Understanding Your Spirit (Part III)

When I lived in Greece, depression would creep into my psyche like a dark, mangy dog that would hang around for days and weeks at a time. Whatever was going on in my life - work problems, relationship issues, the existential despair of being human - was the stuff this dog would gnaw on and carry around like a bone wherever I went.

It was relentless.

Sometimes I’d feel so desperate and out of sorts that I’d get in my silver VW on a random Wednesday afternoon when I should have been doing something productive, drive an hour along the Athenian coast and go to sit at the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion on the water.

Legend has it that Cape Sounion is where Aegeus, king of Athens, jumped off of the cliff in utter heartbreak upon learning of his son, Theseus’, supposed death. Theseus was returning from the island of Crete where he set out to vanquish the Minotaur, the infamous half man-half bull. They had agreed that if Theseus survived his journey he would fly a white sail on his mast. Tragically, he forgot to hoist the white sail rounding Cape Sounion, instead flying a black sail giving the signal that he hadn’t survived. Upon seeing this, the bereft king is said to have leapt to his death in the sea below, which was to take his name as the Aegean Sea.

You can see why I was inspired to go there when dark thoughts like clouds would cover my mind.

Inevitably, after sitting there for an hour or two and watching the sun and sea and gleaming white ancient monuments, though, I’d oddly feel better. Being in a spot that had more than 2500 years of human history embedded in it always seemed to put my problems into perspective. Sure I felt crappy for a few days or weeks. But my difficulties seemed to pale in insignificance when I reflected on how impermanent my little human predicament was. 

The story of the Greek king plunging to his death also would remind me of how uncertain life is for all of us. One morning Aegeus was on top of the world, admired, respected and envied by all in his kingdom. The next day, racked with grief at the death of his beloved son, he was a speck in the sea, gone forever to live on by name only. 

Poof.

Finished. 

Kaput.

Oddly enough, reflecting on these facts, of the impermanence of everything and the uncertainty of life for all of us, was comforting. In many ways, those dark times became the seeds of my own burgeoning spirituality. 

In my private practice, I see folks who are interested in mastering resilience to stress, anxiety and trauma to have a more meaningful impact in the world. To do so, I help them understand how the mind and brain works. We also learn about the body and how trauma shows up in it. These are both essential, in my experience. 

But it’s also incredibly important to have an understanding of what a vital, embodied spiritual connection can do to help you master resilience. This isn’t necessarily about religion or even ritual - although they can both be important elements of spirituality. Rather, it’s about having a conceptual framework for living your life that can guide, sustain and nourish you when the sh*t hits the fan, as it inevitably will.

If you have been ignoring consciously tending to your spirit, think about it this way: if you got into your car and saw the tires were two-thirds full, would you wonder why getting anywhere would be exhausting, slow and precarious at best? Of course not. You’d fill ‘em up and get on down the road. 

From my perspective, any sincere, embodied spiritual pursuit can be helpful here: organized religion (Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Judaism, etc), yoga, 12 step recovery, creative expression, indigenous healing practices such as plant medicines, engaged activism and many, many others. 

What matters most for you to deal with stress, anxiety and trauma is that your flavor of spirituality:

• Offers you hope

• Helps you connect with something benevolent that is greater than yourself, and

• Is something you can connect with regularly 

If your get up and go has gotten up and gone, read on, dear one. This blog post might be the missing arrow in your quiver of tools that you don’t want to be without. 

Anxious? Stuck? Feeling Empty? Spirituality Can Help You Cope with the Uncertainty of Life

Mireille came to one of my classes at the world-renowned Golden Door spa and wanted to work with me privately. Although her life looked marvelous on paper - several gorgeous homes, a beautiful looking family, great health, luxury travel around the world - Mireille was stuck. 

“I don’t feel anything,” she blurted to me. “I’m so cut off from myself, I don’t feel like I have a self anymore - I’m just what’s expected of me. I used to get such comfort from my faith in God but now …  I feel nothing. I grew up really poor and know I should be grateful for all I have. But I just feel … empty and numb. I can’t even feel the good things in my life.” 

Over time, Mirelle revealed that her long-term marriage, while stable, was effectively dead. Her partner’s drinking left her feeling isolated, alone and insecure. It was a pretty bad rut, although a familiar one. It’s greatest benefit frankly was that it didn’t require her to cope with the uncertainty of a life without a partner. 

Maybe you can relate.

For Mireille, exploring and slowly reconnecting with the religion of her childhood was one element that helped her feel more confident that changes in her life would lead to good things. This sense of hope also helped her reach out to find a support group for folks affected by someone else’s drinking. Both of these helped her connect with a benevolent force greater than herself that could help her cope with the uncertainty of life. By the time our work together came to an end, she was feeling so confident that her future would be bright no matter what happened that she had filed for divorce and was excited to see what the next chapter in her evolution would hold. 

What matters most in this story isn’t that Mireille took action to end an unsatisfying relationship (although that was a monumental step forward in her journey to creating a more authentically enriching life). Rather it’s about how she found several sources of comfort (her childhood religion, a support group, the help of a private coach, etc) that gave her the confidence to navigate the inevitable uncertainty of life without being knocked over. 

An integrated spiritual connection can be a huge boost to anyone looking for help coping with the ups and downs that we all face. 

Accepting Reality and Impermanence

When I lived in Athens, I also took the subway whenever I could. On days when I was running late for the train and would barely miss it, as the doors slammed shut, I’d always hear the same sound in my head:

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Even though the doors had closed and the train was pulling away, my mind would have a terrible time accepting reality (especially on those days when it was over 100 degrees and the AC wasn’t working). The reality was that I’d missed the train. But the lingering NO! in my head was a sign of my complete and utter lack of acceptance of life in that moment. Even though this situation was impermanent and another train would be coming soon enough, the monkey mind in my head both refused to accept reality and told a story about how this would never change.

Maybe you’ve had the same experience. 

For me, the study of Buddhism helped me deal with and accept reality in situations like these more readily as well as accept impermanence. But the idea also holds in other spiritual traditions, exemplified by the timeless words, “This too shall pass”. 

In these times of constant change and turmoil, recognizing and accepting the impermanence of our troubles can be super helpful. If you are a journaller, it can be so empowering to go back to old notebooks to see what’s happened to the big problems of your life. Whenever I need a boost, I scroll through my angst-y teenage and young adults journals (“Does Joey like me?” Answer: no. “Will my parents ever stop fighting?” Answer: Yes. “Will I ever write a book?” Answer: to be determined … but stay tuned!)

The bottom-line is that learning to let go of certainty and trust that good things will happen if you do is one of the many benefits of cultivating your spirituality. It’s something you deserve that’s your birthright.

What about Spiritual Abuse or Religious Trauma? The Importance of Compassion.

Unfortunately, spiritual abuse and religious trauma are all too common. They can turn us off from deeply healing and important sources of support that can be incredibly helpful. A gay health care provider raised in a judgmental religious background that I worked with talked about how he had been ostracized and shamed for his identity. He saw that, while he turned his back on his former faith that rejected him, he had also deeply missed the sense of meaning and purpose he had once been comforted by at least sometimes. Spending time exploring his own spirituality in an inclusive, non-judgmental group setting was transformative for him.

If you’ve suffered spiritual abuse or religious trauma in particular, it’s imperative to be especially gentle and patient with yourself as you dip your toes into these waters. 

Get outside support if you need to in order to explore this in a compassionate, nurturing, and inclusive way. There are many individual therapists, clergy and coaches who can help support you to do this work either privately or in a group setting. Your intuition and referrals from friends, colleagues and family can help you connect with the resources you need, especially if you doubt your own judgment from prior abuses.

Understanding Your Spirit is a Lifelong Endeavor

Finally, it’s important to note that this blog post is just a tiny taste of the many benefits you stand to gain by exploring your own spirituality. Indeed, doing so is nothing short of a life-long endeavor that can continue to nourish and sustain you as you live, love, evolve and grow.

Curious about exploring your own spirituality in an inclusive, compassionate and nurturing way? Get the motivation, accountability and support you need. Check out the Mastering Resilience Small Group Coaching Program. Applications are now being accepted. 

When a Man Cries in Public

In Paris last week. A man and his phone. 

His sobbing could be heard only faintly amid the din of conversation and beeping digital devices that contributed to the on board cacophony.

He was a tall, dark haired man, probably in his late 20s. There wasn’t much that was particularly noticeable about him: the T-shirt, shorts, flip flops, wristwatch all were standard issue.

In other words, there were no external signs that this young man’s behavior might not conform with the expectations of public behavior and decorum in our society.

And yet, here he was, on a flight halfway between Phoenix and Albuquerque, faced turned downward and towards the window, sobbing.

Rarely have I seen, if ever, a man sob that way, especially not in public.

It was the kind of body shaking that was more like that of a howling, wounded animal than of a human, perhaps more like a woman in labor than what sexist and outdated cultural norms demand of men.

He convulsed and shook, and tears rolled down his face.

And all of this he did, with minimal sound. It was almost eerie how quiet it all was, except for the muffled noises as he seemed to fight between his own need to sob, and knowing what public expectations demanded of him as a man.

My head was buried, ironically, in Huston Smith’s Why Religion Matters, part of my intention to fight against the tendency so prevalent in our world to stay at the surface of life and thought exacerbated by the ubiquity of technology. I was longing and hungry for more time to be spent in the depth and richness of deep contemplation underneath the realm of our ordinary diurnal tasks, where meaning is made, and this book was simply one of many such oft-foiled attempts.

Huston, one of the greatest religious scholars of the 20th century, writes about how a pseudo-scientific understanding of the world (what he calls scientism) has ripped away our common sense and traditional ways of knowing about things that are not proven by science in double-blind trials. Again and again, he writes about the realm of meaning that is valid and deeply worthy of respect, and which is all too often dismissed as not being factually based. A bias as crippling as the biases which Galileo and Copernicus had to face, too. 

I was captivated by the depth of the book and so grateful I had escaped the surly bonds of social media for long enough to actually read this way again. 

And here I faced the struggle that I find gets the better of me and many of us all too often: to say something to the young man sitting just a few inches away, or to keep my head buried in the book in fear of what might happen if I do?

The reality is that, in so many ways, our common experiences of compassion and tenderness towards those who are suffering are radically limited to safe spaces where we have permission to be with people in sometimes intimate ways. I make up that hundreds of years ago, if you saw someone sobbing right next to you in the orchards where you were picking apples or on the farm where you were milking cows, you wouldn’t think of not reaching out in compassion. That the imperative of being civilized, respectful and always decorous, actually prevents us from exercising our natural impulse to authentically connect with and be with those who are hurting.

I contemplated the dilemma in front of me: reach out to my brother or respect the rules of modern society which value privacy and individualism far more than they value connection, and risk making it worse for him and, potentially, me.

Eventually the impulse to care for another human being got the better of me and I had to say something.

But what?

What the hell could I possibly say to this man I didn’t know in a public place whose body language clearly seemed to signal that he, like a wounded animal, wanted to be left alone?

With whatever courage I could muster, I decided to wait for a pause in his sobs when he finally had to look in my direction.  After several minutes, with red eyes and a splotchy face, he glanced up.

And I heard this come out of my mouth:

“Do you want to talk?”

He nodded no, silently, but his eyes spoke of gratitude

He put the palm of his hand to his chest in that well-recognized gesture of being touched emotionally, and mouthed,  “Thank you”.

I nodded, as if to say, OK, and went back to my book.

Here it was, two perfect strangers in a public space, having a deeply authentic and private moment.

I had no idea why he was sobbing and noticed my analytical mind trying to find reasons why:

Had his girlfriend broken up with him?

Was he on his way to his father’s funeral?

Did he lose his job?

But none of that actually mattered.

What mattered was that this human, an American male no less, sitting in seat 8A, was hurting amidst dozens of other people. And he was courageous enough to be showing it.

How many others on that flight though were holding their pain to themselves?

Holding on to the idea that, in our culture, it is weakness to show emotion or to need others, medicating themselves with everything from food to obsessive social media, prescription drugs to sex?

I had no answers only more questions as my eyes went back to my book.

But over the past month of travels on more planes than I can count - from Oslo and Prague, Paris to London - I’ve been noticing more and more how much harder it is becoming for us to authentically connect. And how especially tough that must be for men, who still have even less social permission to publicly express emotion and vulnerability than do women.

We look down, get on our devices and check out of communal spaces as soon as possible. And then we wonder why we feel lonely, disconnected and frazzled.

Instead we could take a risk to look up, to each other and to what lies within us. 

The yearning to authentically connect with others is as common in Paris and Papua New Guinea as it is in Poughkeepsie and Pasadena. And for those of us living in the undemocratically elected Reign of Technology, leaning into a mindful and authentically meaningful life takes great intentionality and care.

It also takes a community to remind us of its value and necessity.  

And it takes a willingness to make ourselves vulnerable to those across the aisle - whether on an airplane or in the halls of power - to make us feel human.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to keep trying. Even if it does get a bit turbulent at times.

Want to connect more authentically with those around you? Sign up for a free coaching session and start building the life you truly want today. 

The Circle of Life

It's the Circle of Life

And it moves us all

Through despair and hope

Through faith and love

Till we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the Circle

The Circle of Life

Tim Rice and Elton John

Like all young in the animal kingdom, I adored my mother when I was a small child. 

I was absolutely convinced that she was the best mom, the one who smelled the sweetest, the one whose arms were the most gentle, the one whose hands could stroke any pain or sorrow out of my curly brown hair simply by touching it.

Everything in my biology told me that this person was the key to my survival and, as such, she was the most important thing in my life. From an evolutionary perspective, the mother-child bonding occurred perfectly and without a hitch.

And in harmony with nature’s perfectly timed clockwork, whether lion cubs, puppies or kittens or baby ducks, eventually it came time for this new member of the tribe to look around and see the rest of the world. Very quickly, I especially noticed the other baby animals and their mothers, and that is probably when the fall from the pedestal began.

Indeed, for the next several decades of my life, I could only see how the other mothers nurtured their young, what they gave to them and what I wasn’t getting. It was especially prevalent with my aunt and cousins: she seemed to be the perfect mother, suckling her young in a way that made me wistful.

My mother’s way of raising me was, to put it mildly, far more unconventional. Because of her formative years and growing up, she was much more of the “let-her-figure-it-out-on-her-own” school. After all, she had done it and it had helped her survive as a young cub.

I was the kid who would be picked up hours after school had ended with a sheepish look on my face, the one who had to figure out how to make friends without a mom at home who knew my classmates’ names, the one who had to go outside of the small cocoon of the nuclear family to get basic needs met from a very, very young age. One of my other aunts tells the story of how, at the age of four, I would climb up on the kitchen cabinets to get cereal to make my own breakfast. She was appalled and judged my mother fiercely for that, as did I.

But the circle of life gives us opportunities to go back to the beginning and see things with a fresh perspective.

Nearly six years ago, when I was living in Europe, my mother was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. From that very first phone call, I knew it was terminal and that there was no time to waste. Nature compelled me to return to my roots, to go back to the den and to see and accept this fierce lion as she truly was, not as I would have had her.

Two weeks ago today, my beautiful, fierce mother passed away after a long and valiant journey, not just through cancer, but through the pain and tragedy of her own years as a small, vulnerable cub with no one to consistently protect and nurture her in her formative post-war years in Greece.

We were given the opportunity, each in her own way, to let go of the mother and daughter that we had each wanted, and to fully, completely and whole-heartedly accept the other woman as a force of nature unto her own self.

Let’s face it, for all the times I judged and criticized her for not being Betty Crocker, I’m sure I wasn’t Daughter of the Year at all times.

As I sit in the grief and loss of this time, it is so clear that my mother was not only my greatest teacher in the Buddhist sense, but also did exactly what nature had compelled her to do: to create a young one strong and capable enough of fending for herself in the jungle.

It’s no accident – if you believe in that sort of thing – that we are both Leos, too. She didn’t do this by coddling me and making it easy and I can assure you there were many, many times I desperately wanted that. She did it by recognizing the truth of my spirit, honoring her own style of mothering and letting go of what the PTA ladies thought. Of the many, many gifts my mother gave me during her time here, the desire to seek and know my own truth and live it to the best of my ability was certainly one of the greatest.

The circle of life with my mother came full-circle in the days, months and years that I cared for her during her journey with cancer. When she passed, the only thing that remained was love, gratitude and forgiveness.

So many men and women I know stay perennially stuck in what they didn’t get and deserved as a child, what they were robbed of, how it is a wonderful excuse for not thriving today. I know it well because I, too, did it for a very, very long time. Indeed, I had to then, as it was an integral part of the slow, complicated process of healing and growing up. And I am so grateful for the teachers, counselors, coaches, friends and others who validated my experience and feelings while I went through it.

But while a child can be victim, as an adult, make no mistake about it: we are volunteers if we accept and embrace the burden of the victim story.

The men and women I know who thrive in this world are those who carefully, gently and methodically – and with the help of loving, compassionate witnesses – go through the stories of the past, grieve their losses, keep the stuff that continues to serve and empower them, and let go of what doesn’t.

My mother did a great, great thing by opening up to healing and forgiveness with me, too. She didn’t have to, but she chose to. And once more I adore my mother Lioness.  

We have once again come full circle.