Radical Acceptance: A book review

Book review of Radical Acceptance: Embracing your Life with the Heart of  a Buddha by Tara Brach

In Chapter 6 the Radical Acceptance of Desire Tara Brach says: "When I was first introduced to Buddhism in a high school world studies class, I dismissed it out of hand.  It seemed irrelevant to my life - grim in its concern about attachment and, apparently, anti-pleasure.  Sure, maybe we all suffer, but why dwell on it?" (p. 128)  Tara's first reaction to Buddhism very succinctly summarizes my own first reaction to Buddhism.  However,having known a number of Buddhist in my adult life and in the last decade beginning to learn about Buddhism, I like Tara, have come to understand what a superficial and incorrect first impression of Buddhism that was/is.  As she later says:  "The Buddha expressed this in the first Noble Truth: 'Existence is inherently dissatisfying'.  When I first heard this teaching in high school in its most common translation as 'life is suffering,' I of course thought it meant life is nothing more than misery and anguish.  But the Buddha's understanding of suffering was subtler and more profound.  We are uncomfortable because everything in our life keeps changing - our inner moods, our bodies, our work, the people we love, the world we live in.  We can't hold on to anything - a beautiful sunset, a sweet taste, ...because all things come and go." (P. 133)

I do recommend Radical Acceptance because so far of the works written about Buddhism which I have read it makes it the most accessible to a western mind.  It is helpful that the examples are all of clients and retreat participants, other clueless westerns like myself, rather than ancient, venerable Eastern monks, who while very wise are completely unlike me.  As a therapist myself I believe all people are either shame base or guilt based (dependent entirely upon your parents style of discipline as you grew up.)  Generally we do not understand the other frame of mind.  Tara's writing is very much to those who are shame based - as someone whose not, I did have to do some translation of those parts.   For those who are shame based and western, this book will speak deeply to your soul.

I appreciate how her different twist on traditional Buddhist teachings which I have encountered else where made them more accessible to me.  For example, in her third chapter - the Sacred Pause: Resting under the Bodhi Tree she talks about paying attention to the pause between the in breath and the out breath.  All other instruction I've had on breathing as part of meditation have said to focus on in- and then out-  which either board me, or got me too hyper focused as to unrelax my breathing and actually hyperventilate.  Throughout this chapter she also weaves in a wonderful narrative about living with a pause between action and inaction - the pause of reflection... which for me somehow finally brought home the point of the whole thing.

The chapter on Radical Acceptance of Desire - also stands on its head the misinterpretation of Buddhism ( or spirituality) as a rejection of desire (and/or sexuality.)  And instead talks about being mindfully aware of our desires as they arise.  Instead of judging, rejecting or feeling them - being relaxedly aware of them, conscious of when we do - or don't act on them.  Tara points out the great energy that makes up desire and says that when not fighting it or surrendering to it that desire is the source of great energy and drive within us which when joined with spirituality can move one in profound ways.

As someone who knows that fear is the thing which most quickly and reliably takes me out or relationship with God I also appreciated chapter 7: Opening our Hearts in the Face of Fear.  Here she takes the concept of taking refuge in the Buddha (another concept until then meaningless to me) and transforms this in a very meaningful way as a spiritual practice in the face of fear - of "taking refuge in the truth of who we are".  The very words are grounding to me - causing me to breath out - releasing the fear, returning to my truth self.   "Our fear is great, but greater still is truth of our contentedness" she quotes the Buddha as saying.

Throughout her book, and especially in Chapter 10 on forgiveness, she reminds us again and again of our contentedness to all sentient beings and our own basic goodness.  Such a message is either utterly new for some readers - or a balm to the soul for other readers.  Forgiveness is something that most people I know struggle with - whether it is of self or of other.  Tara points out how closely tied these two efforts really are.  While I have previously learned the spiritual practice of the meditation of loving kindness -she ties this in a new way to the practice of forgiveness.

I had started a new prayer practice during the time I was reading this book so I'm not sure which caused a significant deepening for me spirituality but I recommend this book as a good entry into the New Year!

Miracles

What is a miracle?  Certainly Judaism names any number of miracles in the old Testament that God is said to have brought about: the parting of the Red Seas - the pregnancy of Sarah, etc.   Christianity claims any number of miracles that Jesus was suppose to have accomplished: the raising of Lazereth from the dead, the feeding of a whole crowd with just loaves and fishes, making the lame able to walk, and the blind to see again.  Apparently Buddha acknowledged certain supernatural powers but said they were not to be used by his followers except to relieve the suffering of others and then they were miracles.  Interesting discussions have taken place over the centuries about whether the above mentioned events were literal events or metaphors about faith's ability  to give us new life, to create abundance from little, to give us new site or new possibilities.  And I must confess that when I approach these questions on the metaphor level I am able to recognize that I have heard stories that are indeed miraculous of people turning over a new leaf and coming to a new life, of how with an abundance mindset financially impossible things become possible, amazing stories of people being transformed my their own new insights or their own willingness to heal.  (I recommend any number of such stories that Wayne Dyer tells.)

I think those that have focused on measuring whether religion is "True" based upon improbable stories of miracles have unfortunately missed the boat entirely.  While looking to whether science could validate or explain the reported miracles, they have missed the miracle that is science every day all day long.  I mean even though we understand how reproduction and birth works...anyone that has ever watched a woman's belly swell for 9 months and watched a baby be born into the world knows that the ordinary is in fact quite miraculous.

Here are some other miracles:  that birds fly and that in mimicking them we do too.   that we have sight and that the world is so spectularly beautiful!  That on a remarkably regular basis total strangers do acts of kindness for others they do not know - including saving people's lives.   That those who survived the 9/11 towers did even while others perished (and if you listen to their stories many are miraculous in the curious exceptions that took them out of the buildings)  That I have have not been killed in a car accident (do you know the feeling?  If we are truthful we have all had so many near misses whether our fault or someone else's  There is an angel that hangs in my car and that is NOT accident, but an acknowledgement that Spirit keeps me safe)  It is in fact a miracle in each our cases that a great great great grandfather survived a war and came home to bare off spring, and that a great grandmother survived the scarlet fever and thus became a mother to your grandparent.  Then there is the very ordinary miracles: that I passed algebra in HS, that we open our eyes each day, that we have sight, hearing and mobility (assuming you indeed do) that our immune systems worked so well to keep us healthy, that people meet their spouse out of the millions of people on the planet, etc.

Dear Reader please post one of your miracles here.

Somehow we have become confused about miracles - because we think the are the Red Seas parting or a dead man rising we are failing to recognize and celebrate the miracles that happen everyday.  We fail to notice the Divine at work in our daily lives, and thus also to give Thanksgiving for the many Blessing we are each showered with in the most miraculous of ways.   Celebrate your Miracles!

Easter Eggs and other Prayers

I have struggled for years to have a daily (well nightly actually) prayer practice.   Although for years my daughter and I have said prayers allowed with each other - saying first thanks for that which we found to be a blessing in the day and then saying prayers for each other.  But I have wanted something more than that.  Recently at a public meeting a man well known for his work for social justice shared his daily prayer practice.  I was very touched by it.  It inspired me to once again focus on this.

Another thing which made me focus on this is that as a therapist I have read the literature about health and happiness.  The literature is pretty clear people who have religious lives are both happier and live longer.   And happier people express more gratitude about life.  (Literature also says 50% of happiness seems to be inherited...just an uptick we are born with.   For some of us this is NOT good news because we know what we inherited!  However, only 10% is circumstance the rest is considered to be in our control and the attitudes we hold towards life.)   So I have been trying to get serious about my attitudes!  I realized wistfully that unfortunately, I learned nothing about gratitude from my parents.  Its not that they were grim miserable people. But they were private about their spiritual lives, so if gratitude was part of their inner life I don't know.   But outwardly they were task oriented - please and thank you were not big words in my family and there was also a rather prominent tragedy in my childhood and that took focus certainly away from gratitude.

But I'm very aware of the deep and meaningful gratitude with which many people I know live.  A friend of mine got out of prison after spending 30 years behind bars.  It was amazing to watch him hug a tree for the first time in 30 years, pet a cat...how a pine cone on the side walk could turn him to tears.  It was a very poignant and powerful reminder to me that I have taken for granted the small joys and beauties of life.  This same friend sent me this link one day called gratitude:   I encourage you to watch it.  It is certainly also a powerful reminder of all that we overlook.  So I decided I was going to look for the blessing in my life.   At the moment I decided it I was feeling rather down, and thus felt like it was going to be a hunt.   The image popped to mind of an easter egg hunt...hidden just barely peeking out beautifully colored and decorated eggs, put there with love.   I shared this image with a worship sharing group I belong to and several indicated that they too wanted to look for Easter Eggs.

So that was the first part of the nightly prayer practice.  Step two was about looking at the bad, but in a new way.   The happiness scientists now say we can teach children optimism.  This involves teaching that the bad is temporary and the good is permanent.   We still have to look at the problems of course.   A client of mine had encountered in some other kind of therapy this very magical question to ask when we feel everything is terrible.  The question is:  How could it get any better than this?  Of course on first glance this seems ironic or even sarcastic.  But if you stare seriously at the question you begin to realize that it is an invitation to bring our imagination to seeing our way forward and up. It helps us begin to project a better future.  So my second prayer stop is to review one upset of the day and apply this question.

Like many I have read Jampolsky's Love is Letting go of Fear..where he says among other things we are either in love or in fear.  I know the truth of this, and I'm not proud of the fact that too often I am in fear.  Although I know that fear is what brings me into "God who?" (mentioned in other blog posts), and I know that the best thing for me to do with fear is to bring God right into it -to give my fear over to the Almighty. This has been the hardest thing for a scared brain to remember.  So my prayer step is to ask myself: am I in Love or fear?  And if I find I am in fear to then bring that fear to the All Powerful One.

Step four is the old familiar pattern I shared with my daughter of offering prayers for others.  I say my prayers for those in my life whose struggles I am aware of - asking for healing of their hearts or bodies, to find right work, for Americans to make good choices about Climate change or choose wise national leaders.  Ask for those who are lost or lonely to find direction, etc.  Ask for courage for those who are carrying a leading, etc.  I have been taught to focus on visualizing the desiring and not on the problem.  ie not to ask that someone's unemployment will end, or even that they will find a job, but to say thank you for the job having arrived in their life now.  To ask that something will is to keep it in the future tense.  My prayers are worded to place them in the present tense.

I have been very influenced by Wayne Dyer as I have mentioned in other blogs, especially what he has written about living with intention.  Interestingly, our happiness scientists also say that living with purpose and with a sense of efficacy increases our happiness.  Dyer refers to some research that says that what we go to sleep thinking about sets sort of "marinates" while we sleep.  So I have wanted to end my prayers and my thoughts with positive intentions for the next day.  So I first review in my mind what I am doing the next day, and then I set certain intentions - to see and speak that of God in my clients, to express love in the world, to notice beauty, to notice the people in the grocery store as real people, etc. 

So here it is my nightly journaling prayer ritual:  

It begins with listing 3 to 5 Easter Eggs = the blessings of that day.

Then I write one thing which upset me and ask the magic question:  "How could it get any better than this?" (and answer it of course)

Third I ask myself: am I in love or fear?   I turn over to the Comforter whatever fears I identify or ask the Holy One into the fearful or terrible place in my heart.  And if I am somehow resistant to that I ask My Holy Parent for the willingness to turn the fear over.

4. Prayers for others
Finally, I set my intention for the next day, and hope that I will both fall asleep and awake with that positive thought in my mind.

An Ocean of Love - a poem

Torn from my birth mother

  Too young

      Too young to know a Heavenly Mother’s arms,

No container to hold my tears

 To boundary my endless grieving.

God came later, in the male energy form of the Divine:

Initiator, driver, knower, truth finder, truth creator

How many more years till I would know the Goddess?

Comforter, nurturer, intuiter,  creator, lover.

Cry on the breast of Mother Earth she said.

The tears and sobs coming freely.

As I realize the healing of not just me, the individual orphan,

But of a paradigm – that sees us as separate from, above, master of

And then no longer separated from Her Love

Comes the Ocean of Love,

Touching into the endless memories of people loving me

Of the love connection between us all

The irrelevance of so many imperfect love vessels –

Yes it is incomplete love, but love none the less poured through these imperfect vessels.

And love not just present, not just immediately past, but I feel the love of my grandmother

And I feel the love of those who loved her who I knew only in pictures and

The people who loved them, unknown,  faceless, stretching back in an unbroken line of love,

Holding fevered babies, toiling in the fields to feed them, binding up wounds of loved ones –

Worrying, guiding, cherishing, celebrating the ones we love.

All this love has taken me in, no longer the match girl looking into the mansion from the cold,

For I now know that I belong to the Manson filled with this ocean of Love.

This timeless march of love.

That when those moments of feeling rejected, left out or without come

That I have simply to connect with that Ocean of Love to be again in that Mansion.

But what of fear, the insidious companion of 3 years of her dying?

The fear also needed the Goddess: the comforter, the nurturer,

The breast or the earth to lay upon.

There is a pause – a pause when we are not running , or

Fighting, or freezing,  - a pause before the breath in

A pause before the breath out

And in that Pause Goddess lives!

And in that pause is Eternity!

And in that pause is no fear.

Just as the Ocean of Love contains all Love from all time

So the pause contains whatever love needs

Comfort, connection, kindness,joy, excitement, love,

These are the Easter Eggs lay waiting to be found in each day

And I the seeker!

Calling all Angels

Another theological question would be : Are there angels?

Crimson Glory sings;                                                   
We fly without fear
Through the valley of shadows
Waging our war against evil
In your world
We rule the heavens and earth
From kingdoms of light
We are the holy

This sort of alludes to the popular notion of Angels as dressed in white robes with wings and halos, sent to save us or to bring us home.  Angels of God that fight evil.  With that image comes the question of whether we can see angels when we are alive or only as we face death? and whether angels actions are direct or indirect?

In the Lyrics to Calling All Angels, Train seems to suggest that Angels save in the way of bringing us hope, reminding us of the presence of God and keeping us safe.

I need a sign, to let me know you're here...
I need to know, that things are gonna look up....

When there is no place safe and no safe place to put my head
When you can feel the world shake from the words that are said

And I'm, calling all Angels
And I'm, calling all you Angel

Certainly throughout the ages people have called on angels to protect them and often those who were sainted by the Catholic church were called upon specifically to provide certain kinds of protection.  St. Christopher is said to protect travelers, St. Anthony was to protect "lost souls" and apparently the archangel Michael had time also to protect people's home.   Although in this idolatrous age a google search of ANGELS to protect the home will still bring up several home security systems first, so certainly the 21st century folk have some confusion about where our real protection comes from.

Christianity is not the only religion that has the concept of angels.  Buddhism has the concept of devas, (different word in different Asian cultures) who are luminous beings who do not eat or sleep and who fly. They can be seen or heard by those humans who have developed their spiritual powers. They are not however immortal, all knowing, all powerful and there are considered to be several levels of devas.  

Muslim belief in angels is not that different than traditional Christian belief in angels. They are beings of light with wings who do not eat. The Koran also mentions angels specifically Gabriel (Jibreel) and Michael (Mika'eel) as well as Israfeel and Malik.  Although Muslims do not believe in any fallen angels.   But similarly they see angels as executing God's laws in the world, visiting people at the time of death, recording the behavior of humans for the day of judgement and acting as guardians keeping us safe, and keeping paradise.  One breathes the soul into fetus, sort of assigning its fate in life!

I myself am agnostic about angels with wings or spirits who come to us at death (despite my love of the old tv show Touched by an Angel which included a rather good looking angel of death.)  But I do believe in a kind of angel that has no halo.  I after 3 car accidents in rather short order in my late 20's hung a Christmas ornament of an angel that a friend had made and given me in my car.  I was never in another car accident (although heaven knows, literally, how many near misses there were.)   When that angel became very faded and bedraggled I eventually decided that she needed an honorable retirement, and got a new angel ornament.  Right now I'm on my third car angel.  Does this mean that I believe in little beings in white robes protecting me like the object suggests?   No, I think in the sense that countless New Age writers suggest we create (or co-create)with the Divine our own reality and this includes setting intention.  I believe as I hang my angel I am setting an intention to not get into car accidents and putting it out to the universe that I will be kept safe. I have given two other friends after they also had a series of accidents, angels to hang in their cars.  I believe the fierceness of my own belief worked like a placebo to make them also believe that they would be kept safe, and both so far have been.

I have always put out to the universe that I would not be raped and I never have although I think I was on at least one occasion skating over thin ice to avoid that fate (guarded by an angel?).   I similarly after having being pick pocketed several times in my 20's and once having my home burglarized put it out to the universe that I would be safe and not robbed.  I so strongly believe that my intentions keep me safe (not "security systems") that I have at times not locked my car or my home, bowing only to the needs of others I share these things with to use locks.  But I have also believed that if anything was taken from me that apparently the thief needed it more. Apparently this practicing of non-attachment is translated very interestingly by the universe.  I have had a bike stolen and recovered.  A wallet lost and returned with half a month's pay in cash in side it and a car stolen (while I was out of the country and it was locked!) and reclaimed by the police before I even got home!  I simply do not have fear about this, and I believe my "faith" in my safety actually protects me.

Once while walking in a neighborhood primarily populated by a racial group not my own, two teenage boys came by and snatched the hat off my head and started playing catch with it tossing it back and forth between them, taunting me with it as I screamed for them to give it back.  Suddenly a man of their same racial group drove around a corner in a little yellow VW bug and told them sternly to give it back and they did!  This is the kind of angel I believe in.

The best Cat I ever had was named Mr. Cat after his dignified and gentlemanly ways.  After he died I realized however, that I had been overlooking the presence of an angel in my home for over a decade!  People talk about angels looking over their children while they sleep.  Mr. Cat would literally sit on the bed and help me tuck my daughter in at night, but then he would sleep next to her head on the pillow watching over and comforting her. He indeed was always watching over us extending comfort.  He would actually come when I sat on my couch holding the hand of a crying friend and put his paw on our hands and lie down.  Unlike other cats who would drop their eyes in submission if you stared at them he had an unblinking gaze that seemed to ooze love, compassion and wisdom.  He was always there somewhere in the background sending this energy.  I was a single parent for many years and he died only after I remarried.  I realized that he had come and served as co-parent.  He was an angel, sent my God and I mean that truly.

In our society we often say about a person who rescues us, or bring us something or has remarkable timing, or shows much kindness:  "Oh you are such an angel".   Maybe we need to start taking that inner knowing much more seriously.  For if angels are to help us know God on earth than our fellow humans are not exempt from being God's angels.  Consider for a moment who are the angels that have shown up in your life?  By accident or intention?  Familiar or strangers?

For many years when I lead workshops on spiritual topics I would do just like the old "secret Santa" routine, "secret angels".   People would pick out of a paper bag the name of one of the participants in the workshop and during the week we were together they were to do secret acts of kindness, comfort and encouragement...they were to think of how to shine the light of God into that person's life.  People were not infrequently more touched by thinking about another in this way than what they received during that week.  Once I accidentally left someone's name out of the bag, and this was a person with a handicap  who struggled in life in many ways who was very much dismayed to loose out on this.  I was also distraught because of this mistake and chagrinly announced this on the last day of our conference.   Then a thing of Grace happened. Numerous participants did special anonymous angel acts for her in the remaining day of the conference signing them Your Secret Angels.  She tearfully approached me to tell me this and told me she had learned from this to trust God patiently even when all visible signs would indicate that the spirit was not available, and to know that God acts in God's own time.  I learned that if I called on angels, that they would act even despite my own human fallibility.

The Best Version's of Ourselves

"We are here to become the best version of ourselves that we can become".
I found this quote while reading Tomorrow's God By Neale Donald Walsch.  For me this is a very provocative quote.   It is a fascinating process to try to touch into the sense of that.  Try.  Close your eyes and try to feel, to sense, to image, to remember your best self.  Hopefully, it is not too distantly far from who we are this moment or yesterday.  Of course we all have our moments where we are unwarrantedly cross with others, where judgement or bias enters in - but hopefully it is not hard for us to remember moments where we acted with kindness, generosity of spirit, compassion, courage, humility, love, resolve, ___________ or whatever those traits are that we feel would edge us towards our better selves.

It seems both interesting and challenging to try to pull together all those snippets of memory, of lived experience, those traits and gifts into one simultaneous and ongoing expression of self.  That I think would be to be "the best version of ourselves" that Walsch calls us to, or more correctly that the Creator calls us to.

This also reminds me of the quote (erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandala for many years):

"We ask ourselves: who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us; it's in everyone.  And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I have appreciated the way it talks about how we keep ourselves small and challenges so boldly "what can it possibly serve?"  As Richard Bach also conveyed this idea in Illusions:  "Argue for your limitations and they are yours". Yes, why do we keep ourselves small?  Why do we argue for our limitations - justifying them and claiming them like a familiar worn out sweater, claiming them as insurmountable.

It strikes me that there are two problems:  one being a psychological one and one being a spiritual problem. Psychologically we have had messages laid on us early and reinforced often so we both have negative self image, but also messages limiting what we believe is possible about change.  (These things are addressable through therapy.)  But the spiritual problem is that we see the job of change or growth as all our own work and we do not see or acknowledge the role of the creator in that growth.  We may not have a personal relationship with God, or may not see God as a source of strength available to us, or maybe even as a sympathetic source (See earlier posts about images of God).  Or we may have beliefs about original sin or our own "fallen nature" that get in the way.

As Walsch says:  Here is a central tenet of the New Spirituality: the purpose- and the greatest opportunity and gift- of life is to re-create yourself a new in the next grandest version you ever held about Who You Are. And you can do it every single moment of Now....It is not a question of whether you "have what it takes ," but of whether you take what  you have- and then use it.

Living as part of LIfe Itself

Recently I have been reading the book "Tomorrow's God" by Neale Donald Walsh.  In this book he both says we will (need to) move into a new spiritual renaissance if we are to save the planet and that it will include a new understanding of God which he calls Tomorrow's God.  He says we will (or suggests we should) stop using the word God (or Allah, or any similar words) because of the huge amount of misunderstandings and baggage we have attached to that word.  Instead he suggests we use the word LIFE.

Notice how this does shift some misunderstandings.  I for one think the ideas that God as vengeful, punishing, jealous or only blessing the US are distorted understanding of the Divine Being.  So in his schema of substituting the word Life you get:

A punishing God = A punishing Life.   Well that sort of clears up that Life does not punish us.  Sometimes other people do, but that is based upon their will, beliefs, or values.  They were not directed by the Life force to punish anyone.

A vengeful God = a vengeful Life.  Again there is no evidence of Life creating vengeance.  Some animals eat others but it is not vengeance.  Some people are vengeful to other people but again out of their emotions, or beliefs.  But the Life force does not make them vengeful.  In fact it is easier to notice that when a group acts vengefully towards another that the life force does not direct them to do so....they may call on beliefs to explain their actions, especially religious beliefs or as Walsh would say "the Old God".

A jealous God = a jealous Life.  Now it starts to seem rather absurd doesn't it?  How can life be jealous?

God Bless America = Life Bless America.  Well Life does bless America, and every other country too. While certainly some have far less material goods or sometimes less useful natural resources, none are without laughter, kindness, creativity, etc....in other words the blessings of life.

And then there is the other side of this:
A Loving God = A Loving Life.  Yes indeed as we look around we see all kinds of evidence of Life providing love, and love coming through all aspects of life and in fact creating life.

God the Creator = Life the Creator.  Well that one is fairly obvious huh?

God as my refuge = Life as my refuge.  Here I notice that if I use the word Life it helps me to notice how I should be approaching life.  Rather than trying to run to God as a refuge against life!

God the Provider = Life the Provider.  Certainly life provides many things, but what we want?  In the old way of turning to God and praying for things to be provided we were always like helpless children and what we wanted may or may not be provided.  (Some religions claiming that only if you were virtuous or hard working did God provide.)  But life seems to provide in no predictable pattern....or does it provide what our intentions are?  What we co-create in alignment with life's energy?

This also syncs up very well with what both Walsh and Wayne Dyer (and countless others) say about manifesting.   Dyer refers to The Universe (instead of God) and both talk about the Universe or Life as being neutral about what is created or provided.  Ask for sorrow or anger and that can be provided.  Ask for Love and joy and that can be provided.   We need therefore to be conscious about what we ask for and where we put our attention because what we dwell upon Dyer says is what we manifest.  Think endlessly "Oh I have so many bills to pay" and sure enough more bills will show up.  Think endlessly "Oh my life is blessed" and sure enough more blessings will show up.  So I would like to put my attention on the goodness of life and the love that is abundant in life.  I think if I put my attention on love and goodness I'm liking to live Life more deeply, more consciously.

When we pray to God this often evokes a sense of receiving or being denied, of a "power over" or a parent or "the Santa Claus God" who I have written about in a previous blog.  It is also to get mad at God for what we decide God has done. If we call this energy Life, it is I think still possible to pray to it, but it does sort of change the interaction.  There is wonder, awe, gratitude and joy, and there is the attempt to perceive the Life Energy and to align with it.  But any appealing to it...well you just have to go more into that co-creation or aligning the life energy with the bigger life energy.  From my point of view that keeps me more true to how I want to pray anyway.

Joanna Macy talks about how in systems theory you have living parts that make up bigger living parts.  So for example we have cells that make up organs (also parts of our life) which make up our live bodies and then our bodies join with other bodies to make up living communities, etc.   She points out that these parts at each level cooperate to make the larger level function.  But something much more profound is able to happen when any level has self-reflection upon itself as a separate living being and ALSO part of a living being.  So if I engage in being consciously aware (mindfulness) of being a part of Life/God this is different than living as part of Life with no awareness of anything beyond my own self.  It centers us into life itself.

Unseated Knight gets Married

This post is not strictly about spirituality.  It is about love and partnership in the 21st century.  Men and women have been having a kind of hard time for decades now with roughly 50% of marriages ending in divorce.  As a marriage counselor I often have a front row seat at this crisis.  Recently I have been noticing a theme: woman who come in with their husbands and wonder how he looked so attractive as suitor and so pathetic as a husband.  Their complaints are very similar: he does not do enough (including in cases where they acknowledge that "he" does more cleaning than she does.)  He is not good with money (sometimes does not earn enough, sometimes spends to much or is clueless about family finances.)  Does not communicate about meaningful things and seems annoyingly uniformed about her feelings. But as those complaints resolve there is almost always the complaint that he does not exhibit passion towards them, does not initiate sex, or show desire towards them.  I have been known to point out "how does that work while fielding all this other disappointment, frustration and complaints from you that he will be grabbing you for a passionate kiss?"

A recent NY Times article (2/14/2014 The All or Nothing Marriage) on the history of marriage reports on stages that went from the founding of this country till about 1850 referred to as Institutional marriage where marriage was primarily  an economic partnership,  focused on cooperating on getting a roof over head to food on the table. The next stage, compassionate marriage ran from 1850 till roughly 1965 was based upon strictly defined sex roles of male provider and female childrearer, but where both filled many of their companionship needs with same gender friends but expected to find love in their marriage.  This would be the frame of our parents or grandparents marriages.  But it says since then we have turned towards the model of self-expressive marriage that sees marriage as a vehicle for self-discovery, growth and personal development.  I have to say I wonder if this is a new model shared by both genders or if many men are not still trying to be the husbands that their father's were: providers and fathers but not emotional partners?  The 2006 book Mating in Captivity in fact hypothesis that the mutual tasks of household responsibilities and erotic sexuality are essentially incompatible.  With chapter titles: More Intimacy less sex: love seeks closeness but desire needs distance.....well you start to get a sense of the problem.

I would describe the problem this way: a generation of women raised as feminists or in the shadow of feminism now seeks equality in marriage which is envisioned as a sharing of the work of marriage: taking turns with chores, child rearing and financial matters, and yet in an older more reptilian part of our brain is still the idea that the "man" will be strong, confident and decisive (and the gentle but aggressive lover).  You may already notice the collision waiting to happen here.  As one man cynically told his therapy:  "My wife would like me to share all my deepest feelings with her, but only as long as I'm not authentic because if I tell her of my fears, insecurities or doubts, that is a complete turn off."  So the man is wanted to be strong but not so strong that he dominates, confident but not to the degree that he would ignore her needs and feelings, (confidence while checking in?) and decisive as long as she likes his decision.  Not surprisingly men fail this impossible tight rope walk and then face their wives disappointment.  As one man recently told me:  Well if I withdraw I can just not care about it, or if I just make all the decisions I can be in charge.  But in the face of the disappointment, why keep initiating different efforts; the odds are against me."  And thus the now long dethroned suitor becomes the belled cat.

During the courtship both parties describe that there connection was easy and fun and their was lots of sex.  Well yes that makes sense with no mortgage, no kids to feed or bath; he could be confident, relaxed and fun.  She could be sexy and attentive and supportive without any bills to worry about or kids to tend.  Is it hopeless then?  Or should they just never have kids?  No I would not say that, but what I would say is that we have to reexamine what we expect.

If we have kids then the expectation needs to be that both will be sleep deprived for years, that both have more than 40 hour weeks and the trick is to not look resentfully at your spouse as not having done enough to save you, but at them gratefully for every piece they did you did not have to do!  Do not measure their help against what it was like without kids.  Measure it against what it would be like if you were a single parent.  Figure out how to exhibit the comadairee that is exhibited in the old Bill Crosby show where Cliff and Claire Huxtible laugh together that the children are in a plot to take the house from them, to drive them mad and turn towards each other in the expectation of understanding, perspective, humor and absolute backing.

But the much more complicated terrain is the intimate life of a couple.  I have had an image of a woman saying to her knight: get off that horse come down here and stand by my side as my equal and when he dismounts she says in dismay:  "you  are shorter than me."  Sisters I think we have to decide whether you want that equal partner or that strong guy knight.  I have known women who did not expect their emotional intimacy to be with their husbands. They long ago decided men were not capable of that and seek that sharing with their girlfriends and tell their husband the practical things and the things they gauge him to be interested in.  I have known many men who say their wives are their closest friends and yet are referencing a level of sharing most women would snort at.  So in some of these unions the dilemma has been solved by having lower expectations.

I don't think we will all make it.  There are many marriages that combine the pre-1963 model on one spouses part with the post 1963 model with the other and the paradigm collision takes its inevitable causalities.  The ever widening gap between the rich and the poor leave an increasingly cadre of those raised in the middle class with middle class expectations that will never be realized in their marriage.  In such marriages the fighting over bills and kids will be the fall out. Many modern men have no chance of providing as their father did and the old model and the new again collide to produce two frustrated partners each blaming the other for how their home life has turned out.  Hollywood movies and romance models still portray a swept off their feet model of love which shows the "fun and easy connection with passionate sparks" side of love, but never goes beyond the falling in love stage to show how intimacy functions within the grind of day to day demands and disappointments  There are several generations of men who know they are suppose to be sympathetic and caring and gentle and yet have not been taught by either father or mother how to listen empathetically to another person, and thus struggle without a skill set to fufill the role of the new husband.

However, what of those rare 25% of marriages that the NY Times article say are successful by sharing deeply every week?  Interestingly, what I have also noticed in these couples with dissatisfied wives is the wives as they loose confidence in their husbands increasingly take on more and more responsibilities: they manage the check book, carry the fear of whether the bills will all get paid, they do more of the child nurturing, they carry lists of things that need to be done for the house and in all anxiety the libido turns off completely.  They look tough and yet when asked the right questions they acknowledge being frightened, feeling very, very lonely and longing for a shoulder to turn on (but certainly not their husbands unreliable shoulder).  Their husbands sexual interest starts looking like neediness and thus the final burden.  They are so busy being strong that they no longer can say the more vulnerable things:  I need you, I'm scared, I am lonely, I want you.  Like Lake Woebegone, in this world all the women are strong and all the men are good looking.

How do we engage intimacy in this brave new land?  I think for men it means neither retreating is the hopelessness of ever not disappointing their partner, or putting on the old cowboy hat and trying to be "the MAN" but engaging in that very difficult middle ground that involves listening, not trying to fix but simply empathizing in a clear and visible way- staying in that tension in the middle between giving in and taking over but instead collaboration.  It means not going into little boy mode in face of a woman with power, nor going for the Patriarchal Power over mode. For women it means giving up the comfortable old powerlessness of our mothers who could not say directly what they needed or wanted and thus manipulated indirectly for their needs through disappointment and disapproval.  And it means not trying to be our fathers...not simply taking over the male roles of responsibilities.  It also means engaging in that uncomfortable middle ground where we don't blame our partners for our unhappiness, have to take our own risks and fight our own battles,  but tell the vulnerable truth about what we need and how we feel and our need for comfort and emotional support. Which is to say that woman also must stay out of the patriarchal patterns of either having power only indirectly or attempting to put on pants and have power over.  Even more complexly, it means having to stop seeing men as either knights or sons, but really have an image of them as collaborative partners in a shared life who will sometimes lean on us just as we lean on them.  For both genders it means listening, accepting, forgiving and collaborating.