STICK TO IT!

I discovered meditation long before I knew what mediation was. Sometimes, trying to fall asleep, I found myself focusing on a spot just past my nose. I always found it suddenly and it felt as if my whole scalp tipped forward. In a sense it did tip forward - into a focus that calmed my mind and centered me. I called it thinking with the front of my head.
     That may be why the first "official" time I meditated I had a very good experience - I closed my eyes, focused on a spot at the end of my nose, breathed in and out and stayed motionless for the hour we sat. My mind calmed down after about twenty minutes and there were moments when it was as if my mind was in front of me, hanging out for an airing.
      I went home determined to begin a consistent practice. I set an alarm for forty-five minutes, sat down and began. It did not go well. I felt an intense restlessness, a barely resisted desire to open my eyes and get up. I knew enough to try to focus on the restlessness, to soften it, to remind myself that it was only a feeling passing through. I managed to stay seated and hoped the next time would be better.
     It wasn't. The restlessness, the desire to leap off the cushion, grew even more intense. I stayed seated - I understood that meditation for me was now solely about the discipline of sitting for the time I said I would. After what in my memory was a few weeks but may have been only a few days, the restlessness reached a fever pitch. I felt as if I had swallowed another creature who was battling inside my skin, pushing out the outline of its arms and legs as if we were in a cartoon.
     Then just at the moment I thought I had to give in to the restlessness or spin off into space, the bubble burst, the fever broke. As if a switch had clicked, the restlessness was gone. I felt calm, centered, able to sit until the alarm went off. 
     I think of that experience often; I see it as a process for every aspect of my life. Don't run, stay with discipline, keep to your commitment. But perfection will never be my strong suit. I don't make it much of the time. At least I keep trying.

MY MOTHER'S GAZE

Sometimes, when I'm out and about, in the market or on the street, I see a mother and child who bring me to a stop.  The mother is gazing directly into the eyes of her child and smiling, the child is doing the same and they're both happy. It's a completely ordinary moment, a mother and child sharing an intimate gaze, the look of security and mutual pleasure.
     I don't remember my mother ever looking at me like that - gazing directly at me with pleasure and encouragement, making me for a moment the focus of her gaze. Maybe there were times when she did look at me that way, but I'll never know that objective truth.  What I know is the truth I feel inside me, the image I have of her distracted by anxiety, always worried something is wrong and something bad will happen. 
      Years ago, I saw a documentary about a clinic in Toronto that works with mothers and babies who have attachment problems. They showed the first session of a mother and her toddler; during the whole session the mother ignored the child who didn't stop climbing all over her trying to get her attention. Over the course of a few sessions, the therapists very gently pointed out certain behaviors to the mother and suggested different ways for her to act. In a surprisingly short time, at the last session, the mother was paying close attention to the child, and the child was calm, resting contentedly next to her. It made me cry, that such a small consistent change in behavior could make such an enormous difference to the child. Why hadn't there been someone to show my mother how to make a difference for me? 
     In the coming days, I was as low as I've ever been.  I was bereft, desolate, feeling the knife of despair for what I had never had - the sense that someone loved me unconditionally, acknowledged me, took delight in my existence. Added to that was not only the abyss of loss but also a great shame, as if the lack of my mother's gaze was my fault. It was classic, the way I had taken in the blame - and was still feeling it - even though I knew the problem was my mother's and not mine.
     I saw very clearly what the absence of that gaze had done to the many aspects of my life, and I realized how my shame had imprisoned me in the very sense of loss I wanted so much to transcend. I had no part in my mother's inability to see me completely but I did very much have a part in the blame and shame I had laid upon myself. As long as they controlled me, I wouldn't be able to leave that very early wound behind.  I wouldn't be able to heal.
     I wish I could say that the realization of my imprisoning shame turned on the light and brought the changes I sought. But in fact, the hard work was all ahead. I had to find a way to accept the loss of what every child needs, and to neutralize my shame at being the one who wasn't loved. The search for psychological insight was useful but ultimately words and concepts only kept me at a distance. I needed to find the courage to feel what was under all my ideas, to let go and feel the whole constellation of rage, despair, shame and hopelessness that was always flowing like lava beneath the surface. I needed to find faith that if I let all of that out, I wouldn't be annihilated, wouldn't melt away like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz until there was nothing left but my hat of shame.
     Staying on the path to courage and faith has become the main commitment in my life. To go on when progress is minute and slow, to keep on in the face of fear - to feel the certainty of a refuge inside me and the belief that I'm not walking this path alone - that is at once the source and the result of any change I've found. I'm freer than I've ever been and knowing what more freedom feels like, I want to keep walking, to find even more.

CLARK KENT'S SHIRT

I don't like to do anything on a daily basis. I don't like routines.  I've known people who thrive on routine; they know where they'll be next Monday and every Monday after that, they have a set time for various activities, they always go to the same restaurant on Sunday night.
     It may be that routines make people feel safe.  I can see there's comfort in structure, not only in not having to think about what to do next but in the repetition itself which can function as an anchor.
     I'd like to say I'm a spontaneous person, a free spirit, easily jumping into the unknown.  But in truth my disdain for routine comes from two issues I have always and still struggle with: commitment and self-discipline.  The commitments I don't keep are mostly to myself - I say I will meditate and don't, or write for an hour in the morning and don't, or clean the bathroom and don't.  I say, I need to sit down and do my taxes and don't, I need to make that phone call I've been putting off and don't.
     In a sense, lack of commitment and lack of self-discipline are two aspects of a single coin.  They both lead to a life of little accomplishment.  I sometimes think I've been like a seed in a field.  I sprout, took around, decide there's more sun over there and run to that new place, then look around and decide there's more water of there and run....again and again.  But one day I look around and I see all the other sprouts who have stayed in the same place have put down roots and are thriving while I am stunted and weak.  I may have seen more of the world but I have less to show for it.
     The sprout story actually describes the way I used to be.  Somewhere along the line I learned that the resistance that comes up in me at the thought of routine or the thought of doing what I say I'll do about my work or the house - that resistance keeps me from connecting with myself and others. And I know now I want the energy and well-being that comes from those connections.
     So I focus on resistance.  I've learned what it feels like in my body so that I'm able to recognize it.  Oh, this is my old old friend Resistance, one of my oldest responses - which I don't want to drive me anymore.  I want to break free.  I often get the image of something like a beetle, an insect with a thick carapace and I feel I have one, too, and I begin expanding until it cracks and I can get my hands in the crack and pull it open.  It occurs to me that is what Clark Kent does as he changes into Superman.  Rip open that shirt!  Rip open that carapace!  Do what you can to get free!