An Inconvenient Truth

Have you ever heard the phrase, "It's my story and I'm sticking to it!" Of course you have. You may have even said it a few times in the course of your life, and you certainly have thought it a few times. I know that I have. More times than I like to admit. Truth be told--no pun intended--we all have a tendency to take ourselves and our ways of thinking quite literally. We invest a great deal of time and energy in creating a so-called "life" -- a career, an identity, a philosophy, etc.--and, for the most part, we are loathe to alter it, give it up, or shift it, even though it may be killing us!

What I'm thinking about today is inconvenient, but true: We are addicted to our stories. We become our stories. Yet, at the very core of the process of transformation that I call, "Life-Shifting", we must be willing to give up our stories. We need to see that our stories are just that: stories. We made them up in the first place, and we can unmake them quite simply (but not easily!).

Let me share an example with you, one where our attachment to our "story" about ourselves and our world is quite clearly getting us in trouble! Have you seen the movie "An Inconvenient Truth"? If not, please make every effort to see it. It is beautifully wrought and important stuff. In a clear case of Life-Shifting writ large, Al Gore has made an attempt, through the powerful narrative synthesis of cinema and science, to SHIFT us out of a cultural story that no longer serves us--the one that says that cutting down most of the trees on the planet and burning up all the fossil fuels simultaneously, won't have any deleterious effect on the environment. Hello?! We in the developed countries have been so resistant to changing this narrative that we blatantly ignore all the signs that a new story is unfolding...a geological and climatological nightmare that includes epic floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, and level "6" hurricanes (lest we remember that levels 1-5 were only recently made up!!!) When will we wake up, release the outdated story of how to go through life burning fossil fuels, and embark on a new adventure: the adventure of living sustainably on the only home we've got, earth?

In many ways, the entire process of Life-Shifting, and the art of self-renewal in general, is about developing a willingness to discard worn out stories that we get in the habit of telling ourselves. I have a friend who has finished all the schooling he needs to become a therapist and life coach, but for the past couple of years he has struggled with building a private practice and attracting clients. He does tell himself, and a few of his closest pals, that he wants to be successful in his new profession. I think, in fact, that the story of his new identity as a professional counselor is beginning to take hold, but there still seems to be something in the way of his practice taking off...and that something is this: he fails to tell people about it!

I submit to you that the key step in framing, crafting and adopting a new life-story for ourselves, once we've done the work of waking up, letting go, grieving, etc. (see earlier blogs)is to begin a key practice: share your story. Go out and tell people. I have counseled my friend, that even if he doesn't quite fully believe it yet, he needs to tell everyone he meets--not just his close friends and confidantes--that he has a new profession. He needs to proclaim to the world, "I am a therapist. I am a life coach. I can help you change your life." (I know him and he can!).

Stories are meant to be told. Stories are meant to be shared, and altered, and re-invented. And when a story has outworn its usefulness, this too must be said. Laura Simms, a professional storyteller and performer that I had the opportunity to see "live" earlier this week at the New York City Shambhala Center, notes that when she brings stories to life in the classroom with young teens, she is shocked to find that they are sometimes overwhelmed by the experience. They are moved to tears, or have laughing fits, or just become overcome with emotion. It appears that they are somewhat unfamiliar with the power of their own imaginations! We may be oversaturated with media-soaked images from TV and movies, but unaware of our own innate human ability to come alive through story, to connect to strangers, the unknown, the future itself, through story-telling. Perhaps the ultimate gift of being human is just this: we can write our own story from beginning to end. We are not flat screen robots and life does not take place in "The Real World". It begins in our minds, and in our hearts. Life is a journey of the soul that needs to be mirrored, explored and received by the world. Our stories deserve to be told.

So this week take a moment and ask yourself: what is the story I tell myself about who I am? And this: What is the story I tell others about who I am? Is it fresh, alive, vibrant, and filled with your fullest, loudest, most edgy potential? Is it stale and worn and in need of an upgrade? Only you can know the truth...and it may be rather inconvenient.

On the other hand, isn't it great to know that although it may be your story, YOU DONT HAVE TO STICK WITH IT!!!

Peace,

Dr J

Enough is Enough

Ok, I'm going to date myself on this one, but ever since I started pondering the idea of gratitude and abundance, those hallmark themes that emerge within us whenever Thanksgiving approaches, I have that classic Donna Summer/Barbra Streisand duet ringing in my ears: "enough is enough...I can't go on no more now..." Yikes...and I thought I had banished the eighties from my psyche!

Oh well, no matter. What's on everyone's mind today, the day before Thanksgiving, is what's on my mind as well: gratitude. Of course, this time of year the mind also gets crowded with stress about family engagements and shopping and travelling et. al. but in the midst of the overwhelm, most of us do take time to reflect on the amazing abundance, the gifts, the people, the sheer richness of our lives. I know that I have much to be grateful for--wonderful family and friends, a full stomach, warm blankets and soft pillows, a cuddly kitty and a loving partner--what more could one want?

And that, it seems to me, is the real question: why do we always want more? When is enough, really enough?

Today I want to reflect on the lesson of abundance that I gleaned from the powerful work of Lynne Twist, whose Soul of Money Institute is committed to bringing about a major Life-Shift in our attitude towards money and abundance. Lynne's work is radical because she takes on the prevailing New-Age philosophy of so-called "prosperity-thinking", pointing out that the idea that there is "plenty of everything", or "more where that came from" (common platitudes in the prosperity literature),is blatantly false. There is NOT plenty of everything in this world. There is not enough water, not enough oil; there are not enough trees and not enough clean air to keep up with the endless population growth that is occurring across the planet. To think otherwise is wishful thinking at best and suicidal mania at worst.

The deeper truth, according to Lynne, is that our affinity for this idea of "abundance" remains rooted in the same scarcity consciousness that it supposedly abhors. What we really need to consider is not abundance--but sufficiency. We need to get clear on WHAT IS ENOUGH. We may be blessed with plenty, but we still struggle with when to say, "stop. I have enough". I'm not really trying to be a spoil-sport here. I don't for a minute believe that we should feel "bad" about our good fortune, living as we do in one of the world's few truly prosperous countries at this time in history. We are blessed and we should feel grateful.

But there is an opportunity here as well, an opportunity to shift gears, to slow down and maybe veer away from our entrenched patterns of consumption, an opportunity to venture forth down a new road: the road to simplicity, self-awareness, and sensitivity to the limited resources of this finite planet. (Anyone who doubts the veracity of this theory of limits should read the latest scientific studies about world fish populations--which, at the current rate of exploitation, will be completely wiped out in fifty years!).

So if you, like me, desire to wake up and step off the treadmill of "more is better", where do you start? Well, as my good friend and role model, Tom Lutes , always reminds me, new patterns, new ways of being and living, always begin with new practices. In this case, the Thanksgiving practice is simple: eat less. HAH, you say! Here we have one of the Life-Shifting mantras writ large, for this will be simple but it sure won't be easy!

So, will you join me? Can you enter the treasure vault of turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and pecan pie...and know when to say, "enough"? This is the Olympics of disciplined consumption. If you can learn to be awake to your eating patterns at Thanksgiving, to know when you have had enough, to become sated but not saturated, well...there is hope for the planet.

Like peace on earth, sufficiency starts with you and me. At home. I am reminded of when I first encounterd the idea of re-cycling my cat food cans. Initially, the idea of rinsing out the cans and separating them from the other detritus repulsed me. Yuck. Yet, today I do it like second nature...and I'm glad I do. It's a small thing, yes, a gesture, but more importantly, it reinforces a different pattern, in me...and in the world.

So, let's take this one on. Let's head into Turkey Day with our head down, our eyes wide open and our periscopes up. When the second and third helpings get passed around, have this question in mind, "have I had enough"? Sure, you may not win the battle first time out and you may over-indulge in that sweet-potato pie.. but at least you will have made a Life-Shift in the right direction.

Besides, it won't hurt your waste-line.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Dr J

Dormancy and Destiny

When was the last time you took a day off? I mean, not just a day off from your regular job, or a day off from personal obligations, not even a vacation in the typical sense of booking hotels and flights and coming back more exhausted than when you left…no, I mean a REAL day off? A day with no agenda, no plans, no to-do list, maybe no movement at all. Don’t you long for such a day, maybe a weekend…even a whole week (God Forbid!) to just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, or cuddle up on the sofa with a good book? If you are like me, somewhere in the recesses of your mind you long for true rest and relaxation. Penetrating soulful rest, the kind that nurtures your spirit and reconnects you to a deep, resonant voice that you normally give short shrift: yours.

A key principle of Life-Shifting, one that I have touched upon a number of times in this blog, is going within. For most people, the idea of getting quiet and spending time listening to one’s own inner guidance sounds inherently practical. Not that there is anything wrong with seeking advice, or getting help from others—these are also essential elements of the Life-Shifting process—but at some point we all need to just stop, sit still and listen to our own inner wisdom. But, if this practice is so intuitively obvious, why don’t we do it?

I suggest that in our harried, productivity-obsessed culture, we have become caught up in a paradox: we fear that if we stop—stop work, stop striving, stop achieving—we may be thrown off track, end up as a bag lady…or worse. Yet, the opposite is true: if we do not stop, rest, and rejuvenate, on a regular basis, we will die. That's right: die. Incessant, manic activity is ultimately deadly, to the body, to the soul, to the spirit. So today, I want to write about the wisdom of dormancy.

In his beautiful book, "Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Daily Lives", Wayne Muller speaks eloquently about the essential requirement of dormancy: “If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for the winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season, the plant begins to die. If dormancy continues to be prevented the entire species will die. A period of rest—in which nutrition and fertility most readily coalesce –is not simply a human psychological convenience; it is a spiritual and biological necessity. A lack of dormancy produces confusion and erosion in the life force.”


Very powerful stuff, no? Have you ever considered that taking a REAL VACATION might be a "spiritual and biological necessity"? Well, I would go one step further and add that not only does a lack of "dormancy" produce confusion and erosion in the life force, it is a major contributor to depression. You see, as counter-cultural as it sounds, I believe that many of the patients with severe depression that I see in my private practice are not really depressed at all: they are spiritually, energetically, emotionally, and physically EXHAUSTED. Wasted. Burnt.

Depression is sometimes just a symptom, a signal of the soul's call for help. It is the human body/soul attempting to get us to STOP, take a break, get quiet. Yet, instead of listening to the signal and allowing ourselves to take a much-needed break from the world of hyper-productivity and consuming and striving, we choose to medicate ourselves...and keep right on going. But where? Do you ever stop and ask yourself: where are you going? What is it all for?

I have many friends and clients whose biggest struggle in life is not about their relationships, or their kids, or their boss or even their mother-in-law. Their biggest struggle in life, the one that gnaws at them day in and day out from morning till night is deceptively simple,immediate, and insidious: it is whether they can justify taking the day off. Or a week off. Or a year. Deep down they know, and I know, that just as the plants and animals of the natural world require dormancy, hibernation--a time for gestation--the human spirit needs to same thing. The seeds of destiny lie fallow within us...longing to germinate. BUT, they need us to stop and pay attention...to put down our cell phones, close the laptop, lay down and just breathe. And listen.

There is no time to waste. Ok, I'm gonna take the rest of the day off. It's a start.

Peace,

Dr. J

The Miracle Cure

Have you noticed that a very powerful, if rather insidious, new marketing tool has been invading your life more and more lately? If you think about all the multitudinous ways in which marketers get to us--through billboards, TV ads, direct mail, tele-marketers, etc.--then you won't be surprised to find they have discovered, and are quickly saturating, a new access route: the in-box. I call it "Miracle Mail". These are those ubiquitous emails that seem to arrive from the North Pole, dropped down our broadband chimneys by nefarious marketing elves, in the middle of the night. These emails generally have two key attributes: 1. the tag line is short, seductive and offers you the world (usually for free!); 2. they are exruciatingly long, with drawn out anecdotes and testimonials, written in a multitude of fonts and colors, and you must either read all the text or be smart enough to jump all the way to the bottom to find the link to the miracle product (which is only free at the beginning...you pay the residuals forever!!!).

Now, of course, like all marketing schemes in the free-market West, there is nothing inherently evil about these distribution tools. You can always just click on "delete" and move on to other more pressing matters at hand. The problem with them, as you and I both know, IS THAT THEY WORK! Yikes. The real "miracle" of these irritatingly lengthy, pithy and potent email blasts, is that we find ourselves READING THEM...and sometimes, more often than we like to admit, BUYING THEIR PRODUCT....or worse, signing up to receive even more miraculous email offers. It is rather like discovering that you have a virus in a single organ and then consciously choosing to spread it around until it takes over the whole body!

OK. So what does this tiny tirade have to do with Life-Shifting, you ask? Well, as I was reflecting on another key principle and practice in the Life-Shifting process, what I like to call "going within", I couldn't help but think about the miraculous practice that I offer to my clients in this regard. It struck me that maybe I should package it, put together videos, workshops, and maybe a book or two, and get out there with my own email blast! I could make a fortune.

But wait, truth is, there is really nothing to my miracle cure; it is a simple practice, accessible to anyone, requires no skills or products or tools whatsoever. It requires no training, no reading, not even a half-hour infomercial to understand, adopt, and execute. Of course, since when has offering NOTHING MUCH in the form of a miracle cure not been worth millions?! (I'm reminded of Lucille Ball's famous adventure with the cure-all of her day: "Vita-Meta-Vegamin". Funny thing, with the power of the placebo effect that we know well today...it probably worked!). But, I do digress (which is what those nasty emails do, right? And we keep going, right? HAH!)

Ok, you're on to me. But here's the thing: I'm having fun with you, yes, but I am not selling anything. Really. I'm just taking a rather long, circuitous route to sharing a wondrous little technique for learning more and more about the most important thing you can ever study: yourself. You. Inside and outside and all around, the way to shift your life is to learn as much as possible about how you work". In fact, whenever you feel that your life is not going the way you'd like it to, or that things are happening too fast, or you have break-downs all around you that SEEM to be coming out of nowhere, the key step in discovering the meaning, the reason, and the cure for these things is GOING WITHIN. Learn about yourself. Ask the tough questions: what am I doing that is creating this energy of change, of chaos, of overwhelm, of illness--whatever--in my life? How am I contributing to the quality of my own life? The bottom line is that once you've turned 18 (or so, everyone is unique), you are fully responsible for your life. Every other perspective makes you the victim. And as much as we all like to play the victim once in a while, blaming the outside world for all our woes, this approach NEVER WORKS. The victim stance becomes the blame game, which as we all know if we stop and think about it for a moment, you never win!!

On the other hand, if you can figure out how to go within and learn to study yourself, you can discover the key to changing everything, to shifting everything in your life, by changing yourself. You still with me? Do you still believe that there is no link at the bottom of this blog that cuts right into your wallet? Good, cuz there's more. As the saying goes, "there must be a pony"...there is, there is. I promise.

But we have to ask ourselves: how do we "go within"? It sounds so simple. About now, most counselors, and most teachers, head toward meditation, contemplation practices, and prayer. The most common approach to stepping back and observing your self is through the myriad of meditation techniques that are proliferating in spiritual and alternative health circles. I am a huge fan of these practices and highly recommend John Kabat-Zinn's work on mindfulness in this regard. But learning to practice meditation takes time, effort, and discipline. It is a great way to learn about yourself--but not the miracle cure that I'm offering here...not by a long shot. There is a simpler, easier, faster way (oh, yes, and it is free! hee hee).

Let me share an example of how my miracle cure works. A few months ago, I had a client who was doing great work in crafting and manifesting the life of her dreams: she found a new man, got a big promotion, bought a fabulous apartment with a doorman (for New Yorkers this is nirvana!), and so on. But there was one small, nearly life-crushing problem that just wouldn't seem to go away: she panicked at the thought of giving a presentation in front of a group. No matter what size group, as small as ten, as large as one hundred, she would clam up and shrink like a little girl when called upon to present, literally freezing up with fear. Now, it is a well-known fact that public speaking is one of the most fear-inducing activities that people are called upon to do in life, so this might not have been such a big deal, except that this client had a vision of herself as a leader--and leaders lead. Leaders lead groups. Leaders present. It is what they do. So for this individual, emotionally falling apart at the idea of presenting to her peers, or her staff, or, God-fobid, her superiors (!), was a show-stopper.

As you might imagine in this kind of situation, I recommended speaker-training for her. And, to a certain extent, it worked. She did a number of executive presentation workshops and learned the key principles and practices of effective public speaking. Her technique certainly improved, but the fear never receded, and no matter what she did to stop it, she would still get overwhelmed with fear, until one day, I gave her my miracle cure. Once she started using one little practice, a small seemingly imperceptible technique for GOING WITHIN and learning about her deeply fearful child-self, the fear began to subside. So what the heck am I talking about, you ask?

Well, I guess now would be the time to put the hyperlink on the phrase "click here" and you will be taken down the rabbit hole to that long form which ends with you giving me your credit card number! Not. Ok, I give. No tricks. Here's the deal: The technique that I most recommend for getting to know yourself better is this: think of yourself in the third person. That's right. That's it: speak/think/dialogue with yourself as if you were a "he" or a "she" instead of an "I" or a "me". Try it right now. Ask yourself these questions: What is he/she feeing right at this moment? Why is he/she reading this blog? What is he/she learning about him/herself right at this moment?

How does it feel to step outside yourself, just a little, and think different? The idea is to watch yourself as if you were watching someone other than you--to gain distance and a new perspective, to look through the microscope at yourself, to train the periscope on you. The key to all learning is found in the POWER OF OBSERVATION. But as all doctors and scientists will tell you, you cannot see anything new if you don't get some distance--emotional and/or physical--from the thing you want to study. And, so it is with ourselves.

In the case of my client with the extreme phobia about executive presentations, she realized that in the moment of having to get up in front of a group, she becomes a little girl. Hence, the only way to "cure" the phobia is to dialogue with herself, but not the adult self who is filled with blame and shame and self-loathing, no, she needs to talk with the little girl...to calm her, to hold her, to nurture her, and to tell her that it will be all right. And lo and behold: it will. She (the little girl) loosens her emotional grip on the adult and lets go, letting my client step up in front of that group AND SHINE.

It works. It sounds very simple and it is very simple. At first, it feels weird to go around thinking/talking to yourself in the third person, but NO, you are not coming unglued. You are not insane. I promise. You might want to try writing in a journal in this way, writing about how he/she felt this and did that today. Or better yet, interview yourself in this manner, and when it feels strange or you find yourself feeling self-conscious about it, remember one thing: YOU are the most interesting subject in the world. No one else needs to know you as well as you do--so get to it!

Now I've got to run and make a meeting with my marketing guys. There's got to be a way to make millions off of this miracle cure...get ready world, I'm heading to your in-box!

Peace,

Dr. J

Practice, Practice, Practice...

if you want to get to Carnegie Hall that is! AND if you want to shift your life into a higher gear! Life-Shifting is all about practice and, perhaps more importantly, practices.

On the way back from Florida I started thinking about the next crucial step in the process of Life-Shifting. After the identity crisis, the resistance, the surrender, the grieving and hopefully the laughter of release, what comes next? Well, you've got to pick yourself up and start "re-tooling", re-constructing the new, bigger and better "self". And, this step always begins with practices: new ways of being and doing in the world that serve to break up old patterns and reinforce new ones.

I have already spoken here about practices such as meditation and yoga, both of which are powerful disciplines that bring together mind, body and spirit to access greater and greater levels of self-awareness. These practices serve to awaken our powers of observation, so we can become witness to our ingrained habits of thinking, doing, and feeling. Without moving in our bodies, watching our minds in action, and learning to FEEL OUR FEELINGS, we will always be dominated by whatever grooves have been etched in our psyche from childhood conditioning.

BUT these are not the only practices that support the process of renewal. What is key in choosing a new practice is to move out from your comfort zone, to dive into a physical, emotional, mental or spiritual domain in which you are a true beginner.

In this context, I want to share a story of one of my clients, whose dive into a new practice served to restore him to wholeness, ultimately shifting him to an entirely new level of being in the world.

One day, a truly lost soul showed up at my door (referred, incidentally by another therapist who had thrown up her arms in frustration) who proceeded to announce, within a few minutes, "I have no self. I am nobody." Whew. He really knew how to jump right to the core. I was impressed, if a bit non-plussed. This guy was extremely bright, a true intellect of the highest order. He was a philosophy professor and a scholar of ancient Chinese, Greek, and Hindu culture and history. He was erudite to the extreme, and spoke in esoteric, metaphyscial jargon that snowed me with acute regularity (and I was a philosophy major!). This guy was the quintessential talking head.

As it turned out, his engorged intellect may have been the only thing that saved his life. As a child, he was the victim of parental neglect, vicious sibling rivalry, and a psychotic mother who committed suicide, right in front of him, by immolating herself. Truly, a nightmarish loss from which he had never recovered. Many years, many timezones, and many defensive postures later, this guy had wrapped himself in books and theories, epistemologies and cosmologies of an ancient world...all in hopes of avoiding the buried pain that had been thrust upon him in the present one.

He did great therapeutic work with me. Slowly, over a period of many months we applied the wisdom of the ancients to the wound of the present. He began to see that his flight to philosophy was a flight away from his pain, and he slowly connected the dots from a child in survival mode to an adult whose hold on reality was tenously tied to a bunch of archaic, if brilliant, dudes who lived thousands of years ago. At a certain point, however, in the wake of a great outflow of grief and release of repressed pain, it was clear to me that although we had reconnected his head to his heart, we were still missing his body. He had taken off the intellectual suit of armor, but not yet replaced it with a more contemporary outfit. He was in limbo, naked, raw.

One day I asked a simple question: have you considered doing something physical, trying a new exercise practice or joining a ball team? I thought he needed to start to "get in shape" for the new identity that was clearly at a formative stage. Not one for following typical routes to anywhere, he came back to me a few weeks later and said that he had taken up pottery.

He loved working with his hands, spinning the wheel and mainpulating the clay. Weeks went by, and unbeknownst to him, a discipline, a practice, took hold in him. He became fastidious in his daily attempt to craft ever more sophisticated pottery, and to his own great amazement, he was very talented at it. He crafted beautiful vases, swirlingly unorthodox bowls, undulating cups and saucers, eerily "philosophical" jars that, to my mind, seemed to synthesize ancient Greek classicism with Salvadore Dali-like abstractions.

The more he took to the practice the faster our work together progressed. Within a very short span of months, not years, he began to proclaim a new sense of self, as a teacher, lover, writer, thinker, spirit...and of course, potter. He was a revelation. Was this success a tribute to therapy? Perhaps, but I'm more convinced that his real healing and transformation, the process of true self-renewal, only became manifest when he took up the PRACTICE of making pots. Pottery became the keyboard on which he could practice, practice, practice, and if there were a Carnegie Hall for pottery, today he'd be a star performer.

Practice is a key element in any major Life-Shift, there is no doubt about it. And finding the RIGHT practices for you is a crucial step along the way. Once you've stepped off the well worn road of habituated patterns, shed the tarnished clothes of the past, and stand stark naked at a fork in the road, ask yourself: what would I never do...that I might like to do? What practice would be TOTALLY new?

What activity would require you to wear a new uniform, a new attitude, a new frame of reference? What would force you to see with a beginner's eye? Start small perhaps, but get your hands dirty. Dig in with discipline, diligence and commitment--and lo and behold, soon a new you will emerge, not only in the art, the craft, the performance, but in the body, the spirit, the soul.

I leave you today with a wonderful quote from a famous "practitioner" of life, the amazing dancer and choreographer/inventer of modern dance, Martha Graham:


“I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes the shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.”
Martha Graham

So, strap on those training wheels and get out on that practice track!

Peace,

Dr J

What I Really Need Right Now...

is to hear a good joke! You heard me. If you've got a good one...please send it on. I could use a hearty belly laugh, a little chuckle...a good guffaw! I am still here in decidedly not-so-sunny Florida and it is beginning to feel like a long week. Everyone around me is hacking away with the flu, bronchitis, a cold--something unhealthy--which is exactly what I came south to escape, having just been released from headcold bondage myself a few short weeks ago. Alas, the world is so small these days that those nasty bugs just get on the planes and follow us around. Can't we build a scanner that will zap'em as we go through the x-ray machines? That way there would be a real, tangible benefit to the ubiquitous hassle of airport security. Hah!

Anyway, what's on my mind today is levity. Laughter. Simple, light, good humor. The opposite of yesterday's post, it strikes me that on the other side of deep sadness there should always be a hearty belly laugh. It just makes sense. The old adage that "laughter is the best medicine" is surely true to a certain degree. We all need to lighten up more. Yet, with Americans dying in Iraq for no good reason, and children being enslaved in Africa, and North Korea building a bomb--not to mention John Kerry trying to be a comedian--sometimes it is hard to find the humor in life. But we must.

I suggest that not only is humor and levity an important aspect of the healing process and thus a key leverage point for Life-Shifting, but that it is an essential building block of self-esteem, even leadership. People who can laugh at themselves make better leaders. When asked how he felt about Kerry's mangled joke that supposedly insulted the soldiers in Iraq instead of the President responsible for putting them there, Barack Obama (an up and coming senator and democratic leader) said it well: "I think that we all need to lighten up a bit. Sure, Kerry may have mispoke, but I do it myself all the time. Every day I wake up and look in the mirror and ask myself if I am willing to go out in public and be humble, human, and fallible. If I can laugh at the face staring back at me, and learn not to take myself too seriously, I know that I'm still up for the job."

Coming off my crying jag in the coastal waters of south Florida (see last post), I too, recognize the importance of lightening up and not taking myself over the top with seriosity (ok, so I'm making up words now...it's fun!). At the end of the day, we are all just hurling through space on a huge dirtball, with no idea why we are here, or where we are going. You gotta laugh at that, right?

So just for today, try a little Life-Shifting levity--make up a word and toss it out in the midst of a "heavy" conversation, slip into an Irish lilt when you feel the talk getting heated, or better yet, un-leash your inner leprechaun by strolling into an Irish pub around noon (don't drive!) and levitating a Guinness. And just in case you want to get serious, even if only for a moment, with this juxtaposition of humor and healing, check out a few of these websites:

http://www.hahainstitute.com/index.html,
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blterrorattack.htm
http://www.carolinahaha.org/

Cheerio!

Dr. J

The Healing Wisdom of Africa

I'm still recovering from yesterday's post. There is something a bit unnerving about the fact that inevitably when I write something about my clients or friends in this blog, the theme that emerges somehow manages to stick to me personally for a fairly long while after I've hit "publish". Is this just the universe's way of making sure that I get my own point? Ummmm.

So I'm still buzzing with yesterdays' post. The idea of stillness. Of repose. Of hanging out in the breeze. So easy to write about but so difficult, in our speed/activity addicted culture, to do. No pun intended. Yesterday, after writing about this transitional moment in the process of Life-Shifting, I decided to take a dose of my own medicine and take a break. God forbid, in the middle of the day no less! Being in south Florida for a week helps in this endeavor, as you might imagine, as I stole off about 1pm and took a stroll on the beach. The weather had cleared and the air had become still. The waves were lapping gently against the sand and the sky was a broad-brush streak of uniform blue. Florida as the adverts proclaim it. At least for a moment.

As I strolled the beach, trying to hold myseslf to a leisurely pace, getting re-acquainted with the feeling of not going anywhere (totally against the psychological grain of a New Yorker!), I felt myself finally grow quiet inside, calm. I could feel my breath slacken and my heart rate slow. It was gloriously peaceful. Suddenly, I had the urge to dive into the azure sea. Rolling onto my back, and closing my eyes, I just floated there, still. For a long moment, I felt a sense of ease and grace, even gratitude, for the pleasure of being able to take this break in the middle of a work day.

Soon enough, too soon, I started to feel an energy of constriction creeping up my spine, into my chest, throat, and jaw. It was a very strange physical sensation and my first emotional reaction to it was fear. The fight/flight response gradually subsided, only to be replaced by an overwhelming need to cry. Strange as it sounds, basking in this moment of essnce--and delight--I was overcome with grief. I just felt a deep longing, a missing, a heartbreak. I could feel the tears come even as I resisted them. For a long moment, perhaps a few moments, I don't really remember keeping track of time at this point, I let the tears come. I lay on my back in the sea, feeling my briny tears flow down my cheeks, washing away into the vast Atlantic. The experience was very womb-like, being held by the warm, salt water; it was almost as if the ocean mother herself coaxed me into letting go, releasing pent-up, coagulated emotions of loss, of hurt, of pain. This rush of emotion wasn't really even about anything--it was more like feeling sad about everything.

Suddenly, as quickly as they had arrived, these feelings dissipated. My tears dissolved back into the ocean from which they had originated and I felt a sense of peace return. But this time, it was richer, deeper, ecstatic. A feeling of oneness, belonging--at home in the sea.

Looking back on this rich if awkward moment, I realize that I was living out Life-Shifting writ large. I had given myself, even if only in a small way, permission to be still, to stop my striving, and to allow whatever wanted to come up, to come. And it was sadness. Not endless sadness (which is what we most fear), but deep sadness. Perhap, in light of yesterday's post, this is why we all so resist stopping, being still, being empty. Because the tears might just come...and fill the ocean with our grief.

Upon reflection, I wasn't really surprised about this experience. It was a catalyst, a reminder of a profound teaching that I had received many years ago from a wise African shaman from Burkina Faso. His name is Malidoma Some, and he has written many books in which he shares the wisdom of the tribal cultures of Africa. One of his teachings is about the importance of sadness, of grieving, of truly feeling, at a deep emotional level, the truth of the impermanence of life. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to experience this wisdom first hand.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine invited Malidoma to join a group of us on a community retreat in Lake Tahoe. Malidoma happened to be living in nearby Santa Cruz at the time, and my friend had been participating in his shamanic training program for a couple of years at that point. Graciously, Malidoma accepted our invitation to come and lead us in a West African ritual experience. There were about 14 of us on this retreat and we were all very eager to be introduced to the healing wisdom of Africa.

The morning of the ritual, we all gathered in the living room of one of the homes we had rented for the retreat. It was a cozy space, with a wall of glass looking out at the lake, a huge fireplace, and an array of sofas and pillows on which we could all casually drape. Malidoma came into our circle and sat to one side, stiffly, on a hard-back chair. For a long time, he did not say a word. There was a palpable energy of anticipation in the room, as we were enchanted by the presence of having a "real" African shaman in our midst. We were totally psyched up and enthusiastic about whatever ritual he would "perform" for us.

Looking back, Malidoma must have felt a bit like a circus animal, with his rapt child-like audience looking on, holding its breath, watching and waiting for the entertainment to begin. But, truth be told, we were the circus animals that day, and Malidoma himself was watching us keenly. As we grew more and more uncomfortable, even impatient, he just sat quietly, waiting. An energy seemed to enter the room. Call it spirit, a life force, a power. Who knows. We all felt it. A presence in the silence.

The air started to feel thick, and for a moment it felt like I was breathing soup. Moisture enveloped the space. Suddenly, my good friend, Patricia, just started to choke up. It began as a soft whine from deep within her chest and grew and grew until she was sobbing uncontrollably. Her grief was heavy and deep; it sounded like her heart was breaking. Maybe it was. We all felt it and it touched us deeply. Slowly, more and more of us joined her, the women at first, but not long after, even the men were wailing. I too, succumbed, caught up in a tidal wave of grief, I felt the tears come, and come, and come again.

Soon, the entire group was awash in tears....and then laughter...and then both. Pain and joy. Two sides of the same coin. We cried until we laughed. We laughed until we cried. Malidoma sat. Still. Watching. We did all the performing...and all the learning.

This excursion into African community practice, as Malidoma, pointed out to us later, was called a grief ritual. It is a regular, every-day occurence in West African tribal life, and it is what all Westerners crave. Throughout the ensuing hour or longer that we all just cried and laughed and held each other and cried some more (are you still with me here, or have you checked out in disbelief? look now--at your resistance to this stuff!) Malidoma just sat still. His faced was filled with compassion and his energy exuded safety and patience. He was just there for us, like a father. He held the space for us to grieve, to release, to be cleansed. It was what we needed to do, only we, of course, had no idea.

Why is experiencing the pull of sadness so difficult for us westerners? When you think about it, grief is the ultimate taboo. If I had told you that Malidoma led us into some ecstatic orgy of naked lust and debauchery, you probably would have LOVED this post...but since I am writing about a ritual that was simply about a bunch of uptight, white folks spending a morning on a lake crying their hearts out...most of you are probably not impressed. Maybe even a bit critical, or at the very least, disbelieving. But why?

Why can't we cry? Why did I have to go out in the ocean in order to get in touch with the deep sadness that lies within me? This is the curse of our relentless high-productivity-addicted culture--and a crucial step in any process of self-renewal. Thanks to Malidoma and the healing wisdom of Africa, among other indigenous peoples, we still have teachers on the planet with real, useful knowledge of the human species...and its need to release and grieve the deeply heartwrenching losses that are an inevitabe aspect of life.

So today--join me on this excursion into the depths of your humanity. I encourage you to reach beyond the border of your own resistance, to reach beyond the borders of our myopic and denial-addicted culture, reach deep into your heart and feel the pull of grief that wants to break you open.

Read Malidoma Some. Have a good cry. Let your heart break. It is the way in...and the way out.

Time for a swim...and a good laugh.

Peace,

Dr J

Hanging in the Breeze

Good morning from sunny...and not-so-sunny...Florida! Every time I spend time in southern Florida I'm constantly aware of the awesome presence of mother nature and her mercurial personality. Not that there isn't any "nature" to be had in New York City, but I guess just being in a more tropical environment, where the weather constantly shifts--from sun to rain to wind back to sun, sometimes in mere moments--brings the truth that life is constantly shifting front and center in my consciousness.

Today however, in the midst of a glorious sun-drenched thunderstorm, I want to write about stillness. I want to write about the space between the changes in weather: that quiet moment of empty space between clouds and sun, between wind and calm. How do we weather those moments? With grace? With gratitude? Or maybe with angst and fear and insecurity?

It seems that a number of my clients and close friends are going through very serious life-shifts at the moment. A number of them are letting go of career and relationship identities and moving through the stages of life-shifting that include feeling that an identity or label no longer fits, waking up to a pattern that no longer works, crafting a vision for the change, working through the resistance and facing the inevitable feelings of loss, sadness and grief that accompany it (see last post).

What is profoundly interesting to me though, as my friends and clients put the principles of Life-Shifting into practice, is to discover that one of the most difficult stages of the process comes at that moment seemingly between stages, that moment when the old identity has come loose and been discarded but the new one is not yet fully formed. In this moment, or week, or month--or year?--we often experience feelings of confusion, dislocation, sometimes boredom, or emptiness.

It is easy to mistake this experience for depression. When in the midst of major change and you find yourself just wanting to take a week off to do nothing but curl up on the sofa with a book, or you find yourself with an endless to-do list and no energy to do any of it, you may be tempted to think: time for the anti-depressants. Not so fast. Yes, you may feel down, even suddenly sad or flooded with grief, but this is not so much depression, as an emotional way station as you move from one way of being towards something new and unknown. It is simply nature's way of taking a breather before getting back in the game. So why is it so difficult to relax in those moments, to give ourselves a break...maybe even a rest?

We high-achiever types have a hard time with the idea of doing nothing, of being patient, of just SITTING STILL. Yet, sometimes that is exactly what is required. We need to stop all the doing and just step back and be.

Hanging out in the unknown, however, can be very uncomfortable. It goes against the grain of our fast-paced, always going somewhere kind of life. To make matters worse, this limbo state may be particularly acute if you are undergoing life-shifts in more than one domain: relationship, career, family, etc. Sometimes life just swoops in and uproots us completely such that many of the identities that we have constructed get torn asunder all at once.

Reverend August Gold, who is the spiritual director at a wonderful spiritual center in New York City called the Sacred Center, tells people that whenever they feel like their whole life has been uprooted, well, it probably has! She likens our personal journey to a plant in a pot. When we grow plants and they become pot-bound, what do we do? We go out and buy a bigger pot. Then we proceed to dig them up,roots and all, put new soil and nutrients in the larger pot, and re-plant them. Surely, if we were to ask how the plants feel about this experience, we would hear that they find it rather traumatic. Yet, it is a necessary part of their lifecycle, and without it, they would be come totally pot-bound and quickly begin to rot from the inside out.

So it is with humans--and our tightly bound lives! Reverend August reminds us that whenever we are ready to grow into a bigger life, a more satisfying life, a more fully realized life, we have to step out of that comfy, little "pot", and find a bigger one, a more nutritious, fresh, vitalized place, where we can sink in roots and, ultimately, spread our wings. This is what Life-Shifting is all about. Simple...but not easy...for as Rev. August points out, there is always this in-between moment when we are not quite out of the old pot or fully in the new one . Plucked from the old identity and not yet grounded in the safe soils of the new one, we hang in mid-air for a while, roots dangling, precarious and vulnerable. This is the empty place. The place of waiting. The place of raw vulnerabiity. It can be a scary moment. And it may seem like forever.

But, perhaps, we can see it another way--as simply a necesary part of the journey. A breathing point. A way station. My friends who are currently undergoing major life-shifts are busy trying to avoid these dangling roots kind of moments--they sometimes strike me as just a bit too busy, a tad too focused on what's next. The truth is that other than just having a vision, an inkling, or an intuition, what the future will hold is beyond our knowing. What's next is a bigger pot, no doubt about that...but it has not yet arrived. Sometimes we just have to wait. The universe is on its timetable, not ours.

I tell them to relax. Read a book. Put your feet up and watch a little TV. No, you are not becoming lazy. No, you are not depressed. You are in transition. Be gentle, patient...and most of all, nurture yourself. A good, hot bubble bath may be in order.

So the next time you see a break in the clouds, or feel the breeze suddenly go dead and the air become still, stop for a moment and FEEL THE STILLNESS deep within. Is there a feeling of momentary panic, of emptiness, or perhaps a glimmer of wonder...maybe awe?

Life may be constantly in motion; we all may be constantly shifting; yet, there are moments--fortunately--when all is quiet. Empty. Waiting.

In those moments, can you just hang in the breeze?

There will always be plenty to do.

Peace,

Dr. J