meditation – Page 6 – the solo mama project

I got a text the other night from an SMC friend who is also in the two-week-wait and had just run into her most recent ex-boyfriend, the one with whom she thought she’d be having a baby. He was out with another woman.

Reading her text took the wind out of me… I felt a visceral compassion because I’ve been there and there’s nothing like that particular encounter. The next morning, I checked in with her to see how she was feeling, and she was sad, heavyhearted, spiraling down.

We all know the downward spiral, right? One thing happens, and then another thing happens, or maybe one really big and terrible thing (like this) happens, and you’re set on a trajectory of feeling worse and worse (see my “meltdown” post of a few days ago). Sometimes it’s a relatively tiny thing that tips the balance (someone’s facebook post or an offhanded comment) and, next thing you know, you don’t know which way is up.

When you get into this mode, it’s like the terrorists have already won. They have convinced you, by launching a constant campaign of neg bombs in your brain, that your life sucks, that you made bad choices, that it’s too late, that you’re not good enough, that you don’t want what you have and don’t have what you want. They are relentless sometimes. But as soon as you start to believe them, it’s curtains. It snowballs. And then it spirals.

Here’s the beauty part: the terrorists do not speak the truth!!!! Hilariously, they are technically working “for” you and their objective (ironically) is to protect you–but their strategies are archaic! They are the army of our vestigial three-part brain with all of its conflicting survival strategies playing out at once! First, we have our snake-like and simple reptilian brain, known for its fight or flight response. Around that, the puppy-dog limbic brain, seeking love and nurturing and recording all episodes of emotional pain to avoid its recurrence at all costs. And, finally, the professor: the nonstop talker, the neocortex. Our intellectualization of everything, the “telling of the story,” the planner, the worrier, the omniscient narrator who is a bit of a wackjob.

On one hand, it’s a wonder that we can function with all of this going on, surviving in a modern society with caveman impulses running in the background. On the other hand, it’s a miracle that we’re here at all, and we wouldn’t be without these crazy, complicated, wonderful brains. We just have to learn how to keep them in check. It is my belief that this is a lifelong practice that we all bought into the minute we left our mother’s bodies (and notably we do so earlier than many mammals, in order to keep growing our big-ass brains outside the womb).

One of my favorite books, A General Theory of Love, offers three main strategies for getting on a more positive track and overcoming major obstacles to a happier life: medication, meditation, and cognitive therapy. All three have been greatly effective for me at various stages: medication to correct the chemistry that at times gets stuck on the unhappiness channel, meditation to find the inner peace and tranquility that is blissfully separate from all the commotion upstairs, and cognitive therapy to actually correct some of the automatic thinking that can send you off on negative spirals.

So, in gchatting with my friend yesterday morning, I said: what would send you on an upward spiral? Seriously: even just posing the question cheered us both up. In posing the question, you take charge in that moment: wait up! I’m actually running this show! I can choose to push myself in a happier direction! What are those things that consistently make me happy? Make a list: walking, sunshine, tea, coffee, slippers, running, watching the waves, napping, writing, volunteering, baking, friends, solitude. Do those things. And practice gratitude. Gratitude is like water on the wicked witch. Let me know if the terrorists don’t at least order a temporary cease-fire.

You can even be grateful for the wicked witches and the terrorists. Give them a big smile and a thumbs up.

Then, once you’re movin’ on up, just keep going!

If I knew slightly more about Buddhism, I might call myself a Buddhist. As it currently stands, however, I’m pretty much a meditator who hangs on every word of a dharma talk, feeling like the teacher is reading my mind and saying exactly what I needed to hear. I find it so consoling and reassuring that I think of Tuesday night Mission Dharma with Howie as my church in the sense of being the spiritual place where I go regularly, other than the woods. (Also, it literally does take place in a church. 🙂 )

There’s a teaching that talks about how people who are perfectionists sometimes go to the extreme even with their meditation, thinking “I’ll be the best meditator of all, and eventually people will revere me and I’ll become a teacher and then I’ll be the best teacher in the nation, and then I’ll become the best teacher in the world, and then I’ll be invited to speak at international Buddhist conferences.” And the dharma teacher’s response is, “There is nothing more sorrowful than international Buddhist conferences. Just be the earthworm who knows two words: ‘Let go.'”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of letting go, since the infamous two-week-wait is a perfect example of a situation where I want something very, very much (big-time attachment), and yet I have essentially zero control over the outcome. Could you think of a more perfect opportunity to practice letting go? I really can’t. In this moment, I am not pregnant but I am also not not pregnant. I am squarely in a gray area and practicing not veering off into one outcome or the other but just being with both even though they’re mutually exclusive… It’s not a problem. It’s an opportunity! (See–my super-spiritual Beez has taught me a few things!)

I’ve recently been reminded of how much more dire the potential outcomes can be. A dear friend with a long history of health issues causing nailbiter waiting periods went in to the hospital today to have a biopsy for possible breast cancer. In her case, she’s spent the last several weeks living with the possibility of grave outcomes. She is the quintessential zen master–I am so inspired by her superhuman ability to remain basically OK and positive and, as she put it to me last night, “just living in the gray area.”

I’m beyond thrilled to report that when she called me at 9:30 this morning, she was laughing. The biopsy was basically cancelled because after reviewing all her latest data, they said there was nothing to warrant a biopsy at all. She can go back for a checkup in 6 months. We laughed and laughed on the phone because this is so much like other scares she’s had and yet things always seem to turn out OK. I also sensed that she didn’t swing all the way over into an ecstatic flood of relief state either–she was relieved, certainly, but she was still centered. She knows that life goes on with its ups and downs and who knows what. But we really cracked up because it’s just so wonderful.

I once read about a Buddhist teacher who was asked, “How do you handle fear?” And he said, “I agree. I agree.”

With this incredible example of equanimity in my hip pocket, I feel calm. It simply would not be tragic to not get pregnant on the second month of trying. (In fact, it would be darned normal.) However, I have license to feel how I feel, and boy will you hear about it. I started reading a book my mom sent me and I love it so far: “Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World” by Mark Williams. I meditate 10 minutes a day, and I practice gratitude as many other minutes of the day as I can remember to do so.

Today, I’m just so grateful that my friend is OK.