On What’s Gained In Between (Blog #1028)

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

You've got to believe that things can turn around, that even difficult situations--perhaps only difficult situations--can turn you into something magnificent.

In the Valley of the Shadow of Death (Blog #1027)

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

As taught in the story of the phoenix, a new life doesn't come without the old one first being burned away.

On Stuff (Blog #1025)

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

When the universe speaks—listen.

On Being Caught Up (Blog #1023)

1. On mouth taping

A couple months ago I wrote about ways to stimulate/activate your vagus nerve, one way being listening to classical music. Well, the book I mentioned, Activate Your Vagus Nerve: Unleash Your Body’s Natural Ability to Overcome Gut Sensitivities, Inflammation, Brain Fog, Autoimmunity, Anxiety, Depression by Dr. Navaz Habib, also suggested mouth taping, mouth taping being literally taping your mouth shut wile you sleep. The idea being that we were intended to breathe through our noses, and that this is a way to keep your body calm. Our mouths, it seems, were only intended as a backup system, a way to get more air in times of emergency (like when you’re stuffed up, or being chased by a lion or your ex). And whereas I didn’t try mouth taping a couple months ago, I didn’t forget about it either.

All this to say that I gave it a whirl last night. Took some surgical tape and fastened my mouth closed. And whereas it was a little awkward at first, it ended up being fine, just fine. Indeed, I had a wonderful night’s sleep, and despite the fact that I’ve been struggling with sinus issues for the last few weeks, woke up this morning with significantly LESS post nasal drip and “junk.” This is supposedly one of the points or benefits to nose breathing.

So I’m going to mouth tape again tonight.

2. On loving what is

Byron Katie, in her book Loving What Is, says that reality is always kinder than our story about it. For example, this morning while preparing to make breakfast, I dropped an egg on the kitchen floor. It just slipped, well, practically jumped right out of my hands. At which point gravity took over. And whereas normally I’d go into A STORY like “how awful this is” and “look what I’ve done wrong,” this time I didn’t. This time I was present, present to reality. And, y’all, it was like slow motion. I could see the egg slip from my fingers, and it was this beautiful thing. Down it went closer and closer the floor. And then it hit. SPLAT! Yolk and pieces of egg shell flew everywhere. It was absolutely glorious, and I can’t tell you how glad I was to be there to witness it. Talk about a fun way to start the day. I’m being serious. It was like watching an action film. For free.

Of course, I had to clean things up. But again, absent any internal bitching, cleaning up a broken egg (or relationship) isn’t a big deal. Haven’t we all cleaned up messes before?

3. On being turned into a mouse

Last night and this afternoon I read the celebrated juvenile fiction novel The Witches by Roald Dahl, the story of a young boy and his grandmother/guardian who have a serious run-in with The Grand High Witch of All the World. And whereas I don’t mean to spoil anything for anyone, she turns the boy into a mouse. (Sorry, but the book’s been out for over thirty years. Catch up.) Anyway, along the lines of loving what is, the boy isn’t bothered by the fact that he’s a mouse. Indeed, he says it never occurs to him TO BE BOTHERED. Rather, he’s excited that he can run fast, hide in small places, swing by his tail, and–here’s the real win–stop going to school.

Talk about a kid who’s caught up (to reality).

Now, the boy was obviously telling himself a story about his reality. But rather than saying, “This sucks,” he was saying, “This is beyond fabulous.” More and more I’m learning to tell myself this second story whenever something “bad” happens, whenever I drop and egg or wake up with post nasal drip. Not that I LOVE waking up sick, but I’m at least learning not to HATE it. Because it gives me a chance to rest. Because it gives me a chance to listen to my body. Because it gives me a chance to try new things (that might help). Why NOT have a positive perspective about our challenges? After all, we can’t change THE FACTS (the egg is on the floor, today I woke up sick, today I woke up a mouse), but we CAN CHANGE what we think about them. We can change the story we tell ourselves.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

The more honest you are about what's actually happening inside of you, the happier you are.

On Time Traveling and Starting Over (Blog #1022)

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

We’re all made of the same stuff.

On Leaving and Being Already Gone (Blog #1019)

1 Comment January 13, 2020 CoCo

This afternoon I saw my chiropractor who works with emotions and their impact on the physical body, and we ended up talking about a few of the “big hitters” in my life–my dad going to prison for six years when I was a teenager, my mom going to the National Institute of Health (for a year) when I was six or seven, our house burning down when I was four. And whereas discussing these subjects is usually a cerebral experience for me, today it was an emotional one. At least it got emotional when my chiropractor said, “There was a lot of LEAVING in your life.”

“Yeah,” I said, starting to cry. “Dad left, Mom left, our stuff left.”

Well, we’d just talked about the the fact that due to my being a child I wasn’t always told exactly what was going on, so my chiropractor added, “And you were LEFT out.”

Looking back, I know that everyone involved was doing the best they knew how, even me. This is something my chiropractor always pushes, the idea that any emotional response I had as a child–or even have now as an adult–was and is completely appropriate. For example, I remember flipping shit once as a five or six year old when my parents went out to eat and LEFT me and my sister with a babysitter. Seriously, y’all, I lost it. Well, today it hit me that OF COURSE I’d lose it seeing my parents LEAVE. That’s exactly what they did the night of the fire (went out to eat and left us with a babysitter), and look what happened THEN.

Now, as an adult I can rationalize that my parents’ leaving didn’t cause bad things to happen. And yet that’s what it FELT like as a child. That’s what got internalized. It’s why, perhaps, I have such strong reactions even today around issues of abandonment and loss. Thankfully, these reactions are less severe, less frequent than they used to be, no doubt a result of my willingness to not only accept “that little boy,” as my chiropractor calls him, but also myself as an adult. More and more, I see this as my job and my job alone–to parent myself. Not that I’m not eternally grateful for my family and all they’ve given me and continue to give. I most certainly welcome and accept their love, affection, and understanding. At the same time, I know that I’m the only person CAPABLE of being with me twenty-four hours a day.

This evening while painting some cabinets for a friend, I finished listening to The Way of the Rose by Clark Strand and Perdita Finn, a book about Mother Mary and praying the rosary that I recently blogged about here. Anyway, according to the authors, one of the things Mother Mary implores people to do is “move at the speed of life.” That is, the sun rises, seasons change, and trees grow–all without getting in a hurry. And then there’s us. We want everything done now. We’re impatient with our food orders, our checkout lines, and even our own healing. That’s what I thought today when I cried at the chiropractor’s office. Sure it’s nice to get this out, and it only took thirty years. And what about what’s left? But if I truly believe I’m part of–woven into–this universe, then I also have to believe that I’m exactly WHERE I need to be in it, that everything is unfolding as it should. That just as winter is supposed to be here (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway), this season of my life is supposed to be here too.

Tonight when I got home from painting I dropped a glass jug of water on the concrete floor in our garage. Well, it shattered. Glass flew everywhere. And whereas I started to get upset, I immediately thought of a song I’d heard earlier in the day, one of my favorite’s by Sugarland–“Already Gone.” The tune is about, among other things, a girl who falls in love despite the advice she’s getting from others. It’s like, too late for all that. Anyway, tonight I thought, What’s the use in getting upset about the broken jar? What’s the use in blaming yourself?

It’s already gone.

Along these lines, I’m finding a lot of peace in the thought that all the people and things that “left me” when I was a child were already gone too. I’ve talked before about how when we incarnate on this planet we’re joining a show already in progress, and this is what I mean, that the events and circumstances that took my parents and even my material possessions away were set in motion long before I showed up. Granted, they FELT personal, but they weren’t. This is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, realizing that whatever happened to you would have happened to ANYBODY in your situation. Because the train was already coming down the tracks, and–please–you think a child could have stopped it? I think of people I know whose parents were total assholes. And whereas this sucks, their parents were already gone too. What I mean is their kids didn’t MAKE them that way, they were assholes before. (Their kids were just a convenient target.) Likewise, I wasn’t the REASON my parents and my stuff had to leave.

Shit happens on planet earth.

And yet for all the shit that happens here, we can always come back to ourselves and our own good hearts. We can always make space for whatever arises right here, right now. We can always tell ourselves, Sweetheart, no matter what anyone else says or does, I will never leave you.