Song Lyric Sunday: How Could Anyone Ever Tell You

As soon as I finished my entry for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, another song came to mind. That song, How Could Anyone Ever Tell You, was written and recorded by Libby Roderic in 1990. I first heard it at a psychotherapy intensive and have used it in my psychotherapy practice from time to time since then.

The version in this post was recorded by Shaina Noll in 1992. It is part of Shaina’s CD, Songs for the Inner Child. She wrote this about that album.

The inspiration to record this collection of songs came to me one night as I was singing my children to sleep. As I sat rocking my youngest child, I realized that the singing my children found so calming and nourishing could extend beyond their rooms. I was doing inner child work at the time, personally and in my practice as a counselor. I suspected that the experience of being sung to could be deeply healing for many of the adults I knew. I felt instinctively that the songs my husband and I had been singing to our children could be a blessing to a wider audience.

As you listen to the song, imagine it is being sung to you.

Lyrics

How could anyone ever tell you
You were anything less than beautiful
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle
How deeply you’re connected to my Soul…

Letting Go of Suffering Course: Table of Contents

Even though the Letting Go of Suffering course is over, you will still be able to access the lessons any time you want to. Before long there will also be an icon on the right sidebar of my blog that will lead to this list.

Introduction

Lesson 1 The Beginning

Lesson 2 The Beginning (continued)

Lesson 3 What Would Your World be Like If You Didn’t Suffer?

Lesson 4 Why Do I Suffer?

Lesson 5 Why Do I Suffer (continued)

Lesson 6 Using Affirmations To Heal

Lesson 7 Stopping Passive Behavior

Lesson 8 Getting Off the Drama Triangle

Lesson 9 Mistakes

Lesson 10 Failure

Lesson 11 Stopping The Critical Self Talk

Lesson 12 Using Contracts To Heal

Lesson 13 Holding Yourself Accountable

Lesson 14 Making It Bigger

Lesson 15 Changing Your Suffering Profile

Lesson 16 More Tools!

Lesson 17 Lighten Up!

Recovering from Over-Doing

Two years ago, in a The Seeker’s Dungeon prompt, Sreejit asked us to fill in the blank in this sentence: “I am a Recovering _________.” There was no doubt in my mind what my behavior would be. If I was at a 12 Step meeting, I would say: “Hi! I am Karuna, and I am a recovering over-doer.”

As I thought about how I would present this topic, I decided to create a new mental health disorder. My fictitious disorder is called “Being versus Doing Disorder.”

The “Being vs Doing disorder” is on a continuum where the center, a balance between being and doing, is the healthy portion of the continuum. The more someone moves to either end of the continuum, the more likely it is they will have dysfunction in their lives.

When I think of the over-being end of the continuum I think of non-productivity, passivity, and lack of motivation. I don’t know as much about that part of the spectrum since I have almost no personal experience there. I have seen it at work in some of my psychotherapy clients and friends though.

Over-doing has many facets. It commonly begins in childhood when the only or main way to get positive attention from parents is to do impressive things. It also develops when parents criticize their children anytime they are relaxing or are doing things the parents consider nonproductive.

As a result, adults with an over-doing disorder may be seeking validation and praise for what they accomplish. An over-doer is also likely to be a rescuer. As such, they do things they aren’t asked to do and are likely to do things they don’t want to do. In addition, they do more than their share of the work that needs to be done and do things for other people that they could do for themselves. Those with this “disorder’ are likely to over-commit and seem incapable of being still.

Over-doing has been a major characteristic of my adult life. At one point, I was raising two children, working three jobs, doing my personal therapy and studying for a PhD. During my therapy, I realized I didn’t want a PhD, I was just seeking attention from the father, who had disowned me. I stopped my schooling but was still overdoing. Before long, I began to experience extreme exhaustion and was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

With CFS, I was in survival mode and it was impossible for me to do as much as I had been doing, although I still tried to. When it began dissipating after five years, I went back to over doing. There is no doubt that a part of me believed it was only acceptable for me to stop if I was sick. Eventually I developed high blood pressure and other physical problems.

I reached a point where I had to cut back on all of my commitments. Nowadays, I am putting my emphasis on doing the things I want to do, and am saying no to many requests. I still have trouble with “simply being” but I no longer am into major over-doing. I hope some day I will be much closer to the center of the being-doing continuum.

At one point, I realized a behavior that really fueled my over-doing disorder was the desire to be “in the know.” That put me in the place of being asked for information that I didn’t want to share, which then created stress, whether I shared it or not. As I continue to slow down, I am finding myself holder of less information. I am loving responding to requests with “I’m not in that loop anymore. You will have to ask someone else.”

I learned many skills during my over-doing years. When friends of mine were in a life and death crises, I stepped in to help immediately. There is a time and place for those skills, but it takes discrimination to use them correctly. In that instance, I have no doubt that my choices were appropriate.

I am very committed to my recovery from over-doing. While I may find myself immersed in the old behaviors from time to time, I don’t think I will ever be drawn so deep into them again. I see what I am doing much sooner and and change course when needed.

In evaluating myself on the scale found in Portia Nelson’s Autobiography in 5 Short Chapters, I find I am in generally in Chapter 4 or 5.

Chapter IV

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

Chapter V

I walk down another street.

Every time I walk around an invitation to over-do or avoid putting myself in the situation where I know I am going to be tempted, I consider my choice worthy of celebration! I am truly moving towards a life of balance.

Do you have a “Being vs Doing” disorder? Where do you fall on the continuum? How does it disrupt your life?

Photo Credit: Pixabay

This post was originally published on April 12, 2015

DEAR YOU

Neal's Epiphany

Disclaimer – A letter to my former self. A probable epilogue to my “DEAR ME” post.

Dear You,

There is nothing I can say to prepare you for where life will take you in the next ten years.

You will have experiences you never imagined possible or plausible—there will be great heartaches and devastating blows—and you will be taken to places you never knew existed. You will feel like you can’t go on, and you will feel like you will explode.

Your greatest fears will come to reality and you will never be the same, but you will fumble your way through.

I want to tell you specifics, I want to tell you where you should try harder and hold on more and not give up; I want to tell you where you should give in and let go and how to take care of yourself when the unthinkable…

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Daily Prompt: Squat

800px-20060730160336_-_t27_-_toilet — Photo Credit: Wikimedia

I laughed when I saw that the Daily Prompt for today was “Squat.” My laughter was because it reminded me of something that happened in the 90’s.

First I will give some back story. When I first started going to Amma’s Amritapuri, India ashram in January of 1990, all of the toilets were squat toilets. I found them uncomfortable to use. My balance was shaky and as far as I was concerned they were just plain weird. Over the years, I became more used to them but I still didn’t like them, and I internally grumbled about them a lot.

Eventually, I became irritated by my own negativity. By then I had learned Byron Katie’s process for addressing negative judgments. At one point in her process you create “turnarounds” for a negative judgment and then examine the turnarounds to see if there is any truth in them. For example, if my belief is “Susan is angry with me”, the turnarounds would be “I am angry with me” or “I am angry with Susan.” The belief “My boss should listen to me more” could be turned around to say “I should listen to me more” or “I should listen to my boss more.”

One day in the mid-90’s, the familiar thought, “I hate Indian toilets,” ran through my mind. A voice within me said, “Now turn it around.” My immediate response was that the turnaround would be “I love Indian toilets.” That statement was so unacceptable to me that I wouldn’t even entertain the possibility that there could be truth in it. Then another sentence came to mind. “I love to hate Indian toilets!” That turnaround sent me into laughter and my energy shifted completely.

As the the years went by, most of the toilets in the ashram became toilets that combine the two styles, but once I had accepted the belief that “I love to hate Indian toilets,” I no longer had the strong negative reaction to them. Even today, I smile when I recall that long-ago incident.

DEAR ME

Yesterday, I read a post at Neal’s Epiphany that I thought was incredibly powerful. I don’t know how Neal sees it, but using my psychotherapy frame, I see him as having written a beautiful letter to his inner child. Neal has graciously consented to me sharing his letter with all of you.

Neal's Epiphany

Dear Me,

You and I go way back, to the beginning. We’re one hundred percent connected in a way no one will–or could ever–understand. We’ve been there, standing together. Sometimes crying in the shower, sometimes snorting through our nose, but it’s always been you and me. Always and forever…

Or so it was supposed to be, but some time ago I left you–

I left you floundering on your own, to rely on love and encouragement and strength from others–from strangers–when it was I who should have held you up. When it was I who should have hugged you and praised you and appreciated you for the wondrous person you are–for all the beauty and life you bring to this world.

I seldom tell you how much I love you. How much I admire you. How beautiful and caring and intelligent and strong you are. That you are my hero.

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Seattle: A Sanctuary City

Seattle is a sanctuary city and proud of it. On this day that our new President signed an executive order blocking federal funds to sanctuary cities, I feel compelled to share the signs that I saw in my neighborhood when I came home from India last week. They speak for themselves.

Daily Prompt: Ten (and in this case several more)

cropped-senior-salon Shared on Senior Salon

Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: January 10-13, 2017

Nearing the end of my trip

In an attempt to prevent a last minute rush, I started sorting through my belonging early in the week. I put anything I wanted to keep, but didn’t want to take with me, into two small trunks, washed clothes and towels, and began to clean. My flat is used by ashram guests throughout the year, so it is important that the room is prepared for them.

I spent as much time as I could with Chaitanya and Sreejit, which isn’t easy since they are both working in their respective jobs most of the time. I could tell that they were going out of their way to be with me too, which was very nice.

Lunch with Amma

Tuesday was the day that Amma serves lunch to everyone. I love the new process that has been implemented this year. Instead of thousands of people getting their plate directly from Amma, she passes the food to some people near her and then the food is distributed to everyone through a series of human chains that weave throughout the room. I have really enjoyed being part of one of those chains each week.

Stage sevas

I made sure that I joined the prasad-giver line on the last two darshan days, and on Thursday I also signed up for a prasad passing shift. I am so grateful that I have realized that I need to increase the amount of time I spend near Amma. I plan to start doing more of the stage sevas next year.

Darshan

The public darshan programs on Wednesday and Thursday were both in the temple. That has happened so many times on this trip. I love, love, love it. It not only brings back good memories from the past, but, for me, creates an increased sense of intimacy. My last darshan (hug) was wonderful. I felt like she held me forever. A wonderful ending for that part of my trip.

Canoe

I have continued to use the canoe to cross the backwaters. It has been such a good gift to myself. I feel so peaceful as we glide across the water.

An unexpected ending

It was a good thing I had been getting ready to go all week because my last day had an ending that was far different from the one I had “planned.”

In one of my last posts, I mentioned that I was going to meet with someone review and ask questions about the Amrita Serve Garden photos. When I did that, I learned that I had not been at the correct garden, instead I had apparently stopped at a private farm where tapioca, bananas and coconuts were grown! When I described the route I had taken, he said if I had gone a little further on the second path, I would have seen it. I decided I would go there on my last day.

So Friday morning, I went to see the Amrita Serve garden. It is a demonstration garden that will be used to show Indian visitors ways they can raise food in small spaces. I saw avocados, sweet potatoes, tapioca, papayas and many other plants and trees. I took lots of photos.

Adjacent to that garden is a seed producing farm. I learned so much there and saw so many fascinating things. It is going to take me more time to put that experience into words. I took lots of photos there too.

Those two experiences took most of the morning. In the afternoon, I decided to go to a garden that is close to the ashram. I was stunned to see how much everything had grown during the last year. I could barely recognize the place. When the sevite who is in charge took me around, she showed me an area where they are not doing any watering. There are compost piles throughout and those piles produce enough water to sustain the water-less garden. She said the plants in that area grow slower than the others, but they remain green and healthy. I took pictures there as well.

I then walked back to the ashram, picked up my passport from the International Office and went to Saraswati garden to say goodbye to the staff. It was there that I discovered my phone was missing, and with it, all of the photos I had taken that day and the three preceding days. I was in shock. I had just used it. I retraced my steps to no avail; I couldn’t find it anywhere. It was like it had disappeared into thin air.

When Amma was at the beach that night, she talked about detachment as a process of being able to deal with anything that comes our way in the process of life. (That is my understanding of her words, not an exact translation.) I was certainly receiving a BIG lesson in detachment.

I probably had dropped it somewhere between the water-less garden and the ashram. That path wound through many different areas of the village. Before and after bhajans, I walked to all the places in the ashram where the phone could have been turned in, but no one had seen it.

It is probably safe to say that the phone is gone, although I haven’t accepted that as fact yet. I’m still hoping for a miracle. In addition to the lesson in detachment, my Fitbit showed I had walked 18,000 steps during the day.

Since the phone is missing, I won’t be able to share any pictures of the most recent gardens/farms I visited. That will have to wait until next year. When I write more about the seed saving garden I will see if I can find some online photos that show some of the interesting plants I saw.

It was 10 p.m. before I returned to my room to complete the packing and cleaning. Soon I was ready for my last night of sleep in Amritapuri.

Letting Go of Suffering- Week 7: Stopping Passive Behavior

passivity

A major predecessor of suffering is passive behavior. Many years ago one of my mentors, Elaine Childs Gowell, taught me that we are being passive when we are aware that there is a problem and we:

a. Do nothing and hope the problem goes away.

b. Overadapt and do what other people want us to do.

c. Agitate by doing repetitive behaviors that aren’t directed towards solving the problem, e.g. tapping fingers, swinging legs, playing with hair, mopping the floor at 2:00 a.m., etc. Addictive behaviors may be forms of agitation, e.g. over-working, over-eating, alcohol, drugs, and over-thinking.

d. Incapacitate through headaches, backaches, stomach aches, depression.

e. Escalate by behaviors such as throwing things, screaming and hitting.

EXAMPLE

Situation: Your 12 year old daughter received two D’s on her report card.

a. Do Nothing: Tell yourself she will do better the next time and just ignore the situation.

b. Overadapt: Decide not to talk to her teachers because your daughter doesn’t want you to.

c. Agitate: Grumble under your breath and clean the house late into the night.

d. Incapacitate: Develop a headache

e. Escalate: Scream at your daughter and then slap her when she sasses you.

Eliminating passivity from your life takes time and effort. First, you have to recognize when you are being passive, or are considering being passive, and then commit to doing something to solve the problem instead.

PRACTICE EXERCISE

This week, record each time you realized you were being passive, or had the opportunity to be passive. Then write down what you did to solve the problem.

When you choose to solve the problem instead of being passive, brag about it to yourself and to a friend. Receiving acknowledgement can be very helpful in changing self-sabotaging behaviors.

See you next Monday for the eighth lesson.

To find the lessons in this series that have already been published click here.

Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: December 31, 2016- January 1, 2017

green-flowers

Choices Have Consequences

On New Year’s Eve, I decided to go to bed just before midnight rather than stay up for the end of the Amritapuri, New Year’s celebrations. When I heard the next day about the things I had missed because of that decision, I felt a bit sad.

The entertainment continued for a while after I went to my room. When it was finished, a video of Amma’s Christmas message was shown. The translation of her talk was projected onto many different screens. I know it was shown in English, French, German, Russian, and Malayalam. There may have been other languages as well. If you would like to see a transcript of Amma’s talk, you can find it here.

By the time the entertainment program and the talk were done, Amma had finished giving darshan. (Darshan lasted until 1:00 a.m. That meant she had given hugs for 14 hours with only a ten-minute break.) Amma then led a meditation and sang three songs. I know two of them were favorites of mine; I haven’t heard what the third one was.

The name of the first song starts with Kushiyom. Amma introduced it a few days before the 2004 tsunami. The song ends with the Lokah Samastha peace chant. I couldn’t find a recording of the whole bhajan, but I did find one of Amma singing the Lokah Samastha part. The video was recorded days after the tsunami hit the village where the ashram is located. It was a time of so much destruction and grief.

The last song Amma sang is the bhajan I find to be the most celebratory of all of them, Mata Rani. This video is a favorite of mine.

https://youtu.be/CHQNx3jKXvU

Amma returned to her room at 2 a.m. Sweet pudding was distributed to the devotees afterwards. If I had stayed for the entire program, I wouldn’t have gone to bed before 2:30 or 3:00 a.m.

While I felt sad, particularly about having missed those two songs, I knew I had made the right choice. I had been so tired that night and was also feeling very chilled. I had gone to my room to get a long sleeve shirt earlier in the evening and, as weird as it may sound, I also wrapped myself in a double layer fleece blanket.

While it was a bit windy and the fans in the auditorium were blowing, I could tell the the temperature didn’t justify the level of cold that I was feeling. I had the same experience before I got sick last week and also one week here last year.

I fell asleep the moment I laid down and didn’t even hear the sound of the loud firecrackers from the village across the backwaters.

So yes, choices have consequences. In this case I felt sad about what I missed, but when I woke up on Sunday morning, I was awake and healthy, and able to enjoy New Years Day. I was very glad I had chosen to sleep.

So many lessons

Since I knew I would be missing time with Amma by going to bed early on New Year’s Eve, I made sure I had time with her during the day.

Several years ago, Amma created a plan that gave all of the Western visitors and residents the opportunity to sit on the stage with her for 30 minutes on each darshan day. (The Indian residents have a similar opportunity but I don’t know much about their structure.)

Soon after I arrived in Amritapuri on this visit, Amma changed the length of the sitting shift to 45 minutes. On New Years Eve, I made sitting on the stage a priority. I didn’t think I could sit cross-legged for 45 minutes and was prepared to leave early, but I ended up staying for the whole time!

Later in the day, I joined the prasad line. As I went through that process, it occurred to me I have mentioned in past posts that the prasad-giver hands Amma the candy and ash that she gives to each person who comes to her for a hug, but I haven’t said anything about what that experience is like, other than I love doing it.

It took two hours for me to make it to the front of the line. Once there, I began handing Amma the prasad. We give her a group of three packets at a time, each containing ash and a piece of candy. It is essential that we keep our eyes focused only on Amma’s hand at all times, because if we start watching her, we would be very likely to miss the cue that she is ready to receive more packets from us.

When Amma is ready for the packets, she opens her hand a certain way. Sometimes, she may want even more of them. In that case she opens her hand a little wider and we give her three more, i.e. six packets in total. Occasionally, Amma’s hand is an easy reach and sometimes it is further away.

The process is further complicated by the fact that Amma often moves her hands when she talks with people, so you may think it is time to hand her the packets when in fact she is just gesturing to make a point. She may also reach to a nearby plate to pick up extra candy, a banana, an extra ash packet or a variety of other things.

This time, there were a few other factors to take into account. Whenever Amma is on stage there are many people around her. The prasad-givers have some designated space but it is small. When I was next to Amma, there was a boy around 10 years old who came to her crying. She held and talked to him a bit and then asked him to sit behind her. He took half of the space of the person who times the prasad-givers’ two minute shifts. When the timer moved to make room for him, she had no choice but to take part of my limited space!

Then, a woman in a white sari stood over me talking with Amma. The end of her sari flapped in front of me. That meant I couldn’t even see Amma’s hand. So I was trying to hold the woman’s sari away from me, ducking low to get some kind of view of Amma’s hand, and attempting to get the packets into her hand in the correct way and at the correct time. (Sometimes I think Amma is setting all of this up to play with me!)

When my two minutes were up, the timer tapped me. It is always hard to exit quickly so the next person can get into place before Amma wants more prasad. Once I get out of that person’s way I have to navigate around a fan and a whole lot of people who are sitting on the stage, without stepping on someone. I left laughing at the leelas and celebrating that I had been able to stay focused throughout all of these challenges.

I believe everything happens for a reason and that we can learn from every experience. In the two hours I was in line, and in the two minutes I had handed Amma prasad, I could see that I had been given lessons in patience, focus, flexibility, letting go, equanimity and no doubt many other things. Amma teaches us through her every action.

To see all of the posts in this Amritapuri series, click here.