Brain Surgery Two Years Later
Pre-op 2014
On the second anniversary of my surgery adventure I am (still) grateful to be alive. And not only to be alive, but to be sitting on a comfortable bed looking out a window at crisp blue sky bordered by colorful almost-falling leaves. I’m about to go eat a baked potato and sit outside with friends. Tonight I’ll sing along to every song as I watch Frozen while eating popcorn and chocolate. I almost cannot believe this is what I get to do today. But I can, because of what I’ve learned in this past year since surgery:
No experience is forever. And when the experience is painful, I get to know without a doubt that it will change.
I can do whatever I want. There are no rules. I just have to admit to myself the secret desires of my heart. Those desires are for my good, and are leading me on the adventure I came here for.
I am good. I am made up of pure loving goodness, and no matter what I do or what happens to me, that is permanent amongst impermanent.
Even if my mind disagrees, I am doing my best. If I knew a better way I would be doing it.
Love is easy because love is everywhere. I cannot escape its abundance, but I can be distracted from it through thinking.
I can forgive everything for being as it is, because it already is.
My body is trying to help me stay alive. It loves being my vehicle in this world, and it is always doing its best to serve me. There is nothing about my body of which to be afraid.
I love being myself. I love you being yourself. And I’m so grateful we are being ourselves at the same time.
What you think about yourself, or me, or the world is not who you are. This makes it very easy to love you no matter what.
When the present moment is happening it is never what I thought it would be like. It is usually easier. Thank you for making it easier. I am grateful for your spiritual presence in my life, and your unconditional love. May your love return to you tenfold.
Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing
For the past few months I’ve been carrying around a ukulele like Stacy and Clinton had personally recommended it. It makes meeting people incredibly simple. “Requests?”
While it may come off as an endearing eccentricity, going around singing to innocent bystanders, this isn’t an altruistic musical exchange. If I peak behind the curtain, the thoughts driving these actions are not of giving, they are of wanting.
In every interaction this ego is trying to get love.
The attempt to “get” something from another person, like we’re all perusing some crowded emotional bazaar, is how many egos live their whole lives. It becomes the subtext of relationship.
The mind made self sees other people as fulfillers of needs. While the true self, who is watching and observing this all take place as I sing “Part of Your World” for the nineteenth time, is aware that there is nothing to get.
Unbeknownst to the mind, love is not a thing, it is a state of being. Love is a reality, and it is really within me, obscured by the insatiable wanting of my mind made self.
So how can I get the love my mind made self so admirably tries to win for me?
Give up. Be with people without trying to get anything from them. Let each interaction be an end unto itself. And let that unfulfilled desire rise up and subside like ocean tides. This is presence. This is being in the actual present moment and not asking it to be something else. This is letting go of the war the mind creates with the now. This is surrender.
The state of being that then rises up, in the space between what was once a constant stream of thought, is love. Real love. It is always there in the quiet chambers of your consciousness. In silence, in surrender, it will sing to you, and you’ll realize what you were wanting before was merely a phantom of the real thing.
Home Movies
Right now it looks weird. There are turkeys on the side of the road, a small aloe plant beside a telephone, a twin bed on blue carpeting, dozens of yellow butterflies, bells ringing at noon and then again at six. And there is me. Living in it. But I don’t know this story, this character. I’ve never watched this one before.
If I were a movie, this would be the good part. When life looks strangest, let that be the good part of your movie. And if you have to keep something in mind, remember who is watching, and that at some point, before you decided to go out to the theater, you thought this would be fun.
The Next First Step
When a Virginia leaf decays beneath my shoe change is coming. But on the cusp of my first East Coast fall I cannot know the picture that so many hundreds of thousands of trees will create as their air cools.
My life; hundreds of thousands of unfathomable future moments. What they will look like, I do not know. That a change is going to come, those first fallen leaves have already foretold.
If you try to answer the problem of your life with a solution from your mind, all you will end up watching are odd remakes of a better original.
There is a new story being told in each successive now. Only watch. Only listen. Pay no mind, rather, pay attention. Then the author that wrote millions of leaves flaming into color will give you a sight into which you couldn’t possibly have spun any string of thoughts.
How To Practice Being Yourself
It is easy to believe a spiritual practice will help you feel better. But from my experience, spiritual practice necessarily cannot concern how you feel.
Today I remember that sometimes I will not feel like engaging in the sadhana which is set before me. Yet, each day I do it. Sometimes I am sleepy, sometimes I feel listless. I experience the practice with those feelings. Some days I am motivated, some days peaceful, and I experience the practice with those feelings too.
A spiritual practice gives clarity to the inner world of emotion through its consistency among the fluctuating and fleeting nature of feelings. It shows up emotions for what they truly are: not you. Anything changing cannot be you, rather you are here experiencing change. Doing the same spiritual practice each day gently lays the ephemeral at the feet of the unchanging consciousness that you are, lets you gaze upon it, and do with it what you will.
Dear Alchemists, Notice What You Make
Consider all that your consciousness has taken in this year. The facts and figures, news stories, challenges, experiences, human interactions. You are an expert witness to this creation day in and day out.
What are you bringing forth into this world each day? When I think back to the un-work related conversations I hear at work, most of them fall into the category of “the horrors of existence.” We discuss the worst things imaginable, often with lamentations for a broken world. This is not being well informed. Knowing what is going on with other people and languishing in their misery are two very different things.
The mind can toil forever over a problem it can’t solve, which is precisely why it tries to keep these conversations going. If the voice in your head is telling you that these conversations will help find a solution, that is because it doesn’t know life-changing solutions arise from a still and quiet mind.
In the coming year let us shift our attention from what is coming at us to what we are sending out. Let us resolve this year to imagine better. If we put out encouragement, kindness, hope, and love in equal measure to the complaining and agonizing that are all too commonplace, we will start to see our small pockets of existence transform from base metal into gold.
What you put out into the world is not dependent on your happiness or optimism. It is a conscious effort to make manifest the deepest desires of your heart. You are an alchemist; your thoughts and feelings transform your world. Make a choice to use that power to beautify all that you see.
A Diet We Can Believe In
It often feels like there are a million reasons to be grieving. Celebration and gratitude can seem out of place in a world desperately in need of love and healing. But to foster love we need to lean in more than ever to celebrating life. For healing we need to lean in to gratitude. We can take our hearts, so tender from imbibing all of the world’s pain, and use that softness to bring forth the sweet fragrance of forgiveness, understanding, gentleness, and caring.
Thoughts about what is going wrong are like candy to mind; addictive, enjoyable, and they eventually make us sick. Thanksgiving is chance to practice replacing those thoughts with the fruit and vegetables of the mind which are thoughts of thankfulness and gratitude.
There are so many small things that I forget to be thankful for that are truly miracles to experience. For example, I can walk and talk, my digestive system works well and my body is healthy, I can sing and dance, I can gaze at the moon on clear nights, I can hear birdsongs in the early morning. These thoughts are seldom mulled over in my mind the way worries are. So this holiday season I’m going on a mind diet; less candy, more fruits and vegetables. You can do this too by noticing what thoughts are most consistently running through your mind and making a choice to consume thoughts of thanks instead of complaints.
On a personal note, I have to tell you all how thankful I am every day for the community here at Let Yourself Learn, for this opportunity to delve more deeply into the ocean of living with you all, and for your love and support which permeate my every day. Bless you truly, and good luck with your holiday mind diet!
What happens in a year following brain surgery?
I’m grateful to be here and okay. I never really considered that it could have gone otherwise. But anything could go otherwise. And I’m grateful. So what have I learned in this one year since surgery?
What I think will be the hardest things for me to live through, won’t be. Other things will be harder. They will not be what I expected, so there is no need to worry.
Physical pain is not forever and often has an antidote. Psychological suffering requires conscious effort.
While physically painful, I look back on the months of recovery after surgery as a beautiful time of peace and loving-kindness.
Life is always worth it. No harm no foul. We are life and there is no alternative to being who we are.
Suffering unites each of us with all of humanity.
My feelings of happiness and sadness are almost always prompted from the outside. They don’t have to be.
When it isn’t happening right now, it is as if it never happened. Experiences can live on inside of us if we let them. They can make us suffer or make us happy, but either way they are no longer absolutely real.
When the thoughts of others seem important that is a sign I see my thoughts as important. I don’t want my thoughts to be important.
Desire depletes experience of authenticity.
Sleep, meditation, and silence are life giving. They enable us to wake up.
Life experiences are seasonal. Winters contain Christmases. Darkness is the platform upon which light is born.
Thank you for being with me in spirit this past year. It is my wish that the love, seen and unseen, which you have been pouring out, will return to you having grown and multiplied.
Let Yourself Learn 