Finding Center

I’m feeling exceptionally lucky at the moment. I had a fairly tumultuous summer with preparing a house to sell (including demolition and getting rid of most of the stuff), list house, homelessness, parents’ house burning down, (everyone is okay) 2 family hospital emergencies, (once again, everyone is okay) and moving into my new home. I am now getting the opportunity to process all that mad, crazy stuff. (Yes, all of that really happened between May 1st and August 20th.)

But not into just any old place, but into a lovely new apartment complex (new build so no one has been there before) complete with a saltwater pool, clubhouse, and fitness center. (Yes, I did say that I was feeling lucky!) So, while I still had the opportunity with a seemingly extended summer, I decided to enjoy the pool. It’s a decent sized pool but not meant for doing laps, and as it only gets to 5 feet at its deepest, not meant for diving either, so I just paddled around enjoying being in a pool this late in the season. As I was walking toward the steps at the deep end to get out, I noticed that I was having a hard time maintaining my balance, and I had to wave my arms around so I didn’t go under. I went over to one of the jets and put my hand over it to see how strong it was. Not very was the answer. I looked around and saw several other jets moving the water in different ways to the one I checked. Although the water wasn’t exactly being churned up, it was coming in at different angles creating a kind of swirling that would randomly change direction, and kept gently pushing me off my feet. So I thought, maybe if I focus on my feet, being careful how I placed them, that will help keep me from having to use my hands to maintain my balance. No joy. It required a lot of concentration on my feet and how I was placing them, but I still kept losing my balance and falling over. I even tried looking down at my feet to see if that would help, but that actually made it harder. The shifting current and the nature of water made it more like looking through a fun house mirror by distorting the view enough so I couldn’t gauge where my feet were in relation to the bottom of the pool. It was easier for me to trust that the bottom of the pool was there and let my body’s natural feedback system tell me when I hit it and where the rest of my body was in relation to my feet in space.

So now I’m curious, how do I maintain my balance when I am literally up to my neck, and being buffeted by water? This time, I was going to do it just standing rather than walking. I can only imagine what it looked like to the lifeguard; a woman standing in 5 feet of water, looking very focused and not moving. Hopefully I provided some entertainment for him! 

So, with feet firmly planted on the bottom of the pool and my arms dangling by my sides, I tried to see if I could stand up. For some reason I got it into my head that I didn’t want to use my arms to counterbalance if I was thrown. I wanted to see if I could do it without the aid of reaching out with my arms. I knew doing it like that would be useful, but I didn’t want to rely solely on that. After trying to do this for a minute or two, I started to feel a lot of tension and a bit of discomfort in the front part of my lower leg. I realized that I was trying to counterbalance by forcing the balls of my feet to stay in contact with the bottom. There was no other action from any other part of my body, as if they had no part in keeping me from falling over, and just bobbed about like a tethered balloon. 

Then I thought, what if I engage my core and center my weight? I engaged my lower abdominals and felt my pelvis shift and move my whole body to an upright position, bringing my feet into full contact with the bottom, but without force or discomfort. I let go of my center a few times to see what would happen, and noticed that I would start floating away from the bottom. When I did have it engaged, I could still feel myself moving around, but I didn’t feel like I was out of control as if I was going to float away. In fact, I felt quite comfortable despite the fact that I was surrounded, up to my neck in a force that I could not control and that could easily overwhelm me.

Really loving the new place!

An Uncertain Business

Something that comes up from time to time in my practice is someone asking for information about someone else. It usually happens when there is a romantic breakup, and occasionally if they’ve just met someone. The questions are usually around wanting to know if the other person feels the same way, if there is a chance of getting back together, or wanting to know how the other person feels about what is going on. Effectively they want to know what’s going on in the other person’s head or heart.

As a coach and practitioner trying to help people through challenging situations in which they would like more clarity, this is dicey territory for me. For one, I feel my job is to help you get clarity around what is going on in your own head and heart. Personally, I have a hard enough time with my own self, never mind trying to figure someone else out. I personally feel it is more empowering to understand our own role in a relationship, and how we can use that relationship with another to better understand ourselves, which can then improve our relationships with others as well as with ourselves. The part that makes me uncomfortable is being asked to effectively peer into someone’s psyche without their permission. That feels pretty invasive to me, and quite honestly, I wouldn’t want someone doing that to me, so I don’t do that to other people.

Imagine my surprise when I caught myself reaching for my pendulum to do just that!

As some of you may know, I and my significant other, Steve, are in the process of selling his house. If you have ever bought or sold a house, you know what a totally stressful situation this can be. Part of our stress is coming from not being able to talk directly with the buyer, and having to communicate through two sets of realtors and lawyers. It’s like a high stakes game of Telephone; you have no idea if what you said is going to morph into something that you didn’t mean, and you can’t be sure that the information you are getting was how it was originally delivered. Talk about piling obscurity onto obscurity!

So when we got some information with what we felt was an unreasonable, we went straight to DEFCON 1. It felt to me like we were being jerked around, and that they had some hidden agenda when we were trying to be as transparent as possible in order to keep the process moving smoothly. After that, all we could think about were what options we had and the different situations and scenarios that we would have to deal with depending upon what option we chose to move forward with. I somehow got it into my head that if I knew what their goal was for making that stipulation, then I would be able to respond appropriately. Were they getting cold feet, and wanted out? I wanted to know. Of course I was completely unaware of how important it was becoming to me to know what the buyer was thinking until I reached for my pendulum. Luckily I stopped myself in good time, but it really caused me to stop and think about what the heck I was doing and why.

Why was it so important to me to know what was going on in someone else’s mind? 

My first thought was “So I would have a better idea of how to respond.” Okay, but why is that important? “Because I haven’t been in this position before and have no idea what will happen or what to do, and I want to minimize any risk to the sale.”

That’s when it hit me. It’s about not knowing. It’s about uncertainty. And how desperately uncomfortable it can be in the unknown and being uncertain, especially when it’s high stakes like selling a house, or ending a romantic relationship. I needed to find out what was going on in someone else’s head so I could turn an unknown quantity into a known quantity. Basically I was way outside my comfort zone and I was trying to get back in.

The irony of this particular situation is that Steve is always talking about risk versus uncertainty, how often the two are confused, and the impossibility of managing uncertainty. And there I was, trying to manage uncertainty thinking it was risk. I almost laughed at that point.

He explained it like this. Risk is quantifiable and manageable with a known set of outcomes. In this case, if we decide to not agree to the stipulation, the set of possible outcomes could be: 1. the buyers accept that we will not agree to their stipulation and continue with the sale, 2. the buyers ask us to reduce the price, 3. the buyers ask us for an equivalent guarantee, 4. the buyers rescind their offer and back out of the sale. With the possible outcomes clearly stated, we can then determine if we are okay enough with any of those possible outcomes. The more we are okay with the outcomes, the less risky it is for us to strike out the clause.

Uncertainty can’t be quantified or measured. What was going on in the buyer’s mind was completely unknown to us, so there was no way to determine the possible outcomes. With no possible outcomes, there was nothing we could manage.  With nothing you could manage in a highly emotional situation, the feeling of being completely in the dark and out of control can be overwhelming. Or as Steve succinctly put it, “If I focus on the buyer, I’ll go crazy!” 

It really isn’t the unknown itself that is causing us to go crazy, but our need to have everything known, in order to feel in control; to feel safe. By focusing on wanting to know the unknowable (what is going on in someone else’s mind) we are effectively keeping ourselves in a constant state of turmoil, needing to control what we can’t possibly control: anything outside of ourselves.

When you get right down to it, there is really nothing you can do about how someone else thinks or feels, wondering or worrying about it, or thinking that you would be okay as long as you knew, will just drive you crazy. The only thing you can do is see what your possible choices are, what the outcomes might be, and work with that. Then the unknown, uncertainty, doesn’t feel quite as scary.

Round And Round The Karmic Wheel We Go!

I recently attended a psychic development, past life regression, angel communication workshop. (Yes, it was a very busy day!) We did regressions to understand the source of current physical or mental patterns, energy clearing techniques, and some psychic readings. The practitioner did a wonderful job guiding us and giving us great tools to clear our energy fields. But that was it. It didn’t feel complete to me. It felt like surgery was done with no PT or psychotherapy follow up to process what happened.

It seemed to me that there were several assumptions about karma or karmic patterns that didn’t feel right. One, is that by simply clearing the karma in the energy field using external sources like light or angelic help, it is somehow permanently erased, also that karma is a bad thing that needs to be ‘gotten rid of', and that this past bad thing or event is what is blocking us now. 

It took me a couple of days, but I managed to figure out why that bothered me, and it isn’t limited to just past life issues. There didn’t seem to be any integration of the spirit into the mind or body. 

While external energy clearing brings temporary help, (I did experience a sense of a heaviness leaving me at the workshop) I’m not sure how permanent it is. (It certainly wasn’t for me.) Mostly because the ‘karmic’ part isn’t the action, event, mental or physical harm we received at the time, but our reaction to what happened. The event is not what is sitting in our spirit, energy field, or mindbody. We didn’t take the event with us, we took our mad with us. Our internal response is what we are carrying around, and it’s not just in our energy system, it’s in all of who we are; mindbody, energy and spirit, so to focus on releasing the energetic isn’t necessarily going to heal the mindbody or the spirit.

So why would our spirits want to carry a lot of mad around?

As spiritual beings, we are going for growth, which implies that there may be a need for growth. If there is a need for growth, that suggests that we aren’t fully enlightened spiritual beings right out of the gate. So, it’s okay if our spirits get mad, don’t forgive, or let go the first time around. Or even the second, or third. It’s part of the process.

That’s why we bring our mad with us (karmic or otherwise), so it can teach our spirits how to forgive and let go. To grow and have a more complete understanding of, compassion for, and acceptance of all of who we are.

I prefer to think of karma more as a learning tool. One psychic I worked with referred to it as ‘the leftovers’. Which I think is great, because it is whatever has not been previously integrated. To me, if there isn’t full integration among all the parts of who we are, especially our spirits, the pattern won’t be released. It stays in our system (like leftovers hanging around in the fridge) so we can get another opportunity to integrate it at another time. (Integrating it basically means seeing the opportunity as an opportunity and working with it, and not a physical, mental/emotional, or energetic problem to be gotten rid of.)

If you feel you need to integrate at the spiritual level, here are some things you might want to keep in mind...

Don’t try to heal by ‘getting rid of’. 

The whole point of this is to better understand how and why you reacted the way you did so you can make more conscious and empowered life choices. The pattern will release itself as soon as it is integrated into your system. Trying to 'get rid of' an issue in karmic terms is equivalent to procrastinating. You might as well do it now, because you will only have to do it later.   

As much as you can, separate the emotion from the experience, so you can get a ‘bigger picture’.

Releasing karmic patterns (or any pattern for that matter) is all about looking at your experience from a spiritual perspective. This generally means getting impersonal or symbolic. Focus on being open to the lesson this pattern is trying to teach you. If you can see how this current challenge fits your pattern, you will also see what you need to do differently, and what help you will need in order to do that. There is a gift in every challenge, and you can find it.

Let go of the package the lesson came in.

Probably the most difficult and the most important part, and where we tend to hold on to our mad. I find the best way to work with this, is to focus on the gifts that this particular challenge gave us. Are we more courageous, resilient, compassionate? Do we feel stronger and less defended at the same time?

 Karma’s not bad, or a problem, but just like leftovers, if you leave things hanging around for a long time, it can certainly feel like it’s ‘gone bad’.

The Safety Rope

Maybe it’s the time of year; a time of clearing out, new beginnings, and movement. Maybe it’s because in the Northeast, we have had a particularly rough winter, and the cabin fever became just too much. All I know is that I have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people struggling with things like the loss or impending loss of a loved one, divorce or custody battles, marriage struggles, family member illness, and watching children getting ready to leave the nest. In other words, massive change. And for many of us, massive change means chaos and overwhelm.

Now, you would think that when we are in situations that take us to the edge, that we would reach out for help, or continue whatever self care we were doing, like going to the gym, getting a massage, or eating healthily. 

But that’s not usually the case. 

From what I’ve seen, when we are in the most need of help, guidance, or support, that’s when we are least likely to seek it out or to continue it. We tend to choose to fight it out on our own, isolated and in pain. I hear things like, “I’m not in the right head space to get treatment now,” “I’m so overwhelmed, having to plan a treatment would just make it worse”, “I just need a few weeks until the situation calms down, then I can think about it”, “I can’t afford to keep going with this”.

And when you are up to your eyes in it, these reasons feel real. Heck, that last quote was mine. I really did think that way, and at the time, it was very real.

It was about 9 years ago, and I had been back in the States for about 2 years. I was back in massage school, but after the first semester, I realized there was no way I could work full time and to to school, so I cut back on my work hours. However, I was still paying for school, and because I couldn’t get a loan, I was on the hook for several thousand dollars per semester. Added to that, I was trying to get the money from a buyout of my former house overseas from my ex husband. There were months of stress as I tried to get him to move the settlement up the priority list to get it done. I had been working with an acupuncturist and a psychotherapist for awhile, but when I went part time, I no longer had the insurance that was helping me pay for it. After paying out of pocket for awhile, I was getting to the point where I didn’t know how I was going to pay for it. As I sat in the psychotherapist’s waiting room, I thought, “I can’t afford to keep going with this. I’m going to to have to tell them that I can’t see them anymore.”

Then a thought popped into my head. “Don’t cut the safety rope.” Exactly those words. As I thought about my situation, I realized that I had created a support system to help me through a crisis, and here I was, ready to cut that support system in the middle of a crisis. How would that help me now and in the long run? I realized that I needed to find a way to make it work.

The very real financial issue didn’t just disappear with that realization, but when I discussed the situation with the therapists, and my very real need and desire to continue with treatment, both made adjustments that could allow me to continue. That support helped me to do more than cope with my challenges, but actually help me bring resolution to them.

It took some time, a few missteps, and a lot of reminders to “not cut the safety rope”,  but I got myself to the point where if I feel that I’m struggling, my first inclination is to reach out, not pull back.

If you’re struggling or overwhelmed by what is going on in your life, and your tendency is to pull back, try reaching out. Find your own safety rope, and grab it when you need it.

Humble Pie

As some of you know, I’m a pretty unassuming person. Which is kind of interesting, because at 5’10”, with mostly dark hair apart from 2 sections of white a la Bride of Frankenstein, you would think that I was born for the limelight. In truth, I would rather shy away from it than seek it out.

Not good at selfies!

Fortunately, (or unfortunately as the case may be) as I move into this next phase of my life, one of the things that I will need to develop is the ability to stand in the limelight, with a strong belief in myself and my abilities. Now, on the face of it, that doesn’t seem like too big a deal because I am confident in myself and my abilities. But it is a quiet, self-effacing kind of confidence. (Is that an oxymoron?) I don’t want to shout it from the rooftops. That would be self aggrandizing - making myself more important than others. 

What?? Where the heck did that come from?

Part of me knows that wanting to share my talents, abilities, and knowledge with the world is NOT self-aggrandizing, because how are you supposed to help people if they don’t know how you can help?

So, what’s REALLY the issue?

I know there is a difference between promoting your message and promoting yourself. But if you still have to get that message across, how do you work with the subtleties between where your hard work and abilities end, and where the message, that you are the caretaker of, begins?

You see it all the time. The gurus who get so caught up in their own hype they seriously lose the plot, losing themselves in the message they bring, or individuals more interested showing off their skills than putting those skills into action. I don’t want to be that person. I’ve worked too hard, and the last thing I want to do is get caught up in the cult of personality.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m worried about this happening to me. I’m not famous, nor do I have a mob of adoring people who think the sun shines out of my bottom. But I don’t think it’s really about being famous. I think it’s about being genuine. I think it’s about honestly acknowledging and appreciating your abilities, talents, intelligence, other people’s adoration, or whatever, but not letting it go to your head.

My dilemma continued. How do I acknowledge all the amazing things that I offer, and let people know about how I may be able to help them without sounding like an arrogant jerk? Up to now, my strategy involved self-effacing promotion, (that is DEFINITELY an oxymoron) and probably just confused people because they couldn’t figure out if I knew what I was doing or not. It’s hard to tell people, “I do know what I am doing, but I don’t want to seem like an ego maniac.” Um...

So, how do you do it? How do you confidently promote yourself and maintain a genuine but humble quality? While meditating on that question, a strange looking equation popped into my head. Humble is = (equal to), not < or > (less than or greater than). Hold that = (equal to) feeling when promoting yourself and your work.

Well, I can certainly give it a try.

What Do You Do?

I was sitting here having a really strange conversation with myself, when a series of thoughts struck me. (Yes, I have many and intricate conversations with myself, and I’m proud of it! And so am I!) Anyway, I have recently been trying to language what it is that I do. (Feeling a line from the movie Office Space coming on...

In this mythical conversation I was having with a potential person who would ask me what I do for a living, I responded “I help people live more authentic lives by helping them understand and feel the interconnections of mind and body.”

Then I thought, “Why does that sound weird?” I initially told myself that it was a bit wordy. 

Reality Check #1: Then I said it out loud for flow and timing, and it took way less time than a 30 second elevator speech. I could also shorten it to “I help people live more authentic lives,” which is short and sweet.

Hmmm. Maybe it’s because it isn’t true and that it isn’t what I actually do or how I help. 

Reality Check #2: Then I thought about the various clients I have worked with throughout the years of my practice. I also remembered a recent conversation with a client who has worked with me for most of that time. I have been actively helping people to communicate with and understand their body-mind connections in various ways from the start. And, if you boil it down to the essentials, it’s all about helping people to improve the communication between their mind and body so they can have a better understanding of themselves and their true needs which is what living authentically is all about.

Nope. Still weird.

Then I thought it’s probably because it sounds a bit pretentious, a bit like a megalomaniac trying to sound humble. Or like an annoying attention seeker who is saying something outrageous just to keep the conversation around themselves.

Reality Check #3: But, I want to spark conversation. I want people to ask and to question, not to keep the focus on me, but as a way to get them curious about the possibilities. I want people to be curious about their own selves and whether or not they are living authentically. I want people to be engaged with what is (how is what I’m saying resonating with you), not responding to what they think they know (what body and energy work do).

Still uncomfortable.

So, I went back to my reverie, and to a recent conversation I had with someone I just met. She asked me what I do. (The standard question that I hate answering because I never know what to say). I answered “Good question!” I then followed up with “I’m a body and energy worker,” which is my most recent fall back answer.

That’s when it hit me. I answered what I “do” with an “I am” statement.

Why am I confusing what I do with who I am? That’s probably why I have a terrible time telling people what I do. I, like most people, have been trained to say my occupation as a label, and then call that label who I am. “I am a/an [insert label here]”. I was so unconsciously attuned to this equating what you do with who you are, that when I tried to separate it, it felt weird but authentic at the same time. (Which was probably why I truly despised answering the “what do you do” question, because I believed I was supposed to answer one way and felt I needed to answer in another way.)

And even more, when I was trying to describe what I do rather than label it, I was effectively thumbing my nose at convention. I felt uncomfortable enough to worry about what convention would think about my new way of doing things. In effect trying to find excuses as to why I can’t authentically express myself. (Peeling the onion...)

This caused me to wonder what it would be like if we all answered the “what do you do?” question with a description rather than a label that starts with “I am.”  How would you answer that question? Would it be a short version of your job description, or would it reveal how what you do impacts those you work and how you make a difference?

So, what do you do?

The Miser

I’ve had a curious couple of weeks. I’ve been worrying more about money and feeling a greater and greater urge to conserve it. I have been noticing that more of my thoughts are centered around how much things cost, how much I can’t afford things, and feeling resentful about having to spend money on things I need. Now, if I was a spendthrift, then yeah, this concern could be considered an attack of conscience, and be a good thing. But I don’t spend a lot of money. I never have. In fact, I was listing off a couple of ways I could pare my spending down, after refinancing my car (which will reduce it a bit, but not as much as you think), and it was literally going to reduce my expenses by only $15 dollars a month. That’s it. There was nothing else to take out. This mindset has been slowly creeping in, so I didn’t even notice it until the last day or two. And it wasn’t until today, when I got The Miser card, that I decided to have a think about it.

A kind way of interpreting the 4 of Pentacles, also known as The Miser, is conservation or security.

Well, this is kind of interesting. I was thinking about security, or more specifically about the illusion of security, just yesterday. I’m in the process of buying out the lease on my car, and am taking out a loan to do so. One of the conditions of the loan is that I have to have a life insurance policy that will cover the loan if I die before I pay it off. While the agent was explaining this to me, she mentioned that it was generally a good idea to have life insurance. I think I may have shocked her when I said that I didn’t think my life was insurable and that I prefer to be worth more alive than dead. I had already experienced first hand that you can think you are secure and safe one minute and the next, have little or nothing left. For me, it was divorce. But the experiences also can come in the form of stock market crashes, natural disasters, accidents, terrorism, you name it. Since that particular illusion was shattered for me, I’m more aware that I am skating on the edge of a catastrophe curve, and that there are no guarantees. However, maybe it doesn’t stop my craving guarantees. 

But, why now, all of a sudden? I’ve had less money before and, while I was careful with it, I wasn’t worried or fearful about it. I wasn’t getting much more insight with this, so I pulled a card from a different deck to try and shed some light on it. Reversed Rabbit, which is about being paralyzed with fear. 

This is looking like a great day so far! 

The explanation in the book was about re-evaluating the process I am undergoing, and rearranging the way I see my present set of circumstances. Then a separate thought popped into my head about not doing anything rash. (As if!)

My present set of circumstances. I guess you could say that I’m at a crossroads. My business is limping along, I’m contemplating going to graduate school, I’m preparing to pitch a workshop to a group of therapists, and throughout all of this, I’m wondering if I should get a job because of the money situation. Ok, maybe not so much a crossroads as a train wreck, with different cars of the train trying to go in different directions at the same time.

Maybe this feeling of being pulled off my center is what is causing my craving for security. Because I don’t feel internally stable, I’m trying to grab onto something external that I think will keep me from feeling like a weathervane on a windy day.

Hmm. The number 4 in Tarot is about stability, and the miser is about gaining stability through material means. So, this new obsession about money and getting a job isn’t about actually needing a job, but about me trying to feel more centered and in control, despite the fact that job security and control are both illusions!

It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. So now what? Just because I can see what I am doing doesn’t mean the feeling of not being centered or focused has gone away.

Okay. Maybe I need to rearrange the way I see my circumstances. Maybe this is creative tension or I’m supposed to get comfortable with discomfort. Or, maybe the different directions that I feel that I am being pulled in aren’t really different directions at all. Maybe they are part of a bigger whole that I just can’t see yet, and all I need to do is peck away at them and try not to do anything rash.

I still can’t see how it all fits together or even what the next step is, and I can’t say I feel very calm, but I have a heading and that helps me feel a bit more centered.