Professional Student of Life
Adventures in personal growth
The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life. Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate. ~ Robert Browning
One of my favorite teachers and authors, Martha Beck, once used an analogy that has stayed with me for many years. She said that when you fill a birdfeeder, you can’t stand right next to it and try to coax the birds to come. You have to walk away and let them find it themselves. This applies to all of our work in the world (and in fact to every relationship). You can never force someone to take what you offer, no matter how good your intentions or how much you think they need it. You can only offer what it is you have to give, freely and without expectation, and then wait to see what life will make of it. The more you hover and fret and try to force the outcome, the less likely those shy little birds will ever come to your feeder. There’s a place for marketing in this world of commerce, but marketing will only go so far. Self-promotion has become a way of life for many these days, with the daily onslaught of Facebook feeds fueling that trend. It takes strength to resist the tide, to stand back and quietly offer your best to the world without expectation of acknowledgement or return. I’ve learned this lesson in spades since I published a book last year. My conscious decision was to let it make its own way in the world, finding its own readers and trusting that the people who needed it would be drawn to it as mysteriously as the birds that inevitably find the feeder once you leave it alone. My ego constantly wants to get involved – worried and disappointed when “nothing happens,” preening and proud when someone praises me. I have to keep patiently coming back to the birdfeeder analogy and walking away from my need for results. Now my work is taking on a new twist that will challenge my ego even more. Through some classes I’ve taught and a few on-line articles that were published, I’ve unexpectedly developed a small flock of birds that keeps coming back to the feeder. Although I’ve been a certified life coach for several years, I haven’t previously offered 1:1 coaching, since writing and classes seemed a better fit. I'm opening that door now so that I can add spiritual direction to my offerings at the birdfeeder. May it bring exactly the birds who need this nourishment the most, and feed us both!
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Why are you always wanting to get something or go somewhere? Why not just relax and be here, simply existing in all your cells, inhabiting all your body? ~ A.H. Almaas
So often in life I’m in a hurry to get to the punch line, the pay-off, the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve always been more of a future-oriented than past-oriented person. School helps foster this. There’s always something to work toward and wish for: Summer! The end of finals! The next class up, or the next degree! I finally realized this (in retrospect) many years ago. I had been living for half a year in Hawaii, within walking distance of a beautiful, secluded beach. It sounds idyllic, and you would have thought I’d be relishing it, right? The thing was, I was ready to buy a house – it was the logical next step, I thought – and I couldn’t afford one in Hawaii. And so I moved back to the mainland. It wasn’t until later that I questioned my haste in moving on to the next thing, when I actually had a pretty good thing going in the present. I still struggle with really embracing the part of the path I’m on right now. When it’s good it could be even better, and when it’s bad I really want to get the hell out of Dodge. Slowing down to look around and truly experience the life I’m in now is a discipline I’m practicing. Even with the good things, you can only really savor so much at once. If you were eating at a fine restaurant, would you order every good thing on the menu at the same time? Probably not, and you wouldn’t enjoy it long if you did. Imagine life as a sumptuous, eight-course meal. The expert waiters take their time in bringing you each delicious course, so that you can enjoy it fully and be ready for the next one. There’s no need to feel anxious or hurried… you know that the next course will get there at exactly the right time. Waiting a little even adds to the experience, so that you really appreciate what comes next. All you need to do is relax in the moment, savoring what’s in front of you, inhabiting all your cells. That’s how I want to live my life! When it comes to making life decisions it comes down to knowing yourself, not knowing “what if.” ~ Unknown
This past weekend I did a fire walk! Yes, I walked barefoot over glowing coals. I did this with a group of very special friends, under the leadership of loved and trusted teachers… but it was still terrifying. The scariest part was that there was no pressure to fall back on in making the decision. Each one of us had to decide whether or not to walk based on our own body’s inner knowing. And every person was applauded for their decision, no matter what it was. Here is the most important thing I learned: When making any decision – but especially when the stakes are high – anything less than a “Clear Yes” is a “No.” How I wish I had known this when I was younger and pondering many of the big decisions of my life, such as who to marry and what to study in college. I recently heard this advice, given to a friend by her father: Deciding to get married should be the easiest decision of your life. If it isn’t, you’ve got the wrong guy. Just a different way of saying if it isn’t a Clear Yes, it’s a No. How do you recognize a Clear Yes? You have to get to know your own body, because that’s where you’ll find it, not in your head. This is how we were coached prior to walking: Close your eyes and think of a time in your life when you made a decision that you knew deep down was wrong for you (and later had the truth of that feeling confirmed). Find the place in your body where that feeling lives and make a note of it. Really experience the feeling of No. Now do the same with a decision that you knew was right for you. Where does that feeling live in your body? What is it like? Describe it with as much detail as possible so that you’ll recognize it when you feel it again. You can still have fear along with your Clear Yes (I did) but it will feel more like excitement than dread. No one can guarantee the outcome of any decision, but if you go in with a Clear Yes you are less likely to regret it, regardless of outcome. And remember: Anything less than a Clear Yes is a No. That simple. So once I got my clear answer, I was ready to walk the coals. No regrets, no burns; I barely even felt it (although that still seems hard to believe). But the euphoria of listening to myself and really trusting my inner knowing will be with me forever. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. ~ G.K. Chesterton
I missed posting last month, as life intervened with quite a few adventures… mostly positive, but also some that were very inconvenient! Chief among the latter was leaving my phone and wallet on the roof of the car when getting gas in Montana, and then having both run over multiple times before a kind stranger picked them up off the road and tracked me down several states over. An adventure I would rather not have had, but it’s led to quite a few realizations and a great opportunity to practice “radical acceptance.” It was interesting for me to watch my own reactions when I became aware that my wallet/phone were definitely not in the car, and then backtracked through my actions to the conclusion that I had made the ultimate careless mistake. There is panic, quite a bit of self-castigation, and then the inevitable inner wail: Why me?? It’s never really convenient to break a $600 iphone, is it? But I take this spiritual growth thing seriously, and one of my central tenets is that everything that happens is the perfect vehicle for waking up. So in a relatively short amount of time (at least, compared to how I would have done it in the past) I decided to drop the story about how this shouldn’t have happened and just deal with the reality that it had. The events in our lives are really just neutral. We give them their significance by the stories we attach to them: we crave the ones we label good and reject the ones we label bad, but how do we really know? One good thing that came to me through this adventure was just the opportunity to practice the attitude of acceptance. Another was the kindness and decency of a stranger who promptly mailed my things without touching the $100 bill in my wallet, even after I invited him to take the money as a reward (or at least to pay for postage). A third was the realization that a cheaper phone is all that I really need or want. I never figured out how to use all the bells and whistles on my iphone anyway, so why did I bother? More and more I’m realizing that possessions are more of a burden and worry than an enhancement to my life. I’m moving toward a life of fewer possessions and greater freedom, and this experience was a welcome confirmation of that. My biggest takeaway is simply to be open to the miracles and adventures that surround me everyday, and to allow them to come in any form they choose to take! The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. ~ James Taylor
Lately I’ve been grappling with the question of goal-setting. I’m newly part of a Mastermind group, whose purpose is to assist and hold members accountable in setting and keeping goals. Mastermind groups are based on principles of success developed by Napoleon Hill, author of the classic Think and Grow Rich. The idea is that several minds working together are more powerful than one, and I do love knowing that my partners are visualizing me accomplishing my goals, as I am theirs. But when I sit down to write goals, I keep bumping up against the same contrarian thought. So much of my reading and studying says: Be present! Stay in the moment! While goals are all about the future. The problem with goals is that we start thinking that our happiness, or success, or worth depends on meeting them. I struggle with that a lot lately, since I’m mostly not “working” and I don’t have a wildly successful career or accomplishments to point to. In this society we put so much emphasis on these outer trappings of success. If I’m not meeting some lofty goal, is my life a failure? Well, no. That’s where the passage of time comes in. Even when you’re working toward worthy goals, the moment of realizing them is fleeting. The vast majority of time is spent in ordinary, daily activities, repeated over and over. Sleeping, cooking, eating, cleaning, shopping, dressing, bathing, doing errands. Even the most famous, accomplished person spends most of his time in very mundane ways, and this is wonderfully reassuring. We can all learn to be happy simply enjoying the passing of time. We don’t have to put it off until we’ve met our goals or reached some standard of worldly success. Check in with yourself throughout the day and ask if you’re enjoying the passage of time. Is all of your attention on the next hours or days or weeks, or do you have time to inhabit the moment you’re actually in right now? It’s really the only time you have to be happy. Not that goals aren’t a good thing, when held lightly, but they’ll lead you astray if they become the focus of your life, and meeting them the criterion for your happiness. The mystery is that no moment of life is any more important or meaningful than another, and no one’s life is made more meaningful by their accomplishments. Life is meaningful in the absolute, not in the relative. To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life. ~ T.S.Eliot
If you’re anything like me, you get to mid-life and you go: Shit. What’s my life all about? What’s it really all about? At some point, the logistical imperatives of the first half of life – figuring out how to make a living, finding a partner, raising a family and so on – fall away, leaving you standing more or less empty-handed in the middle of your life, wondering what it all ultimately means (if anything). This mid-life crisis can be a deafening wake-up call or the beginning of a quiet, gradual sinking into trivia and faux busy-ness that keeps the sense of meaninglessness comfortably at bay. Meaning isn’t hard to find, but it must be consciously sought. It probably isn’t found at the mall or on TV. I like this quote by Katherine Woodward Thomas: What makes life worth living is being actively engaged in becoming the finest, most delicious human being you can possibly be in this lifetime. What makes life worth living is finding people and projects that you can love and stand by and give yourself to completely. So, here are some areas of life that are particularly ripe with meaning. Relationships - from family to friends to neighbors to strangers. Work - whether for pay or for love. Hobbies that light you up (not the ones that just suck up your time). Spirituality in all its many guises (my favorite meaning-maker). There’s nothing dramatic here. You are not required to join Mother Teresa in Calcutta in order to live a meaningful life, but you do have to look carefully at the people and things that genuinely bring you joy and fulfillment, and stock your life with them. Your list won’t look like anyone else’s, because meaning-making is as individual as fingerprints. Life is an inscrutable, precious puzzle and no one really knows why we’re here. It’s up to each of us to simply play the hands we’re dealt as honorably and well as we can, being fully present to what is happening in our lives and choosing, whenever possible, to move toward love and joy in whatever form that takes for us. And that is enough for one man’s (or woman's) life. No matter how great the breadth of your knowledge, it is completely inadequate for awakening to the genuine principles of life unless you feel and realize them through your body. ~ Taoist master Ilchi Lee
As a writer and someone in love with ideas, I spend a lot of time in my head. I was never one for school sports, gym memberships (at least ones that I used), or even Zumba videos. However, I’ve recently discovered what might be the missing link in my spiritual practice – the body. What sparked this realization was reading the book The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope, the director of yoga at the Kripalu Center in Massachusetts. I had done yoga before, in classes at those mostly unattended gyms, but it never seemed like anything more than fancy stretching to me. I knew that people spoke of yoga as a spiritual practice, but I just wasn’t seeing it. Cope’s book is about the philosophy that underlies yogic practice, with origins in the Bhagavad Gita, and how that has played out in various famous and not-so-famous lives (not necessarily yogis, but people who embodied the spirit of the practice, like Gandhi and even Harriet Tubman). Inspired by that, I joined a spiritually oriented yoga studio a month ago and fell head over heels for the practice – pun intended! So, what’s different about this kind of yoga? On the surface it looks very much like what I did before, but with a huge difference in intention and focus. The intention is to use this physical practice to center myself in the present moment, and the focus – on breathing and the flow of energy in my body – effectively quiets my mind down for the length of the class (and increasingly long after). And what do I get from it that I can’t get from my regular meditation practice? I use intention and focus in that as well, but with the addition of physical effort the learning seems to take place at a more fundamental level, as if even the cells of my body are absorbing it. There’s a big difference between grasping a concept intellectually (even believing it wholeheartedly) and being able to live it in real life. I can think a topic to death, but unless it drops down into my body so that I actually experience it in my life, it remains just a concept to me. Meditating with my body, which is essentially what this kind of yoga is, teaches me presence and groundedness that I carry around with me on the cellular level, not just in my head. I think that virtually any activity that incorporates these three ingredients (intention, focus and physical effort) can also be an effective spiritual practice. My brother describes reaching a meditative state when kayaking alone for several weeks. Long-distance runners famously report a feeling of spiritual euphoria. We are physical beings, even those of us who are most comfortable in our minds. Moving my spiritual practice into my body feels like discovering a crucial missing piece of the puzzle. …That night, that year of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God. ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins
Whoever came up with the term “dark night of the soul?” I wish! In my experience, these times don’t pass in a night, however uncomfortable. That’s how we'd like it to go: let’s get these unpleasant emotions off-stage as soon as possible so that we can get on with the real show, which of course is the pleasant, enjoyable stuff. If things feel uncertain, if we’re sad or lonely or lost or afraid, then something must be wrong and we’d better find the solution, and quick. The sense of “wrongness,” and even shame, that we have about these desert experiences only adds to their pain. We wonder what’s the matter with us that we can’t seem to just snap out of it. We hide it from our loved ones – and certainly from the all-pervasive social media universe. We even hide it from ourselves. If we’re versed in psychological or New Agey concepts it’s often even worse. We use affirmations, meditations, visualizations to shake ourselves free of the muck. They seem to work temporarily, but I sometimes think this actually prolongs the experience. What would happen if we just accepted the time in the desert, or settled down in the muck, and determined to make ourselves at home there instead? My favorite author in times like these is Pema Chödrön, the American Buddhist nun. Even the titles of her books are reassuring: When Things Fall Apart, for instance, or The Places That Scare You. Her message, over and over, is not to flee from uncomfortable experiences. She calls this feeling of being lost and uncertain “groundlessness” and even goes so far as to suggest that we cultivate it by “pulling out our own rug.” This takes extreme bravery. Most of us want nothing more than to have a solid sense of grounding under foot, however much of an illusion it is. The places that scare you – the rocky, barren desert places; the messy, dirty, miring places – may very well hold the most learning and growth for you. Sit in the muck and search around for buried treasure, rather than spending all your energy trying to figure out how to get out! Wander in the desert, marveling at its austere beauty rather than longing for the lush meadow. If it helps, know that you are in good company. Most prophets have spent their time in desert places and come out stronger. Nelson Mandela’s 27 years on Robben Island ended up changing the world. And eventually, even the longest, darkest night will come to an end. There is no path to peace. Peace is the path. ~ Gandhi
One of my mentors, the inimitable Martha Beck, likes to say that God answers all of our prayers, giving us everything we’ve ever longed for. The trouble is, He always sends them to our real address, which is peace. If we can get to peace, and learn to stay there, we’ll find all the goods waiting for us. It’s a beautiful image and an invitation to a surprisingly simple practice. We don’t really need affirmations and visualizations and exercises to raise our vibrations (although there is much to be said for all of them). We just need to be at peace with what is happening, in our lives outwardly and in our reactions inwardly. We need to find the Place of Peace, and then make it a habit to return there again and again, staying longer and longer each time. I have a mental image of the Place of Peace as a yurt (not sure why, but the image is sticking). It’s a place where fear and anger can hang out with love and joy, where there’s room for everyone. True peace can’t be “imposed” over other emotions; it happens when you accept the emotions that you’re already having, even if they aren’t particularly comfortable. I’ve had a lot of practice lately. My move has brought up all kinds of uncomfortable emotions. When I resist them I don’t feel peace, but when I allow them to be there, when I am at peace with feeling lonely and scared, when I fling open the door to the yurt and invite them all in, as the poet Rumi wrote, I find that I can breathe comfortably again. I don’t love feeling this way, but I can accept it, and a feeling of peace descends on me right in the midst of my turmoil. So I’m working on living in the Place of Peace, my real address. I missed posting a blog last month for the first time, but that’s okay. This is a huge transition for me, from my cabin in the woods to an urban apartment five floors up. I miss my boy cat, who stayed with my parents so that he can continue to enjoy the outdoors. I miss seeing trees outside my window, but I can still connect with the mountains. I’ve been through an intense purge of my possessions and learned that my family will step in heroically to support me when I need it. I am battered and sore emotionally, but I know that I will heal. I am at peace. Troubled? Then stay with me, for I am not. ~ Hafiz
Ah, the joys and comforts of co-dependency. Most of us grew up snugly ensconced in the familiar drama of the “Victim Triangle,” whose three corners are Victim, Persecutor and Rescuer. Chances are, one of these roles will feel like a second skin to you. Me, I’m a Rescuer. However, the sad truth is that if you play one of the roles, you will play all of them, depending on the relationship and the situation. Rescuers sometimes pat themselves on the back, because it seems so selfless and “evolved” to help other people. But the Victim Triangle is all about power, anxiety and lack of boundaries, no matter which role you play. Rescuers use their feeling of control and goodness to soothe their own anxiety. Persecutors exert control more directly for the same reason. And Victims willingly relinquish control to both Rescuers and Persecutors so that they won’t have to face the anxiety of taking responsibility for their lives. And we’re not just talking about alcoholism and addictions here. If you’re brave enough to look closely, chances are you’ll find the Victim Triangle alive and well in just about every relationship you have. I had an interesting experience with my own tendency to rescue at a retreat I attended this month. Going around the circle, with people sharing their difficulties, I felt the need to comfort and fix rising up strongly in me… because I was uncomfortable with their pain. The retreat leader wasn’t uncomfortable. He didn’t jump in to rescue or soothe anyone. He just smiled kindly and said, “Well, you’re all in the right place.” I think for the first time I realized what a gift you give someone by allowing them to rescue themselves. Let them have their difficulties and their pain, because that is what they need for their growth… no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel. Rescuing takes away their power and their opportunity to heal themselves in a profound way. This requires a fundamental shift in my definition of being “helpful.” It means seeing others as the powerful creators they are, capable of bearing their burdens of pain while they work out their own salvation. If I can learn to tolerate my own anxiety when someone seems to be in pain, then I can support them through my strength and peace while they do the inner work that needs to be done. And when one person steps out of the Victim Triangle, the game of co-dependency begins to falter, because it takes at least two people to play. |
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Website and content by Amaya Pryce, writer and life coach. All rights reserved.
Contact: amaya.pryce@gmail.com |