Rollercoasters. Some people love them. Not me! Real-life rollercoasters scare me. But the rollercoaster is a perfect metaphor for noticing what we pay attention to in our daily lives.

What we pay attention to—and how– is important. What you pay attention to shapes you and your life. That is what neuro-plasticity means—your attention has the power to sculpt your brain and your experience. Your consciousness.

Let’s look at how daily life resembles a rollercoaster ride. Your morning, for example, might be described something like this:

“I got up feeling refreshed, and then I had a shower. I felt good, but then I turned on the news and got depressed. I went to make coffee but there were no more filters. Arrgh…”

“Then I remembered I had a new tea to try. It tasted good, and I felt content. I went outside; it was a beautiful day. I walked slowly, drinking in the sunlight. I checked the time, and realized I was going to be late for work! I was angry at myself as I rushed to the station. Flustered and stressed out, I made my train just in time. What a relief. The train was uncomfortably crowded and people were grouchy.” And so on.

If you were going to depict each of these morning experiences–some pleasant, some unpleasant, some “good,” some “bad”–in a drawing, you might draw hills or peaks for the pleasant moments, and valleys or “U” shapes for the unpleasant moments. If you joined the whole series of “positive” and “negative” experiences together the overall picture might look like a rollercoaster. Your morning as a rollercoaster. (I can hear you saying, “Tell me something I don’t know, Vanissar!”)

There’s more. What most of us humans do is identify with our experiences: “This is happening. That is happening.” Or our reactions to our experiences: “Now I feel terrible.” “Now I am pleased.” Our emotions go up with the peaks and down with the valleys. This is natural; it’s how you know you are alive. So that’s fine.

And there’s another option. We can pay attention to the rollercoaster car. In fact, we can identify with it. What is it like to BE the rollercoaster car? When you identify with the car that keeps moving along the track, it is easier to enjoy–and release–each experience.

I know this is a strange notion. What we are more familiar with is fixating on good or bad experiences, especially the bad ones. Rick Hanson explains in his book Buddha’s Brain that our brains are designed to pay more attention to negative experiences than positive ones.

http://www.rickhanson.net/writings/buddhas-brain

When we get stuck in any one experience we miss the flow of life, and cause ourselves stress.

If we get fixated on a good experience, sooner or later, it inevitably changes. When the car moves on to the next experience, we feel disappointment or pain.

For example, when we are newly “in love,” we feel that zingy aliveness, that sense of knowing all is right with the world. Eventually this new-love buzz fades. This fading ushers in another season with new opportunities: for new-love to become a grounded relationship; for our other relationships to receive our attention again. Either way, some new experience, some new form of goodness can now unfold. If you try to maintain the new-love feeling, you will be disappointed. That experience is over.

We cause ourselves (and others) discomfort and distress when we cling to our experiences. So learning to stay in the rollercoaster car and surrender to the next moment is practical.

For me it’s a new option–one I noticed only recently. For most of my life I have been trying to ditch the car and squat on the highest hill. Or I’ve gotten stuck, wallowing in the lowest low. I have either avoided certain experiences, or strained forward, trying to reach a hoped-for experience. Have you ever done this?

Would you like to identify with the rollercoaster car that you are riding in? It is a learnable skill. Meditation techniques–

either spiritual

http://eastbaymeditation.org/index.php?s=1

or secular

http://www.georgequant.com/

can help you master this skill.

You can also work with your breath. The breath is already a kind of rollercoaster, full of inhalation-hills and exhalation-valleys. We breathe in, reach the top of the inhale, and then breathe out and reach the bottom of the exhale. The breath arises, peaks, diminishes, and ends. And then the next breath begins.

There are many ways of working with our breath rollercoaster:

· As you breathe in, imagine your inhalation as a hill; as you breathe out, imagine your exhalation as a valley. Notice the shape and size of each hill and valley. Enjoy the ride.

· As you breathe in, slow down and savor each part of your exhalation–the beginning, middle and end–as it enters your nostrils. As you breathe out, savor the beginning, middle and end of your exhalation as it exits your nostrils.

· Inhale, paying attention to the sensations of increasing fullness in your belly, ribs and chest. Feel the turn as your inhalation becomes an exhalation, and be with the sensations of your chest, ribs and belly emptying out.

Practices like these can build your capacity to stay with your immediate experience, and let go when it ends. You can use practice to sculpt yourself into someone who flows with life as it unfolds.

But beyond any personal benefits, the rollercoaster is interesting in itself. We might, as the Buddhists do, describe that ever-moving rollercoaster car as consciousness or awareness. According to Tibetan Buddhism, all the things that we perceive (including all of our experiences) are expressions of a vast, unlimited Consciousness or Awareness at play (not at work–at play).

I found out on my recent retreat that I like following consciousness! It is pregnant with possibilities. Consciousness is always available for us to pay attention to. That awareness rollercoaster car is ready to take us on a journey to new places.

Riding in the car of consciousness, we can enjoy the beginning, middle and end of each experience. We can meet the next experience freshly: “Now I am running a bath, now I am soaking the warm bath, now I am draining the tub, now I am drying off…”

What about unpleasant experiences? Can we enjoy those, too? Is that even legal? Yes. It’s YOUR life! It is your birthright to savor each moment of your life. This might look something like : “Now I just received bad news, now I am feeling numb, now I am crying, now I am crying some more, now I feel my body shaking, now the crying is slower, lesser, now I am resting.” And so on.

Or it might look like this:

http://mywifesfightwithbreastcancer.com

Every one of our experiences is richer than we know: if we pay close attention, we can find beautiful moments within “negative” experiences, and ugly moments within “positive” experiences.

There is something sacred about being “online” for all of our experiences. Fully present for the beginning, middle and end of each moment. There is something sacred about showing up for your life. Whether a particular moment is inspiring, boring or painful, it is your life. The only one you’ve got.

And if everything we perceive is the Play of Awareness, why not join in the play? Life is always inviting us to play. Why not accept the invitation? When your rollercoaster car plunges down a steep drop, go ahead and scream or laugh or sob with relief. Why not be fully alive in each moment? You are allowed to do that.

You can choose—audaciously, joyously—to identify with the car that carries you through the ups and downs of experience. And when you get distracted by a dramatic twist or turn of the rollercoaster, remember it’s only a ride. Remember to be grateful; sooner than you think, it will be over.

EAGLE DREAM

In my dream, I live in a big airy house with a skylight-roof. A young golden eagle flies erratically just below the ceiling, swooping and turning, and screeching. I am afraid–for both of us–but I walk upstairs to a balcony and speak to her in a comforting tone. She lands beside me, all skinny and blazing eyes. She’s a handful. Is she hungry? I find some meat for her and she snatches it from my hand. Up close she is majestic, ravenous. She regards me with her incredible eyes, matter-of-factly bestowing her company. I am glad she is in my big, airy (eyrie?) house. No longer afraid of her, I feel tenderness and determination. I will feed her until she is strong enough to fly away.

My dream is an instruction manual for how to (re-)parent an extraordinary being—a “freak.” A freak like me. Relative to my environment, I was an unusual child—wild, sensitive, spiritually perceptive. Not what my parents expected. Mistakes were made. (That’s a different instruction manual: How to Traumatize a Gifted Child.) I became wounded, feral, suspicious.

Now I am a grown woman. I am completely responsible for myself. How do I re-parent this skinny, hungry, ferocious eglet?

Perhaps it’s easy to (re)parent an eagle if you yourself were raised by eagles. My parents did not have the capacity or community to raise an eglet. The home I grew up in had little room for expansion or expression. I was stifled and cramped. Violated, and never allowed to fight back.

So I need an instruction manual. My dream instructs me that it is crucial to acknowledge the nature of the being in front you. Then you matter-of-factly meet the needs of her species. If you are not used to such a handful, you get support. You learn. Above all, you cherish your raptor friend. In the dream, I love her hungry eyes and her insistent need. I love that she requires specific, special care to flourish. Not just regular, run-of-the-mill eagle care. Extra tenderness for a long-neglected, mistreated bird of prey. In the dream I am delighted to meet her needs.

How do you raise an extraordinary, unexpected child?

Andrew Solomon’s book, Far From the Tree, about parents struggling to raise exceptional children, is also instructive. What are the potentials and limitations of a child born with Downs Syndrome or dwarfism? How do you raise a child born of rape, or a musical prodigy? How best to love and protect autistic, transgender or Deaf children? This book is about parents gradually falling in love—wrenching, gritty love–with their unique children.
http://www.farfromthetree.com/

From their stories I learn more about how to re-parent my feral eglet: You meet your children where they are. By paying attention, you come to understand their nature, and the kind of supports and limits they need to thrive. You acknowledge their complexity, and make room for your own complex emotions. You ride a steep learning curve and–hopefully–find your feet. You let loving your children transform you. Reading these stories, I don’t envy my parents. But I still grieve for what might have been.

SPIRITUAL NATURE

Looking back at pictures and remembering family anecdotes I see a wild-animal girl, a visionary, a mystic. Introverted, with an acute sensitivity to unfairness. I was curious, engrossed in insects and trees and bumblebees and the stars and the wind. I loved all of it. I was a messy, radiant, rough-and-tumble little blonde girl who growled and bit people, especially my siblings.

My family could not accept or accommodate me. My mother could not handle my biting, roaring, laughing, wildness, the same way she could not stand the chattering of our budgie. She covered his cage to silence him. My father viewed my animal vitality as sexual. He violated me, teaching me shame and secrecy. Little by little, I learned to stifle and conceal my aliveness.

I loved and hated my self-absorbed parents with a passion, the same way that I did everything. Until my flame was snuffed out. Until I learned to keep it snuffed out.

By grade one my light was almost entirely hidden. I still saw and felt everything around me. I despised the power of the strong over the weak. But I could not growl or fight. I could only be the quiet, contained little white girl that my family and church expected me to be.

I still talked to the snow fairies hidden in the snow bank when I was alone. They sang comforting songs to me. I looked out my window and told my troubles to a particular blue star until I was all cried out. My celestial friend sang wise, reassuring things to me until I could sleep.

Among people, silence was my only way to roar. My eyes spoke my contempt. Is it any wonder I developed contempt for my family and community? Is it any wonder I became profoundly arrogant? As an adult, I have denied, and been ashamed of that arrogance. As a kid, I needed its protection.

SPIRITUAL DAMAGE

When I was little, I talked with God. At Sunday school, I was told I was not allowed to—I must pray to Jesus, and he would talk to God for me. I was enraged. Heartbroken to give up my intimate relationship with God.

It got worse. At eight I was finally old enough to join my sister and brother at bible camp. Unlike everyone else at camp, I was not yet “saved.” My camp counselor frightened us girls one night with vivid stories of Satan and his demons. She focused on me, telling me that if I didn’t “accept Jesus as your personal savior and lord” Satan would get me. The other girls stood with her. I resented the pressure; I knew I was not ready to make that commitment. And I was terrified.

The counselor interpreted my tears as a conversion experience, and insisted I get on my knees and “accept Jesus into your heart.” I did, all the while hating all of them and myself. When I got up I was bombarded with saccharine approval. The next day the cool kids embraced me. Back home, my best friend’s missionary family approved; I was finally invited over for sleepovers.

I felt so far away from God. I was guilty, knowing I had made a sacred commitment from an insincere place. God would know and forsake me; Satan would “get me” for my hypocrisy. More shame and secrecy contaminated my relationship with Spirit.

I never spoke to anyone of the visions and mystical conversations I had as a child. In my Baptist community, experiences outside of their version of Christianity were seen as satanic, demonic.

When I was fourteen, the Goddess Kali Ma seized me in a dream, claimed me for her path, and dictated a long poem which I wrote down while asleep. I shared the poem with only one person, my thirty-five year old creative writing teacher who I adored. He told me that I had seen Shiva. Then he told me he was attracted to me, and wanted to date me.

As my spiritual trauma thaws out, there are “pins and needles.” I grieve for the lonely girl that I was. The lonely, secretly-freakish teenager. At home, at school and in church, I had no place to rest my head. No spiritual or shamanic mentor to reassure and guide me. Instead, I grew more secretive, more arrogant.

It’s no surprise that when I experienced an abrupt kundalini awakening in my twenties,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini#cite_note-eastman_p39-24

I told almost no one. On and off for eleven years, I was immersed in states where material reality–including my body–became a dance of intermingling particles, endlessly forming and dissolving, like an impressionist painting. I oscillated between Bliss and Terror as I dissolved into everything. I felt blessed, grateful, and terribly lonely. I was a freak again. A freak without sanctuary or community. By that time I was wired to not trust anyone unless I was desperate.

HEALING THE DAMAGE

Re-parenting myself has meant cleaning up the damage: healing the attachment, abuse and oppression traumas of my childhood and youth. I had to go back and complete missing developmental steps, introduce supportive structures into my daily life, and learn how to take care of myself physically, emotionally, and financially. And learn how to trust people.

After decades of clean up, I am finally well enough, whole enough to ask a new question: How do you raise a spiritually gifted child? The kind of child I was.

The child that I was needed someone to steadily nurture (not malign, demonize, exoticize or inflate) my unique gifts. Eglets need flying and hunting lessons. I needed meditation instruction, competent spiritual guides to model generosity and humility, and opportunities to cultivate my intuition and compassion. I needed empathy and structure to enable me to belong and contribute. That is the kind of upbringing I needed, and what I must now give myself.

I am healing, thawing out with the noisy disruption of a late spring river. I am a handful.

HEALING NATURE

I have often longed to live in a shamanic culture that could hold all of me: see my ordinariness and channel my extraordinariness into contributing and belonging in community. Instead, the humans around me wounded my spirit. So I have looked to non-human models to heal my spiritual trauma. Nature has been a kind ally. Especially birds.

The Bird of Paradise, that beautiful, unearthly, improbably alien creature—lives an ordinary life. Like other creatures, he eats, defecates, sleeps, and tries to impress the ladies.

I live with a gorgeous budgie who is unaware of how extraordinary she is—she is: goofy, serene, cheeky, brave, humorous, joyous. She needs ordinary things like sleep and food and companionship, love, comfort, and “extraordinary” things like a tree to perch and play on, seed to eat, toys to chew and shred, tunnels to dig, safe space to fly; other birds, vast skies and clouds to watch. Every day she shows me how to embody both the special and the mundane.

FOLLOWING THE DREAM

Following my dream’s lead, I acknowledge my nature. I am a mystic who needs boundaries and routine to ground me so I can thrive and contribute.
I see myself. Like that eagle, I am a handful. I claim all of me—the wounds from abuse and neglect. The habitual secrecy and the stump-sized chip on my shoulder. Like that ravenous eagle, I snatch up my aliveness. I claim this body, this personality, this life. I scoop this supernatural, ordinary, feral child into my arms.

I am learning to nourish my ordinariness: to steadily give myself warmth and sweetness, to rest and play. To eat moderately and well. To pace myself and to insist on spaciousness and balance. To enjoy the repetition of eating, sleeping, cleaning, cooking, and caring for my business.

As I am learning to nourish my extraordinariness: to work with wise, loving teachers. To write with courage and heart, to allow my exuberance and “intuitive effervescence” to infuse my teaching and healing work. I am learning to be bold. To fly with precision and Grace.

That dream-eagle is finally being seen, loved and nourished. She is discovering her voice and her wingspan. And she is so hungry. I feed her and watch her slowly mature, stretching out those long-stunted wings, focusing those laser eyes on her prey, practicing tricky landing maneuvers in windy conditions. Vast, daring, goofy, eagle play is what I was born to do.

And I realize: the more I see and love the “freak” within, the more I delight in the inner and outer diversity of others. As Michael Franti says, “All the freaky people make the beauty of the world.”

I have decided to drop my resentment habit.

Shifting resentment is not going to be easy for me; it’s part of my identity. My family of origin was steeped in blame. Resentment was allowed–even subtly encouraged–in my home. We practiced it together. We directed resentment toward relatives, neighbors, politicians–and each other. Since childhood I have practiced resentment more than enough to complete the 300-3000 repetitions required for a behavior to become automatic.

Resentment is now one of my automatic superpowers. This superpower bestows upon me the ability to perceive the slightest whiff of insult, injury, or inconsiderateness that “could-have-harmed-me!–What were they thinking?!” I have the ability to feel put-out, offended, or victimized in a matter of seconds.

Resentment has many faces; it can look like resignation, passivity, martyrdom, silent suffering, or whining, or it can show up as attacking, blaming, or guilt-tripping others. Resentment can take the form of self-righteous attacks on people who have wronged me or my group.

RESENTMENT IS JUSTIFIED

Resentment is often justified. There is much in my family history that merits resentment. I have the perfect right. No one who knew my story would blame me for being resentful.

And recently, something completely unfair “happened to me;” I had to call up all of my privilege, skills and creativity just to get a basic need met. The bureaucracy, poor communication, condescending sexism, irresponsibility and just plain mean-spiritedness of others had put me in a very difficult situation. I can name all the ways I was wronged that day, in great detail. If you heard my story, you would probably agree that I have the right to resent.

So my resentment is often justified. But is it how I want to live?

We can respond with resentment to systematic injustice, too. Those of us who belong to an oppressed group could spend years reciting the litany of wrongs that oppression has inflicted on us, or the rights it has withheld from us. After all, we have suffered atrocities for centuries. If we used the rest of our lives to point out others’ wrongs, even that could never do justice to our suffering.

Ironically, systemic oppression is part of what caused me and my family to embrace the resentment habit in the first place. I am a female who was raised in a misogynist community. I am a lesbian living in a world made for heterosexuals. I am the child of a bitter, upper-class aspiring, lower middle class father. I am part of a multi-generational lineage of child sexual abuse victims. I am a grandchild and great-grandchild of foster-care system survivors and poverty-driven immigrants. Me and my family, we have every right to be resentful.

Many people have far more right and reason than I do to be resentful. The generations of First Nations people who have survived residential schools, for example:

http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100015644/1100100015649

Or, people with disabilities, who have been mistreated and isolated for centuries:

http://resistinc.org/newsletters/articles/changing-framework-disability-justice

The human world offers so many reasons to feel resentful.

Resentment is often justified. But is it how we want to live?

THE DOWNSIDE OF RESENTMENT

Resentment has many downsides:

For me, the body-mood that accompanies resentment is brooding. I become stuck in a mental loop, endlessly rehashing slights and insults. This loop obscures all kinds of possibilities and creative options. My resentment habit makes me miserable.

Resentment also freezes me and everyone else into a static object: “I am someone who has been wronged.” “You are the one who wronged me.” “It’s their fault.” “There’s nothing I can do.”

The habitual aspect of resentment is another downside. When resentment is a habit, there is no end to it—because there will always be something–or someone–new to resent.

Resentment is the mood of a victim. It dis-empowers us. Resentful thoughts are a clear indicator that my energy is focused outside of myself. My attention is on what others are doing or not doing: “They overlooked me.” “Look at what she is doing to me!” “If only he would change, then I could do what I need to do.” When I place my attention on others in this way, I abandon my own power. I feel like a victim.

It’s funny, because in the social world, I am not a powerless victim. Not even close. Whether or not I can access the feeling of agency, my social identity as an English-speaking white woman with a Christian upbringing, middle class mannerisms and no obvious disabilities means that my actions or inactions have a disproportionate impact on others. When I am cranky, put-out or bitter; when I spiral down into a state of reactivity (where I am hijacked by my amygdala into automatic fight, flight, freeze, appease or dissociate responses); when I feel “helpless” and lash out, undermine, or passively aggress, or zone out, withdraw, quit, placate, etc., I can harm a lot of people. Women of my race, class and education level are often in administrative or gatekeeping positions where our behavior profoundly impacts the daily lives of people of color, poor and working class people, transgender people, and people with disabilities. My resentment habit makes others miserable.

Resentment has downsides that can annoy us, get in our way, or destroy our lives.

THE UPSIDE OF RESENTMENT

Are there any upsides to resentment? Yes. For me, resentment has been a kind of armor. The toughness and numbness of resentment was much easier to feel than loss, confusion, grief, rage or terror. When no one was there to help me bear these feelings, resentment was an intelligent survival strategy that helped me to endure. In my early life resentment was a viable way to survive hardship.

Resentment was also a way for me to fit in with my family. A way to be loyal. Resentment was part of how my family and I recognized one another. Part of how we loved one another. As we suffered together and resented together, we understood one another.

Finally, resentment gave the younger me a way to bear witness to injustice, and the words to express resistance to oppression.

I am grateful to my resentment habit for these gifts. But it is not how I want to live.

RECYCLING RESENTMENT INTO RESOURCE

We can recycle resentment by building on its “upside.” We can investigate the properties of resentment, and discover its hidden resources.
For example, you could describe me as having a “quick-to-resent” temperament. I am hyper-vigilant to slights or injustices. I notice I am in good company in social justice circles; many of us have a similar “quick-to-resent” response.

If I look underneath my resentful responses, I find a sensitivity to the nuances of power. I am quick to notice what people are doing or not doing, and how that impacts—or may impact—myself or others. I can spot the potential for unfairness or hardship that follows when people make assumptions about or are oblivious to others. My instant, practiced response is anger, contempt, judgment or critique (and underneath, hurt and despair.) I am highly sensitive to people’s impact on myself and others. Such sensitivity can be a resource.

What other resources are hidden within my resentment habit? A longing for all people to have their needs attended to. I want people to feel seen and met and included. I want people to be free. I want dignity for all. I want choice, consent, and accommodation. These are good things to want.

How can I appreciate and build on these resources of sensitivity and caring without getting stuck in resentment? How can I work for justice without turning people into static objects, or viewing others with contempt?

First, I can warmly greet my resentment habit when it arises: “Thank you for protecting me all these years.” “Thank you for fighting injustice.”

Next, I can shift my focus from what others are doing (or not doing) to what I am doing.
I can ask myself, what do I want to create? What do I care about? What do I want to become?

I want to create environments that make space for everyone’s needs to be included.

I care about supporting others to name and ask for what they need.

I want to become a warm, steady, thoughtful presence.

Now I can start to embody what I care about by choosing new behaviors to practice 300-3000 times, such as the practice of offering respect to everyone, or the practice of asking people what they need to be able to participate. Other practices I can take on include;

• softening my gaze when I look at others;
• practicing generosity and patience when others appear to be inconsiderate;
• reminding myself that folks are not telepathic;
• persistently stepping up to advocate for myself and others;
• forgiving us all when we are not perfect, and opening my heart again.

We are not powerless victims. Not even close. Even our resentment is resourceful.

I want to tell you about me and tea.

Since I was a teenager, tea has been a comfort food. Not much of a “morning person,” it is easy for me to feel disoriented, cranky or “not ready” for the new day. I lean on strong black tea with sugar and milk (or in recent decades, honey and soymilk) to cope with my morning state, and ease myself into the day.

For three years I have been trying to change my relationship to caffeine so that I rely on it less. As vices go, tea is not so terrible. But I want to know who I am without caffeine. I want to know what my natural energy levels feel like, what my non-caffeinated body wants to do and be.

When you want to change a habit, the stories you tell yourself are important.

Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild Geese says,

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a thousand miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

What stories do I tell myself about me and caffeine?

Sometimes I tell myself have to be good stories.

I say to myself:
It’s not healthy to depend on a stimulant. Caffeine is bad for the teeth and bones. I should stop drinking it.

Sometimes I tell myself walking on my knees, for a thousand miles through the desert, repenting stories.

These self-flagellating stories sound like:
What is wrong with me? Look at me, I have to have tea every day to cope. How pathetic. I am addicted. Weak. I must fix myself, correct myself. Bad me. Bad body.

It’s so easy to generate repenting stories.

For example, I could focus on the origins of modern tea consumption.
Like coffee, chocolate and rum, the widespread consumption of sweet tea by my British ancestors co-arose with the British abduction and enslavement of Africans who were forced to harvest sugar cane, and with the British exploitation of tea plantation workers in India.

On Wikipedia I read: “The escalation of tea importation and sales over the period 1690 to 1750 is mirrored closely by the increase in importation and sales of cane sugar: the British were not drinking just tea but sweet tea. Thus, two of Britain’s trading triangles were to meet within the cup: the sugar sourced from Britain’s trading triangle encompassing Britain, Africa and the West Indies and the tea from the triangle encompassing Britain, India and China.”

Not only that. In her essay Of Soul and White Folks Mab Segrest links the emotional numbing practiced by Europeans and European Americans who participated in slavery to substance addiction:

“I first picked up the connection between addiction, with its blunting of emotion, and capitalism when I read Marvin Harris’s explanation of how European’s acquired taste for the new beverages coffee and cocoa had finally made African slavery profitable. The sugar that went into both drinks came from sugar plantations in the Caribbean. The addictive qualities of sugar, cocoa, and caffeine created enough of a market that the huge losses in the slave trade (which is to say, all the Africans who died in the Middle Passage) could be offset by the new, addictive demand for sugar.” [Born To Belonging, p. 168].

It turns out my tea habit has roots in white supremacy, slavery, colonialism, capitalism and a European American legacy of numbness and dissociation.

I can use this information to tell myself repenting stories. I can make myself feel really bad.

There’s other dismaying information about tea. My tea consumption impacts the environment. Tea is not grown locally where I live, so fossil fuel is required to bring my earl grey to me. Tea has a significant carbon footprint. My habit supports global warming.

I want to live in truth. I want to be aware of my impact on other beings. However, it is tempting to misuse all this information to create walking on my knees for a thousand miles through the desert, repenting stories. Can shame help me wrestle my addiction to the ground?

No. So far, these conceptual understandings and self-shaming stories have not changed my relationship to caffeine. And they are not likely to. Addiction is connected to trauma in the body; it is wired to the non-conceptual parts of the brain, so I cannot think or talk myself out of addictive behavior. And soft animal bodies are not motivated to change by “No” or “You are bad” or “I should.” In fact, shaming pushes us further into the fight or flight mode that reinforces addiction.

Some stories are letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves stories.

Like Gabor Mate’s stories about addiction.

Mate writes about how addiction is our body’s attempt to restore the natural capacities that trauma and neglect have deleted from our biochemistry. Underneath the impulse to “use” is a yearning to be whole and complete. When we find a drug (or a behavior) that replaces an essential quality we have lost access to, we can become addicted. For example, heroin gives some people their first experience of feeling unconditionally loved. When I read Gabor Mate’s account of a person who said using heroin made them feel like a “soft, warm blanket” I thought to myself, “That’s like me and chocolate.” Similarly, cocaine can give someone their first experience of drive or initiative. When I heard that, I thought, “Yes, caffeine is my cocaine.”

I have been off caffeine (and sugar) for a month now, and as I had hoped, I am learning some interesting things about my energy levels.

More importantly, I am learning what my soft animal body yearns for. There is a deeper meaning of tea for my body. It turns out that tea with honey and milk is not just about being jarred into motivation and action.

I am now drawn to telling myself letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves stories. These stories begin as curious questions:

What is tea for me? What does my soft animal body love about tea?

Body time moves slower than thought. The answers to these questions reveal themselves gradually in layers of sensation. Paying attention to my senses, I notice that the sweetness, warmth and density of strong milk tea feels incredibly comforting. Somehow, holding the cup and feeling the warm liquid flow down my throat makes my body feel loved, strong, and confident. The tea only satisfies my body when it is hot—when the heat is steady and certain.

If I listen deeply, the characteristics of my tea tell me a story, over and over again, each time I drink: This body wants heat (not lukewarmth; not ambivalence), strength (a definite presence) and sweetness (nurturing).

My body has been leading me back to the nurturing and protection I needed as a child. The steady strong presence I never got. My body is thawing out from the deep-freeze neglect of my childhood, from the ambivalent care I received. This animal body is recovering the animal vitality and warm sensuality that my family and community could neither bestow nor allow.

I know this, because my senses tell me exactly what they love about tea.

And I know this from the imagery my soft animal body offers:

As my energy becomes smoother, without the highs and lows of sugar and caffeine, spontaneous imagery arises within my body, especially during meditation. This emerging imagery is all about honey, and fire, and fiercely protective animal allies who growl and flash their eyes and teeth at any who intend me harm. Who lean their broad furry backs against me, steady and present. With these images, my body tells me clearly that it wants strong stuff: strong sweetness; strong steadiness.

This inner imagery reveals the medicine my body and heart need. In the silence and space hollowed out by meditation and no caffeine, no sugar, that medicine unfolds organically. I bask in images of fiery, cleansing lava, of golden grizzly bears who growl at others and purr at me. All the warmth and protection and nurturing I needed as a child and never got, I am now receiving from my own body.

It was all there in the tea.

My body was always seeking the appropriate medicine. Tea was the closest metaphor, the best medicine that was available to my teenage self.
Now I can follow my body’s lead and move–within and without–towards what my body loves.

I can consciously cultivate sweetness, steadiness, and warmth in my surroundings and in my animal body. I am taking hot baths, walking in the sunshine, lighting candles, wearing velvet and cozy shawls, and steaming my face.

As I do all these things I make a point of really feeling them, really taking in the sensations and sensuality of a warm blanket, the beauty of sunlight and firelight, the color, taste and texture of honey, the touch of fuzzy fabric. I am deliberately enjoying the qualities my body yearns for.

Steeping in these sensations makes them my own. I begin to embody these qualities. With embodiment, the nourishment I need becomes part of me. It is in my body. All I need to do is slow down and pay attention; the internal imagery is there to nourish me.

The more I practice these qualities, the less I crave forms of sweetness, strength, and warmth that have side effects. I need less honey in my herbal chai, and I am not craving desserts. Fruit is sweet enough to satisfy this emerging body.

The message underlying my craving for sugar and caffeine was always there–the longing for sweetness, nourishment, warmth, and steady, steady holding. It was waiting for me to pay attention.

What my judgments and “shoulds” obscured was able to reveal itself when I trusted my soft animal body to love what it loves. Curiosity was essential to this revelation: my “I wonder what I will feel like without caffeine?” question created a compassionate space for me to discover what my body was seeking.

I wanted to be free of the need for caffeine, and it seems like that freedom is beginning.

Looking back, I wish I could have told myself more letting your soft animal body love what it loves stories. I wish I had been able to be kinder to myself. Perhaps I could have changed my relationship with caffeine sooner. In any case, I choose to be kind to myself now by resting in gratitude.

Do you have a habit you want to change?
What stories are you telling yourself about you and your habits?

I invite you to ask your soft animal body what it loves. What does it yearn for?
Ask, and make time to listen with curiosity.
Some of us find it easier to listen to our bodies if we journal, go for a walk, sit in silence, or dance–with or without music.

Find out what works for you, and listen to your sensations. Pay attention to the imagery in your body. As you listen, “try on” the notion that your body has always been reaching towards what it needs. How does your body respond when you approach it with that trust?

Let me know how it goes…

I’ve experienced an extraordinary number of losses and breakdowns over the past three years (job, greencard sponsor, healthcare, pre-perimenopausal body), many quite recently (my mother, my best friend, my bird companion, my home-office, my vehicle, and all my appliances– *sigh*. This is a partial list).

Anam Thubten asked our sangha recently, “Are you ready to let go of everything?” And I laughed to myself and thought, “You mean there’s more?!” And then thought, “It’s a very good time to be a Buddhist!” Anyway, as I begin to get used to my new home, and tentatively find my footing again, it seems like an appropriate time to share the story of my name.

I get asked about it all the time: “Aren’t “Tara” and “Kali” Tibetan and Indian deities?” Did your parents give you the name “Vanissar?” I usually say, “Do you want the long story or the short story?” Here is the long story of why this WASP (white anglo saxon protestant) woman from Toronto has the name “Vanissar Tarakali.”

I am a woman of European descent who has a commitment to racial justice, and I do my best to avoid appropriating the cultures of others. The two goddesses, Tara and Kali Ma, are not from my culture. And I understand that it might be off-putting to some people of South Asian or Tibetan descent that I have taken the last name Tarakali.

In addition to being a white woman, I am also a person who has experienced myriad visions, spontaneous altered states and spiritual experiences since I was a child. The name Vanissar was given to me in a vision when I was 11, as was my middle name, Zondra. The Vanissar I was shown was in a lush green meadow, using her hands to nurture a rich array of plants and animals. This Vanissar radiated an active compassion for all creatures; she was very similar to Green Tara.

The Zondra I was shown was like a diminutive version of Kali Ma: knife-bearing, hell-raising, deadly, ferociously sexual, wearing red and black. I have never been able to find the name “Vanissar” anywhere until very recently on the internet. “Zondra” is also a rare name. I feel these names are truly mine.

Kali Ma came to me in a powerful dream when I was 14, ferociously dancing among dismembered and burning corpses and dictating a long poem (which I wrote down while still asleep) about how her eternal dance ruthlessly and compassionately cuts through every illusion of duality (and she let me know she intended to cut through mine).

This dark deity in my dream embodied life and death, desire and peace, creation and destruction. She made it quite clear to me that she had claimed me for her path, whether I liked it or not. I was terrified of what lay ahead, and yet filled with a profound sense of purpose and blessing. (In the years since, Kali has validated those fears and hopes by kicking my butt on a regular basis.)

I had no exposure to Tibetan or Indian cultures as a child or adolescent. I was raised a born-again Baptist in a lower middle-class white neighbourhood in Toronto. I knew nothing about Tara or Kali until years later. But that 14-year-old me took Kali seriously. As I had taken Vanissar and Zondra seriously.

Then in my early twenties I encountered a Green Tara thangka. She was immediately beloved and familiar to me, like a long-lost friend. When I read that she had her right foot extended so that she could swiftly respond to the real-world suffering of beings, I sobbed with recognition and relief. I felt like I had come home. [I later found out that Tara is a manifestation of Kali Ma].

When I was thirty, after almost a decade of intense kundalini activity [another story for another time], I changed my name legally to Vanissar Zondra Tarakali. At this time I committed myself to living Kali’s path–a life dedicated to “Compassionate Transformation” of myself and others: passionate engagement in compassionate teaching, healing and social change work.

Over the years I have listened to many responses to my last name [delight, outrage, anecdotes, awe, condemnation, and everything in between] from all kinds of folks, including folks of South Asian descent. I appreciate and respect everyone’s perspective. And I have done much soul-searching about this, and paid attention to several definitions and interpretations of cultural appropriation.

Here are a few:

http://choptensils.wordpress.com/2008/08/02/on-cultural-appropriation/

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/09/18/cultural-appropriation-homage-or-insult/

Is my name an appropriation of South Asian or Tibetan culture? It depends on who you ask. It is a contradiction that I do not know how to resolve.

Where I land is that my name is ultimately between me and the Divine. You could say I am in long-term, committed relationships with both Tara and Kali. So I will continue to live with this contradiction, as I have for the past 19 years, and I will strive–until it’s time to set aside this temporary form–to be a responsible steward of the name Vanissar Tarakali and all that it expresses: Transformation Through Compassion. Compassion That Transforms. I will do my best to be a Compassionate Transformer, or as we say in Canada, “shit disturber.”

Thank you for listening to my story.

I am curious to hear your responses, whatever they are. And I wonder, is your relationship to Spirit hard to fit into an “appropriate” box? Is there some spiritual experience or realization that means a lot to you but that you are afraid to claim?

When I found out a few years ago that most people have profound spiritual experiences, I was surprised. I rarely hear people talk about them. Certainly not in the dominant culture

http://seminaryofthestreet.org/id18.html

Before I learned this, I felt isolated and freakish–I was afraid to “come out of the closet” about my own relationship to the Divine. Other’s silence about the ordinariness of spiritual experiences definitely contributed to my fear of surrendering to and embodying these experiences.

My fundamentalist Baptist upbringing also contributed to this isolation and lack of self-trust. As a child I talked directly to God on a regular basis, and felt comfort and connection with something vaster than myself. It was horrifying to be told by my church that I must use Jesus to mediate between me and God. I felt that something precious had been stolen from me.

Is there something about your upbringing, some form of oppression or colonization that has impacted your relationship with the Divine or the Land? What do you need to express, what do you need to affirm to take your spiritual authority back?

The heart sutra reminds us that everything is an endless interplay of form and emptiness. Emptiness contracts into form; form dissolves into emptiness, and so on. This natural process of contraction and expansion reflects the fluidity and creativity of Primordial Awareness. Somehow in the middle of this eternal dance, Primordial Awareness forgets itself and becomes “stuck” in contraction. This too is part of the playful dance. Duality and all the beauty and suffering of the material world are birthed from this extended contraction. In the human world, the fragmenting effects of trauma and oppression reflect a similar dynamic of our bodies/psyches becoming stuck in contractions.

What is Trauma?

Trauma refers to experiences that diminish our ability to feel safe (in our bodies; in the world) and connected (to ourselves, others, the earth, and spirit). Trauma can take the form of individual, personal threats to our well-being, vicarious or secondary traumas that our work exposes us to, or social traumas (oppression).

Trauma shows up in the body as contraction. Contraction is how the body protects itself from threatening experiences. This narrowed focus is natural, and essential to our survival. Common contraction patterns include fight, flight, and freeze (or collapse, paralysis, appease and dissociate) responses which are activated when the reptilian brain senses a threat. However, with repeated threats, the body can become stuck in contraction. Just like Primordial Awareness, our cells and tissues can forget their inherent wholeness and fluidity.

Those of us who are engaged in community service and social justice work have ample opportunity to work with trauma contractions. We often bring personal trauma histories to our work; we work with traumatized communities. We work directly with the forces of oppression. Truly, our work is steeped in trauma. As social justice and social service workers we need to be aware we are dealing with all of this trauma so that we can take care of ourselves and our communities.

A vast perspective can help us hold all the trauma coming our way. Since contraction is part of the natural rhythm of the universe, then trauma contractions are natural, temporary responses. You don’t need to fight against these natural contractions in your body, or in the bodies of others. You can assume everyone’s body is doing its best to find safety and wholeness, and turn your attention to learning how to restore fluidity.

We can cultivate the conditions that invite the unwinding of the brain/body contractions with Grounding, Restoring, Awareness, and Safety Practices (GRASP).

The GRASP acronym is a reminder that body contraction is like a clenched fist that we can gradually learn to open at will. Below are some GRASP practices to try. You will notice that each practice asks you to listen to and learn the language of sensation, which is the language of the reptilian brain and trauma healing.

Grounding Practices

*Feeling Held

Notice where your body is being physically supported. Pay attention to the sensations of your feet on the floor, your sitting bones on the chair, your back on the wall or chair. Keep bringing your attention to what your tissues and nerve endings are feeling with this contact. Notice what it feels like to have the floor/chair/wall, etc. consistently holding you.

*Bone Meditations

Your bones are your body’s reliable scaffold. Directing your attention to the bones can be very reassuring. Here are three bone meditations:

1) Using your hands, squeeze all of your bones, one-by-one. Notice their shape, and notice how when you squeeze, your bones push back. Pay attention to how dense and reliable each bone is.

2) One-by-one, slowly raise and lower leg bones, your arm bones, each finger bone, your skull, your shoulder bones. Pay attention to how gravity pushes your bones downward. Feel the weight of your bones. Lie down and slowly raise and lower your hips, feeling the weight of your hip and pelvic bones.

3) Do a body-scan of your bones. Feel or imagine the bones or collection of bones in each area of your body; imagine the shape, length and marrow of your bones. Looking at a picture of a skeleton can help you visualize your own.

*Grounding Breath

Inhale slowly and deeply, then exhale down towards earth, making a sound or sigh that matches how you feel. Repeat this at least three times. Notice how you feel afterward. Try adding this practice to your staff or community meetings. Doing this as a group enhances everyone’s ability to ground and settle.

Restoring Practices

*Gratitude: write down or speak aloud a couple of things you feel grateful for. Make sure you pay attention to the sensations that show up in your body. This is powerful to do in pairs.

*Stand with one leg slightly in front of the other and gently sway forward and back for at least 3 minutes. As you sway, pay attention to any places in your body that feel warm or cool or neutral. Try doing this as a group. As you sway, call out appreciations of each other and the group. Feel your body sensations as you take in the appreciations. Notice what shakes loose. Allow yourself to yawn, laugh, shake or cry.

Awareness Practices

We know that oppression arises from lack of awareness and empathy. So it is vital to cultivate awareness and empathy in order to interrupt and heal from oppression; practicing awareness is essential.

*Body-scans can get us in the habit of listening to the language of sensation (notice any tendency to label or interpret your sensations versus simply inhabiting them; thinking about your sensations is different from being immersed in them).

Notice any sense of exposure or vulnerability in your body; this will clue you into when you are in fight-or-flight mode, and help you notice where your body needs safety practices.

*Periodically check in with yourself by asking, what is the mood of my body? You can start and end staff or community meetings this way to build everyone’s awareness and reduce reactivity.

*Practice being present with your body’s mood and sensations for a few minutes. Then switch to being present with the physicality and moods of the people near you. Bring your attention back and forth between your body and their bodies. It may help to close your eyes when you tune into you, and open them when you tune into others. After a while, see if you can pay attention to your body and their bodies at the same time. This practice enhances your ability to stay centered in yourself (and your truth) while empathizing with others.

Safety Practices

*If part of your body feels exposed, give it a safe container: cradle your arms around the top of your head for a few minutes; cover your chest with a cat or hoodie or your hands; bundle up your body with blankets or pillows. Let yourself steep in the sensations for several minutes.

*I learned this practice from Capacitar http://capacitar.org/ One-by-one, “hug” each finger of your hand with your other hand, gently closing your fist around it. Take three slow deep breaths, feeling the sensations of warmth and holding in your finger.

*Notice an area tension in your body and draw a “yes” around this area. Thank this part of your body for “holding things together.” Appreciate it for its efforts. Pay attention to your sensations.

*To create a sense of group safety, have everyone sit side by side in pairs during difficult discussions or when sharing painful or challenging experiences. This practice builds a biological sense of safety and allyship, and relaxes the reptilian brain. You can add some of the other practices to these dyads, such as grounding breaths, feeling held by the chair/floor/wall, or gratitude sharing. This will increase mutual trust and group resilience.

*Make space for yourself: Clear space around you by pushing your arms out with your hands pushing forward as if you are stopping something. Do this 3-4 times in every direction: above, below, in front, behind and to the sides. If you want to, say aloud as you do this: “Go over there.” or “This is my space.” or “No.” Repeat this until you feel a calm, clear sense of space around your body. Clearing your space each day reprograms your body to send clear non-verbal messages to others to respect you.

Practice this together as a group and notice the effects on everyone. Claiming space creates room to reflect and respond mindfully. As you begin to own your space, your sense of spaciousness and safety will increase. Your reactivity (any tendency to auto-appease others, freeze, get defensive, attack, check-out, bail, escape, shut down, etc.) will decrease.

Practicing

Why is practice so important? A couple of reasons:

Body practices are deceptively simple. They actually are powerful, but only if you do them! You need to practice something at least 300 times for it to become familiar, and 3000 times for the practice to become part of you. However, since doing a practice for even 60 seconds ten times a day has an impact, reaching that 300-3000 mark is doable. Practice to discover what practices your body likes best, and then give your body these gifts as often as possible.

What you practice is what you become. Habitually practicing mindfulness, slowing down as individuals and as an organization translates into less reactive, crisis-driven norms and policies in your organization or community group.

Connie Burk of Northwest Network identifies four values she sees as vital to creating a sustainable organizational culture: engaging with others first, before (if necessary) opposing them, setting clear intentions before taking action, being fully resourced before taking on additional work, and generating what we believe in instead of reacting to what others are doing.

All four of these values are based in an ability to slow down, breathe, and make decisions from the collective creativity of our mid-frontal cortexes instead of being hijacked by our reactive lizard brains. If we are anchored in this creative flow, then even if we are sitting with organizational conflict or a campaign setback or oppressive laws, it doesn’t have to swallow us up. We can co-create something new together.

Let’s look at another motivation to practice GRASP practices in your community group. Both the personal traumas we bring into the work and the group response to oppression have a profound impact on group dynamics.

Personal Traumas We Bring to the Work

The body subjected to trauma or oppression can come to automatically experience itself as a powerless “victim” body. In his book, Power-Under: Trauma and Non-violent Social Change

http://www.gis.net/~swineman/

Steven Wineman names this victim body “subjective powerlessness.” When we identify with powerlessness, it is difficult for us to acknowledge our agency–our power to influence others and shape our surroundings. When we are caught up in the victim body it is easy to lash out at others with self-righteous critiques (usually in the name of “calling out” injustice), and difficult to take responsibility for our power to harm others and undermine collective work.

For these reasons, it is critical that everyone doing social justice and social service work take responsibility for understanding and healing their own trauma and reactivity. Organizations and groups can promote the well-being of the collective by actively supporting and providing opportunities for members to do their personal healing work.

It is important to remember that effective healing work works with the body. You cannot talk or think your way out of trauma reactions; to change these reactions you need to learn the language of sensation, which is the language of the reptilian brain. As Peter Levine observes in his book In An Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, “emotional reactivity almost always precludes conscious awareness…change only occurs where there is mindfulness, and mindfulness only occurs where there is bodily feeling.” p. 338

The Group Response to Oppression

Since oppression is trauma, when we come together to discuss or dismantle oppression everyone’s reptilian brains go on high alert. It is easy for everyone in the room to be ‘triggered”. In addition, fight or flight reactions are based on instant assessments. As a result, when the reptilian brain is triggered, it undermines our ability to hold contradictions. We see things in terms of yes/no, right/wrong, friend/enemy. Groups of habitually triggered people are prone to infighting and polarization. Sound familiar?

We can preempt this situation in our workplace or organization by learning about and anticipating each other’s fight or flight responses. We can make a commitment to support one another to move from reactive states to creative states. We can also use GRASP practices to create the conditions for our body armoring to soften or disappear, and for our rigid, traumatized identities to relax.

Although long term, consistent use of GRASP is essential, even a little practice can produce surprising shifts in group dynamics. We may find one moment there is tense conflict, and the next moment, mutual understanding. This is the moment when the energy that was bound in contraction is freed up. Our bodies remember their fluid power, and the entire group shifts from reactivity to creativity.

Over time and with practice, this softening process makes room for more aliveness, fluidity and agency to show up in our work for justice and healing. Working skillfully with our individual and collective contractions can reduce reactivity and polarization, and restore creativity and resilience to our bodies and communities.

In this way we can create the world we want to live in right now, and nourish the justice work that is building that world for all generations.

Many thanks to the amazing teachers whose generous wisdom I aspire to transmit: Joann Lyons, Denise Benson, Phyllis Pay, Anam Thubten.

http://www.turningwheelmedia.org/working-with-contraction-grounding-and-restoring-practices/

Delighted to be writing for Buddhist Peace Fellowship this week:

http://www.turningwheelmedia.org/working-with-contraction-practices-to-sustain-social-change/