Pain Meditation

Pain is an intrinsic part of being born in a physical body, as the Buddha has taught. In reality, aging and sickness begin the moment we enter the world. Yet we are conditioned to ward off all pain. We are unwilling to allow the pain simply to happen...

Paradoxically, once we are willing to work with pain, we feel that it is not all bad. Pain is a riveting object of attention; to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, it concentrates the mind wonderfully. If we leave the breath and direct attention to whatever physical sensation is in the body, allowing ourselves to be present with whatever has arisen, the mind doesn’t tend to wander very much. If we are truly aware of the sensations, we find that pain can focus and calm the mind. There can be joy that arises with this concentration. We are not scattered. The mind is happily focused.

- Gavin Harrison, from “Working With Pain,” Tricycle, Winter 2002

I am at work, after a few days of not-quite-unbearable-but-pretty-darn-close back pain, that has left me sleeping with the aid of Tylenol PM and awake with hot packs and Aleve. I'm managing, but it's much nicer to be sitting on a couch than in an office at a computer. Ergonomics are not my strong suit, and to try and adjust a computer on a desk that isn't mine, with my chair height (these long legs are annoying sometimes), it leaves me sitting up high and looking down low which leads to a turtle-head neck forward position. And the rest of my time is spent in a chair listening to people (who get distracted if I squirm too much).

So it's my lunch break (and yes I'm blogging instead of eating), and I come across this daily dharma quote over at Tricycle.com and it speaks perfectly into my experience today. The pain is bringing me into an awareness of my body, of my physical being in the room with another person. I notice when they take a deep breath after a long story, and when I am tensing my abs and restricting my own breathing. I am aware of a lump of irritation in my left shoulder and I do wonder, why is it crying right now, and what is it trying to tell me?

I don't know what it would be like to not have some pain, an ache here or there, and while I wish I didn't have to live like this, I wonder if living in the physical experience is part of what it's all about. So maybe, today my focus will be on the pain, instead of the removal of the pain.

We have years and years left together...

These are my little sisters. I love being in reunion with them, and despite our age gap, I feel like we get along famously. Last weekend I got to spend time with them, and even taught Libby to tie her shoe! Such special memories, and I think that shows in our photo-booth extravaganza!

playing with wax

Animal Guides

This summer has been filled with dreams. Normally I pay only partial attention to my dreams, but sometimes there are dreams that impact me so much that I even find myself thinking about them during the day. The dreams lately have involved animals, specifically cougars, wolves and bears. The animals don't appear all at one time, rather it began with cougars just being there, and then a few weeks later it was wolves and then bears. And both the wolves and bears morphed into native american men and spoke to me. So I did a few soul collage cards to just try and put these out into reality, rather than being in my head :)

Early Memories

We literally have hundreds of thousands of interactions and experiences in our lifetime, so why, when we look back over our life, do we have specific memories. Why, when we think of childhood, do we remember very specific events and don't remember others?

As a counselor I have been exploring this (both internally with myself) and processing it with clients. According to my supervisor, "of the thousands of experiences we each have in childhood, we remember those few that symbolically reinforce our lifestyle and belief system (S. Maybell).

An exercise I have had people do, is think about an early memory, describe it, and talk about how they were feeling in the memory. Because this is my blog, I thought I'd share a little bit about my own experience with this (don't you just love parallel processes in clients and therapists?)

When I was 4 years old I went on a trip with my parents and my little brother through the Redwoods. On this trip, we stopped to see the statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Experiencing this tourist trap later put perspective on my memory, but as a child I was completely mesmerized with this statue, who was so tall AND Paul Bunyan talked. Children would come up to the statue and talk to Paul and he would answer them. I remember my parents telling me it was time to go back to the car, and a booming voice said "I will be able to hear and see you at your car." I remember feeling both awed (that Paul Bunyan answered me and said that he could see and hear me) and also a bit frightened (for the same reasons).

Looking back, as an adult, I realize that the statue wasn't really talking to me, that it was the guy in the control booth next to the statue. But somehow this memory has stuck with me...so if we keep and think about certain memories because the reinforce our way of viewing the world, then what does this memory say about my worldview?

There are several different things to look for in a memory:
1) self-image
2) world-view
3) gender
4) relationships
5) values
6) goals
7) achievement of goals (s. maybell)

Not all memories reinforce all areas, but it is fun to try and tease out which ones do apply. In my case, I think the biggest thing that I notice, is that this Paul Bunyan image is similar to how I viewed God. God was BIG and a man and could speak in a booming voice from above, both 'seeing' and 'hearing me' no matter how far away I was. And yet, Paul Bunyan had been silent all the time I had been around him, and it was only when I was leaving that I heard his voice. I see myself as small and unable to make my own choices, as I am directed by my parents. My parents are right and I must comply.

So I challenge you to do one of your own memories. Don't worry about doing it perfectly or choosing the earliest memory. It's a fun experiment, and it's teaching me a lot about myself. Now I can see where I got some beliefs and I can choose, now as an adult, to say "um, those aren't working for me anymore. those were created in childhood from a memory and they no longer apply."

the beat of my OWN drum

For awhile now I have wanted to buy a drum. while I'm not yet prepared to join a drum circle, I wanted something that I could make music with, as well as something functional and small that I could bring to Sounders games and join in the merry music-making.

I had been perusing online and found a few drums that I liked, but I was on my way to my favorite East West bookshop and saw this shop called Ten Thousdand Villages, and thought "hmm, that looks interesting, I think I'll go inside."

Lo and behold, this shop combined many of my loves and desires all in one place. It is a fair-trade shop that sells hand-crafted pieces from all over the world. At first I thought it would just supply me with my need to Indianify my place, but there was a whole table of drums...and they were so reasonably priced ($25+) that I just had to buy one. So I picked up a goat-skin/mango wood drum made in indonesia, and away I went.

While I had been researching drums, I had also been looking at drawings that people have done on their drums, to add a little flavor. I love henna and in my online research (you know, the internet is truly a wonderful thing in this regard) I found many people who had painted their drums with henna. So while I don't have any henna materials (and was too impatient to go through the whole process...maybe on my next drum!) I used a Pentel marker that is eerily similar looking to real henna.

The process of drawing on the drum was relatively easy. I used a compass and a rule to get the basic circles and radial points, but I mostly just freehanded everything. I was surprised at just how meditative the whole process was. It makes me wish I was independently wealthy and could just draw on drums all day! :)

Here's my "finished" product (I think I want to add a few more embellishments, but I'm happy with how it looks now and I don't want to make it too busy).

Already I love playing it, and I get to break it out in public tomorrow at the Sounders game!

So cheers to following the beat of my OWN drum!

Don't Hold Your Breath

"Don't hold your breath," is a phrase I grew up hearing. It ran in the same circles as "don't get your hopes up," and "there are starving children in India, so finish your dinner." I always thought the phrase meant not to get too excited about something ala not getting your hopes up (which is a phrase I took too to heart for a long time), but yesterday I noticed a shift, a way of looking at the phrase differently than I had previously.

I have been noticing and focusing on my breath and breathwork in general for awhile now. And yesterday, as I was lying on a massage table (with a cat companion nestled at my feet), I was noticing my breath. Courtney asks me to take deep breaths during the massage, especially when she's working on a particular area. So I was thoughtfully noticing when I don't breathe...when I hold my breath (which is contrary to the advice in 'don't hold your breath.')

I came to two conclusions. 1) I hold my breath in anticipation of pain. When I sense she's getting close to a spot that might hurt, I hold my breath, as if that tensing or tightening and restriction would somehow divert her hands to a less tender spot and help me avoid confronting the source of my tension. This goes for more areas than just in my massage...I hold my breath, in a failed attempt at bargaining...to keep the pain at bay. Of course it doesn't work, but for a moment it gives me a sense of a little bit of control, though my muscles are much tighter afterward... 2) I hold my breath when I am trying to prolong the pleasure. Sometimes a spot feels so good when it's touched, and in an attempt to not miss out on any aspect of the goodness, I hold my breath. It's as though I could make that moment last forever if I just stay completely still and absent of breathing. Rather than truly, fully experiencing the moment, I'm worried about it fleeing, which is also about control, and in effect I lose out on the power of really experiencing the moment.

So, for today I will try not to hold my breath...I will embrace and ride the waves of both pleasure and pain...