Face to Face with Me

Day two!  There’s nothing more intimidating than facing one’s self.  I’m pretty sure my expectations of me will always be higher than everyone else’s.  In fact, I think that’s the leading cause behind self-doubt.  Obviously we want to please those around us- our parents, bosses, pets, children.  It would seem that every person we meet expects a certain level of intelligence, or compassion, or common sense.  In the end the only person we come home to is ourselves.  And it’s at home, in the dark that we ponder all of our personal flaws that we’ve displayed for the day.  “I had no solution to that problem at work.”  “I forgot to say ‘Have a nice day’ to that clerk.”  “I should have held the door for that lady.”  I should have let that car go in front of me.”  Lost patience, lost opportunity, failed plans are all things that we beat ourselves down about.  It may be the case that your boss noticed that there was an error in your report to them, but I can guarantee you that they aren’t at home at night thinking about that blip on their radar.  They are tossing in bed rehearsing what they are going to say at the board meeting, and thinking about how they should’ve made it to their kids ball game.

In Buddhist practice, you hear a lot about compassion.  I see people struggle with having compassion on a daily basis.  Someone steals a pen from their desk.  An employee is late coming in to work.  Their kids managed to make a mess of the kitchen.  At some point they will be so wrapped up in their day that all of that will fall away and they will move forward.  But showing compassion for ourselves is something that we save for those wee hours of the night, those quiet moments when our minds can quiet the chaos of the day.  That’s a tough thing to deal with while meditating.  Even just sitting down brings a panic as I think how poorly my mind will focus. 

But meditation should be more than trying to accomplish focus.  It should just be what it is.  Sitting.  You sit.  And when you are done, you stop sitting.  I did that today.  I think that it is good that I sat.

Simply Step

I start at a cross-roads, stepping forward on a journey to find my life.  Suspecting at this point that I will not only not find my life, but find that there is no me.  I am afraid to step forward away from the routine and the comfort that the processes and habits in my life provide.  I go to work.  I tell myself that what I do makes a difference, that I am a hero affecting change.  But that’s not the truth. 

The trouble is that I once felt that I had some grasp at the “truth”, when I was young and unattached to anything.  So today I started my meditation, forcing myself to step, although not necessarily forward.  How can you step forward when you don’t even know what direction you face?  Simply step. 

My meditating mind today was drawn always back into the ease of distraction.  The illusion of meaning in my life comes from my job and my relationships, and my creativity.  But all of that is just an easier focus, than being pointedly focused on my breath and the moment, and the realness of what that brings. 

My body seems used to panic.  While I claim that the stress and chaos and challenges in my life are unwanted, I am conditioned to reach for that familiarity.  It’s warm and distracting.  Like a dog who drops his toy momentarily to look at a bunny in motion, and then forgets that it ever had or wanted the toy, so does my mind behave.  Perhaps if a quick moment of panic over a day’s imperfection can distract the mind, it will forget that it wanted the release that comes from the hard work of staying in the moment.  Yes, my devious mind is indeed my worst enemy.

I’m left wondering what, in the current state in my mind, does not want to be discovered.  What truth is to be found that leads my puppy dog mind to distract, ever so briefly, the course that I travel while meditating?  Will I eventually see that discovery revealed?  If so, where will that leave me?  Will I understand where I am and what direction I am going in?  Time will tell, and with any luck my postings will become clearer, happier and more interesting.

People in the United States have grown to fear pain.  Any good doctor's regimen for any ailment starts with killing the pain.  The first question my doctors ask me when I go in for something specific is "Did you try any painkillers?"  Obviously that's something I can figure out to do on my own.  If I'm at the doctor's office, it means that I need another option...such as addressing the underlying cause!  My acupuncturist used a treatment on me for a muscle spasm that involved pain, but worked splendidly!  She explained that it's not a technique that's taught in the US because patients here don't want to experience the pain.  We just want the easy way out.  Why is that?  Why is pain so abhorrent to us?

Recently I had my first serious broken bone/s.  My radial was broken near the wrist and I had to endure a frustrating cast that ran from my hand past my elbow, and up.  Completely immobilized, I was told that muscle atrophy begins within the first twenty minutes, and I had to wear the brace for six weeks!  While I was absolutely thrilled to finally get the activity limiting cast off, with it came pain that was most unpleasant.  Physical therapy started almost immediately.  My therapist, Nikki was a sweet lady who was very encouraging, and started me out as she would any patient.  She was pleased at my first visit, a week from getting the cast off, when I was already moving my hand as she was directing me.  I was a little nervous with how liberal I was being with my recovery, worried that I could re-injure the bone.  Nikki assured me that the break was fixed and there was no danger of re-breakage.  I progressed fast, but then it seemed a natural progression to me.  Life goes on and I couldn't just wait around waiting for the pain to subside before moving on.  Once, in a therapy session when I was showing good progress combined with a determined look, Nikki commented that I must not be feeling much pain.  On the contrary, I assured her, there was pain, but feeling it made me want to push harder, hoping that it would go away.

Pain, it occurred to me, was not an indication that something bad was happening to my hand.  The pain was an indication that something bad had happened, and now each twinge reminded me to move on, and that I was healing and getting stronger.  To be honest with you, the moment of the original break wasn't painful at all, it was just the aftermath when I needed to move on and heal that the pain came to alert me. 

Hmmm...I wonder, does that only apply to physical pain?  Even mental pain can be looked at that way.  Most of the time we feel anger before pain.  Whether it's a broken heart, a betrayal, a loss.  We first feel anger, maybe panic, or frustration.  When that dispels we feel the pain as a sign to push harder, to become stronger, to move on and heal.  We have to reach out again, despite the pain that we feel inside.  Each time we reach out, no matter the outcome, we finish a bit stronger than before.

I'm still a long way from being fully healed, but therapy is over.  Now I'm left with only myself to encourage me, so when I move my wrist into a position that hurts, I continue to force that action on a daily basis.  I know that doing so will eventually cause the muscle to release, and the pain to subside.  I wonder, where else in my life could I use that release?

Growing up sucks! Yet my youth is fresh enough in my mind that I remember the angst that permeated every aspect of my life. I felt that every adult in the world was contributing to a downfall of society that had spiralled out of control. I was powerless, yet I could express my anger through vivid-colored clothing and loud, thundering music. I was awkward and uncertain, yet I could hide behind my parents and friends and pretend that I never had to move forward in life. I had "freedom" and yet I wasn't free. I spent every moment of every day wondering how to fit in, how to proceed or how to avoid being seen. Today I am no better off. I am still filled with angst over whether I am fulfilling my goals, presenting my ideas well and supporting the right team. Going back isn't appealing even if I could. Going forward, into the unknown, at least gives me a chance at something...what am I looking for...direction? redemption? freedom? peace? power? influence?

I look at our leaders, our CEO's, politicians, leaders, presidents and I realize that they are all just like me. They are human, not super-heroes. In the privacy of their own dwellings they sit and feel uncertainty, pressure, and the burden that they lead by example. Yet they know no more than I. How much they must laugh inside themselves to deal with the reality that every word they utter, every action they undertake is scrutinized, emmulated and copied by those that wish to be super human.

I'm still living for the slight chance that somehow at some point, it all gets easier, or better but I don't know what that even means. As far as I can tell, we are all just "shooting from the hip". Some of us just have better luck than others, but we are all completely fallible.

Our presidents, kings and monarchs will all crumble, die and be gone. We can't escape that fate. What will you do in the mean-time? Focus on your angst? Have you overcome it? Did you escape the pull of uncertainty, or find the courage to embrace it? I await your insight!

Deck the Halls with Bawls of Hypocrites!

The other day on the news there was a report on how far behind the Salvation Army was on their Toyland Express toy drive for Christmas. The numbers were disheartening and motivated me to action. I took up a toy drive at work, challenging my coworkers and offering to take any toys donated to the Salvation Army myself. For a bunch of non-profit workers, the drive was a fabulous success! We had three boxes of toys and probably close to 100 toys. I loaded them all into my car and headed over to the main branch for drop-off, thinking about how good I would feel doing so. When I got there the parking lot was over-run by both donors and those that needed assistance. There wasn't a parking space to be found. As a result I was parked about as far away as was possible and grabbed the first box to take in. Weaving between hastily parked cars and traffic, I noticed people hauling in food baskets. I passed people who were dropping in for assistance, all smiling and joking with me. The lady at the drop-off counter barely had a moment to ask if I needed a receipt before moving on to the next person in line. I moved through the chaos and back out into the cold to get the next box. People filed past me in the opposite direction with more food baskets coming in. I got to the car, grabbed the next box and headed back in. I noticed that the food baskets were coming back out as fast as they were going in. I glanced hastily through the crowd at what was either the meal kitchen, or the meal pick-up room. It was filled to capacity it seemed. Slowly the pride that I thought I would feel started to dwindle. It was as if I was Sisyphus pushing a giant boulder up a mountain. Was I even making a dent? I know that every little bit helps. But the need I was surrounded by was so overwhelming, and yet the atmosphere was one of humility and thanks. There were people holding doors, helping wheel things in, keeping mindful of traffic and clear of the pathways. These are the people who feel "entitled"? I questioned. Yes, I suppose they feel entitled to have no food on the table, or to feel humiliated that they can't feed their family, or to watch their child slowly suffer through sickness and die. Have the people that use the term "entitlement programs" ever been to a soup kitchen, or a Salvation Army, or a mission?



A vision grew in my mind. The conservatives that are out there tend to be from religious backgrounds. Tell me how you would answer this scenario. If Jesus himself were to come down and ask you to make a decision..."I am going to help a predetermined group of people. These people have sick kids, and no jobs and no food. But I'll be honest with you. Of these ten people, at least three of them aren't really in need of help. But either I help all of them, or I help none of them. Tell me what you think I should do." What answer would you give him? What answer do you think he would want to hear from one of his followers?




Seems to me that it's pretty clear. I left the chaos and went to do my rounds of errands. I dropped some money in the bell ringer's can, and then donated to the soup kitchen at the grocery store. I can already feel the boulder rolling back down towards me!

Web of Strife

Where I work we have an educational game for kids. It's called the Web of Life game. All the kids get in a circle and are assigned a "role" in nature. You could be a tree, animal, air, water, human...take your pick. A string is randomly strung so that all the kids are linked together. The game starts by one kid pulling a string to find out who it connects to. They then have to tell how their role is linked to that other role. Eventually the game will come back to the original string puller to show that everyone is, in fact linked together and dependent on one another.

How nice it would be if we had this game for adults. Take for instance, the GP oil spill and the idea that somehow boycotting the company will make a point. The only point it will make is how nobody is separate from this spill. The folks who are boycotting it seem to think that they exist outside of the web. What they need to know is that there is an intricate web of relationships that will lead back to them and smack them hard on the ass! For instance, boycotting a local gas station puts a financial strain on the owner who will then may end up selling the business. Perhaps the next gas company coming in will charge more for gas. (And yet they will still be just as environmentally apathetic as BP.) So you end up paying more. That's a small connection. How about the fact that if lots of other people do this same BP boycott. Suddenly BP loses the finances to help clean up, and support those effected by the spill. What might be those ramifications for you? Think on it for a while and you might start to understand.

What it comes down to is the "pay it forward" way of thinking. If you send something negative through the web, then something negative will come back to you. If you send something positive...well, it ain't rocket science people! Call it karma, or say "you reap what you sew". Either way you are in the same web as me and BP.

To Be or To Be Stepped All Over? That is the question.

Where is the line between being a genuine, easy going person and being a push-over? If you concede to a request and it is followed by a response of "I love you" as a remark of relief and surprise, you begin to wonder. Did I just give up ground that should have been held onto or used as bartering material? Was that a naive decision? Should I have thought long and hard about my ego and how this would reflect on it? What power have I given up? Yet the concilliation was made in good faith on my part. Perhaps I hadn't pondered long and hard in regards to how to make this about me? So I did. I pondered long and hard. I am still convinced that my decision was based on a genuine desire for the greater good. And yet I am left with this nagging sensation that I lack self-esteem and the proper ego to succeed in the water with the rest of the sharks. Here I am feeling like chum in the waters of frenzied managerial sharks, as I hang in the water trying survive by riding the current and fighting only when I am being taken out to sea. There are certain species in the ocean that need the flotsam that is out there to survive and multiply. Perhaps that is me. Not so much chum as flotsam. The cataclyst for life in a vast ocean of ego.