• The Art of Self-Care

    • May 12, 2010 10:47 am

    Dearest Readers,

    A recent conversation with a friend about boundaries plus an article in Psychology Today called The Good Guy Contract by Alex Lickerman, MD, (given to me by another friend) have both reminded me how far I’ve come in the relationships department. Learning to put my needs first, letting go of wanting you to like me and trusting that it’s not my job to run your life have all been challenging but rewarding transformations. Not to mention small miracles!

    The Old BS (belief system) tells me that I’m not important enough and that your approval will make me okay. It tells me that I know what’s best for you. Scary but true. What I had to do in order to change this kind of thinking was look at the underlying fear.

    What am I really afraid of? What is truly driving this kind of self-seeking behaviour?

    Here’s where it gets tricky. How is people-pleasing self-seeking? Aren’t I thinking of the other person more than I am of myself? Not really. There is a difference between selfless service, which is performed with no thought of reward or recognition and action taken from a place of need or control. That’s where the fear comes in.

    I’m afraid I’ll never be recognized. I’m afraid of being disliked. I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt or sick or die so I’ve got to worry about you or take care of you or tell you what to do. I’m afraid of being alone. I’m afraid of dying.

    All of these fears are valid. We’re human, period. But which one of these fears is driving my bus? Which one of them is making my life unmanageable? If I can answer this question honestly I can begin to change and to be changed, and I can start to practice a new behaviour.

    A few days ago I was asked by a woman to “go for coffee.” About a week before that she had asked me if I would help her with a personal issue. I said I would and I gave her some “spiritual homework” do to. Her desire to go for coffee was really just procrastinating the homework. So I said no.

    I could have said yes. After all, it’s just coffee. What’s an hour or two of listening to this woman talk about her problems? I can do that. I’m generous. I’m kind. She needs someone to talk to. I’m a good person!

    No. I’m not. If I’m putting her needs before my own I am a sick person. I am a co-dependent. I am unable to accept that I am important enough to come first. My insecurity is driving the bus. I am afraid that she will be disappointed. My caretaker is driving the bus. I am afraid of feeling the discomfort of saying “no”. My fear is driving the bus, period.

    “I’ve given you your next steps. When you’ve completed them call me. We’ll get together and you can share your progress with me. That is what I can give you. That is what I have time for. That was our agreement.”

    Ouch. Hopefully I did it with a little more compassion. As Alex Lickerman wrote in the aforementioned article, “My best friend came to me asking me why I had become such a jerk to all my friends.”

    Yup, we have to be willing to lose some of our popularity if we are going to practice putting our needs first. But like an old friend of mine always says, “We can’t save our face and our arse at the same time.”

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Am I putting my needs first? If not, why not? What is the underlying fear? I am now willing to answer this question so that I may begin to learn to practice the Art of Self-Care.

    Mystical Love

    • May 11, 2010 8:55 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Yesterday I was at the CBC here in Whitehorse waiting to go into the studio with a couple of other artists for an interview about Nakai’s Homegrown Festival, in which I am performing this week. One of the fellows with me had heard about GITA: God in the Army, the show I’m doing, and asked me, “Are you religious, like Christian?”

    Faster than a jack rabbit, I said, “No.” Immediately I regretted it. We went into the studio, did the interview and parted ways.

    Later, upon reflection, I wished I’d responded differently. If given the chance again I would have said, “No, but I’d like to qualify that.”

    There’s an expression about the difference between religion and spirituality that goes like this: Religion is for those who believe in Hell, Spirituality is for those who have been there.

    The latter category fits me like a tailored suit and yet I do go to church. I don’t go all the time and I’m not a member of any particular church, in fact, I’ll go to pretty much any church for the experience, but I do attend religious services. Does that make me religious? Some would say yes. I say no.

    I don’t believe in the Immaculate Conception or the Resurrection and those two things are pretty much the necessary requirements for being a Christian. I believe them to be stories, metaphors created by the followers of Jesus in the years after his death in order to come to grips with who he was, what happened to him, and the message he left behind.

    This belief has come to me because I’ve done a lot of reading about “the historical Jesus”. The historical Jesus refers to the Jewish Mystic that he was and to the facts of his life that can be historically proven. It’s fascinating information but frustrating, even terrifying, because most of the Christian world has moved so far away from the historical message.

    What is the historical message? It’s pretty simple: Love one another. Where does that message come from? According to historical scholars like John Crossan and Marcus Borg, it comes from Jesus’ Experience of Being. To Be Alive is to Dwell in the Experience of God. Or, if “God” makes you feel too religious, call it something else. Higher Guidance. Or The Life Force Energy of the Universe. Or Love Itself.

    So if you ask me if I’m religious or Christian you’re going to get a pretty long answer. Like the saying goes: It’s complicated. But the core of both question and answer is rooted in simplicity: Let Love Rule.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Why is it so difficult to love one another? Could I keep it simple today and practice this very clear directive? I will do my best.

    Eleanor to the Rescue

    • May 10, 2010 10:07 am

    Dearest Readers,

    I’m not a birder and I don’t know my birds very well at all so I cannot tell you the name of the little hoppers that were jumping around in the yard yesterday picking at the earth with astonishing quickness. Their heads were striped black and cream and it looked like like they were wearing tiny hats. I was filled with pleasure watching them.

    So, for that matter, was the cat. The yard was teeming with these lovely little fliers and I think the cat was so worn out watching them, so overstimulated by observing their activity that he crawled under the covers for the rest of the day and slept.

    It’s amazing to me that I rarely, if ever, have the temptation to respond in a similar way to Life’s stimuli. I spent most of my teenage years and my twenties wishing I could crawl under a blanket and stay there and often doing just that.

    It seemed an appropriate response to the world and all its sublime beauty and mad horror. I did not have the skills to absorb it all.  Best not to deal with it at all then. Best to hide.

    This is where good old Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote has become one of my mantras, one of the tools I use regularly to avoid reverting to the cave. “You must do the thing you think you cannot do,” she tells us. I’ve used this call to action a lot (thanks, Eleanor) over the past couple of years and I continue to use it whenever the fear arises.

    For instance, I am about to perform a wee show this week and I was in the theatre over the weekend ironing out the technical aspects of the piece. I was standing backstage preparing for a run-through thinking, “What the heck am I doing here? I can’t do this!”

    This after performing on stage professionally for more than 10 years. The fear tells me to cancel, give up, withdraw. I imagine the worst. People hate the show, I embarrass myself, it’s a disaster. Everything inside of me says, “Run for the hills. Hide.”

    Now because I recognized that this is fear (false evidence appearing real) and not based in any kind of Truth (in fact, it is the ego’s greatest lie concocted to save me from its perception that I am about to be humiliated by allowing myself to be seen), I said, “Thanks for sharing now F-off,” and headed out on stage.

    Quite simply, I just do the thing I think I cannot do. Because really, we can do anything.  Anything.

    Let the fear crawl under the covers and stay there. I’m staying out here. With the little striped-capped birds. Hop hop.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Once more I will defy fear by telling it to F-off. Though its power over me can feel inordinate my willingness to walk through it will squelch this falsity like a slug in a bird’s beak.

    The Richness of Being

    • May 8, 2010 10:44 am

    Dearest Readers,

    How exquisite and recondite is Life that we can be weeping in grief one moment and laughing our guts out the next?

    As most of you know I have been blogging of late about the death of my friend Leanne Coppen. Before she died, when her friends and family were still convinced that she was going to beat the cancer, I sent an email to one of Leanne’s friends who had taken on the responsibility of gathering items for a silent auction to raise money for Leanne’s experimental treatment in Detroit.

    The gift I had to offer was an hour of Inspiring Coaching. The woman who was looking after the auction emailed me back and said, “Great!” A few days after Leanne died I emailed this woman to check in, acknowledging the sadness of it all as well as the connections, such as ours, Leanne had managed to unwittingly create.

    This lovely woman then scanned and emailed me a copy of the program from Leanne’s funeral as well as the text from Leanne’s father’s eulogy. As I read through his words yesterday I wept with profound sorrow.

    Then I wiped my tears, finished the task at hand and made lunch. Reading through The New Yorker as I ate I came across a cartoon called “F.A.Q.s about the Hadron Collider.”

    Now the only reason I know what the Hadron Collider is is because I read an article about it in The New Yorker months ago. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is something out of a Hollywood movie. It was developed, essentially, with the purpose of understanding the nature of the Big Bang, and in some way, will attempt to mimic the Big Bang itself, if they can ever get it to work. The LHC, its construction, its function and its operation, are astonishing things to wrap one’s brain around.

    So there I am, fresh from a deep cry over the death of my friend, reading this comic by Roz Chast, cracking up laughing.

    The cartoon depicts a brochure with a crowd of booby-looking people gathered together to ask questions about the LHC.

    “What would happen if I went inside it?” asks a Gomer Pyle-ish boy.

    Answer: Just. Don’t.

    “How many miles of pipes and whatnot are in it?” asks a Dame Edna-ish lady.

    Answer: A bajillion.

    “How much did it cost?” she continues.

    Answer: Forty squillion.

    And the best one of all: “If I concentrate ultra-hard, will I ever be able to understand it?”

    Answer: No.

    I’m telling you, I was laughing out loud, all alone, in my apartment, trying not to choke on my food.

    It occurred to me that I had just been balling and that is when I marveled at the mysteries of Being and since Leanne was a comic genius I knew she’d approve. After all, her departing words for all of her loved ones and faithful followers was, “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

    Inspiring Message of the Day: There is so much possibility in every moment. Grief is necessary. Laughter is vital. We are alive.