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Corona Diaries: My Re-Discovery of Meaning

The incoming, unpredictable tides shift the sandy grains of my mind. One moment I'm feeling as if I can do this, and a few moments later it's as if the shutdown shutting me down.

Such is my daily grind in recent weeks. I haven't felt like writing, and the creative juices have tasted mostly bitter, if even present at all.

I have had to mind my mood, but most days it feels like my mood is minding me. It's temperamental and petulant, impulsive and unpredictable. Just when I feel like I'm getting a grip, a wave of je ne sais quoi hits me and the relentless tide is pulling me out to stormy seas. And trust me, these seas are rough.

I wonder why I can't get a hold of myself, why I can't navigate these waters. After all, I understand mental health. I have fairly good coping skills and decent spiritual practices. I have dedicated most of my life to helping others navigate difficult times. So why can't I tame these lions roaring in my soul?

I am fairly convinced these lions don't want to be tamed. They prefer to roam my inner savanna, preying on my emotional vulnerability, devouring any mental stability.

Fifty-seven days into stay-at-home I'm basically just as mystified by this experience as I was at the beginning. What is going on? I ask myself. I feel frustrated and cantankerous--and this is on the better days. On the bad ones, keep your distance!

I've self-diagnosed myself with Pandemic Personality Disorder. I'm not sure who I am when I wake up or what day it is.  (To be clear, I lost the day of the week around Day 11, and I'm pretty sure, my solid sense of self around Day 18.)

One's interior world can be a dicey game. It takes exceptional coping skills to bounce back from the barrage of daily Twitter tirades, Facebook rants, media spin, and the mindless malaise that consumes most our days.

Mainly, we've lost our markers. We've lost our syncopated rhythm of life.  We can't gather for holidays, birthday celebrations, dinner parties, religious services, or nights-out-on-the-town. This loss of meaningful interactions is causing our souls to wander and wane.

Interiority longs for meaning, and the normal rites and rituals that produce meaning have been stripped of us. So we feel a profound loss, even though we can't always readily identify exactly what that loss is.

Psychologists call this ambiguous loss, the loss that occurs when we are denied a normal sense of ending, closure or resolve. We search for answers, and they are denied us. The longing and searching that results from ambiguous loss make us very, very weary.

The Irish poet John O'Donohue writes, When weariness becomes gravity, it destroys your natural soul protection. He says we become like Sisyphus of the underworld: condemned to an eternity of rolling the huge boulder up the hill, only to have it slip and come crashing back down, then doomed to repeat it again.

This weight of weariness has chipped against our natural soul protection. That's a big part of what we are feeling. We've lost some of our soul armor. It's been chipped away as the days melt into weeks, the weeks melt into months.

So I've set out to combat said weariness and fortify the walls of my inner castle. I've been giving back where I can: donating to food banks, delivering hot meals to shut-ins, and providing telephonic support to elders who are isolated home alone.

I am meditating more--sometimes with music, other times with a guided podcast.  I'm finishing the stack of unread books on the nightstand that have been beckoning the last year. I continue checking in with family and friends in urban as well as rural areas, because those in the heartland increasingly realize that what has faced us in NYC may now be lying in wait at their doorstep.

All this provides me meaning and the unexpected benefit of getting me out of my head.

In short, I've decided to make myself available--more available for service, support, and hopefully, some substance. Perhaps unlike Sisyphus, I can choose to not push that boulder up the hill. I can put down the weight of weariness by doing something different, creating meaningful moments on days threatened by meaningless. 

Today I awoke with the usual existential dread, but it rolled away as I moved about. Life wasn't as heavy as it was the day before. It awakened with new meaning.

My Experience from the Epicenter

The silence day and night is really only punctuated by the intermittent sound of sirens passing by on Sixth Avenue below. Normally the noise of traffic is so loud it penetrates the re-enforced windows of the apartment. But not the last few weeks.

I also now notice the church bells a few blocks away. They toll on the hour, and on any other day I wouldn't hear them. But now they have become to me a regular reminder to still my soul, silence my mind, and go to that place in my spirit where I find solace.

The streets are eerily quiet, like the photo I took from my balcony mid-afternoon today. When I do go out for groceries, I avoid the few people I see on the street. The only people who do approach me are the homeless or mentally ill who seem more desperate now than in non-pandemic times.

I haven't wanted to put anything in writing about what it's like to live in the heart of Midtown Manhattan in the current epicenter of the pandemic. It feels insensitive and narcissistic to share my experience when I don't know anyone personally who has passed away. Yet.

It's really just a matter of time, I suppose.

So I measure my words, manage my emotion, and stay as focused as possible throughout the day. And I pen these thoughts right now because so many lovely friends and family from across the world have checked in wanting to know how I am doing.

Yesterday I did a mental tally of the people I know personally who have gotten the virus. I stopped counting because it was too overwhelming. There were just too many.

It's likely many more of us--myself included--have been exposed and resolved with little symptoms. At least that's what I hope for. 

My social media feed is filled with accounts of friends and acquaintances who are suffering immeasurably. In between those talking about their own illness--or their friend who died-are the reports of healthcare workers, most of whom I know personally. They share their experiences of vulnerability and courage of being on the front line, working to save lives, fighting for us all. 

As of Thursday, it's been 21 days stay-at-home for me. And while I would like to say this has gotten easier, it really hasn't. The pathos is great. My heart is heavy.

It feels a little like the movie Groundhog Day. Not working takes away the normal markers so that weekdays flow into weekends. I've forgotten the day of the week more than once.

But, this is not Groundhog Day. This is real life. This is the new normal--at least for a few more weeks to come.

I try to stay consistent with my spiritual practice. That is what grounds me. It's where I find my strength to not give into the dark abyss of fear and uncertainty.

When I silence the chatter of my mind, it's as if I can then feel the pain of those suffering throughout NYC. So I breathe in and out, trusting my sighs are sacred and might somehow carry peace and healing to others in need.

The virus teaches me how very much connected the whole world really is.  We are all in this together. No woman or man is an island, even though we practice social distancing and maintain two meters apart.

At this time I'm not overly worried about Ian or myself. He is doing an amazing job in the medical response at Bellevue, fighting this demon on the front line. He is an American hero. An evening doesn't go by that we don't shed some tears when processing our day. We weep for ourselves, for our friends, and for our city. We weep as well for the sick, the suffering, and the dying.

I am mostly concerned about my friends and family across the country, especially in states and regions where the government hasn't responded early enough. I am not convinced that everyone realizes how overwhelming this thing is. And I want them to be prepared for the coming tsunami.

Having said that, I am not sure you can really ever be fully prepared. You say a prayer, take a deep breath, and then go and do your very best.

This is what my Grandpa Benz meant when he would say, "Put legs to your prayers." The Great Depression and World War II taught his generation how to do that. I hope we can learn how to as well.

During this time, I remind myself of my deeply held values, foremost, that all life is sacred and connected. And it is the responsibility of those in positions of authority to enact measures to protect the vulnerable in our society, especially in times of pandemic and national crisis.

It disturbs me when I see this not happening.

I'm angry because some parts of federal and local governments did not do their part early enough to heed the words of scientists, medical doctors, and public health officials who were sounding the alarm.

I'm disgusted that many people were posting online that the mainstream media was sensationalizing the threat.

I'm alarmed that people minimize what is now upon us and compare this to the flu. This is not the flu. 

I'm sad that those sick in hospital can't see the compassionate faces of their care givers due to protective masks.

I'm overwhelmed at the thought that people are dying alone without their loved ones by their side.

I'm shocked that some people can't even go to the morgue to touch their deceased loved one and say goodbye.

I'm beside myself that pastors are holding church services in the name of religious freedom when in reality the are placing people in harm's way. These snake oil salesman misrepresent God and profiteer off their congregations. They abdicate the high calling on their lives.

I'm undone because none of this should be this way. It shouldn't be happening here. But it is.

I trust that as a nation we will take a long moral inventory when this is over and make changes. Because after this, everything must change.

I also humbly recognize that my strong emotion will not change things. For now, it only serves to tie me up in knots of angst and anxiety.

So I choose to let it go and refrain from engaging in online arguments. People often speak from a place of fear, ignorance, or invincibility. It is not my job to correct those with whom I do not have ongoing relationship. Thank goodness for that!

My emotional energy is better served in building up those around me, encouraging those who are in fear, and connecting with those who feel so very alone. 

It's as Governor Cuomo said a few days ago, we need partnership over partisanship.

Because the new patriots are agents of healing, not agents of war.

So I gather together the distressed parts of my soul and remind myself, this is hard but we are in this together. We are not alone.

I lift my gaze and shore up my optimism that we will get through this.

I count my blessings.

I make my gratitude list.

I check in with friends and family.

I choose to be gentle with myself and show compassion to the weak.

I look for the helpers.

When I hear about someone who has died, I say their name out loud, giving witness to the Universe that this person's life matters and they did not die in vain.

And I as hear the screeching of sirens and the tolling of bells, I allow this experience to work something within me greater and deeper than I have experienced before. 

 

 

 

Some Post-Election Thoughts on Gratitude

I recently was invited to share some thoughts on "gratitude during difficult times" at Marble Collegiate Church in NYC. Marble has a rich history in the USA, founded in 1628 as well as the congregation of the great preacher and motivational speaker Norman Vincent Peale. 

Here is some of what I shared. It is helping me post-election as I prepare for Thanksgiving and the Holiday Season. (Please forgive the writing style as this was delivered via spoken word.)

I've been more conscientious recently about living from a place of gratitude. Mostly because this year I transitioned career paths and re-located back to NYC from Fort Lauderdale after being away for 7 years. It's been a big, exciting, thrilling, life change but it hasn't been without struggles along the way. 

Now one would think in my line of work that gratitude would just come naturally to me. I've worked in the religious world plus secular, clinical settings and people for a long while have looked to me for inspiration whether through writing, blogging, or speaking. I've even taught the spiritual practice of gratitude to patients in a residential healthcare setting.

But I've got news: for the most part, gratitude doesn't come naturally to me. I find it more often than not a choice.

I must choose to be grateful. I must choose to celebrate life. I must choose to live life intentionally and not be dictated by the winds of emotion. I'm wired emotionally and I sometimes find myself swept away when circumstances aren't lining up perfectly to my liking.

Emotions are a funny thing. I find they usually are not right or wrong--in a moral sense, that is. They are more markers or indicators of what may or may not be happening on a deeper level within me.

Sometimes emotions might be hormonally-induced and no indicator of outward circumstances at all.

Sometimes I wonder if they are influenced by the alignment of the planets spinning around us, exerting invisible, forceful pressure on us that's way out of our finite control.

I mean, did you see that Supermoon the other night?  Think about it: if the moon controls the tides of the oceans, who's to say that the planets can't also impact us internally? Is there a planet-soul connection to our existence? Boy, that would give me a good scapegoat when I'm in a particularly foul mood. You know, blame it on the moon!

Mostly though, I think emotions may be full-on indicators telling us to change our environment or challenging us to change ourselves. That, my friends, is more easily said than done.

That's why I think choosing to be grateful is so important. A positive affirmation or statement of thanks can help to shift dodgy emotions--especially when we enter the Holiday season and discover that our lives don't necessarily line up with the idyllic Christmas special on the Hallmark Channel.

I have a former colleague who lives this way. She's survived cancer, addiction, and the death of her son. And she would still smile at me when I see her and say, "It's a beautiful day, I'm alive!."

She reminds me that any day I'm alive is a beautiful day. And guess what? Any day that you are alive is a tremendously beautiful one too. That realization doesn't mean I'm going to feel great all the time. But it does mean that when I experience difficulty I can choose hope over despair, gratitude over grumbling, thankfulness over complaints. I've learned my complaints don't change my circumstances, they merely bring me down. And I prefer being up over being down. That's one of the reasons I've enjoyed Marble Church the last several months. When I'm down, the music, worship, and motivational preaching bring me up!

So I remind myself to be grateful. I remind myself to be thankful. Gratitude is the attitude that changes me internally so that I can navigate what's going around me externally. I choose gratitude today.

After all, it's a beautiful day, I'm alive!

And guess what? It's a beautiful day, and you are alive!

I'm Just Getting Started

I went into 2016 knowing intuitively the New Year would produce some big change in my life. I'm not sure how I knew, but I knew.

I also anticipated that it would be something good. I knew change had to come because I felt myself increasingly frustrated professionally which then impacted me personally. I mean I had had a good life in the sun, a decent paycheck, and beautiful studio loft in Fort Lauderdale. But I was ready for a new challenge.

I became more and more restless--even cantankerous--as the year moved on. The addictions industry I worked in was becoming very troubling: corporate investors, insurance companies, and patient brokers were making it harder and harder on those doing quality work. At times, I had to engage unprofessional and unethical people. So even more restlessness ensued. Something had to give.

Doors would crack open and then suddenly slam with a thud. Spring was particularly difficult. At one point I became very despondent and disillusioned. The inner critic in my head had a field day.  It was easy to be very hard on myself.

My dad wisely commented that a closed door is not always bad, it's just a re-direction. 

Luckily, those closed doors provided re-direction back to NYC. In many ways, returning here has been the restoration of a dream that I think I may have forgotten. 

So in recent weeks I'm filled with gratitude anew. I'm also reflecting on what kind of legacy I want to live at this phase of my life. It's definitely a new chapter, and I want to write it right.

Here are some personal questions I've been reflecting on:

• What can I do to give back to society, to make a difference, to bring about positive change, and to work for justice?
• What can I contribute to the world that comes out of my own experience? 
• Where can I plant seeds in a garden, which I may cultivate, but never harvest? 
• What am I going to do with the time I have left?

I'm grateful for the last seven years in South Florida. I'm certainly not slowing down. In fact, I'm just getting started.

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Yes to Uncertainty, Yes to Adventure

On the unofficial start of summer, I'm contemplating change, risk-taking, and uncertainty. 

I'm generally pretty comfortable with change. I embrace it. I roll with it the best I can.

That strategy is helpful because in behavioral healthcare where I work there is constant change. It's not the most stable of industries. Private investors, corporate mergers and acquisitions, and changing healthcare laws and insurance policies require great flexibility.

I find too that sometimes life thrusts change upon you without checking in with you first. The rules change. What you anticipated happening, doesn't.

You can fight the current of change. Or you can ride the wave and let it take you where it may. I can try to control the process or instead trust the process. I find the latter easier but it requires a lot of letting go, risk-taking, and being okay with uncertainty.

My dad said yesterday that people of faith are okay with uncertainty. I try to anticipate unexpected things so as to navigate them better.

But it doesn't always work that way. In times of uncertainty I find the foundation of faith in my life very helpful. I go back to my core values and do the next right thing.

This doesn't mean I don't feel fear or anxiety. Courageous people feel the fear and do it anyway.

Courageous people do the right next thing in the face of the uncertainties. They take the risk. They jump out of the boat, and find they indeed can walk on water. And if they do go under, they learn to float and flow in the current because there's no shame in sinking. It's what makes us human. We go under and rise back up.

The American write and mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote, "The big question is whether you are going to say yes to your adventure...We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

This summer I'm saying 'yes' to the life that awaits me. I'm saying 'yes' to change, risk-taking, and uncertainty. 

I believe the adventure is well worth it.

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Embracing Winds of Change

For the last few months, I've been contemplating what change looks like in my life. I came across these quotes this morning in my readings and thought them worth sharing.

From Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, April 19:

Is it possible we're being prepared for a new "normal"? Change will sweep through our life, as needed, to take us where we're going. We can trust that our Higher Power has a plan in mind, even when we don't know where the changes are leading. We can trust that the change taking place is good. The winds will take us where we need to go.

I can trust that where I end up will be much better than where I was previous. I can trust that there is more good in life than there is bad and that that Goodness is guiding and leading me as I surrender, trust, and accept.

And from Fr. Richard Rohr's Meditation, April 19:

The spiritual experience is about trusting that when you stop holding yourself, Inherent Goodness will still uphold you. Many of us call that God, but you don't have to. It is the trusting that is important. When you fall into such Primal Love, you realize that everything is foundationally okay. Unfortunately, this is often absent in our secular world today. 

I sometimes feel like I must hold everything together and fully understand everything in order to navigate it. I think that's unneeded pressure. It's in the "not knowing" that we can gain a higher understanding. I think that's the design of Life. When I stop resisting, I receive what I need. When I stop striving, I arrive more easily at the best destination.

So for today, I choose to not resist. I choose to raise my sails and let the winds carry me in the direction I need to be. I trust that, indeed, all is well. 

Clarity

My friend Sarah texted me a "word for the day" this morning:

Clarity.

It was well-timed because I've been seeking for greater clarity recently. Clarity of vision. Clarity in purpose. Clarity in relationships. Clarity at work. 

For me, I need clarity because it helps me align with what I believe is my mission in life.

Sometimes it's hard to see clearly on life's journey. I've found returning to spiritual practices helps. I've been reading more, meditating more, and reflecting more. 

I've also been mindful to not get caught up in my head too much. I've said it before: the worst place I can be is to be caught up in my own thoughts.

Exercise helps me with that. So does reaching out to friends and loved ones for support.

I'm grateful for friends like Sarah. I'm also grateful that while sometimes we "see through a glass dimly", when we ask for clarity it will come. Maybe not in the timing that I'd like. But certainly in the best way possible.

I trust that to be so.

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And Grace Appears

The following post is part of a talk I am giving on Friday, May 29, 2015 at the South Florida Spiritual Care Network lunch, an association of clinicians, counselors, clergy, law enforcement, elected officials, and other helping professionals.

Trauma is anything less than nurturing.

--Commonly heard definition for trauma in the clinical counseling community

If this definition is right, then we all have been traumatized on some level, and we all have some healing work to do. I often tell my clients when complaining about their lot in life, "Welcome to Planet Earth." While it may sound cheeky, it does help them to wake up to the idea that life on this planet does not exempt us from problems. In fact, being born on this planet ensures it. Mother Nature can be hostile. So can our own families and loved ones. So can our friends and enemies. So can we ourselves.

How do we bounce back from less-than-nurturing experiences?

Often, those of us in the healing professions are the last to personally apply our own work. We somehow delude ourselves into thinking that as we help others heal, we too are being healed. 

And while it's a spiritual truth that in giving, we receive (the Prayer of St. Francis), this truth can't be activated in our lives until we practice another truth: we can only impart that which we have already received.

In short, we have to have it before we can give it to another.

But this begs to ask the question: where do helpers go for help? Where do we receive the strength, knowledge, healing, insight, and awareness to light the paths of those who come to us seeking to come out of their own personal darkness? How do we walk in the light and bring others into it as well?

I've found head knowledge is not enough. Intellectually knowing a healing technique or principle is very different than experiencing it. All of the education in the world might produce a lot of useful information but still in the end be very insufficient to transform the heart.

I suppose it's that aspiration for personal transformation that drives us forward.  I know it does me. I find great fulfillment in seeing others transform their lives.

You see, those who work with me--especially those who know me well--understand that most everything I do in life, I do with intensity.

I work hard.

I play hard.

I relate hard.

I strive hard.

I sleep hard.

I weep hard.

I laugh hard.

I give with everything in my being. Rarely do I hold back.

I do so because this creates for a more nuanced and meaningful existence--at least for me.

I do so because I'm convinced that if I'm giving my all then I've done my best and hopefully made a difference in my world.

This last weekend I was walking home from a restaurant and I had an Aha! moment. 

It went something like this: I can do anything I want to do. I don't have to do everything I want.

Sometimes it's as if for me the law of scarcity takes over. I have to make up for lost time. I have to do and experience everything because there might not be another chance. We aren't promised a tomorrow. All we have is today. So carpe diem, baby!

But my Aha! moment woke me up again to the idea that I can choose to not do the things I really like to do. I can rest in the place of being. In fact, just being is a phenomenal choice to connect me to myself and those around me. In that moment of my Aha! moment, scarcity vanished, and grace appeared.

I don't know how it appeared, but it did. This feeling of wellbeing came over me. I slowed down my harried and hurried pace. I noticed more the warmth of the sun on my face. I was more aware of the people passing me on the sidewalk. I felt more centered, more grounded, more connected, more calm, more alive.  As my dad sometimes says, it was like I was being saved all over again. Saved from the bondage of self. Saved to live again. Renewed, resurrected, reborn, born again, all at once. In a moment, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, grace appeared.

Now how does one define grace? I was rhetorically asking my friend Richard this, just this morning. He was on his way to take care of something that we--his wife, Lisa, other close friends, and I--had been praying and hoping for, for a while. 

I suddenly blurted, "I'm not sure we can define grace, we can only experience it."

Grace is something to be experienced.

We experience grace when we journey with others.

We experience grace when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and we aren't quite as afraid as we used to be.  

We experience grace when we embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly in our lives and come to understand that everything belongs.

We experience grace when we realize that we are finite and infinitely powerful all at the same time.

We experience grace when we come to our wit's end and discover that the way out was there all along.

We experience grace when we survive hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and natural disasters--both literal and metaphorical--and come out on the other side grateful for the deeper life lessons we have learned.

We experience grace in the dark night of the soul, when the angry angst of human isolation, abandonment, and shame seek to snuff out our inner light, and we then suddenly realize that when forsaken and alone, we find ourselves in the best company ever.

We experience grace when the inner demons rant and rave and rage and have less power over us than they did before.

We experience grace when we face the inevitable mortality of those close to us and that of ourselves.

We experience grace when we risk vulnerability and share our stories with others and they with us. 

We experience grace when we think our story is over and discover it's only just begun.

Grace is a uniquely human experience. Grace is all around. Grace is within you, within me, within all of us. Grace is already there.  Grace comes when we ask. Grace even comes when we don't ask.

That's the beauty of grace.

I work hard, and grace appears.

I play hard, and grace appears.

I relate hard, and grace appears.

I strive hard, and grace appears.

I sleep hard, and grace appears.

I weep hard, and grace appears.

I laugh hard, and grace appears.

I give with everything in my being, and grace appears.

I live life fully, and grace appears.

I slow down and breathe, and grace appears.

I do nothing, and yes, grace appears.

So I return to my original questions:

How do we bounce back from less-than-nurturing experiences? Where do helpers go for help? Where do we receive the strength, knowledge, healing, insight, and awareness to light the paths of those who come to us seeking to come out of their own personal darkness? How do we walk in the light and bring others into it as well? 

I don't have easy answers to these questions but I do think grace has a lot to do with it. I today choose to surround myself with gracious people. I choose gracious, compassionate and kinds thoughts toward myself and others. I endeavor to live a more gracious way of life.

I offer others the strength and favor I have received which I've done nothing to garner, earn, or gain.

I give freely even as I have received.

For it's in grace I live, move, and have my being.

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