Bench Chat

When I saw this photo on the wall of a friend on Facebook a few days ago, I instantly had the thought I would blog about it. 

This morning early, it was quite interesting to receive a text asking me if I communicate with people who have passed. I told her I learned the work Dr. Alan Bodkin calls "Induced After Death Communication." I use that, when appropriate, to help people overcome grief, face fears, and resolve internal conflicts. 

She wrote back, "Does that mean you are a medium?"

Explaining that Dr. Bodkin says you do not have to believe in spirits to have the technique be helpful, I went on to say that I am very intentional to work within the individual's beliefs. I added my own belief that we are all mediums, meaning that spirit can and does communicate to and through each of us. 

I remembered and shared with her the Thanksgiving my daughter, Stacey, came to Michigan. She got ready to make my mom's famous Dutch Apple Pie, but realized she did not have the recipe. After quite some time of struggling to remember the ingredients and the quanties, the information clearly popped into her mind. At just that moment of clarity, Stacey heard my mom's voice in her head say, "Well, damn, Sugar, I've been trying to tell you!"

Whatever your beliefs, if you would treasure some time with a loved one who is now in spirit, decide a location where you would like to meet. Or just sit with your loved one in your mind's eye on this bench. Close your eyes and get comfortable. Bring your attention to your heart. Use your imagination and just see what wonderful happens.

You can write a letter to your loved one in spirit, using the same process of imagination. Say what is on your heart to say, then listen with your heart for the answer. Many of Bodkin's patients reported similar phenomenon as those who had a near-death experience (NDE). 

The real gift is you genuinely experience of feeling a reconnection....

No Benefit in Worrying

A wonderful woman I have been working with is facing a surgery that has been referred to as "The Mother of All Surgeries." She is an amazing individual, and she did her homework to find the right team to do this surgery for her.

At the same time she is on this amazing healing journey (one that alone could be a full-time endeavor for some), a huge project is coming together at work as well.

Things just seem so amplified for many people right now.

After meeting with her, I spent some time writing a tapping (EFT) script for helping her Imagine Healing. This is the last sequence in that tapping:

EB:    I realize my healing journey is unfolding;  

SE:     and I am extremely grateful for that.

UE:    My body can relax a bit more into the truth of that now.

UN:    Maybe a good outcome for the surgery can be easier than I thought.

CH:    It won't happen exactly as I imagined it, but things can go better than expected.

CB:    I am grateful for feeling any relaxation, 

UA:    as I deal with what needs to be done.

TH:    This journey may help me help others some day. For that, I am glad.

As I read through the words again just now, I realize if you just take out the words "for the surgery" this is a message for each of us. 

Some are struggling to make ends meet. Many are experiencing physical challenges. People are navigating their way to a sane and sober life after a time of having been using substances or behaviors to numb pain from their past. 

Each of us can say honestly, "I realize my healing journey is unfolding; this journey may help me help others some day; and I am extremely grateful for that." Our bodies can relax into the truth of all this and more. How many times have we worried about something that never came to be? Often the gifts and blessings amidst challenges far exceed anything we might have imagined. 

One thing is certain, as the Dalai Lama said, “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” 

 

Past Pain

I often notice when a certain theme seems to be prevalent in the world around me. For example, I spent the past weekend with my daughter and her family. My grandson, Adam, just graduated from high school and is about two weeks away from leaving for a three-month culinary work-study experience in Italy. Whether it is a delayed case of "senioritis" or something else going on, the two of them are going through a challenging time of relating right now. 

The adult daughter of a friend had a triggering event with her husband over a glass of wine she drank (she is nursing her new baby daughter). That triggering event led to a huff up the stairs and some silent-treatment and tense atmosphere for everyone (including my friend and her husband).

My sister got triggered when her former daughter-in-law was upset about some demands with regards to visitation time with grandson, Tony. It only took a few moments for her to realize she was reliving some past pain with a former husband around her own young son.

Like pimples on the oily face of a teenager, this theme of past pain seems to be popping out at me from everywhere.

In Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha,Tara Brach makes a key point about it: ”Because we are responding to an accumulation of past pain, our reactions are out of proportion to what is happening in the moment. When someone criticizes us or disapproves of us, we get thrown back in time and have no access to our adult understanding." (p. 170-171)

"Your ultimate victory is in taking back the power to dictate your own emotions and to use your free will to make choices that enhance your life and bring you inner peace." (The Secret of Overcoming Verbal Abuse Getting Off the Emotional Roller Coaster and Regaining Control of Your Life, by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. and Marcia Grad Powers, p. 124.)

As I was with another person, also slogging through the depth of interpersonal stress, I had the message pop into my mind to tell her that right now, the only expression of Jesus in her life was this other person. It seemed too harsh, and I tried to avoid the necessity of sharing the idea. When I did share it, she and I both cried.

I cried recalling the day I had felt the unjustness of judging Jesus based on what others said he said.

Terrence Real writes with great wisdom about relationships in How Can I Get Through to You? Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women. Chapter 13 is about "Relational Esteem." Real defines self-esteem  as "one's capacity to hold oneself in warm regard in the face of one's own imperfections and limitations, one's capacity to cherish oneself as a flawed, flesh-and-blood, human being." (p. 207)

Relational esteem, accordingly, is the capacity to hold the relationship in warm regard in the face of its imperfections and limitations.

Perhaps we can come to value past pain in a similar way. As Real shares with readers, the only instrument for change we possess, our only tool, is ourselves…

As I sit here writing, I remember these tender interactions between people who want to express lovingly with one another and I let emotion course through me. I feel my heart soften toward myself and all these "others" who are each only doing the best we can. I am reminded simply of the truth about past pain: Sometimes it takes generations to heal.

Eternal Expressing

So many people have expressed astonishment that I would actually enjoy a week-long silent meditation retreat. I admit that it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but silence—to my heart—is golden. 

I treasure the deeper seeing that occurs naturally. For example, the awe that I felt when I saw these two dandelions growing side-by-side in the labyrinth. They were the only two in the whole area, and instantly, I was aware of the profound reality present in the old is the new not yet come. 

The theme of the week was Self or No Self. Imagine my shock when I crawled into my bunk the first night, looked up at the bottom of the top bunk and saw dozens of eyes looking back at me! 

In meditation training, it is said, "The one who is aware of anger is not angry." As I was drifting off to sleep, I wondered who is the "I" looking, and who is the "I" being seen?

While we might argue these ideas until the cows come home, it is very simple to experience truth beyond ideas when  you are intentional to notice the ego perspective and do as Jill BolteTaylor describes as stepping right of your left brain. She is the author of My Stroke of Insight, and if you have not yet seen her amazing Ted talk, check that out. 

I am slowly settling back into a routine here at home, but I am being very intentional to integrate the expanded mindfulness my week of silent mediation gifted me with. 

For today, let me remember you can see the eternal expressing itself in the impermanent moment-by-moment. It is so reassuring to know this is the truth of each of our lives.

The Better For It

I was sitting out on the Zen walkway, sipping a cup of tea with a dear friend. Our sharing naturally included reports of many of those we "hold energy" for: friends and family, folks personally known or those who have come into our hearts and minds via the many-threaded web of our intentionally conscious life. 

I mentioned one dear friend, Bernie, having recently been in the hospital with pneumonia—having complications including MRSA. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection is far-too-often contracted in a health-care facility. It is caused by a strain of staph bacteria that's become resistant to the antibiotics commonly used to treat ordinary staph infections.

Nancy got quiet… then she said, "What is your sense of this challenging time with all this?" 

"You mean with antibiotic resistant infections? With all the challenges?" I queried. 

"All of it," Nancy nearly whispered as the hummingbirds zipped around the feeder hanging just a few feet from where we were sitting. 

My heart felt soft. Just looking around at those in my immediate sphere of influence could bring tears to your eyes unless you can see the bigger picture. "Was it not just in the 1940's that antibiotics were first used on humans? We have been in a pattern of fighting against. We know that when you pick up a stick, you pick up both ends…" 

Nancy nodded her head, and we sat in silence for a few moments before talking a bit about how each of us can meet challenges with unlimited optimism and faith. Nancy told me earlier that morning she had heard Oprah Winfrey speak of Maya Angelou's having taught that message to all blessed enough by grace to hear. 

This morning I am listening to Maya's memorial service for myself. Oprah shared a time she had called Maya, hysterically crying about something so devastating at that moment, but the subject of which Oprah cannot even recall now. Maya immediately spoke truth and wisdom that has benefits for each of us today. 

Maya's beautiful words:

Stop it.

Stop it, now!

Stop your crying now.

Stop and say thank you, because whatever it is, you have the faith to know that God has put a rainbow in the clouds, and you're going to come out on the other side of whatever it is the better for it.

How will we humans navigate the current and coming rough waters of our individual and collective lives? 

We can navigate with enough faith to know that God has put a rainbow in the clouds, and we are going to come out on the other side the better for it. 

Rainbow Flying photo from my dear friend, Dahlis Roy.