The Absolute Nature of Suffering

We tend to judge our own suffering--to squelch it under the pressure of "bigger" suffering we attribute to others "less fortunate."

But suffering is absolute, and the acknowledgment of this makes space for all of it. For the joy, too. For every one of us. For the extension of compassion inward and outward, without limits.


My suffering is its own entity. It doesn't have a number on a scale. It is not relative to anyone else's suffering. It just is. Like your suffering.

The suffering of the man I saw in clinic recently, too, is absolute. It is not less or more than any other human being who has been physically and mentally tortured. Or not tortured. Running from his home country. Or safe at home with family. These are not experiences for us to judge from the outside, only to honour for their unknown insides.


Years ago I would have pitied him. These days I have the courage to stay present to his story. To empathize. To offer what I can and let it go for today. To trust that this matters. To let myself matter, even though the nasty in my head tells me my troubles are petty next to his.

You see, I still have to meet myself in the face of the unthinkable suffering of the gentle man in the blue pyjamas covered in scars. Because if I don't, I will disappear, and I'll be less able to support him or anyone else.

So I breathe his suffering into my being. I breathe out a silent message that I believe in his immense spirit. As I give him a prescription for pain medication, my hand is infused with respect and compassion--not pity, which makes him other, but empathy which makes us connected in our humanity.


Suffering is absolute. I hold this out as an offering to those I care for professionally and those I love. And to myself. Because only this truth, and nothing less, nurtures genuine compassion.

Tiny Gratitudes

Let's talk about gratitude. Let's not talk in big, wide sweeps of thought, but in the tiniest increments of consciousness. In the places we feel it--the smallest, most fleeting moments.

I am grateful for....

The wood planks in my office building running in endless directions as I inevitably try to walk in a straight line.  My younger daughter's sparkly blue nails poking out from her Penguins' jersey. My older daughter's black tennis shoes peeking out from under the snow at the front door. Both of their mischievous smiles.

I am grateful for....

My father's voice answering, ready for the news before he heard it at 5:42am last Monday morning. His steady arms ever holding me and the girls. His insatiable appetite for my potato latkes.

I am grateful for the moment when the internal flood stops pouring out--the emptiness and fullness at once. I am grateful for the elderly man who turned back to smile at the baby on Queen street this morning. I am grateful for my white pen that says Kripalu in red. I am grateful for my partner's blue text that says "hi."

I am grateful for the rust on my grey bicycle. I am grateful for the new bike lane on Richmond Street. I am grateful for the white fur that remains embedded in the black rug in the front hall.

I am grateful.

For what tiny thing are you grateful today?

What Jake Taught Me

This is me grieving:

Screaming for Jake.
Falling to the floor.
Wanting not to get up until he comes back.

Getting up to love my daughters.
Wishing for them not to suffer.
Knowing they do.
Being still.
Holding them.

Planning lunch with a friend.
Realizing this would be my first such walk in the neighbourhood without Jake.
Cancelling.
Staying home.
Crying more.

Noticing how many people process grief by trying to understand.
For me surrender is all there is.
Jake taught me that
in the way he lived
and the way he died.


Shovelling snow.
Discussing with the snowflakes how I miss Jake.
Knowing that my daughters feel Jake in the snowflakes too.
They fall for him.
He is more than a million snowflakes now.


Walking around the house all day talking to Jake.
Begging him to come back.
Reaching for his boundless warmth.

Telling myself warmth extends beyond physical body.
Struggling to feel him still.
Asking him to send me a sign.

The only voice I hear says,
"Be present."

I am present
and I hurt like hell.

Grief Is About Not Getting It Right

JAKE 

2 Feb 2007 - 8 Dec 2014

The house feels too quiet.

The absence of
greeting, booming bark, with dancing tail
massive white paws loping across wood floor
powerful head rearing up from underneath my arm, touching nose to nose
ever foul breath, familiar

The absence of his benevolence.

No spiritual wisdom yet, only emptiness.
A roller coaster of compassion for myself and self-recrimination.

Many people share with me their suffering not only with grief itself, but with judgments upon themselves for not grieving "the right way."
I preach that there is no right way.
Today I live in that web,
and I have only just begun.

Message to Self on a Grey Day

Assume nothing.
Radically assume nothing.

Let go of the assumption that someone is thinking negatively about you.
Let go of worry about your child's future.

If you must assume, assume only the best.

Let go of the grip of the heavy sky.
Let go of fears about the long winter ahead.
Let go of entitlement--yours and others'.

If you must hold onto something, make it something you can control in this moment. Then move on.


Let go of the assumptions darkness feeds you.
Let go of the hardest hour of your day.

Let go of the assumption that order is good.
Tickle chaos.

Allow chaos to elude you and guide you at once.
Touch his wisdom even though you can't see it yet.

Assume nothing, I say to myself, on a day filled with rapid-fire assumptions.
Radically assume nothing.

Waiting For Now

Long breaks between blog posts. Many reflections, but so much ambivalence about entering into conversation. Conflicting feelings about wanting and not wanting to be seen. Waiting for now.

Lately I've been waiting less. My teen daughter and I have embarked on three weeks of not eating sugar. If you don't understand what a torturous spiritual journey that is, I envy you. We are only on day five and we are still in hell. We have continued to run--me not as often as I hope, but still running, imagining we will get to 5k one day, but that's not the point.

I have spent some recent autumn days floating in fabulous NYC, then deepening inward at Kripalu, my home away from home in the Berkshires. Fell in love with yoga for the first time with amazing teacher Jurian Hughes. Immersed in an inspired writing workshop with author Dani Shapiro.

I swore to you that I would write about Dani Shapiro and Jennifer Louden in my last blog post months ago. The Jennifer Louden post is also in the works, and here is what I have to share for the moment about Dani Shapiro:

So far I have read her beautiful memoir Devotion and her memoir/writing companion Still Writing. Devotion appeared before me in the Kripalu bookstore last summer when I was there with my ten year old daughter.

Jamea had been dying to come back to Kripalu, but once there was alive only to the idea of leaving a short time into our stay. The summer crowds were too much disarray for her focused autistic mind, and her yoga camp meant alienation despite the best intentions--she was having a hard time with her "difference" even in a place of relative inclusion. She just wasn't right.

Her not-feeling-right-ness tormented me during those few days. They were the opposite of my hopeful expectations for the relief of retreat after a horrendous school year for my beautiful girl. I needed solace.

I abandoned my yoga workshop and instead devoured Devotion. The book echoed and deepened my own exploration of faith and spirituality at mid-life. The writing was true. It was lyrical. I felt not alone. I became more able to meet my daughter. We made it though the heat, the two of us.

A few weeks later I was in NYC, soaking up lovely Nolita in the sweetest cafes and most inviting bookstore rocking chairs I could find. I wrote the first piece of the project that was beginning to form (and is still forming). I worked one piece over and over in a way I would never take the time to do at home. Still Writing's wise guidance through the beginnings, middles, and ends of writing projects held me in my beginnings and allowed me to imagine that there could be a path ahead, a path through.

The workshop was filled with guided meditation; beautiful passages from countless writers; writing; and sharing. In the end, Dani signed my copies of her books and I left in tears. I had been battling my evil inner critic, who had been clawing at me with a vengeance lately, and during the workshop that voice had quieted. Instead a more tender voice had emerged, and she had sung, "I. Want. To. Write." And I had let her be.

Something just dawns on me as I close this. I can't believe I missed it all this time. Still Writing--not just continuing to write, but writing in and through, maybe even toward, the stillness. Of course.

Writing is Everything

I haven't written here for seven months.
After a couple of years break following a period of blogging most days for over a year, I thought I was ready again to connect in this voice, in this forum. I wrote the first blog, below. It felt true. Then nothing else came.

I tried forcing it, but it was clearer than ever that forcing anything only fails, at least in a paradigm of authenticity. So I waited. I climbed inward. I allowed space for the inwardness and started writing for myself again. And in that writing I found the truth.

The truth is that writing is everything for me right now. It is what I need to do and what I want to do. And I want to continue to facilitate this process from a therapeutic perspective for others. So I am making space for my own writing this fall, and also for the first time adding a second therapeutic writing group to my professional commitments.

I have little else to say.
That said, reading more again is an important part of my writing and growth, and I am wanting to share those treasures I have found with others, so check back soon for my reflections on Dani Shapiro, Jennifer Louden, and others.

And, if you're looking for creative writing classes, check out Firefly Creative Writing--my favourite! Chris, Britt, and Danette's loving, smart, and insightful facilitation at two retreats this summer was just the chocolate my soul needed to embrace writing again, more deliciously than ever.

Aching For My Authentic Self

I sit for hours staring at the blank screen, wondering what to say without fully saying it, believing that all of me is “too much.” But eventually I explode with endless stories and reflections and feelings all calling for expression, and this burning inner reminder that authenticity is all there is.

As I slowly drop into that core truth, a past writing teacher presents herself in the forefront of my awareness. She had pulled me out of class, and in the dim hallway of the retreat centre had said, “I want you to leave here with a project.”

I said, “I haven’t a clue what that could be.”
She replied, “Write about what’s right in front of you.”
I said, “My daughter is right in front of me.”
She said, “Write about your daughter.”

And so I had. And so had begun to emerge the deepest creativity I had ever known. I began to ache to touch what is real within me, and to stay there and twirl in there, even if it feels like spinning.

I continue to ache to drop down, and at the same time my impulse is often to run away. I ache to be in the groove of writing and to fear nothing. I ache for creativity to be birthed in joy and hope now, not to have her only bleed out from darkness.

I invite you to continue to join me here, in places where our journeys intersect, in discovering what you ache for and your unique baby steps to connect to living the deepest desires that emanate from your most authentic self.