Worth It (Blog #1000!)

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Phew. Here we are. Blog #1000. We made it. I made it. Two years, eight months, and twenty-six days ago I began this journey honestly not knowing what I was doing or where I was going. And whereas I’m not sure I know now (does anyone ever know what they’re doing or where they’re going?), I’m nonetheless here with–as of yesterday–892,141 words more than I started with. Granted, not every word or every post has been brilliant. How could it be? And yet all together these words and posts have provided a container, a structure in which something brilliant has happened.

To be clear, I’m not referring to this body of work, this blog, as brilliant. Granted, I’m proud of it, but more and more I don’t have to label it. Recently I’ve watched a couple documentaries about The Sphinx, and one scholar dates it as old as 36,000 years. My point being that over the centuries countless numbers of people have looked upon this sculpture and issued their opinions about it. It’s magnificent, it’s glorious, it’s weird, it’s crap. Whatever. I’m sure those who built it had their thoughts about it too. It’s not good enough; we should probably redo that nose. Meanwhile, the creation itself has existed as it is, quietly knowing that our opinions are powerless to change art. Art, however, is more than capable of changing us if we let it.

This is the brilliant thing I’m referring to, the fact that somewhere in the midst of all these words and posts a glorious, necessary, and humbling transformation has taken place–mine. Now, I know this is a bold claim–look at me, I’m different!–but I’m just stating facts (and I’m not ASKING anyone to look). Even if I were, I could write until I’m blue in the face and not be able to PROVE to another soul that my soul is any different today than it was 1,000 days ago. But it is. Specifically, it has more of a voice in my decisions, my moods, and my relationships. Because I’m more in touch with it. THAT’S what this vessel has provided–a place for me to meet myself. Time and time again it’s given me a space–a virtual therapy office if you will–for me to be my own listening ear, my own compassionate shoulder to cry on, my own caring counselor.

For those of you who have in any way watched, supported, or shared this space and this journey of mine, I am deeply grateful. Truly the path to one’s self is often and by definition a lonely path, and yet–paradoxically–we never walk it completely alone. More and more I’m convinced: both here and “elsewhere,” we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.

Witnesses who happily cheer us on.

Transformation requires more than a charge card.

Perhaps one of the reasons the path to one’s self (the journey of personal growth, the way of spirituality, the royal road) is lonely is because so much of it is internal (where you are, where God is, and where other people aren’t) and not external (where the world is, where people are, and where stuff is). If it were external, it’d be easy to prove to other people how you’ve changed or transformed. This is how most of the world operates. We get a new car, house, or haircut and think that changes US. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Despite what the advertisers and marketers want us to think, it’s not that easy. Transformation requires more than a charge card. At best our outward changes affect others’ PERCEPTION of us, and–as you know, dear reader–the perception of others is a fickle mistress. One day someone approves of us and what we do, wear, and say, and the next day they don’t.

Where’d their approval go? we think.

Well, in the words of the warden in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, it “up and vanished like a fart in the wind.”

Tonight I concluded Christmas at a dear friend’s house, where we ate dinner, toasted each other, and exchanged gifts and stories. Y’all, more and more I believe that a good story is one of the greatest gifts you can give someone, especially if it makes them laugh, comforts their heart, or challenges them to think in a new way. Well, my friend gave me such a gift tonight. They said they once hosted a large fundraiser, and the band for the event showed up–what’s the phrase?–high as a damn kite. And whereas most the musicians managed fine, the bass player either accidentally or on-purpose kept playing DIFFERENT songs than the rest of the band.

“I think he just didn’t give a shit,” my friend said.

Thankfully, the man (the genius) running the sound board turned off the bass player’s microphone, and no one in the audience ever knew the guy was completely stewed. My friend only knew because the sound technician put a pair of earphones on their head and said, “Hey, get this shit.”

Y’all, this is what this journey I’ve been discussing is about–turning DOWN the external voices in your life and turning UP the internal ones. In the last 1,000 days I’ve referred to these voices as your soul, your spirit, your highest self, your intuition, your guidance, your inner wisdom, your angels, God, the universe, the gods, and–I could go on. And whereas I don’t see all these terms as exactly the same, my point is–I just don’t think we’re alone here. Recently I had a friend comment, “I don’t believe in gods.” Fine. It has never been nor will it ever be my intention on this blog to change anyone else’s opinion about anything, least of all the higher mechanics of the cosmos. Changing someone else is NEVER the point of this work. Again and again and all day long until the cows come home, the point is changing oneself.

Transforming oneself.

Joseph Campbell said, “All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.” To me this means exactly that–that the forces we read about aren’t outside but inside us, that if you can’t read about Sisyphus eternally rolling a giant rock up a mountain or Jesus hanging on the cross and put YOURSELF there and thus relate the story to YOUR life, you’ve missed the point. (Every story is about you. What is in all is in one. What is in one is in all.) People externalize their gods, their beliefs. They say, “Jesus loves the little children. God hates fags.” No, they don’t. YOU do. How do I know? You’re the one who said it; you’re the one who did it. This is what personal responsibility and accountability are all about–realizing that you no longer get to blame someone else (God, your neighbor, or a book) for YOUR actions.

This sucks, I know.

There’s an idea in The Bible about not building your house upon the sandy land but rather building your house upon the rock, where, as a children’s song says, “the storms may come and go, but the peace of God you will know.” And whereas I do NOT intend this as preaching or evangelizing, I DO intend it as SYMBOLIZING.

I’ll explain.

Recently I’ve been obsessed with a song by Maren Morris called “The Bones.” It’s my flavor of the week. In essence the song is about a couple’s relationship, the idea being that when two people have a home with a solid foundation they can weather any storm. Getting back to the idea of symbolizing or being able to relate any story, mythology, or wisdom to one’s self, my thought has been that if I–if YOU–have a solid internal foundation, we can confidently navigate the trials and tribulations of life. This is the path I keep talking about, the path therapy and this blog have been such a huge part of for me, the building of an unshakable inner base. Y’all, I wish I could tell you that the right therapist, doctor, doctrine, or god can and will protect you from life’s hurts and heartaches, but alas, this is simply not the case. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is selling you snake oil. What is true, however, is that if you’ve done the inner work and have your priorities straight, you can best any challenge. Granted, life may bring you to your knees (it will), but as Morris says, “the house don’t fall when the bones are good.”

If the last thousand days have taught me anything, it’s that any time you spend building a solid foundation or working on your interior structure is time well spent. Every minute and every hour, as uncomfortable as it may be, is gold. (Did I forget to mention that being born again is unpleasant? Well, it is. Ask any screaming baby.) Likewise, any time you spend searching for, sharing, or living the truth will set you free. Not just sort of, but really. Granted, the truth may turn your world upside down (it will). Things may get worse before they get better (they will). But if a house doesn’t already POSSESS a solid foundation or structure, isn’t it best to tear it down and start from scratch in order to have something stable, something that will last? Don’t you want something real? I’ve spent almost six years in therapy, nearly three years blogging every day, and countless hours self-improving, and I’m telling you–it’s exhausting. But I’m talking about you here. Aren’t you worth all the effort?

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Transformation doesn’t have a drive thru window. It takes time to be born again.

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A World Where You Belong (Blog #787)

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For the last two days I’ve been cleaning antique hardware for my friends Todd and Bonnie. This is turning out to be a chore. (I’m scrubbing my brass off.) Not because the work is difficult, but because there’s a lot involved, like running back and forth to the hardware store for supplies. Today I discovered that all the door hinges are not, in fact, solid brass. Rather, they’re brass plated. Or were, since my cleaning them really did scrub their brass off. Now they’re just ugly metal hinges. But never fear, we decided to spray paint them (satin brass). Some of them are drying now. Others are still in a crock pot being heated up–so I can remove the old (white) paint on them then put the new paint on.

A project like this is clearly a damn process. Take the hardware off. Put it in a crock pot. Scrub the paint off. Then either shine it or spray paint it. Put the hardware back on. This evening I bought three different types of screws for putting the hardware back, then got back to the house and realized two of them were the wrong size. Screws too short–story of my life. (That’s a sex joke, Mom.) Anyway, tomorrow I’ll go back to the hardware store and try again. That’s the deal when things are a process–you just keep taking one step at a time until everything is done.

Or until you are.

While working today I listened to a lecture by Stephan Hoeller that said projection is a function of perception. That is, first you perceive or understand something, then you project that perception out into the world. For example, I first understood (mentally) that I needed to spray paint the hinges, then I talked to Todd and Bonnie, then I bought the paint, then I sprayed the hinges. Perception preceded projection. Over the last several years I’ve perceived a number of things in therapy–like, that I needed to set a boundary or have a conversation with someone–then proceeded to project those cognitions into my life and relationships, even on to this blog.

In a lot of New Age and even spiritual material, the world is referred to as a mirror. This isn’t to say that if you witness something horrific on the ten o’clock news that you’re horrific, but it is to say that the way you respond (mentally, emotionally, physically) has a lot to do with you and very little to do with any specific horrific thing you may see. When Donald Trump was elected, I wasn’t thrilled but I wasn’t emotional. Conversely, I had friends who cried. As the fact of the matter was the same for everyone (Donald Trump was elected), and yet there were so many varied responses, I can only logically conclude that those varied responses were due to each individual’s PERCEPTION of what had taken place and what they thought that meant or didn’t mean. My point is that we’re never just responding to what’s “out there,” but rather what’s “in here.”

Another way of saying this is that you don’t see the world as IT IS, but rather AS YOU ARE. Again, if you think the world is a terrible place, that doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person. Scared, frightened, or angry, maybe. My therapist says that if you have unresolved trauma and don’t deal with it consciously, you’ll deal with it unconsciously. “You’ll externalize it,” she said. “You’ll get involved in a bad relationship, become paranoid, or develop a neurosis.” Um, guilty–I’ve done all of the above. When I was a teenager and my dad was in prison, I became a HUGE conspiracy theorist. I despised the government. Looking back, I can see that I was simply overwhelmed and terrified, fearful that what happened to my dad would one day happen to me. But since I either didn’t know how or was unable to experience and give voice to my emotions (my perceptions), they got pushed out on to “the bad guys.” In other words, I wasn’t a scary place, the world was.

Now I think the reverse was true. (I was a scary place. The world was –the world.) Not that ugly things don’t happen in the world (and we all know the government killed JFK), but I know that how I respond to those things absolutely belongs to me. I own my emotions. If I see something horrific and get sad or angry, it’s not because that horrific thing put those emotions into me. No, they were already there. Wayne Dyer used to say that when you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, and–likewise–when you’re squeezed, what’s inside YOU comes out.

What goes down must come up.

Hoeller says that we project our perceptions (my therapist’s word for projection is externalize) in order that we can interact with them. That is, for decades I believed and felt that the world was an unsafe place to live. This, I’m sure, had to do with our house burning down when I was a child, and then, later, Dad’s going to prison. Or maybe it was my being in a car accident. Pick a trauma. The point is that my mind, body, and emotions had definite reactions to those events, but I did everything I could to shove those reactions down and shut them off. This is impossible to do, of course, at least for very long. What goes down must come up. Again, this can happen consciously or unconsciously, but either way–you must interact with what’s inside you.

Like cleaning antique hardware, this is a damn process.

Having walked this trying-to-be-conscious road for a while a now, I’m just gonna say it’s not fun and it’s not easy. That being said, I’d highly suggest dealing with what’s inside you consciously rather than projecting or externalizing it, since that’s even worse. After all, when you’re problem is projected (over there), what can you do about it–other than become a social justice warrior? But if your problem is inside you, now we’re talking. And yet, this is why the work is hard. Looking at what’s inside you requires owning every action and reaction you’ve ever had. It means sitting with thoughts like, I was terrified. I am terrified. I’m oh-so-very scared. But once you do, I promise, the world that used to appear unsafe and frightening will change. It has to–because you did. Because your perceptions, and thus your projections, did. This is The Good News, that if you can perceive and project an unsafe world, you can perceive and project a safe one, a world where you belong.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If another's perspective, another's story about you is kinder than the one you're telling yourself, surely that's a story worth listening to.

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On Being Less Petrified (Blog #769)

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When I was a teenager, shortly before my dad was arrested and sent to prison, my dad, my sister, and I were in a car accident. (I’ve mentioned this before, here.) It was awful. My sister was driving our Honda Accord (she was just learning), Dad was sitting in the seat next to her, and I was in the back, behind Dad. We’d just left one of Dee-Anne’s friend’s houses and were getting ready to pull out (left) onto Rogers Avenue, the main drag in Fort Smith. I remember Dad telling Dee-Anne to GO NOW. And I don’t know, I guess she waited a moment and then went. It all happened so fast. The next thing I knew someone had broadsided my sister’s side of the car, we’d flipped two-and-a-half times, and we’d landed wrong-side up on the avenue. In terms of physics, it’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever be on the receiving end of.

I remember yelling, “Shit!”

When everything came to a halt, I was hanging upside down, absolutely terrified the car was going to catch on fire or blow up. I mean, that’s what happens on television. So there I was scrambling, trying to get out of my seatbelt, desperate to get the backdoor open. And whereas I got my seatbelt off, the door was stuck. I was petrified. Finally, I thought to UNLOCK the door, THEN try to open it. This worked.

From this point on, the memories come in pieces. First, we all made it to the side of the road. A hot boy (my sister says) took off his shirt so she could wrap her bleeding arm in it. By the time the ambulance came, my body was too stiff to walk. Someone had to help me in. I remember sitting in the back and seeing the man (boy) who hit us on a stretcher, his neck braced so it couldn’t move. Why do they let children see these things? Later, at the hospital, I remember being wheeled down the hallway and being left in a room alone. Looking back, I was confused and terrified, but all I could think about at the time was how bad it hurt to stand up when they asked me to pee in a jar.

Thankfully, all three of us came away that night basically unscathed. My dad and I were bruised–the next day it took me thirty minutes to work my way out of my bed, ten feet down the hall to the bathroom, and back–and my sister (I think) had a few stitches.

When I blogged about this incident before, I talked about how I’ve always thought the on-and-off problems I have with my right hip started with that accident. Ugh. Think of a car going–I don’t know–45 to 60 miles an hour then broadsiding you so hard that you literally roll down the road like a Slinky. BA-BUM-BA-BUM-BUM. I mean, all that force has to go somewhere, like into your body. For me, that’s what it’s felt like. Like my entire structure was permanently change that night in the blink of an eye.

Shit!

Recently I blogged about Judith Blackstone’s book Trauma and the Unbound Body. The (very) basic idea is that our bodies will often constrict or tense up in response to stress or trauma. A car accident, for example. This is a protective mechanism and happens in an instant. Your psoas shortens, your head and shoulders cave inward, and your body curls into a ball, thus keeping your vital organs safe. Ideally, after the trauma is over, your body unfurls and resets itself. However, if it hasn’t gotten the message that the threat is over, it can stay stuck in “tensed up” positions, which are held in place by connective tissue called fascia. And here’s what’s really fascinating (I think)–our fascia apparently not only holds our bodies “in place,” whatever that place may be, but also holds any unprocessed or “unfelt” emotions associated with our lives/traumas.

I think lives/traumas should be a new entry in the dictionary. Because–true.

So get this. Last night, at two in the morning, I sat down to meditate and go through Blackstone’s “release” process. This involves, after first “centering yourself,” focusing on a area of tension in your body. Because my right shoulder/neck has been spasming for the last two days, I picked that area. Now, I did this exercise recently and had several memories from both my childhood and adult years arise–times I would have tensed up or frozen. However, I didn’t have any emotional responses. But last night while focusing on my shoulder, images of that car accident began to come up, and it was like, rather than just THINKING about the event like I have a hundred times since it happened, I was actually FEELING it.

This process took a while, but during it I realized (for the first time in the twenty-four years since the car accident happened), how unsettling it was to hear my dad yell GO NOW to my sister. I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned it here, but I HATE yelling. I hate doing it, and I hate having it done to me. (Like, please don’t even raise your voice.) Recently I was thinking about confronting someone, and my therapist asked, “What are you afraid of?” and I said, “I’m afraid they’re going to yell at me.” She said, “Have they ever yelled at you before?”

“No,” I said.

Still, it’s this thing with me. And what I realized last night is my deal with yelling goes back to that car accident. While meditating on my shoulder, I could hear my dad’s voice, and I actually said, out loud, “Stop yelling.” And then I remembered being broadsided and it was like I could hear my fourteen-year-old self telling me what he logically concluded that evening–Terrible things happen when you yell.

This is the point at which I started sobbing uncontrollably.

This went on for a while. Even after I calmed down, my body continued to react. For example, my shoulder tensed, then released. My torso contorted like I imagine it did that night. First (in slow motion) it caved in to the left, then snapped back to the right, which is where I feel like it’s been stuck ever since. It was like my body was saying, “This is what happened to us. This is what we went through.” Finally I remembered several specific times it would have been handy to yell or at least raise my voice but when I couldn’t, and this gave me compassion for myself. Because I finally understood WHY.

Terrible things happen when you yell.

I’d like to be clear that although my dad was (and is) far from a perfect dad, I’m sure he wasn’t YELLING at my sister that night. Obviously, a lot of things got exaggerated for me in the backseat of that car. My point in telling this story isn’t to highlight THE TRUTH of what happened, but rather to highlight my mental and emotional PERCEPTION of what happened. Because as far as I can tell, perception is everything. That is, if you’re terrified of something, it doesn’t matter if it’s logical or rational, you are (and your body is) going to respond as if it were gospel.

Just ask your tight shoulders.

My other point in telling this story is that, more and more, I truly believe every significant (stressful, traumatic, climatic) event in our lives is not simply a piece of mental data, but also a fully embodied and emotional experience. What I mean is that I’ve THOUGHT about that car accident more times than I can count. But last night was the first time that I FELT what occurred. It was the first time I didn’t try to tell my body what happened, but rather let my body tell me what happened. And this is the body’s wisdom, that it remembers EVERYTHING, and that it’s willing to hold on to our experiences and emotions until we are ready to acknowledge, listen to, and feel them. Until we’re finally willing to say, Sweetheart, I’m here for us.

I’m beginning to trust this mind-body mystery more and more. Not just as a concept, but as a lived fact. I don’t care if anyone else understands, or if anyone else thinks it’s weird. What I know is that for months (years) my shoulders and neck have bothered me, and today they’re noticeably better. Not perfect by any means (healing longstanding trauma rarely happens in a flash), but better. My arms, which often go numb, and my hands, which often get cold, feel like they’re getting more blood. My chest feels like it has more room in it for breathing, or hell, even yelling. (I can see this, feel this, now–terrible things don’t HAVE to happen when you yell.) It’s like I’m less–what’s the word?–petrified. Freer than I was before.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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There’s a power that comes when you meet life’s challenges head-on. Those are the times you breathe the deepest. Those are the times the waters come forth and your heart beats every bit as loud as the thunder claps. Those are the times you know more than ever—no matter what happens next—in this moment, you’re alive.

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