Month: April 2019

Tonight you are lying in an ICU bed with a tube in your throat and a machine giving you breath. I know you hate that tube. I hope you are asleep and unaware of the battle going on inside your body.

All you wanted was to walk without fear of your knee giving out. Besides, you had an uneventful knee replacement a few years ago and you love the new knee. We knew the stakes were higher this time. The choice to operate was the one you needed to make.

I am far away from you, as I have been for most of my adult life. Now I must decide when to return to your side. Do I leave now? Or do I wait it out, hoping for rapid recovery? How will I know?

I want to visit with you and drink a cup of tea while discussing politics and the cuteness of Prince Louis. I hope that day comes soon.

It is said that the Dalai Lama starts his day with 4 hours of meditation and the following intention, “May my thoughts, words, and actions do no harm but be to the benefit of all beings”

I figured if the Dalai Lama starts his day with these words, I will too. So, several months ago, I added the intention to the end of my sitting meditation. I say the words every morning. With sincerity. With commitment.

May my thoughts, words, and actions do no harm but be to the benefit of all beings.

However, I still find myself thinking a thought of ill-will (or two) and engaging in unskillful speech. Then why continue a practice that appears to be ineffective?

Because it has helped me become more aware of my thoughts and speech and in the awareness lies my power to choose. Sometimes, the awareness arises as I’m about to speak and I can Backspace in my mind and say something beneficial instead. At other times, the recognition comes in the middle or at the end of a sentence uttered. Then the inner critic wants to have a field day. But if I take a breath and remind myself of the truth of it all, I can keep going.

The truth of it is: These thoughts do not belong to me, they arise out of causes and conditions. When I am mindful of them, I can choose which thoughts to set aside and which thoughts to serve tea. For the benefit of all beings.

To run a marathon, you gotta know where to put the tired.*

At mile 12 of my training walk today, my legs became heavy and tired. This spread to my back, shoulders, and engulfed my whole body. I wanted to stop. Take a rest. Walk further another day. Then I remembered Seth’s words and decided to “find a place to put the tired and sore.”

To figure out where tired and sore belonged, I had to get to know them better: The throbbing, hot feet; the heavy ankles; the burn of the shoulder straps digging into my skin. I kept moving. My feet and hiking poles were rhythmically striking the trail path. Tall trees outlined the path ahead and appeared to serenade me as the bright, spring sky provided light and warmth. Around mile 14, the tired and sore had settled somewhere inside. I’m not sure where. I was still moving. And then, in the next step, strength and lightness arose, recruited out of nowhere. I continued to walk to my goal of 15.5 miles.

*Wisdom from Seth Godin: Entrepreneur, teacher, marketing guru, author of many books. His latest, “This is Marketing” is a page-turner.

Meditation teaches us to stay present with unpleasant emotions while our instincts compel us to run, push away, or overeat.

Today, I listened to a complaint about an issue that I was not responsible for but took ownership of. As I listened, I could feel the other person’s disappointment and aggravation. It was justified. At the same time, I felt my disbelief and embarrassment. How to make amends? But I also felt the pull to protect the people involved and defend the logic of the system. Instead, I sat, breathed and listened. Allowing the feelings to diffuse into the air that I breathed. Then I apologized.

Between the attention to feelings and the apology came the response that could make amends. A solution that was simple yet satisfying to all involved. How grateful I am for the space that was created by the sitting. The space I create every morning when I sit with whatever is arising.

When you go to a hospital or clinic in the US, you will be asked, “Have you fallen in the last 90 days?” You must respond, at every visit, even if you’re healthy and just seeking remedy for a sore throat. Your answer to this question informs one of the quality measures (Fall Risk Reduction) included in Medicare’s 5 star rating system of hospitals.

At my recent doctor’s appointments, I have happily answered “No” to this question. A very satisfying response because I have fallen in the past and broken bones. For me, the “No” also meant “never again”. Never say never?

Today, as I was crossing the road to the enter the trail for my Camino practice, I tripped over my feet and met the ground with my knee and wrist. As I fell, the familiar feelings of surprise (“how can this be happening?”) and embarrassment (“who falls over their feet?”) came over me. My mind had already raced ahead to broken bones and canceling the Camino. I wiggled to standing and examined the damages (with dread). Fortunately, I only scraped the skin and bruised the knee and wrist. I rescued my cell phone from the dirt, straightened the backpack, dusted off the camelbak bite valve, took up my hiking poles and placed one foot in front of the other. Walking.

That’s when I made the calculation in my head. I have no doctor’s appointments in the next 90 days, so I can continue to answer “no”, but will stop short of “never”.

There is an abundance of Camino preparation advice on the web. Search google for “How to train for the Camino walk” and you get 12,300,000 results.

I have been absorbing advice and tips on the Camino de Santiago forum. This is an online community managed by a Santiago resident, Ivar Revke. The posts by veteran pilgrims address everything I could ever want to know, including things I didn’t know I need to know. Another group that has given me great guidance is the Raleigh Chapter of the American Pilgrims of the Camino (APOG).

For the physical preparation, I am walking 4-16 miles most days of the week. These walks have tested my gear (and my joints!). But how to prepare mentally? How will I walk ~16 miles per day for 34 consecutive days? What if I don’t feel like walking one morning? What if the landscape becomes boring? How will I manage the sore and tired body, the annoyance of sleeping in a different place every night, of wearing the same two outfits, and becoming known as the lady with the blue shirt?

Maybe the Camino can be compared to my meditation practice. Some days, I wake up easily and sit for an hour, paying careful attention to sensations and thoughts without judgement. Other days, I don’t see the point and the mind is agitated. But I sit anyway and recognize, ” This is how it is now.”

While I only recently learned about the importance of a “growth mindset” in learning a new skill, the term is over 30 years old. It was first described by Dr. Carol Dweck, a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Her research showed that people have implicit beliefs about ability or intelligence. Some people believe they are born with fixed ability (“fixed mindset”); others believe ability can be changed and improved with hard work and training (“growth mindset”).

What is your mindset? You can figure it out when you examine your response to failure. Failure reveals our mindset. Fixed mindset people dread failure because they perceive it as a negative reflection of their innate ability. Growth mindset people don’t fear failure as much because they believe their performance can be improved and they can learn from their failures.

I experienced my own mindset recently during a physical training session. The instructor was giving me real-time feedback on my performance: “Keep your head up”, ” keep your eyes open”, “track me”. When I caught myself closing my eyes, or not tracking, I would say to myself (loud enough for her to hear): “Don’t close your eyes”, “don’t lose focus”. Well, she got on my case for using the negative, for speaking out loud what I don’t want. Her point was that to get into the growth mindset, I must speak that which I want to see manifest in my performance.

This week, while I was drinking coffee at my neighborhood coffee shop, I noticed an older woman take a seat at the table next to mine. I looked up to greet her-this is a friendly place-but she made no eye contact. She seemed absorbed in her thoughts. I resumed my studying.

A few minutes later the waitress brought her a salad. It was then that I noticed the tremor gripping both her hands. It worsened as she unwrapped the knife and fork from the napkin. Her focus on this task was palpable. In her left hand she also held tightly onto a white sheet of paper with black typeface that she has been reading before the arrival of her lunch. “Coping strategies for an essential tremor” .

In that instant, a wave of compassion came over me. I admired her bravery to seek help and perform activities in public that challenged her dexterity. I felt small to have questioned, even briefly, why she did not greet me. Maybe her energy was focused on sitting down without spilling her drink and hoping her condition will improve?

I am reminded of a quote by the Buddhist meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein: “Anything can happen anytime, and I am not exempt” A day without physical discomfort is a gift to be cherished.

The countdown to my Camino de Santiago begins! In one month, I will depart from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains in France and walk for 34 days to Santiago, Spain.

I first learned about the Camino last summer while reading about solo traveling. I was instantly attracted to the opportunity to explore the Spanish countryside, meet people from different countries, and challenge my physical and mental grit.

There are several different Camino de Santiago pilgrimages that lead to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. I will be walking the ~500 mile French Way (Camino Frances). Pilgrims first walked this Way in the Middle Ages and today it is the most popular route.

After weeks of training, fine tuning my equipment, and researching, why am I so committed to this adventure? Because it represents my own pilgrimage to discover how I want to live this one beautiful life.