Illness and Surrender

I am bipolar.  I have been since my junior year in college.  Since then I have managed my illness; sometimes successfully and sometimes less so.   It is a source of pain.  Arguably the deepest cutting pain is for someone to think that I am "geting sick" .    Of course at times it has been a needed statement and the most loving of observations.  Still it is arguably my most painful phrase and greatest fear.  Why? 

True liberation is not fearlessness.   It's facing fear even though it's there.  It's an intimacy with fear.   It's the ability to hold fear close as well as anything else and not push it away.   So let's take a look.  Of what am I afraid?  To be crazy, to get sick, is to be out of control. Even those basic assumptions about what is real and what is not, what is a dream and what is not, all come into question in psychosis.  There is also the potential that I would hurt myself or others amidst a psychotic episode.  These are things of which to be frightened, especially given my value of love and compassion. Even as I write them I can feel the knot it creates.  I can feel mysefl saying --  not me, I couldn't be that way.  It is a drive to disconnect, to separate, to create a boundary by elevating myself by comparison.  It is an endeavor doomed to failure.   At the same time though, I begin to feel the tenderness of that raw spot.  It's heart breaking really.  How fragile it all is, how human it is to strike or to  lash out because we got hurt and because we didn't didn't know any better. Really underneath it all, we all want to know that we belong, that we're good deep down, that we are loved. What would happpen if we believed that all would be ok no matter what - not because of anything we did or didn't do but simply because we are.   We forget who we are.  We define our totality in such limited ways.  The confusion comes because we gloss the connections to all else that is ever present.  We are worthy simply because we are; we exist.   There is nothing outside of this moment that we are in that anyone needs.

Back to fear.  Back to psychoses.  Back to control.   Here is a list of my worries, and fears about "getting sick." 

• That I've failed - have not done enough , have not tried hard enough
• That I've let others down
• That I will never come out of that fog
• That I will harm someone or myself
• That I will lose my job
• That I won't ever be able to function again
• That my partner will leave me
• That I will say hurtful things to others especially those whom I love
• That I will cause enormous pain for others around me
• That I have not faced life with utmost integrity
• That there is something wrong with me
• That I am unlovable

Let's take a minute to explore failure.  I do not like to fail.  I have not done it often.   Failure is painful.  Why?  I take failure to indicate something about me.  It is hard to separate failing from who I am.  Failure, especially in those endeavors that are dear, seems to indicate something about me and it is further evidence of my inadequacy and not belonging.  Failure in areas that are important to me personally seems to send the message that I am not ok.  It is a judgement that I am not enough.   It is easy to equate success and failure on a given endeavor, as saying something immutable about us.   Each is magnified because they feel like they come from our unique expression. Success feels like a positive acknowledgement of our unique expression and rejection like the a negation of our expression. It that really true?  Of course what we forget is that both success and failure are always filtered through the eyes of the one making that determination. And ultimately true success is how life itself expresses itself through you and that is much larger than one's art  or what one does and how it is viewed by the world. True success in this more absolute realm is really about being an instrument of truth and love and that is a moment to moment endeavor that is not always measured by worldly success and is not measured by form.

• When was the last time you failed?
• When was the last time you "tried" your absolute hardest?
• When was the last time you tried something new or that you were not good at?
• When was the last time you succeeded at something?
• When was the last time you were praised for something you did?
• When was the last time you were castigated for something you did?
• How did you feel in all of these instances?
• What went into your successes and failures?  Does that belong to "you"
• What would happen and how would you feel if you tried your absolute hardest and still failed?

On the other hand, failure (and success too) can be incredibly powerful gateways towards surrender.  I suspect when you truly realize there is nothing you can do, and yet you have not succeeded or you have succeeded but are still not satisfied,  then grace, spirit, divinity can aid.  Surrender can enter.   Don't confuse giving up with surrender though.  Giving up is very different than complete surrender.  Giving up often has a a quality of hope or frustration, as if registering your irritation with the heavens will fix the situation or with hope there is still the tiny part that holds out that it will be different. The quality of surrender is a kind of equanimity that simply says  "this is how it is."  There is a quietness about surrender.  There is a stillness to it.

Dante suggested that above the gates of hell was written "abandon all hope ye who enter here" but  perhaps these are not the gates to hell at all, but to heaven.  Perhaps it is only when we have abandoned hope of changing, improving or creating a better me or better world or a better heaven that grace that fill us with the capacity to act in its behalf.  That grace will give us the eyes to see the heaven that exists in the current, the perfection that is manifesting now.  This is when life truly  begins.  In this, perhaps my sickness is is my greatest gift and my biggest opportunity.   In this, my sickness offfers my greatest chance for surrender.

So what does surrender look like with respect to my mental illness.  I started to write "internalizing that I will never get better" and while this may almost seem right at first,  it is not. I do not know that I will or won't get better.   The statement "internalizing that I will never get better" truly means I am clinging to the idea that I will get sick which is hardly any better than the thought that I won't.   It means that the dark hole of not knowing is too hard and not being able to plan for it is so frightening I would rather resign myself to "getting sick at some other point"   To hang out in the realm of uncertainty is more challenging.  The truer reality is I don't know.  Real freedom lies in the discomfort  of NOT KNOWING.

Managing my illness has some different pitfalls that perhaps don't surface as much with some other illnesses.  The mind is often considered the seat of who we are. When the brain is declared dead, we are declared dead.  It's what we say distinguishes us from animals.  So, when that essential tool functions in ways that are societally problematic or when the mind seems broken or in need of help, it can be easy to blame oneself for the problem.  Did I not do enough?  Did I "think" the right thoughts?  Did I let too much stress into my life? Did I not monitor myself more carefully?  Fill in the blank --  thought ostensibly drives the behavior.  As I write this I am realizing that I imagine this must be a part other illnesses too but I don't wonder if the element of "well this simply happened" has more space to grow.  With the mind it is sometimes hard to separate "I" am not a function of my thinking.  It is very easy to blame oneself when the mind gets sick.

Managing my illness is different than surrender.  Surrender includes management and yet is larger than it.  Surrender does not  mean that I stop taking my medication or seeing the pyschiatrist or my therapist or stop listening to their suggestions.  I suspect it means fully and completely acknowledging the pain of living with my mental illness.  It also means the courage to not be complacent or passive about any part of my care.   It is comprised of truth telling and facing consequences. Too often I am inclined to accept the opinions of medical experts without letting them know how it is affecting me or what I want from life.   I suppose it means at its heart looking at the pain that bipolarity raises of not being enough, of simply being flawed or wrong and its implications in all areas. 

The funny part is of course that something is wrong and something is flawed.  That is the human condition.  And we often spend our lives in search of better "me's'" striving for perfection, striving for the perfect personality, acting this way so these people will like us or not judge us; acting in another manner to curry the favor of others, but no one is without flaw, no one is always correct, no one is without sin.  The beautiful part is that it does not matter.  Enlightenment has been defined as "without anxiety about imperfection"  I think that is a lovely description.  It is the perfection intrinsic to imperfection.  With that recognition comes authenticity, truth,  freedom and love. Relating from that recognition the whole to whole; not fractured insufficiencies endlessly comparing and competing in an dance of upmanship, would make for an interesting world.

Truth

 

Of recent, I have been thinking, musing, meditating and reflecting,  a lot, upon truth.   I feel drawn towards what it is asking of me.   It seems that it is calling me moment by moment to a new kind of life, a new kind of adventure.  It is not one in which I understand much, but that is part of what makes it exciting and vibrant. 

 As a little boy, I always dreamed of being some kind of hero.  I dreamt of slaying dragons or flying deep into space and discovering new planets and species.   (Can we say science-fiction geek) I would be face to face with danger and fear and I would prevail.  I was thrilled by those who sacrificed themselves for all of humanity.  I admired  martyrs or savior archetypes.  I am still drawn to that kind of fiction.  Give me Frodo Baggins or Paul Atreides,   Katniss Everdeen, Commander Amelia Shepard any day.  I will always take them. What is interesting now though is that I can feel that adventure in life itself.  As truth’s voice becomes clearer not necessarily on any cosmic or grandly goal oriented scale but in the minutiae of heeding its moment to moment requests, I realize there is more than enough adventure in even the most simple of lives.  For me to align with truth in the moment requires a submission and staggering courage.  Standing  as who you are, unfettered and undaunted by the myriad ways the world tells you otherwise is thrilling.  This is the adventure.  

 It is easy to make truth a concept, a simple set of rules, prescriptions, ideas, commandments, laws, bargains, and  justifications but truth precedes them all.  Truth gives rise to them all.  They all try to capture truth, but fail because truth is ever moving even in its stillness.  It is quieter than all those concepts and yet much more powerful,  in part because it does not need anything else.  Truth is its own contentment; it is it own end.  As this silent voice is felt moment to moment to moment I recognize that I do not know anything.  I recognize that it could ask anything of me in the next moment.  It is anything but predictable.  This makes for a very exciting existence.  Anything in the world could show up and many things we have not even begun to imagine could appear too.  What could be more exciting than that?   What could be more exciting than answering that call?  The courage to truly be who I am with all my beauty and ugliness, perfection within my imperfection is mindblowing in its vibrancy. 

The call of truth to meet truth in all it manifestations in the world is exciting.  It is also terrifying.   Currently I can feel the schizophrenia.  On the one hand safety exists.  One can always do things the easy way.  One can always keep the status quo.  One does not need to rock the boat.  (And of course this is ultimately fine).   Truth has no need for judgment only our minds and ego’s do.  On the one hand it is not hard to say things like you have always said to people around you.  There is safety in saying I’m fine when really I’m really frustrated.  There is safety in telling the white lie about  someone’s outfit so as not to hurt their feelings.  There is convenience when we take the pens from the office but don’t believe  we will get caught.  There is ease in pretending  not to see that person as they approached elevator so that we could get to our floor more quickly.  There is safety in remaining  quiet and not saying hello to that person who passed us by because we were afraid they would think we were creepy.  There is safety in keeping quiet when our colleague gossips about another colleague.  There is convenience when we rapidly consume precious resources.  The path of safety always exists.  And in then end who ARE is more important than what we do.  But the calling is about embodying the perfection of our essence.   Safety becomes less appealing relative to truth.   

While there is safety as a choice,  for this body/mind currently,  the gap between truth and embodiment of it in the world is increasingly challenging.  It is becoming more painful  to act out of alignment. But its not even painful because I expect more of myself or have some idea of how I should behave exactly.  It’s painful because as I’ve realized more thoroughly  what I am, I  want to consciously be it all the time.   In the past,  I have been motivated by reward or by fear.  Believe me they still operate.  But they seem to be very juvenile forces for moving and action and it feels like they  take place in this much larger arena.  Terms like retribution, payback, reward, punishment  and even karma,  and  justice how they are sometimes used, rely upon the future.   They rely upon something being different than it is now and  depend on a notion that things are at some level wrong with this moment as a means of moving people to do act.  That feels less interesting.  How often  I have been motivated to do good for the promise of some cookie or sweet treat or to avoid something bad.   But actually there is a motivator that is beyond each of those and it is who we are in our core.  It is the essence of the world.

 In some religions people are afraid of some grand judgment from God that will banish us from “his” presence or that we will suffer at some later time.  I say Baaah.  In truth, we suffer more than enough for anything that isn’t aligned with truth.  Love is all forgiving.  In fact, in a way, for love, forgiveness does not even exist because from love’s perspective whatever it is that would “need forgiving” is ultimately just another manifestation of love itself.  It is just love showing up in some other way.   There is no grand judgment that one fails and is punished or rewarded for.  Not being aligned with truth IS its own suffering.  It is its own hell.   And if there is the notion that something is too big or “evil” for forgiveness that is not true either.  Truth is all embracing, the end.   God is ALL forgiving the end. There is not anything anyone could do that would ever move them out of the divine’s grace.  At the same time, I don’t wonder if most, if not all of any current pain (that isn’t purely physical) doesn’t come from unresolved past moments in which we were not aligned with truth.   It’s like the shape that shows up, who I take myself to be are all the places where I am not transparent.  It is all the places where pain has latched on to some kind of framework and I am creating a somebody out of it.   Yes, the pain happens.  It is absolutely real.  Yes, it hurts.  But who hurts?   Who is it actually happening to?  In fact, exactly who am I?  Am I this body?  Am I my thoughts?  This projection into the future? Am I my past experiences?  

Increasingly I can hear and feel something that wants to be expressed and I can tell that to be true to it I must let go (even amidst uncertainty and fear). Again this letting go is not on some grand scale.  This is not splendor on display.  It is again meeting truth moment to moment to moment and who knows what it will request.  If up to this point in my life I had clear plans for what needed to be done and what needed to be saved, and what  theories of action in the world might bring about lasting change,  it feels as though they are about to be subsumed in a silence driven by the heart.  Silence animates all regardless of whether or not we have paid attention to it.   It is this silence whose drumbeat continues to  resonate more clearly.  I will keep you posted as it all develops.

 

Negativity

Negativity comes in many forms. The varieties and permutations of negativity are as numerous as there are people. Sometimes it is a miniscule irritation at something that happened or should not have happened. Sometimes it’s a burning hot flame of rage. Sometimes it’s a more like a pervasive grime that coats one’s life. It is not necessarily deeply troubling, but life feels like a daily grind. One’s perspective is tinted by a sheen of muck. Sometimes fear is the negativity that manifests. It could be a fear of failure, a fear of being misperceived, a fear of not getting what we want. The various shades of negativity are as endless as the stories that create them.

Every form of negativity is a form of resistance. Every form of negativity is based in a story that has a central character struggling. But what happens when you remove the person in the story? What happens when there is no more narrative? Lets look at fear for a moment. What is it? From a biological standpoint, it is probably the secretion of certain chemicals in the body in response to some external stimuli. Our adrenaline starts pumping, our hearts start racing. The fight or flight response has been triggered. This is very useful when a disgruntled sabre tooth tiger is staring you down, but is perhaps less so when that trigger never subsides and you respond to every psychological challenge by running or fleeing. There is room for a more liberated approach. Without the story about the fear it is just a set of facts and sensations that are happening; a heart racing, blood pumping, adrenaline rushing. It is the negative story which gives those facts and sensations a "negative" connotation. We could use those same facts and tell a story about a running race and it would have a completely different meaning.

So are we to blame stories? Not quite so. That would just be another story. Stories are simply our ways of parcing out reality. They are quite helpful as long as we do not mistake them as the full truth. Stories are never completely true so it is delusive to search for our ultimate meaning in them. It is more useful to look to stories as a guide to how the outer world is being reflected by our inner world at that moment. We are held hostage by our stories when we cannot see that there are many perspectives and that the ultimate truth, in fact, stands even outside of all of those perpsectives.

Our negative emotions can teach us valuable lessons if we let them. Anytime there is negativity it is an opportunity to look into how we have been hooked into believing something false about ourselves and the world. What are we defending? What are we trying to hold up? What is beneath the fear? What are we afraid of? What are we believing that enables this negativity?

Experiment: Identify something that you are a little bit afraid to do. It should not be something that terrifies you or that you know you "cannot" do. And it should of course be safe. It should, on the other hand, be something that produces a certain degree of anxiety or fear. One beautiful example I am going to borrow from someone who writes on the ET TV Forums. As he was about to leap off a cliff into deep waters below, he kept approaching the cliff and then backing away. Each time he would get close to the cliff edge, he would try to be aware of the feelings, and sensations in his body at that moment. He became keenly attuned to what that experience of fear/anxiety felt like in his body and experience. You can do the same thing, even if it does not involve literally jumping off a cliff. Find something that causes you anxiety and just before you are about to undertake the activity become deeply present and witness the sensations in your body. What are you feeling? Where are you feeling it? What is happening to your body? Are there any thoughts that are accompanying your fears? What are they saying? Feel the difference between almost undertaking the fearful activity and moving back to what is comfortable.

In actuality, for this, it matters not whether you carry out the activity. The purpose of this experiment was to witness and truly understand what your own fear feels like rather than just react as your fear. I would be interested in hearing from you about how the experiment went. Please do write a comment.

Its nice to talk abstractly about negativity and all but don't terrible things happen? Isn't there pain and suffering and misery? These things are negative. How can you say that when there is negativity we have been hooked into a falsehood about the world?

It is a paradox that is difficult to articulate. Let me give you an example from my own life that begins to illuminate what I mean. In my last blog, I wrote about my struggle with mental illness. It has been difficult and painful at times. Yet despite this pain, or more aptly perhaps because of this pain, I sought an end to my suffering which led me to eventually "awaken" Sometimes its as if suffering enables us to see beyond the one who seems to be suffering. In my life, my mental illness has at one level been "negative", at another level it is simply a part of my experience and I am grateful, for what it has taught me and brought me in contact with. If something bad helps you to understand your true purpose and essence - can it be called negative so easily? If it expands your ability to be compassionate is it "bad". Now of course I am "lucky", and the pain in my story is not as deep as many other people experience, but the mechanics are the same. Once you feel your essence, you understand that no matter what someone else does to you or what you experience that may be "negative" there is an untouchable sacredness that has always been with you, will not ever leave you, and cannot be taken away, and you are never the same. This sacredness is unaffected by anything that could ever happen to you. This essence is the real you and it is connected to and part of everything else for lack of better words. When that essence is fully grasped through and through it becomes clearer that the "negative" does not really touch the essence of us. And if it does not touch "us" then isn't it a falsehood? This does not mean that something will never feel "negative" at the time, its just to say that the panoramic perspective is available to us if we can access it. Similarly, please don't take this to mean not to alleviate suffering. I am now going to blatantly and knowingly contradict myself and say suffering is real. Language can be so limiting. At a relative level, suffering does happen and we should do our utmost to relieve it when we see it in the world but at an absolute level, things are simply as they are. True compassion enables us to see that on the one hand there is real pain and misery. In fact, if we look closely enough and do not turn from it -- it is heartbreaking. At the same time, the quivering heart is able to see the essence of all things; that which is beyond the misery it is also able to hold the suffering.


So what should you do when you encounter negativity? What should you do when the flames of anger begin to rise and writhe? What should you do when you are afraid?


If you are able, watch the negativity. Become curious about it. Give it compassionate space and treat it with tenderness. Look deeply into it. Let it be as big as it needs to be. Many people have learned to count to ten when they get angry. It gives them a chance to cool off before they do or say something they regret. It can be a good practice. But often times people continue to tell themselves the story of why this person or that situation made them angry, so instead of cooling off they are feeding the fire of anger. See if you can feel the anger without the story. Concentrate on how the actual feeling of anger lives in the body. See how angry you can get for a moment. Not with some righteous indignation over what happened to you, but to experience the raw and simple energy of anger. What does it feel like? What color is it? What shape is it? What is it doing to your muscles? What is happening in your throat? What is going on in your belly or your heart? Give the anger some compassionate space to exist.

Usually another feeling lurks beneath the anger. Usually we are protecting or defending something. Often we are masking fear or hurt - other "negative" emotions. For me, I know I have reached the bottom of any "difficult" emotions when I begin a particular kind of cry. It is a cathartic cry. It is a cry of reaching and understanding truth. It is accompanied by a sweet tenderness towards the whole situation.



Hastily, we are so apt to write off our "negative" emotions and reach for something "better" but true reality, true love recognizes that these so called negative experiences are just other colors in the rainbow of life. They make the picture vivid and vibrant. True reality embraces them simply because they are. We do not need to fear them. We do not need to run from them. We do not even need to change them. Nothing that is real can ever be harmed so we do not need to worry. That which we perceive as "negative" is just another tool to awaken us from slumber and show us our divinity. So rest in peace the next time something "negative" appears. It is another chance to see yourself and escape the dream.

Fear

The other night in a knee jerk reaction, I dismissed my sweetie. I did not like how I reacted. When I act in these hurtful ways I am not coming from a place of expansiveness. My sweetie had texted me and asked if I would take notes for other parents who could not attend a class that was offered through my son's day care. I told her that I would take notes and share them with other parents. Well, the class did not really lend itself to taking notes. When my sweetie asked if I had taken the notes, I summarily dismissed her. I did not simply say that although I had taken notes, they were not easily shared, my attitude made her wrong for even suggesting the idea in the first place.

I want to be the compassionate space for the world to exist around me. What gets in the way? What prevents me from being the loving space that lets things arise around me? In this case, I think it was an initial resistance to the task in the first place. It was an initial resistance born of fear. I do not see myself as a particularly good note taker and I suspect that I feared that my competence would be judged by the other parents. The fear was there, but not until I examined it now, was it ever acknowledged. In the end, my fear poisoned my reponse to my sweetie. It leaked out. If I had been able to see my fear at being judged about the notes I would have had more choices. I would have seen the fear and perhaps realized that who I am is bigger than the feeling of being afraid. I might have realized that the fear would pass too and I might not have responded from such a conditioned place. After all, she had the larger community in mind whereas my attitude toward her was closed off and self involved. Fear can be like that especially if it is not acknowledged. When it is acknowledged fear has a kind of exhilarating quality to it but when it stagnates in one's pysche it can pollute one's actions.

What are we really afraid of? Often it is a phantom. Look deeply. Are you protecting an image of yourself like I was? It was important that I be seen as "competent". Its a way I try to define myself, but definitions of ourselves are poor substitutes for just being ourselves and sensing it through and through. Who would I be if I were not competent? Would I still exist? Who would I be if I were not smart, or funny or male, or female or fill in the blank? Unconditional love comes from knowing that you are worthy of love, that you are in fact love, when you are absolutely nothing at all. This is what we desire so deeply - love for no reason - just because. Why is it so important that the world know I am -- fill in the blank? I suspect its when I am not rooted in the deeper connection with everything that it matters whether I exhibit certain qualities that make me feel special. Its when I do not feel the specialness of simply existing that I am afraid that I need to be a certain way.

I would like to ask you, what makes you afraid and I would like your responses? Few people live fearlessly, so what situations, people, circumstances, or scenarios, or things in general make you afraid? Maybe posting a comment makes you afraid? Let's talk about our fears. I want to hear from you.