Moving Into Fear (or Basic Buddhism for Skiers) March 24, 2012

Skiing has taught me one thing with certainty – resistance only increases the chance of receiving the opposite outcome than I intended.

For those of you unenlightened non-skiing people, here is a brief ski lesson: the front end (tip)  is the steering end, the back-end (tail) acts as a gas pedal.  Regardless of my young friends tendencies to straight-line it, skiing is about making turns to get downhill.  In order to make move or make the ski turn we must pressure the front end by shifting our weight forward – and thus, downhill.

This seems easy in writing, but when faced with a steep slope (whatever that means to us personally), the intuitive response is not to lean forward, but sit back in avoidance and concern for our safety.  As we resist the downward velocity of the slope, we increase speed (weight on tails) while losing steering ability (lack of weight on tips).  When we feel it is becoming more difficult to “stay in control”, we resist further, losing the momentum that carries us from turn to turn and so we increase unnecessary movements with our bodies. Resisting  the inevitable (we choose this downhill sport!) we work twice as hard, use more muscle, and have less fun to get down the hill  than if we had simply trusted our ability to make each necessary turn.

In our fear, justified or not, we completely lose connection to flow.  As we humans are uncomfortable with a loss of control, we tend to do one of two things: give up, determining that it is not right for us or, we continue to flail our way downhill, determined to “do this” no matter what, using extra energy in the process, risking injury and losing all sense of enjoyment.  We blame our difficulties on the conditions (too icy/not the right time) , circumstances (there was a snowboarder in the way/I didn’t have enough money) ,  or random half truths (my feet hurt/she was a bitch). Really, we are resisting leaning into that which scares us but is nevertheless required to move through on our way towards our goals.

And what are we afraid of? Failure. Risk. Getting hurt. Looking stupid. Going out of our comfort zone. Losing control.  The list goes on.

As if these were all things we have dominion over in the first place.

Life is scary.  Personally, I seem to attract drama like poop does flies. Poverty, unemployment, illness, stupid people; you name it. But when I was told I had cancer, the complete lack of control over that diagnosis made me stop thinking I could/should try to direct everything my life. Instead I began to learn to accept that life simply is what it is – just like the mountain.  My choice is to engage or not, and how I want to do that is up to me. My reactions to situations are often the only thing I can control. This shift in perception makes it easier stay on tip of my skis and stop resisting the flow of life. I must stop worrying about what might happen, and stay present in what is happening to move toward my goals.

Flow doesn’t mean that is always smooth, but there is a sense of direction, purpose and intention that seems right somehow. In skiing, flow is the glorious sensation of sliding through silky snow even though you occasionally still getting bounced around. Each turn follows the next with relative ease until you stop at the bottom laughing, and say to your buddies, “man, that was SWEEEEEET!”

Skiing teaches me about life on and off the hill. There was nearly a foot of relatively good snow when I went up this week to ski off a bad situation at work. I was faced with a choice that either way was likely to result in unemployment or unhappiness. I had a headache for a week over it. Unemployment is scary and it seemed stupid to draw a line about something that was relatively trivial, but my goal is living a more authentic, heart centered life in which I do not compromise on what is important to me. As I argued with myself over every angle of the situation, I could feel myself flailing, losing control, and working far too hard.  I was using up valuable energy trying to stop forward momentum,  because I was afraid to move into my fears about unemployment and what I thought it said about me.

And so I leaned forward.

It isn’t comfortable at first.

I have my moments as a great skier, but I am often freakishly forcing turn after turn by over-rotating my shoulders and hips; hopping my feet and flinging my arms around to make it happen.  I arrive at the bottom exhausted, but somewhere in each run, there is usually at least one or two linked turns where I was simply “in it” and I get back on the chair.

I often make skiing – and life – more difficult than it needs to be in my lack of trust. And that is what it is….learning to trust that by not struggling with the struggle (as my friend Carole says) you will arrive at your destination with much less effort.  Control is an illusion – what will happen, will happen, and our flailing only increases the chance of it happening badly.

Skiing is not an easy sport, and neither is life, but by committing to my intentions, I get the opportunity to experience relative effortlessness sometimes. That feeling of being in the flow, is the most glorious feeling ever. It  keeps me addicted to this ridiculously expensive sport and to life in general.

As I sit at my computer writing, now newly unemployed, I am curiously observing flow around me.  It is a bit bumpy and there is that “whoa, who….aaaah, WHOAH!” sensation I have on the hill when it feels like things are about to get dicey.  But I also have some of that sensation of floating along and I am committed to not trying to steer this from the backseat. I keep humming to myself a skiing version of Dori’s song  from “Finding Nemo”: “Just keep turning, just keep turning!!”.

I know when I get to the bottom of this run, I will jump around and say: “THAT was so friggen AWESOME!!!!  Did you see when I almost lost it and then I pulled it together and it was like……YEAH! LETS DO IT AGAIN!”

 

(this seems to be a theme with me…if it is for you too check out my posts Resistance is Futile  and I am Committed to This…I think)

Namaste Revisited January 20, 2012

I forget I have only one boob.  At least once every day – even though it has been years since it was carved off to save my life – I forget and have to go through the mental rearrangement to accept the unacceptable. Like popping a lemon drop candy in your mouth only to find it is cinnamon flavored, it takes a bit for the brain to re-arrange its visual input to coincide with reality. When it happens it is always hard; it is a scab that gets picked constantly by outside forces even when I’ve managed to move on.

As I re-started my yoga practice after several months absence, I  sat and took a deep breath as I brought my hands into Namaste and was asked what I bring to the mat to be released.  Tears pricked my eyes as I felt the pressure of one real breast and one latex prosthetic against the back of my hands, having forgotten AGAIN that this was my so-called “Divine” self.  I am reminded of how hard it is – how often I am reminded, how often I forget, and how much self-compassion it takes each day to move through this loss.

At the beginning and end of every yoga class, as well as multiple times throughout, we are asked to bring our hands together in Namaste.  For those non- yogi’s, the “Namaste” gesture is made by placing your hands in prayer position with your  thumbs resting in the center of your sternum at your heart chakra.  Namaste is a gesture of honoring that roughly  means “I bow to you”. My favorite translation goes something like: “The Divine in me greets the Divine in you.  And when You and I are in this place, we are One.”

I have always struggled with this concept of honoring the Divine in me. If I contain the Divine, than it must look something like Kali – the Hindu Goddess of Destruction, sprinkled with a bit of Mae West and the tiniest dash of a peaceful Bodhisattva.  Surely the Divine is pink lit and gentle, not this pain riddled, hyperactive, full-of -extremes joy-ride of a life.  As I sit here, again placing my hands in a gesture intended to remind me of who I really am, not what circumstances have made me, I try to breathe in acceptance of this moment  and this self, regardless of  its imperfections.

The Namaste gesture is held at the heart chakra  – and so is all my pain.  Not only do I have to work at accepting the meaning of the gesture, I must also consciously examine and release the physical pain that binds my chest following cancer treatment and thus, by proximity,  binds my heart.  The pain is not only uncomfortable but causes muscle tightness that restricts my breathing and mobility.  The more I try to shield myself from the pain, the greater it gets as I tighten down. As yoga opens up the musculature in my chest, it also opens the emotional body within me – releasing constriction  – and hopefully  freeing me to move more fully in the world – physically, emotionally and spiritually.  The only answer to my pain and to my healing is to accept it, and let go.

The heart chakra is also the home of compassion and balance.  The irony that my body is now partly masculine (flat chested and unable to bear children) and feminine (a full breast and still those hormones!) is not lost on me as I practice yoga. It reminds me to bring both aspects into balance within me.  The internal and the external realities of my self- perception may seem to be in conflict, but in truth only support one another, pushing me to be more than I think I am. My heart still lurches when I am reminded of my losses, but here on my mat I consciously open into that pain. In accepting instead of pushing away the grief, I bring the Divine joy in life and the grief of its losses – the polarity’s that make up my life – into balance.  In this acceptance lies the path to enlightenment – for both the peaceful Bodhisattva and for the Goddess Kali who had to accept grief in order to transform violence to love.

Accepting that the Divine resides within is accepting a life that is not void of pain, but one is greater than it.  Physical pain and grief are an endless well in me some days- the losses have been many and the compromises I have been forced to make are heart-wrenching.  But, such is the way of the Divine – it is encompassing, not exclusive,   and cares  only in how we choose to move forward, not what has occurred in the past.

Perhaps my continuous shock of realizing that I am missing a body part  is only a reflection of how whole I actually feel.  Maybe it is like the moments when I suddenly realize standing next to someone of “normal stature” that I am actually short. I feel GIGANTIC…how can I be so tiny?  This is not a moment of pain – it is a delight that I make such a large footprint in the universe with such small stature.  Maybe, as the years turn, this pain too – this loss and grief over my feminine identity – will turn to joy with the realization that I am so much more than this body.  In the meantime, as I bow my head and bring my hands into Namaste, I work again to honor the Divine in me – the blessed wound that keeps bringing me to a place of compassion and presence and examination of what is true. Though sometimes this wound is fresh, the pain always eventually recedes in the light of the joy that is this life.  A balance that is indeed wholly (holy?) Divine.

Namaste.

Be The Change Part 2 – What We Should Have Learned From Occupy Wall Street December 30, 2011

Occupy Wall Street protests are fading into the past (for better or worse) as tent cities have been shut down and the nations short attention span has moved on to something else.  Whether or not OWS accomplished any of its goals in impacting the way that big business is run and governed in the US, it cannot be taken lightly that this was a tremendous opportunity for the “regular citizens” to proclaim their outrage at the freedoms and benefits a small portion of the population receives.  But OWS’s lack of leadership seemed to be its downfall and the teachable moment never really happened while  the media  focused on police pepper-spraying protesters , fringe group troublemakers and the dollar cost of our freedom of speech.

This was an opportunity not  only for us to voice our disillusionment, but to make small changes that, when undertaken by people en mass, make big differences in our lives, in our communities and in our economy.

We will not change the world without first changing how we are in connection to it.

Here is my list of  10 things we can each do that seem small, but do make a difference: 

1. MOVE YOUR MONEY TO A CREDIT UNION   November 5, 2011 was National Bank Transfer Day…a deadline by which consumers were encouraged to leave for-profit banks and move their money to credit unions.  In September credit union membership grew by 227,000; October by 214,00 and in the first week of November alone, by  40,000 new members.  Now if all of these people ONLY moved $100 each….which I am sure is far below average….well, that means that is over $48MILLION dollars moved from profit banks to local non-profits.  It may have not made a huge dent, but it made a dent.  And it created awareness. But more importantly, it brought your money back to the community – to smaller banks who invest in their communities.  It is easy to do, and don’t forget to move loans, mortgages and credit cards too.
2.  SHOP LOCALLY AND THINK SMALL  Stay out of chain stores as much as possible and shop local, small businesses.  In most cases you will not pay more, and really – even if it costs you a few dollars more, aren’t you glad you dealt with the OWNER???  Most small businesses feature local products so you are making a double impact on the lives of the people in your community.  Find your farmers market.  Use a non-chain store mechanic.  Eat at the local burger joint if you have to have fast food.
3.  GET OUT  Go outside and play. Go for a walk.  Take a hike. Ski.  Get yourself into the outdoors.  You don’t know what is worth saving until you have an experience with it.  Pick up garbage.  Join a trail cleanup crew.  Take your dog to the dog park. When you go for a walk, you meet neighbors, discover interesting new coffee shops, trails and flora and fauna all while you get exercise. People who spend time outdoors are the ones who work to protect it.
4.  TURN OFF YOUR TV  Television tricks us into believing that the lives of spoiled kids from Jersey are important and that we must spend $200 on high heels to be beautiful.  Mainstream media is for-profit, meaning that what they put out there for news/entertainment must be profitable. That means they are trying to get you to believe and to buy. You may think you are immune, but you are not….commercials are designed to subliminally affect us, violence dulls us and images of “beauty” demean us.  Nearly all children’s media is full-fledged brainwashing of our newest consumers with splashy graphics, coordinating clothing lines and stuffed toys.  Purse alternate media sources, listen to NPR, put down the remote and experience your community in person.
5. START A GARDEN It doesn’t have to be big, nor do you need skill, tools or experience.  A pot, dirt and a plant/seeds is all you need.  This is especially important if you have kids.  Growing things  outdoors puts us in tune with the weather, pests and the necessity of care and attention – all of which we forget when out world is so pre-packaged/protected. It is only by having a garden that the reality of global weather pattern changes sink in – I now plant the bulk of my garden almost 2 months later than I did 20 years ago.  And it is still too cold for some plants.  I would never have noticed otherwise except to complain about “bad summers”.
6.  STOP NEEDLESS SPENDING  Stop the consumer debt.  Pay off your credit cards.  Don’t buy the “thing” just because it is a dollar off on sale unless you really need the “thing”.  Stop habitual spending, stop emotional spending.  Pay attention to where your money goes – track it.  Whether you have a lot of it or a little you will be surprised at where it goes.  Cancel catalog subscriptions so that merchants are not telling you what you need and reminding you every month  with sales flyers  on already overpriced items.  You will be more satisfied with what you have if someone is not always reminding you what you don’t have.
7.  VOICE YOUR OPINION  You have a voice – use it.  If a company is treating you unfairly, tell them.  Take your business elsewhere.  Write a letter to the newspaper or to a ratings website or local news agency consumer group.  Don’t blow it off for the next guy to get ripped off or offered bad service.  You are not at their mercy. Vote – or don’t vote, but be politically active not neglectful or lazy.
8. VOLUNTEER You and your talents are needed.  It does not always require a big time commitment – I am a 3 year volunteer for a program that needs me only an hour or two a month – and even that is over the phone!  Volunteering gets you out into the community providing valuable perspective on your own life.  As the economy has suffered, many non-profit organizations have had serious declines in funding and need volunteers more than ever.  Pick your passion and put it to work. People need you.
9.  REDUCE, REUSE,RECYCLE  Ride the bus and get to know your neighbors and come home with crazy stories like I do!  Consolidate chores needing driving, carpool when you can, and take mass transit as often as possible.  Better for the environment and less dollars in the oil company’s pockets.  Don’t waste resources – make sure to recycle, buy in bulk, carry your own grocery bags.  Shrink the size of your garbage can and grow the size of your recycle.  Carry your own water bottle, coffee cup or silverware for takeout food.
10.  BELIEVE IN WHAT IS POSSIBLE  NOT WHAT IS IMPOSSIBLE We become negative when we are overwhelmed and there is much to overwhelm us politically, environmentally and financially.  But manifestation works by focusing on what you don’t want to happen as well as what you do want to happen.  Spend your energy on creating the future you want, step by step.  It is a marathon, not a sprint and your efforts may look small and insignificant, but  I assure you that everything you do with intention is anything but insignificant.

(This post was largely inspired by the book “Small Wonder” by Barbara Kingsolver…..a terrific collections of essays I suggest you find at your local independent bookstore  or through  The Elliot Bay Book Company  which ships!!)

Cultivating asparagus April 20, 2011

I have been putting in an asparagus bed this Spring – an interesting process for a girl with some serious commitment issues. Growing asparagus takes a lot of preparation and care and needs to be left alone for two years before it is harvested. And not only does it take forever  before you can eat it, it hogs a whole lot of energy and valuable space. In order to make room for it, 2 large sheds got taken down, a ton of gravel was moved and a hundred wheelbarrows full of dirt were hauled across the yard to fill the 4’x11’x14” bed that will house a cluster of weedy looking roots. Counting a full year of planning and preparation, by the time I have a piece of roasted asparagus on my plate, nicely seasoned with olive oil, garlic and a little lemon pepper, I will have labored over it for three years without it even reaching its peak production for  several more. I’m preparing to commit to this vegetable longer than most things in my life.

My kids and I moved nearly 20 times in the nineteen years we lived together. We relocated for good reasons, and for bad….we have moved all of our stuff into storage units while we lived out of boxes, and unpacked full of hope time and time again. Each time I carefully packed the collection of bird nests my daughter said I kept because I was looking for my own place to nest. Each new home was like a new garden…an empty space waiting to be filled, full of promise that if I worked hard enough, it would be bountiful. In each I tended a garden of some sort, full of hope that the seeds I planted would unleash abundance on us.

Gardening is where the dreamer in me shines – where I can jump in head fist and watch the magic happen. It is a small world I get to be god of. I spent many winters reading garden catalogs, making plans and buying far more seeds than I ever really needed. Always hoping that this would be the one I got to keep, I threw my whole heart in with wild abandon. I dug every new garden myself, asking for and receiving no help…moving turf, hauling rocks and constructing beds.The problem was I spent little time distilling what I REALLY wanted, had the time and energy for  and whether the conditions were really right. It was one big all-or-nothing-try-everything-in-hope-that-something-works. Regardless of the suitability of the land to what I wanted, I attempted to build my dreams in an energetic frenzy of dirt moving and shit hauling.

Ironically (or maybe not) no matter how many times I planned, dug and sweated, or even how long I was able to tend that particular garden, I never really harvested what I planted. I confess – shamefully – I was a lifetime gardener who didn’t enjoy the fruits of her labors. Sure, I would nibble out of it and give stuff away to neighbors and friends, but as for harvesting and making the most of every zucchini, bean or lettuce leaf – well, most of it rotted. For all the time, energy, and work I put in, I never really got to be nourished by it. I dove in headfirst with enthusiasm and hope but was blinded by the enormity of possibility. I would lose focus, forget to water, get distracted and soon  it was too late. The window of opportunity was gone.

In my garden I had a big idea of what I wanted – but it was like comparing a relationship to a grocery store romance novel — little connection with reality or possibility. Even though I dreamed big and worked hard on it, it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted or capable of maintaining and I had to give up mid-stream. And all these years of running to and from many things – and myself  - meant that I had never learned how to cultivate my dreams. My lack of abundance in other areas of life left me seeking, yet unable to harvest, my dream anything much less garden. A lack of clarity about what I wanted had me planting far more seeds that I was interested in or able to take advantage of. I was a spectacularly hard worker but not so good at doing all that would have resulted in a successful harvest. When the garden had finally reached its maximum fertility and was ready to give back, I let the branches break for the weight of the fruit, and the stalks fell over top-heavy.  It was survival of the fittest…the toughest plants survived the attention/neglect then got packed up and moved on with me. The rest was left unapologetically in the compost heap.

This post was about gardening right?

To an outsider gardening looks like you can just plant, sit around watching it grow, pull a few weeds and then feast. It takes a great deal more planning and preparation in order to be successful. Choices about time and place, long term goals and quality of the available resources are critical to being able to continue productivity for the long term. The daily tending is critical to keeping it healthy.  And like so much of life, it is the small things you do that result in abundance. Sometimes in the in-between, when you are just tending to the dream, it is easy forget your intention and get distracted. Gardening and life are a constant re-commitment to the process –even when it looks like nothing is happening. We have to trust in the unseen, to believe that our care matters. Sometimes we have to re-evaluate mid-stream, make different decisions about our resources or take a break to rest the soil. We have to plan ahead to prevent disaster and anticipate our successes so that we are ready to receive.

Cancer changed much in my life, right down to the fact that my “garden” became 2 pots on the back porch and some real evaluation about what I wanted in life. Now that my kids had moved out, I only had my needs to consider and a clean slate. I had a gnawing sense of immediacy and my world had become a daily investigation of what was important to me in the moment. Gone was my endless energy for big, vague dreams and instead I asked myself regularly, “is this making me happy?” and “what do I really want?”.I was often surprised by the answers.

Some of that big dream I thought I wanted didn’t really apply to me. The job I thought was so important was not. And neither was questing after the status of being important. I wanted small, not large. What was actually valuable to me in my relationships was not necessarily what I had thought. I was really satisfied with the “happy hour menu” instead of the whole big sha-bang.  Most importantly, I began to realize I was worth the effort to plan for and have what I wanted then to enjoy whatever it was.

My boyfriend Neil began looking for his first house to buy while I lay in bed recovering from surgery. As he was working through finding what he really wanted I encouraged him to make a “treasure map” of what was most important and to firmly believe that it would lead him to the right home. I taught him the very work I was trying to embody myself and hoped that teaching would help the learning sink in. While he manifested his way to a new home, I mapped my way into a new life, questioning the importance of each step to make sure I was not throwing it all to the wind as I so often had.

And sure enough the house appeared – in not quite what was be anyone’s dream location, but certainly full of possibility and possessing every strength Neil considered important – down to room for the roses he hoped to grow. Though it was Neil’s home, I had made my own treasure map of what I hoped for in this next move: space to build love, the strengthening my health, staying close to my parents, time to self-reflect  wrapped in the sweet smell flowers and of course, a garden. We got the got the keys the night before my last radiation treatment. Come spring, we counted 30 rose bushes (!) and those mysterious tree-like plants all over the yard turned out to be a dozen different lilacs. The previous owner was a gardener and as it warmed up and my energy began to return, I filled her garden beds with vegetables and munched on the raspberries she had tended so carefully.  As I settled my nest collection into its new home, I couldn’t help but wonder if finally I had learned enough to have found my own nest location too.

That first summer I carefully tended a garden that had been there for many years with the tools that the little old lady had left for me to use. Fenced in and protected, there were many plants that were long established and an abundance of surprises. I grew only what I knew we could eat and what I had energy for, I shared the excesses of raspberries and beans but kept enough for me to make jam and put things away in the freezer for deep-winter treats. I planted flowers that I cut every week and tended the dozens of rose bushes making sure that I always brought the beauty indoors to enjoy all of the time.

Cautiously I dug into the dirt, my home and my relationships. I re-established connections with friends I hadn’t seen in years because I had felt so toxic. Neil and I remodeled the whole house  making it ours, sorting out the nuances of what we each wanted. We learned how to work together amidst the piles of rubble and dust left from tearing down the old in so many ways.  We called our friends and loved ones for help with the hard things and to join us in celebrating our successes.  Tentatively I extended little tendrils of roots and closed the exit doors I usually left open for me to escape. Where I used to plan far ahead and close myself off, now our house and garden is full of the laughter of family and friends who often stop by unannounced. Many quite evenings have passed with a glass of wine in hand watching our chickens root around in the dirt. And I have fully harvested two years worth of gardens, with a freezer full to prove it.

When I told my kids I was planning to plant asparagus they said “Whoa Mom, that is BIG!” And it is. This wasn’t something I could dig up and take with me in a pot or pack into a box.  Planting asparagus is a statement that I plan to be around to stick around to see it grow, to do the cautious work of preparing its home, to take care of it and enjoy it thoroughly when it ended up on my plate.

There is something way bigger at work here in this garden. I have stopped envisioning my life in big fairy tale format that had little connection to my sanity and dreams. I spend more time asking if this is my desire or someone else’s and try to act on that. When I focus on what I want, I stop running away from abundance and instead become more able to receive the fruits of my labor.  I allowed for the wisdom, tools and helping hands of the people around me, past and present, to help me tackle challenges instead of hiding, ashamed of my struggles and limited knowledge. As I become more comfortable with what I want and who I am without the extra distractions, I am able to set down roots. All gardeners know that the more nourished the roots the deeper they grow and the healthier the plant. And I feel my roots growing strong and deep and reaching outwards to anchor myself to this place.

The Jersey King asparagus that will arrive any day now has no idea how incredibly important it is. When I finally get to that dinner, I will have worked the same garden for 4 years – longer than I have ever stayed put in one place. It will also mean that I have allowed love in my life, and consistently maintained close friendships that nurture me, for the longest time ever.  Its survival means that I will have successfully cultivated hope and acted on my dreams in many aspects of my life for longer than I have ever. And most importantly, I stuck through the rain and dirt, sunshine and beautiful days to actually enjoy the effort I have put in. A lot rides on something that could die regardless of my attention. This asparagus – not even planted yet – represents far more than a tasty side dish. It represents the most important commitment I have ever made – the one to constantly and lovingly tend my own inner garden.

Jedi Skiing March 11, 2011

“Use the Force, Luke”

–Obi-Wan Kenobi

Skiers are familiar with the sensation of having the light suddenly go flat  leaving you no longer able to see terrain changes. You lose depth perception and vertigo sets in. If you can’t see the trees, you can completely lose the sensation of whether you are going uphill or downhill – or if you are even moving at all. It is disorienting and can be dangerous, but which depends on how you react to this loss of perception.

As person who not only likes to be in control, but plans ahead several steps for every possible outcome, learning to ski has been fraught with personal challenges. Good skiers pick a line and go with it, absorbing terrain changes and variations in snow with flexibility and grace. I however, plotted my line carefully to maximize safety, scooting my way down the mountain, weaving through challenging areas like a drunk. I didn’t shy away from difficulty — in fact, the more difficult the slope, the better…as long as I could anticipate potential issues and had multiple bailout options. But variations in visibility, snow conditions, my skiing companions and new locations all caused regressions in my form and shook my confidence. In the early years of learning, lacking confidence in my ability to deal with difficulty resulted in an end to my progression towards being an expert skier.

My challenges on the ski slope mirrored my life as well.  Never one to shy away from a challenge, I nevertheless lacked the confidence and commitment to stick to the path I had chosen. I required lots of bailout options, got nervous when I couldn’t predict the outcome, and new situations made me skittish.  I had made so many bad choices over the years, that lacking a clear line of sight, I didn’t want to make ANY decision, preferring the known over the unknown. As I have gained skill, strength and confidence over the years, both in life and skiing, during those times when visibility, speed, slope or technique has resulted in a complete white-wash of my planning, I have learned to Jedi ski and use the Force.

Even though the Star Wars saga began more than 30 years ago everyone understands the basic concept of the Force – a universal energy that can be put to good or evil use. Obi-Wan describes it as “what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It   binds the galaxy together”. When we stop flailing around in our humanness we have the ability to tap into a power that is much greater than ourselves. The Force is about trust, using intuition, listening to your heart, being brave and anticipating a positive outcome. The Force is about harnessing our connection to all that is in order to manifest what we choose for good or evil.

When undergoing cancer treatment I,  like many people, rested deeply in my faith that there is a reason for all that happens and that in the end it would all be okay. I believed firmly in the best possible outcome  (whatever that was) and I took things one step at a time. Unlike in my pre-cancer life or when I was on the ski slope, cancer scared me so badly that I could only cope with what was in front of me and there was no looking at anything other than health.  I let go of all planning, let go of anticipating, and let go of needing to be in control.  The shock of having such a completely random event occur to me derailed all that I had been and put me directly in touch with the Force. In order to get through the trauma, to do what needed to be done and to carry on, I connected deeply with the fact that I am a part of all that is, and could draw power and strength to do amazing things from that connection.

In the “real world” of  post cancer survivorship, this is a challenging concept to apply.  We are taught that our survival and success in the modern, physical world is dependent on our ability to plan, prepare and anticipate potentials. We start believing that WE are the process, not that we are PART of the process. We believe that we are in control, not that we need to open ourselves to being a channel that allows for opportunities we didn’t even know existed to enter. We lack flow and flexibility to maximize our experience, we are looking too far in front of us anticipating difficulty and spend too much time out of the moment.

I admire the ability of my Assistant Manager Steven to look so comfortable on his skis – absorbing impact, flying off jumps and doing tricks with the loose limbs of a rag doll. He told me one day that I just needed to loosen up – relax and don’t hold myself so tightly. REALLY?  A deeply cosmic statement from such a young Jedi Master — as if he knew how tightly I hold onto my perception of control! I’d like to say that the difference in his relaxed nonchalance and my ever-anticipating-danger mental state is one of the large gap in our ages, but that is not totally it. Stevens’ laid back style, both on and off the slope and “let’s just huck it and see what happens” attitude is in complete opposition to my life lesson of “the shit IS going to hit the fan so you better put on the hazmat suit ahead of time and duck”.  But post-cancer I am re-evaluating whether planning for every potential disaster is even possible, much less if it is effective.  Obviously my over planning in life did nothing to prevent me from having had a life threatening disease.  And, it is clear that when I did stop “holding myself so tightly” during cancer, that the world didn’t end and I found strength and resilience I didn’t know I possessed.

As my young friend encourages me take more risks while staying loose, I am learning to accept the idea that my fear may make me more likely to get into trouble instead of less. And along with a youthful lack of fear of negative consequences, Steven possesses the ancient Jedi wisdom of Yoda who says to “do or do not…there is no try”.  Relaxing into the actions required in skiing or life, and believing in the positive outcome we choose, we can create our own reality.

One of my favorite scenes in Star Wars is when Obi-wan and Luke are stopped at a check point and have the following interaction with Stormtroopers who are looking for Luke and the droids:

Stormtrooper: Let me see your identification.
Obi-Wan: [with a small wave of his hand] You don’t need to see his identification.
Stormtrooper: We don’t need to see his identification.
Obi-Wan: These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.
Stormtrooper: These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.
Obi-Wan: He can go about his business.
Stormtrooper: You can go about your business.
Obi-Wan: Move along.
Stormtrooper: Move along… move along.

What if we believed in the potential for the outcome we wanted instead of preparing for the one we don’t?  What if, like Obi-wan, we just stated exactly what we expected and knew there was no chance of it not happening?  Unfortunately we all pay far more attention to what we DON’T want instead of to what we DO.  One of the rules in skiing (and in golf for that matter: see post titled “I am Committed to this….I think“) is “don’t look at the trees – look at the space between them”. We automatically move towards what we are focused on – good or bad.  If we chose to focus on what we desire, imagine how amazing it would be when everything around us shifted into place to make it happen.

Like Luke trying to lift the X-Wing fighter out of the swamp with only the power of his mind, we have the capacity to move mountains when we believe in what we have chosen to take on. It is about believing in ourselves, believing in the outcome we choose and preparing for that reality instead of any other.  As Luke argues with Yoda about the impossibility of moving such a large object from the swamp, Yoda says to him:  “Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size do you?  Hmmm? Hmm…And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful Ally it is.  Life creates it, makes it grow.  Its energy surrounds us and binds us.  Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you: here, between you and me, the tree the rock everywhere. Even between the land and the ship.”

We do not have to be alone in the challenges we face. As we try to move our own personal X-Wing fighter out of the swap we have the ability to tap into something far greater than us alone.  We have power beyond measure.  We are, as Yoda says, beings of light, and as such we can accomplish anything.

We all face times when we cannot see the ground under our feet, when the world seems to be spinning in a direction we cannot control and when we don’t know which way is up.  In these times we tend to grasp at straws and hold on tighter to what we think we know instead of staying loose and ready for anything.  We deny ourselves the joy of overcoming challenges and gain the strength in self-confidence when we don’t hold our line as we move towards our goal. We put too much faith in what we fear will happen instead of what we actually want to create for ourselves.  Learning to ski – and to live – blinded by light, or by the lack thereof, teaches us to feel the ground under our feet, to move slowly so that we don’t miss an opportunity, but nevertheless to stay relaxed so that we are free to react to challenges and to enjoy our successes. 

Each day on and off the hill, I am taking the advice of both old and young Jedi masters to use the Force. I am challenging myself to take on new and more difficult goals; to believe in the outcome of my choosing and to trust that I can handle whatever comes my way.  I am reminded that approaching each new challenge or task with less rigidity allows me to be flexible enough to take on anything.  And mostly, I remember that my ability to be successful may not have as much to do with what I can see ahead of me as what I can see inside of me.

 

(All Star Wars quotes courtesy of imdb.com)

Namaste September 22, 2010

At the beginning and end of every yoga class as well as multiple times throughout we are asked to bring our hands together in Namaste.  For those non- yogi’s, the “Namaste” gesture, or mudra,  is placing your hands in prayer position with your  thumbs resting on your sternum next to your heart /at your heart chakra.  Namaste is a gesture of greeting or honoring that roughly  means  “I bow to you”.

Ram Das translated Namaste to mean:   “I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One.” (Wikipedia).

Aadil Palkhivala, founder of Purna Yoga and the yoga studio I attend, says this about Namaste:  “The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra.”

The simplest translation is what really gets me: “I greet the Divine within.”

I have struggled regularly and deeply with this concept of honoring the Divine in me –  especially over the past year.  As if the action of honoring myself as important weren’t hard enough, I also am being asked to recognize myself as part of the perfect wholeness of the Divine. This is a difficult concept to embody for anyone – stupid mistakes, wrong turns, and tragic events make it hard to see ourselves as intimately connected to the Divine, much less to understand that we are all the embodiment of the sacred.  A year after being told I had cancer, I certainly did not feel do not feel whole or divine. So, warrior that I am, I engaged in earnest in the learning to honor the Light within and view myself, and my journey as the embodiment of Spirit.

Restarting a lifelong passion of yoga 6 months after finishing a mastectomy and cancer treatment, I had deeply emotional body image issues that followed me to the mat. The first part of every class starts the same:  we sit quietly with our hands in Namaste. This should have been the first opportunity I had to connect with the sacred and really melt into a little bit of precious “me time”. However, when my hands were in Namaste, I was acutely aware of one “real” boob and one “fake” boob and immediately became absorbed in thinking about my chest. I noticed the lack of energetic symmetry, mourned the loss of having two soft breasts, cringed in pain from the nerve damage from surgery, and worried that my prosthesis was going to fall out of the inadequate shelf bra of my yoga top. How was I supposed to honor the divine when I was angry, hurting, exhausted and frustrated by the changes cancer wrought on me? How do any of us  come to terms with  the perfection that we are in THIS moment – perfection that is not separate from God regardless of our flaws or issues?

The word yoga derives from the Sanskrit root “yuj”, meaning to unite. Yoga it is at its heart a discipline that involves uniting physical, spiritual and mental elements – something that is largely ignored by today’s pop culture versions. In the tradition that I follow, emphasis is placed on filling oneself with the Light of the Divine in order to expand not only our view of who we are, but to move in the world from a place of compassion and love.  While moving through the various yoga positions we are asked to breathe in the light of the Divine and fill our bodies with it. And at least once in each class we do a meditation designed to bring us to a deeper connection with our own sacredness. Starting with our hands in Namaste, we imagine a flame of Light, (or love or Divine) in our heart. We slowly raise our Namaste to our throats with the intention that the words we speak be fill with Light and love. Next we move to our eyes, that we may see ourselves and others surrounded in Light and Love. Then on to our foreheads to facilitate thoughts filled with Light and Love. And finally up to the crown of our heads and cascading down around our body, so that we are sealed in a cocoon of Light and Love.

If having my hands in Namaste was challenging to me, this concept of filling myself with the love of God/dess was nearly impossible. While I understood that the idea was that I learn absorb to the unending love and compassion of Spirit already residing in my heart, I had a hard time actually believing that this was available to me. My relationship with Spirit was never one of being bathed in gentle golden light, but rather of lightning strikes and tumultuous change! So I changed it up a bit. I knew that I lacked compassion for myself regarding the challenges I have faced so I began with imagining compassion in my heart for myself and for others, compassion in my words, compassion in my thinking and compassion in my actions.  I varied that day to day with forgiveness, of my body, in the words I used, in the thoughts I had and in my treatment of myself and others. Some days the best I could do was acceptance.  And eventually I began to see the flame that John, my yoga teacher, spoke of burning in my heart – a tiny little golden flame of Love and Light – a Divine spark all of my own.  And, what filled me  with wonder was the realization that this spark did not exist in spite of the challenges and hardship I had faced and the anger and grief I was still working through, but because of them.

As I work on the cocoon meditation, it brings me closer to being able embody the concept of  Namaste and grow within myself the spark of perfection, love and compassion that is me as well as a part of God/Spirit/the Divine/the Universe. Sometimes as I sit on my mat and “assume the position” I do so with a huge sigh of relief as I remember that connection. Sometimes the sigh is one of resignation that I am there, making the attempt again. Often, tears well under my closed eyes as I breathe in the idea that I am a perfect part of a large whole. As I sit and nestle my hands into position against my lopsided chest, I learn to forgive myself for having had cancer, for having had angry and resentful thoughts about by body’s looks and abilities now, and for not being perfect somehow.  I learn to treat myself with the respect, love and compassion that I would show to another beloved person.  I am learning to love the body that I still have, in all its’ imperfections. I breathe in deep gratitude for the fact that I am still here to sit in my yoga class and struggle with learning to greet the Divine within.  As I  learn to live Namaste in my daily life as well as when I am practicing  yoga I begin to see that the Spirit does indeed  reside within me.  I see the flicker of the  flame of  the Divine  that resides in you.  And when you and I are in that place in which the Great Mystery  resides within us we are One. In  that Oneness we are whole.  NAMASTE.

I am committed to this…I think September 9, 2010

I have commitment issues.  Some are the fairly obvious ones demonstrated by never having stayed in a relationship physically AND emotionally longer than 5 years.  Others kept me,  until now,  from having a job that lasted longer than a couple years or from living in the same location for any length of time.  These days my lack of commitment shows up in the sneaky mirror of my playtime.

Neil taught me to golf in addition to refining my skiing skills.  He rapidly caught on to my tendency to bail out when I get uncomfortable and one of his mantras has been “you have to commit all the way through your swing/your turns”.  Easy for Neil to say when a poorly hit ball for him just means he has a tough lie – I might have killed someone two fairways over.  And imagine what would happen if while skiing, in the apex of my turn when my skis are pointed straight downhill, something funky happens and I head through a crowd of small children at top speed cursing as I double eject headfirst into the snow.  Why would I fully commit to something that is likely to go very, very wrong?  No matter whether it is skiing or golfing or life in general, there are factors I cannot anticipate and an error in skill and judgment could have very painful results for myself or an innocent bystander.

I am a bit of a control freak born out of both the need to prevent potential disaster and the result of much disaster striking in my life. How funny that my main two sports are comprised of tiny muscle movements (did I mention I am a klutz?)  that act in combination with uncontrollable variations in terrain.  This should have been a huge red flag that these sports were going to stretch my physical and emotional growth!  It certainly makes me wonder about my sanity and tendency towards masochism.  Topping it off is knowing that when I get scared or frustrated, I don’t just quit and go in for a beer….I am likely to do the same bloody thing over and over again until I die trying or someone locks me up because they can’t stand the brutality of it all. Somehow I seem to think if I keep doing it until I cannot stand it anymore it will get better.  It never seems to occur to me to examine exactly WHY I was having so much trouble with a relatively easy set of instructions or actions.  It simply starts with the conviction, before I even grab a club for the first swing or as I pick up speed at the  start of the a turn,   that chances are good that I am going to fail miserably and either get hurt, or worse, look like a fool.  And yet, I keep doing both sports  - and many other things in life,  repeatedly as long as I can,  until I am physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted.

In investigating how to improve my golf game, my skiing and life in general,  I began to look deeper in to why I struggle with sports that I SHOULD be able to grasp easily given my strength and physical abilities. One of the primary things you are taught in golf is that your “swing thoughts” impact every movement your body makes thus affecting the outcome of every swing.  As I am standing over the ball, here are what my swing thoughts are like:  “Okay, Neil is watching me. I have to keep my arms straight. I am never going to do this right. Don’t forget to be slow. Wait my hands are too tight – I am strangling the baby bird!  Oh, geez I never hit well with this club. Take a backswing.  Oh God, that was way too big. This ball is never going to go straight. Don’t forget to release the club head.  Uh oh, that was too late.  AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! It is taking a sharp right hook!  FORE!!!!!!!!!!!! I am NEVER going to fix this.  I can’t believe he stays with me.  I bet he would MARRY someone that could hit the freakin’ ball.  I am such a failure……this is a stupid game. Why do I do this? Oh, look I found another ball.  I wonder if I can…..”.

I don’t think you have to be a golfer to understand that all that negative talk in the middle of a second or two worth of action cannot possibly result in a positive outcome.  Recently an LPGA pro asked me about my last swing thought before I hit a ball.  My response?  “Oh Crap”.  She looked at me in horror before saying dryly, “We need to get you a new one.” And this is what I think nearly every time I pick up a golf club – which, depending on the round, might be 80 times in 4+hours.  Imagine what my inner life is like when I am not playing golf! If I am that hard on myself when I am playing a GAME how hard am I on myself about my role at work, being a parent, what I see in the mirror, what kind of writer I am? Somehow I often see myself or my actions towards a goal as inherently flawed at the beginning, with little hope of a positive outcome. Being so hard on myself and having so little faith in my ability to accomplish my lofty goals (a little golf joke there!) results in me lacking the commitment to myself and my actions I need in order to be the person I want to be — much less to be able to complete a golf swing.

When I was diagnosed with cancer I really didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the “why me” place of the diagnosis, instead I dug into that thoroughly stubborn part of me and plowed onward. Maybe I felt that this too was just another example of how the adage “shit happens” always seems to apply directly to me. But the action of committing to the steps towards health felt different somehow than changing my belief that I would never be a good golfer.  In the face of impending disaster I rarely ever give up, but now I had to come to terms with the fact that just because I am stupidly tenacious in my actions does NOT mean that I am completely committed to the outcome I actually want to see.  So many times  playing golf, I WANT to hit the ball well; I know what I should do and I know where it should go; but I give up at the last second and somehow do not follow through physically because I did not believe  in potential for the positive end result of my actions.  With such an immense health crisis in front of me I had to believe wholeheartedly that while there were many possibilities for health at the end of it all, there was no question that health was what I was going to achieve.  I learned to use my strength of character – that tenacity I had previously used to prove what a dork I was – to get me through long physically and emotionally painful days on my road to a new life as a survivor.

I have learned there are many possible actions that can still result in successful outcome. Sometimes I play what is called military golf – I hit the ball  to one side of the fairway and then to the other side (right,left, right, left) .  Maybe it will never be fairway center like a “good shot” but I may still hole it in par.  I don’t always hold the same fall line in my skiing either, but enjoy the variety of turn shapes and speed that I do reach before I hit the chairlift a turn behind Neil.  I am learning to not hold onto one idea of the right way to golf, one idea of beauty or wholeness, or one definition of what is a good relationship.  In accepting the many possible options for a “good” outcome, it has become easier for me to let go of trying to control the impossible and let my committed actions bring me closer to what I want.

Not only did I change my follow through, but I changed my thinking in order to achieve the results I hoped for. Any golfer will tell you that if you are worried about hitting the tree (or a person in the fairway) you are GOING to hit it.  The fairway could be 200 yards across with a 12“ wide tree in the middle (and you NEVER hit a straight shot) and you will hit it if you are thinking about it.  Funny that even though golfers tend towards the fairly conservative male variety, what they are really talking about is belief in yourself (positive or negative) and the power of manifestation.  No matter how unlikely it is that we will hit the perfect shot to hit that freakin’ tree – much less twice when the first one hits it and ricochets back at us – we tell ourselves “I am going to…” and it happens. How magical is that?  And if it happens every day to ordinary guys on the golf course imagine what we are doing to ourselves when we say “I don’t have enough…..”, “ I am not ….” , “They will…..”.  We can choose to believe that we are powerful, beautiful, creative beings, or we can choose to remember the nasty things that our last lover, employer, former friend or evil inner twin said to us and believe that we are not worth the air we breathe, that everything we do is screwed up and we are never going to amount to anything. That thought determines our actions and our actions determine the outcome.  If tiny little muscle movements are governed so easily by our thoughts imagine how big the repercussions of those thoughts  are in our lives. How is it that we can so completely believe that things are going to get screwed up and yet are unable to hold with equal conviction the belief that we can create the positive outcome we want?

A huge part of commitment is learning to find in myself the person who was worth all this effort. I have had to look deep within and decide what I really wanted and to believe without question that what I wanted was within reach. I have learned to not be afraid of the possibility of a negative outcome…. and when something went haywire to not let it stick to me in the same way I had adhered myself to other potential failures.  I for one have let the negative power of belief rule far more of my life than would be apparent to anyone on the outside.  I have been told horrible things about myself by people I once trusted  and even though FAR more people have said amazing, beautiful things about me I choose to believe the worst.  I have lacked commitment to myself and in my actions in life because I believed  – wrongly – that the chances of disaster were greater than the chances of success.  I didn’t allow myself to believe in the many potential good outcomes for my actions. I failed to remember the tree in the fairway theory – you stand a far greater chance of hitting the mark you choose if you choose to believe you will hit the mark.

I have a cut out piece of a Starbucks coffee cup that sits on the windowsill over my kitchen sink where I have to read it several times every day.  Starbucks had a campaign going at one time where patrons could send in a quote or statement and it could end up on a coffee cup –it was like a fortune cookie, and sucker that I am I drank more coffee at Starbucks during this time so that I could see what the cosmos had to say to me that day.

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating — in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.

– Anne Morriss

Reading this quote every day has been instrumental in the previously unknown  endurance of my relationship and my job;  has increased my contentment in  my home and enjoyment of my playtime and ultimately has helped save my life. I am freed by the choice to believe in the possibility that  what I want to have happen just might happen .  I needed  to be reminded  that all those fears that seem so justified were not the “protector” I thought they were.  That type of protection kept me from writing, from maintaining the healthy relationships with people who love me, and from seeing the world as opportunistic instead of a place where I must continually push hard with tenacity to get even a fraction of what I need.  Now days, when Neil harps on my “lack of commitment” while we are out playing, I think “buddy, you have NO IDEA” –  he does not see the work that I have done to tackle so much of this issue internally.  But he is finding less occasion to see that lack of commitment externally as I change my perspective. The fact that I don’t always complete a golf swing is an indicator of a much larger problem that I am trying to tackle with each ball in a large bucket at the driving range, each high speed arching ski turn, and each day I spend deeply committed to my life and those that I love.

And I really am working on developing a new swing thought for life………….

Becoming Amazon June 16, 2010

One summer evening finds me in the uncomfortable position of being the focus of attention as I stand in the center of the large group of gathered women.  It is dusk, the wind is dying down and the swallows have begun to dip and dive around the meadow.  Heat from the day radiates from the ground under my booted feet but I am covered in goose-bumps.  A forgotten fire in the pit next to the gathered women smokes and pops.  The sudden snap of the banners planted in the ground in each of the four directions makes me flinch. Wearing my work clothes from the lodge fire I have been tending for the past 4 days, I am closely surrounded by a dozen or so women wearing versions of “warrior” costuming ranging from full on Middle Ages chainmail to Amazonian/Xena fantasy.  Stuffing  my leather gloves in my back pocket  I remove my denim shirt to catcalls that immediately fall silent.  I walk to the front of the group wearing only my dirty jeans and work boots.  All eyes are on me.  I am bare-chested standing in front of 150 suddenly silent  and crying women and the smooth plane and deep scar where there used to be a right breast  cannot be ignored.  I raise my makeshift homemade bow to the sky and pull back the string aiming for the newly emerging stars and tears begin streaming down my face.

*************

About a year after my journey with cancer began I attended a Women’s Summer Solstice retreat in eastern Washington with my then 20 year old daughter Megan. This had been an annual event for us – one that appeals much more to her bohemian pagan theatrical self than to my own quieter earth based spiritual side. But I have found my place as one of the leaders of the Lodge community – a small group of women who hold ceremonial and prayer space for the gathering through the use of a Native American sweat lodge that is open to the participants.  My role leaves me well known at the gathering, but most of the women I have only a passing, albeit meaningful, connection with and next to no one knew how I had spent the previous year.

As a part of the gathering women have the opportunity to lay claim to one of many offered archetypes (Maiden, Mother, Crone….etc.) to celebrate attributes that they are recognizing now or would like to manifest .  It is a public statement of sisterhood and commitment to a path of growth in a certain area. The way of Amazon – or woman warrior – is one of the offered archetypes representing the qualities of female strength, power, leadership and triumph over challenges. The legendary all female tribe of Amazon warriors were respected as ferocious, courageous fighters who reportedly cut off their right breast. Ancient Greek historians have written that this body modification was undergone as a young girl in order to arrest breast growth so that the right side would grow strong with nothing to hinder movement.  Symbolically at this gathering women who claim Amazon relate to the warrior spirit and are honoring their struggles that maybe have resulted in  “sacrificing” pieces of themselves in order to bring out their inner strength. This archetype typically represents active leadership, self-sacrifice and commitment to the battle- whatever it is.  It is the role of protector and the activist and claiming it at this gathering has changed many lives.

Years prior to this, I had claimed the path of Amazon in celebration,  recognition and honoring of the strengths I gained through adversity and a commitment to being a leader within my community.  In the year  following my full, right side mastectomy, the irony of reclaiming Amazon couldn’t be ignored.  I and my good friend Carole, also a recent breast cancer survivor with a right side mastectomy, decided that now was the time to claim our right to acknowledgement for the challenges we have faced. Surrounded by the love of our friends, teachers, family and many total strangers  we made this a time of honoring  the more private parts of our path that are nevertheless a shared theme among all women.

The claiming of my own body – claiming  the scars that are a testament to my strength  and a diary of the trials that I  have been through  was the driving force behind my decision to bare my chest in front of so many people who would never have otherwise known what I looked like under my shirt.  As a 40 something, reasonably good looking, fit, unmarried mom,  this was a claiming of my body as attractive in a world that judges “attractiveness” by the standards of plastic surgery, enhancements,  push up bras  and air-brushing.  Here was the bold, stark, naked truth about who I am, and the sacrifices we sometimes have to make as woman.  Here was an opportunity to force myself to not hide from what I look like and to see my own beauty mirrored back to me in the teary eyes of the women around me.  Because  I wear a prosthesis so I look “normal”   it was even more important that my body be acknowledged for what it really is and what better place than at a gathering celebrating womens strength and beauty.

The challenges I have faced as a cancer survivor are largely the same faced by most everyone –those of self-acceptance and self-love, recognizing and honoring your strengths and beauty and learning to living in the moment with commitment and true presence.  Body image and self-acceptance are unquestionably the main challenges I continue to face daily as a cancer survivor in my head, heart and body, and this moment of throwing it all into the wind is one that I return to in awe of my own audacity again and again. The battles I continue to fight as an Amazon many not be the obvious ones of physical strength, but ones of love, compassion, forgiveness and openness to the life-long challenges and changes that have come unrequested, but nevertheless in my best interest.

Claiming Amazon again that year was far deeper than just honoring the physical pieces of being a cancer survivor.  Life – mine in particular – was messy and there have been a multitude of bumpy roads and bad turns along the way.  Dealing with the issues surrounding being a young parent raising kids in poverty, abuse survival, depression and all the resulting self-esteem issues have been a constant battle.  But rather than avoid the difficult work involved in healing I have stepped in with both hands.  Post-cancer, it became even more important to live a more heart-full, compassionate life.  I am a complete work in progress, and much of what I have learned along the way seems pretty universal.  It is vitally important to me that no-one feels alone  in the struggles they face and reclaiming Amazon that day was a commitment to becoming an advocate as much as it was an honoring of the warrior within.

I am conflicted about how to feel about cancer and its repercussions on my body.  On one hand there is no question that I have learned valuable things about who I am in the world, how to treat myself with more kindness and learn how to finally identify what I really wanted on a day to day basis.  On the other hand, I resent the changes in my body, the changes in how I walk in the world, the multitude of emotional issues that creep their way out of my mouth over dinner conversation when I had no idea they even lived inside me.  I resent the interruption to a life that was finally starting to go my way – kids out of the house, an amazing loving man, getting my debt under control and a career in front of me.  How do you balance the conflict of being a better person at the expense of everything you used to look like, know, believe, and value?

In the yoga class I attend several times a week one of my instructors begins with two questions:   “What do you bring to the mat today?  What do you need to heal?”  Each time, to my unending surprise, the answer is quite loudly: FORGIVENESS.  And each time, I am brought to tears in that moment as if the concept had never occurred to me.  I still hold so much anger at how hard life has been – how unfair it so often is, and how horrible people so often are.  Angry with myself for being “stupid” so many times.  But am I also  angry with my body for “betraying” me and getting cancer?  Angry at it for taking so long to heal?  Angry that it gained weight and lost the muscle I worked so hard for? Angry that I am still in pain, tired and resentful? Angry that I am far more vain then I ever would have guessed and not big enough to just GET OVER IT?

Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun whom I someday hope to tell how many times she has saved my life writes,:

“Loving-kindness –Maitri — towards ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything.  Maitri means we can still be crazy after all these years.  We can still be angry after all these years….The point is to not try to change ourselves…it is (about) befriending ourselves.  The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are.”  (Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty, 2002, Shambhala)

I find myself holding both sides of the issue these days. I hold an acceptance and appreciation for what I have undergone and the strength, courage and tenacity that it took to get through it all. I hold a deep knowledge of myself as an incredibly beautiful and powerful soul with a deep connection to Spirit that resonates to those around me when I allow it to.  I fully and wholeheartedly love and accept myself as I am right now.  And yet, I also am so full of the opposite emotions-wishing that bad things didn’t happen and that cancer had never happened, angry that my life was uprooted, bitter that I am completely different.  This must be what Pema meant about  the work of loving kindness   –  the ability to walk the tightrope of life with the discipline to not lean too far to one side or the other in order to stay whole.  Instead of struggling with not struggling, perhaps  I am learning to relax into it and accept the turmoil;  to not judge myself harshly for the challenges I have faced and mistakes I have made and to maintain humility and grace in the presence of all I have accomplished.   The idea is not that I need to forgive my body for its failure in getting cancer, but rather to forgive myself for viewing  it with such animosity, for not loving all it has done for  me and to see how beautiful it has always been – with one boob or two.   I need to choose instead  to view my body and its’ little dance with cancer with loving kindness, accepting both the positive AND the negative aspects as a part of a larger whole of beauty and light.

I have finally lost the weight I gained due to surgery, stress, inactivity and medication.  There were things I liked about all the extra padding – the remaining boob was fluffier, I was filled out and the potential for me having more stomach fat to mold into a new boob should I decide to do reconstruction was a fabulous, if odd, bonus.  But looking in the mirror and seeing a body that was so completely different from anything I had ever known – even if I wasn’t looking at my chest – was difficult to say the least. As I started to think about breast reconstruction more, I realized  that based on the past 40 years, I wasn’t going to be happy with my body no matter what I did unless I changed myself inside .  Even  now that I lost  the weight I gained  and became close to what I used to look like all I could see was  how “damaged” I was even though I was easily back to  the size 2 most women would kill for.

I wasn’t loving my body when I had two boobs and was skinny, athletic  and full of muscle and  I wasn’t loving it when cancer invaded and made me fight for my life. Now looking in the mirror, I am not loving my body because these days  it really doesn’t look like the standard of beauty in the movies and tv.  Even after all I had been through I couldn’t find it in me to see past the obvious and love the beauty of how strong it was.  What makes me think that after I have 3-4 plastic surgeries I will love my body then?”  The issue is not what my body looks like, but what is going on in my own head as my partner Neil has always told me. I called my plastic surgeon and had them remove me from the 6 month long wait list for reconstruction and removed  my name from the Victoria’s Secret catalog mailing list as well. I committed to learning how to love the skin I was in, regardless of all the “stuff” that came up about what I thought I should look like.

My yoga teacher John and I had a conversation in which I told him that it was hard to send love to my body when such a large part of me was physically missing.  “How do you love what exists AND what used to exist?”  He replied that to send love to my missing breast and remaining chest area would take constant attention as there was no longer tissue there to hold the love I was sending.   I would have to constantly and intentionally love what remained. I find this to be a very profound and deep practice.  How do I love such a deep physical and emotional wound?  And yet, to heal and to be a survivor, and not let the disease get the best of me, this is precisely what I must do. I must learn to love the power and strength and courage that it took to save my own life.  I must learn to love the fact that I am not the same person I was – internally or externally. I must learn to love my scars and the differences in my physical being.  And I must learn to love my sad little self on the days when it is brutally difficult to look in the mirror or be naked in front of my boyfriend because I feel like a freak.  Remembering to send love to the parts of me that have suffered so greatly through surgery and radiation when it is becoming a blurred memory can be hard.  It is necessary to tell myself the story again and again, to remind myself of how courageous I am and that the mirror shows a small portion of all that I am.

I can say the words – and most days I believe them –  but many days remain when it feels like a boatload of crap I keep feeding myself to feel better.  That girl in the catalog selling stuff to a 40 year old is probably 20 and looks 14 and has boobs that couldn’t POSSIBLY be real and a flat stomach that means she must never eat  IS actually what men like -  right? Even the yoga magazines show buxom young women with low cut shirts bending over in positions that presents the fruit ripe for the picking.  No man in their right mind fantasizes about a pasty, flabby 40 year old cancer survivor with one boob, scars from surgery and radiation and a butt that seems to be sliding down the back of her legs.

How do I get past seeing myself as an object instead of as a whole being that is not loved or respected based on my appearance? In our media based culture we are inundated with images of all that we are somehow “supposed” to be.  But, it takes supreme effort to learn how to tell ourselves positive stories about who we actually are.  Our tendency is to beat ourselves up for the things we are NOT.  We don’t  discuss the things we ARE because we seem to think that doing so makes us vain, conceited, arrogant or full of ourselves.  So all we are left with is an airbrushed, edited perfection that no-one recognizes but still insists is the goal.  Telling our own story, in its’ honest wholeness is critical to our realizing how amazingly fabulous, courageous and beautiful we really are and to learn to live in the body we now have to live in.

I look and act years younger than I really am. I have been asked on dates by young men my kids age and have taken pride in the fact that I turned heads (although I would never have admitted that to anyone).  I am curvy and fit and have tattoos and thought that was largely what got me noticed and why people paid attention to me.  Now part of me wonders how am I supposed to reconcile what other people see on the  outside with what I know I look like under my clothes?  How do any of us show our genuine selves?

I am more than what you see:  I always speak my mind and am friendly and warm and adapt how I approach whoever I deal with based on their needs.  My friends say I will flirt with a rock, much less people of both genders and all ages.  I do my best to do my best, I grieve for the times when I fall short and I am hard on myself about the reasons why I do.  I am loyal to a fault, brutally honest, and generous to those I care about.  I work hard, take care of others before myself, am devoted to my loved ones and can be oddly and randomly reclusive.  I am funny, sometimes smart and always completely dedicated to the things I choose to spend my time doing.  I can be fierce and tough and a royal bitch when pushed too hard; I am intimately familiar with how far I will go to protect myself and my loved ones even though I would never discuss what I have had to do to survive.  I love deeply, cry often and laugh easily.  I get overtired and overwhelmed more than I would like to admit, am a huge softie,  and often think that I am not a very good grown up.  I have moments when I wonder how I got so smart, and more moments when I wonder if I will ever BE smart.

Many of these things are what I think make me a good person – the things I think make me beautiful.  These are qualities I would love in another person and that I am learning to love in myself.  Some of who I am I could do without and there are lots of things I am not proud of, but  awareness is half the battle. We are a physical society and when I look at myself naked and face my flat chested right side with its scar I wonder…how do you SEE these positive qualities?  How do you embody these things?  I used to be a person that made a statement when I walked in a room. I had confidence and a presence.  But when I started back at yoga it was months before one of my teachers even knew my name. How I walk in the world has completely changed.  I don’t NEED to be noticed anymore, which is funny since I certainly didn’t admit to needing to be noticed before!  Is this because I don’t think I am worthy of being noticed?  I rather think that it is because I no longer need to prove that I AM.  In a conversation with a male friend about a time before I had cancer, I jokingly said, “Oh, well, that was back when I cared about being sexy”. His response was “well, not caring makes you more sexy than ever”.   Why as women do we spend so much time TRYING to be beautiful  if, in the end, all that anyone really wants for us is to be who we are? So much wasted time, emotion and pain.

I am learning to accept and love THIS version of who I am. My body is an incredible, strong and awe inspiring thing to me in all that it has done and put up with.  I have climbed mountains and had babies.  I have been strong and weak.  I have done yoga and danced and golfed and made love. I have healed illness, rehabilitated injuries and been through surgeries and radiation treatment.  And although I honor each womans’ decision, plastic surgery to recreate a breast is not going to make me a better person, more socially acceptable or frankly more physically attractive.  I will not be more feminine or better looking.  I will just have two boobs instead of one and I will have another series of scars and months of recovery and the same issues about who I am that I have always had.

The path of healing and learning from cancer and the other curveballs that life has thrown at me lies much deeper than a series of surgical procedures. For me, the yogic and Buddhist  beliefs in non-violence to all , loving what is and cultivating deep  compassion for oneself as well as others,  have led me to the work of the daily practice of loving and ACCEPTING who I am and letting the beauty of that shine through in my actions.  That is beauty you won’t see in a Victoria’s Secret catalog.  It is a PRACTICE – it doesn’t just happen and then I have “got it”.  But, the fact that I am even working on loving all that I am makes me, as my friend Ginny said to me one day “more beautiful now than ever before”.

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Back in the meadow the moment of silence seems to last forever and I wonder if I have made a huge mistake.  But as I glance over at Carole who is also standing bare chested and crying next to me and  feel the  love and support of the other women who have claimed the path of Amazon behind me, I realize that I am never alone in fighting these battles. The support and love available to me are endless because the scars I bear are those of all women who struggle with being proud of all that they are and a tribute to all that we have accomplished.  It is my fervent prayer my daughter will never have to worry about breast cancer and will always love herself for ALL that she is. As I claim Amazon, I stand next to all women, cancer survivors or not, who may not yet be able to see how gorgeous they are in hopes that they may feel my compassion and love for their challenges.  We are not alone in our struggles to love the skin we are in. It is work to remember – a practice – and I sometimes forget too….. and that is why I tell this story.

(This article appeared in a different form in the free e-book “How We Became Breast Cancer Thrivers” in November of 20010)