A time for anger and fear????

I was walking in Paris on a lovely Sunday morning. This was several years ago. It was my last day in Europe and would be heading home later in the day. So, up early, coffee and croissant consumed, I wandered off aimlessly. I found myself approaching a large number of police standing around and sitting on buses. There was nothing urgent about their presence. As I wandered along a long street, I suddenly noticed groups protesting at both ends. One was pro-Paleistenian and the other pro-Israel.  They suddenly charged at each other and I found myself taking refuge in a doorway while they ran at each other. It was all over in about 2 minutes as the police suddenly stood between the groups. No violence but lots of yelling and placard waving.

I thought about that moment as I recently attended the women's march here in Calgary a couple of weeks ago. Chanting, singling, speeches and walking -- including walking past a few people with signs support Donald Trump's presidency. No violence, no yelling at the Trump supporters.

This has caused me to reflect upon the culture of dissent, violence, fear mongering and stigmatization that has become part of the daily discourse. Politics has become so much about fearing the "other" who is different in some way. More and more we are being told to fear people. In my travels, while I do pay attention to risks that exist (including here in Calgary).  The politics of hate, whether from the alt-right or the alt-left are designed to create division rather than seek for what brings us together. They are also requiring conformity to a specific ideology.

Clearly, I would be more left leaning in my views but I have met people from more right leaning who are needed contributors to our society. Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

Meditation is a moment to connect ourselves to the universality of human emotion and needs - respect, love, belonging, caring, surviving.  It is the place of humanity in connection rather than separation. Yes, there are some very harmful people (I have met many) but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. Yes, there are countries where a lot of atrocities occur but in them are people seeking the same human needs as the rest of us. Meditation is truly a way to connect to the place of the peaceful warrior.

Inside

Tears block my external vision
I can only sit within self
It's the only vision available
I see what I need
I reach past the scars and scabs
of past trauma

The marks of past hurts stare back
Anger has widened the injuries
Fear has deepened them
Without soothing they bleed
Oozing the source of despair

Then I am held
The love comes to me
The moment of mattering arises
Touch heals
Connection, oh how I need you
This moment where my existence
Is real and safe

I find the space inside
The one I know where truth exists
Here I can receive compassion
Reach out to another
Close the journey into pain
and out to love

There I am held, safe

© Peter Choate, 2017

Honouring the Journey

In a recent interview, author Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, spoke about the need to honour the journey of your life. I was fascinated by his description of not knowing the journey of each day as each day he wakes up a different person. It is the true recognition of impermanence and the reality of constant change. We just do not know what each day, even each moment will bring.

For many of us, growing up included coaching to have long term goals. We were told to figure out what we wanted to do in life and then strive to achieve it. But what happens when we achieve the goal? We ask what comes next; what new goal should be established. Is there satisfaction with achieving the goals? Most people,  I think, would say yes. But then ask, how long did that satisfaction last. How long before you yearned for the next goal?

So often, the establishment of goals is about external achievements - position, wealth, power, material gain. This is the problem with most goal setting. It is done to achieve some form of external status that will be admired by others.  Inherent in it, however, is the notion of competition. Achieving goals is often about being "better than" in some way.

Also in the goal setting, is the concept of there being an endpoint. The journey of life never stops until death. It requires that each day we are on the journey but do we honour that reality?  Are we even paying attention to the journey or are we focused only on the goal?

Our ego gets in the way. Ego says achieve the goal and grab the prize. Ego defines us by winning whatever goal based competition we are engaged in. Ego will not be satisfied which is partly why we keep setting up new goals. Ego does not like recognizing that each day we travel the journey of life being aware of what happens. Ego resists us feeling from moment to moment the reality of life.

If we are aware of the journey, we must also be aware of the daily pain that occurs. While there will be moments of joy, happiness, gratitude there will also be moments of sadness, disappointment, fear and loss. By knowing we are on a journey, we need not hold onto what we feel at any moment but observe our reality. If we are not paying attention to the moment, we are walking blind, not seeing the pathway and hoping we get the next step right.

This also suggests that we know where the pathway will take us. We do not as we cannot predict the future so why are we obsessed with believing we can control the pathway?

Fear

Each step I take

There you are

Fear

I awake with you

You tell me I will not achieve

Fear

I fight you

I will prove you wrong

Fear

You are my enemy

You must be defeated

Fear

You are always there

What am I to do with you

Fear

You never leave

I fear you

Fear

You are faithful to me

You could teach me

Fear

You are a teacher

But you are not my only teacher

Fear

I have let you speak

I can hear you

Fear

You are part of the orchestra

But you are not my only instrument

Fear

I can love you

I can accept you

Fear

I want to accept you

But still I fear you

© Peter Choate, 2016

Alone on the edge

The Catholic monk, Thomas Merton gave powerful lessons on being with oneself. In his book, No Man is an Island Merton stated:

“The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God. Such a one is alone with God in all places, and he alone truly enjoys the companionship of other men, because he loves them in God in Whom their presence is not tiresome, and because of Whom his own love for them can never know satiety.”

The important lesson from this instruction is the need for us to find a comfortable relationship with the self. If we cannot come to know who we are really, then we cannot love ourselves as we lack a knowledge of self. Then we end up with some fantasy of who we are and fall in love or not, with the fantasy. The fantasy can be positive (I'm ok; I'm pretty good; I'm great), negative (I'll never be any good; I'm a loser; I always fail) or disordered (I'm the best and everyone else is below me). A true relationship with the real self sees the balance of positive, negative facets while accepting that is the nature of the true self. We just are.

Which means that we can find some wonderful places within as well as some quite scary places. In my own meditation today, I felt the scary places and could feel them in waves. There is the temptation to run, deny or tremor within. Instead, observing and discovering that scary is only one place and that it is not permanent allows fear to be tolerated. Strength is within the fear.

Like the butterfly in this picture, we can flit around and not settle or we can land and be where we are.

 I had been here before

It was a meadow

On either side the mountains

In front the forest and behind the lake

I was alone

Or so I thought but fear was with me

It stared out onto the landscape 

And saw only the fears

It was irrational I knew

I was not alone

I was with my fear, my inadequacies, self doubt and disbelief

Each was exerting a force towards an edge

I dared not approach

Yet there I was

I was alone

As fear was an external force which I could not control

It came in waves which I could hear moment by moment

Believing they were about to envelope me

And push me further to the edge

I was alone

In the most terrifying moment

Naked, raw and vulnerable

Defenceless

I was not alone

Around me, surrounding me was the universe

To which I was connected

And could not be otherwise

I was not alone

But I also had to be alone

Knowing I was safe in the only relationship I could control

I was alone but I was with myself

© Peter Choate, 2016