Spirituality

We have all done it. We’ve all held onto things long after their expiration date.

My weakness is books and magazines. I think some of the most difficult magazines for me to let go of were O magazines (ironic for me since the first TV program on hoarding that I saw was on Oprah). There is some alluring quality about magazines that are chock full of brilliant images and bright content, the glossy, satiny paper and the carnival of inky colored words! Be still, my heart. Before I knew what hit me, two years passed and 24 issues of O Magazines had piled up next to my book case in my home office. Rationally, I knew they needed to go, that I was never going to look at those back issues and the clutter was seriously getting on my nerves. I gathered my O mags and my courage and took them to work and left them on the break room table. What was left at the end of the day went to the recycling bin with a little piece of my heart.

Just this past summer, I finally parted with a very large collection of LIFE magazines from the 1960s. I inherited them from my now deceased husband. They had been stored in my basement for decades. When I sold the house about five years ago, I moved every last one of them to a storage building I own, where they collected dust for five more years.

The LIFE magazine collection was ripe with potential for one reason why people become what has now become known famously as hoarders. This collection had deep sentimental value to me because they belonged to my husband when he was alive. It was somehow comforting to have his things around me and it felt almost sacrilegious to discard things that he had spent his life collecting.

Sentimentality is one of the leading rationalizations of hoarding behavior. It is a feeling we can all understand, but rationally, we know we cannot hold on to everything that once belonged to a deceased loved one. Those with a tendency to hoard get into trouble when this line becomes blurred and they just can’t let go of most of the thingsleft behind after a death.

The proclivity to hoard is deep within a person and skews an otherwise rational person’s ability to separate people and things. This confusion is not limited to lost loved ones, but to the way hoarders views their worth. Many times the need to acquire things offers a certain level of validation.

There is a projection of self-worth onto things such as the kind of house we live in or the kind of car we drive, even our wardrobe and the food we eat. We not only judge a book by its cover, we judge ourselves and everyone else by the cover of things, nicely called assets. Clearly, buying a nice home that we can afford is not a hoarding issue, although it is arguable that it is one of personal identity. For the hoarder, the more stuff they acquire, the more comforted they feel. Unlike love and friendship, things are tangible and serve to fill a hurting heart.

Another theory is that hoarding is somehow a search for significance. Under the guise of a ‘collection,’ the acquisition of things offers a borrowed significance. But, just because the ‘collection’ holds some sort of significance, the significance does not actually transfer to the collector. Significance is not something one can collect or stock pile.

Unfortunately, what we see on television as a curiosity at best and voyeurism at worst is a sad extreme of a quiet obsession inside most of us. That is why we watch. Like the car wreck as we drive past it, that could be us if our circumstances were different.

A hollow heart is a sad thing, and how we try to fill it externally quickly becomes a slippery slope of self-sabotaging behaviors. Hoarding calories that we do not need to survive is no different than hoarding stuff that has no useful purpose and complicates life. The parallels are endless.

There is only one way to validate ourselves and fill our hearts and that is through an internal relationship with our spiritual selves. We are free in this country to define that for ourselves. The answers lie within each of us and there is never a need to hoard the love of the universe because there is a never ending abundance of love in the world.

Will there ever be a popular reality show about that?

If one completes the journey to one’s own heart,

one will find oneself in the heart of everyone else

-Father Thomas Keating

As a coach, I am blessed to work with many wonderful people, each on his or her personal journey to cultivate their life. Often, the catalyst for seeking my services is a sense or feeling of being stuck and unable to move forward. This feeling of being stuck often emerges from a lack or misunderstanding of compassion. The word, compassion,  comes from the Middle English via Old French and ecclesiastical Latin. Its core meaning is to have a sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.

At first consideration, most of my clients tell me that they are very compassionate people, and they usually are. However, compassion is an individual quality and is always defined by the false self, the wounded ego. It is from the heart not the head that true compassion can be defined.

Many times, instead of relating to another person with a sense of sameness, we unconsciously strip them of their true identity and objectify them. We don’t see them as fellow human beings, we see them as the object or cause of our pain, our disappointment or the denial of something we want. This is the only way in which we can direct blame outward. This is the process of becoming someone’s victim.

There is no compassion in this process because we must distance ourselves from who we really are in order to deny who the other person really is. This process is the definition of the  absence of compassion for ourselves and others. When we stop to consider this for a moment, we know in our hearts that this is true.

Compassion is not limited, as the definition above implies, to the misfortune of others in  a physical sense, but is more about our connection with the brotherhood of man. Compassion means to be in touch with our own heart and to see another’s heart within us.  The recognition that we are not separated by what we can see, but are untied by that which remains unseen lies within the heart of compassion and the journey within is always the point of life on earth.

I just had the experience of watching a family meet the newest member of their family a few moments ago. It was moving for me to witness the celebration of a new life. This particular hospital plays a lullaby over the intercom each time a baby is born. As I hear it now, I am grateful it is not for our baby,

I began this blog in late August, while stationed at the hospital where my daughter was trying to keep her remaining twin daughter in utero long enough to give her a fighting chance at life. We lost her identical twin sister at 19 weeks, after an intra-uteran surgical procedure in an attempt to save the girls, Harper and Reese.

The girls developed a rare disorder of the placenta that can only occur in identical twins, It is know as twin to twin transfusion syndrome, or TTTS. In very lay terms, that means that they share vascular connections in which one baby becomes the “donor” and the other baby becomes the “recipient. The donor baby does not receive enough blood to develop properly and the recipient baby has too much fluid, which causes congestive heart failure.

We lost the donor baby, Harper, in the early hours after the surgery and were told of the risks to Reese as she continued to develop. Through love and prayers and a blanket of positive energy, my daughter was able to postpone birth of both babies until 25 weeks. My surviving granddaughter weight 1 pound, 12 ounces when she was born on Septmember 10. Her due date was December 23.

It has been a long road for her mother and father, but they have shown nothing but courage and hope and faith. Courage to face so many obstacles during their first prenancy, hope that all woud be as it should be and faith that little Harper is exactly where she is supposed to be.

Reese got to come home right before Chrismas on her due date and has continued to thrive and grow. There is no feeling like watching her grow and improve daily and observing her journey has taught me that if she can make it through all of her obstables as a tiny micro-preemie baby, I have no excuses. I can do anything.

If you are curious about TTTS they have a foundation and a website:http://tttsfoundation.org

and if you have a friend or loved one who has recently been diagnosed with twins, make certain they know if there is one  placenta. This is a significat indicator of the syndrome, and if diagnosed early enough, there is hope to save both babies.

Our little angel, Harper, is my constant reminder to get the word out about TTTS.

I’ve spent a year of adventure and excitement that has also been frought with deep challenges to my sense of self on a much deeper level than I have ever allowed myself to go before. And in the end, I really did end up in the woods, living in the most primative conditions I have ever experienced. What I learned in the process is still unfolding as I digest each moment I’ve lived for the past year, but one thing is certain, I have an entirely new perspective on prosperity, joy, love, freedom and inner contentment than I ever believed possible. You see, I took the words I read and write, and went out and lived them and I survived, I grew and I blossomed in the process.

My next series of blogs will be my reflections of the life I chose to live in 2009. Thank you for following my blog.

Some people say that it is a fine line between sanity and insanity. As my daughter says, I’ll buy that for a dollar. We also walk a line with our human experience . The line we most often walk is living on auto-pilot rather than in awareness. How do we go through the process of daily life with awareness?

It’s a delicate balance, but not a difficult one. It takes presence. To achieve presence in the moment actually takes, well, presence! It requires us to stop and really notice what we are doing in the present moment, as in, I am working at my desk, I am driving my car, I am washing the dishes, the sky is blue, I feel the sun on my face, I feel happy.

The cost of not being present is that we live a life that is marked by the past and punctuated by fear, anxiety and conjecture about the future. All the while, we miss today. We miss out on our own life. I often hear people say, “where has the week gone?” Sometimes we experience momentary awareness and realize entire years, decades even have passed mostly unnoticed and unlived.

An anchor of some kind serves as a reminder to stop and notice what we are doing. Like the infamous string around the finger, we all need something that anchors us and supports us as we forge a new habit. Even if we only have one moment of presence and awareness a day, it would be a step forward for most of us.

I wear a little bracelet that serves as my anchor. When I look at it, I am reminded to stop and be conscious and deliberate about what I am doing, like really looking my 7 year old grand-daughter in the eyes and listening to her tell me about her day at school, really hearing her, noticing her brown eyes and shiny black hair and funny little gestures. In the past, I have set a chime on my computer to remind me to stop and really be in the moment.

The possibility presence creates for us is endless. In presence we have the ability to create anything we desire. Relationships become real, life becomes rich, joy becomes full.

Every moment is precious. The old saying is, “They don’t call it the present for nothing! Presence is a gift!”

Be present to that.

When I was in high school in the 1970s, A spoken-word recording of an essay, penned in 1927 by Max Ehrmann, was made by Les Crane and reached #8 on the Billboard magazine charts in late 1971. The Desiderata was essentially a manifesto for living a meaningful life and it spoke to me as I came of age.

Here are some basic facts about what was going on in the United States during the 1920s, the era when this essay was born from the heart and mind of Ehrman, compliments of the Kingwood College Library:

106,521,537 people in the United States
2,132,000 unemployed, Unemployment 5.2%
Life expectancy: Male 53.6, Female 54.6
343.000 in military (down from 1,172,601 in 1919)
Average annual earnings $1236; Teacher’s salary $970
Dow Jones High 100 Low 67
Illiteracy rate reached a new low of 6% of the population.
Gangland crime included murder, swindles, racketeering
It took 13 days to reach California from New York There were 387,000 miles of paved road.

Some basic facts about the decade of the 1970s are offered from the same source:
Population: 204,879,000
Unemployed in 1970: 4,088,000
National Debt: $382 billion
Average salary: $7,564
Food prices: milk, 33 cents a qt.; bread, 24 cents a loaf; round steak, $1.30 a pound
Life Expectancy: Male, 67.1; Female, 74.8

The point I’d like to make is that regardless of where we are in life, when we are born or what is going on around us, deep within us, our soul’s desires change little. Outside of the ego structure that we have developed through out our lives, I assert that our authentic and essential selves remain pure and untouched.

I offer this beautifully wise and inspired essay as it is found in it’s copyrighted format:

DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others; even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in oyur own career however humble; it is a real posession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism

Be yourself. Espacially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy

MAX EHRMANN 1927

Writer’s note: This is an article I wrote one year ago and was originally published in The Newcastle Pacer and Inside Southside newspapers. I share it here now as an offering of remembrance to those who suffered loss on April 19, 1995.

A run to remember—A view from the road

When I began this series of columns about creating the best year of my life last January, completing the 2007 Oklahoma City Marathon was already a goal. It was a goal despite the fact that I had only been running consistently since September. And when I spoke the words aloud, I fought back the nagging little voice within that whispered, who do you think you are? You’re not a runner! You have never been able to run, even as a kid. What makes you think you can say something like that?

I didn’t really know where to start, so I searched online and found a mileage build up schedule that would get me ready to begin actual training for the marathon. I did what the schedule said to do, one day at a time, one step at a time. My goal was to complete the build up phase by December 31, 2006. With that behind me, my next goal was to train for the marathon over the next four months.

Some weeks my training came with ease. Some weeks, I counted every step. I ran in the wind and the rain and the sleet and on the snow. I ran in the daylight and I ran in the darkness. In fact, I fell in the darkness one evening after work, injuring my left clavicle, although not seriously. Regardless of how grueling a training run was, I always ended with a real sense of accomplishment that I ran the mileage on my own two feet.

I had the joy of running with one of my daughters at least once a week,on the long Sunday runs. She and I ran the Marathon together. I had the support of all of family and friends, and practically every step I ran, I was followed closely by my husband, who rode his bike faithfully behind me. He carried a back pack filled with water, sports drinks, energy blocks, chap stick, gloves…any thing he thought I might need to make it, he carried on his back.

The view from the road is unique. Neighborhoods offer up their personality to the passing runner. Some are teeming with children, while others are more mature. Trees of a feather tend to flock together. Sprinkler begatssprinkler. Where one luscious green lawn thrives, three others aspire to its velvety beauty. Horse ranches sprawl out along the river bottom in the ten mile flats in Norman. City drivers are distracted and hurried. Country drivers raise their right index finger to say hello. Sunrise breaks with promise and clarity. Sunset retreats with a bonnet of calm.

I ran through five pairs of shoes and covered a few thousand miles. I learned about stretching and soaking and the power of little things that add up over the miles. I realized how much I had taken for granted and how ungrateful I could be. I found the inner strength to challenge what I knew to be possible for myself and ran through that wall.

When I arrived at the event in the wee hours of Sunday morning, the darkness obscured everything from my vision. As I pushed my way past other runners, a vision emerged from the blackness. From nothing rose 168 lighted chairs, floating above a serene, still water. I clutched my throat as I thought back to 9:03 a.m. on April 19, 1995.

I fought back tears as I sat down on the steps. I absorbed the presence and the purpose and the dignity with which these individuals gave up their lives. I understood in my soul that I was on holy ground. When the prayer service began under the Survivor Tree at 5:30 a.m. I knew exactly why we run. We run to remember.

I did not run alone. When I felt weak or tired or hot or thirsty, I remembered the 168 souls for which I ran. They inspired my every step. They were with me every step of the way, offering courage and strength and life. It took me 5 hours, forty minutes and forty-six seconds to cover 26.2 miles, and when I crossed the finish line strong, cheered on by my loving family and supportive friends, I knew why I had run. I ran to remember.

People pleasing is one of the greatest epidemics known to mankind. It seems that we will do whatever it takes to please others and make them like us. Another motive for people pleasing is to avoid conflict, confrontation or our own truth.

We have been taught from an early age that we should be nice and in order to be nice, we attempt to please as many people as possible an any given moment. And if you are saying to yourself at this moment, that you never try to please people, I am going to assert that you are , in fact, a people-pleaser and are unaware of it.

When we are caught in the people pleasing mode, we completely abandon ourselves and our own needs. This leads to a loss of personal power and ultimately to resentment and anger. When we say yes when we really mean no, we build up a residual resentment against the very people we are trying to please.

A typical example of this is the husband or wife who martyrs him or herself for the good of the other. This results in a set of unspoken expectations. When the other person fails to meet these expectations, resentment accumulates. Eventually, the resentment is so huge it can be difficult, if not impossible for an individual to see beyond.

When the wife of 40 years looks at her husband and sees only the ways he has disappointed her over the years, she is caught in the trap of people pleasing. She becomes blinded to the reality that this is the person with whom she has spent her life, her partner and friend. She has covered up his vulnerabilities as a fellow human being. Both her eyes and her heart have been covered over by the imagined wrongdoings of her husband.

What began, as people pleasing results in a separation from those we love the most. We have to be true to ourselves within our acts of kindness. We have to understand that saying yes when we mean no is not the road to happiness and well-being. It is the road to loneliness and isolation.

Standing in one’s own power means to be confident and courageous enough to be honest and say what we mean. We all want to be liked by others, but the truth is that regardless of what we do, half of the people will like us and the other half probably won’t.

What is really important is that we love our self enough to risk the opinions of others. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true,” for when we cannot be true even to ourselves, we cannot be true to another.

Projection of the unconscious psyche is often the most difficult concept we must digest in our experience of awakening. It’s counter-intuitive to consider that literally everything in the depths of our unconscious psyches is seen outside ourselves in a projected form. This continues until the day we finally begin to consider that it is at least possible that we are projecting and that much of what we are seeing, judging, blaming and reacting to in others, in very real fact, exists within our own unconscious minds.

Projection and our lack of understanding about it causes untold suffering. Our lives suffer on every level and in every experience because we consistently project our own unwanted, rejected or denied qualities onto others. In short, we don’t see others as they are, we see others as we are. Because we don’t understand this, we suffer in our relationships, careers, spirituality, how we experience fun and joy and most of all we suffer because we limit our own potential.

We assign meaning to what other’s say or do based on our own unconscious deeply held beliefs of who we think we are and our beliefs. This dynamic of the phenomenon of projection is a true gift, because without it, we could never see what is real within us. Without it, we would never begin to step into our own powerful presence and we would never have any choices. We would be stuck inside a hall of mirrors, mocking and rejecting the distortions of our own image, rejecting these unfamiliar aspects of ourselves over and over. Sadly, this process of denial of our true nature and rejection of our selves becomes the definition of a lifetime. The cycle of projection is without end as long as we are unaware of it.

We can only see ourselves through reflection. Externally, that means that we would have no idea what our physical body looks like without the reflection of a mirror, water or some other reflective surface. We can only see our inner selves through the projected reflection of our reactions to others. What we react to, positively or negatively, in other people or situations is always about us.

I often say that things either affect or inform us. That’s my quick way of analyzing where I am coming from in any situation. As an example, I met a woman last summer that very quickly began to tell me all the dynamics of the group I had just entered. She informed me about who could be trusted and not, who was greedy, who had the ‘affair’ and who I was to simply avoid. As she talked, I began feeling really uncomfortable. I listened for a bit, taking it all in before I heard my internal dialog kick in. First, I thought she might be a very insecure person. That was a possibility. At this point, I was comfortable in knowing that this was merely information. I did not feel the need to form a self-righteous position and make her wrong. I made the decision that it would probably be in my best interest to limit our contact, and I have. This informed me.

A few short years ago, one of two things would have happened. I would have either joined in her observations and become her friend and our wounded egos would have validated each other in our self-righteous positions that said we know everything about everyone and we can judge them. Or, I would have formed my own SRP about this woman and made her wrong and judged her as a bad person because she is such a nasty gossip. I might have even passed my judgment of her on to someone else. I would have been totally affected.

Being able to observe my own action or reaction to a person or a situation has given me an incredible perspective from which to evaluate whether I am projecting my own unconscious ’stuff’ onto another or merely noticing the behavior. There is much freedom and power in cultivating the ability to be the observer in one’s own life.

If I had been affected by the woman mentioned above, I would begin the projection process by making her wrong, stupid, nosy, petty, etc. In my judgment of her, I am projecting my own disgust and rejection of the wrong, stupid, nosy, petty person inside of me.

Come on, there’s a stupid, nosy, petty person inside all of us. So what? Can we love ourselves anyway? Only when I can accept that I possess those qualities as well, can I allow another to have them without making them wrong. It’s none of my business. It’s not my place to judge her.

It is my job to notice when I have been petty, nosy and a gossip in the past, forgive myself for it and get on with life. I can make a huge difference in how I experience this group just by making that one choice. I can also have an impact on others in the group by choosing to show up as authentically tolerant and willing to see each person as whole and complete and enjoy them just as they are. I can never do this until I can accept my own flaws and weaknesses. I can only do this when I am willing to stop being embarrassed by my humanity.

This, too, is projection. But, that’s another blog!

I had an enlightening call with a client today about gratitude. What is gratitude and why should we cultivate it?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), gratitude is defined as:

gratitude |ˈgratəˌt(y)oōd|
noun
the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness : she expressed her gratitude to the committee for their support.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French, or from medieval Latin gratitudo, from Latin gratus ‘pleasing, thankful.

Today’s call brought a focus on gratitude as a way to stay present. Gratitude is more than just a quality, as defined above. To me, gratitude is a way of being, a choice and a lifestyle. Gratitude is a goal and living in gratitude is an ongoing process. Gratitude is a measure of personal honesty, emotional availability, compassion and generosity. Gratitude is a measure of authentic abundance and it is available to any of us when we make the quiet choice to be grateful in what ever moment we find ourselves.

It is impossible for anger and gratitude to co-exist. I cannot be angry with you if I am grateful for you. I cannot make myself wrong if I am grateful for my life. I cannot blame others if I practice gratitude for what is, regardless of how I may feel.

I began to practice gratitude regularly around 1997. That was the first year that I kept a Gratitude Journal. Each day I noted five things for which I was grateful. I usually did this at the end of the day, which brought a lot of awareness into every day. I had to be present in the moment in order to notice and make note of a moment for which I could be grateful. The practice of the Gratitude Journal helped me remain accountable to my commitment. I got up each day knowing that I had to find at least five things I could feel grateful for by the end of the day. On days that I just didn’t get to it or forgot or feel very grateful, I’d always make those days up the next time I went to my journal. Once in a while, I’d get a few days behind and have to come up with 15 things!

The practice proved to be useful and fulfilling, so I kept it up. After a while, noticing what’s right in my world became a habit, like complaining, only the opposite. It seemed like good things happened all the time! Why? It’s like when you buy a new car and then you start noticing how many other cars like it are driving down the road. Grateful greatness was popping all around me because I was willing to see it, acknowledge it, feel it and claim it.

I pulled the 1997 version of my Gratitude Journal from the bookshelf today and shared a few of my entries with my client. I’ll share them here:

April 11, 1997: feeling in-touch with myself, jazz music, God within me, my higher self, my sense of security; April 9, 1997: Easter eggs and not having to dye any this year, the freckles on Heather’s (my daughter) face, Brooke’s (daughter) big smile, Hillary’s (daughter) growing sense of humor; April 14, 1997: Making good choices for me, taking care of my family, seeing Jennifer’s (daughter) smile, Dr. Pepper, my years with Lee (deceased husband, 2002). April 16, 1997: facing my fears, learning how to relax, the sun after many days of rain, friendship, this moment that is my life.

Looking back at these grateful moments from 11 years ago bring immense gratitude to me in the now. My freckle faced daughter is on her way to Vet school, my daughter with the growing sense of humor will graduate from Nursing school on May 10, 2008, my daughter with the big smile is a grown woman who is married with three children of her own. It is gratifying to see that I had actually stopped to be grateful for my husband, Lee. I had no way of knowing then that he had just five short years to live.

That is the point of gratitude. That’s why we care. That’s why we cultivate a grateful heart. We cultivate gratitude because we cannot change the past, nor can we know the future. What we have is now, this day, this moment in which to offer up a grateful notion.

Gratitude takes courage. In the moment of heart-breaking disappointment, the humanity within us will not suggest gratitude. That is when making gratitude a way of being can mean the most. When we live with gratitude, we are never alone or down and out. With gratitude we rest assured that eventually we will see what’s right in even the seemingly worst person or situation, even if we don’t like it or want to at that moment.

Today, I am grateful that I am feeling more like myself, happy and optimistic, the blue sky, my husband, my children and grandchildren, my health, the little bird just outside my window, spring and you.

Keep a Gratitude Journal. It will change your life!