Day 21: Temples in my Mind

This is an excerpt from the poem I wrote about the structures in my mind that I must let go of in order to transform. In the poem, I use the metaphor of destroying temples where I worship the false gods of perfection, control, and hierarchy.

The Temple of Perfection

A life of “perfect” paths, no freedom for mistakes.

No missteps ever taken means the path’s not mine to make.

This temple rose before me, rose within me, rose again.

Obsessed with the future, how can now begin?

Letting go of expectations, cast adrift I’m somehow free.

Must accept my imperfections, my humanity.

Stopped fighting against nature, against the divine.

I kept losing battles that were only in my mind.

So goodbye to perfection, to a life I cannot lead.

Goodbye to the idea that I cannot be me.

This poison is infectious, and I’m not immune,

This Temple may return, the Temple of Doom.

Transition for me is just a state of mind.

A constant evolution, like a flowing rhyme.

Don’t know where I’d be without the ebb and flow.

High on life, but then I’m feeling low.

My temples rose before me, contained me, detained me.

My temples rise within me, define me, confine me.

So I mourn their destruction while I celebrate.

Though letting go is painful it can liberate.

So now I’m here declaring that I’m letting go.

Not clinging to the thought of being in control.

The Temple of Control

Control is an illusion, a delusion, mass confusion.

Mystery is the truth, and what a great one, the solution.

God is just the word so we remember this fact.

The universe is bigger than our minds can grasp.

I can’t control the path before me, bring back Temples now destroyed.

A relief and yet I’m mourning, when it should be enjoyed.

I’m mourning their destruction like a life I never lived.

Perfection, control, are these truly to be missed?

Losing pride I found my spirit, losing sight, my third eye glows.

Temples destroyed by higher powers, this life is stranger than I know.

Conflicting contradictions, letting go of ancient rancor.

Becoming more human, I lost my wheel and found my anchor.

Will we ever have our Temples, can we have them and be free?

The sacred’s in the spaces, in the changes, in me.

Day 20: Enough

I don't feel like writing a blog post today. And yet, I committed to myself that I would post something each of the 90 days that I am rewiring my brain (see Day 1). This left me wondering - how do I determine when to forge ahead even though something is hard and I want to take a break. Sometimes, this feeling of not wanting to keep my commitment should be honored, such as when I truly need to rest or move more slowly for a while. Other times, my reluctance is a symptom of resisting change, or avoiding confronting myself in some way.  So here I am, writing this blog post that I don't want to write. In the 20 days of this project so far, this is the third time that I have really not felt like writing a blog post. The other two days, I took it a bit easy by posting photos of quotes on my walls (see Day 8), and writing two stanzas of poetry (see Day 12). Today, I am writing about the fact that I don't want to write. In this way, I think I am finding a compromise. I acknowledged my feeling of resistance by writing shorter blog posts, while also honoring my commitment to myself by still writing something. As I continue this process of becoming more fully connected to my deeper self, I hope that it will become easier to determine when to push through my resistance, and when to pull back and rest for a while.

Day 19: Inconvenient Truths

I have always bucked the rules, but have tended to do so in subtle ways, appearing to fit in while simultaneously ignoring the official rules of my surroundings (whether that be school policies, federal laws, or cultural norms). I found this to be the easiest way to get what I wanted; something I thought of as a reasonable shortcut. I followed my own sense of right and wrong, but ignored the outside world’s version of morality by simply going around those rules that did not particularly suit me. This was a largely successful strategy for many years. Being so dissociated from my emotions, it wasn’t hard to do.

Now that I am endeavoring to be wholly true to myself, to be present in every moment, the "harmless" lies feel significant. They feel like a betrayal of my true self, a denial of what is. As I strive to be a truth teller, my relationships have become significantly more intimate. And yet the walls with some people have remained as high as ever. I don’t know if there is anything I can do to change this, or perhaps it is simply a matter of time. Either way, I am feeling lighter, happier, and more joyful, even when the truth is ugly or embarrassing or painful. As I change, those around me change. We are all interconnected, and transformation is a communal process in many ways. 

Day 18: Strangers with Emotions

My grandmother's funeral was yesterday. Following the Jewish tradition, my family is now spending seven days sitting shiva, a period of mourning where friends, relatives, neighbors, and members of my grandmother's synagogue come visit us and sit with us during the day and pray the mourner's kaddish with us each evening. These visitors are largely strangers to us because my grandmother lived across the country from the rest of my immediate family. Although I am slowly becoming more comfortable experiencing my emotions in general, this does not extend to sharing them openly with strangers at the moment. And while these strangers are very nice and well-meaning, they are also mostly uncomfortable witnessing our grief. This presents a real challenge. How can I be present and not suppress my emotions, while also spending hours each day around people with whom I do not feel comfortable experiencing intense and painful emotions? In general, I tend to retreat into myself when I am dealing with difficult situations, reaching out to close friends and shutting others out until I have dealt with my emotions on my own. Is this a symptom of my disconnection from my heart, or is this simply the way that I function best? Living in a society that is so head-centered, it is hard to tell whether this is my true self expressing itself, or simply the technique I was forced to develop as a young child to function successfully in my culture. Starting in elementary school, students are discouraged from expressing any "negative" emotions in class, discouraged from being present in their own experiences. As I continue to interrogate the assumptions and automatic reactions that I have carried with me through my 29 years of life thus far, I am curious to see whether this tendency to process emotions privately will shift over time. And if it does, how will strangers react? Is there a way to express painful emotions publicly without alienating well-meaning people around me who are not equipped to witness intense emotions without needing to fix or judge them?

Day 17: Continuing

Coping with my grief over my grandmother's death has come at an interesting time in this blog. The brain rewiring process I am currently engaging in was feeling very helpful and effective in my day-to-day life (see Day 6: Early Results) but I didn't know how I would feel about it at such a challenging time. I didn't know if I would be able to keep up any of my self-care practice, any of my mindfulness practice, or this blog during this time. And yet, I find myself especially committed to this process right now.  Checking in with myself, taking time to get quiet and meditate, and creating new positive thoughts seems to be great medicine at the moment. As it turns out, the emotional strain of this experience is actually accentuating the work I have been doing to rewire my brain. Although I am still struggling in some ways to connect with my family as we each experience our grief in our own ways, I am able to stay present rather than running away from the intensity of my sadness as much as I normally would. It is certainly not a 180 degree change, but there is a noticeable shift in my willingness to acknowledge and express my emotions during this time. The hardest part is finding any time or place to be quiet and alone, but I am managing to find small moments here and there. I am curious to see how this process will continue to affect me as the grief settles in a little more and feels less surreal; as her death feels more final, and the full weight of this loss becomes comprehensible to me. At the moment I am still in a bit of shock, not because it was a suprise (she was 92 after all) but because I simply wish it were not true.

Day 16: RIP Lilo Schaefer 1920-2012

RIP Lilo Schaefer, September 10 1920 - December 9 2012

This photo is of my grandma at 7 years old, 1927 in Germany. She passed away late last night, peacefully in her sleep, after 92 years of whole-hearted living.  From eight years-old to fourteen, I used to spend my summers with my grandmother. I feel so lucky to have had those summers with her, just the two of us. I played cards, scrabble, and rummy for hours on end with her and her friends. Even at eight years-old, Grandma Lilo and her friends made me feel like I was welcome, interesting, worth talking to. She always made me feel loved, and supported me in everything I did. My grandmother was 85 years-old when I transitioned, and while she went through a slow transformation of her own during my process, she was always accepting and open to hearing what I was going through, and willing to actively work on calling me by my new name and male pronouns. She just wanted to know if I was happy, and when I said that I was, she said that was all she needed to know.
Grandma Lilo will continue to inspire me for the rest of my life. Her ability to continue changing as a person, throughout her entire life, is something I aspire to in my own life. She was open-minded, intellectually curious, able to connect with everyone around her, and loving. She survived the holocaust and still loved with her whole heart after seeing such horrific atrocities. Her death is another important reminder to make the most of every moment, that life is fleeting, and that connecting with loved ones is the most important thing in life. I am so grateful to have had her in my life for so long, and to still have my parents, aunt and uncle, and brother.

Day 15: Disconnection

Here I am in the same room with people I've known my whole life, having the same chit chat conversations we've had a million times before - about restaurants, movies, technology, only adding the logistical details of my grandmother's illness to this familiar interaction.  It feels so empty, so wrong. Why can't we discuss how we're feeling, or cry together? Why can't we comfort each other, speak about what we're really thinking or feeling? How can I be the one to break down these walls when the status quo has been in place for so long, the distance between us never diminishing even when I am sitting right next to my family members, at the bedside of my dying grandmother. 

How do I bring my new practice of mindfulness into this moment? How do I remain strong in who I am becoming with all these reflections of who I have been looking back at me, expecting me to stay the same? No tears have been shed, no hands squeezed, no comfort given. Everyone is doing what they are "supposed" to do - making all the logistical arrangements for hospice care, turning my grandmother over every few hours so she doesn't get bedsores, contacting our relatives to update them on her illness.  Why does it all feel so hollow? Where is the deep connection to her, and to each other, as we witness this momentous journey upon which we must all embark someday. I hope to find the strength, the wisdom, and the courage, to help shift the energy here, to help bring this process into alignment with the loving forces that have brought us all here together, to honor someone we all love deeply and who has shaped us all in such meaningful and significant ways. Wish me luck!