STAY!

I woke up after a good night's rest, and once again picked up Geneen Roth's book "Women, Food, and God".  For a while now, I have been stuck on the chapter "Never Underestimate the Inclination to Bolt".  I find many things to do other than reading these days.  I check e-mail, go on-line, make phone calls, watch tv, play scrabble or Words with Friends on my iPad.  Or I create a mess in my kitchen or a mess in my mind. All this to escape the worrying, and the feeling of being frightened out of my mind. Anything to distract me from feeling what I'm feeling these days.  Which is exactly what Geneen's book is about!  Even though the main focus of the book is about weight, it speaks to exactly what is going on with me.  I don't want to feel what I'm feeling, and face what I'm facing, so I distract myself or as she puts it "bolt" from myself.

Many years ago at a workshop with Oriah Mountain Dreamer (you might have read her poem "The Invitation), she took us through a deep meditation to find what she calls "our one word".  The process blew my mind.  As we went deep into an imaginary and beautiful underworld, the word "STAY" kept getting in the way of where my mind was taking me.  I wanted to go back to that meditative beautiful place, but a billboard went up (in my mind) with the word "STAY" on it.  I tried to get around it but couldn't.  Then it hit me, this was my word!!!  But what did it mean???  I wanted some flowery word like: grace, beauty, compassion, love, or peace.  But instead I got "STAY".  I assumed that for me it meant, to stay with myself.  To not runaway from who I am.  But I've continued to run, and probably faster and faster every year.

So, this morning I'm reading Geneen's book. Every line in this chapter speaks to me and then she starts talking about what it means to stay.

"When you stay, you question what you've never questioned:  the you you take yourself to be.  The you who is not your past, not your habits, not your compulsions.  Anything becomes possible.  Even living through extraordinary pain."

We all have ways of bolting from our own lives, with either drugs, alcohol, food, work, sex, money, internet, religion, or denial. We love to distract ourselves by watching other people's lives (reality TV), or obsessing over our kid's lives, or our spouses life, or our friends life.  And of course, a favorite distraction is complaining about what our government is doing wrong, or condemning other people.

Sorry, I didn't mean to get off on a tangent.  But all that we are exposed to is just too much. We can't take it all in.  Every day we hear about terrible things going on in the world.  Prior to the communication revolution, we only knew what was going on in our own little place in the world, and that was enough.  This morning I woke up, turned on my computer to do some writing and I'm faced with the headline "Huge Quake and Tsunami Hit Japan".  I'm immediately devastated by this news. How many people have died??  What is happening with our planet??  I feel helpless.

My problems are so big one moment, and the next moment so small.  As my money disappears, my fear increases and I find that I'm distracting myself rather than going into the fire.  I have to get through this challenging time with my mom, and my finances, and my fears about the World. Yes, I feel embarrassed, stupid, dysfunctional.  Yes, I made many mistakes and could have done things different.  Yes, I've had bad things happen to me, and terrible things happen in our World.  But I am who I am.  Without money I'm still me.  Aren't I?????

As Deepak Chopra tweeted yesterday "The sole cause of death is birth".

I am here on this earth today. I will survive until I die.  I will live my best life today.

I'm sending prayers to all effected by the devastation in Japan.  And sending love to all of you, who walk with me on this sometimes treacherous path of life.  Let's walk towards each other and ourselves, and not run away.