The Struggle to Take In the Good

I experienced a tough week of intense challenges the past 7 days… or really, the past 2 months… or years… But the challenges this week generally had very good outcomes. The biggest challenge was that I bought a brand new car for my son and I, that will be safe and reliable and compliment our little family’s lifestyle. It was not a simple process of buying a car as there were some issues from my recent past that complicated things that I will not delve into here.

I have to admit, my new car also meets my ego’s needs… NOT a mini-van (though it has been called a micro-van), and NOT a sedan. (Also not a Jeep L. But I can’t afford to keep a Jeep these days). But the height of a small truck. In black, because my ego tells me that black is cooler than all the other colours.

I used to call my old civic Darth… and I think this one will be called Darth II…

“…Luke… I am your father…”

Through convoluted circumstances with my ex-husband, I am also getting a beautiful new couch, and he is getting our marital couch that is comfy, but thoroughly stained from our son’s sippy cup spillage.

And then I lost my android phone just after I bought the new couch. I’m mostly upset about that because there were some irreplaceable pictures on there… but we’re a snap-happy society anyway. (do I really need to be taking pictures of my son EVERY day?) My cranial memory card still holds more/better pictures than a phone.

When I put my son to bed tonight he was happy, slightly chatty (babbling), and overwhelmingly adorable. He likes to fall asleep with me lying beside him (in his toddler bed), with his cheek pressed up against mine. It reminded me that the loss of my phone is just the loss of my phone… I am blessed to have a back-up phone in my business cell. The reason why this week felt so stressful is because of fear and change… even though the change is for the better. Uncertainty was exacerbated as I calculated some risks, but there was no more uncertainty than there is any other day. Its just that when I try to ‘do the right thing’… the ‘right thing’ attempting to foresee any error, I get pole-vaulted into anxiety. And as previously quoted, Dr. Kristin Neff says anxiety is created by worrying (ruminating) in the future, while depression is ruminating in the past.

One of the antidotes to anxiety is gratitude. Another is breathing. Another is to practice self-compassion, of which gratitude is part of.

I’ve spoken with a few colleagues this week about how it takes some serious cajones to ‘take in the good’, especially after one has taken in a lot of the bad. The good almost feels scarier because you’ve gotten so used to the bad. I’ve seen this phenomenon in so many of the kids I work with. It didn’t used to make sense to me. It makes sense to me now. I think part of the problem is that our world is going so ridiculously fast that our spirit just doesn’t have TIME to take in the good.

Need

     To

          Slow

               Down.

Dwell

in

my body.

Experience.

Love.

Autism Lives Here

Autism lives here.

So does love.

Peace.

Contentment.

Exhaustion.

Laughter.

And an endless list of other parts of life.

Love dominates, and as long as thats still happening, I’ll make it through.

My two year old son was officially diagnosed with autism this week. It was an expected diagnosis. In fact, I would have been horrified if they hadn’t arrived at that diagnosis because there really isn’t any other explanation for his lack of connection with the outside world (outside the world of his head, that is).

But it was still very, very hard to hear.

The good news is I’m already past blaming myself. I did a little of that just after Christmas when I realized I needed to stop rationalizing his autistic behaviours, and hurry up and get him diagnosed so we could start treatment.

And even now, four months after I accepted the probable truth, it is still hard to absorb. There is definitely a grieving process involved. Top that up with the fact that we (my son and I) never sleep normally because he doesn’t sleep through the night, and then throw in a recent bout of croup, AND a car that decides to crap out the same week, and all I can tell you is that I’m just about done, y’all!

Practicing LOTS and LOTS of GRATITUDE and SELF-COMPASSION.

One of the key principles to LIVING that I’ve learned this year is to have the courage to feel my feelings. Some people call this Acceptance. Brene Brown calls is ‘owning your story’. The beauty of having the courage to feel your feelings is that things get resolved a lot easier and faster that way, and don’t take such a toll on the rest of your health.

This morning I was practicing this exact concept while doing a little yoga program I recorded (Nameste yoga). They did this ‘move’ (I’m no yogi, so I have no better word for this) that they called Earth Rain. The move started with ‘praying hands’ over the heart, then moving the hands up along the center of the body, and when the hands got to the eyes, the palms faced the eyes, as though covering them, and then continued up past the head, fully extended to the sky. At first I was just following the video, but every time my palms passed my eyes and released to the sky, I had this urge to sob. So I let the sobs escape, because man-oh-man, do I ever need a good sob!

I kept repeating this move over and again, even though they had continued on in the video, because it was spiritually releasing something in me… something for which there are no words, and releasing it back to my Creator. It was a profoundly spiritual experience for me; an amazing transference of a spiritual grief that was locked in the physiology of my body, that through physical movement, my body was able to release back into spiritual energy to my Creator once again.

There’s this verse in the Bible that says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6-7)  I’ve heard that verse quoted dozens, if not hundreds of times. Today I lived it in a totally different way. I think the ‘humbling yourself’ isn’t so much about tucking your cocky attitude in your pocket, as it is about gratefully accepting what God has brought us in life (God comes to you disguised as your life: see previous post) under his mighty hand, so that he can truly allow us to shine in life, in all that we are; in all He made us to be. And, WOW, I was ‘lifted up’

I have had equally significant worship experiences before, usually involving music, but I have not experienced such stark, powerful transfer between body and spirit before. I was almost observing myself doing it, and I just had to keep repeating the move again and again and allow my body to release the spiritual trauma back and back and back to my Creator’s mighty hand until the need to do so had subsided.

And once again, this stuff totally blows my mind! Perfect symbiosis between body and spirit, in all the mystery it was created to function in.

Here's the trailer for the video I was watching.... and in case you're wondering, I can not actually do the "Riding the Wind" move. ROTFLMAO. (They don't show the Earth Rain move here). (Also, btw, if you have body image issues, you shouldn't watch this. These girls will either make you want to slit your wrists, or grab a tub of Ben & Jerry's. Fortunately I've been able to get past their holocaustic physiques and get into the nature and flow of this series.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTVrCROPtIQ

This post was supposed to be about autism. Frankly, I’m still taking that all in. I don’t know what to say about it. I’m still thankful for all the things I am learning and the healing that its bringing, but I’m a little resentful that other people don’t understand it, or don’t understand how good they have it that their child doesn’t have these difficulties. And then I realize that I was one of the ‘other people’ over a year ago… never judging those families where autism exists… but just not taking the time to understand.

… but that’s for another post!

“God comes to you, disguised as your life.” – Paula D’Arcy

 I had 30 minutes to sit out in the sunshine this afternoon, and read another short piece of Falling Upward by Fr. Richard Rohr. I can only read this book in short segments because what the author has to say is so powerful, it’s a waste for me to read it in big chunks. (And for those of you who think I’m living some Zen life, I had gluten free bread in the breadmaker while I was reading, and it didn’t turn out, like I thought it wouldn’t, and it was very finicky to make, and that frustrated me. There’s black streaks across my kitchen floor from blueberries that smeared when I was sweeping up Jed’s crumbs LAST WEDNESDAY… and they’re still there. The ants are coming back… probably because I can’t keep the floors clean even though I sweep three times a day, and I really needed to be doing yoga, but instead I ate chocolate and sat down to read. I won’t mention the bathroom. And I told some colleagues I’d do some work today, but I just don’t feel like it).

The chapter I read today, “Stumbling Over the Stumbling Stone” is so illustrative of what has happened to me in recent years and weeks. Some people have told me they admire my strength through all this. Really, there is no strength. My hand has been forced by my Creator to lead me to something much, much deeper… a whole other level of life, almost as though another dimension has been added. I could try to put it into words, but Fr. Richard does it so well, I’ll make a long quote from him:

“Sooner or later, if you are on any classic ‘spiritual schedule’, some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter your life that you simply cannot deal with, using your present skill set, your acquired knowledge, or your strong willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be, you must be, led to the edge of your own private resources… you will and you must ‘lose’ at something. This is the only way that Life-Fate-Grace-Mystery can get you to change, let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further, larger journey. I wish I could say this was not true, but it is darn near absolute in the spiritual literature of the world.

“ There is no practical or compelling reason to leave one’s present comfort zone in life. Why should you or would you? Frankly, none of us do unless and until we have to. The invitation probably has to be unexpected and unsought. If we seek spiritual heroism ourselves, the old ego is just back in control under a new name. There would not really be any change at all, but only disguise. Just  bogus ‘self-improvement’ on our own terms.

“ Any attempt to engineer or plan your own enlightenment is doomed to failure because it will be ego driven. You will see only what you have already decided to look for, and you cannot see what you are not ready or told to look for. So failure and humiliation force you to look where you never would otherwise. What an enigma! Self-help courses of any type, including this one if it is one, will help you only if they teach you to pay attention to life itself. ‘God comes to you disguised as your life,’ as my friend Paula D’Arcy so wisely says.

So we must stumble and fall, I am sorry to say. And that does not mean reading about falling, as you are doing here. We must actually be out of the driver’s seat for a while, or we will never learn how to give up control to the Real Guide.” – pp 65-66 Falling Upward by Fr. Richard Rohr.

As I read the above passage, I looked up, and saw God loving me and interacting with me, intensely! In the air I breathed, in the warmth of the sun on my skin, in the caress of the breeze, in the buds of the trees, in the blue of the sky.

And then,in classic Karen style, I looked at the buds on the trees and thought, You’d better hurry up and take this in because September is only 5 months away, and those leaves will be crumbling and falling off with the last of the apples in only 5 months. And frankly, I felt a little panicked that it was going to disappear so soon. THIS IS EXACTLY HOW ANXIETY HAPPENS. Self- Compassion Researcher, Dr. Kristin Neff, says depression is caused by ruminating in the past. Anxiety is caused by ruminating in the future. Winter has broken early here in the Northwest, and is BARELY BROKEN, and I’m fretting about next winter!

TAKE IN THE GOOD.

NOW.

IN THIS MOMENT.

Your life is nothing but this very moment. If you don’t take it in, you miss your life.

Add to that, “God comes to you, disguised as your life,” and you have all you need.

Take it aaaallllllll in!

My bff, Beckie Lapointe, is a talented composer. She has also been ‘falling upward’ in the last few years with an unwanted journey of her own. She was fighting the gift that God was bringing her so hard, she actually stopped talking to me for a few weeks because I was making her look at reality. And then she finally broke. She thought she was leaving God, but in fact she was breaking up with the God her ego had contained. And all of the sudden she met a deep, mysterious, uncontrollable God who had a wild and gentle love that was a whole other dimension... a God that rescued her from the finite world her ego had created, and opened up a vast, deep sea of mystery that was far more thrilling and alive than the sick little world her ego had been fighting to contain. When Beckie moved from fighting God to receiving God, in all the parts of her life that He was coming to her in, she wrote this song:

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1292745-deepseadistraction?utm_campaign=detailpage&utm_content=retweet&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Its only 3 minutes. Words cannot express what music can. Its a different language. The language of the heart. (It gets cut off early. If you want the full song, you could probably request it from Beckie, whom you can find on my Facebook friends' list... or Google her. She's pretty easy to cyberstalk.)