Need an NA Group! (Nondual Anonymous)

I am stuck in contradiction. Which is ironic considering it sprouts from my journey into nondualism.

The farther I settle into awareness of nonduality and relax into the innate beingness of consciousness, the more profound this contradiction is for me. You see, as I deepen my recognition of oneness and my connection to all life and the source of all life, I am beginning to feel more and more disconnected from the world around me. From humanity, more specifically. As on one hand I am now more often able to see the same essence in another as is in me, on the other hand I feel isolated from others in my inability to share this with them - based in both my inability to articulate my understanding and my lack of 'nondual friends'.

I know I am not alone. I know that to be a truth on many levels. In terms of 'tangible' relationships, I have a husband, mother, brother, family, friends, dogs, coworkers, communities. In terms of being, I feel my strong connection to all of life, to God, to nature, to the entire universe - even outside of time and space. In terms of this journey, I know that there are millions the world over seeking, searching, yearning and understanding much more than I, following their own paths on this shared road. And yet. And yet I have moments of indescribable loneliness. I am frozen in fear by this sensation at times and at other times brought to a level of sadness that seems to infuse every cell of my physical body.

These moments of isolation, of loneliness, sometimes seem to suggest that I should travel. Seek out a monastery, ashram, retreat centre, or other place where I can feel I am a part of a community that is like me. That I am included. However, I know that inclusion is illusion. At least, in that sense of identity, of needing to belong. Of needing to be 'like' others. But the ego is not easily shut out. It wants acceptance, acknowledgment, recognition. It says that this journey, this sometimes incredible and seemingly insurmountable struggle into consciousness, would be SO MUCH EASIER if there were others around who 'got it', who were there too. It's a strong argument. It's hard to differentiate between a sense of being seeking to recognize being in others and an ego looking for a way to reform identity. There is also the sense that if I could remove myself from this North American life for a period of time, it would be easier to find stillness. However, what good is that if I cannot return to the stillness while living a 'North American life'? It would be a nice period of time, but would it help with day-to-day life?

I joke that I need an NA group so that I can have that sense of community or belonging. So that I can share my struggles and celebrate my moments of clarity. But isn't that ego too? Isn't the sharing of struggles and celebration about seeking affirmation? I have sought out online pages and blogs and communities but they feel so impersonal and because I am not academic, many seem inaccessible to me. Perhaps I just need a nondual friend or two. But how do you find each other? I actually posted a status on Facebook once, to no avail, asking if anyone I knew was also exploring nonduality in the hopes of connecting with someone.

I must acknowledge that I am blessed, however, to be able to share my journey with my therapist twice a month but that sometimes seems to not be enough. It is not only about being able to 'check in' and verbalize what's going on for me, gain new perspectives, etc. but it also is a bit of a rallying point for me. Although I am so fresh and green in my journey, I do have successes and noticeable shifts. However, that being said, I also have setbacks a lot of the time and it is sometimes extremely easy for the ego to hit the brakes on me, to distract me and convince me to put this "seeking" aside for today. It is easier for me to be aware following a session with my therapist but as the days go by, I get tired. I believe that more interaction, by way of friends or community, would help me in staying present. Oh where oh where could my nondual friends be?

Not the Vessel

For several months now I have been on an emotional and spiritual journey. The truth I had been seeking was inside me all along but I was hiding it from myself. Or, more plainly, my egoic self was hiding it from my true self. I know that sounds like a lot of jargon, forgive me. I don't profess to be able to explain any of it. It has been quite a ride to this point and I know it is far from over. The big thing is, like it or not, what has been seen cannot ever be unseen again. There's no going back. I am now awake to the game and am forever changed by that awakening.

 

My previous post Time of Transition mentioned that I am currently in therapy and that my therapist was basically rocking my world. That is a huge part of this journey I am on as my therapist (who we'll hereinafter call "JS") provided a concrete introduction to this journey. JS is a no-bull therapist who believes in nondualism and who serendipitously entered my life at precisely the moment I needed his perspective and non-manipulable nature. He was gently persistent - assigning homework and applying small amounts of pressure on the cracked facade I was holding on to until it inevitably shattered.

When I started seeing JS I thought I was completely insane. I felt I had lost the ability to "control" my mind and was terrified. I was in a really bad place emotionally and mentally and basically expected him to have me committed. He actually gave me the choice, which I realize sounds pretty unorthodox. It was basically "if you want me to send you to a psychiatrist they will give you a diagnosis and then you can live your life as a person with xxxxxxxx or we can work on recognizing yourself as the observer and not the thinker and go from there". I thought he was crazy. If there are two voices in my head (the observer and the thinker) then I'm obvously off my rocker. Where he was going with that, however, was expanding on a truth I had said to him before he provided me with this choice and one I have always held to be true - which is that through everything there has always been a core to my being, a piece that is the real me that has travelled through all of my life experiences and is not changed. That is the observer. That is who I, and all of us, really are. Not the thinker. The mind is a tool, like a hand or a calculator, not who we are. We have been conditioned to skew that reality and attach ourselves to our minds, believing that they are us.

That is a huge concept and it has taken me some work to embrace it. However, as I've already said, once seen this cannot be unseen. It totally shakes your world. It is like putting on coloured glasses, or taking off blinders, or the scales falling from my eyes, or pulling the cotton out of my ears or any other number of metaphors (or are those similes?) but in the end, they are all permanent and irreversible. You are forever changed. Once this truth permeates you - and believe me, it saturates - there's no going back. For me, it is as if a switch was turned from "off" to "on". I was "getting it" intellectually and my therapy was progressing well (I thought) and then one day JS said something about attachment and *blammo*, that switch was turned. It wasn't a joy-filled radiant moment of bliss, this enlightenment, it was more like the universe had always been one step out of sync and suddenly it all shifted. At once both incredibly simple and yet vastly too complex to ever grasp. Inside of that, however, I found my truth. I am awake. I cannot ever sleep again.

My world was crumbling around me when I started seeing JS. It isn't much changed in many respects. I still have major sh*t going on and major sh*t to do, but I no longer live with anxiety. I no longer have fear. I no longer frantically grasp at everything around me trying to hold on to what was or what could be. I no longer delude myself into thinking I have control over anything at all. I am learning to recognize that this very moment, the one right now, is all that is. The past is past and provides nothing but memory. The future is entirely an illusion - you can't ever get there for when you're there, you're in the present moment again. That is all there is. I no longer live my life as if this very moment is simply a means of getting to some better place or time. That better place or time does not exist. This moment does. This moment is what is real and is exactly where I am. Such a game changer. I cannot even tell you! As Eckhart Tolle said: "Are you so focused on the future that the present moment is just a means to get there?"

JS and I are working on my attachment to form. I haven't managed to let that one go yet. I have so much wrapped up in the idea of form but I am progressing nicely, I think :) I am coming to realize that I am not the vessel but rather, the space inside. This means that if the vessel is cracked, I am not diminished, for the crack does not have any impact on the space. I am that space. I am learning that the vessel that contains me does not define me or dictate anything about my being. I am free of the vessel. Okay, I am *learning* to be free of the vessel, working on it (lol). 

So in a nutshell (pun intended) I am good. I am beyond good. I am more the real me than I have ever been. I am more awake than I have ever been. I am more connected to life and the world around me than I have ever been. And I am more free than I could have ever imagined I could be. I am learning how to navigate the world from this new place and I am loving the journey!

 
I know I have done a poor job of articulating even the smallest part of this but that's okay! It doesn't matter. And I cannot tell you how freeing that realization is! Here's to hoping that, if you are seeking, you will find your own truth as well. God bless and namaste!

Time of Transition

Life throws us curve balls time and again. Therapists can help. I have suffered from an anxiety disorder most of my life. I have considered myself an expert worrier....extremely talented in that arena, if I do say so myself. All the tips and tricks and advice and drugs I have been given over the years only ever managed to dampen the level of my anxiety - never to diminish, extinguish or prevent. I started seeing a therapist several months ago and my life is forever changed, on many levels.

The biggest tool my therapist gave me in terms of my anxiety is letting go. I know, that sounds super simplistic, but let me explain. My anxiety is based in an attachment to outcomes, people, things as well as a need to control everything, including outcomes, people and things. So...I am learning to let go of those attachments. It really makes a HUGE difference. When I worry about telling someone something, it's because I'm emotionally attached to a particular potential outcome. If I let go of that attachment, like magic the anxiety melts away. I am learning to accept things as they are, not need to control and predict and be attached to a potential outcome, and to simply breathe and let life be. I appreciate that readers will say "right, if it's that easy why didn't you do it earlier" or "why doesn't everyone do this". First of all, nobody ever told me to! Second, I had to work through personal issues first before I was in a place where I could do this letting go.

 There are other things I'm working on that are changing me and giving me more tools in my toolkit. At the age of 34 I am finally feeling equipped to live life to the fullest and am discovering who I truly am under all the baggage. I feel freer, lighter, happier, more authentic, and way, way, way more grounded! Now, I'm not saying life is easy now. Therapy has actually managed to make my life more difficult, LOL, but I'm here, really here, and really living it now.

So thank you to all the therapists out there for doing what you do. I am so blessed to have found a therapist that I connected with extremely well and who was so well matched for me. He doesn't just use conventional therapy and he is wonderfully blatantly honest with me! Thanks to God and to JS!

Knitting a Revolution

Our knitting circle Knitting a Revolution participated in the Southern Alberta Anti-Hate Rally after a hate crime was committed in Lethbridge on a young gay man. Knitting a Revolution organized a knit-in of sorts. The project was creating an installation resembling Tibetan prayer flags that expressed personal messages of love and inclusion and acceptance amid knitted squares that were lovingly knitting from across Canada and locally (and during the rally).

If you are from the Lethbridge area and have a needle craft as a hobbie (or want to have one), please join us on the last Thursday of each month at the cafe at the Lethbridge Library (please note that we meet outside on the patio when weather permits). All levels of experience welcome - we talk about our lives, work on our projects (personal and political/social) and discuss social justice issues. Email us at Knitting a Revolution

Glide Mission Trip - what now?

I have been away from my blog and the blogs I follow since going on the mission trip with McKillop United Church to Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. It was an intense experience - full of doses of reality, living lessons, hills, hills, and more hills, challenging assumptions, living in community (a small one!), and personal introspection and growth.







Our hostel was only a few blocks away from Grace Cathedral where I did the inside labyrinth once with our whole group and then a couple of us went several mornings to do the outside labyrinth. It was an amazing blessing to have such a wonderful spiritual tool at my disposal on a daily basis, especially with the internal and external challenges of the trip.



We did a bike trip as a group where we biked to, and then across, the Golden Gate Bridge and then down into Sausalito. The trip to the Bridge included a few very steep uphills and I pushed myself to make it to the top of them - on my bike! I was very proud of myself! Mickey and I spent some time on Fisherman's Wharf after we took a fairy ferry back from Sausalito.






We also went to Alcatraz after a walk through Chinatown and up to Coit Tower. Of course, Mickey and I (and Cathy once) went to the Castro district for supper and to just hang out and breathe the queer air!




All of that together is what we did on our one afternoon off and our one day off. The rest of our time was spent volunteering at Glide. It is impossible to articulate the experience, but I'll just summarize the tasks I personally did throughout our time there. Whenever we worked there, we also ate there. For our first meal there we stood in line outside (which wraps around the block sometimes) with everyone else waiting for their ticket and their turn to eat. For our other meals, we ate after our work was done and the meal was finished being served.


My first shift was in the prep area cutting carrots - there was a box of 1.5 tonnes of carrots and we chopped them all! Marlene, a fellow McKillop person on the mission trip, said "Thank goodness it's not onions!" The next day our job was to be during a meal instead of prepping one and I said "Thank goodness we won't be chopping again." When the organizers were dividing us up and taking us to different tasks, Marlene, her husband John, and myself were taken to the prep area - to cut onions! Serves us right, I guess. I'm not sure when I put out such bad karma but the payback was pretty intense. I've seen big bags of onions before, but nothing compared to this. I must have personally chopped at least 50 large, white onions. I am not ashamed to admit I cried like a baby. Other shifts involved working in the Coffee House (a special dining room for people with disabilities and/or families) and working in the main dining room where I took tickets, served trays, coffee and water and dished food onto trays in the "assembly line". They truly run an amazing operation at Glide. (We won a Golden Tray Award for being a group that went above and beyond!)



On our final day of our mission trip we attended the church service at Glide and then had some final group reflection time before departing for the airport. I was sad to go but needed time to absorb the experience and see where it took me. A great tool I took from the trip was Glide's Core Values. They are an inspirational set of core values that can be applied to everything you do in your life - work, church, volunteering, relationships, etc. In addition, they have a Wall of Health where you can take a message and then leave one for someone else. The message I got was "Be honest with, and about, yourself." I have the message attached to my rearview mirror in my car and I read it and remind myself of it at least twice a day.




I gained friendships from the trip, learned incredible lessons, and honestly challenged myself constantly. I have gone on things like this before and every time I say I will not let myself go back to "life as usual" but always, within a certain period of time, I do (or it just happens, I guess). I am certain that I am changed somewhat permanently from each experience, but I don't let it truly infiltrate my life and my comfort zones. I made a promise to myself and to a youth member of the mission trip that I will not let that happen this time. I am still committed to that.

(this mosaic was in the meeting room at Glide, 
it moved me beyond words)

The hardest part of the whole experience has been the time since my return. I am trying to discern what and how I can live out my calling to be a seeker of justice, a servant of God's people. I "knew" as a teenager that I would one day be working in Africa or something like that. My fear of going so far out of my comfort zone has stopped me from being there yet. Now I am listening for that still, small voice as well as my heart in an effort to find out what I do from here - small mission trips like this one, six month mission trips, a year or two mission trip, or a very real change to my life.

Fire YinYang

I finished my first paper mosaic and mailed it off to the recipient, my friend Amy Brown. It was part of my 5 for 5 on Facebook for 2010. I was am really excited about it. I made it especially for her. I "researched" her Facebook profile and discovered something she wrote about herself:

"Pacifist............Activist.

Queer....................Christian.

Anabaptist.......Catholic Worker.
I walk in two worlds, in several seemingly
but not truly contradictory ways." -Amy Brown

So I decided to celebrate this supposed duality by making a yin yang for her....

....and letting her know that in my books she proves that what may be perceived as opposites can be lived out as complimentary and part of a beautiful whole. I admire her courage to be herself in the world!

My Bucket List

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got came from my brilliant husband. I have never been one to do the diary/journal thing. I've tried several times to start one but I would give up after a day or two and never look back. Although I don't feel the need to record the day-to-day events in my life, by not journaling I do not have that outlet to release feelings of anger, resentment, worry, etc.

Sometime last year Mickey and I were discussing the current situation of a friend and he told me about the advice he had given years back to someone else in a similar situation. It was to start a grief journal. He had suggested, as their pastor, that the person who was grieving get a journal and write each thing they were grieving in it. So they would write down something about what was missing from the loss and would take the time necessary to grieve that particular thing. Once that was done, they would in essence "check it off". In this way, the idea was that the next time they started to feel sorry for themselves about that particular thing, they could remind themselves that they have already grieved it and move on.

Since I do not journal/diary and have not found an effective method of releasing emotions (other than red wine lol), I find I tend to harbour feelings of anger and resentment. I am also an excellent worrier. In that regard, Mickey also gave me another good piece of advice - all of your worrying won't change the outcome one single bit so just let it go. That is easier said than done, but I'm working on it. At any rate, I decided to take the grief journal idea and turn it into a mechanism for dealing with my emotions.

I haven't been doing it for very long and started slowly with it but I am working on using it more consistently. I use the journal for everything....I write down things that anger me, worry me, make me feel sorry for myself, cause me fear, etc. and when I feel as though I have sufficiently felt that emotion for that situation, I cross it off. It is so much less "demanding" then the journaling thing because I don't have to expand on a one-word entry if I don't want to. I am certain that the simple act of writing each one down is therapeutic in and of itself and also diminishes the power of the emotion. However, the act of crossing it out gives me a sense of freedom from that emotional response to that particular situation.

I know the movie The Bucket List was about a very different list, but I think of my emotion journal as my Bucket List in that I look at each of these emotions, feel them, and then toss them in the bucket. Before this journal, I would pull things out of the bucket again and again but with the journal, the bottom of the bucket has fallen off and when I put things in there, they just float away!