ARE YOU SELFISHLY SELFLESS?

Mammaw, my mother’s mother, was an amazing person.   I remember her tremendous devotion to her Christian beliefs, chief among them being the importance of service to others.  She was widely known and celebrated in her church, her family and her community for her piety and selflessness.  She often intoned “tis more blessed to give than to receive,” and indeed it was hard to give anything to her or to do anything for her.  She was much happier doing the giving herself, and she abhored the thought of being “a bother” to anyone.  Mammaw taught her daughter – my mother – to do the same, and my mother taught me: take the burned piece of toast yourself. Say “no thank you” to offers of help.  Turn down gifts and favors, and say “Oh that’s too much trouble” and “Oh you shouldn’t have” to gifts you can’t avoid.

I came home from school one day to find my mother in tears, something I’d rarely seen.  I asked why she was crying, and she replied “Mammaw is very sick, and she won’t let me take care of her.”  It was upsetting and puzzling to see my mother in that state, and later I came to understand that it wasn’t just concern for Mammaw’s health that made her cry.  It was also that she wanted to give, to serve, to comfort; and Mammaw wouldn’t let her.    In her determination to not impose or inconvenience, Mammaw was denying my mother what she most wanted:  to give, and to have her gift received.  Mammaw was keeping the “gift of giving” all to herself.  I began to understand that selflessness could actually be selfish.

Receiving that which is given may actually be one of the most selfless things we can do.  Nine months ago I  broke my spine on a remote island in the Caribbean and was air-ambulanced to a spinal treatment center in Philadelphia where I spent three months in treatment and recovery. I had few acquaintances there, and no close friends or family.  However,  my spiritual family is widespread, and once the word of my situation went out to the Philadelphia group, there was an uninterrupted flow of loving support and assistance.  People I hardly knew brought food and flowers and clothes, ran errands, read to me, and relieved my husband of “hospital duty.” Every day for three months, someone came to sit with me, meditate with me, attend to my needs, and support my recovery on all levels.  Everyone who came to serve seemed to do so willingly and lovingly, even though it was sometimes inconvenient and even costly for them to do so.

At first it was hard for me to accept.  My childhood training urged me to turn away the offers of help and support so that no one would be inconvenienced on my behalf.  But in those early days in Philadelphia, my level of need and pain far superseded my training.   I was in no condition to refuse; I could only receive.  (Thank God I did, because the generous support I received profoundly enhanced my healing process.)  Over time, as my pain and medication receded, I could have started saying no.   But I was still benefitting so much from all that was being given, and I was getting more accustomed to saying yes.  As I healed, I became more conscious and deliberate about receiving, and I started to notice the sense of joy and fulfillment in those who gave to me.  I began to realize that almost every person who came said a warm and heartfelt “thank you” to me as they left. I myself was so filled with gratitude that it was hard to imagine someone thanking me for receiving their generosity and kindness; but thank me they did.

Now many months later and a continent away, I still have occasional contact with some of those loving ministers of the heart, and they tell me what a meaningful experience it was for them to be with me through my time of need.  Had I obeyed my childhood training and said “Oh no thank you,” I would have denied them that.  In my receiving their service and also their gratitude, we both have been lifted.  I have become grateful not only for their healing gifts and ministrations, but also that I could give to them the gift of giving to me.

I no longer believe ’tis more blessed to give than to receive, nor more blessed to receive than to give.   It is a selfish heart that refuses either giving or receiving; for to withhold one is to block the other. Giving and receiving are inexorably tied together, like breathing in and breathing out.  Each one enables and enhances the experience of the other.  With openness and gratitude, receiving becomes giving and giving becomes receiving. Perhaps therein lies the greatest blessing of all.

STOP LOOK AND LISTEN

Do you recall those classic railroad crossing signs with a crossbar that reads “Stop Look and Listen”? It’s great advice at every crossing for those of us learning to navigate by heart.

Recently I was driving in California in my Florida car with my Florida driver’s license. I had just come through an intersection, and a school bus was stopped ahead. Two cars were in front of me; and as each car approached the bus’s “stop” flag, they stopped, then proceeded to pass the bus. It didn’t seem right to me, because I supposed that every state required drivers to stop and wait as long as the bus flag is extended; but I kept moving forward with the other cars anyway. When it was my turn to pull up to the bus, a line of cars had built up behind me. I stopped at the flag and looked around. The road looked clear, but that “not right” feeling made me hesitate. Cars behind me started honking. I waited, getting more uncomfortable as I saw cars now blocking the intersection behind me. There was even more honking, and finally I gave into the pressure and doubt, telling myself, “Oh, I must be wrong about the law here.” I moved ahead, and within seconds a policeman pulled me over.

I apologized to the officer for passing the bus, and told him of my debate about the law. He asked me why I was in California, and I told him that I’m staying with family in California while recovering from a broken back incurred in a jump from a waterfall. I wrote in a recent post about that jump, about how I’d had a voice of knowing, a voice of wisdom inside me at the waterfall that told me not to jump. But I’d also had another louder voice, one that seemed to be grounded in other people’s impatience and opinions and in my own judgment of myself as not courageous or capable or knowledgeable enough. As I spoke to the officer, I suddenly realized that there on the street, I’d just engaged in exactly the same process of not listening to myself that I had done at the waterfall. In both cases I had let the loud voice of mind, emotions and opinions – which I would call the voice of the ego – overrule the softer voice of wisdom – which I would call the voice of the heart. In both occasions I didn’t want to feel like a wimp or a fool. I didn’t want to inconvenience or be judged by others. In both situations, I stopped and looked, but I didn’t listen to the voice of my heart.

To my great surprise, I found myself telling the officer all of that, telling him how I was trying to learn to listen to my heart, and how challenging it is when the world around me commands me to listen to it, and not to my heart. To my even greater surprise, the officer, with a choking voice, thanked me for telling him my story, and said that doing so was itself an example of listening to my heart. He related how he had learned only recently, after the death of his young child, how important it was to listen to his heart’s bidding to spend more time at home, rather than his mind’s and colleague’s and society’s urging to work extra hours to make more money. We talked about how lessons come around again and again until we learn them. We acknowledged the grace that brought us together to share our stories and reinforce in each of us our learning about the wisdom of the heart. The officer was gracious enough not to give me a ticket, but asked me instead to keep listening to my heart and sharing my learning with others.

As I drove away, I thought of the railroad crossing admonition to “Stop Look and Listen.” At so many crossings in life, I have hesitated and gathered information; but when hearing competing voices inside me, I’ve too often listened to the louder one, the more popular one, the more demanding one. Slowly I’m learning to listen more deeply, to listen beyond the clamor, to listen for the quieter voice of knowing, the voice of my heart. Sometimes it takes courage, but that’s what the heart is all about.

If you too are learning to stop, look and listen inwardly, I’d be grateful if you add a comment sharing how you’ve learned to recognize the voice of your heart.

Thank you, and bless you.

WHAT IS THE VOICE OF FEAR?

Late last year I stood atop a 35-foot waterfall, poised to jump.  With a small group and a guide, I’d climbed to the top of the Seven Sisters Waterfalls on the Caribbean island of Grenada, and had jumped down each of the upper falls. Now at the final and largest one, I was intimidated.  No, actually I was terrified.  I stepped out to the edge, but I just couldn’t do it.  I stepped back and let the others go first.  Then there was only me.

I hesitated and deliberated.  I tried to imagine myself jumping in perfect form, with a perfect landing.  It’s a technique I’ve used successfully quite often, but this time I just couldn’t get the image.  I told myself it was only because my fear had taken over.  I told myself that the others were impatient and judging me.  I told myself not to be a wimp.  Finally I stepped out to the edge again and forced myself to jump.  As I hit the water, I heard an explosive sound from my spine and felt my legs collapse into paralysis.  While still underwater, I knew I had broken my back, and I’d done it because I wouldn’t listen to myself.  I had ignored the voice inside that I didn’t want to hear, the one that said “Stop!”

Now eight months into my recovery, I’m finally coming to understand that the voice that that urged me to “Jump!” was not the voice of courage, but rather the voice of fear.  Let me explain.

As a child, I was tiny, timid and physically weak.  I was the target of impatience, exclusion and ridicule as a result, so I became afraid of not being able to do what the bigger kids could do. I came to believe that I should be bold and daring no matter what. I learned that fear itself was something to be feared, though I would have used the word “overcome” instead.  So as an adult, I set out to overcome.  I surrounded myself with people who reinforced my belief that daring was the only “right” way to be.  I deliberately put myself in situations that scared me – I learned to climb, backpack and sail. I walked tightropes and clambered up sailboat masts.  I stood my watch on dark and stormy nights at sea.  I stifled that voice within me that counseled caution and restraint. I listened instead to the now-internalized and commanding voice of should’s and judgment, the voice of bravado.  I was thrilled when friends started describing me as “fearless.”

In recent years my relationship with fear changed again.  I was sailing fulltime, often in unfamiliar and unforgiving waters.  I found myself in precarious situations I didn’t know how to handle, faced with tasks I didn’t know how to do or wasn’t able to do.  I was often afraid and didn’t know how to respond to my fear.  Fear was wrong, after all, and I was supposed to ignore that voice inside me that trembled “No no, I can’t do it.” But the voice wouldn’t go away.  It kept cautioning me, and the caution created conflict:  If I obey that voice, I’m a wimp.  If I don’t, something bad is going to happen. When I did obey it, I often got criticized and ridiculed, both by myself and others.  When I didn’t obey it, sometimes I got hurt and sometimes I succeeded.  “Wow, I did it!” was the feeling I had hoped for.  Instead, I just became more doubtful.  I was so afraid of being afraid that I could no longer trust myself to know what was right for me.

And so it was that I stood atop the waterfall in the midst of yet another internal debate.  There was a quiet voice that said “There’s a reason you can’t picture success, a reason you’re holding back.  Don’t jump.  Find another way down.”  But it was drowned out by that commanding voice of bravado that was afraid of being afraid. And so I jumped.

I don’t want to quake in fear, nor limit myself from experiences unnecessarily.  But I also am no longer willing to endanger myself unnecessarily.  The challenge is to know which voice to trust. The majority of advice on the subject will counsel you to disregard any form of fear, employing that rather travel-worn acronym “False Evidence Appearing Real.”  You’ll be told to do what you fear and you’ll be fine; do it because you fear it; do it and you’ll become a better person.  But sometimes what we call fear may actually be caution grounded in information and observation.  Neale Donald Walsch advises, “Caution is not the same as fear, and observation is not the same as judgment. Use your good sense about things, and don’t let others talk you out of simple caution and observation by telling you that you are in ‘fear and judgment.’” To me, that’s very good advice.

I want to recognize and cooperate with the voice of caution without judging it as fear; and to respond with genuine courage when the voice of fear shows up. But I can’t do that while bravado is masquerading as courage, demanding my full attention. Only true courage can be trusted to tell me what to do or not do.

The word courage, derived from old French, connotes “action of the heart.”  Dictionaries define bravado as “a pretense of courage.”  Using those meanings as a guide, I have turned to my heart to discern the true voice of courage from the false voice of bravado.    Here are some distinguishing characteristics I’ve found so far:

• Bravado is impatient and demanding.  Courage is patient and enduring.
• Bravado fortifies itself with emotions and logic.  Courage resonates as deep and natural knowing.
• Bravado creates drama.  Courage is calm and centered.
• Bravado feeds on opinion and image.  Courage comes from within.
• Bravado carries should’s and have-to’s.  Courage embodies willingness and openness.
• Bravado appeals to the ego’s desire to be more, better, distinctive.  Courage makes no judgment or comparison.

If I were standing atop the waterfall with today’s wisdom, I would have quite a different experience and outcome.  But if I hadn’t jumped when I did, I wouldn’t have gathered that wisdom, I wouldn’t have learned that what I thought was courage was merely bravado.  I wouldn’t have learned how to listen to my heart.  It’s an ongoing process of discovery for me, and perhaps it is for you too.  If so, I invite you to open your heart to share your explorations through your comments. Together we can give greater voice to the wisdom of the heart.

[Photo courtesy http://www.billdietrich.me

WRITING BY HEART

For years I have prayed to know the difference between intuition and impulse, between knowing and feeling. I wanted to learn how to discern when my heart is speaking versus when my emotions and mind are speaking. My jump from the waterfall brought me into a closer, more intense examination of that question.

I started this blog with the intention of exploring how to access the wisdom of the heart. I thought I would be writing mostly about fear, about how I didn’t listen to the voice of caution atop the waterfall because I judged it as fear. I did start writing that story, detailing my relationship with fear, and my process of learning to discern when fear is well-founded and when it’s not. Through writing, I started recognizing that there are voices inside me that I don’t want to hear, quiet little voices that I tend to ignore if I don’t like what they’re saying. I began to understand a bit about how to distinguish between the voice of fear and that of caution, between the voice of courage and that of bravado, between the voice of my heart and that of my ego. But the understanding came in dribs and drabs, so I rewrote the article dozens and dozens of times. Each time I thought it was almost ready for publication, something inside me wouldn’t quite say yes. Each time I heard the hesitation, I would reluctantly stop and let the manuscript sit for a while. Then I would sit down and start writing again. I would scrape and edit and reimagine and sweat and cry and toss and turn until eventually the part that seemed unclear became clearer. Then I would start to hit “send,” and once again the voice inside would say “Stop,” and I’d begin another round of painful self-examination and rewriting. “Stop” was not what I wanted to hear – I had planned to post every week, and I wanted every week’s post to be a finished piece of art. Without realizing it, I’d made that a “should.”

This morning I stopped again just before hitting “send,” and I heard a quiet little voice tell me to put the “should” aside, to make it okay if I posted nothing. So I sat down and wrote about the process of stopping. I wrote that perhaps the article wasn’t finished because I still don’t know all I need to know about those conflicting voices inside my head. Then I wrote that I may never know, but that one of the beauties of a blog is that it’s a reflection of the moment. It’s a log, not a monument. It’s not likely to ever be a “finished piece of art.”

Suddenly I realized that my prayer is being answered. I am actually paying attention to the voice I thought I didn’t want to hear, the one that is saying “Stop.” Each time I’ve cooperated with it, my article has improved, but more importantly, my understanding of the meaning of the article has improved. Through writing and rewriting, I am learning to recognize and cooperate with the voice of my heart, the voice that urges the courage to not do, as well as the courage to do. In the process of writing the article, I had learned that a “should” almost certainly does not come from my heart. It is my ego that wants to move ahead – faster, further, get it done! My heart says “Stop, dear one. Look more deeply. Listen inwardly.” Stop, Look and Listen. Good advice from the heart.

So I stopped and set the article aside for a few hours. I looked at it again and saw just how the lessons of the heart were showing up in the process of my writing. I listened to my heart telling me how it all fits together it my life. I hit “Send.”

The article will run in Huffington Post later this week, and I’ll post it here when it does.

Thank you, Heart. It’s been a lovely conversation.

GET OFF MY BOAT!

My husband Peter and I spent last year cruising the Caribbean in our 40-foot sailboat Lightheart.  One bright moonlit night we were anchored in a beautiful and remote bay in Tobago. Inside the boat was very dark, but the moonlight in the cockpit backlit the companionway (the entrance from the cockpit down into the cabin).  Peter had gotten up from a deep sleep in our forward cabin to go to the toilet, and en route almost stumbled into a man standing near the companionway.  Peter looked up to see the silhouetted man wheel around, raising a machete overhead.  As the machete came down, Peter instinctively lunged at the man and punched him, screaming “Get Off My Boat!”.  The intruder quickly turned and fled up the companionway steps and dove overboard. The commotion had awakened me by then, and I ran up on deck with our spotlight.  We swept the beam across the water until we saw the intruder swimming to shore and disappearing into the woods.  Despite hours of interviews with the police, no one was ever prosecuted.  Fortunately, the intruder had taken only a few items (later found discarded underwater, along with the machete); and Peter suffered only minor cuts on his hand and a bruise on his arm – exactly the shape of the butt of the machete.  We got off easy, but it was a frightening incident and a call to heightened awareness.

Initially that heightened awareness was all about safety aboard – adding locks and security systems to the boat, refining our strategies for worst-case scenarios, and being the conversational center of numerous cruiser gatherings in our next port, some folks asking questions, some offering advice, and some just soaking up the drama.

Recently I was reflecting on this incident, and I had a heightened awareness of quite a different order – and that was about the power in Peter that caused the much larger and well-armed intruder simply to flee.  When asked about the incident, Peter says that his actions came out of pure instinct – which we could call the fight-or-flight instinct – and that he had only one thought guiding him, one single determination:  there was no way he was going to let that intruder get any closer to our forward cabin where I lay sleeping.  Peter is much smaller than the intruder, has no experience fighting, was completely unarmed, and only got in one punch. Yet his power, grounded in clear intention, was enough to prevail over the intruder who had every other advantage in the situation.  Peter was not judging or hating the intruder, he wasn’t even thinking about him.  He was entirely focused on protecting what he loved.  He was simply ordering “Get Off My Boat!” with such fierce commitment that his command had to be obeyed.

Now having read this far, maybe you want to have a debate about the fight, the fist, the knife, the psychology of the intruder, the physiology of the fight-or-flight instinct, the nature of criminal justice in developing countries, the wisdom or foolishness of sailing in foreign waters, the epidemic of piracy, the preference for firearms or none, and on and on.  Believe me, we’ve been a part of those debates over and over, and all they ever come to is the realization that there’s very little agreement to be had on any of those subjects.  But perhaps one place we can agree is this:  a warrior of the heart is a force to be contended with.

When I say “warrior of the heart,” I am not referring to one who fights great public battles, and certainly not one who is driven by his ego to dominate, to win.  Rather, a warrior of the heart is one who stands clearly and powerfully for that which his heart and soul hold dear.  Peter embodied that as he rose up – strong, centered, focused, brave, and with a noble purpose.  His action was not fueled by aggression against the intruder, but rather protection of his wife, himself and his boat.  He was motivated by love, and his love made him strong.  His command to “Get Off My Boat!” carried a power far beyond his physical ability to enforce it.

Peter demonstrated outwardly the kind of warrior that I want to be inwardly in the boat that is my life.  When I am intruded upon by doubt, judgment, hurt, anger, disappointment, self-righteousness or blame, I want to stand up in the power of my love, in fierce commitment to my heart, and command “Get Off My Boat!”.  I want to have the clear intention to allow nothing to get into the forward cabin of loving, acceptance, connectedness, generosity of spirit, openness, forgiveness.    I want to stand up to what may seem to be a much bigger, darker, well-armed and scary force, and with the power of my heart and soul command “Get Off My Boat!” - as many times and in as many ways as it takes.  It is I who have left my boat open to the intruding sentiments of negativity, and it is I who must rise up to protect my boat’s sanctity, not with aggression, but with a love so strong that it must be obeyed.

Peter and I both know there was divine protection at work on our boat in Tobago.  But we also know that Peter summoned that divine protection through the clear intention and fierce commitment of his heart and soul.  That was his prayer.  And I now take that prayer as my own.

How about you?  What are your experiences of being a warrior of the heart?