Letting Silence Speak

May 2, 2014 | Women's Voice & Power

I can feel the silence within me. It is deep, strong, dark, passionate, swirling, boiling, pulsing. A witch’s caldron. A brewing storm. A lump in my throat. And as much as it longs (and fully intends) to make its way into audible sound, spoken word, written wisdom, and lived truth, it holds back. Me, too. 

Waiting and listening, I’m nurturing, protecting, and keeping safe a growing, gestating force within. 

It will not be ignored. Undivided attention is demanded and required. Deep breaths. 

It’s no wonder my tendency has been high to avoid it, to stay away from silence, to keep myself in places of din, distraction, and dissociation. 

It has every intention of being heard, expressed, made manifest. Me, too. 

These days, I’m letting it speak: this silence. I’m staying quiet. Hibernating. Listening to its roar. Trusting that its form will yet be made known; that I will have the strength and capacity to push, to breathe, to birth. Labor and delivery ahead. Blood. Sweat. Tears. And the blessed sound of silence broken by a sacred scream. 

It’s me that’s being birthed. It’s my sacred scream. It will, at least for me, be ear-splitting, earth-rending, heart-breaking, soul-healing, and world-changing. 

Maybe for you, too. 

May it be so.

Transforming Your Story (Part 3)

Mar 17, 2014 | Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

Transforming Your Story – The “How”

Part 3 of a series. 12 posts scattered throughout 2014 on Transforming Your Story.

Part 1 – the “what:” To transform your story means that you are awake to and aware of the book in which you find yourself and the pages you are writing.

Part 2 – the “why:” This is your story. You’ll decide where it goes from here.

And now, Part 3 – the “how.”

In order to transform your story, you need to consider how you came to tell it the way you do.

Have you ever listened to yourself tell a story about something that happened to you and wonder why you chose to tell it the way you did? Why you used humor, sarcasm, dismissal, emotion, or any other myriad of devices?

Whatever choice you made in that moment is not objective. The ways in which you experience the events of your life and the way in which you interpret, translate, and tell of them is always subjective; always influenced by the lenses that are yours. And one of those lenses is the assumptions you make.

We all make them: assumptions. We jump to conclusions, have opinions, feel our gut response. We can’t help it, really. It’s knowing what they are and where they come from that makes the difference.

Here’s a quick exercise to prove my point:

  • When you see an online personality who appears to be completely put together and undoubtedly successful, what thoughts run
    through your mind?
  • When you spot a composed, attractive, and perfectly thin mom at Starbucks with her well-behaved, well-dressed children, what do you think?
  • When someone passes you on the freeway, what is your directed response toward the other driver?
  • When you hear someone mention the word “God,” what happens inside?
  • When you watch a political debate, what thoughts formulate concerning the “opponent?”
  • When following a truck with bumper stickers that offends you, what do you already know about the people inside?

I have no agenda inherent in any of these statements; rather, I list them to show how our brains so quickly leap to what we think we know, what we think we understand, what we’ve sometimes been indoctrinated to feel. Assumptions form quickly, naturally, and make their presence known. It can be a little scary, really.

These unconscious perceptions and preconceived notions have been developed and highly-honed over time – through our own and others’ voiced experiences; through the particular circumstances and cultural realities that have influenced and shaped our lives.

If this is true as it relates to the things and people external of you, it is just as true, if not more so, within.

You have interpreted the events in your past, in your own story, in a particular way. You experience the day-to-day aspects of your life with a learned-perspective. And you even consider your future with pre-determined beliefs about what can and will happen (or not).

You are living (and telling) your story within a swirl of assumptions.

Knowing the assumptions you have and do make within your own story (the “how” of how it’s told) is one of the most profound ways to transform it – past, present, and future.

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A personal example:

A NOTE: My theological perspective has shifted more-than-significantly since the following story occurred, but it serves in this context.

I assumed, during my excruciating years of infertility, that it was, apparently, God’s plan that I not become a mother. It was not mine to question, to doubt, to feel anger over. And this created incredible angst and nearly insurmountable levels of ambivalence for me. If I believed that God was in control of all things, then this too, had to fall under “his” purview. And if that assumption were true, then who was I to question, to rage, to exhibit pain? I needed to suck it up and accept God’s will as best for me.

And therein lied the problem: I couldn’t – at least with any degree of honesty.

Adjectives that describe those years are words like gray, bland, and flat. It’s true: I was sad when the clinic would call to tell us the latest insemination attempt hadn’t worked. And yes, I was devastated, at least momentarily, when I was reminded of my fate every 28 days. I even recall expressing tentative anger with the-God-I-thought-I-knew through my journaling, but quickly talking/writing myself out of such by listing all the ways in which I was grateful; more, the ways I clearly needed to change my attitude, my perspective, my response. I argued with myself incessantly. I fought every temptation to despair. I kept a stiff upper lip and marched onward because to stop long enough and actually experience, let alone express my anger and anguish would have undone me…or so I thought.

The assumptions I held and the beliefs they perpetuated (or maybe the beliefs I held and the assumptions they perpetuated), reeked havoc in my mind and soul. They shaped my story in marked and undeniable ways during those years. And if then, how many times before and certainly after?

Herein lies a pathway for me to look at my story anew: to wonder about where grief remains to be expressed, where true emotions have been hidden under layers of practiced behavior, where learned-belief has superseded lived-experience. And the more of these layers I uncover, the more profoundly my story – as I’ve been telling it – becomes clear to me; the more ability I have to tell and live it as I prefer – to transform it – with beliefs chosen, assumptions put aside, new lenses donned.

I can re-play that tape in a much different way today. I extend myself considerable consolation and kindness. I grieve after-the-fact. I wonder anew about where the divine was showing up all the time – but in ways I couldn’t see…yet. I look with appreciation and gratitude at the infinite strength of my heart to endure, to persevere, to hold on to hope. And I look at my two daughters with infinite amounts of awe – continually amazed by their presence in my life; miracles, both.

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In my story – and maybe in yours – to get underneath assumptions, acknowledge them, and then gift ourselves with new and ever-deepening understanding – might be the most transformational thing we
could ever do.

My story is worth that. Your story is worth that. Even more, you are! 

May it be so.

Expressing profound grief & fierce loss

Feb 18, 2014 | Sacred Stories, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

There is an ancient story told of a widow whose only son died. With him went her last semblance of family, belonging, and even physical security – not to mention every last shred of hope and joy. On the day of his funeral, she moved in slow motion as the procession paraded through the streets of her village. Her head was down. Her heart was broken. Her sorrow was bottomless. Her tears were unstoppable. Until she heard a man’s voice speak directly to her: “Do not weep.” Grief was replaced by white-hot rage. Her red-rimmed eyes rose to meet his only in time to hear him speak again, this time directly to her dead son: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And her fury was just as miraculously replaced by joy-beyond-belief as her son rose and began to speak for himself. The prophet/healer disappeared into the crowd, leaving everyone speaking of what they had just heard, seen, and experienced.

I have struggled with this story – with my writing of it. I have wrestled with crafting its telling in a way that enables the woman to be the central character instead of the prophet/healer. But I’ve struggled even more because I don’t like the words the prophet/healer speaks: “Do not weep.”

I know. I know. We can understand what he says because we know that the healing is yet to occur; that he speaks knowing what is yet to come. But she didn’t know this! She was broken and struggling to put one foot in front of the other. She had just lost everything that mattered to her, everything she held dear. And we do her a disservice by hurriedly moving from one verse to the next, slipping right past her known reality to the one on which we’d rather focus.

I do not want to move past her known reality. I do not want to move past her. So here it is:

To say, “Do not weep” is insensitive if not downright cruel. But this is not the half of it. For me to say such, to even whisper it, immediately causes a shame-based pressure to clamp itself around my throat and nearly stop my fingers from typing. To say that I disagree with what the prophet/healer said means that I am directly disagreeing with Jesus, the son-of-God, a voice of authority and then some. And that’s just not OK.

You may be liberated enough to skip right over this as no big deal with an “it’s-only-a story-after-all” perspective. Or, you may be brave enough to dismiss the whole thing completely.

Apparently, I’m neither.

As I have worked to write about this story, I have felt and experienced my dissonance and disagreement as NOT ALLOWED. As though I am obligated to remain silent. As though my opinion is too much, too dangerous, and just not worth voicing.

Which means I then become complicit in letting someone else’s voice carry more authority than my own; that I also become complicit in allowing the same to happen to someone else, another women; that in this case, this man’s voice trumps that of this woman’s.

I’m not making this up. The story itself perpetuates this. This woman’s voice isn’t heard. And it’s a story about her! Which is, of course, the point.

Her story puts me face-to-face with patriarchal power/authority and a woman’s lack thereof.

Her story puts me face-to-face with words spoken that are painful but ignored, because of who he is; because the rest of the story somehow redeems the earlier harshness.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my own resistance to speaking out in response to these very stories and the god within them (not in critique, but with allowed honesty, perspective, and hope).

Her story puts me face-to-face with the paradox of the divine – things understood and far more not.

Her story puts me face-to-face with me; with the heartache I know on behalf of the woman in this text and all those within the larger Text; the silence that too-often envelops them and the voice I long to give.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my\ fear: my visceral awareness that to speak – to weep – to express my perspective, my opinion, even my rage, carries with it the nearly-certain risk of profound loss.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my own known grief and hope, silence and voice, heartache and endless-longing for miracles.

When it comes right down to it, her story is about me. I am not confused at all about this – ever.

But maybe, just maybe, her story is about you, too. It’s possible that what happened to her has happened to you – in both literal and figurative ways. It’s more-than possible that you’ve witnessed the same. And it’s highly probable that you know exactly what I’m talking about:

Wanting to speak out, but daring not to – the sudden and overwhelming rush of emotions-and-voices-and-censors that tell you to just. keep. quiet. The clamp that immediately restricts your throat. The invisible “slap” that hovers over your fingers as you try to type-write-speak. And the less-than-subtle lesson-learned: do. not. weep.

And this is exactly why this woman’s story matters.

This is exactly the subterfuge and fabulously stealth-like way in which she does speak.

This is exactly the way in which her legacy endures, strengthens, and transforms.

She calls us to weep. She calls us to speak. She calls us to voice. She calls us to express emotion that is accurate and right and allowed in any and all circumstances in which we find ourselves, no matter what. And she subtly-though-powerfully calls us to sit/stand/stay with the palpable dissonance that occurs when we come face-to-face with the divine (or at least the stories we’ve learned and incorporated of
such) – even and maybe especially when we disagree.

Does her story continue? Is her son restored to her? Does her weeping turn to joy? And does this prophet/healer’s compassion on her behalf make all of this possible? Miraculously and graciously, yes. But more, she makes this possible. It is her profound grief and fierce love that turns the eye of god in the first place. It is her profound grief and fierce love that impacts Jesus’ heart. It is her profound grief and fierce love that invites miracles, changes everything, and turns the world on its axis.

The Widow of Nain calls us to any and every expression of profound grief and fierce love we can muster on behalf of what we desire and deserve.

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It is true: not every story ends with such a happy ending. Death steals. Disappointment rocks us to our core. And weeping continues, as it should.

In the meantime and in the midst, may we be women (and men) who allow for tears – our own and others’. May we be women (and men) who bravely say what we think and feel, no matter what or to whom. May we be women (and men) who step bravely into conversations in which angels fear to tread. And may we be women (and men) who stand alongside those without voice – past, present, and future – and give them our own. That kind of profound grief and fierce love is what turns the world on its axis.

When that kind of profound grief and fierce love is expressed, the Widow of Nain smiles and says “Yes, of course. For you are my daughters (and my sons), my lineage, my kin.”

May it be so.

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Conversations of this kind are sacred ground. They matter so very much. And they’re all-too rare. Gratefully, they are what I facilitate, offer, engage in, and love via my 1:1 work with clients. Learn more about working with me. 

On a Wire

Apr 6, 2013 | Hope & Encouragement, Spirituality

Early in the morning I sat on the couch, my laptop awaiting the click-click-click of my brain and its compliant fingers. Steaming coffee. Vast silence. Cloudy skies. Heavy heart.

I looked out the window and saw six tiny birds sitting on a wire.

I thought about easy it is for them to sit there, perched and pretty, barely hanging on, not a care in the world.

I thought about how when they let go, they soar. How the wind buoys them up into the heavens.

I thought about how hard it is for me to sit still. How I feel like I’m barely hanging on. How I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I thought that were I to really-completely-totally let go, I would undoubtedly crash. How the wind feels brutal and even violent. How flying and any sense of the heavens feels distant, impossible, and as certain-foolish-hope.

Then I just felt. Lots.

And then I thought that maybe that’s why those six birds sat there: waiting for me to think thoughts and then think new ones and then feel – lots and then trust and then Just.Let.Go.

Think. Feel – lots. Trust. Just.Let.Go. And believe that to soar is the only possible result.

Got it.

And just then, in that moment, the birds flew away and the sun broke through the clouds. God’s honest truth.

There Is No Plan B

Apr 4, 2013 | Hope & Encouragement, Women's Wisdom

On days like today I need a way to make sense of (or at least hold on to) my broken heart. Perspective. Confirmation. Sense-making. Sort-of . . .

Because we are vulnerable, life hurts. We are not here to be free of pain. We are here to have our hearts broken by life. To learn to live with vulnerability and to turn pain into love. . . . There is nothing so whole as a broken heart, said Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk, [a] Hasidic sage. The world breaks our hearts wide open; and it is the openness itself that makes us whole. The open heart is the doorway, inviting the angels in, revealing that the world–even in the pit of hell–is charged with the sacred. ~ Miriam Greenspan, Healing Through the Dark Emotions

Yes, this: “. . . even in the pit of hell . . . ”

I’m taking deep (and sometimes graspy, raggedy) breaths.

On days like today, I want to shut my heart down; to create a super-power barrier to the inevitability of ever being hurt or sad or disappointed (again).

And on days like today, the idea (and reality) of continuing to open myself up, to be exposed, to risk and palpably feel heartbreak as the very path to wholeness and joy feels not only counter-intuitive, but just plain idiotic.

Still, there is no Plan B.

Without heartbreak there wouldn’t be space – and spaciousness. Shattered-wide-open creates room for more love – and love and love and love.

So, down I go. Over the edge. Making the leap (which, more truthfully, feels like being pushed off the side of a cliff). Trusting that vulnerability (and raw strength, capacity, and time-worn-hard-earned perseverance) will sustain me (along with texts from my sister, calls from friends, the glimmer of a kind face via Skype, lingering conversation over good soup and better wine, sage advice from wise women in my life, and knowing-hugs from my daughters). And hopefully, prayerfully my faith. Yes, all this will (eventually), lead me back to joy, the sacred – and love and love and love.

“There is nothing so whole as a broken heart . . . ”

I click the heels of my Ruby Slippers and try to imagine, try to believe. “There is nothing so whole as a broken heart. There is nothing so whole as a broken heart. There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.” Longing for home. Longing for hope. Longing . . .

And always, especially on days like today, longing for love – and love and love and love. There is no Plan B to this, either.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ~ Jesus, Matthew 5:4

May it be so. And then some.

*****

I wrote this post nearly three weeks ago . . . not ready to say it out loud; the emotion too raw. It still is. But in the midst, gracious confirmation that my words matter, that my heart is whole: 

“This is precisely why grief, like love and any other foundational, deceptively simple human emotion or state of being, is the terrain of artists. And it is a writer’s even more specific job to give voice to loss in whatever ways she can, to give shape to this unspeakable, impermeable reality beneath all other realities.” ~ Emily Rapp

Yes.

And so, on a day exactly like today, I’m hitting “publish.” Because even though Easter has passed, I still believe in its message. Because comfort comes. Because grace conquers grief. Because faith endures. Because hope cannot be held back or held down or even, ultimately, withheld from a heart that’s hell-bent on surviving and healing and knowing-giving-generating-offering-receiving-being love and love and love.

Because there is no Plan B . . . gratefully.