“Do your best and let go of the outcome.” This was the advice of my fellow teacher and good friend, Jeff Goldman, as we were navigating what seemed like the impossible demands of our school in Washington, D.C. Jeff was older and wiser and lived a much more balanced life than I did at that time. I was finding myself burning out because I couldn’t do everything I was being asked at 100%. No one could.

At the time, I think there was at least a part of me that heard Jeff’s advice and felt like he didn’t care as much as I did. Oh boy. That’s embarrassing to admit, but it is pretty accurate.

My unwritten rule was “Do your best and control the outcome. If the outcome isn’t what you wanted it to be, you didn’t try your best.”

Yeah. That’s pretty close to the way I lived.

The folly of that way of thinking is clearly visible at this stage of my life.

I’m twice as old now and I have had to come to terms with the limits of what I do control. In fact, I control almost nothing.

I love how Michael Singer describes the job we assume when we try to make life go our way:

“Just stop for a moment and see what you have given your mind to do. You said to your mind, ‘I want everyone to like me. I don’t anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be acceptable and pleasing to everyone. I don’t want anyone to hurt me. I don’t want anything to happen that I don’t like. And I want everything to happen that I do like.’ Then you said, ‘Now, mind, figure out how to make every one of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night.’ And of course your mind said, ‘I’m on the job. I will work on it constantly’…

“Ultimately, what stands against the storms of extremism, the spread of untruths, and the threat of nihilism, is the awakened individual. Unless we find the inner truths of our own lives, and the underlying sense of unity that is secretly present in each soul, we inadvertently add to the growing darkness, divisions, and confusion that already threaten the world.

The uniqueness of each individual life is the treasure hard to find. It’s the secret of the elixir in the individual. It’s the eternal thread that secretly weaves through all living things.

The awakening, the healing, and the blossoming of our own souls becomes the way we can best contribute to the healing and the renewal that is secretly trying to happen even, and especially, when the world around us and the ocean of existence is churning again.” (Michael Meade. Living Myth Podcast. Episode 373: Lies that Poison, Truths that Heal).

Excerpt: Commitment and consistency have been keys to countering this natural negativity bias, gaining new perspectives, building resilience, moving out of reactivity, and developing the cognitive/emotional/somatic awareness to respond to life in ways that are more loving, wiser, and creative.

For much of my life, I poo-pooed routine and consistency because they felt legalistic, formulaic, and too restrictive for my free spirit that loves to trust its intuition, act spontaneously, and not be fenced in. 

The irony has been that my commitment to daily routines (such as ice baths, sitting meditation, breath retention, exercise, and writing) has helped free my spirit even more, connect me to deeper intuition, and feel more open to acting with wisdom in the moment because of the connection to an unchanging core that I experience as a safe haven and secure base.

Excerpt: Editor’s Note: Our family plays a version of Uno that came to be called “White Chocolate Badger.” Here is the story behind the name, a story that was first told on an Idaho mountain summer morning to a young boy asking for a tall tale while waiting for the sun to rise.

Once upon a time, there was a lonely albino badger. He lived in a badger community with a badger family, but never seemed to fit in like the rest of the badgers.

Excerpt: "I’ll begin with the disclaimer that this piece should probably begin where it is ending, but it doesn’t, so here we go. Let’s see what happens.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “I’m simply interested in what is going to happen next. I don’t think I can control my life or my writing. Every other writer I know feels he is steering himself, and I don’t have that feeling. I don’t have that sort of control. I’m simply becoming. I’m startled that I became a writer.”

Studying literacy and composition in my undergrad, Vonnegut was a writer with whom I often identified, not so much because of his writing, but because of his writing about writing.

Excerpt: “A strong community helps people develop a sense of self, for only in community can the self exercise and fulfill its nature: giving and taking, listening and speaking, being and doing. But when community unravels and we lose touch with one another, the self atrophies and we lose touch with ourselves as well. Lacking opportunities to be ourselves in a web of relationships, our sense of self disappears, leading to behaviors that further fragment our relationships and spread the epidemic of inner emptiness” (Palmer, 39)

Parker Palmer penned these words in A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life in 2004. I happened upon the book as soon as it was published while studying developmental psychology in my Masters program. It was hugely influential in my life then and has continued to be a source of support and encouragement for two decades now.

For 20 years, I have been slowly and imperfectly moving toward the undivided life that Palmer refers to, sometimes more intentionally and consciously aware than others.

I also noticed that my mind allowed itself to unlock from the targets. I didn’t try to figure out why I was thinking the way I was or solve any problems or write any new stories.

As soon as I felt into the sensations, they morphed, and the attached thoughts morphed with them. I noticed a whole world of possibilities within my cognition and belief systems that literally had not existed in my awareness 5 minutes before. 


The creative unconscious at work.

Wow.

Jack Kornfield says, “If you become aware of your feelings, they don’t last very long. We feel like we’re angry for a day, or sad for a week, or happy for a month, or grieving for a while — as if those feelings lasted that long. But if you look closely and you let yourself feel what is here and pay attention — feelings rarely last more than thirty seconds, maybe a minute, and then turn into something else. Guaranteed. If you have some feeling that feels like it’s lasted much longer than that, you haven’t paid attention to it. This is how loving awareness frees us.”

Hanson says, “Virtue sounds lofty, but it’s actually down to earth. It simply means living from your innate goodness, guided by principle. When you are virtuous no matter what other people do, their behavior is not controlling you.

He continues, “As a therapist, I’ve seen many couples in which each person says essentially the same thing, “I’ll treat you well after you treat me well.” They’re stuck in a standoff — which neither of them truly wants - because they’re each letting the other person determine their behavior.

February 13, 2016

St. Gertrude’s Spirit Center

On Retreat with Emily

“Each scene is beautiful, no matter what.” Sister Jerri as she was looking out over the Camas Prairie on a cloudy morning in which the sunrise was hidden from view.

During perhaps the third cycle of 4-7-8 breathing, I could feel deeper and deeper into the brain, which was like dry ramen noodles closely bunched together.

As soon as I noticed this felt image of “ramen-ness,” warm fluid began to flow into and around the dry noodles, loosening them, and softening them until they were saturated with liquid and flexible to all subtle movements.

At this point, my consciousn awareness gave way to the deep unconscious awareness and, while I was very awake and alert in this state of consciousness, I was there as an observer rather than an active agent.