On Monday, Jed and I made our annual trek along the Alder Springs trail to Whychus Creek’s confluence with the Deschutes River. It’s not a long hike, about six miles round trip. It is a little complicated, though, which is the fun of it. First we hike down into Whychus Creek’s canyon, pretty steep in places. Then we ford Whychus Creek, which this year was only up to my knees. Some years it’s hip-high, quite the adventure for little me. The last leg is a two-mile walk through the canyon on a rocky trail following the curves of Whychus Creek to where it meets the Deschutes. It’s a hike filled with the songs of Canyon Wrens and riparian songbirds, many wildflowers, and funky geology. I love it.
And the water. Oh, the water. The Deschutes River has carved swoops and swirls, bowls and kettles, into its hard basalt bed. Alders line its banks, as one would expect. Also birches, dogwood, roses, willows, the occasional maple, horsetails, and so many more. Canyon walls reach high overhead. Swallows and Turkey Vultures sweep the cloud-filled sky, and, if we’re lucky, American Dippers bob along the rocky bank. This year, we watched a parent American Dipper feed their fledgling. Dippers are aquatic songbirds, unique in their ability to walk and even swim underwater, feeding on aquatic bugs and their larvae.
I feel like praying here, at the waters. As my Christian faith has fallen away, authentic prayer has become more of a struggle. My mind automatically reaches for the words of the Trisagion: “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on me.” But those words no longer fit my heart’s yearning, and they haven’t for a long time. Changing the words worked for a while: “Holy God, Holy and Strong, Holy Living One, dwell in me.” But nope. No can do anymore. These words just feel wrong.
This year, as I sat on the river-smoothed basalt with my feet in the cold rushing Deschutes, I waited. I waited for that moment of connection that always comes, the moment I become conscious of what’s always true: river, birds, canyon walls, sky, and I are one. Words will forever be inadequate to express this deep feeling of oneness with Earth and her creatures. What feels authentic and necessary is to rest in that oneness and praise it.
Praise be to you, oh river. Praise be to you, oh dipper. Praise be to you, oh canyon. Praise be to you, clouds and swallows and vultures. Praise be to you, oh my body that brings me here. Praise be to Earth and all who dwell within her.
I’ve been away for a while, finishing my novel. It’s my second big pandemic project. (My first one was becoming a Certified Wayfinder Life Coach. I finished my training back in 2012 but never jumped through the certification hoop.)
This novel erupted out of me in March of 2017. Its seed was a dream I had about a woman walking the Camino de Santiago who follows her soul’s urging to step through a little door into a Spanish church. Magic things happen. I totally “pantsed” it, a writing term that means I made it up as I went along. Magic happened because I pantsed it. I would never have had the courage to write some of what I wrote if I’d been following an outline.
Finishing this work has been challenging for me. I’ve shared bits and pieces on this blog, made sporadic attempts to edit and revise, but couldn’t muster up the energy to buckle down and get ‘er done. I’ve had to write connecting scenes and invent characters to make it all make sense. I’ve never written a novel before, and since I think I need to do everything perfectly the first time, whether I’ve done it before or not, I got just a wee bit stymied.
Now it’s coming, and it’s coming soon. I decided to publish it as a free PDF on my website, which lowered the pressure enormously and made finishing it possible. Those of you who’ve been asking when you can read the whole thing, I’m aiming for June 1st. Putting this child out into the world in an imperfect form (and believe you me, is it ever imperfect) is a huge stretch for me. But it’s taking up room in my creative abode, and it needs to leave home.
How are your toddler disciplines going? Are you doing things that help you stay here and now?
My own life hasn’t changed all that much, yet waves of fear and grief wash over me unpredictably and I sometimes feel out of control. There’s a lot of that going around.
Panic comes from trying to resist and control what’s uncontrollable: the virus, the future, other people, those waves of grief and anxiety. Remember, this present moment is the only refuge from what we can’t control or predict.
Anchoring into your breath will help you stay present. You always have your breath, as long as you’re alive. And it’s the perfect metaphor for what we need to be about these days: accepting the reality of this present moment and surrendering attempts to control what isn’t ours to control.
Martha Beck, as well as many other mostly Buddhist teachers, teaches this “accept and surrender” meditation. Doing it once will help. Doing it for five minutes will help even more. Doing it for twenty minutes in the morning and again in the evening is ideal. But doing it is the helpful thing. Try not to let the perfect be the enemy of the done.
Ready? Here it is. Sit quietly. With every inhalation, say to yourself, “Accept.” With every exhale, say to yourself, “Surrender.” That’s it. That’s all you need to do. When your mind wanders, as it inevitably will, just gently return to your breath and these two words. This is all you do.
You can embellish if you choose. You can substitute other words. (I find “Let go” fits my brain better than “surrender.”) You can expand the words, maybe saying “I accept this world as it is” on the inbreath and “I surrender control of this world” on the outbreath. Whatever. Just, please, do it. It will help.
Every breath is a little resurrection. You drew your first inbreath when you were born, and your last exhale will be at the moment of your death. Every breath in between birth and death can be an acceptance of this life just as it is, followed by letting go of any attempt to control this amazing gift.
Another suggestion, lifted from Kara Loewentheil, is to write a manifesto or mission statement for yourself. I suggest following the “thoughts create feelings which lead to actions which create results” model. Here’s mine that I just wrote:
I believe that I’m strong enough and flexible enough to handle what comes my way, and I feel courageous in my vulnerability to this present miraculous moment. I will show up compassionately as my true self, rooted in Source, loving and free and available for my family, friends, community, and the world.
When I read this, I feel much more relaxed, present, and creative. Is this a manifesto a toddler would write? I think so! Maybe let your inner toddler help you write yours.
I invite you to share your manifesto in the comments, if you’re feeling brave. And let me know how those toddler disciplines are going!
There are so many generous creators offering resources to help us get through these COVID-19 times. Martha Beck is offering a newly-created course for a special corona rate. Registration is closing April 14th, so check it out if you’re interested. (I don’t get a commission. I just find her work insightful, useful, and fun!)
TL,DR: We humans, as members of an always-changing Universe, are subject to repeated cycles of death and rebirth. COVID-19 has pushed us into change. Change follows a predictable pattern. Understanding this pattern helps us ride the “Change Cycle” with more ease and better results. The first phase of the Change Cycle as described by Martha Beck is Square One, characterized by death and rebirth. Your job right now is to let your old pre-Coronavirus identity dissolve. This will probably feel painful and scary, and the pain is made worse by resistance. Care for yourself and others as though you’re in active grief, because you are. We are held in Love as we do this holy work.
The Change Cycle is a foundational component of Wayfinder
Life Coach Training. I think it’s a necessary archetypal pattern to understand,
especially during times of transition. And boy, howdy, are we in a time of
transition right now!
Everything in the Universe changes. Every single thing. We
humans are members of the Universe. So change is built into our DNA, however
much we try to deny or resist it. The Change Cycle, as taught by Martha Beck,
is initiated by a catalytic event and has four phases.
Here’s a short overview, followed by a deeper dive into
Square One.
The Change Cycle: Martha uses the metaphor of a butterfly when describing the Change Cycle.* Imagine a caterpillar melting down in its chrysalis. That’s Square One, the phase of death and rebirth. Square Two, the phase of dreaming and scheming, is when the former caterpillar, now “caterpillar soup,” begins to reform and coalesce as a new creation – a butterfly. Square Three is a Hero’s Journey, when the new butterfly does the hard work of emerging from the chrysalis. This is arduous work for the butterfly, and it can’t be short-circuited. Finally, our caterpillar, after going through a lot of acceptance and hard work, flies freely as a butterfly through Square Four! Square Four, because everything in the Universe is always changing, doesn’t last forever. Along comes another catalytic event, and bam! On to the next Square One! Every time you ride this cycle, you get bigger and wiser and more yourself. Unlike our caterpillar, humans ride the change cycle over and over again until we die, unless we resist it.
Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star, p. 245
Caterpillars naturally enter their metamorphosis. Human
beings usually need something to push us into change and transformation,
because most of us resist. The catalytic event that pushes us into the Change Cycle
may be something we longed for and planned for, like getting married or having
a baby. Or it may be something we don’t want and didn’t plan for, like
COVID-19.
Deeper into Square One: My friends, we are in a global Square One. This global lockdown accompanied by instant internet news is unprecedented. Coronavirus has forever altered our world. Remember that Square One is characterized by death of old identities. This pandemic has destroyed our identities as people who get to go where we want, do what we want, and control our own destinies.
Square One is painful, and it cannot be rushed. This square is overflowing with grief. Just like your grief when a parent or a spouse or a dear friend dies, this grief simply must have its way with you, and the best course of action is to accept it. As Tara Brach and other Buddhist teachers often say, “Pain x resistance = suffering. Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”
When my mom died, I felt like my world had altered
irrevocably. My life had slipped off the rails. I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel
anything but pain again – joy and happiness seemed like they had fled and would
never return. I know you’ve felt this grief, too. You’ve known the deep sadness
of missing someone or something so much you’re afraid you’ll never recover.
The only thing to do when you’re grieving is to grieve. Grief can’t be rushed. It can’t be sidestepped. The dissolution of Square One simply has to happen. Just as the caterpillar turns to caterpillar soup, we become “person soup.” We have to let our former identities dissolve when the new identities aren’t yet clear. The imago cells that coalesce to form the new creation will only find each other when the old creation is completely fluid. Completely disaggregated.
This is how this has to go. Death and rebirth is how our
world works. It’s the story of winter’s death and the rebirth of spring. It’s sunset
and darkness preceding sunrise and a glorious new day. It’s a waning moon
followed by a waxing moon becoming full and illuminating the night. This is how
this has to go. It’s okay. You’re okay. Let go. Let death have its way with
you.
The only way to come out on the other side of this process a realer, bigger, more present and authentic you is to let the Change Cycle have its way.
These days, just like after my mom died, I’m moving more
slowly. I’m tired and inefficient. I’m forgetful and a little fuzzy around the
edges. I’m craving several hours each day just to be with this new reality. I’m
praying, walking, moving my body with love, sitting in meditation, while
working harder than I ever have before. I’m being really gentle with myself –
creating a cocoon for this metamorphosis. I suggest you do the same. Treat
yourself as though you’re in active mourning, because you are. Life as you knew
it, before the pandemic, is gone. It will never be like it was. Grieve the
loss. Give yourself all the time you need.
If you don’t take all the time you need, if you push through
or avoid or try to step off the cycle, you delay rebirth. I know this to be
true. After my mom died and after other catalytic events in my life, before I
knew about how change works, I resisted, sometimes for years. Resisting the pain
caused me to suffer and stay stuck, completely unnecessariy.
How can you tell you’re resisting the death of Square One? Some classic symptoms of resistance are keeping busy all the time, indulging in addictions, numbing, dissociating, avoiding being in your body, obsessing and worrying, and saying things like “Why me?” and “This shouldn’t be happening.”
We’re supposed to feel like toddlers in Square One, not knowing what the hell is going on half the time, and needing lots of naps. If you’re completely bumfuzzled and often tired, you’re doing it right.
If you take all the time you need to dissolve, to grieve,
to become “person soup,” one day you’ll feel a lightening of that load, and
maybe just a glimmer of hope. You’ll catch a flash of light in the distance. That’s
a sign that you’re moving onto the threshold of rebirth. Those holy imago cells
swimming inside you are beginning to find each other and coalesce. A new you is
beginning to form. And just like the caterpillar, your chrysalis will have done
its work. You will be ready to do the hard work of emerging and flying. And we
will be amazed by your beauty!
The Change Cycle is a holy cycle. Although you may not feel like it, although you’re hurting, know you’re held in Love as do this holy work. You will be okay. You will emerge from this experience – COVID 19 or any other catalytic event – as a new creation, and you will be okay.
Contact me if you’d like to delve into this further. I’d love to talk. Consultations are offered free of charge and obligation.
There are some things no one else can tell you. Some things you just have to decide for yourself. Unfortunately, these things are the big things. That’s why having someone else tell us what’s true seems so necessary. Who are we to say we know the truth about the big things, such as the meaning of life and why we’re here? It feels important to get the big things right.
Most of us rely on other people and institutions and systems
and culture for answers to the big questions, subconsciously if not consciously.
Dismantling those belief systems is scary. You’ll probably feel like you’re
falling. You are!
As Chögram Trungpa said, “The bad news is you’re falling through the air, no parachute, nothing to hang on to. The good news is, there’s no ground.”
It’s not about knowing the truth, you see. It’s about seeking your own answers to the questions that are ultimately unanswerable this side of the grave.
Why is there life at all?
What’s the purpose of your particular existence?
Where do we come from? Where are we going?
How shall we live while we’re in these bodies on this planet?
Why do we suffer and die?
What is love?
Does God exist? If so, what is God’s nature?
And there are the big questions for churchy people: sin and morality, the need for redemption, forgiveness.
The answers you’ve received from your parents and teachers, your churches and your schools, your televisions and social media feeds – they’re all made up. They’re someone else’s best guess.
No one knows the true answers to the big questions. That can
be freaking scary. But please don’t hand your questions over to a “higher”
authority. Don’t throw your hands up in despair and go back to Netflix. Don’t
take the easy answers that you know in your heart aren’t right for you. Don’t
decide the answers aren’t important.
To rely on someone else’s answers is to hand them your power. We can’t ultimately know the important answers. Anyone who says they have them is lying or deluded. The seeking, the doing the best we can, is what’s important.
So be intimate with your big questions. Sit with them.
Ponder them. Learn to be comfortable with not knowing. Let them grow and
stretch you. Let the big questions make you bigger and stronger and more flexible.
Pay attention to your experience and intuition. Pay
attention to your inner wisdom. Give yourself the respect you deserve. Strive
to live in integrity with your questions. Listen to the wise ones. Find a
community that welcomes your searching – one that blesses your open hands and
open mind.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it. All else is madness.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Does that quote piss you off just a little? It does me. There
are things I feel I ought to be able to complain about. Things that just aren’t
right, but that don’t seem to be within my power to correct. Things like White
nationalism, the persistence of misogynist patriarchy, and rampant capitalism,
for example. But what good does complaining about any of that do? Nothing.
Nada. Zilch. At least for me.
I believe Eckhart Tolle is correct. I make myself a victim when I complain. If a situation is truly intractable, the only sane course of action is to accept it. Because the above-mentioned forces are man-made (deliberate use of “man”), they are changeable. It’s just that changing them requires such hard work and an eye on the long game that they feel intractable.
I also see in myself a tendency to complain about situations I could leave or change, if I were willing to live with someone else’s anger or my own discomfort. I blame others for my choice to remain in situations that I don’t like. We complain when we don’t want to change, or when we feel powerless because the problem is so damn big. We choose not to change because we’re afraid of the hard work and the consequences.
I learned something in life coach training that blew my mind: Thoughts create feelings. I always thought it was the other way around. Nope. Here’s how it works:
Thoughts create feelings, which create actions, which create results, which lead to more thoughts, which create more feelings, which create more actions, which produce more results, which lead to more thoughts … on and on, around and around …
You can see how we can get ourselves pretty deep into a
gnarly clusterf*ck if we don’t understand how this works.
Your thoughts create your feelings which motivate your
actions which produce results. You then have thoughts about those results,
which create feelings, which motivate actions, which produce more results. All
of these results add up to your circumstances.
Of course, all of this is happening within the complex human ecosystem which is you. You exist within a matrix of material reality interwoven with Holy energy. And, as mentioned above, we live in a culture that privileges Whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, and wealth, which certainly affects your life.
If you’re an adult and you’re reading this, your present circumstances are largely a product of your actions. You did this. Every step of the way. The circumstances in which you find yourself are the result of actions you took in response to feelings produced by your thoughts.
Although we like to blame others for our adult
circumstances, unless you’re being held captive, that blame is probably not
accurate. I’m NOT saying you caused your cancer or depression or whatever. I AM
saying that if your cancer or depression or whatever is creating unnecessary
suffering, you can allevate that suffering by taking responsibility for it. It
may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility.
If you’re looking around at a life you didn’t intentionally create and you’re not thrilled about, it’s because you didn’t know about this cycle — how it works and how to create meaningful change for yourself.
How do you take responsibility for this cycle and the results it’s produced in your life? By understanding it and learning to intervene in it skillfully. To grow up is to understand this cycle and to use it to create the life you want.
Circumstances we don’t like and feelings we don’t like are where we usually notice distress, so it’s natural to think they are what we need to fix first.
We would be wrong.
Thoughts and actions are the only places we can break the cycle and put ourselves back in charge of our lives.
When we try to fix feelings without attending to the
thoughts that drive them, we deny our feelings or numb them with addictions and
compulsions. To alleviate uncomfortable feelings, we take impulsive actions, or
no action at all because we feel paralyzed. These careless actions are useless
at best, destructive at worst.
When we try to fix results of our clumsy actions without addressing the feelings and thoughts that drove those actions, we simply recreate the same circumstances over and over again. We all know people who’ve moved, changed jobs, coupled up or broken up, gone back to school, had a baby, or something else to alleviate the discomfort of their circumstances and feelings. Heck, I’ve done this myself a time or two. Wherever you go, there you are.
Unskillful interventions create more suffering in the long run, and they don’t produce lasting change and healing.
Skillful interventions, on the other hand, reduce suffering and result in long-term change and healing.
How do we intervene in this cycle skillfully and effectively?
A good place to start is to notice what you’re complaining about. If you complain about a circumstance in your life, you’re making yourself a victim. Stop it. Stop and look at what’s really going on. Follow the cycle backwards. Ask yourself these questions:
What actions have I taken that resulted in this
present circumstance?
What feelings was I having that drove those
actions?
What thoughts created those feelings?
(A coach or other careful listener can be really helpful
here, because we’re often blind to how the cycle has worked in our lives. If we
could see it clearly, we’d make different choices!)
Actions: If you’re choosing destructive actions to alleviate feelings you don’t want to have, stop it. Are you overeating? Overdrinking? Overspending? Yelling at your kids or your spouse or the driver in front of you? And recognize that simply ceasing an action without attending to the feelings and thoughts that drive that action is unsustainable in the long run. Will power isn’t infinite.
Feelings: Uncomfortable feelings won’t kill you when you feel them. Feel your feelings all the way, and they lose their power. You’ll discover that you can feel your feelings and survive. Learning to feel feelings without needing to act on them in ways that are destructive to your life and your integrity – that’s freedom. That’s maturity.
Thoughts: The most effective and sustainable place to intervene in this cycle is with our thoughts. This is the bulk of the coaching I do, because most of us need help hearing our thoughts and changing them to thoughts that serve us.
Here’s an example from my own life. I feel embarrassed to share it. I also believe many of you can relate, so here goes.
I often crave potato chips, even when I’m not hungry. The cycle goes like this: I see potato chips and I think, “I deserve those today, I won’t be able to stand not eating them now that I see them, and a few won’t hurt me.” So I want them, I eat too many of them, and I feel overfull and not proud of myself. I haven’t acted in my own best interests and according to my values. This is what I did just a couple of days ago.
I could have interrupted this cycle in two places. I
could have noticed the wanting, felt it all the way, and not eaten the potato
chips. This is what I usually manage to do. The most powerful place to
intervene, though, is with the thought, “I won’t be able to stand not eating
them.” Because I know if I can just let that craving be what it is, it will
eventually dissipate and I’ll be fine. The craving is just neurons firing in my
brain, after all. Although it feels lethal, it’s not. This is getting easier
and easier for me to do as I rewire my brain. I hardly ever eat when I’m not
hungry anymore.
Now, for most of us, potato chips aren’t the end of the world. But sometimes, because we don’t know how this process works, we make choices with destructive consequences that are life-altering.
Looking back on my life, I can see how I’ve gotten where I am, both the good and the bad. I can draw a line from the circumstances in which I’m living now, back to the actions I took to manage the feelings I was having, and then even further back to the thoughts that drove those feelings, and the circumstances that created the thoughts, and so on and on and on.
Here in my 60s, I can see how choices I made when I was in my teens and 20s have resulted in a life that doesn’t fit in important ways. I can stop doing the things that hurt me, but it’s working with my thoughts that has created and continues to create lasting change and healing.
Because of what went down in my childhood family, I believed I wasn’t worthy of living my own life on my terms. My choices flowed from that core belief. The only way I’ve been able to heal is to examine those tangled beliefs, and to begin to learn to think different thoughts. It’s not easy. Lasting change rarely is.
Now that I know better, I can do better. So can you. Start with where you’re complaining, and work backwards. Contact me if you want to talk.
“The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let
the dead things go.” That’s a quote from Maya Elious, and how poignant it is. We
had snow last Saturday here in Bend, and now the trees are letting go with a
vengeance, dropping leaves and fruit all over the place.
Do you remember the song Sesame Street’s Hoots the Owl sings to his friend Ernie, who desperately wants to both play his saxophone and keep ahold of his beloved rubber duckie? Hoots sings, “Put down the duckie. Ernie, put down the duckie. You gotta put down the duckie if you wanna play the saxophone.” (Watch it here.)
I grew up in a family with alcoholism and physical
violence. My parents eventually divorced. When I was in high school, my mom married
a man, a family friend of many years, who touched my body and said things to me
that no stepfather should say to a stepdaughter. When I protested, he told me I
was wrong. My mom did not protect me.
What do falling leaves, Hoots the Owl’s song to Ernie, and growing up have to do with each other?
As a daughter in my family, a student in the public schools of the 60s and 70s, a girl in a persistently patriarchal church and misogynist culture, I picked up a few beliefs. They might sound familiar to you.
Be small, hidden, camouflaged.
Be silent. Stay quiet.
Do as you’re told.
Keep your wants, opinions, thoughts, and feelings to yourself, because they don’t matter.
Whip yourself into shape.
Be who we want you to be.
Look to others for direction, validation, affirmation, approval.
Put others’ needs ahead of your own.
Be nice, sweet, cute, pleasing, funny, smart but not too smart, helpful, compliant.
In short, be a good girl and don’t bother us.
It was safer, when I was a child, to just go along with
this. I wasn’t big or brave or powerful enough to go it alone. And after a
while I forgot who I was. It was easier to forget than to keep feeling the pain
of remembering.
I’m remembering now. I’m learning to truly see the ways my
visibility, clarity, voice, value, integrity, intrinsic motivation,
self-compassion, self-regard, and self-trust were taken offline, uninstalled by
my family, my culture, and my church.
Now that I see, I’ve gained the ability to choose what to do. I can choose the discomfort of reinstalling those original blessings and rewiring (unf*cking) my brain, or I can continue to stay small quiet nice cute sweet reactive other-focused because that’s more familiar and feels safer. I can hang on to last year’s leaves, or I can choose to let the dead things go.
Wholeness, healing, and new life lie in the direction of
putting the damn duckie down. Relearning is uncomfortable and scary. But staying
locked up in this cage of smallness, silence, and compliance is no longer an
option for me.
Now that I see the cage for what it is, and I know I hold the key to my freedom in my own two hands, how can I choose to remain a prisoner?
If you’d like some Bible alongside Sesame Street, here’s Paul
writing to the church in Corinth: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an
end to childish ways.” (I Corinthians 13:11)
Holiness wants us to grow up. Holiness wants us clear and articulate and powerful.
We gotta put down our childish duckies if we wanna play our grown-up saxophones.
You may not want to play the saxophone, but I know you have dreams. Goals. Desires that just won’t let go. And if you haven’t achieved them or let them go, there’s something stopping you. There’s an obstacle in the way, almost certainly a belief or a cluster of beliefs that no longer serve you, if they ever did.
I can help you see where your childish beliefs are holding you back so you can change them and be the grown-up woman you want to be. Contact me for a free consultation.
