NO

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There is a song I started hearing on the radio this summer. Do you know it? It's Meghan Trainor's NO. You have probably heard it. I am not one to follow pop music, but I like to turn on the radio sometimes when I am driving. I heard this song and liked it immediately. The reason I like it is because she says "No" in so many different ways throughout the song. 

No is an empowering word. Try it on. And really mean it. Feels good, right?

How many of us were taught to be polite and say yes when we didn't mean it? How many of us have a hard time saying no? If you do have a hard time saying no, it may not feel good to try it on as I invited you to above.

That used to be me. My no was so buried I didn't know where it was. It didn't feel okay to say no. I didn't know how to have a simple expression of "I don't want to" or "I don't like that." It is still something I work on and probably will be for years to come.

Meghan Trainor - NO

Since finding my no, I am learning to embrace it. I practice saying no when I need to and I like to go around saying it for the fun of it. That's why I like Meghan Trainor's song. I want to sing along (and I do) saying, "My name is no, my sign is no, my number is no...Nah to the ah to the no, no, no." It feels incredibly satisfying.

When Our Yes is Really a No

What happens when we say yes, but we don't really mean it? In my experience, it doesn't work out too well. Let's say, for example, my friend or family member calls. I am busy or tired and don't feel like talking, but I ignore that part of me and I answer the phone anyway. Maybe we have a simple, short conversation and it doesn't feel like that big of a deal. Or maybe the caller keeps talking and I start to feel resentful because all I really wanted to do was rest for a few minutes. In that case, I'm not really paying attention them and I'm not really paying attention to me, either. Very likely neither of us ends up getting what we want.  

I have done things like this more times than I can count. In the end, it does not feel very good or satisfying. When we have a hard time saying no, it can feel like we are giving away pieces of ourselves. It can feel like we are spread thin and like there is no barrier between us and the world.  

In this example, here are a few simple alternatives:

1. Don't answer the phone when you don't want to talk. Sounds so easy. And yet how many of us feel obligated to answer our phones all the time?
2. Answer the phone. Tell the caller that you would like to talk to them and you would like to be able to give them your full attention. Ask if there is another time you could call them back.
3. Pay attention to the part of you that does not want to talk right now. Really honor that part of you and let yourself have that feeling. There are times in life that we have to do things we don't want to do. We can still honor the feeling of not wanting to do it. You can experiment with allowing for not wanting to talk and at the same time answer the phone. Notice if that feels any different than answering the phone while ignoring your no.

Having a No to Have a Yes

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The more room we have for our nos, the more room we have for our yeses. As my teachers at Hartford Family Institute say, "You have to have a no before you can have a yes." If we never have a no, our yeses don't mean as much. It can feel like going through the motions without really being engaged in life. Our yeses and our nos give us direction, which contributes to a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

To turn it around, think of having a yes to you. What would that feel like? If you walked around the world saying yes to yourself first, how might your life be different?

I want to reiterate that we don't always have to act on our feelings. There are times, when watching young children, for example, that it is inappropriate to say, "I need to rest, you take of yourself." Even in that scenario, we can notice what we truly want and bring care to ourselves in that place. When we care for ourselves in that way, we tend to others with more care, as well.  

Sometimes my no turns into a yes after I have really let myself have it. For example, someone may ask me to do something. My initial, internal reaction is often, "Nope, not gonna do it." This is the part of me that does not want to be forced into anything. I want to know I have a choice. When I notice that reaction in me, I pause and let myself land in it. I let myself know that I could really say no and that would be okay. Once I recognize that, I have more space to feel into what I want. Sometimes, then, I feel how I want to do what has been asked of me. At that point, I can say yes more fully and honestly. That's a game changer.

Whatever your relationship is to your no, it is worth paying attention to. Notice how it feels to say no. Are there any fears that come up? Do they seem true? Do you feel freer or more alive when you allow for your no? Try on little experiments; play with it. As you go about your day, what happens when you say no? What happens when you don't? How does it feel to listen to Meghan Trainor's song and sing along or to walk around your home saying, "No, NOOOOO, Nope, nononononono?" Notice how it feels to say yes. And how it feels to say yes and really mean it. Truly, we need both our yeses and nos to live a full life. NO!! YES!!

What's in Your Dreams?

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Over the last several weeks, I have been working with my dreams. As I spend more time with them and get to know them, I notice I feel less anxious about having a "bad" dream. I am learning to appreciate the gifts that can be found within even the most unpleasant dreams.

So it is with our bodies, as well. When we experience pain, we can move away from it, or we can move toward it. There are many parallels between exploring the pains in our physical body and exploring the meaning of our dreams. 

What yet unknown information is held deep within the unexplored parts of our being? Like the messages in our bodies, these messages from the night are worthy of our attention.

"As the mind explores the symbol, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason." -Carl Jung

Unitarian Universalist minister and dream explorer, Jeremy Taylor, believes that "all dreams come in the service of health and wholeness." He argues that we dream about things we are ready to see and the fact that we are dreaming a dream means we have the capacity to work through it in some way.

This matches my experience. Dreams often point to the issues we are wrestling with in our waking lives. Having a dream about these scenarios gives us the opportunity to explore them in a different way. Dreams are full of metaphor and symbol, which invites us to tap into the non-linear parts of ourselves. We "get out of our head," so to speak. 

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Dream Work

As I have been delving into my dreams, one of my favorite questions to ask has been, "what is the question this dream wants me to be conscious of?" Another similar approach is to ask "what is the gift in this dream?" These both allow me to open into the possibility that there is something in my dream that wants to be seen or known. 

There are many different approaches to dream work. As a starting point, I like Jeremy Taylor's Dream Work Toolkit. He describes "Six Basic Hints for Dream Work," including "No dreams come just to tell you what you already know." 

Another way to begin is to give your dream a title. This can be a way to capture the essence of a dream. The title may be a simple description of the focal point. What stands out to you in your dream?

Whenever we have unpleasant dreams, we have a choice about how we respond. If we want to, we can explore the meaning in the dream. For example, we can imagine facing the scary creature coming at us. By engaging with this creature and seeing it, does it become more or less scary? What does it have to tell us? If something feels too scary to face, can we imagine an alternative ending where we get away from the scary thing or where something or someone comes in and protects us?

There are many creative ways that we can work with the images and characters of our dreams and find resolution. In my experience, dreams show me parts of myself that are hidden in the shadows. Working with our dreams is a chance to bring these parts of ourselves into the light.

Hello, Pain

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One recent morning, I woke up to find that my left ankle was swollen and in pain. I was getting ready to go to work, hiking and camping for the weekend, and I was not happy that my ankle was hurting. Truthfully, I was scared. My mind went to a million places at once. What happened? What's wrong? Should I go to work? Should I stay home? How can I take care of myself and still get to work and do my job?

I applied a homeopathic cream to reduce the swelling. I took an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory pain reliever. I wrapped my ankle and went to work. 

How many of us have done that before? We carry on and push forward and go about our day even when our body is giving us clear signs that something is up. I modified my work load for the weekend, skipped one of the hikes and took it easy as best I could. I was okay. And, I wasn't really listening to my body.

Even when I returned home, I kept going. I assumed my ankle would get better and did not pay it much attention. I rested, sort of. I convinced myself it was getting better, the swelling was going down and my range of motion was increasing. This was true, but clearly my ankle still hurt and was still swollen, days later. I could not walk normally or put my full weight on my foot.

Listening to Our Bodies

Perhaps you are not like me and you would have gone to the doctor that first day. Sometimes I do that, too. This time it took me a full week.

As a Somatic Therapist, here's where it gets interesting. I went to the doctor because I finally slowed down enough to listen to my body. Literally. I asked my ankle if it wanted to go to the doctor and I heard, "yes." Clearly. From my ankle itself, not from my head.

Intellectually, I had a sense that it would be helpful for me to have someone else examine my ankle. However, it was not until I really heard my ankle's response that I went to the doctor.

The doctor's visit itself was partially helpful because it ruled out certain possibilities, nothing broken, nothing strained. Okay, that's what I suspected all along. Now I could turn my attention to what I know how to do, which is to get to know the experience in my ankle and listen to what it wants to tell me. 

Alligator in the Ankle

Throughout the week, I had been sensing into my ankle on and off, but only half paying attention. Twice I asked if there was an image in my ankle and twice I saw an alligator clamping down on the joint. In those moments, I did not want to know anything more about that, so I moved on to whatever else I was doing.

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I started to realize I wanted someone to be with me as I got to know more about this alligator. That's why I was avoiding it, I didn't want to explore it by myself. It felt like too much.

So I got help. With the skillful and caring presence of Jessamyn Tallyn, who is a practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu and Manual Osteopathy, I was able to hear more clearly what was going on in my ankle. I saw the bigger picture and had a better sense of what was preventing me from grounding and standing fully in my left side. She helped me release something and bring in love and gentleness, which encouraged the flow of energy. Something started to shift.

My sense is that all of the ways we have of caring for and listening to our bodies are part of the healing process. In my case, I needed to go to the doctor for diagnosis, or at least to rule out certain possibilities. In some way, that was the beginning of me taking my ankle seriously and listening to what it had to say. That was the beginning of my healing process. Our bodies have so much to tell us when we are ready to listen. 

On one level, my ankle continues to heal and feel better. On another level, I gained something else, too. The best way I can describe it is to say that I retrieved some part of me. Through listening to my body and understanding the ways I was constricting and holding myself back, I was able to let some of that go and regain a sense of fullness and power.

Wanting to Give Up

Do you ever feel like you want to give up, like you are waging an uphill battle that you cannot win? Sometimes I do. Sometimes the world seems so dark and hopeless. It can feel like whatever I am facing is insurmountable and I am all alone.

Feelings like this can be scary. What can we possibly do when we feel hopeless? It can feel like nothing makes a difference and nothing matters.

In my experience, my body reflects what I am feeling. When I want to give up, my body feels heavy and weighed down, every small movement takes incredible effort and I have no energy for anything.

What can we do?

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the first thing we can do is to make room for our feelings. What does it mean "to make room" for what we're feeling? Well, to start, we can acknowledge that we feel like giving up. Once we notice those feelings are present, we can say to ourselves, "oh, I feel like giving up right now."

Part of making room for our feelings is to greet them in a gentle way, as if we are speaking to a small child who needs tenderness and care. This can take practice, especially if that is not the way we were treated as children. I encourage you to give it try and see how it feels.

Getting to know our "unwanted feelings"

The next thing we can do is to take the time to sit with our feelings. I mean this on an intimate and body level. Can you feel in your body where hopelessness lives? Where are the edges? Does it have a sound? A color? What would it be like to sit with the physical sensations that are present? Can you bring an energy of curiosity to your exploration?

If this seems silly to you, no big deal. If you want, you can suspend judgement for a few minutes and simply notice what you feel as you explore your experience. Alternatively, notice the part of you that feels silly or does not want to try this.

If you are feeling open and interested, you could even have a dialogue with your experience. You may be surprised by what comes up. Ask a question right into a feeling state, such as "wanting to give up," or into a physical sensation in your body. The question could be "do you have a message for me?" or "what do you need?" or whatever else you feel compelled to ask. 

The idea is not to try to come up with an answer. Rather, sit and wait and listen and see what comes to you. For example, you may receive an answer in the form of an image, words, or a sensation. You may also receive no answer or it may come to you at some later point. This is an experiment and an exploration. There is no right or wrong answer. It is an opportunity to be with yourself in an intimate way and see what is there.

Feelings vs truth

Whatever you are feeling is simply that, a feeling. The nature of feelings is that they appear for a while and disappear again, flowing from one to the next. As adults, we often interrupt this process. We have learned that some feelings are better than others (and more socially acceptable) and we have all kinds of ways to hold on to what feels good and avoid what feels bad. The practice of befriending all of our feelings helps them move more freely within us.

Think of a small child who is upset and angry one minute and happy and playing the next. That is what it looks like when we let our emotions flow. I am not necessarily suggesting we as adults should throw tantrums in the supermarket. However, can you sense how free you might feel if you did? To me, it feels incredibly liberating. It can be enough to imagine the kid in you throwing a tantrum without having to actually do it outwardly.

In the case of feeling hopeless or like you want to give up, there may be an inner voice contributing to that feeling. I like to call this voice "The Defeater." It says things like, "What's the point? It's not going to work, anyway. You can't do it."

It is important to identify this voice. As convincing as it may seem and as tied to it as we may be, it does not speak the truth. It has an agenda that is all about bringing us down and defeating us. Being able to see and know it, helps us to detangle ourselves from it. We do not have to believe it.

Bringing love in

Remember when I said part of making room for our feelings is to greet them with care and tenderness? This is perhaps the single most important thing we can do. When we feel hopeless, we can imagine ourselves wrapped in a blanket of love. When we want to give up, we can picture ourselves resting in a meadow of wildflowers or floating in a stream, held by the earth or held by the water.

Whatever it is that feels warm, light and comforting, we can bring to our experience. This is what allows our feelings to move on and then something else will come. I like to imagine and sense a drop of love going right into the center of whatever I am feeling. Then I don't feel so alone and something within me begins to shift.

There are plenty of times when I am not able to do this on my own. I try to picture something comforting and nothing comes or I can't feel it. This is when I need help. We all need help sometimes. Perhaps that is why we are all on this planet together, to help each other find love and to care for one another. I do not know if that is true or not. What I do know is this: there is love in the world and we all deserve to be met with love.

May you know you are loved

The ideas presented in this blog are adapted from my training at LIFE Movement and Hartford Family Institute. 

Bringing Kindness to Pain

When you see a tree growing in the woods, do you say to yourself, that tree sure could be straighter or taller or more tree-like? Do you pick on it and find fault? Or do you appreciate it for its beauty, its shade on a hot day, or its display of colors in the fall? 

Personally, I love trees. I see trees and I am so struck by something I cannot even name. I am filled with awe and wonder. I react to all kinds of trees in this way, especially if they are growing in unexpected places - like coming out of a rock - or are particularly snarled.

If trees are not your thing, what is? What do you love? What is something that you deeply appreciate when you see it, something you greet with care no matter how it appears? What touches your heart?

Now You

Before we go on, notice how it feels to deeply care for something or someone. How would you greet them? What would you say or do? Can you imagine being gentle and caring? Can you imagine loving them with all of their snarly imperfections?

Now, can you imagine greeting yourself in this same way? For some of us, that can be challenging, especially if we are in pain. We may feel impatient, frustrated or annoyed. That is absolutely understandable. When I am in pain, my first unconscious reaction is usually some version of "what is wrong now?" said in a not-so-nice way. I have to practice bringing kindness to myself and to my pain. 

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Photo by Kate Grigg

The Practice

Here is what strikes me about this. If I am in pain and mad about it, I am fighting with myself. Not only am I uncomfortable because I am in pain, I am uncomfortable because I am moving away from the pain in some way. Maybe I am tensing around it or constricting my muscles. I am wishing the pain were not there and doing something on a body level to try not to feel it. And I am cranky about it.

If, however, I pause and remember that I could greet my pain the way I greet the trees I love, my experience changes. The pain may or may not feel exactly as it did. Oftentimes, I soften and the pain shifts or lessens to some degree. Even if that is not the case, I still feel more at ease because I am no longer fighting a part of me.

This can be a challenging practice. In my experience, it is worth it. I like to think of it this way: each time we can bring kindness to ourselves, we are building a reservoir. One drop at a time is all it takes. Over time, the reservoir grows and it becomes easier to access.

You do not have to be in pain to try this. At anytime you can imagine a drop of love being absorbed in your body and in your reservoir of kindness. As you do this, your capacity to love you grows.

May you be at peace

Where is the Pause Button?

This is week I have been wanting to pause time. I kept finding myself racing ahead to the next thing and the next. My mind was consumed by thoughts of the future and my whole body felt tense and on edge.

I wanted to slow down. I wanted my body to relax. I wanted to feel and believe that, somehow, everything would be okay and my world would not come crashing down if I put down my to-do list. I wanted time to be doing absolutely nothing and to not feel guilty about it. 

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Pausing Time

How do we pause time? One simple way is to breathe, or as I have heard it said in yoga class, let you body be breathed. You can try it right now. Let the air come into your lungs. Feel the air going out. Witness your body breathing. You do not have to do anything, it happens on its own. Your body knows how to breathe.

Even as I type, I feel more relaxed and less rushed. I am coming into the present moment. There is nothing more to do here than to breathe for this one moment. We can rest in our breathing for one breath, two, maybe three or four. That is enough to slow ourselves down.

Perhaps you are like me and you notice your mind jumping ahead to the next moment. Not a problem. That is what our minds do. They are busy and incredibly active. That is their job. We can thank our minds for doing what they know how to do and we can return to our breath for another moment. In this way, we cultivate slowing down. It is a slowing down that happens on a body level. We are inviting our body into another way of being.

Real Life

Okay, so that was nice, you may be thinking, but now I have to go...make dinner, get the kids, go back to work or fill in the blank. I understand the reality of our daily lives is that we have a lot going on. We are busy people. What if we can take the feeling of slowing down right into the middle of our full days? Even as we are doing whatever task is at hand, we can remember that we are also breathing. We can invite a sense of slowing down and pausing in the midst of our daily comings and goings.

We can also find time in between things. I suspect there are plenty of moments each day when you have pause points. The next time you are waiting in line or stuck in traffic, feel your breath in your body and notice if anything shifts. 

Taking a Break

It can be challenging to simply pause. Admittedly, this week I had a hard time doing that. I was restless. I kept internally badgering myself. That happens sometimes.

What did I do? I got outside. I gave myself permission to take a break from all the things on my mind. I carved out time in my days so I could walk in the park. That is where I found my stillness. I sat on the trunk of a tree that had recently fallen. I lay on the grass under one of my favorite oaks. I let the earth hold me. There I felt my body and mind slow down. That is what sustained me through the week.

It some paradoxical way, when we slow down and take breaks, we have more time. That has been my experience. Everything that needs to happen still gets done. Somehow when we have more space for us, there is more space for everything.

I invite you to try it today. Pause to feel your breath. Take a break and get outside. I trust there is enough time in each day for us to slow down. 

Grumpy Day

Do you ever have a grumpy day? A day when you feel bleh and you don't want to do anything? Maybe you got some bad news or woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe it's one of those days when nothing seems to go right and the whole world looks grey. 

What do you do on a day like that? Do you stay in bed and pull the covers over your head? Do you push through, waiting for the day to end, hoping for something better tomorrow?

Though it may not feel like it, we have options when we are having a hard time. There are things we can do to care for ourselves and treat ourselves with kindness. As Stuart Alpert, Co-Founder of the Hartford Family Institute's Center for Psychotherapy and Healing Arts says, in any given moment, we are either supporting our experience or not supporting it. There is no neutral. 

Supporting our experience is something we can practice. If you want, try it right now. Pause and take a breath. Notice what you are feeling. How connected or disconnected do you feel? What do you notice in your body, in your thoughts and feelings? Are you distracted, agitated, calm, judging, open or something else? Take another breath and see if you can let whatever you are experiencing be here without trying to change it. Can you imagine greeting whatever is present for you with compassion, as if your experience is an old friend coming to see you? For example, you might say inwardly, "Hello, Grumpy. Thank you for coming today. I trust you are here for a good reason. I am here."

If you tried this experiment, what did you notice? Perhaps there was a softening or an opening as you sat with what was present. Perhaps your feelings intensified or felt uncomfortable. Perhaps you did not try this experiment because it seemed silly or you did not want to. Whatever you did or did not do, whatever your experience was, what would it be like to not give yourself a hard time about it? This is how we cultivate self-compassion and acceptance. 

The above is an example of one option we have when we are having a hard time, simply greeting our experience with kindness. As I wrote, I could feel something shift in me and now my heart feels softer. What was your experience?

Sometimes kindness may not feel accessible to us. We may feel stuck. We may need help. When we are in the midst of some inner turmoil, it may not occur to us that we could pause and be with our experience. Being with our experience may be the last thing we want to do.

I was having a day like that on Friday. I was all worked up and not sure what to do. I called a friend, which helped me know I was not alone and get some clarity, at least for a little while. I went about my day as best I could, but my thoughts were still going around and around in my head, chasing each other, trying to find a way out of the "badness" I was feeling.

Later, I went for a walk in the woods. The movement and the fresh air helped, but I still had an underlying feeling of agitation. If I am honest, all I really wanted to do was to get rid of the agitation. I was not meeting the agitation like an old friend. In those moments, I was treating my agitation as an enemy, something to fix, and something I did not want. 

Naming my experience helps me bring more kindness to myself. I can appreciate how much I did not want to feel what I was feeling. This brings me to another option we can try. Journaling or drawing about our experience. When we put our feelings down on paper, we can see them more clearly and, at the same time, get some space from them. They are one part of our experience and not the whole of who we are.

The last thing I did on my grumpy day was to get out of my experience for a while so I could feel something different. One of my favorite local artists, Canyon, was playing at a nearby church. I went. I brought my grumpy self and sat down in the back and let the music pour over me. With little to no effort on my part, my spirits were lifted. The lyrics and the melodies moved me. When I left at the end of the night, I was struck by how different I felt. I savored those moments of feeling joy, feeling touched and alive.  

There is no one magic thing that will make us feel better when we are having a bad day. We all want to feel good and we all want to avoid discomfort. We are all doing our best at living our lives the way we know how. What I notice is the more I practice being with the nuances of my experience when I am feeling okay, the easier it is for me to be with my experience when it is intense, distressful or "icky" in some way. It is also important to me to know I have options. I can call a friend, go for a walk, journal, dance or listen to music. I can curl up in a blanket and treat myself with kindness. How do you take care of yourself when you are in a hard place? Can you imagine taking in a drop of love to the center of your experience?