Category Archives: Four Healing Shifts

Climbing a mountain in red stilettos.

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Imagine you’re at a trailhead in the wilderness. Sunrise is lightening the eastern sky, birds are singing their dawn song in the tops of the firs, and the creek beside your trail is burbling happily, full of fresh snowmelt, beckoning you upward.

You’re excited to climb to the top of the mountain on the horizon, with the last of the night’s stars fading away behind it. You’ve wanted to climb this mountain for years, and today is the day. You take one last drink of water, shoulder your pack, strap on your hiking poles, and embrace the journey ahead.
 
But then. A voice. It belongs to a young man emerging from the trees. He wears an official uniform and a badge, and he tells you to stop. “Hold up,” he says. “I’m going to give you some of these before you go.”

He gestures to a table laden with a strange assortment of objects: rocks in ten-pound bags, pairs of shiny red stilettos, rolls of Cling Wrap, and heavy mittens. He tells you to remove your sturdy trail shoes and replace them with the stilettos, puts two bags of rocks in your backpack, and wraps your head in Cling Wrap in which he’s poked tiny holes for your nose and your mouth.
 
You object, although it’s difficult through the plastic wrapped around your head.
 
He says, “Sorry, ma’am. This is how it is. I don’t make the rules. Oh. I almost forgot. You have to give me half your food.”
 
This seems strange to you. You wonder who’s making these rules, but you give the young man most of your lunch and start up the trail.
 
You’re beginning to wonder if you’ll make it up that mountain.
 
 
Thoughts create feelings which lead to actions that accumulate as results. Period.

That’s what I learned in Wayfinder coach training, and it’s what I’ve taught clients myself. The idea is that once we can catch a thought causing suffering, we can do the work to change the thought. Because, thankfully, thoughts, unlike feelings, are changeable. (Changing an action without changing the thought(s) motivating the action is white-knuckling ourselves into a desired state. This “change through brute force” takes lots of will power, a finite resource.)

This black and white, clear cut, linear formulation is the foundation of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), and it’s been helpful for many.

Well. Turns out it’s not true, that feelings are always, 100%, no exceptions, caused by thoughts. Researchers are finding that what eases suffering isn’t changing the thought, but getting distance from it. Learning to detach from a thought causing suffering is one of the pillars of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

I now have a broader understanding and therefore a more nuanced perspective on thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Thoughtwork is great for thoughts causing suffering. We suffer when we take life’s inevitable pain personally. Thoughtwork used on pain, not suffering, is ineffective and potentially harmful.

That said, “unhelpful thoughts create unhelpful feelings that lead to unhelpful actions” is true often enough that it’s worth having some basic thoughtwork tools in your toolbox to ease your suffering. I’ve been playing around with a new one, and want to share it with you. It’s called “Cruel, Sadistic Operating Instructions.”
 


Cruel, Sadistic Operating Instructions

I found this one in Carolyn Elliott’s book Existential Kink. (The book has a lot of wacky stuff IMO, but this tool is priceless.) She calls it “How to Beat Yourself Up (the Fun Way).” In Carolyn’s words: “Make your cruel, sadistic ‘operating instructions’ radically explicit.”

Here’s how it goes.

Dig deep and see if you can uncover the real rules you live by—your cruel, sadistic operating instructions.

We find our cruel, sadistic operating instructions when we investigate where we’re suffering. You know what suffering feels like. It feels weighty, stuck, trapped, caged, stagnant, frustrating. Anger that never goes away. Despair that persists. Attempts to control the uncontrollable.

Pain, by contrast, moves through us. Pain ebbs and flows. Pain is alive.  

Look where you feel deadness, and you will find your suffering.

Here are some of my cruel, sadistic operating instructions:
I must never, ever, ever expand and grow bigger than my childhood roles and identity.
I must never, ever, ever, create something original—art, writing, a coaching process, a business—because it might be flawed or ugly and therefore unworthy of existence.
The only thoughts that matter are the ones others think or have thought.
I must always listen and never speak.
I must never, ever, ever decide anything for myself. I must never, ever, ever feel exuberant happiness.
I must never, ever, ever do anything I might not get perfect the first time. No mistakes, ever.
And so on.
 
Now, of course these aren’t true. They’re ridiculous—statements I would never, ever, ever say to my kids or to anyone else. I have managed to expand, create, think for myself, speak up, feel happy, and make decisions.

But doing those things has been harder than they needed to be, because of my buried operating instructions.

Articulating my actual cruel, sadistic operating instructions helps me see how they’re still controlling me.

I’ve been white-knuckling myself past my operating instructions, feeling anxious and guilty when I break them. They’re buried deep.

Like vampires, exposing these rules to the light takes away their power.

Uninstalling the operating instructions that no longer serve me is a skill. And that’s where thoughtwork comes in.
 

So, what’s going on with you, dear mountain climber?

Well, you’re doing your best to get up that trail with all those impediments. After all, you think, this is how he said it needed to be. I don’t understand, but I don’t have a choice. This must be how everyone does it.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me, that this is so hard.

You walk and you walk and you walk, grinding out step after step in those god-awful shoes, sweat pooling under the Cling Wrap, trying to see through the layers of plastic film, carrying that heavy, heavy backpack.

Until you just can’t anymore. You teeter your way to the creek bank, heels catching on rocks, ankles twisting, and slide down onto the grass. You shrug off your backpack, kick off those ridiculous shoes, rip the Cling Wrap from your head, and put your feet in the water. Cold water flows over your blistered feet, fir-scented breezes cool your sweaty head, your shoulders relax and soften.

A Dipper flies downstream.

You’re tapped out. You’ve hit a wall. You know you can’t go any further, and you so badly wanted to get to the mountain top. You sit, trying to accept your disappointment. Then you notice that the Dipper is in the creek in front of you, watching you. She’s been there for some time, perched on top of a log in the water on the other side of the creek, singing and dipping as Dippers do.

The log is hollow, and inside the log is a box.

You wade toward the log. The Dipper watches your steady progress, bopping up and down encouragingly. You reach the log and pull out the box.

Behind the box, deep in the hollow log, is a pair of sturdy trail shoes, your size, in the color you always wanted but REI was always sold out of. Oh, hell no, you think. I am not wearing those ridiculous stilettos one more goddamn minute. You carry the shoes and the box back across the creek.

Sitting there with your feet in the water, the fir-scented breeze playing with your hair, the sound of the creek in your ears, you open the box. Inside is the food you left with the young man at the trailhead—your turkey sandwich, your bag of Fritos, and your oatmeal cookie.

You’re beginning to believe you can get to the top of the mountain after all.

Why would I keep carrying this stuff?, you think. You pull the bags of rocks out of your backpack and empty them into the creek. You stuff the empty bags, the wad of sweaty Cling Wrap, and your lunch into the backpack, dry your feet, and put on your beautiful new shoes. They feel so good. You return to the trail and resume your journey toward the mountain that is your goal: snow-capped, sturdy, shining in the morning sun. You’re strong. You’re brave. And you’re really looking forward to getting to the top of that mountain.

Those stilettos? They’re swinging jauntily off your backpack by their sparkly straps. You’re not sure yet what you’ll do with them, but you know it’ll be something good.



PS. If you’d like to share your Cruel, Sadistic Operating Instructions, hit reply.  Confidentiality guaranteed. You can also tell me what you’ll do with those damn stilettos. I’d love to know!

PPS. If you’d like to explore your operating instructions together, I offer a no-cost, no-obligation Clarity Call.   

PPPS. Thoughtwork is an integral component of Being Embodied, my intensive coaching program. I’ve offered Being Embodied in a private format for two years. I’m excited to announce that I’m offering it as a group program for the first time, starting on April 19th. More information will be coming next week!

My weekly-ish newsletter is where I share my latest writing, offerings, and news. You can subscribe here, and thank you! 

Photo credit: Amazon. 


   

 

Reclaim Your Authority, Christmas Edition

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Cabin in the woods
How’s your December going?
 
I don’t know about you, but at this dark time of year I yearn to be a sturdy fir tree in a quiet, snow-covered forest. I’d feel the sun on my bark during these short days. I’d feel the brilliant starlight from the spangled sky during the long, cold night. I’d shelter chickadees and nuthatches in my branches, and I’d wave my crown to the passing ravens.
 
A close second would be a couple of weeks in a well-insulated, well-stocked cabin in the same forest, overlooking a frozen lake nestled in a valley below snow-covered peaks upon which mountain goats frolic. Long walks. Fireside talks. Deep sleeps.  
 
My first yearning isn’t happening because it’s a fantasy. Perhaps I can be a sturdy fir in my next life, but for now I’m stuck in this human body. My second yearning isn’t happening either, because it’s December. And I’m outsourcing my authority.
 
If this time of year feels like a burden, you’re outsourcing your authority, too. You’re letting someone else decide for you how you’ll spend your time, energy, and money.
 
You and I can opt out of anything we want to. Really. We only have to be willing to be uncomfortable. 
 
The only way I know to a life that’s truly, authentically mine is to reclaim my authority over my choices. Reclaiming my authority starts with my theology.

You have to know what you believe. 
 
Reclaiming your theology: 
What do you actually believe about God, Life, Being, Universe? You get to decide what you believe. Your beliefs about God, Divinity, Holiness, Energy, whatever you call it are foundational. They’re the most crucial beliefs we have. And you must get concrete with them.
 
So much theological language is airy-fairy and abstract. What does “God is love” actually look like? What do we really mean when we say we’re all “children of God”?
 
And, of course, the real biggie … the elephant in the room … What/Who does the word “God” mean, to you? Go beyond and underneath the definition you learned in Sunday School. What does that word mean to you, right here, right now, today? It’s crucial that you answer this question for yourself.
 
Here’s one way into that question. I use this process with myself and with clients, and the results are always surprising. We’ll get back to Christmas, I promise.
 
1. What qualities do you ascribe to God/Being/Universe? Do you believe God is generous? Life-giving? Light-filled? Warm? Abundant? Pervasive? Beautiful? Diverse? Powerful? Nurturing? Healing? Renewing? Strengthening? Flowing? Make a good long list, then pick your foundational three to five descriptions of Divine energy—the ones that resonate most deeply. The ones that bring a smile to your face and a warm glow to you heart. 
 
2. Imagine a metaphor for God that incarnates the qualities you chose in Step 1. For example, if you believe God is healing, renewing, and flowing, you might imagine God as an infinite underground aquifer, as Meister Eckhart did. Or as the green sap rising, along with Hildegard of Bingen.
 
If you believe God is warm, nurturing, and life-giving, you might imagine God as a womb.
 
If you believe God is light-filled, life-giving, and pervasive you might imagine God as the sun.
 
If you believe God is nurturing, strengthening, and abundant, you might, along with Paul Tillich, imagine God as ground. Or dirt.
 
You might imagine God as Mother. Or perhaps Father, a time-honored choice. Gardener. Wind. A city on a hill. A potter or sculptor or artist. Rock. The only requirement is that your metaphor be something concrete and real in the world.
 
So many options. What comes up for you? Every answer is right. 
 
3. Now ask yourself: Who am I in this metaphor? If God is dirt, am I possibly a tree? If God is sun, am I perhaps a rose? Or a sunflower?  If God is wind, am I a hawk? Or maybe a sailboat? If God is an infinite aquifer, am I a well? Or a spring? If God is a woman’s womb, am I a daughter born of that womb? And so on. You get the idea. 
 
4. Use your metaphor as a springboard. Mess around. Play with this. Try several on for size. You could ask these questions: What does my metaphor for God tell me about prayer? What does my metaphor for God tell me about what “sin” might mean for me? What does my metaphor for God tell me about love? What does my metaphor for God tell me about how I want to live my life?  
5. Finally, what does my metaphor for God tell me about how I want to celebrate Christmas?
 
This is deep soul work. Deep soul work is nurturing. Nurturing for you, for those you love, and for the world. Thank you for doing it. 
 
Cultural capitalist Christmas has little overlap with deep soul work. Church Christmas misses the mark for most of us, too, with its underlying message of our sinfulness and consequent need for salvation. This disconnect is exhausting. It’s exhausting to pour so much time, energy, and money into a celebration that ultimately doesn’t reflect your deepest values and beliefs.
 
We care for ourselves when we do our deep soul work, gently and consistently. We care for ourselves, those around us, and our world when we gently and consistently bring ourselves home to our hearts. We care for ourselves when we tell the truth about our values and priorities, with our words and our lives.
 
Remember who you are.
Reclaim your authority.
Recommit to your life.
 
If you’re feeling burdened by December, I hope this helps. Let me know how it goes!
 
PS. I’m intrigued by the possibility of doing this work in community, so I’ll be hosting a free Zoom in early January to do it together. I’d love to know if that’s something you’d be interested in. And I’m available for a no-cost, no-obligation Clarity Call if you want to explore this process in person.
 
Subscribe here for my weekly-ish newsletter, where I share my latest writing and current offerings, including free Zoom calls!

Image: Swampy Lakes Shelter, Deschutes National Forest, 12.5.22. 





   

 

Your original blessing lives in your body.

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Little girl sitting in the forest with sun shining on her

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

~Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

These famous words of Mary Oliver perfectly express my wish for this first step in remembering. We start with the body. Your body. Most of us, by the time we get to midlife, have lost touch with our embodiment.

Why is embodiment the first, most crucial remembering? Because your body does not lie. Your body is tuned to truth. Your body is your soul enfleshed. When you were born, your body was a pure, true expression of your wants, needs, and desires. Babies don’t tell falsehoods. Not at first. Over time we learn to hide our true selves as necessary to keep our caregivers attached and our little kid selves alive.

That’s why, of course, you lost touch with your body. It’s really hard to hold your body’s inner truth and the outer lies you learn to tell to survive. Especially when you’re a child.

Good news! Your original truth is still alive and well underneath all the faking you’ve had to do for decades. Your original blessing resides in your body.

Often when we start our work together, my clients tell me that they’re fluent in their body’s language. They do yoga. They meditate. They eat right and they exercise often. But as we dig deeper, they realize they really have no idea what their bodies are trying to tell them. What they’re actually fluent in is their thoughts about their bodies. Their ideas about their bodies. Their judgments about their bodies.

We’re often much more adept at mindfulness than bodyfulness.

So task one is to re-inhabit your body. Your beautiful, sweet, holy “God pod.” This marvelous “meat sack” that means you’re alive on Earth. Because this meat sack in which your mind has its being is the key to the garden of delights which is your life.

Remembering the beauty and original blessing of your body can take some time. And it will probably feel uncomfortable to return home to all the pain and memories you’ve stored in your flesh. Getting back in touch with your truth as communicated by your body will almost certainly create some havoc in your life as usual. Perhaps that’s why you’re here. Because maybe you know, deep down, that a little havoc is just what you need to reset your compass to your true north.

Here’s an Embodiment meditation you might like to try. (Click here for video version.)
Grounding Cord, adapted from Shakti Gawain:

Sit. Take three breaths. Imagine a long cord extending from the base of your spine down into the Earth. You could imagine this cord like the root of a tree. (If you prefer to stand, imagine the cord extending from the soles of your feet down into the Earth.)

Now, as you inhale, imagine Earth’s energy coming up through the cord into your body, up and up with every inbreath. The energy flows into your body as it rises, and continues out through the top of your head. Do this three times.

Now, as you exhale, imagine that the energy of the sun and stars and planets is coming down through the top of your head, down your spine, infusing your body as it flows down into the Earth. Do this three times.

Now, be with both energies. As you inhale, be with the energy coming up from the Earth. As you exhale, be with the energy coming down from the cosmos.

Keep inhaling and flowing Energy up, exhaling and flowing Energy down. Feel both energies intermingle and flow throughout your body.

We are Earthlings, made of stardust. We are Earthlings, made from dirt.

Take three breaths to finish.

Upcoming events:


A Summer Solstice Gathering:
Tuesday, June 21, 4 pm Pacific, Zoom. Free. Subscribe to email for the link.

Three workshops going deeply into the first three modules of my Self-Recovery Coaching Intensive: Embodiment, Awareness, and Ownership: July. Dates, times, and investment TBD. More info coming soon! Reply to this email and let me know if you’re maybe interested. (Today’s post is from the Embodiment chapter of my Coaching Intensive workbook-in-progress, delayed by Covid.)

Coaching Intensive Group starting in September: Ten weeks of step-by-step, carefully constructed classes covering the three phases of self-recovery: Remembering, Reclaiming, and Recommitting. Tentative investment: $1000. Details coming your way in August. 

Private Coaching: Contact me to schedule a no-cost, no-strings-attached Clarity Call.

For current writing and events, please subscribe to my weekly-ish newsletter here, and thank you! 

Photo Credit: Melissa Askew on Unsplash. 

Complaining? Maybe try creating instead.

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Six hand-painted letters spelling "create"

When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it. All else is madness. ~Eckhart Tolle

This annoying piece of wisdom from Eckhart Tolle reminds me of the opening lines of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

I’ve seen so many references these last two weeks to 2021 (and 2020) as “dumpster fires” and “shit storms.” Yet these are the years of our lives. We will never get them back. We can never have them be different than they have been. All we can do is live as well as we can, moment by precious moment.

Yes, these years have been painful. We feel grief for what we’ve lost. We feel anger toward those who refuse to do what they can to keep our communities safe. We feel afraid of the next variant, the next school closure, the next eruption of rage in Costco.

What we don’t have to feel is the malaise and ennui of suffering and stuckness. Suffering and stuckness result from thinking things should be different, by God, from how they actually are. {Shakes fist at sky.}

So many changes in our lives come unbidden and unwanted. People get sick. People die. People leave. People refuse to change and we have to leave. We change and we have to leave. And there’s not a damn thing we can do about those unbidden changes but accept them and move on.

Acceptance can take time. Years sometimes. Even decades.

Complaining is an outward manifestation of internal suffering. Unlike pain, suffering isn’t inevitable. It’s optional. It’s a choice. That’s why Eckhart Tolle’s wisdom is so annoying to me. Complaining, although it might feel comfortable and familiar in the moment, does absolutely no good and only delays the healing ushered in by acceptance.

So why do we do it? I don’t know about you, but I complain because sometimes I want to be a victim, at least in the short term. When I’m being a victim, I don’t have to take responsibility for adulting—for running situations through the filter—for asking myself if this thing that’s cropped up requires serenity to accept or courage to change. I can just point fingers at others and not look at myself. I can make other people or the world wrong and myself right. That’s so much easier. Self-righteous complaining feels so comfortable.  

But being a long term victim gets old, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

Life as Earthlings is change. Change follows a predictable pattern, and we do best when we allow it to have its way with us. Change, accepted and absorbed, is holy. Resisting change only causes suffering.

If this resonates, you could choose to notice complaining, your own and other people’s, in 2022. You don’t have to stop, or ask others to stop. Just notice with kindness. Maybe be willing to ask yourself what you’re gaining from complaining. Or think you’re gaining. Because I promise you that whatever you think you’re getting from complaining, you’re not actually getting it. All you’re getting is the false peace of a short-term pressure release, not a reality-based long-term solution ushering in healing and growth.

It wasn’t 2021’s fault that we’re feeling angry, afraid, and sad. It wasn’t 2020’s fault. It won’t be 2022’s fault. It’s just reality. The sooner we face this new reality, accept responsibility for our responses, and grieve our losses, the sooner we’ll be able to access our creativity and live our precious lives well.

Complaining makes you a victim. Creating is the opposite of being a victim. Instead of complaining, maybe choose to create instead.

You create your life with the choices you make.

Live well, one choice at a time. Moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, and year by year.

Happy 2022!


PS. I have four openings in my Coaching Intensive “Spring Semester” starting in February. Reply to this newsletter if you’re interested in the possibility of diving deeply together for twelve weeks, and I’ll send you next steps.

PPS. I’m breaking all the writing advice and working on two books: the continuation of Martha’s story begun in Lost and Found, and a workbook based on my Coaching Intensive. Stay tuned!

PPPS. This newsletter will be monthly starting with this issue. I’ll write more frequently when I have news to share.

PPPPS. Artist and teacher Connie Solera’s new year-long program, Monopalette, is now open. It’s free and you can join anytime. Every month is devoted to exploring one color. (January’s color is Prussian Blue.) Connie’s Paint Wisdom Studio is delicious nourishment for my artist’s soul, and it might be for yours, too.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Four shifts to heal your life.

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Sun shining through fingers

(Three foundations – embodiment, awareness, and ownership – are fundamental. The four healing shifts – more soul, more acceptance, more intention, and more creation – are powerful. But making the shifts without the foundations is like building a house on the sand. I’m diving deeper into these seven facets of healing throughout November and December. You can subscribe here if this was forwarded to you.)

Shift #1: More soul, less façade. Explore the difference between your essential self and your social self. We all have both, and we all need both. Learn which one is in the driver’s seat, and how to change drivers if you choose to.

Many writers and thinkers have explored this core concept, often using different labels for these two parts of ourselves. Other names for “Soul” include Nature, Essential Self, Heart, True Self, and Must. Other names for “Façade” include culture, false self, space suit self, and should.

A couple of ways to begin to work with soul and façade:
1. Ask yourself these questions: What do you do because you should? What do you do just because you want to? What’s the payoff in doing things you don’t want to do but you believe you should? What’s the proportion of “should” vs “want to”? Are you happy with this?

2. If you played with last week’s “If God is … then I am … and my soul is ….” exercise, ask yourself what the opposite is. Is this a good metaphor for your façade?
Example: If God is an infinite underground river of living water, then I am a spring, and my soul is the place in the Earth where water emerges. The opposite of this could be something like “I am a Costco parking lot. I keep water from moving freely through the earth underneath me.” This feels like a good metaphor for façade to me, because wildness erupts when water is free to flow where it wants to go. So then I would ask myself where I’m hard and unyielding, stopping up living water.


Shift #2: More acceptance, less resistance. Explore your beliefs about the inevitable changes of being alive. To live is to change. Much of our suffering comes from misunderstanding and resisting change.

Change is a feature of this human life, not a bug. Because to live is to change, we have infinite chances to begin again, over and over. Every loss leads to new life. Where are you resisting change? Do you have losses to grieve? Thoughts about change to disbelieve?

Here are two blog posts from the archive for exploring this core concept further.
Seven things I wish I’d known about change fifty years ago.
Change and Covid.  (Written early in the pandemic, when we didn’t know what the hell was happening.)



Shift #3: More intention, less reaction. Explore how your thoughts cause your feelings, not the other way around. This is good news, because you can learn to choose your thoughts.

Learning to hear and question the thoughts that precede your feelings is the work of a lifetime. And it’s so worth it. When we’re in charge of our brain, we can choose thoughts that make us happier, healthier, and more whole. It’s that simple.

The most powerful tool I know to start hearing your thoughts is the Awareness Wheel. Remember, if a thought causes suffering, it isn’t true.  

Post from the archives: Thoughts create feelings. Feelings motivate actions. Actions determine results. Your results become your life.
If you want more of my writing about the Change Cycle, there’s lots. Just search “change” on the top right corner of the blog. 

Shift #4: More creator, less victim. Explore the victim triangle and the empowerment dynamic. Create the life you want, instead of passively settling for the life you have.

To what are you acquiescing? To what do you aspire? That’s all you really need to notice. Then ask yourself Dr. Edith Eger’s Four Questions:
1. What do you want?
2. Who wants it? (You, someone else, the culture, etc.?)
3. What are you going to do about it?
4. When?

Blog post from the archives: This will change your life. I’m not kidding. 


PS. We’re approaching the Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere. I love this time of year, not because of holiday energy but because of the growing dark. Despite the frantic nature of holiday preparations all around, this growing dark feels to me like a time for letting go. A time to embrace emptiness, silence, and waiting.

I’ve been doing this work for ten years now. I feel a new thing wanting to emerge, and I want to honor that feeling. So I’m trusting the cycle and letting go of my coaching practice as currently constituted. My surgery and subsequent newsletter hiatus created a lull in my client roster, so this is a perfect time. 

I don’t know what my coaching work will look like going forward. I have a hunch I’ll be writing and offering classes, workshops, and retreats. I’ll be organizing ten years worth of blog posts into categories and putting them under a coaching tab on my website as PDFs. I’ll continue to writing books, both fiction and nonfiction. I’ll continue to send this email as I have news and writing to share. Probably. What I do know is that I love this work, and I want to honor my soul’s mysterious “musts.” I also know that new life grows in the dark, and emerges on its own time. 

So much change happens in the dark. I’m wishing you abundant blessings of this dark time and the return of the light, and I look forward to connecting in the new year.
What does it mean that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it? What is the gift that I should bring to the world? What is the life that I should live?  ~Mary Oliver

Photo credit: Natalie Rhea Rigg on Unsplash

Foundation #3: Ownership

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Sun shining through fingers

Foundation #3: Ownership. Your theology is the matrix in which healing happens. Examine your theology. Deconstruct and reconstruct as you choose.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. ~Mary Oliver

(Three foundations – embodiment, awareness, and ownership – are fundamental. The four healing shifts – more soul, more acceptance, more intention, and more creation – are powerful. But making the shifts without the foundations is like building a house on the sand. I’m diving deeper into these seven facets of healing throughout November and December. You can subscribe here.)

First, a caveat:
I write these newsletters as the “me” who knows these things I write. I am still also the “me” who forgets them. I am still also the “me” who commits to this open-ended soul pilgrimage, gets scared, and returns to the safety of culture’s prescribed path. I commit to my journey, lose my way, and then find my way back to commitment, over and over and over. This seems to be how it works for most of us. Deep change takes time, usually. Time, and continuous recommitment.   

An audacious statement:
Theology should not hurt. Theological beliefs that cause pain aren’t true. It’s that simple. If a belief or a system of beliefs hurts, let it go and choose holier, healthier, more whole beliefs instead.

You get to do this.
You are a theologian. We are all theologians, whether we want to be or not. Many of us are passive theologians—taking what we’ve been told as the gospel truth, whether these beliefs about God*, creation, and our place in the cosmos cause harm or not.

When you’re more bodyful and mindful, you become aware of what hurts. You become aware of forces and ideas you may have endured for decades, believing you had no choice. After all, you’ve been taught, implicitly or explicitly, that theology is done by other people—more qualified, authoritative, male people.

Dr. Diana Butler Bass (author of Freeing Jesus, most recently) describes a moment in graduate school when another student referred to a woman author as a “theologian.” Diana’s male professor corrected them: “Women don’t write theology. Women write memoir.” (Or self-help.)

You get to choose your beliefs. If the theology implanted in your brain before you had the capacity to think about it critically works for you, rock on! If not, it’s your calling and your responsibility to create new theological pathways for yourself, and possibly for others.

These beliefs might be hurting you:

  • God* is male, therefore maleness is superior. Maleness is superior, therefore God* is male.
  • Bodies are bad, especially female bodies.
  • Earth and earthly things are profane.
  • My sexuality is dangerous, must be controlled, and is to be expressed only in the context of heterosexual marriage, if then.
  • One marriage only.
  • Religion is about following rules, being good, and getting to heaven.
  • Sin is breaking rules.
  • Jesus died for my sins.

Some alternatives to try on:

  • God* is love. God* is in everything and every thing is in God*.
  • All bodies are holy.
  • Earth, the body of God*, is sacred. There is no such thing as “profane.”
  • Sexuality is a gift to be cherished, explored, and shared if I wish.
  • People change. People grow. Sometimes that change and growth requires leaving a marriage.
  • Religion (the Latin root means to reconnect, retie, realign) is how I outwardly express my inward beliefs. Religion is how I tie myself to the holy.
  • Sin is refusing to heal and be whole. 
  • Jesus’ radical beliefs about human belovedness and the loving heart of God* led him to the cross. His fidelity to his beliefs and his willingness to die for them are what saves.

Some ways to begin:
1. Awareness = bodyfulness + mindfulness. Pay attention to how different thoughts feel in your body. Say a thought out loud or to yourself. What do you notice? What’s going on with your breathing? Your heart rate? Your muscles, especially in your upper body? Your abdomen? Truth feels like freedom. For most of us, freedom feels expansive, light, open, and warm.

2. Remember your experiences of holiness, if you have them.
Ask yourself questions, and listen for your answers.

  • Do I really believe in God*? (Maybe you don’t.)
  • If yes, why?
  • Have I ever experienced the Sacred/More/Holy/Love/God*? (Maybe you haven’t.)
  • If yes, how? Where? When?  

Attend to what you know is true. Truth feels good in your body. Perhaps unsettling, but good. False thoughts and beliefs do not feel good in your body.

3. You could play with this sentence: “If God* is …, then I am …, and my soul is ….” Using my Camino deep womb-like heart experience, I might say “If God is a deep womb-like heart connecting everything, then I am a child of God, and my soul is an umbilical cord.” Here are more examples.

This above all: Trust your knowing. Trust your experience. Your knowing is more valid than beliefs formulated by others, passed along as truth. Stop trying to make yourself believe things you know not to be true. Stop pushing those uncomfortable thoughts of disbelief aside. Believe yourself. Be truthful with yourself. Know what you know, at least internally. Claim your integrity.

If all you know to be true is the sweetness of an apple, or the feel of water on your feet, or the sound of birdsong? That’s okay. That’s real. That’s authentic. Trust yourself. Believe yourself.

Stop cutting off parts of yourself to fit into others’ theological boxes.

This work is too important to delegate. Be your own theologian. Take ownership of your fundamental beliefs.

*** ”God” is a commonly-used name for unknowable, unnamable, animating energy. How does “God” feel to you? If that name feels good, use it if you want to. If not, trust your knowing and use another name, or no name at all.  

 PS. Happy Thanksgiving to my readers in the United States. I’m thankful for each of you. Here are a couple of resources if, in addition to giving thanks, you want to think critically about this day.

To know more about, and perhaps acknowledge, Indigenous people who occupied your home before you, check out this resource. Bend, Oregon, is located in the homelands of the Tenino and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, comprised of Wasco, Warm Springs, and Paiute people. Members of these Tribes, and others, live here still. 

And here’s a video by Robin Wall Kimmerer about “The Honorable Harvest,” which describes an ethical relationship with plants upon whom we depend. 

Photo credit: Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash

Foundation #2: Awareness

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Open hands holding a flower

Foundation #2: Awareness. Bodyfulness + mindfulness = awareness. Awareness is attention. Attend to your life. Tend your soul.
 

Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows. ~Henry David Thoreau

(Three foundations – embodiment, awareness, and ownership – are fundamental. The four healing shifts – more soul, more acceptance, more intention, and more creation – are powerful. But the shifts without the foundations are like building a house on the sand. I’m diving deeper into these seven facets of healing throughout November and December. You can subscribe here if this was forwarded to you.)

Separating bodyfulness* from mindfulness is helpful, but it’s not truly accurate. We’re intertwined, of course – combined bodies and minds. It’s helpful to separate them, though, when we’re learning to notice our patterns and processes, and to tend ourselves.

Your body, your Earthling body, is your ground of being. We’re feeling creatures who think, says Dr. Jill Taylor Bolte in her new book, Whole Brain Living. Our minds work better when they’re in service to our bodies.  

Now that you’re feeling your body a little more, let’s invite your powerful mind to the dance.

A Silly Story
Years ago, when I was a newby middle school English teacher, I was assigned to coach the school’s Brain Bowl team. I knew absolutely nothing about coaching Brain Bowl. Luckily for me, the Brain Bowl season didn’t start until March, so I could put off dealing with it for months while I learned to teach English. But I could feel my body tense every time my brain remembered Brain Bowl.

I began to picture Brain Bowl as a rattlesnake sleeping under my bed. You really don’t want rattlesnakes under your bed, right? If you’re not going to move out, you simply have to deal with them. Finally I did, by taking the obvious step of asking for help from the relieved senior teacher who’d shunted his unwanted duty onto me. The rattlesnakes under the bed began to slither on out.

That image has endured. I can still feel the frisson of fear running through my body when I imagine rattlesnakes sleeping under my bed. It’s my body’s way of telling me that something important I’d rather not think about needs my attention, and it’s time to deal with it.

Bodyfulness brings my attention to what needs healing. My mind works to understand and heal the sources of suffering.

Trauma
 “The body keeps the score,” says trauma expert Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk. When you bring your attention to your body, when you choose to be mindful of your body, uncomfortable feelings will almost certainly arise. Our bodies are repositories of trauma. Humans sequester scary stuff in our bodies until we can deal with it, so you probably have unprocessed fear stored in your body. As you bring mindful, compassionate attention to your body, these emotions and stuck places will show up.

The good news is that bit by bit you can surface and resolve the trauma. First things first: If what shows up is overwhelming, back off for now and find a trauma-informed therapist to walk beside you. If stored trauma is making itself felt, it’s wanting to be healed. You can do this, and it’s easier and safer with company.  


Adventures in Physical Therapy
 As most of you know, I had surgery on my right hand a couple of months ago. I was sitting doing my seemingly interminable physical therapy Saturday morning while my husband read aloud Richard Rohr’s weekly email. In this email, Fr. Richard references Buddhist psychologist Tara Brach’s “applied meditation” RAIN, about which I have written before. R stands for “recognize,” A for “allow,” I for “investigate,” and N for “nurture.” It’s a powerful practice, and I’ve used it often.

As he was reading about RAIN and I was doing my PT, I recognized that I’ve been treating my hand, which is still quite stiff and swollen, as an enemy. I recognized that I’d been feeling ashamed of my hand’s wounded state. I detested the scars, stiffness, and swelling. That’s a strong word, and it’s also accurate.

(Feeling ashamed of illness, brokenness, and helplessness goes back to my childhood, but it doesn’t matter where it comes from. It’s not necessary to understand the genesis of a thought that causes suffering to begin to unravel its hold.)

My poor hand, to be treated so meanly. I was going through the motions of caring for it – massage, exercise, desensitization – while inwardly resenting the hell out of it.

RAIN helped me see that pattern. That old, deep, fossilized pattern became visible because I recognized the feeling of loathing in my body. Now I can heal the pattern, one PT session at a time.

This week I’ve been practicing breathe prayers while I do my physical therapy. I’ve been breathing in healing and breathing out stiffness. I’ve been breathing in healing and breathing out swelling. I’ve been doing my exercises to the beat of my heart. I’ve been loving on my hand and treating it with compassion. This feels better. 


Pain, and Joy
So far I’ve been talking about the hard stuff that awareness helps us surface and deal with. But consciously practicing bodyfulness and mindfulness leads us not only to our pain, but also to our joy. The sources of our joy will likely be just as irrational as the sources of our pain, when we pay attention to our body’s joy. A warm shower. A walk in the woods. Playing around with words or paint. Purple twinkle lights around the bathroom mirror. Puppy videos on YouTube. Whatever.


A simple practice
Stop what you’re doing. Do a quick body scan from feet to head. What do you notice What sensations do you notice in your body? What emotions do you feel? Are you aware of any thoughts? Take a moment to note what you sensations, emotions, and thoughts on paper or in a notes app. Do this several times each day. Set an alarm on your phone if that would help.

Listen to what your body is telling you, then bring mindfulness to those messages. That’s all awareness is. Start small. Just notice. That’s all. You don’t need to be fancy and formal. Just keep track, somehow, of what you notice. Are there consistent body sensations? Consistent thoughts? Consistent patterns? Just notice.

Bring compassionate awareness to your daily embodied life. Little by little.

If you’d like to talk about any of this, simply “reply” to this email. I’d love to know what you think. 

*I owe the wonderful word “bodyfulness” to Christine Valters Paintner, the abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a virtual contemplative and creative community. See especially The Wisdom of the Body.

Resources
Dr. Tara Brach on Fear and Trauma
Dr. Tara Brach and RAIN
Whole Brain Living, by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
The Body Keeps the Score, by Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk
The Wisdom of the Body, by Dr. Christine Valters Paintner

Photo credit: Lina Trochez on Unsplash