Fog to Fire

          “You are never going to amount to anything.”
                                     “There’s no point to your life.”
      “Nobody can trust you.”                    “Nothing will ever get any better.”
                              “You are unlovable.”

Ever hear words like these coming from inside your own head? If so, you’ve met that dark devil Depression.

Whether it’s a temporary acquaintance or a long-term residence, Depression visits everyone at one time or another. The ways to combat Depression are as varied as the types of wellness workers in the world, and can include positive thinking, journaling, ongoing psychotherapy, and medication.

Regardless of how you pitch your battle, it’s important to keep in mind that those dark words you hear about how you’re not any good are coming from a voice outside of your essential self. Depression knows all your secrets and will prey on just the right sore spots to really take you down.

But It is not YOU. If you’re like most people, you’ll have another part in your head that combats whatever Depression is trying to convince you. This more rational observer part will remind you that you have done things worth doing, that there are at least five people who do love you, and so on.

Listen to the voice of reason and try to recognize that Depression’s goal is to get you down and keep you down, and It will fight dirty to do so. It’s gonna tell you lots of things that aren’t really true (ie. “nobody loves you”). Once you start getting that Truth is Depression’s kryptonite, it’s a downhill battle from there.

I had this client who came in for her first visit, and spent the first twenty minutes apologizing for being a waste of my time because her problems weren’t “bad” enough. Later she told me that one of the biggest emotional shifts for her was when I helped her see that there was no hierarchy of pain — her struggles are just as important, her pain as worth healing, as anyone else’s.

For one reason or another, people everyday talk themselves out of getting help. While the story sounds convincing in our own heads, they’re pretty similar when you lay them out:

• Strong women are supposed to be independent.
• Men don’t cry.
• My family would never in a million years admit anything was wrong.

My particular sabotage is telling myself that I’m supposed to be able to handle anything, that asking for help is whining and it inconveniences and/or hurts those who have to help me. I’ve worked on this story of mine, and most of the time, I can reach out without much shame. It’s one of those issues, though, that I’ll likely be doing maintenance on my whole life.

Robert Fulghum wrote a great essay about a guy who was dying and decided not to tell his family because he didn’t want to worry them. Fulghum compared this to the one kid who plays hide-and-seek a little too well. He says he wants to shout, “get found, kid!”

I have a quote on my desk that I glance at when I, or my clients, need reminding about the importance of asking for help. Perhaps in reading it, you may be helped, whether or not you asked. Read it aloud.

Trouble is a part of life, and if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.”
–Dinah Shore

When I first heard of energy healing, I said to the woman who practiced it, “Okay, but what do you do?” She attempted to explain about moving energy around and channeling spirit. And then I said, “Yeah, but what do you DO?”

It’s nearly impossible to explain what energy work is to someone who has never experienced it. Much like gravity, which must have been hard to explain in the 1600s, body-related energy is something we experience but have little awareness of, or language for.

When I had my first energy work session, I was really skeptical, torn between trying not to laugh and hoping that something would have an effect on the pain I was experiencing. In my experience, it doesn’t “look” like or feel like much of anything is happening. But after that session, I felt good enough to think that it was worth trying again. I saw my energy healer for several months and had some very powerful results, including the release of pain from some early childhood memories.

Even after those experiences, though, when someone tried to tell me that I was an energy healer, I thought, “yeah, right!” I still had difficulty believing in the concept of energy work—I’d accepted that maybe it existed for others and it might’ve helped me, but not that it was so real that I would be a practitioner of it.

Embracing my path toward becoming a healer was not an easy one, but after a year, now I’m the one trying to help others understand what energy healing is. And I sympathize with those who tried to explain it to me.

Energy healing is not something that is done with words or with the mind, so it’s nearly impossible to translate it into words that the mind can comprehend. I can say it’s very metaphorical work, non-linear, and incredibly powerful. My clients can feel pain or heat or chills moving through the parts of their body that I put my hands over.

And I can’t tell you why. I can give you my guesses—that I am connected to Spirit (as we all are, but often forget), that I hold infinite love and compassion in my heart for myself and everyone I work with, that I know that whatever happens is bigger than me and my client.

The best metaphor I can come up with is that I am not the water that is cleansing my client’s energy; I am merely the garden hose.

The idea that we are influenced, hindered, and helped by things we haven’t yet been able to understand is a very ancient one. It’s an idea we’re not always comfortable with in this age of heart transplants, quantum physics, and nanotechnology. But the uncomfortable, ultimately comforting truth remains:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Sometimes I get tired of telling my own stories and generating eloquence. Thank god that there are a myriad of inspirational, funny and wise thoughts out there. Here are some that inspired me today:

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”

We turn not older with the years, but newer every day.”

Courage is only an accumulation of small steps.”

If today were perfect, there would be no need for tomorrow.”

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

I found these great quotes on a set of cards from Borealis Press.

Ok, this may not be the most pithy or fascinating blog post from me, but here’s the thing: it’s spring.

And sometimes when the weather perks up, the crocuses bloom, and the wind carries, not a bite, but a caress, we can feel good. It’s not about doing the deep, dark work. It’s about having a heartful of love.

And that’s a great time to be generous. Smile openly at a stranger…with your lips and your eyes. Hug a friend for no reason. Find something that inspires you, fills you up with joy, and pass it on! 

One of my big shadows knocked on my door tonight.

“Hey there,” he said, “I wanted to let you know that it doesn’t seem like you’re very useful lately.” Then he just hung around in the doorway like a bad smell.

Thank goodness that other teachers and healers are out there—this is the balm one of them brought me. I trust that these words will find you exactly when you need them.

Despite the dullness and barrenness of the days that pass, if I search with due diligence, I can always find a deposit left by some former radiance. But I had forgotten. At the time it was full-orbed, glorious and resplendent. I was sure that I would never forget. In the moment of fullness, I was sure that it would illumine my path for all the rest of my journey. I had forgotten how easy it is to forget.

There was no intent to betray what seemed so sure at the time. My response was whole, clean, authentic. But little by little, there crept into my life the dust and grit of the journey. Details, lower-level demands, all kinds of crosscurrents—nothing momentous, nothing overwhelming, nothing flagrant—just wear and tear. If there had been some direct challenge—a clear-cut issue—I would have fought it to the end, and beyond.

In the quietness of this place, surrounded by the all-pervading Presence of God, my heart whispers: Keep fresh before me the moments of my High Resolve, that in fair weather or in foul, in good times or in tempests, in the days when the darkness and the foe are nameless or familiar, I may not forget that to which my life is committed.

Keep fresh before me
The moments of my high resolve.

- Howard Thurman, excerpted from For the Inward Journey

It’s late, or, rather, early, and I’m thinking about something a professor of mine said. Dr. Tim Weber posits that there are only two questions in life that really matter. All of our angst and our striving come down to these two things we desperately want to know.

Am I good enough?

Am I loved?

How do you answer those questions?

If you’re most people, you might not even hold still long enough to consider them. We like to stay busy so that we don’t have to face our deep uncertainties about these questions.

But when you’re in the long dark night of the soul, these three or four words seep out of you like foggy breath on a winter evening. Am I good enough? According to whom? What standard determines “good” and how much is “enough”? And whose affection do I really need to know that I am loved?

After you part the crowds of people in your mind who are standing in the place of judgement, you come to find that the only person seated behind the gavel at the tall bench is you.

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, I’d like to quote the great hero:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….”

While he was talking about our culture, our community values, I believe his words apply to our inner work. When you look inside yourself and see your flaws, your failings, your same-old-problems, you might feel anger, hatred and despair. Many of us do–it’s pretty human to despise parts of ourselves.

Of course, hating parts of yourself does not make them go away. What we need to do is shine the light of attention and, yes, love, on those crouching, grumbling pieces of ourselves.

Often when you bring your attention to these mean inner places, you’ll find that you will learn so much about them, and yourself. These parts of yourself may be trying to protect you. They may be coping mechanisms that kept you from getting hurt in some way.

Rather than trying to cut off or distance from a part of yourself, consider whether spending some time loving and forgiving yourself might accomplish something much more beautiful: brotherhood within yourself.

“I should’ve figured this out by now.”

Of all the beliefs my varied clients have, this is the most common. It doesn’t matter if the speaker is 65 or 25, everyone seems to think they should be more advanced, more wise, more mature than they are in the present moment.

When we use the word “should,” we’re often invoking someone else’s value system (eg. our parents’, our spouse’s, our culture’s). And not fitting into this imposed value system leads us to shame ourselves.

If you’re suffering from the “I’m too old to still be working on this problem” mentality, let me pass along what I tell every one of my clients:

1. Everyone I see thinks this, regardless of age.
2. All you have is now, this moment when you’ve finally grokked the issue and are ready to make a change…how could you have changed anything before this moment of full realization?
3. There is no one right path to healing; your way was the right way and time for you.

The truth is, there’s no point in blaming yourself for not getting here sooner. Then you just feel like a jerk AND still have work to do to fix the issue. So how about practicing some self-forgiveness so you can do the work with love in your heart rather than shame?

A few months ago, things were realllllly sloooow, business-wise. I was definitely stuck, and after futzing with my advertising and marketing, I still felt like I was sitting in maple syrup. Finally, I went to my mentor for help. Even a stuckness coach needs help from time to time. She was able to turn my head around and get me back into the flow with just a few words. She said,

“What is working in your life? Try paying attention to and offering up thanks for all that is good in your daily experience.”

Here is the specific exercise she suggested for me:

Spend ten minutes each day writing about all the things that come to mind that you are grateful for. It can be as general, specific and random as it needs to be (e.g. “trees, that nice lady at the coffee stand who gave me five sugar packets, my lower intestines, my dog,” etc.).

After some brainstorming, find one specific thing that you feel most grateful for at that moment, and then take the rest of your time writing more deeply on that theme (e.g. “my dog’s fascination with the same things over and over, his way of winning people over and caring that they love him, his sweet brown eyes and red beard,” etc.).

When you have finished the gratitude exercise, reread what you’ve written and allow the feeling of thankfulness and love to really fill your heart. Then let the rest of the day unfold without expectation of what comes next.

The last part may be easier said than done, but learning to feel love and gratitude without expectation is just like any other muscle—you’ve got to practice flexing it often if you want it to grow.

After doing this exercise for a few days, I had three new client inquiries within a week. I can’t tell you why this works; I just believe that it does. And I find, with both myself and my clients, that results matter more than understanding the why. (I do like knowing why, however. And luckily, that eventually shows up, too.) 

We’re smart people, right?

Let me answer that for you—if you’re reading this, chances are you’re a very bright person. So am I. And so are pretty much all my clients. They’re educated, resourceful, clever, and have paid plenty of attention to school, self-help books, Oprah, and the like.

So why are they (and you) still stuck?

‘Cause smart can’t fix everything.

This comes up with just about everyone I work with. We clever people think that our brain knows how to do everything…knows how to get us out of scrapes and fix problems and get us jobs. Whatever it is, we should be able to “figure it out.” Sound familiar?

The problem is that there’s more to you than just your brain. There’s your body, which, believe it or not, has information your brain doesn’t. There are your emotions, which are not ruled by the brain, as anyone who has ever been a teenager knows. And there are parts of your brain that you’re not entirely connected to (eg. your subconscious mind and more).

So what’s a stuck smarty to do?!

Aye, that’s the rub. It’s difficult to “figure out” what else to do when you’re so used to relying on the brain.

Some suggestions:

1. Practice meditatation—send the brain off to chant or to watch your breath so that something else can emerge. And I say practice, because most of us with busy brains struggle with learning to meditate.
2. Try some non-linear activities, like dancing (I love NIA) or painting or doing some free-writing.
3. Come see me. I specialize in helping really smart people learn to relax their brains a bit and receive information from other places like the heart and the intuition. After being in charge for so long, the brain tends to have trouble surrendering the watchtower. It can help to have some loving support and someone making sure the process feels safe enough to try something different.