Shift Change

Do you know what “rumination” is? “It means obsessing about problems, about a loss, about any kind of a setback or ambiguity without moving past thought into the realm of action.” (link to article by Ellen McGrath) You know…when you mind spins out of control. My mind is constantly going, but when it spins I can feel the difference in my body. I feel the tilt of the Earth. My thoughts circular, so I just keep looping back to where I started. I get stuck. I feel trapped. Despair overwhelms me.

My recent Healing Touch workshop stopped all the rumination. Somehow–like a hand reaching out and grasping my spinning mind and heart–the healing took hold in me in those gentle moments of comfort and learning. I found silence. I found peace. I found love. I lay on the table, and the latch opened. The spring released. I felt hope again.

The hope seeping into my spirit feels like an in-breaking. A little crack in the wall of helplessness. A shift change. Not a 180 degree turnaround, but a five percent move. These last nine months of my life have been full of noise, and now the volume is finally turned down enough to think, pray and hope again. I feel it in my bones.

When I lay on the table during the different practice sessions, all I felt was love. I would clear my mind, focus on my breath, and love would come to me. I could feel the love towards myself especially. A forgiveness. A prayer of thanksgiving for who I am and the joy I know I bring to life. A gratitude too for all the love in my life. I kept thinking about how much love Paparazzo has given me this year, and how much I love him. He is so beautiful, funny and kind. I thought of my family and how my aunt’s cancer has given us the gift of closeness. We lost some measure of it when my Grandmother died. I thought of my friends and how they encircle me with tenderness and fidelity.

I also thought about work. I realized I am missing out on being creative, and the places where I feel like I can soar creatively speaking seem to also be the places where the system of corporate chaplaincy requires acquiescence. I thought of the love I have for my patients and their families. I told myself, “I forgive you for having such a shitty first year there.” I also realize I cannot serve my call to God and also serve a corporate mindset. I made a promise to myself to stop trying. I still am some days, but then I play a new mantra in my head: “Do what you think is best as a minister, for them and for yourself.” I feel more empowered and much much less angry. I am still working on the fear though.

I did not think of The Bean. Somehow I guess that is important. I recently went over the worst of what he could have or might have done–the cheating, the lying, the pretending–and imagined sitting there hearing a full confession. I said all the hurtful things I could say in my heart and realized they were only directed towards myself. All the feelings of failure were about my not being good enough, and I felt terribly uncomfortable speaking to myself that way. So, I imagined the conversation again, but this time I thought only of loving myself as I am right now. In that imaginary confession my response was understanding. Pity, even. None of it belonged to me any more. Maybe it never did…

I came away from the Healing Touch experience and reached out for some help. I must say I am rather proud of myself on that front! Not easy, but so necessary. I do not feel like I am in it alone, which is always a place of despair for me. In allowing my heart to feel the love of those who support me and believe in me, I decided it would be okay to tell some of them exactly where I am–even the messy parts about wanting and planning to die in January. I cannot even begin to tell you how hard saying those words was, but I did. I said them.

Little changes. My life looks much the same as it did prior to the workshop, but I feel the new trajectory that the five percent shift change brought about. I feel open to all sorts of new possibilities, and I am even going to apply for a PhD program in NashVegas. I may not end up there, but I want to keep the future open to go wherever Love leads. Ah….Love leading me…I guess that is what I got connected back to in those moments of quiet. I know it seems like there was a lot of thinking, but these thoughts all came to me like the smells wafting out from a kitchen. They perfumed the air of my mind.

Here is a favourite quote from the poet Rumi that sums up where my mind and spirit are working to rest right now:

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love. Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover. If you want to live, die in Love; die in Love if you want to remain alive.

It is funny…this post has been simmering in my mind this last week and reworked quite a few times. Normally, when I sit down to write I write passionately and furiously. Everything sort of pours out. Not this time. Not now. The change–the letting go–the settling–took the stinger out of it all.