I have been struggling all week with a comment from a young relative, which was very generally, "What's all this looking for the light? How is that going to help people who can't pay their mortgage because they've lost their job due to the COVID19 pandemic?" This comment hit me so that I have been thinking about it ever since. It brings front and center the degree to which I am privileged and safe and have food and shelter and livelihood through a period of history that seems in surreal ways as extreme at the plagues of medieval Europe. The divisions between the "haves" and "have nots", seem even greater with the strains on our society.
The shadow of death has not directly crossed our doorstep. Neither has the wide mouth of hunger and poverty, but I know there are now families who where whole a month ago who may now be homeless, uprooted or starving due to the deaths and financial closures of the pandemic.
While grateful every day for the fortunes that keep me safe, healthy and occupied I have sought to contribute in ways that are within my means: making PPE for health care workers and holding weekly reiki healing circles on line. I have also sought to share my gratitude practice with friends and family as a source of inspiration and comfort through this blog. What I had not realized was how frustrating this might be for people who have had the twin wolves of poverty and death shadowing their doorstep. How arrogant I must sound to those who might have to move in with relatives and don't know if they'll have job come Fall.
But what I do know from my training as a Somatic Experiencing therapist, is that meeting the fear and pain where they are in yourself and making plenty of room for them, can help to diffuse their intensity and loosen their grip on our brains. Any thing is possible if we can imagine it. And this type of focus can help an individual get rid of these feeling states, empower them toward resilience and help them to find ways to survive these adverse times.
Pema Chodron, from her book When Things Fall Apart, tells the tale of spiritual seeker who wishes to be rid of certain emotions such as anger, jealousy and especially fear:
So the next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes
in. Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with
fear.
In parting I offer this prayer from St. Theresa of Avila in Spain during the 1500's
Let nothing upset you,
let nothing afright you,
Everything is changing
God alone is changeless;
Patience obtains all things,
Who has God lacks nothing for nothing.
God alone fills all her needs. Amen.
The shadow of death has not directly crossed our doorstep. Neither has the wide mouth of hunger and poverty, but I know there are now families who where whole a month ago who may now be homeless, uprooted or starving due to the deaths and financial closures of the pandemic.
While grateful every day for the fortunes that keep me safe, healthy and occupied I have sought to contribute in ways that are within my means: making PPE for health care workers and holding weekly reiki healing circles on line. I have also sought to share my gratitude practice with friends and family as a source of inspiration and comfort through this blog. What I had not realized was how frustrating this might be for people who have had the twin wolves of poverty and death shadowing their doorstep. How arrogant I must sound to those who might have to move in with relatives and don't know if they'll have job come Fall.
But what I do know from my training as a Somatic Experiencing therapist, is that meeting the fear and pain where they are in yourself and making plenty of room for them, can help to diffuse their intensity and loosen their grip on our brains. Any thing is possible if we can imagine it. And this type of focus can help an individual get rid of these feeling states, empower them toward resilience and help them to find ways to survive these adverse times.
Pema Chodron, from her book When Things Fall Apart, tells the tale of spiritual seeker who wishes to be rid of certain emotions such as anger, jealousy and especially fear:
Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and
put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything
spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible things that we feel fear when faced with the
unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of
loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to
moving closer to the truth.
...
I once attended a lecture about a man’s spiritual experiences in India in the 1960s. He said he was determined to get rid of his negative emotions. He struggled against anger and lust; he struggled against laziness and pride. But mostly he wanted to get rid of his fear. His meditation teacher kept telling him to stop struggling, but he took that as just another way of explaining how to overcome his obstacles.
Finally the teacher sent him off to meditate in a tiny hut in the foothills. He shut the door and settled down to practice, and when it got dark he lit three small candles. Around midnight he heard a noise in the corner of the room, and in the darkness he saw a very large snake. It looked to him like a king cobra. It was right in front of him, swaying. All night he stayed totally alert, keeping his eyes on the snake. He was so afraid that he couldn’t move. There was just the snake and himself and fear.
Just before dawn the last candle went out, and he began to cry. He cried not in despair but from tenderness. He felt the longing of all the animals and people in the world; he knew their alienation and their struggle. All his meditation had been nothing but further separation and struggle. He accepted — really accepted wholeheartedly — that he was angry and jealous, that he resisted and struggled, and that he was afraid. He accepted that he was also precious beyond measure - wise and foolish, rich and poor, and totally unfathomable. He felt so much gratitude that in the total darkness he stood up, walked toward the snake, and bowed. Then he fell sound asleep on the floor. When he awoke, the snake was gone. He never knew if it was his imagination or if it had really been there, and it didn’t seem to matter. As he put it at the end of the lecture, that much intimacy with fear caused his dramas to collapse, and the world around him finally got through.
...
...
I once attended a lecture about a man’s spiritual experiences in India in the 1960s. He said he was determined to get rid of his negative emotions. He struggled against anger and lust; he struggled against laziness and pride. But mostly he wanted to get rid of his fear. His meditation teacher kept telling him to stop struggling, but he took that as just another way of explaining how to overcome his obstacles.
Finally the teacher sent him off to meditate in a tiny hut in the foothills. He shut the door and settled down to practice, and when it got dark he lit three small candles. Around midnight he heard a noise in the corner of the room, and in the darkness he saw a very large snake. It looked to him like a king cobra. It was right in front of him, swaying. All night he stayed totally alert, keeping his eyes on the snake. He was so afraid that he couldn’t move. There was just the snake and himself and fear.
Just before dawn the last candle went out, and he began to cry. He cried not in despair but from tenderness. He felt the longing of all the animals and people in the world; he knew their alienation and their struggle. All his meditation had been nothing but further separation and struggle. He accepted — really accepted wholeheartedly — that he was angry and jealous, that he resisted and struggled, and that he was afraid. He accepted that he was also precious beyond measure - wise and foolish, rich and poor, and totally unfathomable. He felt so much gratitude that in the total darkness he stood up, walked toward the snake, and bowed. Then he fell sound asleep on the floor. When he awoke, the snake was gone. He never knew if it was his imagination or if it had really been there, and it didn’t seem to matter. As he put it at the end of the lecture, that much intimacy with fear caused his dramas to collapse, and the world around him finally got through.
...
Let nothing upset you,
let nothing afright you,
Everything is changing
God alone is changeless;
Patience obtains all things,
Who has God lacks nothing for nothing.
God alone fills all her needs. Amen.
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