Always Somewhere Left to Go

I just heard this lovely song for the first time a few days ago, and it's been in my head since I got the good news yesterday:

Don't let the shadows bend you low

because somebody tells you so.

Believe in what you know you know:

there's always somewhere left to go...

"Always Somewhere"
by Krista Detor with Joe Crookston

Pain

Don’t let the title turn you off. This won't be an angsty, weepy post, just some quotes I love from a book that I read a while back and tracked down again yesterday, mainly for one short chapter. The author is Nevada Barr, who mostly writes mysteries, but she’s also written this non-fiction book called Seeking Enlightenment Hat by Hat: A Skeptic’s Path to Religion.

Don’t let religion turn you off either, if it normally does. Barr's thoughts about pain, I think, have a pretty universal relevance.

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She starts with this:

"Somewhere along the line I got the impression pain was currency… I came into adulthood thinking that if I suffered enough, I could somehow get my own way; that pain could be exchanged for forgiveness, acceptance, success, or strength."

Or at least some knowledge and growth, right? (As if these things can't be achieved in other ways.) How do these beliefs affect our behavior? We hold onto resentments as if they can punish the person who hurt us. Also:

"A lot of us have allowed ourselves to become addicted to emotional, if not physical, pain. I remember an unfortunate woman I knew in Minnesota. In unkind moments, her friends would joke that when she introduced herself, she’d say: 'Hi, my name is Alison and I’m in pain.' There was some truth to the joke. She had come to hold pain as an important aspect of her personality; suffering as a replacement for real relationship to others or self.

Another woman of my acquaintance converted her pain into anger and used it to indicate she was not one of the common folk willing to turn a blind eye to the evils of the world, that, unlike us tawdry happy people, she was too good to settle for less."

Oh, I relate to both of those women, more than I want to admit!

Barr's beliefs about the value of pain started to shift when she quit taking the antidepressant medicine that had helped her. She'd felt ashamed to take it. Without it, though, she spiraled "down into the dark places," until she found herself desperately praying one night, "Dear God, what shall I do? Help me? What can I do?" The answer: "Take the damn medicine."

"I came to the conclusion that pain is nothing but pain, a cry from the body or the soul to be healed. Pain itself is merely an alarm bell set off to indicate all is not well, but, in and of itself, it has no value."

I've also heard it described as simply a sign that either something we need is missing or something we can't tolerate exists. In any case:

"When I am in pain it’s hard to be kind, generous, understanding, productive, giving. It’s all I can do just to keep my own head above water. Pain does not make me a better person; it makes me petty and crabby and selfish. And it makes me a liability to others."

She writes about how first responders like EMTs are taught that, before they can be most useful to others at an accident site, they need to ensure their own safety. The same is true on airplanes, where parents are told that, if the cabin loses air pressure, they should put on their own oxygen masks before helping their children. She concludes:

"I have come to believe that it is a duty to relieve our own pain."

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That's a very strong word, "duty." It's not a luxury but a DUTY to relieve our own pain, to the extent that we can, to best serve not only ourselves but also the rest of the world.

Of course, it's easier said than done. Our particular pain doesn't always have a medicine that's specially designed to treat it. And medicines—like all treatments—don't always work. No treatment can guarantee a life that's totally pain-free.

I'm sure that's not Barr's goal. She's just advocating a shift in our beliefs about pain. Yes, it can result in growth, but it can also grind us down, and growth can result from joy too. Pain has no inherent value. It's "nothing but pain": a part of life, not to be pushed away in horror, but also not to be embraced as something that defines who we are.

Resolution

New Year's Eve was always one of my favorite holidays. As a child, I thought it was awesome to stay up late, of course. But it wasn't just party time. As I sat on the couch watching the Times Square events on TV, I'd earnestly write out all my goals for the coming year. What serious business was on my 12-year-old mind? It's long forgotten now.

That routine didn't change much in the next decades. As a teenager and young adult, I still saw New Year's Eve more as a chance to reflect than as a chance to party. (Fourth of July was the time for partying, duh.)

Then there were years, the last few years, when I didn't make any resolutions at all. My goal was to endure. However I managed to do that, pretty much, would be OK.

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This year I'm aiming for the middle ground: no perfectionistic lists, and also no giving up. My single resolution is to have resolution. As in:

Resolution (n.): tenacity, firmness, determination, steadfastness, perseverance, purpose, resolve.

So I got a book from the library called This Year I Will…, which has been helpful. Author M.J. Ryan says:

"Because it takes work, often a lot of work and sacrifice, you have to really want to bring something into being. Deeply, truly, honestly ... Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., encourages us to go beneath the surface to find what she calls our soul resolutions, which are 'based on saying yes to your deepest longings ... Goals rooted in what really matters are far easier to keep.'"

Ryan also recommends making the goals "SMART"—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound—then gives many tips for sustaining motivation.

My specific goal is to get up an hour earlier each morning and walk on my elliptical machine, at least through January (and then I can recommit). Officially, I'll do it for a minimum of just 10 minutes a day. But getting out of bed is the worst part.

Once I get up, get prepared, and get on the machine, the hardest part is over and 10 minutes easily turn into 20, 30, or more. Sometimes I plod along at a steady pace with my nose in a book. Sometimes I bust out the silly dance moves. Often I turn up the music and run flat-out, like something awful is right on my heels.

Even 30 minutes a day is not a big goal. It feels big to me, though, and sometimes a grand (even foolishly so) gesture is just what I need to shake things up.

I know that I need—on the soul level that Ryan talks about—the power that will come from doing this one thing every day, not just in spite of but because of the fact that my energy has been so catastrophically low.

Yes, I really want this goal. I really need the life energy and the will.

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I've felt increasingly beaten down by the TTC waiting and now—worst of all—the relentless bad news about people I dearly love and can't seem to help. It feels awful. Clinging to anything I can control and "fix," I've wondered which parts of the awfulness might be within my control, a product of clouded perceptions or mental story lines...

So much to analyze. Really, though, how much does it matter? In her book, Ryan says this:

"Over the past forty years, I have gathered dozens of theories of why I am the way I am ... But to change something in myself, to bring something new into being, I need to engage a different part of my brain—my right brain, where innovative thinking happens. The right brain is future oriented. It's where our aspirations, our dreams, our longings reside...

In preparing for the change you're about to make, allow your right brain to help you. All it takes is switching from 'why' thinking to 'what could be possible' thinking. Ask 'what' questions rather than 'why' questions: 'What can I do to have more balance in my life today?' rather than 'Why am I a workaholic?' ... Do you notice the difference in the two choices? One leads to rumination and stuckness; the other to creative possibilities and forward momentum."

Frankly, talk about innovation, aspiration, and longing makes me tired. I'm concerned most with today. But even in that small context, I do get what Ryan is saying about staying stuck in analysis vs. building some kind of forward momentum. My exercise resolution is all about the latter. I'll try to articulate why:

• Over time, it may lift my mood and energy.
• It trains me to face whatever is here (circumstances and my reactions to them) with mindfulness.
• It renews my commitment to live consciously in this world, despite its messiness and my own deep reluctance some days.
• It transforms my default state of defended numbness into anger and sorrow, which at least feel alive.
• It makes me breathe, sweat, and let energy flow in and out. When I let things happen, resistance melts away.
• It reminds me that weak muscles (literally and metaphorically) are strengthened by practice, not by rest.
• It builds my courage to do other difficult things.
• Doing it first thing in the morning puts priority on my mental and physical health. First responders like EMTs are taught that, before they can be most useful to others at an accident site, they need to ensure their own safety. I owe the same thing to myself and those I love.
• Doing it every single day builds consistency and discipline. If I make exceptions for a poor night's sleep or a busy day ahead, etc., every single day will end up as an exception. Instead:

Empathy vs Sympathy

This little video is just right:

"Empathy is a choice, and it's a vulnerable choice, because in order to connect with you, I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling. Rarely, if ever, does an empathic response begin with 'At least...' The truth is, rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection."

The Law of Attraction (Part 1)

For years now I've heard about the popular movie and bestselling book called The Secret, which attempt to explain how our minds shape our reality. I've wondered if they might cross into pseudoscience … but hey, who am I to turn down a chance to shape a life that's more fertile, in every sense of the word? Last night, feeling open-minded (and sleepless) I decided to check out the movie finally. The full version is available here.

Warning:
If you enjoyed The Secret and believe it works for you,
you’ll probably be happier skipping my ranty review.

The Secret (the book) by Rhonda Byrne

If you're still reading, I'm going to be honest: it's so much worse than I'd feared. Not only does the movie claim that "like attracts like" (which, in some contexts, I believe) but that it happens "at a level of thought." That’s where they lose me, by stating flatly that "thoughts become things":

"You can have, do, or be—ANYTHING—you want … What kind of a house do you want to live in? Do you want to be a millionaire? What kind of a business do you want to have? Do you want more success? … The Secret is the Law of Attraction. Everything that's coming into your life, you are attracting into your life … Your life is a physical manifestation of the thoughts that go on in your head."

Have you noticed how people who promote these ideas seem especially fixated on attracting stuff (money and objects)? They call it "prosperity" and "abundance," but we all know what that means. I once listened to a meditation titled something generic like "Drawing in the Good," but what it actually involved was picturing money and diamonds dropping from the sky. As the narrator got more and more into it, her voice rose from a soothing meditative drone toward orgasmic levels of delight. I was doubled over laughing. So I guess it did improve my life, just not in quite the way she advertised.

In this film, look at the images that are shown. A woman lusts after a necklace in a store window, and a little boy gawks at a bike, while the speaker promises, "When you think of the things that you want, and you focus on them with all of your attention, the Law of Attraction will give you what you want every time."

Do you want that baby and happy family like I do?? OK, then let's get down to business! How exactly does the Law of Attraction work? Although the references to other laws (like gravity) and quotes from Einstein help create a science-y vibe, most of the experts in this film are identified with titles like Philosopher, Visionary, Author, Therapist, and Feng Shui Consultant. Here an Entrepreneur, Metaphysician, and others explain how it works:

"Every thought has a frequency. We can measure a thought, and so if you're thinking that thought over and over and over again, or you're imagining in your mind having that brand-new car, having the money that you need … If you imagine what that looks like, you're emitting that frequency on a consistent basis … Thoughts are sending out that magnetic signal that is drawing the parallel back to you … It is no more difficult to attract, on a scientific level, something that we consider huge to something we consider infinitesimally small ... See yourself living in abundance, and you will attract it. It always works, it works every time, with every person." 

These last lines are spoken over video of a male model dressing in a snazzy suit and climbing into a limo. There's also footage of mansions, tanned people on holiday, and yes, money falling from the sky.

So if it's this simple, and if it works EVERY TIME, why are you still injecting your poor butt with hormones and spending your limo money on OPKs? The problem is that most people focus on what they DON'T want, so that's exactly what keeps showing up in their lives:

"The Law of Attraction doesn't care whether you perceive something to be good or bad, or whether you don't want it or whether you do want it … Most people have a goal of getting out of debt. That'll keep you in debt forever. Whatever you're thinking about, you'll attract. You'll say, 'But it’s get out of debt.' I don’t care if it's get out or get in; if you're thinking debt, you're attracting debt."

Did you catch that part about how you've attracted all your problems? Let's make it super-duper clear:

"Everything that's around you right now in your life, including the things you're complaining about, you've attracted. Now I know at first blush that's going to be something that you hate to hear. You're going to immediately say, 'I didn't attract the car accident…' [or] whatever it happens to be that you're complaining about. And I'm here to be a little bit in your face and to say, 'Yes, you DID attract it.'"

I don't know about you, but I'm ready to attract some better stuff. It may be too hard to monitor our thoughts all the time. But thoughts cause emotions, and emotions are easier to monitor and change. How to change them? Whatever makes you feel good, just keep doing that thing!

"When you're feeling down, do you know that you can change it like that? Put on a beautiful piece of music. Start singing; that'll change your emotion. Or think of something beautiful—think of a baby! And dwell on it, really keep that thought in your mind, block everything out but that thought."

Block everything out of my mind except babies?  *CHOKE*  Why did I NEVER THINK OF THAT?

Of course, you can think about other good things that are less complicated than babies, like your pets. The key is to use all of your senses to imagine—no, believe—that you already have what you want. You can post pictures on a "vision board" and write lists in the present tense about the great things you've longed for with all your heart for years now the universe is manifesting effortlessly. "It’s you placing your order with the universe. It’s really that easy."

Oh look, a procedure:
1. Ask the universe very clearly for what you want.
2. Believe that it's already yours.
3. Receive it. If you haven't received it yet, repeat Step 2 until you get it right.

If you insist on knowing more about what's going on between Steps 2 and 3, then sorry, you'll have to learn quantum physics. Maybe then you'll understand how "The mind is actually shaping the very thing that's being perceived." If you don't have the time to read metaphysics with your feet up in the stirrups, the short version is this: everything in the universe is energy, and so we're all connected. If those ideas make you feel warm and fuzzy, but you still don't understand how they'll make you pregnant, that doesn't mean you should reject them. Don't be a hater. After all, many things around us (like electricity) work despite our lack of understanding.

How do we know that the Law of Attraction works? We have anecdotes! The ones that bothered me most were the health-related stories—and we're not just talking about a mind-body connection here. We're not just acknowledging that worry may raise blood pressure or the placebo effect may do some actual good. Instead, the film mentions a miraculous cancer cure, kidneys that "regenerate," and so on. Whether these cures resulted from The Law or something else, I’m happy for these people. But the flip side is that they're pointing a finger at me. They're blaming my physical symptoms on such medical problems as my lack of love. That baby I miscarried, whose pre-transfer embryo photo I kept next to my bed for months? Apparently I just didn't love him/her enough.

Diseases are "all the result of one thing: stress. When you put enough stress on a chain, you put enough strain on a system, one of the links breaks … Our physiology creates disease to give us feedback, to let us know we have an imbalanced perspective, we're not loving, and we're not grateful … Disease cannot live in a body that's in a healthy emotional state."

In other words, YOU caused your infertility. But don't feel guilty about it, because guilt will just make it worse. Quick! Think happy thoughts about babies instead! I mean, NO … think about your dog! Damn it, why can't you just relax?

Not only do our negative thoughts and emotions wreak havoc in our own lives, but they ripple out into the world. If you care about issues like poverty, it may be better to visualize abundance than to fight for (and therefore focus on and feel unpleasant feelings about) actual people in need. Fighting things is so negative. "The anti-war movement creates more war. The anti-drug movement has actually created more drugs." If we really want to help, we should focus less on the problems and more on the solutions.

To be fair, this is where The Secret finally starts making some sense to me. As the saying goes, "It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." Of course, this idea is nothing new. Most of the ideas in The Secret, including the ones I agree with, aren't new, like the concept that happiness depends on attitudes as well as circumstances.

Believe it or not, my intention here was not just to blast this movie. On the verge of a very important and stressful month, I sincerely want to consider what I can and can't control, and how to use that control in the most effective, least neurotic ways. That's why this post is going to require a Part 2, which will be much less bitter more positive. To be continued...

Part 2 is here.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

(Naomi Shihab Nye, "Kindness")

Empathy

This beautiful video (courtesy of On Being) reminds me of the Ian Maclaren quote:
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

May I never be so consumed by my own battle that I forget.

Taking in the Good

Lately I've heard several people talk about the importance of gratitude. I wish that counting my own blessings made me feel good in the way that these people described. When I think of the best things in my life, what I feel instead is FEAR: Oh please, don't let me lose this, too! I couldn't stand it! The fear is paralyzing. It makes me feel like there's nothing to look forward to.

How to let the good stuff sink in, to feel gratitude in my heart as well as think it in my head? I'm trying to do what Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius suggest in their book Buddha's Brain: savor the good and even neutral moments as they come up, in a vivid and physical way, to balance out the negative bias of memory.

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom
by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. with Richard Mendius, MD

They explain how our brains evolved to pay more attention to negative experiences than to positive ones, because the negative ones usually had more impact on survival. As a result, our baseline state is one of vigilantly scanning for threats. Also, our brains tend to detect negative information faster than positive information, then emphasize it more in memory. Hanson and Mendius explain how these changes happen neurologically. Then they summarize:

Your brain preferentially scans for, registers, stores, recalls, and reacts to unpleasant experiences; as we've said, it's like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones. Consequently, even when positive experiences outnumber negative ones, the pile of negative implicit memories naturally grows faster. Then the background feeling of what it feels like to be you can become undeservedly glum and pessimistic. 

Sure, negative experiences do have benefits: loss opens the heart, remorse provides a moral compass, anxiety alerts you to threats, and anger spotlights wrongs that should be righted. But do you really think you're not having enough negative experiences?! Emotional pain with no benefit to yourself or others is pointless suffering. And pain today breeds more pain tomorrow. For instance, even a single episode of major depression can reshape circuits in the brain to make future episodes more likely (Maletic et al. 2007).

Oh great, another thing to fear. But they do have a suggestion. Instead of "thinking positive"—sweeping negative realities under the rug while reading a mental list of all the reasons we should feel happier—here's what they suggest:

The remedy is not to suppress negative experiences; when they happen, they happen. Rather, it is to foster positive experiences—and in particular, to take them in so that they become a permanent part of you… 

Turn positive facts into positive experiences. Good things keep happening all around us, but much of the time we don’t notice them; even when we do, we often hardly feel them…Whatever positive facts you find, bring a mindful awareness to them—open to them and let them affect you. It’s like sitting down to a banquet: don’t just look at it—dig in! 

Savor the experience. It’s delicious! Make it last by staying with it for 5, 10, even 20 seconds; don’t let your attention skitter off to something else. The longer that something is held in awareness and the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more neurons that fire and thus wire together, and the stronger the trace in memory (Lewis 2005). Focus on your emotions and body sensations, since these are the essence of implicit memory. Let the experience fill your body and be as intense as possible...

Finally, there's this:

Positive experiences can also be used to soothe, balance, and even replace negative ones. When two things are held in mind at the same time, they start to connect with each other. That’s one reason why talking about hard things with someone who’s supportive can be so healing: painful feelings and memories get infused with the comfort, encouragement, and closeness you experience with the other person.

My Soundtrack

What Doesn't Kill You

Speaking of facing grief with dignity and NOT the standard decorum...

I just listened again to comedian Tig Notaro's mostly ad-libbed show from last summer—just days after her cancer diagnosis. It took my breath away. Here's how this article describes it:

"A frightfully nervous Tig Notaro stood just offstage at the Los Angeles club Largo while Ed Helms introduced her. The audience of 300 and Miss Notaro's fellow performers that August night had no idea what she was about to do. They had no idea she was going to address the trauma and pain that had been the past few months of her life, or relay the bad news she had received just days earlier. They had no idea she was about to perform the bravest set they had ever seen..."

The whole recording is available on iTunes. A free excerpt of it is here.