Rage Running

Last night was a tough one. I was at the tail end of my period - the day when, after nothing happens for 24 hours, suddenly I am bleeding harder than any other previous day. The aches are deep, twisting my uterus in a spiral that grabs at all local muscles - intestines especially.

It’s been a week of bumping up against men, patriarchy, sexism, misogyny. In all kinds of ways, some subtle, but mostly explicit. I keep finding it in my interactions with men, and embodied deeply in the women I know and interact with. I have the great fortune to listen to 28+ stories a week - 28+ people sharing whatever is in and on their minds at any given moment. In addition to classes, it just so happens this last week, I heard and read a lot of difficulty, abuse, rape; or obliviousness about those incidents. It’s fatiguing, exhausting, actually, and I’ve needed a lot of naps to restore my sanity and energy; that it should all parallel my period seems perfect in some ways.

Last night it all hit a peak. A few messages cumulated into one hour, and I hit the wall. I went to TRE, I went to writing, to meditation, to walking in between thunderstorms and seeing a gorgeous and dramatic sunset. But it was clear none of these things were going to dissipate the energy I needed to expel safely. 

Relentless Gentleness

It may seem funny to pair the word "relentless" with the word "gentleness", but this is what I am working with more and more. I can be a somewhat relentless person - relentless in business (note I did not say ruthless), in personal relationships, in working on/with myself. However, that relentlessness can be quite tiring, has been exhausting, in fact. And so I am learning that my gentleness needs to be as relentless as the more common things associated with relentlessness:
ambition
appetite
striving.

What does relentless gentleness look like?
For me it looks like

1. Holding space in my schedule for resting, protecting time with cats, meditation, exercise.
2. Standing my ground against my own self-hating tendencies, the ones that push me too hard to work.
3. Leveraging the same pushy bits of myself that force me to work, to criticize and instead use those forces to force myself to rest, relax, just hang out.

It's a ground teaching in Vajrayana Buddhism that the place from where our confusion arises is also from where our wisdom is born. This relentlessness in myself is not inherently bad - it's strength, resilience and dedication. How I apply it, on the other hand, changes everything. Learning to direct the need to be committed and clear towards kindness is key; changing the tack of the sail of "get it done" to "make sure I sleep a full nine hours" is tricky but rewarding. And slowly but surely, the strengthened gentleness takes over more easily when the seemingly more powerful self-critic tries to take the reins.

Calm Mind During Crisis

It's been a rough couple of weeks around here, struggling with depression and anxiety for us both, as well as some potentially difficult changes in income and schedule. But I have found something very interesting out about my own mind. When I am in an actual crisis - a chance of physical damage or threat, possibility of life or limb lost, I am very clear about my choices. I can choose clearly what is needed for the situation, and separate out emotional needs from physical ones, prioritizing both, holding the paradox when they come into conflict with each other.

However, when the crisis is more emotional or mental, when it is a mental health challenge of either mine or my wife's, I lose a lot of that clarity. I know this likely doesn't sound that surprising, but it's been powerful to observe how that happens - when there is an external threat or cause, I can see clearly. When it is more internal or relational, things get foggy.

In particular, when I am struggling with my own depression or anxiety, I don't reach out for help. I don't value the need for self-care as much as I do when the cause seems immediate and obvious. It's not even that I resist being vulnerable - I am pretty ok with that. This all happens at a much deeper, less obvious level, wherein I don't even consider contacting anyone. It only becomes obvious to me I am avoiding getting support when I begin to avoid incoming calls, texts or emails asking how I am.

I am inspired by the calmness of my mind when things are externally rough. I am inspired to apply that, to find ways to engage it - through mediation, breathing, loving kindness and tonglen - knowing it is there helps me to trust I can build it for more difficult emotional times.

And at times like this, when I can get some clarity and relief - like I have today - I am grateful. So grateful for the teachings, my teachers, my students. So grateful for practice. I can feel how lucky I am - to have a loving partner, a good community and amazing opportunity to access teachings that help me not just survive but thrive. Wow. Yes.

PS Extra gratitude for the GoFundMe campaign, which reached our goal of $5000 by June 1 for the next volume of the Way of Seeing: Heart of Perception by John McQuade and myself. Double wow!

Doing Nothing Versus Not Doing Something

The other day, consoling a struggling Ilana, I fought off a part of me that said, as per usual, "Do something!"

It didn't say this directly, it said it via the ideas and judgments and assessments that flooded my mind, facing the space of her sadness. They take the common critic line of things like:

-you should have done something to prevent this

-she should have done something to prevent this

-she is going to feel this way forever

-you need to get her out of this...

When, if, I follow these and more, I am "doing something". But it is often the something she does not need. She needs something, but she needs space. Warmth. Trust. Holding. Silence without recrimination, even if it is me simply judging myself.

                         🌀

Meditation is like this for me, too, like it is for so many people. Though I have plenty of personal and direct evidence with some fifteen years of sitting that it is "not doing nothing", I still believe that's the case at times.

How do I know that? Because thoughts flood my mind and I follow them pretty far before dropping them and coming back to the space of now. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with thoughts. But on the frequent occasions where my meditation is more focusing on thinking than letting it co-exist with space, I get evidence of how little I trust yet that meditation is in fact doing something. 

Even that practice, just seeing how much I am not trusting space, that it is something and not nothing, is worth it. I know that. No judgments here. Just curiousity about the beliefs that underlie my relationship to doing and being.

I know that it takes a lot of space to even see how I struggle with space. And still, even writing this, part of me wants to say: "Wrap it up with wisdom. Fix it."

And I refuse. I refuse to do that to you or to me. Instead I will do a something that seems like nothing: I will leave this contemplation open-ended, knowing I will return to it again and again, and hoping you will, too.

Exploring the Spectrum of Fear

In preparing to co-teach a Level II Shambhala Training program this last weekend, I did a lot of reading about, contemplating and meditating on fear. Trungpa Rinpoche says that fear is our main reason to build a cocoon, a wall of habits and tendencies that give us a protective sense of solid self.

But of course, fear is not just one thing.

The Power of Narrative

Earlier this week I taught a day-long contemplative arts compendium - presenting practices like haiku, Miksang and contemplative writing all in short hour or two-long snippets. In the micro haiku workshop, which went surprisingly easier than I thought, one woman came back from her perception walk with a few photos and a few short narratives in haiku form. Though I had encouraged the students to cut as close to direct perception as they could, viewing their thoughts as another set of sensory data, I had not explicitly said to avoid narrative. I find it better not to say "don't do this," especially in a short workshop.


And paired with the photos that the narratives explained/interpreted, her work really shone. One shot was an abstract, textural photo of part of a tree trunk, beautifully shot and totally simple, with a lot of space. Her haiku referred to an elephant that she saw there. By itself, the haiku would be too metaphorical, too abstract. By itself, the photo was really more of a texture shot. Together, they made something quite poetic - not haiku, other than in form, and not quite Miksang, other than in form. I told her so, as she apologized when she heard others' haiku and realized that she has a penchant for narrative. I said that her pairing was simply less haiku and more senryu (human-based experience, with more room for metaphor/narrative) and/or a haiga (an image and haiku matched together). In other words, forbidding narrative would have cut off this experience for her, which was rich and affirmative. Especially in a short workshop, where they are going out for a first pass to just see and smell what they experienced.

Separating Truth from Shame

Loony Lunettes, Paris, 2015

Like a lot of people, I find it very, very tricky to engage with people who dislike me. Especially those who refuse to admit that that is the core issue, affecting their judgment of things such as "my unprofessional manner."

Yes, it is true that part of it relates to me wanting everyone to like me - survival skill! However, there's also an element of relentless meanness that sneaks in under the radar under the guise of shame. I often experience it as them exposing something "real" about me, something I feel ashamed of, my embarrassment flushing up. But I have come to see that actually when I feel that way - red in the cheek - that's actually a sign that someone is being excessive. Sometimes even bullying. Basically, mean for the sake of being mean. Trying to make me feel bad. And for awhile, it works.

Fear of Dying

Bandaged heart graffiti by Beni, Paris 2015

Travel takes me close to death, but not in the way you would think.

When I board a plane to Europe, when I find my seat on the Eurostar, when I climb down the steps of the Metro to ride the No 1 line to La Defense, I am not thinking about death. Not even remotely. When the metro car stops mid-tunnel when it is supposed to be moving, when the train slows down for a moment and the lights go out, when the plane jostles through some rough clouds, maybe I think of death just a bit. Never conscious, always under the surface, some sense of knowing the truth peeks out and makes itself known.

But when I really really think about death is when I am with the people I love. When I look at the face of a friend across the dinner or breakfast table, when I take my wife's hand on the sofa and share a smile, when I tightly bind myself to a heart another in a deep hug, at these moments, often something fleets across my awareness: this may be the last time. We never know.

This is the thing: we never know. If having lost my parents when I was young taught me anything, it taught me this. It did not teach me what to say to others when they have dramatic loss. It did not teach me how to feel or what to do to assuage grief. But it did show me that we really never know.

This is an odd kind of knowledge. Unfortunately, unlike memorizing the conjugations of the verb "to be" in a foreign language, it's not the kind of knowledge that comes back easily. When it arises in my consciousness, as it did this morning in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, I want to bat it away. I want to know what happens next, even if I know that that knowing itself causes me more harm in the end. 

Fresh Start

One of the main teachings in Shambhala about meditation is the importance of using a fresh start when needed. Not to be mistaken for taking a break, fresh start is dropping the technique for just a moment, still seated, in mid-meditation, when you feel you have fully lost what you are doing. This fresh start you can take at any time - stop meditating, reconnect, then begin again freshly.

This can feel like a spring breeze coming in the window for the first time in however long you have been sitting. Finally feeling your breath, you know you are alive again.

This is how it feels coming out of sickness for me, too. Though I can get bogged down with all the "things I supposed to be doing," there is also a miraculous quality of appreciation for my health, no matter how major or minor the illness. In the case of a cold/flu, as I had a few weeks ago, breathing became very hard for awhile. So the simple act of breathing took on huge importance and felt very fresh as it returned. In fact, getting better for me paralleled the arrival of spring, with a strong sense of the chilly but warming air actually helping my lungs and sinuses lose some of their fire.

The key thing about fresh start - and I am reminding myself as much as I am reminding you, dear reader, is that it not only can happen all the time, but it DOES happen all the time. While we are stuck in our stale suffering, the world is changing, micro- and macroscopically around us all the time.  While impermanence can get a bad rap - the old aging, sickness and death stuff - it also means we have a fresh opportunity in every moment. That can be scary or it can be exciting - it's there no matter what we think of it.

Shame

Yup. There's no mincing around it. 
This is what has been coming up lately, in my life, in my wife's life, in my students' lives. 
Shame.

When I don't get done what I set out to do (PS I had unrealistic expectations)...
When I make a mistake - or even moreso, a series of mistakes - while teaching or in public...
When I choose to sleep in instead of meditating...
When I procrastinate...
When I feel sexually aroused in a situation I suspect I shouldn't feel that way in...

I feel ashamed.
Shame.
A heavy brick in my belly.
A punch to the gut.
Not a voice, not an inner critic, nothing that conscious or obvious or literal.
I don't THINK it, I FEEL it. In my locked up hips, my tightened legs, my triggered wrists.

More and more I am convinced that this is what Writer's Block, what creative resistance, what perfectionism, what procrastination ALL ARE - shame. Which is the cause and which the effect? Shame is like the fuel that powers the freezer that keeps us locked in one place. Not exercising, not writing, not exploring, not asking - all because some part of us, deep inside, believes we are unworthy. Anytime we make any kind of perceived error, it goes right into the evidence bin - not only have we done wrong, we are wrong.

For a long time, I have contended that Brene Brown's teachings on vulnerability and shame (click here to watch her stunning TED talk) are a perfect compliment to Shambhala's teachings on Basic Goodness (an article here demonstrating how the two are linked). Shame is our biggest block, our most underground and dug-in belief that we are not good. If we believe this, we can't believe we are basically, fundamentally good. We can't believe in bodhicitta, that we are all born awake and with full potential.

Shame is endless in its layers. Luckily my faith is also endless in its depths. Every time I find a new layer - this last week it was seeing that during a live online class I felt ashamed of myself because of technical errors beyond my control! - I react, I work with my body responses (through TRE or breathing) and then I slowly unpack all that was going on there. It can take months or just a moment. Over time, it gets easier to see, and easier to let go of the belief in shame, let go into the belief of my own - and others' - basic goodness.

What do you do when you encounter shame? How do you know it in your body? Do you know it? Does it have a voice? A story? Or is it more undercurrent? What is your relationship to shame and vulnerability?

And if I catch you using these questions, or my exploration, to compare yourself to, and shame yourself with, I'll come right over there and hug you and hold you while you cry. 

That is your punishment. I will mete it out mercilessly.

As Sakyong Mipham likes to say: "Be careful, or I am going to get gentle with you!"

Spontaneity, Serendipity, Accuracy and Curation

Quest 2015 Prompt from Jason Silva*
In what ways might you artfully curate your life in 2015 to occasion serendipity, creativity and awe?
Ontological designing says: We design our world and the world designs us back.
What are the linguistic and creative choices you can make in 2015 that will in turn act back upon you and transform you?

Lately, Ilana and I have been speaking to "curating" our lives: directing what we want to happen and making it happen. For instance, for me, a day off is a bit risky - so easy to consume lots of social media, even overwork, only to get to the end of the day and not have done the things I want to do and actually need to do: meditate, practice, write, exercise.

So how can I curate my life, my days off, like an exhibit - seeing on the wall what I want there - without overplanning it/overstructuring it so the exhibit feels like one of the walls at an early Paris museum?

So this question - curating to occasion serendipity, creativity and awe - takes me back to a core principle - a few of them - in Shambhala Buddhism.

1. The relationship between spontaneity and accuracy: Trungpa Rinpoche speaks to the necessity to allow for spontaneity in order to find accuracy. We so often emphasize planning/accuracy over spontaneity. But the natural order is in fact to arrive at spontanenity first, then allow accuracy to arise from that. In other words: if we are truly present, what is needed will arise.**

2. Serendipity - or magic - arises out of every situation. It is always there. Always. The question is: are we practicing - eg curating - our lives enough to recognize it? Sakyong Mipham often speaks to the fact that we already know how to meditate and contemplate - we just usually use these practices to focus on getting what we want or eliminating pain or ignoring what we don't want to see. If we use these practices - this power of mind that already exists - to see what is actually here, then we find we have all we need.**

3. Therefore, if I curate my life to allow for spontaneity, I will find the serendipity that is always there. Now the question: how do I curate for this? The answer might seem contradictory, but here Trungpa Rinpoche speaks to "intelligent spontaneity" and the role of discipline. I find the "answer" - mind you, not simple and not one-time, is practice. Doing the very things I avoid if I don't schedule them - same list - writing, exercise, meditation, practice - these are the things I have to structure (aka discipline) in order to allow for the space needed for serendipity.

As always, the questions I constantly, gently ask myself are:
Am I using this for compassion or to beat myself up?
Am I using this because it helps me feel better and be better or not?
Is this what is needed now?

I try to stay in touch with how it feels when I don't do what I want - see list above - and when I do,
that is the best motivation for me. What I do find, when I do practice, when I do curate: spontaneity arises around those structures and out of those spaces, serendipity knows where to find me.

*Quest 2015 is a "do it together" 2015 planning group happening with Jeffrey Davis. Here's a link to the video about this December 2014 curating-serendipity-group!
 
**I find it very, very important to state that none of these teachings are "prosperity principle" or abundance related in a financial way. I struggle with money, as so many do, and the idea here is NOT to blame ourselves if we don't have enough to eat, enough shelter, enough health or money. The main understanding is that of the daily suffering so many people experience, so much of it is mental state-based. If we can adjust our mental state, we can access clearer mental states and lower our amount of mental suffering. For most of us, that means that other forms of suffering will decrease, too. But it takes work and doesn't happen automatically. It is up to us - and up to the systems of oppression around us to get with what is happening, too.

Inside/Outside

I struggle, as so many do, with prioritizing self-care. I also struggle with scheduling/not scheduling, especially on a day off after many days in a row of working.

Yesterday, this struggle looked like this:

Energized by the strong winds and 60 degree weather, I ran bunches of errands until, part way through, my inner child voice said, "Um, can we go home now?" I responded, "Is it ok if we just run two more? Then we can be done." The completist voice, which always wins because it is so logical. Inner child shrugged, looked away. Aha. I see, the question I was actually asking was an order: "We will do these last two, I'd like it if you were ok with that." Even seeing that, I persisted, and by the time I got home, I felt all befuddled. I had time to do both these things: go out into nature, and also snuggle with cats, but I was frozen. Acute anxiety/depression kicked in, and I got locked down.

Trust, Suspicion and True Freedom

Rotterdam, Netherlands, June 2012

I have had a few conversations lately that all seem to be coming from the same core place.

The three "topics" have been:
1. Why do we not meditate when things are going "well"?
2. Why do we not question/ask for what we need when things are going "well"?
3. What's the difference between trusting and blithely hoping (shutting out real concerns) when things are going "well"?

These three separate conversations, at their core, also meet in when things are "not going well:"

When things are not going well, why do we insist on some absolute answer/decision/knowing that they will be ok in the future? This could come in the form of any fix: a verbal/mental guarantee, guilt/taking responsibility for it having "gone wrong" (even if it wasn't your fault) or buying some kind of material good to "fix" a problem that isn't the actual core issue.

Last week, I had quite a panic going on. I was convinced that my wife "has" to do a lot of work in a particular area (we both acknowledge that she does, but the urgency of the "has to" is what really nailed me down). I asked a friend to tell me that she was "confident that my wife will do the work she needs - I need her - to do." As soon as I asked for that request, an awareness that that temporary fix, that temporary consolation/false hope, would not actually help. I wanted a guarantee where there is no guarantee.

So, I said, as soon as I said that out loud, I think what I need to ask is if I believe it is possible for her to do the work. Is it? I asked myself. Yes, I said. I believe it is possible. That does not mean she will do it. And yet, somehow I felt more relaxed with this more realistic understanding. I know that as long as I think it is possible, I will be more trusting and more honest, and paying attention to my own knowing, instead of suspicious and angry when I worry that she isn't doing it.

My wife has also realized, at an ever-continuing level, that when her music-making is going well (which is most of the time), she lacks for nothing. When she is inspired and making great tunes, her equipment is just right. However, when she feels uninspired or is down in some other way, she looks for new gear, new toys to somehow pick up her game, improve her work flow or pull her out of a rut. This is such a common, human thing that it almost feels ridiculous to point out, but when she mentioned that comparison this morning, we both laughed:

If there's nothing missing when it is going right, 
then there is nothing missing when it is going wrong.

Finally, my best friend and I discussed this morning how much we so deeply want to trust situations when they are going well - all the plans are lining up, connecting with a loved one feels good - that we stop asking for what we need. This is good enough, we think, very good - so good that we hope/wish/believe it will never "be bad" again, and we stop asking for what might seem "above and beyond" in the situation. We trust the situation will provide without us having to do any work, which simply isn't true, and becomes a set up for a fall.  What's the fall? The fall is that when things begin to fall apart, we blame ourselves for not trusting it enough, or not doing enough - the latter of which may (or may not) be true, but also is impossible to prevent if we have a core belief that a situation is good enough and we shouldn't rock the boat by doing more.

We can ask questions and still trust.
We can ask questions and not be suspicious.
We can agitate for "even better" when things are "already good."
And, most importantly, we need to continue practicing: being clear, being honest, and watching our own minds, when things are smoother and easier, because they will, without doubt, become uneasy and unsmooth again, likely, quicker than we'd like.

Often people comment to me when they get beginning meditation instruction, especially at follow-up meetings, that they find they stop meditating when things are going well. I've come to believe we do this out of some kind of reverse cause-and-effect understanding. If we take the practice that helps when things aren't going well, and do it when things are going well, then things will somehow  go wrong. This is reverse magical-thinking, and it is plain wrong.

We can ask for help, support ourselves, pay attention to what is going on when things are going well. We can feel ease in our bodies, we can notice when we are in not-pain. We can watch our patterns and know, trust, that things will get rough again, so as not to blame ourselves unduly when the shit hits the fan.

Meditation is always* helpful.
The best part about meditation is that it helps keep things simple and plain and clear:
Watching your mind, knowing your mind is the best preventative for over-consumption, for self-deception, for wishful thinking that keeps us locked in non-reality. 

These are always the core issues. 
If these don't resonant with you language-wise, find your own way. 
Don't get distracted by the stories - see what is always going on underneath:
Knowing what we need.
Knowing what we can do for ourselves.
Knowing what we can do for others.
Knowing when to ask for help.

This is true freedom: 
Knowing underneath, no matter what happens, we are fundamentally good.

*Every once and awhile, we need a walk instead. Some fresh air. A good cry. But in comparison to shutting down, any practice of awareness, of being-with rather than hoping-for, is beneficial without fault. Try it. And if you find you agree, trust it. That's a great thing to trust.

Stop Drop Roll

Addison, TX 2010

One of the first safety lessons I recall learning as a child was “Stop Drop and Roll” – 

or, how to respond if you are caught on fire.

Last month, on a trip to Toronto where I had no wi-fi connection in the house I was staying in, or available data plan on my iPhone, I found myself struggling with free time. 

I wanted to meditate.

I wanted to do yoga. 

I went for a run every other morning. 

I read a lot of dharma.

I edited a lot of writing – it’s not like I was “doing nothing.” 

Opening Up Overwhelm

Space Scrutiny, Chicago February 2013

This morning, I woke after a long sleep. I felt clear, rested, happy. My wife was off to her first day of training for a new job, and I had the whole day ahead of me.  

Yes, I thought. I have lots to do and time alone to do it in. Awesome. I've been waiting for this.

Then I got up, took a shower. During the shower I started to consider what comes first: yoga, certainly. But one hour? I don't have time for that. Maybe 20 minutes. I am hungry, so I should eat first. You know, speaking of body care I said to Dylan just yesterday that I wanted to get to the gym but we were both really wiped out and it didn't happen. I could go there today, too. Wait. When can I fit that in? I've got to clean for class tonight, and I have all that editing to do. Not to mention preparation for Toronto. I leave on Thursday. Ack.

Does this line of thinking sound familiar to you? I began to panic. By the time Dylan left for work, and I was dry and clean, I began to get a tinnitus sound in my left ear where I can hear my heart pumping overtime. I got into a frenzy of over-decision-making, knowing I can't do it all. 

Knowing I will likely choose work over taking care of myself. 

And yet, and yet, panicking wasn't helping me pick good self-care either. 

Ooo. Boy. I sat down and committed to meditating first. Yes. 

This is on my wipe-off board in our bedroom, a place where we write reminders and ways to cut through panicking beliefs that feed themselves. 

"Sit first, especially when in doubt."

And immediately what arose was this:
I am panicking because part of me believes that if I don't panic I won't get anything done.

This got further reiterated by martyring myself on "all the things that Dylan didn't do when I was out of town this weekend" - eg - see what happens when someone does not panic and prioritize?

Ha. Joke is on me:

What I can't seem to do when I panic, the one thing I become incapable of doing, is prioritizing.

Especially, I drop my self care all together, in favor of the belief that if I "just get done what needs doing, I'll be fine/worthy/good enough/won't need self care/will have time for self care/fill in the blank."

The meditation, brief though it was, undid the panic loop. 

Do I still have a lot to do and not enough time to do it in?

Yes.

Will some things have to fall by the way side, regardless of how hard I work?

Yes.

So I can still prioritize much-needed self-care and get a decent amount of work done?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I'll probably come back to this post a lot today, and tomorrow, as I try and balance work and self-care over the next forty-eight hours before I board a flight for Toronto and disappear from the US for a fortnight. Even when I am there, may I look back here again and remember. Or, remember to sit. Just sit. Quietly, in the face of overwhelm and all the hidden, not-so-hidden beliefs and agendas it carries, and remind that part of myself, remind overwhelm itself: I am a human being.

I am not perfect.

Some things will not get done.

But what does need to be done is caring for me.

Otherwise any thing else I do will be tainted and speedy.

Any care I give to others or work I do will be biased

in favor of rushing and against all I am trying to do in my work

in the first place.

After I came to this, of course, I found this email in my inbox. I love it when email, something that cranks me up a lot to begin with (somuchtogetdonesolittletimetodoitiniambehindugh), drops these messages for me:

March 12, 2013

EXPRESSING OUR EMOTIONS

We have to make a relationship with our emotional energy. Usually, when we speak of expressing our energies, we are more concerned with the expression than with the energy itself, which seems to be rushing too fast. We are afraid the energy will overwhelm us, so we try to get rid of it through action. However, once you develop a harmonious relationship with your energy, then you can actually express it, and the style of expression becomes very sane, right to the point. 

-From The Sanity We Are Born With by Chogyam Trungpa

-Posted on the Ocean of Dharma, maintained by Carolyn Gimian

Seduced? Deduce and Reduce to Produce

NYC April 2010

In the past, I have spent a lot of time wondering how/why it is that we are so divided so much of the time. I am not speaking of culturally, racially, class-wars or the like (though perhaps these thoughts do scale) - I am speaking of the inner wars so many people struggle with: inner critic(s) versus inner child; wanting to establish better habits but being held back by older habits, etc.

I am at the point of saying in my process that I have had enough.
I am still curious about what is going on in there, but I am sick of feeding the distraction through evaluation. For me, I've reached a point where asking all those questions more often than not leads me right back into the loop of the debate again and again. I get stuck. Enough.

Asking those essential questions: 
Why do I believe this? 
Who helped me to believe this?
What is the logic beneath this belief?
Is still important to me. However, they can, just like any other wisdom allowed to languish for too long, lead me right back into not doing what it is I wanted to do, or even be, in the first place.
In other words, the inquiry itself can stall me out - it's an extended tactic of my own resistance.
Even curiosity can hightail me right back into fear, if I allow it to keep going for too long.

Last night, as I was falling asleep, I thought about seduction. The seductive power of my old habits and beliefs. Coming home from a long day of teaching, all I wanted was to "space out." A big part of me said "Please meditate and do yoga, that is good self care." Another big part of me said, "Dude. You worked all day. Those are work. Just watch some TV."

Luckily, maybe because I was teaching and participating in a writing critique session, the meditation part won out, even if I did it with bad posture while snuggling on the couch with Dylan and Aviva. The meditation gave me an opening, some space to realize I really wanted to do yoga, too. So I did.

But more often than not, I give into the seduction of these beliefs. I may even get so far as to ask questions about it, catching on to the debate inside and not believing habits right off the bat. A normal interchange for me would look like this:
"I'd like to do yoga and meditate."
"Yeah, but, it's work, you know? You deserve rest."
"But yoga and meditation are self-care."
"Nah. When you have more energy. Tomorrow, maybe, eh?"
"I said that yesterday. And the day before."
"See what a pain in the ass this is? Let's just go watch some TV. Don't stress yourself out."

BUT where does the stress ACTUALLY COME FROM? 
The voice. The debate. The questioning.
Not the yoga or meditation.

The habits are seductive. I want to look at those voices with more suspicion, more wisdom. And by looking at them, I mean taking a step back and watching them try to convince me that the old way is the best way. Like a bad lover I don't even want to sleep with anymore, but I keep returning to because at least I am getting laid, which means I am cared for, in some strange logic.*

Therefore, as I thought about the word seduction, the word "deduction" came into my head. Then "reduction," and finally "production." 

I am not normally a fan of "Here are the ten steps to productivity" kinds of posts, but frankly, for me, I am needing some bullshit cutting tools for when the same things come up again and again.
I *know* where the logic is going.
I don't need to inquire anymore, show respect,  be curious.
I need to take care of myself.

I knew from Mr. Lee's 9th grade English class, where we studied Latin roots until we were blue in the face (Thank you, Mr. Lee!), that the root "duce" means "to lead."
This morning, I looked up the original roots of the words' prefixes when combined with "duce":
Seduce literally means to lead away from.
Deduce means to trace the path of. 
Reduce means to lead back. 
Produce means to lead forward. 
That's some powerful etymology, as etymology often is.  

Instead of thinking of seduce as "sinful" as in "leading away from a good marriage" (more like it's usage is now) we consider what it is leading away from - the things, in my case, I *know* are good for me and are not really up for debate - ie - I am not debating whether or not they are good for me - then this process looks like this:

When my thinking begins to lead me away (seduce) from yoga/meditation/etc, I can pick up on its path (deduce). I don't have to follow it all the way to its end - simply bring it back to the good habit in question (reduce). Then I can lead myself forward again (produce), from the root of my desire to do this thing I no longer question - yoga, meditation, etc.

This requires making a list of what you know are "non-debatables" - for me - calling a friend when sad, writing practice, yoga, meditation, exercise. As soon as I feel a tug away from doing any of these, I can actually begin to pay attention - there is NO REASON not to do any of these at any time, unless there is serious conflict (injury, emergency, deadline that is imminent or Dylan needing my help) going on.

What are your non-debatables?
What can you do to call attention to helpful inquiry (really being curious) and seduction (getting caught up in a pattern of thinking that actually won't lead to clarity)?
Do these words do it for you, or would you need a different set? If so, what?

This four-word list is going up on the wipe-off board in our bedroom where we keep word sets or questions, "Please meditate and do yoga" type requests from our bodies so that we don't forget the essentials.

*Um. That's not just an analogy. I am writing a lot about doing that kind of thing in my memoir from ages 12-28.

Support

Every year for the last few years, I have picked a Sankalpa/intention word on New Year's Eve.
Or, I should say, it often picks me.

Questions I Can Answer

Sometimes, having a spouse who is going through a gender transition (male to female) is a lot.
Sometimes, teaching people how to be there for themselves, how to be aware and in the moment, and how to practice art that takes them there, is a lot.
Sometimes running my own business(es) and traveling for work is a lot.

This is not a surprise, of course, that I get overwhelmed.
But when all of these a lots and more come to fruition at once, I turn to ... Crossword puzzles.

That's right. You thought I was going to say meditation, didn't you? Or yoga. Or walking, or writing, or drawing or reading dharma or eating good food or getting plenty of sleep. Or talking to friends.

Yes. Those are all helpful, essential. They are my "first lines of defense" or even better, of "non-defense."

But sometimes the empowerment I need is to be able to cleverly answer questions, especially when they are puns. To have AHA moments that I can actually access when everything appears to be (and when it needs to remain) made of mysteries my intellect cannot and should not discern.

That's when Crossword Puzzles are the answer.

Clean House

About two hours ago, I just couldn't take it anymore.

In some ways it feels like our house hasn't been cleaned in months. Of course, my in-laws did a great job (especially considering cat illness and dischord) while were gone in Europe. But even before then we started a room-moving project that was left half done and meant that, for instance, my shrine room had two more pieces of furniture in it than usual and piles of things meant to get stored away, you know, when we got the chance.


That was two months ago.

Beneath

"I am sorry I was so cranky earlier, sweetie."

Dylan hugs me and kisses the crook of my neck.
"That's ok. I mean, thank you but I understand."
And a tiny voice inside says "No, it's not ok." (This is common  - I can never apologize enough)
But then the tiny voice says "It's not ok that you are cranky with me." (Not common)

That tiny voice isn't talking to Dylan.
That tiny voice is me, talking to me.