We think we have free will, she continued, but we are foiled at every turn. First our biology conspires against us with brains that are hard-wired to increase pleasure and decrease pain. Meanwhile, we are so gregarious that social systems — whether you call them peer pressure or politics — reliably dwarf us as individuals. “There is no way you can escape." From NYT interview of Dr. Volkow, Director National Institute for Drug Addiction
The brain craves dopamine. This pleasure hormone gives us an overall feeling of well-being, connection, self-efficacy, ease. Addictive behaviors are influenced by how well our brains absorb dopamine. If you have too few dopamine receptors, additive substances and behavior won't have much purchase but too many can make the addictive substance or behavior unpleasant.
Addiction, however, also has a social component. Volkow writes, "Meanwhile, we are so gregarious that social systems — whether you call them peer pressure or politics — reliably dwarf us as individuals. There is no way you can escape.” Which is to say that we are profoundly influenced by the people we spend our time with.
We can choose to spend more time with people who push us to go inside, connect with our deep selves or those which, for whatever reason, push us to negative self-judgements, shame, fear, disconnection. To experience deep connection and love for your inner self is a natural balm for pain. Heroin, alcohol abuse, overwork, and overuse of pain medications are also balms for pain, but in contrast to the soul are not of the life-supporting kind.
Pain whether emotional or physical is part of life. How we comfort ourselves in pain, with equanimity, curiosity, and compassion versus fear, aversion, or shame, is an individual, economic, cultural, and political choice.
As a culture, the US is not doing so well dealing with pain. According to the NYT, "The toll from soaring rates of prescription drug abuse, including both psychiatric medications and drugs for pain, has begun to dwarf that of the usual illegal culprits. Hospitalizations related to prescription drugs are up fivefold in the last decade, and overdose deaths up fourfold. More high school seniors report recreational use of tranquilizers or prescription narcotics, like OxyContin and Vicodin, than heroin and cocaine combined."
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
The Power in Loss
"..The way we deal with those losses, large and small, can really help or get in the way of the way we deal with the rest of our lives, with what we have. Right? Not just what we've lost." (Krista Tippet interviewing Dr. Naomi Remen, medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program.)
How, then, do you deal with loss? Loss of a dream, an expectation, a piece of skin, a child? What do you do when the ground falls beneath your feet, you have no answers only questions, you find pain where once you found comfort and pleasure?
Over the years, I have "dealt" with loss in many different ways including denial, over striving, drugs, food, rage, continual motion, dreams, thinking, self-loathing, and escape. In each of these ways, I have treated loss as some kind of abnormality in my life, some great misdeed, or mistake I have made or an injustice by an enemy against me. Each of these strategies can offer temporary numbness and balm but in the end just serves to intensify my fear of loss which is really a fear of living fully with openness to what is. In these ways of coping with loss, I cling with vice grips on weak limbs, unable to open my palms to feel the next gust of wind, the rain, the penetrating sun, a friends hand.
There is a new way, I am learning, in which the inevitable losses can be experienced, acknowledged, and honored for the powerful healing, humility, and connection that they offer. Our experience of loss, afterall, is what makes us human, is what enables me to see the woman who serves me coffee as myself, the tears of a mother half way around the world my own. More so than our pleasure, the pain of loss brings us into the truth of our vulnerability and dependence on each other. And that knowledge alone can melt a thousand years of hatred if it is allowed to breath.
This new way, the sages tell us, requires us to enter the pain of loss, hold the wound with the same tenderness that you hold an infant, to trust that there is a ground beneath the emptiness, light to penetrate the darkness.
There are more questions than answers in this place of loss. But, as Naomi Remen has written, "I have no answers, but I have a lot of questions, and those questions have helped me to live better than any answers I might find."
How, then, do you deal with loss? Loss of a dream, an expectation, a piece of skin, a child? What do you do when the ground falls beneath your feet, you have no answers only questions, you find pain where once you found comfort and pleasure?
Over the years, I have "dealt" with loss in many different ways including denial, over striving, drugs, food, rage, continual motion, dreams, thinking, self-loathing, and escape. In each of these ways, I have treated loss as some kind of abnormality in my life, some great misdeed, or mistake I have made or an injustice by an enemy against me. Each of these strategies can offer temporary numbness and balm but in the end just serves to intensify my fear of loss which is really a fear of living fully with openness to what is. In these ways of coping with loss, I cling with vice grips on weak limbs, unable to open my palms to feel the next gust of wind, the rain, the penetrating sun, a friends hand.
There is a new way, I am learning, in which the inevitable losses can be experienced, acknowledged, and honored for the powerful healing, humility, and connection that they offer. Our experience of loss, afterall, is what makes us human, is what enables me to see the woman who serves me coffee as myself, the tears of a mother half way around the world my own. More so than our pleasure, the pain of loss brings us into the truth of our vulnerability and dependence on each other. And that knowledge alone can melt a thousand years of hatred if it is allowed to breath.
This new way, the sages tell us, requires us to enter the pain of loss, hold the wound with the same tenderness that you hold an infant, to trust that there is a ground beneath the emptiness, light to penetrate the darkness.
There are more questions than answers in this place of loss. But, as Naomi Remen has written, "I have no answers, but I have a lot of questions, and those questions have helped me to live better than any answers I might find."
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Falling in Love
Quite unexpectedly and at the ripe old age of middle age, I find myself falling in love. This is no ordinary lover, however, not a lover at all. Alas, I have come to love my yoga teacher and like a school girl in spring feel giddy, hopeful, and beautiful when I am near her.
The Buddhists say that when the student is ready the teacher appears and that has been the case with me. On a lark, last summer I signed up for a three day retreat and have been hooked ever since. In three short days, my teacher brought me deeper into myself than I had ever been. Yes, I was ready for this journey having practiced for over 15 years with more or less devotion depending on my whims, time, energy. I knew where my tailbone was, could spread my toes wide on the ground, had access to my thoracic spine. I could hold a five minute head stand, a one minute hand stand, and press up into back bend after back bend.
Still, I knew very little about the yoga sutras, has a disdain for pranayama and meditation, practiced with so much striving for perfection as to cause myself harm - physical, emotional, spiritual.
My teacher helped me to loosen up, lighten up, be very curious about my own body and how it moves (and how it doesn't). She helped me to make friends with the pain, plunge into dark and wounded parts, touch ever so lightly the unknown.
I have more resolve in my own practice now, am able to get down onto my mat daily even when I don't want to because it is her voice that I long to hear in my head.
"Come with me," she says with resolve and tenderness, "You can do this. Stay present, curious, find yourself." And she is there week after week after week showing us the way.
The Buddhists say that when the student is ready the teacher appears and that has been the case with me. On a lark, last summer I signed up for a three day retreat and have been hooked ever since. In three short days, my teacher brought me deeper into myself than I had ever been. Yes, I was ready for this journey having practiced for over 15 years with more or less devotion depending on my whims, time, energy. I knew where my tailbone was, could spread my toes wide on the ground, had access to my thoracic spine. I could hold a five minute head stand, a one minute hand stand, and press up into back bend after back bend.
Still, I knew very little about the yoga sutras, has a disdain for pranayama and meditation, practiced with so much striving for perfection as to cause myself harm - physical, emotional, spiritual.
My teacher helped me to loosen up, lighten up, be very curious about my own body and how it moves (and how it doesn't). She helped me to make friends with the pain, plunge into dark and wounded parts, touch ever so lightly the unknown.
I have more resolve in my own practice now, am able to get down onto my mat daily even when I don't want to because it is her voice that I long to hear in my head.
"Come with me," she says with resolve and tenderness, "You can do this. Stay present, curious, find yourself." And she is there week after week after week showing us the way.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Blessed Feast
We are a part of an intricate web of physical relations, which are at the same time moral relations. How we eat and drink, how we sow our land, how we get food to our plates, how we use other bodies, other human bodies, in getting food and drink to sustain us. These are moral issues which cannot be separated from very basic physical questions.Ellen Davis, Yale School of Theology
If we can eat with mindfulness, consideration for our bodies, and those whose work brought the food to our table, eating becomes prayer. In eating slowly, allowing flavors and textures to dazzle the tongue, spark the imagination, fuel the body, we affirm our aliveness and place in this world. As Ellen Davis writes, the very act of eating connects us morally with the earth and all its inhabitants. When we harm ourselves, by eating food that was cultivated or manufactured with toxic chemicals, we also harm the earth and those who work brought them in contact with the toxins. In eating well, we are telling God, "Thank you for my life, for my neighbors, friends, and enemies, my spirit."
Of course, eating is never as easy or straight forward as this. Eating well, with slowness and nutrition takes time and money which has been squeezed out of modern and not so modern lives. It also takes self-compassion and love which can be hard to muster many days.
My father's mother stopped eating when she was only thirty and died from her thinness. I have often wondered why she chose to stop feeding herself, to move the food around her plate but not to her mouth even as she cooked all day for her family. How did she resist the richly thick tomato sauce she simmered on the stove, the fresh bread Louie brought home from the bakery, the sweet tangerines in summer? What became more compelling than garlic, olive oil, and salty cheese?
It is a question for many of us why we stop eating well, just enough, and with attention. What prevents us from connecting with ourselves, the Earth, our neighbors, and God three times a day in the blessed act of feast?
If we can eat with mindfulness, consideration for our bodies, and those whose work brought the food to our table, eating becomes prayer. In eating slowly, allowing flavors and textures to dazzle the tongue, spark the imagination, fuel the body, we affirm our aliveness and place in this world. As Ellen Davis writes, the very act of eating connects us morally with the earth and all its inhabitants. When we harm ourselves, by eating food that was cultivated or manufactured with toxic chemicals, we also harm the earth and those who work brought them in contact with the toxins. In eating well, we are telling God, "Thank you for my life, for my neighbors, friends, and enemies, my spirit."
Of course, eating is never as easy or straight forward as this. Eating well, with slowness and nutrition takes time and money which has been squeezed out of modern and not so modern lives. It also takes self-compassion and love which can be hard to muster many days.
My father's mother stopped eating when she was only thirty and died from her thinness. I have often wondered why she chose to stop feeding herself, to move the food around her plate but not to her mouth even as she cooked all day for her family. How did she resist the richly thick tomato sauce she simmered on the stove, the fresh bread Louie brought home from the bakery, the sweet tangerines in summer? What became more compelling than garlic, olive oil, and salty cheese?
It is a question for many of us why we stop eating well, just enough, and with attention. What prevents us from connecting with ourselves, the Earth, our neighbors, and God three times a day in the blessed act of feast?
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Queen Asana
I try to visit the Queen, sarvangasana (shoulder stand) every day. The queen of the asanas, sarvangasana is an elixr for many things that ails us including depression, anxiety, fatigue, restlessness, fear, dullness. Raising the legs above the chest offers the heart a chance for profound rest.
I imagine my queen to be very very wise. She has long white hair that flows down below her waist and wears silky ivory gown. She receives me on the grassy knoll where she stands with infinite patience. Her wisdom and comfort pass to me not in words but in the soft gaze of her light blue eyes, her outstretched palms, her unwavering faith in the rightness of the moment. I sit in the cool shade of the maple tree, by her strong bare feet and am ennobled by her presence.
Unlike the King (head stand) who offers the storing of resources, one pointed concentration, the sharpening of blades, the Queen teaches us to let go of everything, to stop trying so hard, effortless effort. In surrender with devotion and irreverence, we learn how to unfold, open, and receive ourselves.
I imagine my queen to be very very wise. She has long white hair that flows down below her waist and wears silky ivory gown. She receives me on the grassy knoll where she stands with infinite patience. Her wisdom and comfort pass to me not in words but in the soft gaze of her light blue eyes, her outstretched palms, her unwavering faith in the rightness of the moment. I sit in the cool shade of the maple tree, by her strong bare feet and am ennobled by her presence.
Unlike the King (head stand) who offers the storing of resources, one pointed concentration, the sharpening of blades, the Queen teaches us to let go of everything, to stop trying so hard, effortless effort. In surrender with devotion and irreverence, we learn how to unfold, open, and receive ourselves.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Will and Surrender
Anne Cushman asks us to consider, "Where does striving reside in the body?"
My striving takes up residence in the hinge of my jaw, a tightness in the bite of my back molars, a thickness in the tongue. Striving lodges itself into the neck where the head rests on the spine and causes my throat to jut out in search of a better future. In my striving, the rest of the body may fall away leaving my thighs straining up the steep hill of my desires with too little breath.
Striving fools me into thinking that I have more control over things than I really do. While setting goals, having a plan, and a strong will, helps me to break through torpor, listlessness, and challenges, will, in and of itself, is not enough for wholeness. Cushman writes, "What I really value most in life cannot be achieved through willpower alone. I can't make someone love me. I cannot will creativity, healing, compassion, joy, insight."
Surrender, the counterpart to striving, brings softness, flexibility, ease, stamina, to the "doing". Letting go of what we cannot control, manage, negotiate into submission melts the striving from the body, allows the doing to be done without so much angst and exhaustion.
I imagine surrender and will as two banks of the river of my life. When there is too much surrender, the river weakened and undirected may lack the force to press through hard rock. When not enough meandering is allowed, the river can destroy what is beautiful, necessary even, for the wildflowers to grow and marsh wrens to sing.
My striving takes up residence in the hinge of my jaw, a tightness in the bite of my back molars, a thickness in the tongue. Striving lodges itself into the neck where the head rests on the spine and causes my throat to jut out in search of a better future. In my striving, the rest of the body may fall away leaving my thighs straining up the steep hill of my desires with too little breath.
Striving fools me into thinking that I have more control over things than I really do. While setting goals, having a plan, and a strong will, helps me to break through torpor, listlessness, and challenges, will, in and of itself, is not enough for wholeness. Cushman writes, "What I really value most in life cannot be achieved through willpower alone. I can't make someone love me. I cannot will creativity, healing, compassion, joy, insight."
Surrender, the counterpart to striving, brings softness, flexibility, ease, stamina, to the "doing". Letting go of what we cannot control, manage, negotiate into submission melts the striving from the body, allows the doing to be done without so much angst and exhaustion.
I imagine surrender and will as two banks of the river of my life. When there is too much surrender, the river weakened and undirected may lack the force to press through hard rock. When not enough meandering is allowed, the river can destroy what is beautiful, necessary even, for the wildflowers to grow and marsh wrens to sing.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Allegory of the Palms
According to yoga philosophy, one of the obstacles to peace is aversion to pain. In our attempts to keep sorrow, grief, anger, physical and psychic discomfort at a distance, to seek pleasure in all that we do, we paradoxically stay held in suffering. In running from the pain that arises in all human life we run from ourselves, the wounded parts that need the most love and connection. We forget our wholeness and the gifts of allowing life to unfold as it is.
To my mind, the story of Jesus' return to Jerusalem to throngs of palm waving worshipers and the captors who would crucify tells the same story as this yoga sutra. Rather than taking the easy way out, perhaps going into hiding or absconding to Syria, Jesus returns to Jerusalem to worshipers hungry for his love and teachings and also to captors who would torture and crucify him.
In my reading of this story, the worshipers are like the Soul calling out to us from deep within to return and return again to the eternal source of love and affection and wisdom. But the path to the soul is not always clear, easy, painfree. There are demons, those voices that detest us, judge, shame, crucify again and again. We must enter in relationship, deeply, profoundly, and with great attention to both our angels and devils. Only through crucifixion, death of all that is unreal, do we find eternal and everlasting life.
To my mind, the story of Jesus' return to Jerusalem to throngs of palm waving worshipers and the captors who would crucify tells the same story as this yoga sutra. Rather than taking the easy way out, perhaps going into hiding or absconding to Syria, Jesus returns to Jerusalem to worshipers hungry for his love and teachings and also to captors who would torture and crucify him.
In my reading of this story, the worshipers are like the Soul calling out to us from deep within to return and return again to the eternal source of love and affection and wisdom. But the path to the soul is not always clear, easy, painfree. There are demons, those voices that detest us, judge, shame, crucify again and again. We must enter in relationship, deeply, profoundly, and with great attention to both our angels and devils. Only through crucifixion, death of all that is unreal, do we find eternal and everlasting life.
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