We unschooled our kids

Unschooling means no curriculum, no worksheets, no tests

What did we do? Lived life. Explored their questions.

About 5 years in, they wanted to try school

My son had to take a placement test. He scored squarely in his grade level.

Without having completed a single elementary lesson or scratch of homework

I had not stressed for a moment about him learning his times tables

His natural becoming carried him right where he needed to be

Had I been micromanaging his learning by a prescribed set of rolling dictates

Did you do your homework? Are you ready for your spelling test?

I imagine I would’ve been very involved in regular interventions to support his performance

And I think we both benefitted that that was not the case

To some degree, this is how I’m feeling about healing

Outside of physical procedures that usually have a start and end date

Followed by perhaps shifts in behavior to support ongoing wellness

Many of us seem to have ourselves on a healing treadmill

Diligently trying to achieve our 10,000 steps toward the self we hope to earn

We forget that wholeness isn’t an achievement

It’s the ground we start from

What if our healing is a natural process within our becoming that simply takes time and space to unfold

And what we really need to do is live life and explore our questions

Move towards what lights us up and away from that which constricts us

That discernment is our job

Which requires sensitivity to this body in this moment in this space

Like every other bit of life, we’re constantly becoming something new

Even when that becoming looks like aging

We bring the resources of what we’ve been in the past to encounter what’s happening now

And let that update us instead of defending the old position

Healing occurs

Because life, as Gibran says, cares for our growth as well as our pruning

I say this as someone who has experienced a lot of physical pain and a lot of healing

And significant emotional pain and healing

And for all my efforts and devotion

I’m not so sure that most of my healing didn’t happen naturally or at least in nature’s timing

That my machinations towards it were just that

In any case, it has all informed my orientation

That we are whole, just as we are

We are becoming, because that’s what life does

And when I can soften into that knowing

Life is interesting and surprising right here in my body and through my relationships

Not a constant march of me trying to fix myself

That’s what I really needed healing from

Maybe letting go of concepts of healing is where healing truly happens.

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We’re hard on ourselves, as humans

Because we can almost always imagine a ‘better’ option

It can be very hard to just be where we are

To acknowledge and appreciate our quirks

And their contributions to the color of the world

As we imagine embodying ideals

But I’m not completely convinced our ideas about ideals

Are at all accurate

I’m more of a believer that our quirkiness is more precisely tuned to the majesty of creation

Than our best behavior.

I have examples.

My daughter is delightful and charming and talented

When she is sad or depressed or frightened, she is a bubbling cauldron of anger

Over the years something became evident

When I try to empathize with her or soothe her or calm her

She just gets angrier. Digs in. Goes deeper.

Of course my deep desire to ‘help’ generally has me forget this for a half an hour or more

To actually shift the situation, I have to mirror her anger

Lose my temper at her spiraling

Shout “Basta, basta! E abastanza!” Enough! Stop it!

I don’t really yell in Italian, but it is my inner Sicilian that comes out

And then I need to give us both a minute.

That’s when things shift.

This tracks with homeopathy, which encourages us to allow a fever to run its course

The theory is that the heat moving through the body is performing a system upgrade

Aborting the mission means the immune system misses the update

Don’t be afraid of the fire, but don’t let it take over the system, either

Now, my inner perfectionist would like me to find exactly the right soothing words and calm delivery to give my daughter what she needs to find herself within her anger and move through it

I don’t think the utopian version really exists, or if it did that it would have the right impact

When I was a young adult living at home

I was in a toxic romance and one evening was sobbing into the phone at 2am

My mother, annoyed AF, got out of bed, came into my room, slammed the phone down and slapped me across the face

It’s actually one of my favorite memories

It was exactly what I needed

It literally slapped me back to reality, reestablished myself within myself, let me see and choose against the spiral

She didn’t slap me because she knew it was exactly what I needed

She slapped me because, come on! It’s 2am! Enough already!

But, her authentic response brought me back to myself more than any honed wisdom ever could’ve

Jefferson Fisher, that adorable attorney who talks about how to engage in difficult conversations

Admits that sometimes, calm is inappropriate

Sometimes, life is fiery and our agitation is normal and healthy

The cauldron of alchemy in those moments is grounded connection

Grounded connection is going to look different every time

Sometimes it’s a mirroring, sometimes a shoulder to cry on

Sometimes a slap across the face, freely given and without regret

A scripted response could never meet the moment authentically

AI cannot soothe the savage beast

It’s our special cocktail of crazy meeting their special cocktail of crazy

In heartfelt, honest relationship

And like my mother before me, I know

Sometimes losing your temper is the medicine

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For many years in my youth I was the friendly backstage gate guard at Meadow Brook Music Festival

The summer home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

It was a lot of fun. I’ve got many stories.

There were a few times when I was recruited to pick up a soloist from the airport

And once the soloist, a violinist whose name I do not remember, wanted to stop for food

We went to a modest family restaurant, and there were lots of people in

That evening, maybe 5,000 people would watch him play

But not a person in that restaurant had any idea who he was

I remember thinking, “Wow. We never know if there’s a world-renowned talent at the next table

One of these people may have already paid for their ticket tonight

And can’t wait to see this guy, and have no idea he’s sitting right next to them.”

Mass market celebrity is easy to notice - actors, musicians, athletes

But there’s a whole world of top-level talent we can’t necessarily identify

Writers, painters, musicians outside your favorite genre

Scientists, doctors who invented life-saving procedures, people who will be named saints

So many individuals who maybe even changed your own life

Sitting next to you in a diner

Just being human

The opposite of the “do you know who I am?” trope.

Jewish philosopher Martin Buber believed God lives in the world

And we know the divine through dialogue and relationship, embrace

This paradigm evaporates objectification, meeting what’s outside of us as “it”

And prepares us to treat all we encounter as “Thou”

With reverence, honor, care

And thereby know God and be in relationship with God through and as each other

What a powerful orientation

It lets us meet everyone as the unidentified superstar they are.

So the next time you’re in a restaurant

Give a knowing smile to the person beside you

They might be Banksy

They’re definitely an expression of the divine

Even if they may be chewing very, very loudly.

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I spent the day researching job opportunities for my daughter

Ohmygoodness, it is SO much easier to do this for someone else

Especially someone you love

I identified a dozen people to reach out to, a dozen more jobs posted today

Wrote a dozen cover letters and rewrote a resume to include requirements from all 12

It’s been absolutely fascinating

My shoulder didn’t get sore at all, even though I spent most of the day on LinkedIn

I got more done for her today than I’ve been able to do for myself for weeks

This reminds me of the spoons in heaven -

It’s lovely to feed each other

Feeding ourselves isn’t nearly as fulfilling, even when it is possible or necessary

The Dalai Lama tells us the fastest way out of depression is to help someone else

Given the prevalence of depression these days

Wouldn’t systems to help each other be super handy right about now?

I imagine they’re there, but there sure are barriers to entry

It took over a month before I could begin volunteering at the local homeless shelter

Today I worked with a woman who is taking a community college math class

The structure of the assignment was distributed over 4 different sheets of an excel file

Whoever wrote it worked on it for a long time, but it was virtually impossible to understand.

And I love math

I feel for the teacher. Community college instructors aren’t making the big bucks

But this was profoundly poor instructional design

It’s a catch 22

Ivy league schools have the luxury of and mandate for elegant, straightforward educational tools

Community college gets whatever that instructor can come up with on the fly

Profound learning inequities persist

How, in this digital age, we haven’t made best practices available across channels is beyond me

And it’s frustrating

But the answer is right here

In sharing

In serving each other

In pooling our resources and being invested in each other

You’re doing it for me right now

And I’m grateful

And I’m doing it for you

With these reminders

We need each other, and we have each other

Feeding each other is how we create a heaven from the hell of feeling alone

Feeling that we have to do everything ourselves is a trauma response

And entirely not true

We just have to get past those barriers

And remember:

We’re part of an ecosystem

When we allow ourselves to be fed

We nourish our roots

And strong roots bear fruits

And those fruits make feeding others easy

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I have a dear friend with whom I occasionally make pilgrimages

One of our favorite destinations is to visit the traveling female Indian mystics

Widely acknowledged as avatars, or living incarnations of the Divine

Called “Amma” or “Mother”, they travel around the world offering blessings

Which, quite frankly, is no small task

These women are not young. They sometimes spend 18 hours greeting people.

The devotion runs both ways:

Hence our pilgrimages.

So, one day, we went to go see Amma Karunamayi

She’s lovely and sits in front of a room full of people.

While you wait, you can fill out an index card with your petition to the Divine

When it’s your turn, she reads it, she looks at you, she blesses you, maybe talks a little

And sends you back to your day with some Hershey’s kisses

She is not speedy in her blessings and once or twice we’ve been there all day

Like, all day.

But this time, we get there and it looks a lot like we are going to be in and out

Then just before they call our group, they change the pattern on group calling

We might be there all day again.

The woman next to us waits maybe 3 hours, getting increasingly agitated every 15 minutes or so

My inquiry during our waiting became,

“If we are here because we believe this person is an avatar of the divine

Wouldn’t being in her presence longer be a boon? Wouldn’t it be an added blessing?”

And, I mean, I’ll admit I was excited when I thought it was going to be quick

But we are here literally to be in the presence of God, and we are

So, maybe, let it in?

After some time, the woman next to us cannot take it anymore

She gets up and leaves

But she couldn’t have gotten to her car before they called our group

It was the weirdest thing.

I’ve thought about that a lot lately

I’ve been so impatient for God to intervene in my life

I neglected recognizing that all of this is the Presence of the Divine

And what a privilege it is to be here

Even when I’m feeling edgy about it.

Remembrance really is a boon

As are the effusive blessings

Sometimes disguised as hardships.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

My two favorite book titles are so good

You don’t even need to read the books.

The books are great, too, don’t get me wrong

But the titles are transmissions

They let you know everything you need to know

The insides are just examples to get the ball rolling.

My first favorite book title is:

“Behaving as if the God in All Life Mattered”

By Machaelle Small Wright

Let’s hear it again:

Behaving as if the God in All Life Mattered

That, right there, is the solution to all of it

It sets the stage for a pause. Humility. Reverence. Connection.

The book itself is a trip.

It’s about cocreative partnership with nature, and it is, shall we say, multidimensional

She offers an approach that is informed by human intention but clearly reliant on nature’s intelligence

One of my favorite lines in it is:

Humans think gardens are expressions of nature. Nature thinks gardens are expressions of humans.

It’s not the only idea she offers a fresh perspective on.

The other absolutely stunning book title is by Charles Eisenstein:

“The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible”

Sit with that one for a moment

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

What I love about this is that there is a common sense —

We each may have entirely individual and specific imaginings of what it might look like

But we share an underlying common sense of a nourishing, healthy ecosystem

Thriving with respect and creativity

This book is all about the stories we’ve accepted as true. As “history”, as “culture”

It’s written in vignettes, each spotlighting an area of human endeavor

Inviting us to drop the stories that are literally killing us and the planet

And Imagine into new stories, richer stories

Stories that are more true

More inclusive, more expansive, more full of possibility and wonder

The title says it all and invites us to more, and I hope we collectively accept the invitation

Recently, I heard Bayo Akomolafe talk about an upcoming book

“The Times Are Urgent. Let Us Slow Down”

Once published, it will definitely place in my favorite titles award ceremony.

To me, it is a common denominator of the first two

If we are to create The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

It will be through Behaving As If The God In All Life Mattered

To do this, we must slow down, be reverent

Release the old stories demanding our allegiance and attention

And be present

As we make the world anew

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Aren’t you just the sweetest being

Bearing with me as I reflect and contemplate

Exploring how the mystical wisdom lives and moves

Within fractured and often unsatisfying circumstances

Thank you ❤️

I’m switching gears today

You see, I’ve been so careful trying not to bypass

I’ve perhaps overindulged my inquiry

And underutilized my orientation of curiosity

There’s a difference, at least how I’m feeling it

Inquiry is wanting to know why and get to an answer

Curiosity is wanting to explore, discover and perhaps create

So, I’m not sure if my biorhythms have shifted

Or my true devotion to life as it emerges is finally willing to accept how it is emerging

I’m switching gears.

My situation was impossible 5 months ago

And is almost the same amount of impossible today

Makes me realize I need to shift my definition of impossible

I’ve read dozens of articles about exactly my predicament happening all over the country and the world

So, rather than inquire and philosophize and lament

I think I’m going to start to look at the advantages

I’ve talked about the difficulties quite enough

And while they still may come up, they’re not the context

The context is discovery, re-creation and possibility

I want to appreciate what this moment offers me

Tara Brach: Happiness lies not in finding what is missing, but in finding what is present

Right now, I’m appreciating that I didn’t have to take a day off work to get my tooth fixed

And that I’m available to help offer my full self to help my daughter find a job

And that stupid expensive job search program can maybe offer some value for her

I am available to care for my aging dog, who is out of sorts when I’m not home

I’ve had time to be there for friends

These are not small things

I want to do more of them, and maybe let that lead me to my next step

Instead of the idea of where I should be that I’m not, and an inquiry about how to get there

My current optimism may ebb and flow

But this context of becoming has been there all along

I just want to lift the veil of my circumstances’ impropriety

And get back to the serious business of accepting life as it is

With curiosity and trust

And the truly meaningful support of friends, family and community

Because we need each other, there’s no question about it

And we have each other

And that is no small thing.

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True intelligence has no thought…It is an attunement of the body to the world…”

I know this

I have not been living it

I have been thinking waaaaay too much

It just seemed so important to think

As if I could counter the uncertainty I’m experiencing with copious thinking

You’ve had a front row seat to how that’s gone for me.

The quote is from Philip Shepherd

Although Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes ‘flow’ similarly

Philip has an exercise I’ve often loved

The idea is this:

Take a simple idea, like ‘the sky is blue’

And feel what ‘knowing’ that idea feels like in your mind

Then move the idea down into the heart, and feel what ‘knowing’ feels like there

Finally, move the idea into the pelvic bowl, and sense what ‘knowing’ feels like there

It’s simple. It takes a moment. Try it! Each intelligence center feels a little different.

The realignment this quote offered today invited me to the exercise again

Bringing thought through the whole body to discern a deeper, sensory experience of truth

Sometimes, with a less simple idea, you have to modify the phrasing to get it to move to the lower energy center

The example he gave is when the head thinks, “I want to marry this person I just met”

You might need to shift it to “I’d love to have a cup of coffee and a conversation with this person”

To be able to have it be true in the heart or pelvic floor. They’re not prone to hyperbole.

So, as my mind has been thinking

“I cannot find a job”

My heart’s truth is “I have not found a job”

And my pelvic floor’s truth is more like “I am doing my work”

Similarly, as my mind has been repeating

“I am running out of money”

My heart feels “my immediate needs continue to be met”

And my pelvic floor takes it further:

“I am a vital part of an economy of care”

Just this little exercise proves to me I’ve been spending all my time in my thinking mind

As much as I have learned of its fallibility

Old habits have had me resorting to it in crisis

This series of reframes has me operating more as my whole self

Thinking less, more being

Closer to truth, closer to presence

There, waiting for me to return. To listen instead of think. To know.

I’m so glad I saw that post

I’m so glad for the experience of the shift in orientation

For this exercise and remembrance

We need each other to remind each other

Thank you, Philip

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Prayer has many benefits

We all have our go-to

There is something very soothing about the repetition of prayers

Some traditions believe the deity lives in the prayer

And I can say I’ve felt that to be true.

I have a number of go-to prayers and mantras

I wonder if there should be just one

But they fit situations like favorite songs

Sometimes they make me feel better

Sometimes they are just refuge

One that has been prominent, especially these last few months

Comes from A Course in Miracles

and it goes like this (although I swap gender, which ACIM doesn’t):

I am only here to be truly helpful

I am only here to represent He who sent me

I don’t have to worry about what to say or what to do

She who sent me will direct me

I am content to be wherever She wishes

Knowing He goes there with me

I will be healed as I let Her teach me to heal.

This tests my faith

Am I really content to be wherever She wishes?

Lately, that’s been a hard ask

It’s a lot like the Footprints in the Sand poem

God is with us always

Even when it might not feel like it

It cannot be any other way

I keep having to remember

Life is unfolding as it can

Regardless of my opinion of the progression

Pain is inevitable

Suffering is optional, and based on resistance

My prayer is to see the divine in all

To know it. To be in it. Willingly.

And so I pray

Repetition helps.

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Have you ever solved a problem

And then come up against it again and forgotten that you’d solved it?

At the moment of recognition, there’s a downregulation that is such a relief

Oh! This isn’t a big hairy monster anymore. Phew!

But also intense curiosity on why it had you flummoxed again.

I’ve experienced this in lots of ways over the years

My daughter is allergic to Neosporin and needs first aid cream instead

But it took me nearly a dozen times to consistently remember (and I recently forgot again)

I can’t even tell you how many homeopathic remedies I’ve forgotten work well for me until I’m cured by other means

But then, there are also times when tried and true methods just don’t work

This week, for example, as I’ve been trying to soothe persistent inner angst

My go-to “spend time in nature” ritual backfired

Instead of feeling the intimate majesty of the natural world

I cried for 45 minutes about what colonization and capitalism have done to the land around me

Not what I was hoping for

True, nonetheless

Authenticity of emotion took precedence over nervous system regulation

And no amount of effort, no tool, no remedy could turn things around

So I just had to go with it

Succumb to the misery

Ironically, that’s helping

But I had nearly a week of anxiety consuming probably 70% of my day

Not something I’m used to

Not something I liked

But has begun to lighten

Honestly, writing yesterday, “I wonder how God is going to take care of this”

Kindof slapped me back into remembering I’m not in this alone

As soon as that happened

All of the kindness I’ve received in these last weeks came flooding in

My orientation during the height of my emotional turmoil couldn’t let the kindness sink in

It kept dragging me back to what wasn’t working

Today, the ethers feel alive with shared care and intention

On a variety of issues, most of them, not mine

And my myopic view of my own impotence can rest in a context of a world in painful transition

Thinking I have to “fix things” in and by myself pits me against the world

Accepting that hard times are happening, and no one is immune, creates a wave of compassion for everyone

And sensitizes the space between us as crucial to our individual well-being

I am not the tender of this field, I am a blade of grass within it

What a relief, even when I’m getting ruthlessly blown around

I didn’t like that lonely vortex I was in

And I know I’ve solved that loneliness before, but I was grasping in the dark trying to find a solution

When the solution was feeling it

Letting it have its way with me

Before revealing the currents of care

That were there all along

(Gosh, I hope tomorrow’s post is a little more light-hearted)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com