• What, Me Racist?

    • March 20, 2016 12:26 pm

    Yesterday I posted a video on YouTube in reaction to the question asked by 2016 Oscar host Chris Rock during his opening monologue: Is Hollywood racist? In the video I’m asking a deeper question, “Am I racist?” and making a point about coming to terms with our inner racism and healing the shame that stems from inheriting the crimes of our ancestors. My sense is that the inheritance of unhealed shame is a large part of our inherent racism and a core reason why full equality has not yet been attained between white people and all persons of colour in our “integrated” societies.

    The dictionary on this computer defines shame as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong behavior.” When shame goes unaddressed, when I am unable to bear the humiliation and distress caused by my awareness of wrongdoing, when I do not know how to reconcile the inner pain, then the painful feelings turn outward. They become resentment, anger, judgment, and, in extreme cases, pure hatred. My shame has turned to blame. Instead of not liking myself I start not liking you.

    To the best of my knowledge my own personal family heritage does not include any slave owners and yet it was my collective ancestors who participated in the slave trade. It was my collective ancestors who participated in the genocide of the First Nations people. It was my collective ancestors who participated in countless crimes against non-Caucasian people here in North America and all over the world. Their blood is in my veins.

    As a white person today I have unwittingly inherited all of these sins, or crimes, or wrong actions of yesterday. I can deny that this causes me deep-rooted shame or I can accept it. If I deny it then the unhealed guilt and shame breeds inner racism: contempt and fear and, ultimately, a felt sense of separation. If I accept it then I must be prepared to participate fully in my own healing and the collective healing of our wounded culture.

    Because are we not all wounded people? Do we not all have dis-integrated parts that have gone unhealed and remain broken and fragmented due to the trauma of wounds from our personal past? Collective wounding works the same way.

    In order for true reconciliation to take place, the trauma of the wounded must be healed and the shame and guilt of the perpetrators of that trauma must also be healed. This healing work needs to be done both individually and together. Full integration happens for the individual when I admit I’m wounded, confront my shame and begin the inner journey to wholeness. Full integration will happen for our societies when injured parties and perpetrators come together as one to address and take responsibility for all sides of our shared global-historical-cultural trauma.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: There is, in actual fact, only one race and if I am human then I belong to it.

     

    Take Care

    • January 28, 2016 6:47 am

    I recently posted about making a major life decision and how difficult it can be when perfectionism or the fear of making a mistake is a dominant, controlling factor. Another element that hinders my own healthy decision-making is the desire to protect other people from their hurt feelings.

    The decision I made to return to Canada directly impacted a number of people, and one person in particular, whom I shall call Maura, was especially affected. She and I had been living together in community for 8 months and I knew that if I left she would be alone, hurt and even betrayed by my choosing to go. The thought of inflicting these feelings upon Maura was enough to make me stay. The voices of dissent were pretty loud: How could I do this to her? Leaving her was totally unconscionable; an unforgivable, selfish act.

    These negative thoughts plagued me and I wavered, thinking it would be better to sacrifice my own well-being to save Maura from her pain.

    Red-flag moment. Save Maura? When I get into saving someone else I know I am in big trouble. I have moved out of the relative safety of taking care of someone and into the dangerous territory of care-taking. There is a big difference between the two.

    “Taking care” involves looking after someone’s needs, being of service, helping out. Care-taking is about looking after someone else’s needs at the cost of my own and serving the ego’s desire for approval and esteem. It is not helpful. To anyone.

    If I had stayed to protect Maura from her grief not only would I have been compromising my own needs, making me emotionally sick (and possibly even physically), I would also have been depriving Maura of her own life process. Not my job.

    Care-taking is controlling behaviour at its most subtle. I tell myself I am protecting Maura therefore I am doing a good thing. I am noble. I am a saint! In fact, I am simply trying to orchestrate an outcome over which I am entirely powerless. I cannot save Maura from herself.

    The consequences of care-taking can be dire because in trying to protect the other person I eventually become angry and resentful. If I had stayed in community with Maura I would have begun to see her as the one now keeping me from living my fullest and best life. And even though she didn’t ask me to protect her, even though I took it upon myself to save her, she would have been the one to blame for my faulty thinking. See the insanity? I sacrifice myself and it’s her fault.

    Leaving Maura was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I wrestled with the question of what was right and agonized over whether I was wrong. In the end, I chose to put my own well-being first. (Even writing that sentence feels uncomfortable.) Doing so required an enormous amount of trust that my own liberation would somehow mean Maura’s liberation, too. Even if it caused her pain.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Am I able to embrace the concept of self-care? Do I attend to what is life-giving for me? If I am putting myself last on the list and it is costing me too much I will begin to trust that my own deepest needs can come first.

     

    Decide

    • January 8, 2016 9:39 pm

    It is just before 5 a.m. and there is a ghostly bird whistling somewhere outside in the dark. I am not able to identify a bird by its call. Some, like the chickadee, are obvious. I got to know the sound of a baby coot because there was one living on the nearby lake and it peeped incessantly. The bird I’m hearing now could be a wood pigeon or an owl. Its sound is almost a cry, somewhere between a hoot and a coo. A hoo.

    I was awake at three, possibly because of jet lag, having arrived back in the UK after 3 weeks in Canada. But it’s been a few days now so it is more likely the mind unable to fall back to sleep after being woken to go and relieve the bladder. I was dreaming of giant crocodiles and Steve Irwin, bless his Crocodile Hunter heart.

    The mind is also being kept awake by its desire to ruminate further on a major life decision. The decision has been made but how it loves to go over and over the details! I employed all meditation techniques to no avail. Finally I got up to write.

    Making decisions at the best of times let alone major life ones is never easy for the recovering perfectionist. I once stood in the linen section of a giant store trying to decide which sheets to buy. I was probably there for an hour before I left empty-handed. If I struggle to decide whether the cotton-striped or the plain flannel are right for me you can imagine what happens when I have something really important to discern. Total mental chaos leading to eventual paralysis.

    I have gotten better. There is hope. Change is possible. And yet I still seem to have to go through a certain amount of turmoil before I actually decide what to do. Sticking with the decision is also difficult. Depending on the level of impact on others I can experience all kinds of guilt and shame and remorse. Ridiculous but true.

    So I’ve made a major life decision. I’ve decided to move back to Canada after 19 months abroad, leaving the community I’ve been living in and the job I’ve been working at. It is the right thing to do and yet the fear comes at me in myriad ways threatening to pull me back and keep me down. I need every resource at my disposal to remain steadfast in the peace that came with the final decision. Because believing the doubt does not bring peace. It just sets me back in indecision. And indecision is really just another form of control.

    Control is the perfectionist’s drug of choice. Getting off it is a lifetime journey of letting go practiced one decision at a time. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on your view, Life itself is the rehab centre. We’re given countless opportunities each day to release the fear and trust in the Unknown. Like the bird singing in the dark trusting day will come.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Despite my fear of making a mistake I will stick to my decision. I will surrender perfectionism and let go of trying to get it right. I will practice trusting the Unknown.

    Humble Pie

    • November 23, 2015 4:03 am

    “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble/When you’re perfect in every way…”

    This old country song by Mac Davis has been running through my head lately as I have recently experienced a newfound humility borne out of an old way way of behaving.

    The word “humility” is often confused with the word “humiliation” and yet they are not the same. When I am humiliated I feel bad or ashamed about myself. When I am truly humble I am teachable, right-sized and grateful.

    When I am trying to be perfect “in every way” I am hardly in a teachable frame of mind. What can I learn when I already know everything? I am not the right size for my skin because I am ten-feet tall and bullet proof. And how can I be thankful when I am judging everybody else for not being as perfect as I am?

    I often say I am a recovering perfectionist. Perfectionism is its own form of addiction. I am consumed by the need to be right and I will go to any lengths to sustain the illusion that I have the power to control others and outcomes. Like many addictions perfectionism is coming from a deeply wounded place. I’m not a perfectionist because I’m an exceptional person I’m a perfectionist because I am a broken person.

    Last week, after trying to win my way through a discussion and coming up against brick wall after brick wall I was finally confronted with my own self-righteousness. It was not a pleasant feeling. The worst part about it was that I thought I was being very spiritual the whole time I was engaged in the battle! That sounds frighteningly similar to the terrorist who attacks others in the name of God. (I’m being hard on myself. And yet if we are not examining our inner assassins we are hardly in a position to condemn the “real” ones. I feel another post coming on…)

    After it became clear that I had been acting like a hypocrite I had no other recourse but to admit I was wrong and make amends. The response from the other side was silence. No more fighting. The interior response was peace. I am dumbstruck by the complete paradox of this simple formula: We diffuse the bomb through surrender. (Would this work as a tactic at the political level? Declaring peace? There’s that other post again…)

    As the shame from my humiliation gradually transformed into humility I began to see a wider view. I remembered that my self-centered behaviour is not actually who I am. It is merely the action that comes forth from my woundedness. I reconnected to the unbroken, untouched Sacred Centre that is the True Core of Who I Am and what do you think emerged? Gratitude.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Accepting my imperfection is an ongoing process. I will give thanks for my humanness, which allows my Whole Self to continually emerge.

    Become like a Child

    • September 28, 2015 3:02 am

    Yesterday I went for a bike ride to the seaside. It was a blue-sky day and the sun was giving off gorgeous heat. The wind was up and whenever I turned east I had to ride hard against it. I’m living near Dover, in the UK, and the coastline is made up of the famous White Cliffs, which jut out of the sea with magnificent sharpness, their top-edges carpeted with soft, green grass.

    As you come inland the topography continues to undulate making for hilly roads. I was beginning to get hot riding up and down the steep streets and I noticed my mind had jumped ahead to my arrival at the beach, my ride home and the refreshments I would have when I got back. My trip to the sea was over before it had begun. Everything in front of me now, the cheek-by-jowl housing typical of English towns, the leaves flashing silver as they danced in the breeze, the puffs of white cloud drifting over Dover Castle in the distance, was invisible. I was missing it all.

    The good news is this: I noticed.

    I actually became aware that I wasn’t where I was. I realized I was not in reality and had bought in to the fantasy in my head and been seduced by it. With this awareness I could change.

    Bringing myself back to the present I felt my body riding the bike. I remembered suddenly what it felt like to be a kid riding my bicycle on a hot summer day. Would I have been thinking about the future when I was seven years old? Maybe. More likely I would have been seeing the world around me, being with it as it happened.

    I passed a sleeping white cat curled up on a concrete block. It looked so warm and so content I could actually feel its interior pleasure. If a cat is allowed to curl up and sleep away the afternoon why aren’t we, too?

    I rode on, feeling the breath in my lungs and my heart working hard as pedaled. I sensed the wind kissing my face cooling the sweat on my forehead. I heard the rocks pop under the tires as I neared the the sea.

    The beach was empty save for two young fisherman and a couple playing in the waves. I found my spot and parked the bike marveling at the way the sun was hitting the cliffs making them glimmer the brightest white imaginable. I lay down and curled up like a cat. Deep rest. Body settling into smooth stones heated warm from the late-summer day. Diamonds on the water. France at the other side. Whispers of prayer to give thanks.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I realize that I have engaged with my thoughts so as to disappear from the reality before me I will remember what it feels like to be a child and experience the wonder of my existence as it unfolds.

    Death Comes

    • August 20, 2015 10:13 am

    These days I am working as a spiritual companion to the residents of a nursing home in England. I accompany these elders in their day-to-day lives simply by being with them. Some of them are sick, many of them are dying. If they are able to speak we have a conversation. If they are not, we don’t. I hold their hands and feet. I read them books and newspapers. I tell stories and listen to theirs. I pray with them if they ask me or I pray in silence if there is nothing else to be done. It is an enormous privilege to share in and bear witness to a life in these quiet ways.

    One of the residents died yesterday. I’ll call her Trinity. I had grown close to Trinity in the last three months since I began working in the home. She was an artist and we shared our love of visual art through conversations about painting and drawing. “My aim in life is to paint,” she told me when I asked her if she missed it. She was seriously ill and had lost the ability to use her hands in any real way and her mind was clouded by the drugs and by her poor condition.

    Trinity told me that from her illness she had “learned about laughter, suffering and endurance.” I was speechless. It is not often that we hear people expressing this kind of unspoken gratitude for being sick and dying.

    Yesterday, after one of the nurses told me Trinity had died, I went to her room to just sit for a while in the empty space and remember her and say good-bye. When I opened the door I saw that Trinity was still in the bed. I was shocked. I’d assumed the body had already been removed by the undertakers.

    I have seen dead bodies before. It is the strangest sensation. The body is intact and yet the person is gone. At first Trinity seemed to be there still. It almost looked as though she was breathing. But then it was obvious: Trinity was no longer there. Where did she go? We do not know. The Great Mystery.

    Now Trinity’s suffering has ended. And yet so has her life. A whole life that I know very little about. I only know that at the end of her life she had learned about laughter, suffering and endurance.

    We did laugh together, Trinity and I. I did watch her suffer. And I did witness her enduring, day after day after day. There is meaning in this.

    I am reminded of a piece of scripture that I have always liked. It helps me to remember that I am not the be-all and end-all of everything: “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14)

    Make the most of it.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Am I aware of the sensation of being alive today? I will do my best to bring myself into full awareness of my Being.

     

     

    Back in the Saddle

    • August 7, 2015 9:40 am

    When I teach writing workshops and we engage in “automatic” exercises or free-flow writing I tell participants to write without thinking. Just put the pen on the paper and go. If nothing comes then write, “Nothing is coming.” And just keep going. Even if you end up writing, “I don’t like this it’s stupid I can’t write I can’t think of anything to write I don’t want to be here,” you will have written something.

    The idea behind this exercise is that if you persevere then something deeper will eventually come. Your I-don’t-like-this writing will eventually produce decent fruit.

    I am reminding myself of this now as I write this blog post, the first in a very long time. I have challenged myself to write something because I am a writer and I have essentially given up writing. I still keep a journal and that is something. I write the occasional poem and that, too, is something. I write emails to people and that is something else. But I am not writing plays, articles, blogs or chapters of the unfinished book.

    This lack of writing has not really been an issue for me. I haven’t been beating myself up or wondering why I’m not doing it. I let the blog go, I retired from showbiz and the book simply has not been pulling me. My life has taken a different turn.

    And yet the fact remains: I am writer who is not writing.

    A friend recently wrote me an email saying, “I want to encourage you to continue writing. I love your writing, always have. You may not want to continue in the film biz and I completely respect any decision you make, but I really think you have a gift. I hope that you will let it take whatever form it may. Be that short stories, scripts or a novel! Let it out girl!”

    Being able to write well is a gift. I didn’t give it to myself! And because this ability was given to me I wonder… is it wrong not to use such a gift?

    Some might say so. When I think about what has really brought me pleasure in life “Writing” is near the top of the list. So am I not writing because I just don’t feel like it or am I squandering my talents?

    I don’t know the answer. But here I am. Feeling rusty and wondering what to say. Writing until something comes.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: What are my gifts? If I have been given a particular gift I will do my best to offer it to others however small the offering might be.

    Keep on Truckin’

    • November 25, 2011 7:29 am

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Life is like exercising. When in the middle of it, when we start to get tired we think, “I can’t go on.” This is a trick of the mind! Instead say, “I am willing to go on. I am willing to move forward!” Then let the Power of Forward Movement carry you ahead. It will!

    Help

    • November 17, 2011 10:34 am

    Inspiring Message of the Day: One of the most difficult things to do is to ask for help. Somewhere along the way we began to believe it was better to “go it alone”. But help is available, in more ways than one. Asking for help when we need it, whether from a Divine or Human Source, will swiftly bring it on!

    The Five-Minute Rule

    • November 16, 2011 9:24 am

    Inspiring Message of the Day: We think we don’t have time to do things. But we do have five minutes. Today I will do something for five minutes that I think I don’t have time to do.