Zero Days Without Pirate Attack for the Last Two Weeks

A friend was visiting me for the last week and we did a lot of remodeling tasks.  On his second day here he brought me a piece of German chocolate cake from the Piggly Wiggly along with a treat for himself. I thought for just a moment about telling him about my experiment, but I didn’t. [What should I be calling this? Sobriety??]

When I ate the cake, I felt a calm in my chest and then my perspective pulled back and I felt a distance – a separation from myself.  Now I was watching myself from the outside.  I continue to have that perspective, blended with a dollop of shame, as I continue to eat candy (ice cream, cookies, etc.).

It was easy to get on the wagon.  It was really easy to jump off (cannot put it on gravity, i.e., there was no “falling” involved). It’s really, really hard to stay on the wagon. fall-off-the-wagon

My pain now is coming from withholding the truth from my friend.  I did finally tell him I had done my experiment, but put the timeline slightly different so I didn’t blame him.  The story I told myself was I didn’t want to hurt his feelings when he brought me the cake. . .  blah, blah, story, excuse, blah.

Truth-er:  I knew this was coming before he got off the plane.  I didn’t tell him ahead of time deliberately to have a jump off point.

This morning I read this note from Cheri Huber, the Zen teacher:

“This is just the latest in a long series of offerings aimed at getting people who want to wake up and end suffering to move out of ego’s comfort zone.  In support of the merits of this current challenge, someone sent me an article from New Yorker Magazine about an extraordinary athlete, Kyle Korver, who understands very well the benefits of such challenges. Here’s part of the article:

But [Korver’s success at basketball] also has something to do, these past few seasons, with a Japanese ritual called misogi. According to Janine Sawada, a religious-studies professor at Brown University, the word misogi dates back to eighth-century Japan: it originally described a mythical taboo journey to the underworld, and, later, in medieval Japan, the painful but purifying deeds of ascetics. Korver practices a decidedly modern version: “Once a year, you do something that you’re really not sure you can do.”

Read the whole post at http://blog.thezencenter.org/from-the-guide.

I have done something this year I didn’t think I could do.  I went over 60 days with no candy and I took almost every moment of craving to explore the feelings of desire and loss that came up.

The phrase, “Now what?” keeps coming up.  I’m thinking that he left a Snickers in the freezer because he’s not the kind of person to take a bag of snacks for the flight home to Arizona.  I don’t know if I’m more grateful for the five windows he put up in my sunroom or the tearful lesson that cake is going to bring me.

 

Candy is my Power Totem

This is very hard to do.  Close to the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  How I have gone nearly 60 days, I don’t know.

Every day I want candy or ice cream or a chocolate chip cookie dough.

Yesterday evening was rough and I got in the car. . . [ominous sound]. I drove by the Kwik-Trip (candy, chocolate chip muffins) and Culvers (hot fudge sundae, chocolate custard in a waffle cone), the Piggly Wiggly (well, grocery store everything!) and Walgreens (double-wide aisle of chocolate abundance), but I didn’t stop at any. As I drove I felt the gnawing feeling in my chest:

The feelings of emptiness; missing a limb; frustration; identity-less-ness (who am I if I’m not what I eat?); anger at my own lack of understanding; and the frightening feeling of powerlessness.

Experiencing these feelings takes me to tobleronewhere I am on this “experiment” now: The realization that I was probably about seven years old when I set the identity and belief that when I can buy and eat what I want, then I am a grown-up, a [powerful] adult. I am not an adult if I control what I eat – I am an adult when I buy and eat what I want. Sort of Mary Tyler Moore hat-throwing on the corner, but with a Toblerone candy bar. Candy is my power totem.

I see now the next level (oh, I am so not there yet). I am not seeking the illusion of power by controlling what I eat, nor am I seeking the power of doing whatever I want. I seek the middle-way: to be neutral in my response. At this moment, though, I just don’t want to feel “this” feeling and want some chocolate ice cream to make it stop.

So, very, very hard to do.

35 Days Without Candy; 0 Days Without Pirate Attack

On March 16th, on a whim — truly, it was a whim, not seriously planned, anticipated, or dreaded — I stopped eating chocolate in any form, candy, cake, cookies, ice cream, etc.  I had wondered, what would it be like?  Well, now I know.  I think it might be like giving up meth or crack.  Seriously.

days without pirate attack

days without pirate attack

I won’t say I’ve given up sugar.  For me, the word candy is loaded and is where I needed to explore.  In our culture, candy is celebrated, approved, and encouraged.  The candy aisle in Walgreens is two-sided, full of everything from exotic 70% cacao bars, to boxes of Junior Mints, to bags of individually wrapped Dove milk chocolate, and everything in between.  As I think about the store, they carry more candy than any other section.  The over-the-counter meds take up only one side of an aisle! Looks like they know their market and stock accordingly.

I’m not saying that chocolate is evil. I still love it.  It’s just that I am feeling more and more like I am using it to assuage an emotional need.  I am pretty proud that I am noticing the feelings associated with the desire for candy and exploring them.  It’s not pride that I haven’t eaten any.  This restriction is a forty days in the desert looking for enlightenment.

It’s their job

Listening to a podcast this weekend, I heard the teacher (Geneen Roth) say, “There is nothing to fix.  You are not broken.”

Immediately, I felt my throat clamp and my chest fold in on itself.  I stopped the recording and stayed with the feeling.

two

days without pirate attack

It hurt like a son-of-a-gun.

I said out loud, “I am not broken.”  I didn’t believe it.

I said out loud, “I am broken.”  I believed it and it still hurt.

I had the thought, “What would I say to anyone else I heard voice that?”

I would respond, “You are the antithesis of broken.  You are a complex, adaptive, luminous being. You created this belief as a way to maintain your sanity and safety.”

I knew I would completely believe that for the other person, but not for me.

Then, I remembered the Avatar® Rat List®  exercise, in which the student deliberately creates charged beliefs.  I’ve learned a lot when I’ve been willing to experience the belief fully.  As I debated whether to do “I am broken,” or to flip it around to “I am not broken,” I flashed on a lecture Harry gave at Wizards®.  I’ll paraphrase:

An old monk greeted a novice on her first day at the monastery.  He took her into a large room filled with other monks.  They called her names like Stupid! Dumbass! Ugly!  They screamed she would never be able to do a good job!  She was worthless!  She didn’t fool anyone – she was a bad, bad person!

As they left the room, the novice shook and started to cry.  The old monk leaned down and whispered into her ear, “Do not concern yourself with what they say.  It is just their job to criticize.”

He took the novice down the hall and into another room filled with more monks.  They smiled and called out to her, Oh, how smart and beautiful you are!  You are a wonderous talent!  You will do everything so well; you are such a good person!

The novice beamed as she felt much, much better now.  The old monk leaned down and whispered into her ear, “Do not concern yourself with what they say.  It is just their job to praise.”

I got it then. (I love the really fast ah-ha!!)

It’s not real.  Neither belief is real.  I don’t need to explore my “broken-ness” or my “whole-ness.”  I don’t need to affirm that “I am amazing.”  Neither one is real, no matter what they feel like or how much pain/glory I feel.  It doesn’t solve anything to focus on creating the so-called positive one any more than dwelling on the so-called negative one.  Besides, which is which?

They’re just thoughts.  It’s their job.

Time traveling

Days Without Pirate Attack:

Days Without Pirate Attack:

I am happy March is here and with it [slightly] warmer weather. I can get out of the house and take longer walks. The strange thing that keeps happening is I’m noticing strange deja vu-esque feelings elicited by temperatures, a breeze, the smell of the ground thawing, the angle of the light. Hmmm. I really don’t know what’s causing it, but a feeling arises in my body and my memory identifies with the feeling.

I bring in Harry Palmer’s tool “This is weird.” I say it and I am able to keep a separate point-of-view while I let the feeling drift through my body. Keeping a separate point-of-view keeps me out of the creation — not completely, but enough to avoid overwhelm. I’d say I’m whelmed. The nostalgia and the longing trips the time travel trigger, and I’m back nearly forty years and I feel like I’m back in central California, driving toward San Luis Obispo from King City. Other times I’m different places, different times, but in those moments they are real.

I wonder then how the firing in my brain causes this or what sensation in my body triggered the firing. Does the order matter? It’s a fascination for me how this works mechanically. Almost as fascinating as the memories themselves.

Not a crazy idea to me

The second-most interesting attribute of any belief is that the person believing it feels it is obvious and logical. The most interesting attribute is that someone who does not believe the same way feels it is completely illogical and wackadoodle (poetic license).

I believe that our consciousness/soul is not individual, but shared by everything (every person, every thing, etc.) I believe we are actually inside or permeated by the soul – it’s not limited to being inside or a part of each of us. We have the ability to be attuned to it and aware of it – perhaps the only beings that can. or…the only beings we know of that can communicate that we are aware of consciousness. As Thich Nhat Hanh said, “…we are aware we are aware.”

For me, this view is the only one that makes sense when you remove the ego and our need to perpetuate the “I-self.” My book, The Soul We Share outlines my journey to this belief:

“We are part of it and, at times, aware of it.

Aware that we are one with all, and without this human form.

We share it; we move through it and with it.

So does everyone and everything.

Everyone. Everything. No one thing has any more value than another. Yet, every thing contributes to the whole.

The whole is not only greater than the sum of its parts; the parts are aware of and are the whole at the same time.”

 ~ The Soul We Share

Today I watched a TED talk by David Chalmers, “How do you Explain Consciousness?” Watch the talk! It’s fascinating. In it, he speaks of two crazy [sic] ideas: (1) consciousness as a fundamental building block of the universe and (2) consciousness is universal – panpsychism.

Dr. Chalmers, they’re not crazy ideas and they’re not mutually exclusive.

 

Pirates in the Linen Closet

Nearing the end of remodeling my house, I just finished the second-to-last closet (bathroom linen closet). It’s seriously gorgeous and organized now. It took me just under a week to complete:

  • Remove everything
  • Toss out old, wooden shelves
  • Patch holes
  • Tape
  • Paint
  • Move items from under sinks
  • Clean under sinks after I moved that stuff
  • Buy new wire shelving
  • Cut six separate shelves by hand with a hack saw
  • Clean out old baskets
  • Buy two new baskets
  • Put all the stuff into organized baskets and into the closet
  • Throw away what I don’t need or use any more

Cutting the shelves with a hack saw was not nearly as hard as deciding what to throw away and then doing it. Admittedly, I have very little stuff confronting me on this, but comparing is of no value. Hard to do is hard to do. (Thank you, Ash Beckham!)

the actual stuff

the actual stuff

Some of the beliefs that are coming up include: I want the stuff to be used, to go to a “good home.” It’s perfectly good stuff. What if I need it some time? Maybe I can use it for something else. Maybe a shelter can use it. I don’t want it to be a waste of money. I don’t want to be the kind of person who buys stuff that gets thrown away. But I also don’t want to be the kind of person who has a lot of stuff. I don’t want the garbage man to see how much good stuff I throw away.

and then the kicker. . . I believe the stuff will make me cool/special/beautiful. . . loved. Didn’t know hair gel was that powerful, did you? I’m tempted to blame it on marketing, but marketing wouldn’t work if I already believed I was beautiful, if cool didn’t exist, and everyone/no one is special.

 

It’s not the answers, but the questions!

Days Without Pirate Attack:

Days Without Pirate Attack:

I listened to a really helpful podcast this weekend. Erin Olivo: Emotional Literacy talked about how to respond when you have a strong emotional response to something. Two questions stood out to me:

  1. Is there another way to think of this?
  2. Do I have the right to make all these rules?

The rules idea made me think even further – did “they” who trained me on the rules have that right?   Am I really going to be kicked out of the tribe for this? The shame is coming only from me.