Playing with Perspectives

This weekend I am working at my other job, with the Coaches Training Institute, where I get to train rooms full of people in the powerful and intricate skills of life/success coaching. It is an off the charts fun, wild, meaningful experience. Every single time I learn something new, something profound, something magical. And this weekend is no different.

I am co-leading the Balance workshop, which is all about exploring perspectives, reclaiming conscious choice, and taking possibilities from the land of Good Ideas into the land of Commitment. Cool, hey?

Let me demonstrate one of those components. On Monday I need to have my annual mammogram. Nothing exciting or special (like last fall, when I was having a “what is with the weird thing in your other breast” mammogram), just the annual mammogram that all breast cancer survivors and women over 40 are encouraged to get (yes, that is a hint, hint, nudge, nudge for you if you fall into that category!!!)

I am sitting in a perspective of Mammograms Suck. And it feels a bit like: how crappy that I have to have it, I have to do this every year for the rest of my life, this just reminds me that I had the disease in the first place, YUCK. For the sake of playing with perspectives one needs to have a clear topic, and then notice the perspectives, so, let’s say that Mammograms is the topic. And, clearly my first perspective is: they suck. So the fun part of the game comes in exploring what other lenses can you look at this topic through. I am going to whip through a couple, fleshing them out a bit as I go. Then I pick one. Here goes…

Mammograms save lives. For many women this is when breast cancer is discovered and treated, so, for them, mammograms saved their life. Thank goodness for that. This place feels like a fact, and a bit like I am thinking when I type it. The benefit of this perspective is that it really gets lots of women out to get their mammograms. The cost, to me, is that I feel obliged to do it.

Mammograms are a nuisance. One more thing to do tomorrow. I have lots on the go right now, the last thing I need is to schlep myself to the clinic and go through training up another radiation technologist on the ins and outs of working with my strong willed personality, not to mention my scarred (wow, I miss typed this first as sacred, and then as scared, that is just too precious!) and tender breasts. This feels heavy and like I am dragging my knuckles around on the ground.

Mammograms would be more fun if I wore wacky socks. Hmm, to think that I am even considering that mammograms could be more fun. What else from here? Maybe I could enroll the technician into having fun with me. What if I drew fun pictures on my breasts and surprised them. What if I chose to be fully naked for the mammogram, not just waist up? That might shock them. Fun to see the look on their face. Silly. Silly gives me lots of permission. There is a lot of movement here, and grinning.

Mammograms are time off work. Sort of a change of pace at the end of the day, mixing it up a bit. Maybe I could take myself for a treat afterwards. Make it a nice thing instead of a drag. I feel a bit like a little girl here, going for an ice cream cone after a trip to the dentist (wait, that can’t be good, kind of defeats the purpose of going to the dentist). Like go for a movie after, or a nice long walk.

Mammograms are self-care. The discipline form of self-care. The showing up for myself because I am committed to my health and my life and being a role model for how to be responsible around my breast health. I take a stand for this, both breast health and self care. I need to be in integrity and walk my talk. I feel called forth and like it is a sacred obligation, like the obligation to the cure that Lance Armstrong talks about.

Mammograms are the Goddess’ way of saying “Aren’t you grateful you have small breasts now?” I mean really. Faster, less trouble, less fiddling. Well, now that I am here, looking from gratitude, what else is there to be grateful for? Hmmm. I am grateful I am alive (as per my post a few days ago). I would rather have these tests each year than not have to. I am grateful I chose to keep my breasts instead of go for full mastectomy and reconstruction. I am grateful this technology exists (crude and brutal as it is, I mean if there were Testicle-agrams the technology would be different, yes?). This spot feels peaceful. Not so much struggle. There is a calm that stretches out to the horizon and has me see further. I think I will pick this one to hold for Monday. If you are thinking of me on Monday afternoon, and you want to send me loving vibes, throw some of the above thoughts in the mix, I am sure they will help me through.

Self Care Musings

The other day I was asked to be a guest speaker at an Al Anon speaker meeting. I chose the topic of self-care, because to me, it is the source of so much power and healing in the world and in our lives. In uncharacteristic fashion, I decided to prepare for the meeting. What is fun about that is I now have notes. From which I can craft this blog posting. Yay.

So the main thing I noticed is that there are layers of self-care.

Firstly, there are the basics. The keeping yourself alive and safe. This is like watching for cars when you cross the road. Or not getting yourself into a situation where you are getting shot at. In my books it even includes washing, though that is not about keeping alive and safe, but it is about that important basic maintenance.

Then there is the H.A.L.T. That when you are hungry, or angry, or lonely, or tired, you stop what you are doing and take care of those things. Doing this requires self-awareness. It needs you to be noticing the signals your body is giving you. It includes reaching out to friends, taking a nap, getting your anger expressed and out in healthy, non-destructive ways.

Next we have what I like to call the Development layer. Here there is a deepening of knowing yourselves and what you like, and not just what keeps you safe, but what really feeds you and nurtures you (Hello Maslow!). This includes doing the things that are fun. The whole “choose joy” place that I keep coming back to. It also encompasses “unproductive time”, that down time where you relax, you don’t come from should or ought, but just see where your body and heart guides you. From this place you experiment with (and hopefully learn) when to push yourself and when to be gentle. Because much of the “journeying” in the life journey is about the back and forth of those two things. This layer also includes the space of discipline. Where you do the things that are good for you, or will serve you in the long run, even if they are not enjoyable now. Things like exercising. And not just eating, but eating right. Stretching yourself, challenging yourself live here too. As does finding the right friends, the ones that really see and honour you, the ones the value and appreciate who you are. And then, asking for what you need and want from them. Which doesn’t necessarily mean you get it, but just the asking for it, that is a form of self-care.

Finally, the Protective layer. And this has two parts. The protecting from yourself and protecting from others. This is where you set boundaries.

In terms of yourself: this is the not abandoning yourself, the not bailing on yourself, the not neglecting yourself. It involves not depriving yourself or pushing yourself too hard and not being mean to yourself. This is where you learn to trust yourself. Trust your instinct, trust what you know. And listen to yourself. And respect yourself. Even if you have learned otherwise in life. In this layer, you unlearn that.

In terms of with others: this includes saying no. And walking away from relationships that don’t work. It requires that you be clear within yourself and you stand in your own authority, and speak from there. It involves not letting yourself get stepped on, but speaking up for yourself instead. Related to boundaries with yourself, this is when you have to put those internal boundaries into action out in the world. An important piece of this though is to learn to do that with love. Which isn’t easy, and seems to need to be learned over time. Including learning where the line between being “mean” to others and mean to yourself intersects. It is messy. And it is process. And it can be learned.

In fact, here is the good news; all of them can be learned. Part of the learning is to notice when you need to do which self care. And you will get that by listening to yourself. Listening to yourself is the key. To all of it. Because there aren’t rules about this stuff. No recipe, or formula, or guidebook. That never seems to work. What does make it work is fundamentally believing that you are responsible for making yourself happy. And acting on that belief.

Self-care is not difficult. You need to ask yourself, and ask your Higher Power, “What do I need to do today to take loving and responsible care of myself?” The challenge is trusting the answer and then having the courage to follow through.

The Ebb and Flow

Does this ever happen to you? I have gone from a quiet, peaceful time, emphasis on the quiet, and now I am moving into a busy, active time. Neither of them entirely works for me. For some reason I ping pong between the two of them, unable to find a balanced place some where in between. Now maybe that place doesn’t exist, for any of us. But I can’t help thinking that if I can just get it together enough, figure out my rhythms, and anticipate the rise and fall of external activity, then I will find, discover, create that perfect (time and) place where my days are filled with just the right amount of just the right action (I do know, even as I write this, how ludicrous it is, I am just saying, I long for it).

In the peaceful time there are long days, a bit on the empty side for me, but plenty of room for reflection, for creative expression, for walks, and so on. If it goes on too long I start to feel lonely, maybe a bit bored. I long for company, but don’t seem to be able to coordinate that company, either people are busy, or I don’t reach out enough to line it up. I do recognize that this is the luxury of the single, childless person, and maybe others read this and long, ache, yearn for this kind of time. Time to just BE, to relax, to do whatever you please at whatever time you please, accountable to no one, reliant on no one, your own master. And trust me, too much of it is too much of it. I speak from a great deal of experience on this one. So when I find myself here, what do I do? I panic, and I start filling up my time. I start calling people, scheduling events, DOING things. Just about ANY things.

Then things swing, work gets busy, suddenly my social calendar is full, and I mean FULL. There is barely room to breathe, I run from one event to another, from one commitment to another, and eventually all those events lose their fun. They become obligations, things on a TO DO list, even if when I agreed to them they were fun, now they are not. I feel on a treadmill, my mind starts to race too, just to keep up to my body. There isn’t enough time to get groceries, isn’t enough time to call friends, isn’t enough time to keep my details in order. There just plain isn’t enough time. The joy is gone. I get sloppy, I drop balls, and I feel badly. And tired. So, what do I do? I start cutting back, setting limits, doing self-care, picking me first. I keep doing that, and then suddenly, boom, I am on the other side of the teeter-totter. Not enough company, too much time on my hands, a bit bored, a bit lonely. The cycle continues.

Here is where I am right now. Having had tons of gentle self-care time, post surgery and with some of my weekend work mysteriously put on hold for 3 months, I am now finally gearing up again. I have started an 11 day work week, that might turn into an 18 day work week, depending (I guess on the Goddess’ sense of humour). I notice my social calendar is tight and my creativity closing down. I am starting to try to fit things and people into the little cracks of my schedule. Good to notice. I guess now is when I can be conscious and intentional, and see what other track I can, or can try, to choose. And, as with everything else, I will learn over time. With each wave, with each cycle, I will come closer to balance.

And what does this have to do with health, and with cancer, and with fighting the good fight? I think that finding balance, learning our own rhythms, knowing ourselves and what we need, listening to ourselves, with love and respect – all of these are life goals, part of the reason we are here. Which has everything to do with health. Which is really what we are shooting for, not a lack of cancer, but an abundance of health. So here is to listening to ourselves!!! And here is to our health!!!

Diagnosis Anniversary

Five years ago (that is the big number in breast cancer years!!!) today I discovered that I had cancer. Funny thing is that I usually remember dates like that. With important anniversaries my body remembers, it alerts me. And why wouldn’t it remember this particular day, it was a very, very, very traumatic day. Different from the clean date (marked as the day of surgery, for some obscure medical reason that us neophytes aren’t privy to), the diagnosis date is the day full of fear, and doubt, and anxiety. At least on the surgery date there is a sense of doing something about it, of taking our fate into our hands and choosing life, and of fighting back. On the diagnosis date, it is all about being shocked, and powerless (in the worst sense of the word). Shocked to the point of disbelieve, of disassociation, of despair. Shocked and nothing makes sense, nothing is real, all of life is turned upside down. The kind of day where everything STOPS and you gasp for air and wonder how long you have to live.

So here is what was funny about this. Today I didn’t remember. Really, I didn’t even think about it. I got up, went for a run, even listened to Melissa Ethridge’s song about breast cancer, where she talks about fear being a docile beast because the cancer is miles and miles behind her. Had no idea what moved me to put that on. I even wondered what I might blog about today. Nothing was coming like a clear lightning bolt from the sky to write about. Then I talked to, count ‘em, 5 friends in a row on the phone. What radar they must have that they called me. But in none of these conversations did the topic of cancer come up. Not one. What did we talk about, you may ask? We talked about the future, and plans for fun and life work and what’s next. We talked about my Goddaughter, whom I saw last night, and played “Lion” with for hours. We talked about what makes us feel alive and excited. We talked about life.

I have a life. I am alive. I AM ALIVE.

Then another friend came over, and he had been forewarned that this was a big day for me, and he said, “So, this is a big day for you.” My jaw just about hit the floor. And my eyes welled up. And I gasped for air. “Oh my God.”

And I wept with gratitude for this day, this day that I didn’t know would arrive.

And I wept with gratitude that I am alive.

And I wept with gratitude that I didn’t remember that today was so special. Me who is an idiot savant around dates, didn’t remember. I was too busy. Too busy thinking about my life, about my future, about the children, to remember that I had had cancer. Cancer was so must less important than life and family and joy. Cancer was an afterthought. A second string player. A side dish. I never thought or dared to believe that this day would come. I couldn’t imagine not being plagued my the dreaded thoughts hanging out in the back room of my mind, whispering to me “What if I get sick again? What if it’s not over yet?” And while I will never be able to silence those back room tyrants with conclusive answers, I now know that those thoughts don’t get to run my life, and that is worth gold. Actually, it is worth more than gold. It is priceless. Because there is no dollar figure that can be put on equanimity and serenity and faith.

As the sun pours its full, intense, magnificent, life giving power in through my living room window, sparking the magical reds, yellows and oranges of the room into full-blown fire, I weep uncontrollably, unabashedly, unashamedly. I am alive. I am alive. I am alive!!!!

Getting It Off My Chest

Over the last wee while I have taken it upon myself to do a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. Whew. That is some kind of hard work. And then last night I sat with a friend and shared what I had learned. The good, the bad and the very, very ugly. It is great to be heard, accepted, loved, unconditionally. It is great to get it all off my chest.

For me, and I have a hunch it true for others (although some will say they prefer to keep things to themselves), getting it off my chest is a Good Thing. Even if people like to play their cards close to their chest (and I do think I have earned the right to use all these chest metaphors, thank you very much), and I can understand the urge of it, there is a spiritual power in sharing our load, in letting someone else in, and in not doing it alone. But for me especially, let’s break that down and take a look.

For starters, “getting it off my chest”. Think about that. What was it I had on my chest? Be it words, or crazy energy or cancerous lumps I clearly needed to get it/them off, out, free from, you name it…in short, GONE! My chest was bearing the brunt, and the weight of way too much. It was the place I must have been holding it all in, storing it (for what I am not sure, safe keeping?!?). It is even obvious in my body posture, curved shoulders, not hunched quite, more protecting. Protecting from what? From attention? Exposure? Visibility? All! What is with the world that I have to protect the essence of what makes me a woman, a key part of my femininity? Why do I need to hide it? Is it so unsafe out there for me, for us? And is there a way to do something about that besides surgery (and I do know an number of women who have chosen a different kind of surgery than mine for their breasts to hide their wounds behind)?

Second thing is the whole saying it out loud. And through that bold and brave action stopping keeping secrets, stopping keeping it in, stopping holding back my truth, and replacing it with speaking out and speaking up, for myself and for what I believe in. There is a way that this behaviour (the old one of not speaking out and up) is related to my femininity too. Granted to a false femininity, where I thought I ought to be dainty and demure and quiet. Quiet as in shutting up. Keeping my mouth closed and my opinions to myself. Those days are long gone, five years worth of long gone. Not that my dance with cancer is what woke me up and opened me up and got me talking. I was already on that journey before. But cancer is what had me realize that this epidemic (of both cancer and keeping quiet) is something for which I need to be spokes person, a mouthpiece, whatever you want to call it, for all the people who are still keeping it inside. Because I couldn’t keep it inside anymore. It was, literally, killing me.

Where in your life do you need to speak up, or speak out, or stand in your truth?

Learning

We are always learning. If we let ourselves. If we choose it. It’s a lifestyle really. Consciously deciding to look from the perspective of “What’s the lesson?”, “What am I suppose to get out of this?”, “What can I learn here?”. Some days I like living this way. It keeps me curious. It keeps me hopping. And, some days I resent it and it feels more like a justification for me to not get angry, or sad or scared, like a new age high-mindedness that ought to be able to jettison me out of my feelings and my real experiences.

But for today, let’s just take it at face value. I was talking to someone today. She is dear and sweet and considerate. I like her, but I feel as if I need to care take of her and to protect her. I am not sure from what. It is just a feeling, an energy. She seems so soft and vulnerable and unable to defend herself somehow. As a result of this string of thoughts and feelings about her, I don’t feel safe around her. I am careful, and tiptoe when in her presence. But today, yes, today, I eventually got down to it, and I told her some of what I was feeling, told her how frustrated I get around her (I didn’t mention how I care take her and feel unsafe, I will save that for another day, lucky her!), and how annoyed I am. It felt great. And she could take it. She even appreciated it. Imagine!

So what is the lesson here? Because there is always a learning that we can take from a situation, no matter how much we think it must be all about the other person, because we are perfect, right? My lesson: quit holding back. Quit thinking that people don’t want to hear the yucky stuff. Quit thinking that conflict is yucky (funny, because in work situations I am all over that idea, and actively deal with conflicts and unspoken elephants as they arise, but when there are no rules, when it is a personal relationship, when it is personal, well then, things change, yes?). Time to take the gloves off. Which is a great theory, but how does it play out in real life? I am sure, having waved a flag in the god’s faces, I will get a chance to find out.

Self as Expert

Met with a bunch of friends night before last, to talk health. All of us suffer some sort of aliment that requires the attention of the medical establishment. And all of us have struggled to get our needs met, by them and others. We were talking through what that means for us, what common lessons we have uncovered, things like that. Here is some of what emerged.

Our bodies have huge healing wisdom. We are all natural healers. Especially for our own bodies and ourselves. We know the answer for ourselves. If we get quiet enough and listen long enough, and trust ourselves. Each of us had/has experiences where when we asked our selves, our deepest knowing selves, we knew what we needed, what was important to us, what the next steps were. When we bothered asking ourselves, when we took it upon ourselves to be our own experts, we knew the answers. Our answers. For our health. So what has us hold back from doing that?

The first problem seems to be how to listen to ourselves. This is not so big a problem for me, so it was really important to hear someone else articulate this challenge. I guess when I would be spouting off about how we all would do well to listen to our bodies, and their inherent wisdom, she’d be like, “Yeah, great idea in theory, but how do you get connected to you body, how do you listen to it?” Might I even add, “How do you ask it questions?” I love what she talked about having learned. That since connection and listening to her body does not come easily to her she has to give herself more time to sit with decisions and questions and so on. If someone expects an instant reply, she will say, “I’ll get back to you on that.” And then take the time she needs, really checks in, makes space, and does not make a decision until she is clear. Different people access their inner wisdom differently (and it seems important to call it “inner wisdom”, for me it is body wisdom because that is where I pick it up most strongly, but really we are talking about your own still small voice, and that presents differently for different people. For some, a gut knowing, for others intuition, and so on.), be it meditating, or sitting by the ocean, or going for walks or talking it through with friends. The key element seems to be stilling the mind. And creating space and time.

A final important nugget from my friend on this: it can be learned. So it if doesn’t come naturally, or you assume everyone else can do it but you. Think again. Just like any other skill, this can be learned through practice and attention. And choosing to do that is essentially about finding our true nature – so next we need to look at honouring it.

The second challenge seems to be to trust ourselves with that and in that wisdom, expert place. To stand in our authority. To know what we know and not start second-guessing ourselves because someone with more, or different, degrees has a different opinion. To be an active partner in our health and healing. Doctors may bring knowledge and theory, but we bring something they can never access, our experience of what is going on. And if they can’t or won’t listen to that and subsequently put us in a cookie cutter solution, then it is our business and responsibility to ourselves to find someone who will. That is the standing in our authority with doctors. But really this “expert perspective” is an across the board thing. When we are certain of ourselves and our decisions and so on, we exude a self-confidence, an aura of expertise that is both hard to resist and hard to shake. When I know what I know and believe in myself and empower that place in me, I am a force to be reckoned with regardless of the circumstances. The easiest image for me to ground this concept into my system is that of Gandhi being physically beaten down, but his spirit and determination never wavering. I hope none of my doctors ever beat me with a stick (and God help them if they do) but if I stay true to myself, there is nothing they could do to make me lose sight of that truth.

Meanwhile the doctors seem to appreciate when we know what we think, what we want and who we are. They seem to want to partner with us, but if we don’t give them anything to work with, they can’t and then they need to be the “all knowing ones”. So, whatever our circumstances in life, being our own experts, being our own advocates, being our own best friends, really seems the best way to go.

Dying for Our Sins - take two

So, as the title suggests, and since Easter isn’t over yet, here is another take on this dying thing.

Is “dying for our sins” kind of like “dying for a smoke”? I mean what is with expressions like that? I am dying for a smoke. Yes, my friend, you are. You are dying, for the sake of having a cigarette. Like I would have been dying for my sins if I hadn’t gotten a whiff of what dying was like and revised my crazy ways 5 years ago.

Without knowing it I was willing to die for the foods I was eating, for the laziness and habit of not exercising, for the option to take the birth control pill that threw my hormones out of whack really early on in my life (don’t do that junk anymore, trust me!!), and for various and sundry other things. We are all dying for our sins, for our addictions. In a world so committed to having what we want when we want it, where we get to buy now and pay later, we don’t even bother checking the price tag. Yeah, well, in the case of our bodies, what is it that we will have to pay later on? Owing to our self-indulgent habits, some of us will have to pay with our lives. And, yes, all of us die eventually, but some deaths are easier than others (is it in too bad taste to take JC as our for instance?). And having dabbled in the direction of one kind of death, I have come to realize that I really don’t want to make my final exit down that road if I can help it. So now I search for ways to make sure I can help ensure a gentler path.

And it is not just choices we need to make about our physical world; there are also choices we have to make about our mental and emotional worlds. Taken to the extreme, I think it is a bit new age-y, but it cannot be denied that our thoughts and beliefs are very powerful. It was while I was in chemotherapy that, with the help of my Co-Active Space Leadership Program Tribe, I noticed a rather unfortunate message that I had been sending my body for years. And I mean YEARS. As I mentioned above, I started taking the birth control pill when I was young. And it took just about a month to throw my body out of harmony. Now at the time, young as I was, I knew I was immortal, and so why concern myself with a minor upset to the body. So it didn’t bother me that I was now experiencing pre-menstrual symptoms all the way from ovulation to menstruation, EVERY MONTH. That is two weeks in four. Count ‘em, two. So as of that time forward, my breast ached painful for half of my life. Ouch. And did I have compassion for the lovelies? No, I was annoyed by them, rather than seeing this pain as being something that should concern me, I saw it as something that got in my way. Every time I would move, they would hurt, every jiggle (not that they are big jigglers), every step I took, every sudden movement (not to mention every affectionate grope by my various boyfriends over the years, try explaining why I wince when they touch me, ah the joy), would hurt me. Over time, starting in some unconscious place inside me, but eventually moving into thought or spoken word, each and every time I would feel that pain, I would say to myself “God, my boobs are killing me.” Yes, that’s right GOD, MY BOOBS ARE KILLING ME. Picture that message, at least a dozen times a day, half of every month, for years, now decades. What kinds of damage can that do? Well, I guess that is clear, since we have already seen the results. What do I tell myself now, two weeks out of every month? I say, “Wow, my breasts are tender.” And while it hasn’t stopped my breasts from aching each month, being aware of it has reminded me to bring more love into my body, every single part of my body, regardless of how we are getting along at that moment.

So, bottom line, I am unwilling to die for my sins anymore. Not that I plan to remove all my sins. Obvious, that would be impossible. And that is not the point of redemption anyway. What I will do is be more conscious and intentional, and pick the things that are really worth having, and then have them with full commitment, knowing that I might have to pay a price for them later on. And leave it up to God what that price is.

Dying for Our Sins

As the story goes, today is the day that Christ died for our sins. What does that mean exactly? Being raised in a predominately Christian society I was lead to see it as we, as humans, are really, really broken and unworthy and a bunch of ego crushing stuff like that, and that Christ came along and sort of took our sins, bundled them all up, put them on his back and did the Noble Thing, and was the lamb to the slaughter, saying I will die a horrendous death and that will clean everyone of these inherent sins they carry. Sort of like: I will clean your slate and you will owe me, and that debt must be repay with an undying love and commitment to me and my way of life forever and ever (ahem).

Wow, that is just too much for me. Too much owning someone, too much obligation, too much not responsible for myself, too much absolution. In general, I am quite fond of Christ, even though I have not taken him as my saviour (even writing that expression freaks me out a bit, firstly, it assumes I need saving, secondly, it assume I am not up for the job myself, thirdly, it implies someone else can do that for me, quite presumptuous). He is an inspiration of how to live life with love, courage, compassion and grace. I have always held him as a brother, who has walked that path before me and can light the way and help me over rough patches. This fits with my perspective that I am a child of God too, so Christ’s special status as the Son of God, loses some of its mystique and authority. But even so, I have tons of respect and love for this powerful, caring, righteous man.

But back to this dying for our sins deal. Here is the way I see it that works for me. He was role modeling something we all can do. He didn’t do it for us, he did it for us. If you see what I mean. He was marking the path, establishing the route, leading the way. And he did what can be and usually is an inner journey, in an outer, visible, active way. So that we could all learn from it, and be less afraid of our own hard, dark moments. We all have the option to do what he did (not the hanging on a cross part, that is harder to get happening these days then back then), but the principles that he embodied.

To take responsibility for things that are happening even if we are not 100% to blame, or even to “blame”. Really, isn’t this what all the business guru are writing about these days, not to mention how long the 12 steppers have been living it: see your part in it and cop to it, don’t try to hide it or deny it or push it under the rug and blame someone else. It’s about personal responsibility. Which is different from being a martyr, or a victim, and sucking it up and taking responsibility for other people’s stuff. Fine line I know. Learning to walk it is the point. As is not hanging out in blame. This applies to cancer (and I am sure other diseases), what part of my health is my responsibility? How many choices do I decide (or not decide) to abdicate? Who or what do I blame? What am I willing to do to change the situation?

To go willingly. Not to say there wasn’t a time when he resisted, remember the garden. And thank goodness for that, it helps me a great deal, as just an ordinary person (as I am sure Christ felt himself to be as well), to know that the Great Jesus Christ had at least one dark night of the soul, a moment when he felt abandoned by God, and felt himself fumbling around in the dark, wondering, waiting, desperate, apathetic, struggling, resisting, and all the other fun bits that come along with it. Just like me, he had fears. Which is something that I need to know when I am faced with the painful road that I don’t want to journey. To know that it is ok: I can question God’s will, I can say I don’t like it, and stamp my feet and have a tantrum. And eventually I, like Christ, will make peace with my journey, and from there can willingly and powerfully step to the inevitable. I love the lines from Jesus Christ Super Star in the garden, when everyone is asleep and Christ is talking to God, and he says, “God, thy will is hard. But you hold every card. I will drink your cup of poison, nail me to your cross and break me, bleed me, beat me, kill me! Take me now, before I change my mind!”

To not take people’s projections of their fears personally. Boy it must have been hard to going from walking on water, and being the life of the party to being heckled, and mocked and attacked and demeaned. But don’t we all fall from grace one day or other, in some way or other? None of us are perfect (not even The Great One, in this case JC, not Wayne Gretsky, although that is relatively topical too). And all of us will be the recipients of people’s projections at some time or other too. Whether they think we are too big for our britches, too arrogant, not fighting for our fair share, not standing up to people. Whatever it is that people say about us, we all know it says more about the person who says it rather than the person it is said about. Still, boy it is hard not to take it on, not to take it personally. And Christ did that. He forgave them, right there and then, for all the crap they were dishing out to him. Even in his darkest hour, his biggest pain. Then again, knowing what I know about Dark Nights of the Soul, the days that followed the night in Gethsemane were not Christ’s darkest hour, by then he was already feeling God’s Love, and there is no human force that can lessen the beauty and magic when we are in that place. When we are in total acceptance, of ourselves, our situation and our relationship with our higher power, then equanimity and forgiveness is easy, almost unconscious.

These are all marks of the ever so important ego death that is necessary for our growth as human beings. That place where we let a part of ourselves, that we identify with strongly, go. We realize that it is not our true nature, not our deepest core being, but rather a veil we put on, a mask we wear, perhaps our Proper Self that keeps everyone else happy, and so, painful as it is to let go of that chunk of our identity, we do so. For our own evolution. And in the case of our brother, JC, for the evolution of all humankind, whether he knew it or not.

So thank you Mr. Christ, for living out loud, and letting us be witness, and so granting us permission for our own journeys.

Biopsy

Tomorrow someone else that I know is having a biopsy. They are being tested to see if they have cancer. Did I say epidemic? This thing has gotten so out of control. And, yes, I probably hear about more than the usual cases of cancer or testing and so on than most, since, as a survivor, people can count on my compassion and understanding. And darn right, I say. I have a ton of compassion for this process. In my journey, it was the biopsies that were the worst of the experience; they were more violent than any of the other procedures. Wait, let’s even rethink what I just said. Because what about health care should be violent, I mean really. But that is the truth, violent. Or maybe it is just because I wasn’t heavily sedated for that procedure, expecting it to be pretty easy, let’s face it the lump was huge, near the surface, hard to miss. I will say that again, HARD TO MISS. So why did it take such force to get a few cells and why did it require such repeated and aggressive pumps of the doctor’s arm. It still boggles me. And it wasn’t just that I have a distorted memory, I went in for two of these, and both we equally bad (now they were with the same doctor, and maybe that was the problem, in fact that is what had me change diagnostic centers). We are facing not just “what is wrong with our world, that there is so much cancer”, but also “what is wrong with our system, that the treatment is sometimes worse than the disease.”

So not only do I have huge compassion for this person, going under the needle. I feel a sort of empathic response. Tonight, thinking about what tomorrow will hold for them, my body cringes, my head swivels away and I wince. And my heart aches. It is an alone feeling (no matter how many friends you bring in, no matter how close they hold you while the doctors are busy making matters worse), just you and the doctor and the instruments. Yes, there might be other people in the room, but those don’t seem to take the thoughts away, or soften the fears and the feelings. Sort of like in bad dreams or distorted childhood memories, the needle looks 3 feet long, the doctor is looming, and lurking, the antagonist of the story. It has the capacity to hit such a primal place, reduce us to our small selves, and hold us in such a vulnerable spot.

These are some of the moments that define us as people, and reveal who we are at the core. How do we respond in these tough spots? Who are we when the rubber hits the road? Then again, considering how poorly I handled this situation, perhaps I should rethink what I just wrote. In many cases it is the biopsy that starts a journey, and inevitably who we are at the beginning of that tale and who we are at the end is very different. I recall a friend who went through breast cancer some years after I did, when I would chat with her, and when I visited her in the hospital post surgery, she would ask me “how did you come to be so powerful around this, so strong in yourself and in your convictions?” I don’t have a specific answer, only that I walked through the fire (and trust me, I would have opted out if I could have), and you will be this person too (or rather, your version of it), once you have walked through your fire. This process and procedure almost becomes the benchmark against which we can measure ourselves when we have come up from the depths, reborn. Seeing what we have learned about self-care, about asking for help, about standing up for ourselves and taking back our power.

I invite prayers and love for this special person, both for an easy and gentle procedure and that the results from it are in their favour.

Fighting Our True Nature

Unlike choosing joy, this is not something that I recommend. In fact, I sometimes wonder if it is the root of all evil (no offense intended toward money of course, just saying). This is the one thing that gets in my way more than any other thing. It gets in the way of my happiness, it gets in the way of my productivity, it gets in the way of my relationships, it gets in the way of my life’s work. It should be banned. And yet, it continues. And an external ban or trade tariff or the like would do no good, because this is an internal battle (aren’t all the good ones?). Yes, it’s true, choosing to be our clear, authentic, fully expressed self, that is an inside job. And we do need structures to keep us on track, and we do need friends and allies that can remind us and help us see when we stray or how we stray. But, in the final equation, it is up to us and us alone to fight the temptation to be as we think we ought to be (in my case, nice, proper, well-behaved, and a few other disappointingly bland characteristics), or to be as we think others think we ought to be or tell us to be, or to be how we think that job needs us to be, and so on, and so on, and unfortunately, one more “so on” (doesn’t it feel never ending to you, it sure does to me).

So there it is, the thing to avoid, the problem at hand, now how do we find and honour and keep choosing our true natures? There is no one test that can tell us all of what it is. There isn’t one magic workshop we can enroll in that will reveal all. There isn’t a psychic or astrologer or priest that can divine the pearls of wisdom that will change our lives forever. So what’s a human to do?

Here is what I have discovered so far (and know that I have devoted most of my adult life to this cause, as I feel, at a very deep level that this is at least half of why we are here, to know ourselves, to know our true natures, to stay true to that. And then, life throws tests in along the way to help us deepen and sharpen that knowing. I am not sure where or who this quote is from, but it captures a piece of what I am saying here: God created man so that God could know God) about FINDING our true natures:

1) It is an ongoing process. We discover something about ourselves and we need to test if it is true, we need to try it on and make sure it resonates for us. That takes time. And some of it will stick and some of it will not. Then comes a challenge to “take what we like and leave the rest”. Say we take a workshop, or come in to a new teaching, and the guru gives a cookie cutter solution, perhaps he says “men are from mars and women are from venus”. It makes sense, in the context (especially the context of you having just spent $500 for the workshop, if you don’t think what he has to say it useful, it is egg on your face not his). And you like the sound of it, and what is might do for your life. But you need to go try on the Techicolour Dreamcoat for a while before you decide to buy or in other words whether this is who you are. And some of it might not ring true, partly because if it was a cookie cutter solution or idea, well it can’t be 100% true for all 100 people in the room, right? But there might be pressure for the new peer group (you know, the fellow workshop junkies) to buy in, to believe it, to start living it like it is the real you. This brings us face to face with the “what others think we ought to be, or tell us to be” problem. So with this pressure and influence it might take us a while to see if it really, truly is a match for us. And so that dance continues, ongoingly, always refining as new information comes our way.

2) Who we are changes over time. Or does it? When I was 19, and I choose to take a Commerce degree, no one batted an eyelash. It seemed totally in line with the little girl who had counted her dad’s change, and stacked it in neat little piles, just for fun. Then when I graduated and moved out west I swung hard, very hard to the flaky side (I don’t think that left and right even captures that scale I was playing on, although for the record, on the usual scale I have always been left, even as I got my Commerce degree). In the end (well, then again, it is not the end yet, let’s wait and see where things go from here), I am somewhere in the middle, although my recent return to interests of business suggest that perhaps I am heading back to something (maybe that is why I don’t want to believe that money is the root of all evil). Which one is the real me? At any one stage in my life I would have asserted that wherever I am now, that is IT, the real me. It is who I am, absolutely, unequivocally. And then promptly changed course. Maybe the truth in not in the external manifestation, but rather the core or essence of my personality. When I was in the height of my flaky phase, I remember being back east visiting my parents, and I was presenting to my father some of what I had been learning of myself in my explorations on the coast. And I said to him “I am airy fairy. And I am touchy feely.” To which he said, with a little mischief in his eye (good to know I got it from somewhere), “No dear, you are witchy bitchy.” I burst into laughter (much to my father’s relief I am sure, as it must have been a bit risky to say such a thing to someone who is in denial of her witchy bitchy-ness, and therefore a bit of a powder keg), what a great joy it is to be really known and really seen. In my essence. Because it is my powerful, direct, hell raising self that has been a part of the entire journey I have been on regardless of the details and the changes.

3) In certain circumstances it serves us to be “someone else”. But make sure you don’t mistake that for yourself. Your True Self. For all that I took that business degree, and for all that I wore the burgundy Commerce jacket around campus for 3 ½ years, something was amiss. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I didn’t quite fit in. I can see now that it is because I am a hybrid (always have been, foot in many camps, wait, how many feet do I have again?). But to get through it all, to get that degree over 4 grueling years (and yes, I took drama classes whenever I could to break the monotony) I had to step into the persona of the Commerce student. To survive. To get by. To get through. But I never lost myself there (mostly because I surrounded myself with the right friends that kept reminding me who I REALLY am). I never started believing that I was that person. I knew it was a suit that I was wearing. And that one day I would take it off. More and more though, maybe as I am getting older and wiser, and seeing myself more accurately, I do that less and less. Now I always bring all of me into a job interview (let’s face it, if they hired the Proper Signy, they would then expect me to be the Proper Signy for 8 hours a day, yikes!). And I am still working on bringing all of me out on first dates (my deep seated fear being that I blow these poor men out of the water, so instead I use that liquid to water myself down).

So it seems the journey never ends. But I suspect it is related to those ladies who say, “When I am old, I shall wear purple”. They know who they are, and they won’t compromise it for anyone!!!

The Power of Powerlessness

Well, while I haven’t yet had the blinding flash of light, or the revelation of the complete surrender (which I hate, because that is what has been happening for about a year now, I come close to surrendering, really close, and then get a sort of deus ex machina, not a real, heart moving solution, but just enough awareness to stop the pain, and the letting go, dang, just put me out of my misery once and for all!), I have had some insights.

I am not in acceptance of my situation, of my life as it stands right now, of reality. There are things I want that I don’t have. And I have been hoping and wishing and trying and praying to get acceptance around not having those things (naturally that step came after the step where I was hoping and wishing and trying and prayer to get the things I want, so really this is progress). And nothing changes. Nothing changes. And so I assume that my praying wasn’t done right, or good enough, or something, and so I try harder. And harder. And still nothing changes. Still I don’t have what I want.

Of course at some level I am assuming that accepting my situation, accepting that I don’t have what I want will change my not having what I want, that through the acceptance I will get to have what I want. It is sort of like having my fingers crossed behind my back when talking to God. It is a form of bargaining, “If I accept that I don’t have this thing, and get ok with it, then you will give it to me, right?” Which sometimes does happen. But not recently, not on this round of “wants”. The real win, the real power behind this spiritual principle, is that when I do accept my situation, really accept my situation, then I change, and I look at the world differently and I am less inclined to be longing for something outside myself.

So picture me, face all screwed up tight in the effort, trying to think my way to acceptance. Acceptance of these things I don’t have and I want. And then it hits me. I don’t need to accept that I don’t have these things; I need to accept that I don’t have control over when or whether I get the things. That is the real issue here. I want to be able to decide when and what and where and how I get the thing(s) I want. I want to be able to make the change happen. I want control over the outcome. Power over the outcome. And what I need to accept is my powerlessness (12 stepper that I am, this is not the bad word it might be in other circles, not powerless as in victim, but powerless in that I believe that there is a power greater than myself that guides me and life, and I can trust in that).

Accepting my powerlessness. Ouch. And yay! Seeing that I am not all powerful, seeing that I am not in control of every last detail, that gives me the room to breathe, to stop being so hard on myself, to trust that it is all exactly they way it is meant to be. Oh holy relief. A mini breakthrough (not that this is entirely new, but each time I must be getting it deeper, right?). Enough for a reprieve at any rate. And maybe if I keep exploring it and really living into it, I will let that lesson of the head percolate all the way down into my heart and then the relief and release will be long lasting and profound. But I don’t much have control over that either.

So what do I have control over, really control? Whether I live my life, fully, today. Whether I express myself completely, today. Whether I line myself up with God’s will for me, just for today. And let tomorrow take care of itself.

Dark Night of the Soul

What can I tell you, I am still here, in the Dark Night of the Soul (feels more like dark year of the soul, but never mind). That place where I feel the aching lack of God. I feel abandoned by Her and am lost. It sucks here. And I want to not be here, and I think I should be happy, since I am healthy. And I want to fix it, and I want to find a way out of it. And I feel like it is a punishment for something I have done, done wrong, not done well enough. And I want it to be different than it is. And I want a magic answer. And I want to look good and not be writing about this AGAIN. And I want, and I want, and I want. But that is not what is. And so here I am writing from this place. Humbled in my powerlessness to change it (yes I can put on a brave face, or I can deny it is happening, but that is not the same as changing it). I feel like I need to have a reason, an excuse to be more exact, to feel this way. Like poor health, or the end of a significant relationship, or working is going poorly, or going bankrupt. Something dramatic, something big, something WORTHY. Or even something reasonable, like I am only now letting myself have my feelings that I certainly couldn’t afford to let myself have when I was going through surgery.

Boy, do I have a hard time just validating my feelings, just as they are, that simple. And then if other people come along and invalidate my feelings, dismiss them or discount them or mock them. Whew, I am a goner, I side with them over me, to my face no less! Ouch. Abandoning myself for abandoning myself. Double ouch. Very tricky territory for me.

I am also very clear I don’t have time for this (ah, the little tricks my mind used to make me stop, to disorient and shame me). I need to do taxes, need to clean my place for a Discovery Session on Friday with a new client, need to finish the e-course for the website. Oh, here is a good one, I need to blog. No time for feeling, I need to blog. Hmm, here is a thought, blog about your DAMN feelings! You know, so you are coming from the heart instead of the head, that stuff you recommend for others, but get a little nervous to do yourself. Little too exposing. Well, isn’t that the power of it? Sigh. This being human, it is so, intense, so draining, so over and over. And it is not like I haven’t been here before (may would say at a different part of the spiral, this is deeper, and so on – but is that just to make me feel better, why the hell am I back in hell?) Ahh, my inner parts are at war. Nothing new. Just like these feelings, age old. Part of being a seeker, right? It is just that I wear them on my sleeve, all messy, for everyone to see. No mystic monk on the mountain top, me.

I make up that I am whining (as oppose to expressing a powerful truth that just is), and god knows that is not acceptable, god forbid I be a victim. Which is why I am being so darn hard on myself in this place (also something I am choosing to not edit out, uncomfortable as that is), because not only do I not want you to feel sorry for me here, I don’t want you to think I actually tolerate my own victim stance, but rather take a firm, hard stand with myself. [Wow, this is quite the Signy Unplugged I’ve got going here.] Further on the “god forbid I be a victim” front, after enough new age propaganda, I think that I should be able to say some affirmations and think better thoughts and then it will all go away. Essentially that this is all my fault. And I better pull up my socks and DO SOMETHING. Anything. Well, here is what I am going to do. I am going to sit with it, and hopefully, I am going to feel it. And I will see what happens next. And I will trust where I am drawn. And I might even try a bit of gentleness along the way.

New Ideas in the Fight

I was cruising around cancer sites (yeah, now that is a fun pastime, clearly I need to get out more, to beef up my fun quotient) and came across a wee article on breath tests to determine breast cancer. This ties into a new area where dogs are being used to sniff out cancer in people (different article, same site). What I love about this is how simple it is. What we wait to see is how effective it is.

I like the site in that it has little sound bites about different things going on with cancer, and cancer cure and cancer prevention, and so on, which has me be more up to date while being less overwhelmed. Works for me.

Quality of Death

Sad news today
Through the email
A passing Friend

Sad news today indeed. Stephanie, a woman of grace and courage and love, died of brain cancer last Friday. The story is heartbreaking, the woman inspiring. In her early thirties, this gal had already twice fought against this disease valiantly and bravely, rallying and embracing life each time. And now she leaves behind her scores of mournful people. I didn’t know her as well as they did. My loss. What I do remember of her is her bouncy strawberry blonde hair with a mind of it’s own, her ready smile and the dancing twinkle in her eye. What a precious soul.

When our mutual friend, Jenny, got me up to speed on the situation (she was kindly waiting for my results to come through before sharing her load) she asked what, if any, suggestions I had for how to be with Steph as her days got short. I have said it before, I am no expert of this part of the process, and once I am I won’t be around to give any more suggestions on much of anything. But here is what I imagine is important (and I would love input from people who have supported loved ones through this, or any other insights from people):

1) Quality time with the people she loves.

2) Knowing she will live on in some way, through memories, through stories told about her, through ongoing donations to cancer organizations in her name.

3) Being reminded what impact she has had, that her life has huge meaning and that she contributed. She is an inspiration and a gift, and she needs to know and feel it.

4) Helping her find her way to peaceful thinking about this. I called it "quality of death" in one of my postings, and I don't know what it means exactly, but it is captured in the inspiring story of a friend of a friend who had breast cancer, metastasized to her brain. In the later stages of the disease and therefore of her life, she found the way to make friends with the cancer and with the experience, found the magic and the rightness in something so very, very wrong. She found a way to be grateful and to see what was good. She was able to keep remembering and knowing with all of her being that she is a precious child of God and everything will be ok, in the end.

There is little left to say, except that the world will be a less friendly place without Steph. My heart is with her and her family and friends. And though you may not have known her, please send prayers and love for her family and friends on Friday as they celebrate Steph and the magnificence of her life.

What's So Funny?

Ok, so if laughter is the best medicine, let’s take a look at this miracle cure. I googled “types of humour” and got this long list of words or expressions we use for laughter (remember Eskimos have 20 words for snow, in other words, we really love our laughter)

Laugh
Belly laugh
Guffaw
Chuckle
Chortle
Cackle
Giggle
Snigger
Titter
Smile
Smirk
Grin
To kill oneself laughing
A roar of laughter
Shrieks of laughter
A fit of the giggles
To crease up
To be convulsed
To be rolling in the aisles
To be in stitches
To bust a gut

Laughing out loud. Or to ourselves. It is healing, no? We might all have different senses of humour, different things that crack us up (lord knows, some things people think are hilarious, just make me go huh? And I am sure others feel the same about me and mine, hard to imagine, I know), but finding the thing that makes us laugh ‘til we cry, and the people that share that way of seeing the world, boy it makes all the difference.

Now I am not the kind of gal who looks for research and studies (although after writing this post, I came across this related post, check it out) to prove the things that just feel right for me intuitively (to many people’s criticism, I might add, but I laugh in their face, mouhhahaha), so I can’t prove to you that comedy cures cancer, or that humour heals hearts. But I know it’s true. On the days when I get that funny email, or have a chat with the friend who has me gasping for air between gales of laughter, or I watch the movie that hits my funny bone the right way, I just plain feel better. My muscles and organs have gotten a workout. Smiles come quicker in all situations. I am more tolerant when I am driving or dealing with difficult people (funny I put those together, clearly I think they are one in the same, and refuse to see that the driving thing might be about me and not them!). I am more willing to see my own part. The world is a better place. Hmm, and I am a better person.

And here is an interesting idea to ponder. We won’t be able to laugh when we don’t have bodies (or cry, or dance or have sex for that matter). I am even going to venture to say that laughter is a privilege that comes of being in a human body (am I missing out on other things that laugh, for instance, do laughing hyenas really laugh or is this just a manner of speaking based on what seems to us like laughter, or do chimpanzees laugh, or other members of the family tree). Maggie doesn’t get to laugh. She does this little thing that I could swear is smiling, but never, ever has she laughed (perhaps she has just not had the occasion to laugh as we don’t share the same sense of humour?!?).

So how can I make sure I get my laugh a day to keep the bogie man away? I mean it is not like an (organic) apple that I can just pick up and eat. Obviously I need to know what makes me laugh. Is it visual gags? Or witty comments? Or pathos? Or satire? Do I like irony, or farce, or sarcasm? Is it slapstick and buffoonery or parody or mimicry or absurdity that do it for me? And once I know what I like, what are the quickest routes to get it? What are the primary sources of that style of humour? And what is an almost guaranteed laugh? And what makes the difference between a chuckle and a thigh slapping, gut splitting, fighting for air, at its mercy roar of laughter? Frankly I don’t know, since I have never taken the time to break it down, analyze it or explore my preferences. Well, I think it is high time!

To get us started, here is Wikipedia’s definition of humour:
Humour (humor in American English) is a form of entertainment and a form of human communication, intended to make people laugh and feel happy. The origins of the word "humour" lie in the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which stated that a mix of fluids, or humours, controlled human health and emotion.

Along with a site that starts us on the road of exploration.

And over the next wee while, interspersed with rants and whatever else is current and important, I will bring you what I learn about different types of humour.