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My Spiritual Experience While Protesting Today

I've not been sleeping well for a few weeks. Last night was another such night. The sleep aides aren't really working. When they do work, I wake up the next morning groggy and irritable.

Today I awoke itching for a fight. You know, that underlying feeling of discontent when you just hope that someone will say something really stupid on Facebook, and then you will be justified eviscerating them intellectually. And if you can publicly shame then in the process, even better. That's the kind of mood I woke up in.

 

So I partook in my morning coffee ritual and looked at the morning news. I try daily to watch a little bit of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. Yes, all three.  I find all of them have glaring biases anymore, and it gives me a good idea of what people are being fed and from which silo they choose to feed--especially when I see them posting polarizing opinions on social media. 

 

After a few minutes of hearing more about Trump than I care to hear in a whole day--both pro and con--I turned it off and got about my day. Having not worked for well over three months, establishing some normal daily routine is essential to keeping my psycho-emotional wellbeing intact.

 

My Friday ritual for a couple of months has been to volunteer delivering meals to New Yorkers who can't get food on their own. I have developed a little community with my Friday volunteers. Most of us lost our jobs during the pandemic. So we share a bit of a trauma-bond. We also are starting to get to know each other better. I look forward to seeing these faces every Friday, including the people who peer behind their doors retrieving the bags of food I leave at their threshold.

 

In times of pandemic and civil unrest, it's good to know your neighbors and even count some of them as friends. We really are all in this together, whether we feel it or not.

 

After I had dropped off my last bag and descended from a three-story walk-up, I was shvitzing from the heavy air. I turned onto Minetta Lane from MacDougal. It was then that I heard the familiar chants: No justice, no peace! Know justice, know peace!

 

I scurried up the block and joined with the march. It was a smaller one than the ones I've seen from my balcony or actually participated with in-person on the street. Perhaps only about fifty people, we were black, brown, white and probably a few other shades in between. Parents were marching with their kids in tow on scooters. Older adults were pushing their bicycles decorated with rainbow streamers and signs calling for police reform.

 

I had left my sign from earlier in the week in my backpack so I pulled it out: No turning back. This group was marching towards my home, both literally and figuratively.

 

That's because the home of my heart has always beat to the rhythm of justice. At the age of fifteen, I was serving in one of the poorest slums of Port-au-Prince, when a Haitian man read my mail. He told me I was a prophet and to always use my voice. It was an inflection moment in my life that I've never forgotten.

 

About ten years ago, a minister visited my home church. She called me out of the congregation and told me that when she thinks of me she thinks of the Fourth Beatitude, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied." She told me I was called to lead a life of justice, to speak out for the poor and oppressed. And as my brother recently reminded me, what are we called to if anything but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly?

 

So how could I not march? How could I not let my voice be heard? How could I not join the throngs of those crying out for justice? For it is goodness and mercy that follow us when our hearts bend towards justice.

 

This particular protest today was not as somber as some of the others. We chanted but we also danced. We celebrated all that Juneteenth meant and means today. We hoped for the realization of emancipation--not just in our hearts--but also emancipation that carries with it actionable policies and equal justice under the law, not just for a privileged, white few.

 

As I neared the end of my portion of the march, I stepped out of the street onto the sidewalk to wipe the sweat from my brow. At that moment, I heard a gruff voice to my left growl, "Mother-f*cker, get out of here with your f*cking bullsh*t." 

 

My head jerked in his direction, and suddenly, this wave of compassion flooded my soul, emerging from I-know-not-where: Sir, bless you. God bless you. My voice was so tender in that moment, even I didn't recognize it. I was surprised by this overwhelming sense of grace.

 

HIs big, burly white frame buckled a little. He backed down and went quiet. My mind immediately went to the words of Dr. King, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

 

In that moment I felt this profound sense of compassion for man who was cursing us from the sidelines, taunting us from the cheap seats. It's as if the eyes of my heart were opened, and I could see the condition of his soul. I didn't want to curse him in return. He's already living a life full of curses. He didn't need mine. He needed to know we can live from a place of blessing instead of cursing. Maybe I needed to know that too.

 

Now I recognize that there are many people who oppose these protests. I recognize that there are a many good-hearted, sincere, Christian people who even oppose those of us crying out that black lives matter. They find this too political or too extreme or too radical. They discredit the whole movement because agitators spew hate or rioters loot in the streets. Perhaps in discrediting, these naysayers feel more justified about their personal inaction or just don't want to be roused from their seat of comfort.

 

But all I can tell you is that today, I woke up itching for a fight. And after I went out and let my voice be heard, after I proclaimed sight to the blind, liberty to the captives, justice to the oppressed, my heart was softened. My heart was broken and in the best sort of ways. Not just for the systemic racism against black and brown lives, but also for those white souls bound up with prejudice, fear, and hate. I no longer needed to tangle with foes on Facebook. A deeper work of transformation had been accomplished in my heart.

 

A few people have asked me, should I go out and protest? I can't answer that question for you. I can only tell you to listen to the still, small voice within you, pointing you in the direction you should go. Then do your portion, and have faith that good will follow.

 

You may be changed for the good in the process, and in so doing, change the world.

 

 

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.

Anxiety in the Age of Corona

The chest tightness triggers anxiety, and the anxiety increases the chest tightness. Spring allergies trigger asthma which triggers sneezing which triggers more anxiety and irrational fears of infection. And so it goes.

Five weeks of stay-at-home and an extension through mid-May does little to alleviate the anxiety, as well as the guilt about my anxiety. I begin to feel like I should be stronger or not feel claustrophobic or be more thankful for how good I have it. I feel that I am in some way weak or ungrateful because I'm not doing this pandemic-thing perfectly.

Well child, none of us are.

Psychologists call this meta-emotion. It's when you feel emotion about your emotion. There's lots of that going around these days. We feel feelings about our feelings. It's layered and nuanced, interconnected and complex. It can be explained on a psychological level, but that certainly doesn't alleviate the unpleasantness.

So I've been working on moving through the feelings, letting them pass over me or me pass through them, whichever makes the most sense in that moment. And I've been working on not judging myself for feeling what I feel. As a friend reminded me last night, Be gentle with yourself.

I needed to get out of my head--get out of my apartment really--so I volunteered. I signed up online and hopped on a mostly empty subway train towards downtown. Approximately twelve volunteers gathered in the Anna Wintour Volunteer Center at God's Love We Deliver. All of us kept our distance from one another, wearing masks, heads buried in our phones, afraid to make too much eye contact because, who really knows how this virus spreads?

We were divided into two groups for meal deliveries to New Yorkers who can't get out to get food on their own. Most people went with the 72nd Street bound volunteers. I grouped with the 42nd Street crew because I knew I could walk home after and avoid the train.

The bags of food were bigger than we expected. We organized the meals with the assigned addresses and one of my delivery partners said in a shaky voice, "I can't take the train." 

But with such weighty bags, it was apparent we would have to. So I helped route our path to get us as quickly as possible to Times Square on the E Train. It would take only about 12 minutes. 

One volunteer had walked 90 minutes from Brooklyn to avoid taking the subway. So getting on this train was going to be a remarkable leap of faith for him. 

But leap on the train we did. We distanced in the middle of the car while a couple of homeless people slept on the other end. One awoke and began to cough violently. You could see the sputum spray through the air to the other side of the car.

One in my group fled to the opposite end of the car, a wild look of terror in his eyes. Our eyes met, and no explanation was needed. He clearly did not want to be infected.  When we got off the train, I assured him we would be above ground very soon.

And then it began.

As we trekked through the long underground corridor, people began to approach us. We were no speedy Meals on Wheels, slogging these clear, plastic bags of food. So it was easy for people to catch up to us.

People asked where we got the food or if they could have some of what we had. One man said he didn't want food, only a warm coat, as it was a cold spring day.

Years earlier I had learned to discern the look of hunger in a person's eyes, through my many experiences in Haiti. When you look deeply into the eyes of someone who is genuinely hungry, you sense both humility and desperation.

On any normal day in New York City, most people begging on the streets are fairly sophisticated in their approach. They hold signs with funny quips or emotional pleas, which often are enough to open the wallets of passing tourists.

These people on this very un-normal day were not that way. There were no clever signs. They carried the recognizable look of desperation, and I knew the hunger and need were genuine. For hunger is the same whether traversing subterranean tunnels of New York City or the back bushes of Haiti.

I delivered my meals, hanging the bag on the doorknob, knocking loud, then backing up six feet. "This is God's Love," we were told to announce to the recipients. If there is such a thing as God's Love, surely it looks like this: human hands serving another human in time of need.

I ventured back towards Time Square and stopped at a friend's locally-owned coffeeshop. I ordered a latte and an additional hot coffee for the cold, homeless man out front, as the barista verified that he was in genuine need.

But I am not so certain his genuineness or lack thereof really matters. Everyone seems to carry a degree of desperation these days, whether a hunger in the belly or a hunger in the soul. Freely giving a hot coffee on a cold day says more about the heart condition of the benefactor than it does the supplicant. For freely we have received, freely we give.

As I walked through an empty Times Square during lunch hour, my senses were once again assaulted by the grim, apocalyptic cityscape that typifies this city these days. My chest was still tight but not quite as anxious, and my emotional state ceased to matter as much as it had before.

 

A New Role For Me in 2019 with Origins Behavioral Healthcare

I begin this year with a new role that I'm quite excited to share about. I am now working with Origins Behavioral Healthcare as their Professional Relations Officer based in New York City.

Origins has outstanding treatment options in tropical settings in Florida and Texas for people with substance use issues. One of their premier centers is Hanley Center, where I began my clinical career ten years ago.

I am thrilled to return to work with consummate professionals at Hanley Center (West Palm Beach), HeadWaters (Singer Island), Transitions (West Palm Beach), Hannah's House (South Padre Island), and Origins Recovery Center (South Padre Island). And to clarify, I still live and work in NYC--I just will be in FL and TX a bit more often!

Origins' clinical staff consists of medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, nursing staff, licensed therapists, and recovery advocates. Attention is given to healing the whole person through meeting medical, clinical, and spiritual needs. 

If you, a friend, or loved one are in need of treatment for substance use or co-occurring mental health disorders, please reach out. I am happy to help you locate a provider who would suit your individual needs. Or if it's been a while since we've touched base, please send a hello.

It feels very satisfying to be working nationally in the behavioral healthcare field again with professionals of high clinical stature, expertise, and experience. I am enjoying reconnecting with former colleagues and meeting new ones across the country.

2019 is already proving to be a rewarding year of fulfillment and increase. I wish the same for you. Happy New Year!

What do I do when my friend or loved one refuses help?

“My sister will not seek treatment. What kinds of things can my family and I do or say that will help and not hurt?”

This is the question that came to me this past spring at the Faith Communities and Mental Health conference in Chapel Hill, NC.

Chances are that we all know someone who may be in need of professional help but for whatever reason isn’t ready for it.

It’s a tough spot to be in:

• Watching a loved one in the depths of depression and not knowing how to pull them out.
• Standing by with feelings of helplessness when mom can’t stop downing the chardonnay every night until she passes out.
• Feeling like you may lose your own mind when your teenager's manic episode won’t subside and you just can’t seem to back him off the emotional ledge.

How do we respond to those who are suffering without making things worse and making ourselves feel even crazier in the process?

Find a place of empathy. Empathy does not mean that we have been exactly where the other person is. It does however mean that we can identify on some level with the emotion that the person is feeling. I’ve often found it helpful to say, “I’ve not experienced what you are going through exactly but I do know what it feels like to be helpless/distressed/depressed/etc. and yeah, it sucks.” Oftentimes, identifying with the emotion is an empathetic response that will allow the person to feel not so alone.

Don’t be quick to offer advice. No one likes to be lectured to. Starting a conversation with, “you need therapy” or “why don’t you just get out of bed?” will probably only serve to alienate the person even more. We all want to feel supported, not ostracized or blamed for our current situation.

Offer solutions that can be received. Sometimes, the best that a person can do is make a very small step. That might look like investigating a support group or therapist online with no commitment of going. It also might look like trying to get out of bed a little sooner than what she has been. Or it could be just being open to research a holistic therapy or non-narcotic medication that might alleviate symptoms and stabilize the person until they can make the next step.

Finally, love unconditionally. Love is more oftentimes something we do than something we say. Sitting in silence with another person can be deeply healing the other person. Just being present and available to meet our loved one where they are can go a long way.

All of the above will look different for each person based on their situation and need. So when in doubt, check in with a professional or trusted expert who can give further guidance.

But by all means, check in. Let your loved one that as cliché as it may sound, “this too shall pass.”  Healing and recovery are possible with time and consistent support. 

Hold a space of hope for those in your life. One of the most powerful things a friend ever said to me was, “I know you can’t believe for yourself right now, but you don’t have to. I’ll believe for you until you are at a place when you can do so for yourself.” Those words took the pressure off and allowed me to just "be", until I could believe and act for myself. The same is possible for you and your loved one too.

What to Say to People with Mental Health or Substance Use Disorders

A friend recently called saying that she had just learned her close friend had been sent to treatment by her husband. She was overwhelmed and had no idea her friend had been battling anxiety, depression, and too much drink. She asked, what should I say to my friend in light of what is happening?

Here's a thoughtful approach of what what to say to people with mental health or substance use disorders:

1. You have been made for so much more life and love than what your battles have taught you to expect for yourself.
2. You are loved just as you are, regardless of what you’ve done, are doing, or will do.
3. You can forgive yourself. Where you are able, you can make amends to the people you have wronged without causing further harm to them or yourself.
4. You can let go of what you cannot control or change. Tomorrow is a new day.
5. Welcome! I want you here in my life. You are stuck with me!
6. Tell me your story. Where is there pain in it? Where is a thread of redemption in it? (Then, listen to their story.)
7. You have an illness, a disease, a very real struggle. I want you to find recovery and healing. I will walk with you every step of the way-- and not just on the good days.

When we go through difficult times, knowing we are not alone can make all the difference. These simple but profound statements can help.

  Adapted from The Recovery Minded Church (c) Jonathan Benz, 2016.

How do I find good therapist?

“How do I navigate the troubled road of finding an appropriate therapist? I’ve had many bad ones."

"I went therapist shopping recently. I went though five before I found the one I liked. Now I go weekly. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made."

These are two comments that were made to me recently. It seems these difficult, divisive times in our country are causing more people to reach out for psycho-emotional support. 

Sometimes life is too hard to go it alone. Reaching out for help indeed can make a difference.

Once someone has agreed to get help, the next logical step is to find someone who can be helpful. This can be more easily said than done. I, for one, stayed with a clinician for several years—not because she was particularly phenomenal at what she did—but because we had decent rapport, I knew what to expect, and my insurance covered most of it.

Now money is not necessarily the reason to stick with a therapist, but finances certainly play a key role. I know many of the best therapists and counselors now only charge cash fees because insurance reimbursements are not as profitable. Ask if they work on a “sliding scale”. Many are willing to negotiate, especially if they need the business at the moment.

So what are some helpful tools for finding a therapist, counselor, or clinician?

1. Ask around. Generally, you will find out right away who is not good. Bad reputations travel quickly. Having an idea of what you need support for (bereavement, substance use, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, etc.) will guide your process. Find a counselor who specializes in the area that you need help.
2. If you have health insurance, contact your insurance provider. You can often find a listing of clinicians in your area. You also can confirm how much counseling your policy will cover and what your copay will be.
3. Check with civic organizations, churches, synagogues, or community centers. Many such organizations have counselors on staff that carry various levels of credentialing and specialization. These services can be free or low-cost for constituents. This is a great alternative when finances are limited. If you do opt for faith-based counseling, just make sure that the organization you connect with actually syncs with your core values and beliefs.
4. Call your local hospital or medical center. Many have outpatient clinics with psychiatrists or social workers. Many also have short-term programs running 4-12 weeks.
5. Consider a support group. A support group can be a nice alternative to individual counseling as you are hearing the stories of others who have come through what you are currently experiencing. These support groups are usually free or sometimes pass a basket for a small, voluntary donation. Try your local chapters of NAMI, AA, NA, Alanon, Codependents Anonymous, or PFLAG. Give the group at least three tries before giving up. It usually takes that many visits to see the true value of the meeting.

Once you find the right person to help you, check their credentials. Social workers, psychologists, and licensed/certified therapists are required to post their credentials. You can usually Google them to find out if their credentials are current in your state of residence or if there are any pending actions against them.

There’s no silver bullet for finding the right person to help you. But I do know that it requires more than one visit to the same person. Healing always takes place in the context of relationship. Developing rapport with a qualified individual takes time. But it makes healing and recovery possible.

Responding to Mental Health Crises in Our Lives and the Lives of Others

This spring I was keynote speaker at a conference in Chapel Hill, NC called “Cultivating Mental Health: Hope and Healing”. It was one of the highlights of my speaking career. The conference was filled with several hundred mental health professionals from the Research Triangle who were keen on offering clinical, therapeutic, and spiritual responses to the challenges facing their clients and patients.

Since returning to NYC, I have been deeply saddened to learn of the suicides of Kate Spade followed by  Anthony Bourdain. These high profile deaths have raised the issue of mental health front-and-center once again. It seems that for some people, success, wealth or fame are not enough to fill the proverbial “hole in the soul”.

I’ve been pleased to see many responding to these suicides with great empathy. But still, many myths persist around mental health issues. In American society we seem to think that if one is strong enough, good-looking enough, wealthy enough, or successful enough, then deep-seated emotional needs somehow vanish away.

If we are honest with ourselves, we know this is not the case. If you could see the full reality of people's lives, you might discover some deep-seated unhappiness behind the seemingly bright and cheery Facebook or Instagram profiles.

So we self-medicate. We engage in behaviors that may be healthy in moderation but very unhealthy in excess. 

We shop and run up our credit cards.

We drink too much because “one more can’t hurt”.

We pop an extra pill to numb the pain.

We jump from anonymous sexual partner to the next.

We lose ourselves and our sense of time in Netflix or apps on our iPhone.

We escape into religiosity, afraid our own negative emotions will betray a serene exterior.

We become a workaholic to avoid the tough relationship issues that we aren’t ready to face.

When all of the above doesn’t work we attempt to satiate the unmet existential angst with any number of other compulsive behaviors. Whether we shop, go for drinks, take a substance, or jump from hook-up to the next, these measures are not enough to bring the peace and fulfillment we desperately long for.

So what are we to do then?

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to blog on some specific topics that have come up in recent weeks-both from the conference in NC as well as from conversations with friends and family members.

But for today I’ll end this post with this:

If you think a friend or loved one seems unusually down or not herself, don’t wait for her to reach out. Most people who are in the throes of depression or anxiety do not have the wherewithal to advocate for themselves.

Pick up the phone. Call, text, or email. It only takes a moment to say “Hey, you were on my mind, how are you doing?” That check-in lets the other person know she or he is not alone and most importantly, doesn't have to go it alone anymore.

Who knows? You might even save a life in the process.

If you need to speak to someone now, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline anytime, 24/7, to speak to a professional who can help: 1-800-273-8255.

Grief, 5 Months On

My maternal grandmother died just over 5 months ago--on March 10--two days after my birthday.

It was about 5:45 p.m. when the call came. I was looking forward to an enjoyable birthday weekend and saw my dad's number on the iPhone. He rarely calls--let alone at this time--so I knew it couldn't be good news.

Unfortunately, I was right. How I wanted to be wrong.

The weeks and months since have been intense, in spite of starting a new job which is relatively low-stress. This is a welcome respite from working in the behavioral healthcare industry when the phone could ring at any moment with a crisis.

It's been the dreams of her that jar me the most. She's normally in good form, smiling, and looks even more radiant than she did in life, her hair coiffed to perfection and skin smooth and clear. Whether it's how my subconscious chooses to see her or a glimpse into the afterlife matters not to me, it's just good to see her. Then I awake and realize it was just that: a dream.

Also difficult is the occasional void that hits when I least expect. Like a deep, dark chasm swallowing you whole. There's no light of day there, nor goodness. Just existential dread that we all may end up in that black hole separated from the ones we love.

It comes with the desire to pick up the phone to call her and the sudden realization you can't. It comes when you are walking through the store and spy the chocolate chips that remind you of her chocolate chip cake. It comes when someone at work mentions red hair. It comes when you lie in bed at night and the only option is to let the tears carry you into a state of sleepy disconnect. But the feelings indeed do come. They are faithful reminders that she is gone but so, so remembered.

For years I've conducted grief counseling for individuals and groups. I've taught on the subject. I've developed curriculum to help people move through grief. Move through it, not get over it. While I've had grief, I question now if I really helped those individuals as much as I may have thought. Deeper grief gives you a more profound connection to this human experience of impermanence, death, and suffering.

I suppose the greatest impact of the grief has been my inability to write for the last five months. It took my creative voice for a while. I've sat at this computer more than once wanting to compose a post for this blog. I open the laptop to write, and nothing comes.

But gratefully, today isn't the case. The words come. The emotions flow. The heart aches for connection. And I'm okay.

The difference now is that the grief doesn't overtake with such ferocity as before. It may come in again. More than likely it will. But hopefully not with the frequency, intensity, and duration as before.

I'm thinking more these days about the need for rebound. Some call it emotional resilience. I've written and lectured on it. It's that thing that some people possess that allows them to bounce back a little more quickly than others.

I've learned it's an emotional muscle you train. Just as in weightlifting, it only comes after some ripping, stretching, and pain. But it does come.

The pain comes and may even remain just out of sight, but resilience gives you the ability to rebound a little quicker than you did before.

I think that's what my grandmother would want for all of us who miss her so dearly. She'd feel the pain and then get busy with the rebound--probably by baking a chocolate chip cake, calling her nursing home volunteers, checking in with family, or going to the salon and Chik-fil-a with her sister and friends.

May I rebound as well as she did while on this earth.

 

 

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!