Birdwings

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror

up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,

here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes.

If it were always a fist, or always stretched open

you would be paralysed.

Your deepest presence

 is in every small contracting and expanding,

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as birdwings.

Try bringing some awareness today to moments of expansion and contraction (in & out breath, socialising or taking some quiet time, in relationship ~ offering & supporting or receiving & savouring) and sense for a just right balance between them…holding each with the same care. Mindful balance. You may find yourself in the restful stillpoint of balance.

Life is best defined not by science, but by mystery.
Mystery has great power.
It transforms us ~ it comforts us ~it even heals us.
Our culture doesn’t value this power, it doesn’t even recognize it.
Our culture is into mastery. We are a culture of control.
We may even think that control is power. But control is always limited.
It’s just a matter of time until we come to the edge of it and find life waiting there for us.
We have traded mystery for mastery and we have paid a great price.
We’ve lost a sense of wonder ~ a sense of awe ~ a sense of aliveness.

~ Rachel Naomi Remen

To see how this happens – neurobiologically – watch this animated TEDtalk. This 12 minute video is an interesting way of highlighting Iain Gilchrist’s findings from his book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.

I put chicken noodle soup in the microwave for lunch today and set the timer for the standard one minute instant heat.

And then I noticed the urge to squeeze in another activity “while waiting”. 

I should say ‘instead of waiting’.

I am somewhat shocked to notice how difficult it is for me to stand still for less than 1 minutes. So now I have Microwave Mindfulness in my life.

Here I am. Waiting. Breathing in. Breathing out. Keeping myself company. Noticing how I am just in this moment. Giving myself one minute of attention and self-care.

Then enjoying hot soup…

I recently experienced an insidious  form of self-doubt .

It seeped in through cracks of my sense of myself, my own inner truth, and eroded my self-trust and self confidence. And it starts with the question “What if…?”

I was trying to tell someone about how I felt about an event in our relationship and his response was "Well, if that is the story you want to tell yourself, then I can’t help it!" Then, slowly a part me, the part that knows all about cognitive behaviour therapy surfaced.  It tells me that my thoughts can generate feelings and all I have to do is change my thoughts ….. well you know the rest. Well, maybe you do and maybe you don’t.  The rest for me is that self-doubt starts to seep in. It erodes my sense of what is right or wrong for me. It starts to ask:

• What if you are being unreasonable?
• What if you are being overly emotional?
• What if you have a distorted sense of the events?

The list could go on…everyone will have their own self-eroding “What if” questions. Having hooked into the “that’s the story you want so you are responsible for creating your own misery” message I start to doubt myself. I start to doubt my feelings. But this is where I get waylaid. I should trust my feelings. They are pointing me to something very important. They are pointing me to what I value for myself (and others) in my life.

I can change the questions I ask myself:

• What really matters about this for me?
• What is it that I want to stand up for – for myself?
• How am I honouring what is important to me?

I need to stay with the hurt, fear and sadness and sense into what they are telling me. They are telling me what kind of relationship I want…one in which even feelings which are hard to fathom are still respected, one in which ‘care’ for the other person is not perceived as being at the expense of oneself. One in which my feelings are given space in the relationship even when the other person “doesn’t think they are reasonable or understandable”.

So, no I don’t need to own the story about what happened or didn’t happen. I do not need to get lost in debating the content. I need to own my feelings.  I need to look to my feelings because they are telling me what matters for me in this situation. I need to connect to my values. Am I respecting my values and holding myself to account? Or am I giving them away for momentary comfort; to avoid a fight or uncomfortable discussion, to help the other person feel alright, to not be seen as selfish, mean, judgmental, unloving or needy? I am giving away my values to avoid the emotional pain which surfaces when I hear those kinds of labels which dismiss me as a human being?

Then…later…when I have explored, honoured and respected my feelings and values… if I want to… I play around with the story I had about what happened. I can have the feelings which came first (and are therefore telling me what is most important for me) and  I can walk 360 degrees around the issue looking at it from all angles. I can then see how that changes how I feel now and what values come up by taking a broader view.

But not before I have established some stability from understanding and respecting my first set of feelings and needs.

FOR LOVE IN A TIME OF CONFLICT

When the gentleness between you hardens
And you fall out of your belonging with each other,
May the depths you have reached hold you still.

When no true word can be said, or heard,
And you mirror each other in the script of hurt,
When even the silence has become raw and torn,
May you hear again an echo of your first music.

When the weave of affection starts to unravel
And anger begins to sear the ground between you,
Before this weather of grief invites
The black seed of bitterness to find root,
May your souls come to kiss.

Now is the time for one of you to be gracious,
To allow a kindness beyond thought and hurt,
Reach out with sure hands
To take the chalice of your love,
And carry it carefully through this echoless waste
Until this winter pilgrimage leads you
Towards the gateway to spring.

John O’Donohue

This is a fabulous post from Rick Hanson…he points to how it takes repetition to rewire our brains for healing and health (physical, emotional and spiritual). But, for me, the key take away I got was that I can start this healing process myself with mindfulness and even little exercises…

for the little lizard in me:

I can say out loud  “I am safe, I am safe” (for those little lizards who love the auditory world)

I can take notice of my surroundings and notice visual cues that I am safe (for little visual lizards)

I can pat my heart centre (which also stimulates the thymus gland enhancing our immune response) or I can cross my arms over my chest and butterfly pat my shoulder/upper chest with the palms of my hands (for kinaesthetic lizards)

….or I can do all three together (look around, say “I am safe” and pat my heart) thus stimulating all three modalities (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic).

Enjoy!…and be safe.

Pet the Lizard

Down deep, do you feel at ease?

The Practice
Pet the lizard.
Why?

I’ve always liked lizards.

Growing up in the outskirts of Los Angeles, I played in the foothills near our home. Sometimes I’d catch a lizard and stroke its belly, so it would relax in my hands, seeming to feel at ease.

In my early 20′s, I found a lizard one chilly morning in the mountains. It was torpid and still in the cold and let me pick it up. Concerned that it might be freezing to death, I placed it on the shoulder of my turtleneck, where it clung and occasionally moved about for the rest of the day. There was a kind of wordless communication between us, in which the lizard seemed to feel I wouldn’t hurt it, and I felt it wouldn’t scratch or bite me. After a few hours, I hardly knew it was there, and sometime in the afternoon it left without me realizing it.

Now, years later, as I’ve learned more about how the brain evolved, my odd affinity for lizards has started making sense to me. To simplify a complex journey beginning about 600 million years ago, your brain has developed in three basic stages:

• Reptile – Brainstem, focused on avoiding harm
• Mammal – Limbic system, focused on approaching rewards
• Primate – Cortex, focused on attaching to “us”

Of course, the brain is highly integrated, so these three key functions – avoiding, approaching, and attaching – are accomplished by all parts of the brain working together. Nonetheless, each function is particularly served by the region of the brain that first evolved to handle it. This fact has significant implications.

For example, in terms of avoiding harm, the brainstem and the structures just on top of it are fast and relatively rigid. Neuroplasticity – the capacity of the brain to learn from experience by changing its structure – increases as you move up both the evolutionary ladder and the layered structures of the brain.

Consequently, if you want to help yourself feel less concerned, uneasy, nervous, anxious, or traumatized – feelings and reactions that are highly affected by “reptilian,” brainstem-related processes – then you need many, many repetitions of feeling safe, protected, and at ease to leave lasting traces in the brainstem and limbic system structures that produce the first emotion, the most primal one of all: fear.

Or to put it a little differently, your inner iguana needs a LOT of petting!

How?

To begin with, I’ve found it helps me to appreciate how scared that little lizard inside each one us is. Lizards – and early mammals, emerging about 200 million years ago – that were not continually uneasy and vigilant would fail the first test of life in the wild: eat lunch – don’t be lunch – today.

So be aware of the ongoing background trickle of anxiety in your mind, the subtle guarding and bracing with people and events as you move through your day. Then, again and again, try to relax some, remind yourself that you are actually alright right now, and send soothing and calming down into the most ancient layers of your mind.

Also soothe your own body. Most of the signals coming into the brain originate inside the body, not from out there in the world. Therefore, as your body settles down, that sends feedback up into your brain that all is well – or at least not too bad. Take a deep breath and feel each part of it, noticing that you are basically OK, and letting go of tension and anxiety as you exhale; repeat as you like. Shift your posture – even right now as you read this – to a more comfortable position. As you do activities such as eating, walking, using the bathroom, or going to bed, keep bringing awareness to the fact that you are safe, that necessary things are getting done just fine, that you are alive and well.

Throughout, keep taking in the good of these many moments of petting your inner lizard. Register the experience in your body of a softening, calming, and opening; savor it; stay with it for 10-20-30 seconds in a row so that it can transfer to implicit memory. (For more on how to take in the good and defeat the innate negativity bias of the brain – whose unfortunate default setting is to be Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones – go to this link.)

Some have likened the mind/brain to a kind of committee. Frankly, I think it’s more like a jungle! We can’t get rid of the critters in there – they’re hardwired into the brain – but we can tame and guide them. Then, as the bumper sticker says, they wag more and bark less.

Or relax, like a lizard at ease in the sun.

* * *

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of the bestselling Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (in 21 languages). Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s taught at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and in meditation centers in Europe, North America, and Australia. His work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, Consumer Reports Health, and U.S. News and World Report. His blog – Just One Thing – suggests a simple practice each week that will bring you more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind and heart. If you wish, you can subscribe to Just One Thing here.

“Most people try to solve their problems by thinking things through, by imagining alternatives or by putting themselves in another person’s shoes.This is one way to attempt a self-dialogue, but it can leave one dissatisfied. It usually means that one side of us gets its way by effectively shutting off our needs or the protests of other inner aspects – either by judging, by being reasonable, or by self-intimidation. A solution is reached but one remains slightly dissatisfied because the stifled aspect did not get the chance to answer back or to defend itself.

Developing a self-dialogue is learning how to arrive at solutions by letting every aspect have its say, so that the solutions is a true resolution of one’s deeper scripts. To identify all the inner characters, see what each has to say, what their differences and whether there can be a conversation among them is to create a new synthesis in one’s self-understanding and new possibilities for life expression.

Stanley Keleman

Are you curious about your landscape of inner characters, also known as parts or sub-personalities?

I like to think of mine as an “inner committee” – though somehow only some of my characters seem to sit at the main table. Some get relegated to the tea-room, some have been exiled and only get to make a rare appearance at a shareholders meeting where they try make a change, demand some voice or upstage the status quo by waving placards or engaging in some kind of outrageous behaviour, others get support roles  but never get in on the decision-making.

There are many ways to explore our inner voices…and here are a couple of links to blogs or websites that I think do it very well…

Integral-Options Blog

Inner Empathy 

Internal Family Systems

Have fun… co-written Ms Personal Development and Ms Contribution

You’ve got to watch this witty and poignant talk by Brené Brown, a University of Houston professor who studies human connection.

She found those who are happiest in relationships are those who are willing to feel vulnerable and admit that they are imperfect… and believe they are worthy of love, belonging and connection. Brene found, in her research, this belief is the only thing that separates those who are happiest in relationships and those that are less so…

…a process for living that masquerades as a communication technique…

…compassionate connecting & communicating with curiosity…

…self acceptance and acceptance of others…

The differences between feelings and Focusing….including and beyond feelings…