Afraid for My Self

~ Sue Downing

            I’ve learned over the years that when an opportunity for spiritual inquiry presents itself to me, I take advantage of it only when I feel strong enough inner motivation to do so. In my recent post, “Who Am I Now?”, I wrote that I felt moved to begin examining the question of “self” after noticing the discomfort I felt as my various “selves” began slipping away during this pandemic.  But that unpleasant feeling is not all that’s made me so committed to this practice now.

            You may recall, from my earlier posts, that I experienced a series of panic attacks at the end of 2019. Whenever they came on, the fear that I was dying rushed in and overwhelmed me.  That in itself isn’t surprising, but what is odd, is that this was the second time in a few months that I’d had to face this fear: Back in the late summer and early fall, a super scary situation developed that involved someone I barely knew.  I spent the five or six weeks it took for things to reach a (peaceful) resolution, in a state of terror and anxiety that I might be physically attacked. This was a really tough time for me.

            During both of these experiences, I turned to my spiritual practice with great intensity. What ended up helping me most was keeping my focus on the present moment. Every time my mind began spinning off into scenarios of all the horrible things that might happen in the next minute or hour or days, I reined it back in and turned my attention to what was going on right then. “In this moment, you are safe.” That was my mantra. This practice didn’t prevent the fear of dying from arising, but it gave me a way to cope when it did pop up. I was so thankful for that!

            I was also genuinely grateful for the chance to deepen my spiritual practice. There was even a moment after the panic attacks had faded away, when I thought, “Now that things have calmed down, will you still be motivated to keep practicing present moment awareness?” I wasn’t sure I would be. Then something else occurred to me: I realized that although I’d gotten through these hard things, but there would always be a next hard thing. That’s because – just like the fabulous occurrences and the calm patches –  hard things are regular features of life, not anomalies. Given that fact, then, I concluded that I needed to find a reliable way to move through them with ease, instead of freaking out each time they came around.

            Looking back, I guess I was really asking for it right then. I think my inner self interpreted my musings as an official request for another life-or-death challenge that would force/allow me to practice getting through the inevitable hard parts of life. My inner self found a very effective way to grant my request. “Here you go.” (Picture it smiling, holding out a beautifully-wrapped package, with fancy gold ribbon.) “Have some COVID-19 symptoms.”

            I received this gift in the middle of March, when I’d begun self-isolating, and was feeling very fearful and anxious about the virus. My fear intensified when, a few days into isolation, I got sick. Had this been any other winter, I would have thought, “Okay, something’s working its way out of your body. Just take it easy, and you’ll be fine.” But now, since I had been reading the news reports obsessively, I was well aware of the way COVID-19 symptoms usually progress.  I still retain the clear memory of the panic that overcame me when I developed a fever, on the heels of a sore throat and dry cough. Although I managed to stop my mind from endlessly reviewing the details from the news, the anxiety remained. At its foundation lay the same terror I’d experienced in the fall, and then again in December: I might just die. My body might not survive this, and then I will be dead. This fear persisted, even though the doctor saw no need for me to come into the clinic: I wasn’t short of breath, and my fever wasn’t very high. I had no desire to crowd into a clinic waiting room, so I was happy to stay put. But that meant that I was left to my own devices at home, where scary thoughts were continually trying to get my attention.

            During this period, when my symptoms persisted, while the fever hung on, I latched onto every single tool in my spiritual tool box. The present moment awareness practice, in particular, was a great help. “In this moment, you are okay.” I repeated that a lot, although I did eventually change it to, “In this moment, you are alive.” Even as I repeated this sentence in my mind, it felt overly-dramatic to me. But I couldn’t bring myself to go back to, “You are okay”, because how could I feel like I was okay with all these symptoms??  Once it seemed like I really was, by all objective indications, on the downslope of the infection, a twinge of fear – or sometimes panic, even – still rushed through me every time a little chill came on, or whenever I felt a scratchy tickle in my throat.

            It was after one of these moments of terror had arisen and faded away, that I thought, “This is just horrible. I can’t live like this.” What I meant was that I didn’t see how I could possibly make it through life if I was going to be overwhelmed by panic every time my throat started to hurt. At this point, I was mostly recovered from whatever I’d had, but still felt very tired. So, I had a lot of time to sit or lie around and think. That was when I cast my mind back to the two other experiences of terror I’d gone through in the previous six months.  Just as I did when I found the dead sparrow on my porch recently, I began looking for a message.  It seemed to me that these three experiences must be linked by some common thread. If I could find that thread, I reasoned, it might help me find a way to make my way through whatever hard situations life throws at me.

            As I was tucked cozily under a blanket on the couch one day, with a purring cat to keep me company, In Love with the World suddenly came to mind. I remembered how much it had helped me before to read Mingyur Rinpoche’s account of how he had gotten through the difficulties he encountered on his retreat. So, the next day, I opened the book back up and started reading it again.

            What Rinpoche wrote about the “self” and impermanence had spoken to me so powerfully the first time I read it. Now, returning to these opening pages, I recognized that in all three of my difficult experiences, the thought of my body dying had thrown me into a panic. Because I was identifying my body as my “self”, the thought of losing it terrified me. I was clinging to the idea that if my body failed and died, then that would be the end of my “self”. So, in all three of these recent situations, I had desperately sought to protect my “self” by protecting my body. And it was my strong belief that I needed to protect my “self” from dissolution that caused me all the mental and emotional suffering.      

            The next morning, during meditation, I considered this question: How would it feel to be going through this pandemic if I fully knew that I am not my body, that there is  no fixed “self” the virus can threaten, no “me” the virus can kill? As I reflected on this, I noticed myself begin to relax. It felt liberating simply to contemplate the possibility of being able to move through life in a state where I wouldn’t see every ache or pain in my body as a threat to the existence of my “self”. Just the idea of mentally letting go of clinging to my body as “me” was comforting, calming. And I’ll take even that slight comfort any day, over the suffering I’ve felt keenly since last fall. But there’s another way I’ve benefited from this reflecting on being sick during this pandemic, too: Realizing how my view of my “self” causes me to suffer has really ramped up my motivation to explore that “self” and to practice letting go of trying to protect it all the time.

            Thanks for the opportunity, inner self.  Really, I mean it.

            May all beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

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Sparrow as Teacher

~ Sue Downing

            On Saturday morning, as my breakfast was cooking on the stove, I went out onto my front porch to fill the birdfeeder that hangs there.  I keep the bird seed on the porch in a big Rubbermaid tub that sits inside a large wicker chest. I call it “the seed vault”. As I stepped outside and turned toward the feeder, I noticed that something was lying on top of the vault, near the front right hand corner. As drew closer, I realized what it was: a dead sparrow.

            The poor birdie corpse looked intact, except for its skull, most of which was missing. The sparrow’s feathers were matted and rumpled. Some creature had obviously held and carried the bird in its damp mouth. But what creature? If my cats were outdoor cats, which they’re not, I would have interpreted this as a classic offering of prey. Perhaps this is what it was. But would a random neighborhood cat really present me with its catch, in a display of gratitude for filling the feeder that made the capture possible? Mystified, I picked the dead sparrow up with a paper towel and laid it down gently amongst a pile of dried leaves beneath a big bush at the corner of my porch. I wanted it to have some cover, but I wasn’t up to digging a grave.

            Throughout the day, I pondered this dead sparrow’s appearance in my life. That’s because I’m a big fan of looking at the metaphorical meaning of occurrences – as well as of illness, as I’ve written in earlier posts. For whatever reason, I am not the kind of person who sees a dead sparrow on her seed vault, puts it under a bush, and goes on with her life. Instead, I immediately wonder whether there’s a message in it for me. “Is it simply a gift from a cat?” I asked myself now. “Or is the Universe conspiring with my inner self to try to tell me something?”

            What came to mind first as I mulled this over, was that my inner self was pointing out my blatant hypocrisy: I profess to adore the birds, and yet, I still eat meat. Was I being directed to go back to being a vegetarian?? This is, in fact, something that I have been considering lately. Even so, this explanation didn’t feel like an “Aha!” moment for me. I carried on with my day, my question still hovering beneath the surface of my awareness…

            Then came Sunday morning. Easter morning.

            I stepped out onto my porch. There I found the dead sparrow, back in the same corner of the vault. At first I thought it might be a second one, but I looked under the bush and found the tiny, leafy grave empty. When I looked at the little fellow closely, I concluded that it was most likely the same sparrow as the day before: Although this body’s feathers were more mangled and matted, its injuries were the same. “Why is it here again?” I wondered, incredulous. “What cat would do that??” I put it back under the bush, under more leaves, feeling both a bit sad and a bit creeped out.

            Later in the afternoon, I had the thought to just go out and take a peek at the vault…          

A wing. In the same spot. Splayed out, as if it had been plucked neatly from the body.  The rest of the sparrow was now lying under the railing at the corner of the porch, below the spot where the birdfeeder hung from the top of the porch.  And yet, other sparrows and finches and blackbirds were happily plucking seeds from the feeder.  “How can they,” I wondered, “with their fallen brother lying right down there?” This was just so weird… Without dealing with the disembodied wing in any way – which felt callous to me even as I turned my back on it –  I went back into the house. By evening, both the wing and the rest of the corpse had vanished.  

            Monday morning. By now I was almost apprehensive about going out to the porch. But the birds were already hopping around on the branches of the graveyard bush, waiting for their breakfast, so out I went. 

            A sparrow tail. In the usual place. No sign of the rest of the body. I moved it off the porch, onto some leaves. Actually, I have to be honest about this: I didn’t gently place it on the leaves, as I’d done with the whole sparrow. I tossed it away, carelessly and hardheartedly.

            Back indoors, I ate my breakfast and watched the surviving birds jostle each other for a turn at the feeder. There had to be a message for me here. The way the sparrow kept appearing – whether whole, or in its constituent parts– convinced me of this.  But what message? I’d been pondering this for forty-eight hours now. That morning, during my meditation, I’d even sought guidance from my inner self. “What is this all about?” I queried. “Is it really about vegetarianism? Or is there some other meaning?” As had been the case all weekend, no satisfying answer had come to me during meditation. But now, as I was finishing up my breakfast, another possible interpretation suddenly occurred to me: This sparrow was giving me a teaching about the identity of the “self”.

            There’s a tale I recall from my Buddhist studies: A monk named Nagasena uses the example of a chariot to explain to a king that nothing exists independently; nothing possesses its own, fixed “self”. “Is the pole on the chariot the chariot?” Nagasena asks the king. “No,” the king replies. “What about the axle?” Nagasena asks. “No,” the king tells him. “What about the wheel?” Nagasena continues. “No.”  It goes on like this, until the king grasps this idea: The parts of the chariot on their own do not constitute “chariot”. At the same time, what we call a “chariot” doesn’t exist separately from those parts. Nagasena then tells the king that it’s the same with the human “self”.

            The sparrow, I realized, is my chariot.  Is the missing skull the sparrow? No. How about its brains? No. The wing? No. The tail? No. How about the little foot that stuck out so stiffly from beneath the body? Or the spare feather that remained wedged between two woven reeds of the wicker chest’s lid? No.

            When I thought of the sparrow this way, I suddenly felt that this little creature had appeared – however that happened – to remind me that, like the chariot, what I call a “sparrow” exists only thanks to the constituent parts that make it up.  I can say that although I identified the bird as “sparrow” when I first saw it on the wicker chest, once I saw that most of its skull was gone, “sparrow without a skull” felt more accurate than “sparrow”. But when I saw only the wing, and then, the tail, I could no longer call them “sparrow”.  My mind could see them only as “sparrow parts”, not as “sparrow”. It occurs to me now that this also explains my decision (but without justifying it!) to either ignore or callously toss aside the wing and tail, those body parts that I could no longer consider “sparrow”.

            Interpreting the dear, dead sparrow as a reminder of the story of the chariot resonated with me deeply, given my current focus on the meaning of “self”. In fact, I had done this type of meditation just a few days earlier, in regard to my own “self”. I asked, “Am I my hand? My leg? My blood?” “No.” Finally, I asked, “Am I my mind?” The answer was the same: “No”. But this was a tougher “No” to utter, since it entailed a willingness to let go of the idea that the mind represents who I am. And, in fact, letting go of my attachment to my mind as my “self” is a large part of what I’m working on now. So, it seems fitting that the first thing I noticed about the dead sparrow when I looked at it closely, was that its skull had been crushed, its brain removed. No more thinking. No more sparrow mind.  The sparrow is not its mind.

            I feel so thankful for this experience, disquieting as it was. I am sad for the death of one of the little creatures I love, but grateful for its very concrete and yet self-less gift. Thank you, dear sparrow-teacher.

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Who Am I Now?

~ Sue Downing

Tomorrow I’ll be starting week five of self-isolation. It occurred to me last weekend that I can approach this time as a period of “self” isolation: stepping back from all the “selves” I’d gotten used to identifying with before this pandemic hit.  

            I began thinking about this question of “self” on Sunday because I’d just started rereading In Love with the World, a memoir of sorts by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher. I first read the book in January, on the recommendation of a friend, and I found it so compelling that I’ve come back to it now.

            A revered meditation master who teaches throughout the world and serves as the abbot of several monasteries in India, Rinpoche decided, in 2011, to embark on a solitary wandering retreat. His goal? To remove himself from his familiar, comfortable life and work setting, and enter into new circumstances which he anticipated would challenge him in unimaginable ways. This would, in turn, give him the chance to test – and improve –  his spiritual skills.  “Adding wood to the fire” of his practice is how he put it.

            Rinpoche laid out plans for how the monasteries and his international teaching organization would function in his four-year absence, but he didn’t tell anyone exactly when he would set off. Then, one night, he left his monastery in secret, literally under cover of darkness. Although all the arrangements were in place for how the monasteries would continue to run, no one expected to simply wake up one morning to find their abbot gone from his room.  Thus, when he vanished in the night, his community experienced the sudden loss of Rinpoche.

            His departure also meant a loss of “Rinpoche” for Rinpoche himself: Although he was still wearing his traditional monk’s robes when he walked out of the monastery gates, he left behind the people who always traveled with him, who bought his train tickets and arranged for his meals, who made sure he had comfortable, quiet lodgings. He was now also without those comfortable hotel rooms and first class train tickets themselves. He’d taken only a small amount of money with him, enough to cover basic meals and third-class train tickets for the first couple of weeks. After that, he would sleep out in the open, or in caves, and beg for his food. As well, since he was traveling anonymously, he no longer experienced the respectful treatment from others that his position in life had brought him for decades. To those around him now, he was simply a monk in robes sitting on the floor of the train station like so many other travelers. In Love with the World tells the story of the initial weeks of his retreat, when Rinpoche comes face to face with this loss of all the interactions with disciples and attendants and family members, whose respect and deferential treatment had defined who he was and validated his existence over the previous thirty-six years of his life.

            Rinpoche writes with great poignancy of how unprepared he feels for this loss, despite three decades of Buddhist training and practice. He describes for the reader the disturbing thoughts and emotions that rise up and destabilize his mind in these first days, and how he manages to cope with them by turning to all the practice tools he has acquired over the years. We read how difficult it is for him to just be at these times, when no one is aware that he is a famous lama, when no one offers him a seat on the train, or luxurious sleeping quarters, simply because of who he is. “Who is it who is feeling overwhelmed and scared?” Rinpoche asks himself repeatedly, now that he has suddenly relinquished the roles that defined him in the past, now that those who continually affirmed his status and spiritual attainments are all far away.  He inquires, “Who is Mingyur Rinpoche?”         

            As part of his inquiry, he reminds himself, over and over again, that, according to Buddhist teachings, none of us has any fixed, stable identity. The “self” we cling to never remains the same from one moment to the next. It is his oft-repeated act of reaching back to this and other core Buddhist teachings that enables Rinpoche to get through hour after hour of mental disturbance. Some days, though, he is not sure he will be able to keep it up. In a middle of a days-long bout with food poisoning, he wonders whether he should go back to the support and familiarity of the monastery. But he stays where he is, and perseveres.

            It’s so comforting for me, a lay practitioner of Buddhism, to read about how Rinpoche meets the challenges that confront him. Here’s someone who grew up with the teachings and received instruction from his father (also an esteemed teacher) from his early childhood, before heading to the monastery at age eleven to begin his own formal studies.  Even this accomplished monk, who consciously chooses to make this change in his life and begin a retreat, even he – bolstered by three decades of Buddhist practice –  finds it difficult to cope with this sudden shift in who he is in the world. Sitting on the floor of third class train compartments, sleeping out in the open, eating leftover (and spoiled) food that a restaurant owner scrapes from the plates of patrons and gives him for free once his money runs out: This is his life on wandering retreat.

            I cannot begin to compare whatever challenges I have encountered during the four weeks of what I could call my non-wandering retreat, with what Rinpoche faced. If you want to talk about adding wood to the fire of practice, I’ve added maybe the equivalent of a matchstick to mine. Even that is overstating it. What I’m doing is more like adding one blade of dried grass to some barely-lit embers. I’m also so much less prepared than Rinpoche was, for even the effects of that grass:  I come to my self-isolation retreat armed with some years of pretty lackadaisical, layperson Buddhist practice. It’s probably precisely because of my own lack of spiritual preparation that the story of how Rinpoche managed to make his way through the early weeks of his retreat suddenly felt very relevant to me last weekend. That’s why I picked his book up once more.

            At one point, describing what he would face upon leaving the monastery, Rinpoche writes, “I had never known a day without people and props that mirrored the stitched-together patchwork that became known to me and others as Mingyur Rinpoche.” It struck me when I read this, that I’m facing a somewhat similar situation. In my pre-self-isolation life, I used any of a number of labels to describe myself: mom, grandma, sister, aunt, friend, writer, cat-petter, coffee shop regular, bookstore frequenter, yoga practitioner, Reiki practitioner, Buddhist practitioner, racial justice organizer, knitter, Russian speaker, hiker, bakery patron… In living within these roles, I encountered people who used these same labels to define me. Sometimes they even respected or appreciated me in some way because of them. These mutually-accepted labels provided a stable context for my interactions with the people I knew. They also lent a certain solidity to the image I had of my “self”. “I am a Reiki/yoga/Buddhist practitioner, etc.” Any feeling that folks appreciated me in some way based on one of these labels only bolstered my attachment to this or that aspect of my “self”.

            Then, not quite four weeks ago, I, just as Rinpoche did, made a conscious choice to take myself out of the usual flow of my life.  I did so out of a desire to safeguard my health and the health of those around me. Unlike Rinpoche, I was not intending to dive into sustained inquiry into the question that Buddhism insistently places before us: What is the true nature of “self”? But, as it turns out, this is what I’m being given the opportunity to do.

            When I stepped out of my familiar way of living, I also lost many of the interactions that shore up my identification with the various labels I use to define who I am, and to gain respect and validation. I didn’t entirely lose them, of course. I still speak with my friends and family, and have Zoom meetings and classes with folks. But the in-person interactions which constantly reinforced that I am [fill in label of choice] are no more. It struck me yesterday that, now that I’ve lost the ability to be active out in the world in the roles I’ve painstakingly constructed for myself, I’ve been attempting to create new, quarantine-friendly roles that can supply me with gratifying interactions and validation. One example: I’ve been making face masks for friends and family and neighbors. This would seem, on the surface, to be just an act of neighborliness, or affection. But, I realized yesterday, that’s not all that’s going on here. Sewing face masks is also a way to assert that I am still someone in this world, that I still have some role to play for which I can be recognized and valued.  I am a sew-er of masks! As I sew them, I am helping others. At the same time, though, I am also diving into a sewer of attachment to my “self”. I am clinging to the habit of doing whatever I can to distinguish this “self”, to defend and perpetuate it. In the midst of this pandemic, I have been seeking new ways to keep my “self” alive and well.  

            Now I can see that this period of self-isolation is offering me something very precious: the chance to loosen my grip on this need to defend my “self” and protect it against a slide into anonymity. So, I’ve decided to embrace this sudden loss of so many of the labels I’ve thought of as “me”, and approach it as an opportunity to explore my “self”, and to make friends with the idea that no fixed “Sue Downing” exists. I have the chance to practice a new way of just being in the world, as whoever I end up being at a given moment, without then holding tight to it.  A breakfast eater, for example. Or a flower sniffer. A lap for a napping cat. A birdlistener.

            I have the great good fortune to be carrying out my exploration within a safe and comfortable home that’s well-stocked in food and virtual interactions with people I love – and who know and love me. That means that I’m not going to be creating the kind of bonfire Rinpoche constructed as he sought to add wood to the fire of his practice. But I feel strongly motivated to make the most of this opportunity. So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll practice isolating from my “self” as best I can in each moment, and continue my non-wandering retreat, one thin blade of dried grass at a time. 

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A Time to Stockpile Happiness, Love and Joy

~ Sue Downing

It’s April 4rd, 2020. Here in Massachusetts, we are being told to expect COVD-19 cases to peak in about two weeks. I don’t know whether that’s an accurate prediction. Nor do I know what, exactly, we will face when the peak does come. All I know is that, for the moment, we in Massachusetts are not Wuhan, China. We are not Italy. Nor are we New York. Not yet. But we will soon be some version of all of these places. So, I’ve been thinking over the past few days: What is my task in these next couple of weeks, as a human being in this place where I am, for now at least, alive?

            Some days I have been building domino raceways out of colorful wooden dominoes that I mindfully stand upright, one next to the other, in a long trail. It’s good practice at staying present, in the moment. When I’m finished, I lure one of my cats to the end of the line with a piece of kibble so that, as she nibbles, the little blocks tremble and then tumble, tumble, tumble, tumble, until they are all lying, silent, on the floor. They make such a pleasant, even soothing, sound as they knock each other over.  Many minutes’ work. Only a few seconds for them all to tip and fall. Such a joyful few seconds, too! 

            But amidst the lightheartedness, sometimes a thought creeps in: You shouldn’t be doing something so frivolous while so many people are sick and dying, while nurses and doctors are fighting to keep others and themselves alive, while store clerks who can barely live on the wages they earn are packing up groceries for delivery, so that you don’t have to go outside to shop for food.

            When these thoughts sneak in, though, I’ve taken to reminding myself of something: These minutes of domino- and kitty-related joy create a strong, positive energy that fills my heart and lifts my spirits. They increase my stores of happiness and of inner strength. This, in turn, makes it easier for me to get through each day, because I have some reserves of calm and joy to draw on in the midst of the chaos swirling through the world.  

            At other times, I sit in meditation, tracing in my mind the long string of people who made it possible for me to receive three books I ordered last week from my local bookstore, to support them while they are closed: the store employee who read my online order and processed my payment;  another employee who took the books from the shelf and placed them in a box and sealed it up; the mail carrier who picked the box up from the store and took it to the post office; the who-knows-how-many post office employees who passed the box along, until it ended up in the hands of my neighborhood mail carrier, who delivered it to my doorstep on Wednesday. His name is Jeff. Thank you, Jeff. Many thanks to all of you in that chain of humans who made it possible for me to hold these books that will occupy my mind during the coming weeks. I am so grateful to all of you. May you be safe, and healthy, and happy, and free from suffering. When I practice this meditation, I feel a loving connection to each of the people I imagine as part of the delivery chain.  Like setting up the dominoes and smiling as my cat knocks them down, this also adds to my storehouse of nourishing energy. It helps me establish and maintain bonds of affection and well-wishing with those outside my house. More love to draw on.   

            As I said, I don’t know what the weeks ahead will bring, here in Massachusetts. But it seems likely that many of us – most of us? – will know people who get ill, some very ill, some of whom will die. Some of whom may be us. I can’t know what any of that will feel like until I am invited – no, forced! – to feel it.  But what I’ve been thinking about lately is that I am going to need deep reserves of joy and happiness and peace to get through whatever comes. They give me resilience of a sort that’s different from the kind that I access through determination or sheer force of will. I’ll need both of these types of energies in abundance, if I’m going to be able to not only remain calm myself, but also be the best possible support for those around me.

            So, as I make my way forward now, day by day, I am going to focus on building up my stores of happiness and love and joy, one tiny addition at a time – through meditation, and walks in the woods where the mockingbirds’ songs make me laugh; through heartfelt and lighthearted talks with my friends and family; and, yes, through setting up a couple hundred dominoes, so that I can have the fun of watching my kitty set them all tumbling. I hope that these reserves and my continuing, loving connections with others will enable me to remain upright when the pieces of world around me threaten to tip and fall. And not just me. Of course not just me. May we all be sustained and carried by the love and joy that flow between us. May all beings be safe, and healthy, and happy. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

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Opening My Voice-Way

~ Sue Downing

Part 3: Okay, okay. I get it.

After committing to writing my historical novel based solely on guidance from my inner self, I worked on it steadily – and enjoyed the process immensely! In the fall of 2018, I completed the first draft of what I was calling Above the River. Set in post-WWII Germany, it told the tale of three generations of a German family whose members are forced to confront questions of God and faith and free will when the youngest family member, Lina, is paralyzed in an accident on the family’s homestead. 

            I had, indeed, managed to write the novel just for myself, free of the influence of suggestions or critiques from outside readers.  True, early on, I did give the first thirty pages or so to the friend who’d encouraged me to get back to writing in the first place.  I asked her simply whether, having read those opening chapters, she would want to read more. I guess I was still feeling the need for some validation of my project. But after that, no one read a word of the novel until after I’d completed the second draft, at the end of 2018. Even then, the friend I spontaneously offered it to, read only the first couple of chapters. Then, her own inner guidance prompted her to set it aside That felt just right to me, too, because, by then, I’d realized that I wanted to make some significant changes to the novel before trying to get it published. That’s when I began working on the third draft, which turned, at the end of 2019, into the fourth draft. Then, in January of this year, I had a big insight: Instead of working to find an agent who could help me get my book published, I needed to totally rework the novel, and make Lina’s mother, Ethel, the central voice of the narrative. 

            I was less than two weeks into this rewrite when a series of experiences made it abundantly clear to me that suggestion to completely rework the novel had not come from my inner self after all.  Rather, what I’d heard – and heeded – was the voice of the deep, insidious fear I talked about in my last post: the fear that if I wrote and published exactly what I wanted, then people would respond negatively and reject me. At some point after I finished the first draft of my novel, this fear had come forth and managed to convincingly disguise itself as the voice of my inner self. “Keep revising,” it told me. “This book isn’t ready to go out into the world yet.”

            Now, I can say for certain that my inner self was the source of this latest understanding – that I’d been mistaken about the origin of the advice to keep revising. This time, though, my inner self didn’t communicate with me in the way it most often does: by sending along messages when I’m sitting quietly and asking for guidance. Because at this point, I wasn’t sitting down asking it to advise me about the novel.   I can see now that my inner self had been trying for a long time to tell me, subtly, to stop revising my novel and do something to actually get it out in the world. But, as I’ve said before, my inner self speaks softly, so I wasn’t hearing it. And precisely because I hadn’t picked up on its quiet messages, my inner self had to get dramatic. This time it chose to speak to me not through a thought, but in a way I couldn’t ignore: in the form of an illness.

            I’ve become convinced, over the past ten years or so, that our inner self uses physical illness or mental discomfort to communicate with us when we miss or disregard the subtler communiques it sends us through thoughts and feelings. The way I see it, when an illness crops up, this is often our inner self clueing us in that a current course of action or behavior pattern is not in our best interest, and that we need to be doing something in our life differently.

            I believe that when we come down with an illness, we can see it both as a very real illness and as our inner self’s attempt to give us a message. If we can understand what course of action or way of thinking our inner self is trying to warn us about, then we can adjust the way we move through life. This can, in turn, help alleviate the physical or mental or emotional discomfort we’re feeling, i.e., the given illness we’re experiencing.

            So, when I get sick, or when a part of my body starts hurting for no identifiable reason, I ask myself what the metaphorical significance might be, of both the illness itself and the part of my body where it has popped up: “What is this illness trying to show me about where I’m going wrong in my life?” This is exactly the type of deep inquiry I had occasion to do at the end of 2019, when my inner self decided I wasn’t hearing what it had to say about my novel writing. The illness it used to get my attention was hypothyroidism.

            Underactive thyroid often goes unnoticed and undiagnosed for years, which is exactly what happened with me. I had no idea that anything was amiss until my underactive thyroid started manifesting as anxiety attacks.  The first time this happened, in mid-December, I was caught totally unawares. I suddenly felt terrified, for no discernible reason.  I just couldn’t manage to calm myself down using any of the tools that generally quiet my mind pretty easily if I become distressed.  My heart was racing and pounding, I felt faint, my skin was flushed, and there was a tightness in my chest.  As the anxiety flooded through me, I felt a sense of impending doom: “You might just die tonight.” I thought this with a kind of eerie calm alongside the mounting anxiety that felt like it was originating somewhere other than inside me. This simply did not feel like “me” to me.

            When these symptoms didn’t abate, and the feeling of doom persisted, I called an ambulance. For the first time in my life, I ended up in the Emergency Room, where the doctor determined that I was not having a heart attack. This was excellent news! (Thankfully, various subsequent tests showed that my heart is in good working order.) But that left the anxiety attacks, which kept occurring, with greater and greater frequency, over the next couple of weeks. Even though the doctors on my two subsequent visits to the ER (!!) told me that I could just ride these episodes out, because there really was no danger to my heart, I was beside myself. The attacks sometimes woke me out of a sound sleep. One day I had four of them. I had no idea what to do. Would they continue to plague me for the rest of my life?

            At this point, I was not yet in any shape to engage in spiritual inquiry about what my inner self was trying to tell me. I couldn’t get calm enough to do that.  It was all I could do to make it through each day and night without being totally overwhelmed by panic.

            The attacks had been going on for nearly three weeks before my primary care doctor discovered, while reviewing my many test results, that my thyroid hormone level was way off.  While doing some research, I discovered that anxiety attacks are not at all uncommon for folks with an underactive thyroid.  My doctor prescribed a thyroid hormone replacement drug, and once I began taking it, the anxiety attacks lessened dramatically, both in frequency and intensity. Within about ten days, they’d vanished. I was incredibly relieved by this.

            At the same time, though, I fully believed that the anxiety attacks were my inner self’s way of communicating something to me. And the terrifying intensity of what I’d experienced during the previous three weeks indicated to me that, whatever this message was, it was urgent. I knew that I needed to understand it and act on it. The fact that the replacement hormone was preventing the attacks was helping me get through each day, but this alone wouldn’t fix whatever it was that my inner self was trying to show me was out of whack. I knew full well that if I didn’t take action now, my inner self would find another, even more dramatic, way to get my attention. The anxiety attacks, although scary, weren’t actually life-threatening.  The next message might be, and I certainly didn’t want to have to go through that!  So, now that the attacks had faded, thanks to the medication, I was once again able to calm down enough to meditate effectively. I began reflecting on what my inner self was trying to tell me with this hypothyroidism.

            I started by considering the thyroid gland. It’s located in the throat, and the throat is associated with our voice, and, thus, with self-expression. So, I reasoned, an underactive thyroid could indicate underactive self-expression. This is where the hypothyroidism stumped me for a couple of weeks. How can I not be expressing myself enough? I wondered. For heaven’s sake, I’ve written this whole novel! Isn’t that enough?  What’s more – and this was what really didn’t make sense to me – why did the hypothyroidism manifest as anxiety attacks in me? What in the world was I so afraid of?

            Then, one evening, during my meditation session, I sensed a lump in my throat.  It felt like something inside me was trying to push its way out.  I understood that something in me desperately needed to be expressed.  I just couldn’t discern what. I felt intuitively that if I could just understand what it was, I’d also grasp what my inner self was seeking to tell me with the hypothyroidism. I voiced a silent wish to understand what was trying to make its way out of me.

            The next morning, I went to my favorite coffee shop, as was my habit, and sat down to work on the novel. But I just couldn’t do it. It simply didn’t feel right.  So I stopped. I sat there, staring at the computer screen. And within a few minutes, I understood why writing the novel hadn’t been “enough”: Writing this novel couldn’t possibly satisfy my inner self’s need for self-expression precisely because I was writing solely for myself, instead of sharing what I’d created with the world. The hypothyroidism was a hint from my inner self that I was under-expressing myself by keeping my writing to myself.

            But what about the anxiety attacks? Why did I need to have those? Why wasn’t simply being diagnosed with – and understanding – the hypothyroidism sufficient? As I sat there in front of the computer, the answer to this mystery began to come into focus for me: This whole process of writing the novel was about changing two deeply-ingrained behavior patterns, not one. By the time the hypothyroidism was diagnosed, I had overcome one of them: the fear of writing what felt right to me, without having anyone else sign off on it. I’d learned to do that as I wrote my novel. However, for the past year, I had remained in the tight grip of a second fear: that if I shared my novel with others, the world would reject my heartfelt, sincere creative work – and me along with it.

            It was this, second, fear that had masqueraded as the voice of my inner self. Each time I completed a new draft, each time it seemed that maybe I was done with the novel, this fear sent me a gut feeling that urged me to keep writing.  It was stalling for time, to keep me from experiencing the inevitable rejection it believed would come if I shared my honest writing.  It succeeded in its quest for more than a year, because it managed to speak to me in a gut feeling that was relatively muted, as gut feelings go. And although I am certain that my inner self was, meanwhile, doing its best to subtly clue me in to what was going on, it was still quieter than the gut feeling, and I just wasn’t hearing what it had to say.  So, eventually, my inner self decided, “The whispering isn’t working. I’m gonna have to shout.” This was where the anxiety attacks came in: My inner self was challenging me to a high stakes game of spiritual, physical, and psychological connect-the-dots. It was giving me the chance to recognize just how terrified I was of getting my novel out into the world.            

            That’s what happened that morning in the coffee shop: I succeeded in connecting the dots that linked my writing process and my fears to the hypothyroidism and the anxiety attacks. Once I saw all these links, my inner self’s message to me also became clear: “You need to not only express yourself honestly on paper, but overcome your fear of putting what you write out into the world. Do you see what this fear is doing to your body and mind? Do you see how it’s been holding you back?” I did see. Finally.  And when I did – that’s when I understood that I needed to start writing something that I could actually put out in the world in a timely fashion.  As I saw it, this was a matter of life and death for me, because my inner self wasn’t going to mess around anymore. I would ignore its message at my peril.

            Once I grasped all of this, that morning in the coffee shop, I experienced a quiet, peaceful awareness, deep inside me. Definitely a message from my inner self, and not a gut feeling. I knew exactly what I needed to do: I closed the document file that contained the latest version of my novel. Then I opened a new file and began writing this series of posts. “Making Our Way” came into being at that moment – the moment when I consciously made the commitment to write exactly what I feel guided by my inner self to write, and to then share my writing with the world –  with you. I’m done letting fear call the shots.

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Opening My Voice-Way

~ Sue Downing

Part 2: The Non-Disclosure Agreement

About the same time I began writing my historical novel in the summer of 2017, I also – as I mentioned in my previous post – made a firm decision to not share it with anyone during the writing process.   I took that step based on a strong feeling that I interpreted as a message from my inner self. 

            Now, as I wrote earlier, I am wary of my gut feelings, since I’ve learned through trial and error that they often represent the voice of irrational fear, rather than serving as reasonable sources of guidance.  That’s why I always consult my inner self, too, when choosing a course of action.  But this thought about keeping the novel to myself until it was finished – that wasn’t anything I’d consciously asked my inner self for guidance about.  It just came to me once I began to write.  I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t go into deep inquiry about where that thought had come from.  I didn’t check in with my inner self and ask, “Hey, did you send this along to me?” I simply assumed it had because, although the feeling to write basically in secret was strong, it wasn’t “gut feeling strong”. I accepted it without questioning it, because it seemed like just the way my inner self would have my back.  Let me explain what I mean by that.

            I have always really adored the practice of writing. I’ve consistently found it energizing and joyful to engage in that creative process, whether I was writing fiction, performance pieces, blogs about Reiki and spirituality, or non-fiction. But when I look back on what I created over the years, I can see that in all cases, I tailored what I wrote to meet the expectations of the people I considered my core audience. No matter what I was writing, I’d quickly gain a sense of what folks enjoyed most, and then allow that understanding to strongly influence whatever I wrote next. Even though many people considered some of my performance pieces controversial, the truth is that I rarely wrote anything that would risk alienating my core fans. They came because they enjoyed the outspoken, sex-positive persona I presented in my shows. So, I worked within the guidelines of that persona, never pushing my readers and audience far enough that I would lose them. Losing them was the last thing I wanted.

            Cut to about ten years later. At this point, I was putting out weekly blog posts about practicing Reiki, and I also authored a book about Reiki as a spiritual practice. I can say that I truly wrote all of these from the heart, out of a sincere desire to offer something that might benefit those around me. Even so, I was, at the same time, still/once again writing to meet my (new) audience’s expectations. As I’d done in the late 90s, I was presenting a certain persona – just a different one now. Now I was the Reiki practitioner and teacher who had gained some valuable insights and was sharing them.

            The point I want to make here is that for me, writing has always been inextricably linked with a lifelong project of doing my utmost to excel at whatever I was engaged in. My overarching goal was to stand out from the crowd, in the hope of gaining others’ approval and affection.  So, when it came to writing, it wasn’t enough to just be a performance artist. I had to shock people with what I wrote. Nor was offering a humble little blog about Reiki sufficient. I had to write a whole book about it! (So much for being an advanced spiritual practitioner.)

            I’d inaugurated this project early on in life, once I (unconsciously) adopted the false belief that approval and affection are something we humans have to earn. I concluded that you earn these things by 1) being perfect, and 2) expressing only views that others will approve of.  There’s a big problem with approaching creative writing – and life, of course – this way: If you’re writing to gain approval, then one thing you avoid writing about at all costs is any of your qualities, thoughts, actions, or beliefs that might reveal to others that you are a regular human, or that you disagree with them about something. Do that, the faulty logic goes, and they will turn on you.

            So, naturally, if your writing is undergirded – as mine has been – with the fear that you’ll be rejected if you’re totally honest in what you put out into the world, or if you make yourself vulnerable and show yourself to be, basically, human… If this is how you approach the creative process, then how can your own true inclinations ever manage to consistently make their way into what you’re writing? They can’t. At least this has been true in my case. Certainly, there has been some level of openness in my writing, and a lot of heart, I’d say.  But a deep fear of rejection has always held me back from fully and boldly expressing my genuine feelings and thoughts, whether the subject at hand was sexuality or spirituality.

            That fear of being spurned for revealing myself as the human I truly am, was so strong in me, that in the writing I did before I began working on my novel, I never trusted myself to make editorial decisions. I always had another person read whatever I was considering performing or posting, someone who knew my audience’s expectations. They could read a piece I’d written, judge whether or not it would fly with that audience, and offer suggestions about how to change it so it’d be most effective – suggestions I nearly always adopted.

            This editing process most certainly did result in pieces that ended up more aligned with audience expectations than they started out. But it also resulted in pieces whose final drafts were less aligned with my true inner voice than the first drafts – first drafts which I had already self-censored, out of fear. Ugh. So, to sum up, here’s how I’d describe my creative writing process over the years: I consistently heeded others’ voices about what and how to write, instead of fearlessly consulting and honoring the voice of my own inner self.

            This is exactly the pattern I was looking to break by writing my novel alone, in consultation with only my inner self. I did not want to fall under the sway of others’ views and advice and opinions as I worked on this new project.  I wanted, finally, to write freely, free of all that outside influence. I wanted to be able to pour my whole heart into this novel, without worrying about the response. And so I began.

            Right from the beginning, I fully believed that my inner self was guiding me. So, when the thought occurred to me early on in the process – again, I stress that it arrived unsolicited – that I should write the novel “just for myself”, I immediately accepted it as coming from my inner self. As I saw it, my inner self, which I knew always had my own best interests at heart, was offering me a gift. It was helping me protect myself from the impulse to cede control over my writing to others, and from the fear that had caused me to censor what I truly wanted to write.

            So, I continued working on the novel, honoring this non-disclosure agreement. I discovered very quickly that, yes, indeed, I was able to write absolutely what I felt guided to write. Not asking anyone else to approve what was coming out onto the page – that felt glorious! There was one problem with this, however. Simply denying the fear inside me the conditions that had always allowed it to thrive in the past didn’t meant that it just shrugged its shoulders and slunk away. Oh, no. It just sat quietly in the background, biding its time. In my next post, I’ll tell you how this fear managed to reassert its hold on me, and how I finally realized what it was up to and gave it its walking papers.

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Opening My Voice-Way

~ Sue Downing

Part One: A novel?  Really?

            Hi, all.  Before I get into my actual post, I just want to say that, during this very unpredictable time, I send you much love, and wish for each of you to be safe and healthy and peaceful. I wish for you to feel connected to your friends and neighbors and loved ones through your hearts, despite the physical distances that may separate you. We will get through this on the strength of our love and affection for each other. Take good care.  

            One benefit of self-isolating is that I have unlimited free time!  So, today I’m going to start telling you the story of how I came to launch this blog.  What’s most unexpected for me in this story is that I had to spend nearly 3 years writing a novel before I realized that it wasn’t a novel I needed to be writing at all, but a blog. “Don’t Let the Coronavirus Drive Us Apart” didn’t make it onto the page until after I’d written nearly 400 pages of fiction. That’s one heck of a first draft, especially when you end up setting aside the whole thing and starting an entirely new and unrelated project.

            I started working on the novel back in the spring of 2017. I had recently stepped back from some very time- and energy-intensive volunteering in a group devoted to healing on the spiritual path. At this point, I had also retired from teaching Russian, and from the translating work I’d done for a number of years.  On this sunny April day, I was talking over coffee with a close friend. In the course of our chat, she said to me, “Now that you have more time for yourself, you should start writing again.”

            At first, her suggestion seemed to have come out of nowhere.  But then I realized that it hadn’t: The very same thought had occurred to me in recent weeks. I’d even toyed for a brief moment with the idea of writing an historical novel. Maybe my friend had picked up on my own desire to write, and reflected it back to me? This would not have surprised me, because she is not only very intuitive, but also knows me well. She’s read pretty much everything I’ve written over the years, and she knows that I have always enjoyed writing, whether or not the piece in question gets published. So, the confluence of her encouragement and my own quiet thoughts intrigued me. I told her I would give the idea serious consideration. She knew what I meant by this: I would consult my inner self about it. 

            What do I mean when I say “my inner self”, and what does it mean to “consult” it?

            First, a bit about what I think my inner self is not.  It is not the same as my “gut feelings”. People talk a lot about gut feelings. I do believe they exist, and that we all have them. I think of my gut feelings as the voice of all the worries, fears, trauma responses, anger, and other emotions (whether pleasant or unpleasant) that have accumulated inside me.

            Then there’s what I think of as my inner self. Some people call this their soul, or their higher self. I see my inner self as the part of my consciousness that is free of all those worries, etc., that fuel my gut feelings.

            Over the years, I’ve come to believe that both my inner self and my gut feelings can communicate with me. In fact, they are constantly competing for my attention. And they have different communication styles. My gut feelings are always screaming at the top of their lungs. Sometimes they call out a warning. “Run! Run! Run!” Other times, it’s, “Oh my gosh! This is a sign from the Universe! You should TOTALLY do this!” All this yelling means that I easily pick up on messages from my gut feelings.

            My inner self, though – it speaks softly. It never shouts. It will sometimes share a thought in the moments of silence when my gut feelings have paused to take a big breath before issuing their next edict. But my inner self offers its wisdom so quietly that I may not notice that it’s spoken up, or may not heed it, even when I do hear it. 

            For decades, precisely because I generally only ever heard my gut feelings loud and clear, I blindly accepted them as the best source of guidance about how to make my way through life. This was problematic, though, because – as I’ve learned, the hard way – our gut feelings can be very unreliable judges of whether an action we’re contemplating is actually a good idea.  For example, if we’ve experienced trauma – as so, so many of us have – our gut feelings might hoist a red fear-flag even when we’re not really in a dangerous situation. Or, they might start waving a big, bold flag of elation or enthusiasm about taking some step that makes no good sense at all. No matter what our gut feelings are suggesting we do, if we listen to them without taking the time to also consult our inner self, their advice can easily lead us down a path we’ll regret later on. I see this consultation as crucial, because I’ve also come to realize, that my inner self can see the world and my life with clarity. That means it can help me make choices that will benefit me down the line.

            In recent years, through lots of practice, I’ve come to understand how my inner self communicates with me and shares what it knows. I’ve found that I’m most likely to pick up on what my inner self is trying to say to me when I’m in a calm and quiet spot – meditating, for example, or simply sitting still on my own for a while.  At these times, for whatever reason, my gut feelings are less intrusive (maybe they occasionally just take a break?), and that’s when I’m able to hear my inner self’s voice. Then I can mentally pose questions to it about how to proceed in regard to a given matter. When I do that, a word or two – rarely a whole phrase or sentence – will usually come to mind. Or I’ll have a wordless feeling about the best course of action. I take this as my inner self’s response. After several years of using this method of inquiry, I’ve learned that life plays out in a way that feels positive to me when I do heed what my inner self suggests to me. Based on this experience, I’ve come to see my inner self as the very best source of ideas, insight, and guidance about how to move through life.

            So, by the time my friend encouraged me to begin writing again, I’d gotten pretty good at accessing my inner self’s quiet voice beneath the loud gut feelings, and at discerning and trusting what it was telling me.  That doesn’t mean, however, that I absolutely always heed its voice. If I’m not actively seeking out advice, or if a message I happen to hear doesn’t totally appeal to me, I might disregard it. Only when my friend encouraged me to start writing again did I admit to myself that I had, in fact, been hearing soft messages coming from inside, about writing a novel.  I’d just been ignoring them, mostly because they were suggesting I write an historical novel.  “Nope,” I told myself. “Way too much work.” But now, since my friend’s words actually dovetailed with what I, myself, had heard, I decided to sit down and consciously consult my inner self about this idea.

            What happened then, when I got calm and quiet, was that the prospect of writing a novel actually felt very good to me. It felt right – but not with the intensity of fireworks or a sense of jumping up and down with joy. Rather, I experienced a soft, tranquil feeling in my body, a peaceful, relaxed sensation, and a happiness in my heart. Over the years, I’ve learned, through trial and error, that these sensations indicate that my inner self is giving me an affirmative answer to my question. So, I concluded that yes, writing an historical novel would be a good idea.  A few hours later, an idea for a plot came to mind! This felt like a good sign, too, a sign from my inner self.

            Over the next week or so, I explored the plot idea, did a bit of preliminary research, and, finally, decided to move forward. As I began working on the novel in earnest, I also had the strong feeling that I should keep the project to myself as I wrote, and that I shouldn’t share the novel with anyone until I had completely finished it. It seemed to me that approaching the writing this way would allow me to practice discerning what I felt was right to write, guided only by my inner self, without being influenced by others’ views. As I saw it, I had the chance here to break some ingrained behavior patterns that had worked against me in the past. 

            In my next post, I’ll explain why I so easily accepted that this guidance was coming from my inner self, and not from my gut feelings.

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I’m Doing it For [Fill in the Blank]

~ Sue Downing

Something beautiful is happening, my friends. I’m seeing it in my own area, here in Western Massachusetts, but I know it’s happening elsewhere, too. I’m seeing people stepping up big time. They are taking steps that may be inconvenient or upsetting to them personally, or disruptive to their lives or their livelihoods, for the sake of those around them.

            Here’s one example from my own experience that sums up what I am witnessing right now. The yoga studio I attend has shut down until April 1st, at least. My teacher sent out an email that starts this way: “It is out of deep respect for our little Yin community that I have decided to suspend my classes until the COVID-19 crisis has passed. Indeed, we at AYN have all decided that the best way we can be of service is to temporarily close the studio.”  Reading this brought tears to my eyes.  The teachers are working out how to offer classes via Zoom, but the fact remains: They made the choice to prioritize the health of our yoga community, even though this decision placed the studio’s ongoing existence in jeopardy. They acted out of love, because they knew that if they didn’t close, they could be jeopardizing the health and lives of our community members. 

            Seeing this and other examples of selfless acts, of deep concern for others, motivated me to seriously consider how I should be moving through the world right now.  And reading two articles about the necessity of social distancing to help slow the pace of infections gave me the final push: I’ve decided to self-isolate for the next two weeks, at least.  (See below the post for links to these articles.)

            After I made this decision yesterday morning, and began cancelling various get-togethers I’d planned for the next week, I began feeling very selfish. After all, I don’t seem to be sick at the moment (but we all know by now that I might just be asymptomatic, but still contagious), and that means I could potentially be out helping others who are at greater risk than I.  I really struggled with this feeling that I was somehow letting people down by staying home, instead of helping them. Then I went and reread one of those articles, in which the author wrote, “There are probably hundreds or thousands of cases in your community already. Every day that there isn’t social distancing, these cases grow exponentially.” Okay. That reminded me of why I’m doing this.

            Then, last night, I came up with another way to remind myself, in coming weeks, of why I’ve committed to self-isolation. I took a sheet of paper, and wrote on it, “I’m doing this for ______________”. This morning I took some blue painter’s tape and wrote on it “Uncle John”. That’s my 99-year-old uncle who lives in California.  I haven’t seen him in person in years, but we are in touch through occasional emails and rare phone calls – and through our heart connection, too. I wrote his name on the piece of tape, stuck that to the strip of paper, and put it up on my fridge, where I will see it dozens of times a day.  That will remind me that by doing my part to slow transmission of this virus, I am helping keep Uncle John alive – as well as thousands of others I don’t even know. And I’ve decided that each day, I’ll write a new name on a new piece of tape, the name of a friend, relative, or acquaintance who’s elderly or at risk in another way, and stick it to the paper, atop the name that’s already there.  I have enough names to last weeks. In fact, I have enough to last as long as this pandemic lasts.  I bet you do, too. 

            Much love to you all.

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Articles to check out: “Act Today or People Will Die” , “Flatten the Curve”

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Frog Interlude

~ Sue Downing

Clouds were lining the sky yesterday when I walked down to the wildlife sanctuary near my house. I’d just rounded the parking circle in front of the Welcome Center, and begun walking in the direction of home, when I wondered, “Might the frogs be out?” So I turned and headed toward the Welcome Center. As I came around the side of the building and up onto the boardwalk that runs behind it, along the vernal pool, I heard them. Their croaking voices – far bigger than their newly-awakened bodies – seemed to fill every bit of water and air. They rested languidly on the pond’s surface, undisturbed by thoughts of crown-shaped bugs or rivals of a political stripe. I took a seat on a bench and let their voices drown out the ones in my head. When I opened my eyes, the sun was out. I leaned over the railing and looked down at the little pond-dwellers.  I smiled as I took in their antics, and felt grateful for the laugh they managed to draw up from my murky depths.

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Free to Speak

~ Sue Downing

While we’re on the topic of epidemics, here’s another one I’ve been reflecting on lately: the epidemic of fear-induced silence.  It’s my own years of chronic suffering with this condition that prompted me to launch this blog, and I’ll fill you in on that in a future post.  For now, though, I want to talk about how endemic I think fear-induced silence is in our society, and about one way we might help each other break free of it.

            It happens pretty frequently that a good friend tells me something important that they are holding in their heart, but are afraid to reveal to another person they’re close to. (For the record, there have also been many times when I’ve been the one doing the revealing.) Whenever I am on the receiving end of this kind of heartfelt sharing, I feel so grateful. The fact that a friend trusts me enough to open up to me feels like a precious gift.  It’s a real joy to hear them express what they need to give voice to, and to see the relief on their face when they’ve gotten everything out. (Also for the record, I feel this same joy when I open up to a friend, and I’m sure the same relief registers on my face.)

            I am quite sure that what I experience with my friends is not an isolated pocket of infection, but, rather, symptomatic of an epidemic of fear-induced silence that has gripped nearly all of us, to varying degrees. Although many types of fear can cause us to fall silent, I believe one specific pathogen lies at the core of this epidemic: the fear that if we speak up and share what we feel a desperate need to share about ourselves, about who we are deep inside, or about our beliefs, then others will dislike – or hate, or reject, or disown –  us for what we’ve expressed, for who we are.   

            I’ve experienced this particular fear more times in my life than I can count. Growing up, I allowed it to gain a stranglehold on me that led me to remain silent on so, so many occasions.  How did this happen? I don’t remember ever being expressly told that I’d experience hideous consequences if I talked about what went on in our household.  Did anyone ever threaten me explicitly not to talk about my father’s alcoholism? Not that I recall. And yet, I kept that secret. Did my father ever warn me I’d suffer even more if I ever revealed his abuse of me? If he did, I don’t remember it.  (Which isn’t all that surprising.) And yet, I told no one about the abuse until I was nearing sixty. That’s how deeply I internalized both the fear of rejection and the habit of silence it led to.

            Silence was a way of life in our family. We responded to everything by keeping quiet about it. Because of this unspoken protocol of silence, I was well into adulthood before I learned why my father’s mother and her sister were not on speaking terms. All I knew, when I was growing up, was this: Grandma and my great-aunt Luella were mad at each other, and we had to seat them far apart at holiday dinners, so they wouldn’t catch sight of each other across the table. It never occurred to me to ask why Grandma and Aunt Luella weren’t on speaking terms.  I just focused on the holiday seating arrangements and asked no questions. I must have intuited that this question was out of bounds. (I’ll tell you what caused the rift, though: Luella revealed to my father’s older sister, Edna, that Edna had been born before her parents were married, and that her father had adopted her after the wedding. Grandma felt that Luella had completely betrayed her trust by revealing this information to Edna.)  I must have concluded that if no one was offering to explain this situation to me – or any other sticky situation, for that matter – then this was just what people did. What everybody did.  Years later, I attributed this information lock-down to a Midwestern tendency to keep private things private, but I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I’d say now that what went on in my family constituted a dovetailing of Midwestern culture with individual trauma responses.

            The fact that the members of my extended family nearly always kept quiet about what was bothering them might have been bearable, if they had practiced quiet, peaceful reticence. Unfortunately, our family silence was of the tense type, and angry. Because of the taboo against bringing up touchy topics, no one said in words that they were upset. We could all feel when something was wrong, though. Even so, no one ever asked, “Is something bothering you?” because we could all also feel the anger beneath the person’s self-imposed silence.  Who would want to dip a toe into that swamp if you could avoid it? So, in the midst of this thick atmosphere of unshared distress and the tension that arose as a result of our emotional isolation from each other, most everything remained unaddressed. After all, how can you resolve anything if you never talk about it?

            Precisely because keeping quiet never led to positive resolutions in my family, the underlying tension and anger just built up inside us. On rare occasions, someone would have just had too much. When this happened, complaints and accusations would suddenly burst forth in vocal volleys. For example, I distinctly recall my mother shouting at my father that he was treating her “like something that crawled out from under a rock”.  There were also the numerous, loud conflicts between my sister and our parents.

            The fury I felt swirling through the house during these confrontations was much, much stronger than the anger that saturated the silence that usually reigned in our house. Always an (already) unspeaking bystander to these conflicts, and never the outburster, I tried to escape by fleeing to my bedroom, but the ramped-up anger easily penetrated the walls. I must have drawn what seemed like an obvious conclusion during one of those moments, as I sat there on my bed, physically cordoned off, but still not protected: If you dare to express discontent with someone else’s actions or views, this person will inevitably let loose a burst of intense anger against you. This prospect terrified me – into silence: I developed a deep fear of speaking my mind, lest I upset someone else and, thus, bring a torrent of fury down upon myself.

            How could it have played out otherwise, given that no one in my family modeled positive, calm ways of expressing or responding to a dissenting opinion or desire? When, “Don’t do that. You’re hurting me!” is not something you ever hear your parents or sister or any of your relatives say to each other, it doesn’t occur to you that this is something you could say. And when, against all odds, you do manage to utter a phrase of this type, but no one stops what they’re doing to you, then you conclude that there’s no point in speaking up, (or even that it will be dangerous to do so). At that point, if you’re me, you stop speaking up.

            But in recent years, I’ve come to understand how essential it is for me – and for all of us! – to find a way to express what we are feeling deep inside, and to feel safe doing so. That’s because when we stay silent about what’s most important to us, silence’s choking grip on us grows gradually tighter and tighter.  This imperils us both physically and mentally, and spiritually, as well. Sooner or later, it will bring us to our knees.  That’s what happened to me this past December, and what provided the impetus for this blog. (As I said before, that’s a story for a future post.) 

            But what do we do if we fear that sharing our innermost feelings and wishes and hopes with some of our family members or friends will bring rejection or elicit an angry or violent response? What if we’re not feeling up to the task of speaking out and dealing with whatever comes? I think most of us have been in this position. I, personally, feel that we are the only ones who can judge when it’s right to hold back from speaking, and when it’s right to take a deep breath and have our say. I just feel that when we do hold back from sharing something we feel strongly about with the people whose reactions we fear, it’s crucial to seek out someone we can open up to, and whom we can trust to respond with love – or at least, with kindness.

            I also believe that, just as each of us needs to have someone we feel safe opening up to, each of us also can be this someone for others in our lives. This can be a tricky role to play, though.  I feel strongly that when our friends do pour out their hearts to us, we need to keep their confidences confidential. Since I’m championing breaking the stranglehold of fear-induced silence here, maybe this seems counter-intuitive. But I don’t think it is. Just because my grandma shared an intimate truth with my great-aunt Luella, that didn’t give Luella the right to share it with my aunt Edna (or anyone else, for that matter). So, when a friend shares something private and sensitive with me, I do my best to recognize how difficult it may have been for them to open up to me. In fact, maybe they managed to do it only because they believed they could count on me to keep whatever they told me confidential. Reminding myself of this helps me be fiercely protective of sensitive information others share with me, just the way I hope they’ll be when I’m the one baring my soul.

            It is a powerfully healing act to give our friends a safe space to speak, and then to commit to a loving reticence that safeguards them. When we do this, we are, together with our friends, transmuting the fear of speaking into the confidence that we can speak up and remain safe. I am grateful beyond words for the people in my life who have helped – and continue to help – me free myself from the grip of the fear that constricted my voice-way for so many decades. What I wonder, then is this: Can we be this loving, listening, transformative, reticent presence for each other? I know we can. I believe we already are. So, let’s keep on doing it! And as we do, know that we’re not just eradicating an epidemic. We’re also creating a strong bond of trust and love that strengthens us all as we move through life.

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Don’t Let the Coronavirus Drive Us Apart

~ Sue Downing

The coronavirus is on everyone’s lips – even as we don masks to keep it from passing our lips. The great majority of the world’s population is still free of the virus at this point, but many, many of us are infected with fear. And this fear of catching the potentially deadly virus is leading us to distance and isolate ourselves from our fellow human beings – at a time when we need each other more than ever.

            It’s our positive connections to others that help us get through life.  Maybe it’s the 30-second conversation we have when we order a coffee at our favorite cafe.   Maybe it’s a heart-to-heart chat with our best friend over that cup of coffee. No matter where they take place, and with whom, these interactions are essential to our well-being, not just emotionally, but physically, too.  Research has shown that people who have these type of connections live longer than those who don’t.

            What does this mean for us, then, living as we are now, in the time of coronavirus? When we may already be avoiding going out of the house in an attempt to avoid germs? When events that might draw large crowds are being cancelled? When towns are announcing that they might need to close schools? As we make these kinds of adjustments in an attempt to protect ourselves from this virus, we are taking steps to safeguard our bodies. But what are we doing to protect our hearts from the terrible – even deadly – consequences of isolating ourselves from the humans who bring joy and life to our lives?

            I got together with a friend for coffee the other day. As we spoke about the coronavirus, we both remarked that we were feeling more aware than usual of the fragility of life. And this awareness left us both feeling very grateful for our friendship, and for the precious connections we have with our other friends and loved ones.

            It just so happens that another friend and I are reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, Love in the Time of Cholera together. One thing that has struck us in the novel is the characters’ devotion to each other, to love, and the necessity they feel to establish and maintain close contact with each other. They pursue these connections in a way that seems both obsessive and entirely natural.  These characters know, without reading any scientific research on the topic, that they will perish without love.  Because we don’t die only from cholera or coronavirus or some other disease. We really can die from lack of human connection and love.  At the same time, the search for loving connection is so clearly tied in the novel to the possibility of death: these characters have no doubt that love might just as easily kill them as save them.

            As I see it, the coronavirus has presented us with a similar conundrum: Leading our lives in the way that feels most satisfying to our hearts –  in frequent contact with those whose company nourishes and satisfies and supports us – means placing ourselves in grave danger: We might end up taking in an invisible pathogen that may sicken or kill us. Certainly, we humans have faced this kind of challenge before.  The Spanish Flu, Ebola, and SARS come to mind from the last 100 years alone.  Not to mention HIV/AIDs, which highlights the potential lethality of a loving connection with such poignancy that it could have sprung from the pages of Márquez’s novel.  

            Coronavirus, though, is the pathogen of this moment. When news stories detail who is most at risk of getting sick, we might be tempted to relieve our fears by contrasting ourselves with members of these populations. “I’m young,” we’ll think. Or, “I don’t live in China.” Or, “I’m not immune-compromised.”  One problem with separating ourselves from others in this way is that we are, in fact, all vulnerable, despite what we may tell ourselves. Another problem is that when we see certain categories of other people as most at risk of contracting this virus, we can easily shift to seeing these same people as a risk to us. Then maybe we start avoiding elderly folks, or our acquaintances who are immune-compromised, or Chinese restaurants, as happened in the town where I live. Maybe we start not just avoiding others, but lashing out against them: Just this morning, I read that an Asian man in London was brutally attacked by four people who shouted that they didn’t want the coronavirus in their country. This is how a pathogen like the coronavirus begins to insidiously drive us apart. As each of the other diseases I mentioned has done, the coronavirus tempts us to view our fellow humans not as people who are vital in some way to our well-being, but, rather, as threats. This, in turn, can cause us to fear interacting with others at the very time when we need the resilience and true comfort that only our connections to each other can give us.

            How, then, do we live “in the time of coronavirus”, given the threat it presents to our physical and heart health? I do believe that washing our hands and minimizing our exposure to already-infected folks are prudent courses of action to take to safeguard our bodies.  But, personally, I’m also striving to not view everyone around me as a potential disease vector. We are all human beings who want to get through this alive. So, let’s all also put as much energy as we can into strengthening and increasing the loving connections between us. Because we need each other!  Maybe we’ll have to talk on the phone more often, instead of getting together in person.  Even just emailing and texting each other are great ways to avoid becoming isolated in fear and loneliness. And this is key, because, although keeping to ourselves might protect our physical health, it’s maximizing our contact with those we love that will keep our hearts happy and healthy. A bonus is that striving to maintain loving connections – with loved ones and strangers alike – supports our bodies’ immune systems, too. In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say that it’s our love for each other that will keep us alive. So, keep in touch, dear ones. Keep in touch.

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