Dance steps

 One of my sons is a Counsellor. His speciality is children, but through study he has needed to become well versed in various theories. There are the usual suspects, such as Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Theory. More recently, came Emotion Focused Therapy, both for individuals and couples.

We chat about these topics. I have always been interested in what makes people tick. I found myself reading books and academic papers that took my fancy, and in that reading, I came to see that Sue Johnson of Canada, who created Emotion Focused Therapy, really did have it all figured out.

In a nutshell, she believed, as John Bowlby before her, that we are all, despite our differences, much the same. We are wired for connection and to bond with a few precious people. Our survival as mammals is dependent on that bonding and if that isn't secure, we tend to behave in fairly predictable ways. We either become demanding or we withdraw.

Therein lies the distancer-pursuer dance. It's a clumsy sort of dance that benefits no-one. It needs to come to a halt. New music needs to be chosen. A different sort of dance needs to be learned.

Maybe two years ago now, I was convinced by a relative stranger to try to retrieve a dynamic in my marriage that had, much to my chagrin, fizzled out. I was convinced by someone that I had been talking to, a therapist of sorts, that it was easy enough to reinvigorate that dynamic; that it could be done in no time. I wanted to believe that, and I went along with the plan. It turned out to be two of the most challenging years of my life. In hindsight, I should have trusted my gut.

It is extremely hard to go against the grain, to act in a way that is the opposite to how one has, reasonably satisfactorily, survived up to this point. These are reasonably automatic responses and need to be broken down. This will often require the assistance of a trusted and reliable therapist; one who will act as an attachment figure; the model of secure attachment. These automatic responses of ours are so ingrained and often lie below our awareness. I have a reasonable level of intelligence, but it has taken me a long time to bring instinctive reactions to the surface on my own, that is, without help.

Both my husband and I were brought up in a generation by parents who simply had no emotional attunement with their children. It was challenging for them to have anything but well behaved, compliant children, so neither of us learned how to express our emotions in an honest and attuned way. In fact, I would say, emotions equalled danger. 

I have come to realise that my husband has had no capacity to be with my emotions. I've spent the vast majority of our almost 50 years together in a, comparatively speaking, quiet and controlled state. If I bring to him a small amount of distress, that's okay, but anything more, dysregulates him. I recall now the many times I have said, 'I can't talk with you about my distress looking for soothing because what happens is I feel more distressed after we talk'. There was the clue.

There has been something about my being 'emotional' that has triggered in him, instinctively and beyond his ability to do anything about it, danger.

We made great inroads this week when I shared, quietly and calmly, the fact that his massive loss of weight is very difficult for me. I have a muscle memory of where my arms should go, my hands should go, what I will feel when my hands hold him in bed. 

To his great credit, he listened without reacting defensively, and he shared that he feared being rejected by me. 

It has felt for so long that I have a need to get closer and he has a need to withdraw more, whilst all the while we both crave the other's love.

I was sitting outside a Japanese restaurant during the week eating my miso soup and watching people go by. I watched men go in and out of the supermarket next door and a thought popped into my head. Where on earth would I ever find someone to replace my husband? Where would I ever find a suitable Owner? There is so vey much that is right about our union, except for this dumb pursuer-distancer dance.

Sharing our vulnerabilities, that's the first step in choosing new music; feeling into what we feel so that we can transform the feelings into something new and better.

Flowing

 The last entry was Wednesday, a horrible day. I just read back on that entry which I had written first thing that day. I was motoring along as best I could when I got a call for permissions for my mother to go into palliative care at the nursery home - in other words, no heroics - and I found the double Dutch too much. I heard the word 'infection' which didn't jive with the word 'palliative'. It wasn't until the next morning - yesterday - when a nurse I knew well rang, and by then I was able to have the conversation, a perfectly orderly and reasonable conversation, and we were all on the same page.

It feels like I can have the thought 'just flow with it', that that thought is lodged in mind and body, and then so many minutes later, tears flow, and I am not so good at flowing. It's not in the plan, to fall apart, and then I do, which is what lead me to write now, again, first thing in the morning.

Wednesday was almost mad with the many things and thoughts I dealt with. I ended that day with my son wanting to talk about accepting a place at a college to end out his Masters. This means in so many weeks, he will formally move out of home, my last chicken. Of course, I said he should accept it, he has saved the money to do so, and it will be a good experience for him.

And then, he sort of had a meltdown, wondering what would happen to our dog who we had buried in the garden if I sold the house. I guaranteed him that if and when that time came, we would bury her remains in our garden by the sea. He clearly was feeling vulnerable too, and that was his expression of it. I made a mental note that as soon as possible we needed a dog in our lives. It's the first time we have been without a dog, and we need the commonsense of a dog. Dogs definitely flow.

It makes sense there's a certain amount of processing going on, for both of us. It's not since just before Covid, when all the boys of the family had a European holiday skiing the Alps (and thank God for that) that I have been alone in the house a good deal of the time. Is it some colliding of the stars that I fell two weeks ago and have been tending to a sore knee? Do things simply happen all at once for a reason, I wonder.

Today, we finally pick up my son's car - long story - but it's another reason, his borrowing of my car to get to work and university - that kept me in a contemplative state, a transitional state, a preparation state.

When there was the opportunity, I used to attend a Dharma Dialogues gathering. I am not so inclined now that it is online, it's just not the same for me. I recall Catherine, the host, say that we do this, sit silently and then talk when moved to do so, about life's big all-encompassing thoughts. We do this, she said, gathering strength, flexing the muscle, so that when things do fall apart, we are ready. 

I find myself noticing little things. I think one notices different things at times when they resonate with you. I heard Rachel Ward talk briefly about thinking that the farm they owned wasn't something she could involve herself in, until the kids had gone and it occurred to her, that she did in fact have a place there. It meant she had to learn from scratch, daunting but do-able.

And I heard my husband on a telephone call to me, about a subject he usually handles, say to me, 'you'll work it out'. That's not something he typically says.

It feels a bit like the material I am reading about 'attachment' and healing with attachment modalities. There's that psychoanalytic sort of approach, working with emotions, bringing them up, creating new meaning or strengths or outcomes or solutions that way. Then there is the practical approach, the solutions approach, maybe more the cognitive behaviour approach, addressing dissonant thoughts.

It's a beautiful thing, these new modalities, where the therapist is seen as the guide, to help the client see that all that was needed was actually already there inside the person. Maybe the material of the life story needed to be massaged a bit, like a 'trip' that might lead you to see that, as an example, the man you feared so much in your mind, as a boy, is now no threat to you. Your body can relax.

I wonder if, in a way, I've been doing my own therapy in the past two weeks, spending a lot of time alone, and gently guiding my mind to see things in a new way; gathering creative solutions and feeling into my natural strengths - growing.

I love watching 'Couples Therapy'. I watch it on SMS on Demand, but I think Americans watch it on Showtime?? Anyway, this couple in Season 4 jumped ship. She's a psychoanalyst herself, as bright as a button, but she just couldn't give her husband what he wanted, this elusive sense of 'home'. He was demanding that she come up with the solution, and she just couldn't engineer it. It seemed doomed to fail because it was like asking 'hand over the money' when the money simply didn't exist. Her frustration was palpable.

You have to bend. You have to look squarely at the cards you are dealt, and you have to play your hand with skill and quiet courage. You have to be ready for anything.

I close my eyes. I see the river and take inspiration. Here I go. I flow.

Etiquette

 Someone referred to me recently as "cautious"; that is, neither introverted nor extroverted, but cautious. I had never thought of it that way, but the more I thought about it, I came to the following conclusion.

I enjoy people, as a general rule. And, I enjoy time alone. I need both.

I don't need people to give me energy, like a light bulb requires energy. At the same time, I don't need, and don't want, to have energy sucked from me, or carry the negative energies of other people.

There's a distinct difference here which I am trying to put into words, mostly for myself.

My prisoner penpal...he's in a very rough spot and I don't expect him to provide me with energy (although he sometimes does), or even curiosity about my life. My positive energy, together with a keen listening ear is what I give to him. The correspondence we share is meaningful to me and I would miss it were it to come to an end.

I am very open to providing a listening ear in any number of situations and again, it's a gift I willingly give.

At the same time, I am subject to the ups and downs of being human. No-one can get away from this, unless you are an enlightened soul. Maybe the Dalai Lama can get away with it.

My nature is to be calm and positive; to work with momentum to move forward in life. I have built resilience to adapt to circumstances as they have unfolded to date.

Having said all that, I shy away from being brought down. Since the comment was made about me being cautious, I became aware of the fact that if I determine that an interaction or being in the company of someone in particular will bring me down, I do my best to avoid the circumstance, most especially if it happens again and again.

Years ago, I bought a book about living gracefully. It's somewhere on the book shelf. The writer made the comment that sometimes she isn't feeling her best and that when that happens she consciously chooses to keep her own company, rather than inflicting her negative mindset on someone else. 

As I was writing here today I was aware of reading the comment at the time and thinking this a good strategy. 

It's one thing to be a good friend, or spouse, or mother of an adult child and to offer them your ear. Generally speaking, that's the right thing to do.

However, to expect someone else to take on your emotional life in the moment - your frustration, or anger, or insecurity - much as they might ask you to wear their coat since they are overheated, is asking too much, even of an empath, or someone willing to give more than they take.

It's such a shame that the etiquette books of yesteryear are out of vogue. They contained much wisdom.

Recuperation

A dozen years younger, I could never have predicted that my sexuality would change with me; that I would feel as I do today. In another dozen years, should I live so long, I feel certain that the situation will be vastly different than what it is today. We are in constant change in fact, flowing along, sometimes moving so automatically and steadily that we are unaware of the change, until it boldly demands our attention.

As a young girl, I had certain fantasies that dominated my mind as I drifted off to sleep, and when I woke. To some extent, they have endured. I see them for what they are now, with the benefit of hindsight, and talking in the past few months with a very good older psychologist.

They were bound in fear. I will probably never know why I was so fearful as a child. It probably related to growing up in a hotel where there wasn’t much security for me. As well, and most importantly, I think it related to a sense that I needed to be ‘good’. To be in trouble seemed as bad as it could get. 

The fantasies related to people, both men and women, who were stern, punishing and quite uncaring and unloving. I do still have those fantasies today but only around orgasm. It’s a quick route from one to the other and sometimes I succumb to them, even though I wish the fantasies were different. I wish I could completely outgrow them, but so far, no luck.

Of course, any reader of old here knows that I dabbled in power exchange and BDSM. This lasted for some years with much passion and pleasure afforded.

It wasn’t always as I had hoped. It’s remarkably tricky to align sexuality with another person when the sexuality is on the margins. If you read relationship advice it’s generally for those in the middle of the curve and the rest of us have to more or less make it up as we go, or adjust, and experiment, and yes, change for the other.

I’m unquestionably a quiet living person. Without doubt, I was attracted to the opposite of me. As a quiet living person and a non-competitor, I was attracted to the more aggressive and competitive man.

As someone who instinctively wanted to be succumbed, I was attracted to the type of man who enjoyed succumbing me.

It became not just a passion but an obsession and all the entries of the past here attest to that obsession.

I think it is a fair call to say that through psych sessions it has been well established that my childhood created a situation in adulthood where I could easily become enmeshed with a man. It’s an attachment problem. I was not securely attached with either parent. That can lead to attachment issues in relationships as adults as well, unfortunately. It’s like getting doubly punished.

When there is an attachment issue, conflict in the relationship can seem overwhelming. It’s an ideal set up for a sadist because without this secure attachment in childhood as one’s psychological backbone, the partner will do almost anything in order to gain approval.

I have, without doubt, got off on being dominated, but I don’t consider myself a masochist. I could be wrong. I suppose it depends on the definition. 

I don’t want to be hurt. Some pain, or discomfort, or some psychological dominance, like taking me places I may not at first want to go, can be very appealing ultimately – quite delicious. In my mind, that’s different to being hurt; like sad; distressed; a feeling of being unloved; a sense of distance.

I wonder if sometimes the wires get crossed about that. A sexually dominant person who is consistent – as in right across his (or her) life – may not understand the need for expressions of love and affection. It’s possible his (or her) brain works in a different way since love and affection are expressed so differently sexually.

If there are different modes of expression of sexuality is it not possible that there are different modes of expressing love and affection in words and actions? Perhaps there is even an inability to offer comfort in a way that is so natural to those whose sexual expression is more mainstream. In the same way as it is hard to get sexuality to align on the fringes perhaps it is just as hard to get the need for expression of feelings and emotions to align as well.

All relationships can go through tough patches but those on the fringe are particularly tricky through the years, I think, for these reasons and others.

Feelings and emotions evolve as we age and particularly so for people like me who may not have had the full component of feelings and emotions available to them as children. If you feel the need to be ‘good’ over your lifetime that’s going to cause issues and it’s going to have you susceptible to shame any time that people aren’t happy with you. It’s going to demand that other people have their way, and your needs are quite secondary to theirs. This is the way it has been. Don’t rock the boat.

Over this year, as I completed a course where I had to read books about emotions, I came to see that I had suppressed emotions. Emotions tumbled out after that. Anger, sadness, frustration – they came at me quite violently at first.

Masochism, particularly on the psychological domain, became as much of a ‘turn off’ as it had been a turn on. I complained bitterly to the psych about being spoken to harshly or out of turn at home. I could no longer tolerate rudeness. I wanted very much to be treated like an equal, with kindness, care and consideration. I wanted to be able to talk without people talking over me or raising their voice; with consideration.

I have struggled to feel at peace with my mother. With her zero awareness of the damage caused to me in childhood and the misery this has caused in adulthood, especially over the past year,  a conversation is and will always be impossible. The silver lining there is that my brother and I, each other’s witness, have become close. We have talked often this year and been able to make sense of our lives and the damage caused through these discussions.

My husband, aware of my trials, but perhaps not all the repercussions of the angst, tends to think that along with respect, patience and kindness, I need a little sexual dominance. Perhaps. I am not so sure. I can feel myself moving towards him, but it feels delicate. I am delicate.I want it to be organic. I don't ever want to be hurt again.

 I don’t want a dark place. I want very much to move towards light. I want to experience happiness as my default. To be honest, joy is only fleeting, but a part of my life. I adore to guide people in meditation. I love to be with my family. My grandson fills up my cup.

Mostly, I love to be alone. I come home in the afternoon with ingredients to make a meal from scratch, turn on some meditative music, and feel perfectly happy with my own company.

I don’t expect it to stay this way for all that long. At some stage, the healing process will be complete. I feel sure that instinctively I will know how to get back into life in a more complete way.

Right now, everything, my body and mind, tells me to take my time; walk, write, read, listen to music, garden, take yoga classes, sleep and meditate; teach others to meditate.

Years ago, people would recuperate from being unwell in sanitariums; laze about in the sun and drink cups of tea until their energy rose quite naturally. I am taking a leaf out of that book, as much as I can. 

I am happy to be writing again here. I waited until it felt right, and it does.

Emotions

If I hadn't been to meditation retreats, or started Meditation Teacher training, or explored the BDSM space, I doubt I would know much about emotions. Well, that's not quite right. I bought a book called 'Emotions' in 1981.

I was first introduced to the idea of suppressed emotions causing cancer several years ago on retreat and I've mulled it ever since.

Recently, I have also considered the idea of creating good and happy emotions. This has been found to be one of the many things people do when they have a radical remission from cancer.

Articles I have read have suggested releasing anger by writing; a journal, a blog, a letter you never send. Or, exercise. Or, do chair work. In this case, you'd put a chair in front of you and speak to the invisible person you are angry with and tell them how you feel, and why.

Personally, I experience anger towards those very few people who make promises to me, or commitments, but don't follow through. That definitely makes me angry. I stay calm for longer than I should. Patience only goes so far before it feels like a waste of time. You can feel a bit of a dill when someone makes promises but doesn't keep them, over and over again.

Eventually, I say how I really feel. There is fall out, hurt feelings, but to hold in my anger after being remarkably patient for long periods of time would undoubtedly be detrimental to my health. Instinctively, I knew that I had to say what I felt because I was just too uncomfortable in my mind and my body keeping it all held in.

I attended a meditation retreat this past weekend and I used a receptive method of meditation to simply allow my thoughts and feelings to reside and be front and center. After each sitting we journaled what we remembered. I noticed on the last half hour sit that my mind's position had mellowed, but only so far. Promises made still hadn't been delivered and I was angry about that; about being taken for a fool, or being taken advantage of as the empath that I am, with an abundance of desire to create a pleasing state, no matter what; to put happiness first.

People tend to think of meditation being creating a state of calm and bliss. Sometimes. Sure. But, without allowing the mind to be receptive to thoughts and feelings, you are missing out on the opportunity to know the mind and to get at repressed emotions; lethal to your health.

The good news is that once repressed emotions are expressed the mind and the body heave a sigh of relief; abnormal levels start to come back into healthy zones. The mind settles more and the opportunity exists to problem solve in a normal and rational way.

It makes sense to almost everyone, I am sure, that elevated emotions, serve our health well. This is where metta meditations serve us very well. To sit and think of one's loved ones, to cast one's mind over a sense of care for the World, to recite a loving kindness mantra, to have one's heart swell with loving feelings is not only lovely but also wonderful for the mind and body.  Singing, dancing, laughing is all highly recommended.

This is where my life gets stuck. At home, there is a lot of expressing emotions, though rarely mine. I listen and listen, trying very hard to 'observe, don't absorb'. This opportunity to vent is not afforded to me, since regular rants would be most uncomfortable for both of us. I tend to sort my emotions out myself. Every now and again, I disregard these unwritten rules and let it be known exactly how I feel. This is my life saver; perhaps literally.

It is interesting (to me) that I dwelled in the space of metta meditations for a couple of years, really building up 'feel good' and healing emotional states. Once that was in good shape I needed to work on the repressed emotions. This has accomplished two things:

- I needed to acknowledge that my mother was fundamentally absent in my childhood. Once I acknowledged that,  and the damage, I had made space for forgiveness in my heart. I feel very close to her these days.

- I needed to acknowledge my personality - an empath who has a deep need to bond, who has a strong internal critic and a strong need to please. I have been, without doubt, prey to the Narcissist who wanted a devotee, happy to be led, such that he could pretty much do as he pleased.

Older now, I have no interest in this game. If you make me a promise, keep it, or experience my expression of my deep disappointment. No more excuses. No more repressed emotions. Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

Silliness

It would be reasonable to expect that on a meditation retreat there would be opportunities for disclosure of difficult thoughts and yet there was really only one conversation where I revealed myself a little or where anyone else dug below the surface.

We were asked to work in pairs on the final morning for a few minutes, each taking turns to talk about any shifts or revelations that had occurred over the week.

I happened to be seated next to David, a very pleasant man around my age who had been open about his thoughts on a number of subjects over the course of the week. When it came to compassion or unconditional love or forgiveness he wasn't of a mind to include psychopaths. No matter what the teacher offered to convince him that all people must be included David held strongly to the view that if you act inhumanely that makes you something other than human and hence not worthy of his forgiveness or compassion. I knew David would listen to me intently but I also knew he wouldn't hold back on his assessment of my words.

I told him I had always operated primarily in my heart space, not my mind space. I had a strong tendency to please, to keep the peace, and to live peacefully. Yet, assessment of my life made clear to me that still some more changes had to be made. Developing a sense of self love this year, I had determined I needed to "give myself permission" to open the gate and walk through to a world where my needs were heard and given some allocation, either by myself or others in my life."

When talking to someone I think there is a tendency to hold closely to the words. I noticed there was a bit of tendency for David to see himself as one up. It wasn't overt. He was polite and kind. Still, I felt one down and I don't always feel that way, hardly ever feel this way in conversation with people other than my husband.

Then, there's the matter of expression in ways other than words. I smile a lot and I giggle a great deal. I tend to offer the other person joy, because that is what I have to offer. I tend to see the quirky side of the world and I tend to have an irreverent Irish sort of humor. It's hard for me to be around people who don't smile much. David doesn't smile. Nor does a girl my age who was there who I had known all my life. It was my friend who pointed this out to me.

It's a strange sort of an observation, a bit unsettling. Here I am with this desire to have my silliness bubble up and find expression and yet I have been married to a serious person all my life. I'm not sure that has been good for me, not allowing my quirky, silly sense of humor to seek the sunshine as often as would be natural to me.

It's interesting to note that when I get with my brother we tend to collapse into laughter at the drop of a hat. We each make other laugh a lot. My mother makes people laugh all the time. Even the day before he died my Dad had the staff of the hospital smiling. 'I'm in more trouble than a pregnant nun,' he said.

Both my youngest sons have the loveliest sense of humors and many times a week they share jokes with me, U tube clips, comedians, silliness. My eldest son is a little different. It's not a daily thing for him but when he lets his hair down he is the silliest of us all.

There are numerous elements to my bimbo identity. There's the undeniable pleasure. Then, there's the arousal response, the letting go response, the satiation of my innate personality; the seeking of joy and total relaxation.

Then, there is the silliness. Before my daughter married earlier this year the happy couple got together with the marriage celebrant and she listened to them talk. At the service she said that my son in law is dependable, rational and reliable; her rock. That's definitely true. She is soft and creative and silly. That's right too. They are polar opposites and he loves that she is silly, that she is creative; emotional where he is rational. They both were attracted to what they did not see in themselves.

I think going forward I need to acknowledge more my own quirky way of operating in the world. I am capable of immense joy. I am so lucky in this way. I can feel intense happiness, peacefulness and love. My cup can runneth over. I need more of that; much more silliness. I need to allow myself expression of my natural delight in being alive. This is an important element of my authentic self.

Meditation

I am home from a meditation retreat where we spent considerable time in silence and in a meditative pose. It wasn't the same experience for me this year and I was grateful for that. Last year I felt overwhelming emotion consistently; trying not to weep, holding back tears, finding my voice breaking when sharing. I had sometimes been unable to prevent tears pouring down my face when in meditation or on the day when we visited the group who sang sacred music. It was a private meltdown.

I suppose the good news story of last year is that I returned to my life in a still, private space. I felt that I had somehow gathered strength for those parts of my life that were raw and painful. I had been confronted by the intense pain of other people and I had been softened by it; opened up. It felt like a good thing. I felt like I had found my tribe, the walking wounded; those who knew that something had to be done about their emotional damage before they were annihilated by it. On some level perhaps I understood that more emotional pain was to come and I was grateful for the shoring up of reserves.

If left to my own devices I would not have attended again this year, but my friend had been onto me for several months, wanting me so much to be there with her. There came a point where there seemed no choice and I made the necessary preparations.

This year there were so many more sick people. I was affected by it, no doubt about that, but I also took it somewhat in my stride. I think I had developed an understanding of the reality of the situation. People are prematurely dying from cancer from the way they live and think and from unresolved damage of their past and present experiences. It was inevitable that at a meditation retreat, unlike a health resort, there were would be many sad stories to hear.

The first conversation that stood out to me was that of a middle aged local woman; by that I mean she lived in New Zealand. She had had a double mastectomy several years ago. Recently, she had discovered a lump in her neck and would return from the retreat to hear the results of tests; whether the primary cancer was located in her breast region or in a gynecological region. Either way, her prognosis was dire. She already had the news that she was terminal.

I asked questions about the support in her life. Fortunately she had been helped with a little counseling to deal with her anger and fear but any further help she could get would be useful. So, I pointed out her situation to one of the 'teachers' and received a very odd response. The woman had to come to her, she told me, and she wouldn't be doing anything about it unless she did. It felt like a slap across the face and I immediately closed down, merely offering that she was a woman with little support and I felt it wouldn't hurt to be aware of her situation and keep a watch on her. As if this 'triggered' her in some way she said that if she wanted specific advice she should attend a cancer workshop not a meditation retreat..

This made me incredibly angry. It felt heartless. Don't ever make the mistake of wholly trusting spiritual people, as if they are people without triggers and flaws of their own. We are just people who sometimes act well and sometimes not. Of course, I took the matter further in a subtle way and she did receive some one-on-one counseling from my friend. By the end of the week she seemed much lighter, smiled often.

At the end of the sacred singing this year, a deeply moving experience, we talked a little. There came a moment when I felt a need to move closer into her inner world. 'May I hug you?' I asked. She nodded yes. We embraced for several seconds and I stroked her hair. Now my tears escaped. 'It has been wonderful to meet you,'  I said. 'You will be all right.' I didn't mean she would live, because I don't think she will be alive for all that long. What I meant was that she would find the strength to die well.

Rightly or wrongly, I said as few 'goodbyes' before I left on the shuttle bus for the airport as I could. I had given all that I had to give. I had held in my own sorrows. I had been kind and supportive and good company. Now, I needed to go, as quietly and as quickly as possible.

The retreat is in a remote location and so I stayed overnight at the hotel airport on the first Friday, before I caught the shuttle bus that would transport me to the retreat. It was there when I turned on my phone that I received a message from my doctor's office to call them. I have been trying very hard to get a handle on my stress response over the past year but this message terrified me. I had recently had a battery of blood tests and prepared myself for the news that a cancerous state was indicated.

In fact, the news related to an elevated cholesterol count and I immediately researched, whilst I had access to the hotel's Internet, what to do about that. I love cheese and of course I determined immediately that it was another food to eliminate from my diet. I wrote a list of foods to focus on, flax seeds that I could soak overnight and add to my porridge, for example.

But, I knew in my bones that I had to work harder to resolve the significant stress that I was living with; stress being a significant factor in elevated cholesterol levels. My needs have not been, and are not met, and living with someone who can't process that has been stress provoking.

On the final morning one of the participants was asked to say a 'thank you' on behalf of the group to the 'teacher' who is retiring. She shared that when she met him her mind was a living nightmare. Her relatives being Jewish had been through the concentration camps and many of them had ultimately taken their lives. She had deemed that perhaps this was the only way out for her too. But, the teacher had taken her under his wing and instructed her to meditate consistently. Although she sometimes felt nauseous doing so she had kept up the practice until, day by day, the freakish nightmare inside her head started to lose its hold over her sanity.

It was Kate's comments that truly reached me. There has been a nightmare going on in my head and changes must be made. Time on my cushion must be increased. A sense of peace will come from the inside out. My job is to sit with myself in silence until then.

A moment of rage

There was a moment recently when I did something I don't do. A comment was made, on reflection an infuriating, condescending, macho, 'in your face' comment. I can rise above this sort of thing, usually. But, a congruence of forces left me without that hold back and in the comment I was filled with blind rage. I could have done nearly anything in that moment.

It frightened me. I went looking for material about it on the Internet and I came across an article by a 5  feet 7 inches male academic of 140 pounds who had taken on a thief in a Spanish railway station before he could even think. He wrestled him to the ground and proudly called for backup from the crowd. No-one was interested and for a few hours he and his daughter were chased through the streets of Barcelona by a gang of thugs. In his right mind, he said, he would have let them just take the wallet, but a blind rage got the best of him.

I absolutely hate to even lose my temper for a moment let alone feel rage. It discombobulates me. I actually have to meditate. I have to do specific meditations about calming the body and meditations with healing sounds to settle my whole system down again.

I am reminded of advice today that we have a right to feel all of our feelings. Obviously, when the emotional mind takes over the thinking brain that can be dangerous, as the above anecdote illustrates. Rage, it seems, is the same sort of emotion as would have us running from a tiger. It's hard to contain that impulse. In the moment, I just reacted, without thought.

However, it happened. I wasn't exactly angry with or disappointed in myself. I mean, I do hate to have that reaction, but I recognize it for what it is, a reaction. It's a little upsetting to realize that we are all capable of reacting with such force. I wonder if the gun lobby advocates actually understand how lethal it is for someone whose emotions have overwhelmed their thinking mind to have access to a lethal weapon...

 I remember distinctly what happened to my body. My head felt woozy and  I had a great deal of energy.  I didn't care if anybody was hearing or seeing me. I had lost any social inhibition.  I needed to move about. The blood was pumping through my veins making me hot and agitated.

I knew I had to be alone. I went home and tried to return to the normal events of the day. I cooked. This helped settle me. I went to bed on time and slept soundly. The next day, I woke exhausted, got through the morning, but my afternoon I needed to lay down on the floor and listen to a guided meditation. I promptly fell asleep.

It took two days for my mind and body to recover from that one moment of overwhelming rage. I can't even begin to imagine what it is like to walk around ready to fight someone; to be full of anger and with a disposition for violence. I can't imagine being that trigger happy on a routine basis, ready to react to any slight.

I know life doesn't always go our way. I know things aren't always as they should be. But, I choose a happy disposition, a positive outlook, an ethereal, even empty headed mind. I have no idea how to live any other way.

A spiritual journey

As a little girl I was sent to Sunday School. My grandmother was Catholic and my mother too, but my father saw that she had suffered within the Catholic Church, being of an anxious disposition, so it was determined my brother and I would be raised in his faith, Protestant.

My school was affiliated with a religious order and so each morning there was a prayer and a hymn, sanctuary doors were opened and closed. A Minister came into class a few days a week to speak of the Bible and of being Christian. He was very old and often dozed.

In the background my grandmother kept the Catholic faith in my life. She taught me about the rosary and she talked about Heaven and Hell. God being up in the sky watching all things, good and bad, was clear in my mind.

Everything from childhood has some sort of effect but what I am most aware of as an adult is that I love to be in churches. I love the service and the majesty of the whole thing. I like the spectacle and the way I feel in churches. I like to light a candle or watch others light a candle. I love the music and the architecture. I love being with people who think it right to pray.

There is a clinical psychologist on Utube that I follow and he talks of human beings being psycho-spiritual beings. We want there to be something bigger than us. I think that's what pulled me into religion as a child; what captivated me. It really is quite natural to want to be part of something bigger than yourself.

I don't any more but prior to the last couple of years I would pray to God, to keep my children safe mostly.

Twenty years ago when I had my final baby I began to do Pilates, to music. It was within this experience of movement and music that I started to feel some release from a post natal depression that had its grip on me. It makes sense really because as a young girl I loved dance, ballet. It was my escape. Within the discipline, the rigor and the music, I felt free.

Once I had been doing Pilates for some time I tried yoga and adored it. In the same building they were running meditation classes and this seemed like a suitable next step, the right time.

Meditation was far from easy for me but there were enough good moments to keep me coming back. The young woman did a wonderful job of guided meditations which I found very much to my liking. I took myself to stunning tanzanite caves where lurid things took place, and up mountains where I glided off into open space quite effortlessly.

A new teacher taught us candle gazing and to stay in our bodies. My mind was still floating about so the instruction that I must stay in my body was another breakthrough thought.

I learned about walking meditations. I  was beginning to not only be aware of the anxiety in my body but to be its witness.

One day whilst out shopping I ran into a woman who had stopped coming to the meditation group and she asked if I was still attending the group. I told her I was. She had a much better idea, she told me, a sacred sort of meditation space, a sanctuary where she experienced great peace.

As I recall it took me a few months to go to the Sanctuary, where I never ran into her. One would pay $10 downstairs and then go up the stairs. We'd leave our shoes and bag outside and take up a position. A candle set in a big bowl flickered light about the dimly lit room.

I didn't understand at that time how to sit on a cushion or to use a prayer bench, so I sat in a chair. It was very peaceful but I don't like chairs for long meditations really. Other than that issue I felt I was getting somewhere with the meditation. My mind was sometimes slowing down. Sometimes I wondered if I could stand it another moment, but I never left.

My inner world remained quite chaotic. So, one day, when I saw a notice for an 8 week meditation course, I signed up. Thinking back to it I was still pretty hopeless but I had glimmers of a peaceful mind. As well as that our discussions that dovetailed the meditation practice was giving me information about the mind/body connection. I was the only person to finish the course.

Meditation remains a great challenge for most people. The classes I originally took closed down, and the group that ran the Sanctuary was forced to close.

I fell into a hole until a good year later, I think, I went in search for an alternative. I found someone but too far from my home. The lucky break was that she informed me of where the woman who taught my 8 week class was running a meditation group close to my home.

I try very hard not to miss that weekly group session. It is a most eclectic group. There has been a bone surgeon and his wife, a woman who lost everything in a bushfire, an architect with cancer, a surgeon who has some dementia, a very old man who was a Lecturer of Philosophy, a woman who lost her daughter to cancer. Currently, there is a man of 40 something whose cancer has come back three times. We are just starting to get to know him and last week he spoke openly.

For years I have meditated on a cushion; well three cushions these days. Various yoga poses have stretched out my thigh muscles, and I have wide open hips, so it's not uncomfortable at all, though it was until I made the necessary improvements to my body.

My spiritual practice is supported by reading gurus, spiritual healers and leaders. I'm too old to imagine that there is anyone on this Earth that is a perfect human being but certain people have much to teach us.
Pema Chodron is a favourite of mine but so too is Eckhart Tolle, and I have a soft spot for Ram Dass. But, I appreciate many leaders and writers. Rumi is great and I once bought a book whilst in Queensland which I think had a significant subliminal effect on me: Oshos' 'Meditation for Busy People.'  I keep a tumblr blog in large part devoted to the thoughts of such people that support my practice and the way I aim to live and to think/not think.

To refer back to the first few paragraphs of this post I don't think of an omnipotent God above the clouds any more. I think of God as being within me, within all of us. Either that Godliness is expressed or it isn't, but it resides inside, not outside.

I don't know, and who really cares, why I am the way I am. I came into the world quiet and noticing when all about me people were loud and unaware. People in my world seemed to be running on adrenaline when I wanted to find a peaceful place to simply read my book, or to think. I danced. I played the piano. I read. Such a young girl isn't suited to the loudness of her environment. I sought quiet places and experiences as relief from the noise and agitation.

I've blocked out a lot of memories, it seems. It doesn't matter . I do remember being upset, very upset and chaotic inside. This was before the spiritual journey began. I would take my extreme anger for a walk. One time I took it to a Step class and did my best to stay on the block. But, there reached a moment when I thought I might actually explode, or implode, and so I was forced to stop.

When experiencing extreme negative emotions I don't think exercise works. First, one must go to the cushion and deal with the upset. It's only very recently that I had the courage to go into the negative emotion and stay with it such that it transforms into peace. This was a huge breakthrough.

The woman who taught me in the 8 week program is now my dear, dear friend and very recently, just in the past few weeks, we have begun to confide in one another. I haven't declared 'I am a submissive' but I have explained, because she asked me gently to explain further a statement I uttered, that I  am attracted to a certain type of man and that this has caused issues for me in my life. We are both starting to fill in the dots as to what we share with one another over delicious and deliciously long lunches.

Shortly, I will attend a meditation retreat where we will meditate about 6 hours a day and be in silence for much of the time. It is sheer bliss for me.

I wonder if I can say what I have learned on this spiritual journey in a paragraph or two. Man, that's asking something.

Well, first of all, let me say that I have come to understand the mind/body connection. If someone like me is around difficult people, perhaps loud and reactive, perhaps needing or wanting my energy but not offering energy of their own to me, this can create chronic stress, which can lead to inflammation in the body which can lead to inflammatory disease.

This is why it is so important for a submissive who is struggling in her relationship with a partner to investigate what is really going on in her life. Her energetic fields may be so open that she suffers emotional pain, tending to ignore her body and its needs. So, I have learned that creating a calm mind and learning techniques to calm the Other as well as one's own mind is vital to health and emotional stability. Relying on the Other when the Other doesn't have the capacity, for whatever reason, to tend to you is a recipe for much unhappiness. Shoring up on your self esteem and self reliance is the key.

Spiritually, I have learned to be still. I have learned that when troubled to sit, just sit. Pema Chodron talks of this. I have learned to allow negative emotion and to transform negative emotion. I feel what I feel. I allow it without being distressed by it.

I have learned to accept. I am not responsible for anyone else, can't and shouldn't change them. Nor, do I need to save anyone. I offer myself, my best self, and that is enough. I have learned to be settled and calm. This is no-one's responsibility but my own. I can find my peace regardless of the outside forces that swirl around me.

Love isn't constant. Perhaps a parent's love for a child is constant but even then it ebbs and flows; is stronger at some times than others.

Romantic love has so much potential. Sacred love is something that I feel eludes me but remains my goal. As a relationship ages there is the possibility for love to grow in depth and for sex to take on a sacred nature. I had that for a time, but then it was gone and I was powerless to bring it back. Things got out of balance. Life isn't over until it is over and so I remain hopeful, but accepting of the limitations of my life as well. There are still chapters left to live.

At the meditation retreat I was on last year we were shown a movie about the life of Father Bede Griffiths. It is his thoughts on sacred love that stays with me. I continue to feel that allowing a woman to be entrenched in her femininity and the man in his masculinity can bring me the sort of relationship that would be the icing on the cake, for me. I am not sure that everyone wants, or can, go to a place of intense intimacy with another person, so we'll see what comes. We'll see if it is possible to create that sacred shared space.

I am eternally grateful for the lessons learned on this journey. Even on the most jam-packed and challenging days, I find time to sit quietly and focus on my breath; breathing in, noticing the gap and breathing out, noticing the gap. We are incredibly fortunate to be alive.

Tapping into wisdom

When change happens, perhaps a cancer diagnosis of one member of a relationship, there will be a wave of emotions. Each person is riding the waves of their own emotions before they can come together to ride the waves together. It is a 'sink or swim' time as each person deals with their own fears.

It was Kubler-Ross who many years ago laid out the five stages of grief. In my earlier days I thought  Kubler-Ross's model of loss applied only to death and dying, but I've come to understand that the model applies to all types of significant grief and loss in one's life; perhaps the loss of good health, or the breakdown of a relationship. There is going to be denial, anger, bargaining, depression and ultimately, acceptance. It's just the way the brain works, it is thought. I have linked to an article here that does a great job of explaining the stages of leaving a toxic relationship and the justifications one can make of remaining in such a union.

Whether it is a diagnosis of ill health or the breakdown of a relationship, or a significant issue of a family member under your care perhaps, the thing is that it didn't just occur overnight. It wasn't just a wrong step here or there but multiple missteps and flawed thinking processes. The question then becomes, 'You are where you are. What are you going to do about it now?'

In the case of cancer, medical science tends to consider the body as a piece of apparatus. The body developed a problem, so let's get rid of the problem; slash and burn. Medical practitioners rarely have time or interest in looking at the reasons why your particular body developed this particular problem, but they do have some ways to assist and that's what they'll offer. It's always worth hearing what they have to offer.

It's interesting though that we know a lot now about how the body responds to stress, to emotions, to good nutrition or the lack thereof, to sleep or a lack of sleep. We also know a lot about hope, and how vital it is for the brain to develop a positive approach in the light of a  serious challenge. This material can make a real difference, potentially a life saving difference, especially when medical practitioners can't necessarily offer a satisfactory solution; when they offer next to no hope.

We are even coming to learn that not all tests ordered by the doctors to diagnose problems are necessarily safe. It happens in every life time that what was thought of as safe is sometimes later determined not to be safe, so it makes sense to have some healthy skepticism. For example, microwaves may not be nearly as safe as we once thought, nor are the dyes in some X-rays necessarily non toxic. We've taken a lot for granted in this modern world and now it's time to start rethinking the game. What is the wrapper around your hamburger actually made of? It's not just one little thing like a wrapper that matters but all the bits of a modern world that we inhabit that may not be good for our health or peace of mind.

Worrying about this won't solve anything but awareness of what we do and how we live will. We need to supersede the denial and the bargaining and so forth with action that matters. If, for example, one is given a cancer diagnosis, the important thing to do first is to stop and process. If it took years and years for your body to get out of whack and for a cancer to form, do you need surgery tomorrow morning?

It's not that I'm saying 'don't trust the medical profession' but rather 'put a little faith in your own body and your own self' to aid in the healing process.

Consider these options or additions to any plan devised:

1) Get rid of all the junk food out of your diet immediately. Eat plenty of colored fruits and vegetables, whole and juiced. Get into vegetarian cooking with plant based proteins such as quinoa in the recipes. Make sure you have plenty of garlic, ginger, pomegranates, and citrus. You'll find endless advice on the Internet about the best foods to heal cancer. Dark green leafy vegetables are wonderful.

2) Reduce the stress in your life. Focus on living your life in the Now and put the issues in your life into perspective. Rather than worrying a matter, see what you can do to take action to make the situation better. For every action there is a reaction. Choose wisely.

3) Meditate every day even if for just a few minutes. Get to know your own mind and what thoughts are trundling through it. Remind yourself you are not your thoughts and go home inside yourself to the peaceful soul that resides inside you. Giving your ego free rein is not going to work. Get in touch with your inner peace.

4) Maintain a positive attitude. Those people that beat cancer are those that believe that they can beat cancer, even visualizing cancer cells being broken down as they go through the healing process.

We've reached a stage where, thankfully, we have stopped dream walking through our own lives and giving the responsibility to other people to do the right thing. We are beginning to take responsibility for our own health, our own behavior and the consequences of foolish decision making.

It feels like we are at the precipice of accepting responsibility for our own behavior in countless ways and calling out those people when something doesn't make sense or doesn't feel right - economically, spiritually, financially, emotionally. We're learning to trust in our own judgment and that's always a good thing. We all have an inner wisdom. We just have to tap into that.

Space

As an extension of the practices I learned when on retreat last year - meditation, overall muscle relaxation, nutrition for healing the body and gentle detoxication - I bought books and CDs relevant to these matters. The most important book 'You Can Cure Cancer' by Dr Ian Gawler has been absconded by my husband, and this doesn't surprise me, for a few reasons.

A pattern that I have noticed in my marriage is that, in order to get a project going, I begin. I can consistently count on the fact that my husband will develop an interest in the project and not only join in the project but sometimes take over the project. This is why I might begin something, not sure where I can going with it, because the beginning is easier for me, whilst the pursing with obsessional compulsivity is his forte.

The truth is that my husband is quite sure that he can do things better than I can. He won't always come out and say it, but sometimes he will. His answer as to why I can't do something might be, 'I don't want to have to do it over again.' I might say that he could teach me the methodology and then I'd know how to do it, which is logical but also frightening for a perfectionist. He just knows that I'm uunlikely to be as interested in the process as he would be. He is very process driven, absolutely, much more than me. He's scientifically trained whereas I am not.

I'm trained in an academic sort of way but as much as my husband respects my brain, he doesn't trust it. In knowing about literature, philosophy and writing techniques does that enable you to comprehend and critique  material about cancer therapies? He just intuitively feels that I might bring to him ideas, but he is the one to follow them through and make determinations. C'est la vie! To fight this line of thought is quite useless. My use is in introducing ideas, consistently mentioning them in a non-threatening way, until they are embraced by my husband, should he eventually choose to do so.

As it happened, a condition became apparent. His interest in my material spiked. He embraced the material to the point where it became front and centre in his life. Various vegetables, powders, vitamins and brews came through my kitchen with almost alarming consistency, sometimes twice a day. The Vitamix whirs away three times a day.

When I introduced vegetarian food to the household it was very complicated because this was for my son whilst my husband very much insisted on his animal protein. But, as he researched, he began to agree that animal proteins weren't part of a wellness or healing diet, and thus he concurred with my vegetarian meals. There is sometimes a little fish, a little chicken, beef or lamb in the meals I prepare, but not much; far less than in the past. Eggs are no longer the food of choice for breakfast.

Rather, there is plenty of choice for vegetarian rich meals; plenty of fruit; pomegranates, berries, shitake mushrooms. It's not at all unusual these days for my husband to throw any bizarre mix of foods into the Vitamix and to drink these 'juices' that are, in my estimation, almost beyond consumption. He does drink them and in the process he loses weight. He simply has no more weight that he can lose without being underweight. Hopefully, all these measures have a good effect on the condition, currently unquantified.

Now, let's remember, I instigated thoughts about naturally healing the body. He took me up on them and made them his own. I should be thrilled to bits, right?

The reason for this post is that I am working through my emotions about this situation. Everything I know tells me that self help in terms of staying healthy is the correct approach. Medicine, that is going to see a doctor, is  fundamentally designed to cater to those who are unwell. Preventative medicine assists in the process of being and staying well, blood tests and other tests, but doctors rarely hand out advice about how to lead your life.

There is no other way to stay healthy than to adopt a self help methodology. The body is designed to be as lean as possible, to move, to eat the plants of the earth, and to avoid chemically driven products. We need to be aware of what builds up in our bodies and to counteract those toxins. My husband and I are unified about all this now.

Yet, I'll be honest, obsessional thinking and practises, on any topic, tend to instinctively make me uncomfortable. To put it into words, it feels too much, like there isn't balance, or space for a balanced life. Obsessional thinking can make me feel like I am drowning, or like I can't breathe; like I am short of oxygen; like my life, and my house, has been invaded by processes and intense conversation about one single topic.

To be clear, and completely honest, I'm not very good with sickness and I never have been, though I am getting better. I don't like to be unwell myself and I don't like those I love to be sick. It's incredibly unbalancing for me. It's particularly disturbing when in fact they are all right, or the condition can be managed well with a combination of medical know-how and self help practises. I'm as far from a catastophizer as you can get, since I'd rather pretend it wasn't happening. Most importantly I don't want to preempt sadness. My husband has been telling me he wouldn't make it to old age since he was 19 so trust me when I say I have some mileage with this.

So, where do we go from here? Well, I'm on board with the changes to diet and the talk about the body's natural healing. Tick. I'm an advocate of regular meditation to calm the mind and for the mind to help heal the body. Tick. I acknowledge that the condition must be investigated carefully and healed/monitored and that this is a necessary preoccupation. Tick. My role is to encourage play, relaxation and leisure activities  in our lives and to encourage balance in the finance side of life too. Tick. I'm on board in all these ways.

Yet, in terms of my own well being, I do need strategies to counteract the lack of space I feel; that feeling of drowning. And, that's just exactly it. I need to make space for myself; physical space. Time alone. In the library. Writing. Time alone in my own endeavours. My. own. endeavors. My. own. space.

In my little meditation group there is a retired orthopedic surgeon. He has a supportive and loving wife to whom he has been married for decades and they have four loving and successful chuldren. The couple often attended the meditation sessions together until they didn't. She took up a full time course and now he comes on his own. Fair enough. It was the teacher who told me privately that she had to do that in order to survive the preoccupation with his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis. There had to be more than discussing the disease.

In more recent days I found myself reading more world news than usual, and as I did I became more upset. It felt that one man was single handedly messing with the lives of so many people, including my own. When you throw a pebble into the water on one side of the water it can create a tidal wave on the other, and so it seemed to me; that Trump was causing mayhem wherever he went and whatever he did. One possibility was to watch less news. It's putting one's head in the sand, I agree, but what value to the world was my upset? Maybe this period of history was something that needed to play out in order for the world to go to these 'obsssions' and fears, and then to find balance again.

Maybe this is what we all need: space and time. In this way balance occurs quite effortlessly