I shared this story at St. John UCC a few days ago:
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Make The Chili
A good friend of mine unexpectedly lost his wife. A couple months later we were golfing together, chatting about nothing. He asked what my dinner plans were and I told him wifey wanted my homemade chili and cornbread, but I didn’t feel like stopping at the store. We golfed a few more minutes when he quietly said, “Make the chili.”
It took me a few minutes to realize we were no longer talking about dinner. It was about going out of your way to do something for someone you love because at any moment, they could unexpectedly be taken from you. So today I’m sharing with you that wisdom handed to me by my dear friend, that I’ve thought of many times since that day. Next time someone you love wants you to go for a walk or watch a football game or play a board game or just put your phone down and give them your undivided attention, just do it. “Make the chili.”
Today this story visits me with greatly expanded awareness.
A precious dharma friend has been experiencing anxiety and full-blown-panic attacks, possibly a long-covid condition. In our discussion about all of this I mentioned three therapies that might be helpful. Self Havening, EFT, and EMDR. This is what I sent to her after we logged off Zoom.
Self Havening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQXbZmuSbFs
A 10-minute, Self-Havening practice to reduce anxiety, enhance wellbeing, and develop compassion and loving-kindness. See neuroscienceofhealing.com for more resources.
Tapping Points and Instructional Video
Tapping (EFT) is so powerful because it addresses the emotions that have been stored in our bodies as we developed.
Here is the short instructional video introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAclBdj20ZU
The points are on the side of the hand, where the eyebrow begins, where the eyebrow ends on the side of your eye, under eye right on the bone, under your nose, on the crease of your chin, on your collar bone, under arm on the bra strap, and on the top of your head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAclBdj20ZU&authuser=0
EMDR Therapy
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, commonly known as EMDR, is a mental health therapy method. EMDR treats mental health conditions that happen because of memories from traumatic events in your past. It’s best known for its role in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but its use is expanding to include treatment of many other conditions.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22641-emdr-therapy
Our meditation teacher, Barbara Brodsky, reminds us in The Path of Clear Light: Stepping Out of the Shadow, “There is no need to fix them, though you will wish to tend to them.”
When we sit in formal meditation, if a fly buzzes our face we resist the urge to swat or shoo it away, thus developing concentration and mindfulness. We are cultivating the gentle truth of tending to conditions. We know everything arises from conditions. We know conditions are impermanent.
If a baby cries because it is hungry, does the mother refuse milk to teach the baby that hunger arises from conditions and will pass when the conditions cease? Of course not. The mother will tend to the baby.
John and I have been spending time with my nephew as he makes a huge lifestyle change from over-the-road truck driving and living in the truck, to local work and being “home” every night. Complicated hugely by not having had a home or an income. The goal is to generate stability rather than becoming homeless every time he changes jobs. Today he came for home-made vegetable beef soup and cornbread and a shower.
Just as judging “judging” is still judging, fixing “fixing” is still fixing.
Conditions are calling us to tend to them.
Make the chili.
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