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Get your way (get out of your way)

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There was a mom who came in the library recently. She picked out a bunch of books with her young son and then came up to the front desk to get a library card. Then she found out that because she lives in a different county she would have to pay a $50 annual fee to use this library.

She handled it perfectly. Some people get indignant. Some will shout “This is a free public library!” This is illogical. The books have to be paid for somehow. They don’t magically appear. Some think they are being clever and ask if they can use their relative’s address in this county. Or they ask to use the address on their license, which they have already admitted isn’t where they live.

Don’t try to get me to help you lie. It isn’t going to work. I’m not going to get fired for something stupid. I’m ok with bending some rules, but not the ones that I totally agree with. This one I agree with. You get what you pay for. Library funding in this state comes out of property taxes. You have to provide proof of current address to get a library card. It isn’t much to ask for to get to read all the books you want for free.

This lady not only took it in stride, she helped her son with it. He was distraught that he couldn’t get these books. He was sobbing, and his voice was going up in pitch and volume. In his mind, we were stealing from him. Some parents have not known how to deal with this strong emotion from their children and turn it back on the staff. Some have actually spun on us and said “you tell my daughter why she can’t have her books”. This is bad parenting.

We are strongly discouraged at work from saying what we want to say. Sometimes we are provided scripts for tricky situations. This is not one of those that we have a script for. I’m pointing out the ways this interaction has gone wrong in the past to illustrate how surprising this one was.

This mom picked up her son and hugged him. She patted him on the back. She made consoling sounds. And she totally took the blame. She realized that she should have checked about getting a card before she got the books with him. And she let him cry it out. She didn’t distract him. She let him have his emotion.

We are not comfortable with strong feelings. We are so afraid of them in ourselves and in others that we often try to cover them up or run right through them.

Breathe through them. Let them happen. If you push them down or shove them aside they will resurface in uglier ways, with terrible faces. Resentment becomes alcoholism. Being abused becomes incessant pain, stomach upset, or road rage. Feeling left out or ignored produces a bully.

It is ok to not get your way all the time. It is the mark of a well adjusted person who can handle that. It isn’t the feelings that are the problem. It is what you do with them. We’ve either forgotten that, or we never learned it. We want to push through the bad feeling straight to the good feeling. We shortchange our growth when we do this. Our society teaches quick fixes and instant gratification. Nothing good comes of this. There is no abiding sense of satisfaction that comes from this.

I remember once I’d spent the day hiking the dry riverbed at Fall Creek Falls state park with a friend. It was a bear of a hike. What would have been a 6 mile hike was more like 11 because it wasn’t a straight path what with climbing up and down the boulders in the riverbed. We were sore. We were exhausted. We hadn’t quite prepared for this.

When we finally got to the end, we went to the restaurant and had a fine meal. We were surrounded by people who had just driven there. We’d spent the day hiking, and they’d spent the day driving.

I have a strong suspicion that we appreciated our meal more.

The same is true with maturity. It takes the long path, and a lot of hard work. There are no shortcuts. And part of getting there is pain. But pain can be transformative. It can be alchemical. Work with it, and through it, and because of it. You’ll savor life more. Sure it hurts. But as Carl Jung says “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”

Stillness

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We are afraid of the stillness, the quiet time. We pack our days with things to do. We are terrible about allowing our bodies and minds to rest.

We can’t sit still. We have our phones out, checking in with the news, with friends whenever we have a spare moment. In reality we are checking out. We are divorcing ourselves from what is going on right there, right then.

When was the last time you just stood in line, just stood there?

So much for the mantra “Be Here Now”. We are nowhere and everywhere and timeless. We are either running late or planning ahead, but we are rarely right here and right now.

Stillness is healing.

Seeds have to be in darkness for a while before they can grow. The sun isn’t always shining. The rain helps plants to grow.

Stillness is a time of quiet energy. Look around you at nature. We have so divorced ourselves from the cycles of nature that we don’t even know what our own nature is. We sit inside, where we can adjust the temperature and light to our liking. We have confused ourselves, thinking that we are something separate from nature.

So when the crash comes, we fall hard. We fight against it, seeing it as a weakness. It is the simple inevitable result of not taking time out.

Our brains, our bodies, our souls must have rest.

We forget to schedule this. We work and push and stretch so much we wear out sooner than we should. Depression sinks in. Lethargy. Doldrums. We feel adrift in an empty sea.

We can fight it, or we can see the rocking of the sea as the gentle rocking of a mother, holding us in her arms, helping guide us to nourishing, healing sleep.

Children are often resistant to go to sleep. They feel they are going to miss something. We are the same way, for the same reason, as adults.

Now, there is also something to the idea of not being adrift too long. It is all too easy to stay out there forever and never get anywhere. I’ve written a lot about how to jumpstart your creative self, how to get past the self censor that lurks in all of us.

But it is also important to not see the down time as an enemy. You need some of it to regroup, recommit, restore. Balance is essential. So it is important to plan for quiet times. Schedule them in.

I’ve discovered that physical group exercise is a time out for my head. I don’t think about what is going on for 75 minutes. Someone tells me what to do and I do it, and meanwhile I get a workout. I also know that creative time is good. It is quiet yet productive. Sometimes it isn’t about making a specific thing so much as letting the Spirit work through me. In those times I step aside, taking a mental break.

If music is the space between the notes as Mozart says, then “down time” is more important than the up time. It shapes it. It gives it meaning. It provides content.

Try this meditation. It was provided to me in a recent class. Say each phrase out loud, or have someone do it for you. Breathe for several moments after each phrase. Let it sink in.

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

Car. (prevention is cheaper than cure)

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Prevention is cheaper than cure.

We all know what is necessary to get healthy. Yet so few of us do it. What is the impetus that causes some people to take matters in their own hands and be active about their health?

Fear of disease motivates some, but for some that causes a return to old ways. They are worried about their health, but the only tool they have for dealing with worry is bad for them. So they eat the wrong things or smoke or drink. The reason for their ill health is from too much of bad things, and too little of good things. The things that they use for comfort are the very things that are causing the problem that they need comfort about. It is a horrible cycle.

Then some people have spent so much time being miserable that they are afraid of change. They would rather continue to be miserable than try something new.

Change is scary.

If you are walking on a road with no cars on it, you don’t realize that you need to move over to the side of the road. You’ve never seen a car. You might have heard stories about cars, and about how dangerous they are, but you’ve never seen one yourself, so you don’t know for sure.

They won’t run you down, certainly.

So then you walk along a little further. You see a person on the side of the road. She’s been hit pretty badly before, but she’s limping along. She’s got a cane, and she’s still walking.

She tells you about the car that hit her. She got away with just a broken leg.

You may think, boy, she is unlucky, but that won’t happen to me.

Then you walk a little further, and you see someone who is in a wheelchair. He tells you about the car that hit him. Maybe you start to think there might be something to this car thing that you should take seriously – but you still haven’t seen one yet.

Then you walk a little further, and you start to see someone on the side of the road. He’s dead. And you look ahead, and you see more and more people who are hobbling, and in wheelchairs, or dead.

Way up ahead you see people who are OK. They are not only walking, but they are running. They are enjoying this road. They are on the side, out of the path of the cars. They decided to take the warnings seriously.

You can’t get off this road. But you can stay out of the way of the cars.

The cars are cancer. Diabetes. Heart disease. They are coming. They are big, and they hit hard.

Our society suffers from way too many preventable diseases. We are number one, alright, in obesity. We eat too much, and too much of the wrong thing. We gorge ourselves on doughnuts out of our desperation. We drown our sorrows with our friend Jack.

We were sold the image of the Marlboro Man, all tough and rugged. He didn’t look so tough in the cancer ward, hooked up to oxygen and chemo drugs. He died, telling people that they needed to know how dangerous cigarettes are.

A car is coming. Get out of the way.

You know what is necessary. We know all the don’ts.

Don’t smoke, don’t eat too much meat (if at all), don’t eat fried foods. Drop caffeine and processed sugar. Avoid alcohol and drugs.

But what do you do? Those are things we use to comfort ourselves. We self-medicate with food.

Learn anger management. Breathe deeply and consciously. Take yoga. Go for a walk. Take up a hobby. Journal. Practice compassion and forgiveness – towards yourself and others. Eat vegetables. Have a rainbow on your plate. Get enough sleep. Make time to spend with friends.

This stuff that is stuck in your head has to get out somehow. There are safe ways to get it out.

Perspective is important.

There is a story about a person walking towards a town. He sees another man walking away from the town and asks him about it. He says it is terrible. The people are mean, the houses are small, and the food is bland. He walks on a little further. He sees another man walking away from the town and asks him the same question. The man says that the people are nice and the food is amazing. It is the same town.

This can be a wonderful journey or a terrible one. The choice is yours.

The car is coming. Choose wisely. You aren’t special, and you aren’t lucky. It will hit you if you aren’t mindful. Be mindful. Don’t wake up 10 years from now and wonder how you got so sick and out of shape. Take the time now.

It isn’t easy. It is OK to take baby steps first. Ease towards the side. Start walking a little. Start eating better. Nobody changes overnight. But head that way.

Car.

Get out of the way.

Control (dig out the roots)

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Much of our pain and problems come from a need to control. We want to control the future. We want to control our friends, coworkers, and family. We are sure if they just did things our way they would be happier.

At the core of it, what we hate is what we define as evil. We think whatever it is that we are against is wrong. We are afraid. Fear is a lot of this. Ignorance is a lot of fear.

What is evil for one is no problem for another. We want to save them. We want to protect them. We do it out of love, in our eyes.

Don’t fight evil. That is what it wants. Love it. Love is the answer. Really.

Love it by learning about it. Why do you hate it? Who taught you to hate it?

I’m thinking out loud here. I’m approaching this from both perspectives. I’m looking at it from the perspective of the person giving and the person receiving.

It is all connected.

When you come across someone who is controlling, see through the person’s reaction to their fear, their loss, their neediness. Their mess.

Do the same with your own need to control.

Dig down deep and find the root of it. If you feel fear or shame about something, instead of feeling those feelings, try to feel curiosity. Get curious about where this came from. Who gave that feeling to you? Many feelings are taught to us. We are taught to be ashamed of our bodies. We are taught to think that we are greater than or lesser than another. We are taught to be open or close-minded.

If this is an unpleasant feeling, one that isn’t productive, dig down. Don’t turn away from it. Uproot it. Bring it out into the light.

Who first gave you that feeling? Who first taught you to feel that feeling? Where were you? What was the circumstance? What was going on?

Then go deeper. Who taught that person? Then who taught them?

There can be many generations of this line, this rope that we hold on to. This rope that we use to define ourselves. This is how we in this family act. “Don’t shame us. Don’t embarrass the family name.” We are exhorted to not let go of this rope that holds us together. We all have to stay together, you know, or we’ll get lost.

But this rope can also be a noose, a lariat, a line that prevents growth.

Someone is trying to plant seeds of fear or shame into you. Don’t let it bloom into an ugly tree. Don’t give it a space.

There are many things that they will try to plant. They will try to plant seeds of doubt and fear. These seeds are the fruits from trees that have matured in them. They aren’t even aware that they have these misshapen trees growing inside them. They have had them so long that they think this way of thinking is normal.

How about these seeds? Have you been given these? These seeds of fear and doubt and ignorance are common. It is healing to see them out in the daylight. It is hard to look at them – but that is the root of healing. So here we go –

Don’t date somebody outside of your race. Don’t read holy books from other faith traditions. Don’t have gay friends. You are fat. You are lazy. You are ugly. You need to get a better job. You need to support your parents when they get old, even if they are abusive.

Wow. That Is a hard bit to digest.

We are told to “be a good girl/boy”. “Good” is often defined as obedient and submissive. This keeps the status quo. This keeps them happy, but you stunted.

Drop the stories. Drop the seeds. Don’t take them into yourself.

Grow into the light. Protect yourself from this poison. Their fear doesn’t have to be your fear.

Sometimes our pain and problems are given to us by others, but we
don’t have to take them.

Our minds are our biggest hang ups. See your mind as a sense organ. Like your eyes or ears it is limited and faulty. It is not able to relay all information.

Dig deeper. Learn more about the situation. Learn why. Why can’t I have friends of other faiths, other traditions, other ways o living? Is there something to be afraid of?

Is there something that you are being sold? Is there something that they were sold that they are now trying to give you?

Would you eat something without checking the ingredients? What if it is all calories and carbs and fat, and no vitamins or minerals? The same is true of ideas. Test them out. Are they helpful? Are they true?

The Not-Me. (on the yetzer hara)

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My Jewish friends may be surprised to learn how much Christians don’t know of their culture. There are so many amazingly useful parts to Judaism that the majority of Christians just aren’t told about, and thus don’t incorporate them into their lives. It is as if Christians stripped away all the awesomeness of Jewish life and went for the soap-box car rather than the Rolls Royce.

There are so many parts to talk about, but I’m going to only mention one part for now. This is the concept of the “yetzer hara”. This is translated as “the evil inclination.” I first heard about this from the podcast called “Living with G_d : spiritual tools for an outrageous world” by David Sacks.

He refers to the action of the yetzer hara as “spiritual identity theft” He identifies it as a thing outside of us that is trying to prevent us from fulfilling our calling. It is trying to stop us from being who G_d (or Hashem) needs us to be. It tries to prevent us from doing good deeds, or mitzvahs.

This is the most useful thing I have ever come across.

He says that sometimes it is useful to name it. I’m calling it “the not me”.

I now see that desire to stay home and not exercise as the not me. I see the desire to not read the daily Bible readings as the not me. The same is true of not writing every day. These are all the things that further me on my path toward wholeness.

I mentioned this to a guy about exercise. He had a YMCA membership but found it impossible to find time to exercise. He said he wanted to get up earlier in the morning and go, but he just couldn’t. I remember what this feels like. This feels maddening. You say you want to do something good, and then you don’t do it.

With this idea of the yetzer hara, you learn to see that negative inclination as an opposing force. It isn’t you. You want to exercise, to do something good, but the yetzer hara says you don’t. It sounds a lot like you saying that.

Part of the idea is that simply by naming it you have power over it. You know its tricks.

I have started to see this feeling as a very useful tool. The more I feel that I don’t want to do something that I know is good, the more I see it as a sign that I’m really on to something awesome. I actually use it as a spur to do it. The stronger the force against, the more I know I’m on to something.

It is like having a bratty older sibling saying that “you can’t do it” and working up enough energy to do it, just to prove him wrong.

It is about walking through an obstacle, rather than getting stopped by it. It is about using it as a stepping stone rather than a stopping point.

First you have to see that it is there, and know its tricks. It isn’t you. It mimics you, but it is actually a force outside of you that is trying to stop you. Sometimes, just knowing about an obstacle is helpful. It takes away some of its power.

May this tool be of as much use to you as it has been for me.

Do something, rather than nothing.

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Don’t ever do nothing because you think you can’t do anything.

One time I was making a rosary. I was cutting and twisting each link the hard way, instead of using eye pins. My hand started to cramp up and I put it down. The next day I wasn’t I interested in working on it. A week went by. I picked it up again. And I realized something. The work that I had done hadn’t gone away. I was that much closer to the end.

All progress towards a worthy goal is like this. We aren’t able to just plunge in and get there. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot out of us, but it makes us stronger. The stuff that it takes out is fear of being insignificant, fear of not making a difference, fear that what we have to offer isn’t good enough.

The same is true of any goal. It is easy to put things off because you think you can’t make a difference. It is easy to be jealous of people because they seem to have it all together, so you never even start. Why even try to learn to play the trumpet when Dizzy Gillespie has it down to an art? You can’t ever be that good. So why try?

That kind of thinking is dangerous. That kind of thinking will keep you in a hole forever.

Look at Mozart, or Matisse, or Marie Curie. Each one made it to the top of their field.

They didn’t get it all together all at once. They committed to a goal and worked on it, bit by bit. Nobody loses a significant amount of weight immediately. Nobody gets a college degree overnight. There is often a lot of hidden failure in there.

The trick is, don’t show off the beginner work. Paint over that canvas when you learn a new technique. Don’t think that sloppy painting of a flower is all you can do. You are starting. Every baby has to learn how to walk. Every new skill has to be learned.

Having patience with yourself and the process is helpful. Knowing your limits, and pushing them a little, is helpful too.

When I was in school I’d often get assigned books that weren’t exactly what I wanted to read. I could have waited until the last week and read the book in one fell swoop, remembering only half of it and hating all of the experience. Instead, I decided to use my limited math skills in my favor. I took the number of pages and divided by the amount of time that I had to read. This technique can be applied to anything. Take something you have to do and break it down into little steps.

Slow and steady wins the race.

A Rabbi once said that you can’t burn down a tree with a single match, but if you chop up the tree into small pieces, you can. This is a very useful way to think.

Say you want to do a good deed, a mitzvah. But you don’t think that you can do it all. So you do none of it. The idea here is that it is better to do a little of it than to do nothing at all. And, invariably, you will find that you gain a little more energy and ability towards the completion of your goal from just doing that tiny bit.

Energy leads to more energy. Good creates more good.

It is hard for us to get up enough momentum to do what we know we should do. We take breaks. We stop entirely. We regress. We gain back double the weight we had lost.

I exhort you to get back on and go. I exhort you to keep trying.

I remind you that even just thinking about it, you’ve already taken the first step. That energy can be enough to move on to the next one.

Baby bird (there is more to being an adult than age)

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Just because someone is older doesn’t mean that they are mature. There is nothing about time that tempers a person. There is nothing about getting older that means you are an adult. There is nothing about producing children that makes you a good parent.

You know a tree by its fruit.

Children often wail when they don’t get their way. Adults either yell or sulk. It is the same thing. Sometimes with adults it translates to drinking or drugs. That is just resentment and anger and grief turned inwards. It is socially accepted self abuse.

Four or forty, if you haven’t figured out how to be around yourself, you aren’t very nice to be around. There has to be something in there about self-soothing, about self-control. There has to be something in there about being active and not passive about life.

Life is all about change. Plan for the bumps.

It helps to get into a regular habit of exercise and eating well. Save more money than you spend. Find some creative outlet. Learn about other cultures and ways of thinking.

Break out of your shell.

You are a baby bird, stuck in a shell. You have to break out of it on your own. If someone helps you with it you will die. If you are not strong enough to break out on your own then you aren’t strong enough to survive on your own.

Be an active force. Don’t let life happen to you. Don’t wake up five, ten, twenty years from now and wonder how you got here, sick and dying and your life wasted away.

It isn’t willpower. It is work.

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People think it is easy for me to stick with my plan to stay healthy.
They are wrong. It is very hard.

I’d love to eat all the chocolate and cupcakes I want. But I know how much they cost. Every calorie has to be accounted for somehow. I know what happens when I allow myself a snack or a break from exercise. I don’t want to get back on track. I lose my momentum.

I’d love to have the time back for reading. Instead I go to the Y. This is a sacrifice. The gym isn’t on the way to anywhere I want to go. Getting there, getting changed, being in the pool – that is about 2 hours. I go about three times a week. I have a theory now that for every hour you work out, you get two more hours of life. So, really, I’m earning more time to read later.

I fall off the path all the time. And I pay for it. I feel bad. I get cranky. My head doesn’t work right. And I want to fall back into the old ways even more. I want to “fix” my problems with food. I want to skip going to the Y. I have celebrated weight loss with treats. I’ll get to my goal weight and allow myself to eat a bag of chips or some cake. Then I am over my goal by 5 pounds. Then I have to return to the path. I’ll go on vacation and skip all my rules and gain 10 pounds in a week. It takes me two months to lose it again.

It isn’t right that we are wired backwards. The stuff that we are programmed to like is bad for us. We get a perverse sense of glee when we “cheat” on our diet or exercise.

I’ve finally realized the hard way that I can’t buy health. I have to create it. Modern western medicine and cosmetics will try to tell you otherwise but they are lying. Putting a new coat of paint on an old car is cheating. The car still runs the same. Getting liposuction to remove fat does nothing for your heart and your muscles. You may look fit, but it is a facade.

I came up with my own work arounds. Nobody helped me figure out how to afford the Y, from the consideration of time and money. Nobody figured out how to wedge in more walking by changing how I do things at work. Nobody figured out how to adjust my lunch schedule so I could walk and write. Nobody helped me quit smoking. I figured out a lot of tricks that worked. I’ve written about some of them in this blog.

When I suggest such changes to others who say they want to get healthy, they come up with excuses for why they can’t. I’ve given up. I don’t know what to say to them anymore. I’ve tried to point out different ways to get healthy, and to lead by example. They get mad.

It is like coming across someone in a hole and she says she wants to get out, and I see a handhold that she has missed. I say – grab it! And she says, I can’t, my arms are too short. I say, step on that rock so you can reach it, and she says I can’t, my shoes are too slippery.

It is so frustrating. I’ve been in that hole. I know how hard it is. And I know how much better it is to be out of it. I can’t pull them out. They have to do the work.

Perhaps part of it is you have to want it badly enough that you have to get there on your own.

Then I’m reminded of these words from Buddha – “No one saves us but ourselves…We ourselves must walk the path”

Some people say that they don’t have the willpower I do. Is it really willpower? Or “won’t” power. I decided what I’m NOT going to do. There is a lot of stuff that I’d used to define myself that I just don’t do anymore. Laying on the couch reading for hours every evening was part of how I defined myself. But the result was that I was getting well-read, but also well-rounded.

I used to define myself by what I ate. I think there is something better about not allowing my animal nature to take over. Every time I eat on impulse, I’m not being conscious. By being intentional about what I eat, I’m raising my consciousness. It isn’t about denying myself – it is about being awake to what I really want. I’m denying the inner 5 year old that wants what it wants right now. I’m nurturing my real self that wants to be nourished with real nutrients. I celebrate a plate full of colorful vegetables.

I’ve decided recently I’m not going to eat beef or chicken anymore. I can’t quite switch to being vegetarian totally. It is a process. So I’m eating more vegetables. And I’m allowing fish (especially salmon) and turkey, partly because those are both recommended for other health conditions I have as a perimenopausal woman. Ultimately, I’d like to eat only fresh vegetables, but that is going to take a lot of work to get there. It is a goal. I’m on a path. I don’t plan on getting from A to B in one jump.

I’m trying to be patient with this process. I’m redefining myself.

I’ve finally realized that eating well and exercising isn’t an option. I have to keep doing it. It isn’t like taking a course of antibiotics. Take one of these every 6 hours for 10 days and then you’ll be fine. Nope. Do this every day for the rest of your life.

Life is a chronic condition.

It can’t be treated like a passing thing. Do you want to live? Then take care of yourself. You can do anything you want – just do something. And everything counts. You don’t have to run a marathon first thing, or ever. Walk a mile every day for a month and you’ve already gone the distance for a marathon. Sometimes it is about adjusting your perspective more than anything.

I remember when I moved to Nashville I felt like I couldn’t go walking. I knew the area around my home in Chattanooga, and I felt safe to walk. There wasn’t much traffic, and there wasn’t much crime. I didn’t know the area I moved to, and I was too scared and overwhelmed to try. So I went from walking at least three miles a day to nothing. I was processing delayed grief from my parents. I was sad that I’d moved from my big house to a tiny apartment. I didn’t know where anything was. So I ate. A lot. In two years I went from 120 pounds to 180. I was smoking clove cigarettes and pot several times a day. This continued for a few years.

Not long after I got married I ended up being close to 200 pounds. I dealt with it by buying bigger clothes. I was in a group with very large people, so I was considered petite in comparison. I knew something was up when I realized that I could no longer find underwear that fit at Target. I also had to look in the “women’s” section at Walmart for clothes. I didn’t want to be stigmatized by having to shop in a different section. Plus, all those clothes looked like flimsy tents.

What turned it around?

I woke up in the middle of the night with my heart racing. I couldn’t slow it down by breathing evenly. I went to the ER. While there, I was talked down to by the doctor. What a jerk. He talked down to me and made fun of me for coming in, like I was wasting his time. Fortunately he finally saw my heart rate jump from 100 to 180 and he thought maybe there was something going on. Maybe I wasn’t making this up. I went to my regular doctor in the morning and he sent me to a cardiologist. Nothing was wrong, per se, but I am now on a beta blocker.

I decided that I got off pretty easy on this one, but what about the next time? Did I want to hear that I had cancer? What about heart problems? My parents had both died young, one from cancer and one from a heart attack.

Fear motivates me, a little. But I had to turn around what I do when I feel fear. Normally fear causes me to retreat. Normally fear causes me to seek comfort food. But that is what caused the problem in the first place. So I stopped smoking, and stopped drinking caffeine. No more Mountain Dew. I’d switched to drinking Sprite and fruit juice. Then something clicked and I realized there were a lot of calories in that, and I started drinking water. I lost 20 pounds in a few weeks this way. This was pretty encouraging.

Here’s another motivator. I don’t have children. I don’t have someone who can take care of me when I get older. So I have to do it now. I don’t want to get so out of shape that I need help from someone every time I need to go to the bathroom.

Pain was also a problem. I’d gotten to the point that my knees hurt when I walked up or down stairs. I was 40. I figured I was too young to feel this old, but if that was the way it was, then that was it. Fortunately my husband had been going to the Y for a while and knew I liked to swim. We went to the Y and there was a water aerobics class going on at the same time. I stayed in the back and just joined in. I didn’t know if I had to sign up or ask. I just did it. The teacher was enthusiastic and inspiring. The moves were fun. I was sore the next morning but I was happy. I’d found it. I’d found something that I enjoyed doing. I thought water aerobics was for little old ladies with arthritis. Now I tell everybody to take it.

It is hard to see people suffer. I want everybody to be well.

There is a Buddhist Metta Meditation that speaks to this.

May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be well.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings be free from suffering.

But they have to do it. I can’t wish them to be well and then they are magically well. I can’t drag them to the gym. I can’t make them eat healthy food. I can’t throw away their cigarettes.

I can pray that they wake up to the harm that they are doing to themselves. I hope that telling my story helps.

When I started going to water aerobics, it was only once a week. I’ve added in things slowly. When I started I thought I was going to die. It hurt. I was exhausted. The workouts were tough. So I’d slow down. I’d kind of do things half way. Then I got my breath back and started to feel better. I’d do a little more. I stayed through the first class and was proud of myself for going.

It isn’t fair that it hurts to exercise when you start. That makes you not want to keep up with it. But it gets easier. Now I feel a lot better. It doesn’t hurt, and I can see muscles in my legs and arms and belly that I’ve never noticed before. I’m in the best shape of my life.

I wish the same for you.

“The Natural Look”

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There is something very radical about hair and makeup.

If you go natural, people look at you funny.

I celebrate black women who don’t straighten their hair. I celebrate white women who let their hair go grey. I actually cheer them on. I want to counteract society telling them that they aren’t quite good enough unless they conform to the norm.

Why are we told that we aren’t beautiful unless we change ourselves? We are asked to lay ourselves down at the altar of Avon. We are asked to grind ourselves up in the crucible of Clairol.

What is the motto of L’Oreal? “Because we’re worth it”.

Something sounds very backwards about that, now that I think about it.

Like we don’t deserve respect for looking exactly the way that God made us.

You want that natural look? Go natural. Get some natural sunlight and drink some natural water and eat some natural food. You’ll look great.

When you have to buy your “natural look” in a bottle from Walgreen`s, then you know something is wrong.

Our society is telling women that they aren’t beautiful unless they alter themselves.

Shave your legs and armpits. This is reducing our appearance to that of a prepubescent girl. This is really creepy. We are telling women to stop looking like adult women.

High heels are the modern equivalent of foot binding. Uncomfortable shoes cause damage to women’s feet that can only be fixed surgically.

It takes a lot of energy to escape the gravity of this cultural training. It takes a high level of self-esteem to achieve escape velocity.

Look at all the women getting plastic surgery to “fix” something that isn’t broken.

Do you want to have a radiant smile? Take the money you were going to spend on that plastic surgery and give it to a charity.

Mother Theresa was far more beautiful than Paris Hilton will ever be.

Our society tells women constantly that they aren’t good enough. Too fat. Too thin. Hair too stringy. Hair too dark. Skin too pale – get a tan. Skin too dark – bleach it.

No matter what we look like, it isn’t good enough. We have to learn to see through this deception.

We are never “just right”, according to the media and the marketers. We need to remember that the media and the marketers make money on feeding us poison.

Our goal needs to not be beauty but health. I exercise and eat well not to be thinner but to be stronger.

I go to the Y out of a sense of rebellion. I eat vegetables as a political statement. I skip deserts and fried foods to show that I can.

I don’t want to be ruled by autopilot.

Each act is a stone I’m adding to my wall that I’m building to shore myself up against this wave of collective insanity that we call modern society.

My goal is to become fully awake, and to inspire others to do the same.

My goal is to let you know you are beautiful, and you are loved. That you matter. That you are important.

Notes from yoga class.

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A yoga class is kind of like a cab ride. You need to tell the driver where you want to go. If it is a basic, gentle class and you get a substitute teacher, you need to let her know what you expect. If she is working you too hard you may end up hating the class and the teacher. You don’t need that kind of energy at any exercise class, but especially a yoga class.

There is something amazing about yoga. It improves you physically and emotionally and mentally. It is about acceptance of your body as it is and about working on it to get better. It teaches physical and mental balance. There is something about twisting your body that unwinds your mind.

Yoga people end up also often becoming vegetarians. They are interested in organic food and recycling. The exercise is like an adjustment for your soul. It becomes a way of life that you take off the mat and into the world.

I’m so grateful for the generations of yogis who have learned all these moves. They have gone through hundreds of years of experimentation. I get to benefit from all their learning. They know that this posture helps with anxiety, and this posture helps with digestion. I don’t have to learn that from scratch, and I appreciate that.

This is true with everything. I don’t grow my own food. I don’t build roads. I don’t know about medicine. But I benefit from others that have been there before me. They are adventurers. They are trailblazers.

But there is something else that yoga teaches. You need to claim your class, and your life. If it is too much, either ease off or ask the teacher for a modification. The teacher doesn’t know that it is too much for you, or that you’ve broken your arm twice, or that you are pregnant.

It is amazing when I’ve spoken up about a problem in yoga class, or at work, or at school, and other people will chime in that they agree. Only then can the issue be addressed. Otherwise we would all continue to quietly suffer and become resentful.

The other people weren’t brave or confident enough to mention that there was a problem. Think of all the pain they could have saved themselves and others just by speaking up earlier. Perhaps they weren’t quite awake yet – they were suffering but didn’t know what the cause was. Perhaps they were just used to taking it, used to feeling bad. Perhaps they were taught by teachers or parents that their voice didn’t matter.

What are you being silent about?

What is broken, or doesn’t work, or is a problem, that you’ve just decided to accept? Are you waiting for someone else to speak up? What if everybody else is doing the same?

(This was begun on my Kindle while waiting for yoga class to start. It is very busy on Monday mornings and you have to get there early to get a space. I dislike wasting time so I wrote. I completed this after the class.)