Saturday shopping – he said:

you can buy anything

you want at Costco.  whatever

your fantasy is

 

Processing

Okay good.  Went to a yoga class.  Did pranayama and meditation.  Feel better.  Glad I will not be drinking for 40 days.  All good.  Amelia is coming to spend the night tonight.  Our friend and yoga teacher, Chris Coniaris, and his girlfriend, Bridgette from Cincinnati are here to spend a couple of nights with us.  Jordan gets home from LA at 5:45 pm.  So we will have a full house.  I’m glad.

I really got myself worked up about the cancer over the past few days.  Really started on Friday and just went right on through last night.  I just wanted to get drunk and forget about it.  Pretend it isn’t happening.  Well it is happening and I am going to deal with it.  I guess I just had to get pissed off.  It really did very little good.  I do not have to go there again.  Grasping, avoidance, dulling the senses, none of these strategies really helps me to cope with a second round of cancer.

I also need to admit that I have catastrophized about it, it being cancer, attacking other parts of my body.  I know, don’t go there.  Well all I can do is watch my mind and try to maintain witness perspective.  I will play the part of the observer.  Here is what I see…..

 Mind in action:  Do I have cancer in my bones?  Is that why my shoulder hurts all the time.   What about the chronic back pain I have had for the past year.  Should I tell the oncologist about that?  Yes, I should.  I want him to know everything that is going on with me.  Even if I want to ignore it, I believe it is important to practice full disclosure when going to see an oncologist I have cancer in my bones?  Is that why my shoulder hurts all the time.   What about the chronic back pain I have had for the past year?  Should I tell the oncologist about that?   Mind taking over again:  What if he, he being the doctor, wants me to have an MRI?  I cannot do that.  Just thinking about it gives me an anxiety attack.  I have such terrible claustrophobia.  They will have to knock me out.  Do you think I am getting just a little ahead of myself?  

Enjoy this moment.  Breathe in and out and emphasize the exhale, the letting go.

I love you Sarla.  We will get through this.  We will.

 

April 6 -One Year, One Day at a Time – No Alcohol for Forty Days and Forty Nights.

I need to take a  break from drinking.  I do not want to have cancer.  I hate how much money it costs to have cancer.  My victim mentality is trying to take over my life.  I will not let that happen.  As much as I loath the fact that I must make decisions about my treatment options, I will do it.  Having said that I know from experience the clearer I am the easier this process will be.  Drinking is no way to cope with cancer.  My old pattern of turning to a glass of wine and then another is up and running and it is my job to shut it down.  So as much as I do not want to do this I am going to put a cork in the bottle for the next 40 days.

Giving up anything for 40 days is a good practice no matter what the circumstances, but I think it will be especially useful for me now because it will eliminate the one thing I use to hide from myself and from reality.  Of course alcohol is a poor substitute for clarity and it certainly does lead to peace of mind.  It’s just a habit so deeply ingrained in me that when times get tough it surfaces and takes over.  What they say in AA is so true.  Drinking alcohol is a slippery slope for someone for me.  I had years of practice using alcoholic beverages to deal with problems.  Alcohol only makes all things worse, but its allure is the false sense of relief you get when you take that first sip.  But one sip is never enough especially when there are big problems.

The sick thing about me turning to alcohol now is that  it has not been a problem for past several months.  A glass or two of wine here and there.  Nothing more.  No compulsion to get intoxicated.  I don’t even like being drunk.  It sucks.  Then why do it now?  Good question, but I do not have the time nor the energy to deal with that line of inquiry.  Who knows why I or anyone else chooses to get intoxicated.  What difference does it make?  Rather than wallowing in the problem I am going straight to the solution. Just stop.  Okay good.  For forty days, April 6 through May 16, I will not consume any alcohol.

I am sure this will make for interesting blogging.  Whatever feelings I’ve been trying to avoid will surely surface sooner or later.  Loving kindness and compassion.  Patience, gratitude, peace of mind and well-being.  I love you Sarla.  I do.  We will get through this.

openess

stay in the middle

between indulging and

repressing dissolve

 

spend some money

ooh just got a big

check need to spend some money

now what do I need

clarity

find your way back now

practice body awareness

during addiction

 

February 26-One Year, One Day at A Time – chocolate

One of those days, really a wonderful day. Good meditation and yoga practice. Nice mani and pedi and a good massage, really needed both.  Lunch with husband and then son, Jordan, came to lunch later.  Love feeding the men in my life.  Good session with a private client this afternoon.  Wrote this morning and posted haikus  throughout the day.  Confirmed my registration for a writing workshop in Provincetown, MA in August, going with my friend Cyndi Lee.  I may miss the birth of number 2 grandchild, but I will be here in time to help out the new mother and to baby sit for the newbie every Monday going forward.  Taught a good solid yoga class tonight, came home with a bit of a sore throat, I fixed dinner, omelets and broccoli and have been watching Memphis Grizzlies beat the Lakers.  Love it.

Since dinner, I have had two Reece’s Peanut butter cups and a half a chocolate balance bar.

Tasted sooooo good.  Really wanted more.  Gonna stop, but had to write to do it.  Don’t feel bad, but I know I will have disrupted sleep if I eat more.  Okay good.

“Your scheduled program is now being recorded.”  Jimmy just informed me that the basketball game had been interrupted by the DVR.  Technology?!  Ready to give it all up and more into a cabin somewhere.  Not really, but I think about it all the time.

One more thing.  Have to admit that I had those feelings again today…that Grace screwed me when she bought the business and she is making a shit load of money.  God, I hate those feeling.  Do not want to even give a flying flip about money and especially about how much money she is making and how much I did not get paid.  Uck.

I am learning, although slowly, that money is not the answer.  I look back now on how important I thought I was, how important I felt when I owned and operated Midtown Yoga.  I never want to be that self-absorbed again, ever.  Grace, may you be incredibly successful.  I am grateful to have had the opportunity to start and operate Midtown Yoga. I offer you my blessings and my prayers for your ongoing success.  I want freedom not money.  I wish all men and women success and abundance.  I want to learn to give freely of all that I have knowing that what I have has been given does not really belong to me.

First Thing In The Morning

Gave myself permission last night to sleep in and what do you think happened?  We woke up at 5:00 am.  Brushed my teeth, scraped my tongue and am now drinking an amazing latte prepared by my wonderful husband.  I sat for a few minutes at the table reading an excerpt from Waking Up To What You Do by Diane Rizzetto.  It is a book about The Buddhist Precepts, fundamental human values for guidance.  The Precepts remind us of what we can so easily forget when we are scared or angry, “that we can never take action that does not affect everyone, including ourselves.”  The precepts call us into accountability and remind us that “the responsibility for how we deal with difficulties in my life rests in our own choices of action.”

Growing up in what is now referred to as a “dysfunctional home”, that’s a laugh, I learned to be a scraper, a survivor, a con man who matched cunning with the challenges of the world.  The primary focus of all my actions was to protect myself, to take as much as I could from a world that had sorely mistreated me, and to be wary of everyone and everything.  My motto, those who love you will betray and abandon you. Yikes!  What an existence.  Along the way I met people who genuinely cared for me and for others, who gave freely of their time and money with no expectation of return.  As I became more and more depressed, suicidal, I also became more willing to try living with a different perspective.  Perhaps the world was a friendlier place than I had here to for believed, and if I opened my heart to others, they would do the same and more for me.  I’ll be damned.  It works.  Giving is much more fun than taking.

For me, the Precept which is most relevant at this time is: “I Take Up the Way of Taking Only What is Freely Given and Giving Freely of All That I Can.”  My mind races as I read this Precept. I am so accustomed to being self-absorbed, especially when it comes to material things.  There are, in my mind, one million reasons not to follow this precept, but the one reason to apply this to my life far outweighs all the arguments against it.  Diane puts is so eloquently,

Pay Attention.  Look.  Listen.  The Precepts reveal the ways we fall into vicious cycles of thinking and acting causing suffering to ourselves and others.  They are never intended for us to view our actions as moral defects, but rather as the root and source of suffering.

I have suffered enough.  I certainly do not want to create suffering for others.  I see now why ‘taking the Precepts” is such a big deal.  Considering how hard it will be for me to not put myself before others, to no longer play the victim in any part of my life, I cannot help but be aware of how conditioning and life time patterns of behavior unknowingly contribute to world-wide suffering.  May I, today, Pay Attention.  Look and Listen.  May I take only what is freely given and give freely of all that I can, even if is scares the shit out of me.

Thank you Cyndi Lee for recommending that I get this book. It is a blessing to have a dharma sister.

 

February 10 – One Year, One Day at a Time – Money

Traveling since 11 am.  Just arrived Memphis airport where I am waiting for Jimmy to finish teaching my class so he can pick me up.  I wrote about my relationship to money while waiting in Albuquerque to board the plane to Houston.  I was so inspired at the weekend I spent at the Upaya Zen Center.  I have always had an awkward relationship with money.  When Roshi Joan spoke about giving up her personal income something deep inside me quivered.  Here is the timed 10 minute writing I did.

What do I think about money?  My relationship to money?  depressing, need, hopeful.  I have longed since childhood for money.  When my father would not give me an allowance. He told me I had champagne taste and he had a beer wallet. “Money does not grow on trees. We are poor.”  Sure we were.  My father slept all day and drank all not.  He did not work.  He shamed me for wanting things.  My friends all had nicer and more clothes than I did.  I wanted nice things.

My mother, who remarried and had nice things.. a nice house, actually an apartment, a new car, pretty clothes, purses.  Seemed to me she had everything she wanted.  My step-father worked.  He was a traveling salesman.  We traveled with him.  I saw the caves in Kentucky, Niagara Falls, Six Flags Over Dallas, the sight of the Kennedy assassination .  We went to New York and Chicago and Florida.  Money gave us choices.  My mother saved money for our trips in Miracle Whip Mayonnaise jars that she washed out and stashed at different places around the house.

I wanted the things money could buy.  I was deeply ashamed of my family because we were poor.  We had a broken down car in the driveway, all kinds of debris collected and piled behind the house and at the end of the driveway, where it dropped off into a barbecue pit….more like a junk yard.  My Dad was a hoarder.  He found and kept all kinds of odds and ends.  Newspapers, an old stand up piano that needed refinishing.  He never did that.  Old pieces of metal, concrete blocks, masonry blocks, miscellaneous building materials like plywood, nails, trim, all piled up in our backyard.  What a sight.  I remember being appalled, full of resentment and disgust.  Why didn’t we have a nice house with a nice yard, flowers and shrubs and grass?

I have all the things I ever wanted money, a big diamond ring, a beautiful house nicely landscaped, a pool and an expensive car.  We, my husband and I go on trips together and we travel independent of one another.  We go to yoga and meditation retreats.  We visit friends.  We take the family to Florida.  I am so blessed to have the resources to travel and I am grateful that we have so much fun doing it.

So why do I worry about money?  Am I making enough money? Will we run out of money?  What if we did run out of money?  What more do I need in life.  As we get older there is more and more talk of money put away for retirement.  I will never retire.  I want to work for the world the rest of my life.  I will never stop learning how to give more to others.  I want to be free of the bonds money places on me emotionally and physically.  i want to work, to serve the world and trust that if I do that, there will be enough of what I need to live.

I have spent a lifetime believing that money would make me happy. I will never be a renunciate like Roshi Joan, but I believe I can learn to let go of the fear and longing I have around money.  It controls what I do.  I ask myself this question over and over.  Will I make money if I do that?  Not will I be serving others or will I be doing what I love to do or what I believe my soul longs to do?  No, will I make money? Money can be a big obstacle to freedom, a topic for bickering and something that comes between friends, family and other loved ones.  How sad.

Keep your nose to the grindstone.  You want to maintain your lifestyle when you retire.  What is a lifestyle?  Is it a house, a car, money to buy clothes and nice things.  I do not want a lifestyle.   I want a life, an authentic life.  I some times feel that money is an albatross around my neck, weighing me down, threatening to pull me under.  It is a cruel mistress, an abusive boyfriend, an illusion filled with power.  It is beguiling.  The more you get, the more you want.  At least that is how it seems to me.  There is never enough.

There is an illusion that prosperity guarantees happiness, protection, freedom from disease, security,stature in the community, and well-being.  Really.  Do I really believe that?  Do you?

January 31- One Year, One Day at a Time -Hot Bod

Hot bod.  You know that commercial with the Arian man and his south american counter part running up and down the bleachers?  Young, hot girls are watching, starry-eyed, swooning because the two young men have such great bodies.  Really?  I have a hot body for a 62-year-old woman.  Okay is that arrogant, or am I giving you the facts?  Why do I even want to write about this?  Why, because tonight at dinner when the 3 other people we were with talked about procuring second homes, selling and buying condos and the like, I thought, what am I doing with my life?   Writing, teaching yoga, counseling, doing life coaching and ….I have a hot bod.  I just snickered.  This is really quite funny coming from the girl who, in eighth grade heard the gym teacher tell her, “You are weak and terribly over weight.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  You need to lose weight.”  She was so angry all because I could not pull myself up a climbing rope.

And so I was for years to come.   That was a turning point for me. I immediately started dieting, starving myself in hopes of attaining my goal, the perfect weight, 110 pounds.  I only weighed 120 to start.  Was I even overweight, or had my body not quite caught up with my….What am I talking about.  I was at one time heavier than I am now.  Embarrassed about my weight I dieted, took pills, used enemas and tried my best not to eat at all.  If I did eat and especially when I overate,  I took laxatives.  No one, no one was ever going to discover my sordid secret.  I ate and ate more to escape feelings for which i had no explanation.

Today, I do not eat or drink to cover up or hide from who I am.  I do not drink or eat too much to escape my feelings. I enjoy food and alcohol to the extent that i am having fun with friends. Over consumption of food and alcohol does not erase the past.  We each must do that for ourselves. Learning not to be a victim of the past does take time and effort.  No matter who you are, the past does effect you.  Samscaras, our perceptions of what has happened, the scars those experiences created are a sticky spider web waiting to ensnare us.  We cannot change the past but we can kill the spider, that part of ourselves that works feverishly to weave a web of self-made obstacles, false ideas of who we are, illusions of reality, avidya, a film that covers our eyes and hearts obscuring the truth, misapprehending, creating confusion and fear.

Ha, I have to laugh.  My perception of myself, me seeing me as having at hot bod for a 62-year-old grandmother may well be just another filament in the spider web I am trying to escape.

I am falling asleep sitting up in bed.  I must to go to sleep.  I will be back in touch tomorrow.