White Caps

       When I am writing, it seems that my life just keeps handing me subject matter!  I start to observe myself; my reactions, my thoughts, my feelings, and voila, there is something to be learned, a choice to be made.  In the last week, I have been presented with a little turbulence, not huge waves, but enough to cause some white caps.  As is always the case, no amount of praying or meditating totally calms my mind when there is a crisis.  The beauty is that turning to prayer and meditation helps me accept and begin to see that my thoughts are luring me into the burden of figuring out and fixing things.

        Each thought has two parts, the information and the emotional reaction.  And, if it involves another person, often the information is a guess, an assumption based on their actions, non-verbal cues or past history.  Anyone who has suspected a loved one of any behavior that is a threat to them or your relationship with them knows what it is like to try to “read the tea leaves.”  You are grabbing at straws, but if you believe what you feel, it doesn’t matter if it’s real.  You suffer the same doubt or fear as if it is a fact. Whether or not it’s all just a projection, my mind gets busy trying to solve the puzzle, trying to figure out whether to spring in to action, what to do.  This sometimes appears as straight up worry, but often it is just a kind of underlying apprehension.  Some worries invade my mind to the degree I feel anxious and have trouble sleeping, but even when it has a lesser impact, a worrisome mind does not make for joyful living!

During this past week I have been able to stand outside of my worry enough to see how I can ease it’s grip.  Of course there are my old standbys, prayer and replacing the thought, but when I am swept away by emotion and can’t stop the mind chatter I need to add another element.  I noticed that I was sighing a lot, even while driving, gardening, exercising or talking, that I needed to take a big breath.  So how about adding some conscious breathing.   There is information online about different breathing exercises for relaxing, stimulating, meditating or for general health and well-being.   If I just inhale slowly through my nose to a count of 6-8 and exhale to a similar count it slows my heart rate and shifts my attention.  This focused, rhythmic breathing, even while in a waiting room or in line at the bank, takes me out of my thoughts and helps bring me back to the present.  It allows me to focus on what I am doing right now, not living something in my mind that may never happen.   

Yes, this is all pretty simple, but it’s the actual doing that is the challenge.  My three-point plan today for a churning mind is:

1. A simple prayer: “God guide me, give me the strength for whatever may come.”  2.  My replacement thought:  All my family on our favorite trip to Vancouver and Whistler, laughing and eating in one of our favorite restaurants. 3. Breathe:  Count as I inhale slowly through the nose, and exhale focusing on the breath as I count.

I feel better already!

Wrinkles and Waves

Of course, the obvious topic for a woman of my age would be the facial lines that appear in my mirror to remind me which direction I’m headed.  When this kind of wrinkle inspires any activity, it usually involves a new facial product or a trip to the dermatologist.  But that will be the topic for another day, perhaps several days, because the mirror is a daily reminder!  Wrinkles in my daily life are usually small problems or upsets, and I have become skilled at moving through them fairly quickly.  They add the texture to my daily life that I have learned to embrace.

       I’m talking waves.  The large ripples to the big swells.  These are the surges, the bursts of feeling that cause a disturbance in the daily flow of my life.  It can be from something that happens to me, but they are often caused when I hear about something happening to someone in my family.  It can be emotional problems, financial difficulties, health challenges, relationship disappointments, work – you name it, if it threatens a loved one, it’s like a ripple in my force field.

       One of the hardest aspects of this is that there’s little if anything I can do about it.  I can listen, give advice (which is not always wanted and sometimes causes an adjunct problem,) sympathize, console and resist the urge to try to fix it - which is my default setting.  This is where the Serenity Prayer needs to play on repeat in my head:  “God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.”  When the problem is in my own life this is also my prayer, but then I can also take action.  Finding the courage to change the things I can, is often challenging.  Even figuring out what I cannot change and therefore need to accept can be difficult. 

       The figuring things out part is where it can get dicey.  When a problem takes up residence in my mind, it can be difficult to focus on anything else, much less find serenity!  At best I am preoccupied and not really present in my own life, and at worst I am anxious, feel sick and have trouble sleeping.  Recently at an Al-Anon meeting a woman shared an acronym that stuck with me, FEAR: Future Events Already Ruined.  This is the parade of endless scenarios my mind churns out about the bad things that will happen if I don’t find the answer, give the right advise, make the best decision, and on and on.  This is when worry has a front row seat in the bleachers in my brain.  How do I stop the vicious cycle of “what if” and “what should I do?” 

       Replace the thought.  Bring the picture of the results you want out of the back of the stadium and up to the front row.  Re-read or listen to Wayne Dyer on “The Power of Intention.”  Or take a look at some of what’s been written about the Law of Attraction or Manifesting.  After I started writing this piece I got up to do morning prayer and meditation with my husband and he read this from the Emmett Fox entry for the day, January 20: “The rule is to think about God, and if you are thinking about your difficulty you are not thinking about God.  To be continually glancing over your shoulder in order to see how matters are progressing is fatal, because that is thinking of the trouble, and you must think of God, and nothing else.  Your object is to drive the thought of the difficulty right out of your consciousness…”

       How perfectly timed God’s messages are, if only we are listening.  

      

Beginning

       To keep my “end of days” in my consciousness, while being focused on living vibrantly every day, is my challenge.  The first piece of my plan is to add something to a habit I already have in place.  My husband and I start the morning with prayer and meditation.  What we do is determined by how much time we have.  If we are up early enough and don’t have early appointments we start with Wayne Dyer Japa morning meditation, but if there is a time crunch we have short version, and a shorter version, of morning meditation and prayers.  The short version does not include Wayne Dyer but we do read from “One Day at a Time in Al-Anon” and “Around the Year with Emmett Fox.”  The shortest version is going straight to the prayers: one I wrote when our son was a teenager that I have edited to include the whole family and, “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.”

       This is where I will add a prayer to include my intention to live with awareness about my “end of days.”  This is my first go at it.  We will try it out, as part of our morning ritual, and by the praying will find out if it’s what needs to be prayed for.

       “I call upon you, O Lord, my strength, to keep my awareness grounded in the ending of my time on earth, so that I come to you having made the most of the gifts you have given me.”

       I am most definitely a life long prayer.  Prayer has been my refuge, giving me strength in times of trial, and humility in times of success.  For those who have a problem with praying, or the belief in God, I suggest the Alcoholics Anonymous concept of God; a Higher Power as you understand him.  It is surrendering and just accepting that ultimately you are not in control of your life or most certainly your death.  If you were, I’m sure you would join me in declining the opportunity to exit the planet!  Do whatever works for you. Pray to a higher power of reason, truth, beauty, nature, a universal oversoul, a life-giving power, or anything else outside of yourself.  Turn it all over to him.

      

       Now, this is where I must address the seldom-silent ego voice in my head that arrives uninvited to derail my plans.  It could start quietly while I’m just waking with a message that today I should just get up and get busy right away, I don’t need to pray/meditate every day!  Or pop in later in the day when I have planned to write, with a helpful hint that I really should clean out the linen closet!  Mind you, sometimes I do get up really early and start writing or cleaning, but fortunately most of the time my lovely husband finds me and I go back to our bedroom where we say our morning prayers.  And better yet, when I do miss something I am committed to, I let go of most judgment thoughts that tell me I’m not disciplined enough, etc.  This makes for a much more enjoyable day without heaping guilt and recriminations on top of a missed commitment.  My aim, after all, is to have this process add to the quality of my life, not be something that becomes a burden.    

                                      Morning ritual...with Rufus.

Dichotomy

    When I was trying to figure out how to say what my aim was in writing this blog, I wrote, “how do I choose to LIVE while preparing to DIE.” It is this dichotomy that is the challenge. In discussing this with friends, several of them in my age bracket said something along the lines of “I try not to think about it.” They do show interest in trying to make the most of their remaining years, but keeping “their death” in mind is a subject they seem to avoid. I think this is a common and somewhat logical position, but there are downsides to just putting it out of your mind.     

     For one thing, there is the fact that many people experience a renewed appreciation for life when they hear of the death of a friend or even a celebrity. I remember when Oprah was talking about the effect the death of JFK, Jr. had on her. Beyond the personal loss, she talked about vowing to never take life for granted. Now, what better way to make sure that your appreciation of life lasts, than to keep the end of your life on your radar? This is more difficult when you are younger, because it seems like your death is so far away, usually “only old people die.”     

     At seventy, when you are trying to make the most of the time you have left, and you see that even if you live to be 100 - you have lived 70% of your life already – it’s a bit easier to see the end. It reminds me of the old cartoon drawing of the guy on the street corner with a sign hanging around his neck that says, “The End is near.” Exactly what is meant by near? Obviously, death can come at any time, any age. But I think I’m close enough to my “near” to start paying attention.     

     Paying attention to the end also gives me perspective on the choices I make today - the long-term choices about my diet and fitness and the possible impact they have on my longevity and the certain impact they have on my quality of life, the plans I make for travel and recreation, and spending time with my children and grandchildren while I am still very active, and I definitely need a bucket list along with a to-do list of all the practical health and financial arrangements.     

     Keeping my end as part of my consciousness is part of living each day to the fullest, actually spending my days with appreciation as I move along. I put a plant in my vegetable garden called Dog Be Gone to keep my big dog from digging things up. It is a lovely plant, beautiful when it flowers, that smells like a skunk if you touch it or water the leaves. It is a stinky beauty. A dichotomy I can live with, just like awareness of my life and my death.

The Call to Blog!

     In a few weeks I will be 70 years old and this nagging reality has invaded my space! I have never had a strong reaction to milestone birthdays. When I look back on those decade changing birthdays, none of them bothered me. When I turned thirty I had young children and was full throttle into figuring out my wife and mother life.  At forty my kids were nearing college age, but I had foster children by then and parenting and public school reform filled my days.  By fifty everyone was off to college but we had just finished a three-year custody battle for our son who had come to us as a week old foster child.  Life looked very good and I was a very busy mother of a five year old.  My fifties were a blur of activity.  Not only was I busy with my son, but my oldest daughter had her first of four children. Squeezing grandma time in and navigating our teenage son's ups and downs gave me a very full life.  At sixty my husband and I were facing a difficult time as parents and a serious test to our marriage.  By my mid-sixties our son was in school out of state and I began my first “empty nest” in forty years.  Why didn’t that trigger some kind of reaction about my age or stage of life then?
     Several things come to mind.  I was still restoring the big old neglected house we had moved into about ten years earlier; I was creating a little “hobby farm” with poultry and produce in my back yard and we had also managing to fill up the empty nest with family and friends in transition.  My husband and I still share the house with our son and a friend (on their way as soon as they find an apartment in the area they want at a price they can afford!)  There are still chickens, ducks, rabbits, cats and a noble French Mastiff to care for, garden beds and endless house repairs; so why do I feel gravity that I’ve never noticed before about my up-coming birthday?
     The whole aging/end of life experience seems to be on my radar and in the air.  I don’t know if it’s being written and talked about that much more, but it seems to be a hot topic everywhere I turn.  In the news, TV talk shows, magazines and movies like “Nebraska” and “Last Vegas” are starting to have “older stars” and older themes.  Some of it is funny, sweet or inspirational, but much of it chronicles the woes of the “golden” years.    Not to mention the overwhelming amount of data about what to eat and how to live in good health for more years.  And that, I think, brings me to the genesis of my sensitivity to turning seventy.  Of course I have always been aware that I have a shelf life, a time when I will expire.  I had several years when my children were little that I struggled with the whole “death thing.”  I had a kind of free-floating anxiety rooted, I discovered, in the fact that everyone I loved, including my precious babies, would ultimately die.  Becoming aware of the source of this anxiety and spending many years meditating and making peace with my total lack of control had pretty much calmed my discomfort about death.            
     I was able to handle the sudden deaths of my father and my brother, and help my mother through several years of decline and death from congestive heart failure.  The family I grew up in is totally gone and only my Uncle Don is above me on the "ladder" in the extended family.  It’s something I have been aware of for several years with no real impact on my life.  Somehow this next birthday has re-awakened my mortality issues and reminds me that there are a finite number of years ahead for me.  Of course this has been true since I was born, but even if I “live long and prosper,” the realization that I am in the end stage of my life has entered the picture.            
     So here is my plan - I always like to have a plan!  It makes me feel like I have a say in things.  Since time is growing exceedingly precious, I will write about this journey.  Writing about something keeps it in my consciousness and always helps me figure things out.  And, since I believe in heaven, and actually have had verification from my dad that he lives on (a subject for another day) I am on the stairway to heaven.  My plan for that stairway is to create as much heaven as I can for others and myself as I move closer to the top.   
Let the fun begin!