We Are All Tiny Tim

All of us are dragging around some part of ourselves, a part that just doesn’t work right, a lack in us that makes us wonder: What’s wrong with me? How come I can’t do that?

 These discoveries and comparisons begin when we enter school and by high school most of us have raging comparison fever. We are too short or too tall. We wonder if we will ever make the team? We are consumed with who is “popular” and who isn’t. Why do we eat when we know we shouldn’t? Why do I have pimples and she doesn’t? Why do I break a sweat if I have to speak in front of the class? How come I completely fail to understand geometry? Everyone else gets it.

You know this territory.

We feel surrounded by people who do it—whatever “it” is---or maybe everything-- better than we do.

And so we come into adulthood with some scars and a strong sense of our deficiencies, but hopefully, over time, we also acquire an awareness of what we are good at, where we do have strength and competency.

With wisdom and experience, we come to terms with the fact that although we may be very clever at something, there will always be someone who is even more so. That’s just life.

With adult insight and perspective-- it’s OK.

 But what I want to emphasize here is, that whoever we are, however numerous our glitches, we all express something in the world that is unique. Look at it this way: no one exactly like you has ever been born before and no one exactly like you will ever be born again. It is imperative that we all express what we came into this world to express—whatever it is, at whatever level we achieve.

 And remember this. Tiny Tim was the center of his family not because he was cripple, but because he was bright-eyed and sparkling with love.

What does that tell us?

Written by this left/right- ambiguous, directionally impaired, moderately dyslexic, Blogger.

A Path To Joy

I learned to meditate in the ‘70s when the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi visited Toledo, Ohio, where I lived at the time. On that very first evening, meditation felt like coming home. Since then I have meditated in Buddhist monasteries and Hindu ashrams, in small groups with a Tibetan teacher, alone on the rough sides of a mountain, on sandy Atlantic beaches and most of all, in my own living room.

I have loved teaching meditation groups over the years, participating with people in discovering the deeper and greater reality within ourselves--more than we ever imagined--as well as the healing power of being in the present moment.

Mindfulness meditation is an idea whose time has come. Articles abound explicating the benefits to the brain, the lowering of blood pressure and improved ability to concentrate. (See Time Magazine, Feb 3, 2014) Science has caught up with meditation and as a result, meditation, a practice, which is thousands of years old, is the newest, best thing and I am glad.

I am moved by the small group that I am currently leading which consists predominantly of very senior women, a couple of them with serious health issues. One bravely carries her new oxygen tank to the group. Not one of them has meditated before. Looking around the room at the end of our first session, each woman looks younger; shined up and polished, her eyes filled with light.

 Mindful of the breath, we sit together: steady as a mountain, in relaxed stillness. I behold the effects of the practice in these women; they see the effects of the practice in each other. Everyone is smiling.

What the scientists neglect to mention is that meditation can be a path to joy.

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It's Not Happening

Taking care of ourselves means being able to set clear boundaries. It means being able to say, ”no”--even when we are enticed by the worthiness of the cause or the people involved in it.

 We tend to ignore that we have run out of steam, that our commitments are over the top and we’ll say, “yes” anyway. We can’t help it. Poor humans that we are, we want to be indispensible, to prove our worthiness to others and to ourselves. We want to be perfect.

According to Brene Brown in her book, The Gifts Of Imperfection, perfectionism is a “2 ton shield against the perceived judgment of the world. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance.”

“Somewhere along the line,” Brown tells us, “we adopted the idea that I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it.”

You’ve heard the expression? Rather than human beings, we have turned into human doings?

I’m not saying don’t do your best. Of course we want to do our best in our work and in our relationships, even when we are shoveling snow off the walk.

But could we relax? Could we surrender our compulsive attempts to be flawless? No one is, no one ever will be. It’s not happening.

Releasing the drive for perfection, let’s aim, instead, for a comfortable and kindly self-acceptance. The bottom line is that we all want to be loved and, you may have noticed, it’s really hard to love someone who is always trying to be perfect. There’s a strict quality to that striving that makes getting close a real challenge.

It’s far, far easier to love a person who slips on life’s banana peels now and then and can laugh about it.

The Wow! Wow! Wow!

Recently I had a sonogram of my carotid arteries.  No medical big deal; I just did it. I’ve never had one before. Those of you reading who have had this or a similar experience will know exactly what I am talking about. Those of you who have not, I hope, will be able to imagine.

The technician turned my head to one side and slathered thick, goopy stuff on my neck. Then she began sliding an electronic instrument--a transducer probe--around on my neck as she told me that first she would be taking pictures, (they were already showing up on the screen behind me) and then I would hear “some sounds.”

Fine. I have no idea what the pictures looked like. I couldn’t see them.

But the sounds! Suddenly a roaring, watery-sounding, rhythmic rush filled my ears. I wish I could describe that sound adequately but such is the pathetic limit of words. I say pathetic because one way or another this is a sound that we all should discover: the sound of our hearts sending blood whooshing through the carotid artery, every artery and vein, the sound of our hearts at work.

“Is that my heart doing that?” I was thrilled. It was as if I were meeting my own heart for the first time.

“Yes,” the woman said, as she continued to angle and press the probe firmly against my neck.

“It makes a deep, rasping, Wow!” I told her. “It’s extraordinary! It really is a Woww!” I said, emulating the sound from the back of my throat.

She turned her head away from the screen just long enough to say, “I’ve always thought it sounded like a Wow!-- but you are the first patient to say so.”

Suddenly aware of how completely mindless I am about this amazing organ that pumps blood throughout my body, I placed my hand over my heart. I take it for granted, I thought. I don’t think about it. Ever.

“I never think about my heart,” I told the woman, feeling a bit guilty.

Wow! Wow! Wow! The beat went on.

“No one does,” the technician responded, “until something goes wrong. And then-- that’s all people can think about.”

With my hand still on my chest, I whispered “thank you,” and promised myself I would pay more attention. From time to time I would notice my heart beating and send the Wow! Wow! Wow! the gratitude it deserves. 

A Fierce Determination

Saturday morning, the day following the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Russia, I received an email from a friend which said, “All I kept thinking about was the kind of money it takes to produce the Olympic Games and what that money could do to feed and heal the world.”

Right back at her I wrote, “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

It’s not about the athletes. They are extraordinarily talented and committed young people. Each has worked for years with a fierce dedication in order to achieve a place in the games, to represent his or her country. I know a bit about this dedication vicariously as we have a gold medal winner in our extended family and for several years my youngest son was an NBC producer for the Olympic games. Just hearing the stories about the training schedules of these young athletes, the injuries sustained and the fresh determination demonstrated, fills me with awe.

 Thinking of what they have suffered, strained toward and accomplished, I weep when—particularly American kids---win, when they stand erect, blazing with happiness while the national anthem plays.

But . . . all the rest? The media hype, the product advertising, the building of enormous facilities, the send-off fireworks alone—all of the wildly extravagant expense. It gives me pause. I can’t help it.

Could there be some other way? Or even better, could we match the same depth of commitment that we demonstrate to young athletes in the production of the Olympic games, and join together as a world in a commensurate and equally heart-felt determination to assure that no child in our world goes to bed hungry?

Imagine it. Please imagine it. Seemingly impossible dreams always begin in the imagination. Ask any Olympic champion.