Do Your Best

Finishing Reed's Lake 1oK

We stumble when we give in to our lowest expectations of ourselves--when we deliberately accept less than our best. Today, challenge yourself to do your best--focus on the work given to you; hold each cup with both hands.

We're all in the race together

You are me and I am you.
It is obvious that we are inter-are.
You cultivate the flower in
yourself so that I will be beautiful.
...I transform the garbage in myself so
that you do not have to suffer.
I support you you support me.
I am here to bring you peace
you are here to bring me joy.

- Thich Naht Hahn

Connect

The moment you think only of yourself, the focus of your whole reality narrows, and because of this narrow focus, uncomfortable things can appear huge and bring you fear and discomfort and a sense of feeling overwhelmed by misery.

The Dalai Lama

Connect with others today. Smile at someone. Open the door for a stranger. It often means more to accept someone's hand than it does to offer your own. Look around and appreciate the goodness of those around you--family, friends, co-workers, and strangers. To open your heart is to open your mind. And start with yourself--take a moment to forgive and be kind and understanding to yourself.

Remember, we're all in this together.

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting...

Mara holds the door to blaming others wide open. We may be tempted to blame others for anything uncomfortable--the way we look or eat; the relationships that don't work out; the political landscape. Blaming allows us to push reality away or to create a fantasy that explains why something unexplainable happened.

We also are sometimes eager to blame ourselves. Self-blame, again, strives to create a reason for irrational behaviors. When we blame ourselves, we create a myth of explanation. We then find comfort in our imagined world...and worse, we allow ourselves to live in imagination. This false life is like a fog that floats into our naturally enlightened state.

Blame is inescapable--whether we do it or merely encounter it.

The Karpman Drama Triangle is a useful tool for understanding and rethinking blame and its accompanying antagonists, persecution and victimhood.

The roles in a nutshell:
I threaten to harm myself or others to get attention. Kind words are not enough...I need drama to feel heard or noticed. I create real and imaginary situations of fear, anxiety, panic, and emergency. I am the persecutor.

I help others to get attention. Being kind is not enough...I need to rescue others from extreme high-risk behaviors to feel heard or noticed. I create real and imaginary situations of tension, fear, and anxiety. I am the rescuer.

I blame myself or others to get attention. Giving invited, constructive feedback is not enough. I need to point out the worst characteristics of others to feel heard or noticed. I create real and imaginary situations of sorrow, sadness, disappointment, and regret. I am the victim.

We all can easily remember a time when we've played one or more of these roles--someone who was blamed, someone who blamed, or someone who encouraged or condoned blame. And, chances are, if we've play one role, then we've played the others. The dynamics of the human condition allow us to join in on this triangular merry-go-round. We feel hurt, so we blame; we blame and we feel badly, so someone tries to cheer us up--to rescue us. That attempt feels good at first, but then makes us crazy, so we push people away...and so it goes. Here is an example:

Hey, Bob, is everything alright? (the Rescuer needs a fix, so tries to make Bob realize he has a problem).
Bob: Yeah, everything's fine--why do you ask? (Bob, appreciates the concern, but isn't sure where it's coming from).
Rescuer: You just seem a little down lately and I was wondering... (Rescuer drops some bait).
Bob: Well, things have been really busy at work lately and it's been getting to me (Bob, having been alerted to a problem is now the Victim, much to the satisfaction of the Rescuer).
Rescuer: Let's get together and go out for a beer--take your mind off of things.
Bob: That would be great...I'll tell you all about my boss who has been making a string of mistakes lately (Bob has taken the bait and provided a Persecutor--someone to blame for the problems he didn't even know he was having until Bob came along).

At some point, the Rescuer's interest will become too invasive or pervasive for Bob and he, Bob, will push the Rescuer away (this is often done passively--through ignoring the Rescuer or not showing up for social events OR aggressively through a verbal blow up, thereby ending the relationship).

In day-to-day activities we witness or engage in these dynamics regularly. It is only when we find ourselves needing them that there is cause for concern. It is good and kind to reach out to a friend, but it is healthier (and wiser) to wait for an invitation. Or to extend the invitation and patiently await, then accept the response. Rescuers actively seek people with problems--they crave the opportunities to "fix" things. But they also suffer from burnout, thereby turning into the Persecutor.

The drama triangle amplifies all of the roles--from being a helpful concerned person to being a Rescuer; from being a normal person who notices cause and effect to being a Persecutor; and from being a person who occasionally encounters difficulties to being a Victim. Once we've allowed the amplified version to become the norm, we hunger for the game.

How do we stop the game?

• Notice the game

• Realize what role you are most likely to play

• Realize who you are satisfying when you fall into the game

• Look for triggers to the game

• Avoid engaging in talking negatively about people who aren't part of the conversation (i.e., gossiping)

• Set new boundaries (as soon as you do, the game will begin--many people in your life have adapted to the game. When you stop playing, you will leave them without a player. The best thing to do is--step away!)

• Strive to gain a stronger sense of identity. No one is here merely to make others happy and no one is here merely to serve others, including solving their problems.

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

— Rainer Maria Rilke

Interest in Buddhism: How did it come about?

Throughout my childhood and adolescence I was deeply sensitive and morose. In an effort to find a sense of centeredness, I became extremely active in music and church. Surrounded by fundamentalism I attended Pentescostal and Southern Baptist churches, finally committing to the Southern Baptist church where I excelled in church music.

While all of these activities distracted me in many pleasant ways, none of them left me feeling the sense of purpose I hoped for. Sometime around the age of 12 I began to read different philosophies...Sartre, Descartes, Kant, and others. Steeped in religion, philosophy, and classical music, I finally decided to actually read the Southern Baptist doctrine.

Realizing that little of it had meaning for me, I abandoned the Southern Baptist church and began to explore metaphysics...beginning to avidly pursue the ideas of Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science. Those principles made more sense to me--the power of being at one with God moment to moment. Concurrently, I began to read books about Zen Buddhism. Of course, this was the late 70s and so I read Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A truer sense of who I am within existence began to more fully emerge.

Since then I have studied theology, religions, and spirituality. I do believe in Jesus, but do not believe in souls; I study the life of the Buddha, but do not worship him. I also respect that many Christians and people of other religions embrace the principles and lessons of Buddhism--Buddhism is not a religion, but rather a way of thinking about and making meaning of the world.

Below are some books that have been especially helpful to me.

Mark Epstein
Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart
Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective

Steve Hagen
Buddhism is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs

Jack Kornfield
The Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life
The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

Jack Maguire
Essential Buddhism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs and Practices

Diane Eshin Rizzetto
Waking Up to What You Do

Memorable Lyrics

From the fabulous Matt Alber:

End Of The World
I don’t want to ride this roller coaster
I think I want to get off
But they buckled me down
Like it’s the end of the world
If you don’t want to have this conversation
Then you better get out
Cause we’re climbing to our death
At least that’s what they want you to think
Just in case we jump the track
I have a confession to make
It’s something like a cork screw

I don’t wanna fall, I don’t wanna fly
I don’t wanna be dangled over
The edge of a dying romance
But I don’t wanna stop
I don’t wanna lie
I don’t wanna believe it’s over
I just wanna stay with you tonight

I didn’t mean to scream out quite so loudly
When we screeched to a halt
I’m just never prepared
For the end of the ride
Maybe we should get on something simpler
Like a giant balloon
But I’ve got two tickets left, and so do you
Instead of giving them away to some stranger
Let’s make them count, come on
Let’s get back in line again and ride the big one

Don’t you want to fall, don’t you want to fly
Don’t you want to be dangled over
The edge of this aching romance
If it’s gonna end, then I wanna know
That we squeezed out every moment
But if there’s nothing left can you tell me why
That it is you’re holding onto me
Like it’s the end of the world

Resolutions 2011

This year I will strive for more proportionality. In my physical, mental,
emotional, social, and spiritual health.

I will seek ways to bring balance in all that I do.

I will have more integrity, following through with all commitments.

And I will be more creative...embracing who I am as an artist and educator.
I will take more photos.

And, I will run faster and have more fun.

And fewer martinis. Maybe.

Here is one of my favorite poems. It is by Mark Doty.

Long Point Light

Long Point's aparitional
this warm spring morning,
the strand a blur of sandy light,

and the square white
of the lighthouse-separated from us
by the bay's ultramarine

as if it were nowhere
we could ever go-gleams
like a tower's ghost, hazing

into the rinsed blue of March,
our last outpost in the huge
indetermination of sea.

It seems cheerful enough,
in the strengthening sunlight,
fixed point accompanying our walk

along the shore. Sometimes I think
it's the where-we-will be,
only not yet, like some visible outcropping

of the afterlife. In the dark
its deeper invitations emerge:
green witness at night's end,

flickering margin of horizon,
marker of safety and limit.
but limitless, the way it calls us,

and where it seems to want us
to come, And so I invite it
into the poem, to speak,

and the lighthouse says:
Here is the world you asked for,
gorgeous and opportune,

here is nine o'clock, harbor-wide,
and a glinting code: promise and warning.
The morning's the size of heaven.

What will you do with it?