A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement on Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques, and it helps.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤

If it happens once / An Oracle at the Bakery

Ongoing

“Update! Heartbreak really sucks! Does anyone know about this????” I texted my friends on the way. On the way to where? To a liberation, as it turned out.

“I believe we are the first to experience this,” confirmed one friend who is also in the bitter-mirth state of grieving at the same time as I am, over a similar situation.

“I’ve heard the rumors but that’s devastating if true,” said another.

Sometimes it feels like this is big news. Sometimes it feels like this is the only news. Sometimes it feels like this is the opposite of news. Not-new, just extra-layered.

This must be the place

I headed north to the spot where I can see the bridge, because that is a point in space where clear clarity has been delivered to me many times in the past. Delivered to me (and landed) with such resonance that I cannot miss it even if I try.

Sometimes this fills me with trepidation, knowing that this kind of clarity is available versus do I even want it?

And am I ready for it? Will I be able to handle it?

And other questions…

For example, do I already have my clarity but I am refusing to acknowledge it? Because that is a known phenomenon.

Aka pretending extremely well that I don’t know the answer that has already revealed itself? Maybe-possibly-probably!

And then I have to pause and remember that Clarity can be loving.

Yes, what if it is or can be safe for me to receive my clarity? This is why I am asking it to arrive lovingly, in a loving shape and form, in a way that takes care of me.

Clarity can be loving

It isn’t always but it can be. It can be delivered and received with love.

The known information can be simple and clear. I don’t need to always get the rattling and disruptive kind of clarity.

I am allowed to request and receive my clarity with a heaping serving of compassion.

And: it can be a relief to just know. It might be, who knows. Let’s find out.

Acknowledgment and Legitimacy

Because we always want to practice Acknowledgment & Legitimacy, I want to remind myself that it is also very reasonable and understandable to feel hesitant or reticent in the moment before.

I want to acknowledge and remind myself that even asking for clarity is brave, vulnerable, meaningful, and potentially scary, or it might feel that way, which makes so much sense.

We can want to know and we can want to not-know, and sometimes the second desire is louder even when we are insisting it’s the first one that we really want.

Glorious Mistrust

I have been humming a lot lately on the quality of Mistrust. and how it can be valuable to learn how to trust a little less…

Especially when you are someone who gives a lot of trust and gets hurt in the same way over and over again. (I am this someone.)

I am trying to learn about moving more slowly, waiting, letting people work harder to earn my beautiful trust, making sure they are worthy of this treasure.

If there is a goddess of Glorious Mistrust, who says “it is lovely that you know how to trust so big and so fully, now learn the other way, learn how to move much more slowly into trust”, then I am making an altar and lighting a candle to this form of knowledge.

Cultivating the opposite

If I already know about trust big and trust hard, can I cultivate some of the opposite?

I am ready to learn about Go Slow and Even Slower Than That.

I am ready to learn about Embrace Caution instead of throwing it to the wind and seeing what happens. I know what happens. I have fallen from enough bridges. Sometimes my trust, however beautiful and well-meant, has come at the cost of my self-respect and self-preservation.

Let’s learn about what is beautiful and meaningful and needed in the spiritual quality of Taking My Sweet Time To Trust, with some good Hesitancy and Reticence in the mix. Let’s learn about being a well-boundaried beacon.

A leisurely interview

And this is how I ended up with an empty notebook, a favorite pen, a delicious cookie, and spacious container of three beautiful hours in which to interview the version of me who knows about Glorious Mistrust, and embodies these powers.

I wrote on the cover of the notebook, as an offering:

Glorious Mistrust! Please tell me what you know. Tell me what you want me to know.

And then opened to the first page, set down my pen and leaned back a little, hands open, palms up. Ready to wait and to listen…

Zero patience required

I was prepared to wait patiently for as long as it might take for my internal goddess of Glorious Mistrust to trust me enough to talk to me.

It did not take long. Actually, the answer came immediately.

There you go

At the table behind me, an older man and woman had been quietly and warmly conversing over coffee.

I had been semi-consciously observing them while waiting for my own comforting beverage, and got the impression they had been colleagues in the past, before one or both retired. And then I turned my attention to my own questions.

But then, as I set down my notebook, the woman suddenly stood and said, very loudly, as if making a proclamation:

IF IT HAPPENED ONCE, IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN.

Clarity: boom, there it is.

I turned and looked at her. She was smiling, calm, peaceful, extremely clear. I do not know what happened to elicit this loud, clear, calm statement, but she meant it with every cell in her body.

Clear Clarity. Boom, there it is. If it happened once, it will happen again.

I added this piece of wisdom to my notebook on Learning How To Channel Glorious Mistrust, and underlined it twice, and then my pen hovered over the page for a while.

“There you go,” said Glorious Mistrust.

Over and out

What a great start, I thought! And I asked Glorious Mistrust to expand on this theme.

“Oh, we’re done here,” said Glorious Mistrust. “Interview is over. You have everything you need.”

“What does that mean? What about my next steps on how to cultivate your powers and understand or at least access your wisdom?” I asked.

“You just wrote down the answer to all of your current questions and mysteries,” said Glorious Mistrust. “There isn’t anything more to be said.”

The wisdom was right there.

It didn’t take the three hours I had allotted to get any clues clarity on the situation I wanted clarity about.

And it didn’t take three hours to learn something from the version of me who knows how to be Wonderfully Cautious and take better care of me.

The wisdom was right there: “If it happened once, it’s gonna happen again.”

The universe delivered on clarity, big time.

The rest is commentary, as we say. Go and learn, as we say.

A memory

Years ago, I had a jealous boyfriend. He didn’t start out that way, or maybe he did, and I didn’t notice.

Sometimes he would get himself all tangled up in a misunderstanding, having long-distance jumped so many conclusions that he would end up lost and several miles down the road from what had actually happened.

Here’s my part in this:

I was so (foolishly) proud of myself for how much patience I was able to channel during these episodes, for my trust in him and his wise beautiful heart.

It takes two, and here is what that looks like

I would spend hours patiently untangling his misunderstandings with him, patiently explaining about Occam’s razor and the practice of applying common sense, and what might help him remember the truth, that I am a good-hearted person who loves him and would not break any agreement we had made.

I would remind him that he could check in with me and ask clarifying questions before launching into any old patterns of assumptions.

This was someone with a strong meditation practice, a steady yoga practice, he had the skills. I believed in him and I believed in our big, sweet, wonderful love. And so I kept being overly patient and overly trusting.

A beautiful quality, in a state of imbalance

So yes, I had trust but way too much of it.

Too much trust in him, in the relationship, in his ability to change, in his ability to recognize the pattern and do something different with it. Too much trust, and zero self-respect.

I was enabling, and placating, and not drawing a line. What I thought was a virtue (patience) was actually a lack of ability on my part to walk away from being mistreated because I wanted the love and sweetness that were there for me when this person could remember how to access them.

The cost of patience and trust when out of balance

It took me over a year, while this situation only escalated.

And as he got more controlling, his anger got more out of control. The whole thing had to get scary before I saw my own patterns.

It had to get scary, and eventually in a moment of luck and grace and miracles, I was somehow able to gather up enough self-respect and courage to say, “Hey, none of this behavior is acceptable to me, and it isn’t changing, and I’m out.”

Luck, grace, miracles, recovery

I was lucky, because I got out. And it took a long time to recover from that. Probably I am still recovering from that.

Patience and trust are beautiful qualities. And they also need to be mitigated by or accompanied by self-respect, self-treasuring, and wisdom.

Wisdom as in: the understanding and clear clarity that I deserve to be treated better. And that people don’t need my excess of trust and patience. They need to know where the line is.

Wisdom is knowing how I want to be treated…

To know how I want and expect to be treated…

And to be less patient and less trusting when engaging with someone who continually requires and demands so much caretaking and efforting and explaining.

If someone wants or, worse, expects, that amount of resources, energy and attention from me, and especially if what they are giving in return is more of the same behavior, that is a red flag, but what if I didn’t let myself get all the way to the field of red flags?

What if

What if I had the wisdom of “If it happens once, it will happen again”, and once could be enough, or even more than enough?

What if I could say THIS IS ENOUGH instead of giving myself credit for having patience as I trudge through months or years of increasingly severe “oh hey it’s happening again” moments?

What if I didn’t keep staying the course of patience and trust all the way until I finally reach the end of my reserves?

(Hope)

I would hope that now I would walk away well before the first jealousy tantrum, or the first time someone demands to be coddled or placated.

Except that I learned this year that when I love someone deeply, I will try everything before trying, as a very last resort, to find the appropriate boundaries I wish I had invoked from the beginning.

It turns out that it is not enough to say, “This behavior is unacceptable to me, let’s try to find a workaround” or “This behavior is unacceptable to me, let’s figure out how I can explain to them how to do better next time”.

Or even, “This behavior is unacceptable to me, let me think of all the mitigating reasons and circumstances to excuse it this time around.”

Return to the clear clarity

All of that twisting and contorting myself to keep love in my life despite the bad behavior that is not going to change…

It harms me and it doesn’t help the other person.

What if I can channel the clear clarity? If it happened once, it will happen again, the end.

What if I can trust myself more and really let myself see the impact of their behavior and what it tells me?

Maybe then I can stop tricking myself into hoping more, waiting more, being more patient, giving more of myself?

What do I know about the goddess of Glorious Mistrust

I like being someone who trusts big, I said to my bodyworker. I don’t know if I am ready to embrace Mistrust.

They shrugged: “This person forced your hand.”

Mistrust is not about never trusting, or closing your off to trust. It is about making people work way harder to earn your trust, and taking way more time before you offer it.

Okay. That is one way of looking at it.

Using the wisdom of the gambler to stop gambling

I asked the bridge about mistrust, and the bridge said, “Babe, let’s get your self-respect back, okay? Next time you don’t have to wait that long to stand up for yourself and to protect yourself. Know what is unacceptable to you, and be ready to walk.”

Ya gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run. As my people say. Sorry for the earworm!

It’s a very Jewish song, in some ways.

What if I am done gambling, by way of the wisdom of the gambler.

The right time was earlier, and the right time is now

I went to yoga and tried to find an alternative to more stewing.

What if my conundrum is not a conundrum?

I didn’t want to not have this person in my life but of course I very much need to not have this endless drama that comes from this person being in my life.

Because the bridge was right, and the woman who said IF IT HAPPENS ONCE IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN was right, and the Goddess of Glorious Mistrust was right, and these interactions with someone who can’t remember how to access common sense are exhausting and draining at a soul-level, and it’s time to go.

You can fight the clarity all you want, and also: If it happened once, it will happen again.

And then a voice

Then I got into my car, and a man’s voice came over the sound system and said, in a loud, clear tone: THE ANSWER WILL ALWAYS BE NO.

I am not sure how to explain this. Maybe a podcast mysteriously queued itself up and came on instead of my music?

It startled me so much that I immediately turned the volume all the way down and drove the rest of the way in silence and then put my phone in airplane mode the rest of the day, because I didn’t want any more clear clarity.

And also: thank you, clear clarity. It doesn’t get much more clear than that.

When is it useful?

When is it useful to remember that [If it happens once, it will happen again], when can this be invigorating knowledge to me? Or comforting?

For example, this doesn’t only have to be about knowing a relationship must end because the person is not going to change their harmful behavior as much as they believe they want to, and think they could.

It could be more like, if I miss this fun-sounding thing that appealed to me, it might happen again in the future, or another opportunity will arise.

Or if I lose the recipe for gochugang potato stew I will find it again or find another one, and it will all work out. I will have love in my life again and I will have spicy potato stew in my life again.

There is pleasure and joy and meaning in this life for me. That relationship was not the source. Source is source. And I am in connection with source.

Cultivating more sweet trust (inward) and more Glorious Mistrust (outward)

I am cultivating more trust and patience and curiosity in my relationship with myself, and more Glorious Mistrust when it comes to people who are draining to be around, like the Olympic-level conclusion jumpers.

(Or who don’t know how to take care of themselves when they get tangled up in their own stuff, so they want me to do it for them and get upset whenever I am not diving into care-taking mode.)

This is not a pipe

Many years ago, when my mother wanted my father to stop smoking a pipe, she bought him a pipe, to be his last pipe. The one he would use to quit.

And this worked.

I am hoping that this agonizingly long goodbye that dragged on for too long will be the pipe that gets me to quit my current version of smoking…

In other words, maybe the exhausting goodbye will be the final harmful-to-me experience that will get me to have enough self-respect and self-sweetness that I don’t put myself through (or into!) a situation like this again to begin with. Maybe!

Maybe I will be beautifully cautious, or cultivate a beautiful caution, maybe I will take more time to see what people can and cannot bring to the table before I welcome them into my life and heart.

A prayer-hope

Here is my sincere with.

That I will be wise enough and loving enough to walk away so much sooner…

That I will allow myself to expect and want better of myself and from others…

That I will tend to myself with so much sweetness that I won’t allow any Mysterious Disappearers or Olympic Conclusion Jumpers or Adult Toddlers Needing Coddling or people who are all of these into my orbit to begin with. I won’t even want to be around them and I won’t crave whatever it is these interactions once gave me. Amen.

We’ll see

We’ll see. It’s not easy to quit a habit that used to be so delicious and soothing. And I am a known over-truster trying to learn new ways.

And also, I haven’t spend a quarter of a century studying the beautiful art of pattern interruption for nothing. I can hold onto hope and faith while studying Glorious Mistrust. I have room for all of this.

What is missing, what is needed, where is the next piece of Clear Clarity

I am going to let [If It Happened Once, It Will Happen Again] reverberate like a bell through my internal landscape until the wisdom lands.

And I am going to sit with the questions that come up around how to take better care of myself.

It took an Oracle at the bakery to literally shout (not angrily, just loud and clear) what I needed to hear for me to hear it.

Learning, slowly, I hope, we’ll see

Something I have learned from my own recovery processes is that sometimes I think I am experiencing anxiety (and I am, fear of loss, fear of not being loved, no shortage of things to fear), and right beneath the surface of that anxiety is my fight response, wanting me to do a better job of protecting myself.

Protecting myself doesn’t just mean me, it includes my time, my energy, my hopefulness, my trust, my beautiful, yearning, eager-to-love-and-be-loved heart, my longing for intimacy and connection.

My fight response mechanism wants me to get to know it.

Warrior too (that’s a yoga pun)

My fight response mechanism wants to be known, so that I can stop being afraid of my warrior self.

Mainly though it wants me to stop placating, stop coddling, stop soothing other people and doing their work for them, and just get clear, be clear, stay clear:

I will not do any parenting for adults. I will not spend time around people who invent narratives and don’t have the skills to undo these narratives on their own. And I will walk away when this happens.

Hoping I can just do this the first time from now on and not after dozens of just-one-more-chance chances, because I want to believe that oh maybe this time they finally figured out how to be better towards me, and towards themselves.

It happened once, it’s gonna happen again, and I am not going to be there when it does.

Brilliantly Clear Clarity

I was watching a Canadian show called Coroner, and the titular character just fired the senior pathologist on her second day in her new job, and he is shocked.

And she says: “You’re arrogant, you cut corners, you are not going to change. It’s you or it’s me, and it’s not going to be me.”

And this is the beautiful Clear Clarity I wish I’d had a year ago, and in so many other situations.

There is nothing I can do to get someone to change. I can know that and let the knowing be enough.

Except when I can’t be clear because I am fighting the clarity

Of course I couldn’t have been this clear, or channeled that clear clarity, because I just loved a person so much, and so for me the pay to play was almost infinite.

(This is a clue for me that I have given up on self-respect, if the pay to play has no limit. I need to have a very low pay-to-play! Maybe I don’t want to pay at all!)

Anyway, I wanted those people I loved to have the skills to do better and to treat me better…

Except I wanted to keep them in my life more than I wanted to to recognize the truth, that they would never be sufficiently motivated to acquire those skills.

Breathe in, breathe it in, breathe out, release what needs releasing

So I wasn’t able to access that clarity then, and I want to breathe into it now.

I want to channel that kind of Clear Simple Knowing that it isn’t useful to hold onto the hope that people are going to start changing their ways just because I ask them to.

A breath for the sadness and the grief. A breath for being a hopeful person with a hopeful heart. A breath for recognizing the sunk costs fallacy. A breath for putting things down gently, when we can.

A clue about the heart

I love this combination of lines in the poem Improvement by Danusha Laméris:

I’m grateful for small victories.


The way the heart still beats time

in the cathedral of the ribs.

The heart still beats time. In the cathedral. And this is a victory.

Breathing and existing in the cathedral of self

A breath for my sweet heart, beating time itself, and a breath for my ribs being a cathedral in which my heart can be treasured and cherished by me.

My ribs are not a cage and not a case, but a cathedral that holds heart and lungs, holiness and wholeness, breath and embodiment.

And this is a victory. Victory, redefined.

Redefined

I wanted someone else to treasure my heart and the way it beats.

And I am learning that this is work that is so special and important, I don’t want to outsource it.

And I am glad that I am learning to trust (outwardly) less as a way to love and tend (inwardly) more, and when it is time to trust outwardly, to choose better and with slowness and care.

Each returning is also a victory

I want to choose better and choose wisely and choose myself and be with my own heart. More importantly, I want to recognize this as a victorious act.

This choice and this return: victorious.

Heartbreak might suck (does anyone know about this?!?!?), but not as much as self-neglect.

Can I return to my own cathedral, and source my own awe and wonder?

What a miracle, this heart, this moment, this victorious keeping on.

What is next

I am learning about go slow, and even slower than that, and applying it to trust and love.

I am learning about: pause, regroup, check in, get low, hang back, what are my instincts telling me (my wisdom, not my anxiety), and what happens when and while I wait?

What would it be like if my fight response was my ally, and I didn’t have to disguise it as anxiety. What if there are many forms of oracles in bakeries, or they are everywhere, and I have been missing the message until it gets loud?

Did I get the message

I want to get the message and be the message and live the message. Self-respect first. Breathe and glow love inward and tend to the hurting parts. Into the cathedral I go.

More waiting, more listening, more time spent with sensation, more curiosity, more self-treasuring, holding on less tightly, finding some grace in the tight places.

Loving myself more and better and with so much care for the recovery process. Let’s start there.

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.