Drama, The Energy Hog Of The Emotional Environment

We learn a lot from our children, from our parents, from anyone for that matter, if we are willing to be their student. When my mother used to tell me what other family members should be doing, I would remind her that we only get one life to live and that's our own. Today I got to remind myself of this. And when I said this to my self, I could feel the irritation and coldness behind those words. I could feel how she might have felt when I said this, slightly reprimanded. And while I could feel the emotion behind the words, I could feel their truth. Without the emotional charge, these words are simply a statement and a true one.

But I digress. Today my daughter offered me this lesson and with it I found an invitation to let go, to drop the story line. I had suggested that something she was considering doing might not be a good idea. And when she did it anyway I felt a deep pang of disappointment, followed by a cascade of other feelings, anger for one. And then a big story started to brew on the mind's horizon, a feature length drama kicked into full production; lights, action camera. I decided to close the movie set down pretty quickly as these things are simply too tiring, too boring and suck up far too much energy. Drama is definitely the energy hog of the emotional environment.

So instead I just breathed in the hot, stinging breath of disappointment and anger until it passed, until I realized it wasn't a big deal, that I didn't want to add a layer of tension to the relationship. In my heart I know that as a parent my intention is to be helpful and to approach any situation filled with the anger of "I know what's best for you" is never helpful. What I imagine to be helpful and what is helpful can be two different things so I need to be vigilant.

So my hope is to just be with her tomorrow when I see her and let my response come from deep inside me. And I realize that the best thing for me to do is simply to have faith; to have faith in her, in her wonderful intelligence and inner knowing and to have faith in life, that it brings us all what we need.

So a simple text message offered me the opportunity to let go, to not be attached to my version of the world and to know that even if it is my fierce, motherly wish, I can never protect anyone from their pain.

Fear, Round Three

Oh, oh, as I head toward the end of my 100 days of Dharma I am running out of art to post.  I'm not a particularly fast painter, and so I am getting down to a few new pieces that need photographing.  This is a really old piece , maybe 6 years old.  It uses hand done collage images manipulated on photoshop.  The work was done for an art licensing company but never made it through the final steps to production.

I am thinking about fear again.  Maybe you've heard enough about fear already?  This time I'm thinking about it in terms of my mother.  Today I went to visit her when the doctor came by.  In an earlier post I made reference to the fact that she wanted to decrease her meds in an effort to speed up the process of dying.  So today I went to have a 3 way chat with her and the doctor.

Now my mother and I have already had several fine conversations on the subject of dying and we had the opportunity to chat again before the doctor arrived.  As much difficulty as I have had with my mother over the years, it seems this is a subject that we have come to talk about without doing any dysfunctional dances over.  (No funky chickens here).  I could tell her that of course the decision is hers but that I don't think it is good to make the decision out of fear (there it is again, that fear thing) or some imagined idea of future events.  She is afraid of her declining mental state.  She refers to it as becoming a vegetable or going crazy.  So we had a really good conversation with the doctor about the choices and options and how he sees it playing itself out.  He agreed that the decision shouldn't be made from a negative point of view.  He was quite accepting of it as an option to minimize suffering.  He said most people just let things take their normal course rather that taking any proactive steps.  He talked about how death is just a part of life.  And he pointed out the fact that if she can engage in this conversation on how to make her exit, she is far from being a vegetable.  He clarified what meds he sees as being key players in the process (diuretics that reduce fluid build up) and that her exit would probably be the result of the kidney's being unable to conduct away the fluid in an efficient enough manner.  He felt because of the fragility of her heart he didn't see her hanging around long enough to become a vegetable.

He asked her about her spiritual beliefs and my mother could tell him about her experience after my father died that she felt he was around in their apt. for about 4 months after, and that convinced her there was something after this life, though she isn't clear on what that might be.  It was a helpful conversation with a really caring and thoughtful doctor.  In the end he said to her well, you've bought your ticket and your waiting in the station, you've made your intentions known.  There is no hurry for you to make your choice.  You can make it at any time and it will probably become clearer to you as time goes on.  He will visit her once a week and the conversation will continue, I think.  Before I left she said I will probably make the choice but I don't know when.  I felt good that she could think and talk about this and contemplate the end of her life quite consciously.  She says she is not afraid to die.

There was so much good Dharma here.  The ultimate acceptance of what is, which my mother and I talked about after the doctor left.  How we create so much disharmony and suffering by fighting against what is.  How this is an opportunity for her to look at that "worry about loosing her mind and saying foolish things".  I suggested she could look at why she felt that way and what that was all about (being vain she suggested later).  I told her in Buddhism the question is who is worried about this?  The part of the Dharma in all of this that is important to me, is that she make her decision based on "right understanding" rather that some faulty logic or out of fear.  I would like to see her, as much as possible, make her exit in a wholesome way, if that choice of words makes sense to you.  I would like to see her working to resolve some karmic issues in this lifetime so she doesn't have to repeat them next time around.  I have great hopes for her end of life process.

In a way I think the whole conversation today took a lot of pressure off her.  The doctor could say to her that he sees the process taking place gradually over the next few to six months even without reducing the meds.  I'm thinking this may release her to actually enjoy and savour her final days here, instead of exuding the bitterness I have perceived over my lifetime.  That is my hope for her.

Do Relationships Make Us Happy?

The moment has arrived.  I have written 67 blog posts since I started in December and I have finally run out of words.  Can you believe it?  No, I didn't think you would.  Okay let's get out the dousing rod and search for some juicy alphabits.

It was a sunny Friday in Victoria today and I had a spicy, coconut infused lunch with a friend at a favourite Sri Lankan restaurant.  We roamed happily over many meadows of conversation until we settled on the one that interests her a lot these days, a fairly new love interest.  They are both delightful people, but very different, one an introvert and Dharma practitioner, the other an outgoing, gregarious, grab life by the tail, spend a bunch of cash, kind of extrovert.  (their identities have been disguised with moustaches and dark glasses to protect the not so innocent, namely me!)

I know that they love each other deeply but the bumpy ground that stands between each of their wants and needs, likes and dislikes is a vast rock strewn tundra.  "One of us is very stubborn ," she says.  "Only one of you?" I ask teasingly.  She has a good sense of humour.  I can say this to her.  But I hear in her voice that she wants him to change, to do things differently.  Her requests seem reasonable to me.  She wants him to spend less cash, go out for dinner less.  She doesn't want to watch a couple of hours of TV in the evenings when he's at her place, she would rather go off with a book.  These are a few of their points of contention.  I remind her that in Buddhist practice the only one we get to change is ourself. She doesn't bite on that one but goes on to talk about the possibility of "seeing someone" to help them with their differences. 

I tell her about a great piece I read by Norman Fischer in the March issue 0f Shambhala Sun called "Applied Dharma".  In the piece Fischer talks about mediation and says the problem is never about what it appears to be, like the toothpaste lid, or the toilet seat or the TV watching.  (I wrote about this in a previous blog post)  but it seemed so relevant to what my friend was talking about.  I don't know what their real issues are, but undoubtedly they are deeper.  Are they about," you always insist on having your own way, I feel unconsidered?"  Are they about,"you're not listening to me, you don't even know what's important to me?"   And as Fischer points out, until we deal with the deeper issues, the problem will continue to exist.  I have found in my own life, if I don't deal with a problem in one form, it just pops up somewhere else, maybe in a bigger uglier form.  It's kind of like that old carney game of "wack a mole", it's just keeps jumping up all over the place until you put it to rest or your quarter runs out.

Relationships are our biggest opportunity and often the most difficult place to practice.  Many people find this intense point of practice with a partner, some with parents or children.  My mother is my great teacher.  And if we are honest with ourselves there is always work with partners and children.  I remember reading about a man who was trying to decide whether to take on a new love relationship and the wise Dharma counsel to him was, "yes go ahead, as long as you don't expect the relationship to make you happy."   So there it is, loving someone is not about having them make you happy.  This expectation is what creates some of the biggest disappointments and dissatisfaction in relationships. It is not why you love someone and not what the relationship is about.  It's the same as looking for gratification in a piece of cheesecake (but perhaps a little more complicated)  "Dear, could I trade you for that mango and kiwi cheesecake over there?"   Satisfaction, happiness, joy, is never out there.  It always comes from deep inside.  And a relationship is a complicated thing that sometimes makes you coo with joy and sometimes makes you want to relocate to a far away country.  In our beloved we are sensing the divine, the eternal in our human of choice.  We are often drawn in ways that are beyond our rational understanding.  Love is a strange cocktail in a tall glass of magic and mystery, stirred (not shaken) with a swirl of the pragmatic.

I could hear  in my friend's voice, how she wanted her man to change to suit her imagined desires, how it would all be perfect then.  They could live happily ever after.  We left the restaurant filled with spicy treats and delicious conversation.  We wandered down the sunny shopping street, me stopping to buy 4 stalks of pussy willows, us browsing in a gourmet food shop and the used bookstore.  We were having fun, recharging our solar batteries.  No moles in sight.

It Doesn't Matter What You Do

My daughter, who is in her late '20's is trying to decide what to do next with her life.  (Aren't we all in some way?)  And I have come to realize that my role as a parent doesn't lie in telling her what to do, but in helping her find new and helpful ways to think about her life.  Sometimes when it seems appropriate I make a little offering.  

The other day I was reading some material from an online Buddhist course I took last year called "Awakening Joy".  A little piece made me think of her.  It was written by the Spirit Rock Buddhist teacher, James Baraz and went like this "When I was younger I faced a crossroads in my life... I didn't know what to do and was afraid of making the wrong decision.  I went to a wise psychic, Reverend Miller...($5 a reading!).  He said that although he wouldn't tell me what to do he did have one piece of advice: it doesn't matter.  My initial response was, "What do you mean it doesn't matter?!   That's my life you're talking about!"  He told me that as long as I was paralyzed with fear over making the wrong decision the benevolent forces of life... couldn't help me along in my journey."  

The full quote I sent my daughter was a bit longer than this but basically it speaks to the issues of faith and movement. We do the best we can and then have faith.  We can't, with our little minds figure it out, no matter how hard we try.  At some point we have to give up that sense of control and take the leap.  It is so easy to be paralyzed by fear and indecision.  I have spent many years living in that little dark house myself so I am well acquainted with it's cobwebbed corners.  And yet only we can open that door and walk out.  I can only knock on her proverbial door and suggest that the weather outside is really quite nice.  

At some point we must draw on our courage.  And I have come to realize that a big part of practice is having courage, to take a step, to say something in a situation where I might normally opt for comfort and quiet.  There is such momentum and energy (chi as traditional Chinese medicine calls it) in taking a step, moving out of the stagnation, the sleepy comfort of inaction that many of us spend our lives in.  We can do it in small ways or big ways and as we do we build new and wholesome habitual tendencies.  We eek out new neural pathways in our brain and ultimately we become a little bit more alive.  We experience the richness of life.  So as I sent off my email I realized as I so often do, that what I was thinking about and saying were things that I needed to hear myself.

In December in the spirit of doing something different and moving the energy, I hosted my first open house/art sale.  I got to see, first hand, how moving a little energy  built on itself.  I found that things that had formerly seemed like a big deal could be done with a light touch and  a "let's see what happens" attitude.  As a result several  pieces of my art work found their way to the e Art Gallery of Greater Victoria's  Christmas show and another few pieces made the trip to another small gallery.  So here's to moving some energy.  And with the beginning of the lunar new year, what better time to rededicate ourselves to this task!