Travelling at the Speed of Light-Heartedness

I was  gently lifting the smashed lid off my soft boiled, free range egg,  when something on the news caught my attention.

Two things about this were very unusual.

boiled egg

The first is that I almost never make myself a soft boiled egg.

As I walked to my kitchen, dog prancing in anticipatory excitement around my legs, I suddenly remembered my grandson voraciously eating his first soft yolk a few days earlier. As a child I loved eating soft boiled eggs, surrounded by warm toasted soldiers, that were so thickly buttered that the butter melted into the runny orange yolk, turning it a shimmery pale yellow.

It has always remained an exquisite, delicious memory.

The second unusual thing is that I rarely listen to the news, especially in the morning. Mornings are usually for slow rising, hot showers, deep silent meditations, brisk walks with my white, four legged lap-dog, followed by a quiet cup of tea and toast.

The radio broadcaster said France was telling the world that Australia had betrayed them. At the time I had not even heard the reason and yet I was unexpectedly saddened to hear this.  The word betrayal is so poignant.

As I listened I heard Paris has expressed a feeling of betrayal after Australia went back on a deal, forged in 2016 to buy French submarines. Canberra says the decision was necessary for Australia to meet its strategic needs.

Now, the fact that we are spending 50 billion dollars to buy nuclear war vessels deserves a far deeper commentary than I can offer but, it did trigger me into thinking about what are the long term effects of betrayal.

Al Pacino, in the Godfather asked, “You know the saddest thing about betrayal?  It’s that it never comes from your enemy.”

Betrayal is possibly the most devastating loss, (besides the death of a loved one)  a person can experience. To be betrayed, the person must first experience trust in the betrayer. It is almost impossible for you to be betrayed if you did not trust the individual in the first place. Therefore, the definition of betrayal involves the act of someone violating your trust in them.

To trust, there needs to be a strong feeling that somebody or something can be relied upon, or will turn out to be good. It is the feeling of being sure about something, even if it cannot be proven.  So when a trust is broken there is a sense of grief and loss. Working with the shock and anger and ultimate sadness of grief an loss, takes time. It needs to take time because so often we want to react and retaliate after a betrayal. Reaction always comes from our emotions and usually leaves us and others, in an even more painful place.

Sometimes, however, we are so attached to our perception of who the other person is, that when something occurs that is not in alignment with that perception, we feel betrayed.

This is the illusion of betrayal.

When is betrayal not a betrayal? When we have made assumptions about an agreement, or about another person, an idea or a situation and there is not the expected outcome.

~~~ We expect our friend to keep our confidence but find out he discussed our personal situation with someone else.

~~~ We sign a contract on moving into a flat four years ago, agreeing to a two-week notice, and the landlord informs us that we have to move out in exactly two weeks.

~~~ You marry a healthy loving woman and she becomes seriously ill and remains physically and emotionally dependent on you for many years.

~~~ One country agrees to buy submarines from an allied country, and even though there is an exit clause in the contract, the buyer changes its mind and decides to buy from another country.

All these situations feel like a betrayal and yet they are illusions of betrayal. The grief, loss, pain and anger however, feel exactly the same. Dealing with these strong feeling is very hard to do.

A feeling is a feeling. The feelings themselves are not bad. Feelings in themselves cannot hurt us. What we choose to do with those feeling however, can hurt us.

The journey of healing from a betrayal or an illusion of betrayal begins with expressing and accepting how we feel.

Eventually if we trust the healing process, we finally get to a point of acceptance.

Acceptance does not mean agreement.

Acceptance that this event happened enables us to make a choice about what action to take now.  Every course of action depends on the situation. Every betrayal brings us feelings and emotions that not only hurt, but take time to heal. If we give ourselves that time and the space to consider all options, regardless of whether the betrayal is personal, national or global, we are more likely to choose our next step through wisdom and  understanding.

Whether we choose to remain in relationship with the person who we feel betrayed by, or not, one thing is for sure, we have learned some valuable information about them. This person or these people are capable of betraying us, and as such, any further interaction will require discretion and discernment.

The strange thing is, I’m not sure my visceral memory of eating a soft boiled egg has been forever corrupted. Obviously it’s too late to un-hear the news, but as I tossed the empty egg shell in the bin, I have to admit, I felt a little betrayed.

I met Walter through my beloved friend and then publisher Maggie Hamilton. The minute I met him I knew this was a man so gracious and kind that it is impossible not to love him. I can’t imagine anyone feeling differently.

He writes a blog called Walterblog and generously shines a light on  many books and writers.

He is an exceptional author in his own right and a vibrant, knowledgeable  speaker. His two travel memoirs are Destination Saigon and Destination Cambodia, both published by Allen and Unwin, are idiosyncratic and big-hearted romps through beautiful and complex countries.

I will always treasure being taken to some beautiful Buddhist Temples in Cabramatta where Walter lives with his wonderful partner,Thang Ngo, a prominent Vietnamese-Australian community leader.  Walter must know every delicious restaurant in the entire area and my late husband and I loved exploring under the guidance of our friend.

During this time of lock down I thought Walter’s blog would give hours of joyful reading. Please take the opportunity to wander through the world of delicious books and some of our most riveting writers.

Walter interviewed me back in 2012 following the publishing of my book, The Little Book of Everyday Miracles.

Below is that interview.

POSTED BY WALTER MASON ON SATURDAY, 11 APRIL 2020

LABELS: 2012 AUSTRALIAN WOMEN WRITERS CHALLENGE, ALLEN AND UNWIN, AUTHORS, INTERVIEWS, MIRACLES, SHARON SNIR

I first became aware of author Sharon Snir when I was sent a copy of her book Looking for Lionel to review. This book, a memoir of the way her mother’s dementia affected her family’s life, was so tender and insightful that I have since bought several copies to give to people living in the same situation. I finally met Sharon at a publishing event, and I became a huge fan of her third book, The Little Book of Everyday Miracles. I had so many questions to ask Sharon, and I thought it would be wonderful to share her wise and inspiring answers with all of you.
As well as being an author, Sharon is a counsellor, psychotherapist and healer, and you can read more about her and her work at www.sharonsnir.com 

Here is what Sharon had to share:

Q1. What is the miracle that has had the greatest impact on your life?

I had moved to Israel after the painful break up of my first marriage. I was living in a windowless storeroom under a block of fancy apartments. I made that 6’x 6’ space my little castle, despite the fact that there was no shower in my room.  It was not far from the beach so I would go daily for a swim and then shower and dress in the public change rooms. I remember going swimming once on the holiest day of the week, just before the Sabbath. After coming out of the water and into the change rooms, I realised my watch was gone. I fell into a pitiful heap.  I sobbed so loudly that people came to see what the matter was. I spoke no Hebrew and blubbered in English, I’ve lost my watch.  Understandably, most people told me that wasn’t so bad, which only caused me to sob more passionately.

I imagined all the dreadful things that would now befall me. Irrationally, I believed I would not know when to eat or sleep. I would not be able to leave my room because I would no longer know the bus timetable.  And then the worst thought came to my mind. Being Friday all the shops were about to close, and would not open again until 10 AM on Sunday morning so I couldn’t buy a new one. I know it sounds crazy now, but at the time something cracked open inside me and a tidal wave of fear followed by unstoppable tears overtook me. Clearly, I was having a minor break down.

I had been given the watch as a farewell gift from my mother and although I thought at the time I would never return to Australia, it connected me to home. On walking into my tiny room, I fell onto my bed and hit my forehead on something hard. It was my watch.  I began to speak to myself in a loud firm voice. “Pull yourself together girl. This is ridiculous. Get up, get out and get a life!”
I booked an eight day tour around Israel the next day, had a delicious affair with the bus driver, moved into the most beautiful Kibbutz and over the next year a new world opened up for me.
A miracle is in the eye of the beholder. What is a miracle to one person may not be a miracle for another however, for me, losing my watch allowed me to release all my fears and pent up misery.

Q2. You talk about how your publisher missed your first ever appointment. Can you explain more about the significance of waiting?

I worked as a counsellor for six year at the AIDS Council of NSW (ACON) in the early 90’s. There I worked with many incredible people who were waiting to die. After the initial shock of contracting HIV, some people began planning their death, even preparing their own funerals and, incredibly, they were given a new lease on life. As I spoke to my clients, I heard how the significance of waiting gave them renewed passion for life. They described the experience as waking up and seeing life more clearly. They didn’t have time to waste and many were doing things they had always wanted but had never taken the leap to do.

Then came the arrival of antivirals and for some it was a shock to be given back their life. “What do we do now? We have given up our job, given away our possessions and given up on living a long life. How do we just start living again?

Paradoxically, the arrival of antivirals was not always seen as a miracle for people living with HIV but surprisingly I heard over and over again that contracting HIV itself created a miracle in their life. Why? Because it turned lives upside down and inside out, and many went from being unaware to becoming conscious and present. Time after time, I heard stories of the miracles that had happened while waiting to die.

I believe that all is perfect in time and space and therefore nothing is wrong. So when someone doesn’t turn up for an appointment, or when I fall and twist my ankle, or when a diagnosis of some kind is handed over, I know there is a purpose, a lesson and a gift in that experience waiting to be discovered.

In other words, rather than focusing on the appearance of the situation, I prefer to understand the significance. The significance of waiting connects us to Universal time. Most of us live our lives as if time is our Master. We even talk about time as if it was a physical object. “Where has all the time gone? I don’t have time. We have run out of time. Do you have any time today?” Substitute the word ‘sugar’ for the word ‘time’ and you’ll get what I mean. Linear time, or the time we humans make up, ignores the greater cycles of time.

The Universe, generous beyond imagination, gave us night and day, summer, autumn, winter, spring, annual and perennial crops and plants, animals that hibernate and birds that migrate to teach us something about cycles. Timeliness is not only up to us. Things happen because it is time for things to happen. In the words of the beautiful, gracious and very present Byron Katie:

“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.”

Q3. You always write so beautifully about the experience of ageing. Is there any advice you can give to people dealing with the reality of ageing parents?

Accept them as they are right now, in this moment. Try not to yearn for the person they used to be.  Over the past 19 years, my mother has had Alzheimer’s disease and I have learned that when I meet her in her world,  when I sing with her, smile with her, move my body closer when she leans closer, she melts into the grace of being accepted exactly as she is. She becomes a warm, loving person and joy to be with.

Five years ago, when caring for my mother became too much for my 90 year old father, she went to live in a residential home for people living with dementia. She stopped doing many things she had once done, including going to the hairdressers every day! Her hair began to slowly change to grey and I decided I would go grey with my mother. Today I embrace the elder I am becoming. I have a mop of grey hair and often have to laugh when people ask me where I got my hair streaked. I tell them at a place called ‘Old Age’.

We- the older generation, 55 years and over- have a wealth of experience and wisdom to share. Living a long time turns the aged into living historians.

Although I believe we need to eat well and exercise our bodies in moderation, our addiction to youth diminishes our belief in ourselves that we are of great value and benefit to our communities and to society as a whole. We are living longer now and so we need to make some important choices. Do we embrace our elders as beings of great wisdom who have the power to contribute to every level of society or do we continue to try to look, sound and act younger than we really are?

My father is about to turn 95 and every child in our family relishes the opportunity to sit quietly and talk to him. Knowing how to listen, ask good questions and share diverse thoughts is the precious legacy my father will leave behind when it is his time to move on.

Q4. You talk about your own experiences with other worlds as a child. How do we keep ourselves open to receiving miracles?

There are three qualities that open the door to receiving miracles. Gratitude, Forgiveness and Wonder.
Gratitude connects us to our hearts and turns even the most ordinary and mundane experience into a sacred moment. Even the most profound and life changing miracle will lose its brilliance and fade unless it is accompanied by gratitude. I was an unpopular child. I didn’t like running or skipping or playing hide and seek. I loved to read and was considered weird.  Life at home was also often difficult. My mother was both overprotective and at times neglectful. She could be sweet and tender one minute and cruel and dismissive the next. I was severely disciplined, mainly for making up overly creative stories that were seen as lies. So in the face of this I made up games.

I was about seven years old and I told myself that if I laughed three times in one day I could call it a good day. I would lie in my bed every night and look back through my day and try to find three times where I laughed. It created a very strong relationship between me and gratitude. So the practice of looking back through your day just before you fall asleep and recalling the events in your day for which you are grateful creates within you a magnet that calls more and more moments of grace or everyday miracles into your life. The more we focus our thoughts on something, the more we call it into our life. For example if you focus on rude people, you will probably encounter many rude people in your life. If you focus on your ailments, you will almost certainly experience lots of aches and pains. On the other hand, if you focus on compassion, loving kindness and generosity, the likelihood of you experiencing these in your life is also very high.

Forgiveness is another door to opening miracles. When I met Sandy Macgregor and heard his story I knew then that nothing was unforgivable.

Eighteen years ago, Sandy lost his three teenage daughters and their friend when they were shot dead in their Sydney home. Few people would ever get their life back together again after such an event, but Sandy went much further than that and found a way to forgive. In his book Peace of Mind he describes the technique he used to do this. He also makes it clear that forgiveness is not about condoning an action. Forgiveness is only for yourself.  What the does perpetrator with your forgiveness is up to them. Whatever they do is not your responsibility. You are primarily responsible for yourself only. The miracle that comes out of forgiveness is freedom.

Wonder clears our lenses and allows us to see and hear and touch and taste for the first time, everyday.  Connected to wonder is innocence. That childhood sense of playfulness and purity that heightens everything we do.  As we experience wonder, life simply becomes more wonder-full.

Q5. Can you give 5 brief pieces of advice to someone who wants to take the leap and explore their own creativity?

1.    Be in your element

To be in your element means doing something that you have an aptitude for. According to Sir Ken Robinson, we all have an aptitude for something. Cooking, cleaning, playing guitar, doing mathematics or writing may be things you love and have an aptitude for. But you don’t have to be good at something to be in your element. All you have to do is enjoy and love it and then naturally you will be in your element.

2.    Re-establish a relationship with your imagination

When was the last time you thought it might be a good idea to plan a dress-up party? My daughter just went to a sequin party and I was only sorry I didn’t know the person having it. Do you remember when you were a child, when you were not distracted by technology and would use bits and pieces of nature to create a cubby, or a tea party, or a battle field? Exploring our creativity requires us to regularly turn off the computer, iphone, ipad and go out into nature. Look around you and see the faces in the bark of the trees or the animals in the rocks, or the dragons and angels in the clouds. Exercise your imagination. It is a muscle and like all muscles you have to use it or you might lose it.

3.    Practice Spontaneous Stupidity

Spontaneity is letting go of control. Releasing our rigidity and need to create structure, strategies and order in our life. Stupidity is a lack of knowing, allowing ourselves to not know and to explore freely.  Many of us are absolutely terrified of looking stupid but that is because we have misunderstood the true meaning of the word.  Not knowing something is the only way to learn. I coined the term Spontaneous Stupidity many years ago when I found the only way to cope with five children under seven was to be both at the same time! I love being silly and laughing at the ridiculous. Most of us lose that ability to be silly and are overly concerned with how we appear to others.

In the Middle Ages, the most spontaneously stupid person was the court jester who was also the closest ear to the king. He was able to offer guidance and wisdom by being creatively silly. He would speak in rhyme and riddle but his wisdom lay between his words. In a Danny Kaye movie called ‘The Court Jester’ he speaks these words of warning to the King: “The vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison and the chalice in the palace has the brew that is true.”

4.    Play Games

Invite some friends over and instead of an elaborate three course meal, host a game. It could be a writing game, a drawing game or murder mystery game. My kids, all adults, now love games and “What would you rather?” is one of their favourites. So what would you rather do, kiss old aunty Daisy on the lips or clean all the toilets at central station with a tooth brush? It gets worse. The laughter becomes louder and louder and the creative ideas more and more disgusting but laughter lights us up. It literally bring us to enlightenment,  switching on all our creative senses.

5.    Eat, Move and Rest

Confession: I am guilty of not always doing this. I can be sitting at my computer six or even eight hours until I am seconds away from being totally brain dead, without eating or moving all day. We need to eat to keep our minds working. I can literally feel my energy seep away if I leave too long between a snack. Writers’ block is a very common phenomenon and the only way I know to shift the energy is to get up and go for a walk. I clear the brain by breathing deeply and reconnect to the spirit within. And finally, not only do I recommend going to bed at a reasonable hour but taking a few minutes to meditate on retiring and rising allows the mind to stop thinking.  After ten or fifteen minutes of breathing and allowing thoughts to rise and dissolve something quite lovely happens and we enter into a place of true communion with our self. This is the source of all creativity.  A sacred space where everything and nothing exists in harmony together. A place where we can align our own spirit to the infinite flow of universal creativity.

If you wanted to ask anyone in the world a question, who would you ask and what would you want to know.

Some of us tend to hide behind the words and the questions of others. We hesitate in putting ourselves out there and speaking up for a number of reasons, some of which we imagine are valid. Perhaps it is fear of being judged or ridiculed. Perhaps it is fear of being ignored or worse still, the fear of being seen.

The world we all live in is struggling physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Physically through Covid, climatic changes and environmental issues. We are watching super powers beating their chests in a he-man show of who is stronger. Emotionally there is fear and anger, resistance and resignation towards our leaders, our friends and families and those whose differences apparently form a bridge too wide for some of us to cross.

Mentally there is trauma, despair, anxiety and uncertainty. None of us are sure what is coming next. In truth we never have but somehow our lack of control or the imposing of control upon us, causes us to feel powerless.  And if you are thinking right now that this does not include you, just turn on your TV, read a headline, listen to your friends whose jobs are on the line or whose marriages are breaking down or simply ask yourself what are you doing to make this world a little better. So unless you have suddenly left this world, and are floating around in nirvana, this definitely does include you.

Our world cannot heal unless we take that hugely courageous step into the unknown and share ourselves from the heart of who we are. Sharing our thoughts and ideas without clashes and chaos. When was the last time someone did or said something that you absolutely disagreed with, but were willing to quietly discuss it without accusations about who is right and who is wrong?

So here is my invitation. A conversation.

If you wanted to ask anyone in the world a question, who would you ask and what would you genuinely want to know?

AND, if you are brave and are willing to throw caution to the wind, have that conversation the next time you go into the office, or sit at the table with family, or are with your doctor or waiter, or son or daughter.

THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS

LEADING TO OPEN DISCUSSION

LEADING TO EXPLORATION AND COLLABORATION.

There is no right or wrong question or answer. EVER

Write your thoughts or questions below and every month we will have a topic of conversation that may just inspire someone to take it one step further.

My question for this month:

To the man who sits on the corner of George St outside the Queen Victoria Building-  “What’s your name, and how’s it all going?”

PS: If you happen to see him before I do, can you please ask him for me?

Change

” Most everything in the Universe changes with age: Stars consume their fuel and die: the Earth loses its atmosphere by evaporation into space and ultimately will become an airless, dead, planet and we, as humans grow wrinkled and wise.” Kip S. Thorne (Black Holes and Time Warps)

Change never takes no for an answer. Whether we are ready or not change will take us by the hand and dance us to its own rhythm, be that a Foxtrot, a Tango or a Waltz. And when change occurs with a clash of cymbals, a roar of timpani, or the deafening silence between, we know the moment, this moment, has caught our attention.

Some see change as “too fast’ or “too slow”. Some of us resist change while others jump into the abyss with wild abandon. Change brings out the best and the worst in us. We resist it, long for it, dread it and love it. All depending on our present circumstances and the moment in which we notice its arrival. For although change is ever present, we only notice it when the comfortable rhythm to which we have been dancing, suddenly shifts.

Whatever change means for you, for me it is most often about opportunity. How can I use this change, the one I had no idea was coming, to inspire myself and to re-member the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? Perhaps not all within me is aligned. Perhaps I have  judgments about the physical, the material, the emotional or the mental parts of myself. Perhaps I have a  habit I have not recognised until someone or something points it out. Perhaps there is a struggle that repeats itself time after time and now that I recognise it, have the choice to do something about it, or not.

How precious is this time of Change when we can look outside ourselves and see with startling clarity, the time to make a difference has arrived

JtB, my Teacher, for the past 20 years tells us “We were born to be of service.” That does not mean we have to jump up and do something. Our service to our world, to humanity, to the animal and plant kingdoms can come by simply taking the time to look at how we  choose to respond or reacted to the changes around us.  Have we struggled, complained, ranted against the powers that be, or have we discovered ways to take responsibility, accept our civil duty, share our compassion, kindness and in so doing bring a little more light into the world.

Meditating on what we want our world to look like, sending circles of light and love to every living thing in and on our planet for a minute or two everyday can make, literally the world of difference.

And yet, how and when we offer a hand, a meal or a little kindness depends so much  on how and what we are going through ourselves.

The greater our struggle the more profound is the impact  when we share something of ourselves.

When you think back to January and February last year what were your plans for 2019? Who of us imagined the world would literally stop. Billions of people have experienced and are still experiencing  unimaginable change and loss. Millions of people are grieving the death of 1.8 million deaths due to the Corona Virus, not to mention 85.2 million confirmed cases people who have contracted the virus and whose health may have now been permanently compromised.

Here in Australia we went from catastrophic bush-fires to Covid 19 in a matter of a few weeks. No time to even consider rebuilding lives let alone estimating the loss of life ( at least 33 people) and animals ( estimated at 3 billion) when the virus arrived. Months of being in lock down, mandatory wearing of masks, profound feelings of isolation and loneliness, illness, deaths  followed for so many of us. Loss of businesses that were build out of the dreams of their creators.

So you may ask how can we shift focus from our great losses to being of service. In my experience one does not cancel out the other. Grief and joy can coincide. After the sudden and unexpected death of my husband, in my darkest moments, I remembered the words someone once told me. If it was you and you are reading, this forgive me for not remembering your name and please let me know it was you.

When you feel you have nothing left to lose, give something away.

I contacted an organisation and asked whether I could volunteer. After police checks, car rego checks, insurance confirmations, I was at last welcomed into this organisation. The people I visit every week have no idea how much they give me. They could not begin to imagine the joy I feel as I visit them and see their faces and have a 60 second chat.

As we now get around like masked bandits it’s hard to smile at a friend or a stranger but crinkling my eyes and hoping those wrinkles convey a smile is my latest challenge.

Everything changes and there is no normal to return to.(Sorry but that’s the truth)

What sort of world do we want to live in? According to Sam Harris we want to live in a world where people are incentivised to do creative work that makes the world better and better.

But not just that. We want a healthier world where devastating diseases are controlled and eventually eradicated.

But not just that. We want food and clean water to become a natural and accepted part of Global distribution.

What sort of world do YOU want to live in? I have been asked this question a number of times over the past few months.

Personally, I want a world where diversity and difference is accepted. Where acceptance of self and other come before beliefs and opinions, although we have every right to have those too. I want a world where we understand the true meaning of Living in Harmlessness. And I want a world where random act of kindness become an intrinsic part of Man-KIND.

What about you? What sort of world do you want to live in?

The poem below is one of my favourites. Read it allowed. Read it slowly.

And then read it again.

CHANGE -Anonymous

One of the difficulties

in moving out of the familiar

is the temptation

to close off the full drama of change

before its own attractions

have a chance to ripen.

The sense of being bereft

of all that is familiar

is a vacuum which threatens

to suck up everything in its reach.

What is hard to appreciate,

when terror shapes a catastrohic gap,

is tha this blankness can be a fertile void.

The fertile void

is the existential metaphor

for giving up the famliar supports

of the present

and trusting the momentum of life

to produce new opportunities and vistas.

The acrobat who swings

from one trapeze to the next

knows just when he must let go.

He gauges his release exquisitely

and for a moment,

he has nothing going for him

but his own momentum.

Our hearts follow his arc

and we love him for risking

the unsupported moment.

Cooking for three days in anticipation for dinner on the eve of Rosh Hashona (the Jewish New Year)  has rekindled my belief that if you do what you love, with love, from an open heart, you can rest assured that what you create will be good, even if it does not always appear that way.

It is these words in Genesis, “And it was Good” that inspired me to write today.

During those three days, I attempted to bake a coffee /honey cake. After all, we are celebrating the World’s Birthday. Guaranteed to be delicious, I did everything in the recipe and placed the mixture in the bundt pan and waited. Nothing much happened for a while and then my oven became a container for Mt. Vesuvius. Bubbles rose and filled the hole in the bundt tin, batter poured over the sides and began to ooze out and fill the aluminum container I manages to slide onto the floor of the oven. I just stood and watched in shocked fascination. Eventually, I removed the disaster from the oven and tried to rescue a corner here and there that was not burnt or still runny.  I looked up the reviews on this recipe and many people said the same thing happened to them.

Disclaimer: This is NOT a request for a recipe.

It is a metaphor. Even when we put forward our best efforts, bad things will sometimes happen. They have to. We don’t live in a fairy tale and real life is not about happy endings. Real life is not about devervability. Just because we are good and kind and reasonable, it doesn’t ensure we will receive the same behaviour from others. Just because we drive our car with care, doesn’t mean we will never be in an accident. Just because we were good parents, doesn’t mean our children will forgive and forget our mistakes. Just because we are generous to others, doesn’t mean others will be generous to us.

It doesn’t work that way.

If we do unto others what we would have them do unto us, it doesn’t mean they will.

At this time in the Jewish calendar we are given ten days to look at ourselves with clarity and compassion. We are asked to focus on who we have been over the past year and  we are given the opportunity to forgive ourselves for the times we  reacted rather than responded. For the times we treated our self or another harshly, rudely, thoughtlessly or angrily. For the times we forgot to offer help to another, neglected our true beliefs and wasted time complaining rather than taking action. For the times we chose not to understand why a friend would behave in a certain way, or a family member remembers something you wish they had just forgotten.

At this time we are also invited to forgive every person who we believe has done us wrong. Why would we do that? Nothing happens to us that, on some level, we have not the capacity to understand and forgive. Actually nothing happens to us. We are the creators of our own lives, whether we are consciously aware of that or not. If life just happened to us, then we would all be victims. And surely we are not. Indeed we are the creators of our lives because we can choose how to attend to everything that happens.

As author and teacher Wayne Dyer said, “With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself, or treat what has happened as a gift. Either everything is an opportunity to help you grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.”

Self-pity can mask itself as entitlement.

It starts with a ‘should or should not, a must , a have to, or an ought.

She should not have written such a thing.

They should apologise first.

He has to make the first move… because I always do.

They ought to help out because… blah blah bah

All these shoulds and have tos etc, camouflage the underlying issue.

“Poor me. I don’t deserve this.”

Self-pity can also mask itself is righteous anger.

When we step into this way of being, when some of us would prefer to lose family, friends and relationships rather than be wrong, when some people would prefer to die than be wrong, we become blind to the truth.

In the words of Helen Keller, “Self pity is our worst enemy, and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.”

My failed honey cake was a gift. It took nothing away from the joy of the evening with family and friends. It was a tiny hiccup that melted and disappeared in the face of what was important. Love. Connection. Joy. Thankfulness.

One the tenth day we arrive at The Day of Atonement and as important as it is to atone for the hurts and injustices we may have perpetrated, it is, in my humble opinion, far more holy and rewarding to reach a State of At- One- Ment with All That Is. As we look into ourselves and recognise that the parts of ourselves that hurt others usually come from the parts of ourselves that remain unhealed, we are ready to  ask ourselves this question.

Whether you are from the Jewish faith, or another faith or no faith at all, ask yourself am I holding myself back from trying to understand the significance of what happened or stuck in blame in order to remain right, or am I willing to embrace this opportunity, step out on the limb of humility and grace and accept compassionate responsibility for my own actions, my own words and my own life?

Over twenty years ago, a man I saw for clinical supervision had forgotten our  appointment and was not present when I arrived.

Later that day he sent me a message saying, “Please forgive my memory.”

I thought that was such a strange way to apologise. Can we really disassociate ourselves from our memory? And because I never came to any clear understanding of that kind of apology, his sentence, “Please forgive my memory,” has lingered in my own memory bank ever since. I was angry he had forgotten our appointment and I judged him.

Now in my sixties, having undergone some of life’s big challenges the question of memory has risen again. And it comes out of feeling a sense of compassion for my own occasional  lapses in memory. They come not as a result of anything dire and serious, but rather as a result of one or more of the following.

Remembering and forgetting are impacted by our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual situation. They are ‘here and now’ experiences. Grief, sorrow, depression and loneliness all affect our ability to remember certain events, appointments and things people say. When our lives suddenly change and we find ourselves confused, or mixed up we can forget who said what and even the name of our best friend standing right next to us. When we have been unwell, recently undergone surgery, or getting over a fall, we are more likely to forget something someone may have said to us, even though they apparently remember it clearly.

Forgetting is human.  It’s what we do when we or someone we know forgets something that was  said or planned, that takes us to the next level of humanity.

Judging someone who does not remember something is more about the person doing the judging than the person doing the forgetting.

I’ll tell you why.

When we judge or criticize another it is usually in an area we dislike about ourselves.

When we judge someone we cannot appreciate them fully as well.

When we judge we block our ability to understand. Understanding blocks judgment.

When we judge we make ourselves dissatisfied and unhappy with the way things are.

When we judge another we lower our vibration, shut ourselves down from receiving joy and abundance and prosperity from the universe.

And so to that supervisor so many years ago, I get it.

Your memory is not who you are.

And of course, I forgive your memory.

How often do we thank each other for a kindness and thoughtful phone call, a birthday gift or a bowl of soup from a neighbor when we are under the weather?

I am sure most of us would say we say the word thank you every single day.

I began to think about who and what we thank a few days ago when I realised the time to I exchange the hip I was born with for a ceramic and steel ball and socket was getting closer. This hip, that has only a few more hours left before it is to be replace, has served me so well. And I feel it is only right to thank it for supporting me from the time I began to walk, to running the egg and spoon race, to helping me carry our  five babies. It has helped me move tons of shopping up the steps of our family home and climb thousands of steps over my life time.

It moved me to the beat of bands such as The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival  and took me on long beautiful walks  through wonderful countries and in our own gorgeous Australian bush

How do we thank our bodies that tirelessly help us get well after illness, for taking us to the top of a mountain, or to that finishing line. How do we thank our bodies for keeping us alive when we felt too ill to move. For healing the infection, and disease, the burns, the pain, the cancer?

So to my hip, who has been such a loyal and trusted part of my life for well over 60 years, I thank you.

Here’s to joining the marvellous medical club of new knees, new hips, new hearts and lungs and infinite new possibilities.

I hear it often. “Can’t wait till we can return to normal.” And I think to myself, “Really?”

Now let me be clear. I am not a heartless creature who wishes suffering or pain on anyone. I am well aware that Covid 19 has entered our lives and taken many away. It entered our bodies and left millions sick and it interrupted life as we have known it and left millions without work, and shelter and enough to eat. Because of this virus, towns and cities have been shut down, and we have been asked to take responsibility to stop the spread, by staying home. We all know that. So before we rush, (yes I am intentionally using that word) back into the world that cut down trees, and filled our oceans with plastic, and dumped toxic rubbish near towns and villages, and stopped the distribution of food for political reasons, perhaps it would better serve us to look again at our world that has, for the last few months, stopped.

We have been given an opportunity to have a tiny glimpse at a world that could be different.

We have been given a glimpse of a world that is cleaner, clearer and moves a little more slowly. What a pleasure it has been to have longer conversations without those blasted interruptions of an  iPhones ringing in the middle of a sentence. We have been given a peek at how working from our home gives our children a chance to eat more meals with their parents, watch a movie together and more importantly go out for walks together.

Communities have not only sprung up focusing on how they can help others and make a difference but many people have welcomed their communities love and care and now feel seen and heard and remembered in ways that didn’t always happen.

We have begun to see ourselves in a different way.

Some of us have been so frightened we are willing to fight for a packet of toilet paper or buy 7 cans of Glen 20 just to be ‘safe.’ Some of us have done everything possible to avoid being alone. Zooming three times a day and watching Netflix for the remaining hours.

Some of us have avoided the one thing that would give us peace of mind. Without this there is no space to ask and hear what all this means and where to go to next. Silence. Some of us talk about being bored with doing nothing and yet doing nothing is the gateway to wisdom. Doing nothing, sitting in silence, opens our consciousness to ideas, imagination, and guidance. As long as we fill our hours with chatter and stuff to do, we cannot create or contemplate, we cannot meditate and concentrate on growing, on evolving, on learning and taking a risk or two. Without taking risks we cannot grow.

The one and only thing that can open ourselves to our inner wisdom, is silence. Sitting still. Not looking down at our phones or filling in all the hours, but giving ourselves the gift of silence between the actions.

Some people have discovered that not only can they still run a business at home but they can teach their children and cook and clean, and smile, yes, still smile! and manage brilliantly. Of course they are tired. It’s been huge, but did you know you could do it? And you did it so well.

We are so much more than we give ourselves credit for.

So, what is the normal we so desperately want to return to? This experience of the world stopping is not an accident. It is an opportunity to look at our lives, at how we have chosen to live and to ask ourselves do we want to go back to that; to rushing to meetings, speeding off to Pilates, squeezing in speedy phone calls in the car and scratching out those surreptitious texts at the next red light. It’s okay to be busy but not if it steers you further and further away from your heart.

For those who were constantly helping their children and grandchildren, coming home and sharing only with a  good friend or two how exhausted and tired they are, how every bone in their body aches, we have now seen that our children have managed well without us. No one is indispensable. Is that the normal you can’t wait to return to? No, I’m not saying we stop being available, I’m saying being available only when it works.

Yes our world stopped. And maybe it stopped to show us all how important it is for everyone to occasionally stop too.

And to consider the most pressing question of our time.

What next?