Year of Self-Compassion #34 #musclememory

Regular readers will know I started the year with a couple of serious injurious falls and every now and again I am reminded of them when I move a certain way or get an attack of the giggles or have a giant sneeze.  The body remembers even when we don’t. Muscle memory is a real thing and I am always astonished that my fingers still know where to go on a guitar even though I haven’t played in decades.  Emotional memory is true too – instead of the muscle groups remembering – the synaptic pathways have experience to draw on … I guess this is why, back when I was counselling people, I always asked them to remember a time when they were (insert word here) joyful, excited, tenacious, flexible etc.  Building on the pathway already there to be strengthened and used to serve you.

In this week when our country has changed leaders, I really wonder how a political party room, hasn’t gone to it’s national muscle and emotional memory?  Making the same mistakes over and over again will only lead to the same results in the same way making the right choices over and over again will lead to improvements in fitness. Once you get to the bottom and all the bad choices have been made and you want to start making better choices it is a long and disciplined road to the future you want to create.  It may even mean taking part in systems that you don’t like much or finding new ones hidden in your landscape to draw on. Taking yourself to an edge and then instead of jumping off, looking up not down. Going to your best self, drawing on the energy of the ground on which we walk, the ancient land in this pale blue dot that holds us all together – past, present and future.

I have sat with sadness this week embodied in others as well as myself. Sadness seeping into depression for one; sadness seeping out of being overwhelmed for another; sadness weeping like a sore for another and for me sadness as another layer of rock inside of me being worn away slowly by tears.  This body knows how to cry now, it is beginning to learn how to accept generosity, and it is opening up to the weariness that is deep in the muscle memory each time stillness arrives.  Years, decades in fact, of caring and comforting, holding up more than half the sky for those under the same roof have left the synaptic pathways finding themselves lost – threads of a tapestry seeking to be woven in and it is in the under side, the backstory where they are being sewn.  This under belly of history, my story, a story not yet finished, and one that is searching to be grounded in a self under re-construction.

I often talk in my work about the difference between disruption and service reform and I find I am disrupting myself rather than re-forming. Cultural change at the cellular level living with less of everything in my life has me teetering on a precipice inviting me to more courage and vulnerability. With each little drama … and there are many …. a little of the old is chiselled away and either left for dust or replaced with a wobbly, fragile beginning of a new synaptic pathway.  Sticking to the discipline and practice of reinforcing what will serve me from a baseline so low is almost beyond me some days.  Deep breathing seems to help. I can remember how to do that and how it has served me well. Giving with grace and grit serves me too and I have plenty of experience to draw from that well. The learning is to add and draw from that well for myself, giving to myself with the same zeal and generosity is new learning. The idea of putting myself first, novel.  The practice of choosing me first completely unchartered.  My struggle with this has always been with the ego and selfishness, now I see it truly is, as Audre Lorde offered, self-preservation, a political act and silence will not protect you. I also find myself turning to other revolutionary thinkers, disruptors of comfortable thoughts. Freire reminds us in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed of the focus of change is confronting the seed of the oppressor planted within us to knows their tactics, understand their relationships.

The pain of growth and the changes it brings build new memories and fitness for disruption, this is part of the exposure, the transparency that comes with the decisions and actions we take.  (Malcolm Turnbull asking for the signatures to call the spill was disruption is not lost on me as a tactic for self-compassion even though it may not have looked like that to others.) I am examining and cross-examining the oppressor inside my interior party room and not quite sure how to make a spill happen that will stick, but am doing quite a lot to lobby what needs to move on and exercising my values in the process. I have the values muscle memories and synaptic pathways to hold me, while I strengthen and get them fit for purpose for this time in my life.

In this year of self-compassion there is both exercising and exorcising.

Disrupting layers – Ireland 2013

 

Year of Self-Compassion #33 #Respect

In the most humble of starts Aretha Franklin was born in Memphis – where else but the south? Her birthplace is a barely preserved tiny house in Lucy St Memphis. A plaque was put up last year and I expect in no time at all it will become a shrine to the Queen of Soul and pilgrims of music will be flocking there in much the same way Gracelands has become a shrine for Elvis.  Memphis is one helluva town – you can see the entire music industry ecosystem of a bygone era on every corner, outfitters to the King, through the Gibson guitar factory, Beale Street holds the memories and sounds which became the bedrock of 2oth century cultures and sub-cultures. But without the songs of the slaves being drawn out of the swamps and all along the Mississippi we wouldn’t have any of it.  Memphis is a place I would not have thought of visiting but it was the first stop on a gospel singing tour I did with Tony Backhouse in 2016.  I learnt a lot in Memphis and I bow down to their contribution and showing the world their talents.

Music is such a healing force in my life. I can’t imagine what it would be like without music or the capacity to make music. When I make music with others there is a visceral and involuntary bonus of community that holds me for a moment. Singing in my local acapella gospel choir is the best medicine. I grew up with singing around the piano to show tunes from My Fair Lady to Godspell, to songs from family stories like Galway Bay and Tie me Kangaroo Down, to songs of a generation penned by Lennon and McCartney or Rodgers and Hammerstein. Later in life (my teens and early twenties) this music was replaced by the rock gospel of Jesus Christ Superstar and American evangelical songwriters like Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill and Keith Greene. There was the inevitable St Louis Jesuit set as well as these were needed in the repertoire for church services. Eventually Australian composers got a bit of look in, but the majority were from the US.  Going to Memphis I was able to put it altogether  – I got to the DNA of rock and roll, hip hop, soul and R & B – it was in Africa. The slaves had bought their music and the back beat and syncopation, the pathos and driving rhythms, the pounding confidence in a higher authority – it was all there – in Memphis.

The appropriation was there too. I could no longer listen or sing with enjoyment to Peter, Paul and Mary or even Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie without realising they were on the back of this tradition. I had to go to the source to understand.  Like the practice of hermeneutics in theology (where you apply a set of principles of interpretation to look for what is and isn’t in the text by what is visible and what I say is sewn in the seams), I discovered this is true in music too. All music is from the streets, the fields, the transit stations, threshold moments in personal and corporal history. When you hear, or read a line, that says she went back to her husband, you know that means she left her husband; when you hear I told her we couldn’t keep meeting like this, you know that means there were meetings of an intimate kind … these are the ways a story is revealed, but not spelled out.  When we hear Aretha sing Otis Redding’s Respect we know there was no respect first. Aretha made this song her own and it became an anthem.  She spelled it out R E S P E C T. There was nothing left to find still hidden in the seams, she made sure it was writ large with all the savvy and sass Memphis could squeeze out of her. And writ large, is how I hope as a sign of respect, her first home in Memphis will be made visible to the world.

Aretha’s version of Respect is on high rotation. It is a song that is deeper for me, now because of having gone to Memphis and understanding the town and their music a little more than I did if I hadn’t visited. In this time of wake, I reverently bow to Aretha and all the people that brought her music to the world.

I find myself in this year of self-compassion, giving thanks to those invisible behind the scenes who have brought me to places and spaces, sounds and sights and opening me up to self-respect. To respect yourself and give yourself the same acclaim, admiration, regard as you would any one else is perhaps one of the key ingredients to self-compassion.  I have a natural aversion to feeling pride and taking credit for anything, because I know nothing, absolutely nothing is down to your own devices. Maybe respect is not pride, and instead, the surety of acting with integrity to yourself and with the trust and conviction of the horn section in Respect (a riff that can’t be unheard once heard). Standing up for yourself and your interpretation of the lyric and the sound, is a way to respect yourself, to tell your story as you see it and hear it. Respect is commanded because of your self-respect and sometimes you do have to spell it out so you can sing your own song and go back to your roots and find the strength in those foundations, unappropriated, raw and ready for release.

Thanks Aretha, Otis and all the crews at Atlantic Records for inviting us to the conversation for a little respect.

Where Aretha was born

Year of Self Compassion #32 #co-existence

The daffodils are blooming and the fig tree is liberated from leaves. The landscape is offering me an invitation to see co-existence. My emotions are at war. There are days when I cannot reconcile or integrate memories and feeling for the future, without sadness and re-wiring.

In a week with plenty of ups and downs, that included tyres on my car being slashed, I find coexistence an act of self-compassion. With the tyres unable to hold the air, the car needing to be towed, new tyres needed and a whole re-adjustment and realignment for the vehicle, the irony was not lost on me! It is not so easy with a human body, as it is for a mechanical one to transition. My friend tells me mercury is in retrograde, and a young woman I encounter tells me the Lion’s Gate is open – both with equal confidence to help explain these set of circumstances. I totally accept the cosmic drama surrounding me and operating with no regard to anything I am, or am not, doing – the daffodil flowering is enough evidence for me.

Buds are detailing the fig, and visible life will burst forth when the weather agrees and accepts the kiss of the sun’s rays, life was always there though, whether or not I could see it in the empty branch. The wild winds of winter and crashing broken boughs in the night in the garden leave some creatures homeless and foraging quickly for new places … they just get up and move on … an easeful response to the disruption that leaves me envious. I long to have a tow truck come and pick me up, take me for new tyres, leave the slashed parts behind for recycling that I have nothing to do with, and send me on my way slightly renewed and with confidence of being able to stay on the road safely. Instead, I meander and get lost in my thoughts, speed through intersections I should stop at and take in the view, get distracted and go down rabbit holes instead of focussing on what is right in front of me – spring getting ready to show herself.

I have emotions of grief finding themselves alongside excitement and potential; moments of paralysing fear alongside epic bravery; occasions of emptiness as deep and hollow as anyone could endure alongside enriching and broad expressions of generosity. In this field, trying to integrate is not working and the landscape is inviting me to respect and allow the diversity of states to co-exist. Integration is not possible. I am not even sure integration is desirable, allowing all the feelings to be respected and have their own integrity, without having to vie for a place in the emotional landscape may end this interior civil war.

Letting my emotions co-exist instead of them trying to organise them or unite or harmonise them, is an act of self-compassion. They all have a right to be there, all have their place in this field I am in right now, each have to find their own way to loose their leaves, bud, regenerate, fall in the wind. This calls for mutual inclusion and dignity for all the feelings.

I am reminded of Rumi who writes of the rumour of winter being over. While it is not over for me, I am beginning to lean into the possibility of spring.

For the music we are – Rumi

Did you hear that winter’s over?
The basil and the carnations
cannot control their laughter.

The nightingale, back from his wandering,
has been made singing master over the birds.

The trees reach out their congratulations.
The soul goes dancing through the king’s doorway.

Anemones blush
because they have seen the rose naked.

Spring, the only fair judge, walks in the courtroom,
and several December thieves steal away,
Last year’s miracles will soon be forgotten.

New creatures whirl in from non-existence,
galaxies scattered around their feet.
Have you met them?

Do you hear the bud of Jesus crooning in the cradle?
A single narcissus flower has been appointed
Inspector of Kingdoms.

A feast is set.
Listen: the wind is pouring wine!
Love used to hide inside images: no more!
The orchard hangs out its lanterns.
The dead come stumbling by in shrouds.

Nothing can stay bound or be imprisoned.
You say, “End this poem here,
and wait for what’s next.”

I will.
Poems are rough notations
for the music we are.

Winter morning at Tatachilla

Year of Self Compassion #31 #scarcity

Having an experience of scarcity seems like an indulgent first world problem to me and yet I go tripping down that rabbit warren more than I have for a long time. Having downsized my life in most ways in the last year, not all at my own hand, I often catch myself wanting.  I recall my economics classes where the lesson that resources are finite, and an insatiable appetite for growth featured regularly.  This economic equation keeps revisiting me at so many levels, practical, spiritual, meta physical.  I want more – one last conversation, one last kiss, one last meal. I want less – one less speeding fine, one less demand, one less choice.

The invitation to simplicity is one giant mathematical computation of complexity that results in an overwhelming sense of a sum zero game that I never asked to play.  This see-saw of being grateful for what I have and feeling a paucity of intimacy is quite exhausting. The ups and downs of the see-saw are grief on her ride through me and the interior landscapes I traverse. Many of these lands are new to me, and some I keep revisiting looking for meaning and magic to unlock and hold memories, hoping the voyage of this Dawn Treader will come to shore soon to rest and find me in a safe habour.   I know I am in a safe habour all the time and I do have enough of all that I need. Yet …

There are triggers all around that sneak up and remind me of scarcity. I see couples making plans for a life together and I want to warn them how it will all end. I hear the dog barking next door, wearing himself out waiting for his family to come home and his loneliness grows and then dissipates giving up just before they arrive. I feel the ash, and am infused with the smell of the fire from the broken limbs fallen from the wild winds the night before, that I have made into a little hearth in the back yard, and I think about the differences between being buried and cremated. (How does carbon get stored and released?) That leads me to think about land, the scarcity of it, my carbon footprint, the legacy I leave by all my actions. This is not living abundantly, my scarcity lens is keeping me from fullness and it refuses to leave me and contributing to a feeling of self-indulgence.

Theologians and economists have always found abundance and scarcity a point of difference. I think the root of the challenge to get this balance right, lies somewhere in gratitude, generosity and hope. Being generous is a sign of abundance, my biggest currency has always been time and now I realise how finite time is and I am making more choices with me at the middle of the equation, again a new landscape and one where I am yet to master. Being grateful is a practice and I am trying to be agnostic about what I am grateful for, everything can be appreciated and received with kindness. This practice seems to be woven with respect and recognition, actually being able to notice the gift however unseemly wrapped it comes to me. Hope offers potential to shape what will come next and to be an actor in that future without letting the scarcity filter, is a daily exercise in my inner life gym.

In this year of self-compassion, I am struggling to replace scarcity with abundance which has been my default for so long. Privileges I took for granted or worse, hadn’t even noticed I had. These privileges are now inviting me to pivot, flipping abundance for  scarcity, There are invitations waiting for me to find the wealth within, the freedom of less and joy of simplicity.  I will try not to shame myself too much for defining this feeling of scarcity as a first world problem, as it is teaching me to be more mindful, more conscious of my consumption of all kinds of things from air time to fossil fuels. To be more gentle on myself and grateful for all the times I have been generous and how that disposition is one of the key reasons for the depth of the wound. After all something that is scarce is also rare and therefore usually incredibly precious and perhaps that is the clue to the relationship between abundance and scarcity – the rare space that one creates for the other.

Photo by Sam Soffes on Unsplash