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The bear and the monkey.

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There is a part of the Hindu epic Ramayana that I like very much. Rama, the blue-skinned human incarnation of the god Vishnu is searching for Sita, his wife. She has been kidnapped by the demon Ravana. On his quest he comes across a white monkey named Hanuman and a black bear named Jambavan.

The two animals join in the quest and they enlist the aid of the entire monkey and bear clans. After a month of searching they still haven’t found Ravana’s lair or Sita, and they are at the end of the Indian continent.

Jambavan knows a secret about Hanuman that he himself does not know. Hanuman is the son of the wind god and has immense powers. This information was hidden from him to keep him from annoying the meditating sages. Jambavan breaks his promise to the gods and Hanuman wakes up to his true self, grows immense and is able to see the island where Ravana’s fortress is, thus leading the group of searchers in Sita’s rescue.

How many years did Hanuman go before he was told of his birthright and his power?

How many of us are similarly asleep?

I am that bear.

I am here to tell you a secret.

You are more powerful than you know.
You have within you the light of God.
You are made from stardust.
You were put here because you are needed and necessary.

You are beautiful.
You are powerful.
You are eternal.

Act accordingly.
Use your powers for good.

(If you are interested in an especially readable and enjoyable version of this tale, please go to your library and get “Ramayana: Divine Loophole” by Sanjay Patel. It is illustrated in “Samurai Jack” style.)

“Post Secret” God

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Remember those “Post Secret” books? You’d read them, and feel like you weren’t alone. That somebody else was having that very same experience as you.

I remember feeling very alone as an adolescent. I remember hearing lyrics in songs by the Police and Styx that gave me hope that perhaps I wasn’t as far out there as I felt. Perhaps there were other people who had an “other” sense of knowing, who were “weird” but in a good way. When I moved to Virginia for a summer, I lived with a lady who also had that sense, and she talked to me about it. It was refreshing to hear that this sense wasn’t odd or weird, but shared.

It is like having an extra sense of color – say it is color that is somewhere between pink and orange. There is a stone called “padparashca” that names that color. But say you haven’t heard of that stone. You can see and identify that color, but nobody else sees it as different. They call it pink, or salmon, or orange, but you know it is not any of those, but it is more than those.

I have that with God. I’ve always known of God. I’ve always felt God. And I’ve heard from God since I was 12.

The problem is that in our society, we don’t talk about God like this. Lilly Tomlin said “If you are talking to God, you are praying. If God is talking to you, you are crazy.” This may not be the exact quote, but you get the idea. Is God the elephant in the room?

However, we are told in our religious institutions to pray to God. We read about people who talked directly with God. Yet if we say we hear from God today, we are shunned and silenced. Perhaps this isn’t the way in all denominations, but it sure was in mine.

Hearing from God is a normal part, is a desired part, of being a human. It is our birthright. Sadly, we’ve forgotten how to make this connection.

I’ve always felt different. I keep having these experiences. I’ve already begun writing them down and sharing them here. I first started writing this post a year ago. I was trying to warm up to the idea of sharing what I now have in my “Strange but true” section.

My embarrassment might be your awakening. And that is fine with me. I don’t share what I share to build myself up. I share it because it may help others who feel like I do. I share it because I know there are other people who hear from God but have been silenced or intimidated.

I prayed at Cursillo to not cry at the final event. I had been crying happy, overwhelmed tears a lot that weekend. I didn’t want to embarrass myself or my group in the final event. But then part of praying is that you have to be willing to accept God’s answer. I said if I can’t stop crying, let it be that my tears help others. Sometimes folks need to see someone else cry to let them know it is ok to cry. They want to – but it is socially unacceptable. You cry – and it is a release for them. It as if it gives them permission to cry, to let it out. That is healing.

So I’m giving you permission to speak your truth. I’m letting myself be open so that you can be open. Let us strengthen each other with our stories, in the same way we help each other with our tears.

Life *before* death

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I’ve had a lot of people say to me that if they get a bad diagnosis or their quality of life declines, they are OK with the idea of killing themselves. Conditions are discussed like ALS, or becoming so disabled that they are unable to move without assistance.

I think it is important to have some control over your life. That if life isn’t life – if it is just being alive but not living, then it is important to do something about it.

But then I got to thinking. What about all the folks who aren’t really alive now? We are often zombie-like. We wake up. We go to work. We come home. We eat. We go to sleep. Repeat. There isn’t much life there.

What if you don’t have a terminal or debilitating illness, but you just aren’t living? To be fair – we all have terminal illnesses. We are all dying. Our fear of death means we have ignored it, glossed over it, sanitized it. This is a grave mistake. Death gives life meaning. Because it will end, we need to make it count.

What about making life count now while we can?

Instead of debating about life after death, why not focus our energy on living life now? Now is what we have. Now is what we are dealing with. Life after death is an unknown. What if there is life after death and we waste it too with mindless television and bickering?

Write it out, and the yoke.

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Sometimes I write to get into a problem. Sometimes I write to run away from it.

I process information by writing. I learn a lot. It is paradoxical. I am not writing things down. I am pulling them down into a language I can understand. I will often write a question down and pry at it from different perspectives in order to find out the answer. It is always surprising to me.

But them sometimes I need to be quiet and just be with the question. I need to actually live through the experience rather than trying to document it as it happens.

I’m trying to do this with my abuse as a child. I’m tired of continually facing these doors and walls in my life. I’m tired of these trials. I’ve really worked hard recently, and I’m just tired right now. Sometimes I want to sit down and just cry rather than work on it and be brave. Sometimes I would rather be blissfully ignorant.

Sometimes when I do decide to work on a problem, I don’t know whether to lean into the problem or push at it really hard. So I wait and I pray and then I find myself doing whatever it is that I should be doing.

A little bit of the disease will heal you. That is how antibiotics work. This is how immunosuppressive therapy works. A controlled amount, administered with a healing intent, will build up a tolerance in you that will make you stronger. Avoidance is not the answer.

I’m tired of these doors. I’ve asked Jesus into it, and he says we can sit right here beside this door as long as I need. I don’t have to knock them all down right now. I don’t have to do this hard work all at once, or alone. I can take some time off and pace myself. It is ok to wait. And he will wait with me.

This is part of what Jesus means when He says “take up my yoke”.

Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30
“28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 All of you, take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

He’ll carry our burdens with us. He won’t carry them for us. We’ll work together. But it is heartening to know that when we are working with Jesus, we’ll get a lot further than we would alone.

Choice

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I recently met a lady at the Y who was complaining of hot flashes. I have found that taking black cohosh helps. I mentioned this to her, and she said that she couldn’t take it because it raised her blood pressure. OK, there are other things to do – stop drinking caffeine and stop eating all spicy foods.

“Oh, no! I can’t do that”, she said. It was as if I suggested that she cut off her hands. She was Hispanic and spicy foods were just part of who she is, she said. I said then it is her choice. Spicy foods and caffeine, or hot flashes. Which is more important to her? She can have one or the other.

She was in a real quandary. People are often like this. They want to have it all. They want the good things and not the bad things. Who doesn’t want that? They want to have their cake and eat it too. Or rather, they want to eat cake and not gain weight.

The thing that amuses me is that she goes to the Y. So she is already doing something to take care of her health. She has already taken that first step. But there are always more. And it is always hard at first. Eventually you get far enough away from the things that you thought you “needed” and find out that you don’t need them at all, and that in fact you don’t even like them anymore.

I thought I needed Mello Yello and chips and chocolate every day when I got home from work. Somehow by the grace of God I managed to transform that need into a need to go to the Y and do water aerobics. I now see eating those things as a negative. The more of that I eat, the more I have to work out to make it up. I now like how I feel in my body. I like having a sense of control over myself and my life.

It is all about choice. If you keep doing something that you know to be unhealthy or unhelpful – whether it is food or behavior, it is your choice. There has to be a payoff. The “bad” thing must have a better payoff than the “good” thing. You are getting something out of it. Root down and figure out what that is. If it is important enough, you can transfer that payoff into something else.

Perhaps you get a charge out of doing something “bad”. Perhaps you enjoy feeling like a rebel. Perhaps that is something you were taught as a child. You got a charge out of it, and that energy keeps you doing it. But if it really isn’t what you want to do, then it is time to change that behavior.

It is all steps. Little bitty baby steps. Step by step, you are walking closer to who you are really meant to be. It is the most important journey you can take.

But first you have to choose. Do you just coast through life, or do you really live it? Do you let things happen to you, or do you plan ahead?

I challenge you, I encourage you, I pray for you to take that step towards the bright, beautiful, glorious You that God created.

Exercise disclaimer.

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Have you ever read this? “Before doing this exercise or participating in any exercise program, please consult your physician.” They wrote it to cover their butts. Really, they should write “Don’t sue us if you hurt yourself doing this” because this is what they really mean.

People aren’t very good at thinking ahead and thinking for themselves. Remember we live in a time where you can win a lawsuit against a fast food company because you spilled hot coffee on yourself.

It doesn’t do you any good to consult about exercise with your doctor. Western doctors treat symptoms rather than cause. If you started exercising and eating well, you’d put them out of business.

Rather than encourage my father to stop smoking, his doctor gave him a pill to stop his coughing. Rather than connect patients with nutritionists and exercise coaches, doctors give out diabetes medications. There are ads telling us that we can “eat like a kid again” meanwhile the person is at a state fair eating corn dogs and funnel cakes. It may be fun to eat this, but it isn’t food. Doctors should not be enablers. Doctors should “Do no harm” like their oath says.

I went to an ENT this year because my throat and neck hurt. He put a tube down my nose to look at my throat and saw evidence of acid reflux. Rather than suggesting lifestyle or diet changes, he put me on an antibiotic and an antacid. My neck still hurt, and obviously the acid is still there. He didn’t even want to tell me what the problem was. He didn’t want to spell out my condition, which was a symptom, not a disease. He wanted me placid and docile. He wanted to be in charge.

It took a trip to my chiropractor (who is also a nutritionist) to find out that I have arthritis in my neck. I now use a special pillow for my neck. What a simple fix. A comment to him about my experience at the ENT resulted in his entirely different theory that the problem isn’t too much acid, but too little. He says that we produce less acid as we get older and we need to supplement it or our food does not properly digest. I did a simple vinegar test and now know how much acid I need. I feel a lot better, and I’m even losing weight.

I wonder if Crohn’s and IBS and many other digestion maladies can be solved in this simple way? I doubt that regular doctors will even entertain this idea.

More doctors need to engage their patients in their own health care. More doctors need to understand that they work for the patient, and stop treating us as if we are ignorant children.

And we need to wake up. We cannot be passive about our lives. We can’t keep on thinking that we can eat whatever we want and not exercise and we won’t get ill. We know what we have to do. It isn’t a surprise.

It isn’t easy to switch from drinking sodas to water. It isn’t easy to switch from all meat to mostly vegetables. It isn’t easy to go from fried to steamed or baked. But it is worth it. Food does indeed taste better when it isn’t salty, deep fried mush. It takes about a week for your taste buds to relearn this.

It isn’t easy to start exercising. It isn’t easy to stick with it. But it is worth it. You won’t see the benefits right away, but the payoff is better energy, better rest, and better strength. The payoff is a stronger heart and increased resistance to disease.

If we are concerned about changes in health insurance, then we need to do what we can to improve our health so that we don’t need it. We have to stop thinking that doctors have all the answers. We have to stop thinking that we can do whatever we want and then just take a pill or have surgery to counter our mistakes.

You know how Jesus said “Go forth and sin no more”? That. But with health. The “sin” is continuing to eat whatever we want and refusing to exercise and then thinking we will be rescued by modern medicine. It is far better to not need to be rescued at all. There is no diet. There is only what Michael Pollan suggests in his book “Food Rules”. His mantra? Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. For a further explanation, read the book. I suggest getting it from your local library.

Recommit

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Sometimes my energy gets really low. It isn’t a great feeling. I don’t want to be up all the time, but I certainly don’t want to sink into the doldrums either.

I have let my flame get really low the past two weekends. I have noticed it and recommitted myself. I find it is important to commit to a practice of mindfulness, of intention, of purpose. When I stray from that practice I don’t notice it right away. I notice a week or two later when everything starts to not work correctly.

Perhaps some of this comes from being bipolar. Perhaps it is normal for humans to have mood swings that can leave them feeling so worthless they don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t know. I know I’m bipolar and I know that this is what I experience.

Sometimes getting out from under this funk feels like pushing a rock up a big hill. It feels like I never get anywhere. It feels like it is all work all the time and it never gets easier.

But I’ve been here before. I remember. It is slow going and requires patience and discipline, but it gets better. The problem comes when it gets going really well and I stop doing all the things I know I should do and I start to slide back down that hill again.

I was off last Friday, as usual. I didn’t have any solid plans. This is always a bad start. There were some things I could do, but nothing I had to do. I was tempted to skip yoga, but I knew that would mean I would stay at home and the funk would get worse. I pulled myself out of bed and went. My heart wasn’t in it but I knew that I was doing something good for myself. Just doing that gave me a little more energy.

A Hasidic Rabbi pointed out once that you can’t burn down a tree with a match, but if you chop the tree up into little pieces, you can. This is a useful thought. In part it means that it is OK to break up tasks into little pieces. Sometimes we think that if we can’t do it all, we shouldn’t even do a little bit of it. It also means that just doing a little bit of something can give you enough energy to do a little bit more of it.

When my flame is low and I’m recommitting myself, I have to be very intentional about what I do.

I avoid all fried food.
I eat no meat.
I skip spicy food.
I go back to my exercise routine – walking, yoga, water aerobics.
I craft in some way – bead, draw, paint.
I write.
I avoid processed sugar.
I avoid “retail therapy”.

I already have given up smoking and caffeine. These two are really bad for mental health.

Sometimes something as simple as washing the dishes or doing the laundry can be healing. It is something that when I notice later I’ve done it, I feel better. Vacuuming doesn’t seem to have this affect – it doesn’t produce a visible result. Sometimes just noticing that there is less clutter helps my head.

What is it about doing these things that makes me feel better? Is it eating vegetarian that makes me feel better, or the fact that I have chosen to do something that I feel is good for me? Half of this is getting past what the Buddhists call “the monkey mind.” That is the part of your mind that is all “gimme gimme gimme”. It doesn’t care about what is healthy or right or good. It is your inner toddler.

It is hard to fight the monkey mind. It makes you think it is you.

I try not to go overboard on this. I have learned to have patience with myself. It is a slow process of re-entry. It isn’t wise to swing the pendulum too far one way or another. When you are sick, you don’t want to run a marathon. It is good to do things carefully.

It is just like driving. If you notice you are getting out of the lane, you don’t want to yank the steering wheel too sharply. You are better off gently steering back into the correct lane. If you yank the wheel, you might veer off in the wrong direction.

If you are in a yoga pose and you notice you are getting wobbly, you don’t want to over correct. You are better off making micro adjustments. If you overcorrect you’ll likely fall.

This is exactly the same thing. The only problem is that when your mind gets out of the lane or wobbly you don’t have a lot of feedback. You don’t have a way of noticing it. You notice when you crash into the guardrail. You notice when you fall on the floor. Good mental health requires you notice before that happens.

Friday wasn’t a 10. It was more like a 5. But I know if I’d not paid attention and started to steer things in a better direction, it would have been a 2. I’m ok with a 5. And I know that tomorrow I’ll try again.

Forward progress -beads and good habits

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Part of my blog is about the lessons that I’ve learned from beading. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was when I was making a rosary. It took forever to work on, and I took a lot of time in between. I’d work on it, get bored, or my hands would hurt, and I’d put it aside. I finally realized that when I got back to it, nothing had come by and taken away the work that I’d done. No “rosary elves” had shortened my project by five links. What I had done was still there. The same is true of our good deeds.

Any forward progress is forward progress, no matter how slow.

The only difference with good deeds is we don’t have something to look at to see our progress, so we tend to forget. We look at the time we took off, rather than the work we’ve already done. We look at the fact that we stopped, rather than the fact that we started again.

When we are trying to start a good habit, like sitting up straight, we will find ourselves hunched over, and suddenly remember to straighten. Then, five or ten minutes later, we are back, hunched over. This is normal. We straighten again, and we tend to think “Ugh! Why do I keep hunching over?” It is healthier to think “Hey! I remembered to sit up straight!”

Focus on what is working. Focus on what you are doing right. Ignore the mistakes and the pauses. That is part of the package deal of being human. It will become habit to do the right thing, but it takes a while. All good habits are learned, just like bad habits.

Having patience with the process is part of the process.

Healing negative self-talk.

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I have come to see a connection between self-hate and addiction. I have come to understand that negative self-talk is the same as eating junk food.

People know it is bad for them, but they keep doing it. Why? There has to be a payoff for any behavior we do, otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing it.

Children who misbehave do so because it gets them attention. Any attention is better than no attention. If the parents don’t make a fuss over them when they do something right, but yell when they do something wrong, the child will persist in the misbehavior. This seems paradoxical. You’d think the child would want to not get yelled at, but really the goal is attention. Getting negative attention is still getting attention.

There are plenty of people whose parents yelled at them all the time when they were growing up. They were constantly taught that they was bad, wrong, stupid. Their parents drilled into them how imperfect they were.

The bad part is that they often learn this lesson well. Even with their parents not around, they will often tell themselves the same things. They may hit themselves or curse at themselves the same way their parents did when they made a mistake.

Sometimes they will seems to set themselves up for failure. They will not plan enough time to do a project. They will leave things for the last minute. They are then constantly late and overwhelmed and making mistakes. It is a self perpetuating cycle.

The scary part – they are living up to their parent’s image of them. There is some odd negative validation going on. There is a strange payoff.

This self-abuse is the same as a person who constantly binges on junk food. Our bodies crave fats and salt and sugar, even though it is bad for us. We will overeat at a buffet and feel miserable, yet we will do it again and again. Why? We know we should eat less and eat better food, but we don’t? Why?

It is the same thing. We get a payoff. We like the feeling we get from overeating and from eating unhealthy food. We like feeling like we are bad, like we are rebels. We are rebelling against good by being bad. The “bad boy” is a hero.

We have to retrain ourselves to get pleasure from good things. Nobody gets excited about broccoli and lima beans. Nobody gets excited about going to the gym. The payoff is quieter. The payoff is slower. It is harder to notice.

Your brain works better. Your clothes fit better. Your knees don’t hurt. Your heart works better. Your health improves. These are pretty good payoffs, but you don’t see them right away.

The same is true with negative thinking.

Negative self talk is an addiction the same way that overeating and drugs are. And it is healed the same way.

We humans need habits. Instead of going on autopilot and living with bad habits running your life, fill up your time with good habits. Seek positive choices and do them. Leave yourself reminders. You’ll forget. That is a normal trick of the bad-habit brain. That isn’t you.

Sometimes our minds are like small children that just want attention. Just like with children, ignore the bad and praise the good.

Make an intentional choice to say good things to yourself. Know that it takes a long time to retrain your mind. Nothing is automatic or easy. It takes a long time to get well. Have patience with the process. Understand that you won’t have patience at the beginning. That too is part of the process.

When you do something good, notice it. Don’t dismiss it. Write up a certificate. Draw up an award. Write down a list of all the good things you did that day.

Don’t make a negative list (“didn’t wreck the car”, “didn’t get into a fight”). While those are good things, work on noticing the little things that you did right. They have a way of hiding at first. It will get easier the more you do this. Make it a daily practice to write down at least three good things that happened that day. When that gets easy, increase the number.

Give yourself easy goals to start with. You are taking baby steps, not running a marathon.

You have to choose to love yourself in a way you were not shown how to by your parents or the people who you were raised with.

Sometimes we have to re-parent ourselves.

Sometimes they broke us, because they themselves were broken. They didn’t know any better. That doesn’t excuse the damage they did. But it does explain it, a little. People tend to repeat bad habits. People who were hurt tend to become people who hurt other people.

You don’t have to repeat the same bad habits. You can heal that wound.

I’m not going to lie here – it hurts to heal that wound. Just like with a broken leg, sometimes it has to be broken to finally heal right. It is painful whether the wound is physical or emotional or mental. It takes a long time to heal.

But it is so worth it. Who wants to walk with an emotional limp all the time? Sometimes it is “the devil you know” so you stick with it, because change is scary. But trust me, press on.

That pain you feel from trying to make a good change is a sign of healing. Don’t run from it. Lean into it, breathe, and walk forward. It will get easier.

And know that you aren’t alone on this journey.

A lot of us hide our brokenness, because we were taught that our brokenness is shameful. It isn’t. It is part of being human, and being human is a messy thing.

pain-notes-poem

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Too much acid (stress) not enough sweet (soothing)

Pain is a symptom that the unconscious problems are about to rise to the surface. You are about to have a breakthrough. You are about to be born.

Take away the pain through counseling; the pain may come back in another way. The basic coping methods have not been changed. It is the same as a person who is an alcoholic who is suddenly deprived of alcohol. He may start smoking or over eating.

We have to have a way to fill those holes.

Quit digging them.

Learn to accept them and realize they will never be filled. You are human and holes are normal.

See the desire to turn away from getting better, from whatever positive change you are doing- is your unconscious mind trying to protect itself.

It doesn’t want these hard emotions to come out. It is afraid of being embarrassed. It is not wise enough to know that if they are cleaned out, the job is done. You aren’t embarrassed. It is over.

Or perhaps it is afraid – it thinks it won’t have a job anymore.

Our body craves sweets and fats when we are depressed, which only make us more depressed. If we stand up to it and impose our conscious will, we will choose good things and break the cycle.

The same is true of thoughts and actions.

Look for unconscious habits.

Add intentional good habits to counter them.