I worked a full day yesterday, met someone new for lunch, (networking with another therapist), took my youngest daughter downtown for her voice lesson, saw a client, and then raced over to go meditate, on 31st and Hennepin, where it’s always impossible to find a place to park. I drove South on Hennepin, turned around a few blocks and went North on Hennepin. Only a block away from my destination, an open spot, yes! The spot that I pulled into was behind a driveway, and there in the driveway sat a car that once I was in the spot, I realized, must have turned left into the driveway to get into the spot I was now in.
I wondered, then, maybe he’s just backing out, turning around? How can we know what’s going on with other cars? From his angle backing out, and my angle parked on this busy street, there was not much chance that I could get out of the spot and let him in. He backed out and I saw him drive back and forth again. I sat there for a few minutes, thinking, “Should I try to give him the spot ‘back’”? And by wondering ‘back’ I’m thinking “Did he have the spot first?” I was worried he was angry. I thought about leaving and not going to meditation.
When I walked into the room where we meditate, the room was full, but one of the things that I like about Tergar meditation, is that they just keep scootching in and making more room. It’s a welcoming place. I found an empty pillow and sat there wondering if I was wrong to have parked where I did. I wondered if the person who was in the driveway finally found a parking spot and was here in the room; and I wondered if he was mad at me, judging me. I wondered why I was obsessing about this. I got the spot, he didn’t. Did I have to always give in? Is that the most Zen way? Giving in? How could I have known that there was a car in the drive way to begin with? I didn’t see it until I had already parked. I realized that if I gave the spot up, the person who was in the driveway would be unlikely to get that spot. I wondered why it always seemed like the best way out for me, was to just give in.
So, I meditated on being OK with winning once in a while. I meditated on dealing with what is, when it’s in your favor.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Milk and Cookies
happiness is a shared bag of Oreos with cold milk near at hand
unhappiness is trying to fit in with people you don’t like
happiness is Bonnie Raidt, singing that song about the midway
unhappiness is worrying about getting old
happiness is knees touching under the table
with a good glass of wine on the table
unhappiness is a rainy day without spaghetti and warm bread
happiness is liking what’s going on in your head
unhappiness is like a breeze that just needs to blow
every once in while, so that you can sense happiness is just behind it
no matter how good life gets
I always want to reserve the right to whine and
cry some bitter tears
every so often
unhappiness is trying to fit in with people you don’t like
happiness is Bonnie Raidt, singing that song about the midway
unhappiness is worrying about getting old
happiness is knees touching under the table
with a good glass of wine on the table
unhappiness is a rainy day without spaghetti and warm bread
happiness is liking what’s going on in your head
unhappiness is like a breeze that just needs to blow
every once in while, so that you can sense happiness is just behind it
no matter how good life gets
I always want to reserve the right to whine and
cry some bitter tears
every so often
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Malleable Mind
For all of us there comes times when life doesn’t work anymore. Either we lose a job or a relationship. We have a new baby, or the babies are all grown up. What we’d been doing just doesn’t ‘do it’ for us anymore. What then?
This is September, usually a month I love, this month I am melancholy in weird ways. As I walked around the windblown waters of Lake Harriet yesterday, I was frustrated by my inability to calm my thoughts. The past rushed up against my mind like the lake against the shore, and I thought about how nearly 30 years ago, on a beautiful sunny day, on the 27th, I got married. In a church, in a beautiful white dress, had a Mass, thought with a wish and a prayer it would last forever. Not so much. It’s divided in half now, 15 years married, 15 years single. Never ever thought I’d be single for 15 years. Along the way I had to let go of most of the untruths that I held on to as truth. I had to let my life be dynamic, and let the ‘rules’ (if there is such a thing) be dynamic also.
In September, 13 years ago, I had to accept that my oldest daughter, at fourteen was pregnant. I thought my life was over, I think I had more invested in my role of being a mom than my role of being a wife. I was a newly single mom with three unruly daughters already, and felt so overwhelmed. One of the ways I measured families in those days was how well they conformed to what I thought was the ‘norm.’ I measured myself and my family this way and I believed the lies I was told about young moms. Now that wonderful grandson is 13 and so cool, so amazing and my daughter is fine. She has her ups and downs like every other person, and some struggles that pertain only to single moms, and the life questions that most twenty somethings ask themselves. I am a better person for leaving behind the idea of trying to measure people. There is no good way to measure human beings, we defy measuring. It’s an insult.
I look back though, to my life, to my struggles with these September events that bring me back through time and give me a glimpse into how I’ve been able to change, and change with the flow of life, instead of stand against it, and I’m grateful for whatever spirit it is inside or outside of us that allows us to take our own truths and hold them against untruth and see the difference. Grateful for a mind that churns up against the hope for a peaceful walk and shows me how to walk.
This is September, usually a month I love, this month I am melancholy in weird ways. As I walked around the windblown waters of Lake Harriet yesterday, I was frustrated by my inability to calm my thoughts. The past rushed up against my mind like the lake against the shore, and I thought about how nearly 30 years ago, on a beautiful sunny day, on the 27th, I got married. In a church, in a beautiful white dress, had a Mass, thought with a wish and a prayer it would last forever. Not so much. It’s divided in half now, 15 years married, 15 years single. Never ever thought I’d be single for 15 years. Along the way I had to let go of most of the untruths that I held on to as truth. I had to let my life be dynamic, and let the ‘rules’ (if there is such a thing) be dynamic also.
In September, 13 years ago, I had to accept that my oldest daughter, at fourteen was pregnant. I thought my life was over, I think I had more invested in my role of being a mom than my role of being a wife. I was a newly single mom with three unruly daughters already, and felt so overwhelmed. One of the ways I measured families in those days was how well they conformed to what I thought was the ‘norm.’ I measured myself and my family this way and I believed the lies I was told about young moms. Now that wonderful grandson is 13 and so cool, so amazing and my daughter is fine. She has her ups and downs like every other person, and some struggles that pertain only to single moms, and the life questions that most twenty somethings ask themselves. I am a better person for leaving behind the idea of trying to measure people. There is no good way to measure human beings, we defy measuring. It’s an insult.
I look back though, to my life, to my struggles with these September events that bring me back through time and give me a glimpse into how I’ve been able to change, and change with the flow of life, instead of stand against it, and I’m grateful for whatever spirit it is inside or outside of us that allows us to take our own truths and hold them against untruth and see the difference. Grateful for a mind that churns up against the hope for a peaceful walk and shows me how to walk.
Friday, September 10, 2010
I think, therefore I am, I feel, therefore I am more than
Western thinking has long been using Descartes’ model of mind and body as separate from each other; the mind as more spiritual and the body as likened to a machine. This duality placed the brain in a hierarchy over the emotions. This model has informed medicine and religion, both powerful entities in shaping our culture.
This duality of thinking plagued me as a youth. I thought of it as heart and mind. Which do I follow, heart or mind? I read Gone With The Wind, who should I be like, Scarlett or Melanie? The thought of my heart and mind working together, in sync, was not even a thought in my head. So without even the possibility of this happening how did I grow through my growing up years? Like most I suppose, often scared and confused, trying to figure things out.
When I was thirteen, (yes thirteen), many of my friends in 8th grade in Catholic school were starting to have sex. It wasn’t as consensual as we’d thought it was. One friend had sex with the dad of the family she babysat for, he told her his wife said it was “OK.” He was a sales rep with a designer make up company and gave her high end make up. Another friend just had a lot of boyfriends.
I was both shocked and left out. We had all been taught to wait until marriage, or to become nuns, so what was going on? Well, when I finally had a boyfriend, much older than myself, I understood somewhat. Being touched felt good. It felt validating in a way that doing schoolwork and being told what to do never could. The culture I grew up in, in most families I knew, did not involve much physical touch or affection. For most of the girls I knew, one kiss, and there went all thoughts of purity. We mistook the feelings in our bodies for the essence of love. How could we have done any differently?
The sad thing, there was no adult to talk to about this. So, we had our secret lives, and hoped not to get pregnant and eventually got married, still not knowing anything much about ourselves, our bodies, and clueless as to how most of us ended up getting divorced in our twenties and thirties. Having sex and bearing babies loses it’s allure when there is no attention to mind, either.
Then as mothers, how did we parent our kids? Tell them the same stories, the same myths about mind/body separation, mind good, go to college, body, bad, don’t have sex? Trying to retain the Christian paradigm, ignoring the cognitive dissonance, buzzing in our heads, we, most of us, told the same stories, not believing in them ourselves, but having no other truer stories to tell.
This duality of thinking plagued me as a youth. I thought of it as heart and mind. Which do I follow, heart or mind? I read Gone With The Wind, who should I be like, Scarlett or Melanie? The thought of my heart and mind working together, in sync, was not even a thought in my head. So without even the possibility of this happening how did I grow through my growing up years? Like most I suppose, often scared and confused, trying to figure things out.
When I was thirteen, (yes thirteen), many of my friends in 8th grade in Catholic school were starting to have sex. It wasn’t as consensual as we’d thought it was. One friend had sex with the dad of the family she babysat for, he told her his wife said it was “OK.” He was a sales rep with a designer make up company and gave her high end make up. Another friend just had a lot of boyfriends.
I was both shocked and left out. We had all been taught to wait until marriage, or to become nuns, so what was going on? Well, when I finally had a boyfriend, much older than myself, I understood somewhat. Being touched felt good. It felt validating in a way that doing schoolwork and being told what to do never could. The culture I grew up in, in most families I knew, did not involve much physical touch or affection. For most of the girls I knew, one kiss, and there went all thoughts of purity. We mistook the feelings in our bodies for the essence of love. How could we have done any differently?
The sad thing, there was no adult to talk to about this. So, we had our secret lives, and hoped not to get pregnant and eventually got married, still not knowing anything much about ourselves, our bodies, and clueless as to how most of us ended up getting divorced in our twenties and thirties. Having sex and bearing babies loses it’s allure when there is no attention to mind, either.
Then as mothers, how did we parent our kids? Tell them the same stories, the same myths about mind/body separation, mind good, go to college, body, bad, don’t have sex? Trying to retain the Christian paradigm, ignoring the cognitive dissonance, buzzing in our heads, we, most of us, told the same stories, not believing in them ourselves, but having no other truer stories to tell.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Language of Love
I heard of something recently called the Five Languages of Love (from the book of the same title), and of course I’m skeptical, skeptical but curious. It seems this book is being used in women’s bible studies. Seriously, a preferred love language? That’s my reaction, and I will admit I’ve never read the book, but I did peruse the author/book site and take the free online test, which, of course, is simplified, and it does seem to lead people on to think they really should have, or should pick a love language, just for them.
Here’s the love languages according to Dr. Gary Chapman: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch. This probably sells books, but I don’t think that someone should use this information in relationships. It seems a bit unfair, to say to someone, “If you loved me, you’d love me like this, my love language.” My preferred language was Quality Time. This came as no surprise. I haven’t had Quality Time from someone in quite some time, as in quality time=a date, who else just wants to sit and stare at you? Not my friends or children. So, if I don’t get quality time, should I feel unloved? If my daughter’s preferred language is Receiving Gifts and I’m broke, how does that work? I’m just wondering....
I’ve been thinking about love lately. I’ve also been reading David Richo’s book, How To Be An Adult In Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving. A book worth reading from beginning to end. In this book, Richo says that what all children (and adults) need are: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing, as in being allowed to explore and be ourselves. And so, I wonder how abundant, or how scarce these things were in my parenting, and in my own life growing up? I believe we can always learn to love ourselves and those in our lives better. What a great premise and what a great goal: to continue to be the best lover I can be.
I realize that two of the ways that I seem to love myself the most, are the ways that my mom was best able to show me that she loved me. I dress myself well, and eat pretty well. These were both important to my mom, that we children looked good and ate well. Compared to getting a lot of other needs met, this seems superficial, and when you need a hug, and you’re told that your shirt is untucked, well, it doesn’t feel like love at all. But we all get what we get and it is really up to us to make the best of it. So, now I need to learn to give myself attention, acceptance (even when I’m not looking good), appreciation, which I do get from my mom now, affection, and allowing. A big task, non?
This requires more honesty and introspection. The ability to accept that we don’t always get our love needs met from our parents, or our partners. This then, however, frees us up to learn how to best love ourselves, and in the process, model for others how to love. The beauty in this is that I’ve found that how we love ourselves is how we love others. As we discussed at meditation sitting last night, as we meditate, compassion flows out from the practice of meditation. Love is not static, it’s dynamic and moves out into the world. It creates it's own language.
Here’s the love languages according to Dr. Gary Chapman: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch. This probably sells books, but I don’t think that someone should use this information in relationships. It seems a bit unfair, to say to someone, “If you loved me, you’d love me like this, my love language.” My preferred language was Quality Time. This came as no surprise. I haven’t had Quality Time from someone in quite some time, as in quality time=a date, who else just wants to sit and stare at you? Not my friends or children. So, if I don’t get quality time, should I feel unloved? If my daughter’s preferred language is Receiving Gifts and I’m broke, how does that work? I’m just wondering....
I’ve been thinking about love lately. I’ve also been reading David Richo’s book, How To Be An Adult In Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving. A book worth reading from beginning to end. In this book, Richo says that what all children (and adults) need are: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing, as in being allowed to explore and be ourselves. And so, I wonder how abundant, or how scarce these things were in my parenting, and in my own life growing up? I believe we can always learn to love ourselves and those in our lives better. What a great premise and what a great goal: to continue to be the best lover I can be.
I realize that two of the ways that I seem to love myself the most, are the ways that my mom was best able to show me that she loved me. I dress myself well, and eat pretty well. These were both important to my mom, that we children looked good and ate well. Compared to getting a lot of other needs met, this seems superficial, and when you need a hug, and you’re told that your shirt is untucked, well, it doesn’t feel like love at all. But we all get what we get and it is really up to us to make the best of it. So, now I need to learn to give myself attention, acceptance (even when I’m not looking good), appreciation, which I do get from my mom now, affection, and allowing. A big task, non?
This requires more honesty and introspection. The ability to accept that we don’t always get our love needs met from our parents, or our partners. This then, however, frees us up to learn how to best love ourselves, and in the process, model for others how to love. The beauty in this is that I’ve found that how we love ourselves is how we love others. As we discussed at meditation sitting last night, as we meditate, compassion flows out from the practice of meditation. Love is not static, it’s dynamic and moves out into the world. It creates it's own language.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
