A Work in Progress

This aortic dissection has required me to move more slowly and to pay closer attention to my body (e.g., monitoring blood pressure, eating foods with more potassium, less sodium, and higher fiber). There are potentially high consequences for not doing this, so I have more motivation to pay closer attention than I did before.

Living into this new life also requiring new attitudes:
Attuning as opposed to trying to figure things out
Exploring as opposed to coping and adjusting

I am finding that there are some wonderful outcomes from developing these new habits.

Going slowly
I have learned that I have to limit my activities and monitor my energy. What would normally be a light day—taking a walk with a friend, a Zoom meeting with colleagues, and going to a Pilates class is now a full day. The rest of the day has to be mellower. If I don’t pay attention to my energy, I crash. That simple.

I have learned this slowly. If friends come over and we sit outside talking, my limit is about 60 to 90 minutes. Though I enjoy the company, it really takes energy to have conversation with others: deciding what I want to say, listening, feeling the flow of the conversation. I can feel the energy this takes so clearly now.

Knowing the energy cost of striving
Striving means trying hard to become what/who I think I should become, and I have always tried my best! I was given one clue about striving years ago when learning yoga. I found it challenging to hold the downward dog posture. My teacher gave me feedback but still I struggled. She said, “pay attention to your body and you’ll feel your way into the posture.” Really? It took a few classes, but when I got it, I was amazed.

Last week in my Pilates class, I had a similar experience with a floor exercise where we twist the body to one side while keeping the opposite shoulder on the floor. I’ve struggled with that posture, but last week I relaxed during the posture and was suddenly able to twist more while the shoulder stayed on the ground.

I have also realized (at a deeper level) how much energy it costs to go fast. For example, I have always flossed my teeth and typed as if I am racing to get my best time. It is amazing to feel the floss go up and down each tooth, and my arms and shoulders thank me when I type more slowly.

Attuning
Recently one of my favorite meditation teachers talked about our three intelligences: body, mind, heart and how important it is to attune to them so that they are aligned. Another teacher said that we need to pay attention to that which has heart and meaning. I am doing that more regularly, and I see the benefits.

Last week after two days that were busy for me, but which would have been moderately active days only 6 months ago, I was physically and mentally exhausted and said I was going to take off the next three days. The three days became five as I noticed how tired I really was.

Last night Yvette (my wife) asked our son if he knew how much our almost four-year-old granddaughter weighed now, and he said 34 pounds. I teared up and said, “I’ll never be able to pick her up again.” Right now I can’t lift more than 20 pounds, and while a good CT scan in June might let me lift more, my surgeon has said that I will always have to be careful about activities than can cause a spike in blood pressure, including lifting and vigorous exercise for prolonged periods.

After we got off the phone, I could feel myself spiraling into a depression. In talking with Yvette, I realized that since November I have been attempting to balance between being positive and letting myself be down. While it is important to cultivate gratitude and positive energy, if unchecked this can turn into minimizing ("it could have been worse," "I have so much to be grateful for"). Similarly, while it is important to rest and take time out when needed, it is easy to sink into self-pity, despair and wallowing.

Yvette noted that it takes courage to let yourself down because of the fear that you might not get out. I realize that this past five months has had many situations that were quite traumatic. I need to acknowledge and grieve the many losses that this disease entails. So I’ve gone back into therapy to better explore these energies swirling inside me.

Work in progress
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust

I am seeing more things which I wasn’t able to see before because of striving and going so fast. I think we can all learn more about ourselves by slowing down and attuning to the energies of our body and heart.

Bend not break

Several weeks ago my wife and I were walking on one of Keene’s walking/bike paths. We paused for a few moments on a bridge. She noticed a tree that, in some storm, had been bent over and now its top was in the river. A powerful image of ‘bend not break.’ Click here to see the picture.

There are two other messages in that picture. If you look closely, you can see, in the background, another smaller tree that is also bent! The other message is that I have been on this path on my bicycle probably hundreds of time, but never noticed the tree!

I have long enjoyed the writings John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, and others bout learning from the Nature: bamboo is one of the strongest woods and is often referred to when talking about ‘bend but not break.’ From Bruce Lee: “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending in the wind.”

So what helps us to bend instead of breaking during these storms?

Presence and not turning away
Terry Tempest Williams in an interview with Krista Tippett about her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World: “You know, a good friend of mine said, ‘You are married to sorrow.’ And I looked to him and I said, ‘I am not married to sorrow. I just choose not to look away.’ And I think there is deep beauty in not averting our gaze, no matter how hard it is, no matter how heartbreaking it can be. You know, watching prairie dogs shot, standing before the mass grave of 30,000 human beings [from the Rwanda genocide]…I think it is about presence, bearing witness. I used to think bearing witness was a passive act. I don't believe that anymore. I think that when we are present, when we bear witness, when we do not divert our gaze, something is revealed. The very marrow of life. We change. A transformation occurs. A consciousness shift.”

Powerful words. Worth reading again and pausing to notice inside…

Not turning away is a theme I have encountered in so many places.

Last month I referred to the legend of Krishna and how the key to his survival was not turning away from the demons.

Many years ago I was leading a body scan meditation at Keene State College. When I got to the back, I said “this is a place where some people feel discomfort or even pain. If this is happening, see if you can not hate the pain.” At the end of the class, one participant said that she had gone to the gym the day before. She was out of shape, so she did a rigorous workout, and now she ached all over. Just before I made the comment about not hating the pain, she was miserable. However, with those words she was able to let go of hating the pain. All of a sudden it was just sensations. She was no longer miserable. And she was amazed. Such amazing things can happen when we don’t turn away.

Back to learning from Nature
I remember seeing eggs in a cactus wren bird nest when we lived in the desert. I visited the nest regularly, noticing the baby birds when they hatched and as they grew. One day I saw one of the babies making possibly its first flight back to the nest. Afterwards I realized that the bird doesn’t get a second chance. If it doesn’t do it right, it dies. And that was terrible…and it is how the natural world works. A friend told me of a similar experience but not with the same happy ending. She was watching two birds finding food for their young and feeding them. Once when both birds went away, a hawk swooped down and plucked the babies from the nest.

This is how the natural world works. Can you accept it? Can you not turn away?

Can you accept yourself? Can you not turn away from the parts of yourself that you don’t like?

Back to finding beauty in a broken world
When Tami Simon (from Sounds True) was interviewing Terry Tempest William, she talked about not turning away and asked Terry “how do you do that?”

Terry ‘s response was “How do you not turn away?”

Then she elaborated: “The word that comes back to my mind again and again is being present. If you are present, then there is no past, as you well know. And there is no future. You are there. And whether it is being with a family member who is dying, you are present with them. You are breathing. And in that breathing there is this commitment and communion to that breath. Presence. And you don't look away. It is this shared gaze.”

Three Methods for Working with Chaos by Pema Chodron
This article appears in the latest issue of Lion’s Roar and is excerpted from her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Pema writes that in her tradition they do not exorcise demons, but rather they treat them with compassion. The advice she passes on is: “Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you.”

Again, not turning away. This is true for what we find repulsive in the ‘outer’ world and in the ‘inner’ world: those parts of us that we don’t like, that we fear, that we turn away from.

A reminder that this is not an absolute maxim. Toward this end and going from the sacred to the sublime, I offer a quote from Kenny Rogers: “Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”

Explore in the moment now
This notion of bend but not break can easily become just words, so I invite you to pause for a few moments. Where do you feel broken or possibly breaking right now? Breathe with those images and feelings…..See if you can allow yourself to be with the pain by witnessing the pain. What do you notice?………….

The Upside of Sadness
Steve Hickman writes about not turning away from sadness in this article which you can read by Googling the title. “It’s never fun, but over the course of a lifetime, sadness visits us all. What if instead of resisting, you could welcome it in and listen to what it has to say?... Locating the arising of sadness in the body (it is different in everyone) gives us a kind of steady place to direct our kind attention and begin to alter our relationship with sadness. The practice of mindfulness is about being present to every moment, not just the ones that are pleasant or neutral. In fact, going into the darker, more uncomfortable places—the ones we usually try to avoid—may yield powerful insights, and may sharpen our mindfulness and deepen our compassion, both toward ourselves and others.”

Two other metaphors
Both metaphors haven been helpful when I realize I am resisting, turning away, and suppressing.

The first metaphor is balance. However, its not like the balance point, which is static balance, but rather dynamic balance which is “the ability of an object to balance whilst in motion or when switching between positions.” When we lose our balance and fall down, we smile and get up. When I am working with this metaphor, I find a question from one of my teachers to be helpful: What is needed now in this moment? And I listen though my breath to what might come up.

The second metaphor is pretty self-explanatory: that of a pressure cooker and releasing the pressure before it blows up! There are many ways we can release steam, for example, laughing at ourselves, screaming into a pillow, going outside for a walk…

These are difficult times indeed. I hope that some of the ideas from this article provides more ability to meet that which we might habitually turn away from

May all beings be safe and well. May all beings find moments of happiness and peace each day. May all beings be free from suffering.