and blood pressure...kind of the opposite effect it would have on most people.  Instead of causing  an increase in these two things, prolonged stress leads to  a decrease.  My systolic blood pressure will hover around 80 and 90 after extended periods dealing with a stressful situation (I don't think 90 is an issue but 80 with drops into the 70's...yeah, that's fatiguing...and I have recordings, witnessed by others, as low as 64 when I was still conscious . I don't know how low it gets before I faint?)

My pulse will go through days hovering  around 45 with drops into the 30's, as it is doing now.  If you ever experienced a pulse in the 40's and 30's for more than a few hours  you would know what I mean by tired! There is also a connection obviously between the brady and hypotension with the chest pain I get.

A History with Real  Evidence Appearing False.

I have "whined" and  "complained" about this phenomena for over 20 years and  I am not sure if people  "out there' really  believe me or  understand the impact it has had on my life. Even with all the recorded evidence...both on my personal monitoring reports  and those performed through physician orders...I lack a sense of external validation. My circumstances of the last ten years tend to hint at the fact that I am not only not validated but I am being punished for seeking help. (This part may very well be False Evidence Appearing Real).

 More concern was always shown for the tachycardia.   I also go to the opposite end of the spectrum ( not so much now because I am being treated for coronary vasospasm with a calcium channel blocker that incidentally keeps the tachy and palpitations at a minimum...and no ...anything that vsaodilates does not lower my BP like it would in most...it actually stabilizes it or increases it...so the medication  I have been on for years is not responsible for my recent bradycardia and hypotension. ) There were many times, for no explicable reason, my pulse would shoot up past the 200 mark and man would those palpitation be wicked.  (And yes I have lots of evidence of that as well). 

What I thought was "real evidence", often just got passed off by too many  specialists  as, "probably only happening when you sleep...no big deal". ...or..."as long as there is no symptoms with the bradycardia, there is no need to worry. " (Ummm...I have been brought by ambulance to the emergency room more than once for doing nose plants and I have been complaining about overwhelming fatigue, palpitations, dizziness and chest pain for over 20 years...is this not enough  symptoms???)   or my favorite , "this bradycardia, atrial fib and flutter that is showing up on these medical recordings...is not bradycardia, atrial fib or flutter...there is nothing wrong with your heart."

Figure that one out!

I stopped trying to get validation for this very obvious heart thing  a long time ago.  My motivation, in the beginning, was not only to get relief for myself but to help out my family members.  I always knew this was  a familial thing...so I pushed to get a diagnosis in the beginning to prevent someone else from dying like my sister did.  Once other siblings started having their MI's (heart attacks)  in their fifties or were  being diagnosed and treated for their atrial fib, flutter and V tach...I backed off.  My getting a diagnosis did not seem that urgent anymore. The familial tendency was finally out in the open. My loved ones were being taken seriously.

What is my point?

We need to validate our own experience by living it!

The lesson I need to learn here is: Living on outer world evidence , be it real or unreal, leads to fear. Fear is a doorway into letting go of our need for outer world validation and accepting the truth of who we are.


My situation seemed to be one of Real Evidence Appearing False, rather than False Evidence Appearing Real. Not having what I thought was real evidence validated as such lead me to mistrust a system, mistrust myself and mistrust life.  A lack of trust is a great cause of fear. I feared.

The Less than Brave Way to Live

My rational mind says...This is not False Evidence...it is very real ...It is Very Real...In order to survive with this under validated condition, however, because the  evidence appeared false to so many...I began to believe it was too.  It was easier to do it that way than to constantly push and struggle against other opinion and assumption about me.

As a result, I began to focus less and less on the evidence.  I stopped collecting it and trying to prove to others and myself it was "real".  Up until a few days ago, I seldom took my BP and Pulse...it was only because I was getting so symptomatic and I knew the stress was having an effect on me that I began to monitor it again. I don't talk about these symptoms or these findings with  anyone but D. because he sees the obvious changes in me.  (Other than blasting it publicly all over the page here lol I don't try to prove my situation is real)

For the most part, I deny the reality of my situation. I  push past the symptoms.  Even when I got a bad bout of chest pain during my yoga class yesterday, I kept going. I will take  nitro...I am not stupid...I know I need to but I will do so almost shamefully...ducking down and holding the bottle behind my hand so no one sees me doing so.

The Lessons will Keep coming Until We Face Our FEAR

I don't recommend avoiding evidence this for anyone...if you have real evidence make sure it gets validated by others whom you may need support from.  I only withdraw from evidence collection and sharing   in my case because I am too shamed and traumatized by my experience to do otherwise (that has a lot to do with my pre-established beliefs about seeking health validation in the first place). And because of that I am often confused about what is real and unreal.  I carry that mistrust into this new health issue I am dealing with.  I do not trust and assume that others will view real evidence as false. Until I become the validated and validator  of my own evidence I will continue to face similar health seeking experiences.

It is so funny how we keep generating these learning experiences again and again until we learn.  New  health seeking experiences have come into my life but it is the same lesson just in a different classroom with the same  teachers wearing different pants.

I only bring this up because my fear based on body thoughts  is in the way of my going forward as a teacher or as a learner, like I so want to do.  Sigh...so I share my fear...in hope that I can move on past it.

The next time I write it will be from a better place...and I will be able to share my learning.

All is well.

F.E.A.R.

All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level, and therefore do not exist at all.
-ACIM : Chapter 1:VI:5:1

FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real

Hmmm!  I really do not know who created this acronym for fear.  I have heard Wayne Dyer use it so many times I cannot cite it here but it is a definition of fear that makes sense to me.

False Evidence Appearing Real: As much as that sounds like an oxymoron...it does make sense.  It is just saying that what seems to be so real...as evidence to our minds' based on information provided by the five senses is false.  It isn't real. What we think is real isn't. It is an illusion, a distorted perception. 

In other words, what we seem to be afraid of is only an illusion.. We have somehow created this image of the world and it scares us because it seems so real and we have somehow come to believe it is. The fear becomes an overpowering entity.

You can never control the effects of fear yourself, because you made fear and you believe in what you made.
Chapter 1: VI: 4: 2

So let's look at the situation I am dealing with to better understand fear.  A bodily change has showed up in my life.  This body change is not false evidence...I feel the physical pain and the mass.  Other people, who try to, can feel it too.  It is there.

It in itself is just a bodily change, neither good or bad, right or wrong...it just is what it is.

The false evidence comes in when I think about this mass...I build story around it. I focus on what it could be. I selectively collect and cling to all pieces of information that supports my story. I gather socially and culturally enforced beliefs. I dig into history related to such changes.  I soak up the story of "cancer" that is all around me.  I begin to believe in this evidence even though the only real evidence is a  change in the body. I build it all up so this "just a bodily change" becomes a potential life threatening disease. I created a scary story around the bodily change and I begin to worry.  (Worry is just one of the many faces of fear). I have fear...F.E.A.R.

It is all just false evidence appearing real...it is just a story in my head.

So even if I were to have a diagnosis of cancer...it is still just a story  I would use it to label, explain and narrate myself through an experience of having a bodily change.  In reality it is nothing more than a few mutating and extra cells...that is all.  The fear...comes from believing in that story I created...the false evidence...not from the bodily change itself.

Get that?

The presence of fear shows that you have raised body thoughts to the level of the mind.
ACIM: Chapter 2: VI:1:6

Fear is a belief in something that isn't true...a belief in a story that we created in our minds.  It is false evidence that isn't real even though it appears to be.

There is a way to sort out the false evidence from the real:

Perfect love casts out fear.

If fear exists;

Then there is not perfect love.

 

But:

 

Only perfect love exists.

If there is fear,

It produces a state that does not exist.

 

ACIM: Chapter 1: VI: 5:3

 

 

All is well! 

 

ACIM ( 2007) A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume. Foundations for Inner Peace. 

Soaking it up for others

Suffering and joy are universal...
Pema Chodron


A Story About Suffering Pain


When I was a teenager I suffered a tremendous amount of pain every month from endometriosis.  Since I was not diagnosed until I seemed unable to get pregnant in my very late twenties, I had no idea why I was experiencing the pain and what I was supposed to do with such  random and punitive attacks .  I couldn't understand it.  I  honestly thought that every women went through that much pain every month and  there was just something wrong with me because I was too wimpy to handle it. So besides the pain, there was a lot of shame. I felt very much alone in my suffering.

During these bouts I would spend days and nights  pacing up and down the halls of the house I grew up in.  Every few minutes I would buckle over in pain, fall to my knees, curl up in a ball rocking back and forth until I had the strength to get up again.  ( okay...I was a teenager...prone to a bit of dramatic expression lol).  Truth was the pain was completely overwhelming. I wanted relief. I needed relief.  I grasped at every mental and physical  trick my young immature mind knew to get through it and would soak up the advice of others.  Nothing seemed to work...

Getting Beyond the personalized Perception of Suffering

That is  until one day during the center of that pain experience when I found myself curled up in a ball on the floor ...I for some reason imagined my mother, who had passed a few years previous, walking up and down that same hall with her cancer pain. I felt her suffering and had this tremendous retroactive wish to be able to remove some of that suffering from her.  I then  imagined my seven year old sister who suffered from severe abdominal pain from her recently diagnosed nephrotic syndrome walking up and down the hall as well.  I pictured one older sister who was yellow with jaundice from the painful  complications of spherocytosis (again at the time not diagnosed) walking hand and hand down the hall with my  asthmatic sister who was suffering from the pain of trying to get a breath of air into her lungs almost everyday. The hallway was suddenly full of suffering beings.

I  felt all that suffering so intensely and so acutely. I so wanted to be able to end it for everyone in my family.  Then I began to think of all the other people out there in the world who were suffering from physical pain related to one thing or another and I began to cry like a baby. My tears and sense of suffering for the first time went beyond my own narcissistic perception of the pain experience to a universal one. 

I pulled myself up from the floor and I began to pace up and down the hall again but this time I did it differently.  With every step I took , I imagined I was soaking up the suffering of another.  With every intense spasm of pain that shot through my body, I imagined I was taking away some of the pain from  someone else who was suffering more than I was.  My suffering , I convinced myself, was diminishing the suffering in the world. It gave my pain purpose . It gave my pain meaning.  It did not take my pain away :) but it made it so much more bearable. That is how I  learned to cope with this monthly pain.  I wasn't always compassionate and successful in maintaining this accepting, empathetic response to pain. Oh man, there were times the pain was so bad I didn't give a s*&^ about anyone else but for the most part I was able to expand beyond my "little me" experience of suffering during my own suffering.

A Buddhist Practice

I, of course, had no idea I was rudimentarily participating in the practice of Bodhicitta when I did this. In fact anything remotely connected to Buddhism was so taboo in my religious upbringing I probably would have been voluntarily  exorcised if I knew that what I was doing was actually a Buddhist practice. :)

Now I embrace the understanding of this practice...not on religious or even spiritual basis but on a foundation of humanity. It can be, I believe,  a deeply healing human practice.

 Bodhicitta? What the heck is that, crazy lady?

I am no expert and very limited in my understanding of Bodhicitta ( in fact, I am not even sure if I am spelling it right) but from my understanding of the teaching from Pema Chodron, it is a practice of connecting with the tender hearted soft spot within us and staying with it for as long as we can. It is about opening to the feelings and experiences we habitually tend to resist and close to as part of our human conditioning. It is about allowing vulnerability, fear, pain and suffering into our moment in a very empathetic and accepting way and it is about releasing the desire for freedom and  joy out into the world.

Say what?

The Tonglen practice itself involves a four step  breath meditation.  We first  open up to a space within us that is free of a need to judge, select, prefer, cling or push away.  Secondly we focus on the texture of what we are going to breathe in and out.  On the in-breath we imagine breathing in  heavy, hot darkness into every cell of our bodies, when we breathe out (the same length as the in -breath) we breathe out fresh, cool light 360 degrees around us. Then, thirdly,  we focus on a particular situation of suffering, possibly trying to envision  the suffering experience of someone we love ( like I did with my sisters) and then fourthly  expanding that to all  others who are suffering in the same way. When we breathe in, we breathe in the wish that they be free of this suffering and when we breathe out we breathe out the wish for joy, peace and happiness in their lives.

Connect and stay with that as long as we can.

Breaking a human habit

This practice involves breaking a habit that is so established in most of our lives.  Most of us only tend to open to what we deem as pleasurable. We push away what we judge as unpleasurable...like suffering or pain.  We resist and close ourselves to it.   We see suffering in the world around us  and our habitual tendency is to close up to it...not deal with it.  When it hits us personally we resist it and say "this shouldn't be..." We feel we are alone in it.

This practice asks that we do something totally different than what we have been doing...to  open up to the unpleasant...open up to that vulnerable spot within us all...and see this softness as universal. It asks that we soak in the pain of the world and the root of it ( which is always in the mind) and transform it while it is within us.  By allowing and accepting the suffering in our moments ( ours and the worlds) and wishing it to diminish the  hold it has on another, we soften. With connection to this softness suffering  is transformed to fresh, cooling, light that extends beyond our own little experience to everyone and everything.

It is so very beautiful and so very healing.

All is well.

Pema Chodron Lecture: Teaching for Love and Happiness. (June, 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYR574v4F-A

Karma?

Every word we speak, every action we perform effects our future....and it all starts in the mind.
Pema Chodron

Choosing stillness in the midst of chaos is the path toward living in peace.
Deepak Chopra

Even if the mind doesn't understand...

[The wise man] knows it is often impossible for the mind to understand what place or purpose a seemingly random event has in the tapestry of the whole...
Eckhart Tolle

Sigh!

In case you haven't noticed yet...I am pretty much choking on this  physical event that has showed up in my life two months ago.   It is like a big fat fur ball in my mind...I just want to cough it up and be done with it. It is the way of my writing, my sleeping and my living but I just cannot seem to be rid of it yet.  Sigh!

Bad enough to have this thing on my body that my mind tells me "shouldn't be there" and to wake up every night with the pain that pulls  me right back  into a ruminating mind but  on top of that there were so many bizarre circumstances  around this ...it has become extra challenging for my mind to cough it up and be done with this life event. Sigh!

So  I slip, too often these days,  from a state of presence into a state of diminished consciousness where I find myself ruminating, stuck in the past, analyzing, seeking validation for my conclusions, focusing on the behaviours of others, not trusting, wishing I handled things differently, and worried about the future. I guess what Tolle calls the "pain body" is active and when it is active I am in a place I do not want to be. I am stuck in my head and my story and not experiencing Life now. Sigh!

My mind wants to understand what this is and why it has entered my life.  It tells me it won't settle until I have more answers.  It is not going to trust the very vague ones I have received to date from someone who appears to have a very different agenda than mine. It wants to push me into action and seeking using anger, fear and worry to move me forward. Sigh!

My guess, is that you find yourself in a similar spot form time to time. One where you find yourself slipping back into your diminished consciousness more often than you want to for one reason or another? One where the mind demands to understand why something has shown up in your Life and what you are supposed to do with it? One where you notice that pain body has crawled back up on the waiting bench with you?  One where you find yourself sighing out loud again and again?

So what do we do to end all this sighing? 

This is what I think we need to do to get rid of this unhealthy reaction to circumstance and to feel peaceful again.:

• Tap into alert awareness:  Don't try to stop the thinking....or to force yourself into alertness. Just gently slip into still spaciousness whenever you can.  Focus on your surroundings, what your five senses are picking up: the sights, smells, sounds around you etc.  Be aware of what the inner body feels like...the aliveness in you. Breathe...be aware that you are breathing and follow that breath.  The moment you do that...you won't be lost in thought anymore. Proceed from there...
• Be aware of thoughts, feelings and behaviours: The most important thing we need to do is be aware of how we are reacting to the circumstance. "What am I doing, thinking, feeling and how conscious am I in all this?" This awareness will only occur once you have become still and present. Notice that you slipped away from presence without beating yourself up for doing so.  I have slipped and am aware that I am slipping from presence  more often than I want to.  I am aware of my thinking , my emotions and my behaviours as a result of this reaction. As soon as we become aware that we have slipped we are conscious once again
• Allow the feelings and thoughts.  When we resist feeling or thinking a certain way we create suffering on top of the pain. Just allow the feelings and the thinking.  As I said yesterday, I became very aware of my egoic thinking in relation to the circumstances that surrounded this and my health seeking experiences.  I allowed those thoughts to come.  I allowed the feelings of anger, mistrust, fear and worry.  I felt such a relief to just allow them. That doesn't mean I want to stay there but in order to go "through" them so I can relieve them...I have to allow them.  Resisting, denying, pretending to think and feel in ways we don't won't help us.
• Filter the emotions from the story:  I have learned this important step from Pema Chodron.  We need to recognize our feelings and eventually filter them from the story that surrounds them.  Without getting lost in thoughts about who did what and what something may or may not be...just feel the fear, the worry, the anger and frustration. Experience it.
• Continue to Observe yourself from a state of alertness: When we observe our minds, we are detached from our thinking  and not lost in the story it is telling us.
• Accept and allow the life event into your moment when it enters: So what is happening in your life right now? Accept it.  Allow it.  I have pain.  I accept and allow the pain. I have this abnormal tissue...it is what it is. I have no real diagnosis but some strange and vague ones that no longer make sense to me...that is okay.  It is what it is right now...I have these thoughts and feelings...that is okay too.  As long as I don't resist what is, struggle against it, attempt to deny it and suppress it...I will not suffer.  Suffering only comes when we refuse to accept what is.
• Refuse to allow the event to fill your moment:  So when we allow the life event to be what it is we find a place for it in that space that is us.  It does not, however, need to cover that space so completely we see nothing else.  For example....this fear of what this might be...is real and I will accept it but I won't allow it to consume me...it is just something floating over the surface of what is always detached and peaceful. If I look closely enough at it...I will see it is only water vapour, a cloud floating past a perfect blue sky.
• Respond when the time comes: Take part in inspired action when you are pulled to do so.  Certainly make plans if the inspired thought comes to "do" something about it but there is a difference between reacting and responding, right?  Reaction is usually based on egoic desperation and fear.  It seldom serves us or others. Reaction is based on what Wayne Dyer often termed F.E.A.R...false -evidence -appearing- real.  Responding is peaceful, purposeful action that serves and does no intentional harm.  It is based on truth.

So we can deal with random life events without getting lost in the suffering or the story that leads us to spend our day sighing in frustration and worry. We can , instead, make the choice to seek peace and deal with each issue life presents with calm acceptance and purposeful response. We can trust Life even if the mind does not understand how each fiber is being weaved into the tapestry of who we are.

All is well in my world.

Don't Need to Go There....or Do You?

I am conscious therefore I am...
-Eckhart Tolle


It was Rene Descartes who said " I  think, therefore I am." But  how true is that?  Are we our thinking or are we the spacious consciousness beneath the thinking, as Tolle proposes above.

How many times a day to you catch yourself responding to a question from another or a question Life Itself seems to pose in the form of circumstances, with "I have to think about that ?"

I have spent my life responding in that way.  Whenever an issue arose that seemed complicated or emotionally activating, I would pull myself away into a corner so I could "think about it".  I felt the only way to deal with it was by thinking about it.  And off I would go from one thought to another, from one story or mental drama to another...and I seldom came back out of the corner any more Self aware  than I went in.  In fact, I usually came out feeling worse.

Getting Pulled Back Into the Habitual Mind

Monday's events.... what my mind registered as the accumulation of six weeks of body related worry...was something I felt I needed to process. In other words, "I needed to think about that...".  I spent the last few days processing, recording details, reviewing, analyzing and understanding them so ego could make sense of it.

That is not something I wanted to spend my limited energy doing (the whole experience exhausted me) ...I wanted to let it go.  I wanted more space between my thoughts...more stillness. I do  want to break the habit of "needing to think about " these types of things but ego keeps pulling me back into my habitual mind.  

Moments in Alert Presence

I was conscious during the experience as I am in  many high stress situations. The thinking I did during the experience was limited so therefore the way I responded to it was not the way "ego" wanted me to.  I was so in the moment...so in the zone...so present and so alert...every cell of my body was waiting and then clinging to every explanation that came from the individual's mouth ...that I didn't think that much.  Consciousness was so present ego was pushed aside.

Ego likes to think

My mind,  as I mentioned before , is very, very active.  Some might call it very perceptive...but I am starting to see it as crazy making.  When I am conscious and alert, not necessarily thinking, my mind continues to pick up and store details and specifics of what is occurring around me. 

Now my conscious Self, my present Self is okay with not dealing with the details and chooses to maintain attention   only  on what serves the moment but ego isn't quite so complacent.  Though there may be little room for it in those "focused" moments, when the alertness diminishes ego sneaks  back into my data gathering mind to study the history there.  So  though I may walk away from such an experience feeling like it is over...ego ensures it isn't!

My thinking addicted ego came flying back into my psyche after reviewing the tapes, and man did it let me have it.

A Reprimand From an Angry Ego

(I actually had five long paragraphs flow out here from my angry ego. After it reviewed the details of my experience on Monday it made some pretty valid conclusions. And it got angry again.  It wanted me to relay all that information here but I realize that it will only serve ego to  leave me once again stuck in a victim's tale. I have that information clearly documented and I am certainly not discounting it.  I will, however, not get lost in it and follow it into another drama...

Don't have to go there.

So the ego  wants to pull us in to habitual thinking again and again.  It tells us what we have to think about is important....but the thing is we do not always have to follow it.  We do not need to struggle against the thinking...or actively work to shut it down.  We just need to strengthen our "muscle of attention choice" with a practice.

The Practice

We choose presence and we practice by slipping into stillness and alertness more often ...that's all. We practice mindfulness or mind-less-ness ( less mind). Spend time becoming aware of where your attention is.  What are you paying attention to right now?  Thoughts about the past or future, busy life going on around you?  Okay gently  bring yourself back to body sensation, your surroundings, your breath and the space between thoughts.

Prepare yourself. You may go off again... just like I did.  I was so present during the appointments on Monday but slipped away shortly afterward.  Now I am in the process of bringing myself back.

We practice by attempting to  recognize when we are going off like I did above and we gently bring ourselves back. The thing is not to resist the thinking or  to actively strive to bring yourself back to stillness. Do so gently and passively.  No force and no resistance.

Ego Might Have Needed to Have a Little  Say

I know this is going to contradict many things I have said before, but sometimes our attention might have to be on what ego has to say. I was actually having a harder time being mindful/mind-less when I was resisting my thoughts about Monday's experience and trying not to pay attention to what ego had to say. My resistance was causing me so much agitation I have not been able to come here to write.  Once I just stopped and allowed ego without resisting it to say what it has to say...I felt better.

We definitely do  not want to get lost in our thinking because regardless of what Rene Descartes proposed, it is not who we are. But we can, from a detached distance, let ego  rip on a thought rampage  from time to time. Don't spend a lot of time resisting it. Just allow it and observe it.

The New State of Consciousness

I think of this statement I heard from Eckhart Tolle today, "The new state of consciousness is a mixture of thoughts and spaciousness." 

So though we want to be alert and still in our conscious spaciousness...sometimes thinking is an inescapable part of our human reality.  We can gain awareness and clarity if we observe that thinking from a place of spaciousness.  I now know what ego thinks of my experience ...it is all out in the open...but whether or not I go there to get lost in its version of reality,  ..is my choice.  I will not react to  what ego has deemed as unacceptable professional  behaviour in an other  but I might respond in a healthy way that serves all. 

I guess..."I will have to think about that..." :)

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle (August, 2019)Freedom from Thought and Excessive Thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPey7m4jNto

Eckhart Tolle ( July 24, 2019 [my birthday lol]) The Dream of Life and Success. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFnr6vrMZJE

Observing the Mind

The energy of the mind is the essence of life
-Aristotle

Observing the Human Mind

I get so amazed when I observe the human mind...mine in particular.  I really cannot look clearly outside myself until I look clearly within.  Or what is that bible passage?  Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3-5; NIV).  So in my never ceasing interest in studying other human minds, I am willingly examining a big nasty piece of wood  when I venture into my own head.

The "Waiting" Mind

On Monday, D. and I discussed the "waiting" experience.  My 20-30 minutes of testing (total) involved a four and a half hour wait.  That was a challenging four and a half hours, let me tell ya. It was challenging because number one...we were waiting on some pretty heavy news and number two...we both wondered if I was intentionally scheduled  last  by an irate professional who wanted to "teach me a lesson. " , getting my ego all rawled up.  (Probably paranoia but ...  I had that in the back of my mind.) 

We noticed and then discussed with interest  how we were handling the situation...reading a bit, going to our phones, looking around, talking, confirming the time, lapsing into silence, going back to reading, phones, talking...silence.  It was as if the  mind could not settle on one thing...in the present moment because it was waiting on  (dreading) the moment ahead.

I unknowingly kept slipping into  images of that future moment...imagining in detail what it would or could be like.  How will it be to face this person?  How will he react to me this time?   What will they find?  How will I be treated?  How will I react or respond to what they find? I spent over 240 moments fixated on one single moment before I even got to it!

As I sat there in the waiting room, shaking my leg and playing with my fingers....I would catch myself going off.  I would then gently try to bring myself back to breath focus and body sensation focus.  I tried to become acutely aware of my surroundings.  Read every sign and even took down a few numbers in case I needed them. (Anyone looking for the number of the Purell customer service?)

I spent fifteen minutes observing and running my fingers over the material of the Johnny shirt I was in. I was in complete awe that I never  realized how nice that material was before then.  It was like I was truly seeing it for the first time.  I was so impressed by it that I told Don I was going to make a pair of pajamas out of it somehow to keep me cool during my hot flashes. If I had a needle, thread and a pair of scissors I probably could have made a pair for everyone in the waiting room before my numbers were called.

The time did pass...my number was eventually called three different times for three different tests.

The " Alert " and "Prepared" Mind

I also recall how my mind behaved during the testing and the discussions that followed after wards. Not at all like I imagined I would react.  I did not get angry and confront like I so intended to do.  I was passive, open, kind.

Neither the communications instructor in me, or the author of the book I am writing about putting care back in health care took  over to begin lecturing on the proper use of empathy and  therapeutic technique like I thought they would. In fact, I didn't even realize how many teaching opportunities for correction  there were until yesterday.

I was so , so in the moment completely in tune ... waiting in alert stillness for only  two things: signs of an active ego on his part...my sick of being shamed ego was hyper vigilant and prepared to fly into him.   And to hear whether or not this was cancer? Hmmm...that was all my mind could handle...everything else got put on the back burner.

The Processing Mind

That doesn't mean I was as brain dead as I might have seemed to those I dealt with. My mind  picked up absolutely everything  in snippets and now those snippets are falling all around me so I can process and make sense of what happened Monday. My being so there in alertness gave me so much clarity I didn't know I had.  Picking up everything in vivid detail.  Slowly it is allowing the pieces of information to drop in some gentle pattern around me so I can reflect clearly on the whole experience and make sense of it.

That is what awareness does.  It is just amazing how the mind works!

Another big long spiel and I am not sure why.

All good!!!

A Little too Personal?

It is impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments  of personal information.
William Gibson

Sometimes we just dump it all out on the table. :)

I just realized how much personal information I have been sharing here over the course of a few months. Too much?  Considering the fact I told no one about this scare other than D., my sister and a counsellor it probably was too much lol.  I honestly felt compelled to share it here...it seemed safe. I am quite sure family and friends no longer tap into this blog...so I did not sense I would be exposing a truth to them I was not ready to reveal in person. 

Regardless, it is a part of my experience right now and I do see such wonderful valuable learning in it.  It would be selfish then for me not to share it, wouldn't you say?

All is well.

Priceless Diamond

Good news is rare these days, and every glittering ounce of it should be cherished and hoarded and worshipped and fondled like a priceless diamond.
Hunter S. Thompson


Good News

Whew! Some Good news.... No "real evidence"of  cancer showed up on my tests....and I didn't attack anyone with an angry ego. 

I should be delighted and flying to the moon...and I am very relieved...but I think I am still processing.  I know if I still didn't have the pain ( which was made worse by all the squishing yesterday) , and the validation for it...(mammogram reveals some definite retraction that was not there before  and  another "solid" lump was found  in the area where the pain is heading)...I would probably have hugged everyone in that room yesterday and run dancing home. I certainly felt relief with so much gratitude ...so much so I forgot my confrontation intention  and was passive and empathetic, appreciating the attempts that were made at communicating in a therapeutic way rather than confrontational.  I just   grasped and clung to every bit of " not revealing obvious evidence of cancer" that was given me by  a totally different bedside approach than the one I received in November...

But....

Relieved but not 100 % at Peace

I noticed even as I was giving D. the thumbs up sign, when I was leaving the room, that I wasn't completely at peace with what I was given.  Just like I was not at complete peace after that  first ultrasound as much as I was willing to let it go there. (Then... it was my physician, not me,  that was not willing to stop there.)  This time, I think it is me.  Something won't let me let it go.  I need to explore that. 

As I reflect back,( my mind is remarkable about picking up and recalling vivid detail from the tone and inflection in a voice, whether or not there was eye contact,  what was said ...what was shown to me...people's expressions and body language etc),  there  were several reasons for my lack of reassurance.  I won't share them here and I will own my feelings completely.  Closure will not occur, I suppose, until I see the surgeon who I am told I will be referred directly to.


Regardless of what the tests showed, the mass I am feeling is still there. I still have pain and I still don't know what is causing it. On top of that I have another lump that is "definitely  not a cyst" showing up in the area where the pain appears to be moving to.  I was told it was "likely just a fibroadenoma". This shows up where I am having pain and two months after this other mass was first found. That can't be coincidence. There is approximately 70 % density leading to an obscure view. (It surprises me that at 56,  I  still have such dense tissue?)  The area I have been feeling is below that dense tissue. The retraction is obvious right above what I am feeling...so there is definitely something there...causing the retraction and the pain as well as the palpable mass.  The question is: What the heck is it? Is it all just due to normal aging tissue change or is there just too much dense tissue for even the tests I had performed to pick  up something?  Wouldn't hyperplasia or ductal ectasia...at least show up?

 All I get when I ask..."So what am I feeling?  What is causing the retraction and the pain?" Is, "I don't know.  These tests do not reveal any "obvious evidence of cancer". Could be normal tissue." Is normal tissue so palpable and symptom producing? 

The scientific part of my brain that needs clearer validation...won't settle with "could be normal" and "I don't know." .  Hopefully the surgeon will clear that up for me. I think I will pop in to see my GP this week too.  Something just doesn't seem right. 

No fretting, no drama, no worry...just a bit of inspired action. That inspired action definitely will not involve seeking to get more tests done there. I definitely do not intend to go anywhere near that radiology department for a very long time if at all! After the denials,  long waits,  and "teaching" I received about the improper use of MRI's and mammograms , I don't think getting another test done there would even be permitted no matter what the likelihood of having cancer is.

Anyway...I do feel a great deal of relief and appreciation...in comparison to what I felt a few weeks ago.  I also feel appreciation for the machinery and the funding that allowed for it, as well as the hard working technologists who didn't even get a break that day. That is a very busy and hard working team that deals with women like me on a daily basis.  My thanks to them.

All is well in my world.

Learning from a Virus

Tis healthy to be sick sometimes
Henry David Thoreau

The Bug

Well an influenza bug has entered my body and my body is reacting and resisting big time! It is pumping the thermostat up to make my body a hot, inhospitable and unwelcoming place for the bug to settle in.  It is sending WBC's  and inflammatory markers to every joint of my body thus creating an experience of pain...even my skin hurts. It is marching  out the royal army to fight and defend its trillions of cells from invasion.  It is producing extra mucous and triggering a cough mechanism so I expel the intruders from my respiratory tract. It is making me so tired that I do nothing but rest. The body is resisting the invasion of a very virulent little virus with an incubation period, it seems, of less than four days.  

The Body's Resistance

It is the resistance to the bug and not the bug that is giving me what we see as illness.  This resistance is a natural mechanism...a life saving gesture...yet we often resist and react to this resistance instead of letting the body do what it is designed to do.  We pop Advil or Tylenol for the fever and joint pain.  We take medication that will reduce the mucous and the cough. We may push ourselves physically despite the fatigue and the body's cry for rest.  We resist the body's resistance and therefore the illness and therefore the very moment we feel ill in.  We are resisting the form the moment provides instead of accepting and allowing ...observing, learning and growing from thee experience.

What?  You expect me to learn and grow from this nasty bug?

Yeah...I think we could learn a lot from our experience with viral infection and we could actually grow from it.  It is like a practice lesson in surrendering and allowing.

Guess what...if you are like me right now...you got the bug and your body is fighting it...it is what it is.  No matter how you resist, complain or struggle against it...the virus has landed and is having a party in the RNA of some of your cells....spitting out baby viruses faster than a rabbit in heat. Your body is triggered to get that virus out....thus your nasty symptoms.

 You have three choices. You can remove yourself from every symptom and delay the body's defenses.   You could resist it by complaining about it, adding drama to an already busy moment....denying that you are sick or looking at it as another "Why me?" thing to add to a victim's story .   Or you could simply accept it and say "C'est la vie". I prefer the last option.


C'est la vie!


Viruses are random and not put on this planet to make each of our lives miserable.  They do not have a personal vendetta against us...they just are moving forward in the biological evolution of things...they just are. And our bodies have, when we become infected,  somehow walked right into their path. The virus sees a nice juicy apartment to raise a family in and it is just doing as viruses do.  Our body, in turn,  sees each virus as an intruder that snuck past our defense system so it becomes angry and aggressive in its impulse to get this extremely large and quickly growing  family to leave!

It is actually quite cool when you look at it from a distance.  Maybe I have spent too much time studying and teaching anatomy...but the whole process of viral infection  fascinates me.  The bodies response ( resistance) to such invasion fascinates me more.

I elect to allow the body to handle this on its own as much as possible.  I won't take a fever reducing drug until my fever is over 38.5 which it was last night.  I don't like to take cough suppressants either so the body can eliminate the intruders on its own.  I don't make an enemy out of the virus with my mind even if my body is doing so.  I try to see it for what it is...something that is evolving, mutating/ changing and surviving to make it in this world.  It doesn't make me sick...my body's response to it does.  So we really can't blame the virus.

Accepting Illness

Accepting illness as it occurs is a doorway into accepting the suchness of our living experience.  We accept the form the moment is taking when we accept that we are ill.  That doesn't mean we have to avoid doing anything that will make us feel better...oh no...it just means we can put down our mental struggle against the infection and allow it to pass as all things pass in due time.

In the meantime, be good to yourself: rest, drink your fluids and take part in any comfort measure you deem necessary to help you get through this.  Do your best not to pass it along ...some people out there have weakened immune systems and may not be able to survive a simple virus.  Wash your hands, avoid crowds and cough into your elbow.  Most importantly, allow your body to do the resisting, not your mind.

Hmm!  That makes sense?

All is well.

Making a Friend of the Moment

Become friendly with the present moment regardless of what form it takes.
-Eckhart Tolle


Big Request!

Wow! That is a big request isn't it?  How many of us can make friends with the moment that takes someone or something we love away?  With the moment we are consumed by overwhelming pain from a ruptured appendix? With the  moment we are told we have three months to live?

Heck most of us have a hard time being remotely tolerant with the moment we are told that we have to a wait an extra few minutes in line  to get service for a technical issue we are having with our phones. And now we are being encouraged to be friendly with every single moment regardless of what form it takes??? Get real, right?

Most of us react to the moments that are less than what we assume is needed to make us happy by calling out to the heavens, "No, this isn't fair! Why me?  Why are you always doing this to me?" When things seemingly "go wrong" we are more likely to resist the moment and make enemies with it, are we not?  We see the "hard times" as punishments and things thrown at us to hurt us...don't we? We feel the need to defend and attack. We do not tend to allow or accept most moments, let alone make friends with them.

Making An Enemy of The  Moment.....

Yet...what happens in our life experience when we resist these moments...judge them, label them as problematic, and feel we have to fight or struggle our way through them?  What happens to our experience of the moment...the only life we can live...when we react this way to the form that moment is taking?  Our lives are greatly diminished with each moment we deny, struggle against or resist. We quickly become deflated, exhausted and depressed. And the moment doesn't change does it?  No matter how much we resist it...it is still going to be as it is.  We are exhausting ourselves for nothing.

Or Making a Friend Of It.

What would happen if we do as Tolle and many Buddhist teachers suggest...make friends with what is regardless of what it is? What would happen if we put away our resistance to "suchness" or "isness" and embraced each moment like a best friend regardless of how it looked when it showed up? If we accepted the moment unconditionally, allowing it to be what ever it was...would we not find more peace, joy and rest in our experience?  We would be healthier, wouldn't we, if we didn't waste all our physical and mental energy trying to fruitlessly change what is when it is already what it is?

The moment is going to be what the moment is going to be.  And we have two choices we can make.  We can fight it, resist it, deny it, refuse it while it remains what it is.  Or we can accept it, allow it, embrace it and even appreciate it despite the fact that it is what it is.

The second option, I am discovering, is the healthiest one. And it is something we can all do.  If I can embrace the moment in my pre-evolved state...anyone can ...With a willingness to practice...it is certainly possible to find peace regardless of the circumstances the moment presents.

A Personal Example

Six weeks ago I was more or less told I could have a life threatening condition.   Some  particular tests   would have to be performed to rule out that possibility but there was a likelihood that it was cancer.  I did not believe it was at the time so I took the news with a grain of salt.  I did not resist it.  I did not deny it.  I accepted the possibility.  I can't say I made peace with the possibility of it because I couldn't...the reality of what I had to deal with  was projected into the future after these tests. So I made  peace with the fact that I  wouldn't know what I was dealing with until after these tests were performed. 

I would be lying if I said I was not at all worried because I was...but with practice, I have been able to keep bringing myself back to the present moment where there was no firm diagnosis either way. The form my moment was taking then  was one of "a not knowing" ...a being in the middle  between two external opinions...one that strongly believed it could be and another that said it likely wasn't.

In the past, living in a moment of "not knowing" would have been more traumatic for me than a knowing it was would have been.  Part of me did resist the "not knowing" form my moments took.  I actively sought to find out why there was  a delay on these urgent requests for a diagnostic mammogram ( a biopsy would not be performed without) ...why the "urgent" requests from two different professionals were denied, not once,  but three times.  Sensing an ego interference  while I was beginning to notice other alarming signs, I became angry and resistant to the form my moments were taking. I found myself crying out, "This is crazy!  Why is this always happening to me?  After everything I have been through!"  Oh I was on my way to making a big drama of struggle out of this story.

When I realized that making an enemy out of the moment and the  people "I assumed" were delaying my knowing (and it is all assumption) was going to get me nowhere but down over the holidays I decided to be friendly with it.  I accepted that I would have to wait for the tests and therefore delay my knowing. I accepted the form my moment was taking, I allowed it, I embraced it and I began to find reasons to appreciate it. Oh I slipped from time to time back into the drama and a projection into the future...but I would quickly realize I was doing so and I would gently bring myself back.   As a result I have found a certain amount of peace and even joy in most of my moments despite this crazy form they are taking.

I don't know what Monday holds for me.  It doesn't matter.  That is a moment up ahead in the future ...not the moment I am living right now.  And this moment...here and now...is all there is. I can truly  look at it and call it my friend.

How cool is that?

All is well in my world. . . .

Readers?

In order to be heard, an author must have readers...
-Rachel Heffington

The second day of 2020 and the world is a beautiful snowy landscape outside my window. It is lovely (even lovelier because some one else did the shovelling and digging out :)

I am sitting here wondering what to write about.  I was drawn to some old entries from March 2017 after checking what pages readers were tapping into.  I do that when I come here...check my stats and reread what was read to make sure it reads well and that there is not too many grammatical errors .  Oh I still have a writer's ego lol.

Checking The Stats for Readers

Truth is these entries shown as read on the stats page may have been opened and not read... hitch hiking sites or whatever they are that I am technically too slow to understand...often appear as my readers.  I also think I get people who accidentally pop in and pop out just as fast.  Today my stats show a "url-opener " as a reader.  Now that sounds scary!  Can this opener open up into my private   business?  Going to have to look into that.  

I guess I still cannot get my head around the fact that someone out there might actually come here to read what I have written because they want to, because they are getting something from it.  Even when I get wonderful and positive feedback that I am making a difference in some one's life by being here...I still don't believe it.  I assume that the readership my stats record, be it 3 a day or over 100, is either accidental, incidental or with an ulterior motive. Shamer ego still lingers around in the background of my psyche.

Does It Matter?

That keeps bringing me back to the question: Does it matter? Would knowing that no one out there liked what I had to say enough to read it stop me from doing what I do?  The answer is a resounding "No!"   I am pulled here everyday, just the same and it doesn't matter if my ego gets fed or if it gets flattened like a pancake for being here...I will continue to write here almost every morning.  This compulsion is truly bigger than little "me". I don't understand it but it is. Sigh!

Is Feedback Necessary?

I could use some feedback though. I think? Actually I don't know if it is ego or me that wants the feedback. Whatever part of me it is that seeks feedback and that checks my stats, wants to know if I am actually reaching anyone out there...if the people I see on my stats page are legit. I mean,  I know some are because I have heard back from a few wonderful people  in the past.

That part of me wants some form of external validation.  Hmmm! I am certainly not requiring to be recognized or famous...ego might want that but I don't need it!  In fact...it might get in the way if it was the case. I just need to know that this mission I am on (one I don't even fully understand yet)  ...to learn-teach-learn ...has found the right medium for now. Maybe I have to take it elsewhere?

I am also so curious about how my message is being received. Does it make sense to others? How many other people actually get what I am writing about...are actually where I am at in this new understanding of things?  There has to be so many like minded individuals out there, doesn't there?  Wow!  What could they teach me?

Don't worry about the details!

Another part of me...the bigger part of me...tells me to just trust Life and this pull I  feel to come here; to just respond with a resounding "Yes!" when it asks me to listen to it  every morning...to heed the call, plop my butt down here in front of this computer key board that is so wore out half the letters are gone...and write! That part of me tells me I do not have to concern myself with the details.  I just have to write and  it will take care of the rest. Hmmm!

This is indeed a very strange thing that is happening to me. Yet...it feels so very, very right. I cannot help but to come here...readers or not.


Anyway...such petty stuff to begin the New Year with.  :)

All is well.