Reaching Across the Gap

There are gaps between everything.

Who we think we are and how we manifest to others.
What we want to get done and what we actually get done.
What we write and how it sounds to ourselves, reading aloud later, and how it sounds to others.

These gaps are natural, normal. But where we have gaps, we often believe we are lacking.

I am about to teach my first week-long writing retreat.
How am I preparing?
Not by reading, not by writing talks. By walking, by shaking, by dancing and stretching.

Let Some Shit Lie.

Day 8 of ‪#‎Quest2015‬ - The prompt of the day from Eric Klein:

How will you face your shadow bag and stop the stink, so you can bring forth what is best within you in 2015? What can you claim right now?

What I can claim is that I do this work all the time, constantly. In fact, dragging around the bag tired me out years ago. What wears at me now is actually the work of scooping it up. I am ready to let some shit lie there and let it stink.

I find I am tired now because I have dug a bit deeper recently than usual, and pulled up some plugs that I knew were keeping my drains from flowing freely. Now that the fluids are rolling out again, I need to lay back and let myself go out with the waters.

My only shadow is what I keep from myself, whether out of survival/protection or in some kind of saving face/flying under detection manoeuvre. For awhile now I have had recurring neck issues, and worked through them with Hakomi therapy and also chiropractor work. These have both been useful, but as some recent deep re-configuring of grief over my mother's death has arisen, I had suspected that my neck and my sadness were deeply entangled.

At a meditation instructor training I found incredible palpable energetic evidence that they are. In situations, repeatedly as we practiced and trained, I tracked as my body tensed and mind became righteous, worried because "the person in charge" (not me) was "not doing their job" and so "someone had to do something" and "the only person who could/would do it was me." In these tiny interactions, the teachers detected my aggressions before I did, mirroring back a struggle I didn't realize I was having. My peers, the other students, mirrored back gratitude that I interrupted unhealthy situations. But my body felt exhausted, like it had been climbing uphill all day.

I had to ask myself, once I saw how clearly I was triggered, then reacting to my sense of lost power with incredibly controlling behavior, what was really going on? The answer was clear as day: I was taken back to a place, the place I visited so frequently when my father died (I was 12) and my mother didn't know how to stay alive - the place, the era, the state of mind of unpredictability, drinking, incredibly hostility at home. It only lasted a few years - and in fact, got better in the last few years of her life - but I was so traumatized that for a long time all I would feel was shock, tension and control whenever a situation seemed at all unstable for me.

Cue now.

So this is the current shadow. They get subtler over time - when I told one person what I was wrestling with, after our group meeting, she screwed up her face and looked at me oddly. What? I hadn't been controlling, she said. But my body told me otherwise. I use "controlling" not to be judgmental but to get to the core of what that energy-draining background program has been trying to do, unconsciously, for over half my life now.

I am ready to pull the plug on this shadow beast, but of course that's not how it works.

Instead I am using this darkest time of the year to rest, and to merge a bit, with long moments of deep breaths, with this inner core pain.

Hello in there, dear shadow.
Let's air you out and maybe you won't stink so much.
Let's go for a walk together, get you out and about.
Let's get you more familiar with life so it doesn't freak you out so much.
We are about to do some flying and I need you to be willing to let some shit lie so we can take off together into the huge sky of 2015.

Last Minute Emotions

Yesterday, I had an intense Hakomi therapy session. By the time I reached the evening, and I was getting ready to go out to socialize, I was frozen. I felt "ok" most of the day, and didn't see this freezing up coming. It was clear I had some processing to do, and couldn't go out. But why then? Why at the last minute?

Indoor Storms

Where have I been?
That's a good question.

I use this time of slowing down end of semester and year to consider how the past 365 days have gone. Where have I visited and taught, what has worked and what hasn't? These questions are crucial and it's not that I don't consider them throughout the year, of course. It's just that New Year's approaching brings revival to mind, and review.

The last month or so has been consistent with the rest of this fall - a blur of Hakomi therapy and resultant heavy emotional processing, weddings and other significant high-caliber celebrations, way too much travel for my own good without enough weekends off, buying the Shambhala Center here in Madison, and endless richness in my weekly writing classes. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to enact something I had been considering doing for awhile - actually using the last class of the week, Wednesday night, to write a "summary" of the week's replies from students and myself. Only, of course, it comes out in writing practice form, so it isn't a list, more a channelled essay. Because the first week I did it was a very rich and somewhat heavy topic (Sacred Space) the end piece blew us all away. This last week's (looking at images of landscapes and writing from there) didn't take as much out of me, but still helped to "process" all the 35 or so stories I hear each week. Anonymously, of course.

I hope to bring these pieces to this blog. I would like to let the students have that as a resource - a combined "hive mind" of wisdom that I don't want stopping at just me. Also, all of these pieces - mine and students' - I am ongoing collecting for an eventual book. Eventual meaning "I have enough on my plate right now but that doesn't stop me from planning it."

Today Dylan and I will finish hanging our new indoor storm windows, a somewhat dated way of keeping out wind that appealed to us when his grandfather in Maine demonstrated his to us a few months ago. I like this idea of the protection from leaking coming from the inside - and as my friend Morgan joked on Facebook when I first posted that we were considering them - "indoor storms are somewhat rare." It never hurts to have a little extra insulation for when things go a bit amok inside and not just out there, where tonight we are expecting our first big blizzard of the season.

The image the indoor storm windows give me is of a classic Tibetan Buddhist analogy: If you want to be able to walk the path, don't try to cover the whole path in carpet to keep your barefeet from getting poked and prodded. Instead, cover your own feet in shoes. Take responsibility for what hurts and work with it internally. This doesn't mean no social justice, but it does mean not making everything about us. Indoor storm protection seems like a good first step for me this way. After all, we can't stop the blizzard from coming, but we can keep the homefires burning.

Belief Layer Cake

Underneath the frosting, find some sugar
in cake form, spongy and airy, a welcome
relief from the dark and heavy covering.

Rest there for awhile and believe
you have become free, until you see there is
yet another layer beneath,
a muddy area you sink into,
get your feet caught in,
where last year's beliefs
are still alive and well.

This is belief hell - the delicious layer cake
of acting one way and believing something else
the double, triple, quadruple self-deception
that carries us through daily interactions
and off to bed where the lower layers
show their underwear and reveal their rotting roots
in your dreams.

(spontaneous poem I just wrote about beliefs)

I've been thinking a LOT lately about beliefs. Not just thinking, but feeling them out, sussing them out in my body as well as my head. A few times, through Hakomi work and in conversation with folks, I have reached a point of realizing that I believe one thing but act as if another is real. This is no surprise, of course, anyone who pays attention will catch this in just about every interaction. But after a few years of practice I thought, for instance, that I didn't blame myself for my own pain, for instance, anymore. Only I do. Some part of me still believes when I am ill or in pain that I caused it, even though the rational parts of me have been trained through meditation and dharma to dismiss such gobbledygook. So much for rational thought.

Because rational thought does not run the body. This much has become very apparent to me in the last few months. Between A General Theory of Love and Perceiving Ordinary Magic, plus Hakomi work, plus, well, my "ordinary" awesome job(s) in which I get to pose questions about things like this and listen to up to 8 people write about it from their hearts, it has become really clear to me that this ship is run by my un/subconscious. Almost entirely. My conscious, controlled world is a farce, nearly non-existent. I feel both liberated and terrified by this (which commonly come together, in my experience): thus the cake metaphor.

In particular, this contrasting belief that I am basically good, made of basic goodness, inherently fresh and awake (as are all of you, beloved readers) VERSUS the inner belief that any kind of struggle, pain or suffering indicates there is something wrong with me is pretty harsh to see. Of course it's been pretty harsh to experience, and I'd rather see it than have it controlling me without my seeing it (as my own internal misogyny did for so long). Still, wow. Really? I believe that kind of shit about myself? Where did I get that from? Its etiology really isn't significant to me anymore, not as much as working it out of my system. Now comes the hard work of practice, which I quoted Hayward on earlier on this week on Facebook:

Fundamentally, the path of training and discovery is extremely simple, direct and uncomplicated. But that is not to say that it is effortless. The reason that the journey requires effort is that our imaginary-conceptual beliefs form layer after layer, like onionskins. As we peel off layer after layer, we come closer and closer to our most cherished beliefs, beliefs that we may not even realize we have and act by. -Jeremy Hayward, Discovering Ordinary Magic

So maybe it's an onion layer cake.

Listening In

I began writing classes again this week, and in one of the classes, a student asked me for "tips on how to listen like you do." Huh. No one had asked me that before. She mentioned that while they frequently note (and they do, as a class) how closely I listen, no one had ever asked me how I listen, or how I know how to listen.

Then, she said, to my amusement: "I mean, any tips besides saying that we should just practice a lot. I mean, I know you get to do this a few times a week and have been doing it for years. What else can you tell us?" Which made all of us laugh, of course.

I promised her I would think on it.
And then I decided I would post on it, after I took some notes on a flight at 6am.
So here goes...

On Listening

LISTENING
The most important aspect of listening is raw perception. Letting whatever is being communicated to you flow into your ears without obstruction is the key to a practice of deep listening. Any kind of preparation or practice that encourages and sharpens your senses will help with deep listening, as well. Practice when out on walks, practice when at a movie, practice anywhere, even in your bed, waking up in the morning, noticing and focusing your senses. Mingyur Rinpoche offers multiple options for "sense" meditation in his book Joy of Living - but even informally, concentrating on your senses - WITHOUT INTERPRETATION - is key.

Why not interpret? Interpreting engages a part of the brain that will block the strength of your raw senses. Just as in other parts of writing practice, we "bracket" or temporarily dis-engage the critic, we also want to bracket the linear mind. Concepts do not mix well with perceptions - an aspect we practice in Miksang photography. If you are thinking, you have left the perception and moved into the mind. The best interpretation, analysis or reflection comes from raw, open perceptions, including listening. Too many people feel they have to come up with a plan for what to say, how to offer insight to others when they respond (in my classes and in all of life). Let go of that: listen from the heart, I say, then you can speak back from that same place. Trust is key to this - that you don't have to know what you are going to say before you say it, just like you don't have to know what you are going to write before you write it. This is harder for some than others - but we all need to practice it, regardless.

What does raw perception feel like? How do you know you are doing it? One of my personal indicators - and yours could vary - is that I can relax enough to not listen to every single word as sharply. There's a sense of overallness, of space, and out of that space certain words or phrases seem to "stick up" (almost like hills on a landscape) and out to me. Those are the ones I write down. The more relaxed one is while listening, the better she can pick up on things like this. It is like the Magic Eye 3-D images that were so popular about a decade ago - you can't find the image hidden in the clutter if you are "trying too hard." Of course, telling someone to not "try too hard" is like telling someone to relax - almost impossible. But I can guarantee that trying to catch "significant" things in someone's speech will backfire. Any way in which you can relax into listening, open up to the whole picture, and let certain things rise to the surface will help you. This is also what we could call taking in the "bigger picture" - literally and figuratively.

When I do write down words, I am trying to not attach to them. Sometimes when we listen we want to linger with a particular phrase or get caught or stuck on something said oddly or that triggers us. It is best to learn to make contact with what you are hearing directly, but then, let go. So even as I write it down, I am working to let it go.

Listen for: words that repeat, alliteration (repeated or similar consonant sounds) assonance (repeated or similar vowel sounds), repeated themes. Also significant can be changes in tone of voice, where someone stumbles, where they pause, and where they speed up or slow down in speech. Finally, I always note the first sentence they write and what they say about a piece (in class) before they read it, if anything. Again, as I say this, it's also best to understand that I don't mean "Listen hard for these," rather, these are the kinds of things that will pop up in the landscape and often point to a deeper emotional resistance or engagement going on.

What we are noticing, especially in writing practice but also in conversation, isn't the content, really. What we are noticing are patterns of mind, the way mind is organized, what it is focused on, how it comes back and when, when it gets distracted. So even as we note the content, the patterns - of speech, of thought - are often the most powerful parts to note.

So, also, it is good to pay attention to our listening - how are we responding? Do you feel yourself tense up, tighten down, open out when listening to this person? Notice your own physical responses - your desire to close your eyes, open them, look at the person, look away. Gently notice their body - are they open or closed? Notice the beauty and strength in every being - even in a business conversation or negotiation, filled with certain "rules" for how to engage, under someone's personality, under their affects (or even including them, sometimes) you can sense where and how they are vulnerable, and have compassion for them. Let your heart connect with their heart.

WHEN GIVING FEEDBACK
This part is more for the classes, but could be true in life. First and foremost, stick as much as you can to "I Statements" - the main tool of psychotherapy and Non-Violent Communication. Make sure you aren't hiding judgment or projection behind your I Statements (lest they become passive aggressive). A real I Statement is something like this:
"I felt a sadness when I heard the part about your dog dying." A coy I Statement is something like this "I think you must have been so sad when your dog died." I Statements also work best when they lean on those raw perceptions I talked about above. So in this case, something akin to "I heard how you slowed down when you talked about your dog dying" is very powerful, and in a lot of ways, far more powerful than even your own feeling or projection into someone else's feelings.

I have recently been "reintroduced" to the power of this through my new therapist, who practices Hakomi. The work of raw witnessing, of reflecting back more pure perceptions, is stunningly profound and simple. Most people work "too hard" on listening, and on trying to offer insight to others when they say something back. Giving someone a conclusion, an answer, an insight, is problematic for at least a couple of reasons. 1, it's your solution, not theirs. 2, if we go back to the old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish, we can see that giving someone raw reflection can allow space for them to put the pieces together, and the pieces will fit better than if you do the assembly yourself. This also requires trust on the speaker's behalf - trust that "just listening" is enough. I myself in personal relationships work with this a lot, and having good friends and a wonderful partner who know when to "offer advice" and when to "just listen," as well as a new therapist who never offers advice and always "just listens" have all deepened my experiential understanding of how spacious and compassionate these kinds of simple feedback and confirmation are.

If you are in a group situation, as my students are, you can also trust that you are listening as a group. Let your raw perceptions speak, and others may hear things and make links you yourself would not make. It can become easy to come up with "some insight" and then attach to it, have it seem crucial, want to share it, feel that the person must hear it. We can be less attached and more present with raw perceptions, and the chance for our growth, as well as the growth of the recipient(s), is far stronger.

Hakomi Therapy

Ever since my Facebook post about having an awesome Hakomi therapy experience, the crowds have been in questions - what on earth is this Hakomi thing and what exactly did I mean by an "awesome" experience? So here it comes...

Hakomi was first introduced to me by a friend who's been seeing a Hakomi-trained psychotherapist for a few months now. Every time she talked about her appointments and her therapist, I was very impressed. For someone who has been in therapy on and off for 14 years, it takes a lot to impress me now, and in fact, I haven't been in "talk" therapy for a couple of years now. I got on some meds, do a lot of meditation and writing, and for the most part, can process things out with friends or Dylan. But lately some things have gotten kicked up with my memoir writing that I felt I needed a therapist to help me deal with. So even though I got other recommendations from friends, I asked Becky to tell me what kind of practice her therapist did.

Hakomi, she told me. She had to spell it - I'd never heard it. Reiki, shamanism, acupuncture, EMDR, I've gone a lot of ways to network the mind and body, but not that. Her therapist focuses on talk therapy with a Hakomi edge - but I only found two (one of whom turned out to not be a Hakomi person after all) in Madison at all, and the one legit Hakomi person is really more, it appeared to me from her website, a massage therapist. Hmm. I like massage, but I do need *some* talking.

I emailed her with some questions about how the talk and massage worked together, and she replied. I still didn't quite get it, but something told me to keep persuing, so we talked on the phone and set an appointment. Still, I wasn't sure I could picture it - how would this work, massage and talk therapy together? I had faith, I guess you could say, or intuition that this is in fact exactly what I needed. After years of chronic issues with IBS and certain old back injuries, which have received chiropractic, acupunture and herbal help, as well as Ibuprofen, yoga, and PT, I was starting to notice that the emotional patterns didn't seem so separate from the physical ones. What if I could work on them together?

Upon meeting the therapist, I got a strong sense of being in the right place. Our minds mixed easily, but with good boundaries, and within the 1/2 hour introducing ourselves to each other, my mind offered up things I wouldn't "think" to say, and I let them come out. She told me there were many options, and always would be - I could treat it more like straightforward massage first, with bodily sensations guiding me as to what I needed, and/or what I needed to talk about, or we could start first with talking, or whatever. I chose massage - bad neck spasm that day - and was blow away by how integral, after all, the pain and issues are.

There's something about the nature of experiences that are profound that does, in fact, make them hard to describe. That's a bit how I feel right now about talking about it. I felt very vulnerable, physically revealed on the table, and my mind resisted it. She caught the resistance in the things I said, even in how my eyes looked, and kept asking me to be mindful and return to the hurt, no matter how it manifested. At every turn, every twitch, she gently witnessed for me, with me, my sensations and thoughts - thoughts as sensations. Nothing was rejected, nothing lost, all used for awareness. We certainly didn't "solve" anything, but "solving" anything I think is what has caused more problems for me in the past, in talk therapy and in body work.

I booked a second appointment, and would be happy to talk more specifically with anyone who thinks this kind of "therapy" might be right up their alley for now. I warned her that she may have referrals pouring in, that all my students may want to come to her, and she smiled. She's independently employed, too, and knows that is how business grows, even if from all the way across the country, from another Hakomi practicioner, who's never even met her.

I've had that, too, a woman join a class of mine saying that she'd just left Portland and her "writing practice instructor" told her to look for her "local writing practice teacher" when she settled in. The fact that there's only one of this therapist here in town makes me as grateful as that student was when she found me - sometimes there are none, sometimes more than one, and when you find the one right for you, regardless, gratitude ensues.