Journal

Here are the daily questions, thoughts, provocations that get batted around in Lezlie-land:  sometimes wacky, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes shamefully self-indulgent.  Hey! It’s a journal!

July 2010 State-of-the-Household Letter

Sunday, 11 July 2010 00:21 Written by Lezlie Laws

Hello dear friends.

      It’s July, and time for Lezlie’s annual state-of-the-household letter--and man has a lot happened since June 2009.  You may remember that last May I began a fifteen-month sabbatical: time to read, write, and study at a leisurely pace.  Surely this is one of the greatest benefits of being a college professor, and I stepped into the process with high hopes and lofty goals.  In my last letter to you, I had an admirable list of six things I hoped to accomplish with this gift of time.  And now, with the gift of hindsight, I am reminded of the saying:  “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

     If you’ve been checking in with my blog, you know that things have not gone as planned—surprise!  In fact, in the first month of the sabbatical, I had to start adjusting my fantasies of fifteen months of blue skies, easy times, and bliss and harmony as I faced the first of a series of health challenges.  Here’s the short version: a kidney stone in May 09, knee surgery in July 09, surgery for breast cancer in January, and on April 9, a fall resulting in a broken foot and a ripped up ankle.   Nine weeks on crutches, after which I graduated to a boot that made me look like Iron Man, and now I’m cleared to walk on my own, though it would be an exaggeration to call my ambulation walking.  It’s more of a goose-like hobble.   But, the good news is my amazing body is healing itself nicely, in spite of the contradictory directions I’ve received from numerous health-care professionals (most of whom make me think of Mr. Magoo as they blindly bump around a ridiculously complicated health-care infrastructure guided mostly by their desire to avoid litigation—don’t get me started).  The ups and downs of this medical year are chronicled in the blog, so I won’t repeat here.  Suffice it to say I’m on the mend, and I’ve learned powerful life lessons from each challenge, albeit, not the lessons I set out to learn.

     In addition to that good news, the other big news in my world is the book is finished.  (I think I hear a wee cheer.)  Or, as I said in yesterday’s blog post, I am finished with the book.  Twelve Doors:  Prompts for Writers is being proofed this week, and in a few days I will make some copies of the manuscript, evidence I have not spent my sabbatical months strolling the beach and drinking piña coladas.  If the book takes on a public incarnation, you’ll be the first to know about it.  If I could jump up and down in jubilation, I would. 

     Between writing the book, and writing about writing the book, and life events, and writing about life events, I feel like I’ve been trapped in my head for the last twelve months.   A few weeks ago, though, I had the strong urge to stop reading and throw all writing instruments in the trash.  No more words! I declared.  Time to get physical.  Of course I’m doing lots of yoga, the best antidote for an over-filled mind.  I’m also gardening, experimenting with paints and papers and colors and shapes (the shy artist in me trying to get out), dipping into cool waters, and looking for a puppy.  It’s time to revel in the senses.

     In spite of all these summer joys, I watch with a touch of sadness the last days of spaciousness and freedom pass by as I anticipate returning to teaching on August 16.  I have enjoyed this year so much; I truly experienced the “white space” I sought.  The universe provided me with some grand lessons (some of them quite painful); but as history shows us, out of disorder and disappointment a new consciousness often emerges.  The challenges of this year have given me some clarity about what is possible for the next decade of this precious life I inhabit.  And most importantly, I have been disabused of the belief that I can control anything in this life.  And that has been liberating.

     In my 2009 letter, I wondered if a year of freedom would make me want to retire and embrace my “white space” full time.   And yes, there is a little part of me that would like to do that.   But the truth is, I’m ready to go back to teaching.  I learned so much this year, and I want to share that with my students; and I’m eager to see if the small degree of equanimity I claim to have acquired will hold in the face of rambunctious students, ambitious colleagues, demanding administrators, cranky secretaries, and all variety of human beings who want life to go exactly as they think it should go.  Wish me luck!

     OK, that’s the short version of Lezlie’s excellent sabbatical adventure.  It hasn’t been at all what I planned, and much of it I would not have asked for.   And that may be exactly the real purpose of the whole experience.  I take heart in a quotation from philosopher/psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin:

Every life problem contains in it a sense of a new direction if only we can let it unfold:  the sense of what is wrong carries with it, inseparably, a sense of the direction toward what is right.  Every bad feeling is potential energy toward a more right way of being if you give it space to move toward its rightness. 

Give all experience space—not just the good ones.  For everything is before you to lead you to the next best version of yourself. 

     So my friends, I hope your summer is filled with everything that makes you happy.  May you experience lots of good food, a little bit of raucous sex, a great book, a joyous surprise, acceptance of an obstacle, gratitude for two strong feet, a dream that gives you hope, a friend who loves you exactly as you desire to be loved, and several awesome afternoon naps—maybe with a puppy curled up next to you.

Who Is In Charge?

Wednesday, 30 June 2010 13:43 Written by Lezlie Laws

Last night, KB sent me this quotation from Eckhart Tolle:

“The action you take once you have SURRENDERED FIRST is always going  

to be much more effective than the action that arises out of a  

struggle with life.”

This concept of surrender is one we’ve been struggling with for years as we’ve engaged in our spiritual studies and practice together.  The concept is shot through the wisdom literature of all traditions.  We must drop the small self’s need to be in charge, to figure things out, to manage situations. When we do, we have access to a deeper clarity, wisdom, and truth.  We move through the world being in the world, but not of it.  We serve a higher purpose than the comings and goings, gettings and spendings of the world we inhabit as local selves.  We tap into our “essential selves” and access our own “genius code.”  In this version of self, there is no fear, no anxiety, no urgency.  Life unfolds according to a natural order that most of us can’t quite perceive. 

But listen, it’s not just the wisdom traditions of the world’s great religions that teach this lesson.   I was watching Cesar’s Milan’s The Dog Whisperer when this email from KB came in last night.  I watch this show not just because I want to get a dog, but because it offers some of the best psychological instruction to be found.

     In this segment, Cesar was dealing with an exceedingly aggressive Chihuahua  (Stanley) who was making his owner’s life a nightmare.  Cesar, who says he rehabilitates dogs and trains their owners, showed the owner that the dog is not really a bad dog, but presents with bad behavior because he is compelled to be in control.  The owner herself had become intimidated with Stanley and of course the dog was totally in tune with her fearful state.  So instead of working on the dog, Cesar demonstrates for the owner how her calm and assertive state will quickly shift Stanley’s emotional state.  When he recognized that someone else was in control of events, his anxiety dropped immediately.  In a matter of seconds, the dog from hell became a cute and curious little Chihuahua (well, as cute as a Chihuahua can be. . .).    

     Cesar said, "When the dog doesn't have to be in control of the situation, he can be who he is."  The mean, aggressive Stanley was not the real Stanley.  Once his owner was confident about her state of being in relationship to the dog, Stanely became a calm and pleasant little creature.   As Stanley began to play with a chew toy, Cesar said, “See, this is his natural self.  He is at ease and enjoying the moment.”

     I thought, oh-my-god, we're just the same!  When we don't have to control life, our true and authentic selves can arise.  I’m thinking we should add The Dog Whisperer to the list of perennial philosophy.  Cesar Milan, modern day prophet.  Truly!

Craving and Clinging at Publix

Tuesday, 01 June 2010 15:37 Written by Lezlie Laws

Not long ago, I was standing in the check-out line at Publix.  A harried mother and two little girls were in front of me.  As the weary mother unloaded her cart, the girls shuffled and pushed and grabbed at one thing then another, trying to amuse themselves in the frantic way children do when standing in lines.  I’d say they were four and five years old. I was happy not to be doing what this mother was doing.  I judged her purchases:  Pop Tarts.  Diet Coke.  Pork chops.  Dehydrated mashed potatoes.  The girls’ energy escalated as they endured her momentary inattention.

Wanting to contribute to peace at Publix, a bagger brought over a balloon on a string and affixed it to the waistband of one of the girls.  She beamed, preened, and looked around for recognition of her great good fortune.  As the bagger walked away, the sister, the forgotten one, immediately burst into tears accompanied by loud, outraged cries of betrayal. Her face was red and wet, her expression desperate, her loss profound.   The bagger had only stepped over to the customer service counter to get another balloon, and appeared within seconds to fix a big, blue one to the collar of the wounded child. And instantaneously, she began to smile and laugh.  With no transition her face went from pure pain to outrageous joy.  She giggled, then laughed and began jumping up and down screeching over her equally good fortune. 

I stepped out of the checkout line so I could watch the threesome leave the grocery store.  The mother was stoic and walked with determination to the car, the girls, gripping their string with attached balloon, whining about heading home.

 

27219

Friday, 21 May 2010 18:30 Written by Lezlie Laws

I encourage you to listen to this interview of Deepak Chopra:  www.shiftinaction.com/discover/exploring_noetic_sciences/deepak_chopra/mind_of_god .   In it he talks about his global network of peace and well being and his great website called "I took  the vow."

 

I took the vow.  I was number 27,219.

  

Will you?  I hope so.  Even if you don't have the time to listen to the interview, check out this website:   http://www.itakethevow.com .  Take the vow.

 

Can You Wiggle Your Toes?

Friday, 30 April 2010 19:05 Written by Lezlie Laws

When I teach a yoga class, sometimes I  begin by asking participants to focus for a minute on an obstacle they're facing.  I say, this may be a person you’re in relationships with, an issue at work, a physical/health challenge before you.  Hold that obstacle in your heart and try to soften around it.  Can you stop resisting this obstacle, just for a minute?  Can you see it as a friend instead of an enemy, just for a moment? 

     How do you do that, they ask?

     I say, stand as straight as you can.  Lengthen the spine as if you were trying to push the top of your head straight up to the ceiling.  Pull your shoulders down and back, trying to pull you shoulder blades together.  And as you do that, extend the very center of your chest.  In this erect position, bring your attention to your heart center and soften right there, bring ease or slight release to any tightness in your chest.  Feel a softening at your core.  Hold it right there.  Breathe.  And when you come to a challenging point in your practice, do the same thing.  When you find yourself struggling to get into pose, straighten your spine, extend your heart center, soften the core, and then breathe into the heart.

     With those few words, I then move into the practice.

Every life is filled with obstacles.   I seem to forget that and continue to be shocked when posed with one.  I am facing a huge obstacle right now in that I have a broken right foot.  I am incapacitated in almost every arena of my life.  Life is challenging for me, and I am really resisting this challenge, even though I have no choice but to deal with it.  Since the accident, I have indulged in anger, grief, fury, frustration, sadness, and back to anger.  I feel a tight fist in my chest most of the time as I see the last months of the sabbatical disappearing before my eyes.  Three months of sabbatical left, and I cannot move.  I can hardly bear it.  This is not the way I saw my life going.

     But of course, I know from the teachings that every circumstance is workable.  And so, I try to buck up and consider the options, look for the positives, make the best of it, get the lesson.  Sometimes this works.  Sometimes it doesn’t.  Yesterday I cried all day. 

          In my morning reading today, though, I realized one particular emotion undergirds everything I’ve been feeling about this life event, and that is disappointment.  It came to me so clearly as I read an essay by Pema Chodron called “Nonagression and the Four Maras.”  That’s it, I thought.  I am disappointed.  Deeply, disappointed.  The foot told me this.  But the foot, of course, is just an obvious manifestation of a whole array of disappointments.  Who wouldn’t be disappointed to have a broken foot?  Not fun, for sure, but a relatively minor obstacle in the larger scheme of things.  It is a pointer to something much bigger for me, something I’ve been ignoring for a long time.   So what is the real disappointment that I seem to be ignoring I ask myself?  What is this foot trying to get me to look at?

    Yes, my plans, my desires to be active in the world are dashed for now.  My attempts to stave off physical decline are halted.  I cannot work in the yard at the very most glorious time of the year.  I cannot bike.  I cannot teach yoga.  I cannot clean my house or even feed myself very easily.  Everything is difficult, every move an effort.   Good reasons to be disappointed.  But there are more and bigger disappointments.  Do I dare say them?  The truth is, I can’t afford not to say them.  This is what I’ve been avoiding for years, and now my broken foot is bringing it all to the surface.  How do I disappoint you?  Let me count the ways. . .

      The book is not what I wish it could be.  I have given up my role as writer.  I have two failed marriages behind me.   I do not have the wealth my father promised.   I do not have the father my father promised.  My family is collapsed.  My intellectual/emotional duality issues abide.  I know so much and yet I know nothing.  I could go on, but let’s just cut to the chase and get to the big one:  the ultimate disappointment is that I can’t control my life.  I can’t make it perfect.  I can’t tie up every loose end.  I can’t cover up all the mess.  I can’t stave off the chaos.  I can’t stop dying or stop seeing decline and death.  I can’t make people well.  I can’t make myself well.   I can’t fix the things I want to fix.  I know, it’s ludicrous isn’t it?  I’m embarrassed just writing this.

     But today comes Pema Chodron on the four maras, and I see disappointment sitting with me here in the living room.  This is the elephant that’s been here all along, and now that I see him I can work with this.  I am not unique, special, or a star.  I am just a simple little girl who really can’t do much.  Fairly mediocre, actually.  This is a great disappointment.  I’m not sure, though, that means I need to lower my standards.  What happens when you really get how common and ordinary you are and yet you go ahead and aim for the best anyway? Is that the antidote to disappointment? You get that you are disappointed and that is a condition of living and you go on?  Is that enough?  I don’t know.

    A moment like this is very important in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition.  Chodron says “there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched.”  Protect ourselves from being real.  Protect ourselves from being fragile.  Protect ourselves from being out of control.  She says, “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”  If we pull back instead of opening up, the lesson will keep repeating itself until we get it.  Well, that would account for the horrendous round of physical obstacles I’ve encountered this year.

     But what to do?  Chodron says, “Sit with the emotional energy and let it pass.”

Just sit with it.  OK.  That’s pretty much all I can do these days, so I guess the universe has me right where it wants me.  I’m sitting, and I’m looking at my swollen piggy foot, and I’m talking to that foot like it contains the secret of the universe.  What are you saying to me?  I’m listening.  Please God, teach me to listen.  This is how, Chodron says,  “what is seemingly ugly and problematic and unwanted actually becomes our teacher.”

     And then she gets down to the core of it.  I felt like she was talking directly to me:  “Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death.  . . . We are killing the moment by controlling our experience.”  That’s exactly what I spend most of my waking hours doing.  I seek security AND perfection.  I want to be whole and happy.  I grasp for comfort.  And this, she says, is some kind of death.  I thought it was the goal.

The problem with that goal is that there is just no way to get away from our imperfections.  We run from them, hide from them, ignore them, stuff them deep into our organs, but sooner or later they come creeping out to face us and bring us to our knees.  Or, in my case, throw us down the stairs.

     Let it all go.  Give it up.  Die in every moment.  That’s the path to freedom.

     I told super-therapist Marcie all this today in session.  And she has a different point of view.  She greatly admires the Buddhist traditions, but she is convinced that wounds trump practice.  You can die in every moment, but if a destructive pattern remains in tact, you can be assured that the next moment you'll find yourself in a reactive state that will cause suffering.  There is just no way around it.  Until you can see your conditioned patterns and have some concept of how those patterns were established earlier in life, you may be doomed to repeat those patterns to no good ends.  As Pema Chodron says, this lesson will continue to confront me, in one form or another, until I get it.   Our session consisted of returning, once again, to a deeply conditioned pattern.  I'm not going to go into that here, but I just want to say that many writers/thinkers in the Integral Life Practice movement would agree with Marcie.  You have to do shadow work in order to drop old conditioning.  In some cases, "sitting with the emotional energy and letting it pass" just won't work.

     So what do you do when you face disappointment?  Do you get pitiful?  I have.  Do you get edgy?  I have.  Do you get angry?  I have.  Do you get still?  I have.  Do you try to analyze it all?  I have.  Do you try to accept it?  I have.  Do you try to buck up?  I have.  Do you cave in?  I have.  Do you bide your time?  I have.  Do you straighten your spine and soften your heart?  I have. 

     I’m still feeling pretty disappointed, but today I did wiggle my toes for the first time in three weeks.   For right now, I’m trying to just pay attention to that fact:  I wiggled my toes.   It bodes well.

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