Surviving Skillfully

For many years now, I have been learning and teaching that mindfulness is a skill. It is not a state of bliss, or wisdom, or mastery, or even clarity. These states may result from mindful living, but mindfulness itself is a skill set that we apply with intention to meet whatever is, however it is, in the moment.

This is simple, but it's not easy. That is why there are a variety of practices that we can engage in to foster and develop our understanding of the skillful means available to us. A short list might include formal meditation (sitting, standing, walking, lying down), mindful movement (qigong, yoga, Alexander technique, tai chi, aikido, etc.), communication practice (NVC, peer counseling, compassionate listening), and reflective writing and art-making.

In a recent newsletter I discussed the acronym RAIN, and how it guides the process of turning toward our experience in order to be with it mindfully. RAIN is most useful at times when one feels overwhelmed with emotion, or confused, or otherwise thrown off course somehow. (It works beautifully in ordinary moments too, but we don't typically feel the need to navigate those moments as carefully.) To recap, RAIN stands for:

R -- Recognize
A -- Allow
I -- Investigate
N -- Not Personal, Nature

Many teachers have offered this RAIN guide. Tara Brach uses it quite a bit in her teaching, and has several examples of how it can work individually and in relationships. I have used it successfully many times, as a way to utilize the skill of mindfulness that I am cultivating, and I'd like to share an example of how it is of great use to me right now, today.

Perhaps only a few of you know that I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and, as a young adult, date rape. Even as I type that sentence I am using RAIN.

• I am Recognizing the strong sensations that arise in my body, accompanied by thoughts like, "Don't say that publicly. Find another example!" Feelings of embarrassment, shame, fear, and vulnerability are here. 
• So I Allow them to be present, don't fight, accept to whatever degree I can. It's actually okay to be with those feelings and thoughts, because 
• When I Investigate, I find that I have felt this way many, many times, and essentially these are just insubstantial thoughts, and physical sensations in the body. And they are changing. They have a pulse, a texture, a duration. Like everything else we pay attention to in meditation (breath, sounds, etc.), these strong and mostly unpleasant feelings arise, stay for a while, and then change or disappear. 
• I don't need to get caught in the experience, I can know it as Nature arising. I've just shared an intimately personal truth about myself, which breaks the rules of my conditioning, big time. Of course these thoughts and feelings will arise. It may sound odd, but the truth is, this is not happening to me. But I can be with it as it happens.

Okay, to be honest, I'm still working on that last one. It is difficult to stop identifying with my experience. Yet all the great spiritual teachers remind us that we must. Joseph Goldstein says, "the Buddha summed [everything] up in one essential teaching: Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as I or Mine. This is not a philosophical statement, it is something for us to practice, to realize, moment to moment. This is the practice of freedom."

As a survivor of sexual abuse, the past several days have been severely challenging. Beginning with the release of the recording of Donald Trump bragging about how he can get away with sexual assault because he is a celebrity, to the onslaught of reactions to it, the jokes and discussion on social media, and culminating in that violent war of words we called a "debate," I have been strongly triggered and retraumatized. Maybe you have been too. Chances are good that about 30% of you reading this are also survivors. The rest of you know someone who is.

And I can live through these upsetting, truly hideous personal reactions because I have a skill set called Mindfulness. I have gathered and used many tools for 30 years or more, picked up along the way in psychotherapy, bodywork, 12-step groups, religious practices, and other sources which have helped me heal and restore wholeness. But daily mindfulness practice is really paying off right now. I don't like being triggered, but it no longer needs to run my life or even be a problem.

An acronym like RAIN is a hook to hang our hats on. It's a go-to process that we can access (dare I say cling to?) in difficult moments. It prevents us from reacting unconsciously and engaging in old harmful habits. Even better, it helps us wake up and see when we're reacting out of our old unconscious habits, and stop. 

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Interestingly, the name of one sexual assault hotline is RAINN, and if you need someone to listen and help you, please call 800.656.HOPE (4673).

Why I Love MBSR

As you must know by now, I am raising money to pay for a big teacher training course next month at the Center for Mindfulness at the UMass School of Medicine.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO MAKE A GENEROUS GIFT

Many (most?) folks don't know what Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is, so it's hard to know why, other than the fact that you really really like me, you should make a donation or otherwise support my training.  So here's some basic facts and a few reasons I adore this program and have received great benefit from it.

1. This is an 8-week program that has been helping people defuse their stressful suffering for nearly 40 years. 
2. It was created and developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Jon wanted to test whether the mindfulness meditation he was practicing could be applied directly to healing and an increase in overall wellness.

   

   MBSR Founder Jon Kabat-Zinn

3. Program participants are often referred by their doctors or psychotherapists, but the course has become so successful and is offered in so many places that word of mouth brings in people with all sorts of needs and interests.
4. Participants practice meditation or mindful movement (yoga, qigong) for 45 minutes each day, guided by the teacher via MP3 recordings. MBSR is a wonderful way to establish a regular meditation practice.
5. Mindful communication, education about the physiology of stress, and an exploration of sensory perception are also included.
6. Other mindful methods have branched off of MBSR, such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Mindful Birthing, Mindful Eating, and so on.
7. I have done most of my MBSR training right here in Philadelphia, at the Mindfulness Institute at the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine. The Jeff program doesn't certify teachers, which is why I'm continuing on at UMass.

So why do I want to teach MBSR? Why add a whole new program to my practice, one with a lengthy and expensive training? Some of the reasons have just been spelled out, and I'll add a few.

• MBSR is not the latest fad, it has been around for a generation now, and tens of thousands of people have completed the course and been helped by it. 
• MBSR works. It has been studied clinically multiple times, with consistent, repeatable results. 
• MBSR is adaptable. It offers multiple strategies for addressing stressful conditioning. The program doesn't say there is only one way to wellness. We learn a variety of strategies and learn what works and when. 
• MBSR empowers people.  This is maybe my favorite thing in life: to witness a person's "aha moment." Because MBSR is effective, people who practice in between classes discover that they have agency, and don't have to be stuck. 
• MBSR keeps me honest.  I learned this right away when I trained as an Alexander teacher -- if you want to learn something thoroughly, and maintain a disciplined practice, teach it to others. Like the AT, teaching MBSR  requires that I continue to cultivate mindful living, so that I can model what I ask my students to practice.
• MBSR teachers make boatloads of money.  False. Just Kidding.  

These are just a few of the reasons I love MBSR.  I hope that once I begin offering the course, you or someone you care about will take it. I also hope you will consider supporting my training fund with a gift of any size. You can do that here.

If you don't live near me but are curious about an MBSR course near you, just Google it. Seriously, this thing has legs! You are likely to find one at a local hospital, college, or movement studio.

Namaste. Wishing you wellness.

2016: Being Simple, Curious, Loving

     Lordy lord, 2015 has been one hell of a year. The painful stuff was hugely painful and the pleasant stuff was supremely pleasurable. Not a lot of in-betweens. When I was clear, I was totally directed and on point. When I was confused, I was in a fog, just lost and wandering about, hoping for a familiar landmark. I established some personal discipline at a new level for me, which really paid off. A few times I forgot or ignored key facts about living as a human, which really cost a lot. Destiny will bitch-slap me when I pretend the rules don't apply to me. Mostly I worked my ass off this year, on both the outside and the inside (because there's not much difference between them). I just kept showing up, which is all person can do, really. The rest will take care of itself, if I can release the death-grip on my agenda for every single second that unfolds in my life. If I can soften, trust, choose faith, open to my innate freedom.

     In 2016 I desire to keep it simple, get curious about what is real in any given moment, and love myself. I really do want to love myself as I am, as I move through each day. When I consider various challenges for the new year, this is the one that seems the most daunting, the most radical. It goes against everything I was taught or learned or am being conditioned to believe.

     I bow deeply in humble gratitude to all the teachers who came into my life this year, whether you intended to help me learn or not. Thank you in advance if you will keep walking with me in 2016. 

     Thomas Merton wrote, "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

     Not knowing is crucial; my happiness depends on it, in fact. When I move through life thinking I know what to expect, or how things should be versus how they really are, or precisely what the outcome of anything will be, I am miserable. I don't mean the instinctual kind of knowing, like when I can sense something true in my gut. I mean the kind of knowing that closes me off, decides what will happen before it has actually occurred, produces reactions in me that are habitual and stale and often inappropriate to the situation. The kind of knowing that believes the story I tell myself, over and over and over again.

     To say, "I don't know" is a little scary, like liberating things tend to be. To shift the perspective and say, "I sense that this is real and I know what I am doing and where I am going, but the truth is, I don't honestly know." Can I let go into that way of being, that open-hearted warrior stance? In 2016 I plan to test the theory that moving through life in faith is a way to love myself, and that loving myself is an act of faith.

     Namaste, dear ones. All blessings as we turn the page and create another year together.

The Grateful Days

Each day in November I posted on Facebook something for which I'm thankful. I found it easy most days, but occasionally I needed to choose to feel grateful, which always produced something significant enough to name. I noticed that the act of choosing gratitude led to a sense of lightness and ease, and more connection to my immediate environment. My intention was to strike a balance between the general and the specific, neither too shallow nor too heavy duty, so the list contains a range of reasons to be thankful.  These are the 30 things I came up with.


1 & 2 - My two lungs

3 - The right to vote      
 
4 - Health! Health Militant! (Oliver Sacks)

5 - Leading midday meditation each Thursday

6 - My kids and their generation of activist-warriors

7 - Love songs

8 - Yoda fortune cookie: "Do or do not. There is no try."

9 - My warrior nature

10 - My Alexander Technique students

11 - My job at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends

12 - Bucks Quarterly Meeting

13 - Moving and leading others in movement

14 - The people who joined me for Moving Into Mindfulness

15 - Love Saves the Day, a universal truth

16 - The little objects of comfort on my kitchen windowsill  

17 - My amazing husband, J. David Brimmer

18 - Ben & Jerry's

19 - Favorite movies like "O Brother Where Art Thou?" and the love of good friends

20 - Feminism

21 - Interdependence

22 - A beautiful sunset and the ability to see it

23 - A warm fire on a cold evening

24 - Hot and cold running water and modern conveniences

25- Teachers in the classroom, making a difference

26 - Companionship along the way

27 - Mild temperatures, a gentle walk with my family

28 - Doing nothing. And naps!

29 - Choosing to be thankful produces gratitude

30 - The wise ones who have come before to show the way


I have myriad reasons to be thankful, and this exercise leaves me feeling humble and very, very lucky. As we move through the coming weeks of increasing darkness, may I be grateful for everything, just as it is. May I trust in the abundance that surrounds me without needing to see very far ahead. May I let go of my agenda and rely on mindful, whole body sensing to navigate.

Advent, the Christian season of preparation and expectancy, has begun. Here is a poem from an Advent book by Jan Richardson, Night Visions:

There are other senses,

you tell us, 

and when the darkness

obscures our choices,

we must turn

to the other ways of knowing

you have given us.

In the daylight

we can get by on sight,

but for the nighttime

is our hearing,

is our tasting,

is our smelling,

is our questioning,

longing touching.

A thousand messages waiting

for our sensing

you have given us,

O God.

May beautiful expressions of gratitude light your way as we move toward the Winter Solstice. May you know the ease of well-being.

Days of Awe

I don't know much about Yom Kippur, but I do know it is the holiest day in the Jewish year, the culmination of a 10-day period that begins with Rosh Hoshanah, the new year. This period is called the Days of Awe. They end with repentance, sacrifice, and purification. Today is the Day of Atonement.

I don't hear that word much, unless I'm reading the Bible or other religious book. Webster's definition includes "reconciliation" and "satisfaction" as descriptors. When I Google "atonement," I get 3 basic items: Yom Kippur, Christian reconciliation with God through the death of Jesus Christ, and the novel and film, Atonement (which is amazing, please see and/or read it when you can).

All discussions of atonement remind us that the original English meaning was literally, "at-one-ment," the bringing together of beings who have become separated. Harmony, peace, and unity are attained. Wholeness is restored.

Restored. That is crucial, because it implies that wholeness and harmony are already present, are the way we're meant to be in community with one another, and with the Divine. (Please substitute whatever word works for you: God, the Force, the Universe, the Way, Nature. The finger that points at the moon is not the moon.) In assessing our mistakes, the harms we have done, our unconscious cruelty and lack of compassion, we are recalibrating ourselves back to how things really are. If we have gotten lost along the way, or traveled down some roads that take us farther from our felt connection with all living beings, we can change direction. Your internal GPS will announce "recalculating," as you move into a restored way of relating to your life.

So atonement doesn't manufacture anything, doesn't produce some special state or mood. It eliminates what is interfering with right relationship. It makes right speech, right action, more likely.

I'm not sure what "awe" means to Jews when they consider the Days of Awe, but to me it points to the amazement that I can be brave enough to look at my failures, selfishness, lack of faith, potential for mean small-mindedness, and my dumb mistakes and say, "Yes. I did all that. I'm capable of some despicable behavior. I am at fault and owe several people apologies." I can see all of it and neither flinch nor be destroyed by it. I can face my frailties, arrogance, fear, and darkness, and when I do, it dissolves. It shows me my growth potential, and it is a blessing to see it. Awareness can hold it all.

The days are getting shorter, the darkness is growing. This is a time of increased looking within, tending the fires for the long cold nights ahead, keeping vigil with the heart-mind. Once I have restored unity with my fellow humans, gotten back on track with the Universal Way, and come home to myself, I move in a fresh direction, full of awe at our innate ability to be One With Another, One With All.

Meditation for today:  May the coming days of ripeness and release bring me the courage to let go of what has been, and may I cultivate the curiosity and fortitude to turn toward whatever is here now, just as it is. I give thanks and praise for unknown blessings already on their way.

Namaste.