Shame Resilience, Part 3

This is part of a short series of posts on 'shame resilience.' The concept is Brene Brown's, and I'm simply making written ruminations on an interview published in Spirituality and Health.

At the end of my previous post, I said I'd write a bit about how I imagine shame resilience, meditation and awareness go together. I was using Brown's thoughts on the characteristics of people who are shame resilient, only recasting them as steps in a process.

The first step is to gain an understanding of what triggers our feelings of shame as persons with a chronic illness (mental or physical) and/or chronic pain.

The second step is to use this new understanding to practice critical awareness.This is where I believe meditation or prayer or deep reflection -- whichever suits you -- comes in.

What is critical awareness? The word critical in that phrase does not mean to criticize or to be critical in a judgmental sense. It's a matter of simply being aware -- without judgment or frustration and without rushing to 'fix' ourselves -- of when our feelings of shame are triggered. And my own experience has taught me that regular meditation is a wonderful tool for becoming self-aware without becoming self-judgmental.

There's an article I love about this in a magazine I rarely read: O, The Oprah Magazine. The article is called "Boost Your Self-Esteem With Meditation."

Photo by William Marsh

It begins with some rather generic encouragement and information about meditation and self-esteem, which is helpful mostly for setting up the final section of the piece, about how to meditate for self-esteem. And since I'm trying to get over a migraine right now, I'll just refer you to the article and take up this series when I feel better.

One final thought: meditation is not a magic, one-time fix. I have said before that these kinds of inner and spiritual changes come about only in the context of a life that includes regular practice of meditation or prayerful reflection.


Thank you for reading my blog. You can leave a comment below, or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com

Reading Mariechild Together: Part II -- In Union We Cannot Harm

"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."  Brooke Medicine Eagle

In my previous post I wrote about this feminine energy in relation to how we live in this world. Today I want to talk about Buffalo Woman energy as it might relate to living with chronic pain.

Brooke Medicine Eagle says that this energy will shine out when we "quiet ourselves and call."

One of the most effective pain management techniques I know is meditation: quieting myself in body and mind and spirit, then allowing the vastness of life to dwarf the pain into perspective. In the sense of the words above, I call into life beyond me, larger than me.

It's not a miracle cure: the pain does not go away. But the expansion of my spirit into a broader realm is both calming and energizing, accepting and creative. And it is joyous.

In other words, it's an awful lot like Buffalo Woman's energy as described by Diane Mariechild (Open Mind -- Women's Daily Inspirations for Becoming Mindful): "energetic, creative, caring connection with all of life." "We must go beyond ego to a more subtle state of consciousness, one of realization or communion with the circle of life."

What a lovely thought -- that in meditating to manage pain I am tapping into the Buffalo Woman's energy of creation, of nurture and transformation. It is, indeed, within me for I have been connecting without conscious knowing. I have been reveling in this feminine energy and can agree with Mariechild that in this connection with all of life, "we cannot harm."

We sometime feel alone and worse, irrelevant, in the life that is absorbed in managing chronic pain. Here is a healing reality that brings relevancy and even a peaceful urgency to our practice: when we quiet ourselves and call we become part of the connection of all of life; we bring the feminine energy of creativity and healing and nurture and strength into this fractured world.


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

Reading Mariechild Together: A Meditation

(For pain.)

Imagine yourself in a favorite place in nature.

     The breeze off the ocean and the rhythm of the waves...the rustling leaves of forest trees...

Breathe. Slowly, softly, quietly. And deeply.

     Salty air fills your lungs...loamy scent from woodsy ground...clover meadows...pine...

Breathe in to your toes, fingertips, top of your head to soles of your feet.

Breathe out tension of muscle and sinew, thought and emotion.

And again.

Breathe in through the soles of your feet.

     Mother Earth...her waters...her soils...her life...her energy...Creation.

Breathe out tension of muscle and sinew, thought and emotion.

     Release to Mother Earth...to her waters...her soils...her life...her energy...Creation.

Breathe in Earth's energy.

Breathe out Love for Earth.

And again.

And again.

Receive Earth's Love.

Send Earth Love.

All is well. All is Peace.

(Inspired by the April 18 reflection in Diane Mariechild's Open Mind -- Women's Daily Inspirations for Becoming Mindful)

Reading Mariechild Together: The Hunger

I know and truly love someone who is so sunk in her misery and self-pity that I have had to make the terrible choice to stay completely away, at least for the time being. Perhaps if I were stronger spiritually, or more mature in some way, I might be able to be in relationship and maintain the integrity of my own spirit. But not now. And the being apart has helped me understand myself better.

Today's reflection (in Diane Mariechild's Open Mind -- Women's Daily Inspirations for Becoming Mindful) puts a new perspective on why a person might allow life to become so negative, so burdensome.

"My mother felt sorrow for those who had no spiritual practice or religious beliefs...Such people are often bitter and angry at what they term the unfairness of life."

But more important for me -- because I cannot get into the head of another person, and so cannot say for certain that this applies to my friend -- is turning the thought to myself and my relationships.

I think it's not enough to say I have a spiritual practice. There must be active searching for meditation time, disciplined dedication to setting aside everything else for complete focus on my spirit. In setting aside this toxic relationship, I have given space for the things of the spirit -- love, compassion, understanding, self-awareness -- to relax and make softer the unyielding and hurting place I was in.

With that space and softness, I begin to see how I was buying into the negativity in order to stay in the relationship; that there was something in the hurtful mix that served a purpose for me. I simply would not have become aware of this had I remained close to this person because remaining close to her meant remaining far from my Self.

My sister, Joan Sparks, sent me this text today: "We all have freedom. We cannot control our circumstances but we can choose how to deal with them."

Sometimes those choices for freedom are so hard. They can be inexplicable. The choice I have made to stay apart seems cruel, I know. Yet I now see that I had to remove myself from a destructive cycle for my own sake, and that is reason enough as long as I do so in the context of a deeply felt spiritual life and journey.

For now, I am glad that the circle of the old relationship is over. I pray that a new circle might begin, even as I know that I have no control over whether or not it does.


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

Reading Mariechild Together: The Witness

"The Witness is a natural aspect of our minds. It is what the mind does when it is at peace." So says Diane Mariechild in today's reading from Open Mind -- Womens' Daily Inspirations for Becoming Mindful."

I love the concept of the Witness. When Eckhart Tolle writes about this, he usually calls it Presence: I have written about this before, here and here. It's an important part of both my spirituality and my pain management. And I really like what Mariechild says about it, that it is what the mind does when it is at peace.

I used to think that if I were truly meditating, truly centered in prayer, my mind would be perfectly blank. But it turns out that a mind at peace is not blank. It is calmly aware, grabbing at no thought or perception or image; it is witnessing, nothing more, nothing less.

I found a great meditation for developing the Witness. I reproduce it below, but you can link to it here.

From about.com -- Meditation to Develop the Witness

1. Sit upright - either in a chair or on a meditation cushion - with your skull balancing happily right on top of your spine. Place your hands palms-down on your thighs, or else rest the fingers of one hand in the upturned palm of the other, with the tips of your thumbs lightly touching. Let your eyes close, and turn your eyeballs slightly downward.
2. Take a couple of deep, slow and pleasantly-soft breaths. As you inhale, notice a rising in your abdomen. As you exhale, notice your abdomen relaxing back into its neutral position. Repeat this six or seven times, and with each exhale, release any unnecessary tension in your face, neck, throat or shoulders. Smile gently.
3. Now, turn your attention inward, to begin noticing the contents of your mind: the internal chattering, or mental dialogue, as well as the images flashing across that internal screen.
4. In this practice, we're simply going to name the thoughts arising as "thinking" and the images arising as "image." The spaces between thoughts and images - when neither is present - we're going to label as "rest."
5. So every five or ten seconds, simply name (silently, to yourself) what's happening in your mind. If what is arising are thoughts or internal dialogue, simply say "thinking." If what is arising is an image (e.g. an internal picture of, say, the friend you had lunch with yesterday), simply say "image." If there are no thoughts or images arising, simply say "rest."
6. As you label the thoughts and images, maintain the attitude of a detached but also kind observer, almost as though you were saying: "hello, thoughts" or "hello images" in a friendly and relaxed way. Make no attempt to change the thoughts or images in any way. Simply observe and label them. On their own, they will arise, have a certain duration, and then dissolve.
7. Over the course of, say, one minute of this practice, your labeling might be something like this: "thinking" ... "rest" ... "thinking" ... "image" ... "thinking" ... "rest" ... "rest" ... "thinking" ... "image" (It will of course be different for each person, and will change from day to day, as you practice.)
8. Notice this part of your self that is observing and labeling the thinking and images. This is called the Witness Consciousness, or the energy of Mindfulness - and is the part of our mind that remains forever untouched by its contents - by the thoughts and images arising within it. A traditional metaphor for this aspect of mind is that it is similar to the deepest part of an ocean - which remains calm, still & silent, even if at its surface, waves (of thinking, emotion, or sensation) are raging.
9. When you're ready to end the practice, take another couple of deep, slow, breaths, with your abdomen rising with the inhalation and relaxing back with the exhalation. Notice how you feel, and then slowly open your eyes.

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

Pain and Spirituality: Some Strategies

Nineteenth in a series.

At the end of my previous post, I wrote: "So, how to maintain and nurture our right minds, enhancing our pain management skills and letting pain take us to spiritual enlightenment? I will explore some strategies in my next post."

What was I thinking?  Who thinks she can explain all that at all, let alone in one post?  Way too ambitious, I realize, now that I come to actually write the post.  I must pull back on my expectations.

I think I'll just stick with the word, "strategies." 

Here are pain management strategies that I use and that also enhance my spiritual life.  Indeed, I often use them interchangeably:

MEDITATION
I have posted about meditation here and here, and you will find other posts if you click on the meditation label in the column to the right.  So I am not going to repeat what is in them today.  But what I want to remark on today is how meditation and other calming practices (prayer beads, quiet reflection, small rituals -- as described in the second link, above), form a lovely, symbiotic relationship between pain management skills and spiritual growth.

Here's how it worked for me: I began meditation strictly as a spiritual practice; after a few years, and as my migraines worsened, I noticed that I felt better -- calmer, more relaxed, more accepting of the reality of my pain -- after meditating; I began using meditation tools such as deep breathing, mantras and focusing the mind when I was in pain; meditation for pain became meditation for spiritual growth became meditation for pain...

Another way to describe it is to say that bringing spiritual tools to pain management brought spirituality into pain management.  With chronic pain, the result is that spirituality pervades all of one's life: something I have longed for and tried to make happen with no success.  But here it is, having snuck up on me through the back door labeled, Migraines.

DEEP RELAXATION and INHABITING THE BODY

I have posted about deep relaxation and inhabiting the body here, and there are other posts to read if you click on the relaxation label in the column to the right. 

For today -- and briefly, because an on-coming migraine is affecting my ability to think and type -- the point about relaxation and paying attention to (or, inhabiting) one's body, is that there is a paradox here that leads us to a deep spiritual truth.  And that is this: when we fully inhabit our bodies, allowing muscles to relax, feeling our pain with judgment or fear, and feeling the fullness of life that is within, then we come closest to God.  Or Allah, or Jehovah, or Brahma, or the Divine, or the Now, or the Creator, or whatever we choose or have been taught for naming our Source.

Eckhart Tolle, in his book, The Power of Now, tells us that presence is a "higher dimension of consciousness" that opens the door to the Now.  And he says that the body is a portal to presence:

"Observe the rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life energy inside your body.  Allow everything to be [yes, even your pain - cdm], within and without."

The Hindu practice of yoga is a means to spiritual enlightenment through the body.  Some Christians practice body prayer.  Jewish spirituality includes sitting Shivah after a death; a way to express mourning with the body. There are, I am sure, many more religions that use the body as an entry to spiritual understanding and growth.  It works for pain as well.

And that is all I am capable of for now: it is time to practice some pain management skills and enhance my spiritual life.


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: Resistance

Seventh in a series.

It took me a long time to learn what Eckhart Tolle meant when he said:

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)

The purpose of this series of posts about Tolle's book, The Power of Now, is to relate what he has to say about suffering, our minds and egos, and the present moment to life in chronic pain.  And what Tolle says about suffering and how we bring it upon ourselves has possibly even greater relevance -- or, at the least, urgency -- when we are in physical pain.

NOTE: Tolle tends to use the words, "suffering" and "pain" interchangeably.  For myself, and for the purposes of clarity, I like to keep them separate: suffering is what we cause ourselves and is mental or emotional; pain happens with illness or injury and is physical. 

So, back to the quote above -- specifically, what it means if you are living with chronic pain.  If the suffering we cause ourselves is some form of nonacceptance, a kind of unconscious resistance, isn't your first reaction to say, "Damn right!  The [whatever form of chronic pain you have] is killing me and I hate it.  I do not have to accept this pain."  That's natural, in the way it's natural to snatch your hand back from a hot burner.  Our ingrained survival habit is to flee or get rid of the pain, and there are all sorts of bodily responses that go along with that habit, including adrenaline rushes and muscles that leap into action.

But.  In the case of chronic pain, just because it's natural doesn't mean it's good for us.  These natural and inherited responses to pain become problematic with chronic pain because although perfectly understandable, they cause more pain.  I have written about this vicious cycle in several other posts, but in this and the next post I am focusing on the two forms of resistance as Tolle talks about them: thought, which is judgment; and emotion, which is negativity.

JUDGING PAIN
Tolle does not say that thinking and judging are bad in and of themselves.  But when they are habitual and unconscious, they take over our perceptions and bring us suffering.  Thus, when we have chronic pain, we judge it and in judging it, make it worse.

When I worked with recovering addicts, they would share about the trouble they caused themselves when they "got all up in their heads."  I like this phrase as a way to relate to suffering.  When I am all up in my head about a migraine, my thoughts go something like this:

"Oh, no.  This is not good.  It's coming, a right-side migraine, the worst.  It's already pounding.  Another day curled up on my bed with the blindfold on...how will I walk the dog?...and there's nothing to cook for dinner...can't go to the store now...starting to feel sick and how can I take the medicine on an upset stomach?"  I could go on with this, but I'll spare you.

The more I think like this, the more tense my muscles become in response to the mental stress.  The more tense my muscles, the more pain in my shoulders and neck, which makes the migraine pain worse.  And there's more.  As I think in this way, I become anxious, my stomach becomes more upset, my heart beats faster and that makes my head pound more.

So, I am all up in my head and the pain that I am judging so harshly and thinking about so obsessively is worse than it was before I started all the thinking.

It's time to learn to stop obsessive thinking and to re-frame the judging of the pain.  Meditation, meditative breathing, and practices such as yoga and chanting are my tools for halting obsessive thinking.  The resulting calm and quiet mental state is perfect for re-framing the judgment, although usuallyit's not needed because the mind is still.  But re-framing, if needed, would go something like this:

"A migraine."  Deep, slow breath.  "First, walk the dog, then find the blindfold, remember the glass of water."  Deep, slow breath. 

Pain felt in a relaxed body and mind is much easier to take than pain felt in a tense, upset body and mind.  It's as simple as that. 

The next post will be about emotional resistance to pain.



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

Meditation for (Distracted) Dummies (Like Me): Part Two

This post is a follow-up to my October 6, 2011 post. 

A lunch-time conversation yesterday with a friend brought the subject up again: many of us believe that meditation is supposed to result in a blissfully clear mind, unfettered by thoughts, worries, or remembering.  And when we fail to acheive that, we give up on meditation, saying we can't do it right and even feeling inadequate for our failure.

Because meditation is so important a part of my pain management practice, and because it only brings me to a blissfully clear mind about 2% of the time (at best), I have learned for myself that meditation does not have to feel "right" to be effective.  It does not seem to matter whether I come out of a session feeling that it was a good one (whatever that means), or feeling that it was a flop because my mind never shut up: the benefits for pain management are none the less real to me. 

When we turn to the silence within, we take the lid off of the cauldron of worries, fears and thoughts otherwise hidden by busy-ness, noise, addictions and avoidance.  In that sense, meditation leads us to and through parts of our spirits and minds that we otherwise deny and ignore.  No wonder we don't often feel blissfully calm during meditation! 

There's another reason to persist in a daily meditation practice.  Any major world religion that I have investigated stresses the importance of meditation, although the word used may be different.  It's not just the eastern religions:

• Christians call it centering prayer.
• One site I saw said that Jews meditate for intellectual focus, among other things, and also to acheive a state called "eyin," or nothingness.
• There are YouTube videos for Baha'i meditation. 
• Native Americans practice meditation in many forms, all based on the sacred connection to Mother Earth and the Great Spirit.  The rituals, such as sage-buring, are beautiful, too.
• The Sufi Muslims practice zikr meditation, zikr meaning "remembrance of God."
• According to Wikipedia, Samayika in Jainism, means being in the moment in continuous real time.

There are, of course, many more world religions, but I provide these few examples to make a point: meditation is a wide-spread practice understood by centuries of wise persons to be essential to spiritual growth and enlightenment.  Who am I to argue with them, or to decide their wisdom does not apply to me?

In my next post, I'll write about why I believe meditation benefits me spiritually and for pain management even though I rarely have a silent mind while meditating.

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

Meditation for (Distracted) Dummies (Like Me)

I am not a meditation purist.  I employ several different methods to help me slip into that peaceful, prayerful and meditative space that so nurtures and sustains me.  Perhaps it is due to the almost constant pain in my head. Perhaps it is simply what I was born with. Whatever the cause, my mind can often be so easily distracted, so quickly caught up in the flow of thought, that I have had to find other methods than the classic one (sit cross-legged on a small cushion and stay there for an hour or so with completely empty mind) to enter a meditative state.

As a follow-up to my previous post, I'll share these methods.

GUIDED MEDITATION

Thank God, bless Allah, praise Jehovah: there are people wiser and more centered than I who have recorded meditations that I can purchase and play on my portable CD player or my stereo.  Here are a few of my favorites, and you can go to Amazon.com to find any number of CDs to buy:

** Kelley Howell and Brain Sync profess to change one's brain.  I don't know about that, I just know that her guided meditations as well as her music CDs are very helpful for me.
** Stephen Cope has a 2-CD set called "Yoga for Emotional Flow" that I just love.

** Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's CD, "A Gift of Silence" consists of three guided meditations.
** Jon Kabot Zinn recorded a 5-CD set - "Guided Mindfulness Meditation" - that present a variety of ways to meditate.

PRAYER BEADS, ROSARY
I am not Catholic, but I did spend 30 days once in a retreat (the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius) at a Jesuit spiritual center in Pennsylvania.  That experience opened me to to rituals and practices of Catholicism, which, although I do not subscribe to Catholic beliefs or doctrine, have informed and deepened my prayerful and centering practices.  One of the things I learned to do was to use a rosary (a beaded necklace would do just as well) for centering.  There is something about the tactile, regular fingering of the beads that, combined with whispered, repeated phrases allows for peace of spirit and calming of mind.

SIMPLE RITUALS

Small things like the lighting of a candle, sounding of a singing bowl, or yoga assanas help center me and are a wonderful way to begin a prayer or meditation time.  I always use the breath for centering, something about which I have posted before (click on breathing in the LABELS section, to the right).

CHANTS and MANTRAS

I recently discovered chanting, and do not have many resources yet, but learned from a CD, "Five Classic Meditations" by Shinzen Young.  I cannot find this CD, even on his website, but I saw a CD called, "Chant: Om Mani Padme Hum," and that is the chant I learned from the "Five Classic Meditations CD."

QUIET REFLECTION

There are days when, despite my years of practicing centering prayer and meditation, there is something so pressing on my spirit that emptying the mind seems not only impossible, but not what I need.  Having learned from some visits to the Insight Meditation group in Washington, DC that there is a form of meditation that allows and even follows the thoughts arising from one's spirit, I now allow myself these times that clearly require reflection instead of meditation.  However, it's not simply a matter of plunking down in a chair and engaging in repetitive, compulsive thinking patterns that are anything but quiet and reflective.  I use music, simple ritual, and maybe a bit of chanting to help me center and relax before I begin reflecting.

There is more to share, but this migraine is worsening, so I will continue in another post.  May you allow yourself some moments of peace today and may these moments bless you and keep you close to God.

 

 

I would love to hear from you.  Please use the Comment link below (and note that I have been unable lately to comment on my own or any other blog, so will not be able to reply) or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com.

 

 

"Trying to Meditate" Is an Oxymoron

I have used the language myself, and so when I read it on a blog recently, I was reminded of what odd things we say and think about meditation.

"I tried to meditate but it didn't work."

"I really struggle to meditate ..."

The odd thing about meditation is that if we try, or worse yet, struggle, to do it, we are dooming ourselves to failure.  It's just so different from most other endeavors in our lives, which have been full since pre-school of exhortations to simply try harder, to grapple with, to grasp for.  Yet we might as well try to grasp Jello as to grasp meditation.

Meditation is about allowing, surrendering, accepting.  I have a meditation CD I like very much (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's "A Gift of Silence").  In the course of one of the meditations, Sri Sri says that the minute we focus on our tension - and that is exactly what we are doing when we "struggle" to meditate - we are making it worse.  His instructions are to simply be aware of the tension without judgment or emotion: accept that it is there and continue with the meditation.

What Eckhart Tolle says is also helpful.  He uses the phrase "resistance to what is" when he talks about what the mind/ego does to create suffering. 

"The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of conscious resistance to what is." 

(The Power of Now, p. 33)

When we meditate, if we do not resist what is - muscle tension or discomfort, scattered thoughts, restlessness, the sudden rising of emotion - and replace the judgment

"Rats!  There I go again, thinking about work." 

Why can't I just meditate?  What is wrong with me?"

with simple naming

"Here is tension."

"This is scattered mind."

we are then able to allow ourselves to slip into the meditative state.  And it does not matter - it truly does not matter - if, after a meditation session, we feel as though we spent 18.5 of the 20 minutes naming tension and scattered mind.  This, too, is a matter for simple acceptance.

How does this relate to pain management?  In several ways:

1. A regular practice of meditation or prayer or relaxation is essential to good pain management.  What the body in pain wants to do is tense up to fight or run away from it.  This may be helpful for acute pain, but it becomes quite a problem for chronic pain, as muscle and emotional tension or stress only make the pain worse.  To the extent that we can reach for the tools that quiet our pained bodies, minds and spirits, we are managing the pain at the very least by not making it worse.
2. If we have learned to accept tension and difficulties during meditation, we have skills that can be transferred to managing pain.  I have written about this in other posts, and I think it's one of the most difficult pieces of pain management to take in: allowing, observing and/or accepting our pain is the beginning of managing it.    Having practiced this sort of acceptance during meditation or centering prayer, we are better able to use it when we are in pain.  Accept that it is and then get on with pain management practices.
3. Surrender.  Acceptance.  These are spiritual principles that cut across religious and philosophical boundaries.  There are many, many wise ones from whom to quote, so what follows is intended only to be a short list of examples and not exhaustive in any way.

• Buddhism: I especially like the way Tara Brach writes about "radical acceptance."
• Hinduism: The concept of karma is the context for acceptance in this link.
• Christianity: Jesus often instructs us not to worry, to look around and see how even the lily is clothed, even the fall of the sparrow is noted by God.
• Native American spirituality: Simply reading the lines on this link, I get the feeling that to live as so surrendered a part of the natural world is to not even need the concept of surrender.

Speaking of accepting, my head is beginning to ache, and that means I cannot look at the computer any longer.  I will continue this post in a few days.  Now, it is time to rest.


I would love to hear from you.  Please use the Comment link below (and note that I am having trouble with my computer and have been unable to post comments on blogs lately, even my own, so will not reply), or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com.

Reading "How to be Sick" - Not Just for the Ill

This is the first of a series of posts about Toni Berhard's book, How to be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Care givers.   The book, sent to me by my friend, Meredith, is very special as it often seems Toni is writing particularly for me and my journey with pain.  Although we have very different illnesses (mine is chronic, intractable migraines, hers is Chronic Fatigue and Immunodysfunction Syndrome - I try not to be jealous that hers is so much more impressive-sounding), Toni, like me, sees her illness as a spiritual matter as much as a physical one.  An added benefit of her writing is that it is founded in the Buddhist practice she began a decade before becoming ill, including retreats at Spirit Rock Meditiation Center and direct contact with many of the vipassana meditation gurus in America.

My own spirituality, an odd and eclectic blend of Christian and Buddhist influences with a mix of various aspects of Shia Muslim, Hindu and Native American spirituality that attract and inspire me, is no hindrance to sinking with deep relief into Toni's book.  As I have said before, it seems to me that there is more that is similar and simpatico in the world's religions than there is different and contentious.  So I recommend Toni's book to anyone in chronic pain and to their caregivers and loved ones. 

That leads me to another point about the book: it could just as aptly be titled, "How to be Well."  There are life practices and spiritual depths in this book of the sort that began to guide me long before the migraines became so bad, and for which I am grateful to be reminded now that I am ill.  The point I am making is that our spirituality, as the bedrock of every aspect of our lives, has specific application to particularities of our circumstances, yet even so is a constant presence regardless of those circumstances.  So - the book can be equally inspirational to the well as to the sick.  (I could also say, "to those who think they are well," but that will be my subject another time.)

In future posts, I will write about practices, Buddhist philosophies and personal anecdotes from the book.  For now, I'll simply comment on the table of contents, which in itself is a map of the journey Toni has taken.

How Everything Changed ... Accepting Pain ... Finding Joy and Love ... Turnarounds and Transformations ... From Isolation to Solitude: these are the phrases she uses to name the five divisions in the book.  Reminding me strongly of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief, each section links Toni's personal struggle and experience with her emotions and the journey through which she goes.  Like Kubler-Ross's five stages, Toni's process is messy and so-very-human, a backward and forward progression through the strong emotions of loss and grieving that go with physical and emotional pain.  Her honesty is refreshing and helpful as she tells with lucid wisdom of her struggles and how she allows them to be transformed into teachers.

Some of my favorite passages have to do with compassion, and I will write about them in my next post.

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

Miraculous Anti-Aging Practice!

I really do not intend this blog to track sensational news, but this is too cool to let pass.

If you listened to "Being" (used to be called "Speaking of Faith") on National Public Radio this morning, you heard Krista Tippett interview Doris Taylor about her work with stem cells.

Nota bene: the stem cells that Taylor uses in her research are obtained from in vitro fertilization companies.  They would have otherwise been discarded.  Of course, I know that stem cell research is controversial, and I love Taylor's answer to the controversy (to paraphrase): she speaks of the common misperception that stem cells all come from aborted fetuses - they do not; and she asks folks who are so adamantly opposed to spend a week in a neonatal ICU; she notes that people whose children or loved ones are affected by a disease that could or has benefitted from stem cell research will most often come to allow and be grateful for it.

Now, back to the subject of my post today: Taylor talks about the fact that we all have stem cells in our bodies, working for us all the time.  She uses the example of a wound in the skin, which leaves an inflamation that she sees as the body's call to the stem cells do come and work their healing magic.  In other words, we are all using and benefitting from our own stem cells.  Further, she says that aging is really the process of stem cells losing their effecitveness.

Here is the cool part: research has showed that meditation increases the number and health of stem cells in the person practicing it.

Now, I do not have any evidence so credible as scientific research.  But what this made me think of is that, in the past year or so - and despite the chronic pain of the migraines - numerous people have told me in very surprised tones of voice how good I look.  Meaning healthy, I assume, and I always leave such conversations shaking my metaphorical head and wondering how that is possible, when I am feeling so poorly.  Maybe it's the meditation!

I could really get carried away with this.  Perhaps I could create one of those infomercials, appearing in chic clothing (which I would have to buy, as no one has ever accused me of dressing a la mode), dye my hair a younger color (not blonde, maybe auburn), adopt a dramatically energetic manner while extolling the benefits of meditation and telling people they simply MUST buy my DVD ...

Nah. 

So I just want to thank the NPR radio show, Being, for giving me the opportunity to write a light-hearted post today.  I needed that.

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

Managing Pain and Practicing Presence

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Today's Post:

How Practicing Presence Helps to Manage Pain

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In my previous post, I wrote about my own methods for practicing presence, including deep and measured breathing, use of mantras, meditation, prayer, etc. I realize that it might not be obvious how these methods help someone in pain, so I want to be more specific, and I would also like to add a few other methods that have served me well when I am in pain.

How Breathing and Deep Relaxation Help Pain

I think the Lamaze folks could answer this better than I: that method has been taught to mothers about to give birth for decades. Even though the Lamaze breathing technique is taught for the acute pain of childbirth, the concept still applies: focus on and control of the breath is a very effective pain management tool. So the point is not to go find the Lamaze site and learn to practice - although I have checked out some sites and found them helpful in the broader sense of explaining the reasons for using the breath for pain management - but it is to point out the well-understood benefits of pain management through breathing technique.

For chronic pain, using the breath as a tool helps in two main ways:
* it helps to focus the mind away from obsessing about pain
* it promotes relaxation of the body.

Focusing the mind away from the pain has clear benefits. When I direct my thoughts to my breath, then my thoughts are not circling frantically around the pain and the distress it causes me physically and mentally.

Relaxing the body releases the tension I unconsciously hold when in pain: I am regularly surprised at how my muscles tense in response to a migraine - and not only the muscles in my neck and shoulders. I also carry the tension of pain in my hands, lower back, abdomen, and jaw. Additionally, there's a symbiotic exchange happening in that relaxing the body helps to relax and focus the mind while relaxing and focusing the mind (by concentrating on a breathing practice) helps to relax the body and all those muscles I didn't even know I was tensing.

The use of mantras enhances these benefits: adding a simple phrase that is meaningful to me increases the focus of my mind on the breath.


How Prayer and Meditation Help Pain

This seems obvious, yet I know that not all of us have the kind of faith that turns us to a personal God or sacred figure in whom we trust and who we believe will heal us. Even as my own spiritual life has progressed and changed to the point that I can no longer say that I believe in the standard, traditional Christian view of God, I have continued to find my prayer life to be rich, healing and essential to my well-being, the more so when I am in pain. However we term it - reflection, meditation, prayer, centering, yoga, etc. - our practice can be a help whether we envision or speak to a traditional God or not.

Here's how it works for me: meditative prayer connects me to a sacred reality beyond my small self and my small concerns (not that I am able to call the pain of a migraine "small" when I am in its clutches) that is so peaceful and still, broad and deep that it seems to dwarf the pain and thus change my relationship to it. For me, there is also a quality of boundless, compassionate beauty in meditation that defies attempts to describe it. (That I am writing a description of this practice that insists it's indescribable highlights the inherent paradox of talking about the sacred.)


Here I want to underscore a point I have made before: what really makes this pain management effective is that the tools I use and the skills I have developed come out of my daily, prayerful practice. One cannot learn breathing and meditation in the midst of great pain.

Tools that Help the Focus

MUSIC, of course, is number one on the list. My preference is piano, instrumental or vocal music that is quiet and slow. I love CD's that include nature sounds - water, rain, ocean, birds, tree frogs - below the music, because I find them most soothing. I have several CD's by Sister Kathleen Deignan, whose lovely voice and sacred subject matter is healing to me.

DISTRACTIONS, like DVD's I know and love (I probably have all nine seasons of Seinfeld memorized), or NPR radio programs (Car Talk, or Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, or This American Life, or The Moth, for example) provide distracting amusement or intellectual interest for me. And, since I cannot read when I have a migriane, books on CD are an immense help, too.

TREATS can make a difference in quality of life, and I will say more about that next week, when my topic is, "Quality of Life and Chronic Pain".

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I'd love to hear from you. Click on Comment, below, or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com.

27July - Presence to God, Part 2

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Today's Post:
* Methods for Practicing Presence
* Resources

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Methods for Practicing Presence

I'd like to share some practices I have developed, partly in the hope that you will use the comment section below to share your own practices for presence in God / Allah / the Divine / the Now / whatever name you use.

BREATH
We all breathe all the time - that makes the breath a perfect tool for practicing presence.
* I quietly turn my attention to my breathing, to the release of my diaphragm at the start of the inhalation, or its feel on the back of my throat.

* Counting the breath helps me, and there are different ways to do this.
- Taking three slow, deep breaths is both a way to relax and a reminder of the quiet calm of my daily practice when I am in the midst of a difficult situation or conversation.
- Ten breaths - [inhale] and ... [exhale] one ... [inhale] and ... [exhale] two ... etc.

* Mantras are also helpful and can be more traditional ones (from scripture, prayers, sacred literature and historical practices) or of my own choosing or creation. I use a mantra in conjunction with the breath, similar to the 10-breath counting sequence above: [inhale] God is ... [exhale] Love ...etc.

If I have made my breathing practice an integral part of my regular quiet time, then it becomes an accessible tool for daily life, like when I become impatient in a traffic jam, or find myself in a challenging situation or conversation. Or, when I am on the bus and simply want to center.

BODY

We all have a body and we are in it all the time, so that makes the body a helpful tool for practicing presence.
* During my regular quiet times, I always place my hands in the same, relaxed open way on my lap. This becomes a cue to my body, so that when I place my hands that way during any other time, my body recognizes the cue and begins to relax. This response becomes stronger with time, as long as I continue to use it during my regular quiet times so that the gesture is associated physically with the quiet calm of my daily practice.

* Another cue that works in the same way: during meditation, I allow my lips to form a small, peaceful smile.

Similar to the breathing practices (above), these small habits become reminders in the moment to relax and maintain a quiet, peaceful presence. Even more powerful is associating the smile and hand placement with a deep, slow inhalation.

DEEP RELAXATION

I won't try to recreate a deep relaxation session when there are so many resources available for learning it. See Resources, below.

I began deep relaxation when the migraines worsened and I learned that the relaxation response (as it is also termed) is taught at pain clinics. I have found it helpful when I am in pain - not that the pain goes away, but that my relationship to it changes. After a while, I noticed that the process of relaxing my body helped my meditation practice, which was a wonderful gift.

MEDITATAION

Again, I won't try to recreate a meditation session here when there is such a variety out there of published ways to learn meditation. See Resources, below.

I use the word meditation rather loosely. For Zen Buddhists, meditation is tantamount to emptying oneself completely. For other Bhuddists, meditation is associated with reflection (vipasana) or is grounded in breathing (anapanasati), or in mindfulness (sati). I find myself practicing any of these at any one time, not necessarily because they have been taught to me, but mostly because that is how my practice has evolved over time.

That last statement is important to me as it is the reason that I do not espouse a particular kind of meditation, let alone a particular religion or doctrine. It has to do with following the shape and direction of my spiritual journey, which has left me with no desire to tell anyone else what to do or how to do it.


PRAYER PRACTICES

Similar to meditation, there are a number of ways to pray (see Resources). I'll simply list a few that are most often part of my quiet times.
* Centering Prayer seems to me to be the Christian term for meditation.

* Lectio Divina

* Saying the Rosary or other prayer beads

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RESOURCES
Deep Relaxation
* The relaxation response - I like this source best because the instructions (you'll click on the phrase "eliciting the relaxation response" to get to them) include relaxing your muscles, which you have learned at:

* Deep(or Progressive) Muscle Relaxation

* Breath Relaxation

Meditation
* Some definitions

* An introduction to meditation

* A meditation video

Prayers
* Centering Prayer - this site goes into wonderful and helpful detail without proseletyzing, as do some other sites

* Lectio Divina

* Consciousness Examen - this is an Ignation practice (St. Ignatius, who wrote the Spiritual Exercises)

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I'd love to hear from you about your own prayer or meditation practices: please click on Comment (below) or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com

14July: Letting God

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14 JULY:
* Today's post - "Letting God"
* Painful Poetry - "How Do You Solve a Problem Like a Migraine?"

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Letting God


There's a reason that "let God" comes after "let go" in the popular phrase. In the context of serious physical pain, my ability to turn to God is hampered by the tightening of muscles, thoughts, and emotions around the pain. Letting God means first letting go of and releasing the tension, nerves and emotions built up around the pain.

Not that this is easy. It is as though the pain is the deadly center of a whirling hurricane of emotional and physical tension and, sometimes, fear. But, easy or not, it is very important to me to listen for the "still, small voice" (Old Testament; 2Kings, chapter 2)that has become the center of my spiritual life, and I know that the whirl of tension effectively blocks out not just the Voice, but my ability to attune my spirit's hearing to it.

A later topic in this blog will be the mind/body/spirit connection, the exploration and experiencing of which has been an important component of my spiritual life. When I am in pain and my body is knotted around the pain, my mind (thoughts and emotions) and spirit are correspondingly knotted. If I ignore this reality, or try to push through it in order to get something done, then I can do little in relation to the pain except endure it - even as it worsens, the knots that I am refusing to unloose becoming that much more tense as time passes. Predictably, this results in an increase my tension, impatience, and inability to concentrate. This escalation takes me further and further away from that which is most important to me: centeredness in God.

In the previous post (12July: Letting Go), I briefly described the method I use to untie those knots and thus become ready to turn toward God (and also included resources for learning deep relaxation). This untying - as wonderfully effective as it may be - is not enough for me: connection to God, is, if anything, even more important when I am in pain.

My regular meditative and prayerful practice has sometimes led me to a flood of peace, the feeling of Divine Love, and a sense of ultimate connectedness. In the context of being in pain, it all becomes a blessing that reduces the pain's importance.

Two points:
1) Pain is not a helpful forum in which to learn to meditate or calm the mind and spirit. A regular practice of meditation, mindfulness, reflection, quiet time and/or yoga is essential to building the skills for practicing while in pain.

2) I have not experienced an actual reduction in pain after meditation and/or deep relaxation, which is why I used the phrase (above), "...[I]t all becomes a blessing that reduces the pain's importance." I also note that it's not the pain that is changed, but my relationship to it.

When I "let God" after letting go, the pain is redeemed by becoming part of my spiritual life, an expression of my yearning to be present to God. Pain is somehow transformed into a means to this ultimate end of my existence. This is not to say that I welcome pain: after six months of rest, I am baffled and frustrated because I have experienced no change in the frequency and intensity of the migraines. It is, however, to say that when I allow the pain to become a path to God, it is less a bothersome distraction and more a functioning part of my spiritual life.

Next post: "Presence to God"


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

Painful Poetry
Original if Awkward Attempts to Find Humor in Pain

(To the tune, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" from Sound of Music)

How do you solve a problem like a migraine?
How do you stop the vomit and keep it down?
How do you find a word that means a migraine?
A pain in the left lobe, ice pick to the head, a frown?
Many a day you know you're going under.
Many a time you cancel all your plans.
But how do you make it cease,
instead of the sure increase?
How do you get the throbs of pain in hand?
How do you solve a problem like a migraine?
How do you bear it once it has began?

When I have one I'm confused,
out of focus and bemused,
and I never know exactly where I am.
Any light will make me groan,
any movement cause a moan,
I can't stand it -
this pain, damn it -
it's no sham.
I'll spend hours getting rest
blindfold, dark room, no noise; lest
I should move and feel that stabbing pain again.
Don't come near me I might cry,
though I couldn't tell you why.
Nerves aquiver,
in a dither -
Let Me Die!

How do you solve a problem like a migraine?
etc.