I am Not My Body

How many people look in the mirror and think the reflected image is who they are? Do we ever have a perception of ourselves that is true? It is wonderfully ironic that getting in touch with the body is what enables us to see that we are not our bodies. We are so much more. In the practice of grounding and mindfulness, we quiet the mind and feel the spirit that we are. In that space we viscerally understand our connection to every other spirit on the planet.

The physical experience can be delicious whether at a favorite restaurant, playing with a beloved or zipping down a slide at Water World, but it does not define us. Our bodies are what cause us to appear separate from others. They are our containers, our temples, and yet, we are all joined by a higher purpose that is born of Love. In the stillness we experience the Love that is much bigger than anything we have felt with another person. It is not special or unique to one, but it is the great unifier of all. When author of A Course in Miracles says: “I am not a body. I am free” (Foundation of Inner Peace, 1977) she refers to the freedom we can receive from a shifted perception.

Let me back up. When our minds are in control, they organize, plan, judge, divide like rats. Don’t get me wrong – I appreciate rodents, but by only looking down at the rodent, we miss the elephant. Our

Kissing The Bull

My client hesitated at the door before leaving. “So, this is feeling stuff is supposed to make me feel better?” she asked.

I put a hand on her shoulder and sighed. “Yes. It will.”

Image: CarleMuseum.org

The trials of meeting our inner monsters: I couldn’t bear to tell her that it would be like riding a rank bull and getting thrown a few times. Or staying on only to have your face meet the bull's head, termed "kissing the bull." I wanted to tell her it would hurt like Hell, but it would be worth it. Down the road her heart would expand, and she would feel more keenly connected to the whole human race. She would forgive more quickly, love more deeply and experience radiant joy. (Disclaimer: I don't know if this is true for bull riders.)

Counseling is an art with diverging theories and myriad techniques. (If only people knew!) And, good news, it works! (At least, most of the time). A lot of what goes on cannot be measured. The aspects that can be measured are occasionally not what make counseling effective, but numbers please the funders and universities.

A universal understanding in the field is that after developing a trusting bond, we ask a client to acknowledge and feel his/her feelings, which ultimately helps the client process them. By feeling and processing, emotions shift and release hold of us. But if someone is accustomed to thinking their way through life, they will be in for a rough ride initially. Often clients assume that in counseling we are going to spread out their life on a table, like puzzle pieces, hold our chins and analyze it. When they are asked to be vulnerable and stay with their heart, it is not easy. And, if I ask my clients to stay with their hearts, I have to do it too. I have to walk the ego’s fire, trusting that my spirit will overrule.

Part of the trouble is, in terms of feelings, we are a constipated culture. We’ll do almost anything to talk ourselves out of them. Here’s what I know about feelings: If you ignore them, they will show up at

Too close for comfort. Too sick to love.

Dedicated to Newton and Sandy Hook

A tragedy like that which occurred on Friday 12/14/12 in Connecticut where 20 children and 7 adults died rivets a nation in its tracks. No one is left untouched or unscathed. Our hearts are broken as we scan the children's photos. We are left to wonder: "Why?!" I grew up spending every other Christmas with Uncle Steve and Aunt Helen (and brood) in Sandy Hook, CT. Before contemplating what happened from a mostly Jungian perspective, I will share that the only postcard on my refrigerator on 9/11/2001 was a picture of the Towers with a blurred seagull in the foreground. I was moving to a new home and had removed everything else from the refrigerator door. My sister had been visiting New York and inside the Towers the week before the living nightmare. I was affected by Colorado incidents as well. When I was living in Florida and anticipating a move to Colorado, my favorite neighborhood was Ken Caryl. Had there been a single home for sale in there, our kids would have attended Columbine. And JonBenet Ramsey was my oldest daughter's age and when we arrived in Boulder, Bella made friends who had known the dear child. Finally Liz was at the midnight Batman premier in Boulder while only 45 minutes away in Aurora people were being murdered at the same event. Too close for comfort.


Ironically I begin my Christmas letter (that I wrote weeks ago) saying that this holiday I am sensing a festive spirit and connectedness – a reaching out – combined with an Angst, a feeling that at any minute everything could come crashing down. And, for some this week, it did. Here’s what I think: We all know that joy will not be found in a perfume, in a new car, a raise, a vacation, a ring, your partner or new shoes. But, on the other hand, how do we connect more deeply with everyone around us? Do we see the cashier at Safeway as sacred? Do we see the person who just cut us off as sacred? (Okay, okay, I use that one repeatedly, because that is a particular challenge for me having grown up in LA where driving is a constant race to win).

Reverend Carlton Pearson

It’s our exclusionary society that is destroying us (and I know I'm judging judgement so I will work on that). It’s why I chose not to join any formally organized college groups and why I left organized religion. Just by its very nature a group with specific rules requires there to be outsiders and insiders. There’s a feeling of “us” vs. “them.” It is tribal thinking and other than Reverend Carlton Pearson (featured this week on This American Life) most groups choose individuals exactly like themselves to be in the group. Reverend Pearson lost his congregation because he realized it's HUMANS who create Hell. He advocates a "doctrine of inclusion." On the same token, I don’t judge people who choose to be a part of a club or church, because they are deriving community and support and often coming together to do a lot of good. What I’m proposing is that there might be no rules to love and loving. If a religious individual comes to my door with the intent to convert me, their judgment is implied. If I can't join a group because I'm white (haha), there is judgment. If a religious person comes to my door asking what kind of support do I need and they are offering it without intent to convert, than that is the love and connection that will save.

How can we love our neighbors, the strangers with whom we engage, our family members more fully? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that these horrific acts are not only serious mental illness manifest (and the mentally ill do not receive enough funding since the Reagan administration) but also an expression of the darkest part of each of us. It is a reflection of the way we turn our head and look the other way; of the way we attach strings and withhold love. We exclude, we lie, we think it’s someone else’s problem. They are the sick ones. Not me. 

When I was mentally ill (at least I have the illusion I am well now ;), I was too absorbed in my inability to crawl out of a hole to look around me, to care what was going on, to help others. There are so many who need our help, but we must begin at home. Killers will always find weapons (although we could make them far less available!), but by healing the projection of our hidden darkness – by looking within and taking responsibility for any anger, any pettiness, any place we are too sick to love – we will be a part of a world that is changing for the better.

Love Lasik

Baby bird in Niwot, CO

Dance transformed me into a more open-hearted woman. Becoming a counselor is yet another quest to chase out the places where I am afraid of intimacy. Witnessing (and urging) another person into the terrifying territory of feelings has required that I be equally brave.

Being open-hearted sounds either medical or perhaps like what follows will be Hallmark sentimentality. Sure, I’m now a big mush-ball when it comes to the people whom I love, but recently, my new understanding has been like Lasik surgery to the heart. Lasik permanently changes the shape of the cornea. In the same way, what I need to do to love more fully has become clear, and my heart and self are permanently altered.

Rainbow over Niwot, CO

Why is intimacy terrifying? (Counselors ask a lot of questions.) Being “burned” makes it less enticing to jump back into the water. And I’m not just talking about the relationship between couples. It applies to the connection with our parents, children, extended family and friends. We throw daggers between ourselves and others just to keep them back. Like some fake watch salesman on a NYC street corner, we hide the daggers inside special pockets of our coat – just in case someone gets too close.

Niwot, CO

  How do we do it? We judge. The other
  is too slow, too uncultured, too smart,
  too shut down, too fat, too emotional,
  too unemotional... the list goes on. Our
  egos convince us that it’s super
  important that we teach the other person
  a lesson (even if the person will learn whatever they are supposed to
  learn in their own way, on their own time). Or we argue politics
  when in fact our tantrum may have to do with poor early attachment
  to a parent. Or we hold strings to the money or time that we give. (I
  was there for you; therefore, you should be here for me now.) Or, we judge based on another’s appearance or seeming difference. And we are equally harsh on ourselves.

Captured on a visit to my sister and family

Our only job is to love... and that requires that we become bigger than ourselves, entering possibly unknown territory. When we love we set ourselves and the other free. Our egos, pesky little buggers, have the power to convince us that if we don’t do what they tell us to do everything will fall apart. And if everything falls apart, we will have no control, and then it will be our fault that the world ends because someone didn’t load the dishwasher correctly.

In NYC with my girls

  We live in an angry
  culture, and it’s not just
  road rage. Yesterday I
  saw a father walk up to
  his teenage son in the
  airport and twist his
  arm so hard I thought the boy would cry out. Love, and the healing of the
  world, begins at home. Undoing the fear of love begins at home. Where do
  you throw daggers to keep people back? Who do you need to manage so
  you will look better? Will you need to wait until you are dying to decide that
  love is really worth the pain?

LASIK is a surgical procedure intended to reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses. LOVE is a radical choice intended to reduce a person's dependency on the illusion of separation.

Falling Off of the Pedestal: True Love Explored

The search for love is but the honest searching out of everything that interferes with love. 

A Course in Miracles (267)

Imagine eating several Almond Joy bars (substitute your favorite candy here) while riding a roller coaster in the snow. How different is “falling in love,” that giddy state where about all one can stomach is vanilla yogurt and the other person is pretty much flawless?

I have heard it said that falling in love is a form of insanity. The first time I was afflicted (and blessed) was in high school. The second time was in college, and I married him; I wouldn’t trade those 18 years for anything. The third time - almost 10 years ago - qualifies, admittedly, as insanity, because he was a lying scoundrel living a double life (I never even knew there was another woman let alone a MARRIAGE!). But never mind my perpetual naiveté and a propensity to ignore red flags (both an infinite source of fertilizer for my writing landscape). In retrospect, I understand that sometimes we’re magnetized to another in order to

The Art of God

photo by Vanessa Hill Rogers

  We are never separate from God. This is one of
  many lessons I have been learning from
  discussing my relationships with my spiritual
  masters, Helen Lordsmith and JoLee Wingerson,
  for the last 15 years (I am a slow learner). I have
  heard it said “We are God” or “We are part of
  God." Ultimately spiritual experience is personal
  and the way we frame it is unique to us. We
  decide what that relationship will be. Sometimes
  we pattern God after a wicked parent (which is
  interesting because individuals with Dissociative
  Identity Disorder also develop a personality
  modeled after their abusers).

  I feel connected to God - some Cosmic Chemical, Energetic Power, Paternal-Maternal-Fraternal Force. I like the image Marianne Williamson used of one wave saying to another wave: “Do you believe in the sea?” But, as fate would have it, humans are not created to be sailing smoothly with God in our sails. We are born thinking we are separate sinners, and our egos want us to confirm that with proof, because the ego seeks power at the expense of our health and happiness. People will treat us in exactly the way we believe we deserve to be treated – as Ego or Spirit.

Lovers and friends will come and go, but who are we between those times? Why do we give away our power to the Other as if we are not enough. When we give away our power to them, we are no longer the person the Other chose.

When I’m doing it right, my happiness is not dependent on who walks in the door on a particular day or what they are saying to me. I am totally flowing. To learn this I have kicked and screamed when someone walked out the door or didn’t appear in the way I expected. My heart has been shattered by conditions and expectations, and re-pieced. As as result, I’ve become a better teacher, mother, counselor, lover and friend as I’ve learned how to sculpt my life without expectation for the materials or the outcome. Oh how I’d like to be able to CONTROL things. Grr. My ego is a pirate!

With awareness of the fact that we are never separate from God, we are never apart from the people whom we love. We can feel them in our hearts. This is not a THOUGHT. This is something FELT and, amazingly, we can shift or morph or grow into this feeling state of being. The example I have had to model what true love looks like is my grandmother, Mutti, who died 15 years ago. I can feel her hands wrapped around me when I was a baby. I can feel her embracing me as a teen when I cried after breaking up with a boy. I can feel her braiding my hair, and I still smell her food. Her love was so total and complete. The safety I felt in her presence was so thorough that to this day she is woven into my heart and the loss of her does not throw me because I can still FEEL her. (Papa was great too but he was working long days to help support us.)

Mutti and Papa

I did not realize that this could apply across the board. The trick is to be totally open and present with the people in our lives, the people we love – without conditions. We get into trouble when we think: “I’ll only love you if you stay with me the rest of your life.” That’s a thought. The heart wants to feel. TODAY. LOVE. GO DO IT. Your kids will move out. Your lovers will leave or die. Your friends will move. Your parents are doing the best that she can. What is your personal barrier to love? Because that is the faulty belief that you are separate from God. That is the illusion standing between you and Heaven on Earth.

A Change for Humanity

I met someone who was once beaten to a pulp and lay in a hospital with “eyes like plums” he describes it, broken nose packed with cotton. Who does these things? I’ve met people who have been raped; people whose parents and grandparents have physically or sexually tortured them; people with parents who abandoned them or raised them with such neglect the thought of human connection is foreign. I have read case studies that left me shaking and crying. Victims have no choice but to dissociate, as many as 70 million people learning to function with splits in their consciousness; with lack of awareness about the Dissociative Disorders most never get the help that they need. So much of the damage is done behind closed doors, evidence of the loss of deeper connection between families and communities. Neighbors and family members turn a blind eye, often too damaged themselves to step in and advocate for the innocent.

But, I am blessed to live in a country where when the secrets bust loose, when kids are old enough to report, when wives or husbands are brave enough to leave, there is a place to go; there are services available to help. I live in a country where we can speak our minds and practice any religion we choose. We can celebrate our government or criticize and protest. 

Yet, by and large, we are consumers, striving for more things outside of ourselves to fill up the unnamable, confusing emptiness inside of us - slow to eliminate plastic, to recycle and compost, to eat healthfully, to break habits that pollute our ocean, skies and bodies. For this reason addiction is rampant. We are willing to turn a blind eye to preserve what we consider is safe and easy. We think it’s okay to frack and build pipelines that carry tar sands oil despite what happened to the Kalamazoo River. That could NEVER happen to us. But it has happened to us. We are one. Every tragedy is personal. I live an hour from where the Aurora shootings occurred and one of my daughters was at the Batman midnight premiere. There but for the grace of God goes she. We mourn the news, yet we are detached. The top 1% has a carbon footprint the equivalent of a small country - all of our footprints are too big. We are afraid of what we don’t know and hesitate to venture outside of our box. The computer culture is detaching us from our actual lives – we are beginning to lose sight of what is actually present in our immediate environment.

All that being said, I believe in people.

What’s the answer? Tell personal stories to feel less alone. Be discrete about the stories you retell. Listen. Create a culture of service. Pray. Focus on the positive. Be accountable. Listen. Reach out. Be tolerant. Stand up for the innocent. Get out into Nature. Dance. Leave your comfort zone. Be an example of love and peace. Seek and receive help. Forgive. A lot of forgiveness which means searching your memories, plumbing the depths to forgive as far back in time as even your ancestors can remember. Every action, every prayer, every example you set of tolerance and love is a step closer to change for humanity. God Goddess Big Beautiful Universal Loving Energy, please bless us all!

For information about Dissociation, please read Dr. Marlene Steinberg's A Stranger in the Mirror: Dissociation - the Hidden Epidemic.

A Response to the Tragic Incident in Aurora

The devastation in Aurora is not only an opportunity to consider and discuss legislation related to mental health and gun control, but it is also a chance to hold up a mirror. Who sends us off the deep end? Parents? The boss? Who triggers us so that we become screaming lunatics? Our children? Who provokes uncontrollable crying or road rage? Stupid drivers? Well maybe. But the fact is, we want to be heard but we end up pushing people we love away. We are "nice" until we're not and we act surprised. It took me years to get in touch with my anger and then it was a process to become genuine yet conscious of my actions. My kids will vouch for the fact that I used to get triggered big time. Now, while I have other challenges that inspire... nudge... no shove me to evolve, being mean and exploding into angry outbursts are not as much of a problem for me. I will share the steps to a practice of the heart.

There is a way to feel anger, to be our animal selves, to be charged without reacting.

The Heart will Lead Us Home, and Maybe to Italy!

My sister-in-law, Mai Ling, who is studying the principles of quantum physics, asked me if it was an accident that I won a two-week trip to Italy for two from my local radio station just by clicking on a link? Years ago I joined KBCO 97.3 as an “interactive member” online when I hoped to participate in a pre-sale for Dave Matthews tickets. I found out after the Italian drawing that I was the only one chosen out of thousands of interactive members to make it to the final 10. The other 9 where chosen out of many people who had been the ninth caller at an assigned time over the previous week. My girls and I were all on our way to eat some Mexican food. We whooped and hollered and screamed with joy when I heard

Death is a Grumpy Cousin I Can't Shake

This morning was one of those times where I woke up with one sock on, one off, tangled in the sheets and crying as though my heart had just been broken – not about anything specific. Pretty much about everything: How long do I have with my old dog? Or with the pony - I am so darn attached! With my parents? They have to live forever because I don't know what I'll do without them. Why is it I live so far from my brothers and sister? Or what about my best friends - how long do we have? My circle of women is so dear to my heart. Why do dear friends move away or I have to move from them? Will my daughters overcome their health challenges? Will they survive college? It was one of those mornings where I was wide-awake when the alarm went off and I was happy to hear the alarm! The minute I got out of bed the anxiety and sadness fell away with the other sock as I attended the practical business of the body. I splashed my face with cold water to calm the salty eye-puffs.

Life has a way of tenderizing us. It’s called Death. Maybe it’s why I feel drawn to working with the grieving families at Hospice Care of Boulder and Broomfield Counties. I’m not sure I will get that placement for practicum, but I am applying. I’ve always been a depressing person – just get to know me a little better and you’ll see. Actually people who work with the dying and mourning tend to be funny. It’s why nurses are so witty (right Susan?)! It’s why my mother who was almost killed numerous times in WWII has such a wicked sense of humor, but also a deep kindness. Heck, I was even a depressing kid. At age 5 my mom would take me on a date and I would say things like: “Let’s talk about death.” Maybe she took me on dates when she was trying to lose the guy! I can’t help I got stamped with “existentialist” before being shipped onto this planet.

Then I got plopped into a family who had just come from Europe and the horrors of WWII. They had lost everything except the clothes on their back. There was a sense of underlying fear and: “It’s us against the world.” Death was a grumpy cousin we couldn’t shake. I didn’t play at other kids houses and they didn’t come to mine, unless I was at my dad's and Lynda's every other weekend, but those encounters with other kids were few and far between. I'm not sure if the other families thought we were weird Lithuanian immigrants or if my Mutti felt she couldn't trust strangers not to kidnap me. I played alone in the backyard or with my Aunt Helena who was like an older sister.

Helena would spin imaginary games for me that took us up onto the roof; she buried

crystals for me to find as part of the adventure and wrote notes that led me from one location to another on a treasure hunt. If not with her, I was playing with Pinky the big black lab. I had 5 imaginary friends who were so real to me, I introduced them to my friends when I moved to Santa Monica. I watched a lot of TV after school (Gilligan's Island, I Dream of Genie, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Bewitched) and then my Mutti and Papa, aunt and uncle and Mom all sat around the kitchen table for dinner. I was even allowed a “thimble-full” of beer. This was a very happy childhood that I treasure remembering - just different.

Then, frumpy, overweight kid suddenly does the swan thing and ends up fairly popular at Santa Monica High School. It was like some cosmic joke had been played on me. I hid behind my cheerleading costume, totally bewildered. Painfully shy, the facade suited me. The traditional roles gave me something to be. Parochial elementary school taught there was a right and wrong answer - none of this critical thinking stuff. I didn’t even know how to begin to form an opinion! Until I got to Santa Monica at age 11, I had been raised mostly by adults. I had never been to an overnight at a friend’s house. I didn’t even know the clapping game: “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” I was an unsocialized Golden Retriever who had only seen other dogs through glass. I missed all the cues. I listened to classical, not rock and roll. When I did speak in high school, I was so painfully serious. But I took myself so dang seriously, because death was still a concept in my head. Intellectualizing death kept it at a safe distance. My feelings were shut down; they were too dangerous to allow out. Oh, I cried a lot, but I stuffed the deeper feelings. I had no idea how to broach anger. But when the concept of death got to my heart via heartbreak and love and loss and changes...when I had the bravery to let it move out of my head and into my heart, which came in waves from age 25 to 45, the experience was shocking and searing. Putting words to that kind of realization of impermanence is pretty much like trying to describe

a spiritual experience. Words became inadequate. When we awaken to the reality of imminent death, we can’t take anything too seriously, because tomorrow it will be different. It deepens our appreciation for the people we love and the time we have with them. Laughter heals.

The pursuit of an open heart didn’t stop at age 45, but now I’ve made peace with the idea that there are going to be mornings I cry my eyes out. It’s okay. That’s part of the deal. Sometimes I’m going to win a trip to Italy or be associated with aristocracy in England. On some level, I’m still the homely, lonely kid which causes me to appreciate others and the potential fun on earth all the more. Feelings are like the waves I body surfed. Sometimes I’m going to get rolled on the sea floor, but I’m going to stand up, crunching on sand, with more experience and exhilarated. I’m not going to stay planted on the shore telling everyone: “Don’t go in - the waves are too big!” With some discretion I’m going to dive in again. True happiness blossoms in the heart as an ongoing state of being when we can let sorrow tear through us like a hurricane and realize we will still be standing when it's over.

Excerpt from William Cullen Bryant's poem, "Thanatopsis"
So, live that when they summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach they grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.

The Depth of Depp and TMI

I am getting ready to go to England with my mother and brother, Derek. We will stay on Lord March and Lady Janet’s Goodwood property and attend a gala, teas and the antique car races. My mother and late stepfather were frequently invited to this and other amazing events, but raising two daughters, I rarely had opportunity to join them. I’m sure the event will make for a fun blog post, considering the theme of the ball is Space Barbarella. All four days we are asked to dress in 40’s or 50’s attire. Personally I would like to dress in costume daily for the rest of my life!

Recently, I watched two movies featuring Johnny Depp: “Benny and Joon” and “Don Juan DeMarco.” Both inspire the audience to live less mundane lives – to wake up to magic and the present moment. The latter questions perception and reality. What are the stories we choose to believe and how to they create not only us, but everything around us? Do our stories serve to help us feel more alive or to kill us? What if

every time we thought something we asked: “Does this make me feel alive or dead?” When does the inner critic slip in (when we least expect) and take the pen from us. Observe. Question. Consider.

Some stories are just plain funny and worth retelling, but some serve to drag us down. In retelling them we relive them. The greatest threat to our egos is to be creative and open to the unknown – to be guided by Love and the Great Mystery or God – whatever your version of that is - and to see what unfolds. How will we be used (by God, by Love, by our higher selves) in each moment? If we are stuck in past stories, we block an opportunity for a deeper exchange with the person or people across from us. An open heart will save the planet.

I look forward to this trip to England, because I don’t know what to expect; however, I am concerned about my mother. I told my friends she had experienced a “TMI.” My nurse/dancer friend, Susan, asked if perhaps she experienced an overload of too much information, or perhaps I experienced an overload of acronyms. Since going back to school for a counseling degree I have definitely been bombarded with acronyms and terms of diagnosis. People have strings of letters after their names that are a language unto themselves. And, yes, my mother could very well be suffering from too much information – she seems to have two speeds: hospital: zero mph and regular life: 120 mph. Rather, she was diagnosed in the hospital with having experienced a TIA (transient ischemic attack), which mimics a stroke and could warn of an impending stroke.

But my mother is not one to dwell in the past – not even yesterday – which has been her savior on the most part. Instead of going into the story that her high-speed life could be her demise, I am going to hold out for the idea that she knows exactly what she’s doing, and has lived a most incredible life as a result. (I can see why she admires Johnny Depp so much.) As to the question if she listens to what her body is telling her – only she can answer that.