By Debra Basham, on August 8, 2014
The “theme-of-the-week” (if a week can have a theme) has been fear. Of course, I love the plays on the word, such as false evidence appearing real. I found a website with many more. Here are just a few:
Frustration, Ego, Anxiety, Resentment
Forever Escaping And Retreating
Frantic Efforts to Appear Recovered
For Everything a Reason
Forgetting Everything’s All Right
Knowing everything is all right does not help much when you are in the middle a mental/emotional pattern that has triggered fear or anxiety. Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique) is a good resource to learn now so you can navigate with clarity when you are confronted by a real risk. At some point, in some way, you must confront your fear or you will lose more and more freedom to enjoy life.
Every faith tradition seems to encourage us to overcome fear and anxiety. Hebrew scriptures say it this way: “I will not be afraid, because the Lord is with me. People can’t do anything to me.”(Psalm 118:6) According to Buddhism, fear is at the very root of ego.
In the article, “Starting on the Path of Fearand Fearlessness”, Judith Lief, writes, “We have our conscious day-to-day fears—of a close call, an accident, a bad health diagnosis. But then there is an undercurrent of fear, which is very relevant to practitioners. This undercurrent of fear lurks behind a lot of our habits. It is why it is so hard to just sit still or stand still or stand in line—not doing anything in particular—without feeling nervous and fidgety. We have a fear of being still.”
This week, I attended a book signing by Patty Chang Anker, author of Some Nerve:Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave, and former Director of Media Relations for The New York Times. Patty was in Saint Joseph to visit the scene of one of her overcoming. Having experienced a near-drowning in a river as a youngster, she faced the fear of water in one of the most chilling settings: Surfing on Lake Michigan in February!
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| Patty Chang Anker, author of Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave. |
Recently, the local evening news ran a story about another brave woman, Jules Follett, who has overcome the fear of heights. Although it is not mentioned in the news story, one of our SCS/NLP graduates, Kimberly DeFields Bay, initially guided Jules through the Fast Phobia Cure (developed by Richard Bander) under my supervision as a demonstration of mastery. It is a simple technique, with profound benefits!
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| Jules Follet (your right), enjoying no fear of heights after the fast phobia cure, in Dubai. |
While it is true we do not have to become as adventurous as Patty—or as world-traveled as Jules—to know they are enjoying a life free of irrational fears, it is exciting just to know you, too, can. Then just sit back and see what marvelous things are able to happen in your life….
By Debra Basham, on July 30, 2014
When I saw this photo on the wall of a friend on Facebook a few days ago, I instantly had the thought I would blog about it.
This morning early, it was quite interesting to receive a text asking me if I communicate with people who have passed. I told her I learned the work Dr. Alan Bodkin calls “Induced After Death Communication.” I use that, when appropriate, to help people overcome grief, face fears, and resolve internal conflicts.
She wrote back, “Does that mean you are a medium?”
Explaining that Dr. Bodkin says you do not have to believe in spirits to have the technique be helpful, I went on to say that I am very intentional to work within the individual’s beliefs. I added my own belief that we are all mediums, meaning that spirit can and does communicate to and through each of us.
I remembered and shared with her the Thanksgiving my daughter, Stacey, came to Michigan. She got ready to make my mom’s famous Dutch Apple Pie, but realized she did not have the recipe. After quite some time of struggling to remember the ingredients and the quanties, the information clearly popped into her mind. At just that moment of clarity, Stacey heard my mom’s voice in her head say, “Well, damn, Sugar, I’ve been trying to tell you!”
Whatever your beliefs, if you would treasure some time with a loved one who is now in spirit, decide a location where you would like to meet. Or just sit with your loved one in your mind’s eye on this bench. Close your eyes and get comfortable. Bring your attention to your heart. Use your imagination and just see what wonderful happens.
You can write a letter to your loved one in spirit, using the same process of imagination. Say what is on your heart to say, then listen with your heart for the answer. Many of Bodkin’s patients reported similar phenomenon as those who had a near-death experience (NDE).
The real gift is you genuinely experience of feeling a reconnection….
By Debra Basham, on July 22, 2014
A wonderful woman I have been working with is facing a surgery that has been referred to as “The Mother of All Surgeries.” She is an amazing individual, and she did her homework to find the right team to do this surgery for her.
At the same time she is on this amazing healing journey (one that alone could be a full-time endeavor for some), a huge project is coming together at work as well.
Things just seem so amplified for many people right now.
After meeting with her, I spent some time writing a tapping (EFT) script for helping her Imagine Healing. This is the last sequence in that tapping:
EB: I realize my healing journey is unfolding;
SE: and I am extremely grateful for that.
UE: My body can relax a bit more into the truth of that now.
UN: Maybe a good outcome for the surgery can be easier than I thought.
CH: It won’t happen exactly as I imagined it, but things can go better than expected.
CB: I am grateful for feeling any relaxation,
UA: as I deal with what needs to be done.
TH: This journey may help me help others some day. For that, I am glad.
As I read through the words again just now, I realize if you just take out the words “for the surgery” this is a message for each of us.
Some are struggling to make ends meet. Many are experiencing physical challenges. People are navigating their way to a sane and sober life after a time of having been using substances or behaviors to numb pain from their past.
Each of us can say honestly, “I realize my healing journey is unfolding; this journey may help me help others some day; and I am extremely grateful for that.” Our bodies can relax into the truth of all this and more. How many times have we worried about something that never came to be? Often the gifts and blessings amidst challenges far exceed anything we might have imagined.
One thing is certain, as the Dalai Lama said, “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”
By Debra Basham, on July 15, 2014
I often notice when a certain theme seems to be prevalent in the world around me. For example, I spent the past weekend with my daughter and her family. My grandson, Adam, just graduated from high school and is about two weeks away from leaving for a three-month culinary work-study experience in Italy. Whether it is a delayed case of “senioritis” or something else going on, the two of them are going through a challenging time of relating right now.
The adult daughter of a friend had a triggering event with her husband over a glass of wine she drank (she is nursing her new baby daughter). That triggering event led to a huff up the stairs and some silent-treatment and tense atmosphere for everyone (including my friend and her husband).
My sister got triggered when her former daughter-in-law was upset about some demands with regards to visitation time with grandson, Tony. It only took a few moments for her to realize she was reliving some past pain with a former husband around her own young son.
Like pimples on the oily face of a teenager, this theme of past pain seems to be popping out at me from everywhere.
In Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha,Tara Brach makes a key point about it: ”Because we are responding to an accumulation of past pain, our reactions are out of proportion to what is happening in the moment. When someone criticizes us or disapproves of us, we get thrown back in time and have no access to our adult understanding.” (p. 170-171)
“Your ultimate victory is in taking back the power to dictate your own emotions and to use your free will to make choices that enhance your life and bring you inner peace.” (The Secret of Overcoming Verbal Abuse Getting Off the Emotional Roller Coaster and Regaining Control of Your Life, by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. and Marcia Grad Powers, p. 124.)
As I was with another person, also slogging through the depth of interpersonal stress, I had the message pop into my mind to tell her that right now, the only expression of Jesus in her life was this other person. It seemed too harsh, and I tried to avoid the necessity of sharing the idea. When I did share it, she and I both cried.
I cried recalling the day I had felt the unjustness of judging Jesus based on what others said he said.
Terrence Real writes with great wisdom about relationships in How Can I Get Through to You? Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women. Chapter 13 is about “Relational Esteem.” Real defines self-esteem as “one’s capacity to hold oneself in warm regard in the face of one’s own imperfections and limitations, one’s capacity to cherish oneself as a flawed, flesh-and-blood, human being.” (p. 207)
Relational esteem, accordingly, is the capacity to hold the relationship in warm regard in the face of its imperfections and limitations.
Perhaps we can come to value past pain in a similar way. As Real shares with readers, the only instrument for change we possess, our only tool, is ourselves…
As I sit here writing, I remember these tender interactions between people who want to express lovingly with one another and I let emotion course through me. I feel my heart soften toward myself and all these “others” who are each only doing the best we can. I am reminded simply of the truth about past pain: Sometimes it takes generations to heal.
By Debra Basham, on June 30, 2014
So many people have expressed astonishment that I would actually enjoy a week-long silent meditation retreat. I admit that it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but silence—to my heart—is golden.
I treasure the deeper seeing that occurs naturally. For example, the awe that I felt when I saw these two dandelions growing side-by-side in the labyrinth. They were the only two in the whole area, and instantly, I was aware of the profound reality present in the old is the new not yet come.
The theme of the week was Self or No Self. Imagine my shock when I crawled into my bunk the first night, looked up at the bottom of the top bunk and saw dozens of eyes looking back at me!
In meditation training, it is said, “The one who is aware of anger is not angry.” As I was drifting off to sleep, I wondered who is the “I” looking, and who is the “I” being seen?
While we might argue these ideas until the cows come home, it is very simple to experience truth beyond ideas when you are intentional to notice the ego perspective and do as Jill BolteTaylor describes as stepping right of your left brain. She is the author of My Stroke of Insight, and if you have not yet seen her amazing Ted talk, check that out.
I am slowly settling back into a routine here at home, but I am being very intentional to integrate the expanded mindfulness my week of silent mediation gifted me with.
For today, let me remember you can see the eternal expressing itself in the impermanent moment-by-moment. It is so reassuring to know this is the truth of each of our lives.
By Debra Basham, on June 16, 2014
I was sitting out on the Zen walkway, sipping a cup of tea with a dear friend. Our sharing naturally included reports of many of those we “hold energy” for: friends and family, folks personally known or those who have come into our hearts and minds via the many-threaded web of our intentionally conscious life.
I mentioned one dear friend, Bernie, having recently been in the hospital with pneumonia—having complications including MRSA. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection is far-too-often contracted in a health-care facility. It is caused by a strain of staph bacteria that’s become resistant to the antibiotics commonly used to treat ordinary staph infections.
Nancy got quiet… then she said, “What is your sense of this challenging time with all this?”
“You mean with antibiotic resistant infections? With all the challenges?” I queried.
“All of it,” Nancy nearly whispered as the hummingbirds zipped around the feeder hanging just a few feet from where we were sitting.
My heart felt soft. Just looking around at those in my immediate sphere of influence could bring tears to your eyes unless you can see the bigger picture. “Was it not just in the 1940’s that antibiotics were first used on humans? We have been in a pattern of fighting against. We know that when you pick up a stick, you pick up both ends…”
Nancy nodded her head, and we sat in silence for a few moments before talking a bit about how each of us can meet challenges with unlimited optimism and faith. Nancy told me earlier that morning she had heard Oprah Winfrey speak of Maya Angelou’s having taught that message to all blessed enough by grace to hear.
This morning I am listening to Maya’s memorial service for myself. Oprah shared a time she had called Maya, hysterically crying about something so devastating at that moment, but the subject of which Oprah cannot even recall now. Maya immediately spoke truth and wisdom that has benefits for each of us today.
Maya’s beautiful words:
Stop it.
Stop it, now!
Stop your crying now.
Stop and say thank you, because whatever it is, you have the faith to know that God has put a rainbow in the clouds, and you’re going to come out on the other side of whatever it is the better for it.
How will we humans navigate the current and coming rough waters of our individual and collective lives?
We can navigate with enough faith to know that God has put a rainbow in the clouds, and we are going to come out on the other side the better for it.
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| Rainbow Flying photo from my dear friend, Dahlis Roy. |
By Debra Basham, on June 8, 2014
“Let me take some time each day to look within the self and experience the beauty of my inner qualities,” is the thought for the day that accompanied this photo:
This photo and the words were such a timely message, as I had just spent yesterday in a silent meditation retreat with a small group of others. In some unspoken (yet understood) way, each of us—including our retreat facilitator—was there to do just that: Make friends with yourself.
Even before I left the house, the content for my process was showing up. A friend who was supposed to attend sent an email message: “Too little sleep. Too much driving. Not coming today, have a blessed day.”
Then, as I was shutting down my phone, ready to give my attention to the inner world, a text from my sister saying she would not be coming to the Holistic Alliance reunion the following day. Her stated reason, “Looks like most of the people I would like to see are not going.”
The fertile soil of my soul searching had been planted, and my unshed tears watered the ground. Stinking thinking was the manure of rapid growth. The warmth of love in the room gave energy to the hell-of-my-own-making as I translated my sister’s message to “nobody I am interested in seeing.”
Monkey mind was off and running wildy.Would I give it the keys to my heart?
In the sacred (and safe) container of the days meditation, I had the gift of choice to hold my inner being with compassion rather than to play the role of abuser and neglector my ego had already assigned to my friend and to my beloved sister. I had the opportunity to feel my own disappointment at not having the blessing of sharing time and experience with those I loved.
The door was open to self freedom, and it also offered grace to the others in my life.
Thank you, Lisa Zucker, for being such a wonderful teacher/learner. It is a humbling role we each play each and every day….
By Debra Basham, on May 30, 2014
This past week I had the honor of creating a photo board for our grandson, Adam, celebrating his graduation from high school. It had been a long day, and it was already late and I was tired, but soon I was energized walking down memory lane.
Awareness of every event as divine order was obvious as I saw with my own eyes infant growing into toddler, child developing into teen, and emerging as grown man. Photo after photo of Adam in the kitchen left me wondering just how much our destiny is revealing itself even at the tender age of two or four or ten.
When his older brother, Brad, saw the board, he smiled a huge smile and said, “You packed it in!” That is true, and it was the perfect way to honor Adam.
Adam really began to find his place in the world when he started racing go-karts. His nickname was plowboy because he would run off the track. Imagine a kid who cannot even drive yet navigating around hair pin turns at 75 to 100 miles per hour. He was a great team member, helping the guys and benefiting from their experience. He won a championship! He flipped over and over going about 95 MPH on the Daytona track. He experienced the bitter and the sweet and learned from it all.
During his senior year, in addition to working part time at Publix while taking the culinary program at school, he has already been working as a volunteer fireman. He is a remarkable young man, that is for sure!
It was an incredibly busy week. Through it all, my heart kept thinking about how Adam’s photo board is a symbol for all of us.
We have moments we are exceedingly proud of. Some we are embarrassed by. Some we have long forgotten. Many of our moments of years gone by seem like just yesterday.
For each of us, our moments will come to an end. That has happened for Maya Angelou.
Here is one of her amazing poems that, in my heart, honors both of them.
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
Adam, savor your past, enjoy your present, and trust your future.
You are the possible.
You are the miraculous.
You are the true wonder of this world.
Congratulations!
By Debra Basham, on May 19, 2014
This has been a tender spring with young ones in nature. One of the 2014 eaglets on Pine Island few for the first time on March 12, and—just 9 days later—was electrocuted flying into some wires.
Did you know, once paired, bald eagles (the only eagle unique to North America), stay with their mate for life. Only if one bird dies, will the other select another mate.
During mating season, diligently selecting then carefully transporting sticks—some of which are up to a couple of feet long—both the male and female work to build the nest. The nest can span 8 feet and weigh as much as a ton!
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| A photo snip (photographer) of the surviving eagle on this year’s nest…. |
Stories of eagles swooping down and snatching a fish right out of the hands of a fisherman are not just legend on Pine Island, they are fact. They really love the slender lady fish…
One day, a dear friend who regularly visits the nest, was frightened for the surviving chick as an osprey was threatening an attack. Whooosh! Fortunately, the eagle parent had been hiding out of sight and was right there to intervene, giving a violent chasing to the would-be-intruder.
Today, my daughter shared that she found eggs from a nest on her porch overhang on the ground. She says she felt “sad” as she saw bitty birdie bodies in the now-cracked eggs. She knows first-hand how dedicated this momma bird was because she had tried (unsuccessfully) to encourage her to build elsewhere.
All of these birdie tales keep tugging at our “momma” heart strings. This is true for men as well as women. We know creatures in nature grieve. Newspapers and websites share reports of one species adopting a baby of another species to fill the void as big as the state of Texas where a mother’s love would be.
Are you wondering what it is that keeps our winged sisters and brothers building those nests? Join me as I reflect on divine love as a choice-less-ness, hard-wired into our being.
My good friend Wayne used to have a handyman service. (See previous post.) Everyone loves Wayne, and he could fix just about anything. Some memory challenges leave him finding new ways of being in the world. On his walk, he now carries a pointed stick and picks up loose paper along the way. Wayne has begun sending encouraging cards to people he cares about. A mutual friend suggested he adopt James Taylor’s “Handy Man” as his new motto: “Here is the main thing I want to say, I’m busy twenty four hours a day. I fix broken hearts, I’m your handy man.”
Wayne, and mother eagles, and you and I. We all instinctively want to make a contribution to our world. Some build nests. Some pick up trash. Some smile at strangers. Some see clients. Some build websites. Some sing in the choir. What gifts we all have to share!
By Debra Basham, on May 5, 2014
The phone rang. I heard the voice of Claudia, a good friend. “I am at the ER with Wayne. He cut his wrist badly with the table saw. He is probably going to need surgery.”
“I will send out a request for prayer support to the list right now. Keep me posted.”
Wayne—her husband—is also a good friend. Although I had laundry in, food on the stove, and was still in sweats, I soon felt the draw to go offer what support I could. I turned down the stove, quickly slipped into street clothes, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and headed out the door.
A brief call on my way found them still in ER, but waiting transport to Kalamazoo. Claudia rode in the ambulance with Wayne, and I drove her car.
Your sense of giving support is intimately linked with support you have previously received. In 2011, when I found myself on a wild ride to surgery and then an even wilder ride to cardiac intensive care (post surgical complication), I was on the receiving end. Claudia sat with me in the hospital restroom, willing my intestines to wake up. She spent the night with me. She shared her skills of reflexology and aromatherapy.
Neither Wayne nor Claudia are strangers to pain. A couple of years ago he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Wayne still faces surgery, but that night he was released from ER—dressed in paper scrubs and nonskid socks. I drove them home, and it was my turn to stay the night. We had not anticipated the experiences we would share that day, but hidden blessings are tucked into the actions of giving and receiving love and support.
The shop where Wayne’s injury occurred needed to be cleaned up. The estimate (all blood has to be treated as a biohazard) was $600. Wayne’s long-time close friend, Bob, and I decided to give it a try. Bob went to buy supplies while I organized the necessary tools.
On hands and knees, the work was an act of prayer.
We spoke of our gratitude Wayne is alive.
Sharing times of personal pain in our pasts, acknowledging the miracle of friends who are able toreally be there for one another.
Pouring the peroxide out of the bottles became sacred ritual. Wiping up the blood of our dear friend took on profound meaning for both of us.
“I have helped bring babies into the world, and held people as they were dying. I feel that same intimacy with you now. I am honored to perform this act of care and I cannot imagine having been able to do this with anyone else…”
Truth needs to be spoken. Life is too fragile to meet it with anything less than honesty.
When the last of the “biohazard” had been safely disposed of, I ceremoniously slipped out of my latex gloves to snap this selfie with Bob, just one of the many hidden blessings…
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