Everyone has two lives

from: http://www.katrinakenison.com/2014/09/07/life/

"...And yet, what life hands us, again and again, is not the simple ease we ask for, but something different: challenge, loss, pain. What choice do we have, but to figure out how to accept all of it — the care-free afternoons; the charmed moments; the ordinary days; and, too, the unexpected blows that bring us to our knees, the news that makes us want to curl into a ball on the floor and weep. (Maybe growing old – or, rather, growing up – means realizing that there will always be charmed moments, even in the bleakest of times, if we’re attuned to notice them, and that there is simply no such thing as a charmed life. Not for me, or for you, or for anyone.)

So it is that I’ve spent this lovely, mild, gone-too-soon summer finding my way in territory that is at once brand new and profoundly familiar. I know from past experience that grief and grace are two sides of the same coin. That healing is always possible and that it happens in the most unexpected ways. That laughter and tears can share the same moment, the same breath. That there is light even in the darkest night. That faith and mystery are inextricably intertwined, bound by wonder. And I know that showing up and quietly doing what needs to be done in the moment is a more helpful response than either dramatic rescue attempts or worry. For me, perhaps the greatest surprise of the last couple of months has been discovering how much gratitude and sadness it’s possible for one heart to hold at once.

...Even so, finding meaning in a situation that seems utterly meaningless, random, and unfair is hard, slow work. The “new normal” keeps changing. It’s human nature to want answers and plans and promises. And instead we have only the present moment, mystery, and hope. (Of course, we’re kidding ourselves if we think any life is predictable, any outcome assured, any promise a guarantee.) But slowly, bit by bit, the incomprehensible becomes more manageable.

Surrendering to things as they are, we find a new way forward. Despair softens into acceptance. Fear of what might be in the future gives way to a desire to ease another’s path today. Meaning goes hand in hand with connection. And the one thing I know for sure is that we become our best, most compassionate, most resilient selves by stepping outside ourselves. I suspect we all do better when our hearts are fully engaged. And really, as we grow older, as things we love are taken away, one after another, what choice do we have, but to learn to give even more? To love even more? To bring more and more peace and more and more kindness into the world?

As Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein writes in Happiness is an Inside Job, the small, deeply wise, deeply consoling book that has lived in my purse and that has nourished my soul all summer: “Perhaps [this is] the clue about the happiness inherent in caring connections. The frightened ‘I’ who struggles is replaced by the ‘we’ who do this difficult life together, looking after one another. Holding hands.” Yes. Oh, yes.

So, maybe it comes down to a simple fact: to live fully is to allow ourselves to be broken open time after time, even as we grow in awareness and appreciation of all the ways we are upheld and mended and supported by one another. This is life as it really is – so much goodness and beauty, so much unwarranted suffering, so many fragile hearts beating as one.

This morning, I woke up early, while it was still dark, and lay in bed for a long while, listening as the birds began their song, one solo voice swelling and then, within moments, joined by a full-scale dawn chorus. Just after sunrise, Steve and I headed out for a walk with Tess, pausing to marvel at the layers of mist draped over the mountains, at the clear, golden light above and at the sun breaking through clouds.   Later, drinking coffee on the porch and reading the Sunday New York Times, I came across some lines excerpted from a letter by Steven Sottloff, the second American journalist slain by ISIS.

Reading these words, words written in captivity and smuggled out by a former cellmate of Sottloff’s, my heart broke for this innocent man, for his grieving family, for the suffering that yielded such urgent wisdom. And now, sharing them here, weaving this small connection between you and me and a young man whose life was violently taken, my heart heals just a little bit, too. We each awaken by degrees, our bruised hearts softening and growing more supple as we learn just how much is at stake, how much we need one another, how much we have to offer, what a beautiful tapestry we make.

“Live your life to the fullest and fight to be happy,” Steven urged his family. And then this: “Everyone has two lives. The second one begins when you realize you have only one.”

"But this time I chose it, didn't I?"

My good friend co-founded this organization that fights sex trafficking and is committed to helping the victims in the process. Friends that want to donate or volunteer to help a non-profit, passionate, smart, committed organization should click on over and check it out. Or friend her on Facebook (Rebecca Olsen McHood) if you are up for reading posts like these but with more practical steps for how to help the victims of sex trafficking who may not be able to find their way out without more support and ethical laws.

Rebecca really does inspire me more than I can say. And she's super fun to be around. And I can't wait to see her again in March and take a picture with her in all our change-the-world glory that I should already have to put here. For now, this smile of hers will have to do.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/as-an-ex-prostitute-i-urge-all-the-political-parties-to-commit-to-the-sex-buyer-law-9810735.html

"...I eventually managed to escape my ‘boyfriend’. But afterwards I was a car-crash. I needed money to fund my addiction and I was completely messed up. I didn't know how to 'do' normal after years of what my therapist now describes as torture. I felt like I belonged on my hands and knees servicing men. So I went back to what I knew – prostitution. But this time I chose it, didn't I? In my experience, some cages are invisible.
 

Being in prostitution, the abnormal becomes normal. Sex acts became as mundane as making a cup of tea. All the boundaries I had taken for granted were demolished – like the ability to control what happened to my body and the right to say no. Goals shift and mine was survival. I did what I had to do: presented a smile when I had to, massaging egos as well as massaging much more. I started working in a brothel, thinking this might help to keep me safe. It didn’t. You can't make prostitution safe. A nice room and a clean bedspread changes nothing. The violence and hate are part of the transaction: if the johns valued you they wouldn't be using you simply as a body.
 

...The sex buyers didn't want me as myself - a human being with hopes and dreams and feelings. They wanted a living, breathing sex-doll. Someone that wouldn't complain if it hurt. Someone who would flirt and smile and moan orgasmically whatever they did. It wasn't personal. And yet it was so personal. They were touching me, looking at me, inside of me.
 

...What would the UK adopting the Sex Buyer Law mean to me? It would mean that the law would stand alongside me, not against me. It would recognise that what happened to me was abuse. The johns would be under the spotlight for once and held legally responsible for their actions. Exiting services would be put in place for women who are trying to get out - something that would have made a huge difference to me. I was lucky to get out - there was no help available. Even now I'm out of it, it's hard to heal when society's view of prostitution is that it's inevitable, that it's just ‘work’. Prostitution is not a woman's right - something to be protected. It is the end of women's rights. It is about men's power over vulnerable women and girls.
 

...So I hope all the political parties commit to the Sex Buyer Law and that whoever is elected to government in 2015 acts quickly to bring it in. It would mean the law recognising just how damaging prostitution is to the women it uses. After years of having my experiences dismissed - that would mean everything to me."

I can't believe how present the temptation is to "dismiss my ability to contribute in loving ways to a crumbling world."

This guy's writing has been so helpful to me, to remember these kinds of things:

http://drkellyflanagan.com/2014/07/09/why-i-dont-believe-in-grace-anymore/#more-2796

"...I stand in the kitchen with my bad mood and my wife’s grace. And the brilliance of her love quickly becomes clear. Her attack would have only rooted me deeper in my anger. Instead, she has given me acceptance in the midst of my anger, the space to feel it and experience the fullness of my self.

I still feel grumpy, but I discover there is something else there inside of me: I want to apologize.

I go to the bedroom and I tell her I’m sorry, and her response is quick and her grace is complete:
 “You had a long day, you’re allowed to be in a bad mood, and you’re a good man, I knew you’d apologize.”

My wife saw my goodness, even in the midst of my junk. She believed in my light, even when all she could see was darkness. She believed in who I am and who I can be, even while I was being something else.

I used to say I believe in grace. I don’t say that anymore. Now I say I have known grace, and what I know is this: grace believes in me.

How Grace Finally Changes Everything

The healing power of grace does not end with the embrace of our darkness.

When we find pockets of grace in this world—when our true self is finally allowed to the surface—we discover all sorts of beautiful things entwined with our darkness. Like dragging the ocean and coming up with a bunch of seaweed. And some invaluable pearls.

As grace calls our true self forth, we discover magnificent parts of us we didn’t know were there—passions built into us, a purpose sewn into our DNA. Our identity is washed clean and we begin to see ourselves for what we inherently are: creators of beauty, order, and abundance. We no longer dismiss our ability to contribute in loving ways to a crumbling world. We take the grace inside of us, it becomes our guide, and we become it.

We quit dead end jobs and risk our family’s financial security to earn a teaching degree. We stop drinking and we start coaching. We quit living at the office and we invest in the life of our family. We trade in fear for boldness. We quit hiding in our homes and we start risking in the world by uncaging our ideas and our creativity. We stop waiting on perfection and we start wading into the mess.

When we quit seeking change and begin to seek grace, we let go of our frantic effort to be like someone else, and we discover a blessed peace with who we are. Finally.

This was great

http://drkellyflanagan.com/2015/01/14/the-unspoken-reason-for-every-failed-new-years-resolution/#more-3213

"Our New Year’s Resolutions don’t fail because we lack willpower. They fail because we have too much willpower. They fail because the thing we want most is the thing we never say aloud…

...Most therapy clients want to change.

And most therapy clients don’t want to change.

When I supervise a young therapist and tell them this, it can come as a bit of shock at first. After all, clients come to therapy of their own volition, take time out of a busy schedule, pay good money to be there, and express a desire to change in very specific ways. It seems like a green light for mutual collaboration. And it is.

For one part of the client.

But no human being is monolithic. We all have competing interests and desires. While one part of us has goals for personal growth, another part of us has questions:

What is the cost of changing?

If I really get quiet, will I be able to handle all the loneliness that rises up in me?

If I truly get healthy, will I still want to stay married?

If I start using my voice, will my friends still want to be with me?

If I finally get a job and move out, will I still have a place to come home to?

If I set better boundaries with my kids, will they love me less?

If I’m no longer depressed, will everyone stop taking care of me and stop caring about me?

If I change this about me, how will it affect us?

If I change this one small thing, what cascade of change will it trigger?

Do I want that much change?

The job of a therapist is not to force change, but to make space for the reasons we don’t want to change. The job of a therapist is to ask questions, too. Questions like: What is the benefit of not changing? What old things will be lost if new things are found? The job of a therapist is not to love the part of a client that wants to change and shame the rest of the client into compliance.

The job of a therapist is to welcome both parts into the light.

Maybe that’s the job of a dad, too.

...This year, instead of being hard on ourselves, maybe we can have a little compassion for ourselves. Maybe we can embrace the part of us that wants to change and the part of us that is afraid to change. Maybe then, even our failed resolutions will be the beginning of something new and good and beautiful."

Are we safe?

 After my EMDR session with Carol I found some ideas to help Joan "digest" her own memories of cutting her pinkie off. I sat down with her this week while Verity napped and Sophia was at school and asked what she remembered from the accident, and we went through the whole thing together. She smiled and spoke matter of factly through the whole thing. I said, "Lets draw what we want to remember about that hard time that we had." First she asked for a black, red and "skin color" crayon and I thought I was in for a bloody pic but then she stared at the paper for awhile and said, "Nahh I just want to watch you draw yours." Cracked me up. So here was mine. That is me hugging her inside of a heart and I told her I drew it that way because I wanted to remember that even during our hardest times we can feel safe if we reach out to each other and hold each other close.

 

And then per the "helping children's brain process traumatic memories" advice that I read, we took turns clapping our hand on each leg while we chanted in time to our left and right rhythm, "We are safe! We are safe!" She just loved the whole thing. Ate it up. Didn't grimace or avoid any of the talk about the paper cutter cutting her finger or blood everywhere or me yelling or doctors stitching her up or IV's with morphine. Nope she just rolled with it and then chanted, "We are safe!" with all her little heart.  I put the picture up on the fridge and we went on our way.  

When we sat down for dinner that night Sophia glanced over at the fridge and did a double take. "What? WHO wrote that!? Why did someone put that up there??", she demanded. And then she jumped off her chair and turned it over so we couldn't see it anymore. I was like, "Umm I did. I wrote it 'cause Joan and I were talking about when she cut her pinkie off and remembering that we can feel safe even during scary things if we reach out for each other...why?" And Sophia says, "Because it makes me think of monsters and robbers and...it DOES NOT make me feel safe, it reminds me that there are scary, bad things that make me feel NOT safe! I don't want it up there ever again."

It also made me think of these first eight minutes from this webinar starting at minute 3:00 and going to 11:48. http://carriecontey.com/intentionalparentingwebinar (p.s. up to the 38 minute mark is all incredibly helpful if you have time to listen to more!)

This science that she was trying to explain - that children come to us already who they are, but that the wiring process of their brains happens in relationship with their caregivers in childhood was so well explained by her. It made me think of a definition for what good parenting is that I heard once,

 "...the extent to which a parent responds to a child's signals appropriately and promptly, is positively involved during interactions with the child, and provides a secure base for the child's exploration of the environment."

That moment when Sophia freaked out about the "We are safe" picture just about summed up Sophia's temperament for me from day three of her life on. From her infancy that included screaming for hours, intense separation anxiety until three years old, the year of her toddlerhood that she had a regular bruise on her forehead from banging her head on the ground during near hour long tantrums, the rages she gets into now when she is confronted with loss or difficult emotions in herself.

I spent almost the entire last session with my therapist talking about Sophia. About how at every stage of life I have observed these kinds of descriptors about how secure she feels in the world: feels all emotions deeply, easily overwhelmed, hyper vigilant, sensitive, difficulty learning self-soothing, feels attacked or threatened by difficult emotions or circumstances, and underdeveloped nervous system. And I told Barbara I am done sitting around hoping her problems will just work themselves out. I liked how M. Scott Peck put it,

"...There is much that parents can do to assist their children in this maturation process. Opportunities present themselves thousands of times while children are growing up when parents can either confront them with their tendency to avoid or escape responsibility for their own actions or can reassure them that certain situation are not their fault. But to seize these opportunities, as I have said, requires of parents sensitivity to their children's needs and the willingness to take the time and make the often uncomfortable effort to meet these needs. And this in turn requires love and the willingness to assume appropriate responsibility for the enhancement of their children's growth."

And,

"Parents are executives, and despite the fact that they are usually ill-prepared for it, their task can be every bit as complex as directing a company or corporation. And like the army executives, most parents will perceive problems in their children or in their relationship with their children for months or years before they take any effective action, if they ever do. "We thought maybe he would grow out of it," the parents say as they come to the child psychiatrist with a problem of five years' duration. And with respect for the complexity of parenting, it must be said that parental decisions are difficult, and that children often do "grow out of it." But it almost never hurts to try to help them grow out of it or to look more closely at the problem. And while children often "grow out of it," often they do not; and as with so many problems, the longer children's problems are ignored, the larger they become and the more painful and difficult to solve.

 

So this is where I'm at. I am learning that problems thrive in shame and secrecy. I am committed to living out a life that seeks the opposite. On Thursday I took Sophia for an intake to get her a therapist. In the most truthful and developmentally appropriate way possible I want to help Sophia understand this about her difficulty with feeling safe in the world:

 

 

 

As I once heard someone in the helping profession say, "The truth is we have to teach people how to live with their anxiety. The truth is there is no security."

 

I want her to know that some people through no fault of their own feel more of that that anxiety and less of that security than others of us.

 

And that these truths are the other side of that coin when we face her genetic, biological constitution that she will carry with her the entirety of her life:

 

As was preached in last session of General Conference:

 

"Acknowledge and face your weaknesses, but don’t be immobilized by them, because some of them will be your companions until you depart this earth life. No matter what your current status, the very moment you voluntarily choose honest, joyful, daily repentance by striving to simply do and be your very best, the Savior’s Atonement envelops and follows you, as it were, wherever you go."

- Elder Jorg Klebingat

Said another way by a therapist friend:

 

"One of the fallacies we all tend to buy into is that we "are" a type of person. In reality we exist in a range of possibilities. We have the capability to be great and horrible within the spectrum of who we are."

 

Or, said in a way that made me print it out for my fridge:

"The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing, or toss havoc shoreward; it can give gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can sweet-talk entirely. As can I, too, and so, no doubt, can you, and you."

— Mary Oliver

 

This is what I can throw myself 100% behind. This is what I will never give up on. I will never give up believing in and seeking out hope, change, growth, love, and healing.  

 

Dear Sophia,

 

Life is often hard and scary. It is natural to feel like hiding in the face of injustice and undeserved pain. But watch the sea with me. If the sea never stops its waves of changes, then no doubt, I can and you can. All we have to do is never stop reaching out to each other.

 

 

 

 

Life is difficult

I'm reading The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck and it is seriously changing my life.  I rave about it to myself or anyone who will listen every chance I get. This is the first page of the book:

"Life is difficult.

This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Most do not fully see this truth, that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race, or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share.

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them?

What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending upon their nature, evoke in us frustration of grief or sadness or loneliness or guilt or regret or anger or fear or anxiety or anguish or despair. These are uncomfortable feelings, often very uncomfortable, often as painful as any kind of physical pain, sometimes equaling the very worst kind of physical pain. Indeed, it is because of the pain that events or conflicts engender in us all that we can call them problems. And since life poses an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy.

Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school we deliberately set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Those things that hurt, instruct." It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems."

And then later he writes:

"Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live." 

Those ideas combined with this post that starts like this have really shifted something in my head for me:

“When I was thirty five, I looked up one day and realized that I hadn’t had a life. … I had a hint of what I’d been missing. Laundry. And not just laundry, but what laundry gives us: an honest encounter with ourselves before we’re freshened and fluffed and sanitized. Before we have ourselves put together again.” – Karen Maezen Miller

When I quit my job to work at home, I was perplexed by the chores that swelled up to fill my every waking moment. “I can be on my feet every second, never stopping, and still the house is a disaster,” another mom lamented to me. I nodded. My boys are gifted at making messes. Recently, when I left the room for thirty seconds, they managed to cover every inch of the living room with a couple of board games — tiny tokens and piles of cards and fake money strewn everywhere. When I first started at this mothering thing, it was tempting to dream about hiring a housekeeper or paring down our wardrobes to two pairs each or replacing all of the dishes with disposables. But soon I realized that the chores were like any other problem. What they needed was my attention.

My feelings about the daily chores have transformed remarkably over the years. They’re messy and monotonous and always there like a gnat buzzing around your head. But as Karen Maezen Miller so beautifully points out in Hand Wash Cold, they are life. And they are incredible life coaches. It would be silly to trek across the world in search of the meaning of it all or to hire an expensive life coach when we can likely find all of the answers we need right here in the dishes and laundry."

It's like a switch has been flipped in my mind. I've always known I had a problem with procrastination, but I just kind of chalked it up as "me", not really a flaw, just how I was. I remember being little and avoiding cleaning my room at all costs, or being in college and thinking, "Well, it'll sure be great to get out of school where it won't matter as much that I'm a procrastinator!" Makes me laugh, but seriously I really did think that! And it's carried over into my adult life - I would rather read and write than do the dishes, nothing wrong with that, just how I was wired, we each have our strengths and weaknesses, right? But to hear it put like that,

"Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live."

It just made so much sense. This is a skill I can choose to learn and if I choose to learn it it will make my life so much better? Of course! Geez, what have I been doing all these years?

And so I've started to look around my house and ask myself, "What of these top three chores that need to be done do I least want to do?" And then I march myself over and purposely start that one first.

It's changed how I talk to the girls too. I have started bringing it up in conversation whenever I can, and speaking of it like that, like it is a skill that we can choose to practice and get better at and being really matter of fact about it, "Sophia, do you know what skill will most decide how good of a life you'll have? Of aaaaaaaallllll the things the skills out there that make life good do you know what will help you the most to like your life? It's how well you learn to choose the hardest thing first. Every time something hard comes in front of you you have two choices: face it or distract yourself from it. If you learn how to face the hard things instead of ignore them or run away from them, then you'll feel soooooo much better because your problems will get solved! It's that awesome! Solving problems instead of them always being there, weighing you down like rocks in your backpack!?" I ask them what is hard for them to face right now? What problems at school or home or in their heart or with friends do they try to avoid? It is one of my favorite conversations lately, listening to their perspectives on their life in this way.

But I'm not saying I think talking about it with them is the key to helping them learn it, 'cause I really do believe this too:

“All I am saying ... can be summed up in two words: Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.” ~ John Holt

When I'm reading these simple lines like, "Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?" I feel like a little kid in a classroom on the edge of my seat waving my hand in the air like, "Pick me, pick me M. Scott Peck, I want to solve them! Yes! Solve. Them. I'm ready for the decent way to live, thank you so much for asking!" Trusting myself to be able to learn even the things I'd really rather never think about.

Have I mentioned I really like this book? The number one rated review on Amazon for it cracked me up!

445 of 468 people found the following review helpful

Good Book

By A Customer on November 11, 2000

"I am a therapist. The two books I recommend to my clients that seem to produced lasting results are The Road Less Traveled and An Encouter With A Prophet. I also recommend both books to all of my friends and relatives."

It's just so true.

It makes you fearless

"After her daughter, then 23, disappeared 12 years ago, the likely victim of sex traffickers, Susana Trimarco began a search for justice that continues to this day. She has also helped numerous others in the process, becoming a guardian to 129 survivors of sex trafficking and helping to make sex trafficking part of Argentina's national agenda. For her trouble, Susana has had her house set on fire and has twice escaped being run over. But she will not give up. 'The desperation of a mother blinds you,' she said. 'It makes you fearless.'" - via Half the Sky