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.

My Uncle Baba

Certainty, quietude, unearthly confidence
grounded not in a body or a mind
but in timelessness that continues.
A boisterous bellow.
We all share your laugh; a signature of sorts
an echo in those you leave behind.
My grandfather runs through your veins
as it does through my own and my son's.
Piercing eyes and a shock of white hair
set against rich, mahoghany skin.
A community Moses bridging troubled waters
to liberate and carry the shackled to the shores of freedom.

A diamond orator voice blending hues of light
in the crucible of your existence,
sourced from an ebony heart, pumped by an infinite
and almighty hand.
Smiles close the distance between
our of existences
your smile will be missed most.
Its fiery warmth a black ashen coal ready
to inflagrate and reduce us all to to the glorious
essence of our sacred and illumined core.

Let us each grieve in our own ways;
tears, fierce recommitement to action, surreal confusion,
a candle lit in a far away place, a stoic and soundless
perserverance, a prayer offered on a dark and beatuiful continent.
the shouts of children in quiet places.
All embraced.
Your important lesson; the myriad expressions of divinity
that come through us; evident even now in the grief that grips the room.
I will see you wherever soulfullness blossoms,
the shifting shapes of the candles flicker
the space between thoughts
the place where earth and sky eternally embrace.

Contentment

How does the world look when you don’t need anything from it? So much of so many of our lives is spent pursuing. There are more ways to pursue happiness than there are people. Most never find. Perhaps they find moments of happiness or a break from the drum of stress, but daily life asserts itself once again and the constant stress and threat that many live with rises to the foreground. I once had a friend describe his capacity to worry like the law of the vacuum wherein empty space is abhorred. In her life it seemed like the moment she let go of one worry another popped in. She even noticed that the character of her worries had changed over the years as her situation improved and stability increased . But despite the character change they were no less frequent or aggravating. I think her situation is similar to many. We worry about things because we believe it will give us an manner in which to control that which Is beyond us. Its as if worrying enough we believe we will affect the outcome.

But if I don’t worry how will I change the situation I am in? Doesn’t worry enable me to produce solutions? Besides I do not know how to stop worrying?

I might differentiate here between worry and analysis and action. Worry keeps one in a loop of fear hyped up on potential outcomes none of which you can know in advance. Analysis looks at the same data and says at the moment I can do a, b, and c and after that I will do 1, 2, and 3. Analysis can even look to the future to say if a, b, or c happens I will do 1, 2, or 3. But notice that in each case there is not really a problem. There is simply stimulus and response, a cause and a map of potential courses. We are so conditioned to analyzing within the context of our worry that we lose sight of how to separate them. With analysis the mind is not spinning and the body is not contracted around what might come to be. The truth is we never really know what is going to come to be yet we delude ourselves into thinking we know all the time. Perhaps if the sense of no control pervaded the mundane more clearly it would not be so acute during crises. The not knowing, the uncertainty could make its all so much more of an exciting adventure but usually people stress. It is a mistaken sense of self that turns everything into a problem. It is a mistaken sense of who we are that obscures our ability to simply act in concert with what the situation asks. The heart does not worry about pumping? And as for stopping worrying you don’t. It too is a magical part of the fabric of life. You simply notice it when it appears and get curious and kind towards what the worry thinks it will accomplish. It will either go away then or not, in either case it is again , no problem.


Worry is incredibly well meaning, it thinks it can protect you. It thinks it can help you resolve something out there in the future that is the source of anxiety. It cannot. It does not realize that it IS the cause of anxiety. But rather than make worry an enemy and try to rid oneself of it sidle up next to it and take it into your heart. What happens then?

Why do we go to the movies? What kind of movies do you like? Do you read fiction?  Movies come in all shades, shapes, colors, themes, topics and perspectives. It is the same with books. Do we watch movies to escape? Maybe, but often movies are just depicting slices of life. It is the same with books. Even if the situation is fantastical or completely imagined it still depicts some aspect of existence otherwise it couldn’t be written. In these movies or books we often experience a range of emotions and thoughts  from sadness to elation to fear, happiness, righteousness, anger or anxiety. In the context of the movie or book it is part of what we actually pay for. When we go see a romantic comedy we understand that at some point two people will meet. At some point there will be difficulty in their relationship and usually they will get back together at the end. In the horror film we go to be scared or to see if the movie is capable of scaring us. In many ways life is not much different except that we come to believe that the story is solid and real. In a movie or book at the end no matter how enchanted we were , we are able to separate the movie from who is watching the movie. What capacity allows you to identify with the characters in the movie or book? Who/what is it that identifies with characters in the book or movies? What capacity is it that enables you to identify with your own story? Who or what identifies with your own story? I have often said that with the right editing a compelling movie could be made of anyone’s life. So if we go to the movies or read books and enjoy them are we not paying for the emotions and experiences that in another context we are often trying to rid ourselves of? In  its essence there is nothing wrong with any emotion. They simply are and they are not  wrong or problematic for being there. We only struggle when we see the emotions as something that we need to overcome. As the movie demonstrates they are part of the wondrous fabric that keeps life real, beautiful, engaging and dynamic.

Even when discontent shows up do not fret. It does not mean you have done anything wrong or that you are less spiritual or that something is wrong or fill in whatever sweet treat one’s ego is feeding itself on at the moment. They are all ways of strengthening a self if you bite. That which is capable of noticing the discontent, your true essence, is capable of holding it all, the contentment and the discontent. If there is discontent, ask if you are identified with the person/body/mind whose life-circumstance does not have everything lined up perfectly or are you aligned with that tender and compassionate “space” which can see that discontent and offers up its heart to it. It offers its heart not to necessarily change it or eliminate it but simply because that is its nature; tender, caring, kind.

How would it feel if you knew in your deepest depths that everything is ok. Not that it would be ok when you got to heaven or that it would be ok in 10 minutes or in two days or after you accomplished this or read that book or finished this meditation,  but now. Actually it is more than ok it is absolutely beautiful and perfect. It does not mean that there won’t be be pain and dread, difficulty, sadness, hardship, grief, and sorrow but in a way does that matter. It means that there is less of need for it to be different than the way it is. It means that when change needs to happen it happens and is not a source of worry or anxiety. Unless of course it is a source of worry and anxiety in which case it still is ok.  :-)

There is nothing to get, nowhere to go.  All you ever needed is right here. They say home is where the heart is. Well, we live in the Kingdom of Heaven. We just forget our address sometimes.

Black

Black.
Crime festered hoods, drug overlords, poverty punished ghettos,
HIV/AIDS ravaged cadavers, down-low deceivers, violent thug gangs ,
misogynistic populism, health disparities run amok, fissuring educational gaps, skyrocketing unemployment.
When that loud group of boys got on the bus how I recoiled in judgement.
The distance I tried to place between myself and that shadow
earned me a lifetime of imprisonment, stuck in my own foul reflection.

Black.
But now as I look, I see an primal energy, raw and irrepressible, a sacred strength
passed on through decades of hardship, in song, food, and fellowship
and the ability to endure the most nightmarish tempests
such will erase and transmute the jim crows and apartheids
because nothing less than love and truth are the alchemical agents
working to free us all at last.

Black.
I used to be afraid of the dark
but now I embrace it in wholeness.
When you sit alone in the true depths of darkness
you begin to be breathed by it and you realize
that chasing the light can be a distraction.
I celebrate the mystery of darkness
I surrender myself to the unknown
to discover in each shadowy moment
the inherent beauty of the night.