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)

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.

Resistance is futile November 5, 2010

One of my favorite bad guy lines of all time is “ Resistance is Futile “ courtesy of  The Borg from Star Trek Next Generation.  The Borg were a collective entity that assimilated their victims in an attempt to reach a sort of computerized all–knowing perfection.  Their standard “resistance is futile” line was the last thing they said to their victims to state that there was no escape from their fate….that struggling only made the inevitable more difficult.

Recently I faced situation at work where I stood the very real potential for losing my job because I stood up to an injustice.  As I waited through the weekend full of anxiety; stomach churning and a constant tension headache from my tight shoulders I began to think about the Borg statement in a slightly different light then they may have meant.  There was nothing I could have done about the situation I found myself in other than to have kept quiet (which was simply not possible if you know me at all!). I did what I needed to do, I was not antagonistic, I spoke my truth and now simply need to face the result of my actions. Resistance to the proverbial shit hitting the fan is indeed futile. And, my relaxing about it might indeed give me the agility and strength to dodge it! My inner struggle with the perceived difficulty of the impending meeting was ruining my weekend. I could not change a single thing about what was going to happen….I could only change my own end of it and let it go.  If I stopped holding myself in such a place of resistance – the fear of the unknown – what would I begin to open up to as a possibility?  And certainly, walking into that meeting tense and agitated wasn’t going to do me any good – I knew I was in the right, but I didn’t need to be all wound up about it or I was going to be the one who lost it.

Relaxing into the struggle looked at in a different light makes me think about learning to swim – something that is still  an anxiety filled sport for me.  Since we owned a boat growing up my parents were determined that I would know how to swim. To make a long story short, their well intended efforts, and those of the swim instructors who employed a sink or swim attitude, did not lead me to a lifelong love of the activity. But learning does shed some light onto the Borg philosophy as well. I was taught that my swimming safety net is to float on my back. In order to float, I must stop flailing about….the more I struggle, the more likely I will end up under water. How often do we accomplish our goals by running around panicking about all the things that might happen?  How much more successful are we when we approach the events in our lives with a calmness that leaves room for positive outcome? How often do we struggle within our own safety net?

The difference between my use of the Borg statement and theirs is that I believe that resistance is futile not because I believe we should give up, but rather so that we can see how and what we are resisting and decide if it is a necessary use of our energy. In between resignation and resistance is curiosity. Examining our places of resistance, fear, defensiveness and avoidance gives us the opportunity to shed light into the darkness of our scary places.  Curiosity steps us away from our habitual actions/reactions  and gives us an opportunity for a new experience. As we pause and look at the path we always take, the actions we don’t even think about, the words that we use without analyzing their future, we become freer in our lives.

We all have a tendency to struggle with a myriad of things that really don’t require all that energy. Usually this struggle is prompted by fear. We are uncomfortable with not-knowing, we are worried we will get hurt, we don’t want to let our guard down, we are preparing for the worst.  We are focused on what MIGHT happen or what HAS happened instead of being present in the moment and gaining strength in that. When we hold ourselves too tightly we hold ourselves back from accomplishing our goals, speaking/acting on our truth and from fully loving and being loved.

Pema Chodron writes:

“… the next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you are feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in…Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering – yours, mine, and that of all living beings.” (Excerpted from “Taking the Leap”, by Pema Chodrön)

I often think of Pema’s instruction to  “lean in”.  I most easily see resistance as it manifests in my own body. In yoga as we are engaged in a challenging position – especially if it is a new one to me, I find that my muscles fight every movement. They are bunched up and tight even as I try to stretch them in ways I KNOW they are going to like. My yoga teacher speaks of how we hold stories in our body and how the physical pain and resistance we feel is a piece of our personal story that got lodged in that particular place. He tells us to send light and love to those uncomfortable places – to breathe into the resistance in order to open it up to receive love, compassion and gratitude.   I notice that I am often able to tell my muscles and my brain to let go of the tight grip as I take deep breaths and melt into the discomfort. As I stop resisting, as I stop seeing the pain as bad my body opens and I am able to go more deeply into the pose.  In yoga and in life, as I stop resisting, I open myself up to a deeper experience that transcends my fear of inadequacy, of “what if” and “I can’t and begins to heal those long-held tensions in my body and soul.

I don’t know all of causes the knots of pain and anxiety that my body holds onto.  And I don’t understand how one day they are gone and the next they are magically back.  But I do try to regularly practice the concept of not struggling with the struggle as my friend Carole puts it.  Life is hard, hard things come up, we have hurt places and scared places and resistance within us.  Okay.  So are we going to move forward by fighting; by flailing around and resisting or  by opening to a level of curiosity and seeing what happens when we lean in just a bit.

I wish I could say that knowledge of my resistance to so many aspects of life lessened it dramatically – but no.  Each day in a multitude of ways I am reminded how much I hold myself back. I deal with a chronic anxiety disorder that is controllable with great care and attention without drugs. Keywords…CARE and ATTENTION. A person – or at least me – with an anxiety disorder is exactly like the metaphor of learning to float on ….you must stop flailing around in order to keep floating. The more I resist being anxious/stressed/overtired, the worse it gets. And not only does the anxiety get worse, my brain fills up with negative stories about all the things I SHOULD be capable of, all the way’s I am not successful/beautiful/smart instead of just listening to the tiny voice in me that says “I need a time out…and some chocolate…and a little less business please”.

There are many more ways I hold myself too tightly emotionally and physically. Every morning I bend over to dry my hair upside down so that it doesn’t matt to my head like glue as it dries.  And every morning, no matter how limber or stiff I am feeling I only bend part of the way over. I hold back, for no particular reason. Each time I realize this I let go, and immediately move into a place of greater ease and relaxation as I stop trying to hold myself  Amazingly, the pain in my body eases!  Each time I sit down at my computer to write I find a million other things to do besides write and the voices in my head go on and on about how worthless it is.  I sit down with my cup of tea and BREATHE through the anxiety and resistance. Each time I approach the keyboard, I swear I am going to quit  and then do it anyway.  When I am heartsick about the perceived indifference of my  partner Neil,  I take a step back and open my heart….is it really intentional neglect or  am I afraid  that I will be left or that I am not enough?  As I step into that feeling of fear, and watch how instead of being confrontational being present chances the situation for both of us, we both open deeper and more fully to our relationship.:

So here is a simple experiment to just see how you may be holding yourself too tightly physically:

As you sit here reading this RELAX.

Sure, you think you are relaxed now, but are you? Are you holding your stomach tight?  How about the muscles in your jaw?  Are your shoulders up at your ears as you sit at your computer?  Can you breathe into those places and just let them drop? What are you gaining by holding yourself so tightly?  What feelings come up when you let go?  And more importantly, what are YOU really resisting?

The Borg kind of had it right….and even the concept of assimilating into the collective is not so far off.  It is just that the entity you become a part of when you cease resistance is not evil or of a continuous questing for betterment. It a place of soul filled radiant beauty, of right action for the right reasons. Its physical image is not that of the linear cube of the Borg, but of an open hand, not grasping and ready to receive. It is not about striving, but about being open to what is coming at you with a sense of curiosity. We can continue to hold ourselves back, but on the warrior path it is imperative that we are paying attention so that we may choose our actions and responses wisely. We must not shut ourselves off or ignore the triggers in our bodies, or in the messages our deepest selves send us.  And so, as we walk this path of right action and of soul-filled living, resistance is indeed futile.

Saying Goodbye August 29, 2010

I recently attended the “funeral” of my beautiful friend Leslie who is in fact still living. This may seem like a shockingly bizarre thing to hold, much less attend, but her life changed abruptly and dramatically in an instant, leaving her with little resemblance between the “before” and “after” Leslie. While coming home from work one day on her motorcycle she stopped at a traffic control light to get on I-5 and was hit from behind by an SUV.  She is a very small person and flew through the air – the impact from the crash rattled her brain causing a traumatic brain injury that has changed her life beyond measure.

When I first met her, Leslie was an athletic and stunningly gifted dancer.  She was an avid martial arts practitioner, a teacher in self-defense, a warrior in all uses of the term.  She was beautiful, sexy, intense, focused and intimidating.  She was smart, sharp witted and a powerful and extraordinary friend and teacher. She was a force to be reckoned with and there was no question about her capability to take on anything.  While she is still many of these things, her injury left her walking with a cane to combat dizziness and spacial disorientation and she needs to be asked if it is okay to hug her since people can become easily overwhelming.  Her coordination is sometimes lacking, her focus wobbly and her spirit confused.  She has had to learn to ask for help she never would have imagined needing and has had to swallow her pride more times than I imagine she admits to. In all probability she will never dance the way she used to, ride a motorcycle again or tackle life with the same “in your face attitude” she once was queen of.  While we, her friends and loved ones, still see aspects of  the goddess we loved, she does not recognize the person  she has become and though it has been a couple of years, still mourns the loss of all that she was.

I was diagnosed with cancer and had a mastectomy several months after Leslie’s accident.  The suddenness of my diagnosis, surgery and follow up treatment left me feeling as if I too had been hit from behind while I was minding my own business, obeying all the laws I was told would keep me safe.  Who I knew myself to be as a woman was taken away leaving me with a disorientation so severe  that I could still feel the missing breast and was newly shocked each morning when I glanced in the mirror.  Since I did not have chemo (thus keeping my hair) and I wear prosthesis, other people didn’t necessarily realize that I had changed physically and internally in unimaginable ways that made me a completely different person than I was before. In addition to  the exhaustion, physical changes from meds and mental overload from the whole process, having an amputation of such an  essential part of womanhood at the age of 39 left me in a tailspin of “who would want me/love me?” and “how is THIS beautiful?” . While I don’t mean to minimize the challenges Leslie faces to this day with a permanent brain injury, I know that when you dig past the layers of physical limitations, she too is left to face the questions of “who am I?” and “How I am still lovable/ acceptable/beautiful when I did not choose to be the person I have become?”

In keeping with the tradition of the community of women we belong to, she called her loved ones together for a ceremony to honor her transition. Her need to say goodbye to the person she was and to breathe into the person she has become with gratitude and love instead of resistance was critical to her healing.  There was little difference in the intention and proceedings from other funerals or memorial services I have attended. The ‘old’ person was honored and released, many beautiful words were spoken and much love expressed.  Stories, photos and anecdotes from a life well lived were shared.  She was assured of the love of her family of choice and community and we welcomed her new self into being.  Yet I noted from the words and attitudes of many people present that there remained a profound resistance to the grief, anger, frustration and confusion she felt over the unasked for changes in her life.  Many of her friends were so glad that she was alive that the cost seems to be minimized.  They have gone back to their lives and believe that somehow she too is going to be much as she was before the accident . Well meaning though they are, and as much as they love her, it is difficult for them to let go of who she was in order to fully accept who she is becoming.

As a survivor of a different sort I have talked to Leslie many times about how difficult it is to carry on a life that is so dramatically different in ways that may not be readily apparent to the people around us.  In our society our identity is defined by the things we do, and the external person we are; it is easy for those around us, and ourselves, to believe that IS who we are. To have that identity suddenly removed from us leaves a gaping hole that is hard to come to terms with. The person we were may not have been perfect, but they were much loved by us;  we had put a great deal of effort into maintaining them and what is left when they are gone is small, raw, uncertain and tentative in a way can make the people around us uncomfortable.

I am not speaking about an unhealthy lack of understanding regarding what lies within us; only that as women the dancer/ healer/ teacher/sexy woman/motorcycle mama/full-breasted womanhood image that we wrap ourselves in is such an integrated piece of who we are that the loss of any of those pieces, much less most or all, is catastrophic to our emotional bodies.  Our loved ones deeply wish for our healing and well being and yet often fail to understand that we have suffered a death and those pieces will not come back in the same way, if at all.  It does us no good to be told that we are “still___________” (fill in whatever adjective or title) when we know deep down inside that it is gone from us – or at least, our ability to relate to that is gone. The struggle to get others to understand  and accept, when we are just barely doing so ourselves,  creates even more stress and often we just choose to pretend to go on living the same life, further burying our loss and grief.

There is a surprisingly elevated level of relationship difficulties in women who have had a cancer diagnosis.  While studies surmise this is due to men not coping well with the additional responsibilities of being a caretaker, I would guess that some of this is due to the  “identity crisis”  resulting  from the survivor no longer being the person internally AND externally they once were.  The frustration of not being seen and heard in their  grief over what once was, and their inability to move on because of the lack of support and acknowledgement for the deep feelings of loss  and “who am?”  “What is next?”  leaves couples no longer able to relate.  Who are we if we are not ____________ ? (fill in the blank with whatever comes to mind).  For survivors of many types, the hardest work is not that of the battle to survive, but that of defining who we are at the end of it all.  That is a battle  waged  internally under the hardest conditions. The people we most need to help us through the darkness believe the work is done because we are “healed” and have moved on, leaving us alone knowing that we are not our old selves any longer but are unsure about who exactly we are now.

I once spoke with a woman whose step mother had a mastectomy 2 years ago who told me “….boobs really matter to my dad” then went on, “My step mom has had a really hard time and has never gotten over her diagnosis  and treatment and I don’t know why. We are just so glad she is alive”.  I felt great compassion for her  but  I wanted to shake her.  Do you realize what you just said, I wanted to scream?  Instead I said, “Our breasts our womanhood.  I am sure she is happy to not have cancer, but when she looks in the mirror she doesn’t know who she is.  She knows that her husband thought they were important and she probably feels he misses them too and wishes she were different. The fact everyone else has carried on their lives only makes it worse…..no one understands that EVERY DAY she has to face the fact that she feels cancer robbed her of her identity (and maybe the love of her husband). Everyone carrying on as if being alive is good enough doesn’t help her heal.”  This daughter looked at me in shock and horror.  “Oh my god, I never thought about that.  I was so glad she wasn’t going to die….”  Like Leslie’s community before her ceremony, her family was so glad she wasn’t dead that in their love and commitment to helping her carry on living, they may not realize that something truly died and is being mourned daily.

As survivors, we need to take the time to thoroughly acknowledge what was taken away from us.  Our innocence, our physical selves, our self-identify, our health suffered a blow that will not ever heal.  This time to grieve our losses is not wallowing….it is a deep examination and farewell  to that which no  longer exists in order to actively and consciously choose what we want to create for ourselves. This is a gradual crafting of something precious and valuable and it deserves our love and attention.  We will never understand the “why me” & “why this” questions, but we can begin to grasp “who am I” if we allow ourselves the space to see all the ways we are the same and different.  This is an opportunity for the lovely aspects of ourselves that have always grown in the shade of our dominate image to have light, love and attention shed on them.  Each person must decide what this looks like for them – there is no right or wrong. The acknowledgement of all that we were, and honoring the process of death, creation and healing we are going through now is critical to fully accepting what the wheel of life has spun our way.  Acceptance is not necessary to continue as a survivor, but it is critical to reaching the potential of all that we may be and to truly heal from the trauma that was dealt us.

Leslie’s ceremony/funeral/memorial service was a beautiful and extraordinarily self aware process for her to let go with the support of those who love her. By including her community, she helped all of us begin to understand the depth of her loss and better enabled us to see the places she may need a helping hand to pass through on her path. As survivors sharing our grief, anger and confusion with our loved ones and support people, we nurture healing and understanding of the changes we are going through in order to bind us together instead of drive us apart. This is a gift not only for ourselves but also for our society as we heal the deep divisions we have created in our human family.

We need to understand, as did Leslie in her ceremony, that this loss is not leaving an unfertile void, although it may often seem so.  It is an opportunity for growth and we do ourselves an injustice when we hold onto what was instead of seeing what is growing within. We need to actively, with great compassion and curiosity, explore our new selves, shedding the layers that no longer fit and welcome in the new.  As we change, we allow the people around us to change and grow as well.

As loved ones and support people we need to ask ourselves if we are REALLY hearing, and acknowledging how incredibly difficult it is to have so much taken away. Or  instead are we just brushing off the uncomfortable feelings of rage and fear of change because we don’t know what to do or say in the face of such devastation?  Are we ignoring the challenges and changes and diminishing their impact because we are so glad the people we love are still alive? We strengthen the bonds of love between us with every time we choose to listen instead of talk, every time we reach out a hand to help instead of pushing through or worse – expecting them to push through, and every time we give them honesty in the face of theirs.  This is an opportunity for all us to learn to live a deeply authentic life by learning to accept what IS, instead of what we wish would be within ourselves and within our loved ones.

(This is written with much love and gratitude to Leslie who has shared her story with me with such honesty and clarity. You remain a teacher of enormous depth and wisdom for me and I love you dearly.)