If I Were Brave

What would I do if I knew that I could not fail
If I believed would the wind always fill up my sail
How far would I go, what could I achieve…

Trusting the hero in me

If I Were Brave, words and music by Jana Stanfield and Jimmy Scott

Amazing sunset view seen while riding back from the marina off Maria.

This morning it is still dark as I am enjoying the quiet activity here on the canal on Pine Island, savoring the last few mornings in this magical place. I just read a very touching chapter in My Grandfather’s Blessing, by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. It is titled simply, “When It Works.”

Rachel was an intern, working in an emergency room, when an unconscious infant was brought in. He was found to have a profound electrolyte imbalance and an irregular heartbeat, the result of severe dehydration following severe diarrhea.

The baby went into heart failure, and after four attempts with the defibrillator, the senior resident threw the paddles down, left the room, and went to give the parents the horrible news. Remen was left standing in that room with two nurses, and that baby. 

She writes that something inside her called out to him, much as you might call a child in from playing to dinner. “I was too young a doctor and too inexperienced to know that after four attempts at defibrillation, no one comes back.” She grabbed the paddles and gave one more shock and it worked! 

This past weekend I took a workshop in an energy technique called BARS. I did my first session with a good friend yesterday. In addition to learning a new energy technique, I appreciated those places where what was presented fits with what I have been teaching in SCS/NLP for years. For example, “If your logical mind could solve the things that were not working in your life, wouldn’t it have done so already?” and “Every time you do a Bars session on someone else, all the considerations that they have that are like the ones you have go away at the same time.”

And probably my favorite: “This is one way of doing it and you can also follow the energy….please follow your knowing.”

Suddenly I am reminded of a song chosen by dear friends for their wedding. “If I Were Brave,” by Jana Stanfield and Jimmy Scott, sung by Jana. You can find the rest of the lyrics online and listen at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF5V2PEujqs.

The words touch my soul deeply today as I think of Dr. Remen and the man that baby boy grew up to be and I will leave you with the question….  

Like the mighty oak sleeps in the heart of a seed, 

are there miracles in you and me? 

What would I do today if I were brave?

Pain

In that half-asleep, half-awake state, I had the image of the word pain as a call to Place Attention Inside Now.  A few moments later, arising for the day, I was sitting in silence with my journal on my lap (as is my morning schedule). I opened a daily inspirational book (Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening) and read: “Until the heart becomes an inlet, it cannot be free….[P]ain comes from measuring the inevitable events of life against some idea of how we imagine things are supposed to be…. Life is hard enough without viewing all our pain as evidence of some basic insufficiency we must endure…  All spiritual warriors have a broken heart, alas, must have a broken heart—because it is only through the break that the wonder and mysteries of life can enter us…. In daily life we are judged, discounted, and even pitied for glories that only we can affirm.”

My recent past has been filled with self-nagging. It feels as though a fog is lifting and I am seeing myself and the events through the lens of that broken heart. In the same way that a child will be terrified by the shadow cast on the wall, and have nothing to fear, what I am seeing now looks nothing like what I had imagined it being. 

Immature Brown Pelicans at the Van Meter's in St. James City on Pine Island

Rachael Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom, has written another marvelous book, My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Courage, and Belonging. In a chapter titled “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” she writes about the broken hearts of a mother and father following the death of their five year-old son, Timmy. At Timmy’s funeral, the pastor encouraged each person to allow his or her pain to touch him or her in a unique way, to draw strength from knowing we are not alone in that pain. 

Each person was told the pain would help us love our children, each other, and life itself. That is living of life through our broken hearts. I have used the phrase, “Our hearts only break in one direction: open.” That did not come to me through the lens of a broken heart, for I have not buried my five year-old child, and, in the grand scheme of things, I have not had a difficult life. 

Remen writes: “Spiritual awakening does not change life; it changes suffering.” Perhaps knowing, at some deep level, the depth of love that rushes into the heart that is broken open, I had been, like the shadow cast upon the wall, seeing the pain in my life as much larger than it really was, wanting all along, to love with all my heart, my mind, my soul, and my strength. I will begin now to see pain—physical or emotional, mental or spiritual—as what it really is, a sacred invitation to place attention inside now….

Hold Me Instead

Understanding our feelings is a lot like trying to change the diaper of a wiggling toddler. As soon as you think you have a leg up on it, something unexpected erupts. I have appreciated some of the writings about all this that have come into my awareness of late. On December 4, 1993, when I wrote this poem, I thought I was writing it for my sister, Janis. Today, I know it was as much for me and for you, too. 

The Magic Sack 

            God has a gift for you...It is a magic sack.

            It is tailor made, and fits upon your back.

            It is filled with happy, mad and sad. All your feelings; good or bad.

            There is room for every feeling here, as long as it's your own.

            Its not too heavy or too light, God made it so it fits just right.

            Now comes the part to ease your heart, though difficult to bear.

            YOU may not carry another's sack, it is their own to wear.

            For each child upon this earth, God made and loves for all life's worth.

            And each and every one, you see, mother, sister, and even me,

            Has their very own magic sack tailor made to fit their back!!!

In times of less awareness, we may expect or even demand that others take on our emotions. According to Mark Nepo, in The Book of Awakening, this was because we wouldn’t “take the risk to ask them to hold us while we are hurting.” 

Fortunately, you can learn to be present to your own emotions. And it is never too late to have a happy childhood. Nepo says it best: “If you think you have given them what’s yours to carry, go to them and thank them for holding your sadness and then lift it off their hearts and take it back. Ask them to hold you instead.” 

I am profoundly grateful to those who have been willing to hold me rather than taking on my feelings. I have been held with respect and compassion and tenderness, and that has taught me to hold myself.  

St. Jude Trail on Pine Island

From today's Daily OM: When we simply allow ourselves to fully feel our feelings as they come, we tend to let them go easily. This is all we are required to do; our feelings simply want to be felt.