“How to bear that which is unbearable.”

Those were the words that leapt off the page of last year’s July edition of ‘O’ that I had gotten out of the library. It was an interview with author, Cheryl Strayed, about her book, Wild.

I didn’t need to know what the book was about; just that I needed to read it. It was sort of like my body and spirit recognized truth right there… the truth that the reason I was having such difficulty moving on with life is that I didn’t know how to bear what felt unbearable to me: the loss of my marriage, my soul-mate, my dream, my love, my self, my pride. There is an element of loss with my son’s autism too, but the root of my grief, the larger iceberg under the water, was the loss of my marriage.

It was the day after I posted my last entry that I rushed out to the book store to get a copy of Wild. It turns out that it’s a memoir about Cheryl Strayed’s journey on the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT), and I couldn’t believe that it was a book about how to bear the unbearable AND one of my few personal passions: hiking. (And I have hiked very small sections of the PCT while en route to less cumbersome trails).

Cheryl’s grief was centered around the loss of her mother, and as a side issue, the loss of her marriage. She decided to hike the PCT, on a whim, to find herself again, to re-connect herself to nature, to truth, to her natural self (and wow, had she ever lost touch with herself!) Hilariously and horrifyingly, the unbearable turns out to be her backpack that weighs almost as much as she does. She knew nothing of backpacking, so brought along everything she might possibly need on the trail. And the loveable thing about her (because I see it in myself) is that she pushes herself to carry it anyway. It’s a pack that muscular 6’2” men can’t even carry, and she’s like, 5’4”.

Cheryl talks about not achieving the mileage she expected to achieve… only achieving about 1/3 of it because her pack was so overbearing. She talks about burning and numbness and bruising and chafing, and toenails falling off. She talks about one step at a time. Sometimes 50 and 100 steps at a time, but sometimes all she could do was to take 10 steps at a time. Sometimes all she could achieve was simply to lean forward. And, somehow, by doing this, not only did she get stronger and wiser, but she walked all the way from the Mojave desert to the Oregon/Washington border!

Close to the beginning of her journey she is charged at by an aggressive long-horned bull (like the kind they run from in Spain). She is so terrified she closes her eyes and blows her scare- whistle. She thinks she’s going to die, but when she doesn’t, she opens her eyes again, and the bull is gone. She finally realizes she is DONE and it is time to pack this journey in and go home. But then she realizes that she doesn’t know which way the bull went. If she gives up and goes back, the bull could be there. Or if she goes forward, the bull could be there. So she decides she might as well go forward since she doesn’t know where the bull might be.

These two incidents rocked my traumatized/victimish world. It helped me to realize that while my journey is painful and numbing, I have to keep moving. Also, like Cheryl, I’m carrying a lot of stuff I don’t need to be carrying. Its time to put it down, burn it, whatever. Furthermore, I have no idea when and where my proverbial long-horned bull is going to come charging out of the bush at me, but I have to keep moving forward, because the bull may or may not come at me regardless of whether I go back, stay still, or move forward. So I might as well move forward. And finally I learned that some days, I might only be able to take 1 step at a time. Some moments, all I can do is lean and stumble in the right direction.

Since I’ve read Wild, I haven’t made any more blog entries. Why? Because I’m too busy living again, and its wonderful.

And.

There’s still days (like Sunday and today)

where I’m only getting in 10 steps all day,

or I push myself so hard to get in 20 steps that my fatigue makes me sick.

Since my journey is 20 – 40 years long, and I’ve got a little one who's counting on me, I need to be kinder and gentler to myself… congratulate myself for making ends meet, providing good nutrition for my son, and lots of hugs (which he requires many of). If that’s all that happens, that’s still a pretty damn good day.

Anger, Anger, Where Art Thou?

Oh THERE you are! I have been trying to touch you for a LONG time now! I knew you were there, but I just couldn't access you!

I would not have posted yesterday’s post, “Heart. Break.”, a few weeks ago. But I knew my grief was stuck and something that I was doing… or not doing, was blocking it.

 Several people have asked me about my anger in my journey and I haven’t been able to feel it, find it, or express it. Cognitively I know my anger is there, and subconsciously I’m spending enormous amounts of energy containing it, but I haven’t been able to break the surface to let it come forth.

Why?

Because I’m nice.

Because I do the right thing.

Because I choose the higher road.

This past week, as I’ve been practicing trusting in my true self, I’ve realized I need to let go of trying to do ‘the right thing.’ I am who I am. And I am good and perfect the way I am, right now… not even as I grow into some better/wiser self through my journey.

 My son is who my son is. As I trust myself to be myself, I need to trust my son (with his autism) to be himself. He will walk his own path and he has all he needs, in his true self, to do so. I’ve also felt guilt, panic, and exhaustion trying to apply the right choices for him. My course of action in getting therapy for his autism has been timely and appropriate, but now that its in place, I can let my hyper-vigilance relax and allow him just to be his 2 year old self, while I just return to being myself.

As I’ve let go of my expectations and self-imposed parameters (one white knuckle at a time), my anger has finally started to bubble through. What a relief!

Yesterday, as I felt the surge of renewed hurt and betrayal from my ex, I wanted to yell, “GET OUT!!!! JUST GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!!” But I didn’t (mostly to protect my son). And then my ex quietly slipped out, and the hurt surged through my veins even harder.

For the first time ever, I knew I needed to act on my hurt. If I didn’t act on it, I’m never going to heal. So I went into the bedroom, closed the door, and punched an overstuffed pillow, over and over again. I imagined it was my ex. I imagined it was other individuals involved. It went on until I didn’t need to do it anymore.

For most people, this is laughable in terms of expressing anger.

For me, it’s huge... or a huge first step.

I don’t express anger.

 I cry.

I run.

I numb.

But I don’t express anger.

And its literally killing me.

Yesterday I expressed my anger for the first time. First, through the pillow-punching. Second, through posting something that was a little dramatic… a little more raw than I prefer to be out in the public.

Miranda Lambert, the country music artist, has a reputation for having no difficulty expressing herself, in music, and allegedly in person as well. Her current hit song, “This Ain’t My Mama’s Broken Heart” takes it to more of an extreme than the reality I live, but I’m grateful that she does… firstly so I don’t have to. Secondly so the origin of the hurt emerges into humour, thereby bringing healing.

(for the record, it ain’t about my mama… more about the expectations that many of us have been brought up in).

Heart. Broken.

I’ve been officially ‘recovering’ for a month now. As wonderful as working 1 day a week sounds, my time off has been no picnic. I’ve been stuck in the oxymoronic process of

Working hard… to rest

Grieving… to heal

Crash & burning… to rise from the ashes.

All of these are not choreographable tasks. They all require surrender that is active in its joy and passive in its action.

I’ve noticed in myself and others, that we humans tend to be reticent to share ourselves in the midst of our grief. We want to wait until we have it all figured out so we can deliver our message in a happily-ever-after package. I think we want to show ourselves and the world, that all of this heartbreak does make sense… somewhere, down the road.

But I am not there.

I am stuck in heartbreak.

I am immersed in grief.

I had a conversation with my ex tonight that re-opened the tender scabs on my pulverized heart. It brought forth another tidal wave of betrayal and hurt. It makes me wonder if this will ever end. I’m already divorced, for crying out loud. Why can’t I get over this? I fully believe that I took the path I needed to take by both marrying AND divorcing my ex. Its been two years since I realized that the dream is dead. And still, the tears pour out. Still, the heart breaks more and more.  It makes me wonder if there’s even any pieces of my heart left to be scabbed over. But there must be, because I still feel pain. If my heart was pulverized to the point of obliteration, I wouldn’t feel pain.

Talking with a few good friends in the last few days, the only new clue I have in how to get through this, is that my heart-of-hearts, my true self, the part of me that is irrevocably and eternally connected to God, knows the way through. And I have to trust that part of me to show the way.

Yesterday a friend, who is also a therapist, was telling me that what she’s discovered lately is that too many people try to rush through the ‘crash and burn’ phases of grief. The crashing and burning is so uncomfortable, mostly for the person who’s going through it, but probably also for people around that person. The thing with the crash and burn phase is that you can’t DO anything in it, except surrender to it. You can’t control it. You can’t hurry it. You can’t dissect it because it doesn’t make any sense.

You CAN observe it. But that’s about all. And there’s no fast forwarding in the observation either.

When I flipped open my laptop to write this entry, I noticed the wallpaper on my screen. It’s the same wallpaper/background photo I have on my Facebook profile.

“The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.”

And that’s about as close as I can come to making sense out of anything in the midst of heartbreak. That’s about as close as I come, to having hope that I will recover. That is the essence of HOPE itself.

Zits Happen

Its been a while since I've blogged.

Why?

Because I'm on a partial stress break. Or maybe I should call it a stress brake. I went down to 1 day a week at work just to get a handle on life. I feel like my major, seemingly insurmountable, overwhelming battles are done now. And now I have to figure out how to recover from my war, and find my new 'normal' in life. I'm sure there will be future blogs about the interesting things I'm discovering about rest and exhaustion, etc, but todays' blog is about zits.

Around second trimester of my pregnancy in 2010, I got a zit that creates the third corner of a triangle between my inner eye and the bridge of my nose. To my dismay, the zit never disappeared, and in fact turned into a mole. So not only did I grow a baby from my body in 2010, but I also grew a mole that is almost all I see when I look in the mirror now.

This morning that mole pore became clogged again, and I noticed I had a whitehead on top of the mole, now creating a 3-D model of Mt Baker on my face. Of course today is also the day that I have to go to work. So I knew I couldn't leave Mt. Baker to loom at people, particularly because I had a presentation with 50 grade 7's.

So you know what I did...

....and you know what I looked like then... Mt Baker with a cherry on top!

I knew I couldn't go talk to the grade 7's like this because instead of the usual first question:
"Why is marijuana illegal?"
I'd get asked,
"What's that thing on your face?"

And I just knew I didn't have the strength to face that. My only option was to call in sick... from a zit... Now I appreciate all of you out there who have lovingly made comments about my strength to get through everything... but this particular moment in time is a more accurate reflection of my strength... being scared to talk to grade 7's because I have a zit. And, much to my chagrin, I realized that I couldn't call in sick... not only because its the only day in the week that I work, but also because I had another class that I absolutely had to be there for later in the afternoon, so I couldn't really call in sick for one class, then show up for another later on in the day.

So I went to work. And I emailed, texted, and called everyone I needed to talk to instead of venturing outside my office door. I don't even think I went to the bathroom. One of the Vice Principals stopped by my office at one point and I was honestly expecting him to jump back, aghast at my zit. I'm not sure he even saw it. Could be because my office has low lighting. Or it could be because he's a man.

My grade 7 presentation arrived quickly at 11am. Up until then I had come up with a lot of excuses why I could still cancel it, such as that my laptop powerpack had been lost for the last few weeks and my laptop had run out of power. But not only does everyone know that I know my presentations well enough to not require a laptop, but the librarian also found and returned my missing power pack at 10:40... so I had to go.

As you might guess, the first question with the grade 7 class was "Why is marijuana illegal?" NOT "What's that on your face?" (maybe if it was grade 2's it would have been 'What's wrong with your face?') In the end, it was one of the most interactive, dynamic presentations I've had with a grade 7 class this year.

An hour later I shared my vulnerable experience with a co-worker who is familiar with my recent journey. She said, "What a wonderful opportunity for you to model that its perfectly okay to have a zit; life goes on and you can still be a confident, beautiful woman even if you have acne... because those are exactly the kinds of issues they are dealing with in grade 7." Ya, she's probably right, but to be honest, I don't care about modeling to the grade 7's right now. I just want things to go smoothly... to have no bumps, or zits or uneven pavement in my life for a while.

And then that video that changed my life, Brene Brown's TED Talk, "The Power of Vulnerabilty" came back and hit me in the face.
Click here to watch The Power of Vulnerability

 I remembered that life is made up of vulnerability. Without vulnerability we can't know joy, gratitude, creativity, belonging, etc. Vulnerability... zits!... are what life is made up of.

Vulnerability... zits... both literal and proverbial...
- put us in a posture where we are a receptical to receive grace.
- having received grace, we are then in a better posture to practice grace

Vulnerability facilitates an opportunity to put our pride/ego/sin aside in order to make room for others in our lives; its fairly well known that I'm not good at asking for help. Since my ego seems to be too big to do so, God/Life has brought me other opporunities that have forced me to do so... probably so I could experience the fullness of life that comes from relationships.

Vulnerability... zits... help me keep it real. In Brene's TED Talk she talks about how hard we work to perfect life. But life isn't supposed to be perfect. When we are trying to perfect our lives, we're essentially trying to play God, which makes us sick on a whole lotta levels. Therefore zits keep me engaged with my Creator, and help me remember that I am not God. They put me in my place, in a good way. I can't even handle being director of the program I run at work, or being a Mom to my son, never mind God.

I could probably keep going, but I'm not going to wait until this blog is perfect. Maybe you can perfect this entry by telling me about the gifts that your vulnerability/zits bring in your life. Cuz, you know, zits happen to everyone! Zits are the fabric of our lives... not cotton.

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.)