Ceasefire

 I said to my husband this morning, "I feel like I have been through something, and I feel like I have come out the other side of whatever that was". It's hard to explain it further because I am not sure myself how to put words around a feeling I had that I had been asked to be something that I simply cannot be.

I tried. I really did. I had been asked, as a form of marital therapy, to become more of the person who initiates; more independent and autonomous. I felt a big fat loser for failing to become the aggressor, the more self-directed person - until - I remembered something that Deity had said to me more than a few times...

'Can a kitten suddenly transform to a tiger?' (He didn't say exactly that but that's a fair example of the things he would say to me.)

To digress a little, he would also say, "can a table have thoughts or feelings?' but that's another story for another day.

My husband has been wonderful over the past few weeks sitting with me, over a late dinner, or together on the couch, listening, listening and listening some more.

He could see I was confused, discombobulated, far outside the state I love best, equanimity.

No-one's patience is eternal and eventually he started making observations and asking questions. 

"Do you think you are regretting some behaviours and decisions?"

"Do you think you are being fair in your assessments?"

Honestly, we navigated a lot of territory, so I can't remember all that much of what he said and what I said, except that I felt a whole bucketful of shame for being me; some great qualities, some not so great qualities, like us all, but as well, a sense of shame for wanting what I want; union.

Lately, I had realized that I was bashing my head against a brick wall, the way someone might do when the frustration overwhelms. I came to see that was a useless exercise. My head was hurting, and I wasn't getting the result I wanted. The brick wall was still a brick wall. My head had had no effect on the brick wall, and it never would. Something had to change but it wouldn't be the brick wall.

Then, this morning, as I lay there in the dark, silent, it occurred to me. The revelation was this. I am sick of trying to be better than I am right now. Sure, we can all grow, bit by bit, but I don't want to fixate on this right now. 

Instead, why not focus on skills - to be a better cook, a better writer, a better gardener. Why not focus on that?

The moment I did decide to do this, it was as if my mind did a rejig, the way a washing machine will rejig to get the clothes balanced, and I began to feel calm and settled. It was almost as if all the 'parts' inside my head breathed a sigh of relief at once and said, 'Thank God, she's going to give herself a break. She's going to just be herself. Put down your weapons. It's a ceasefire.'

For the past few nights my husband has come to bed at the same time as me and he quietly massages parts of my body - arms, lower back, shoulders. It's a piece of heaven for me. I fall asleep like this, and I stay asleep until morning.

I want and I need, his solidity. When I have that, I feel submissive down to my bones. I feel me and I feel authentic. I feel whole... I feel wonderful.

Acceptance

 I had a brief but poignant exchange with someone who was recommended to me. He made the comment that if we were to work together for a limited time, the work would center around Acceptance.

I mulled this over several days; one of those statements that confirms my own feelings but brought those feelings more into present moment awareness.

Today, I searched for times in this online journal when I might have written about acceptance, and I see that over the years I have had the thought on my mind a number of times to the extent that I wanted to journal those feelings.

Acceptance, to my mind, isn't about giving up, about giving up hope for something better, but it is about facing the reality of the situation you find yourself confronted with. As much as one might find the phrase 'it is what it is' a bit glib, there's so much truth to it.

I know someone who likes to think he can adjust the natural order of things if he only puts his mind to it. Why suffer with all those levels - anger, sadness, denial and so forth - before you get to acceptance? Why not just jump them all and go straight to Acceptance? Perhaps that's possible, but I don't think it is.

When I was younger, much younger, I had an abundance of positivity. I was convinced I lived in 'the lucky country' (still do) and more personally, I was convinced that I was protected by a 'guardian angel'. In terms of the guardian angel, I think this protected me, at the same time as it did not allow me to see what was right in front of me, which, for a small and vulnerable child, was probably a blessing, and a rather smart thing to believe.

When my husband told me he had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, I definitely didn't go straight to acceptance. I do wonder if the more invincible someone seems, the least likely one is to accept such a thing. In the months that followed I was sometimes sad, sometimes angry, sometimes disbelieving. Like, are you sure they know what they are talking about?  I didn't so much disbelieve what I was told as I figured we'd solve it, like we solve everything. 

The mind can be mad, and I remember saying to him one day, 'I can't believe you are even considering leaving me with all this mess to clean up. Where will I even start?' It was a poor me thing, a cry for help, disbelief, overwhelm, and a call to action.

It's several months later since that day, and I find respite in similar ways to those I began to use many years ago now. I meditate in a way, in a space and place where 'the problem never existed in the first place'; complete lack of ego; complete nothingness; no mind.

I explain it to my husband in the hope he will join me in this space, but he repeatedly says that he is too stressed with too much to do to take the time. I say, but it in those times that you must visit that space. Your mind and body need a break.

There's a huge benefit to getting to acceptance of a situation as fast as humanly possible. It avoids a great deal of personal pain, for starters. It's an acknowledgement that you are part of the human experience, and that suffering comes to us all. You're not special after all, there is no guardian angel and bad stuff happens to good people.

Once you hit acceptance - this really is happening - then you can see ahead of you all sort of things to assist the situation; ways to make things better. You can dig deep to polish up your empathy skills, and you find ways to nurture yourself, to accept that this is hard and you need to take care of yourself too, so you are there for your loved ones. Always put on your own oxygen mask first.

I follow a few very special people around the world who fuel me with their wisdom and kindness. High on the list is Henry Shukman and I offer you here, to those who might benefit from his beautiful heart, the  final words of his poem, Resistance:

'...do nothing, be still,

stay just where we are,

sit right here,

on the very fence,

exactly on the blade

of reluctance itself,

just here, where we least

want to be, where it seems

it must hurt the most.

But it's here that the blade

already knows

what it needs to do.

And if we could just let it, then finally it could do

what it was always meant to.

And we would fall open,

until there's nothing left

in the middle

except a silent space

which everything is free to fill,

and the whole world can pour

into that one blessed gap.'

Self Help

 I have mentioned a couple of times in the past that I attended a 14 day Ayurveda retreat a couple of years ago. I loved it and did what they told me to do for the period of time I was there. I felt great! 

When I came home the effects lasted for a period, much like a good holiday has a lasting effect for a few days or weeks. But, it wears off. Life takes over.

When I began to see a chiropractor a month ago, based on a glowing recommendation, I noticed the charts around the wall and it didn't take much effort to connect the beliefs of a chiropractor with the beliefs of Ayurveda.

It was this experience that led me back to the notes given to me on discharge. I am Vata Kapha in terms of the energy systems, with a Vata imbalance. This could be described in many ways but to use my own words, I tend to be on the go, a bit scattered in my approach at times, in my head. I am capable of being grounded, spiritual, able to be still (that's the kapha in me) but there's this tendency to have an imbalance of too much Vata.

In Ayurveda terms much of this imbalance can be sorted out through food choices. I recall they were a bit dismayed at my tendency to eat salad at lunch. This was all cold food (adding to vata). I think I ignored/rejected their warnings because in the West eating salads is seen as such a good thing that I felt they had to be wrong about this. Besides, I love salad.

I now know, and in my defense they didn't explain much at the Retreat but rather just told you what to do, that much better choices for someone with a Vata balance is the nourishing choices of soups, dhals, curries, soft fruits like berries. Eating three meals a day is also encouraged along with warm drinks like tea. I've reverted to this way of eating and I have to agree with them that I do feel better nourished and thus more grounded.

The chiropractor, after taking x rays and photos and feeling all around my body, prescribed at least half an hour walking a day - am loving that. When I come home I do my exercises and after a month he took more photos and said I had made a great deal of improvement and now had upper strength to work on.

Living the day in alignment with the sun and the moon is considered the right way to live and in one week I have had six great nights of sleep and one night where movement and noise awoke me in the middle of night. There was that Vata imbalance showing up...lots of active thought that I had to calm down with oceanic breath to get back to sleep.

It's taken quite some time but what I have come to see is that it is vital that I go my own way in terms of a daily practice. I am meant to rise before 6 am, before the sun, but I am definitely not close to that yet. Still, I rise earlier than usual and go walking. I get to bed earlier too but there is still improvement to be made. I am meant to be in bed by 10 pm and I want to get there because it is the right thing for me.

All this, by the way, is in line too with the self-love notion of daily caring for oneself. When one has nourishing foods, meditates, does some yoga, walks, self massages, this is a way of providing oneself with self care; love.

I think the stars aligned somehow with all this self care. I received an email alerting me to a volunteer position (and maybe funding to pay later) with a woman whose organization is providing care to people with a new cancer diagnosis, getting them  meditating, and I instantly sent an offer for my time. This really excites me.

I can't deny that I would have loved a marriage where my husband and I were aligned: awoke together, for example. But, he insists on being up very, very late and I can't do that and nor is it right for me. So, I have reconciled myself to doing what works best for me and seeing the benefits.

At the Retreat it was groundhog day. Every day was the same. I reveled in that. I reveled in living my life in a villa on my own, dancing to the beat of my own drum; receiving the touch I so needed, every day for 14 days. Yet, I also need variety. 

I think that's where the Vata Kapha comes into it. I need to be grounded in daily practices but not so grounded that there is inertness. I need the daily practice of walking and yoga; achievement for the day of one sort or another, but not tiring myself to exhaustion. It's feeling into the body and getting the cues of what the body needs.

One final thought: My chiropractor is a committed, honorable, knowledgeable and experienced practitioner who talks a lot. I only have to ask a question and I get a whole lot of information about the human body in evolutionary terms. Remember we used to be animals and then became upstanding humans? Well, there is research being done right now to try to figure it out but it seems we might be evolving back into animals. All this looking at screens, particularly phones is bending us forward and creating mayhem for our bodies down the track. Why not get outside and take a good look around you, the way people used to do? Your body will thank you.

Self love

I am coming to know, albeit slowly, a lovely woman who has known Ram Dass for many years. As a younger woman it was while she was having lunch with him that she shared a regret; that she wasn't going to have a child. He was somewhat dismissive of her concern, saying that there is always something that we want that we can't have. That's life. It's challenging to be told this by someone, anyone, and yet it's the truth; the cold, hard facts.

In fact, it's not a new notion to me; my father said the same thing often. He, for example, could never manage to get himself a race horse that won races, but if this was the something he couldn't have, he was comfortable with that. He said something similar when our house was spared in the 1983 bush fires. At home with the idea of luck, he felt our turn of good luck had occurred at just the right time.

Occasionally, a family member buys a ticket in Tattslotto or at an airport to win a luxury car. I nod and watch as they buy the ticket but I have zero expectation of our luck being demonstrated in a winning ticket. You have to be in it to win it and all that, but I don't expect it to ever happen. I've no faith whatsoever in it happening.

My husband wanted to go to the Oaks this week and I said a similar thing to him. I've got four healthy and happy children, a new perfect grandson. I've had plenty of good luck in life. It would be selfish to ask for more, nice to back the winner, but small potatoes in the scheme of life.

It is the case that we all have needs and desires. There is nothing wrong in that but when our deepest needs and desires are not met we go looking for substitutes. That's what the human mind does to try to settle itself. It might be a new dress or a bowl of ice-cream; a bottle of gin; drugs. It can be so destructive and yet we do it in a bid at self-survival. If I can't have what I really want, then I need something to drape over all this emotional pain, is the way the mind loops and weaves; justifies.

Like any situation it pays to stop and think about what is going on. If there is agitation, and that's how I experience it, then pause long enough to notice the agitation and call it out for what it is. I don't mean to self flagellate here; on the contrary I recommend giving yourself some comfort at this point.

'There, there, dear. This is hard for you. I know this is very hard for you'. Take some deep breaths. Sit with the agitation a little and see if it might shift. In other words; pause; don't go into overdrive with the need for relief before you give yourself a chance to self-soothe.

Another way of thinking about this is, if your tendency is to do something with negative consequences to yourself, your body or a close relationship, what could you do instead that might turn you back towards a feeling of relief, of ease?

Self-discipline isn't a sexy message but in some ways it is necessary for every person to cultivate enough self discipline to not be self destructive.

Meditation is in fact a form of self discipline as well as being a form of self love. My training had an element of the boot camp about it, and I suppose, I survived and thrived to tell the tale. But, I don't recommend this way of going about self learning of the mind. I wouldn't recommend sitting through  very much pain at all; a tiny bit is inevitable.

Most importantly, I'd recommend learning to meditate and keeping up a meditation practice with a group, led by someone quite sweet in disposition who won't scare you or put you off. Meditation can be a heavenly experience when a guide can lead you to a gentle place; a healing place too.

The Buddhists are correct. In life, we all suffer, but then if we suffer enough we demand to know how to stop suffering. This leads to a spiritual life; backbone along with kindness towards self and others.

Oddly, this approach can lead you back to your desires and the attaining of your desires. Perhaps it won't be the version you carried around in your head all those years, but you won't turn on yourself for having those desires.

In time, you'll be quite comfortable in your own skin, taking responsibility for your own sweet self and that which makes you you. You won't be demanding, internally or overtly, that someone else make your life how you want it. You'll figure out how to do this for yourself. Don't expect all the answers today, just start walking down the path of being good to yourself in ways that you, deep down, know to be good for you.

Self-flagellation is not the answer. Leave that to someone more proficient with a whip.