While there are times when the motivations of family members for asserting their particular point of view regarding the “well being” of a critically ill loved one are self-serving at best, more often the motivation is love. Yet, terrible things are done in the name of love and the dynamics of power and influence that can develop among family and loved ones can be shocking. All too often, tensions escalate as judgments and discord fester, while no one knows how to step forward and lance the family wound by talking honestly and respectfully about differences of opinion and differing styles of response to the situation. Frequently, childhood politics surface and you suddenly find yourself the seven-year-old kid who used to be bullied by her older sister.
While everyone might sincerely believe that they all have the patient’s best interest in mind, they may have diametrically opposed views about what that would look like and how it is to be accomplished. Unfortunately, all too often family members polarize against each other behind the scenes rather than uniting in support of the patient.
Here are some guidelines to help families navigate these stressful and emotionally challenging times.
Respect the patient’s right to make his or her own decisions as long as deemed mentally competent.
Recently, a client shared her family’s drama around their terminally ill mother. Behind the scenes, some family members are under the impression that mother is depressed and needs antidepressants and have emailed her doctor urging him to prescribe them. Others are concerned about drug interactions and over-drugging mom and perhaps masking feelings that she needs the opportunity to process. When I asked what the mother wanted, my client didn’t know — no one had asked her. They were too busy campaigning for their point of view behind her back.
Be sure that the patient designates a health care proxy before being deemed mentally incompetent.
The person who is appointed as the patient’s health care proxy is charged with the responsibility to make all decisions on his or her behalf regarding health care. A client told me that her father was the health care proxy for her mother. However, he was terribly uncomfortable dealing with death and dying. The choice of who to appoint should not be primarily governed by the person’s rank in the family pecking order. Rather, the patient should thoughtfully decide based upon who is most able to communicate comfortably with the patient about his or her health care situation and to advocate for the patient with doctors, nurses and caregivers. If, for example, a family member holds a strong personal or religious belief that would prevent him or her from following the patient’s wishes, they should not serve as health care proxy.
No matter how strong your opinion, that doesn’t make you an expert.
If you are a family member with concerns about the treatment protocol and care being given to your loved one, address it either with the patient and/or the family member who is managing the patient’s care. Feel free to express your point of view, but respect the right of the person who is making the decisions. Be careful not to make others wrong for not agreeing with you.
Clarify, agree upon and respect a pecking order for the flow of information and influence.
Whoever is primary caregiver and/or health care proxy should be respected as the one who has the most up-to-date knowledge about the patient’s condition and needs. If you really want to demonstrate your love for the patient, than do everything you can to support this person in caring for your loved one and in keeping communications clean and above board within the family.
Avoid the temptation to judge and talk about each other behind backs. If you have a problem, address it directly with the person(s) involved.
Having a loved one who is critically ill is stressful enough. Do not make matters worse by bringing your personal animosity toward another family member into the situation.
Handle your emotional needs on your own. Don’t act them out around the patient.
It is not uncommon for relatives who live at a distance to try to overcompensate for their absence and perhaps guilty feelings by playing the hero or making a larger than life impact on the situation. It is important to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about how you feel and to be, first and foremost, respectful of the patient’s needs and the normal routine that has been established for the patient’s care.
For example, don’t take it upon yourself to feed the patient two big bowls of oatmeal because that used to be his or her favorite breakfast. Find out what the patient is eating now and stay with that. Also, consider the possibility that if you did manage to feed him or her that much oatmeal it wouldn’t necessarily mean that it was a good idea. They may be fully aware of your need to feel helpful and be eating it to please you even though it will cause digestive distress later.
In most cases, an in-law should focus on supporting his or her spouse in handling the emotions, tensions and concerns regarding the situation and not try to be a major player in decision-making.
There are exceptions. For example, if an in-law is the primary caregiver and/or supervising the day-to-day care of the patient, then his or her knowledge of the patient’s needs should be highly regarded and other family members who visit should seek his or her guidance and insight about what is and is not in the best interest of the patient. This is especially important if the patient is living in the home of this in-law and his or her spouse or in a nearby facility while other family members are not local to the situation.
Remember that you are writing family history through your behavior. Consider giving the patient a wonderful experience of loving, united family support.
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.
6 Ways To Talk About Death And Dying
In response to my 8/9/10 post entitled “The Importance of End of Life Preparation,” Valencie Bathe wrote:
Here are several suggestions for how to have this very important conversation with those you love.
1. Talk to yourself first. No matter how uncomfortable you are with the reality of death, make a commitment to yourself to face your fears. Desensitize yourself to your fears – look at them one by one and choose to move past them. For some, this takes more courage than for others. If you find you are unable to make progress with this, consider seeking help from clergy, family, friends, or a counselor. Like entering the ocean, some of us dive in head first while others take forever adjusting to the rising level of the water against our body. Don’t allow yourself to abandon the process just because it is hard for you. Know that the liberation you will achieve will be well worth any discomfort you go through.
2. Figure out what you think and feel about death and dying. Ask yourself some deep questions about your beliefs and values like the ones presented in last week’s blog. Then take the next step of figuring out how that translates in general terms into your own end of life care, the disposition of your body, what kind of end of life ritual would be right for you and what is important to you about how your personal possessions and wealth are distributed after your death.
3. Trust your own judgment about whether to legalize your wishes before or after talking with your loved ones. Some of us are painfully private people and really don’t want to talk about and explore beliefs about death and dying with other people. That’s just fine. However, your loved ones may have different needs and it is important to find a way to support each other. If you can’t talk about it — at a minimum document your personal preferences.
4. Don’t wait until you are dying to talk about death and dying. Invite conversation on this topic with the goal of making it more normal to talk about such things.
5. Create an emotionally safe space for exploring and sharing thoughts about death with your loved ones. This is not about convincing one another that you have a superior point of view. Rather, it is essential that we learn to deeply honor each other’s right to have a different point of view – not better or worse than ours, simply different. Cultivate a spaciousness in your mind that invites dialogue. Otherwise, others will clam up around you and you will never really know what matters to them. Demonstrate your love by bearing witness to their truth. Seek to really hear each other and to respect one another’s right to their own personal truth. When adult loved ones talk to each other about death it can be especially hard if they have spent many years being silenced by our society’s taboo against the subject. It can be awkward and disturbing for some. Someone needs to be brave and set the right tone.
Parents of young children can do a great service by teaching them about death as a normal part of life. (See my 6/28/10 post:12 Ways to Help Children Understand Death.) Each family’s circumstances and situation is different, and it is up to parents to be sensitive in choosing an appropriate time to broach the subject. Ideally, this is done in the normal everyday course of life rather than within the context of grieving. I am a big fan of regular family meetings to provide a forum for families to build their connections to one another – to clear the air when necessary and to discuss matters that affect their mutual well-being.
6. Take it one step at a time and be honest with yourself and your loved ones. If you are scared, say so. That’s perfectly fine and natural. Just allow yourselves to be honest about your present state with regards to death and start there. You might want to try the following steps, knowing that the process may well take several conversations:
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
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The Power of Bearing Witness
There are times in life when the highest honor, the greatest love is paid to another by simply bearing witness to his or her experience. Bearing witness is largely nonverbal. It is the choice to give the gift of a pure expression of love and respect — being a compassionate observer to the unfolding of another person’s life or a particular moment or event. In a really good marriage, two people bear witness to the fullness of one another’s life experiences — in good times and bad.
When we bear witness, we lovingly give our attention to the other without judgment. We comfort without smothering. We play a supporting role — powerfully upholding the other starring in his or her life. It is not about us. It is about them. Yet, we make a profound decision when we do not try to fix their pain and suffering or share in their experience by telling how we had a similar experience. Bearing witness says, “You are not alone. I see you. I witness what you are experiencing. What you are experiencing matters to me. I surround you with my love.”
As a life coach and grief counselor, one of the primary things I do for my clients is to simply provide a safe space for them to speak their truth — to reveal what they think and feel about their own life. So much of our lives are spent with hidden truths because there is no time or because we don’t want to be a burden or to be judged, or do not feel safe to share. So, we keep our truth to ourselves and often feel very alone as a result. When we allow another to bear witness to us, we give ourselves the freedom to be known. Somehow, it’s like having your passport stamped to say that you went to this country or that. Having someone bear witness to your reality behind all the social masks we wear is a profound form of validation.
When someone we love is hurting or dying, it is easy to feel helpless and to want to somehow end the suffering by fixing the situation. Alternatively, some of us unload our own fears, telling the one whose suffering has provoked our fears how upset and afraid we are about what is happening to them. This can cause added stress and put them in the position of trying to comfort us when they are the ones in need of our comfort. These are often the times that call us to a higher response — to simply bear witness to another person’s life journey — not to engage in it, but to stand beside them in loving support. The focus is not to make the pain go away, but rather to let that person know that they are not alone and that we trust them to do whatever it is they need to do to go through that particular experience. Sometimes, this is best done in silence.
One of the very best examples I have ever seen of the profound support we can offer to each other through bearing witness is the final chapter of “Not Like My Mother” by Irene Tomkinson. I had the privilege of meeting Irene this past weekend and having her read this chapter to me. It shares the inner experience of a mother sitting beside her daughter in a doctor’s waiting room. The daughter has come to have a clinical abortion of the deceased fetus in her womb.
I am currently in the process of bearing witness to my dear friend Roy who had colon cancer surgery about a year ago and has been under hospice care ever since. He has been one of my greatest teachers of the wisdom of life. He doesn’t judge others for making choices that he wouldn’t make. He simply says, “it’s different.” He doesn’t seem to judge his failing health either. He is going along for the ride in full cooperation. I visit Roy once or twice a week and at first I kept trying to figure out what my role was. Other than his family, caregivers and hospice team, I think I am his only visitor. I became aware of the fact that I was ill at ease at first — I didn’t know what to do. I tried too hard to put a smile on his face, to share memories with him, to entertain him. It was a relief for me when he wanted me to read to him because at least I had something specific and tangible I could do. Eventually, I learned how to just be with him. The act of showing up, looking in his eyes and stroking his head or holding his hand is how I bear witness to him. Sometimes I just sit and silently pray for him while he sleeps. I think that is the best thing I can do for him. I learned to get myself out of the way. I am bearing witness to the end of his life. Sometimes just showing up says it all.
For those of you who struggle with going to see a sick or dying friend or relative because you just don’t know what to say or do, try just showing up and bearing witness. Often, it is our own discomfort and the feeling of helplessness that we are avoiding by not going into these situations. Sometimes we forget that our job is not to fix the situation at hand, but rather to help lift the burden of the other person by letting them know we care enough to show up. In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, it is important that we show up for each other.
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.
Honoring the Memory of a Deceased Loved One
This post was inspired by an email I received from a reader regarding last week’s blog, “The Power of Bearing Witness.” He wanted to know how to bear witness to a friend who had died. When bearing witness to the living, it is essential to take our cues from them. However, when bearing witness to the deceased, we are guided primarily by our own hearts — our love for them and our memories and knowledge of them. It is an action that while focused on the deceased is really for our own benefit. We need to know that they were sufficiently honored and that their memory will somehow live on through our actions.
For some of us, we cannot really let go until and unless we feel that the deceased has been appropriately honored. Whether this entails a Michael Jackson style memorial service extravaganza or a simple prayer is for each of us to discover. For many this is done through a traditional funeral and/or a memorial service or celebration. For others, it is the completion of an action that we know would have been important to the deceased — something that is our very own way of saying goodbye and that it mattered that this person lived. Here are some specific examples:
The point is that bearing witness to a deceased loved one is about doing whatever it takes for you to feel that you have done your part to preserve and honor his or her memory. Whether this is done in some form of private or public tribute, ritual or action, the point is that it allows you to feel complete with the person’s passing and to carry forward the treasures they brought into your life while letting go of them.
The reader who wrote last week wanted to bear witness to all that was good and kind and loving about his friend. Prior to self-destructing, overcome by the tragedies of his own life, the deceased had lived a full, good and blessed life, bringing joy and love to all he met. Yet, in death he was scorned and rejected by most of the people he had so loved in his life. I think that one of the most powerful ways that this reader can pay tribute to his friend is by forgiving those who turned away from the deceased and were unable to keep their love for him alive. With this reader’s permission, I am sharing this story with you. I invite you to share your ideas and inspirations about how this reader can best keep the memory of his dear friend alive and be at peace with his passing. I also invite you to share your own stories and ideas about how to bear witness to those we loved who have passed away.
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.
How to Handle Family Dynamics Around a Dying Loved One
While there are times when the motivations of family members for asserting their particular point of view regarding the “well being” of a critically ill loved one are self-serving at best, more often the motivation is love. Yet, terrible things are done in the name of love and the dynamics of power and influence that can develop among family and loved ones can be shocking. All too often, tensions escalate as judgments and discord fester, while no one knows how to step forward and lance the family wound by talking honestly and respectfully about differences of opinion and differing styles of response to the situation. Frequently, childhood politics surface and you suddenly find yourself the seven-year-old kid who used to be bullied by her older sister.
While everyone might sincerely believe that they all have the patient’s best interest in mind, they may have diametrically opposed views about what that would look like and how it is to be accomplished. Unfortunately, all too often family members polarize against each other behind the scenes rather than uniting in support of the patient.
Here are some guidelines to help families navigate these stressful and emotionally challenging times.
Respect the patient’s right to make his or her own decisions as long as deemed mentally competent.
Recently, a client shared her family’s drama around their terminally ill mother. Behind the scenes, some family members are under the impression that mother is depressed and needs antidepressants and have emailed her doctor urging him to prescribe them. Others are concerned about drug interactions and over-drugging mom and perhaps masking feelings that she needs the opportunity to process. When I asked what the mother wanted, my client didn’t know — no one had asked her. They were too busy campaigning for their point of view behind her back.
Be sure that the patient designates a health care proxy before being deemed mentally incompetent.
The person who is appointed as the patient’s health care proxy is charged with the responsibility to make all decisions on his or her behalf regarding health care. A client told me that her father was the health care proxy for her mother. However, he was terribly uncomfortable dealing with death and dying. The choice of who to appoint should not be primarily governed by the person’s rank in the family pecking order. Rather, the patient should thoughtfully decide based upon who is most able to communicate comfortably with the patient about his or her health care situation and to advocate for the patient with doctors, nurses and caregivers. If, for example, a family member holds a strong personal or religious belief that would prevent him or her from following the patient’s wishes, they should not serve as health care proxy.
No matter how strong your opinion, that doesn’t make you an expert.
If you are a family member with concerns about the treatment protocol and care being given to your loved one, address it either with the patient and/or the family member who is managing the patient’s care. Feel free to express your point of view, but respect the right of the person who is making the decisions. Be careful not to make others wrong for not agreeing with you.
Clarify, agree upon and respect a pecking order for the flow of information and influence.
Whoever is primary caregiver and/or health care proxy should be respected as the one who has the most up-to-date knowledge about the patient’s condition and needs. If you really want to demonstrate your love for the patient, than do everything you can to support this person in caring for your loved one and in keeping communications clean and above board within the family.
Avoid the temptation to judge and talk about each other behind backs. If you have a problem, address it directly with the person(s) involved.
Having a loved one who is critically ill is stressful enough. Do not make matters worse by bringing your personal animosity toward another family member into the situation.
Handle your emotional needs on your own. Don’t act them out around the patient.
It is not uncommon for relatives who live at a distance to try to overcompensate for their absence and perhaps guilty feelings by playing the hero or making a larger than life impact on the situation. It is important to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about how you feel and to be, first and foremost, respectful of the patient’s needs and the normal routine that has been established for the patient’s care.
For example, don’t take it upon yourself to feed the patient two big bowls of oatmeal because that used to be his or her favorite breakfast. Find out what the patient is eating now and stay with that. Also, consider the possibility that if you did manage to feed him or her that much oatmeal it wouldn’t necessarily mean that it was a good idea. They may be fully aware of your need to feel helpful and be eating it to please you even though it will cause digestive distress later.
In most cases, an in-law should focus on supporting his or her spouse in handling the emotions, tensions and concerns regarding the situation and not try to be a major player in decision-making.
There are exceptions. For example, if an in-law is the primary caregiver and/or supervising the day-to-day care of the patient, then his or her knowledge of the patient’s needs should be highly regarded and other family members who visit should seek his or her guidance and insight about what is and is not in the best interest of the patient. This is especially important if the patient is living in the home of this in-law and his or her spouse or in a nearby facility while other family members are not local to the situation.
Remember that you are writing family history through your behavior. Consider giving the patient a wonderful experience of loving, united family support.
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.
What One Change Would You Make in the World?
I’m sure I am not the only one who plays the game “if I were king or queen.” We all have ideas about how things shoulda, coulda, woulda been better if only the powers that be would do what we think they should. I’d like to share my personal favorite and invite you to share yours as well.
If I were queen, I would focus my efforts on what I think is the deepest tap root of so many of our social problems. It’s simply this: an awful lot of people are mentally and emotionally dysfunctional and, as a result, their lives are askew. They are inclined to generate a great deal of negativity into their own lives, relationships and the world we share.
I can argue that this is the way it is meant to be in the larger scheme of things — in the spiritual evolution of humanity. It’s their karma and all that. After all, we do seem to gain more wisdom through adversity — so this is indeed fertile ground. But, the businesswoman and visionary in me agree that we could yield a huge return on investment as a society in this area with very little effort. I think the cost of dramatically improving the mental health and emotional intelligence of people would be a mere pittance compared to the price we are currently paying for the consequences of its lack of further development.
Consider how much of our human capital is lost due to people being rendered less productive because they are stressed out. Many are consumed by worries over money, work and relationships. They are being pulled in too many directions at once or simply never having enough hours in the day to keep afloat. In the absence of sufficient mental health strategies and coping mechanisms, people tend to get swallowed up by stress. Many fall into a downward spiral that leads to addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, gambling, etc. to mask the feelings and situations with which they cannot cope. Add to this the number of people caught in the perils of poverty – many receiving inferior nutrition, education and life improvement opportunities who resign themselves to a hand-to-mouth existence of rage and hopelessness.
Now, just imagine if I were queen! What would it be like to live in a world where most people were clear-headed and had a sense of personal accountability and social responsibility? Envision a world with far less depression, stress, addiction, frustration and anger. Imagine if we actually made it a social priority to foster mental and emotional health as an investment in the quality of our individual and collective lives.
Couldn’t it be amazing if we actually taught our children how to think, rather than only what to think — if we taught them how to cooperate rather than just to compete where someone always has to be the loser. If I were queen, I would assist children in developing their mental and emotional health, rather than focusing on their coolness quotient. I would make it a priority to identify those who needed assistance and help them to create a strong sense of self worth, integrity, pride in their capabilities and dreams of a healthy and productive future.
If I were queen, I would remove the stigma and financial limitations from seeking mental and emotional assistance. I would make it normal to get help as needed and let people know they were smart to seek help. There would be sufficient creative and financial resources to fund programs to upgrade the state of mental and emotional health and human consciousness. There would be a greater value placed on integrity and human dignity which would serve as the fulcrum that delicately balances and unifies concerns regarding personal and collective well being.
If I were queen, I would establish a baseline of educational achievement in mental health and emotional intelligence that would be a normal and essential part of our education system. I would want people to understand the power of their minds and emotions and how to use them effectively. For example, I would foster understanding of the new field of biology called epigenetics that explores how our consciousness controls our health, well being, and even our DNA. I would want people to understand that their beliefs magnetically and selectively attract what is compatible with their thinking into their lives — that we quite literally create, promote and allow what is in our lives. Thus, if we do what we have always done, we continue to attract and create what we have always attracted and created in the past. It’s like planting seeds — you don’t grow roses from sunflower seeds.
It is easy to see why those in positions of power in our world, countries and personal lives might want us to stay as dysfunctional as we are to support them in maintaining their power bases — but I don’t see much wisdom in that choice. I simply can’t help but wonder what kind of wonderful world we could create if we truly supported the idea of mental and emotional health and well-being for all people. If we were empowered to create and maintain healthy inner environments, what would be the likely impact on our outer environments, personal relationships, social interactions and productivity?
Ahhh, if only I were queen! So, until my coronation, consider this: each of us is king or queen of our own little world and we get to decide what to create, promote or allow in our personal kingdoms. So, here are my questions for you:
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
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5 Keys to Living from the Inside Out
Essentially, mental and emotional health involves living from the inside out rather than the outside in. This is a cherished outcome of engaging in the process of evolving one’s consciousness. In her new book, The Age of Miracles, Marianne Williamson reminds us:
As children, most of us are taught to obey and follow the lead of our parents and teachers. If we are lucky, at some point we begin to develop a sense of our own unique identity. Over time, we begin to develop awareness of an inner truth. Increasingly, we learn to respond to the situations and events of our life from that place rather than simply by being tossed about in this world, reacting to what comes present in our lives as though we were at the effect rather than at the cause of what happens to us.
Here are five keys to recognizing whether you are living your life from the inside out rather than the outside in:
1) Your thoughts and actions are expressions of an inner sense of your identity, purpose and intentions rather than simply being reactions to outer circumstances and events. When we lose track of our inner center or fail to find it in the first place, our sense of well-being is primarily defined by external factors. Our mood may go up and down with the stock market or we may be busy trying to get the approval of other people as a way to feel good about ourselves. In contrast, when we are centered in ourselves, we don’t simply view what happens as “good” or “bad,” but rather we develop our ability to work with whatever is present in our lives. Our response is our engagement in life from a deep reference point of who we know ourselves to be.
2) You experience a fairly steady state of well-being rather than a high-drama roller coaster ride. When you are centered in yourself, bad things still happen to you, but you react differently from those who are adrift. You might even view the hard challenges of your life as opportunities to grow and to develop skills in shooting the rapids of life. You set to work in response by addressing the ways in which a situation has thrown you off balance. In time you learn to stop spinning like a hamster in a wheel — calling all your friends to tell your tale of woe and to spew all your anger and judgment about what someone did to you. Instead, you may turn to your friends for support and a new perspective on the situation, letting them know where you feel stuck. While experiencing your own vulnerability, you take ownership of your experience and take action from a place of who you know yourself to be. You respond by creating, promoting and allowing only that which brings you into greater balance and well-being. And sometimes, that may take quite a while.
3) You experience a lot of synchronicity and harmony in your life rather than a barrage of random happenings. For example, my friend Roy’s 94th birthday was the other day. He has been bedridden for over a year now and barely has the energy to keep his eyes open or to speak for much of the time. I wanted to do something meaningful for his birthday but was at a loss for ideas. Then I found the perfect card that didn’t speak in glowing terms about the future. Next, an iris that has only bloomed in May for the past five years came into full bloom, and it is mid-October! Then some tapes of harp and angelic voice music by Therese Schroeder-Sheker of the Chalice of Repose Project arrived just before I left for Roy’s house. I had wanted to share this music with him because it is designed to lovingly care for the physical and spiritual needs of the dying. It was all perfect. I held a clear intention with no idea what to do. I just trusted and waited. Before I learned to function in this way, I would have tried too hard to force things to happen, and they just wouldn’t have worked out well at all.
4) You have a basic sense of being in the driver’s seat of your own life rather than a victim of circumstances and events. It is enormously empowering to know yourself to be at the cause rather than at the effect of your life. You are less likely to feel that you are in competition with other people. Rather, you marshal your inner resources and focus on doing the best you can. You might find yourself humbled by results that fall short of your wishes, but knowing that you did your best — focusing your skills, abilities and resources to address the situation at hand can be quite satisfying in itself. I like to use one of Dr. Phil’s favorite questions: “How’s that working for you?” It helps me to take ownership of my thoughts and actions.
5) You seek to achieve inner states of consciousness rather than outer things. While you might love and have nice things, your happiness is no longer a result of that. Rather, it comes from achieving a sense of inner balance and well-being. You do not value your own worth or that of others according to monetary abundance or scarcity. You are focused inward, not outward and measure your success by your ability to maintain a sense of inner balance while doing your best to respond to the people, circumstances and events of your life with honesty, integrity and kindness.
Can you think of other keys to living from the inside out?
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.
Love with a Capital ‘L’: Recognizing the Divine Through Another
Many believe that the highest expression and experience we can attain in life is to love one another. Yet love is highly misunderstood. There is great confusion about the causation of love and the ways in which we are one and those that separate us.
When we “fall in love” with someone, it is often experienced as an instant affection for them — almost a chemical occurrence. One minute it didn’t exist, and the next it seems to exist more than anything else. It is delicious and we want more, so we focus more and more of our attention on this one person and want them to do more and more of whatever we think caused us to have this experience. What we commonly refer to as “love,” whether as lovers, parent and child, or friends, is really a very spiritual experience that we mistakenly delimit to our relationship with the person with whom we are having this experience. In fact, love is the human experience of the divine. As John-Roger explains it:
When this kind of love is experienced between two people, four things are happening simultaneously. Each is choosing to give love to the other, and each is choosing to receive love from the other. We are both open to the flow of giving and receiving love. At its best, when none of these four actions is blocked by self-imposed limitations, whether with one’s partner or a total stranger, there is a transcendent experience into a oneness that is beyond earthly concerns. Consider the awe when a parent first looks into the eyes of his or her newborn child, or when in “Avatar” the Na’vi say, “I see you,” meaning, “I see the god in you.”
When we don’t realize that love is a recognition of the divine through another, we falsely attribute the source of love simply to that person. We might fixate on wanting more of that person when in fact what we really want is more experiences of transcendence, of God. Attributing the source of love to the other person is simply a misunderstanding of the causation. When we limit ourselves to looking only for romantic love, we miss the point.
Building upon that misunderstanding of the true nature of love, we zero in on that one person and attempt to stimulate those loving feelings. We develop a conscious and often unconscious agenda of wanting them to behave in ways that we believe are the cause of our transcendent experience. When we take this path, our love often becomes exclusionary and conditioned by our personal preferences and prejudices. Our love flows exclusively with this person but not with others, and we tend to trap each other in a web of expectations. When we look for love on websites, we want our prospective partner to be of a certain age, to have a certain body type and to share our likes and dislikes — all the things that we think will bring us to that transcendent experience. We think that if they are a match, they will be capable of igniting those feelings in us.
Truly loving another person with a capital “L” is a matter of freeing the other person of the responsibility to express his or her love for us only in the ways that we want to receive it. When we truly love, we get out of our own way by dropping all the concerns of our ego and allowing the pure radiance of the divine to shine through us to another. When the other person does that as well, the result is a pure and blissful experience of our own divinity reflected through another into a shared oneness.
I think we should all strive to be ambassadors of love with a capital “L” with as many people as possible, through our willingness to smile at a complete stranger as an offer of momentary transcendence as we pass each other by on the street; by calling to be of service to a friend who is facing a difficult time; and by choosing to sacrifice our petty judgments, expectations and any other ways that we have learned to withhold our loving kindness from others each day. It is a practice of becoming a safe and neutral place in which both our humanity and our divinity can dwell. It is through these actions that the place inside us that is loving awakens.
Perhaps this is truly what is meant in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” We experience God’s presence in the context of our everyday relationships with others. It is a reflective process. When we delight in another, what is actually happening is we are having a pure experience of oneness that transcends all our judgments and our demands that another person be how we want them to be. We have raised our consciousness up above earthly considerations, and that is indeed a divine experience.
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What Gives Your Life Meaning?
What sustains you? What puts a smile on your face and lights up your heart? What keeps the embers of your soul on fire? What really matters deeply to you? It is so easy to get caught up in the ongoing activities and demands of our lives, often forgetting or losing track of what is most meaningful to us.
In the United States, our Thanksgiving holiday is about giving thanks to God, spending time with family and, of course, feasting. For those who actually practice the fine art of giving thanks on this particular holiday or elsewhere in their lives, there is a sense of receiving all over again that for which we are grateful. When we stop to think about what really matters to us, we bring it present in our consciousness and, in the present moment, we are able to experience our joy and gratitude for our good fortune all over again. Gratitude is the gift that keeps on giving.
When I am blue, which ironically is my favorite color, one of the quickest ways to lift my own spirits is to take the time to experience my gratitude for what is wonderful in my life. Before I know it, what has bummed me out pales in comparison to that which I treasure.
I have also noticed that I value the material things in my life not in and of themselves, but rather as a means to an end. It is because of their beauty, functionality and/or comfort that I am attracted to things. I also notice how quickly I take them for granted once I have them. As time goes on, I want fewer and fewer things. I enjoy purging my closets and drawers and passing on to others those things I no longer use or appreciate. Not only does this simplify my life and bring into greater focus those things that I do value, but it allows those things I am letting go of to have renewed life with others.
Beyond things, what is it that sustains you? Is it beauty? Love? Belonging? Or is it something else? I encourage you to take the time to find your answer to this question and, once you have your answer, to celebrate the existence of that source of meaning in your life. Practice gratitude for that which sustains you.
For me, there are three things that give my life its deepest meaning: my spiritual evolution, my freedom, and the opportunity to be of service to assist others in lifting upward. These are the things that, if all else were stripped away, would continue to sustain my spirit and enrich me. For almost 30 years now, I have consciously and actively participated in my own spiritual enrichment. As a result, I have evolved an understanding of life’s purpose and a worldview that has changed the course of my life for the better and guides and nourishes me each and every day. Knowing that we are all divine beings having human experiences casts a very different light on our daily trials and tribulations. There is an inner freedom that I have found in this journey that I also treasure. It is the knowledge that I am free to create, promote or allow whatever I choose to participate in within my own consciousness. Regardless of what others say or do to me or about me or with me, my mind is mine to do with as I choose. As Richard Lovelace (1618-1657) wrote:
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
Someone sent me this video clip, which inspired me to write this post. May it fire up your imagination, lift you up and warm your heart as it did me. I hope you will invest 12 minutes of your life to view this magnificent piece called “Alice Dancing Under the Gallows.” It is about Alice Herz-Sommer, who at 107 is the oldest living Holocaust survivor.
6 Ways to Say ‘Yes’ to Your Life
“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
And if I am only for myself, then what am I?
And if not now, when?”
–Hillel
Learning to embrace the fullness of life and to bear personal responsibility and accountability for one’s own life are precious life lessons. I was recently listening to a CD set called “Radical Self-Acceptance” by Tara Brach. When she began to talk about the simple act of saying “yes” to your own life, my immediate reaction was, “Like, duhhh! Who doesn’t know that?” Then when my consciousness got above my ego, I began to check in with myself about how and when I am actually saying “yes” to my life or “no” to my life on a daily basis. I was astounded by all the subtle and obvious ways that I was spewing negativity against myself and what is happening in my life. I wouldn’t tolerate others attacking me like that, yet there I was assailing myself.
This experience reminded me of a workshop I attended many years ago. Participants were each given a blank piece of paper representing their daily allotment of energy units and asked to walk around the room tearing off pieces of the paper representing how they spent their mental, emotional, and physical energy and dropping them on the floor. For many of us, the paper was long gone before we got anywhere near the end of our list about how we spent our precious energy. Many of us also were shocked by how much of our life force was expended in resistance and negativity towards what was present in our lives. I highly recommend that you try this process. It was a profound exercise for me and has stayed with me all these years.
Self-sabotage comes in many forms: judgment, rejection, resistance, comparing ourselves to others, creating fantasy alternate truths, distracting our attention elsewhere. In what ways do you sabotage yourself each day? What strategies do you use to reclaim and redirect yourself in more uplifting ways? Here are some of my personal favorite ways to say “yes” to my life:
Facing the Holidays When You’ve Lost a Loved One
If you have recently lost a loved one with whom you would otherwise be sharing this holiday season, you might be finding yourself wanting to burrow under your covers with a box of tissues until the holidays have passed. If this sounds like you, it’s time for some T.L.C. I don’t believe we should ever push down our emotions, though social conventions might make it advisable to develop strategies for dealing with these challenges privately or having a dear and trusted friend bear witness to what we are feeling. Remember that even at their best, holidays can be stressful. So, make taking thoughtful and loving care of yourself your number-one priority for the holidays.
Until 2006, I spent every Christmas except one with my mother. We shared a home for the last nine years of her life. For the past four Christmases, I have been adrift, unable to decorate my house for the holidays and spending Christmas like a peripheral, orphaned outsider to other people’s ways of spending the holiday. This year, I am finally ready to create Christmas on my own terms — just for me.
I have worked hard to develop the ability to pay attention to my own truth, and this year I am ready to give myself a beautiful Christmas. I am profoundly aware of the fact that part of not having my own Christmas these past four years has been because I was telling myself it didn’t matter because I had no one to make a fuss over. Then I had the tearful realization that I really need to make a fuss over myself this year. So, I am joyfully decorating my house with garlands, lights, wreaths, candles, angels and stars and plan to get a real Christmas tree, hoping that it survives my cats’ first Christmas. I am buying myself lots of presents, too, and signing the tags from all different people who have loved me and enriched my life. My heart is full and open again, and it simply took as long as it took.
Here are my suggestions for how to honor your own process of regaining an inner balance with the holidays.
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