Tennis Lessons: #1 (of 3)...which have nothing to do with tennis....

There are days when the Universe decides to  hand you a great big diamond  just because it loves you and wants you to have it.  Often these come when you need them most.

Today I was going to the tennis courts when I ran into someone I hadn't seen in five years.  We chatted and then he told me what he remembered most about our time together.  It was the sweetest, most unexpected, most complimentary thing in the world, something I would never have guessed he thought about me.  

The courts were too wet to play, so we each left, but I will carry that delightful remark for a very long time.

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Standing in the Place of Not Knowing

I remember a conversation I had with a very wise friend.  At some point in the conversation she said, "I can tolerate a fairly high level of ambivalence." As someone not  good at handling much ambivalence at all, I was quite struck by that statement.

What would it feel like, I thought, to tolerate a fairly high level of ambivalence? And to tolerate it peacefully? Lately, living through three situations where I simply cannot know what I would like to know, where I am sitting smack in the middle of ambivalence,  I think I have begun to grasp the meaning in her words.

This isn't the same as coming to a fork in the road and having to choose one path or the other.  It isn't the same as procrastination or putting off a difficult decision.  This is a strange little place of standing where you need to be, waiting for more to be revealed. Going back doesn't work, going forward doesn't work. "Going" doesn't work at all.  It is a place of trust and struggling acceptance.  It is like waiting in an anchored boat, knowing you are safe, but really wanting to be going somewhere or in sight of a destination. 

Have you ever found yourself in such a place, this place of unknowing?  What did it feel like?  How did you handle it? 

It is a place where all the power and skill we have to influence change aren't very useful.  We must hold our fire. It is a place of not striving when we want to strive -  where striving will get us nowhere or even work to our detriment..  It is standing in the mist on a path, knowing that eventually it will clear and we will see where we are and where we are to go.  And knowing for the moment (and an unknowable number of moments to come), we must simply find a way to stand peacefully in the mist of unknowing.

It is being ready for the next thing, when the next thing isn't quite ready for us.

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What is "Strong Back, Soft Front" ?

In Andrew Bein's book for therapists, "The Zen of Helping: Spiritual Principles for Mindful and Open-Hearted Practice", he refers to something called Strong Back, Soft Front.  (He also talks about "practice-based evidence" as opposed to "evidence-based practice", an interesting distinction, but that's a topic for another day!) 

Strong Back, Soft Front is of great value in the helping professions, but I see it as something we can carry forward into almost all our interactions with the people we care about.  Strong Back, Soft Front is good for everyone.  Everybody wins.  It is a position of steadiness, strength, and love. 

What exactly does this term mean?  "Strong Back" refers to our groundedness, our calmness in the face of turmoil, our boundaries, our core identity, our wisdom, experience and discernment, and our equanimity.  It is how we hold our place in the world and in our contact with others.  It is the "oak tree" part of us in the hurricane.  It is the "captain at our helm", keeping course despite the metaphorical weather in our lives, the storms, currents,  and other hazards that come our way.  Melody Beattie in "Codependent No More" says "don't be blown about by every wind."  Our Strong Back (as much as possible), keeps us in our strongest stance against the gales, emotional and otherwise.

And what of "Soft Front"?  Doesn't this "undo" all the work of our Strong Back?  Not at all.  The Soft Front is how we move toward others in a spirit of compassion and open-heartedness.  It is how we really hear what others are saying.  It is how we learn to forgive and accept human failings and confusion, how we engage mindfully with others (and ourselves).  Soft Front is our kindness, humanity and humaneness, our vulnerability, our love, our sadness, our forgiveness, our grief.  It is how we are human together.

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Train Tracks and the Way We See the World

What we see, often, is not what is there. Take train tracks for instance.  If you stand in the middle of a set of train tracks and look into the distance, it appears the tracks eventually come together.  But of course they do not, it just looks that way.  There are many examples of visual distortions like this.  The moon looks like you could reach up and touch it.  The horizon at sea looks like a sailboat will fall off the earth.  If you are about to climb a rough craggy mountain, it will appear impossible from the ground. 

There are visual distortions in our mental and emotional life as well. I find this comes up for me when I am about to embark on "big scary things", for lack of a better word... even GOOD big scary things!  The "what if's" take over.  Anxiety builds.  I  recently bought a house and so I have all kinds of panic about it.  What if I made the wrong choice? What is I overlooked something?  What if , what if, what if..... It happens in relationships too.  What if he or she moves away?  What if this or that?  And underlying all this "what-ifness" is the belief:  DISASTER LOOMS!

But if I look back at the times in my life when I've really been wrapped up in "Big Scary What Ifness", I find that the fears I project forward and the reality that actually develops are very different.  Just as the mountain looks unclimbable, the future appears fraught with disaster.  Yet as you start to climb the mountain, or walk the train tracks, or sail to the horizon, you discover things look very different as you move through them.  The handhold or plateau you couldn't see from the ground appears, what looked steep is actually reasonably flat.  The tracks keep separating, the horizon keeps receding - you will never sail to the edge of it.  Disasters melt as we come up to greet them.

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Opening the Altruism Jar and Peeking Inside

Because of some changes to my work life lately, I have gotten a new assignment:  to contact 12 mostly local charitable organizations across a wide spectrum and learn more about what they do.  I made the list, got the numbers, and started calling, asking to speak to their program directors to set up a meeting.

Before I ever sat down with any of them, this phone-call project turned into an amazing experience!  I expected to get a name from each one and set up a meeting, end of discussion. But that isn't what happened.  Instead these people began spontaneously telling me about everything they were doing.

"Have you heard about our Learning Barge?" asked Marjorie from Elizabeth River Project excitedly.  No, I hadn't. She told me all about it.

"Are you coming to our Dog Walk in Stockley Gardens?" asked the lady from SPCA.

"Let me tell you about the new plans for Camp Civitan for the disabled," said the man from Eggleston Services.

One after the other, from LifeNet to Planned Parenthood to Doctors without Borders to Empower Hampton Roads, people burst with excitement about new plans and  projects.  I suddenly realized I had opened a window into the world of compassion and altruism in my own backyard (and a bit further beyond in some cases).  By the time I was finished I sat back in complete astonishment at the forces of good playing out around me. (I did set up the appointments, by the way.)

The news shows us work that needs to be done as well as the global examples of humankind at its worst.  This certainly has its place. But how many of us only look at this, only see this?  If, on occasion, you took off the lid of the altruism jar in your own city (and then the one in our country, and the one in the world), and peeked inside, what you would see would astound,  hearten and inspire you.  The legion of people filled with determination and passion in the Network of Good is something to behold.

Take a look!

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Morning Phone Call: From Dread to Delight

If it's one thing that strikes fear in my heart, it is having to call a large corporation with an extensive voicemail menu system to talk about my account.   I know I'm not the only one.  Long wait times....bad Muzak.....incomprehensible accents....being handed off from person to person.....sales pitches....fake people-sounding robot voices....lots of helpfulness but no real help.....well, everyone knows what I'm talking about.  So today I steeled myself and called a phone carrier company before 8 a.m. to put myself through hell. What a way to start the day.  But like oral surgery, I decided to get it out of the way. I'd been putting it off for a week.

This time, no wait.  A person who I suspected was actually real answered.  He did have an accent, but I couldn't quite place it. Vaguely Latin maybe. It was pleasant, adding a lilt to his delivery.  We discussed my wish to close out my account.  As I listened, I became more and delighted by the person I was talking to.  He sounded happy, he sounded like he loved his job. He sounded like talking to me was just the best way to start his day.  As we got about halfway through the phone call, I suddenly said, "You have the best personality for this job."

I guess he wasn't expecting that kind of customer appreciation.  He sputtered a little, and then we both laughed. He thanked me for the compliment.  Then he said in his lilting voice, "Well, I think it is because I have been doing a lot of reading and studying and things."  He didn't clarify exactly what things  he had read and studied but I said, 'Well, whatever they are, they are really paying off!"  By then we were both in gales of laughter, not so much about the subject matter, but because we were two people unexpectedly having a really fun time on the phone!

As he went through his final list of things to ask me, I could hear him chuckling, and then I'd chuckle, and then we had to start over.  When we got to the end he asked if I'd been very satisfied with my service during that phone call. I said, "I am exceptionally satisfied with the service!"  He said, "I am so glad to hear that!  You have made my day!" I said, "Well, you've made mine!"  Laughing, we both hung up.

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Walking Toward Uneasiness

A couple of days ago, after a tremendous rainstorm, I went walking through my neighborhood.  I was toward the back end of West Ghent where all the streets dead end at either railroad tracks or creekbeds.  I was walking along a sidewalk and became aware of two things at the same time.

The first was a massive puddle across the sidewalk that also spread out into the yard around it, a puddle you would not tackle without galoshes, and I was in sandals. The second was a woman walking in the street,  coming my way, moving toward the dead end a few blocks down.

The woman was of medium height and indeterminate age.  She was dressed in ragged clothes and she was excessively thin.  Her eyes were glazed and she appeared either stoned or drunk. It looked like she was carrying some kind of folded paper in her hand. I was hoping to keep walking without engaging her in any way, by eye contact or voice..... ah, but the puddle.  The puddle was so massive and there was no way to  keep going without walking out into the street, between two parked cars, which put me directly in front of her.  The Universe couldn't have done a more perfect job of putting us together within a few feet of each other if it  tried.

And so, now that I had been deposited directly in her path, she said to me in a slur, "Is this the way to the Cedar Grove bus?"  I was keenly aware of my uneasiness.  Although she didn't really look violent, she did look unpredictable.  I said, "No, all these streets are dead ends."

She said, "I just come from the 7-11 and asked them where the Cedar Grove bus was."  I can't imagine what they told her, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "walk to the dead end of Princess Anne Rd til you end up in the marsh."  This woman was literally wandering aimlessly looking for the busstop. 

I said, "Are you looking for the bus that goes to Cedar Grove Cemetery?" and she said yes.  Well, she was on the right street, but going the wrong direction and was about a mile and a half away.  I do not know the bus routes in my area, but I did the best I could with this. I said, "If you want to catch the bus, you need to go back the other direction toward Princess Anne and Hampton Blvd, I think that's the best place."  So lo and behold she turned around and now we were actually walking together, side by side, a circumstance I was wholly unhappy with. The curb was lined with cars and there was no easy way for me to get back to the sidewalk. 

She still seemed confused, she didn't know how far away Hampton Blvd was and I told her 5 blocks.  Finally, there was a break in the line of cars and I started to move toward the sidewalk.  She said to me, "Thank you.  Here," and held out a dollar to me (I now saw it was bus money she carried in her hand.)  I couldn't have been more shocked - first that anything I had said would have been worth actual money, and second that someone so obviously poor would be giving money away for such meager advice.  I said, "No thanks, dear, you keep it."  I got on the sidewalk, with a great sense of relief, and she headed down toward Hampton Blvd.  I had almost no confidence that she would be successful in her quest.

Nothing awful happened.  And yet throughout the entire encounter, I did not want to be there. I didn't want to walk with her, I didn't want to have a conversation with her, and yet it had all happened anyway.  I also didn't want to completely ignore her or act like she had leprosy by hightailing it through someone's yard to avoid her.  I didn't want soggy feet. Those moments were full of things I didn't want, all contradictory.  But what I do want now, is to remind myself that I moved through a few minutes of profound uneasiness with awareness.

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Coming Home to Yourself

A strange thing has happened over the past seven years since I divorced.  It is stranger yet that I did not really notice it was happening until recently. 

When I was about 16, I got launched into the world by my parents in several ways.  The first was going to summer camp (a late start to be sure), a place on the Kennebec River of Maine near Bath.  It was the first time really traveling alone, living among strangers, living in another state.  I returned the next summer as camp secretary so I ended up spending two years there. Following that, my parents took me traveling.  Most memorable were trips to Canada, Hawaii and Europe.

When I turned 19, I met my husband-to-be. I do not wish to speak ill of him, but I can say that the process that started in my teens - this process of opening my identity to its own special and unique development - came to a halt.  The marriage was not one that fostered personal growth and so I languished for 25 years until I quite literally woke up.  The Universe clocked me across the face with one of its inescapable slaps, and I left.  Better a little late than a little never, right?

Without seeking out these opportunities myself, I was offered a chance to travel again.  A lot of it was around the continental US, but surely enough there was an offer to go to Canada, to go to Hawaii, to go to Europe.  The curiousness of these developments was not lost on me.  How strange, I thought, I am revisiting these places of my past.

Two years ago I suddenly felt a mad desire to go back to that camp on the Kennebec River. I had no idea why. A series of dreams regarding my return made it no easier to ignore this yearning. The first summer I wanted to do it, things did not fall into place, but this summer I made it a priority.  With burning determination I set off, having no idea why I had to go back. I decided if the desire was that strong, there was an important reason whether I had learned what it was or not. I figured I would discover the reason either when I got there or after I came back.  And I did.

I will say that it was cosmically strange to go back.  The place had changed very little.  The routines were the same, the cabins were the same, painted the same colors.  The same lady was running the office as when I was there, and the babies I had known 35 years ago had grown up and become camp directors themselves on the property.  I found myself helping out, at one point washing dishes at the same sink I had stood at so long ago, looking out the same window. 

My discoveries about why I had to go back involved two things. One was my memory of this place was pretty old.  In some ways you wonder if things that occured that long ago were some kind of mirage, something that happened to someone else, that maybe they were never real. So the first reason I had to go back was to make sure it had really happened.

The second reason was more profound.  I realized that all the places I had visited prior to this had been places I had gone before I knew my husband-to-be.  Maine was the last one.  In terms of personal history and development, these were threads I had dropped long ago that had only just begun to be woven into the tapestry of my life.  Although I had developed a post-married life that was wonderful, I needed to go back to places where I had existed as pre-married.  I needed to remind myself there was a me before marriage, and who that me was.  All the post-marriage development, however useful and good, could not do this for me.  Only a physical return to these places of my original self could do that. And it did.

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The Agony and Gift of Becoming a Crucible

CRUCIBLE:  "A vessel that does not melt easily; used for high temperature chemical reactions."

In the movie "V for Vendetta", a fascist government has taken hold. A woman named Evey and the mysterious figure "V", are on the side of the opposition. Evey is taken prisoner and starved and tortured for days as a way to make her reveal who "V" is, but despite the intense agonies of this experience, she never relents.  Finally it is revealed that the government did not imprison her, but  that "V" himself had done so.  "V" had subjected Evey to this torture to teach her not to fear the government and to learn  to access her limitless strength, a part of herself she had not experienced before.

I watched this movie with a young male friend and we each had two completely opposite reactions to this aspect of the movie. I said, "I was horrified that someone would do something like that to a friend."  My friend said, "Oh I wish someone would do that for me."  (Notice he said "for" me, not "to" me.) I was astonished by that.  He wished that someone would test him to those limits, he saw that kind of experience as a possible gift.  I chalked that up to a "guy thing".

In my own life, I had my own Evey experience this year. I was given not one or two, but four extreme events to contend with at once. Each involved extremity in a different way: 1) two illnesses causing excruciating physical pain    2) extreme fear of  possibly losing my vision or my eye, which I confronted twice weekly for months in a doctor's office, 3) the emotional blow of the sudden death of a parent, and 4) the mental and physical task of emptying out a large family house to ready it for sale, making decisions about everything in it while in this compromised physical and emotional condition. 

Having survived this, I have come to see why my friend thought the "Evey" experience would be so valuable, because I have lived through it.  Surely a "high temperature chemical reaction" might be a metaphor for this cauldron of experience, and my task was to become that "vessel that does not melt easily".  While I would never elect to go through such a time again, there well may be more in my life.  

Perhaps the greatest gift of surviving these and similar experiences is discovering what we are made of.  These are our own personal ascents of Everest, our own undeserved incarcerations, our Hell Week's, our Seal trainings, our triathalons.  In the movie "V" tells Evey that this experience has freed her from fear.  I doubt I would ever call myself freed from fear, but knowing you can survive almost unsurvivable events, whether they be physical or emotional, frees you from seeing yourself as small, helpless, and of limited capacity.  We can instead experience the greatness of the Phoenix rising from her ashes.

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Feeding the Wolf

Most of you have probably heard the story about the old Indian and his grandson.  He tells his grandson "It seems I have two wolves in me.  One wolf is the animal of self-pity, resentment, anger, revenge, discouragement, and hopelessness.  And the other wolf is the animal of love, generosity, hopefulness, joy, kindness, wisdom.  And these two wolves are always doing battle within my soul."  The grandson asks, "Which wolf wins?" And the old Indian replies, "The one I feed."

The fact is we all have these wolves within us.  In my mind, there are Five Wolves:

The First Wolf is the animal of our noblest actions, our greatest sacrifices, our bravest endeavors, our deepest love.

The Second Wolf is the animal of our day to day happiness and enthusiasm, out ability to recover from life's little miseries, to be philosophical and to put things in perspective.

The Third Wolf is dispassionate, the animal of disinspiration, neither happy nor sad, neither passionate nor depressed,  an animal of flatness and disengagement.

The Fourth Wolf is the animal of our passive-aggressiveness, our mediocre efforts, our low-level cowardice, our unwillingness to participate or to find a purpose, our surly indifference, our negativity.

The Fifth Wolf is the animal of our most hideous and evil actions.

I think most of us vaccilate somewhere between the Second Wolf and the Fourth Wolf. A few stellar human beings achieve First Wolfdom, and far too many land in the pit that is the home of the Fifth Wolf.  But wherever we are, every day we have a choice to feed one of them - which will it be??

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