Tag: Buddhism

Day 5

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‘Social Example’ a collage by Maggie Baker, 2001

Continuing the story of Lydia, Me and our Family of Three https://amzn.eu/d/99yW3Qk

Yesterday was a good day, until it wasn’t.

I received some bad news as a bolt out of the blue, and it hit hard.

It could be argued that I could have foreseen it coming, but I didn’t.

The calm, peaceful mind I’ve been cultivating was suddenly no more. I was angry.

I know anger is a negative emotion, and the teachings of Buddha tell me that it arises from self-cherishing delusions; having more regard for myself and my own needs than for those of others.

I do accept this, in principle. In practice, yesterday my anger arose and was a long time abating.

As I continue to learn how to train my mind – and my heart – anger is something that I need to and will address. I’m going for growth.

Today, on my walk with Lydia, I am still aware of anger. It feels like it is pervading my whole body.

I have concerns that Lydia will pick up on this, but she doesn’t seem to have done.

We are in a quiet spot with no immediate triggers. Lydia is calmer today than she has been on this same walk for some time.

She walks to heel with a loose lead most of the way, and I reinforce this with food rewards and praise.

It rains a little bit but neither of us minds. Then the sun comes out.

I’m going to visit friends this afternoon. It will be another good day. And this time I believe the good feeling will stay, at least for longer than it did yesterday.

Day 4

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The Door to the Meeting House, Yesterday

Continuing the story of Lydia, Me and our Family of Three https://amzn.eu/d/99yW3Qk

The theme of yesterday’s Buddhist teaching was ‘Transforming Adversity’.

It was the first of the latest 4-week course, as an outreach from the Kadampa Madhyamaka Buddhist Centre, near Pocklington.

It only takes me 15 minutes to drive to the Meeting House.

A few years ago, when I was living in Leeds, I drove to Buddhist teachings and meditation meetings in Pickering, a distance of over 50 miles.

I went regularly, almost every week, for about two years, until the classes there stopped.

They helped me a lot those meetings, with the words spoken by the teachers, the benefits of meditation and the experience of a supportive group.

When I started going to the meetings that I go to now, I was in a very bad state mentally.

These meetings have helped me a lot too, to reach the point that I needed to reach, where I am now.

When I first started with my journey of mental health recovery, I was like a drowning person – thrashing about desperately trying to find something to hold on to, so that I didn’t sink. Well, I did find things to hold on to – lifelines – and I didn’t drown.

Now, I feel like I’m waving. I need to keep working at it, to make sure that I keep my head above water, but I’ve learnt a lot in different ways and I keep learning.

Today is a good day.

I take Lydia to a dog field.

Trev and I go out for breakfast.

I meet a friend for coffee.

In my book – literally, in my book – that counts as a good day. A very good day.

Help with Healing: Buddhism and Therapy

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“Hand in hand to peace of mind”

It amazes me that the Buddhist religion, rooted in the East, is so accessible to me here in the West, in the UK.

“Dharma” is the teaching and “sangha” is the community. I’ve taken refuge in Buddha, dharma and sangha recently and will continue to do so, as it helps me to see things differently, train my mind, start to feel calmer about things that have been profoundly distressing.

Sometimes in life it can feel like we’re faced with an impossible situation. ‘Fight’ or ‘flight’ – the reflex responses – seem like the only options and neither of these provides a way forward. But if we can start to see a problem as an opportunity – something that we can grow with rather than get angry about or run away from, there is potential for a way forward to open up after all.

This isn’t something that I’ve found easy, not now and certainly not when I was younger.

I’ve gone into flight mode at critical times in my life because I just didn’t have the skills or insights, confidence or support to help me do it differently.

I used to struggle to assert myself in any way and used to get it horribly wrong, with disastrous consequences in terms of life choices and relationships.

I was in my late thirties when I discovered Buddhism at around the same time as I found out that I could turn to a counsellor for therapeutic support.

I haven’t always found that Buddhism and personal therapy are comfortably aligned. In some ways they have seemed to me to work from opposite polarities – Buddhism teaches that I give up ‘self-cherishing’ and therapy helps me to learn to love myself (with great difficulty). However, my approach has been to not over-think, take from each what they offer and do my best to move forward in more positive ways. It’s an ongoing journey, still fraught with trials and traumas.

I’ve worked through – cried, ached and screamed through – a lot of emotions over the last 30 or so years. There were some, though, that I put to the back of my mind, locked away because they were too difficult to deal with and I had to find a way of building a life for myself rather than staying stuck. Those locked away emotions do, however, have a way of finding their way out, demanding to be addressed because they be need to be resolved. That happened when I retired.

So I’m now at the point where I’m engaging with both therapy and Buddhism again. Except now they don’t feel so polarised. I just feel very lucky to have access to all the wisdom and wonder of Buddhist teachings from the East here in the West, as well as skilled therapy, that will help me to heal, and to make the most of the life that I have.

Food

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Photo by Faizan on Pexels.com

My relationship with food has historically been a difficult one.

As a teenager I went on a strict diet – mostly made up of cottage cheese, crispbread, lean meat and fruit – to keep me at 7/71/2 stone. That was the only way I could feel reasonably good about myself and my body.

Even so,  I didn’t think anybody could possibly find me attractive, and I struggled with a very limited life.

If I ever did ‘let go’ and start to eat anything even remotely fattening, my mood plummeted as my weight gained. The only way I could cope was to start restricting my eating again. I had no concept that help or support of any kind might be available; it was a very private and lonely struggle that went on until my mid-40s. After an almost catastrophic catalogue of failed relationships and career stalemate I realised that I had to push through the internal barriers, and keep going until I came out the other side.

20 years on, at 66, I believe I have finally arrived at that point.

I weigh five stone more than I did in my teens, and though I am aiming to steadily lose some weight this won’t be my starving myself – not just of food, but of life.

There are many factors and influences that have helped me to get through, not least in recent years that of my partner, Trev, who makes me feel beautiful just as I am, inside and out. That’s a great gift to get at any age!

I’ve taken on board Buddhist teachings of all kinds, with one fundamental phrase being an enduring fallback: “The mind is a muscle and it can be changed.”

I’ve had to fight and work hard to train and change my brain and was fortunate to find the fight associated with a strong survival instinct when I needed it.

That isn’t to say that I haven’t had moments of self-loathing that threatened to be overwhelming. But I kept looking for and finding ways to be positive, including reaching out to others who were also struggling in the extreme.

I still won’t try clothes on in a shop changing room, and feel no need to put myself through that ordeal. So while this may be evidence of ‘avoidance’ lingering in my psyche, it’s a minor issue as far as I’m concerned, and doesn’t get in the way of me living my life in a full way, including enjoying delicious food.

Bon appetit!

Being 65

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Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

In one sense, this post should just be entitled ‘Being’, because age is irrelevant.

I interact with the world essentially as a being, and don’t need a label.

On the other hand, I do have history, and the ways that I have worked through that history impact on the way that I interact with the world – and other beings in it – on a daily basis.

It isn’t always easy to put the past behind us, especially when heavily loaded with emotions associated with trauma and grief.

Accepting things that I cannot change has been a hard life lesson to learn for me, helped by meditation, affirmations, and Buddhist teachings (including one in particular by Gen Togden of the Kadampa tradition).

Not having had children is a major regret. Raising this as an issue with a therapist recently, still needing to work it through, I was met with a profoundly uncompassionate response: “So you decided not to have them then, did you?”

At one level, she was right. I made choices – decisions – that led to me being in a state of extreme mental and emotional turmoil in my late 30s and 40s. Decisions that I made as a struggling, vulnerable young woman in my 20s were mine, and I was an adult. But should I really have had to pay such a high price in later life?

Shit does happen though, and doesn’t discriminate. Thankfully, I have had previous experiences with other counsellors/therapists who’ve approached my distress with humanity and empathy.

Even so, some things take a long time to work through. Some ‘stuff’ from the past has just come up that I thought I’d put behind me, or at least wanted to. It doesn’t always work like that though, and I’m sure my brain dredged it up now because I hadn’t properly dealt with it previously.

Now I’m in a much better place than I have ever been before, living with a kind, loving, supportive, funny partner. Being 65 is a starting point for me, and it’s never too late.

If I can send out a message to anyone who’s going through personal difficulties – whether recently experienced or long-term endured – it is to say: “Don’t give up.”

We don’t always know what we’re made of until our backs are to the wall, especially if we’ve oriented towards ‘flight’ rather than ‘fight’ in early years.

Fighting for survival is a primary motivator and there is always light at the end of the tunnel. Even if you can’t see it for yourself, let someone else – a friend – see it and hold it for you until you can.

I’m only 65, and I’ve got all my life ahead of me. So have you.