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Category: Transforming Pain

Order Matters

Published on June 13, 2024

I can get into a flow state for writing much quicker when I follow my normal routine of inspirational primers (uploading quotes from various sources to MMQ) → nap → coffee → write.

It’s much harder to get into a flow state for writing when I do something more like I did today which was inspirational primers → nap → coffee → look up flights → search for cool EDM concerts → playfully imagine fun vay-and-day-cation itineraries → write.

Those added variables of flight, concert, and trip planning would have been MUCH better inserted at the end of the writing session. Because it doesn’t take any priming, focus, or discipline to playfully do trip planning. It’s fun and automatic.

Writing, however, requires each of the above in sacred measure, proper order, and more.

Otherwise, at least for me, my Muse feels betrayed… overlooked… ignored… and will require copious amounts priming, attention, and discipline (aka blank page staring), due in full, to make up for it.

Order matters.

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

Maybe Fighting Isn’t The Answer

Published on June 5, 2024

A mother of one of my martial arts students was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

…Yet, seeing her in person, you’d never know.

She’s vibrant, she’s warm, she’s smiling, she’s taking care of her 7-year-old son’s needs without so much as a single complaint (that I ever hear)… and she’s even DJing on some weekends.

At first glance, some might see this as being possible denial. A possible refusal to acknowledge the diagnosis so the pain or reality isn’t felt. A possible toxic positivity, some might say, to focus exclusively on the good while ignoring fully the bad.

…But, this isn’t the case with this mother at all.

After further inspection and conversation, the vibrance and warmth she’s emitting isn’t coming from denial… but from a refusal to fight.

Which might sound confusing… refusing to fight a cancer diagnosis?!

The idea, she explained on her GoFundMe page, came from the admin of Love Your Cancer Free Life group. He said: “When you fight, it fights back. Rather than fight, accept.”

“Obviously he doesn’t mean to just roll over and play dead.” Lisa explains.

“…It’s more about not feeding into the story that everyone is told about how cancer should look and feel. What he means is come to peace with its presence and accept the need to respond for change.”

She then continued to quote the admin saying, “Fighting is a reaction. Acceptance is a response. Taking authentic action, not reaction, to create the change needed for healing. Stop putting energy into the fight and start placing energy in your POWER for healing.”

…Something we might consider doing in the “fights” of our lives, too.

Absolutely Devastating

Published on May 28, 2024

Today a student of mine came to the school with watery eyes and a quivering lip.

He stood in my office for a few moments gathering himself before he told me that a 6 year old girl died after being hit by a car as she was crossing the street. He said that she crossed from behind a parked car and couldn’t have been seen until it was too late… And that he saw the aftermath of it all as it was just down the street from his home.

I simply can’t fathom what must be going on in the minds of the family, friends, and driver.

…Is this our fault? Should we have taught her to cross the street more safely?!

…If only I had been driving slower and more cautiously.

…Why did this have to happen?!?!?

It’s absolutely devastating all around.

And the reason for passing this devastation forward is to offer you the opportunity that the people mentioned above would do anything to have… the opportunity to have that careful conversation with your kids/loved ones… to drive more slowly and cautiously (and to never forget the potential cost of rushing)… to hug your little ones/ big ones a little extra tight while they’re still here…

Life is so damn fragile, y’all.

On Feeling Empty Inside

Published on May 25, 2024

I finished uploading quotes from The Prophet today (you can read my 18 favorites here).

My overall favorite is one that echoes an idea I got tattooed on my arm—which is of a majestic exposed roots tree that reminds me that the branches of happiness can only go as high as the roots of sadness go deep. The line from The Prophet goes:

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (Page 27)

…Which, I found to be another powerful, analogous way to look at and move through sorrow. Because it really does feel like a carving away at your being… which I think is where the descriptions of feeling “empty” or “hollow” or “dead” inside might come from.

But, with that emptiness… with that space… comes a future opportunity.

And it may not happen that day nor may it happen a week or a month after. But, eventually, that space that was carved from sorrow can become precisely the vessel needed to contain more of the opposite… more joy… more wonder… more love… and quite possibly even more than you had room to carry (or could fully appreciate) before.

Human Reboots

Published on May 23, 2024

It’s human to want to shut down after a painful experience.

It’s almost as though the magnitude of open processes that hard times bring forth can cause an overwhelm that throttles our internal ability to get anything/everything else done—like how a computer creeps to a halt when we have too many applications, tabs, and background processes open.

…What you can usually do automatically you can’t even get started on; what usually takes ten minutes suddenly takes an hour; what usually feels fun and easygoing feels frustratingly heavy and obligatory.

What’s important during times like this is to recognize the situation for what it is—a time when your system needs to reboot.

…Because trudging onward when your mind is spinning that rainbow-thinking-wheel-of-death isn’t to choose onward at all—it’s completely counterproductive.

What’s needed is a reset. What’s needed is time and space to power down. What’s needed is a clearing of everything that’s already open in the mind—not a stubborn press forward that only continues to open (and throttle) more and more.

One Week Later

Published on May 22, 2024

Welp, at the one week mark, I’m slowly starting to adjust to and accept my new normal.

I’m slowly starting to expect her less when I open the door. I’m slowly starting to leave gates open and no longer blocking rooms off that I want to keep her out of. I’m slowly remembering I don’t need to open the back door when I get out of the shower each morning and that I don’t need to stop by the cupboard before I leave to work and that I don’t need to rush home after work to let her out.

Sometimes it happens automatically—as a programmed response from years of repetition.

And I know that before long, new programmed responses will take their place and these old habits will fade alongside her memory. And I’m learning to be okay with that.

What I’m choosing to deliberately keep, however, are the evening walks. This is the one habit that she helped me adopt that I feel would properly honor her memory if I kept. And each night, after I get home from work, I follow the same route we used to follow and try to carry her legacy with me. One that doesn’t rush. One that stops and smells the roses (or the pee in her case). One that is always grateful to be out… walking… experiencing… being.

P.s. I tagged all of the 1-minute pieces I’ve written that were inspired by Stella over the years. You can read the collection here.

Heaviness Serves A Purpose

Published on May 21, 2024

With heaviness comes slowness, naturally.

And one lesson I’m trying to absorb is that of acceptance—the one that doesn’t fight reality or curse the resistance, but relaxes into the moment for what it is and tries to instead move forward with whatever it presents.

And if heaviness is what I’ve been given, then maybe slowness is how I’m supposed to respond… so that I might stop fighting and cursing and rushing around from place to place and can start intentionally noticing, settling, and feeling instead.