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Blog: Reflections from the Center
» INSTITUTE
FOR CREATIVIITY
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Allan Schnarr, a part-time therapist at the Center, has been writing for over twenty years. He has published numerous articles and book reviews. His current project, which he considers his life work, has held his devotion for fifteen years. Emotional Wisdom: Feeling the Truth Sets You Free is nearly completed, and soon to be published. Collected here are two articles, two book reviews, some of Allan’s poetry, and excerpts from Emotional Wisdom. Responses to Allan's writing are welcome at allanow@comcast.net. |
by ALLAN SCHNARR, M.Div.,Ph.D.
EXCERPTS FROM
A developmental guide to spiritual and relational wellbeing
ALLAN SCHNARR, M.Div.,Ph.D.
Copyright 2007, Allan Schnarr
WHAT YOU FEEL IS WHAT YOU GET
Feelings Carry the Day
Yesterday the sky was dark, burdened with oppressive clouds emptying themselves onto the land. I felt the heaviness. I was lethargic, but there was more. A relentless wind moaned through the trees, shivering the empty branches. Mighty whitecaps commandeered the lake, storming the beach. I felt the restlessness.
Early this morning I woke to a clear blue sky. Now, gazing upon that open expanse, like the seagulls, I feel the uplift. My heart soars easily on the breeze. The dune grasses and upturned branches dance with the free flowing air. I take a deep breath, sensing the flow of life shimmering within me. I’m feeling vibrant, a broad and deep pleasure.
My feelings aren’t always so exquisitely resonant with nature’s mood. It just happened to be this way – and I feel a special connection with the earth when it is. Yesterday was the second day of vacation, and as is usually the case, I felt heavy and restless. I struggled with letting go of my ‘things-to-be-done’ way of daily living. Today I’m on the other side of this struggle. I have let go. I embrace this carefree moment, all the finer as it harmonizes with my surroundings.
Feelings not only carry the day. They carry each and every changing moment. I feel the value of what is happening now. In this wisdom is a lesson I began learning a long time ago. I feel deeply grateful for the wisdom, even as I now acknowledge it. What you feel is what you get.
The world in which I grew up did not recognize feelings. Reason and skill carried every moment of every day. That was the wisdom I lived by, until one seismic experience shook me loose.
I was twenty years old, still a pup from my current vantage point. I’d learned the lessons available from the behavior of my elders. Like them, I thought I had the well reasoned skill to have everything under control. And then the ground shifted.
It happened at the end of my novitiate, a year of orientation to Catholic religious life. Tony, a priest psychologist took me and my fellow novices on a sensitivity marathon. Four days of nothing but emotional honesty! It was there, at that young age, that my grasp of what mattered faltered. Guys I’d lived with for a year were suddenly strangers. Harsh words and tears stormed the air. I shook with fear. That first night I roamed. Sleepless, I longed for death.
I could not deny the energetic power that decimated my old self. The person I’d been died that night. What awoke deep inside was an ancient longing for the fullness of life. I had no idea how to reach out and claim it. Terrified, I knew I was beginning a search into the dark. I knew emotion had to become my guiding light.
This book reveals my journey.
SADNESS: GIVE IN TO IT
Synonyms for Sadness: forlorn, sorrowful, mournful, disheartened, dismayed, homesick, empty, lovesick, lonely, dissatisfied, disappointed, gloomy, somber, sullen, dismal, dejected, grieving, isolated, separated, disgruntled, misunderstood, flat, taken for granted, dreary, neglected, doubtful, unhappy, blah, sullen, unwelcome, disconsolate, bored, listless, lethargic, unpopular, grief-stricken, nostalgic, alienated, left-out.
Experiences of Sadness
My earliest memory is one of sadness. I was a little over two years old. I remember crawling up on our red, cloth-covered toy box to look out the window. My mother was just getting out of a car. She looked like a stranger to me. Even though she was returning home after a long time away, I felt like I had lost her. I feared things would never be the same. It had been too long. She’d gotten sick after delivering my next youngest brother and had a protracted stay in the hospital. When she got out of the car she didn't look well. Too much had happened to me while she was away. Our interim caretaker was a nun on leave because she was depressed. My dad had been monstrous. As I stood there watching her, I remember the feeling of the bottom falling out, like there was nothing to hold my insides in place. My eyes were burning with hot water. I wanted someone to hold me. There was no-one. I knew I couldn’t go to her.
I believe my little mind made a fundamental choice that day. I would never feel this sad again. It was too painful. I had to grow up fast, to become tough like the adults around me. I pretty much never saw them in tears. They never seemed to be this weak. Be like them. Stop needing others. Rely on yourself. Stand alone. I’m not saying that I articulated these thoughts this clearly as a two year old, simply that I turned the corner then and there. I set myself on a path that got gradually more clear as I grew up. Sadness was weak, pathetic, especially for men. I remember times as a teenager telling my mom there was no point in crying about something. It didn’t help in cleaning up the spilt milk.
I was as tough as I could be for as long as I could hold out against the sadness. Not that never being sad was a conscious project. Not at all. Sadness just never occurred to me. Not at all. Not until I started paying attention to my body. Then I realized how terrified I was of feeling sad. It was the bottomless pit, the black hole. If you fall into it, there’s no way out. I tackled this fear. Ten years ago, I dropped myself into the pit. I found out the bottom is soft. I learned how comforting sadness can be. I grew to cherish the feeling. I remember two funerals where I actually loved feeling sad. One was for Leila’s mother, the first person close to me to die. The other was for the twenty one year old son of a dear friend. At both occasions, and especially the latter, it was really OK to be openly sad in public. Everyone was sad. I cherished the opportunity. I sobbed through the whole funeral for my friend’s son. I knew I was crying for so much more than her loss. All my losses were being comforted. It was profoundly soothing.
Since then, I choose to allow my sadness whenever I notice it. The most recent example that stands out for me is watching the TV coverage of the war in Iraq. During the first week of the war, every time I turned on the news, I felt the same feeling. I can feel it now. My whole body feels heavy, like I don’t want to have to hold myself up. My challenge is to breathe, and especially to allow the letting go in each exhale. As I let myself sink into the chair that is holding me, the sensation of being emptied from below grows clearer. It’s like my body is being poured into the earth. It’s as if a gentle rain is falling right through me, washing away all the heaviness. Sometimes there are tears that join the inner shower. If I stay with the sadness, give in to it, it eventually washes away the heaviness, at least for a time. I still feel so sad for the loss of life and for all the emotional and physical pain that comes with war. So many suffer so deeply because we haven’t learned how to get along yet. So many relationships are broken through the traumas of war. I’ve had my share of this suffering. There have been times when my life seemed like a war zone. So it is everyone.
The Wisdom of Sadness
Sadness limits disappointment by missing what has been lost. This means facing the loss, letting it be real, feeling it. In the feeling is the healing. As the sadness is genuinely felt, a sympathetic soothing happens. This is the miracle of sadness, its paradoxical magic. In letting go and accepting each painful loss, I gradually learn what I have that is never lost. There is within me a bottomless comforting strength, a knowingly soft resilience, an indestructible divine tenderness that holds me through every loss. When I’m a child, I rely on others to provide this compassionate support. As an adult I still need the support of others, and I can learn to internalize the support, to gently hold myself.
Though it seems miraculous to one who has forgotten how, the ability to comfort oneself is completely natural. Sadness is the way this soothing occurs. It happens as a wave of pain flows through the body. The pain of the loss claims my awareness, rises to a crescendo, and then subsides. If I let myself feel the sadness, it comes and it goes. The feeling itself is soothing, and there is comfort in its passing. That’s why we call it having a good cry. It is usually followed with relief. Not that the grieving is necessarily over. Not that there will not be more sadness to come. Simply, if I trust my body, the sadness comes and the sadness goes. My body has its own wisdom about how much of it I can take at any given time. The more I fight against allowing the sadness, the more it becomes that all-consuming black hole in which I could drown. The more I let it be, the more it brings me relief.
Sadness is not just a healer. It is a teacher as well. There is always something to be learned when I’m feeling sad. I may learn that the loss is only partial and temporary, not as profound as I feared. You are gone for a time, and then you return. You are unavailable to my needs for a time, and then you become attentive once more. I may learn how deeply that which is lost has become a part of me on the inside. Even when you are gone and I am missing you, I may realize that I feel so very close to you. I might discover that you are more important to me than I ever knew. Your absence may well make my heart grow fonder. In aching with your absence, I may realize how much you mean to me. I may learn how liberating it can be to let go. I may be freed from a need that I considered paramount. I may find the freedom to consider other ways to meet the need, or to consider other needs that were always relegated to the shadows. I may discover that letting go of my external reliance on you helps me to become more attentive to my inner experience of myself. There is so much to learn.
After many years of traveling through the purifying truths of sadness, I may awaken to the fiery indestructible core of my own being. What is it that can never be lost? Sadness will show me. Every time I come through my sadness, I learn a little more about what lasts. What is really dependable? That which outlives sadness. What can I really count on? In what can I truly have faith? Sadness will tell.
When I’m feeling sad, something old is dying. When I’m feeling sad, something new is being born. Sadness has the power to turn the great wheel of life. In letting go what has been, an opportunity is born. Only when I have let go of what needs to die can I embrace what is being born. Sadness is the midwife. There is no new life without it.
CONFIDENCE: GO WITH IT
Synonyms for Confidence: strong, smart, capable, influential, powerful,
brilliant, positive, certain, sure, proud, jubilant, independent, successful, valiant, triumphant, satisfied, adequate, on a roll, talented, productive, prosperous,
genuine, sincere, authentic, responsible, expressive, honest, true, truthful, candid, frank, free, earnest, self-respect, modest, self-possessed, congruent;
(esteemed, admired, affirmed, appreciated, approved, helpful)
articulate, announce, influence, self-disclose, show & tell, achieve, manage, manifest, do, say, act, actualize, operate, reveal, define, direct, succeed,
claim, comment, determine, execute, selfcontrol.
Experiences of Confidence
I love to feel confident! It’s what gave me a thrill after I’d learned to drive a car. Getting behind the wheel of that monstrous machine and making it do whatever I wanted! Faster! Around that corner. Up that hill. Pass that guy! Whatever I intended, the car executed. It was a marriage made in the heavenly halls of my longing for power. Of course, I had some fear to get through. I remember my first time driving at night on a two lane highway. As two huge lights sped toward us, I just hoped I was hugging my side of the road, tried not to scream or shut my eyes, and did my best to accept that we might all be dead in just a moment. We survived, and my fears steadily vanished. I loved when my mother needed to run errands. Sure, I’d be happy to drive! Why do you have to drive so fast Allan? She was a little uncomfortable trusting me with all that power. It didn’t shake my confidence. Why do I have to drive so fast? Don’t worry, we’re safe, Mom. That was my answer. With hindsight I know what the real truth was. Because I can, Mom. Because I can.
One of the first skills I remember learning was removing and straightening nails from used lumber my dad brought home from job sites. He’d reuse the nails and the lumber. I was so proud how quickly I learned to do it. Soon he gave me the job to do when he wasn’t even around! I felt important, smart, strong, capable. I was a big boy! Somewhere around the age of five! My confidence in working with tools started there, and grew.
I remember in grade eight, the teacher had math contests in the morning before class started. Math came easily to me. We had to add, subtract, multiply, and divide – and speed mattered. I was almost always first in finishing, and almost always had them all right. I still remember the feeling, going through those problems. I was charged with energy, excited and alert, and totally focused. I knew I could do the job well, and I loved rising to the challenge.
In high school I took an advanced math course. The teacher would give us difficult proofs to resolve for extra credit. I took on each and every one, convinced that I could discover the solution. Math had always been my best subject. I was always able to be near perfect on the exams. So I fully expected to be able to find my way through these very difficult problems. I’d get stumped, refuse to give up, play with trial and error, get stumped, have a flash of insight, get stumped, take a break, come back, get stumped, refuse to give up, have another flash of insight, stick with it, and complete the proof. Every time I took on one of those challenges, I was confident that I could resolve it. Not that I didn’t have my doubts, but my confidence carried me through them. No matter how difficult it seemed, I remained convinced that if I just kept trying, I’d find a way.
English was my worst subject in high school. I dreaded every exam. I could never be sure what the teacher wanted me to say. My grades were still near the top of the class, but I was never satisfied. My standards were so high, my confidence was so low. Then in my last year of high school, the teacher invited me to do an independent study on James Joyce. Amazed he had confidence in me, I took him up on it. What a challenge! I’d never done anything like it. My final paper was something like fifty pages long. I got a good grade, but my confidence remained low. Then a couple years later, I heard that the teacher was using my paper to teach classes on Joyce. That gave me a boost.
A couple years later, one of my profs invited me to brush up a paper and submit it to a college essay contest. My confidence leapt. Occasionally thereafter, I’d let a friend or mentor read something I’d written for class, or in my journal. Always, the feedback was encouraging. I started to remember and to notice how often teachers told me a paper was well written. My confidence was growing. Eventually I gathered all the papers from undergrad and divinity school, of which I was proud, and had them bound. It was my way of declaring my confidence in myself as a writer.
A few years after graduating from clinical psychology, I decided it was time for me to find out what I really thought. If I were not telling someone what I thought they wanted to hear, what would I have to say? I wrote a couple articles, and had trouble getting them published. I didn’t want to constrain myself to their editorial needs. I was giving my confidence room to grow. So, I decided to write a book. That was fifteen years ago. Since then, the first book, which I still believe is my life work, got shelved. I fired my agent, and found my writing reborn in a second book which I completed. I had enough positive feedback from readers that I spent a couple years trying to get it published. I haven’t given up on it, but have accepted that it is very difficult for an unpublished author to sell inspirational fiction. Four years ago, I returned to this book, and started a complete rewrite of it. It’s clear to me that the only reason I’m still writing is confidence.
I rarely talk to my friends and family about my writing anymore. I’ve been writing so long and published so little. I have taken time for a variety of articles in recent years, many of which have been published. “The Book”, however, is still waiting to be discovered. In the meantime, I write. I do it for the love of the self-expression. I know I keep getting better at saying what I want to say. I believe I keep growing in the wisdom that gives me something worth saying. I am confident in the value of what is contained here, because I am simply telling you how I live, who I am. My intention is to communicate what makes life worthwhile – for me.
Everything I write completes that intention.
I’m simply confiding myself in you.
How can I not be confident? I am doing what I want,
the way I want.
I am doing it . . . because I can!
The Wisdom of Confidence
Confidence is how I feel when I am doing what I want. I’m doing it the way I want to be doing it. My actions are matching my intentions. This does not necessarily mean I have arrived at the successful completion of a project. It does mean that each step I am taking tells me I am making progress. Confidence prolongs encouragement by asserting my self.
I am on the way. I am making the journey.
I am doing it. I can.
The dining room needs painting. I can handle that. We want to have a delicious meal for our guests. No problem. We need a dependable, economical new car. I’ll take care of it. The back porch needs a thorough cleaning. Leave it to me. I want to stay close to Amanda as the years go by. I know what to do. I want my new interns to feel safe quickly. I’ve learned how to do that. I want our directors to realize the seriousness of our problems with our administrator. The memo flows out clearly. I want to be clear about the joy of confidence. I let the words come.
Confidence is the pleasure
that bridges the gap
between what is and what may be.
It’s normally a buoyant mixture of excitement and fear. It is not necessary that there be no fear in confidence. In my years of bodywork, I was delighted to learn and relearn that so often when I’m afraid, if I look a little deeper, I’m also excited. When something is important enough to get me excited, it’s often also likely to scare me that it may not work out.
Confidence is the energy in my love
for my goal – whatever it is that I want –
and this energy carries me through my fearful doubts.
I’m like the breeze flowing through the leaves on a tree. These obstacles are not deterrents. They just give me a way to make a little music. My progress is assured. I know where I’m going. I’m on the way. It’s so good. I am doing it.
To confidence, obstacles are simply opportunities.
Confidence recognizes the hollowness of premature judgments of “I can’t”. I remember when Amanda was growing up, and she’d say, “I can’t”. I’d reply, “How do you know?” Confidence looks around for whatever small step would be continued progress. It says, “Can’t never could.” Then, it turns, “I think I can” into “I am doing it.” And it does this joyfully, for the simple love of what is being accomplished. It’s what I told myself so often in the early years of writing “The Book”. I am doing it.
I am doing it!!
Confidence does not get caught in judgments about right or wrong. It sees through the trap in this black or white thinking. Confidence simply keeps its eye on the prize. If this action didn’t get me where I wanted to be, my confidence stands ready to make whatever adjustment is helpful. Confidence allows space for Humility or Admiration, without losing any of its determination to continue making progress. It’s not about right or wrong. It is about continued progress. I am on the way. I am doing it.
Confidence does not rely on competition
to believe in itself.
It doesn’t need to be better than anyone to prove itself. It doesn’t get diminished by meeting someone more skilled.
Confidence is not dependent on showing off.
It doesn’t require adulation from others. It is not crushed by criticism.
Confidence is not addicted to success.
It does not demand quick, all or none solutions. It doesn’t need immediate gratification. Confidence grows as it looks for ever more complex and meaningful challenges. It appreciates that so much of what really matters requires investment over the long haul.
Confidence is willing to do whatever it takes
to actualize something really worthwhile.
Whenever I am truly confident, I realize that I am simply revealing myself. My intentions are clear to me. As I act on them, I say who I am. This means I can let go of the results. Not that the consequences don’t matter. It’s just that they are simply feedback about how clearly I am making myself known. If the feedback tells me I haven’t yet made myself clear, my confidence welcomes the information. I am happy to learn more about myself, and to make adjustments that say more clearly who I am. When I’m confident, I relish the process of self-definition. I’m not looking for one success-or-failure-defining-moment. I don’t have to be a finished product.
I enjoy discovering myself.
The more I learn, the clearer I get about who I am, the clearer I am about what I really want to do. I keep getting better at simply confiding myself. Whatever happens, this is me.
When I am truly confident,
I am simply being true to myself.
This is me.
ANGER: LET IT OUT
Synonyms for Anger: cross, bitter, irate, indignant, infuriated, irritated, annoyed, provoked, offended, rejected, used, cheated, betrayed, outraged.
Experiences of Anger
It took me several years to bring my anger into my partnership with Leila. Thanks to my dad, I’d always been afraid of anger. When he got angry, someone got hurt. So of course, I was afraid of Leila’s anger. That meant I did whatever I could so that she’d stop being angry. I also did my best to preempt her anger, by preventing whatever might make her angry in the first place. This was a formula for giving my power away to her. The result that steadily dawned on me was that she was getting her way much more of the time than was I. Relentlessly I came to realize how angry I was about this unfairness.
The turning point as I remember it happened when we were relaxing together in a hot tub. Our conversation led to the point of Leila saying that she was angry because I was not doing my fair share of the work required to keep our household going. I was completely shocked. That was exactly how I felt, though I’d never had the courage to say so. In that moment I did say so. Then we got into it. She named all the things she was doing. I listed all my contributions. I think we were both a little surprised at how much the other was doing. The anger on both sides dissipated. We took the occasion to renegotiate the balance.
There and then I realized that I needed to bring my anger into our cooperation. I needed to fight for my perception of what was fair and unfair. For a couple years thereafter, Leila and I had some pretty intense fights. No blows mind you, but voices on both sides sometimes shook the walls. I stopped backing down to keep the peace. I decided to use her as my model, and match her way of standing up for herself. The truth is I’d always admired the strength in her anger. Eventually we learned to respect each other’s anger without having to shout about it. Little by little, we got around to talking things through before the anger got to a fever pitch.
Over the years I have chosen to voice my anger when I thought it was necessary. Once I came home and Leila had thrown out the plants that had been my handiwork and responsibility to tend. On another occasion she purchased new silverware without talking to me about it. I had liked the old. More than once I expressed my anger about how stressed she was because she was handling so much. She’d gone back to work full time, and we hadn’t renegotiated the balance of household chores. I challenged her to pass one of her jobs to me.
In recent years we’ve been able to navigate most of our disagreements without anger. Nonetheless there are occasions when I feel the heat rising. What I’ve noticed is that I’m completely OK with Leila strongly disagreeing with me. It’s only when her finger points at me with what I consider a false accusation or a put down that my anger awakens. This is where I continue to draw the line. I will not allow myself to be attacked. Stop right there. Neither of us want that in our relationship.
When I’m angry my body surges with energy. It starts with a flare of heat in my belly. The heat rises through my chest. It flows as awakening power through my shoulders into my arms and hands. If I’m really angry, it burns between my shoulder blades and up the back of my neck, bristling into my throat and my eyes. When I’m standing, the energy also drops through my pelvis and legs into my feet. I used to be afraid of feeling this way. Now I welcome it. I am ready for action. That’s all.
I’m not saying I like being angry. Quite the contrary, the less I’m angry, the happier I am. The good news is that over the years the occasions for anger have become few and far between, not just between Leila and I, but in my life in general. I take this as clear feedback that I have learned from anger. It has become less and less necessary.
The Wisdom of Anger
Perhaps the job of Anger is to work itself out of a job. The less frequent, the less intense anger, the better – though never at the cost of ignoring injustice. Anger is the guarantor of justice. It fights for the balance that is fair. It shows the way to maintain the balance. Its voice must be heard when the balance has been disturbed. Better a whisper than a shout. Nonetheless, whatever it takes for the truth to come out!
Anger is energy to protect what I love. If I value our agreement, the way it allows us to cooperate, I need to honor the anger that surges when the agreement is threatened. My Anger holds you accountable. Here’s my understanding of what is fair to expect from you. Here’s how I perceive you to be falling short. My intent is not to humiliate you, nor engender guilt in you. I’m not saying you are inadequate, nor that you are responsible for my disappointment. My anger is not your fault. I am not blaming nor chastising you. I’m not ridiculing you nor getting even with you. I am not pulling out a club to force you to do things my way. I am saying that as I see it, you are not living up to our agreement, and that this is unacceptable to me. Your behavior or my understanding of our agreement needs to change, maybe both. I value our partnership. I’m hoping you do as well. We need to talk.
Anger is a call to understanding, and then to negotiation. Do you care enough about our cooperation to take my Anger seriously, to listen and try to understand what I perceive to be unfair? Are you willing to make adjustments? Are we truly equitably sharing power?
Justice can only be determined by the parties to an agreement. If any participant perceives injustice, the agreement is endangered. Anger is the red flag planted where the injustice lies. It commands the attention of all who care about continuing to cooperate.
The freedom to express Anger, and the willingness to listen carefully to it, are vital to the dynamic of Mutuality. A sign of a healthy partnership is responsiveness to the first whisperings of injustice. Nonetheless, a robust alliance responds immediately to the shout that shakes the walls. Either way, Anger is valued. If I feel it, I need to believe that my partners want to hear about it.
Well tended Anger revitalizes Respect.
It spotlights injustice,
disturbs the status quo,
restores balance.
When I’m angry I claim my place as a participant.
My voice must be heard.
We are sharing the power of choice
only if every voice is heard.
Each must dare to care.
Anger says so.
RESPONSIBLE ANGER
Steps in tending it well.
1. Accept It.
- I am angry now.
- Listen to my body. Identify what's happening (e.g. heart racing, face flush, breathing faster, energy surge, tight fists . . .)
- Listen to my impulse, what I feel like doing (e.g. punching, yelling, name calling, whatever . . .)
2. Think it.
- Before acting on it, think about what it means.
- When I feel it building, before acting out, stop and think.
- Count to 10. Take time out. Walk away. Come back to it when I’m ready, if it's worth it.
- What do I care about that is threatened or hurt? Get to the source.(e.g. self-respect, fairness, cherished belief, whatever. . .)
3. Express it.
- If I have pent up intensity, find a non-destructive way to discharge it (e.g. take a fast walk, hit a punching bag, pound a pillow,yell at the lake, in a forest, whatever . . . as long at it's safe)
- Talk it out with someone with whom I’m not angry.
- Decide how I can constructively address what needs to change.Take the action I want in the way that is true to my intention.
4. Let it go.
- Once I've done what you can to change things, let the anger go.
- Even if I haven't been able to change things, let the anger go.
- Do deep breathing. On each exhale, imagine gravity drawing the anger into the earth. Find calm.
- Accept what I cannot change. Grieve the loss. Feel the sadness.
AMAZEMENT: LET IT IN
Synonyms for Amazement: wonder, awe, bliss, enlightened, enriched, surprised, astounded, fascinated, inspired.
Experiences of Amazement
Last night, thanks to my fifty seven year old bladder, I had a fascinating experience after getting back into bed. I laid down, deep breathing as usual, expecting to drift off. Then a wonderful thought came to me about music and its role in awakening me to amazement. I made a mental note, hoped I wouldn’t forget, emptied my mind, focused on my breathing, and waited to drift off. Along came another thought. I let it go. Then came another. With each my fascination grew. Within a couple minutes I realized I needed to get my tape recorder. This used to happen to me often in the early days of attention to creative process. Now it’s been well over a year since a thought amazed me enough to get me up out of bed to record it so that I could let go and get back to sleep.
What came then, with me speaking under the covers so as not to disturb Leila, was an array of associations, each feeding my sense of amazement. Here’s the verbatim as the tape recorder held it: “Music, rock and roll collection, Sacred World discovery, Chanting the Chakras, receiving and returning love, creation centered spirituality, evolution as ongoing creation, Lake Huron, sunsets, eight lane highways, how dad died, yoga, tai chi, core chi, seaweed.” Therein is a rich array of experiences of amazement. During the past week I’d been carrying my tape recorder around, intending to notice and collect experiences of amazement for this part of the chapter. I’d collected a few moments that seemed writeable. However, now I think my attentiveness was just priming the pump for the memories that flowed into my half awake state of mind and body.
I remember like it was yesterday, the first time, and time and again after that, as a young child, driving the two hour trip to Lake Huron, rising over the hill where the first glimpse of the lake was available. Amazing! I grew up in the rolling farmlands of Southern Ontario. I’d never seen such an open stretch of bright blue water. My amazement would grow as we got closer and the vista expanded. I had no idea of the depth of meaning in that pristine open space. I didn’t need to understand why I was so amazed. I just felt my whole being expand to contain the splendor of what I was seeing.
Thinking about trips to the lake, reminds me of camping trips we used to take when I was young. I remember the first time we came into Toronto. The highway kept expanding to more and more lanes. My brother and I would count the number of lanes. My dad was in construction and I think we had some felt sense of what it took to make such a roadway. Then we’d come upon one of the intersections with roads looping over and under each other. We’d count the number of levels, amazed by every bit of it! I was astounded the first time I saw sky scrapers, ocean going vessels, jumbo jets. Once we had car trouble and were stranded just past the end of an airport runway. The jets were taking off right above us. Wow! I could have stayed there all day. How did those giant things ever stay up in the air! Amazing! How did people make such things happen? What might I?
When I was in college, I came across the writings of a Jesuit priest-scientist named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. His ideas about evolution as God’s ongoing creative activity completely fascinated me. He had scientific detail about evolutionary stages. Things got more and more complex until they could no longer be held together. Then a leap to a whole new kind of integration occurred. It made complete intuitive sense to me. I was spellbound by the breadth of his vision. The universe was simply evolving into an ever more complete representation of love. I see with hindsight how these thoughts became the foundation for the world view I have been evolving ever since.
Thinking of Teilhard, reminds me of my Amazement at discovering Martin Buber and Carl Rogers. Buber mesmerized me with his distinctions between I-Thou and I-It relationships. Rogers opened my eyes to the astounding mystery of being a person, and the inestimable value of ‘unconditional positive regard’. I devoured their words like manna from heaven. My wonder at what goes on within and between persons grew by leaps and bounds. I was completely and utterly amazed!
Perhaps Teilhard, Buber, Rogers, and others set the stage for one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I went on an eight day retreat before being ordained a priest. I was to discern my vocation. That had never been a question for me. What happened was unexpected and unprecedented. I spent five hours a day for eight days, simply sitting in the presence of God, following my breath with the words, “Receiving”, as I was breathing in, and “Returning”, as I was breathing out. In my imagination, I was living in the heart of Jesus’ relationship with his Father. I was simply receiving love, being so completely filled with its abundance that it overflowed through me and back to its source. I was completely enthralled through the entire time. This experience continues to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It became the seed out of which everything subsequent has grown.
Nearly thirty years later I was astonished at how my dad died. He was a domineering, often angry man as a young father, kind of like one Old Testament version of God. I grew up very much afraid of him and what he might do to me. Amazingly enough, thanks greatly to his faith, he managed to open himself little by little to the experience of love throughout his adulthood. Nonetheless, perhaps ironically, his last few years were full of fear, as emphysema claimed more and more of his capacity to breathe. My mother and all my siblings rallied around him, especially in his final days. It was such a peaceful time with love flowing between us all. When we knew he was near death, his children and his wife gathered around his bed. We sang hymns he loved, interspersed with love songs he and mom loved. As we were singing their favorite love song, “I’ll have the last waltz with you…I fell in love with you, the Last Waltz will last forever”, he died. This was another of the most amazing experiences of my life. It said something to me about the kind of life he had lived. Yes, an amazing life.
Music has played such a vital role in filling me with wonder. Throughout my years in religious life music kept my feelings alive. We always had inspiring music for our daily liturgies. I lived with gifted guitarists. I was part of a folk group throughout my college years. We loved nothing better than to sit around and sing. I was recurrently enthralled by the feeling and the meaning in the music we made. In the years after leaving religious life, I missed the music profoundly. Into the breach slid rock and roll. I began to tune into and collect artists and songs I loved. I found depths of meaning and feeling resonant with what I’d loved in church and folk music. I played it all the time in the car and around home. I became so fascinated by my love for the meaning and the feeling of certain songs, that I collected them into compilations structured around the model in this book. I had a song for each of the primary emotions in each of the cycles. I played the collection as a way of ritually cherishing what amazed me in life.
I’m so enthralled right now with celebrating my experiences of amazement in life, that I notice myself wanting to go on and on. On the coat-tails of this awareness comes the fantasy of my editor telling me I have to cut twenty percent out of the book. I’d rather not, so I think I’ll say enough for now.
Well, maybe just one more thing. I have to tell you about my Amazement with the experience of Seaweed. It’s not about a trip to the ocean. It all began with my discovery of Yoga and Tai Chi. What fascinated me about both of these disciplines was their use of images from nature to guide the embodiment of Spirit. I’d spent fifteen years with these disciplines, nurturing these images, when an amazing thought came to me. I could design my own version of postures and movements, with images from nature, each meaningfully assigned to one of the primary emotions in each of the cycles in my model.
My Amazement kept expanding as I discovered a form of symbolic embodiment for each emotion. The image of Seaweed represented the emotion of Delight, the emotion for expressive pleasure in the first cycle, Trust. Imagine standing with feet shoulder width apart, roots growing into the sea floor from the souls of your feet. A gentle current is swishing unpredictably, moving every joint in your body, while you are stretching ever so slightly toward the light above. I was stilted and mechanical when I first tried this movement. Ten years later, I’m amazed at the pleasure that flows through my body as I become Seaweed. I do this a few times a week as I dance, allowing the image and the flowing music to have its way with me. To my undying Amazement, my body can flow like water!
The Wisdom of Amazement
As I paused for a moment to shift from describing experiences to learning from them, I suddenly noticed the silence. I’d chosen a particular piece of music to move me along in writing about Amazement. It was playing and I paused it when I transcribed the words from my midwinter night’s musing. I got so caught up in what flowed from the Amazement in those words that I had not even thought about the music. The CD I’d chosen was one that serves as a great introduction to what Amazement has taught me. It’s playing again now.
Leila and I were on vacation in California a little over a year ago. We were out driving, had just been through a harrowing experience, and were a little shaken up. We came across a small boutique and decided to stop in and browse, as a way to shift out of what had just happened. I was looking through their assortment of music CDs and came across one that intuitively called to me. It was a collection of esteemed artists from around the world. It had won a coveted award which I no longer remember. I bought it. When we got back in the car, I played it. Leila and I were immediately drawn into its spell. It was deeply soothing in a way that music without words can be. Each song was unique and as beautiful as the one before. It was amazing timing: just what we needed.
In the years since I have collected the original CDs from which the tracks came, along with other works by some of these artists. They have become my favorites in my increasingly extensive collection of music from around the world, music without words, or at least without English words. All of the music recurrently entrances me. I have it playing in the background whenever I am seeing clients, writing, reading, doing Yoga, dancing, or just hanging out around the house. It has become the air that my soul breathes.
Each experience of Amazement is a seed that will grow
if it is gathered, planted, watered, and
given the light of awareness.
When I cultivate Amazement, I reap the nourishment of my dream.
Amazement is how the universe supports creative renewal. Along comes an experience that expands my horizons. Whether it’s an up close and personal first view of a lake or the first meeting with a seminal idea, the world will never be the same. I just remembered in college when I first came across an idea from a French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. “I am my body,” he contended. This thought astounded me, and transfigured everything that went before it. Though I had been an athlete, I still lived in the world of ideas. My old world view had told me that thoughts were where true importance lie. Out of Merleau-Ponty’s wake up call grew so much of what followed, including my entire healing journey with my body, the workshops and articles where I have passed on my body-centered learning to others, and indeed the model in this book, arising as it has from embodied experience. Any experience of Amazement may become a watershed event. It only depends on my willingness to receive Inspiration.
Amazement is simply a receptive openness to
Inspiration,
one that treasures what is given,
that thereby allows the Inspiration to last.
- Imagine being able to gather in all my experiences of wonder, savoring the pleasure in them, digesting them so that they simply become part of who I am!
- Imagine having all the energy I need to live a fascinating, creative life!
- Imagine living amidst an endless flow of wondrous events promising an always newly enriched life to come!
These are not flights of fancy, not pipe dreams.
Amazement continually reawakens
my dream of what my life may become, and
Amazement powers the dream into its realization.
When Amazement allows Inspiration to last, a lot more than wishful thinking is happening. Amazement changes things. Each time I truly let myself be amazed, nothing will ever be the same again. The status quo loses status. The consensus trance pops. Old assumptions get discredited. Rarely is this shift glaringly obvious. Usually It’s just a barely perceptible moment in a process. Nonetheless, what was is inexorably passing. Something promising new life is coming to be.
If I’d rather not change, I can simply ignore amazing experiences, or at the other extreme, relentlessly seek them out without ever slowing down enough to let them in. If I want to cultivate creative renewal, I have only to receive Inspiration when it comes along, to really Let It In. I do this by remaining attentive to moments of Amazement, mindfully tuning in to qualitative aspects of the experience, in my body and my mind. I find ways to stay with these experiences, to gather them, savor them, ritually honor them. Simply put, I let myself enjoy what amazes me. I find ways to stay with the pleasure. I gradually discover how abundant the universe truly is. I become gradually increasingly amazed with the steadily unfolding evolution of my own life.
I think it’s important to note that each experience of Amazement is valuable whether or not I have a specific meaning for it. Every experience continues to assure me that I have my place in a universe full of mysterious promise. While experiencing Amazement, I don’t need to get what it’s about, nor give it some pragmatic value. It’s value is in the way it feeds the Dreamer in me. Who knows how wonderful life might become!
The easiest way to cultivate Amazement is to develop what Zen calls beginner’s mind. This is about coming to an experience as if it were happening for the first time – which, of course, it always is! Beginner’s mind releases the grip of the past upon the future. Expectations undermine Amazement.
When Tolkien’s first book in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy came out as a movie, I prepared myself by rereading the book. I thought it would enhance my moviegoing experience. When I saw the movie, however, I couldn’t stop myself from judging the differences between the movie and what I was expecting. I realized I was not able to simply let myself be enthralled in experiencing the movie in and of itself. When the second movie came out, I did not read the book. Happily, with my beginner’s mind, I found myself completely mesmerized by the newness of each moment.
Therein is the challenge and the opportunity available to beginner’s mind. The more I can come to each experience with an empty mind, free of expectations, without judgments about how things ought to be, the more likely I am to experience Amazement. The more I allow myself to honor such experiences, the more the seeds are planted and growing within me. Who knows what will someday come to life?
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