Month: July 2013

Pictures: Worth More Than we Think

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The universe has a GREAT sense of humor.

I decided recently to tend to some unfinished business about body image, to let go of a very old story and move on. Twenty years ago I was bulimic, and while I’m no longer in that specific space, I’ve spent years trying to listen to what I’m really hungry for, how I feed my soul, and my relationship with food. I’m in a much better place with years of practice but it’s a daily, conscious choice that ebbs and flows. And I’ve also struggled with being able to actually see myself as I am—the only way I could really figure it out was by seeing pictures of myself. However … I avoided pictures 95 percent of the time, especially if it wasn’t a group shot. My husband would often joke that if others looked at our vacation photos, they’d assume he went on the trip by himself because there were rarely any pics of me. Yeah, well …

My mother also used to avoid the camera, and I really hated that while growing up. I decided I didn’t want to play that game with myself or others anymore and wanted to step outside my comfort zone. I decided to get some nice photos taken. As a bonus, I figured I could also surprise my husband by giving these to him for his birthday on July 26, because he’s always wanted pics of me other than our wedding 10 years ago. I found a photographer and explained my goals—she was totally on board and understood my hesitancy. She also recommended a “dry bar” (first I’d ever heard of such a thing–had no clue) where I could go get my hair and makeup done. Never, ever done that before, not even for my wedding. On Friday, July 12, she came to the house and took pics of me individually and with my three dogs. She was fabulous about making me feel at ease. I joked with her that in one fell swoop I’d gone from the girl who gets her makeup at a drugstore and wrestles the camera away from people, to paying to have her hair and makeup done and then actually [gasp] POSING for pictures. Holy crap. What I loved was that she would remind me to “smile with my eyes.” And then I would pretend I was doing metta meditation, repeating silently “may I be held in lovingkindness.” It took practice—with her help—to recover to that space.

A few days later I got the digital images. As I opened the link, I told myself, Gently, gently— hold this moment gently: don’t criticize yourself or pick apart your clothing choice. And then I noticed that in many of the pictures the lighting must’ve been odd because my eyes were not brown. They were kinda mysterious, kinda like images I’d seen of women in India with green or blue eyes. Well, that’s odd. So I emailed and asked if she could correct them. She said she would, although she noted that she hadn’t done anything to change the images in that way so she found it curious. Next day at work I asked my coworkers playfully—assuming I knew the answer—”What color are my eyes?” Without a pause, they said hazel. What??! Are you kidding me?! That can’t be right. My birth certificate says brown eyes, my passport says brown eyes, my driver’s license says brown eyes. Although, as one of my coworkers pointed out, you can list any weight on your driver’s license and they certainly don’t check THAT. Ok, point taken. I was in an amused state of shock for the rest of the day. It was totally rocking me way deep inside—not necessarily in a bad way, but in a really big way. I was noticing how much this seemingly little revelation was affecting me.

That night I had a little epiphany from that deep part of myself: Well, dear, since you have been avoiding cameras for so long, how do you know what color your eyes really are? [Hmm, good point. And then …]  … and besides, wasn’t your goal to see yourself with new eyes?

Oh, seriously?! Are you friggin’ kidding me?! The universe speaks in puns?? That’s just twisted. But then, so am I, so I guess it all makes sense.

And finally, to nail it home for me, I get a request that night to appear in a video project at work the following day. This is highly unusual. The irony is, I actually am leading the project in which we plan to use this video, but I was hands-off in who they would choose to film. My first instinct was to justify why I should bow out: ohh, no, no, as the leader of this project I shouldn’t appear in it—we need to feature others. But then that small little [nagging, annoyingly wise] voice said, Didn’t you want to leave that story behind? Sigh. So I agreed to the shoot, and I grabbed a coworker to be in it with me—and we had a fabulous time and got to know each other better through the filming.

I haven’t seen the footage yet, but I’m guessing I have hazel eyes …

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What’s Your Story?

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Remember last week when I shared a quote from Elizabeth Lesser’s book “The Seeker’s Guide?” Well, I know, I can barely remember yesterday so last week is a stretch for me, too. But God bless WordPress, because all you have to do is scroll down a bit.

So, what was I saying? Right. Last week’s post was about the relationship between joy and sadness. When we allow ourselves to feel the various shades of sadness, we actually enable ourselves to feel greater shades joy. I think of it a little like working your core muscles. If you have back pain, gently strengthening your abdominals, flexors, and obliques can  increase your flexibility and decrease the strain on your spine. But if all you do is try to work one area without any relation to the others … well, you may soon be booking some physical therapy sessions. Just sayin’.

Of course, when we acknowledge the crappy times, what we’re not doing is indulging our woe-is-me victim mentality. We’re not dwelling in every upset, wallowing in past hurts, or blaming others or ourselves. Just noticing. I’m trying to get in the habit of just naming it when I’m in the moment: hurt, hurt, hurt. Or fear, fear, fear.

So if we look back at our lives, what’s the arc of our stories? Have we been telling ourselves—and maybe others—that so much “ick” has happened over the years? Or have we been unwilling to acknowledge a hangnail, let alone a serious upset that threw us for a loop?

I like the following two exercises to get new perspectives on my life.

  1. Elizabeth Lesser says that when she teaches, she asks the class to write their autobiographies of joy—and then grief. Look for any examples—big or small, recent or way back. Don’t worry about getting it right, unless of course you want to make yourself miserable and use THAT as one of your examples in the grief autobiography. Here are some signposts to look for:
    • Joy: times when you felt grateful, peaceful, inspired, energized, excited, open to possibility, pleasantly surprised, content, balanced.
    • Grief: times when you felt longing that went unmet or unfulfilled, disappointment, sadness, great loss, disconnection, or a nagging sense that you’re missing out.

Take a look at the richness of your life. What I find really interesting is that Lesser says: “Rarely does anyone’s autobiography of joy focus on extraordinary events, or lots of money, or fame and status. The stories reveal a core of simple sweetness, a desire for connection, and the ability to grow from the painful events in one’s life. Even if a story of grief tells about illness or violence, at the center of the story stands the inner angel, guarding the heart of the teller.”

2.  And this one is from lovely master coach Martha Beck, in her book “Steering by Starlight.” She calls it Telling Your Life Story Backward. Pick something wonderful that happened in your life—when you met the love or your life, a highlight of your career … you name it. Then think of what key event made that come about. Maybe you were hired as a sub to play in the same orchestra pit where your now-husband was playing. Now think of the key event that led to that moment. Keep going back until you “find one piece of ‘bad luck’ that helped your Favorite Thing come into your life.” Now, when you tell your story, tell it backward. Instead of saying, “this bad thing happened but eventually this great thing was the result,” say, “My destiny was to have my Favorite Thing. Therefore, this bad thing happened in order to make my Favorite Thing possible.”

I hope we all find our new stories, reframe the ones that aren’t helpful to our continued growth, and own all parts of the journey. As Nora Ephron said, “Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”readingprogram_clip_image002

The Prickly Underbelly of Joy

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This weekend was absolutely gorgeous: the temperature was in the low 80s, a cool breeze would occasionally drift through, and in the evening high tufts of clouds dotted the sunset, lit from underneath and topped with pinks and purples. My husband and I had no real plans other than what seemed important in the moment. I read, took a nap, watched a few Season 1 episodes of The Newsroom (had  to catch up before the new season begins tonight), and then we went to the pool for a couple hours to get our Vitamin D. My husband just made me a mai tai with two maraschino cherries—you haven’t had a real mai tai until he makes one for you, let me tell you—and the chicken is on the barbeque.

Pure joy.

No, I’m not exaggerating. I don’t need to bungee jump or buy a beach house to experience joy. Some people are on a never-ending quest for the next kick-ass moment in life, almost like an addiction that feeds on itself. Our society markets the idea that all of us need to always be up to our eyeballs in bliss. We love our self-help books that offer a life of happiness untainted by “negative” emotions. Happiness seems to be just another product in our consumer-driven culture. Is it any wonder that prescription drug use—particularly with opioids, and anti-anxiety meds—is skyrocketing?

What if certain emotions weren’t negative? What if sadness or—God forbid—boredom was necessary? In fact, what if–caution: heresy on the horizon—we could actually experience more joy if we embraced sadness, frustration, and distemper, uhh, I mean, our temper?

Here’s an excerpt from Elisabeth Lesser’s “The Seeker’s Guide“:

[Quoting Chogram Trungpa:] “Tenderness,” he wrote, “contains an element of sadness. It is not the sadness of feeling sorry for yourself or feeling deprived, but it is a natural situation of fullness. You feel so full and rich, as if you were about to shed tears. In order to be a good warrior, one has to feel this sad and tender heart. If a person does not feel alone and sad, he cannot be a warrior at all. The warrior is sensitive to every aspect of phenomena—sight, smell, sound, feelings.” Sadness, in this context, is not the opposite of happiness. The opposite of happiness is a closed heart. Happiness is a heart so soft and so expansive that it can hold all of the emotions in a cradle of openness. A happy heart is one that is larger at all times than any one emotion. An open heart feels everything—including anger, grief, and pain—and absorbs it into a bigger and wiser experience of reality. Joseph Campbell calls happiness the “joyful participation in the sorrows of the world.”

A joyful soul often lives in a state of what I call enchanted melancholy. This kind of happiness contains within it many shades of feelings: joy and grief, passion and sobriety, love and longing, innocence and wisdom. It holds the paradoxical nature of existence in a warm and wide embrace. More than anything, it is a sense of wonder.

With a slight shift of perspective, so much of what we take for granted—like not being sick, or not feeling anxious—can become, instead, states of grateful well-being. We can actively choose to regard neutral feelings—like “no headache” or “no worry”—as not neutral, but as full of joy.

This is my kind of joy. It’s lived at a cellular level as far as I’m concerned. And I would love it if our society stopped labeling any emotion as “negative.” Emotions are emotions; they provide information. We don’t need to let them define us.  More importantly, as Brené Brown says in The Gifts of Imperfection, “We cannot selectively numb emotions; when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.”

lynn-coye-originalWhat if, instead of labeling our sadness or anger or irritation as “bad” and pushing it underground, we got curious? What if we took a moment to feel into the experience, to be a detective? Where do you feel it in your body? Imagine for a second, what is the texture or color of it? And then, after a bit, does it change? You might begin to see how all emotions shift and change once you take notice. And you just might start living your way into a joy-filled life—the kind  where even a prickly little dried flower makes you absolutely delighted and alive with childlike wonder.

 

Why Would You Go to See That?

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I love movies. I love getting lost in the ambiance that’s in every detail, the conversation between characters, the wardrobe, the wide shot views … oh, and the popcorn. With butter. Mostly I go to the big screen as a way to step out of life for a bit and be entertained. Sometimes I go for a good cry.

Recently I convinced my loving husband to join me in seeing a re-release of Schindler’s List. It would not be accurate to say that he was jumping up and down with excitement at this invitation. His first choice would be comedy — which this definitely isn’t — and then action — not this kind. Drama is tolerable as long as it has a happy ending. Right. I couldn’t explain why I felt so drawn to see it, but he went with me anyway.

I saw, felt, and learned so much more than when I saw it 20 years ago. And when we walked out of the theatre, I knew why I had felt so compelled to go.

  • I will not allow myself to turn away from other people’s pain, although it would be easier. We’ve all been through events in life when we wish people had been able to empathize, to support us not by fixing things but just by witnessing our struggle with an open heart. It takes practice being with our own pain so that we can be with others’ pain. And sometimes we need to be with others’ stories of anguish so that we can accept our own. Ultimately, I believe my heart is more capable of joy when it has the space to embrace all aspects of life.
  • I heard Stephen Levine in a Conscious Living, Conscious Dying workshop say that hating Hitler is pointless. Until we understand how such hatred comes to fruition and realize that we each bear aspects of evil within us, we cannot heal–ourselves, others, the world. It’s easy enough to recognize atrocity when it’s revealed, but I want to take action in the small and subtle ways that could make a difference before that happens.
  • I need to remember that in the midst of horrific events and despair, there were people who made a difference as they could. I am all too tempted to believe that unless I can make a huge impact in the world, my efforts are insignificant. Which means I sometimes fail to try. At the end, the Talmudic quote that’s inscribed on the ring they give Schindler says it all: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”

Was this an uplifting night of fun with buttered popcorn? Uh, no. This time I didn’t go to escape life, but to be drawn into its depths so that it can change me.