What Does It Mean to B Strong?

Breath by breath, little by little, I am coming back to life after the shocking events of the Boston Marathon bombing.



Being strong does not mean not feeling. If anything it means just the opposite. Being strong means that we also have the capacity to be soft and open our hearts to all of the sensations, thoughts and feelings that arise after a traumatic event meeting them with loving kindness and compassion.

Being strong means being vulnerable and reaching out for a hand to hold, arms to hug and taking a risk to let down our guard. From Priscilla Warner's book, "Learning to Breathe:My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm To My Life":

"The convention of panic was just a thin veil for you," Bob Sachs wrote to me in an email one day. "It cloaked the stillness and compassion that is you. It takes great courage to let it all go and to display the unbearableness of so much love." (p. 260)

Being strong means that we reach out to one another for love and support. We share our feelings. We hug. We cry and yes we even smile and feel joy.

Being strong means being open to healing while feeling all the pain and to not feel guilty that I survived.

I am so happy and grateful to be alive. I felt love vibrate through every one of my cells.

It takes strength to use restraint in what I watch on TV and what articles I click on on Facebook. I am mindful of what information I am allowing myself to take in. I ask myself, "Is reading or watching this going to serve me? Is it going to promote healing or only serve to retraumatize me and drain my energy?" Here is a news story of survivorship and resiliency -- "Dancer Who Lost Leg in Bombing -- I'm a Fighter".


“Overall, I feel like I’m a fighter and I’m ready. I’m ready for the challenge. Someone tried to stop me from reaching my dreams, and I want to be able to just say, well, ‘Nice try, I’m still going to go for it and stay positive through it.’

“And then I have moments, like this morning, where I just get extremely frustrated and I’m just angry. And I feel very dependent on everyone around me – just to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, or just to put on a pant leg or anything like that. And it makes me want to scream and punch pillows and throw water bottles and just get extremely angry.

“So I think I’m still in the coping stages. It goes up and down.”

She is the epitome of Boston Strong!

The Mouse in the Baseboard - I Gotta Feeling - When No Words Are Needed

4 am - clanging sounds coming from downstairs. My gut didn't clutch. I knew I was safe but I was curious about what was going on in the house. I figured Jamie our beloved four foot whom we adopted from the Animal Rescue League was running around although I'd never heard that pattern of sounds before.

Finally at 5, my husband and I went into the living room watching Jamie. She had retrieved a small tin foil ball from under the radiator. I said to her, "Really Jamie? Is that what all of this was about?" But she was in the zone not paying any attention to us. She stared at the baseboard of the radiator and she kept putting her paw underneath and through it. She was a cat on a mission for sure but we had no idea what she was after. I decided to go back to bed and Tom was going to get ready for work.

As I was about to head upstairs, and Tom into the kitchen to fix his coffee, she ran by Tom with a mouse in her mouth! She gave up the mouse to his hands and he tossed the mouse outside. She then went over and lay down in front of the radiator. In our 16 years of living in our home, we have never seen a mouse.




In May of 2001, my daughter's choir had a trip to New York City. We stayed in lower Manhattan and my kids wanted to visit the World Trade Center. I've been in the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and never had any problem with being in closed buildings and going to the top to view the panoramic vista of New York. But as we stood in the lobby of the World Trade Center, my gut began to churn. I told my kids we couldn't go to the top or do anything else in this building. We had to get out and now.... When the towers were hit on 9/11, my daughter remembered that feeling I had.

Jamie could not see the mouse in the radiator baseboard because the slats are too small to get a visual cue of anything in there, but her animal instincts were on high alert. I loved the experience of being held in the wordlessness of the moment watching the unfolding of what was happening in the unseen world as Jamie was guided by her animal instincts.

How often do we sense something beyond what we can actually see. Do we have the courage to act on our instincts and allow our senses which tap into the mystery and wonder of it all to guide us? As I am getting older, and engaged in mindful practices, I am more open to embracing the mystic within myself, with others and be open to the amazing synchronicities that happen in my life.



In Priscilla Warner's book, "Learning to Breathe:My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm To My Life," she writes

"But Mingyur {referring to Mingyur Rinpoche the monk who suffered from panic attacks whom she meets on a retreat early on in her journey} had warned us not to worry if our emotions became strong as a result of our meditation practice, or if we began to see and hear things that seemed unusual. I would remember his words when my life began to shift in eerie, powerful ways."

And just as I may not be able to see that mouse in the baseboard, I tune into what my heart and body need to continue to heal and recover--to move forward as a beautiful, graceful animal with great joy, freedom and celebration. I gotta feeling....



When No Words Are Needed from Seasons of the Soul now available on Amazon

As chanting monks serenade the work in the sacred space
no words are needed
seeing with inner sight
his healing hands explore the once ravaged landscape
as a beach metal detector scans to find hidden treasures
the wounds surface
no words are needed
to share the gory violent details
we work together as Divine Love flows

no words are needed
in silent meditation all that was hidden is made manifest
revealed to heal
touching sensations long buried beneath shame
lies that this wee one was undeserving of care
as my life was carelessly tossed and turned upside down
no words are needed
his hands speak volumes of Truth
as he moves with a knowing
palpating pain invisible to the naked eye
holding with the tenderness of a mother’s love
with each stroke the old wounds fade away

no words are needed
a different imprint on my heart
my body embodies and embraces new memories
no words are needed
eyes briefly meet
compassion overflows
healer and healed
healed and healer

no words are needed.


From my heart to yours
With total love and deepest gratitude,
Mary

MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY AND FREE!

Meeting Tara Brach - The "Sacred Pause"

I should not be surprised by the synchronicity that abounds in my life. In the opening pages of Priscilla Warner's book, "Learning to Breathe:My Yearlong Quest To Bring Calm To My Life", she mentions Tara Brach. I googled her about a year ago and began following her on Facebook and on her blog. I was astounded to learn that she has experienced debilitating illness in her life as she wrote in her blog "Letting Life Live Through Us," and most recently, "Happy For No Reason."

Tom recently joined the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center. He told me that Tara Brach was coming to speak but it was sold out. The next day he forwarded me an email that we could have audio only seats to hear her talk. I jumped right on it and registered us for the talk.

We arrived early (no surprise there for you who know me well) and were blessed to find a parking space in the lot behind the Center. As soon as I walked through the gate,



I felt tears streaming down my face. There was a beautiful sacred energy present in the garden. I felt the mysticism of the time between winter and Spring. There was a 45 minute sitting meditation before Tara's talk.

I am going to make you all laugh now. I, along with everyone else, was deep in meditation when my phone went off. I could have sworn that I had turned it off before meditation began but sometimes it doesn't 'take'. I jumped and said, "oh my God." I quickly turned it off and noticed that it was near the end of our meditation time but still.... I started to laugh thinking that here I am, my first time at the Center and they are going to toss me out. Tom started laughing because I was laughing but with deep breathing we returned to our meditative states.

After meditation we checked in for the talk. It was quite an experience to not have the visual of the speaker. It actually helped me to be more present in the moment focusing on what Tara was saying rather than having any visual distractions. She began by talking about resting in the fullness of who we are and intentionally opening our hearts to create an atmosphere of kindness and compassion for ourselves. She talked a lot about the trance of unworthiness and how we use deficiency as a filter for our relationships to ourselves and others. Fear gets in the way of giving ourselves wholeheartedly.

She then began our first of several short guided seated meditations with this poem:

Clearing
by Martha Postlewaite

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.

Tara talked with us about freedom and how, when we react, we are not free. Quoting Victor Frankl she said,

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

So in our next meditation we were to focus on a situation in our personal relationships in which we experienced irritation. She prepared us for the meditation by saying how our sickness is a homesickness - a longing to return to our Divine selves; the part of ourselves that is mystery and vastness. "When we come into form," she said, "we experience a separateness perception." She begged the question, "How do we forget the wildness of God that is in each one of us?"

As we went through the next two meditations, Tara focused on the sacred pause guiding us to tending and befriending. It was so easy for me to take notes and integrate what she was saying because I'd been reading her blog for over a year now. What a blessing to hear her speak the words so that they could really settle into my cells and my soul. She held a sacred space with her Divine, tender, compassionate Being.

Tara talked about the two wings of homecoming which she wrote about in her blog, "Unfolding Wings of Acceptance." What is happening and can I let it be....

All that I have been working on these past several months seemed to come together for me. I experienced a deep healing in my heart while feeling a flood of compassion and loving kindness flow through me. Tears streamed down my face during our meditation and I felt an incredible softening of my Being when once I experienced so much aversion to all that had happened to me. It's hard to believe that you can surrender to horrific circumstances but as Tara clarified last night -- You are not saying yes to the content of what happened - you are saying yes that it did happen. "The gift of recognizing and allowing are the wings of awakening," she tenderly and loving said to us. "Get that sense of the oceanness of your being and include the waves."

I had no idea that I would get to meet Tara after the talk but she was doing a book signing for True Refuge.



I introduced myself to her and told her how I came to learn about her work through Priscilla Warner. My voice broke as I said to her, "I had paralytic polio as a child. Six years ago I was in a wheelchair and your blog has been an incredible support to me on my healing journey." We locked eyes and her eyes filled with tears. She has the most incredible deep blue eyes and when I looked into them, I saw God and I felt God within myself. We were the mirror for each other's souls knowing each other without needing to say a word. It was indeed a sacred moment. I experienced the mystery and the vastness that she talked about earlier that evening.

She said using her hands for expression "But you look so amazing." I commented, "I have been so blessed with healing. In her talk she mentioned what a wondrous time this is... "We are coming up on the 100th monkey -- the critical mass of people becoming engaged in mindfulness practices." I am so blessed and grateful that I had the opportunity to share those sacred moments of mindfulness in the presence of the community at CIMC and with Tara Brach.

The First Snowfall - Simple Pleasures

"'Some of the greatest things in life don't have to be so dramatic',the rabbi said. 'Remember that. You can do something modest. When a mother cradles her child, fireworks don't explode. That's the secret of all of life. Some of the most beautiful things happen below the radar. Not on Wall Street, not on television. Not with all the hoopla. It's in the quiet moments that our lives are shaped. In homes, in cribs, in bedrooms, in the little things,' the soul doctor said to me sweetly. 'That's where it all happens.'" Priscilla Warner Learning to Breathe:My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm To My Life"

As I look back on these past 6 years, I realize that I probably worked harder than I have in my entire life to heal and recover from a lifetime of neglecting my mind/body connection as a result of trauma and paralytic polio. But yesterday I thoroughly reaped the rewards of my incredibly hard work. I rested on a plateau feeling incredibly satisfied and contented with myself and my life.

I took my time with a morning meditation and then had a delicious breakfast. It's the breakfast I have almost every day but I was able to really enjoy and appreciate my simple meal. Oats n flax oatmeal from Trader Joe's

orange juice, banana and a slice of quinoa bread toasted.

Since it was my day off from a physical yoga practice, I could treat myself to a hot cup of decaf coffee. During my morning meditation I was inspired to write a birthday poem for David from the yoga teacher trainee tribe (shhh don't tell him). As I savored my breakfast, I allowed the poem to flow smiling and enjoying the creative process.

With teacher training and Tom's marathon training, we don't spend a lot of time cleaning the house. It was a perfect day to clean. I cleaned out contacts from my gmail account and made space in our beautiful home. I enjoyed cleaning, taking my time, and pacing myself. I downloaded some new music into my iPod. I studied anatomy using the DVD for Trail Guide to the Body.

And then after a nutritious lunch with a cup of peppermint tea our first snowfall.

By 3 pm, I was feeling ready for a nap. My beautiful four foot and I enjoyed nap time together.

There was no pressure to do anything, to plan anything, to be concerned about anything beyond each moment I was experiencing throughout the day. It was an amazing day filled with simple pleasures.

If only...from "Songs of Freedom:Poems From a Healing Odyssey" now available on Amazon

If only I could stay in the sacred space of My Spirit
to feel the delicious warmth and leaps of joy
If only I could sweep away all the fear, the doubt
to allow my Spirit to take center stage
If only I could live in Love
and allow trust to be in the spotlight
If only I could let peace wash over me
and watch anxiety go out with the tide
If only I could wholeheartedly believe what I know to be true
and allow my heart to bathe in delight
If only I allow myself to experience all the magic and wonder
that life has to offer
If only I allow my heart to break wide open
crushing the walls of protection and Divine Love comes rushing in
If only I live my truth
and allow me to be my authentic self
When I throw off the shackles of the past
if only becomes now.

From my heart to yours
With total love and deepest gratitude,
Mary

MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY AND FREE!

Through the Lens of Grace - It's Gonna Turn Out Fine

...only rainbows after rain...it's hard to remember sometimes...it's gonna turn out fine

"The grace of God is coming down all the time, like rain, but we forget to cup our hands." - from "Learning to Breathe:My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm To My Life"

During a morning meditation I was reflecting on my life. On 11/6th, I will be the guest on Bernie Siegel's radio show, Mind Health Matters. I looked back on how I came to know Bernie and his work. What came to light is how blessed I am to be able to experience everything that has happened to me through the lens of grace. It wasn't always easy to have this perspective and know and trust that everything was gonna turn out fine but there is really no other way to live. When we live in the present moment, everything IS fine.

In 1982 I was hospitalized with a serious staph infection which temporarily left me without the use of my right arm.

The first touch of grace I experienced in this scenario was with an orthopedic surgeon who has been an angel in my life several times over. Dr. Reilly just happened to walk onto the medical floor I was on as I was talking a walk around trying to keep myself together with what was happening to me. He asked me what the xrays were showing. I told him none had been taken. It was like a scene out of Grey's Anatomy. He grabbed my chart, ordered xrays and by the afternoon I was in the OR having an operation to save the use of my right arm.

During my hospitalization my primary nurse, Beth Jordan, brought me a cassette tape - yes a cassette tape of Bernie Siegel

for a tape player.

She brought me trail mix. She told me my life needed healing. We stayed in touch with each other for many years after my hospitalization until she moved to Maine to care for her elderly parents. I carry her with me in my heart feeling her love and the touch of grace she imprinted on my heart. She lived on Lily Pond Lane where water lilies floated serenely on the surface of the pond where we went canoeing together.

After hearing Bernie's talk and reading his book, "Love, Medicine and Miracles"

my husband and I went to hear him and his wife Bobbie speak at Harvard. It was a life changing experience. As so often happens, we lose traction of the practices we need in order to maintain a healthy, balanced life for mind, body and Spirit.

After I was diagnosed with post polio syndrome back in 2006, I reconnected with Bernie. I joined his Forum. I went to hear him speak and he became what he calls, my chosen dad or CD for short. He was an incredible cheerleader of mine during my Boston Marathon experience and somehow I ended up being interviewed on his radio show, Mind Health Matters last May. You can listen to the archive of the show, Life and Poetry.

Yes my life has been very challenging but through every challenge, through every moment of hell, there always was and always will be my ability to choose the perspective of seeing it all through the lens of grace.

The Present - from "Songs of Freedom:Poems From a Healing Odyssey" now available on Amazon

What glasses am I wearing?
Am I seeing through the prism of the past
tainted by others
Detach.

What glasses am I wearing?
I tremble in your presence
feeling Divine Love
afraid to trust its pure intention
Receive.

What glasses am I wearing?
I see the truth
of my own Divinity
a birthright to be happy and free
being as I am truly meant to be
Discern.

What glasses am I wearing?
I see the beauty, the grace
allowing peace in this moment
shaking off all that went before
allowing the butterfly to fly free
Transform.

Embody my Being
offering the gift of myself to the world.


From my heart to yours
With total love and deepest gratitude
Yours in grace,
Mary

MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY AND FREE!

Book Review - Priscilla Warner's "Learning to Breathe"

Just about a month ago, Priscilla Warner was the guest on Michele Rosenthal's radio show, Your Life After Trauma. I sent Priscilla a message on facebook letting her know how much I enjoyed the interview and astounded by the similarities in our journey. I told her I just had to read her book. She was kind enough to have her publisher send me a copy and would I be willing to write a review of the book. Would I? You can read my review on Amazon. "Learning to Breathe" is another gift the Universe has presented to me on my trauma recovery journey. Priscilla and I are six months apart in age. "I was teaching myself to breathe at the age of 56," Priscilla writes. How heartening to find a contemporary soul sister. I came to my yoga mat and began learning to breathe shortly after my 57th birthday.

As we enter into Priscilla's world, she writes, "His Holiness, the Dalai Lama believes human beings can change the negative emotions in their brains into positive ones. And who was I to doubt the Dalai Lama? Maybe my journey would resemble something like Siddhartha meets Diary of a Mad Jewish Housewife.....My new mantra would be 'Neurotic, heal thyself and please stop complaining."

When I entered Priscilla's world, a door opened to a banquet hall filled with the most sumptuous spiritual treats ever gathered in one place. I fed myself on the spiritual wisdom Priscilla so generously shares from meditation masters, Buddhist monks, mystics and healers including the Dalai Lama himself as she sets out on a quest to free herself from the crippling panic attacks she experienced for decades.

"When you're ready to learn, your lessons find you in the oddest places," Priscilla writes. How true! Once we open ourselves to the possibility of freedom from pain and suffering, synchronicities, 'coincidences' and wondrous meetings begin to unfold in one's life - like my meeting Priscilla. Sharon Salzburg quoted Krishna Das who quoted someone else, "The grace of God is coming down all the time, like rain, but we forget to cup our hands."

My copy of "Learning to Breathe" is dog eared, underlined and I have taken notes in my yoga teacher training journal. My meditation practice has deepened, becoming more meaningful and healing not only for myself but as my compassionate and loving kindness heart continues to grow extends into the world. In yesterday's blog post, I speak to how the teachings Priscilla garnered from her healing quest blesses my life. You need not transform was the theme of a reading that David read during savasana after a Sunday morning practice. The next day I found myself reading in Priscilla's book:

"I'm on a mission to transform myself from a neurotic Jew to a serene Tibetan monk," I blurted out to the facilitator I'd met earlier outside Mingyur's living quarters.
"Why would you want to do that? he asked, ushering me into an adjacent room. You're not a monk, and you're not Tibetan. Why not just be the best neurotic Jew you can be."

Themes in Priscilla's book paralleled themes in my yoga classes which speaks to the interconnectedness and wonder of it all (no I'm not referring to the Foxwoods commercial). When the student is ready so many teachers appear bringing the soul lessons on a beautiful path lined with cherry blossoms. You'll have to read Priscilla's book to fully embrace the cherry blossoms image.

I laughed. I cried. I experienced awakening and enlightenment. I smiled. My breath caught with the similarities in our journeys. One of my favorite moments although there are so many it's hard to choose is when her questioning of why and how transforms from feelings of abandonment and neglect by her parents to gratitude for the resident who saved her life with an emergency tracheotomy at the age of 16 months old. In that moment she is able to get out of the story she'd been focusing on that brought her so much pain and suffering to a place of gratitude both to the resident and for her own survival.

"I thought about happiness, tears streaming down my cheeks," Priscilla writes as she shares what's happening in a therapy session.

"If I become happy and healthy," I said, "then I will no longer be related to those people that I came from. I won't belong to the family that I gres up in."

As Priscilla weaves the beautiful tapestry of her life together with clarity and acceptance, she is able to let go of the panic which in part she held to benefit her family members. She discovers how to experience compassion and loving kindness without her having to suffer. "Learning to Breathe" is an exquisitely crafted memoir blending the story of Priscilla's family with therapists and sages of modern day thought and trauma recovery. One of the most compelling features of "Learning to Breathe" is how Priscilla brings in the studies that are being done to demonstrate the effects of meditation on the brain. For those of us who believed that the damage from traumatic experiences are permanent and irreversible; for those who believe that the only way to quell panic or anxiety is with medication; for any one who enjoys a great read and a story of courage, warmth, humor, triumph, honesty, clarity, acceptance and embracing life with grace and gusto -- "Learning to Breathe" is for you! It's for everybody, mind and soul. I know that I will keep returning to "Learning to Breathe" as I absorb the wisdom into the very fiber of my being. Priscilla generously includes a bibliography and resource list for continuing the healing journey.

From my heart to yours
With total love and deepest gratitude,
Mary