Dearest Readers,
The last Healing Journey letter was written at the end of March when the idea of wearing masks in public was unthinkable. Now we are in August and saying, “Nice mask!” to each other and comparing fabric and patterns. Humans are, if nothing else, pretty adaptable creatures, no?
I’ve noticed that the lockdown has divided some of us into two camps: one, for whom the isolation is anxiety-producing, and the other for whom it is a relief.
I tend to fall mostly into the second camp.
Not that I’ve been isolated very much. I was in self-isolation for three weeks when I thought I had the virus but after I finally tested negative (way back in April when it took 9 days to get results), I was able to go back to work at the long-term care home and have been around people pretty much every day since then.
Those three weeks in isolation were very healing. The everyday anxiousness I feel at just having to participate in life went away. I don’t have to go anywhere? Do anything? Ahhhhh….
I’ve been hearing from some of you that you feel the same way: the forced isolation has relieved your own felt-sense of a pressurized world.
And then there are those of you who are really feeling the loneliness. The lack of social connection has been getting to you and you feel like you’re climbing the walls. It’s been all you can do to stay sane in a situation some of you have likened to being in prison.
(There might actually be a third camp: those of you who live alone and are retired and life hasn’t changed much for you. Regardless, it’s a time of change for everyone, whether personally or globally.)
There was a time in my life when I didn’t even know I felt anxious about day-to-day living. The anxiousness was masked behind overachieving and pushing myself. It was only when I began to do inner work that I realized my insides are often churning. About what? Oh, you name it. Just about anything and everything.
Ironically, the more conscious I’ve become and the more healing I’ve experienced, the more the anxious state has been exposed. It’s probably not the best advertisement for waking up, is it? ‘Get on the spiritual journey, folks, and you will discover how neurotic you really are!’
But ‘un-masking’ the fear has been a life-saver.
The literal masks we’re now wearing are also life-savers but they are a nuisance and, for some, a source of stress. Despite the attempt at making them fashionable, masks hide our smiles and facial expressions, which connect us to one another in important ways. (On the plus side, masks hide yawns and spinach in your teeth.)
Like the virus-prevention mask hiding the smile and the yawn (and the spinach), the masks of overachieving and ‘pushing through it’ can be hiding an anxious or a fearful part of the self. When I removed these protective outer masks, i.e. when I began to slow down, get quiet and ‘check in’, I began to discover what was really going on inside of me.
Becoming conscious of the fear actually enabled me to attend to what was underneath it: a desire for reassurance, support and self-acceptance. At one time, I would have died before admitting that I was afraid of life but admitting to the fearand exposing it continues to reduce the power it holds over me and provides me with an ongoing source of courage.
When I leave the long-term care home after hours of wearing a mask and finally get to pull it off as I cross the parking lot, I cannot tell you how liberating it feels. The fresh air on my face is like a kiss from God. When I remove the mask of ‘having it all together’ and share the fear, I feel a similar kind of freedom. The relief is like a Cosmic Thumbs-up.
So let’s keep our masks on to prevent the spread of the virus and let’s keep un-masking to discover ourselves. Sometimes what’s hiding underneath is actually what connects us to one another.
- 20/20
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Un-Mask the Fear
Resisting Love
This blog post is the last issue of The Healing Journey, the letter I send out to subscribers. You may subscribe here to receive the email.
‘Love’ gets a lot of air time as the final solution to the world’s problems.
All you need is love. Make love not war. Whatever the question, love is the answer.
I do not disagree. In fact, I would march in any protest holding a One Love slogan high or chanting it loud and long for all to hear.
Why, then, when we are so good at touting this truth, do we still resist love? And not just on a global scale, as a peaceful solution to mass discord, but on a personal one as well?
How many people do you know who hurt themselves or reject goodness or resist love? A few? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Billions?
For your separation from God is the hardest work in this world.
This line from a poem by Hafez (or Hafiz) says it all. Why are we working so hard to separate ourselves from That Which We Already Are?
Lots of reasons. Trauma, addiction, mental illness, low self-esteem, self-loathing, desire for power and control, fear.
In short: because we’re human.
In evolutionary terms, it could be argued that we are still at the very beginning of our journey toward full, conscious awakening. There may be a few awakened beings walking around but most of us are still dragging our knuckles and clubbing each other.
Why?
Because we don’t realize Who We Really Are.
I think I’m Celia. And I am. I’m also the Evolving Manifestation of the Mysterious Energy Creating and Sustaining All Things at Every Conceivable Level of Physical and Non-Physical Reality.
(I know, it’s a lot easier to say ‘God’ but the word divides. You’ve heard me say it before, we need a new word. Or we at least need to come to some kind of agreement on what the word means. Until then, I’ll create variations.)
Being Celia, or human, means I am subject to human experience. Human experience includes wrestling with ‘the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.’ I am going to get hurt and rejected. I am going to suffer. Because I’ve suffered and been hurt and rejected, I’m going to identify with these experiences. Naturally. And this identification is going to lead me to believe that I am unworthy, unloved and unlovable. Hence, when love comes my way I’m going to resist it. Or even before it comes my way I’m going to make sure it doesn’t arrive. Cut it off at the pass.
This is the wound of separation, which leads to the hardest work in the world. So how do we heal?
First of all, there is no cure for being human. It is what I am. No matter how hard I try, I will not outrun my humanity and the fear that comes with it.
In the same way, I cannot outrun That Which Makes Me Human. I may be able to resist The Force Behind Human Existence but extricating myself from It? Not a chance.
This is why separation is ‘the hardest work in the world’. Because we literally cannot do it.
Resisting Love because we’re afraid of being hurt or vulnerable or rejected is the expected human reaction. Understanding that it is impossible to resist That Which We Already Are is the evolved and awakened response.
Still, resistance persists. I may know intellectually that I am the Cosmos Looking at Itself or a Child of God or Bliss Absolute or however you want to say it and yet there I go again, pressing the self-sabotage button, rejecting Love before it rejects me.
It’s okay.
We can’t annihilate our separation work any more than we can outrun our humanness. Because our separation work is our humanness. This is how we are made. If we didn’t have the veil of separation we’d be God. Or the Thing That Makes All Things Possible. That veil is what enables us to be here.
So, if you are in the resistance, if your separation work is generating or perpetuating the suffering, be gentle with yourself. We’re still evolving. We’re not getting it wrong.
I recently asked a 105 year-old woman what her secret was. “I just live,” she said.
May we all just live, as we are, trusting that Evolution or Divine Love or Cosmic Oneness is doing Its good work in all of us, even now, and even now, and now and now…
From the fires of love,
Celia
The Agony of Nothing
This blog post is the last issue of The Healing Journey, the letter I send out to subscribers. You may subscribe here to receive the email.
This past August my parents and our family suffered the loss of Maggie, our beloved Great Dane, to bone cancer. A few weeks after Maggie died my mother announced that she was getting a new puppy. I was surprised. When Maggie was deteriorating my mum had stated very clearly that she would never get another dog.
“You said you weren’t going to get another dog,” I reminded her.
“I know,” she answered, “But I can’t bear the agony of nothing.”
“The agony of nothing,” I repeated, impressed by her ability to name so aptly our existential human emptiness, “That’s it. Right there. That is what it all comes down to. If we cannot learn to bear the agony of nothing–”
“We’re doomed!” she interjected.
That wasn’t exactly what I was going to say. I was going to say that if we cannot learn to bear the agony of nothing then we are destined to get a puppy to make the pain go away. But what happens when the puppy dies and we are once again left with that “deep-down, black, bottom-of-the-well, no-hope, end-of-the-world, what’s-the-use loneliness”? (Thank you, Charlie Brown.)
Well, we can always find something else to temporarily relieve the dread. There is no shortage in today’s world: shopping, sex, TV, booze, dope, chocolate cake. On and on it goes.
Eventually those things stop working, too, and the Black Hole returns. What then? How do we bear the Agony of Nothing?
By spending time with it.
Yup. When when we stop trying to a-void the Void, when we make friends with the thing we fear most, it becomes transformed. Solitude is no longer lonely and Silence is no longer empty.
It takes great courage to do this. Exploring the foreign territory of our inner lives can be terrifying. It is the Great Unknown, after all. I myself have uncovered a hundred forms of fear living inside of me. By getting to know these fears intimately and confronting my terror head-on, their power has been massively reduced. And I’m happy to report that I have been liberated by at least eighty-seven of them. Maybe eighty-eight.
This is how healing actually happens. Interior freedom occurs when we walk through the fear rather than run from it, work with the pain rather than alter it. Entering fully into the Agony of Nothing creates, miraculously, the Possibility of Something. That Something is better than a puppy. Because it is, in fact, Everything.
Thus begins the astonishing process of living from our Everythingness instead of from the agony of our nothingness. And it is a process. And puppies are most definitely allowed.
From the fires of love,
Celia
Willing to Live
Dearest Readers,
This post is for you if you are feeling overwhelmed, run down by life, paralyzed by fear, stuck in a rut, cynical, helpless, hopeless. I would like you to know that you are not alone.
Before I go on, I would like to preface what I am about to say by telling you that I have a great life. I am young, healthy, talented, loved, and pretty cute. AND I struggle with anxiety and fear. So despite the fact that I have enormous amounts of abundance and opportunities for joy in my life I go to bed some nights and wake up some days in cold, naked, fear.
Last night was one of those nights and this morning was one of those mornings.
When I went to bed last night I told myself that when the cat pounced on me at 5:30 the next day I would not go back to bed after getting up to feed him. I would do the morning routine and embrace the day. I was determined because I knew that if I didn’t, if I let the fear plague me it would end up driving the bus of my day and I would sink deeper into the mire.
So this morning at 5:30 a.m., right on schedule, “Pounce!” The cat jumped on me and began his mournful sing-song to waken me. Guess what? I ignored him. I pulled the covers over my head and stuck a finger in my ear.
Fear: 1, Celia: 0
Now because I am aware of my shortcomings, because I am aware that I rebel against my Highest Good, because I well know that I get in my own way more often than I care to admit, I did not stop there. I did not let the fear win.
Despite myself, I began to ask for help. Buried under those covers with a finger in my ear listening to the cat cry for his breakfast I began to pray like a motherlover.
“I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to face the day. It’s too much. Please help me. Please forgive me. Please give me the strength and courage to pull my covers off and sit up and get up and feed the cat and start the morning routine and live the day. I don’t want to because I’m afraid but I’m willing. Give me the courage, please, I need strength, please help me.”
I kept on like that for some time. I just kept on. Then out came the finger. Off came the covers. I sat up. I got up. I fed the cat. I splashed water on my face and drank water. Life-giving water. I felt relief.
Celia:1, Fear: 0
I began the morning routine, entering into deeper prayer and meditation. I did a yoga practice. I WENT FOR A JOG. IN THE RAIN. When I got back I picked raspberries from the bush in our yard for breakfast.
Miracles all.
Somewhere around the five-minute mark into the jog (those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning will be most impressed for I began hauling myself up an outdoor staircase two years ago to build cardio activity into my life and nearly had a heart attack) I began to feel better. The fear began to lift and I could feel my energy changing. Hallelujah.
For a person who is gripped by fear or anxiety the most difficult thing in the world to do is to get up off the proverbial couch. And yet it is the absolute solution to the problem. We must get up off the couch and step into our lives for the fear to lift, for things to change, for the miracle of thankfulness to overtake the dread. And yet how? How do we do that when we are paralyzed?
Ask. Ask for the strength and courage. Beg for it if you have to. It will come. It. Will. Come.
Inspiring Message of the Day: I am willing to live despite my fear. I am willing to move forward with love in my heart. I’m terrified of what lies ahead and life feels too big for me to handle. But I’m willing because I trust the shift will come and when it does I will be returned to thankfulness and inner peace, which is my true state of being.
Back to the Drawing Board
Dearest Readers,
It’s 3:48 a.m. and I’m in absolute despair. The cat I live with pounced on me at 3 a.m. and woke me up and it has refueled an absolute ton of murderous rage.
You may remember my first post ever. It was September 2009. The cat woke me up and I was so upset, so angry that my only recourse was to pray. The answer I received was, “Blog.”
I’ve been lying in bed praying for help. How is it that a year and a half have gone by since that first awakening and nothing has changed? I’ve done so much work on this relationship (yes, it sounds funny — it’s a cat — but it’s a cat with an anxiety disorder and believe-you-me this little guy has required me to work) in the name of surrender, compassion and unconditional love and still I end up back here? Swearing into the dark with visions of snapping his neck at the forefront of my mind? Horrible. Horrible!
Again, my only recourse is to pray. So I breathe. Inhale Love, exhale Peace. Inhale Faith, exhale fear. I begin to drift off to sleep. Pounce! He’s back. I pet him, scratch his fur. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. He leaves. I can hear him crunching his food in the kitchen. I’m fading. Sleep is close. Pounce!
That’s when the rage comes. My prayer turns to vehemence. What the f$#%? What the F&$%ING F#$% AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? Show me. Help me. Please. Please. Because I am completely and utterly at a loss as to how I am supposed to deal with this.
And then the answer. “Blog.” No. Come on. You’re kidding right?
Perhaps I should explain where the rage is coming from and why it is so pronounced on this particular morning. After all, this is practically a nightly ritual. Most nights it hardly wakes me. I’ve become so used to it that I can now sleep through the cat’s nocturnal exercises. But this night? I happen to be working on a grant.
Yup, a grant. And it’s a big one. The application is due on Tuesday. It’s going to take every ounce of energy I have to get it in on time. I went to bed at 10 p.m. last night so I could get 8 hours of sleep and wake up at 6 a.m. This would give me an early enough start to do a full morning practice (prayer, meditation, yoga) and a full day of work on the grant. Good plan, Celia!
And then the cat ruins my plans. So things have not gone the way I wanted them to go. Bingo. Trigger the control issues. Trigger the rage. And I’ve been on the healing path long enough to know that rage = fear.
So what is the fear? I’m going to be tired. What happens when I’m tired? I get overwhelmed. What happens when I get overwhelmed? I numb out, give up, check out. I recoil from life.
One of the thoughts I had when I was praying after the first “pounce” was this: Celia, if you are this upset when something this small doesn’t go your way how in the world are you going to handle it when something BIG doesn’t go your way? The grant application is for funding for a feature film. It’s BIG. Maybe this little thing is preparation. Maybe I’m being shown how to handle setbacks.
What was that very first Inspiring Message of the Day? What did I learn all those months ago? When something happens to me that I do not like, that feels like cruel and unusual punishment, I will see it as an opportunity for growth. I will use it to change the world, be of service, help others. I will thank the person/place/thing that gave me the lesson, for he/she/it is my greatest teacher.
So now I have to live out this credo. Now. Eighteen months later. I must accept the lesson anew.
Alright. Let’s do it. Something has happened to me that I do not like. It feels like cruel and unusual punishment. But is that what it really is? No, it isn’t. Seriously, I’ve just been woken up by a cat. He’s asking for love and attention. But it’s 3 o’clock in the morning. So what? I’m going to be tired. So take a nap. I don’t have time. I have to finish the grant. Ah, the grant.
The grant represents the film. The film represents something much, much more than anxiety over sleep loss. The film represents a lifelong dream. What if I don’t get the grant and I can’t make the film? Better yet, what if I do get the money? Then what? The film might fail. I might fail. These are the deeper fears. They are the fuel behind the fire of rage. This is why I’m being woken up. To confront my deepest fear of failure.
Sigh.
Okay. Walk the talk. Be of service. Blog and share. Thank the teacher. Thank you, cat.
Now can I please go back to bed? You’re up now. You may as well get a head start on the grant. You’ve got a movie to make, don’t you?
Inspiring Message of the Day: My anger is a defense mechanism for my fear and I am willing to look at my deepest fears today. I am willing to be changed by this awareness of my shortcomings. I am willing to “wake up”.
Pray Tell
Dearest Readers,
Tired? Grumpy? Lethargic? Despairing? Anxious? Overwhelmed? All of the above? You’re not alone. On any given day I can experience any number of these fear symptoms. Lately, my number one solution has been simply to pray.
Get quiet, ask for Direction, listen. All of these actions constitute prayer and with them comes the exquisite sensation of simply dwelling in the Presence of God.
I heard someone recently say that for her God was a person. That works for her so that’s great. For me, God is not a person. God is the Spirit of Unity Back of All Things. God is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, the Condition of Possibility of any entity whatsoever.
Neither of those definitions are mine, by the way. They came to me and I grabbed on to them. They make sense to me. They back up my experience. And that is how I have come to know this God. Through experience. Not because someone told me what to believe. The experience of this Power is why I have I faith in its existence.
But despite my faith I am still self-reliant. And my self-reliance causes me to suffer. I overwork, I future-trip, I judge, I worry, I sabotage myself. I operate on Old BS (belief systems) instead of trusting Higher Guidance. And then I end up in chaos of one kind or another, whether it’s just a wee little bit or full-blown doesn’t matter. I still find myself there. Sigh.
It is at these times of inner crisis that I remember to pray. Not just pray like I do everyday, sorta kinda doing it because I gotta. But praying deeply. Taking the time to BE. Be with God. Not wonder, not question, not say a few deferential words. But connect. Rest. Dwell in the Great Presence.
When I embrace the Sacred I am so embraced. The Divine enters and fear disappears. I remember who I am.
Inspiring Message of the Day: Today I will take time to pray deeply. Shedding all thoughts but One.