Emptiness Comes to Me as a Friend

I know it can hold a negative connotation, but emptiness – what I call the space between and before my thoughts and actions - is my good friend. We haven’t always been friends; I avoided emptiness for decades because I feared what it might contain. I covered it up with every manner of distraction, from food to busyness to incessant worry to a rich fantasy life. I have felt my blood run cold with dread at the thought of a day without plans. I didn’t take the time to look closely at this dread because I was already running on to the next distraction from it.

I am not using emptiness as synonymous with a quiet mind. I have a daily meditation practice, both solo and in groups, and this practice of structured quiet has nurtured me and grounded me for nearly 30 years. The emptiness I’m referring to is the kind that occurs during the 23 hours of the day when I am not sitting on purpose in silence; the kind that comes up while working, talking with others, driving, etc. It’s an ability to be still in the middle of noise and activity – especially the noise of my own mind. Paradoxically, the emptiness I am talking about has a feeling of activity to it; it’s a stillness that requires an inner vigilance.

Getting in touch with emptiness has been a beautiful and poignant challenge for me. Under the busyness and the ice cream and the scurrying worries of the day, I found a depth of emotions I didn’t know I'd been avoiding. I found terror and anger and panic and shame and greed. (The greed surprised; I always thought of it as an action word rather than an emotion.)  It’s not like I never felt these things before. It’s just that I had always tried my best to skim past them and avoid making eye contact. I nodded curtly or made stilted conversation with them and held my breath a bit until they passed through. I never gave them the space they deserved. I didn’t dare! What if they took over?  But all of these emotions, all of them, are part of me and they were begging for space! BEGGING me for just a little space to be seen. They were asking me for mercy. When I gave them space - safely, mindfully, over time - it felt threatening and it felt vulnerable but offered no actual threat.

For me this is neither fast nor easy nor simple. There is no road map. It requires Presence and willingness, patience and compassion, vigilance and humor, to make space for what has been set aside for so long.

Emptiness comes to me now as a friend. It sometimes brings with it challenging emotions that ask me for space. And when I am able to give them space, that emptiness often brings me peace.

A Kindly Narcissist

I often include an epitaph at the end of my emails: Linda Sanchez, At Ease or Linda Sanchez, Willing to be Empty, etc., depending on what is true for me that day. One of my favorites is Linda Sanchez, A Kindly Narcissist. I love to look at myself in the mirror, I am endlessly fascinated by my own thoughts and behaviors and I generally think very, very highly of myself. A friend who knows me well recently gifted me with the plaque pictured above which lives on my windowsill. This may not qualify me for a classic Narcissist diagnosis, but it does resonate with an attention to self that can seem at odds with the compassion and empathy for others at the root of my spiritual practice.  I am aware of my self-centeredness and how it plays out in my relationships and I am equally aware of my intention to be kind and expansive and compassionate. These things are at play within me at all times. And they are not at cross-purposes; they feed and nurture each other and help make me the Love Delivery System I was meant to be in this world. I may poke fun at my inner narcissist but I also respect and love her. Showing up in love with myself makes room to show up and love others.

I have a practice of writing down the things I love about myself in a journal – one gigantic bulleted love letter to me.  Some of the things I write aren’t particularly or easily loveable and that makes me feel even more driven to acknowledge them and love them. Why should I just love the things that are easy to love? I find that my capacity to love the craggy, sticky, cringey things about myself, has helped make space to love the craggy, sticky, cringey things about others and about the world we share.  

When I hear a critical voice within me, trying to find fault with something I have said or done or thought or believe, it is time to pull out my love letter and give that quality some love. Entries like, “I love the way you manufacture shame again and again and again,” and “I love how motivated you are by the praise of others,” and “I love how you avoid being creative for fear you will be found out as mediocre,” and “I love your spiritual arrogance,” no longer make me blush. They help me make space for what is and to offer resistance to nothing. Naming these parts of myself and embracing them instead of ignoring them gives them their space in the sun to grow and evolve. Every part of us needs this brand of sunshine. Making space for the cringey parts of me helps me fully embrace “I love your capacity to be present,” and “I love the way you respect your own pace and the pace of others,” and “I love the easy affection you feel for strangers.”  As I move through this practice with kindness, the lines between my “good” and “bad” qualities have become blurred; they are all simply a part of what makes me who I am.

Please consider writing a love letter to yourself in whatever form speaks to you. Every bit of love we can offer to ourselves instantly becomes available to share with others.  

What Comes First? Trust or Trustworthiness?

My dog, Seven, lives in a constant state of trust.

I gave someone a compliment this morning from my heart. He’s a leader in his community and he leads with a combination of openness and confidence. He lets others step in to help and, even more impressively, he makes space for others’ leadership styles. I told him I admired his brand of leadership and that because of it, the people around him had space to create and grow what they love. I was glad when he mostly took this compliment in, although he demurred a bit by saying he was surrounded by people he can trust. I was struck instantly with a question. So, what came first? His willingness to trust these people? Or their inherent trustworthiness?

I have an active practice to Trust What Is, and I have found, as I allow this to work through me, that trusting the world has created around me a trustworthy world. Or perhaps this trustworthy world has simply been revealed through the action of my trusting? Perhaps it is a cocreational relationship. I’m less interested in the theory and more interested in the practice. I stopped locking my car doors when I was no longer able to understand why I was doing it. When I looked without fear at the ragged man walking toward me on a dark icy street this winter, I found out that he had noticed my tentative steps on the ice and had come to offer me his arm. Trusting What Is, has shown me the inherent trustworthiness of What Is.  

Some things are easier to trust than others, though I find a certain mindfulness is essential to make space for trusting anything that carries even a slight negative connotation. This morning I was stopped for speeding while on the way to my group meditation practice. A parade of emotions marched right through me as I pulled over and retrieved my license and registration: fear, defensiveness, resignation, embarrassment, and more. I reminded myself to trust this experience, and that meant the officer found an open curious relaxed driver when he looked in my window. He told me I was doing 47mph in a 30mph zone. I gasped, chagrined, at my lack of mindfulness, especially considering where I was heading; speeding on the way to sit for silent meditation is sort of like binging on a half gallon of icecream before starting a juice fast. We ended up talking about the empty winding road we were on and how often he found himself way over the speed limit as well. We talked about how easy it is to get distracted while driving. He seemed to care about me and the other drivers on this road. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a police officer in that light before. He gave me a warning, for which I was grateful and I think if he had given me a ticket, I would have found a way to harvest gratitude there too.

When I am willing and able to trust the people and experiences in my path, I am gifted with a clear reflection of that trust. And the leader who gracefully received my compliment this morning? I know his capacity to trust has helped create a team of trustworthy leaders around him.

What is Here Belongs Here

When a Truth comes to me so clearly and fully as this one - what is here belongs here - I have the practice of writing it in dry-erase marker on my bathroom mirror. I think it’s my attempt to make it more solid, to introduce it to the three-dimensional world. I want to see it looking back at me boldly. The mirror I write on is in my guest bathroom, so I know others might see it. Depending on who’s coming to visit, this can create some mild anxiety around sharing a certain depth of vulnerability. I usually make space for this anxiety, shrug my shoulders and move on. By the time the guests arrive, I usually have forgotten that I’ve written the message.

But the thought of others reading this particular message, What is Here Belongs Here, stayed with me. I wondered that if my guests read it they might think I was talking about the actual objects in the room, a warning of sorts to keep their hands off my soap and tissues! An anti-theft variation on “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat. “

Only very seldom do folks remark on what I’ve written. I wonder if some may not be able to see it. That they are literally blind to the message? My friend Jean once told me that she didn’t look at the messages because she thought it would be an invasion of my privacy. This made me glow with the remembered awareness that we have no idea what others’ inner lives are like. It also made me snort with laughter! Me, who looks and touches and comments on everything in my path!

This Truth, though, is not about the objects in my bathroom. It’s about our world, both inner and outer. No matter how devastatingly beautiful or heart-openingly ugly it appears, if it is here, it belongs here. And our salvation lies in making space for it all and resisting nothing. That means making space for the sorrows and the joys. That crescent moon hanging in a midday sky of a blue you can’t believe exists? That belongs here. That shame? Of a past act committed by someone you wish was not you? That belongs here. That activity in our nation’s capitol? That makes you gasp with horror and fear? That belongs here. That pain in your shoulder, that reminds you that mortality really is a thing? That belongs here. That kindness you witnessed yourself offering to another? That makes you blush with pride? That belongs here. All of it is asking for space to be acknowledged and seen.

What if there was nothing to get past? Nothing to change? And the only activity needed is to allow and give space for what is here? In my world, this space-giving takes precedence over every other thing. It clears my blindness, softens my inner workings and helps me see the world as a place of creativity and possibility. It leaves me free to act, when acting is necessary, from a place of peace and to make choices based on what I love rather than on what I fear.

Try it. Maybe. See what you think. This Truth is for all of us. (Unlike my bathroom toiletries - those are mine!)

No Place Like Home

I attend the Universalist Unitarian Church of Haverhill, which is right down the street from my house. I mention that it is right down the street from my house because that matters. A lot. It offers a resolution – in metaphor form - for the searching I have always done. I’ve searched for something outside of myself, something that exists in another person or another community or even another realm. For me, this comes from a deeply stored belief that that which is most important or valuable or wise or brilliant lies somewhere outside of us, or far away, or is unattainable. After a lifetime of consciously and unconsciously searching for a spiritual community, finding this church home so effortlessly located in my neighborhood, has inadvertently forced me to accept my own inimitable beauty and to pause the interminable search for what I already have. I second guessed (and still kind of do) that such a connected open church community is in MY neighborhood. Shouldn’t I have to travel to India? Or at least Boston to find what is of such deep and resonant value? To find a place where I feel accepted and seen and am put to use? Every Sunday I channel my inner (albeit middle-aged) Judy Garland as I tap my comfortable shoes together and realize that my spiritual home has never been lost and has lived within me all the time.

Do you want to live inside the problem? Or would you rather live from the solution?

I give myself the magnificent gift of time to spend connecting deeply with people; old friends, new friends and strangers. In my travels this week, I was struck by the different and wonderful ways in which individuals express themselves. And how often, when given the time to share, these beloveds choose to tell the stories of how they have been hurt, or of their disappointments, or even in recounting the minutiae of doctor’s appointments, test results and bewildered sadness about the frailty of these bodies that house us.

I listen to their pain stories and I see their pain and their wish for things to be different. And I also ask myself why they choose to use their precious moments recounting the ills that are besieging them. I know they do it because these pain stories are where they live and that they make up their reality.

What if there were a way to live free from that attention to pain? What if we could live in the uncluttered space that I know exists around it and within it, before it and after it?

We are wise and intuitive beings. So why do we live so often from this suffering? I think we choose it because it is serving us deeply. It is supplying us with fuel and intention and purpose and…well, whatever we think we need.

Of course, these beloved people are my mirror and help me see how often I choose to live in this pain as well. With this insight, it was easy to see a pain story I have been living from for the last six months. That’s right: six months! I took some time to explore and write in my journal about what needs were being filled from this pain story. I realized it was offering me quite a lot: it provided drama, excitement, an opportunity to explore issues with my parents, a focal point when things got a little boring and more. It became clear to me that in order to move through my pain story I would need to not only stop dwelling on my pain story and to get these needs filled in other ways.

If you are drawn to explore this topic, I suggest the following:
Scan your life situation for something that causes suffering. Choose something small - maybe a situation with a coworker or conflict with a friend. Contemplate this situation and allow yourself to feel the suffering without judgement. Ask yourself where this suffering lives in your body and try to feel it. Try to see if this pain story is offering you something. Try to be objective as if you were looking at a box of sea shells and describing them. Try to stay open, you might be surprised at what you discover!

A Lesson from My Singing Bowl

I have this gorgeous Tibetan singing bowl, a gift from my husband James, sitting on our pellet stove. It has been there so long that it blends into the scenery. I barely notice it and haven't touched it in quite a while. Today, it sang out to me and asked me to play it. It had been so long that I stumbled a bit in remembering how to play it. Which side of the striker do I use? Then do I run the striker along the base? The top? Inside?

When I got over my self consciousness (yeah, I was alone but that definitely doesn't rule out self consciousness.) I gave the bowl a good tap with the striker. The sound was pleasant enough, but it didn't have the resonant silkiness that I associate with the singing bowl. So I tapped it again. Then I banged it. Then I banged it again. Something wasn't right.

Suddenly I remembered that the tiny silk pillow that it sits upon is not only decorative but functional as well. I sat my lovely bowl down upon her pillow and I tapped the bowl again. Ah....yes! There it was - that ancient vibrational hum coursing through me as it sang.

I thought about that little pillow and the important role that its softness played in calling forth the resonance of the hard bowl. And because I see the world in metaphor form it reminded me of the important role that softness plays in us in general. How when we offer a tiny softness to the hard edges of our lives, it gives us more space to meet those edges and grow from them.  

This has particular meaning for me lately. In the months following the election and the inauguration, anxiety has often felt like a constant companion to me. Sometimes I feel it like a physical pain in my gut or excessive tension in my shoulders. Sometimes, my mind runs amok with stories and down paths of fear. Today my singing bowl reminded me of the importance of offering a deep softness and acceptance for those parts of me - the parts that are hurt and in pain. When experiencing anxiety and pain, my first thought has often been, "Go Away! I don't want you." But I am done pushing parts of myself away. Instead, when I cushion these hard edges with softness, remembering to whisper "you belong here" to my stomach pain, and "thank you" to my monkey mind, it gives them the acceptance they need to do the work that they are here to do for me. 

Together, hard and soft, I make up this complex being. Accepting every part of me, makes it possible for me to sing the true song the world needs to hear from me. 

Holy Crap - I think I just achieved enlightenment!

A couple of years ago, I attended an event at my yoga center. It was a talk given by a venerated Tibetan monk, whose smile made us all felt like we were being hugged. During the Q & A, a women raised her hand and said, "My husband tells me I am never going to achieve enlightenment, but I think I can. What do you think?" This question has amused and haunted me since.

My initial response regarded that rake husband of hers. I thought, "Lose that zero and get yourself a hero!" But honestly that was my second or third response. My first was more like, "How ballsy! You think you are going to achieve enlightenment? You? In your yoga pants, driving your Toyota, paying your bills, fixing your hair in the mirror, caring immensely about what others think, YOU think you are going to get there?" (Insert photo of me here, by the way.) I was surprised at how quickly I found myself secretly scoffing at her aspirations.  And a part of me was embarrassed for her willingness to ask such a question. "Why is she looking outside of herself for such an answer? What guru or master or monk can know anything more than what we know of ourselves?" Sigh.

It's been more than two years since I watched my thoughts churn that day. And I have changed a lot. Now, it is easier for me to think, "Who else if not her?" Indeed, "Who else if not me?" Didn't the Buddha tell us, "I wouldn't teach you of this, if you could not achieve it."

This very morning at yoga, our instructor had us do some tapping and energy work. We tapped all of our chakras for quite a long time. But after just a moment of tapping my heart chakra, I felt an openness in my heart. My heart needed no more tapping. Clear light was coming from and through my heart chakra. it was pouring out of me, into my open palms, spilling out into the room. i experienced such pure openness and such a sacred quiet. And a power too. i knew in that moment that I could share this with everyone I touched. That i owned this. I thought, "Holy crap - I think I just achieved enlightenment!" And, my human mind - also known as my problem maker -  jumped in and went to work with this new information, reconciling, planning, extrapolating and organizing  - and asking questions. How long will this last? What will happen if it goes away? Is this real? 

Somewhere between my overflowing heart and my problem-seeking mind, I exist.  I have a new idea: maybe enlightenment isn't an end product, but a moment. Maybe it occurs only right here and right now and does not reference time whatsoever. Maybe, it is a simple answer like the one the venerated monk with the beautiful smile gave the woman at my yoga studio years ago, "Yes. Yes, you can achieve enlightenment."

Striving Toward Imperfection

I am a true perfectionist. and I say that from the singular, steely perspective of a true perfectionist. I need the words to be true before I can say them. Perfectly true. You get my meaning, right? As a perfectionist, I sometimes demand so much from myself, from others and from the situation that I can become semi-paralyzed, frozen, by my own impossible demands. This is limiting to say the least. 

Part of my journey in this lifetime has been to release this perfectionism. I want more ease! I want more lightness! And it has come to me. It's come through forcing myself to play more, through adopting dogs and doing yoga and spending time with people who encourage me to give myself a break. 

I'm proud of the strides I've made toward imperfection. And I am not without moments of that steely grip that wants to hold me back from letting this very moment be ok as it is. (Yeah, my perfectionist self, wants me to do imperfection better.)

On that note, I am launching this blog  in a very imperfect state.  Because I am never going to get it all done, Because my words are never going to come out perfectly, And because typos are a part of life. Enjoy!