Emma Jarrett - In This Moment

Struggle or Swim

2017-09-18T09:50:00.001-07:00

Once faced with the diagnosis of cancer, my biggest challenge was in choosing what approach to take.

It felt like a cruelly urgent "do or die" exercise in learning to trust my own intuition AND rational thought when faced with the expertise of medical science (and the $7 billion cancer industry lurking behind it), the art and efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the experience of others who have walked their own path with cancer and the opinions of those who know me sometimes better than I know myself.

And the day I realized that there was no single, right pathway to take with a promised, certain outcome, was monumental. I woke up to the fundamental truth that I had no control over whether I would live or die. I was frightened beyond words, yet liberated and relieved at the same time. My breathing calmed and expanded and everything looked brighter and more miraculous.

This poem was my best way to describe how it felt to me, and it still gives me shivers as I remember the darkness and horror of having to choose, and then the surrender that followed.

Will you

Struggle or Swim

frantic or form

to escape murky waters below?

Will you thrash and flail or flutter and crawl,

choose to float and go with the flow?

The Struggle;

a breathless, self-righteous 'can do';

"I’ll beat this predicament, I’ll show ‘em who’s who".

It will keep you busy, feels like control

Exhausts you from kicking at shadows below.

To Swim;

takes learning, trusting the science

stroke by stroke; total reliance

on those who have studied, know what it’s all for

- to increase your chances of reaching the shore.

And then there’s the Flow

the inexorable pull,

the ebbing tides, pale moons new and full.

There’s floating and sinking,

washed up on rocks,

a soft, sandy footfall,

barnacled docks.

And slowly, slowly while moved through time

the choices are clearer, the peace is sublime.

There’s choosing between,

there’s trusting it all.

There’s praying for miracles,

and scaling the wall.

And once on top absorbing the view

of each moment to come, each choice fresh and new,

a smile shines your lips

feeling glad that you came

to know that life’s precious - a marvellous game

of perspective, relationship, grind and grace

no longer a fight or unwinnable race.

I wish for us all to wake up to the wonder

we knew as a child or when death threatens plunder

of our golden hearts, our fondest hopes.

May we live in each moment, relinquish our tropes.

When in deep water, dark below

Will you struggle, swim and

Go with the Flow?

Moment of Choice

2017-09-11T14:46:00.002-07:00

It has been a while.

Life has been colourful - to put it mildly.

I seem to be out the other side with a clarity about what truly matters to me. Hence renaming this blog, In This Moment. We are right here in it, after all. And hello to you as you choose to spend this moment of yours reading my words.

Hello! Take a breath and settle in, if you choose to stay. It’s your moment of choice.

It has taken a humbling tussle with cancer to open my eyes to the moment I am in. Moments which can be a few seconds; a fleeting interaction, a happy thought. Or periods of time delineated by some external structure; a work day, a treatment schedule or a plane trip. And then moments as life stages; mothering a newborn, high school education, a career, even dying well as you acknowledge your last days. All these hold a context for the minuscule moment which is accompanied by my next breath in and subsequent release.

How am I going to spend this moment that I am present to? How shall I live well?

My understanding was made very concrete that there is no single, right answer to this wonderful ride called life! I am now more present to it all being about perspective and choice. My perspective on what is important changed dramatically. As a result, how I live has changed. The way I make choices is clearer and more compassionate and I watch as each choice inescapably accumulates to a life lived.

This clarity has brought a change to how I choose to spend my time. And time, oh my! Time continually morphed for me depending on what news I had, which chemo day I was on, when surgery loomed or healing ‘took too long’. Looking back that ordeal was timeless, a black hole, though I can see on the calendar that it is over a year since treatment began. So now, as I said, I see time as an opportunity for context and presence. From the big scheme of things, to this next breath. I enjoy it being less linear in my perception and more multi-faceted, multi-layered and, as they say, multi-dimensional.

So I intend to spend time sharing some of my hard-won perspectives. My desire in this, as with everything I share, is for connection. Connection into my own thoughts and interactions, offering connection in and with you and your own ideas. This is truly what makes my life rich. I hope it might enrich yours too, In This Moment.

And in more to come.

Steps from 50

2017-09-05T08:48:00.001-07:00

January 2015 saw me completing my 50^th year and launched me into what I am blithely calling My Next 50. I fully realize that I have very little control over how many more I will live, but let’s just say my plan involves 5 more decades.

But how do you plan for that?!

I marvel at all the elements that went into those first 50 years; the growing, the learning, the family and friends, the books and music, the world events and cultural shifts that have accompanied and influenced me.

But most of all I marvel at all the choices.

The choices that I felt encouraged to take or was discouraged from taking are truly what have added up to me being the person I am, with the community, the friends, the children, the memories and the plans that I have. It’s pretty mind-blowing when I think about how this all accumulated and I feel filled with gratitude and awe.

But what about all those plans?

How do I now plan another 5 decades?

How do I ensure those plans will be given the best chance of coming to fruition?

I don’t.

Here’s what I choose instead:

While keeping very broad desires in mind like health, safety, purpose, loving, comfort, joy, I will trust that here and now is really where it all happens. I trust that the choice I make in each moment is what fashions each small step. I trust that those successive small steps create the uncharted path opening up as I move forward.

A pretty simple understanding; applying this to my life is where I hit the coalface!

This will demand of me a trust that I’m not entirely sure I have fathomed before, but which has been growing as I have learned, taught, grappled and played with the ideas I hope to keep sharing. A trust in my own abilities to notice, think, reason through, follow what makes sense to me in that moment and to let go of what outcome results as I move forward and continue to notice, think, reason through...this cycle never stops. Seeing it written in this linear form does not do it justice, but truly I realise that this process is vital to the cycle of living the rest of my life in the way that I desire to live it.

There is a saying I grew up with: “Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.” I frankly always railed at that adage, thinking it ridiculously naive and I certainly never followed its advice. I wanted to dream big and not bother with the small change. I wanted to take the big strides, not the small, disciplined steps.

But if there is one thing I have learned in 50 years it is that if I take care of the small (even seemingly insignificant) choices in my day-to-day life, and if those choices are made in line with what is in my heart of hearts true to me in that moment, then my future (an hour from now, or a decade) will be created by those choices and will have a much higher chance of including satisfaction, health, purpose, love, joy, comfort...

Much as I feel a little embarrassed to be sharing such a simple and obvious truth as News!, I think it is likely not just me who has needed years of learning to reveal this principle. It is probably not just me who has been caught up in believing the "When I" principle of life: "When I am rich", "When I meet my perfect partner", "When I am fit", "When I finally believe in myself", "When I quit this addiction", as if that time in the future holds all the promise and reward.

The secret really is in being me now and finding satisfaction and joy in the here and now. Not without desires and dreams, but without attachment to them being the Holy Grail of happiness or success.

I have wasted too many hours of my life dreaming of "When I...", instead I choose "Now I..." and will see how the next decades unfold.

You are the result of every decision you have made.

2012-07-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

You are the result of every decision you’ve made. An obvious, but much avoided, truth made so poignantly vivid by Jeremiah McDonald to his 12 year old self here.

There are so many inspired moments within this short video, but my favourite has to be at 3’20” where Jeremiah makes a decision, having woken-up to himself. The fire is re-lit inside him, he’s back on purpose and nothing else matters but pursuing his passion; “what he does”. And he takes action. Ahh, is there anything better in life? Is there anything more worthy of celebration than witnessing (or being) a person acting on their deep recollection of themselves?

Decide to spend your next 4 minutes watching this delightfully clever and funny creation or abandon reading this post now. You’d be “wasting your time” trying to make sense of it, if you don’t. And I’d hate to be blamed for that ;)

So, what do you do exactly?

What did you do before you decided not to?

What were you doing “before you made this video”? At whatever age that was.

Do you remember? Or did it get overshadowed by decisions you made about growing-up, getting a real job, getting an education, raising a family, being responsible?

Or is it “all a blur”?

We might blame the advent of the internet for having no time; we might bemoan how technology has changed our lives; we might bleat that we all have to be “plugged-in” 24/7. NO! That’s all a decision. A decision we make. Technology doesn’t demand anything of us. Technology doesn’t have the ability to change us. We do that. We decide how attached we want to be to it. For better or for worse. For richer, for poorer… you get the idea.

And that’s the brilliance of human beings (yes, YOU!); we can make very quick, very smart decisions in each and every moment of our lives. We are, believe it or not, still smarter than the device in our pocket. We can still evaluate, decide and act based on our desires, passions and sense of purpose. We might get distracted, but we do still have the spark of that fire within us.

But sometimes we need help remembering.

I know I did. And still do from time to time, to be perfectly honest.

The art of remembering appears to not be just a one-shot deal. And can be accessed from so many different angles and sources. That’s why I decided to collaborate in making this event happen with Dyana Valentine and Dianne Tharp in Vancouver, August 24/25/26 2012

Check it out and make your decision:

Know your mind; free your body and soul.

Evelyn Glennie shows how to listen | Video on TED.com

2010-08-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

I saw this remarkable woman in the live West End production of Children of a Lesser God many years ago and she still amazes me. Little did I know then that I would become the proud mother of my very own daughter with a hearing loss. My hope is that Evelyn becomes an inspiration to Freya too.

From a professional perspective, as one who teaches observation and "listening" in all its guises, this piece particularly caught my eye. At 5'38" Ms Glennie gives a most wonderful physical and musical demonstration of the difference between using a lot of effort to "make" a connection to her instrument and music, and then simply not using that effort - the difference is immediately obvious.

THIS is part of what I mean by more success for less effort.

Check it out!

http://www.ted.com/talks/evelyn_glennie_shows_how_to_listen.html

Emma Jarrett, ITM
emmasjarrett@gmail.com