Loneliness

Since making the transition from graduate student to stay-at-home mom, I have noticed an increased sense of loneliness. While I have enjoyed the time with my daughter and have seen our relationship strengthen, I have felt a widening gap between myself and others. Adults. Friends. Colleagues.

There is a sense of isolation—perhaps tied, in part, to the fact I have no job at present that takes me outside the home and encompasses a purpose beyond self or family; perhaps related to the monetary and logistical realities of finding a sitter whenever I want to attend a show, go out with friends, or enjoy a date-night with my husband; maybe even somewhat self-inflicted and tied more to my state of mind and chosen perspective than anything else.

Perhaps entirely self-inflicted. Loneliness is, after all, a state of mind. It is a perspective... a narrative based on my perception of the elements of my life... a chosen label affixed by no one other than me to a series of emotions and thoughts I experience and then refuse to let go.

Author Dr. Brenda Shoshanna is credit with this quote: "When a sense of hunger, loneliness, dissatisfaction and craving comes, don’t blame it on others, or on circumstances. Instead, stop and look within."

So what is it then? Why the dissatisfaction, the tension, the sadness, the restlessness, the worry, the exhaustion? What is in between this state of blech and the simple joy of peaceful alertness and presence?

It's a stuckness I have encountered so many times its akin to a recurring dream. Sometimes that's how it feels. As if I have gotten trapped in a labyrinth of my mind and hazily look around for the exit while knowing full well the exit is simply to wake up and stop being there.

One of the greatest lessons I hope to learn in this lifetime is the ability to maintain peace. To be at peace and find a sense of grounding and ease that remains somewhat steady and stable. A sort of calm interlacing with my core. I don't think you can be lonely if you are truly at peace... probably because you not only value your own company, but also because you never forget there is no such thing as separation on a spiritual (and perhaps even scientific) level.

So I must look within. Continue meditating, utilizing my dharma buddy/husband, recognizing my daughter as another teacher and incredible gift, and loosening my grip on an attachment I have yet to fully recognize with alertness and accept with intention.

May you regain a sense of connection in spans of drifting. May you look within with bravery and persistence.

Awareness

I checked the calendar today and realized I have been sitting regularly for about six weeks now, which is really not that long. And yet, it feels like I've been at it for a long time when I consider its impact within my life. The process of entering a meditative state feels easier and seems to have gotten a bit faster, and I typically look forward to my daily practice with happiness and sometimes even excitement.

A while back, I wrote about some of the changes that often come with regular meditative practice. It's been very interesting to note some of those same shifts in myself, as well as ways in which a commitment to regular practice has increased my awareness and mindfulness in multiple areas of my life.

You see, I began practice in search of a panacea; something to settle my soul, ease my heart, answer all questions, and finally ground me in a profound sense of knowing. And, of course, it's not really like that at all.

My experience thus far has not been such that all unhappiness, uncertainty, insecurity, or bad habits have magically and immediately been erased—replaced with calm, peaceful, enlightened perception through which I may encounter the world and never be hurt, hurtful, or lost.

Silly to think there would be no work involved. Instead, my suspicions have been raised. Ah ha... I think. This is not THE ANSWER I was seeking. At least, not in the immediate sense.

And yet, it is an answer of sorts because it helps me define my questions and note areas of concern, disconnect, or damage much more quickly and honestly. The work and commitment seems to be as much an aspect of the practice and all that comes with it as what I had hoped would be my automatic and fruitful reward. Peacefulness. Awareness. Acceptance. Happiness.

One of the greatest changes I have noticed thus far has been increased awareness. This often translates to being less able to ignore certain things and more cognizant of the impact my thinking/speaking/doing have upon myself and others.

In other words, it's harder to bullshit myself. It's harder to run away from things in an effort to pretend they do not exist. It's harder to fake it. Harder to stay in one spot or be stuck. Harder to give up, not try, or half-ass it.

It's as if all the work I need to do to reach those longed-for emotional states and places of contentment got kicked up to a level of obviousness I simply cannot laugh off. And, wonderfully, at the same time, it's been coupled with increased reserves of patience, acceptance, and the ability to reset... which seem to be necessary for growth.

So... I am at this interesting point that reminds me of those months preceding an eventual decision to stop smoking. Have you been there? You still reach for the cigarettes, still crave them with a palpable ache, but when you light up and begin to suck it all in, it feels hollow. Maybe even distasteful. You feel sick. It stinks. Your body doesn't respond the way it used to. Something is missing. And there is this increasingly powerful nagging thought in the back of your mind, stomping its way expectantly to the forefront, that maybe you don't really enjoy it anymore. Maybe it's time to quit.

(Relationships can feel this way too; particularly those that are not "good" for you.)

This awareness - this mindfulness - seems to accompany active practice and becomes similarly demanding. Lately, these are my realizations requiring action because they are increasingly impossible to ignore:

• I don't feel well when I yell or lose my temper.
• I don't feel well when I eat red meat. Possibly all meat.
• I don't feel well when I drink or do drugs.
• I don't feel well when I speak ill of another person or say hurtful things; this is especially true if I have said things in the person's absence.
• I feel a persistent emotional need to be acknowledged, and then feel embarrassed or shy or ego-heavy when I do get noticed.
• Getting hurt, physically or emotionally, does not really last very long. The actual hurt is often sharp, but brief - like a bee sting. Yet, I seem to have some form of influence over how long the feeling of being hurt persists.
• There is very little, if anything, so important from my past that it must be carried with me into the present. This is particularly true of regret, guilt, injuries, or harm.
• I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. But a part of me still wishes to be. This is not helpful.
• Patience and acceptance seem to assist in all situations. Every single one. Being something other than patient or accepting seems to produce some form of pain: sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness.
• I smile more when my mind is quiet.

I don't know what path you walk, or where this finds you today, but I hope you find connection, assistance, or reassurance somewhere so that you may keep going, buoyed by an alert awareness of your multiplicity and capacity for change.

May your awareness of self be a source of light and hope. May you remain mindful of others in all you do.

Meditation

My class ends next week, and I am not sure what will happen afterward. I would like to think I'll continue to integrate meditation into my life on a daily basis... maybe even attend temple services or try something out closer to home.

Yet despite how easy it is to sit down in one spot and breathe - I mean, really, what could be simpler... sitting and breathing - meditation at times feels daunting and difficult. It's common to start beating oneself up for thinking too much, to feel like a "bad meditator," or to simply decide there is not enough time to fit it in.

I have done all three of these; the last, most commonly. And it's sort of silly (and embarrassing to admit) that I actually decide on some days I cannot find even five minutes to sit down, and breathe.

I have noticed some changes, however. I am able to stop thinking more often. To bring my thoughts back to the present more quickly when my mind starts to wander away. And to experience a form of happiness - simple, calm, anchored happiness - heretofore unknown to me.

There have been many studies on the affects of meditation: its benefits and potential uses with health issues, ways it can improve mental health and functioning, even how it can increase empathy and alter one's experience of others.

My husband recently told me meditation actually alters your brain chemistry. Apparently, the book he is currently reading describes how the left and right brain become more equally balanced and cohesively aligned through meditation.

In other words, our biological dual natures (the very real split of left and right brain, which translates into yin vs. yang, ego vs. id, little "i" vs. big "I," thinking vs. feeling, logical vs. chaotic, etc.) move toward equilibrium via meditation. So much so, in fact, that our brain chemistry and physical makeup become permanently altered by the practice of sitting.

Sort of incredible to think something so simple could have such profound ramifications—scientific and physical as well as spiritual or metaphysical. Interesting, too, to note how Buddhism, being nontheistic and more of a philosophy than a proscribed dogma, works within any context of faith, religious background, or spiritual leaning.

I am unsure, at this point, whether I will continue looking into Buddhism as a spiritual home. I miss the pluralistic and all-encompassing approach of the religious education program at the Unitarian Universalist fellowship we used to attend. I think it's important to be exposed to and aware of as many different faiths and ways of interpreting our human and higher selves as possible (including atheism and agnosticism).

But something about it definitely fits so far. And the process and commitment of mindfulness has been incredibly powerful - something I intend to carry forward with me.

May you experience at least five minutes of peacefulness today. May you remember to breathe and know you are here.

Memory

After over three years in a counselor training program and four weeks of meditation class, I came to a new realization/understanding last night about memory.

It was connected, in large part, to something I wrote about on Monday - an idea our teacher had shared in class. Last night, when she went over the concept again, I realized I had remembered it (and internalized it) totally incorrectly, and so had sort of traveled down this tangential and theoretically erroneous path in processing the information.

To clarify and correct my earlier post... the three pillars are teaching, practice, and enlightenment (connected, predominantly, to the Japanese tradition of Zen - assuming I'm remembering that correctly!). The three stones referred to in class are related to the Korean tradition, and are peace of mind, happiness/contentment, and gratitude.

This little ah ha moment in the midst of class led me to thinking about memory and how we tend to define ourselves by our memories. They are our anchor to our past, and because we are so often attached to thought and our mind in terms of our self-definition, I think sometimes we are prone to relying solely on our memories as a basis of truth for our experience.

The difficulty in this is how subjective (and potentially faulty) memory can be. We need only ask a family member or friend for their version of events on a particularly important day to see there is no such thing as objective truth. Experience is defined by the narrative we weave, the meaning we make, the memory we hold and define as real.

Yet, if we honor each person's experience as valid and authentic, then we must accept multiple renditions of reality and embrace the very scary notion that objective truth simply does not exist. Or rather, our version of "objective" truth can be objective for no one other than ourselves.

This is important in two ways, I believe. The first echoes back to something one of my professors said with regard to working with younger clients: it doesn't matter how you meant something or what your intention might be, it matters how it has been perceived by the client and what meaning he/she makes of it.

In other words, whether I intended offense or hurt through my words or not - if someone has told me that's how they experienced what I said, then the truth (and validity) of their perception of the interaction between us must be acknowledged. This is especially important in the realm of multicultural awareness and sensitivity, but is a great lesson to carry forth into all interactions.

Similarly, whether my recollection of events jibes with those of someone else or not, we are equally invested in our remembering. We hold onto those memories like a safety line in the tumultuous sea of chronology and biology - both of which tear asunder our minds as we grow older.

What this all leads to, I think, is the necessity for an increased capacity to forgive ourselves and others when our versions of history chafe against each other or we realize we have muddled something previously thought stable and irrefutable due to the limitations inherent in our thinking selves.

I am more aware of the importance of forgiving and accepting my husband, friends, or family their memories - much as I must accept and forgive my own. So many of us are quick to speak sharply, exhale loudly, or react negatively when someone has forgotten something important to us, retold a story we've already heard a dozen times, or made a mistake based on (to our thinking) an erroneous recollection.

Pretty unfair when you remember the mind is merely one small part of us... not our selves. It makes no more sense to punish someone for a glitch in their thinking than it would to get angry for the ramifications of a missing limb, a genetic propensity for high cholesterol, or the extra care taken with something like asthma.

And yet, we do it all the time. I do it all the time; showing frustration and impatience instead of compassion and calm. Harder on others than I am on myself, because I control the remembering of my own inadequacies (and we all know how that goes).

May you distinguish your self from your mind. May your memories provide a source of perspective - without claiming infallibility.

Hope

Today I am thinking about hope. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because it's been a difficult week. Maybe because I am starting to look for work and feeling a bit bewildered due to all the variables we must consider with regard to our daughter, our residence, our income, our tax bracket, etc.

It could also be due to the several stories I heard this morning on NPR that make my concerns look tiny and more-than-manageable in comparison with the difficulties faced by so many others throughout the world.

The older I have gotten, the more I've come to understand the importance and impact of hope. It's the thing that keeps us feeling connected, the thing that keeps us from going under or spiraling downward beyond articulating, past reaching out... locked in paralyzed hiding.

Hope reminds us we are beautiful - in a divine and valuable way. It tells us we are strong. It whispers possible connections between ourselves and everyone around us... weaving safety nets along our support systems so that even the slightest waver catches someone's attention - and they answer our call before we even knew we needed assistance.

Hope is tied to compassion. Our capacity to be compassionate with ourselves and to be open to the imperfections and potential challenges contained in others. Hope allows failure. Hope allows forgiveness. Because it sees neither as a finite answer and believes new questions can always be asked.

One of my assignments this week was to meditate for 5 minutes each day. Such a seemingly small thing, and yet - as our teacher knew it would - it can pose a challenge for those of us unused to making time for such things.

A remarkable aspect of these daily sittings has been the discovery of a deep-seated and very powerful force of hope within. I am still in the process of fully uncovering it... like a deep-sea diver carefully removing wreckage around a sunken treasure. I catch it gleaming... get a sharp sense of how valuable this finding will be... and then my awareness shifts to the hulking metal, the rusty, barnacled shell of some long-forgotten mishap.

It's hard work, clearing away our internal rubble. Painful and murky... with long spans of being left alone in the dark to wonder if the debris we've stirred up will clear enough to see again.

Hope is that shiny little sparkle you catch out of the corner of your eye. The one that makes your heart quicken and your mouth open just slightly so that the corners begin to inch toward smiling.

It's worth it. For those of you reading this and questioning whether to keep going, whether to allow hope a larger space in your heart, whether to continue digging through the remains so you may finally let go... the answer is yes.

May you allow hope to reside within you. May it spur you on to greater action.