The theme for tonight’s Buddhist meeting – as it will be for the next few meetings – is ‘embracing change’.
I’ve been doing my best to ‘change my mind’ for a long time. It’s a slow process, for me, but one that I’m committed to. I listen, I meditate, I reflect and, one way or another, I change.
I hope – pray – that the process of change is also bringing about healing. I think it is.
Our usual teacher is away, so the teaching is given by a nun from the Centre.
We meditate on death and impermanence, which may sound morbid, but acknowledging and facing the inevitability of death does make sense to me, and I listen intently.
I don’t feel I have to fully understand and remember everything that I hear, and I certainly don’t. My powers of recall are not that good, and it is a process of gradual assimilation anyway.
There was a lot of emphasis on being able to let go of attachments that we acquire and accumulate in this life. I’ve not necessarily been that good at acquiring and attaching but then I’ve historically not been very good at letting go either.
After greeting me when I got home, Lydia has now settled down to sleep, on her favourite rug. She looks totally adorable and relaxed.
I’ll just sit for a while before I too settle down for the night.
I don’t need to set an alarm for tomorrow morning – we can just sleep as long as we want to and get up when we’re ready. Luxury!
The cold, folded steel of your handles fit precisely into my palm where they belong
Thumb finds familiar catch that slips silently to one side releasing the spring opening your blades for action
You are my weapon of choice as together we cut and thrust our way to the possibility of new growth
Season after season we have fought fibrous flesh of one kind or another but today I use you for a different reason
With a delicate snip and trim and dip down each cutting goes into the dark holes I have prepared for them ready to take root if they choose
I don’t want to lose them or you, as I sometimes do in places that escape me
Then, as your dull grey surface greets me once again I know we will go on you with your blades and me with my hands to create many pots of cuttings and piles of thorns amongst the blossoms.
With no Qigong this afternoon, it’s the woodland walk for Lydia and me this morning, then yoga. Lydia often partakes in this remotely, being particularly good at ‘downward facing dog’!
The yoga teacher introduced a new exercise aid to the class: conkers. They formed a focus for our meditation and visualisation and I must say I enjoyed the experience of familiarisation with the seed of the chestnut tree. It was somehow comforting and inspiring at the same time.
As I now complete this latest 28-day cycle of writing, I reflect on how far I’ve come, not just since I started writing this blog in 28-day cycles a few months ago, but since I started my overall journey of recovery over fifty years ago, when I was still very young.
I didn’t know it at the time, but it essentially started in my teens, when I decided that I needed more than physical food in my life.
That may sound ungrateful as I know there are many people in the world who have less food than they need to survive. But my needs for nourishment were psychological, emotional and spiritual. They were very real for me and presented in the forms of social anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. That’s a lot for any teen to have to deal with and I hope that in writing about my experiences, it may help others to not have to go through the same.
It’s taken me a long time to work out what I needed to work out, to find pieces that I didn’t have reference points for. How could I know what I’d lost when I had no memory of having it in the first place?
For whatever reason – probably survival – my emotional brain closed down, and it’s taken me a lifetime to find ways of opening it up again. I’m still working on it, with Lydia’s help and a lot of help and support from a lot of other people along the way.
The most significant latest step for me is on the path presented by the Buddhist faith. It helps me to make sense of a lot of things, accept what I can’t change, and do my best to make the most of each day as it comes, recognising the value of what I have when for so long I was focused on what I didn’t have. Grief doesn’t go away, but we can grow to encompass a wider experience of life around it. That’s what I’ve been doing my best to do.
As I now take a couple of weeks break from writing a new daily blog, I’ll continue with republishing previous posts, looking back a bit before again moving on.
The paperback versions of my two latest books – ‘Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Recipe, Random: Glad About Life’ and ‘A Woman, a Dog and a Blog: Writing into Life’ will shortly be available on Amazon, along with the Kindle and Kindle Unlimited editions:
‘Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Random: Glad About Life’ brings together over 60 blog posts, from March 2020 through to September 2024.
It offers personal insights into the mental health recovery journey, recognising that there are no easy answers or quick fix solutions to complex problems but demonstrating that growth is possible through whatever difficulties life presents.
‘A Woman, a Dog & a Blog: Writing into Life’ presents a summary of my own backstory and that of my dog, Lydia. We had both experienced trauma before we met and, though I effectively rescued and adopted her, in many ways she has also rescued and adopted me.
We continue our journey together, day by day, step by step. Volume I of this book presents the first cycle of me writing a post a day for 28 days, at a time when the depression I had experienced most of my adult life had started to lift, only to reveal an underlying and extreme – at the time – sense of anxiety. Having lost everything that I’d worked for in the past, due to a severe breakdown in my thirties, I was absolutely petrified that history was going to repeat itself and that I would lose everything again, including Lydia. I was determined that wouldn’t happen and I drew on every aspect of resourcefulness and resilience I’d built up, and all the support mechanisms I could muster, to make sure that it didn’t. And it hasn’t.
Volume II presents the next 28 days of continuing to work with – and write about – positives in whatever way that I can. Affirmations, exercises, working with clay, working with words, walking, reflecting, resting, meditating – they’re all in there as I find my own way through and I hope it may help others find their way too.
There was a tree overlooking the back garden of the house that I used to live in, before this house.
I felt a strong connection with that tree, as its branches extended over the fence into my garden, from the wood where it lived.
Thinking about this tree leads me into thinking about another one of my rules for self-management: establish a good relationship with a stationary (or stationery) supplier.
The tree provided me with a sense of protection, somehow. I know this is really just an invention of my imagination – or at least I think it is – but I liked to think that the tree was looking out for me, as we shared the seasons from one year to the next.
There was a time when I thought I would never leave that house and garden, but I did.
The tree remained but I brought it with me in the form of a poem that I wrote while I was still there. I wrote it from the perspective of the tree.
I, The Tree
It is afternoon soon to be evening as I wait for her to return from the business of her day
I always wait for her and hope she never goes away
I am reaching, always reaching into the garden she has tended for many lonely years
I know that she knows I look out for her and would love to wipe away her tears
But the fingers of my hands are too hard bent and curled
The best I can do is to soften her sorrow with the surprise of spring and after the cold white of winter the promise of a green and bright tomorrow
Summer comes a time I love to share with her and the garden
She – stooped – digging and weeding me with arms outstretched in full and joyous glory once again her in her own way also feeding
Together we grow each through our seasons
Every year I provide a carpet for her feet she thanks me from her heart I feel and looks out for me the Tree hoping I will never go away
I know with all the branches of my being I never will
This morning, in the dog park, while Lydia was enjoying her time off-lead – sniffing and running and chasing – I stood under another tree and did some repetitions of the Qigong ‘Healing Form’ movement. I am continuing to grow, as is the tree.
Spider plants that my “supreme unchanging friend” Maxine grew for me
There were big farm machines harvesting crops in the fields by the side of the road where Lydia and I walked this morning. She’s quite used to farm trucks now and was generally quite settled as they passed.
I’m feeling generally quite settled, although I do have a dentist appointment today. I’ll just concentrate on my breathing and I’m sure it will be fine.
I’m continuing to steadily prepare for the Aldborough & Boroughbridge Show on Sunday.
As featured in yesterday’s post, I’ve planted up some of my pots, with plants that I bought, such as ivy and a heart-shaped vine, but mostly using spider plants that my friend Maxine propagated for me. Everyone should have a friend like Maxine, not just because she propagated spider plants for me – and also gave me some pepper, tomato and cucumber plants that she’s grown from seed – but because she’s been there for me at every turn through some very dark and difficult times. She’s the “supreme unchanging friend” that the Buddhist teachings talk about.
Last night’s class was the fourth on the theme of ‘Cool to be Kind’. We looked at the “mirror of dharma”, reflecting on how easy it is to see the faults of others but how Buddhist teachings (dharma) can help us to cherish others instead.
The reference book for last night’s teachings was, ‘The New Eight Steps to Happiness – The Buddhist Way of Loving Kindness’ by the Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso[1].
I have a copy of this book and when I picked it up this morning, found a bookmark at page 149. This is the start of a chapter, ‘Accepting Defeat and Offering the Victory’, with the verse:
When others out of jealousy or anger Harm me or insult me, May I take defeat upon myself And offer them the victory.
This is something I’ve been working on doing, particularly over the last 18 months. I haven’t and don’t find it easy, and in fact I find it psychologically and emotionally draining. But it somehow feels like the right thing to do. It offers a way forward for me, even though I don’t know where that way forward is leading.
However, I do have good friends to share my journey with me; and a Show to go to on Sunday.
[1] Founder and spiritual director of the New Kadampa Tradition – International Kadampa Buddhist Union
Grey island you spin and swirl around me (or is it the sea?) as I sit and wait for my thick-headed brain to clear which it does almost, but elusively and all too briefly teasingly still tense tension immense
Four seagulls soar one sits probably shits (or is that on the wing?)
Thrift, rock, heather purple, black, yellow, mauve green, grey, white weather wild mild quite
Walking, talking, inwardly I sit (still) and wait for my thick-headed brain to clear and allow me to feel the joy of the sea and the splendour of the trees and everything around me
So, I sit (on a rock) and wait for my thick-headed brain to clear and know that someday soon it will be free hopefully
1998
A quarter of a century after I started my self-directed journey of recovery from a complete personal breakdown, it would be easy to think at this stage that I never will get that sense of mental clarity that I have been seeking.
I hoped by now that I could have been sailing instead of struggling to find the energy to get through each day in a remotely positive way.
There are significant differences though, between then – when I started out – and now – when I’ve arrived at a particularly low-down point, wondering how on earth I’m going to summon up the motivation and momentum to start going ‘up’ or ‘forward’ again.
The most significant difference for me is that now I’m in a loving relationship. My partner and I care for and about each other in ways that make us both feel good. He suffers from depression too, so we often alternate in terms of who most needs support from the other at any one time. We’ve both had almost catastrophic life experiences to contend with in the past, both just come through by the skin of our teeth, both had to learn to trust again – often the most difficult thing of all, including trusting ourselves as well as each other. And we’re both now thankful that we’ve found each other. ‘Together Forever’ is our motto. We want to make the most of the time that we have – both now in our 60s – and that, in itself, is a motivator. At the same time, I’m still feeling profoundly exhausted and know that I need to do some more work on myself to pull out of this and finally put the traumas of the past behind me.
I know that it’s important to sometimes push myself and at other times do nothing. Doing nothing is hard as it brings with it the fear that it will become a permanent state and that I will vegetate from doing nothing to being nothing. At my age, fear of dementia also comes in to the mix. But in the depths of depression, doing anything at all feels like just too much, so where do I start?
I keep coming back to affirmations. Affirmations, some gentle regular exercise, healthy eating, not too much alcohol. All sensible things.
The affirmations I’ve identified for myself at this time are for depression and hearing problems. While I don’t really have hearing problems as such – other than age-related deterioration – I do have problems with ‘itchy ears’ and I have also had problems in the past with being heard.
I set about learning and practising active listening skills when I trained as a volunteer bereavement counsellor – it must have been about 20 years ago now. I’ve found those skills invaluable in different jobs and roles that I’ve held, although more latterly I’ve found it increasingly hard to concentrate. Active listening, by definition, means giving another person full attention. I think my body and brain have been telling me to give myself full attention for a change; had I ‘listened’ to what they were telling me earlier, I might not have arrived at the state I’m at now, although by the nature of cycles, they do have to go full turn.
Anyway, the affirmations that I’ve found, to say to myself when I can and when I need to, are:
“I move beyond other people’s fear and limitations. I create my own life.”
When I say each of these, at the very low ebb that I’m at now, I get a sense of uplift in my spirit, even if my body and brain are running well behind. I hold on to the belief that they will catch up though. Eventually.
Oh, and of course writing – something, anything – can be therapeutic as well. I’m going to keep writing, and affirming. And washing up, and doing a bit of gardening …
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.
The cold, folded steel of your handles fit precisely into my palm where they belong
Thumb finds familiar catch that slips silently to one side releasing the spring opening your blades for action
You are my weapon of choice as together we cut and thrust our way to the possibility of new growth
Season after season we have fought fibrous flesh of one kind or another but today I use you for a different reason
With a delicate snip and trim and dip down each cutting goes into the dark holes I have prepared for them ready to take root if they choose
I don’t want to lose them or you, as I sometimes do in places that escape me
Then, as your dull grey surface greets me once again I know we will go on you with your blades and me with my hands to create many pots of cuttings and piles of thorns amongst the blossoms.
Glad About 
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