The Beautiful Answer

Daring the Truth

I’ve been thinking a lot about lying lately, the tiny patterns of lying that go on in our daily lives all the time. Most of us have become so used to lying - to get a sick day, to not attend a friend or colleague’s event, or to not pay quite as much on your taxes this year (or get a bigger refund), that we think nothing of it. 

When I go to Facebook, for example, I’m astounded by all the lying I see, and I may spend five or six minutes max on Facebook each day. I don’t have time to use it as an excuse to socialize (without ever really having to do it), and definitely don’t have time to sit around watching peopie lie to my face. How do I know this? I know the people doing the lying. How do I know they’re lying? They’ve told me something completely different on the phone, or confided something sad or dark in passing. 

So why has the image of success become more interesting or important than actual success?  How have we gotten here, where we’d rather lie than strive for a goal or achievement? While I can’t do much about what other people do, or decide to say or leave out, I can reframe like a mofo.

So I decided to work with lying today, or hiding the truth, or leaving things out so the truth was somehow obscured. As I sat in meditation, I called forth all the lies that were just around me in that moment. I saw a friend who was trying to paint a picture of online success while struggling with addiction, a woman carrying a fake Louis Vuitton bag at the post office (What is it with those bags? Literally no one thinks they’re real, people), and a basketball player trying to convince a ref that he hadn’t committed a foul when the replay showed it, obvious and real. 

I let the feelings of the lies wash over me, and take form in my mind’s eye. Surprisingly, they felt much like fear — all closed down and blackly smoking. My chest closed when I felt them. I wanted them gone as soon as possible. I applied the “antidote” as soon as I could: a wide open sense of possibility, blue skies, natural scenes, purpose and a reopened chest to ease breathing. Whew. That’s a lot better. Successfully neutralized. 

But when I came out of the meditation, I realized that I didn’t necessarily need to reframe the lying all around me. I needed to dare the truth to come forward in my own life. And when the next moment arose, and I had to tell someone an uncomfortable truth, I did it gently and mindfully, without drama or undue hurt. 

One dare successfully down. A billion more to go. 

Learning to Exhale

“Learn how to exhale, the inhale will take care of itself.” 

              — Carla Melucci Ardito

Words to Live By

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” 

                                      - Eleanor Roosevelt

Meditating on this one big time today … 

An Anniversary

Two years ago, something major happened in my life. Today, after Pilates and a manicure, after some work and returning emails and reading a great new book I found, I wanted to be quiet for a bit, and just let the events of the past two years wash over me. 

I realized I’m happy to be here. 

I realized I’m happier to be free of whatever was holding me back. 

I realized I’m so grateful for my life that I could cry sometimes, at how fragile our existence is, and how seldom people seem to be in touch with that fact. 

I realized that it’s not up to me what they know or don’t know. I just hope they know someday. 

And I realized that whatever happens tomorrow, it’s gonna be cake compared to where I’ve been. 

The Biggest Douche

Why is it that you’re doing something enjoyable — watching a baseball game, say — and then there have to be those guys who can’t keep their mouths shut, try to pick fights with pretty much anyone walking by, and actually manage to make alcohol and its consumption look uncool? Why do they always have to know nothing about the sport in question, and make your viewing of same so annoying that even though you’re a peaceful person by nature, you consider doing them harm, or actually kind of root for someone to give them the beatdown they so desire?

Reframing them didn’t work the first few times I tried. How do you reframe idiots, after all?

I tried meditating, letting them go, working with my breath. Then I had a thought. I’m an energy worker, damn it. Why wouldn’t that work in this instance?  So I glued their mouths shut, energetically of course, and it took about five minutes before they stopped talking altogether. 

A little while later, they left, and almost everyone in our section started cheering. The rest of the game was uneventful — it ended in a tie — but it was way more enjoyable. That and Buster Posey’s homer made even the Biggest Douche tolerable. 

Scratch That Itch

Ever notice that the more you can’t do something, or you’re not supposed to, the more you want to do it? Take meditation. You’re meant to quiet your mind, watch your thoughts, maybe return to your breath every time you notice your attention straying. Hopefully, you’re spending some quality time turning your awareness inward. 

So why is it every time that happens, your nose starts to itch something fierce? Or your leg falls asleep, or you literally cannot stop thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch? A few minutes ago, you were fine. But now that things are quiet, the completely ridiculous thoughts are marching forward to take over your consciousnes. And that’s all there is to it. 

I thought a lot about the itch today. The need to keep scratching, even though that may not be the best thing for us in the long run. I thought about it as I was meditating, and again when I was standing behind a little kid on an escalator. He couldn’t stop his leg from moving, or his teeth grinding, or from pulling on his mom’s leg. He was like a little meth addict wanting … I don’t know, something other than what he had. 

I thought about it after I hung up the phone with a client who just wants what she wants, and isn’t about to be dissuaded from a reality that doesn’t serve her highest good. She just wants it, and will keep scratching until it bleeds.  My sadness and continued advice may or may not ever get her to see it in a different way. 

Maybe the itch never goes away. Maybe it’s not supposed to. We can reframe and meditate and chant all we want, and maybe that itch will keep being there until we’re savvy enough not to react to it. That would be a truly beautiful world, wouldn’t it? 

There is No Now

Most of the time, spiritual people are trained to stay in the present moment, or return to the present moment. And after 16 years of meditation, I’ve engaged in quite a few of those. Taking it into “real” life is a bit harder, though, and by doing it again and again and again, I’ve learned that there is no now. Not really. 

Even having the thought “present moment” means that it has already passed. It’s history, part of the fabric of your memories, and you can’t get it back unless someone invents a time machine in the near future. 

Today, I stopped trying. I stopped trying to get back to the present moment. I let it go completely, and then I could feel my shoulders dropping, and the stress leaving me. How could I spend 16 years trying to find something that was never there in the first place? Pretty trippy, but also very true. 

When I came back to the very next moment, whatever that one was, it was fine. My mind wandered again as I drove to a store and then the art museum to see the new Ellsworth Kelly exhibition. I brought it back, and then I brought it back again, along with my consciousness. I brought my awareness into the museum with me, and I brought it back as I drove home. And this tiny, very real revelation felt like a sonic boom in my life. I was in such a state of shock that my car veered into the yogurt shop before I knew it, and well, you just have to get some when that happens, right? 

Why Not Me?

Short post tonight because I’m tired and happy and wish I had more hours in the day to feel this way. So much of my life is spent on personal work that it sometimes feels like a second or third vocation. When something actually clicks, and I act out of a newer, healthier way without having to think about it, it’s pretty amazing. 

The other times, I have to remind myself not to bite the hook, not to go down the dark trails with people who on a good day have no idea what they’re doing. So I did that today, without thought, and I didn’t have to think about it. And when I realized what I had done, just acted in a grounded yet compassionate way with someone who lives to provoke and create drama, I just shook my head at my desk. 

Shit. Is that actually possible? To practice something so many times that it becomes a healthier habit? Malcolm Gladwell says in Outliers that in order to become an expert at something, you have to do it 10,000 hours or more. While I can’t say that I’ve done this that many times, maybe I have. I bascially lost count a long time ago. 

So why not me? Why shouldn’t it be me, who put in this much work, who receives the benefits of my own adjustments?

On Anxiety and the Discontents

You know those people that no one wants to be around, and yet somehow they’re everywhere? I like to call them the Negatives, because no matter what you say, they always find a way to make things not work out? They love to rain on parades, especially if they’re marching in them, and to find a million and one reasons why It’ll Never Work Out. I actually find myself becoming sunnier and sunnier around these folks, until I’m exhausted from trying to balance out their darkness. 

Anxiety has a way of doing this to people. From our distinctly American way of seeing the news (fear), the economy (more fear) and all the big things of life like health issues, family, retirement and Social Security (major uncertainty there), we aren’t really trained to deal with the stuff we can’t see, feel, control or quantify. Instead, we’re conditioned to keep fearing more, so we drive the financial and social agreements we’ve set forth. 

Without getting too conspiracy-ish about it (those are boring anyway and, yes, fear-based as all hell), it’s enough to make you want to climb the nearest mountain or join the nearest ashram. And maybe those aren’t terrible ideas. But for the rest of us who choose to remain behind, maybe there’s another way. Rather than becoming one of the anxiety-prone or the discontents, maybe we can sit with our feelings, not to disregard or even chase them away. Maybe just the act of witnessing what’s really going on inside us, without judging it or comparing it to whatever everyone else is going through, we open up a new dialogue. And if someone is listening, doesn’t that mean that we’re being seen, heard and valued for all the right reasons, at exactly the right time? 

Still Tired, Looking Up

You know those days that kind of shoot past, and you realize by the end that you haven’t looked up at the sky at all? It could be raining outside, you have no idea, or it could be sunny and 80 degrees. Today was one of those kinds of days. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot more of those kinds of days in the near future as well. 

Book marketing is going very well. I’m getting some great reviews and quotes, which are all very kind. I’m booking tons of print and radio interviews, and have a few sites wiling to excerpt the book near the launch date of April 24th. 

All I could use now is a huge shot of energy. All right, all right. I know. Writing a book is a huge burst of energy. It’s way closer to the birth process than most people realize. By the end you’re torn up and ready to go fetal for about a month. But then comes the marketing part, which is more like a marathon than a sprint, and you have to talk about yourself (writers aren’t by nature like that, at least not most of them, myself included) for a long time, a few months at least, and more if you’re really driven, as I am. 

By the end you need a vacation like you’ve never needed one, and you don’t want to even hear your own name for like 6 months. I work out a lot anyway, usually 5 times a week, and I mediate each day. I try to work in a fair amount of yoga and Pilates into my workouts, because I get bored easily. So I guess the tiredness I feel now is my wake up call. Time to get your butt in training lady, for this marathon that feels like a sprint. 

Getting some sleep early tonight. Gotta expand that sleeping zone so I can stay rested and ready. I feel so much going forward, and want to be as ready as I can to face the fun stuff ahead.