Spring Healing Touch Newsletter

No, my blog hasn't gone all-newsletter, all-the-time. I promise to post something other than Healing Touch news. Stay tuned....

In the meantime, all you newsletter junkies, check this out:

https://docs.google.com/View?id=dcd9qd87_54cbb2dtdb

January Healing Touch Newsletter

New Year, New Moon!

Start 2011 with some good energy...check out my latest newsletter here:

https://docs.google.com/View?id=dcd9qd87_52frdz7sgc

Thanksgiving Healing Touch Newsletter

Here is the link to my Thanksgiving Healing Touch newsletter. Thanks for looking....

https://docs.google.com/View?id=dcd9qd87_39hfcw83cq

I'll Meet You There...

I am the most powerful person in the universe.

Do you believe it? Or are you already rolling your eyes?

How about this? YOU are the most powerful person in the universe. How does that feel?

No, I'm not about to lead you in a round of affirmations designed to boost your self-esteem (although affirmations definitely rock and I reserve the right to use and share them at any time). I'm just in the kind of mood where it's fun to see how far my mind can bend, and if I can mess with your mind too, all the better.

So first I'll say that both statements are true. And then I'll add this: there is no such thing as true or false, or right and wrong. There's only what you or I, in our own private universes, allow there to be.

Don't bother protesting. It'll only slow things down. Just go with me here. If it makes you feel any better, know that I'm as uncomfortable with this as you are. And I won't laugh at your squirming if you won't laugh at mine.

Here's where my squirm begins: I've recently resolved that everything anyone says or thinks about me is "true" and everything I say or think about anyone else is "false." So when my son says "mom, you don't listen!," I have to believe him. When my boyfriend says "you expect me to feel like you feel" or "you always have a script that I have to follow," I get really pissy and angry and usually self-righteous, and then go Jeez! He's right. Because why would these people be in my universe if not to show me who I am? Defining who I am is the closest I can come to defining right and wrong, good or bad, true or false. And even when I arrive at some hard-won truth, it's only ever my truth. If you haven't noticed, we all have our own variations on what is right and wrong, good and bad, etc. and that kind of sucks, because I'm much more comfortable when everyone falls in line with MY way of thinking. Aren't you?

But this isn't about comfort. In my experience, seeking truth is rarely comfortable. Especially when I make my vastly superior judgments about others and then remember my stupid resolve. Now, goddammit, when I point the finger and say he needs to be more self-aware, or he needs to get in touch with his anger, I have to realize that my observations are only true about me. I need to be more self-aware. I need to get in touch with my anger.

You might wonder, why bother with such an annoying experiment? I'm not sure myself. I only know that I was upset the other afternoon, fuming that so and so shouldn't have done this or that, running through all the things that made this SOB such an SOB. But it wasn't making me feel any better. I reached for my journal and jotted a few things, inlcuding this quote from Rumi:

Out beyond right and wrong, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

I've always liked this, but only in a vague way. It's been like one of those drawings that are one thing when you look at the black space, but something else when you look at the white. I can see the old woman, but the guy next to me sees a young woman. Usually, if you stare long enough, whoa! you see it.

I needed help to see it, and it came the next morning, in a service I attended. The speaker threw out the same quote from Rumi (another whoa! moment for me). The point of meeting out there, he said, is that it is the place of forgiveness. Aw crap, I thought. Not the F word again. Have you ever been lost and end up circling the same spot, noticing the same landmark again and again? Well, forgiveness has been a big ol' rock in my path. It tends to block my view of the field, which is a place beyond duality, beyond the black and white, where we give up being right or wrong. Rumi's poem continues:

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase 'each other'
doesn't make any sense.

A lot of it doesn't make sense to me. At least it strikes a chord. I'd like to make it part of my universe, but at this point, I'm still doubting my powers. I like what India Arie says in this song:

Been trying to get down to the heart of the matter. But my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter. But I think it's about forgiveness. Even if you don't love me anymore.

That last line hurts, I'll admit. It feels like a huge white flag. While I'm still on my feet, me here, in the right, you there, in the wrong, there's still some fight in me. Still a chance to win....what? Love? Approval? Yes! The point of being right is to feel worthy, lovable, deserving. Conversely, being wrong means I'm bad, unworthy, unlovable.

But...maybe it doesn't work that way. Maybe my right can be your wrong, and my truth can leave you cold and what you love, I hate, and oh, let's call the whole thing off! There's a nice little spot just over here, soft and green....

The Art of Sitting

I finally did it. I forgot one of my kids. I've managed to keep track of pick-ups, drop-offs, carpools and playdates for multiple munchkins going on a decade now. But the other afternoon, talking on my cell to my brother while my oldest son played soccer, I realized I was ten minutes late to pick up my younger son 4 blocks away. I dragged my daughter to the car and we sped over. It wasn't just being late that was unsettling. It was the completeness of my space-out. I'd dropped him at kung fu an hour earlier, and never made the connection I'd have to be back. Adding to my anxiety was the certainty that this kung fu studio has no real system to keep the kids from wandering out the open door after class. And Boone, poor forgotten one, happens to be a wanderer.

And wander he did. Luckily our house is only two blocks away, but...well, let's just say moms have different worries about different kids. One you might not hesitate to drop blindfolded at Union Station with nothing but a debit card, and the other might awe you with fantastical details of an underground world populated with worm people, but not remember his address even after you incorporate it into a rap.

The good news is that Boone did go home, find no one there, and was in the process of heading back. The bad news is that he burst into tears when he saw me, scared because I hadn't been there. Have one of those moments, moms, and experience the fear I bet we all share: I am not enough. (Fill in the blank ...not smart enough, loving enough, organized enough...)

We want to do it all. And most of us come pretty darn close, but there's a price. Last week two of my mom friends were diagnosed with adrenal fatigue. Having had this myself, I know it's no picnic. (Or maybe the kind of picnic I'd throw together on the fly in an effort to impress someone, where I spend $200 at Whole Foods on imported olives and chocolate truffles and then run to Linens N Things for some marked-down cloth napkins, and doesn't World Market still have some of those cool beach mats? And a little light jazz on the Ipod would be the perfect touch if only I could remember the name of that band, and shit! the forecast calls for rain, there must be someone I can talk to about that.... yeah, maybe that kind of picnic.)

And while I'm speaking for moms here and can attest to the slogging-thru-mud feeling, the cotton-wrapped head, eyelids of lead, the jolting awake at 4 am drenched in sweat, I'm not pretending stress doesn't affect men. In that phone call with my brother I heard the same refrain from him I've heard for years: "I fucking hate my job. I don't want to be around people. I want to go live in the mountains and be left alone."

But we're not a society set up for restfulness or introspection. We bluster around making sure everyone knows how busy we are, yet we don't have the guts to be true to ourselves, to say no when we want to, to risk being judged when we miss the Open House, or ignore requests to volunteer. When we're not appreciated for these sacrifices by people who are too busy resenting their own sell-outs, something inside starts to boil. In this way, our guts (or glands) have us.

Sometimes, when I'm riding high on the illusion of super-momhood, emblem pinned proudly on chest, cape flapping loud and proud, some tiny piece of kryptonite trips me up. The other day it was my favorite Target store, which now carries groceries (awesome) but had to be rearranged as a result. Doesn't anyone know that a complete overhaul of Target is hazardous to an overstressed mom? I felt like someone had added a double shot of espresso to my carefully rationed afternoon decaf. Then dropped in a hit of speed. My heart nearly exploded trying to find a lightbulb. Menswear where toys were? Towels moved upstairs? The only department I could see that hadn't moved was intimate apparel, and what mom shops there? I happen to be wearing a cast-off bra from my mother that's 2 sizes too big.

Without these mini breakdowns, though, could I remind myself to slow down? Or would I be like my friend Jessica, who sat next to me at the school playground while she shared her diagnosis? Though she'd known something was wrong, she was surprised to be labeled with a 'syndrome.' Why not call it the busy mom disease? she wondered. But I'll take the label if it validates the craziness. And I'll continue to be ticked off that we have to --any of us, not just moms -- seek validation. Jessica's taken action, cutting her work hours to part time so she can be sitting at the playground. She tells me she's learned more from sitting on her butt on this bench once a week than she has in years. She's talking about mom things, but I think she's named the prescription for the syndrome.

Sitting. It should be elevated to an art.

Because when I practice being still, that's the only place where I am enough. In that quiet space, when the schedules and the commitments fall away, when I slow down, do nothing, and allow that thing that breathes my body to have its way, only then is there no forgetting. Just remembering.

Franz Kafka puts it nicely:

You don't need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Don't even listen, simply wait. Don't even wait. Be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked; it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Summer Healing Touch Newsletter

Hi! I haven't been able to post lately since I've been so busy with my study of Healing Touch Energy Medicine. I invite you to view my newsletter at the following link:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcd9qd87_299n5rvkcn

Thanks!

Tammy

Decision Deconstructed

I've been wrestling with a tough one lately. Having aced the test to become a Census worker, (turns out I am employable!) I'm given the role of crew leader. At nearly $20 an hour, the job seems an answer to prayer, and at first I'm high on what seems a perfect opportunity. My confidence is given a boost, I get a chance to polish off my social skills, even my long neglected wardrobe feels the love.

But the demands of the job begin to scare me before the first week is over. We'll be expected to work a minimum of 40 hours for up to 3 months, and must meet DAILY with our supervisor. Leaving the city during our employment is frowned on. In fact, if we have prior travel plans, we have to disclose them immediately, and thereby risk learning first hand where disgruntled government workers go.

This leads to: Step 1 of The Decision, what I call The Seeds of Doubt.

First, let me take a detour to provide a framework. Imagine this life event as the size of a seed. Jobs, money, even the need for money, all small seeds, and us people the grand gardeners. We scatter certain ideas, hopes, requests, labor over others, but ultimately what we turn our attention toward is what grows. And most importantly, our garden is ours alone. No one else's seeds exist. In other words, we are each creating our own reality. Opportunities come because we ask for them, believe in them, or just plain need them. Within this framework, who am I to walk away from a Census job? At some level, I made it happen. Do I now thumb my nose at the universe because I can't fill out my D308 correctly the first seven times?

Enter Step 2: The Head Battles The Heart.

The heart says Working with forms and numbers and nonsensical protocol makes you anxious. Trying to find a reliable sitter makes you crazy. Missing homework and dinner with your kids makes you sad. Wondering what happened to your plan to start your second novel makes you miserable.

The head says Stop whining you big baby, this is some serious dough! In two months you can pay off your credit card. You think every other working mother doesn't have these same feelings? Take off the tiara, for Chrissake! Or, (on better days) You should be proud of yourself, being chosen to train and lead 20 other people. What a great experience!

Round One goes to the head. Yes! I say. I'm sticking with it. I'm committed. But then I wake up on the fourth day of training to find my car towed. I hop a cab and make it to class on time, but I'm discombobulated. I worry all morning about how I'll pick my kids up and get downtown to the auto pound. I obsess over whether this incident is a message of some kind. (I parked the same place I park every week!)

Later that night, after walking about a mile with kids in tow (no pun intended), I'm given the ransom amount from the pound: $275. The tow fee plus a charge for a city sticker. And that doesn't include the $60 ticket left on my windshield. Apparantly the street had been rezoned to 'no rush hour parking' two days earlier, and though the city was kind enough to put one small sign at the end of long city block, I'd missed it. Poof! There goes more than half of the money I've just earned. The next day at training I learn that, in my frazzled state the day before, I left out a piece of paper with my employee number on it, a big no-no in the Census Bureau, where confidentiality is Rule One. I will not be given a class of enumerators to train. Instead, I will be trained to fingerprint other employees and then assigned as assistant to another crew leader.

My doubts have taken root and are the size of saplings. There is only one thing I know: I am not seeing the signs.

Step 3: Asking For Guidance.

Thankfully, there is a short hiatus while other workers are trained, so I decide to tend to my doubts lovingly, even talking to them like good gardeners do, to see if they'll respond. I boil it down: Should I quit? It takes a nearly impossible force of will to stop here, with this simple question. I don't want to re-enter the battlefield. I want to watch what unfolds when I respect the vast, unknowable force behind everything. I wait.

Meantime, I receive a phone call that there is an opening with a visiting Healing Touch practitioner I've wanted to see, who was initially booked. It's an opportunity to be worked on and learn from one of the best, an opportunity I would not have been able to take had I been given a group to train. The session I have with him lasts 4.5 hours and leaves me exhausted, enlightened, amazed...I could go on, but one insight is significant: I'm asked to recognize the way I shoulder others' feelings because I think it will make them love me. Ok....sure. I'll do that later. For now, I've still got this Decision thing going on.

And I think I'm getting somewhere with it. Dropping my daughter at the local park, I see a group of Census enumerators meeting on the front steps. I feel an instant weight in my stomach at the thought of being one of them. Hmm? Is this a sign? An ordinary gut-pull?

I walk to my friend's house, wanting to tell her how I am waiting on "Guidance." On the way, my eye is drawn to the bright red of a cardinal swooping through the trees. Since my friend has borrowed my "Animal Speaks" book, I ask for it and immediately look up cardinal. It says that the appearance of the cardinal reminds us that we always have the opportunity to recognize the importance of our life roles. The cardinal has a loud and clear whistle, and the female joins in on the whistling, which is unusual among birds. This reflects the need to listen to the inner, feminine voice more closely. The cardinal also signals the need to assert creativity and intuition more strongly.

Less than an hour later, I've told my friend, my mother, my boyfriend that I'm quitting. Do I mean it? Or am I trying it on for size? Three is the number of manifestation. Say anything three times and you put enough energy into it to put it into motion. Could it be? At last....

Step 4: The Decision. It's made. It feels good. Mostly. Except for that pesky fearful knot that always wants to know what's next. If not this, it asks, then what?

I flip on my CD player and hear, from the new MercyMe CD, this line: Won't you be my hands healing?

I email my supervisor that I am not the person for the job.

Step 5: Sitting with Discomfort.

This is where the end should be. But as I go the rest of the evening and the next morning without hearing from my supervisor, I am increasingly uncomfortable. I'm embarassed to admit it, but my thoughts go something like this: I really let her down. What if she's mad at me? What if she doesn't like me? My God! Like a bolt, there it is. If I have these feelings about a woman I barely know, just think how much I must take on from people who are significant to me!

Which leads me to wonder: when and how did it become so hard to speak up when something is not right for me, without guilt or fear? And why did I ever allow someone to make me feel that being a mother or writer or energy healer isn't enough?

As it turns out, the job, albeit short-lived, was incredibly valuable. I only hope that each time A Decision comes along, I can move a little more quickly to steps 3 & 4. Ask for Guidance. Make the decision. I'd like to be a little like Tom Papa, the host of 'The Marriage Ref' (a show my 10-year old loves to watch with me!). He listens to both sides but you get the sense he already knows what he's going to do. "I'm ready to make the call," he says. He does it, the audience laughs. And on goes the show.