The Chronic Meditator

Father's Day portraits

2011-06-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

I've just finished my Father's Day portraits.

I think my favorite is this first one. The girl's mother said they call this photo the 'too cool for school' photo. At last I've been able to do a portrait that features girl's clothing - I've been wanting to do one for ages.

This is the same girl - the mum chose complementary colors for the two portraits, and I think they'll look good together on the wall. I really like this reddish background color.

The next two are of the same boy and are mini portraits. I love the fire-engine and the retro colors that the mum chose. It's a pity I couldn't get more detail in the face, but I think the details of the fire-engine and the hat make up for it.

Lovin' those curls - what a cutey!

Howdy from Oregon!

2011-05-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am no longer in Australia but in beautiful central Oregon. My silence over the past month has been due to the fact that I’ve been on an epic voyage (well, epic for someone with CFS!)

I was a university student a Kansas University 15 years ago, and it’s where I got sick. I never thought I’d be able to come back to the US but a few opportunities opened up, and the trip planned itself in about 30 mins. (It’s always a good sign when things fall together as easily as that.)

Firstly, Centrelink (the Australia Govt body that gives me my disability pension) allowed me to go to stay in a number of countries around the world, mostly 1^st world countries, for as long as I liked. Then, the Australian dollar reached parity with the US dollar – so I could afford to stay here. Then, a friend of mine moved to the little town of Sisters, in central Oregon, and said, ‘come on over…I think you’d like it.’

So I came – and I do like it!

I didn’t write anything about the on my blog before I left because the lead-up to the trip was stressful. A lot of feelings that I’d blocked from the time I first got sick started to re-surface. It was emotionally and physically draining, I felt like I could only take one day at a time, and was never entirely confident I would make it onto the plane.

I had hoped I would have had all my crying out of the way before getting on the plane (that was my plan anyway. Plans, schmans! I don’t know why I bother making them!) So, I cried on every flight I was on, then cried in the airport, in the supermarket, in the café, in the… well, you get the idea. I single-handedly (or single-nosedly) bumped Kleenex’s sales up 10% over the past month.

I broke my flight up in Hawaii, which was so beautiful. I even had a good energy day and the woman I was staying with grabbed me and said, ‘get in the car…you need to see at least SOME of Hawaii!’ So she got her big plastic cup of rum and coke and we jumped into her jalopy and drove around the island with the rum sloshing around and Christian music blaring from the radio. The coast-line was spectacular…I can see why tourism is their biggest industry.

Then I flew straight to Oregon, and am in Sisters which is a small town on the edge of the high desert, with beautiful mountains in the background. Here are some photos taken just down the end of my street. Lucky me!

I’m not sure how often I’ll be writing blog posts from here. I’m just going to take it easy, and write whenever the urge grabs me, rather than trying to keep to a schedule.

Hope this finds you, my lovely reader, happy and having a day with at least a few sweet things in it. (I have apple-pie fudge in my fridge, so that will be my sweet-thing.)

Hatred never ceases by hatred

2011-04-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

I was just listening to a podcast talk by Jack Kornfield, a US Buddhist teacher and former monk. In the talk Jack tells the story of working in a Cambodian refugee camp with his teacher Maha Ghosananda. Maha Ghosananda was a Buddhist monk who became known as Cambodia's Gandhi for his work to bring peace to Cambodia after the Pol Pot holocaust that decimated its population.

I transcribed the story becuase I thought it was so profound. Here is is as Jack tells it.

"Mahagosanada got permission from the UNHCR to open this little Buddhist temple in the centre of the camp - which was 50,000 people in these little huts, without hardly any water or shade. And when the Khmer Rouge found out that the temple was being opened they let it be known that anyone who went to the opening would be killed when they returned to Cambodia.

So, it wasn't clear whether people would come at all. But he was this incredibly good hearted and loving monk. He was spared being killed - most of his family and monastery were killed - because he was in Thailand for the worst of it.

So he went around ringing this bell once the bamboo temple was made, and in the central square 25,000 people came. Half the camp showed up. And he sat there, in this dusty camp, looking out over the faces of these people, the faces of people in trauma. There would be one uncle with 2 nieces who had survived, a grandma with 2 grandchildren. Everone had lost family members, temples burnt, schools destroyed.

And I thought, 'What is he going to say to these people who have lost so much?' And he put his hands together and just began to chant, sounds in Cambobdian and Sankskrit that they hadn't heard for 8 years. In this beutiful chanting tone he began to chant one verse from the Dhammapada which says, 'Hatred never ceases by hatred but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient and enternal law.'

And after a while 25,000 people were singing, 'Hatred never ceases by hatred but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient and enternal law.'

And it was as if he was speaking a truth that was even bigger than their sorrows. Yes, there's destruction, yes, there's killing and still, there's no end to this without love."

Sunrise

2011-04-07T16:47:00.000-07:00

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?

E. M. Forster

I woke up early yesterday morning and saw this beautiful, crisp, Autumnal sunrise happening right outside my window. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots from my front-yard. How beautiful! I love EM Forster's novels (Howards End is probably my favorite) and thought his quote was a good match for these photos.

Kissing cousins...

2011-04-03T16:01:00.001-07:00

My Irish cousins were visiting for a few months over Christmas and we thought we'd do an artwork together. This was the photo we started with (...and I should explain at this point that they are not both my cousins, it's my cousin and his wife, Mairead).

I've whited out the background but the original photo was even more beautiful - they are kissing in front of a field of snow just outside their home.

This is the stencil design we came up with. I initially thought we wouldn't be able to include the sequins on Mairead's hat but with a bit of persistance I was able to connect all the white sections of her hat together. (In stencils you need to have all the white connected in some way to another piece of white - so the whole thing hangs together when you cut it out).

Then we cut the stencil out. I think it was the most intricate stencil I've ever cut - because of all the fine detail in Mairead's hat. I think my favorite part is their scarfs - and my cousin's curly hair.

We put the stencil down onto a flat tiled canvas and used my latest technique for getting the stencil to stick down firmly - stomping on it.

Then Mairead got down and dirty with a can of pink spray-paint.

And, here's her holding the final product! Sweet :)

A healing touch

2011-04-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days I’ve gone into a fairly regular kind of energy slump where even listening or thinking becomes painfully exhausting. It’s as though my body is so tired that even moving my mental muscles to form a thought makes me ache.

Yesterday, as I was lying in bed I caught myself trying to do a metta (compassion) practice when I was too tired to think straight. I was trying to form kind and caring thoughts about being in pain, but this mental ‘trying’ just increased my pain. Hmph! I was stuck.

Then a section of Toni Bernhard’s book ‘How to be Sick’ (oh, how I love that title!) came to mind. Toni writes about cultivating compassion towards herself in the face of chronic illness by using phrases of care and understanding such as 'My poor body, working so hard to feel better'. She then writes: 'Whatever words I choose, I often stroke one arm with the hand of the other. This has brought me to tears many times, but tears of compassion are healing tears.'

Following Toni’s suggestion, I stopped trying to think compassionate thoughts and just started stroking the top of my hand with my other hand. This kind, compassionate touch went beyond all thought, straight into the heart of the matter; ‘Oh, I’m sick. How sad.’

I was transported back in time to when I was very young – 5 and 6 years old – and spent months in hospital with asthma. I was not only isolated from the world, but also cut-off from my immediate surroundings by a thick plastic tent covering my bed. Asthma medication was pumped into the tent, so I could breathe it in and out. The intention was to heal, and it probably saved my life many times over, but the experience was confusing and so very lonely.

The simple act of touching my own hand brought me back to this sad time; a time where all I really wanted was kindness and a sense of connection – to hope, life, and the outside world. It felt as though offering myself this care, even 30 years on, was a kind of healing. This beautiful and simple practice gave me a sense of mothering and caring for myself.

Thankyou Toni!

Beautiful Gili Air - Lombok - Indonesia

Awakening Now

2011-03-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

Awakening Now

by Dana Faulds

Why wait for your awakening?

Do you value your reasons for staying small

more than the light shining through the open door?

Forgive yourself,

Forgive yourself.

Now is the only time you have to be whole.

Now.

Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true nature.

Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

Please, oh please, don't continue to believe

in your stories of deficiency and failure.

This is the day of your awakening.

Danna Faulds is a US poet and practitioner of Kripalu Yoga. She's written four books of yoga poetry: Go In and In; One Soul; Prayers to the Infinite; and From Root to Bloom.

Self-Compassion Phrases

2011-03-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

Hello lovely readers!

It's been a while since I've posted, mostly because I've been busy crying. (I am confident that at the end of this financial year I will get a thank you letter from Kleenex and hopefully a free mega pack of man-sized tissues to see me through another afternoon of weeping).

When I last posted I wrote about doing an exercise where I recorded how I was feeling and then responded with phrases of self-compassion. This little exercise opened the flood-gates and 15 years of 'coping' has been washed away in my tears, as I allow myself to feel all grief-stricken, pissed-off and crappy at losing so much of my life to this illness.

I've been practicing saying little phrases of self-compassion to myself as I lie in bed feeling whatever feeling is present in the moment. To help myself do this, I've been collecting and writing down phrases of compassion and kindness. During the day, I have the list of phrases open on my laptop and while I'm resting I just open my eyes every so often and pick a phrase to repeat to myself.

I thought I'd share this list in the hope that some readers may find it useful. I'd love to know what your favorite self-compassion phrase is!

Bumper list of self-compassion phrases

Yes, I’m sick – it’s difficult.

What’s going on here? How are you feeling?

It’s not my fault, there’s nothing I have to change.

I never get to choose a feeling – I just get to choose how I will meet the feeling.

I’m sad that I’m sick.

I’m sad that I feel this feeling difficult.

This feeling is meant to be here, and I care about it.

How are you? I’m seeking to understand, not to change.

I’m doing the best I possibly can in this situation, a really good job.

I’m doing a great job of resting and taking care of myself.

I feel agitated, I want to ‘do stuff’ – well, that’s totally fine. It’s totally normal to feel like you want to do things when you’re sick. I’m sure we’ll find time for you to do that later.

Even though x is happening and I feel x I choose to trust the place I am in.

I know I’m a good person because good people feel x and I feel x. Therefore I’m a good person.

It’s not my fault – it’s just happening.

I love you every way that you are, exactly as you are – and I’ll help you to be any way you want to be.

I’m here to make life better; I’m here to help.

This matters. Whatever it is, it matters.

(My latest portrait - I thought it suited the mood of this post!)

Developing the Mentor Pt 3

2011-02-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

For a few weeks now I’ve been writing about using Zen teacher Cheri Huber’s techniques of discovering an inner mentor. (Here’s Pt 1 and here’s Pt 2).

My task for the past week was to make a recording of myself talking about something in my life I was struggling with and then recording what the ‘mentor’ would say in response.

When I started to do the recording I didn’t have a plan of what I would talk about. I just turned on the video recorder on my laptop and found myself describing how I was feeling physically; just listing my physical symptoms.

‘I feel exhausted…my head hurts and the muscles behind my eyes feel tight…’

Then, I found myself describing how I felt about all these physical sensations.

‘I feel so left out, and so envious of other people who can get out of bed and do things…I feel like this is my fault and I should be able to change it…’

Then, I used the second half of the recording to say mentoring, compassionate phrases to myself. I found it quite difficult to come up with these phrases, they certainly didn’t flow naturally!

I found myself saying things like,

‘I’m not here to criticize – I just want to listen, and to try to understand what this is like…I’m here to help in any way I can…I’ll support you through this.’

Saying all these things was incredibly moving, and listening back to the tape everyday has been so comforting but also very, very sad.

I’ve been sick for 15 years and this past week is the first time I’ve been able to cut through the numbness that surrounds this illness and just feel my physical sensations and the feelings I have about them. I'm starting to realise how trapped I've been in the beliefs that I ‘shouldn’t’ be sick, that being sick is my fault, and that acknowledging my physical symptoms is a sign of weakness.

I am starting to have some awareness of the cycle of blame. Something bad happened (I got sick) and my instinct was to judge and blame. The judging and blaming led to more difficulties (I was numb, I couldn’t feel much at all) and I felt that the way out of this problem was to judge myself a little more (I’m such a cold person, I’m so judgmental, I’m not kind…blah blah blah).

As the saying goes: ‘It’s heaven all the way to heaven and hell all the way to hell.’ I thought that by piling on the criticism and judgment I would ‘improve’ myself and get better; I thought it was ‘hell all the way to heaven.’ But, really it was just hell all the way down.

Starting to feel again is painful. Sometimes it feels as though there is an intense, white, anguish that rises up through my bones as I allow a feeling like sadness or grief move like a wave through my body. But it also feels right, and real. I feel I’m learning to counter the instinct to judge with the mentoring voice and I can see small, but important changes.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling exhausted. As I lay in bed I cried, because I was so tired and it was the beginning of another long day with this illness. After about 10 minutes I stopped weeping and realized that was the first time in 15 years I had just spontaneously cried because I was sick – and not pushed my feelings down by saying something like, ‘well…it could be worse, there are people who are much worse off than you’ or ‘well, you don’t deserve to feel sad, it’s really all your fault.’ I had just allowed myself to cry for 10 whole minutes. Quite an achievement.

+++

On a completely different note - I posted before Christmas about doing a house portrait for my dad. I just got it mounted onto a wooden block and had some photos taken and here's what it looks like. I think it's quite cute!

Developing the Mentor Pt 2

2011-02-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

Last week I wrote about a little project I was doing with a friend of mine. She has been doing an e-mail course with Cheri Huber and one of her assignments was to teach someone else the techniques she's been learning in the course.

My first task, which I wrote about last week, was to record myself talking about all the positive things I was doing to help my life improve, or be a bit happier. I've been listening to this recording every day and have found that it really helps to externalise the positive, mentoring voice in my head.

This week's task was to spend some time just thinking about who this mentor might be. When I think 'mentor', does an image of a person come to mind? Or many people? When the mentor speaks, what does their voice sound like? If the mentor isn't a person - what is it? Perhaps there's a particular feeling, or color, or sound associated with it.

All interesting stuff to muse on.

I've been interested in Cheri Huber's work for a year or so now, so I've thought before about the qualities and persona of my mentor. My mentor changes a bit. Often it's an older woman (modelled on some older Catholic nuns I met during my time doing volunteer work with refugees - truly inspirational women). My other mentor 'voice' is a man of about my own age who speaks with a slow Texan drawl.

The Texan drawl bit was odd at first, but I worked out that I liked the idea of the mentors voice speaking to me really slowly and calmly, and when I tried to imagine that the Texan drawl is what I heard! (A bit like Owen or Luke Wilson's accents).

So, my mentor is kind, accepting, speaks slow Texan, and is either Luke Wilson or a nun. Hmmm...kinda weird, but it works for me!

A pictorial depiction of the inside of my head. Confusing!?

It is simply necessary to love

2011-01-24T13:15:00.000-08:00

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

- Claude Monet -

Developing the mentor Pt 1

2011-01-18T13:35:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine (who also has CFS) has been doing an e-mail class with US Zen teacher Cheri Huber over the past few months. Cheri's work places a strong emphasis on developing a compassionate and kind inner-voice, which she calls a 'mentor'.

As part of the e-mail course my friend was asked to find someone else to teach some of Cheri's practices to, focussing on the development of an inner-mentor. I am the proud little guinea-pig!

I thought I'd blog about doing my 'assignments' (because if I blog about them it means I actually have to do them!)

My first task was to find a way of recording my voice. I ended up just clicking on the video recorder in my laptop and recording myself speaking on video. This way, the recordings are on my desktop and with one click I can be listening to them. (I thought it was important to make the listening process as simple as possible, or I'd find an excuse not to do it! Like most people, I don't particularly enjoy listening to my voice on tape.)

My next task was to record myself saying all the positive, good things I was doing to support myself in my meditation and awareness practice, and all the ways I was committed to giving myself a better life.

It was quite weird to record myself saying these things, but I came up with three minutes of affirming statements. The recording says things like: 'I'm really committed to making my life better and giving myself the best chance of getting well and finding peace. Even when my meditation practice is really difficult and I feel like I'm getting no-where I still keep going. I'm committed to spending money on books and on my psychologist. I'm committed to travelling to the monastery whenever I can. I really appreciate the parts of myself that are persistent and focussed and creative - because these parts help me just to keep going in this practice.'

Now my task is to listen to this recording every day. As I listen I silently say, 'Yes, that's true' after every statement I make on the recording.

It is very interesting to listen to what the critical voices in my head say in response. 'No - it's NOT true!' they say. 'If you carry on like this, just focussing on positive things, you'll never get well!'

I try not to engage with these voices, but just bring myself back to the recording and my silent repetition of 'Yes, that's true.'

I've been listening to Cheri Huber's radio programs for a year now and have noticed she often recommends people record themselves speaking. Until I did it myself I wondered why, but now I see why it's so powerful.

I have a 'voice' running continuously in my head, and for 99% of the time it's a voice of judgement, and comparison. Having another 'voice' that I listen to on my laptop makes it clear that what is going on in my head is just one opinion. It's not necessarily correct and I can learn to develop this kind, mentoring voice and then have a choice about what I listen to.

All very interesting! I'll let you know about the next assignment when I do it.

Do you have spare craft/art supplies?

2011-01-12T16:30:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

(Apologies in advance, this post has nothing to do with meditation!)

I do volunteer work assisting asylum seekers. Currently I'm helping out a woman from the Congo (central Africa) who is seeking refugee status in Thailand. You may remember her from this post.

She is unable to work and is just sitting in her room all day, waiting for her refugee claim to be assessed, which is going to take many more months and perhaps years.

She has suffered terribly in her home country, witnessing atrocities and deaths of family members. I would really like to be able to send her some craft or art supplies to give her something to do during the day.

I've sent her a few cross-stitch kits but she's finished those. I was wondering, does anyone have some light-weight extra craft or art supplies they don't need?

I will pay for the postage costs to Thailand.

(If you don't have anything, perhaps you could help out by giving this a mention on Facebook or by Twittering...I'd really appreciate it.)

Thankyou!

Map of DR Congo, in Central Africa

Self-Compassion and Levine Talks

2011-01-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

This blog has many lovely readers and one just e-mailed me a link to a website I thought you might like. It's called self-compassion.org and is a collection of writings, MP3 downloads, and exercises all focused on self-compassion.

There's even a test you can take called 'How Self-Compassionate Are You?' (I'll admit I'm a little scared to take that test!)

There are some lovely resources on the site, including some written self-compassion exercises that I'm going to try. The website's author, Kristen Neff, is a US professor who is also a Buddhist and has a book about self-compassion coming out in April.

Another website I discovered recently is Levine Talks - which features audio by the wonderful teachers and writers Steven and Ondrea Levine who spent many years working with sick and dying people. This website has been set up to give some financial support to Steven and Ondrea who are now retired and both quite unwell - so it's not free. (But, at $10 a month it's not crazy expensive either!)

Hope you are all enjoying the first days of the New Year (and not snowed under!)

Mekong River view taken opposite my guesthouse in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T16:15:00.000-08:00

New Year's greetings! I hope this coming year is one of peace, happiness and as much health as is possible.

After living it up over Christmas I am now in an energy slump. (Mojitos at midnight? Never a good idea...)

But, I do have a new haircut to console myself with as I spend the next few weeks recovering in bed. One of my sisters, Brigid, (in the top photo with stripy top) is a wizz with a pair of scissor and she and my Irish cousin gave me an asymmetrical new hair-do.

Reactions from other family members were mixed. Well, actually, they weren't mixed at all. One sister said, 'It looks like someone has hacked at the back of your head with a hatchet.' And the other said, 'Our hair grows symmetrically for a reason, God makes it that way.' (I asked her when she'd last seen a symmetrical tree).

My other news is that the little print I commissioned as arrived and it is gorgeous and so detailed.

I love the way Plamena wrapped the text around the image.

Our tacky Christmas tree

2010-12-25T13:58:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas all!

I have been waiting a week to post this, because my internet connection is bonkers and I haven't been able to up-load photos.

My cousin Rob and his wife Mairead are visiting us from Ireland for Christmas. They are wonderful cooks and the house is full of yummy, yummy food. Today they made olive tapenade, hummous, and babba ganoush and I am in dip heaven!

Last week Mairead had the idea of making a Christmas tree using a branch from a gum tree. We grabbed some of my spray-paints and painted the leaves red (yes, they match Mairead's hair!)

Then we we painted the trunk bright green and went into town to buy some tacky lights which we wrapped around the stem and put into the leaves. Here's what it look like up:

It is completely tacky and ridiculous and we LOVE IT! (The rest of the family don't seem so keen but the whole thing cost $10 so we don't care).

Merry Christmas to all.

House Portrait

2010-12-09T23:30:00.000-08:00

I was lying in bed the other day thinking random thoughts and one particularly random thought came up, 'Gee...I just love pen and ink drawings. I wish I could do something like that.'

I opened up Photoshop and found a photo of my dad's farm where I'm living. (It feels quite strange to write 'my dad's farm' because until 2 months ago this was 'my parent's farm,' but since my mum and dad have separated it's now just his.)

I used Photoshop to put a layer over the photo, and then I just started tracing everything I saw. (I'd like to pretend I'm an amazing artist, but I'm not...I am a good tracer though!)

After I'd finished tracing and drawing (it took about three hours) I deleted the house photo and was left with just the tracing. Here's what it looked like:

I quite like it. I love all the little details, like the gate that's almost falling down.

I'm thinking of getting it printed onto paper, just in a small size (around 4 inches long) and framing it for my dad for Christmas.

Alchemy II

2010-12-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

Last week I wrote about getting a little custom artwork made for me by a Bulgarian print-maker named Plamena Doycheva.

Because I do portraits on commission I was interested to try out the commission process from the other side, and so far it's been really interesting and enjoyable.

Plamena saw my portraits and asked if I wanted to incorporate a child into the artwork. This is what she sent me:

I loved the layout of the piece, but I didn't really like the child. Perhaps I've been doing too many portraits, but the child just reminded me of work (and stress!)

So, the child was taken out and this was the next sketch, which had a volcano instead of the child. I loved this.

I was really interested in learning about the print-making process and Plamena wanted to know about making stencils, so we've been exchanging photos.

Once Plamena has the basic sketch, she uses metal plates (washed with some kind of chemical) and some etching tools to etch the design in. These are some photos of the plates, tools, and her etched design.

I can't wait to see how it turns out. I really like the whole feel of the piece, and how the quote is wrapped around the image.

So, stay tuned - I'll post an image of the final artwork when I get it. (It's a Christmas present to myself - along with some bikinis. Yes, I know - where am I going to wear bikinis?? But, they were so cute!)

Alchemy

2010-11-26T16:42:00.000-08:00

I am commissioning a small artwork - fun, fun, FUN! I've been working really hard on my portrait making over the past few weeks, so I've decided that my Christmas present to myself will be a custom artwork.

I wrote my request on Etsy's Alchemy, which is nifty little part of Etsy where you can request custom items. I requested a custom artwork which incorportated this quote by George W Bush.

"Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed. This is an ancient and eternal law."

(Nahhh...just kidding folks. It's by the Buddha, of course!)

One of the artists who responded to my request was a print maker from Bulgaria, named Plamena Doycheva. (I just knew she was going to be good - a Bulgarian print-maker - how exotic!)

Here are some examples of her work.

It's so intricate, and with such a soft and sensitive use of color. Plamena and I are going to exchange some e-mails and then she'll do some drafts for me. I'll let you know how the artwork turns out. I can't wait!

Shalebug

2010-11-18T15:26:00.000-08:00

Things have been hectic in my life lately becuase I've been getting quite a few portrait orders.

Those of you who follow this blog may have read about my mid-year freak-out when I put myself 'out there' on Etsy and started getting orders for children's portraits. (I guess that's what happens when you start a business - folks actually buy things from you. I never was much good at economics.)

What most of these folks don't know is that I do their portraits sitting up in bed in my PJ's with ice-packs balanced on my head. I get out of bed few times a day to have a shower, get my food and have a chat to my dog, but for most of the time I'm in bed.

I love the anonymity the on-line world gives me. No-one knows that I'm sick, and if I'm too tired to work on a portrait I tell a little white lie - 'I've got other orders I'm working on at the moment, I'll slot you in next week' - and no-one is any the wiser.

It's so refreshing to be treated as just any other person, and not some sicko that people can give advice to, feel sorry for, or have misconceptions about (for example, that because I'm unwell I am a very kind and gentle person. I don't know where people get that idea. For the most part, I am a cranky pissed-off person!)

I feel as though I'm coping with the Christmas influx quite well. I keep reminding myself that this is the first paid work I've done in 10 years and just to be scraping through is a kind of Yuletide miracle. (A yuletide miracle sponsored by alcohol, sleeping tablets and chocolate). Nuff said.

I got a portrait order this week that was quite unlike any other I've done and made me feel lucky to have stumbled across this portrait making gig.

Tanis, a mom from Canada, e-mailed to ask me if I'd do a portrait to commemorate her son Shale, who had passed away. She wanted it as a Christmas present for her husband. Shale was a cutie-pie blondy, born with disabilities, who died when he was almost 5.

Tanis, it turns out, is pretty much famous in Canada for her blog Attack of the Redneck Mommy, where she writes posts that are crazy funny (Television and Tampons - a Bad Mix) or heartbreakingly sad (Life and Death). She is a gifted writer, and as I worked on the portrait I went back and forth reading different posts about her life since Shale passed away.

After Shale died, Tanis and her family decided to adopt a child with special needs. After several years they became the 'forever family' to a little boy named Jumby. During the adoption process they discovered that Jumby was born on October 21st, the same date that Shale died.

It is a good thing I design my portrait on the computer because if I'd have been doing it on paper Tanis would have received it with little teary splotches on it.

What I love about Tanis' blog is that she is unflinchingly frank and honest. She doesn't adopt some kind of saintly image (see: Burning for You). She doesn't see herself as heroic for having given birth to a child who had disabilities, watched him die suddenly, and then adopt another special needs child with an uncertain future (although I happen to think she is very heroic). The way Tanis writes, this is just her life and she's living it day to day, her way, the best that she can.

I suppose we are all doing that; just putting our best foot forwards and trying to live a life that is true and real.

Thanks Tanis. It was an honor to do a portrait of your beautiful Shalebug.

How to be @$#%!!!

2010-11-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

I've been noticing over the past week how much resistance I have to certain thoughts and feelings that I think are 'wrong.' Anger is one of the biggies, and I suppose it's like that for a lot of people (particularly women).

As I was sitting with feelings of anger yesterday and noting my resistance, the title of Toni Bernhard's book How to Be Sick came into my mind. (I just love that title; it's both clever and poignant). I did a little flip on the title and found myself saying instead - 'How to be angry. This is how to be angry.'

I imagined a little alien standing in front of me, newly arrived on earth with no idea how we human beings operate. 'How to be angry?' he asked.

'This is how,' I replied, describing my 'symptoms' for him. 'You screw up the muscles in your stomach, you feel your blood racing, your face looks all pinched, your temperature rises, and you think of a person who did something to hurt you. That's how you feel angry.'

I watch as the alien practices feeling how I'm feeling; screwing up his face and clenching his fists. 'Yes, you've got it!' I say. 'Hi 5 Alien-creature! That's how to be angry.'

Spontaneous and creative practices like these seem to cut off the blood supply to my resistance. It's impossible to resist and judge my anger whilst simulaneously teaching an alien life-form how to feel it!

Throughout the afternoon, as emotions and thoughts arose, I'd use the same technique. How to be despairing...how to be bitter...how to be sad...how to be @$#%...how to be peaceful...how to be.

Phrases of Self-Compassion

2010-11-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

Over the past week or so I've been busy digging a truckload of dung into my garden (metaphorically speaking of course, I don't think I could lift a shovel if I tried).

As I've been digging I've been developing some phrases of self-compassion and kindness to help me as I face all the crap that surrounds me - grief, despair, helplessness and hopeless. I think of these phrases as my little cheerleading support team. They are 'Team Emma' - waving their pom-poms around and giving me a good old razzed-up cheer when I finish yet another hour of digging through my truckload of crap.

Here are a few of my phrases:

'Oh, this looks like anger. It's here, but I'm sure I didn't do anything to deserve it. It's not my fault.'

'I don't expect too much of myself today. However I feel is fine.'

'Oh, more anger. It's OK. If I am angry, that's OK. If I'm not angry, that's OK too. I don't have too many expectations of how I'll feel - it could go either way.'

And, if I'm sitting with any kind of pain - emotional or physical - I say: 'Pain, yes...this is pain. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry it's here.'

I've just returned from a visit to my doctor. I dragged myself out of bed to go (only realising when I arrived that my jumper didn't completely cover my pyjama top underneath. Oops!) Anyway, as I was sitting waiting for my appointment I shut my eyes and noticed my physical discomfort. I had a racing heart, a tight fist of tension in my stomach, and my head and back hurt.

'Oh, this is pain,' I said to myself, 'I'm sorry. I'm really sorry it's here.' And, as I sat waiting the tears started rolling down my cheeks. It was such a relief to give myself some sympathy and kind attention. In those moments it didn't matter that other people in the waiting room could see my pyjama top peeking out the top of my jumper, or the tears on my cheeks. I just a great relief and sweetness at being able to express some compassion towards myself in my suffering.

The view from my front-yard at dawn.

Who Ordered this Truckload of Dung?

2010-10-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

I was just listening to a talk by one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Ajahn Brahm. Ajahn Brahm is a UK-born monk of the Thai Forest tradition who lives in a monastery near Perth, Australia.

During the talk, Ajahn Brahm told his well-known parable about the truck of dung arriving at your door. I cried when I listened to the story, it resonated with me so strongly. So, I thought I'd transcribe it for you all. Enjoy!

(Warning: there are a few swear words in the story...)

Who ordered this truck-load of dung?

Life is like this. You’re sitting in your monastery, or you’re sitting at home or in your office, and then someone delivers you a whole truckload of shit. It’s right in front of your house or office.

There are two things about this delivery of shit in your life. The most important thing is, you did not order it. Life is like that. ‘Why me?’ you say. You didn’t deserve it, this thing just happened to you. You didn’t order it and you’re not responsible for it.

But, the second thing is that no-one saw it coming so you can’t ring up someone and get them to take it away. You’re stuck with it. So the first thing is that these things can happen and no-ones to blame. And the second thing is that you’re stuck with it.

But, there’s something you can do with the dung. You can find the nearest garden, and dig it in. It takes a lot of hard work to dig in the suffering, the disappointments, the diseases, the tragedies of life. But you’ve got no choice.

Actually you have got a choice, because what many people do with the dung of their life is to put it in their pockets. They put it in their handbag, they shove it up their shirt; they carry it around with them. You lose a lot of friends if you carry around shit. So, you should dig it in your garden. It’s hard work – maybe you only do half a bucket or one bucket a day, but you dig it in.

And after a while, we call it the miracle, the miracle of Dhamma (of truth). The miracle is that after a while the dung has disappeared and in its place you have the most magnificent garden. It’s the garden of wisdom, of courage, of compassion. Not just the kindness and compassion you get from books – but the kindness and compassion you get by embracing, understanding and digging in your problems.

This is the garden of the heart.

A place with no preferences

2010-10-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

Tricycle Magazine is a Buddhist magazine with an excellent, interactive website. In their book club section they are currently hosting a discussion of Toni Bernhard's book 'How to be Sick'. Pop on over to read excerpts from Toni's book and participate in a very interesting discussion with her.

Yesterday Toni asked, 'Do others think it's possible to come to a place where it's "okay" to be sick -- where we would have "no preferences" (to quote the third Zen patriarch) as to whether we were sick or healthy?'

An interesting question!

I'm not sure about whether I could come to a place where it's OK to be sick (or, to be more specific, a place with no preferences). I think it's possible, but it's not what I've experienced yet.

What I'm investigating at the moment is whether I can come to a place where I don't have a preference about whether I feel it's OK or not OK to be sick.

Here's what I'm exploring...

If I have a day when I feel miserable, bitter, and very ungrateful about being sick...should I feel a preference that this day not be that way? Should I feel a preference that I feel at ease and peaceful being sick? Or should I have no preferences ?

For me, this exploration is very rich. I'm suddenly allowing all these really difficult feelings to flow through my body - boredom, frustration, anxiety about the future, terror, emptiness, and despair. I know this all sounds really miserable, and not like 'good news' at all, but I have this strong feeling that allowing these feelings to flow is really my path.

At the moment I'm feelings in the depths of despair becuase I am just sitting in the 'soup of my suffering' and experiencing a great helplessness. I'm experiencing what it's like to stop the fight and just allow whatever is happening to happen. This is why I haven't posted on this blog for a while, because I've been feeling an almost crushing sense of despair and depression.

Whilst this feels terrible at the moment somewhere deep inside I know that I just have to keep going. Although my mind tells me that acceptance will lead to an eternal, never-ending despair, I have read enough Buddhist books to have at least an intellectual understanding that I really just have to keep going.

So today, I think my practice will be to lie in bed and not have a preference that I feel one way over another way.

Metta to all on this very difficult journey (called life).


Gili Air - a tiny island just off the coast of Lombok.

Like An Egg

2010-09-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Milé Murtanovski

A few years ago I made a long and tiring journey across Australia to be with a close friend who comes from Africa. At the time, he was a refugee in a detention centre on the other side of Australia and couldn't come to visit me.

After I’d arrived he told me, ‘Your sister rang to say you’d be really tired when you got here. I think she wanted to make sure I would look after you, so I told her not to worry, that I would treat you like an egg.’

‘An egg?’ I said, surprised.

‘Yes, of course. I will treat you carefully, as though I was holding an egg.’

My friend was born in the Congo, and the idea of treating someone ‘like an egg’ was one that came from his culture. It’s a beautiful image. Imagine cradling a vulnerable egg in your hands, neither squeezing too tightly nor holding too loosely.

The image came to mind today as I was watching feelings rise and dissipate during meditation. I found that it helped to imagine my hands holding my feelings with the careful attention I would bring to holding an egg. I saw the ‘egg’ being placed into my hands – anger, sadness, peacefulness – and felt my hands around them, not strangling them with a desire to change or cling to them, but not letting them go in aversion or disgust either.

When the feelings started fading, I would carefully place the egg down, letting it go. Then, the next egg would be placed into my hands, with every egg wanting the same thing – attentive, gentle, care.

Book Giveaway! 'How to be Sick' by Toni Bernhard

2010-09-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

I've got an extra copy of Toni Bernhard's new book 'How to Be Sick - a Buddhist-inspired guide for the chronically ill and their caregivers', to giveaway to one of this blog's lovely readers.

I wrote a review of the book yesterday, and there's more information about it on Toni's website. It's a beautiful book - wise, warm, and full of encouragement and hope.

I'll send the book anywhere in the world. So, if you'd like a copy please click here to e-mail me your name and address. (The e-mail will be private; no-one else will see your details).

The first person to e-mail gets the book. And please, don't be shy - if you'd like the book, just e-mail!

Update: 18 September. The book has gone to Canada! Thanks all!

Book Review - How to Be Sick, by Toni Bernhard

2010-09-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Over the years I've collected a small library of books on relating to illness from a spiritual perspective. There are some gems out there. My favorites are Steven Levine's poetic and profound accounts of his conversations with people living with terminal illness in Meetings At the Edge and from a more secular perspective, Jon Kabat-Zinn's book The Mindful Way through Depression.

Now I have a new book to add to my favorites. Toni Bernhard, a former law professor, fell sick in 2001 with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) after a trip to Paris and has never recovered. Despite being mostly bed-bound, she's just published a book with the wonderful title How to Be Sick - a Buddhist-inspired guide for the chronically ill and their caregivers.

Toni writes poignantly of the first months and years of her illness in the first chapters of her book. Her illness blind-sided her, and was only diagnosed as CFS after a battery of tests failed to show anything was wrong with her. She writes, 'I had so much blood drawn that we joked with my primary care doctor that at least we'd proven that blood-letting didn't appear to be a cure'.

The opening chapters were especially resonant for me, because I also fell sick when I was overseas. Toni writes movingly of the incomprehension and the utter disbelief that can accompany the initial stages of the chronic illness. She writes, 'It's just so hard to, first, truly accept that you're chronically ill and, second, to accept that this illness is going to require you to change your plans for life in ways you never imagined.'

Toni's first task seemed to be one that is deceptively simple - to accept that what was happening, was happening. 'I began to bow down to these facts, to accept them, to be them. And then from there, I looked around to see what life had to offer. And I found a lot.' As she developed a relationship with the suffering and loss in her life, Toni was able to use the Buddha's teachings on compassion and joy to cultivate within her a sense of peace.

Toni became a Buddhist in the early 1990's and had many years of meditation practice under her belt before getting CFS. Given that the first of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths is that 'suffering (or unsatisfactoriness) exists', it was natural that Toni would turn to Buddhism as a way of navigating the rocky waters of chronic illness. As she explains, 'The feeling that Buddha understood the pain of my life allowed me to start the day-to-day work of accepting that dukkha [unsatisfactoriness] is present for all beings.'

I think the quote above encapsulates the essence of How to Be Sick - Toni isn't offering a magic, cure-all, pill in this book. She isn't saying, 'Do this and you'll be well' or 'Don't do that or you'll be sick forever.' Instead, she's inviting readers to explore with her the Buddha's teachings as they relate to living with pain, fatigue, loss, and sadness - never forgetting that the basis of the Buddha's teachings is 'how to be happy'.

Toni's background is as a teacher, and it shows. Her book is beautifully written, with a wise, warm tone. It's never overly instructive, but leads the reader around and through different teachings in a way that encourages us to experiment with our own relationship to them. I think it's a book that encourages creativity and exploration in our own journeys with illness.

Throughout the book, Toni teases out and mulls over a variety of Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings, relating them to her daily life in an intimate, practical, and positive way. Practices discussed in the book include developing loving kindness towards ourselves and others, using the work of secular teacher Byron Katie to question the validity of our thoughts, and reading naughty Zen koans to have a good-belly laugh.

Toni's book is a also a guide for care-givers, and recognises the upheaval and loss that caregivers face when the person they love is affected by illness. The book includes many practical and spiritual reflections that can be used by care-givers as well as the person suffering from the illness.

You certainly don't need to be a Buddhist to benefit from this book, nor do you need to have a chronic illness. I think many of life's difficulties - a divorce, loss of a loved one, an addiction - could be substituted for the word 'chronic illness'. This is a beautiful and unique book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in cultivating a sense of freedom and joy whilst struggling with life-difficulties.

For more information: Toni Bernhard has a website, and you can buy her book here. (I will be doing a giveaway of the book in a few days - so stay tuned!)

Toni with her gorgeous grandchildren.

The two-sentence rule

2010-09-14T16:22:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of this blog would know that I am quite the Cheri Huber fan. Cheri is a Zen teacher and writer who has some very direct and creative teaching techniques.

Much of the focus in Cheri's teachings is on becoming aware of the voices in our head. She calls these, 'egocentric karmic conditioning'. These voices are the 24 hour non-stop news network we run in our minds. Our own private Fox News channels are full of most of the stuff that the actual 'news' broadcasts; gossip, high drama, tragedy upon tragedy (real or imagined), all broken up with infomercials for miracle weight-loss pills.

Whilst I'd like to think my own version of Fox News is more like the News Hour with Jim Lehrer (or if you're in Australia - more SBS World News than Mornings with Mel and Kochie), I have to admit that Rupert Murdoch has complete control over the content of my mind. The channel in my head isn't erudite, and Paris Hilton gets a lot of airplay.

Mel and Kochie with some dude in an embroidered shirt.

Cheri Huber's life-work is to encourage us to notice these voices that broadcast continually in our minds and to become aware of the strategies they use to pull us out of the present moment. These strategies often include an element of high-drama and possible tragedy. They encourage us to think that life is divided into two extremes; it's win or fail, gain or lose, triumph or tragedy, life or death.

My current extreme story is about a new chronic condition that I've developed. Over the last year, some very mild tinnitus (ringing in the ear) has become worse. Every few weeks it gets louder, and is now at the point where I can't wear earplugs anymore to sleep and it interferes with my resting during the day.

I have always feared getting any other illness that would impact negatively on my sleep and ability to rest, and now it seems like my worst fears have come true. Not only do I have tinnitus, but it seems to be getting worse, and in my mind I am not only resisting it in the moment but engaging in fearful and vivid stories about how it will be so bad in a few years that I will not be able to sleep and will commit suicide.

Now, I try to tell myself that engaging in these thoughts can actually make the tinnitus worse. But, that doesn't really help, becuase I still feel fearful and the thought that I 'shouldn't' be fearful just lumps more anxiety and blame on top of the fear.

This morning I read Cheri Huber's blog, and came across an instruction that I think might be helpful as I go back an forth between fearful projections into the future, and trying to just be present with what I'm feeling in the moment.

"Don’t participate in any internal conversation more than two sentences long."

She goes onto explain this technique:

Egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate keeps the illusion of duality alive in a conversation about what’s wrong, loss, lack, deprivation, fear, urgency, the past, the future, using judgment and comparison as its tools. Its method is conversation, a conversation in the head of a human who is vulnerable to being caught in a dualistic belief system. Without that conversation the illusion of a dualistic reality cannot be maintained.

I feel like this very simple and clear instruction - 'you don't have to listen to anything that goes for more than two sentences' is something that I might be able to follow over the next few days. My internal conversation about this tinnitus and how it is going to destroy me currently runs at a length that would rival War and Peace, so I can see how just adhering to the instruction to drop any discussion that goes for more than 20 words might be helpful.

I'd be interested to hear of strategies you use to bring yourself back into the here and now.

A new look

2010-09-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

Yay! My blog has a new look and I love it! (It's had this look for a few weeks, but I've just been fixing up a few things and now the 'look' is finalised).

I wanted to write a post to celebrate, but I'm a bit tired. So, instead, some photos. On the weekend I went to my first craft market. It was the Buninyong Makers Market, held in the small town I grew up in. The hall was packed and I hadn't left the house in the 10 days prevously because I'd been so tired, so I was quite overwhelmed by the crowds and the people. I think I met more people in 4 hours than I've met in the past 8 months!

Overall, it was a lot of fun, and it was great to feel some sense of connection with people as they looked at my portraits and asked about my techniques. I shared the table with my sister who makes gorgeous personalised placemats with quirky designs.

Here's us at our table - I love how colorful it is. You can see my sister's placemat designs on the LH side of the photo.

And here's me - swallowed up in a sea of portraits and stencils!

A Sweet Feeling

2010-08-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

After a month where I felt some stability with my health, my adrenals have spiked and I’m on a roller-coaster ride of exhaustion and adrenalin. So, today I'm not feeling well.

Saying ‘yes’ to the despair, the anger, and the physical pain isn’t cutting through. I still feel totally wedded to the suffering. Lying in bed, just practicing awareness of what's happening, I start repeating a more complicated form of ‘yes’ –

‘I don’t ask of myself that I feel anything different to what I feel in this moment.’

It's working for me because as I say it I realise that the subtext of every moment I experience is – ‘I ask of myself that I feel this differently.’ I'm aware that I'm constantly wrestling with the moment, trying to force it to be different than it is.

So, during the day I repeat my mantra:

Sadness

‘I don’t ask of myself that I feel anything different to what I feel in this moment.’

A sense of helpless running through my bones.

‘I don’t ask of myself that I sense anything different to what I sense in this moment.’

‘I hate this pain!’

‘I don’t ask of myself that I think anything different to what I think in this moment.’

Just moment after moment, thought after thought, sensation after sensation. And my response is, ‘I don’t demand of myself that I change it.’

Finally, in the evening, I am standing at the bathroom sink brushing my teeth. I’m being mindful of the way the brush feels against my teeth and I become aware of a feeling. What is it? It’s tiredness and heaviness.

‘I don’t ask of myself that I sense anything different to what I sense in this moment.’

Suddenly, amazingly, I feel a sense of warmth and relaxation. Tears well up in my eyes and a voice rises up in my mind – ‘this is what I’ve been waiting to hear all my life’.

I realise in a flash that all my striving, my studying, my piano practice, my trying to be a good meditator, good daughter, good person...all of this was done with the aim of feeling what I feel in this moment. I feel acceptance. It is what I have been striving for my whole life. And I have just given it to myself.

It's a sweet feeling.

Congratulations Toni!

2010-08-27T00:50:00.000-07:00

One of the nicest parts about having this blog is being able to connect with other 'travellers on the journey'. A few months ago one of these travellers - Toni Bernhard - contacted me through this blog to say she was about to have a book published.

Since then, Toni and I have become e-mail buddies and I'd like to send a big 'hurray!' out to her, because her book is now available.

Toni's book is titled 'How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers.'

I've had the privilege of reading several chapters of the book and highly recommend it. It's wise, warm, practical - and very down-to-earth. The chapters are short (so not too overwhelming for people energy problems), and you don't have to be a Buddhist to be able to relate to the topics she writes about.

Toni has a website, where you can read more about her and the inspirations for her book. You can buy her book from Amazon or the Book Depository.

Congratulations Toni!

(I'm going to be giving away a copy of the book in the next few weeks, and Toni will be dropping in to write a guest post for this blog - so stay tuned!)

A morning of contrasts

2010-08-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday morning here in Australia, and I've been awake for about two hours working on a couple of different projects.

The first is some volunteer work I'm doing for an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She has her asylum hearing in a few days, and I'm doing research into her case to try to support her claim. My ex-partner is from the Congo, and we have a little charity that raises money for his brother who runs a medical clinic there. So, the terrible human rights abuses and the absolutely horrific situation there - particularly for females - is not anything new to me.

But, I'm finding this asylum research so distressing. I don't want to go into details about it, but it involves almost every brutal element that the war in the DR Congo is known for. The other difficulty is that the asylum seeker in question is someone related to a friend of mine, and we're all very concerned about whether she'll get her refugee claim accepted.

I am not convinced that her lawyers are going to put effort into researching her case (she is only meeting them for the first time today, and her hearing is on Friday). So, I'm worried that my very amateur volunteer efforts at research will be the only supporting evidence she has. I'm finding that pressure very stressful. I know I can only do my best, but I'm worried my best won't be good enough.

In complete contrast, the other little project I've been working on is a portrait of a couple of boys from rural Queensland (in Australia). The boys live on a farm, and are real 'farm blokes', so I'm trying to incorporate this part of their personality into the portrait. It's a lot of fun working on something like this, particularly as the boy's mother is a real pleasure to work with.

Going back and forward between writing about brutalities in the Congo, and drawing wheat fields in the background of a portrait is doing my head in. The contrast between something that is sweet but ultimately not important, and a situation where a person's life may be in the balance, is just too much.

And, that's all I really have to say. I just wanted to write a post to say, 'this is doing my head in.' (And, if you are into prayer or sending metta...I wanted to ask if you could please spare a few moments for my Congolese friend.)

At two with nature

2010-08-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve signed up for a daily ‘Peace Quote’ from a group called Living Compassion. Every evening at around 8pm, a quote about meditation, mindfulness or peace drops into my in-box.

Tonight’s quote:

Barn's burned down, now I can see the moon. - Masahide

Usually I slide my Peace Quotes over into a little folder and save them. Tonight, with a flash of irritation, I immediately hit ‘delete.’

A few seconds later I paused. I thought of the quote again – ‘barn’s burned down, now I can see the moon.’ What did it mean? Why did I delete it?

Well, I thought the meaning was fairly obvious. The guy was saying that everything material, everything he thought he needed and had built around him – had gone, and now he could...what? Hear the birds singing in the trees? Feel the breeze on his face? See the flippin’ moon?

I started noting and naming my emotions. ‘I feel angry. I feel frustrated.’ Then it became clear, I felt pissed off and guilty. My barn had burnt down; my health had gone, fallen away around me leaving me exposed to the world. There is no job, no husband, no child - just me.

And, can I see the moon? Do I pay extra attention to the kookaburra in the tree outside my window? No. I just feel angry and sad at what I’ve lost – and guilty that I can’t report that I’m a ‘better person’ because of it.

I sense that as a sick person I am somehow meant to find delight in the birds, or the way the sun makes dappled patterns on the wall. I feel an enormous obligation to report that, ‘I’m not well...but I appreciate the littlest things so much more because of this!’ I feel pressure to have ‘learnt’ from my situation.

And that’s why I felt frustration and anger at the quote. I am not here to be inspiring to well people. I am here, for the moment, to be angry and sad that I am sick. Tonight, I cannot see the moon. I am, like Woody Allen, ‘At two with nature.’

Me being 'at two' with nature in a mountain

village near the Thai/Burma border.

(The photo below shows the huts where I was staying.)

Where's the war?

2010-08-16T22:29:00.000-07:00

During my meditation over the last few days I've started a little practice where I gently ask myself, 'where's the war?' and I'm finding it very enlightening.

I've found that, almost always, there will be a war. There will be somewhere where inside myself where I'm struggling, disagreeing, criticizing, or talking my way out of thoughts or feelings I am having. Sometimes the 'war' appears as words and sometimes as a crunching feeling in my stomach, or a clenching feeling throughout my body.

For example, I might notice that I have a pain in my back. 'Is there any war here?' I ask myself. Then I notice a cramping feeling around the pain. It's a feeling that I don't want this pain but also feel like it's my fault that it's there. The text of the 'war' goes: 'If I was a better meditator I wouldn't have this pain. What am I doing wrong in my meditation? Why can't I just get it?'

'Oh, OK,' I note to myself. 'There's the war. I have this pain - I don't want it, and I blame myself for having it.'

Then, I try to bring some loving kindness to this war. Not to make the war go away, but just to extend some compassion towards myself for having it. 'Wow...it sure is hard having this war going on. I don't think this is my fault. It's just hard - to see it, to feel it, to notice it.'

And I keep going like this - gently asking myself where the war is, and when I see it, bringing some loving kindness to it.

Bringing the loving kindness often attracts its own little war. This little battle goes: 'You idiot! You shouldn't be showing yourself kindness for having all these terrible, warring, criticizing feelings! You soft fool...you need to FIX this...'

If I notice this war, I just bring attention to it in the same way, 'Oh...a little war saying I shouldn't be feeling kindness towards myself. Wow...it can be tough having these wars. I'm sure this isn't my fault...'

And on it goes...I just follow the trail of thoughts and feelings. Noticing the war...feeling lovingkindness...noticing the battle...bringing compassion.

Always we hope...

2010-08-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

Always we hope someone else has the answer, some other place will be better, some other time it will all turn out.

This is it; no one else has the answer, no other place will be better, and it has already turned out.

- Lao tzu

Plum Blossoms at Noon - Original Painting by Plastic Pumpkin

The Inner-Dictator

2010-08-11T00:05:00.000-07:00

In my last post I wrote a little bit about my relationship with my mother, and this post is going to be a bit of a follow-on from that one.

I'm living with my mother at the moment, and my parents are separating. My mum is upset about the separation; she's anxious, she's angry - and she's not talking about it. Her behaviour over the past few months has been difficult to deal with, but it's also been really helpful to my meditation practice because I've been able to see that her behaviour is like an exaggerated version of what goes on in my mind.

My mother has always been a controlling person. My projection of her is that she sees life in terms of control and power. She's not a bad person, and she doesn't mean to be like this but...she is. (Well, to me, anyway!)

I've done a lot of volunteer work with refugees in the past, and am still involved in researching refugee claims. This kind of work means that I listen to asylum seekers stories about what happened in their home country (usually a country we wouldn't be holidaying in, like Iraq, or the Congo), and then I try to find supporting information to corroborate their claims.

I end up reading a lot about life under dictatorships. It struck me this week, while I was meditating, that I've always had a natural affinity and empathy towards the stories of people who've lived under a dictatorship. I then realised that this affinity resulted from the feelings I felt growing up.

If I had to put this feeling into a few short phrases, it was the feeling that it didn't matter what I felt, it didn't matter what I did - there was some authority figure standing above me that was going to control what happened. It was the feeling of complete powerlessness, a 'knowing' that there was no use resisting and no use hoping for something different becuase I had no control over what would happen.

Like a row of dominos falling, all the bits started falling into place - I realised I connected with refugees becuase I could empathise with their feelings of powerlessness. In my mind's eye, I saw the figure of my mother towering over me, like some enormous state of Saddam Hussein, or Stalin - looming and ever present.

I saw that in my family, my mother was like a dictator. But, I also saw that I had internalized this dictator within my own mind and used it to rule my own life. I force and bully and critisize myself constantly. I try to dominate and control my own thoughts and feelings, with the intention of turning myself into a 'well' person.

I also realised that, of course, my mother does this to herself in her mind. She bullies herself. She gives herself no rest and no space to just be an ordinary human being. It gave me some compassion for her when I saw that we can't put something out into the world without that same thing being our inner world as well. I might have to deal with my mother a few hours a day, but she has to deal with her own mind 24 hours a day, and it's my projection that my mother's inner world isn't such a wonderful place to live.

Thinking about this, I just felt so grateful that I'd discovered meditation, have an awesome psychologist, and have access to wonderful teachers like Tara Brach and Cheri Huber. My siblings have talked about trying to get my mother to see a counselor so she can talk through some of her feelings and try to get some support. I hope she does go to see someone, but I am not so hopeful it will result in much change.

I hope I'm wrong, but, knowing my mother, and knowing how much rigorous committment goes into making therapy 'work' - I feel doubtful that much will change for her. Which makes me feel sad. I was half- asleep the other morning and I was half-dreaming about my mother's funeral. In the dream I was out the front of the church, and the funeral had just been held. One of my mother's friends came up to me and asked, 'Are you sad?'. 'Yes,' I said, 'But, actually, not so much becuase she's gone. I'm sad because I don't think she had even one moment of true peace in her life.'

I feel like my work at the moment (apart from lying in bed with an ice-pack on my head) is to try to break this generational cycle, and learn some self-compassion and self-care. I can't change my mother's life, and I might not even be able to change the anger I feel towards her, but very slowly, I am changing the way I relate to myself. And, when it all comes down to it - I think that's probably the only thing I can change.

Dealing with Difficult People

2010-07-27T17:08:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether I've mentioned before, but my parents separated a few months ago. It's a strange thing to suddenly find myself from a broken family at the age of 38.

One of my sisters, known for being a mild drama queen, reacted to the news by bursting into hysterical tears for 5 minutes and then saying, 'I feel like I'm in Kramer vs Kramer!'

'Have you even read that book?' I asked. (I was the one breaking the news to her).

'No,' she admitted. 'But I've seen the DVD cover and I feel like, well...I feel like I'm in it.'

I think she was hoping my parents would end up in the Australian High Court in a landmark court case - sueing each other for custody of their 36 year old daughter. (I have 4 siblings, but in my sister's 'Kramer vs Kramer' fantasy I'm sure my parents were only concerned with custody of her...)

I'm sad to say that when I was told about the separation all I felt was relief. I thought I might feel something else, like sadness or loss. But, all I felt was relief and a bit of happiness that I'd never have to be in the same room as my parents again.

I won't go into the ins and outs of their relationship, becuase that's not really my business. But, since the separation I've spent 4 months living with my mother in the family home. (My father moved out). And, here's where I get to the main point of this post - dealing with difficult people.

At the best of times I experience my mother as a difficult person, and this has certainly not been the best of times. We have some similar traits; we can both be bossy and controlling and perfectionistic, so living together isn't easy. My mother also has some kind of anxiety and hyperactivity disorder, which has never been treated.

Over the past months I've been very judgemental towards her. And then, because I'm into meditation and have this idea that if you are a good meditator you will always be peaceful and kind and compassionate towards other people, I then judge myself for being so judgemental towards her.

Here's how the inner conversation goes after something happens between us. I'll give you a little example...I put some rice to cook on the stove, and come into the kitchen 5 minutes later to find my mother has moved it to the microwave, becuase that's how she thinks it should be cooked. This is what I might say inside my head:

"Oh my GOD. I feel like I am going to %^&* KILL her!...Can't I even put on a %^& saucepan of rice without her trying to control me...What am I? Five years old? I'm so angry...Oh no, I shouldn't be angry, she's really just a suffering person. She's just causing me pain and being controlling because she's in so much pain...I really should just be feeling compassion for her...resentment, resentment...I actually don't feel any compassion for her...she's a pain in the arse...but I should feel compassion..."

So, you get the general idea. I feel angry, and then I try to 'should' myself into feeling compassion, when I actually don't feel any. All I feel is that I want this person out of my life, and would not bat an eyelid if I never saw her again. (Which may or may not be true.)

So, this week I've really been focussing on allowing whatever feelings I have to rise up in me, and just to be aware of when I'm 'shoulding' myself into feeling something different. I've noticed that when I 'should' myself I have this accompanying body sensation that feels like a kind of crunch in my stomach - it's like a block of concrete is sitting there.

I've been practicing noting the 'shoulds': "oh...I'm feeling like I should be feeling compassionate towards my mother, and I don't...oh...now I feel blame...now I feel a tightness in my stomach." I try to do this noting in a kind, understanding voice, just allowing the swirl of sensations and thoughts as I feel my anger and frustration.

I find that it helps me a lot. I still don't feel much compassion towards my mother, but I feel a bit more compassion towards myself, and I think that might be an important first step. I feel like it's a good thing to just lower the expectations I have towards myself. I'm no Mother Theresa or Kwan Yin, and expecting that I will feel incredibly caring and compassionate towards my mother is probably just expecting way too much of myself at the moment.

So, it's been an interesting journey over the past few months and I feel like I'm learning a lot about being kind and understanding towards myself. Seeing the amount of self-judgement I have towards myself has made me reflect on who is the most difficult person in my life at the moment - my mother, or myself?


Poor little headless Buddha. Taken in Luang Prabang, Laos.

At home meditation retreat

2010-07-26T16:47:00.000-07:00

I just love the creative folks over at Living Compassion. They are wonderful at thinking up ways that people can participate in meditation, even if they can't get the their Zen Monstery Peace Centre (in California).

I've just received an e-mail saying they are going to be running a one day, at-home, meditation reatreat on Saturday, August 7. This would probably only suit people in US-friendly time-zones (not Australia - boo hoo!)

Here are the details:

Workshop Description: Are you ready and willing for a day of supported practice at home and the chance to do some of those tasks that you never seem to have time for? It doesn’t get any better!

Retreatants will join with the monks first thing in the morning via conference call for a half-hour sitting meditation and an orientation to working meditation as it is done at the Zen Monastery Peace Center.

When the work period begins, retreatants will work on their own, doing a project of their choice in their home. Could be washing windows, shampooing carpets, bathing pets, painting a room, getting current on all your correspondence, writing the short story you’ve been putting off, starting seeds in the greenhouse, baking for the holidays….whatever suggests itself.

We’ll check in at mid-day to see how it’s going and to prepare for the afternoon work period. Telephone guidance sessions with monks will be scheduled throughout the day. The day will end with a conference call group discussion.

Give yourself this gift of support for compassion and awareness!

REGISTRATION

Registration Pledge: $60.00 (Includes guidance with a monk); $40 for Monthly Donors (please use the special link below)

Wednesday, August 4 is the last day to register.

A photo I took in Chiang Mai - Thailand. Beautiful, knobbly limes.

Meditation Resource List

2010-07-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

If your illness or life circumstances prevent you from attending meditation classes it can be very helpful to have a good book or CD course to guide your practice.

Below are some resources that might be useful. They’re divided into two groups – the first is specifically aimed at illness/pain, and the second is a list of general resources.

Resources specifically for people with chronic illness or pain

Darlene Cohen - a Zen teacher, who has rheumatoid arthritis. One of her books is Turning Suffering Inside Out (A Zen approach to living with physical and emotional pain). She has a website with podcasts, written talks, and more books. Darlene’s work tends to be thought-provoking, funny and wise. She’s a real straight-talker, and shares a lot of her personal experiences with pain in her books and talks.

Toni Bernhard – an ex-law professor now living with CFS. Toni has written a book called ‘How to Be Sick’, which will be released in September 2010. The book is a beautifully written Buddhist-inspired guide for the chronically ill and their carers. I’ve read a few chapters of it and found it eloquent, moving, and very down-to-earth.

Jon Kabat-Zinn - One of his books is the well-known, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness. His website sells CD’s of his books and meditations.

Miriam Greenspan – Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair .This is a fairly intense book, and beautifully written. Miriam talks about the usefulness of feelings such as despair, and offers many different techniques for working with the ‘dark emotions’.

Pema Chodren – When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.

Shinzen Young - books, CD’s and a website specialising in meditation for pain management. His Book/CD set Break Through Pain contains a series of guided meditations with step-by-step techniques to help with pain management. I find some of Shinzen’s guided meditations to be a little clinical and dry, but they are certainly thorough and he's developed some interesting meditation techniques.

Steven Levine - a renowned writer and meditation teacher whose work focuses on death, dying, illness and the spiritual journey. He has written many books and has a personal website which sells CD’s of his guided meditations. Steven’s books are intense, and can be heavy reading at times. They are also profound, deeply moving, and very human.

Vidyamala Burch - a UK teacher who lives with a spinal cord injury. She has a website, and a book, Living Well with Pain and Illness: The mindful way to free yourself from suffering.

General meditation resources

Bodhipaksa – meditation teacher with a very friendly and informative website with free on-line tutorials. He will answer e-mail questions about meditation and also has an excellent CD called Guided Meditation: for Calmness, Awareness, and Love. I’ve got the CD and highly recommend it for anyone looking for guided meditations.

Meditation Oasis – free meditation podcasts and a written meditation guide. The meditation podcasts are short, simple and easy to follow. The website also sells an online medition course (US$95) and CD's of meditations.

Plumline – an on-line Buddhist meditation group, conducted through Yahoo Messenger. Useful for people who want to connect with other meditators, but can’t leave their home to do it. Currently they meet on Mondays at 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM US Mountain Time Zone. (The 6pm group is 11am in Australia).

Sharon Salzberg - a down-to-earth teacher focussing on insight and Loving Kindness meditation. Has a website with books and CD’s and here is a link to a podcast of a full-day workshop with Sharon.

Sounds True – on-line store selling a wide variety of meditation and spiritual CDs and downloads. Has an excellent free weekly podcast interview series called Insights at the Edge. Many of the teacher s and writers listed in this article have been interviewed in this series.

Tara Brach - Tara is a psychologist and teacher of Buddhist insight meditation. She has a particular focus on dealing compassionately with issues such as shame and anger. Her website has books, cd's and podcasts. A very gifted teacher who combines psychology and Buddhism.

I hope this list is useful to you. Please feel free to e-mail me if you have any more resources I could add to this list.

I'm Back!

2010-07-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

Yay! I'm back from my little break. I missed writing this blog so much. I hadn't realised until I stopped writing, how much of a support it was to me to be able to connect with other people going through similar life experiences. I also saw that even if no-one read any of my posts, it was still really helpful for me to try to clarify some of my experiences around meditation and illness by putting them into words.

To ease myself into blogging again I'm just going to use this post to put up some pretty pitchas. It is winter here in Australia and last week I woke up in the wee small hours of the morning (OK...7am...wee enough for me!) and took some photos just outside my bedroom window.

Aren't these gorgeous? There was a frost, and a heavy mist was rising as the sun came up. Before I got sick I always used to be up early in the morning - going for a run, or starting my piano practice. I miss the stillness and quietness of that time of day.

A Short Break

2010-05-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hi lovely readers,

I've decided to take a short break from writing this blog. I've really enjoyed writing it, but I've had a few explosions of stress in my life lately - some good stress, some not-so-good.

The good is that I started a little business on Etsy making stencil portraits and I am receiving heaps of orders! It's amazing - because I haven't been able to do any paid work in about 10 years. But it's also stressful because I have just a small amount of energy a day and I really have to structure and limit my work so that I can keep doing it.

My stencils got a feature on Cool Mom Picks the other day - which is kind-of the mecca of advertising for hip children's products. Wow!

The bad stress - well, I won't go into that, but I'm having some family issues which will hopefully be sorted out over the next few months.

So, to be kind to myself, I've decided to cut back commitments where I can. So, I'm thinking I'll take a few months break from writing this blog.

Take care, and thanks for all your comments and kind words over the past six months. This blog has been a lifeline for me on some of my hardest days. Here's wishing the best of health to all of us :)

Emma

When life hands you lemons...

2010-05-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

I just saw this quote on a website and it cracked me up laughing. So, I thought I'd share it -

When life hands you lemons, get some tequila, lime and salt and call me.

It is two o'clock in the afternoon here and all I'm thinking about is, how I can get my hands on some tequila? The nearest bottle shop is a ten minute drive...can I make it?!

Chihuahua Tequila Art Print, by R Rubenacker.

Hope is the thing with feathers

2010-05-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity

It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson

As I was doing my little morning meditation I thought of the line in this poem, 'and sings the tune without the words', and it reminded me of an incident that happened about ten years ago.

I used to work as an accompanist - playing piano to accompany classical musicians. I was working with a good friend of mine, who is now one of Australia's most well-known saxophone players and we were playing a very difficult concerto - him on the sax, me on piano. He was playing from memory, and during rehearsals he'd sometimes forget the music.

'What are we going to do if that happens in the competition?' I asked. If you're playing by yourself and forget music you can often just make up a few bars and fudge your way through, or jump back or forward to a part of the music you know, and go from there. But, making up music while you have an accompanist is much more difficult, because it sounds terrible! And, if the soloist jumps backwards or forwards, the accompanist has to scramble to work out where in the piece they are.

So, the thought of my friend having a memory lapse was a bit worrying (especially as this concerto was about 20 minutes long). 'We'll just work it out,' he said, calmly.

In the concert he did have a memory lapse and I still remember my feeling of panic as he started playing these really long notes that had no relationship to what he should be playing. We drifted along for a few bars, while he tried to find some kind of toe-hold in the music that he could latch onto so he could get back on track.

Basically, what we were both doing was singing the tune without the words - just vamping, improvising, while we tried to find the path. Eventually he jumped to a section of the piece he knew, I scrambled back a few pages, and we were on our way again.

Both of us were experienced musicians and knew better than to ever show panic on our faces, so I don't think the audience ever knew what happened - and he went on to win the competition. ($1000 - thankyou very much!)

It struck me this morning that this incident was literally, 'singing the song without the words,' and that this line of the poem metaphorically describes so much of my life with an illness. I often feel like I'll never know the words to the song of my life, and that I'll spend forever just whistling in the dark - putting one foot in front of the other, trusting in nothing more than trust and hope.

But, who does ever know the song of their lives? That might be a fairly boring life. So, maybe this trust in the unknown is the lyrics to the song. Maybe faith, and hope, and a simple taking of the next step in front of me are the words to the song of my life.

This beautiful print is by New England folk artist Donna Atkins.

5 Meditation Tips

2010-04-25T19:40:00.000-07:00

I've been slowly working my way through an audiobook by Cheri Huber called Unconditional Self-Acceptance. I've just listened to a section where she gives a few meditation tips. I think these are pretty unusual tips - I love them!

1. Realise that the voice in your head that purports to be an expert on meditation and how you should do it, is not an expert on meditation – or anything else. That voice is part of the survival system that we’ve been looking at, it’s often that internalised critic or judge that there’s to tell you how you should be and what you should do, and what you should know. It presents itself and an authority so that you will pay attention to it as you did when you were a small child. You’re no longer a small child, and that voice has no useful information. In fact, another sub tip I’d offer – any voice that’s not speaking to you with compassion has no information that will be helpful to you.

2. Only ego sets standards and makes contest for you to fail. And that goes with no 3...

3. Your heart, or whatever you want to call ‘that’ which draws you toward the work of awareness, wants you to succeed, and always communicates with you compassionately.

4. It is always good to do more than ego says you can, and less than ego says you should. (Note: By ‘ego’ Cheri usually means that critical voice in the mind).

5. Enlightenment is not more important than kindness, and, in fact, you can’t have one without the other.

I really like how Cheri communicates ideas so clearly and simply: 'Any voice that's not speaking to you with compassion has no information that will be helpful to you.' You just can't say it more clearly than that!

I've found that concept to be so helpful over the past week. As I lie in bed, often too exhausted to think clearly or meditate, I just notice voices drifting in and out of my mind and my question to them is: 'Is that a kind thought?' I just note 'yes' or 'no'... and let the thought move on. I'm focusing on noticing - not trying to fix or change the 'bad' thoughts. It's been a wonderfully simple practice for me.

Today's artwork is an original painting by Etsy artist Tomato Tomahto. She makes beautiful artworks, often accompanied by bible verse.

Your name is safe in their mouth.

2010-04-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I signed up to get a daily Peace Quote from the folks at Living Compassion. Every evening at around 9pm, a little quote about love, compassion, or peace, pops into my inbox. Usually they are by famous people - Gandhi, Jesus, or Mother Theresa. But the quote I found most moving of all was by a young boy, and I thought I'd share it with you:

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth. (Billy - aged 4)

This made me think of my young nephews, and how much I hoped that they felt their names were safe in my mouth. And, it also got me thinking about whether my own name was 'safe in my mouth'. It was a very thought-provoking (or perhaps, 'peace-provoking') quote.

The Gates of Summer -

another photo from the Pathways Series by Something Betsy.

A Wise Break

2010-04-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today's post is about a particular aspect of the teachings of Buddhist meditation writer and teacher Tara Brach.

One of the themes of Tara's teaching is that, whilst mindfulness is an essential component of meditation practice, sometimes we're not quite ready to be mindful of very difficult feelings and sensations. She teaches that it's important that we build up a field of compassion, and caring, before attempting to be fully mindful of strong emotions such as fear, terror, despair, or grief.

I've heard her say in interviews that when meditation practice first became popular in the West about 40 years ago, people were often taught they had to just sit with whatever 'came up' in meditation - and that this would be of benefit eventually. She said that slowly, teachers in the West realised that these instructions were actually exacerbating some people's suffering.

In an interview with Sounds True, Tara said:

"When there has been trauma, a lot of meditations cause people to get re-traumatized. Especially in the early days, I would say in all of the Buddhist traditions, people would come and the instructions would be kind of Rumi's 'Guest House': open the doors and invite in all the demons and bring mindfulness.

If there is a lot of trauma and you open the door to it, and you don't have the resilience and the space and the stability, you are just rerunning the same trauma through - and without anything added it is re-traumatizing.

So that was the kind of innocent but ignorant beginnings of meditation in this country. Not recognizing that some people with trauma would not benefit by directly going into mindfulness practice. And instead they needed more building affect tolerance, or building a capacity of 'be with.'"

Here's a quote from a podcast Tara gave called Awakening to the Sacred. I think this quote is particularly relevant to those of us with physical pain.

"I want to again say, that sometimes it’s too much to stay. There’s nothing noble about strong-arming ourselves; to steal ourselves to endure. It’s just not wise.

So there’s kind of a compassion that knows, OK, be with what’s here, but that sometimes it’s just too much and we’re really thrown off balance by it. So we take a break.

A wise break is just very mindfully saying ‘OK, it’s too much right now,’ and walking or having tea, or taking the Aspirin if we need it – just in some way being with ourselves in a way that gives us relief."

I'd love to hear your insights and opinions on this topic. When is it good to take a break? How have you learnt to sit with pain? It's a fascinating aspect of meditation practice!

To finish, a beautiful photograph from an Etsy store (my latest addiction!) called Something Betsy. I found this little store yesterday and asked Betsy if I could put a few of her photos into my blog posts. She has a group of photos called the 'Pathways Series' - which I thought was very appropriate for a meditation blog!

Here's one taken in Alaska, called 'Where We Were.'

Tricycle Events

2010-04-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

The Buddhist website Tricycle, (which accompanies the Tricycle magazine), often some has engaging and interactive on-line events. At the moment they're running two programs that sound really interesting.

On April 19th, Allan Lokos will be leading members of the Tricycle Community Book Club in an on-line discussion of his book, Pocket Peace: Effective Practices for Enlightened Living. Allan is the founder and guiding teacher of the Community Meditation Center in New York City.

Audio readings from the text will supplement the discussion. If you want to be part of this, it's free - just head on over to Tricycle and join up with their book club.

The other event is a four part video 'retreat' with Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor. There's an interview with Stephen in the latest issue of Tricycle. He's a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism.

To get access to this retreat and other retreats held during the year (as well as a subscription to the Tricycle Magazine) you have to become a sustaining member of Tricycle. This costs $30. (Seems like a very reasonable amount to me - I thought it would be a lot more than that!)

The Chronic Meditator vs The Voices II

2010-04-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about seeing many of the negative, critical, voices that I have in my head, but not knowing how to deal with them.

In that post, it was me and my bear against a truck-load of internal negativity. Now a bear is a mighty fine thing to have on hand when a tonne of negativity is hurtling towards you, but my bear is pretty small, and that truck was pretty big, so I went in search of something (anything!) else that might help.

I've been reading a lot of Cheri Huber's books lately, and got to a section in her book The Fear Book where she writes about becoming a mentor to ourselves:

If we can become for ourselves the mentor we always wished we had, then everything in life becomes an exciting adventure. We can do all those things we've always wanted to do but convinced ourselves we couldn't do. We can live our lives in the company of someone who really loves us and cares about us and supports us in our natural eagerness to grow and in our intelligence about how to do that.

If we look at life as an opportunity to end our suffering, as an opportunity to embrace and heal all that has happened to us, out attention moves AWAY from trying to fix ourselves, and TOWARDS being with ourselves as we live our daily lives.

I wasn't too sure my life could ever become an 'exciting adventure,' but the word 'mentor' struck a chord. I could see it offered a different way of relating to myself.

I had my first chance to try a bit of mentoring last weekend, when I packed up and moved out of a share-house I was living in. (I wrote about my difficulties with my house-mate, Alison, a few posts ago).

My lovely dad came to help me pack up and move out of the house and as I put my last bag into his ute I pumped my fists in the air and sang a few bars of Born Free...'free as the wind blows...free to not have someone worrying I would burn down their house or poison their dog...' My dad and I had a good laugh. 'Whatever you do, don't run down her bloody dog so close to your escape!' he told me, as I backed out of her drive-way.

On the way back to my parent's farm I had to stop off in a chemist and get a prescription filled. As I sat waiting I suddenly realised how angry and frustrated I was at Alison. My exhilaration at being freed abated as I thought about beleaguered and harangued I'd felt around her.

While I waited in the chemist chair I rehearsed in my mind the things I wanted to tell her. I imagined myself trying to talk to her over the phone, or writing her a letter explaining how it was her behaviour that had led to me leaving the house. I imagined myself yelling at her, swearing at her, telling her she was a crazy, neurotic, prissy cow.

Finally I stopped myself. 'What do you want?' I asked. 'I really want her to understand how much she's hurt me,' was the answer.

The truth in that moment was that I felt hurt, and I felt that Alison was a prissy cow and had hurt me. I could think that I 'shouldn't' feel that way, but I still felt it.

So, again, I asked myself, 'what do you want?' and again I answered, 'I want her to understand how I'm feeling.' I realised that whilst she could probably never understand how I was feeling - I could. I could listen to how I was feeling and try to be with my own feelings. I could try to mentor myself.

As I sat waiting for my script I tried this out. As soon as a voice came up in my head saying, 'I'm so annoyed with her...why couldn't she just be more rational?' I'd respond by saying something like, 'wow...yes, it sounds like a really tough situation. That's hard to feel like you've got no choice but to move out of a house. Hmmm....really hard.'

For the next ten minutes I sat there just giving supportive, mentoring feedback to any thought or feeling I had.

'Hmmm...anger, lots of anger in my stomach. That's not such a nice feeling - I'm really sorry that I'm feeling that way.' If I had a thought that I'd done something wrong in handling the situation with Alison I'd respond by saying, 'I can't think of anything more I could have done. I've lived in share-houses for twenty years and I've never had a problem like this, so, I don't think it's anything I have to worry about.'

Of course, a voice in my head interrupted constantly to explain how completely childish, self-absorbed, non-spiritual and just plain WRONG all this mentoring was...and how plain WRONG I was to have been unable to handle the situation with Alison, but I kept going. I just allowed myself to be with whatever feeling I was having.

I left the chemist feeling a lot calmer, and a lot more listened to. I realised I absolutely did not need Alison to listen to me - what I needed to do was to listen to, and mentor, myself.

In the middle of writing this post I took a break to sit down at the piano and play one of my favorite songs, In My Mind I'm Going to Carolina. It struck me how appropriate some of the lyrics were to what I was writing about, so I'll finish up with these words from James Taylor:

There ain't no doubt in no ones mind
That love's the finest thing around
Whisper something soft and kind...

A Stencil for My Brother

2010-03-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

(Warning to any meditation addicts out there - this post has absolutely nothing to do with meditation, so you will not get your fix here...)

Yay! The exciting day has arrived! About 4 months ago my brother Pat, who lives in England, asked me to do a stencil for his newly renovated house. Just being asked to do the stencil was quite a compliment because my brother is an industrial designer and very particular about his house furnishings.

To give you an example - he painted his living-room seven times before he got exactly the right shade of white he wanted. (And he only got that by mixing two other shades together.) After the room had been painted he ordered some furniture on-line and said he nearly vomited when his couch arrived and it wasn't quite the right shade of white. I didn't know that there was more than one shade of white...let alone seven.

So, getting this request from my brother was very flattering. (Kind of a like a first year piano student being called up to conduct the London Philharmonic.)

This stenciling stuff is all very new to me. A friend told me about it a few months ago and it seemed like a hobby I could do where I could just do a bit of work every day - designing, or cutting, or spraying a stencil. I sold my first stencil on e-bay just before Christmas and was so happy because it was the first money I'd earned in over ten years! Wowser. Quite an achievement. I couldn't believe someone would pay to have an artwork of mine on their walls. (I have three very artistic siblings, and they couldn't believe it either).

For the stencil design I picked a photo that I'd taken about 2 years ago of my nephew Aidan. This is one of my favorite photos, because it captures Aidan's gentle personality.

This was the stencil design I came up with:

I sprayed the stencil onto flat canvas, then rolled it up and sent it over to Pat. This is a close-up photo of part of the stencil -

and these are the photos he just sent me. I think it looks great! He paid me for it, so now when people ask me what I do - instead of telling them I lie in bed with an ice-pack on my head, I'll tell them I'm an artist. Woohoo.

Barry Manilow's Kitten

2010-03-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

My sister gave this card to me yesterday and I thought it was worth sharing because it gave us such a laugh. (It was made by a Melbourne design company, Able and Game.)

Walking off the battlefield

2010-03-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

I've been having a doozy of a week, which is why I haven't posted for a while.

A few weeks ago I moved into a share house in Ballarat, a regional city in Australia. I was living at my parent's farm, which is 10 minutes outside of town, but my parents - at the ripe young ages of 69 and 74 - decided to separate, and I realised having front row seats to my parents’ divorce wasn’t a barrel load of fun (who'd have thunk it?!) So, I put an ad in the paper, found a room in what seemed like a quiet and pleasant house, and moved in.

I’ve been living in share houses for almost 20 years now – I’ve shared with everyone from a poverty stricken artist with schizophrenia, to an Iranian refugee, to a bunch of twenty-something farmers. I even shared a house with my sister who, at the end of our time together said I was ‘the most easy-going housemate in the world.’ (Awww...sweet).

In twenty years of share-housing, I have never come across a person as difficult to live with as my current housemate. The warning signs started early. On the second day I was there, I left the house for ten minutes to buy a can opener. When I came back my housemate told me she’d noticed my laptop was plugged in, and sitting on my bed. ‘I went into your room to unplug it because that’s a fire hazard. It was on your bed, so the laptop could overheat and set fire to the sheets'

Now, I didn’t really take in much of what she said past the first 5 words – ‘I went into your room.’ Going into someone else’s room in a share-house is a BIG no-no – everything is public in a share house and there’s not much privacy, so a bedroom is really the only private space. To go in there for such a ridiculous reason suggested some serious boundary problems.

Things just got worse from there. Over the past 2 weeks I’ve been asked to not just lock my window when I go out, but to pull down the blind as well (so thieves can’t see what’s in there). I’ve been asked to only give out the house phone number to my ‘closest family and friends’ because my housemate is fearful that she might be stalked if someone gets her number. I’ve been asked not to leave an apple in the backyard because my housemate’s dog can’t digest apple cores and might get sick. (I was sitting outside in the sun eating an apple and went inside to get something for a few minutes...leaving my dangerous, toxic, apple unattended!)

There are locks on everything in this house from the mailbox to the garage. (And no, we do not live in any kind of high crime area...just a fairly sleepy Australian town). I’m starting to feel like I’m living inside a prison. Almost every time I see my house-mate she has some kind of request or comment to make on what I’m doing and how she’d like it done differently. Could I not leave my slow cooker turned on on the bench top – because it might melt it? Could I open cans in the sink because any juice from the can might stain the kitchen counter? Could my father (a farmer) be careful what he brings into the house on the sole of his boots – because some farm products can be toxic to her dog?

And on, and on, and on, and on...a constant drip of negativity, fear, neurosis, and requests. I feel like I have a Mother Superior on my shoulder overseeing every move I make.

In an attempt to foster a positive relationship with my house-mate I invited her over to meet my sister, who lives a few streets away. Sitting in the backyard, she saw my brother-in-law smoking, and 'joked' that she would called child protective services because he shouldn't be smoking around children. I was mortified. She didn't know my brother-in-law and what enormous struggles he has had to quit smoking. I felt so embarrassed I went back later to apologise to him.

So, last night, we had an argument. She criticized me three times in half an hour, I lost it, and we argued. She said she thought I was dismissive and didn’t take her seriously or understand her. I said it was difficult to take in so many comments and criticisms on my behaviour. ‘It’s just information,’ she said, ‘Don’t take it personally.’ ‘It doesn’t feel like information to me,’ I said. ‘More like harassment.’

What I found interesting was that, although I was upset while I was having this argument, I could see how the awareness practices I’ve been doing over the past months helped me through this difficult experience.

While we were arguing I noticed my heart pounding loudly, but I didn’t criticize myself for this, or try to stop it. I just saw it as a natural bodily response to stress. I saw the voices in my head begin to tell me what a terrible thing it was to be arguing with someone. I felt like I was in a nightmare, as though the whole world was against me and was a terribly dark and sinister place.

Later, in my room, feeling angry and upset, I tried to sit with what was happening. I wanted to cry, because I felt so misunderstood and confused. I couldn’t see why this woman – who underneath all these fears is quite a nice person- thought that constantly commenting on my behaviour in a negative way would make for a harmonious relationship between us.

My mind kept asking – how can I fix this situation? How can I try to talk to her about her fears and get her to see that living in this fearful way is only going to alienate her from people? How can I get revenge on her for how unhappy she’s made me? How can I live with such a nutter? What’s wrong with me that I got into this argument? Why couldn’t I just be calm instead of raising my voice? Why was I so angry and judgemental of her?

Finally I isolated one voice which said – ‘you’re just a terrible person to share a house with.’ I stopped and asked that voice – ‘is that true?’ And then, I started laughing. It so clearly was not true. I’m not the best house-mate in the world – I can be messy, and I am often forgetful and vague – but I’ve lived in many wonderful share houses, and have made lifelong friends in several houses I’ve lived in. It was ludicrous to have a voice in my head saying I was the worst house-mate in the world.

Not believing this voice allowed me a bit of space and lightness around the feelings of anger, hurt, and confusion. ‘I know I am an OK person to live with,’ I kept telling myself. Gradually, it seemed to me that it was just OK that I had this argument. I still didn’t feel happy about it, but it didn’t mean anything terrible about me as a person.

I also saw a voice in my head saying that I somehow had to ‘fix’ this situation – that this was my challenge and my task, and that if I was a good Buddhist I’d somehow be able to sort this relationship out and live harmoniously with my house-mate. I think for the first time in my life I saw how I set up these challenges for myself in my head - and then battle to try to meet the challenge.

One other example of this challenge-mentality would be getting well. I somehow have to be a good Buddhist and a good meditator and a good person – and when I get that all ‘right’ I’ll get well. Or, I somehow have to ‘fix’ the problematic relationship I have with my mother, and then I would be able to be well and happy.

For the first time in my life I saw that it wasn’t God, or some universal law of the universe, that was setting me these challenges - it was just a voice in my head. I realised I didn’t have to believe that the challenge was necessary, and I didn’t have to rise to meet it. I could just ignore it.

So, what I’ve decided to do is move out of this house. I don’t have to prove anything, or fix anything. My house-mate and I have incompatible personalities – sad, but true. I can just leave and never have to think about her again. I don’t have to feel guilty about not feeling compassionate towards her. I don’t have to battle on with her, somehow trying to make her see my point of view. I can just get off my horse, put down my sword, and walk off the battlefield.

I've got no choice to move back to my parent's farm for a while, which will be difficult, but not as difficult as living here. I feel little bit between the frying pan and the fire - but, I'll just keep plodding along and it will all work out. I'm going to Indonesia for three months in May to live with my sister (yay!) - so I'm just going to focus on that trip, and try to make the best of my situation now.

This is one of the artworks I've been working on -

a stencil of the uber-cool Miles Davis.

The Chronic Meditator vs The Voices

2010-03-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading some books by zen teacher Cheri Huber and listening to her on-line radio show. One of the good things about being in bed all day is that if I want to spend 8 hours lying back on my fluffy pillows, listening to a radio show, with only my black teddy-bear for company – I can!

I’ve been bowled over by Cheri’s work. As I’ve said in previous posts, a lot of what she teaches is about gaining an understanding that the voice that speaks to us all day every day in our head may not have that much to contribute to our life – and (quelle horreur!) might actually be causing the suffering that’s in our life.

The voice in my head claims that what its saying is of vital importance and that it’s imperative that I listen and react to it (even when it contradicts itself). Cheri’s work is helping me to relate to this voice – not by obeying it, or flinching in reaction to its criticisms – but by investigating how it works.

As an example of this practice, I’m going to track some feelings, sensations and thoughts I’m having around what’s present for me at the moment - anxiety and exhaustion. I’m going to write my original thoughts and feelings in black and the commentary from ‘the voice’ in red. (I’ve learnt that a good clue to picking up which comments are from ‘the voice’ is that they often call me ‘You,’ as in ‘you’re hopeless,’ or ‘you’re too fat.’)

My overwhelming feeling is of anxiety. I'm thinking, ‘Oh God, I’ve done too much again, now my adrenals are totally overwhelmed, I feel like crap. Oh God, this is awful.’

‘Now you’ve gone too far, you’ll never get over this adrenal spike. Why can’t you ever stop before you get totally exhausted? This is just hopeless.’

I start to investigate this. How does it make me feel, this voice telling me everything is hopeless? It makes me feel anxious. I realise that my response to this anxiety is actually making me feel more anxious. It’s fuelling my anxiety, like hot air fanning flames.

Just noticing this makes me feel a little more relaxed. It allows a little more spaciousness around my experience. I feel my arms slowly start to sink into the pillows.

‘Well...you can relax a bit, but it’s never going to make a difference to this huge anxiety and adrenal surge you’ve created by overdoing it.’

How does that comment make me feel? Good, bad, anxious or relaxed? I feel anxious and overwhelmed! This voice seems like it’s trying to help me, but it’s actually making me feel worse.

I feel like I will never climb out from beneath this mountain of anxiety. I lie resting for a few more minutes. My heart is pounding.

‘Boy, this is bad, this is so uncomfortable. And, worse still, it’s all my fault. Why can you never learn to rest? You’ve really got to somehow work out a way to stop yourself overdoing it. It’s not rocket-science – why can’t you just be more restrained and rest more? When will you ever learn?’

How does this voice make me feel? Blamed, I feel blamed and criticized. I feel like I have a huge task ahead of me to change my behaviour so I never overdo it again – and I feel confusion, and overwhelmed, because I feel like I am not up to this battle. I feel more stressed and anxious because I’m faced with this enormous work task that I’m bound to fail at.

So, I’m lying in bed, exhausted, in pain, and anxious, and a voice in my head is badgering and dictating to me about how I have to work hard to improve myself...even though it’s all hopeless.

Hmmm. The penny drops. This is a no-win situation. No wonder I’m so stressed out!

I can see quite clearly, for the first time, how my usual responses of blame and challenging myself to improve are making my situation worse. They are promising to ‘help me’ (in the long run), but in this moment they just make me feel worse. I suddenly realise that there is no future here – there is no ‘long run,’ there’s just the present moment and in the present moment I feel worse. Perhaps there is no point in making myself suffer in this instant?

But, now I feel stuck because what can I do? I don’t know of any other way to respond but to urge myself to improve my habits to get myself out of this mess and make sure it never happens again. It feels very strongly that I have to criticize myself or I’ll just become so lazy I’ll never improve. But is this true, or is this just another example of conditioning? Will my life become better or worse if I stop haranguing myself?

‘DOH! WORSE!’ says the voice.

‘Well...I’m not sure.’ says me. ‘Maybe there is another way.’

+++

Will Emma and her bear find 'another way' or will the forces of evil win out??!!

Stayed tuned for the next exciting episode of...

The Chronic Meditator vs The Voices

Coming soon to a laptop near YOU!

Moments of no consequence...

2010-03-16T02:26:00.000-07:00

A few words of wisdom by the whimsical, beautiful, Michael Leunig.

Apologies to those who received a post this afternoon with an 'e-mail me' form in it. That was me trying to add a contact form to my blog. Bill Gates I aint.

Cheri Huber and the Zen Monastery Peace Centre

2010-03-11T23:10:00.000-08:00

Over the last few weeks I've been reading a few books by zen teacher Cheri Huber, and have been introduced to her wonderful on-line resources, intended to provide support for those who don't live near her monastery. I'm always keen to get this kind of meditation support, because I'm pretty much house-bound these days and can't get out to join a regular meditation or Buddhist group.

I just love it when groups of people can get together, regardless of geographic location or personal circumstances, to share their experiences and support each other on this journey. This is the communication revolution at its best!

If you're not into Buddhism - don't worry - the word 'Buddha' is hardly ever mentioned in any of the resources offered by Cheri and the monks at the Zen Monastery Peace Centre. From what I can gather, she focuses a lot on working with conditioning (aka 'the voices in my head').

As an example of conditioning, I might be happily writing away at this blog post only to have my peace interrupted by a voice saying quietly - 'You know, people don't really like this blog. Some people say they do, but they don't.' I go into a quiet panic, and worry about that voice being right. And there I am - caught in conditioning.

Cheri Huber works a lot around the idea of conditioning and its role in self-hatred, and on developing a more nurturing, supportive, present element to our lives. Her work is extremely practical and focused on the here and now. I'm sure I'll be writing more over the next few months about some of Cheri's teachings, but for now, I wanted to give a list of some of the support and resources she offers.

Open Air: a weekly, on-line radio program where guests call in and ask questions. There are a few hundred past episodes available as podcasts.

Practice Everywhere: Receive short awareness practice reminders by way of text messages, computer, Facebook, Twitter, or i Phone. When you sign up, you can choose how to receive them.

Reflective Listening Buddies: this program offers the opportunity to connect with another person, by phone or Skype, weekly for 30 minutes of practice support.

E-mail classes: classes on awareness practice offered through e-mail. (A donation is suggested for this class, but no set amount).

E-mail Me

2010-03-11T23:02:00.000-08:00

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