A timely re-post of "Santa isn't coming this year!"

Happy holiday season, everyone.  As the stress of shopping and baking and decorating and running around threatens to take over our holiday cheer and interrupt our peace and joy, I thought this piece (which I originally shared on December 12, 2011) was a timely re-post.  And some necessary food for thought.  Enjoy!

"Santa isn't coming this year!" 

(12/12/11)

Last year at this time, life was very much the same as it is today: It was just before Christmas. Red and green decorations erupted all over stores and offices and front lawns while lyrics intended to make me smile and glow (i.e. "Born in a stable" and "I am a poor boy, too") generated tears of sorrow and angst rather than celebratory smiles and endless joy.  They always do.  I'm not sure why, exactly.

I should probably clarify right away that, overall, I am not anti-Christmas.  I even love the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, not because he is an angry, nasty little miser, but because he eventually sees the beauty of humanity that often comes alive at this time of year - and more importantly, he realizes his own capacity for growth and compassion in the process.  I love that, despite the anger and hatred that often seem to permeate our world on a daily basis, this time of year inspires people to give  -- and not just material gifts, but time, and service, and genuine human connection.

But last year at this time, something out of the ordinary did happen, and I have found myself thinking about it over the last week or so, amidst all the twinkling and sparking and jingling.  I was in Plattsburgh visiting my family a few days before Christmas, and while my parents were at work and my brother was busy, I sat at Panera enjoying a hot coffee, an internet connection (much faster than my parents' dial-up), and a two-hour block of time to write.  The restaurant was packed, but I had been fortunate enough to find a corner table by an electrical outlet - my own little pre-Christmas miracle.  And since I was trapped in a writer's nightmare - time to write and nothing to write about - I was happy to watch groups of people parade by with their packages and their soup/salad combos and their animated conversations.  Something would give birth to an idea if I just sat.  And sipped.  And observed.  Patiently.

At about 2pm, a frazzled mother walked by with two very young, very tired children.  While the little boy screamed and cried, the little girl pulled on her mother and threw herself into chairs and tables to relieve the indescribable stress of childhood. Suddenly, without a word, the children switched roles - the little boy began slapping himself and falling into walls and garbage cans while the little girl started screaming and pleading for toys and cookies and princess shoes.  And then there was mom - loaded down with bags and soup bowls and sippy cups and a very large, ergonomically destructive purse.  She threatened to topple as she lumbered past me, and she almost seemed to prefer lying face down on a Panera floor to dealing with her very normal-for-their-age-and-situation kids.

As a childless woman of 37, I sympathized with the mom on some level, even as I wondered what would possess anyone to trek around town on the Friday before Christmas with two little ones who should have eaten lunch (and probably taken a nap) hours ago.  But I get it - daycare isn't always an option.  And isn't this, at least theoretically, supposed to be part of the seasonal joy?  Shopping and lunching with one's children, surrounded by the splendid wonder of Christmas tidings and lightly falling snow?

I'll save you some time on this one: The answer is No.

But I didn't realize it before that moment. Not really.  Let me be clear here  - I am generally not a "grass is greener" kind of person - only because I have found that, from afar, weeds tend to be greener than grass. It isn't til you are up close and personal with the lovely shade of "greener" that you realize it's non-grass, often covered in fertilizer, or waiting to be plucked and discarded from someone's carefully manicured lawn.  That being said, I do have a habit of romanticizing parenthood.  I've often wondered whether I made a mistake by choosing not to have children.  And then, something like this plays out in front of me and reminds me of the reality: Children are wonderful, beautiful miracles - a good thing since they are exhausting, and expensive, and an unending litany of needs and demands and anxiety-provoking behaviors.  They are, after all, human beings.

Of course, none of this logic hit me at that moment.  I was too caught up in the scene unfolding, the mother's eyes beginning to water, the children exploding in a cacophony of wails, the eyerolls and speedy exits of the other diners whose "tsk tsk" nods further condemned the already defeated mother as she plopped first the boy, then the girl into red, plastic booster seats and shoved them as close to the table as possible.  I didn't think things could possibly get worse, until I watched the little girl pick up her mother's bowl of soup and turn it over on top of the table.

Time stopped.  Noodles and chicken hit the floor, landing in puddles of their own broth.  The green ceramic bowl sat, inverted, in front of the victorious little girl whose Grinch-like grin curled her mouth upward and forced her eyebrows into a sinister arch.  I couldn't move.  I didn't know whether to help or look away or leave.  And shamefully, I admit, I was most curious to see how mom intended to handle a maneuver that would have paralyzed me.

And that was when it happened.  Mom yanked her little girl's arm, looked directly into the child's face, and screamed through the tears leaping two at a time out of her eyes: "SANTA ISN'T COMING THIS YEAR!"

All I could do was join in the collective gasp as everyone in the restaurant (who hadn't already retreated to the quiet parking lot) recoiled and immediately slapped a "Worst Mother of the Year" label on this woman's soul.  How could a mother say such a thing?  How would these children ever enjoy Christmas now?  What about a simple "Time Out" or going to bed without dessert?  Or what about feeding these children lunch at a decent hour and navigating the crowds with two children in tow a little more strategically?

But as I sat in judgment, another thought arrived, replacing the all-too-familiar critical voice of a non-parent:  This woman, this tired, overwhelmed, vilified woman, was Santa.  And she didn't get to go away to a toy shop and hang out with elves and show up once a year to be adored and idolized.  She was Santa every day.  Unless she was busy playing the role of Tooth Fairy.  Or Easter Bunny.  Or Nurse/Taxi/Chef/Coach/Teacher/Housekeeper/All-knowing, Never-sleeping, Rarely-eating ... Mom.

For a moment, I met her eyes and tried to tell her, with the nonverbal glance of a non-mom who would never speak her language, that I understood.  Not her situation, of course.  But her defeat.  And her desire to give up.  She glared at me as if to scream "What the hell do you know about my life?!" and she was, of course, very right.  I knew enough to know that I knew nothing. Not about her life, anyway.

At that moment, a Panera employee showed up with a broom and a pile of napkins - he could have been a knight on a white horse for all the fuss this mother made. She wept and thanked him and apologized over and over while she helped him clean her messy life off the table and floors.  Her children simply watched in silence.

It took me a year to write about this  - probably becase I felt some sense of voyeuristic shame as I watched it happen, refusing to look away, unable to walk away.  But as the holiday season continues to envelop us day by day, I am reminded that the spirit of Christmas is really what we make it.  Some of us play Santa.  Some of us play Scrooge.  Some of us bake and shop and wrap.  Some of us sing and party and travel.  But no matter what our roles and regardless of our beliefs, we all want Santa to show up with gifts.  And it is my hope that whether you are a four year old child in need of a nap, or a forty year old mother in need of a break, or even a kid from 1 to 92, that your Santa Claus knows where to find you.  My guess is, your gifts have already arrived, you just haven't gone looking for them yet.

May your holidays and your new year ahead be filled with happiness and peace ... and perhaps a warm bowl of chicken noodle soup.

Love, Hasky

Some thoughts on The Emotional Eater's Repair Manual, by Julie Simon.

I recently read and reviewed The Emotional Eater's Repair Manual, by Julie Simon.  It hits stands tomorrow (December 1, 2012) and I highly recommend it to anyone who ... eats.  Or doesn't, as the case may be.

You can go here for my full review and a brief description of the book.

Happy reading!
~~ Hasky

Some thoughts on Chinese Food Therapy

Halloween is here. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. And then it's on to Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.  No matter what or how you celebrate, one thing is universally true: we have entered The Food Months.  And I'm not talking about fresh, healthy, whole foods. I am talking about those familiar sweet, high fat, high carb, low fiber foods that beckon to us until we finally give in.  Over and over and over again.  Until January 1st, when we land on the couch in a pile of bloated exhaustion, vowing to "eat better, do better, be better" ... starting tomorrow.

But what is it about the availability of so many foods that tempts us, then promises to satisfy us, then fails to sustain us until they tempt us once again?   Well, there are as many theories as there are foods, of course, but Chinese food therapy is one that actually makes sense to me.

Chinese food therapy is based on the idea that foods generally fall into two main categories: Yang foods, which heat the body, and Yin foods, that have a chilling effect. When we consume equal and reasonable amounts of Yin and Yang foods, the body achieves its natural state of balance, while an excess or restriction of either category leads to an imbalance of natural "heat" and "cold" in the body that can lead to and/or exacerbate disease.

One of the first signs of hot/cold imbalance often appears in the form of a craving. A sugar craving, for example, is not always about a lack of willpower. In fact, a sugar craving (or worse, a sugar addiction) can be - and most likely is - evidence of yang food overload ... and not enough yin. And why? Because sugar is a Yin food. But guess what? It isn't the only one. So while many of us run to cookies and candy to satisfy our perceived "sugar needs" only to find that we feel bloated, nauseus, and needing more sugar a mere ten minutes later, a serving of healthy Yin foods would likely satisfy our physiological needs without the compounding the sugar toxicity and further tipping the Yin/Yang imbalance.

The Yin/Yang diet is grounded in macrobiotic concepts, as shown in the chart below. Although we need 1/3 yang food to 2/3 yin food, the typical American diet is primarily Yang food-based: meat, potatoes, cheese, and wine, for example with minimal Yin foods.  Not too hard to see where the imbalances are coming from or why we turn to the fastest acting Yin foods when the imbalance becomes unmanageable.

Not only a form of nourishment and weight management, food in Chinese culture is also medicinal. Understanding the Yin/Yang food concept is essential for treating "hot" conditions such as Eczema, where garlic, chilies and potatoes may best be avoided. In the same way, it is believed that an over consumption of too many hot foods like " foods like peanuts or smoked fish could cause a rash, whereas too many grapes or bean sprouts could cause digestive problems.

Does any of this ring true for you?  Are you a heavy Yin food eater?  Or do you consume a diet of mostly Yang foods?  If you're considering a holistic approach to diet and healing, give the above list a try and see what happens.  Whether your cravings or rashes disappear, whether your energy or sleep improves, and use how you feel as your measure of success.

Just some food for thought. And balance.

Til next time,

~ Hasky

Wordless Wednesday Post

Happy Wednesday!  

And welcome to your weekly opportunity to do all the talking.

Use the image below to talk about absolutely anything that comes to mind.  

Until next Wednesday,
~ Hasky

You shouldn't have to work to be happy. Or should you?

If you do nothing else for yourself today, commit to challenging - and getting out of the way of - those self-limiting stories of the past that you allow yourself to repeat and believe in.

Step 1: Figure out how theses stories are serving you even as they restrict you.  Because even when we engage in self-limiting (and in many cases self-destructive) behavior, we generally think there is something "in it" for us.  Something that is protecting us, comforting us, saving us from pain and sadness and illness and failure.

So, how do you identify one of these little (or big) self-saboteurs?  I've found that they tend to have a few common elements:

• They often begin with phrases like
• I always
• I never
• I can't
• I have to/I must
• I should/I shouldn't
• I need
• I won't
• I don't
• We often feel a sense of discomfort even as we are engaging in them, a sort of "I know I shouldn't eat this food" or "I always end up in self-destructive relationships."  Yet we pursue them anyway.  Because there is some thing that we believe we are getting from them.  Think about that. See if you can identify a few of these "faux rewards" and think about other, less self-limiting ways to achieve them (without what you have come to see as "just the price I pay for happiness.")

A few more tips and tricks:

Most of us have people in our lives who are willing - and often eager - to share their opinions about all the "unhealthy/destructive/incorrect" things we do, from our choice in careers and partners to where and how we live.  But think about the people in your life whose opinions you trust, who seem like sound, reasonable friends/family members, and (here's the catch) who don't routinely offer unsolicited opinions or advice, but who are generally willing to share their thoughts when asked (and who don't use the "You always/You never/You can't/You have to" phrases in the process.) Certainly don't act on their advice, no matter how well-intentioned, but listen to it.  Log it.  Refer to it often as you examine some of your choices and behaviors.  Don't have people like this in your life?  What about spiritual leaders, writers, historical figures whose lives appeal to you or whose words resonate deeply?  Read a passage or listen to a speech or interview, and really pay attention to the words and their meaning.  I actually enjoyed Gretchen Reuben's book The Happiness Project as a practical guide to self-evaluation and to a gradual, realistic pursuit of personal happiness.

Finally, sit down in a quiet place (ideally a beautiful room with a burning fireplace and soft music and unlimited time to think and write - but realistically a coffee shop, your car, a bathroom stall, wherever you can steal a few minutes with just yourself) and finish the following Happiness Statement

"I would be happiest if ______________________"

As you answer this, I strongly encourage you not to censor yourself.  You can answer this in one sentence or fifty + pages. Don't consider money, time, current or past obligations and schedules and lifestyle.  Yes, those are all considerations, but for now, to determine your happiness goal, just write.  And think.  And write some more.  In other words, don't limit.  Not just yet.  And remember, "Happiness" is not a goal we reach, but a never-ending journey we walk, twisting and turning, changing direction, speeding up and slowing down, not so much eager to arrive as we are content to remain on the path.

Care to share your sentence here?

Til next time,
~ Hasky

For more about happiness (and to help you write your own happiness statement):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-s-broder-phd/giving-back_b_1959722.html?utm_hp_ref=happiness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/gps-guide-alison-sudol-a-fine-frenzy_n_1948443.html?utm_hp_ref=happiness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/happiness-longevity_n_1968158.html?utm_hp_ref=happiness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/08/motivational-videos-deepak-chopra_n_1937164.html?utm_hp_ref=happiness#slide=1597136

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/marlo-thomas-mondays-with-marlo-where-does-happiness-come-from-from-gretchen-rubin_n_1825814.html?utm_hp_ref=happiness

Happiness and Health and ... Woody Allen?

Woody Allen once said: “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”   And as with most things Woody Allen, I absolutely agree.  Though Allen is arguably the master of turning pain and suffering into humor, I always find some thought-provoking reality in words.

I often think it is Allen's ability to capitalize on the absurdities of life that provoke laughter, even in his most cynical moments. And although so much of his work is dark and depressing, almost always self-defeating, and usually centered around death or the human instinct we all have to somehow escape from it, his quotes are so memorable and so timeless that the above graphic immediately brought the opening Allen quote to mind because, as usual, it so perfectly illustrates our never-ending belief that we can be happy or we can be healthy, but we can't be both at the same time. What's more, it is the effort we put into achieving a simultaneous kind of health&happiness that lends humor to the graphic and (at least in my opinion) makes pretty much every single Woody Allen line so laugh-out-loud funny.

Clearly the message above is - just eat the apple.  It's nature's medicine, it's not likely to create more problems than it solves (individual digestive system situations notwithstanding), and rather than treating a condition, it works to prevent many illnesses from occurring in the first place, if eaten on a regular basis.  In fact, a good friend of mine told me just last week that she read of a study where "healthy, middle-aged adults [consumed] one apple a day for four weeks [and] lowered blood levels of oxidized LDL - low density protein, the 'bad' cholesterol."  Sure, these same people could have lived apple-free lives, then turned to the latest cholesterol-lowering medications when their levels finally turned their bodies into living, breathing stroke risks. But what if, just this once, Woody Allen's statement wasn't entirely accurate?  What if we could actually live to be a hundred, not only despite indulging in all the things that made us want to live that long, but because of them?  Just some food for thought.



How do you combine pleasure and health to create your own individual "lifestyle"?  Do you consider things like massage, physical fitness, spending time in nature or engaging in artistic pursuits unnecessary indulgences? Are organic foods and regular vacations pure luxury items, or do you consider them part of your overall healthcare/self-care regime?  Feel free to share here!


And while we're at it, when was the last time you ate an apple?


Until next time,
~ Hasky

Ballet and Perspective

This morning, I woke up angry.  I don't know why, and I don't think the "why" matters.  It happens to all of us, I guess.  I was tired.  I was feeling burned out and stressed out and just plain tapped out.  And yes, anything and everything that could go wrong did, not only because I burned breakfast and had a coffee explosion and was dealing with a finicky dog and a traffic jam and a late arrival at work all before 9am, but because I simply woke up, as they say, "on the wrong side of the bed."

I don't know about you, but on days when I feel like that, I realize (once I calm myself and gain some perspective) that it wasn't really about "everything going wrong" so much as it was about my looking for things to support my bad mood and confirm it.  Yet the reality is - my Keurig isn't evil and my oven doesn't have it in for me.  My dog, challenging though he can be, bases his behavior on meeting his needs, and not some sinister plot to destroy me.  I can laugh about it now, this overblown sense that such minutiae really does signal the end of the world, but going through a morning like that can sometimes set the tone for the entire day.  If I let it. So there is some personal intention in "bad days" - the way we label them, the way we often revel in staying stuck in them, even in the way we often curl so comfortably inside our own familiar misery and refuse to come out.

But today when I got to work, there was a link to a Youtube video on my Facebook page.  It was of a little girl named Clara Bergs doing ballet.  Though I don't often watch the endless videos and movie clips that hit my various social media platforms every day, there was something striking about the look on this child's face - it was intense and inviting - so I clicked "play."  What struck me immediately was that little Clara was not just doing ballet the way most ten year-old little girls do ballet in their living rooms.  She was literally mirroring the choreography of a professional ballerina dancing the title role in Copelia.  What's more, Clara suffers from autism and the genetic disorder DiGeorge Syndrome and has spent her short life so far beating all medical odds about her predetermined capabilities.  She was so graceful, her movements so precisely times with the professional on the television screen that it was as if they were working together.  And I believe, in Clara's mind, that is precisely what they were doing.

As I watched, I felt my mood shift from the anger and exhaustion I had felt less than an hour before to something like contentment.  Inspiration.  Perspective.  And it wasn't about comparative pain, or about chastising myself for feeling my feelings or allowing myself to acknowledge my desire to hide away from the world for a day rather than face it.  It was about seeing such pure, uncomplicated beauty in a little girl whose life, at times, must be indescribably complicated and scary and challenging beyond belief.  I wish I could thank this little girl for reminding me, with her graceful love of something outside herself, that no matter what, your day - and your life - is really what you make it.

Thank you, beautiful little Clara.

Until next time,

~ Hasky

Putting yourself on the calendar

In her book Real Happiness, Sharon Salzberg tells a fantastic story to illusrate the concept of "globalizing," that thing we all do from time to time (some of us more frequently and more intensely than others) where we tell ourselves (and anyone else who will listen) dramatic stories about how irreparably doomed and out-of-control our lives are.  Salzberg writes:

"Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what's happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience.  Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.  One of my favorite examples of this kind of globalizing came from a student who'd had an intensely stressful day.  When she went to the gym later and was changing in the locker room, she tore a hole in her pantyhose.  Frustrated, she said to a stranger standing nearby, "I need a new life!"

"No you don't," the other woman replied.  "You need a new pair of pantyhose."

I love this story, because while the concept of globalizing is a hard one for me to grasp at times - probably because I am usually indulging in it myself - examples like this make me laugh as I recall similar experiences where I blew a seemingly minor event or occurrence into an all out catastrophe. 

Stuck in traffic?  I need to move!  I can't drive in this town anymore.

Conflict at work?  I have to quit.

Argument with a friend?  I am all alone in this world.  I have no one!

Just look at that.  And the exclamation points aren't there for effect, either. They are there in an attempt to accurately reflect the level of urgency and emotional distress that usually accompany these moments - moments I believe to be true while I am living in them.

Through meditation, I am learning a little something about mindfulness, which is really not as complicated as it sounds, even though it is difficult to achieve, I think.  Because mindfulness is, by its very nature, a process. And I, in my perpetual rush-and-hurry-and-multitask-my-life-away state, often skip over as many steps as possible to get to the end result of things.  After all, who has time to stop and be mindful?

Well, we all do.  If we make time.

I am not saying that responsibilities and demands and schedules aren't real, constant stressors in our lives.  But what better reason do we need to write ourselves into our own day planner once in awhile?  I use this as my example because that is precisely what I have started doing.  Since I store all my appointments and meetings and various schedules in my cellphone calendar, every few days I come across a half hour appointment - sometimes an hour, if I am feeling really self-loving. Or in desperate need of grounding and focus - labelled, simply "HH."  Not a very cleverly-veiled code or anything, it serves as a gentle but necessary reminder that I need to take some time for myself.  Time that doesn't include work or family or working out or writing or dealing with my dog or ... and this is the biggie ... stressing myself out.  As in -- globalizing the hell out of minor occurrences that I so often turn into catastrophes.

So I meditate. And I have started doing light yoga again.  I go for walks. Sometimes short ones. Sometimes with my dog and sometimes alone.  I have even started playing my piano again.  Sometimes I even put on a half-hour comedy that I love (think Roseanne or The Office. And I make no apologies for how wonderfully funny I find the characters and the situations in both of these shows.)  In essence, I lighten up.  But only if I schedule it.  Because not only do I never miss an appointment, I always arrive everywhere early. Which is really nice when it buys me ten extra minutes with myself . To laugh. Or breathe more deeply.  To look at a minor blip in my day and realize it isn't actually the end of the world.  Or even of my world. It is a blip.  And I need not react to it at all.  I can simply let it be and move on.  Or, I can go out and buy a new pair of pantyhose and give my life a break altogether.

Does this concept of "globalizing" sound familiar?  Do you ever do it to yourself?  If so, do you do it often, or only under certain circumstances and around certain people?  And how do you lighten up?  Are you more preventive, with a regularly scheduled practice, or are you more likely to intervene after crisis hits and the stakes seem higher? (Or at least your blood pressure seems higher?)

I highly recommend Real Happiness if you haven't read it - and I recommend reading it again if you have already read it once.  In fact, what a great way to spend some scheduled time with yourself - reading a chapter, a page, a paragraph.  Whatever you can manage.  After all, you are the best use of your own time.

Until next time -
~~Hasky

Where Happiness Lives

 "Happiness is born from letting go of what is unnecessary."  

(I attribute the above quote to Sharon Salzberg because I first read it in one of her teachings on meditation and, to date, I have found no other source.)

When I read Salzberg's statement and really think about its meaning, the question that arises for me is this:  What does "necessary" mean?  

If you're at all like me, you often say (and think) that you "need" something, when in fact you may just really want it.  When this was pointed out to me several years ago during a conversation about food cravings, I remember thinking that of course I wasn't really under the impression that I needed chocolate, even when I insisted that my body literally required a daily hit of the sweet stuff in order to survive.  As usual, my overly dramatic "I need chocolate" (most likely uttered while the back of my hand was pressed against my brow, swoon-style) was just more of my own special brand of point-illustrating hyperbole, not unlike my "I would die without my morning coffee" assertions and my "I can't handle Mondays" laments. No one ever actually died without caffeine (that I know of, though I am always interested in credible information to the contrary) and Mondays are neither handled nor un-handled. They simply are.  So, although untrue in a literal sense, these types of statements are powerful beliefs I often hold true. And the power I give these non-truths, often without even realizing how deeply I subscribe to them, is what allows me to hold myself captive at times.

That said, what is true, in my opinion, is the old saying - or at least my paraphrase of one variation on the old saying  - that "How you speak determines how you feel and how you feel determines how you act." This is probably why, both anecdotally and according to various credible research studies, the most successful, longest lasting changes come about when we simultaneously address all components of our thinking, feeling, acting selves.  Seems easy, no?  After all, with the exception of a few illnesses that result in loss of ability to control one's behavior, we are in charge - completely in charge - of whether and how we act.   Think about the last time you tried to "give up" something you didn't need but really wanted.  Was it a food?  A material possession?  A relationship or even a particular way of thinking about something/someone?  If all you did was tell yourself "No," each time you reached for that chocolate or slid that Mastercard out of your wallet for yet another impulse purchase, how hard was it to follow through?  Sure, you may have changed the behavior and proven to yourself that a Hershey bar is not actually essential to survival, but where did that take you for the rest of the day? Fixated on how much you still wanted the candy?  Or, if it was a thought process you were working on, did your choice to not lash out at someone eat away at you anyway, so that you felt angry and resentful toward that person in ways that drained your energy and focused all your attention on someone else, rather than on comforting and simply being with yourself?

I am interested in the suggestion I have often heard that it is never really "the thing" that we want, but the happiness we believe it will deliver to us.  Happiness, that invisible, undefinable, sometimes unidentifiable concept that always seems "right over there," just out of reach, though available to everyone else - especially the everyone else's we believe to have nicer homes, happier relationships, better behaved children, more advanced degrees, higher paying jobs, more attractive bodies, and greater health. This makes sense to me on a level I can't necessarily explain, but that seems logical. After all, what about a house - a pile of wood and nails and glass and carpet  - can actually make us "happy"?  Isn't it more about the concept of home, the longing for a place to feel safe and grounded and away from "the world" that fills us with what we think we can achieve through bankrupting mortgages and stuffy, upscale neighborhoods?  Yet because "The American Dream" tends to be more of a fantasy - or even a fiction - than an achievable reality, we stress ourselves out and go into debt and give up precious time with loved ones and the things we really enjoy as we struggle to make more money. On the other hand, sometimes we simply check out of life altogether in the absence of feeling able to achieve what seems unachievable.

I am definitely not suggesting that a complete lack of these things paves the road to happiness.  Poverty and isolation and family dysfunction are often so wrapped up in the depression and anxiety that spirals around us that it is often impossible to tell whether the crises cause the self-defeating feelings or vice versa.  What I am saying, however, is that I have come to believe that happiness continues to evade us because we don't even know how we define it.  We don't know where it lives or what it wants or what it even looks like, but we are pretty sure it is tangible, and we often believe - I think - that there is not enough to go around.  Our rush to beat everyone else to the happiness finish line requires constant dedication on our parts to get all this stuff as quickly (and sometimes as ruthlessly) as possible. 

Contrary to The American Dream story we have been told for decades, happiness is not a right - as much as I wish it were.  Even so, happiness is not an impossibility, either.  In fact, I think we have over-complicated happiness to the extent that we don't believe it can really be as simple as wanting it and finding it and experiencing it.  And that is why we can't yet believe that in letting go of what we do not need we can actually hold onto what we desire. 

This week I am literally letting go of things as I move from one apartment to another.  My new home has less space, less room for "stuff" I have acquired over the years, stuff I don't need, some stuff I don't even want and can't remember where or why I ended up owning it.  But it is a learning process, going through things and thinking about who I really am by looking at what I do and do not need, then thinking about what I do and do not want.  I encourage you to examine the needs and wants in your own life and see what you come up with. Though letting go of our attachments can be a hard and sometimes painful experince, it can be incredibly liberating, too.  And if you are willing and brave enough to try this, even starting with one little "junk drawer" in one room of your house, I bet, if nothing else, you will suddenly find a lot more uncluttered space in your life.  And in that space, where once there were things, there will finally be more room for you.

Happy "letting go" until next time,
~~ Hasky

A week - and a blog post - full of challenges

The events of the past week have encouraged me (in a loud, coercive kind of way) to start meditating again.   For a while, my life consisted of a regular daily meditation practice that combined classes and workshops several days a week with meditating at home by myself in my quiet apartment on non-class days.  I found both experiences helpful in my quest for the relaxation and focus I hoped to achieve, as meditating with others is a very symbiotic experience of shared space/shared breath/shared energy, while meditating alone offers an opportunity to tap into one's own presence in a profound and necessary way.  Given the many benefits of meditation, I have no logical explanation as to why I simply stopped one day, though I do have an explanation: I felt better.  Not unlike a medical condition, that sense of "all better" that often kicks in when the treatment is doing its work often lends a feeling of faux recovery, as if anxiety and feelings of imbalance are curable and the desire for a more focused, more holistically healthy life has a definitive endpoint. 

But here's the thing: There is no "Wellness Finish Line."  Or, if Maslow is more your thing, no "Self-Actualization Finish Line."  All those sayings about life being a marathon and not a sprint, and about living through the journey and not living for the end result aren't only great tee-shirt and bumper sticker slogans - they happen to be true.  Overused, but true. The road to "Optimum" is endless, and in our goal-driven, time-sensitive, do-it-yourself world of 24/7 non-stopedness, many of us become anxious at the mere thought of any pursuit that doesn't have a measurable outcome or a final destination.  Certainly things would be different if life were like a Thanksgiving turkey and came equipped with one of those little white poppers to let us know when we had reached our full potential. But would things necessarily be better that way?  Is it possible that what keeps us reaching higher is the lack of restriction that a finish line presents?  I wonder how many marathon runners could keep running (and/or would keep running) if they were aiming for something a lot further away than that ribbon waiting just past the 26th mile.

So here is my first challenge:  I want you to use my slightly "out there" Thanksgiving turkey popper example above to learn something about yourself (and others).Aside: this is probably most naturallly done at Thanksgiving, while the turkey is cooking, but get creative and do it now if you can.  First ask yourself this question, and then ask others:  When that popper finally pops, do you say (either out loud or to yourself) the turkey is "done" or do you say the turkey is "ready"?  (Or do you use some other term/phrase for what that popped popper signifies?)

I only pose the question and point out the two answers I typically hear because I think "done" indicates that some extrinsic element has determined a thing to be over.  Ended. Finished.  "The turkey is "done" mentality signifies that the cooking of the turkey was the main event, and that the Thanksgiving dinner, the moment we believe we long for all year (those of us who love Thanksgiving anyway), is actually the denoument.  How depressing! 

Yet for those who say the turkey is "ready," the fun has just begun.  The dinner is the beginning of something, and the turkey (and all it signifies and symbolizes)  still holds a promise, rather than a past.  I don't know what all this means in the larger macrocosm, certainly, but I do find it an interesting experiment, and one that crept into my consciousness during a Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago, when I realized that the people in my life tend to be "The turkey is done" people, while I am a "Turkey is ready," despite the fact that I am a vegan.  As is probably clear by now, this is not really about turkey.



I think this challenge and this examinantion of how we think and speak and act is all significant as I  approach meditation and begin again.  I have decided to start with the basics by turning to the book I used last year - Real Happiness, by Sharon Salzberg.  In her book, Salzberg - a meditation teacher for decades and an amazing woman in general - breaks meditation down into its most basic components, dispelling meditation myths (i.e. "Meditation is too hard for me" and "I'm not the type of person who meditates") and guiding practitioners through various types of meditation from breathing exercises to hearing and walking meditations and beyond.  More than anything, Salzberg encourages meditators from the novice to the experienced to make meditation part of everyday life by scheduling time and arranging a place and giving ourselves whatever we have - an hour, fifteen minutes, a few deep breaths - to connect with ourselves and simply settle in.  I encourage you to go to Salzberg's site for more information and helpful resources: http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/

I think, if nothing else, that meditation is simply a way not to zone out, but to look inward without judgement, without that hurried, chaotic numbness that often pushes us through each day from one task to the next, so that for at least a few breaths, we are grounded firmly in the moment - which is a place we rarely give ourselves permission to stay for long, if we are even able to find our way there at all.  When we sit and breathe, we are not stopping anything.  Or, to put it in turkey terms, we are not done, we are ready.  We are not looking back, we are looking forward.  We are beginning something and we are hopeful even though we can't possibly know or predict what the outcome will be. Even though we are sitting still and quiet, we are moving forward.

I am going to be posting parts of Salzberg's 28-day meditation challenge here over the next few weeks - pieces I find helpful as well as things I find difficult. The goal for the first week of this challenge is to meditate for at least twenty minutes, three times during the week.  I find it helpful to have Salzberg's voice to guide me through these sessions on her audiobook version of Real Happiness, and though I encourage you to go directly to the master herself, you can also find free meditation podcasts online to help you, too.

I hope you will join me and post feedback here when you can.  I am interested to know both the outome of my little turkey popper experiement, and more interested in what you think of meditation and whether you think you will try this 28-day challenge - or any pieces of it that appeal to you.  "Progress, not perfection,"  they say.  Another great tee-shirt/bumper sticker slogan, and a perfect way to meet yourself in meditation one breath at a time.

Happy breathing until next time,
~~ Hasky