Are you thinking right now that I’m all zen and I have some sort of lifestyle where I watch squirrels all day from my perfect garden?

That’s so funny.

No, right now, I’m avoiding a pile of laundry.

The laundry can’t stare at me if I’m in my office.  It can’t remind me that it’s been sitting there all week.

Also, I’m avoiding some dog hair that needs sweeping up.

Also, avoiding my work:all that important stuff that I need to take forward.

I am practicing this new zen form of meditation called, I’m just going to sit in my office and watch this squirrel and hope he doesn’t turn into hamburger in front of my house.

This squirrel has worked his way to the edge of my garden. He is very fat, and is nervously sitting on a rock.  

He looks completely tweaked.

This squirrel looks like he was up until 5 at a squirrel rave.  Portland is full of hipsters and they are a bad influence on the wildlife.

Once I saw a coyote wearing a headband and talking about this band he really digs.  Hipster Coyotes are the worst.

Not Really.

Squirrel

Back to the Squirrel.

He looks entirely sure that he is not going to make it.

Oh, there he goes!

This squirrel is very fast.

Phew! He made it.

Springtime squirrels are so skittish and freaked out. They are nothing like the crazy brave squirrels of the fall.

Fearless Death Dancers

In the fall, every squirrel in my neighborhood doesn’t care about crossing the street anymore.

They all want to dance with death, and they think that my Scion XB is a worthy partner.

What’s that about?

Maybe squirrels just reach a point where they are done being scared.

There is so much to be freaked out about if you are a squirrel: food scarcity, coyotes, tree territory, mating.

So, yes, a certain number of squirrels are giving up: Ah! Kill me now!

But the rest are saying: You and what army? I’m done being scared.

I like that. That’s hopeful.

Squirrel Logic

Yesterday, a friend of mine was talking about her fabulous somewhat new career as a gardening maven.  She had spent many years in a safe, but unfulfilling job.

Then she got very ill.  She had to take some time off to recover, and she spent much of that time in her garden.

I never would have had the career I have today, if I hadn’t been sick, she said.

We are Like Squirrels

We are like squirrels with the worries in our lives, and then one day we stop being scared, because it’s not like it helps us cross the street.

The seemingly insurmountable challenges can shape us in ways that make us fearless.

And fearless makes authenticity pretty easy.

If a squirrel can do it, can we?  I think so.  I bet we could be fearless by fall.

P.S. Squirrels of the Fall

Squirrels of the Fall sounds like a Brad Pitt movie.

His Brother Got the Nuts, He got the Girl....But How Will They Survive the Winter?

I’m not feeling that way, but I know a few people who are. In fact, everywhere I turned this week, I heard a story about not having enough.

I thought you might want to see tonglen in action.  Okay, I look really tired, but it’s me.

And, then here’s Olive, my dog, thinking that I’m talking about tongue-len instead of tonglen.

Oh that silly dog.

I hope you have some good experiences with Tonglen.

What say you?

Have you tried Tonglen?

Ah! I’m back from Chicago!

My new friend, Yoshiko, shared with me the meaning of the Japanese suffix,-Chan.
It means little or dear one.

So now I want to say that to everyone. I want to say Hello! Caz-Chan, Lilly-Chan and Ming-Chan and Amna-Chan and Karen-Chan, and Meroko-chan and all the other friend-chans who read this blog, and of course, those who attended my Chicago seminar- Welcome! Welcome Lisa-Chan and Jill-Chan and Joanna-Chan and Yoshiko-Chan and Heather-Chan and Shannon-Chan and Sue-Chan and Ruth-Chan and all the rest of yous-Chan!

Dear ones,

Today I am feeling blessed by my fortune to know so many kind people. I feel like my life is surrounded by good loving people who care about the world we live in.

I feel so blessed.

And I’m thinking right now of all the other people in the world who feel blessed too.

I’m thinking of those who are in the pool of blessed-feeling, and then I am connecting to that pool, and realizing that we are in this together.

Which brings me, of course, to another way to reprogram the small-t truth.

(Aside: A small-t truth is the truth we tell ourselves that isn’t true at all (like I’m unworthy or I will always be poor or I was meant to suffer.) We all have small-t truths rattling around in our heads, and making us act in ways that aren’t part of our true nature).

Tonglen

Tonglen is a wonderful way to reprogram the small-t truth, though it feels like the antithesis of reprogramming.

This method is a Tibetan Buddhist contemplation meditation. In Tibetan, Tonglen means “sending and receiving”. In the wonderful world of Voila (A.K.A. this blog), we talk about sending and receiving energy all of the time. We talk about how we are in a constant flow, in a constant ebbing and flowing and pooling of each other’s energy.

A Tonglen Basketball Story

Each morning at 8:54 am, I hear the tang-tang-tang of a basketball being dribbled down my street. There is a teenager who goes to the neighborhood junior high who is obsessed with basketball, and he uses his walk to and back from school to practice.

When I hear that sound, I send him my best hopes for his day. Junior high is hard, and I’m assuming that every Junior High Student that I meet could use some good energy.

I am reminded by the sound of his basketball every morning to do so.

This is a form of Tonglen. It is a reminder to me that we are all going forth into the world and doing our best to achieve the numinous purpose of our lives.

A small-t truth may be that the teenagers who walk past my house are only good for the candy wrappers and pop bottles that drift into my yard with perpetual frequency. They exist in my world only to steal the flowers from my front garden.

I may resent their noise and presence.

But, if I am reminded each morning, by the same sound, to send out my highest energy to this young stranger, I start seeing the humanity in all teenagers, and when I pick up their garbage, I don’t resent them. I remember being a teenager myself, and all of the feelings that come with that time.

And I see that I am not so different now.

This is Tonglen.

The meditative practice of Tonglen does three things:

1. We experience, fully, the suffering associated with whatever we’re working through.

2. We recognize and relate to others who are experiencing the same thing.

3. We observe the suffering of ourselves and others dissolving, ebbing away, transforming into a greater truth. A Big-T truth.

An example:

Perhaps, like me, you have moments when you worry about your cash flow.

Will you have enough to do what you want to do?

Will you have enough to survive?

Do you have enough now?

You find yourself freaking out over someone over-charging you a dollar at the store.

You cross the street to save a penny per gallon on gasoline.

You wake up at four in the morning and desperately try to figure out how to increase your cash flow.

You sell your services/products for much less than what they are worth.

Yes? Are you there right now?

Okay. Try this:

1. Take a deep breath.
2. Bring your attention to your heart.
3. Imagine it as an empty room.
4. Now imagine sitting in this room.
5. Feel the entirety of your lack and desperation. Don’t hold back.
6. What is the texture of this? What is the physical pain of this? Where do you feel it in your body? Does it engulf you?
7. Now, take a deep breath and imagine all of the people right now who are feeling what you are feeling. You are not alone in this suffering. There are others who feel what you feel.
8. Reach out to them in your mind and heart. Reach out and say, “I bless you on your journey. I wish the very best for you.”
9. Hear them say the same back.
10. And then, watch the pain turn to peace. Invite the peace to dissolve and transform the pain of this small-t truth (“I will never have enough.”).
11. With the anxiety and pain gone, ask for a big-t truth to come forward.
12. The big-t truth might be “I have what I need. It is enough for today.”

Don’t be afraid that the pain won’t go away. Remember, everything is temporary.

I used Tonglen every day when I was going through a very difficult time in my life. It opened me up to the suffering around me. It helped me see the humanity in those who crossed my path. It deepened my understanding of the world and my place in it. It brought me peace and Big-T Truth!

Try it. And if you get stuck, please let me know. If you get overwhelmed, stick with it, because Tonglen always has a very peaceful ending.

P.S.- a traditional Tonglen chant is “breathe in pain, breathe out light”- I’m not such a big fan of breathing in pain or darkness. I understand what they are getting at, but I think it’s too easy to invite in negative energy, and then you have a whole ‘nother problem.

What Say You?

How does Tonglen help you? How do you see and relate to the suffering of others around you?

I feel like I’m writing things like “Transplant your own liver in 5 easy steps!”

But, there’s so much to say.  And I want to get it out and then talk about it.

Thank you for reading this, and talking with me about it, and finding value sometimes, and tolerating my words when the value is hard to see (or maybe not there at all. or only slightly formed, embryonic, looking like head goo).

Gah! Emotions

One of my friends, Juanita, commented that she often will feel an emotion and say “Why am I feeling that? That’s stupid!”.

Why do we do this?

When are our feelings ever stupid?

I would venture that our feelings are never stupid.

Misplaced, misdirected, untimely, annoying, frustrating, distracting?

Yes.  They can be all of those things.

But also-

Signposts.  Direction.  Alarm Bells.  Nuances.  A pinch.

Don’t Be a Prisoner

For the first 32 years of my life, I was a prisoner of my emotions.  When I felt bad, I felt bad.  When I felt bitchy, I was a bitch! Oh the Drama!

It didn’t occur to me that I could do something about this.

My emotions were an ever-changing river and me and all my loved ones were stuck on the raft.

Then one day, my therapist, a really smart guy named Jim Thrower suggested that I ask a few questions whenever a difficult emotion came up.

They were:

1. Am I hungry?

2. Do I need some sleep?

3. Do I need to exercise?

4. Do I need to go to the bathroom?

5.  If the answers so far are “NO”, then ask  why am I feeling this? What is this emotion trying to tell me? What should I do about it?

Looking at this list, it seems so obvious.

Mistaking our physical needs for emotions

How out of touch does somebody have to be to mistake hunger for anger?

And yet, there’d be times when I’d be ready to blow my top and realize that it was 6 pm and all I’d had to eat that day was a snickers bar.

So, first comment I’d like to make is that if you don’t do this… If you don’t take time to nurture, then you really gotta do that.

Put reminders in your calendar to eat, to go to the gym.  Try going to bed for 3 nights in a row before 10 pm.

Overwhelming, out-of-nowhere emotions can be dietary.

Feed me a piece of cheesecake, wait 12 hours, and then see what happens.  Dairy and sugar turn me into a bitter, evil person.

Now- onto the emotions part.

The Emotions Part

Let’s say that you do that. You’re good at asking the questions, and eating, sleeping, exercising and keeping yourself regular.

And here comes a difficult emotion.

Let’s get out some baskets.  Do you need a basket? You’ll need three of them.

Here’s one:

Our baskets, for this experience, are virtual.

But, if you really like this basket, and want to buy it, you can click on the picture and buy it, and support women artisans in Rwanda.

Your Three Baskets

Okay. You’ve got your three baskets-

You are going to label these baskets this way:

1. Not my emotion

2. I need to resolve this

4. This is just part of where I am now

Not My Emotion

The not my emotion basket is a really good one.  It is especially good when we work or live around people who are going through a hard time.  The cranky co-worker, the moody teenager.

If somebody harumphs through your space and a few minutes later you are upset, it could be that you just have their residual energy stuck on you.

Literally.

Our emotions stick to what’s around us.

Our anger can really stink up a joint.

So, ask the question, ‘Is this MY emotion?”  and if you feel a “No,”  float back to you, then relax and let it go. It’s not yours to feel.

Some people need more help than just identifying.

If the energy is really stuck on you and it isn’t yours-

1.  Take a bath with a 1/2 cup of kosher or sea salt and some cut up limes.

2. Feel where you feel the emotion in your body, and then pretend that the emotion is a dust bunny or cotton candy. Draw the emotion out with your fingers and then flick it at the ground.

3.  Command the emotion to leave you.  Say, “Feelings I’m feeling that are not mine, go in the ground where you’ll be fine.”  Imagine the emotion jumping off you and running down into the ground.

For The Other Baskets

Okay, so the emotion is really yours.

Take a moment to feel the emotion in its entirety.

Don’t hold back from it.

This takes courage.

You have to feel it. Feel your emotion’s very nature, because the clues are in the details like a good oyster.

(If you live outside the Northern Pacific Rim, you may have never had a really really good oyster. I feel your pain. Just go with me here, take my word for it.  )

When you eat a good oyster,  you will find that there are many flavors inherent in said oyster.  It can taste: lemony, briney, winey, like the sea.  It can have a hint of mushroom or berry or sand.

A feeling can be that way too.  You can feel frustration tinged with ironic humor.  You can feel sadness tinted with appreciation.  It’s rare to feel one thing, completely.

Feel it. Feel it. Feel it.

Once you feel it, it may blow away like a little bit of ash.

Or, it may still linger long enough for you to describe it.

Taste that emotion and then describe it (out loud, to a friend, in your head, whatever). You can talk about the quality of the pain, the strength of the confusion, the intensity of the emotion, the memories it brings up.

Then, it is time to decide if you need to do something with the emotion. Is this emotion a call to action or part of the process?

Ask yourself that very question. Do I need to do something?

It’s your life. You will probably know.

If you don’t know, that’s okay.  It’ll come around again if you need it to (I hope you don’t hear ominous music as I say this).

I Need to Resolve This

When your emotion appears, and you realize that you need to resolve the issue behind the emotion, it can feel like you’ve come upon a full mousetrap.  Gross. Get it out now.

I think it can be useful to think this through.  To not go spinning into the first answer that presents itself.

Because logic with emotion gets a little wonky.

It comes up with answers like this:

My wife and I aren’t getting along right now, so we’re going to have a baby.

This semester really sucked. I am not cut out for this school thing.

I am going to do this super-amazing thing that I never cared about until right now.

Yeah.  See, after we feel the emotion, there can be a void before the answer.

I fill this void with movies. Sometimes with yoga. Sometimes noodles.

So wait, and then when you feel a little more clear, plan, think through, take small steps.  Leave that junk on the road behind you.

This is Just Part of Where I Am Now

Sad days happen.  Hard days happen. Not every emotion is a clarion call. Some of them just happen because life is difficult. An emotion can be a step that honors your journey.  It can be a place that says I am here now. This is part of the progression.

Tell me: Did this help?

What questions come to mind?

Today, we’re talking about handling our feelings without hurting others.

I hesitate to write about my children, because I want their words to be their own.

And yet, I think I can pinpoint the moment I stopped falling apart in front of  my children.

When I was 23 and my son was not-quite-3.  I found myself failing all of my courses at college.

I found that my little fledging restaurant had gone under (when a co-owner absconded with our wee, but sustainable profits).

I found that my short marriage was over.

I had saved up my tears for months, whispering the mantra of  It will get better. It will get better.

I remember sitting on the floor of our living room and wondering about all of the tiny decisions that had placed me here, with no money, and now, no husband.

I started to cry.  I started to cry a lot.  My not-quite-3-year-old noticed me. His eyes were concerned and full of love. He walked over and put his arms around me.

It’s okay, mama, He said.

I looked at my fuzzy duck.  He had no idea.  He had no way of knowing how bad things were. He only knew that he could comfort me.  I saw in his eyes a sense of fear and responsibility that no toddler should have to handle.

It took me back to a time, as a child, where I was in the same situation with my mother.

This is a very common problem in the domestic sphere of life.  We fall apart in front of our children. Children should never feel responsible for the emotions of their parents.

I scraped it together,  waited until he took his nap, and then I cried.  And I picked myself up and did what I needed to do to make our lives work.

This is what happens when you are really emotional in front of your children.

***

This is an obvious example.  Everybody knows that it’s not good to sob uncontrollably in front of your 3-year-old.

What about spouses?

What about older children?

What about colleagues at work?

It’s a fallacy to think that we are all going to be shiny, happy people all of the time.

I want to be authentic, but authentic me is not always pretty or funny or kind.  Sometimes authentic me is snarly.

Do I have a right to be snarly around others?

What about sad?

Is it good for us to experience the extent of each other’s suffering?

When does my suffering become your burden?

Here are my thoughts- and I’m looking forward to hearing yours-

A good tantrum is like a decadent dessert

It’s all right to have it once or twice a year, but if you are partaking weekly or even daily, your anger is taking its toll.

You are responsible for your feelings

They are yours.

Perhaps somebody was a jerk and contributed to them, but they are yours now.

This is (like everything else) a mixed bag.  You get to feel your feelings.  You get to learn from them. They are mostly useful to you.  You get to decide what you do about them when you are done.

This also means that you can’t say, You made me feel this way.  Because that’s not a true or helpful statement.

You can say, I feel bad because  I asked you if these pants made my butt look fat and you said, ‘it’s not the pants.”

See the difference there? What you feel is what you feel when you feel it.  It is yours.

Don’t Mistake a Feeling Threshold for someone caring or not caring about you

What is a feeling threshold?

It’s the extent that someone can observe someone else’s feelings without feeling the need to react and/or run away.

High Threshold:   People can cry in front of me.  People can lose their little minds in many different ways, and I can take it without taking on their pain.

Low Threshold: I know a car dealer who knocks a few thousand dollars off the price of a car if a woman cries in front of him.  His feeling threshold is pretty low.

A person’s feeling threshold has little to do with how much they care about you.

We are given a physical barometer to react to anyone that is expressing their pain.  It resonates with us.  Just because there is resonance doesn’t mean that people care.  Just because people don’t react doesn’t mean that they don’t care.

Sometimes we are so caught up in our own drama that we confuse the two.

A friend told me this story.

She was upset at her husband.  He had missed an important event where she was to give a speech.

Later, at home,  she told him how upset she was.

When she burst into tears, he left the room.

She yelled, You don’t care! You don’t care!

and he said, I’m getting you a kleenex.

The only way to know if someone cares about you is how they react in the longer run.  You have to have a few arguments, discussions, tear-filled moments before you can integrate the threshold with their feelings.

Understanding the threshold is key

My sweetheart totally gets it when I say, I really need things to be like this. or Could we work on this?

He needs a quiet calm voice.  He is like a deer in the woods.  I need to approach him quietly and peacefully.

When I do that,  our relationship works.

This man does not respond to hysteria.  Or shouting.  Or swearing.  Or vegetables being chopped ferociously.

His feeling threshold is very sensitive.  He can’t respond if he is feeling over-run by my emotions.

Think about the people in your life.  Does  your emotional style fit theirs?

Sometimes people need commentary and/or direction

If my kids come home and I am chopping a potato in a particularly aggressive way, I might say, I’m a little mad right now. It’s not your fault.  I just need you to get your homework done and to keep your music down.

The it’s not your fault is key when working with children.  Because kids believe that they are responsible for everything.

It’s also good to put a time on it.  I expect to feel better by suppertime.

Sweethearts need commentary and direction too.

I am really pissed off about this situation that has nothing to do with you and I don’t require your advice at this time.

or

When I am able to have a civil conversation about the state of our finances, I’ll let you know. I don’t want to scream at you for bringing home a jet-ski when we live in the desert.

Also at work:

I’m frustrated with how that meeting went. I don’t think the client understands that we can’t bend the space/time continuum. I appreciated your comment about realistic expectations.  Perhaps later when I’ve calmed down, we can talk about next steps.

See that? You identified the feeling.  You placed it in context to space and time and then you put forward what you wanted to do next.

This is the beauty of your feelings being YOUR FEELINGS.  You get to decide how and with whom you want to experience them.

When you give someone the right to experience your feelings, you can honor them and not burden them.

For example, I was recently helping out a friend who was very upset. She is going through a hard time.  I just listened.  She told me a story of remarkable sadness and beauty.  It helped me understand her better, to see the place she came from.

Then she said, Thank you for listening.  I didn’t need anything but for someone to listen to me and tell me that I wasn’t crazy for feeling bad about something from long ago.

I said, You’re welcome.

Notice she didn’t ask me to fix anything in her life.

Never give the responsibility of your feelings over to somebody else.

I always feel honored to talk with someone who is processing an emotion. This is tangibly different than someone who is dumping their emotions on me.  It feels different.

I know a person who dumps on me every single time I see her.  Her life is so awful.  Her life is SO AWFUL! She puts it on others in the whiniest, most annoying way possible.  This is irritating because I cannot fix her life. I cannot resolve the issues that she is having because I am not her.

Tomorrow- How can my emotions be helpful to my process of living and not just things that make me feel bad?

Wow! Did you read all this?  If you got to here, could you leave me a comment? It’ll be like your flag on top of a summit.

Tell me: What are your feelings about feelings?