Calm Amongst the Storm

When things are going well in your life do you feel something might happen to disturb and disrupt your state of calm? Like a playing child who is suddenly very quiet, it is common in our busy society for people to feel mild anxiety when everything feels quiet and peaceful. Is there really a calm before the storm? Is that old adage correct? Sometimes.

Upsets come in all forms. They ask us, "Can you hold the center of your being while a storm rages?" We can become overwhelmed and shattered by the death of a loved one, illness, betrayal, abandonment, physical, emotional, and psychological pain. We can become despairing over the actions taken by those we love, allowing the choices they make to affect and hurt us deeply. How can we make it through some of life's circumstances with greater awareness, compassion, and wisdom?

Something will come to disturb the calm. It always does. That is part of the human experience - a common one - you can feel great one moment and in the very next moment can receive a phone call or experience a shock that triggers a state of suffering.

I used to believe that much of one’s ability to handle the storms of life has to do with an ability to grieve and heal. I thought, well, we are not taught how to grieve and then to be free from that grief. In many cases we are taught to get over it quickly, go back to work, move on, and certainly don't show so many feelings. As a result, people carry around so much old grief that as soon as a new circumstance arises that creates more suffering, it cannot be managed. It is like the last drop of water that overflows a bucket, the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

I do believe it is vital to grieve fully for past losses and suffering in order to effectively manage life’s storms, but more importantly I think the majority of us can use an attitude adjustment. Instead of complaining (and holding onto the notion) that life has done us wrong, we can accept the ebb and flow of difficult circumstances in life. Simply accept that life is this full, sometimes joyous, sometimes painful and continually soften our heart centers as we move through life.

Why do we resist this so? Perhaps it is because we, our own private worlds, have not acknowledged our unique strengths, power, and ability to endure. So we keep trying to get this recognition outside ourselves: look at what happened to me. And then this happened, and this, and he said this, and she did that, and I was innocent to it all.

To cultivate a practice of remaining centered in the face of storms, try the following:

Breathe. Be aware of your breath in every moment.
Consciously feel any sensations in your body, even discomfort. Energy moves through you and it needs to move through and out. When sensations are avoided and ignored, they tend to bury themselves, percolate, and fester.

Accept life! It's full of events both pleasant and not so pleasant.
Remember and repeat, “This too shall pass.”
Each evening before you sleep, look inward and ask, “Am I holding onto suffering? Am I wanting attention for my pain? Am I willing to change and face life with greater joy?

Hold the conscious, deliberate intention that you will go forward knowing that whatever you encounter, you will be conscious of your attitude and how easy it is to let it drop into negativity. Focus on what you have and the gifts your life has brought you. See the beauty all around you. Force your mind into a higher perspective. Insist on it, and it will happen.

What Do We Do About Death?

We don’t get much training in dying, being with the dying, or what to say to those who have just lost someone very close to them. The subject is generally feared and met with much resistance. We often hear the standard line, “I’m so sorry,” while people languish in their discomfort.

I am interested in how we can approach the subject of death with more reverence and respect. How can we treat it with the sacredness it deserves, rather than something terrible to quickly move beyond?

I’ll not forget the time I spent in the hospital with my dying friend whose body was being ravaged by a rare blood cancer. I sat on her bed, listened to her concerns and life stories, and did myriad tasks at her request. Just before she passed her cousin came to say hello. The cousin stood about 6’ away, purse over shoulder, arms crossed in front of her chest. She had brought her husband and they both had the same look on their faces – a look that said, “Good God, get me outta here.” They scrammed after about seven minutes. This as well as other encounters I witnessed during that time revealed much about how uncomfortable we are with death and dying.

Twice in my life I faced my own mortality - experiences that forever changed the way I look at both life and death. I’ve felt the cutting harshness when friends’ lives ended abruptly, and have helped people heal from painful losses they weren’t ready to accept. Perhaps it is because of these experiences I delve further into this subject, to explore it more deeply, to step into a much-needed role: that of being fully present in the face of dying.

Yesterday, I learned of the death of a sweet friend. He was 80, had lived a long, colorful life, and was fortunate to be at home among the people who love him most as he passed. My heart feels the pang of this loss. In the last several weeks, three people came to me after losing their beloved dogs. One of these touched me so deeply, my tears flowed out mid-session. When we are in relationship with others or when we are serving them, our human side must lead. How can we be fully engaged otherwise?

Two weeks ago I went to a daylong retreat led by Joan Halifax Roshi, a woman who has devoted much of her life to the importance of conscious awareness around dying. She teaches how we can evolve ourselves beyond the current reflex of avoidance to a place of having what she calls a “Strong back, Soft front.” Most of us have this reversed. Our hearts are quite armored and guarded, our backs are slumped and weak.

We can practice being present with a soft front to benefit those passing, those who have just lost someone close to them, and to deepen our wisdom around our own passing. The question is how? How can we put into practice something we know very little about? We begin by being aware of the desire to escape or avoid the inevitable. We can be more aware of our discomfort around this very normal human condition. We can recognize the inclination to say rote things such as, “I’m so sorry,” instead allowing our human side to lead.

When we allow our human side to lead, we have no choice but to have a soft front. We must give the dying or their loved ones the gift of having our full presence with them, not in fear and anguish, but with compassion. This is no easy task, but if you can enter a room with no expectations, setting your own fears aside for a time, with no attachment to the outcome, then you’ve got it. If your arms are crossed over your chest and your purse is hanging on your shoulder, keep practicing.

We are not taught to honor the aging, to bear witness to the suffering of those we love, or to be with death with a strong back. We must learn to do this on our own. So the next time you have the opportunity, go in with a strong back and a soft front. Be fully present in that atmosphere of death, whether it be your own loved one or the loved one of someone you know. When you say something, speak from your heart, leaving behind the canned clichés we know so well. Stop thinking you don’t know what to do or what to say. You aren’t being asked to walk barefoot across hot coals. You are being asked to listen to your soft front and go with that.

Scrooge Brings on the Grief

Tears rolled down my cheeks faster than I could catch them. I believe that was the first time this happened for me at a stage play. I didn’t realize the musical production of Scrooge during the recent holidays would invoke my grief. I wasn’t the only one. I noted that the woman in front of me wiped her eyes as did the woman two seats to my left. Oh good, it wasn’t just me.

What might have been unique to me in this particular setting is that my tears just kept coming, beyond the scene that provoked them. I was unaware that the river behind my eyes was ready to flood its banks. I was unprepared for it to happen while I sat in darkness amongst a crowd of people in the brand new Crocker Theater at Cabrillo College.

I have that multi-talented cast to thank for allowing me to pretend that the ghost of Christmas past was real. And that Scrooge himself was real; indeed he walks among and through us at times. The scene was so well delivered that Scrooge’s grief at not having taken the opportunity to properly have, love, and hold his sister and later his fiancé seemed plausible. So much so, it cracked open my own heart and tapped into all the times I too didn’t take the opportunity to love someone enough. Or maybe I did love them fully, but their time came to pass on from this life. And the grief of these experiences, all rolled up into one lazy river now, spilled the banks.

I’m sure what made part of this so significant was it tied to the sorrow I’ve tried to get beyond since the loss of my special friend Carmela six months ago. Oh, how I tried to say, “This is life, Christina. The older you get, the more people you will see die. We must just move along now, and let her go.” But it hasn’t quite turned out that way.

For some reason I believe I’ve had my fair share of losses in my lifetime and then some. Do all of you feel this way? Maybe we all do. It seems to have been a constant in my life. Some of the losses happened suddenly – my college roommate dying of carbon monoxide poisoning in our house. I was so young then and it was such a tremendous shock, and I didn’t get to properly say goodbye. Some of the losses happened slowly. In that same year, my best college friend died of cancer. I learned early on the practice of letting go, and to try to make some sense out of the fact that even the young ones can leave us when their lives have barely begun.

Even though I’m older now and think I’ve got a pretty good handle on this loss stuff, I discovered these past few months I’m still just a basic human being who has to grieve it on out just like everyone else, every time. Does it get easier? I think it does, and has. I don’t seem to be so surprised or shocked anymore by death. But the grieving process is still hard and takes its own sweet time. It doesn’t let me push it around or rush it along. No, it’s got its own ideas and won’t be managed by someone like me who doesn’t want to feel those feelings.

And so this is what occurred for me at the very end of 2009 as I sat at a lovely, perfectly conducted musical. I was reminded that we are the same in our hearts, even Scrooge and all those we know who possess some of his hard-hearted traits. Maybe it’s just the degree of how deeply we choose to feel what is in our hearts that makes us seem different to one another.

I’m certainly not in a position to critique another person for being what we might call “cold-hearted” toward another person. I think none of us want to feel that deep, cutting pain that comes with a personal loss. I can see the reasoning behind hardening a heart to avoid that pain. But if we do, what of life do we miss that might be extraordinary? The death of my friend Carmela last June has made me grateful for every moment of the 20 years I knew her that I loved her with an open heart. My soul friend and mentor, though I grieve now and have a river running just behind my eyes waiting to spill its banks at any unpredictable moment, I’d do it again. In fact, yes, if given the opportunity, I will.