Death Knocks Again

It seems that I have been talking to death regularly now in my life. I’m trying hard to understand if there is a new way to relate to it. Last week my husband was in a 6 car pile up on an icy overpass bridge, where he walked away with minor injuries while his colleague Angela died at the scene. This naturally has been a mixed river of emotions from shock, sadness, relief, overwhelm, gratitude, fear, heartache, love, acceptance.. all depending on the moment.
I didn’t know Angela, but my heart is extended to her children, husband and family – especially because I have been through the experience of being on the receiving end of that type of a phone call. And, I am also aware that this experience has brought many lessons, one of which was about my sense of security and willingness to experience life fully.

The week after the crash, I felt my footing in life to be gone.  I was reminded how I had fallen back into that false sense that life was  going to deliver at a minimum some things I expected.   Things like living a life at least X years long, growing old with my husband, seeing my daughters grow up and mature…etc.  We all have these dreams and expectations inside of some shape and form.  The accident also highlighted that I wanted to live out these dreams fully present and joyfully.  As I was aware of how un-guaranteed these things are, I just longed for security again.

This showed up in a physical way for me.  I found myself lost in the car one day in Burbank and I had lost my ear piece to my cell phone, my car was running out of gas, I was late getting home… and all I wanted was a familiar route home.  I felt unglued. I did make it to a gas station and get home in the nick of time for an important event, but what was more important was that I saw how my human side wanted desperately to avoid the unfamiliar.

Then, it became so clear to me  that I must step into the unfamiliar over and over if I was to get out of life the full experience I wanted.  Otherwise I would clearly get more of what I have gotten in the past, by doing what was comfortable.   It reminded me what I’ve heard about brain development – that in order to develop new neural networks and expand our capacity, we must do things differently and in new ways. If we do the familiar, it is just like retracing the current pathways in the brain or like re-running a computer program.  It simply won’t product new results without new input.

This was a perfect reminder that in moving into a new year, my willingness to grow is dependent upon my willingness to be in unfamiliar territory and to trust this thing we call life.  Sometimes it is a shocking turn of event we face that brings the unfamiliar, but we can also choose  it to stop the monotony or routine we have and create something different, something new and perhaps even something profound.

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Releasing the Past

Do you have times when you feel stuck, overwhelmed, angry or sad in the present due to the past? I certainly have, so let me share two ways that have worked for me to clear myself, move on and enjoy my life again.

The first is is simply to allow your emotional expression. Our culture is one that typically asks us to shut down what we feel. Sometimes our self-talk looks like this: “I should be over this by now.” “I’m a nice person, how can I feel so angry?” “Others would judge what I’m feeling.” “Its not ok to feel this.” This self-denial only serves to fuel those feelings to become stronger so that they can be heard. So rather than push them down, distract ourselves and avoid them, try this simple way of allowing them to have their say:

• Take a few moments of quiet time and just sit still
• If your feelings are already present, take the position of an observer and just sit and watch them
• If you are having trouble feeling anything, notice what your body feels like (i.e. do you detect any physical sensations such as numbness, tenseness, tingling, etc.)
• Once you are in touch with your emotions, let them flow through you or grow to be as big as they want to be
• Do your very best to just feel them without any judgment
• Simply let them run through you whether it is anger, tears, overwhelm or whatever

If there is so much you feel you cannot release them this way, try this as an alternative:

• Set aside at least 10 minutes of time alone.
• Set an intention to release your feelings simply and gracefully (or however you want it to occur).
• Write out your feelings as fast as you can, without care for spelling, readability, or neatness.
• Don’t think about it; just write as fast as you can giving voice to anything that surfaces.
• Remember there is no need for it to make coherent sense. Do not go back and read it again.
• When you are done, make sure to burn or shred the paper in a symbolic act to release it.
• Then move on as best you can.

Remember that healing is simply finding ways of bringing love to the inside. These small practices are ways to invite love and acceptance in. With that environment, we are able to move through all feelings like a child onto the next one

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Tribute to Hillary

Sugata and I did our 2nd Triathalon together this weekend in Carpenteria, CA.  We decided to join in with many others in this event to remember our friend Hillary who died earlier this year in a cycling accident.  She was an incredible athlete (along with her husband Brent) and it was an honor to be a part of such a great event.  T-shirts had been designed and made for everyone involved and so as the race ensued, I passed many people I didn’t know who, like me had Hillary’s memorial shirt on, and often we called out to each other HILLARY!  The shirt had a great design on the front, but the back in my mind was even better.  It showed a glowing picture of Hillary in her bike gear with her normally huge smile, so that all could see the beautiful woman we were there to remember.

I had a moment of grief well up on the beach at the race start. All of us in the race were in our wetsuits getting ready to head into the ocean waves.  I had just said goodbye to Sugata as he got into his wave and Brent came by.  Just seeing him there, I was so overcome by the pain of his loss.  Tears flooded up.  I know we never fully understand the unique loss of another, but there is also that universal experience of grief that I touched into, just knowing the pain of losing my brothers Spencer and Drew and my Dad – all young too… like Hillary. It is so hard to accept sometimes that there are no guarantees in life and we never know day to day if we have 1 or thousands of days left to journey.  I just send my loving support to Brent and Hillary’s families as they walk through their grief.  I honor Hillary for her great smile, competitive streak and joy for the outdoor adventures of life. May her spirit of joy for life live on in all of us who knew her.

I just choose now to live in that uncertainty without any more fear of pain and a willingness to just experience all that that has, does and will make up my life.  I simply want to be able to look back and feel complete in having lived with my heart wide open and without regrets.  May I pass that to my children somewhere along the way, as I know they struggle to feel safe in this regard having seen their Uncle Drew walk out the door and not come back home. We miss you Drew. We miss you Hillary. Good bye for now.

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