Come What May

Let go of what has happened.

Let go of what may come.

Let go of what is happening now.

Don’t try to figure anything out.

Don’t try to make anything happen.

Relax, right now, and rest.

~Tilopa

Maybe I was born this way, or perhaps my work as a lawyer informed my instinct towards this particular complex behavior: analyze what’s before me, anticipate what might happen next and plan around it; never be caught unawares.  Name it.  Label it.  Define it.  As if by doing so I can somehow prevent or create the inevitable.  While this may be a real strength for my business clients, or when planning an event, it can wreak havoc in my personal life.

Like when trying to have a baby.  Who knew it would be so complicated?  I monitor my basal body temperature each morning before I get out of bed.  Then I pee on a very expensive stick to see if I’ve ovulated.  My husband and I time “the deed” around all of this data, at the risk of sucking the joy out of sex.  I take fistfuls of supplements to strengthen my immune system and improve egg quality.  I haven’t had real coffee in over a year, worried about the impact of caffeine on my body and future baby, which may or may not come.  When I do get pregnant again, I’m certain to walk on eggshells for fear of losing the baby to miscarriage like the other two.  I spend a lot of energy trying to shape the outcome of something that time has proven I have very little control over. 

How many times have I tried to make something happen?  Waiting; so focused on what happened in the past; striving to make something happen in the future; trying to figure it all out.  It’s exhausting. 

We’ve all done it to greater or lesser degrees.  The offices of psychotherapists are filled with people who can’t quit doing it—this inclination to look to the future and dwell on the past; to micromanage the way it will all turn out.  It’s maddening, and quite possibly our greatest obstacle to finding true happiness and peace of mind.

Yet how can we be expected to stay grounded in our experience moment by moment when filled with dreams and desires that require some measure of forward thought, planning, vision and movement to make them real? Anyone who has pursued higher education, written a book, started a business, built a house, had a baby, or lived their dreams with any measure of success will tell you that it doesn’t just happen by waking up in the morning and wishing it so.  It takes action, commitment, planning and patience, while the crop ripens or the idea matures.

I’m learning that while having a vision is crucial to creating the life that I desire, things go much more smoothly when I let them unfold in their own time, when I give up control and let the how and why reveal itself, which is no easy task.  I’m not very good at it.

Still, I try. . . to let go, to not try, to just be; to relax right now, and rest; come what may.

Stressing the Vine

When we long for life without difficulties,

remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds

and diamonds are made under pressure. 
― Peter Marshall

People speak of wanting an easy life.  But how many of us really want it ‘easy’?  If our desire was met and we faced only comfort and ease, wouldn’t we soon become bored?  Where’s the fun in life without challenge?  Where’s the flavor without spice?  Where’s the growth without pruning?  Would we not seek to create our own chaos if chaos didn’t exist, particularly where situations have become stale or too readily assured?  I dare say that we would.

Yet we hear so much about how unhealthy chronic stress is for our bodies.  We need only turn on the news or read a health post on the Internet to discover all of the reasons why we should rid our lives of this toxin.  Constantly faced with demands, frustrations, hassles and deadlines, it seems impossible to break free.  But do we really want to break free?  Might this be where the magic happens?

Consider the life of a wine grape.  While it’s true that many agricultural endeavors require nutrient rich soil to thrive, winemakers worldwide will tell you that when it comes to growing grapes for wine, fertile soil is not always the best.  In fact, most California vineyards are planted in soil that would choke the life out of other crops.  Growers look for nutrient poor or even dry soil that drains well because it forces the vines to extend their roots far into the dirt to find sustenance—stressing the vine—and causing them to direct their energy and sugar into grape clusters instead of leaves, which produces small grape berries.  A handful of tiny grapes will be almost all skin and very little juice, which translates into a rich, concentrated color and flavor in the wine.  For these growers and vintners, the stressed grape is the best grape and produces the superior vintage.

Might we also benefit from a bit of stress on the vine?  In our periods of stress we are called to break out of our complacency, extend ourselves beyond the comfort zone, and direct our energy to find ways to thrive even under the most pressure-filled conditions.  We are given an opportunity to turn our negative stressors into positive ones that help us to grow, remain vital and alive.  We learn to think positive and remain hopeful for better days. We discover how strong and capable we are.  And if we stretch, we learn that humor and laughter are the catalysts that lift us out of our oppression and transform us into the most colorful and delicious versions of ourselves, like the wine grape.

So perhaps what we really mean is that we want an ‘easier’ life, every now and then; a break from worrying that a certain wolf may huff and puff and blow our house down.  If an easier life is what you desire then I suggest you can have it, simply by making up your mind to not dwell on factors that you cannot change and, instead, look for ways to set a positive process in motion; and trust that there is a good reason for this.

Still, I Fall

Black is the color

of my true love’s hair

His face is like

A rose so fair

He’s got the sweetest face

And the strongest hands

I love the ground

Whereon he stands…

~ Black is the Color

Irish Folk Song (modified for “him”)

Ah, Amore!  The agony.  The joy!  The blush of new love, the rush of romance; thinking of your beloved each moment of the day, imagining his hands touching every part of your body; anxiously awaiting the next conversation, the next kiss.  Falling in love is the easy part—any fool can do it—but staying in love, I think, calls us to fall in love again and again over the lifetime of our togetherness.   

I want to remember it all—each moment of awareness, each insight into his depth, each time my heart breaks open, just a bit wider, softened by the light of what’s real and true and vulnerable between us.  Like these five moments that pulled me in a little deeper, reminding me why I fell for my sweetheart; f-a-l-l-i-n-g in love all over again.

1. It’s both.  When he met my Grandmother I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  But there he sat, knee-to-knee with the matriarch of our family, as she fired off question after question in her gentle, southern way.  “What do you do for a living?” “How long have you two been courting?” “Who are your people and will we like them?”  He answered each question with patience and care, and when she asked, “Is this a real thing or a play thing?”  He responded, “It’s both!”  Yes, he was serious about our relationship, he told her, but we also played and had a lot of fun together too.  Hearing this, my 80-something Grandmother took his hands in hers and just laughed and laughed. I. Fell. Madly. Deeply.

2.  Bald for a cause.  A participant with St. Baldrick’s Foundation, my sweetheart has been shaving his head to raise money for child cancer research for more than seven years.  This year he will be anointed a Knight of the Bald Table for his many years of service.  I love his philanthropic nature. I’ve known this about him since we first met while volunteering at Children’s Hospital.  But last spring as I watched him on stage getting his head shaved before a cheering crowd of friends and supporters, he glowed.  In that moment I understood what my friend Jenna meant when she described another as being made of “wind and light.”  He was.  It made me love him more.

3.  Minding the mundane.  We had big snow that day so I worked from home.  But under pressure of a big deadline at work, he ventured down the canyon in the dark of morning where he stayed all day.  Yet, after a tiring day at work, traveling in hazardous conditions, he stopped at the market for groceries and picked up dinner before heading back home.  As he helped me unpack the shopping bags, stocking our fridge with fresh organic produce, my heart melted in adoration for the Man who takes such good care of me. They say, in love, we each feel like we're the lucky one. I knew that I was. He minds the mundane with a patient and glad heart. I will never take that for granted. 

4.  Spooning the Furry.  I heard him in the bedroom one Saturday morning, speaking in low tones.  I thought he might be on the phone.  I had been in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast and as I started towards the bedroom I saw them together, lying on the floor spooning.  “You’re such a good doggie,” he said, stroking the Furry’s head; “We love you so much.”  The dog was in bliss! I stood there watching them, bathed in sunlight from the open window, just hanging out together, until he saw me in the doorway and gave me a smile. I thought my heart would break.

5.  The brightest light.  For our first married Christmas together, I found a fabulous tree.  I had been busy that day decorating and making the house more festive when he took off for town.  He returned a while later with excitement.  “Look what I found,” he said, unpacking his shopping bags and lining the counter with two-dozen soft white LED candles.  Then he carefully placed one in each window of the house, even the super high windows close to the top of the cathedral ceiling in the living room that required a ladder to reach.  As I watched him move about with enthusiasm, to me, he was the brightest light of all.  I could not have loved him more.  Or could I?

Day by day, in a thousand ways, still, I fall…

Stepping Into the Future

The future is something which everyone reaches

at the rate of sixty minutes an hour,

whatever he does,

whoever he is.

~C.S. Lewis

Mooghaun Hillfort - Dromoland, Ireland
(MHopkins 2013)

People speak of “putting the past behind us”.  But where else can the past be put?  It has only one place it belongs and, once there, can only be a reference point for the future.  Yet we make it a part of our present by clinging so tightly to our experience.  We go round and round in our heads, remembering some conversation, slight or injustice, real or imagined, and we stay stuck in that feedback loop reliving it again and again, often exaggerated and out of context because now we’re focused on some isolated aspect of our otherwise fading memory, giving it life, meaning and a whole host of expressions that perhaps never were.   Imagine what we miss while running around the same tired circles!

Can you see it?  How clinging to an aspect of our past might prevent us from seizing something wonderful that is available to us in the here and now?  Consider this: 

A new form of clinical psychology known as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) stems from the understanding that a great deal of our psychological pain comes not so much from the experience itself, but from the words we use over and over to describe our experience.  Instead of getting stuck in our heads and avoiding any real forward movement, ACT encourages acceptance of the situation, conscious choice of direction and action, bringing more meaning and psychological flexibility into our lives in the process.

In his book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, author and ACT co-founder, Steven Hayes, suggests that we can actually repeat a troubling word or concept over and over until it loses meaning and power in our lives.  Take the word grass, for instance.  Hayes recommends repeating the word over and over for 49 seconds.  Grass, grass, grass, grass, grass, grass…  The theory is that at some point, your mind will stop associating ‘grass’ with the luscious green stuff and observe it as a meaningless noise.  This disconnect between words and reality will allow us to drop those mind movies that have been tormenting us.  Why not give it a go,  beginning with ‘grass’ or some other word of your choosing and then moving on to the more emotionally charged descriptors that unnerve you, like ‘rejection’ or ‘failure’ or ‘broke,’ or any other parade of horrible that you can conjure.  The idea is to rub out the sting these words carry so that you can deal with life free from the fear created by your internal dialogue from the past.  Sound feasible? 

Diagnosis, they say, is half the cure.  But we’re best careful with how we use our diagnosis lest it becomes the story we tell about our life, the reason for why we can’t have or be or do what we want.  For just as understanding the root of our problem paves the way for setting it right, so too can it provide a ready excuse for not living our best life.

Is there something that you’re ready to put down, let go of, and leave behind?  Are you ready to reach for something new and make it real in your life?  As you move into a great new year, now is a perfectly fine opportunity to trade what torments for something more solid and real so that it becomes part of your future.

Wishing you all the best in 2014!

What Remains

“All I have seen teaches me

to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

What nobody says about faith is that even in the most idyllic, peaceful of circumstances—when you somehow find a way to stand firm in your belief that you are where you need to be at any given time experiencing what you need to experience—having absolute faith in a process for which there is no guarantee can be a tumultuous proposition at best. 

 

Something good happens.  Let’s say you land your dream job with a little elbow grease but, in all honesty, not much effort on your part.  Perhaps they sought you out (the job literally fell in your lap) and you’re certain that it’s divinely inspired.  Your income and notoriety is on the rise, shining star that you are, and you are certain you are where you need to be.  Your faith is unstoppable! 

 

Then something bad happens.  Let’s say you find yourself on the receiving end of a cancer diagnosis.  Though aggressive, there are some good treatment options and so you roll up your sleeves and embark on the journey of a lifetime to beat that cancer and say YES to life!  But not before you go through a vigorous round of "Why me?" and "What did I ever do to deserve this?", spinning out in your mind with those counterproductive questions for which there are no immediate answers but which are, nevertheless, inevitable given the circumstances of your Life. 

 

Some people want to know that nothing happens by chance—not without their prior consent anyway (in this or another life)—a belief that puts us in the driver's seat and makes us responsbile for what happens to us because somehow in someway we had a hand in creating that experience, karmic or otherwise.  New age philosophies champion this concept, fending off skeptics who quesiton "Why in the world would I ever choose that?" with a quiet, confident reply:  you chose to have that experience before you were born, while still in spirit form, to further your soul's growth.    

 

Others say, “Well, it was God’s will...” when something bad happens, or "God was really looking out for me!" when forturne favors us, which, on some level, allows us to resign responsibility. But what does that really mean?  That it was God's will for you, his lovely and perfect creation, to get cancer? Or that God was looking out for you when you narrowly avoided that car crash, but not so much looking out for that child in Cambodia who was sold into slavery by her parents or that person you know battling cancer?  Why not?  Why would God so randomly distribute good will, selecting who gets to be happy or sad, healthy or sick, advantaged or disadvantaged and so on?  Weren't we all created equally and loved unconditionally?  How are those decisions made?  That one person is faced with a fight to live and another gets chosen for their dream job?   It hardly seems fair.

 

Either way, it seems to me that Life doesn’t much care how “in control” we think ourselves to be.  We’re all tested in one way or another, and if we are faithful to whatever process or situation we're going through we will discover our strength, deepen our faith, and learn something about how well we cope with the obstacles and struggles that come our way.  If we want to be rid of the latter we need only accept that it’s not only impossible but completely unnecessary to hold on so tight in an effort to control that which we have so little control over.  For the only thing that most of us have any real control over in this life is how we think, what we do on a day-to-day basis, and how we respond to the story unfolding around us.  

 

Perhaps that's why they say that struggle is sometimes necessary but always optional.

 

Consider, for instance, the quiet, detached faith it takes to grow something—anything—like a walnut tree, a process that can take 40 to 60 years to fully develop from planting to harvest. Depending on when you plant that seed you may or may not live to see it become all that it was meant to be. Mostly, I think, folks don't spin around with thoughts about whether that tree will grow or harbor feelings of persecution if it doesn't.  You plant that tree with every faith in its life and growth, maybe to benefit your children or grandchildren; perhaps for a lucrative harvest.  And if it doesn't work out?  Maybe you plant another tree.

 

In the end, whether you’re there to witness its final glory or simply rest in the knowledge that you had a hand in creating its beauty, the shade and loveliness that drapes the next generation is evidence of your fearless faith in the process of Life. That might just be the key.

INTO THE LIGHT

Intuitive Mind.

“There is no siren whose call is quite so exquisite

as the music of the future.

For as long as writing has existed there are records showing

we have sought to know its form.

Last year alone, literally billions were spent by widows, lovers, spies and presidents—

all seeking, like an arrow through time,

some way to answer: “In the future, what will . . .?”

~Stephan A. Schwartz

  

I knew I had hit rock bottom when I found myself on the phone with a pet psychic and I didn’t even have a pet.  Allow me to explain.

Having felt the first seismic tremors shaking the foundations of my life, I wanted someone to tell me what it all meant.  Why was it happening? Where was I going? Would it all be okay? Everything was upside down.  My relationship no longer worked.  Professionally, I felt the need for big change but what?  I knew that any change would create a domino effect in my life geographically, financially, and emotionally.  I was hearing the call but I was afraid to listen. What if I got it wrong?

I was scheduled to go to Hawaii the next month for a much-needed vacation, so I decided to turn my trip into a soul-searching retreat.  Maybe I can find a spiritual healer, I thought; some wise old sage to sit with me by a volcano and tell me what to do.  I began with an Internet search for “spiritual healers in Hawaii,” and within moments a page full of psychics and self-proclaimed spiritual advisors appeared on my screen. They promised “spookily accurate predictions” and direct lines with God.  Before that day I had never called a psychic in my life, but I was a woman on the edge, desperate for answers, and I was curious to know what they could see...if they could see.  I had been praying for guidance with no real-time answers and I needed to make some decisions soon, and so I started calling people on that list, growing more agitated and despondent with each call.

I was wasting my time.  None of their “predictions” were the same; none even came close to identifying my concerns.  They couldn’t “see” my life.  Then I got mad.  I was mad at how vulnerable I felt.  I was mad at the inconvenience of change.  I was mad because no one could see my truth.  I was mad because these people claimed to have the answers, preying on the likes of desperate people like me, and I fell for it!

Then something took over.  One-by-one I called them, all of these self-proclaimed seers.  I didn’t engage them in any real discussion; I just rang them up and gave them a piece of my mind, calling bullshit on their craft.  “What makes you think that your ‘line with God’ is any stronger than mine?”  I challenged, denying their exclusive link to the spirit world.  I unleashed my anger on all of them until I found myself on the phone with a pet psychic, crying, exhausted and ashamed of my temporary insanity.   

It was crazy, the way I behaved; so sad and hilariously pathetic that I had to share it with you now.  Thing is, I know what it feels like to be out there on a limb, equally scared and enticed by change, wanting a guarantee or confirmation of my next best step.  Sadly, not one thing in my years of formal education, study, practice or religious upbringing prepared me for this moment. 

In law school we’re trained to be aggressive in finding answers to our clients’ most pressing dilemmas; to solve problems and sort through the rubbish until we get to the truth; to counsel our clients on their next best step.  It’s professional malpractice if we don’t.  Whole industries are born and thrive around the practice of law and our need for information, supplying never-ending volumes of legal statutes, treaties, case law and continuing education seminars where lawyers network with each other.  We form special interest groups to deal with very specific legal issues and solve those pesky, recurring problems that demand solutions.  Even with the most difficult issues you can bet that someone, somewhere out there, has dealt with your problem and it’s just a matter of how resourceful and diligent you are in finding that information. 

But how do we find answers to the questions in our personal lives?  There is no book or standard that we can call upon to find the answer to the questions:  Should I take this job?  Should I marry…? Is … the way forward in my life?  Sure, we can seek comfort and perhaps some proverbial guidance by reading the Bible, Qur’an, Bhagavad Gita, Torah or other religious text.  We just have to go online to find a world full of life coaches and career counselors, Ask.com and Google searches, and self-help books with formulas and ideas for finding your life purpose or dealing with a wayward relationship.  Some are quite good.  Still, I challenge anyone to show me in any of these books or resources a direct answer to the pressing and super dynamic question:  Where do I go from here?      

Come to know what you know . . .

Not what you know in your head, 

what you know in your heart . . .

Everything you need is right there waiting for you,

To own . . . and to give away . . . in love.

~Gail Harris, Your Heart Knows the Answer

For the record, I do believe there are people in this world who have strong connections to the Spirit realm.  I am not here to discredit those who do, as many have helped to heal the sick, solve crimes and locate missing children; some are also mediums that provide an open line of communication between the living and the dead.  However, I have learned that when it comes to discerning the direction of my life someone else’s vision is no substitute for my own.

For light I go directly to the Source of light, 

not to any of the reflections.

~Peace Pilgrim

In Latin terms, the word intuition comes from the root “intueri”, which can be translated as “to look inside” or “to contemplate.”[1]  We come into this world with all that we need to survive and thrive in the outside world, including the ability to know our personal truth—a sixth-sense that is available to us all. 

Psychologist Carl Jung called it “perception by the unconscious,” where answers come less by thinking and feeling and more from sensory connection. There is that instinctive, intuitive process that brings things sharply into focus, alerting us to danger so that we can get out of harm’s way.  But there’s also the more deliberate intuitive connection that will guide us if we let it. Not a quick fix but a process that takes time and patience to discern.  Some people never connect, for reasons that I believe have more to do with the noise and chatter of our lives than lack of access to internal wisdom, but if we are committed to the process we can learn how to root down and quiet the logical mind, not empty the mind but still its processes, which allows us to connect our base of experience with our lifeline to the Divine.  There, in that space, solutions arise. 

It’s there for the taking.  We need only tune in, and trust ourselves to go into the light.

[1]  Carlin Flora. "Gut Almighty". Psychology Today. Vol 40. Issue 3:68-75,2007.