Anticipatory Grief

 I think about being in a storm, not quite sure where you are or what's the correct direction; what, in fact, to do.

I think about the advice, told in so many ways and by so many people, not to focus on the past or worry about the future, but simply to focus on the present moment.

I remind myself that control is an illusion and that life will play out regardless of my input. I can control all sorts of little outcomes but the big outcomes, other people's decisions, for example, are well beyond my control.

I think the tough part for me is not knowing, are we going backwards or forwards?

For the vast majority of people with cancer, there is a team who supports. The person may not take all the advice offered by them, but overall, there's a strategy in place, often a cocktail of strategies, and thus there is a plan. 

My husband has tended towards being a lone ranger in so many capacities and his cancer journey is no different. He doesn't want me at the appointments with the oncologist - says the guy is too dark and there is no upside in me hearing what he has to say - and thus I don't have the opportunity to hear what he has to offer.

I find myself listening for the bits and pieces of information offered to me, trying to make sense of them, sort of attempting to put them together to see if I can make a tapestry. 

I cannot honestly say if I know or even think, if he is going forwards or backwards because the information I have is too disparate and even contradictory.

I have noticed that I am feeling numb about it all, perhaps I am not sitting with any story that could or would ground me. I mentioned this to AI and the response was that numbness is to be expected, a way of coping. I suppose it is. If you don't have the data what else is there to do?

I think when it 'all falls apart' there's a solace and a strength that comes from a return to meditation and to the sense of equanimity in meditation. When I was guiding meditation groups, I almost always used the imagery of taking two steps back from the mind so you could observe it more clearly. This immediately puts one in the seat of the witness and in that seat the mind quite naturally starts to slow a bit. You can see the thought(s), almost like picking something up in your hand. 

In fact, it occurred to me just now, it's a companionable thing to do too. There's you, the compassionate observer, and there's the mind, dancing not too graciously.

When I was in Bali last year, the love meditation my husband and I did in a group had a very lasting impression on me. If I need comfort I go back to that room in my mind. We were invited to feel into the deepest love we had for another person and then, with the most divine music playing, to take that love and give it to ourselves. This was a magical moment for me and so I repeat it alone as required. I pour the love inside myself, like taking a jug of healing water and pouring it over my body.

It's a strange walk, the cancer experience, both for the person with cancer and the person accompanying the person with cancer. AI called it 'anticipatory grief' and encouraged me to reach out to a group of people going through a similar experience. I will think about it.

Calm

 There's the obvious ebb and flow of the four seasons that make up a year, maybe the ebb and flow of an academic year. There's the ebb and flow of the work week and the weekend, depending on your work schedule, and, of course, the ebb and flow of the daytime hours and the nighttime hours. 

Unless we pay attention, we take these changes for granted, unless you've trained yourself to notice, perhaps, that time of day when you make yourself a cup of coffee, or when you notice the sun start to be lower in the sky, or when it is getting dark, and you turn on a salt lamp.

 It's like someone actually making a note on a piece of paper to remember something, except this time, it's a mental note such as 'we are moving towards evening'. I think of it as being in sync with the Universe.

In a similar way, you might notice the ebb and flow of your energy levels; when you feel energized to complete tasks and when you need to rest. You might notice that having sat for a long period, you have a desperate desire to move your body. We aren't exactly dictating these things but rather we are noticing what is going on with us.

I noticed this morning, consciously noted, that my brain was different. I don't mean that something changed overnight, as I am sure it did not. I have half consciously noted a difference for a few weeks, perhaps, a rapidly rising difference that seems to be developing into a trait; that is, not a state, but a trait.

Various psychologists and spiritual leaders will talk about practicing states until they become traits. The example I like best is Ian Gawler who likes to say when asked how long one should meditate: Meditate until you no longer need to meditate.  That is to say, we can practice in the qualities of a state until it simply is a trait; part of us; a permanent change, so to speak.

For years I was aware I found my situation at home frustrating. I would attempt discussion about something only to find myself being closed down; I would hear an automatic rejection of what I was saying simply because I was saying it. It wasn't about everything, but it was often about something that my husband felt could be construed as his domain, a man's domain.

I came to feel that discussion was potentially dangerous and would make me feel worse rather than better. Discussion became something I avoided if I thought this would happen.

I think what happened to change the situation was the clearing out of his trauma, or a lot of it because once that happened, we had a chance to effect change.

Still, change was not going to happen without the trait of calm in me. I knew this down to my bones. I could lay it all out, but the reasons why don't really matter. 

I am aware I still experience frustration. For one thing, it had become part of my default network, a bit akin to breathing. I in no way experience only the feel-good emotions.

And yet, now I experience an emotion such as frustration as something in the background, not the foreground. This is the same as experiencing thoughts and emotions in meditation as in the background, not the foreground. Let's say, you see the balloon filled with frustration, but you can't keep hold of the string and it just floats away.

That's awfully strange, I think to myself, how come the balloon just blew away?

My husband is calmer. This helps me to be calm, for sure, but he is far from always calm, and I am nearly always calm now. 

I ponder, is this what they call 'Acceptance'? I think of a variety of people with a variety of personality differences, some wonderful and some not, and no matter who I think about, I think, 'this is what it is'. It's this mind-blowing trait wherein I feel so calm nearly all the time that I find myself thinking of the story of Eckhart Tolle where a former housemate said it was like living with someone in flotation gear.

To be clear, I am not just hanging around meditating. I move from mental to physical tasks and back again with relative ease, profoundly aware of what I have control over and what is completely outside of my control. It's all good. This is fine.

I go through periods where I am sometimes ravenously sexually hungry and then find it moves to something else eventually.  I have come to accept that what floats my boat is something over which I appear to have no control, until I do. I've learned a lot, and my mind discriminates well now. I understand these little nods to my natural persuasions; the biology of it. It is what it is.

There's a man on the streets of NYC who asks people of a certain age what it's like to be 52, or 66 or 79? They come up with amazing answers on the spot all of which relate to feeling more themselves now.

That's part of it, for sure. But I think it truly is this phenomenon of which Rick Hanson, Californian psychologist, talks; that when we practice certain desired states for long enough, they transform into traits. The brain changes, wires fire; transform.

Oddly, oh so oddly, boundaries are suddenly something that make so much sense. One still aims to please people but it's not the preoccupation it was before. One just feels so comfortable in this set of clothes; this skin.

I'm slightly terrified to write this. Will it change tomorrow? Have I jinxed it by writing these words here? I don't think so. I have worked hard at this for a good decade. It's a sense of peace well-earned and I pat myself on the back.

Empty headed

I have heard people talk of spiritual homes and if there is such a thing, mine is on mountains. I thrive in the thin air at the same time as it slows me down. Life up there reduced to its bare essentials seems right to me. Most importantly, what happens to me is that I become like an animal. I just am. Very little thinking goes on.

When we were training back at home for the adventure we went on, I often found that my head was filled with unpleasant thought. I thought  of it at the time as toxicity. Technically, the challenge of the training should have emptied my mind, but it rarely did.

On the adventure, it was a different story. My mind totally emptied such that when people express their admiration for what I did at my age I tell them that it wasn't me that did that trek. I really wasn't there at all.

I have a few specific memories. Perhaps with two, maybe three hours to climb to get to the Summit, having no idea at that stage how much longer it would take, I became aware I was walking alone. A Sherpa wasn't that far behind me and later he was in front of me, so technically I wasn't walking alone, except to say that is how it felt. I had a safety valve but also the feeling that I was in the wilderness alone.

I felt invincible. I felt like a machine that simply has one task: to put one foot in front of the other. I'm not inclined to tell myself 'Good job' but it was at the moment of the rocks being sort of wide and flattish that the thought came into my mind something like, 'Nothing can stop you.'

On the way back to the bus on the final day, maybe 3 hours walk, I purposefully stayed about 30 seconds behind the main group and a minute in front of the final group. In this blessed space I could feel alone but supported; a creature walking through the Andes aware of my feet, the gushing water beside me, the sound of the water rolling over rocks, and the sacredness of being there. I was in my bliss state. So alive!

To change the subject somewhat I just finished eating lunch listening to Shirley MacLaine being interviewed.  She made the statement that her greatest teachers have been the people who hurt her the most. This resonated with me.

I always knew in my bones that when I was exploring the BDSM space that it was a scary place to go. Yet, I felt absolutely compelled; drawn to it like a moth to a flame. When I was deeply hurt in that arena I needed to know why these were such open wounds and why it took so long to heal. I also felt compelled to understand this.

In this way, it was all quite inevitable, necessary and productive. Through the emotional pain I explored the wounds and healed. Without the pain I would have been hurt in some other way, or else I might have had to live with the wounds forever.

Fortunately, I am strong and not silly, so the pain was contained. I listened to my intuition. I never went further than to investigate the physiological responses and the emotion responses, although there was plenty of looping; repeating the material enough times until the wound had completely healed; almost as if the wound needed to be dressed again and again until the seeping stopped.

I wasn't meant to think much; as little as necessary. This is what makes the mountains so appealing. This is what made the doll state so luxurious.

My confidence in the ability or desire of man to engineer this state is not intact. Possibly, I just didn't have a lot of luck there, but more likely I think is that there are next to no men who are that steady. I don't say that in a critical way entirely. I just think men become overcome with their careers and their place in their world and the state of the world. It's almost an impossible thing to ask, I think. So, I have no expectations and I've made my peace with that.

I engineer those experiences now for myself. I empty myself of the contents of mind and I float in my bubble of bliss, as often as I can. It's finding happiness (happiness? perhaps 'authenticity is a better word), again. It's all good.