Meditation Moment

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

Charles Bukowski, “how is your heart?”

Take time today to sit and ponder. What do you need? What do you need to support your own change and transformational work? Who can you ask for support? What resources might be available, one google away? What keeps you from seeking and finding the resources you need to live your best life?

A Life Worth Defending

Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

In the midst of our current situation - quarantine, COVID-19, shortages on toilet paper and lemonade (of all things) - we continue to have no shortage of divergent perspectives. I recognize that I am extremely fortunate. No one in my family is dealing with a job loss. I happen to like my husband and enjoy quarantining with him. I do not have small children to raise in isolation or high schoolers to keep on track with their schoolwork. I am a blessed woman.

AND I am acutely aware of those who are struggling with an accumulation of anguish. How do you manage living in NYC with a partner who needs daily radiation to treat her recurrence of cancer? How do you sit at home in Atlanta while your sister passes away after a massive stroke in NC? Our normal life sufferings - life and death, sickness and health - are all disrupted. We are still getting sick, dying, healing, and living - but without the accoutrements of hospital visits and funerals and reasonably safe travel to and fro. For many, normal life suffering has escalated and accumulated.

What a time we live in. This is the time we sit and ponder and remember what we value when nothing feels at risk. We love life; it is dear to us; we will defend it.

So my relatives in NYC are given the loan of a car to help them travel safely for those daily treatments; we pause the funerals and press on in our mourning. We celebrate our recoveries and appreciate our health. We find joy where we can without forgetting that for many, it has been lost in transit.

How can we ease the accumulation today? What can we do to remind ourselves that our planet is blue and green, a virtual breeding ground for suffering AND also a place of rebirth, renovation and restoration? How can we appropriately lament the losses and nourish the thriving? What is your superpower? How will you use it today?

What Color is Your World?

I have a small decorative globe that spins hypnotically when tiny hands get hold of it. I leave it within reach of my grandchildren, believing that their wonder is more precious than this trinket. One day my grandson, who has been learning about the planets, constellations, and rotation in his preschool class, says, “Meme, is this a planet?”

“Yes, Christian, this is planet earth. Here is where you live!” I point out Virginia, grateful that his place on the planet is so close to mine.

My globe is a rich golden hue; I bought it because the color was perfect for my den, not because I particularly needed or wanted a globe.

“Meme, you are incorrect. That is not my planet.”

“Yes, see? It says here, ‘United States’ - our city, our state, our country, our continent, our planet.” (I have never claimed that my superpower included reasoning with a three year old.)

“Meme.” Christian is ramping up the firmness in his tone. “This is NOT our planet.”

I give up. “Tell me how you know that.” Big sigh from a little body. “Memeeeeee….our planet is blue and green.”

HOW we see truly does inform perspective. HOW do you see the world? Is it hostile? Is it out to get you? Or is it…..something else? What if you could reframe your perspective? What if you would benefit from a changed perspective? Is it possible that the capacity to listen and learn might just be a superpower? I was focused on getting the facts straight; I needed to listen to learn what this kid already knew. The 12th step requires us to learn how to listen as part of our work to try to carry a message that can be received.

An Opportunity to Love...

Spiritual awakenings trade one set of problems for a better set. If this doesn’t happen, what has really changed? Before recovery, I struggled with honesty and fear. Fear is often a companion with me on my own recovery journey.

Does this discourage me? Sometimes.

But here’s the thing…. My fear does not control me or require me to self-medicate through starvation. I no longer need to stick my head in a jar of peanut butter (option 2 post self-starving) to survive my worst days of carrying the message to people who often prefer I just get up off my tushy and leave the psych ward, and them, alone.

Some days I still want to say, “Dude, I could be home right now wrapped in a cozy afghan reading a good trashy romance novel. I don’t need your attitude.”

But that would not be honest and today I am all about honesty. Honestly, I do need to regularly sit on plastic chairs in a psychiatric ward. I do need to be called out late at night or early in the morning to try. Just try.

I do need their attitude. I need it to remind me of where I have been and how quickly I could return there. I need it to teach me patience. I want it to be an opportunity to listen well, love deep, and demonstrate empathy.

So when this sad, lonely stranger about to jet from her psych ward stay to go get a fix tells me to “Go the f*&^@ home.” I listen. I listen well. I get up and go. This is part of my own work, expecting nothing in return.

Addiction promises what it cannot deliver but we are far enough along this road to know - we expected it to work for us. We had expectations. I need her sassy attitude. I need reminders of what it is like to live in such a way that I require some compulsive act with absolutely no hope of it actually helping me.

The 12-step process is not, ever, selfish. It is an opportunity to love and be loved well. Not by what we do or accomplish, but as a living testament to the fact that we tried.

Limitations

I grab my phone, my coat and my keys out of the locker that visitors are required to use when visiting the psychiatric ward. I return my visitor’s badge and thank God that I am one of the lucky ones who can leave. On the elevator, I weep. I cry for the young woman in so much pain. I cry over my own limitations.

Could someone else have convinced her to stay? I notice that even as I am making a 12-step call, my own thoughts and feelings are rooted in a desire to control another. I am experienced enough to stop from doing so, but working a vigorous program requires that I am honest with myself: I wanted to do otherwise. My compulsion is to fix, solve, help, and resolve things. My principles require that I remain watchful of my own ego and the blind desires that pull me away from my principles and toward pride.

I return her mother’s frantic texts and offer no false hope but hope nonetheless. It is hard. I want the culmination of this work to result in something tangible and satisfying. I want to achieve goals, celebrate successes and reduce suffering - both mine and others. I want things to work out RIGHT.

This is not the way. There is no perfection in recovery. There is no final destination. There is no brass ring or grand prize. Instead, there is humility as we practice and notice our temptations to return to the unreal fantasy world that our dependencies promised but failed to deliver on.

I am aware that sleep may not visit me tonight. I may feel a bit blue tomorrow. But I will also go to a meeting, practice my daily examen, clean up the messes I made from the day before, trust in the God of my understanding to make all things right if I surrender to his will.

This is all normal and part of the 12-step process.