Freedom and Ego

In the past week I've posted about having ambivalent feelings about getting well, and, within five days, unambivalent desire for the migraine pain to stop forever.

It seems a wide swing. I feel a bit embarrassed just thinking about it, especially that it's posted for all the world to see. Yet a couple comments on that first post tell me I'm not the only one honest enough to admit to such feelings. So I am certainly not the only one feeling them.

I can't write a long post today because my head's fuzzy with pain and medication, but I want to share a couple of thoughts about this seeming conundrum: that I can be both afraid and desirous of the same thing.

The first thought is about the ego. I have written before about Eckhart Tolle's writings on the ego that have helped me more than anything else to begin to find true freedom of spirit. (Click here and here to read posts; there are more in the Labels column to the right -- click on "ego" and "eckhart tolle.")

Our egos will grab any reason to form an identity. That grabbing targets the obvious and socially-acceptable identities like physical beauty, career and job, relationships (parent, sibling, friend) and talents. So we say, "I'm a painter." or "I'm beautiful." or "My daughter is a doctor." as ways to identify who we are. There are also less acceptable identities that are not so obvious and easy to name, like victim, sick person, or loser.

But, though some identities seem logical and others counter-intuitive, they're all the same mechanism: the ego clutching identity in order to survive. Where does freedom (in the title of this post) come in? Any clutching our ego does limits our freedom. If you cannot let go of your identity as lawyer or successful business woman, you are not free. I cannot let go of my identity as migraineur: I am not free.

There's more, but my head hurts. I am going to free myself of my identity as a writer who is thorough and finishes what she starts -- I'm ending
this post now. More later.


Thank you for reading this post. You can comment below or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com

Reading Mariechild Together: The Ego By Any Other Name

In the throes of my deepest codependence long ago, I just knew that if I acted a certain way or said the right thing I could fix the relationship that was going wrong, the anxiety buzzing within me, depression's weight in my gut. I could say just the right affirmation, follow the dictates of this great self-help book and I would have a perfect life.

Here is what Diane Mariechild (in Open Mind -- Womens' Daily Inspirations for Becoming Mindful) has to say about that:

"It is easy to delude ourselves by thinking that we can make things totally convenient and comfortable and eliminate all pain. This unrealistic thinking is disconnected from the truth of physical life...another way of disguising the ego's need for control with positive, upbeat language."

What she is pointing toward is the Buddhist concept, equanimity.

"She who loves roses must be patient and
not cry out when she is pierced by thorns." (Olga Broumas)

We who love life must be patient when life disappoints us, hurts us, betrays us. (I believe in "crying out" sometimes, so cannot accept that limitation on our approach to life. Sometimes a quick whine or a good cry is what I need in order to move on.)

We who love life must not allow our ego to delude us into believing we have control.

And though we do not have control, we do have choice: we can choose to be aware of the ego's machinations, of our need to have things our own way; we can choose to accept life's situations and circumstances and joys and difficulties without layering onto them the suffering of anger, frustration, expectation, and neediness.

Realizing that we have this choice is our power in life, not over life. Exercising this choice is the beginning of wisdom.


Contact me at carold.marsh@gmail.com. You can make comments through GooglePlus.

Reading Mariechild Together: In Union We Cannot Harm

The reflection for April 24 (yesterday) begins with a verse from the writings of Brooke Medicine Eagle:

The feminine energy, Buffalo Woman's Energy, is very strong in many of our hearts at this time. Buffalo Woman is willing to shine out through each of us who quiet ourselves and call.

Diane Mariechild, in her reflection (Open Mind -- Women's Daily Inspirations for Becoming Mindful) for the 24th, tells us that Buffalo Woman energy is "strong, creative, nurturing, and transformative feminine energy." It is within us, each of us, despite the language and the words sounding odd to our rational, Western minds. It arises from the Earth, it completes the integration of "the preconscious state into the present ego state" and then leads us to "a more subtle state of consciousness, one of realization or communion with the circle of life."

Buffalo Woman energy has power of the feminine order, something sadly lacking in our male-dominated lives. We women have in many ways allowed ourselves to be co-opted into thinking that the more aggressive, ego-driven, rational way of the male is to be emulated, is the highest and best use of our talents and time and gifts. We have come to celebrate the successful business woman over the loving mother: isn't that the origin of the "women can have it all" myth of today? What is "all"? Apparently, it is not motherhood or quiet lives of spirit and prayer or being simply joyous with life as it is. "All" in this case seems to only be ours when we assume male characteristics, get ahead and make a lot of money.

Not that this is bad in and of itself. Many of us women can benefit from a touch of aggression if we have been too passive. Many of us need to assert ourselves in the work place in order to be treated well and to earn a wage comparable to that of our male co-workers. Many of us need to come out of victim mode and into empowerment. In all these things, male energy can help us.

But I think that Mariechild and Medicine Woman are making a point about purely feminine energy, which has been denied and denigrated and thus hidden from all of us. I think they are asking us to reconnect with that which is purely feminine as a means to reconnect with the Earth and with one another.

"Connected with, in union with one another, we cannot harm."

Who can say what a renewal and revival of the feminine energy that cannot harm could do in the world that witnesses bombings in Boston, child murder in Newtown, suicide bombings in Kabul, drone attacks in Pakistan, starvation in Somalia?

We cannot say. We cannot know for sure until we try.

(In tomorrow's post, I will continue this subject from the point of view of living with chronic pain.)


I would love to hear from you. Please click on Comment, below, or email me at carold.marsh@gail.com. Thank you.

Accept and Bear Reality

Fourteenth in a series

We who live with chronic pain feel powerless a good bit of the time.  Not only can we not control the pain -- it is chronic: by definition, out of our control -- but we are disabled in aspects of our lives that pain-free persons take for granted: travel, work, exercise, daily and basic choice.  It's worth a good whine every now and again, and I do indulge, as my husband can attest.  But one cannot whine very long without seriously damaging one's self-esteem.  So, what is left to us chronic-painers?

The same thing that is left to every other human being on this planet, that's what is left to us.

Long before I began living with migraine disease, I'd read various authors -- Anthony de Mello, Melody Beatty, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron -- who all said essentially the same thing: when it comes right down to it, the only control any of us have in our lives is the control we exert over how we accept and bear reality.

This being the case, we with chronic pain are no different than any one else.  One of the realities of our lives is that we live with chronic pain.  It is a difficult reality, no doubt.  But we can choose to take it out of the victim-mode of this chronic pain is ruining my life and into the empowered-mode of this chronic pain is a reality I can choose to accept and bear just like every human being.

Suddenly, we don't feel so alone: Our task, our lot in life, is the same as any spiritually-evolving and -maturing person.  We don't feel absolutely powerless: We do have a choice.

We can choose how we deal with our life circumstance.  We have power over our own reactions.  We are in control of our Selves. 

Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now, makes a case for the human ego being the root of our inability to accept our reality, our Now.  My previous several posts have been discussing this.  He says that coming out of a mind- or ego-identity (he uses these terms interchangeably) brings us along on the journey to spiritual enlightenment.

Our life circumstance, chronic pain, can become a doorway to our spiritual enlightenment.  We can choose to let our pain teach us to live in the Now, to open our hearts to reality, to show us the freedom of accepting what is.  And all of the spiritual teachers I know say that this is the path to inner peace, to a loving heart, and to becoming a compassionate presence in this hurting world.

What more could we ask?


I would love to hear from you.  Please use the Comment link below, or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com.  Thank you.

"The Power of Now" and Pain Management: The Ego in Pain

Eleventh in a series.

In my previous post I shared a list that I derived from a paragraph in Chapter Two of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now.  It teaches us about the alchemy of taking the base metal of suffering and turning it into the gold of spiritual awareness.

1. Focus attention on the emotions or thoughts that are causing you to suffer.
2. Accept that the suffering is there.
3. Let go of thinking about it, judging it, analyzing it, whining about it. ESPECIALLY avoid making an identity (like being a Victim; I have posted about this before) out of it.
4. Continue to observe the suffering. This is called being present, or staying in the Now.

In this post, I want to discuss step #3: letting go of the impulse to make an identity out of being in pain. 

Tolle explains that it is the "egoic mind" that seeks to give us an identity:

"Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things.  It needs to be both defended and fed constantly.  The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also, political, nationalistic, racial, religious and other collective identifications.  None of these is you." (page 46)

I think that Tolle's ideas about the ego, stated briefly in the above quote, but also dealt with in many of his books, are the most important part of his teaching.  These are richly provocative, even radical teachings that could be the subject of many a blog post, book group meeting, or passionate discussion.  But as usual in this blog, I will stick to the subject at hand: chronic pain.

What Tolle is saying about the ego -- that it will grasp anything for identity out of a "...deep-seated sense of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole." (page 45) -- is true for those of us dealing with pain every day of our lives.  It sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it?  I can just hear you thinking (as I did when first confronted with the idea): "WHAT? You think I WANT to be in this pain?  You think I take pride in it?  I'd let it go in an instant if I could."

Of course you would.  Yet the fact is -- and I believe this is why Jesus had to ask in John 5:6: "Do you want to be healed?" -- there are ways in which being in pain serves our ego.  If the insecure ego will grasp at anything for security, for an identity, then it will grasp at the role of suffering person in chronic pain just as quickly as it will grab at the role of smart person at the top of her industry.  And it will just as easily find ways to nurture itself in the role of victim of pain as well: on compassionate attention from others; on the emotional safety of having an easy excuse for avoiding unpleasant things in life;  on having something, anything, to identify with in an otherwise dramatically changed and circumscribed life.

These are not easy things to admit to ourselves.  They are not easy for anyone in any circumstance.  Tolle argues that we are so controlled by our egos and so accustomed to being so, that we do not even know it is happening.  Our very society is grounded in the workings of our egos: sages like the Buddha, Hafiz, Jesus, and Ghandi knew this and spoke words that continue to feel radical to this day.  To become aware, to allow the power of the Now to supplant power of the ego, is to approach spiritual enlightenment.

Just remember that your ego will quite happily grasp at the identity of spiritually aware person and then you are back where you started.  It's humbling, to say the least.

In my next post, I share some more details about identifying with the life of pain.


I would love to hear from you.  Please use the Comment link below, or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com.  Thank you.

"The Power of Now" and Pain: Bringing Resistance to Consciousness

Ninth in a series.

In my previous post and the one before it, I have been reflecting on this quote, and how it relates to pain management, from Chapter Two of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now:

The [suffering] that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, resistance is some form of judgment. On the level of emotion, it is some form of negativity. (The Power of Now, page 33)

How do we bring our resistance to pain into consciousness?  We must know when we are doing it, or we cannot change it: when we are not aware that we are resisting, the thoughts grab hold and exert immense power over us.  Awareness is the key.  Indeed, awareness is what Tolle is writing about through the entire book, that and ego. 

By the way, I have found the work of Anthony deMello to be wonderful for teaching about awareness by showing us how asleep (as he says it) we are and guiding us with humor and compassion on the journey to greater awareness and greater love.

I have learned two ways to bring my inner resistance to the physical pain of the migraines to the conscious level:

1. Listen to my thoughts.
2. Pay attention to my body.

(You may have noticed that, whenever I make lists like this, they are very simple -- elemental, really.  That's because the last thing I need or want when in pain is some complicated or intellectual system that only frustrates me and stresses me out because it's really hard to think when the pain is bad.)

So, back to the list.

LISTEN TO MY THOUGHTS
In reality, this is not as easy as it sounds.  As Tolle says, we are generally so immersed in our thoughts and so much at their mercy and so habituated to being that way that we are completely unaware it's happening.   So this pain management practice is really a spiritual discipline that must be practiced with deep and intentional attention.  There is the topic for my next post!

PAY ATTENTION TO MY BODY
I have found this to be easier than listening to my thoughts, perhaps because I've been athletic most of my life.  This step actually has three sub-steps:
     a. Learn relaxation techniques.  I have posted about this here and here and here.
     b. Notice how various muscles and muscle groups feel when they are tense; feel the contrast with that relaxed sensation.
     c. Use your deep muscle relaxation skills for both focusing on the specific muscles when they tense up due to pain AND practice your deep muscle relaxation whenever you feel pain approaching.

If you practice yoga or are otherwise athletic, you are likely to have an easier time with this step.  And that leads me to the next point: it is only minimally effective to practice relaxation when the pain is upon you.  Think of this more as a spiritual discipline or a lifestyle change, and then your tools will be handy and more natural when you reach for them while in pain.

Now it is time for me to practice what I preach and go take care of this migraine.  May you be well and at peace today.


I would love to hear from you.  Please use the Comment link below, or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com.  Thank you.

21July: It's Not Only Ego

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Today's Post:
* Reminds Me of the Time - Why Doris Roared
* It's Not Only Ego

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Reminds Me of The Time
Why Doris Roared

As I found out almost as soon as I met her, Doris was a formidable force when she was angry or upset, something that was not apparent in her polite and reserved demeanor. I met Doris outside my office for a welcoming hug on the day she arrived at Miriam's House. What little I knew of her - that she'd been drinking most of her 59 years and had only just recently been diagnosed with AIDS - didn't begin to tell me about this woman who would become so beloved of all of us. Nor did it tell me the lesson she would teach me that very day - the day I made Doris roar.

On the afternoon that my impatient and impulsive action brought Doris to my office in a well-justified rage, I was only vaguely aware of the moving-in activities going on outside my office. Thank God for Donna, our Office Manager, and the interns, who handled these things: I was glued to the computer trying to finish a grant application due the next day. These deadlines are written in stone - if you don't get the application in by the exact minute of the deadline, your application will not be considered. Knowing this, I was more than nervous as I realized how much I had left to do.

So, glad to close my door and settle in, I gratefully left the moving-in protocol to staff members, the protocol that, we'd learned the hard way, needed to include the Roach Inspection. Many of our residents came to us from shelters, which are not the cleanest places from which to bring bags of clothing and cardboard boxes filled with old paper and stale bags of chips. Other creatures sometimes accompanied a new resident - most particularly, roaches.

I cannot stand roaches. Mice, I'm OK with. Spiders, thousand-leggers, etc., I might scream when I see them but I am not afraid to grab a tissue, sweep 'em up and flush 'em. But a roach gives me the creeps as does no other living creature (possibly excepting Mike Meyers playing that slimy, Bond-esque secret agent). That's why Donna knocked on my door so tentatively.

"Carol, I need to ask you something."

Ugh. Donna never interrupted me unless it was important. "Oh, no."

"Yeah. Well, we just inspected Doris' things and found roaches in her TV."

Following close on her heels was Necie, the Personal Care Aide on shift that afternoon. Necie had a vivid way of expressing herself. "Miss Carol, don't go near that TV. Must be a thousand roaches up in there, hiding in the dark, ready to creep out at night ..."

Unsuccessfully suppressing a shudder and near desperation at the thought of my now-neglected grant application, I sort of exploded. "Where's the TV?"

"In front. I put it in a bag. Should we bomb it?

"No. I'm pitching it." I swept past a startled-looking Donna and an amused-looking Necie and out the front door. Grabbing the bag - which, thank God, was tightly knotted - I hustled it to the back of the building, heaved it into the dumpster, and hurried back inside to wash my hands and return to my computer.

Or so I thought. Within seconds, Doris was at my office door. I don't actually know what she said. It's not faded memory after all these years, it's that she did not speak, or even shout, so much as ROAR at me. That is the only way I can describe the shock wave of sound booming from her mouth. The sole distinguishable word: "... TV! ..."

There was only one other time in the 14 years of my life at Miriam's House that I was terrified of a resident. In this instance, I did not stop to think: not about my application, not about whether we might salvage the dumped TV, not about anything other than my gut reaction to Doris roaring. I lingered only for the few seconds it took to utter a hasty assurance, and I was out of there.

One hour later, I returned with a television. For Doris: a 19-inch, color screen and remote control.

For me: no roaches.

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It's Not Only Ego

As if the admissions of my 19July post (Get Thee Behind Me, Ego) weren't humbling enough, honesty compels me to reveal that I possess other flaws that prevent me from being present to God.

I know. Shocking, isn't it?

I might as well just list them:
* Laziness - Another word to use is inertia. If I am at rest, I really want to stay at rest, which, in this context, often means lazing on my comfortable chair with a cup of tea and a piece of pumpkin bread beside me.

* Distraction - For example, an NPR broadcast that I simply MUST listen to, even though I know that if I do, I'll not have time in the day's schedule for my morning meditation and yoga.

* Impatience - Sometimes I resist as too slow-moving the reality of the moment - as in: won't you please get on with your story; won't you please speed up so that I won't get stuck at next light; won't you please just do what I want you to do?

* Writing this blog - Even as I type those words, I realize that I have neglected my morning meditation out of excitement and eagerness to edit tomorrow's post and draft this post. (I create the first draft of my posts at least one week ahead of publishing them.)

It's not only my morning routine that is affected by the above characteristics. I allow laziness, impatience, distractions and busy-ness to keep me from phoning a friend or reaching out to someone I know is in need; to affect my ability to be lovingly present in conversation; to make spur-of-the-moment decisions that I almost always regret later (see Reminds Me of the Time, above); to enhance my isolation and feeling of separateness. And because it's simply not possible to be present to the people in my life or to the Now (as Ekhart Tolle would term it) when I am in these states, it is certainly not possible to be present to God, either.

DISCLAIMER: I do not mean that laziness, being distracted, having an ego and a blog to write are always bad. I try to avoid such categorical statements because they are just not true 98.9% of the time. And what looks like laziness for me might be good practice for you. I am not trying to create a mandate for how to practice the presence of God.

And now I must go to my quiet space for my morning meditation, prayer and quiet.

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Next Post: Methods for Practicing Presence

I'd love to hear from you. Use the Comment box below, or email me at acrold.marsh@gmail.com

Week of 19July: So Where AM I in All This?

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Today's post:
* Get Thee Behind Me, Ego
* Painful Poetry - A Sonnet to Pain (in the tradition of Shakespeare, more or less)

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Get Thee Behind Me, Ego

I hope that the posts thus far have established a few points about my spiritual life:

1. I do not care for or need the more intellectual exercises of theology and doctrine at this point in my spiritual journey.

2. Deep relaxation and prayerful meditation are essential to my spiritual life, the more so when I am in pain.

3. Connection to God is the guiding desire of all my spiritual practice, although I do not attempt to define or name God in any of the traditional ways. Simply, God is. To me, this means that God is always present - it is the human condition and my own fallacies that keep me from knowing and feeling God.

4. I feel a constant tension between my own language for God and the need to write in this blog in a way that is accessible. I have not resloved this tension. At this point, my default position is to use more traditional language most of the time.

So, my basic premise: God is always, wondrously and lovingly present to me. If, as I said in the final sentence of my 16July post, the more important question is not where is God in this, but where am I in this, then I need to explore what keeps me from being present to God?

Number one on the list: my ego. (Please note that I take a good bit of what follows from my understanding of how Ekhart Tolle speaks of ego, particularly in his book, "A New Earth", Chapters Three and Four.)

In this context, I define ego as a thought, habit or state of mind that takes me away from presence to God (this is mine, not Tolle's). What I understand Tolle saying about ego is that it serves the essential function of forming our identity and giving us space for establishing the self, but that its darker side shows in the way we create separations and identities that feed our egos and thus our need to be different, or better. This keeps us from understanding our one-ness with all of creation. Nota bene: This is a paraphrase, you should read the book.

For example: I am driving down the street and I pass a car that is parked more than a foot away from the curb, and crooked to boot. Maybe I have to slow down and maneuver past it, and as I do so, I scoff, "Who taught you to park? You don't need that SUV if that's the best you can do."

Example: I am in a group discussion, listening to someone ask questions for which I'd figured out the answers ten minutes earlier. Restraining my impatience, I console myself about the waste of time with the condescending thought that not everyone picks things up as quickly as I do.

Example: I am in a group discussion, asking questions and realizing that the person across the circle is looking annoyed and squirming impatiently. I console myself about my hurt feelings by telling myself that I have a finer attention to detail and clearly have a lot more patience.

Example: A friend tells me that she is training to run a marathon. Maybe my pride is stung by this, as I have long wanted to run but have never disciplined myself. Or, maybe I am self-involved at the moment and unable to be present to her. So I say, "Oh, really? I used to run in high school."

I could go on. The point is that we - in the service of our egos - find many ways, all the time, to separate ourselves from others by making ourselves better, or separate:
* gossip
* fault-finding
* complaining
* resistance to the reality of the moment
* excessive airing of grievances, including clinging to victim status
* violence and warfare

I love what Tolle says about the ego: it would rather be right than at peace.

Tolle's point is that all of this is a natural function of the ego, that entity that helps us learn confidence, self-identity and self-understanding, but the problem is that it then goes to extreme because what the ego wants to do is justify and magnify its existence, which it does by creating the other - the wrong, not-as-good-as other. (Again, read the book, Tolle says it much better and more clearly. Chapters 3 and 4 are particularly helpful.)

When I am heeding my ego, which is about difference and insularity, I cannot be present to God, ultimate Love for and presence to everything and everyone. When I cannot be present to God, the pain in my head is that much more problematic in several ways:
* I expend energy in emotions or behaviours that sap my stamina instead of harboring my strength for surviving the headache.

* Muscles tense as emotions tense, making pain worse.

* I find myself in a sort of rut, or groove, running on an energy that is self-perpetuating, so that I cannot see a way out of it even though I understand its destructiveness.

Next Post: "It's Not Only Ego"

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Painful Poetry
Original if Awkward Attempts to Find Humor in Pain

A Sonnet to Pain (in the tradition of Shakespeare, more or less)

O! thou who fillst me daily overmuch
And of my life prov'st naught but hellish bane
Could I with craven visage find a crutch
wouldst not I forsake thee? Thy pure disdain
notwithstanding, I'd hie away and flee
thy fullsome clutch that harks of mythic lore.
Lo! of mortals, most joyous would I be
when 'pon thy fearsome form I look no more!
Yet thou in constant presence to me are,
ne'er moment am I of thy sense bereft
So should'st I let thee alway this day mar,
Have I not learnt I, too, in ways am deft?
Yes! Triumph shall I o'er this mortal coil
and Fie! no longer let thee my life spoil.

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I'd love to hear from you: click the Comment link below or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com