yosemitefalls.jpg
September 2007
  • Shame Busters
  • Meditation is a Radical Act

    • What's a perspective?
    Claim Your Life Now
    Perspectives
    Greetings!

    When I learned about perspectives in coaching school, I was blown away. It's remarkably easy to change perspectives. The problem arises with our attachment (addiction) to our predominant perspective.

    A perspective is simply defined as "A way of looking at the world." My dominant perspective has been that of a "victim". Life happened to me. I didn't have much to do with it. I was a victim of life.

    The first step in changing perspectives is identifying your current one. Naming it, claiming it, and being willing to try out different ways of looking at the world will "curl your toes", as one of my trainers told me.

    This morning I awoke in the perspective I'd call, "Dark and Gloomy". Nothing in my life circumstances warrant that mood. It's just the old, well-worn track my brain automatically wakes up into.

    The next step was to think of possible other perspectives.

    I immediately remembered that when I read Hafix poetry the first thing in the morning, it lifts my mood. Wiith my cup of tea in hand, I grabbed my favorite and only book of poetry by Hafix - The Subject Tonight is Love."

    Absolutely Clear

    Don't surrender your loneliness
    So quickly.
    Let it cut more deep.
    Let it ferment and season you
    As few human
    Or even divine ingredients can.
    Something missing in my heart tonight
    Has made my eyes so soft,
    My voice
    So tender,
    My need of God
    Absolutely
    Clear

    I was giggling and smiling within 5 minutes. Throughout the course of the day, I found myself slipping back into the old track, "Dark and Gloomy... blah, blah, blah." I catch myself time and time again. I go back to Hafix poetry.

    Each time I switch perspectives, I'm laying new pathways in my brain.

    What you focus on ENLARGES. If you are focusing on pain and shame and lame excuses for why you don't have what you want, that's what gets BIGGER.

    IF YOU FOCUS ON JOY, PEACE, HOPE AND POSSIBILITY AND LIVE WITHIN THAT PERSPECTIVE, THAT ENLARGES AS WELL.

    Try identifying your favorite perspective - THE MOOD YOU WAKE UP IN EVERYDAY. Give it an approapriate name.

    This morning, a client came up with the "Piss and Moan Perspective". We then jumped into the "Gratitude" perspective and hung out there for awhile. It's really that easy. Catching yourself and changing the things you say to yourself.


    emeraldlake.jpg Shame Busters

    Speaking or writing our "secrets" allows us to end the cycle of shame and isolation. If you grew up in an alcoholic home, you probably learned 3 rules. Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. As long as we continue to remain silent about what bothers us, we will be isolated in our shame.

    Several years ago I spoke at a ceremony honoring my husband. I returned to the town of my birth and faced the people who knew me as my father's daughter. My father, God Bless Him, was the town drunk. He'd drink until he passed out and often would be lying in a ditch outside the tavern. My siblings and I would have to go retrieve him. I've carried so much shame about being the daughter of the town drunk.
    At the ceremony I spoke about how I healed from the loss of my husband. I was able to stand tall and be proud of my husband and myself. I publicly thanked my mother and my family for supporting me through those challenging years. I didn't mention my father. He died of alcoholism a year after my husband was killed in Vietnam. The people in the community welcomed me and told stories I had forgotten.

    I've written my grief story but I have not written about my alcholic, co-dependent upbringing. That might be the next book. Friends tell me they can't believe some of the stories I tell of my childhood. I thought my childhood was normal. Little did I know it would be the basis of the perpsective I lived in for too many years: "Victim". I was the victim of my childhood but I am no longer a victim.

    Our past is not our fault. Our addictions, our disorders, our upbringing and much of what we are ashamed of is not our fault. The above issues are genetically transmitted. Co- dependance is genetically transmitted. Getting honest, open and willing to identify our challenges breaks the cycle of shame that keeps us in isolation. Telling our stories to someone who will not judge us or condemn us is the first step in busting up our shame cycle.

    12-Step Recovery Groups are a great place to bust up shame cycles. For too many years, I couldn't admit I had problems with addictions. I felt such shame and digust that I couldn't control such basic things - like eating and relationships.

    Little did I know that God was trying to get to me through my inability to control it all.

    Asking for help, from a sponsor in a 12-Step Recovery Group, hiring a coach, or a therapist are all ways to bust up the isolation of shame.

    Once we ask for help from another human being and a Higher Power, help is on the way. We are given the insights and courage to face the things that have brought us to our knees in the first place.

    Cry yourself a river, build yourself a bridge. It's all good.

    santarosacreek.jpg Meditation is a Radical Act
    ...so is crying

    In our culture, meditating is clearly a radical act. When we sit and do nothing other than pay attention to our breath, we are NOT consuming and NOT producing - two very important ventures in a capitalistic society.

    I instinctively started sitting still after I suffered a clinical depression. My Wise Self knew it was a good move. I had spent so many years running away from my past and myself.

    Sitting still for the first time in 45 years brought the past back into the present. All I could do was cry. The well of tears inside me was so full. Keeping busy kept those tears buried. The dam broke and the tears flowed. It was good.

    One of my early meditation teachers told me that it was ok to cry in the meditation hall. Thank God. I needed to cry after all those years of being told to "get over it".

    Sitting still helped me face my addictions as well. I stopped engaging in them. The addictive behaviors kept my feelings at bay. Feelings were so frightening. Avoiding them is now more frightening.

    I went to a 5-day silent meditation retreat at the end of August. I don't cry at retreats so much anymore. Now, my mind just gets really quiet and I become intensely aware of everything around me - what a blessings that is. Living just 5 days of this awareness fills my interior well with joy - that same well that previously contained all the sadness. I am blessed.

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