The Beautiful Answer

A Breakthrough

In the eleven months I’ve been keeping this blog, I’ve begun to notice a few things about the way the mind works. How it strives to keep things looking bleak, perhaps so that when joy occurs, it will stand out by comparison. 

Then there are those days when you’re able to break through a pattern that has been so much a part of your life that it’s become like a second skin. Over the years I have raged at it, coaxed and cajoled it, even tried to reason with it as I attempted to move toward some sort of final releasing point, where I could finally be rid of it for good. Today, I stood up for myself in a way I have never done before. And it wasn’t really like anything I expected. 

Most people picture fighting of some sort when you say you’re standing up for yourself. They imagine swords drawn, defensive battle postures, grimacing faces. Not that I didn’t get irritated — I suppose sone of that is required before we all reach our limits and set an impermeable boundary. I did, a little. And then I got tough. 

It’s not something I can talk about in detail because it’s still ongoing, but suffice it to say that I have been offered several great career opportunities since my book Searching for Sassy came out. I’ve had agents circling, publishing companies interested in putting it out on their own labels, and film and television producers vying for the rights. It’s all been pretty heady and confusing at times, even though I have a pretty good working knowledge of how these things work, since I’ve been employed in both the publishing and film industries in the past. 

The thing is, there are all kinds of people, in each of these businesses. There are your sharks, who want to dominate you (and the conversation, apparently), even if no money is actually yet changing hands. There are your artist wannabees, who will never get quite as close to writing a book as sitting across from you on an expensive couch, and those who crave power and influence, to somehow affect the culture at large. You meet enough of them, and they all start to look the same. 

But I’ve learned that breakthroughs seldom come when you’re trying to make them happen. They tend to creep up on you, waiting to strike when you’re not expecting it. So you have to be ready to walk away from something if need be, even if the very thing you’re being offered is the thing you want most. 

I did that today. I was ready to walk away, even though it was painful, and I ended up winning. It required absolute nerves of steel. And even though this may not happen all the time, or even most of the time, just the act of standing firm and saying no made my legs and little stronger underneath me, and my connection to the earth all the support I needed to move forward. 

Deciding

Some days, my mind won’t quit. By now, I have all kinds of tools to get it to quiet down and cooperate with the rest of my body parts — you know, kind of play nice in the sandbox. But I have a huge decision to make, and times like this, which could determine the whole next phase of your life, it gives you pause. You slow down and time slows down to match it. You want to give it the space it deserves, mostly so you don’t eff it up completely. 

So I looked into the derivation of the word decision. I am a word geek, after all. It’s the process of determining, as of a question or doubt, the quality of being judged. And who knew? It comes from the 13th century, sometime between 1425 and 1475 from the late Middle English, from the Middle French, all the way back to the Latin for “a cutting off.” 

Huh. Fascinating. 

Of course, the easy way of deciding anything is to weed out any options you don’t want or need, until you’re left with very few choices. In a sense, deciding to go one way is also “cutting off” another way. This has opened up a whole new way of thinking about decisions for me. 

Making this decision means a verdict, a decree, a ruling on the events of my life going forward, which is always strange. I mean, who knows what’s going to happen in the future? No one, really, not even an intuitive like me. You have an idea, you have some faith in your own abilities, you have the support of whomever you’ve gathered around you to take part in the journey somehow. But the bottom line is that I’m betting things get better, and continue to grow and develop, until I choose one side of the fence to live on for the forseeable future.

Clearing Out the Cobwebs

One thing is certain. After my Karuna Reiki certification this past wekend, a few things have started immediately. One is that I feel lighter, freer and more compassionate. I’m pretty happy go lucky anyway, fairly optimistic, all things considered. But I also feel … I don’t know how to say it … maybe destined? I feel in touch with what I’m destined to do in a brand new way. 

I’ve always shied away from that term. Part of me doesn’t even believe in the concept of destiny. I’m a big “we’re all in charge of our own destiny” kind of person, who doesn’t believe that reality is fixed in any one point. Part of me can’t accept that everything has been mapped out for us. I don’t find it comforting at all. Mostly, I find it scary and dehumanizing. 

But that has changed a little in the past day. In feeling lighter in mind, body and spirit, I see more clearly what I need to go. Where I need to go. Who I need to be doing it with. Not that I experience a huge amount of confusion. I tend to follow the energy as it moves. But any cobwebs up in the corners of my reality have been swept down. 

From here on, it’s up to me to use that inner clarity to bring some light into the world. 

I’m the One That I Want

OK, maybe I took the title of this blog post from Anna Deveare Smith’s most recent one-woman show. It’s a good title and well, steal from the best what I always say. I had some good news today, and it’s taking me some time to decide whether or not to take advantage of it, not do that, take advantage of some of it, wait a bit longer and see what else might transpire, or some combination of these.

Why is it that decisions are kind of harder when you’re aware? When you’re not you can kind of go with whatever sense most needs feeding. If you’re poor, you choose the one that bring the most money. if you’re emotionally needy, you do the one that brings the most attention and compliments. When you’re a little more aware, or are actually watching your reality, you notice the smaller things, and could subdivide a decision into a million component parts if you’re not careful. That could make decisions pretty arduous. 

So to reframe this unexpected condition of awareness, I decided to take a break from deciding. By giving myself the time and space to not really think about it but NOT think about it, I tried to see if this would rest my mind a little. And it did. My little experiment worked. And though I’m not any closer to figuring out what I want to do in this particular instance, I’m happy to know what probably no matter what choice I make, it will turn out pretty well. All things considered, that’s not a bad deal, and my mind gets to revel in all that space I created. 

Then the Quiet Came Down

Sometimes, reframing seems like a lot of work. My mind would rather sit on the couch and watch basketball, or curl up with a good book and a glass of lemonade. Part of me sees this as something that has to be done, effort that has to be expended, or even something I may be unsuccessful at. But that’s like saying you can be unsuccessful at yoga. The whole point is to try, and if you can’t get into a pose, to find an acceptable substitute until you can. There really is no way to fail. 

Other times, the reframing has become such a habit that nothing happens in the next moment. My mind simply notices, refuses to react, then moves on. That’s when the quiet comes down. Time seems to drag, and it’s exactly like those scenes when the hero’s motions are in slow motion so he has time to dodge bullets, dive sideways while firing two guns at once, and of course end up saving the day. 

Times right after crisis, challenge, or even annoyance are like this. The quiet comes down like a curtain and all of a sudden you could be anywhere — away from the honking horns and the irritating neighbors, closer to some sort of paradisical landscape that lives in your mind. 

Today I was quiet, really quiet, so I could get down deep. I found some stuff, I did some excavating, and when I was “done” (because I suppose none of us is ever done), I felt like a little kid who’d just finished her first day of school. Glad it was over, but excited to go back tomorrow to see who I could meet and what I might learn. 

The Way It Happens

Quietly but insistently, my mind has been talking to me these past few days. It has gained in strength during my nearly seven months of reframing practice, and even under stressful conditions, has helped me see clearly. It has slowed down enough during the potentially reactive bits that I could get my bearings and not add any more suffering to the mix, or exacerbate the situation at hand. 

When the shit hits the fan, as it has this week, I can’t imagine where I would be without my practice. Fifteen years is a long time to sit around and do nothing (not all of those fifteen years of course, but you know what I mean). To sit and not try to get anywhere, or do anything, seems crazy luxurious when you consider it from that angle. And just when you think there’s no “there” there, suddenly there is. When there is no net, your mind suddenly becomes one for you. 

It makes no sense on paper. It’s intangible as hell, and not likely to become any clearer. The results of my reframing can’t be put in a frame and hung on my wall, or poured into my car to make it start. It won’t feed me or clothe me, and it may never save my life. But it makes the quality of my life on this planet better, and less knee-jerk because of it. 

So mind, this one’s for you. You’re resilient and think for yourself. You don’t follow gurus blindly, and question nearly everything that filters through from the senses. You lean toward grace, and kindness, and curiosity. You seek out the beauty in every moment. And I’m ever so glad you’re in my head, and help me make my time here meaningful. What I would be without you is scary to think about. 

The way it happens, I’m deeply in love with you, even when we don’t get along, or you race too fast for me to sleep. If my consciousness resides in you, as some people believe, I hope we stay together lifetime after lifetime, like two buds just lookin’ for some fun in the cosmos. 

Maybe, Maybe Not

I love the fact that after fifteen years as a meditator, stuff that used to big the crap out of me, make me lose sleep or scream out the window of my car at people, seldom bothers me. It’s not that I try to be all calm and spiritual — far from it. I’m probably not that enlightened, to be able to pull that off. But as I put in time over the years, I found that it just wasn’t there any more. 

At first it was kind of weird, unfamiliar to not have that heat of emotion moving through me. I searched around for it, thinking, “Surely I must be mad at that guy, or that lady over there. Look at her dress!” No go, though. It just wasn’t there. 

After a time of watching my mind look for things to be irritated about, or sad about, or angry about, I learned to laugh. After all, isn’t that what most of us do all the time? Thankfully, my mind eventually got tired and just kind of gave up through attrition. It got sick of looking for something it could never find. 

Now when I see someone in public, in the grocery store maybe, or the post office who’s having a little ragefest, I want to laugh to myself. Not in that “I’m so superior to you” kind of way. I’m not perfect; I lose my shit sometimes, too. I just know that yelling at the checker or the clerk behind the counter selling stamps will wear off before they’ve even gotten to their cars. They’ll need another hit and then another, until they’re exhausted. Maybe they’ll never realize that they’re addicted to this rush of heated energy moving through their bodies. Maybe they’ll believe, as most of us do, that it’s someone else who’s always to blame, who’s making us miserable. 

Bollocks to that. I’m reframing that right now, by taking responsibility for my own feelings. Rather than disowning them, or projecting them onto other people, I surround my emotions with fuzzy warm blankets. I keep them safe and soften around them, welcoming rather than chasing them off. I say to my feelings, “Hey, little buddies. Stay a while. Get as comfortable as you like and then let’s talk about how you can be transformed into something healthier. Deal?” 

Interestinger and Interestinger

Do you ever have those moments when it seems like your life hasn’t exactly hit the pause button, but it’s coasting along, just kind of OK? And you find your mind kind of searching around, looking for something to be worried about, or scared of, or angered by?

I’ve been watching my mind in a conscious way for over 15 years now, but it never ceases to amaze me how my brain works. I mean, I think I’m a pretty mellow person who has healthy boundaries but likes to laugh, pays her taxes and also likes to color outside the lines a bit. I don’t think of myself as a worrier or a super stressed person. I have a great job, which despite its deadlines and sometimes-difficult clients, is hardly ever short of satisfying. I adore my husband and dog. I get to be creative almost all the time.

So what is my mind looking for? Why does it seem to reach out into the universe for something to stress about?

Some researchers say that this phenomenon, common to one degree or another among all races, religions, cultures and genders, is a result of our fight or flight programming. That it’s so deep inside our wiring that even though most of us don’t live in a war zone, we behave like we do, at least our minds do.

Not that I have a huge amount of time to devote to research on the brain, but I like to read what I can. And as more experiments are done, it keeps getting interestinger and interestinger — how we need these times of “mind dumping” to convince ourselves that we’re really OK. How we use our sleep as a time of processing and understanding, and deepening our awareness. It sounds to my ears very much like reframing.

For me, it was about conversing with my brain, not trying to tell it off or force it to believe something it may not have been ready for. Though today wasn’t stressful, I watched my body and mind for signs that it wanted to feed off of those emotions and sensations. But after a while, everything seemed to calm down and return to boring old normal — which is more than fine with me. :)