Last week I pulled the plastic container marked “Christmas” out of my closet, dragged my potted Norfolk pine into its holiday corner of the living room, put on my CD of Amahl and the Night visitors (a Christmas operetta I first heard when I was 5) and started with the lights. You know how that goes!? After I’d woven the strands around the tree, I realized that the plug was at the top. I had to start all over again – smiling! I took my time removing the paper towels and bubble wrap from the ornaments – savoring each one. My daughter made this one, others were gifts, my mother passed them on and they all have a story and a memory. As I trimmed the tree I could feel a warmth spread throughout my body as I pulled this thread from my past into the present.
Webster’s Third International dictionary defines traditions as “the process of handing down information, opinions, beliefs and customs by word of mouth AND an inherited or established way of thinking, feeling or doing”.
If a belief is a thought that we have repeated over and over until it’s set in stone, a tradition is an action or activity that we do over and over until it takes on the quality of something sacred and special.
My family celebrated Christmas even though my father was Jewish. I have fond memories of going out with my Dad and my sister in the cold NYC winter to pick out the perfect tree. We all decorated it and I’ll always remember the magic of turning the lights on for the first time and the glow of the tree in the dark. There were the stockings laid out on Christmas Eve and the cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. The first program I remember I ever saw on our new TV was Amahl and the Night Visitors – the story of a crippled boy who is healed after meeting the 3 wise men. He accompanyies them to Bethlehem walking on his own and carrying his crutch as a gift for the child. The music is timeless and so am I as I sing along.
My parents are no longer alive and my sister and her family celebrated in San Francisco where they live. My daughter spent time with her Dad and with friends and I celebrated with old and new friends. I cre
ated some new traditions, let go of others, but held onto those that warm my heart and create a sense of continuity, community and comfort.
I’ve made and dismantled traditions as my life has changed. When I start to feel obligated and resentful, I know it’s time to take a look at whether or not the tradition is worth holding onto or whether it’s time to tweak it, let it go or create a new one.
Sometimes the people who we think of at this time of year are not here and our circumstances may have changed – for better or for worse. We can think that if we can’t recreate things just the way they were – it’s not worth it. I know differently. The purpose of traditions – those acts we perform over and over – is to stir something deep inside us; to connect us to our ancestors and all who have gone before us and to remind us of a truth that illuminates our lives with love. This light can emerge in many ways.
I decorated my tree by myself this Christmas and I’ve got to say that it didn’t dim the magic. When I turned off the house lights and beheld the colored bulbs twinkling and the ornaments shimmering as I sang along to Amahl – I was delighted. I was 5 and the bearer of a tradition that I have cared for and repeated for many, many years.
We are creative beings. Even though nothing stays the same, it is our traditions that ground us, provide comfort and plug us into continuity, community and into the warmest places in our own hearts.
I’ve just finished reading Broken Open – How Difficult times Can Help Us Grow, by Elizabeth Lesser, a co-founder of the Omega Institute – the world’s largest center for spiritual retreat and personal growth. The book is a collection of stories about people going through change and transformation arising out of those deep and painful times.
Broken Open came into my hands just in time. I’d received a copy of my sister Louise Nayer’s soon to be published memoir, Burned, about our early and difficult childhood. It’s been a very emotional experience for me and I’ve been happy to have Broken Open to help me stay awake during a difficult time.
“Fiasco and failure visit each one of us, as if they were written into the job description of being human. I’ve seen people crumble in times of trouble lose their spirit, and never fully recover. I have seen others protect themselves fiercely from any kind of change, until they are living a half life, safe yet stunted.” – Elizabeth Lesser
There’s a third way to deal with fearful change and painful loss, which she calls The Phoenix Process, named for the mythical bird who remains awake through the fires of change, rises from the ashes of death and is reborn into his most vibrant and enlightened self.
That’s what I’m after! I want to rise from the river of tears that have been unleashed, looking back. We have all gone through change and have been very afraid. We have all experienced the loss of a loved one, a job, a relationship, a pet, a home. We have drowned in tears and sucked it up and carried on as if nothing happened.
This time around, I want to do something different so I’m going to see my sister’s book as an opportunity to put the phoenix process into action in my life.
As I read about myself as a child I know that I could say, ” water under the bridge, everything worked out, stop crying” and not dig deeper and finally feel those painful feelings. I can see how not feeling them has kept me stuck.
I’m excited. I feel like the phoenix process will open my heart, make me more expansive, fuller, better able to be there for myself and others – with love.
I’ll keep you posted and appreciate your comments.
Frog Prince at night
Prodigal Frog Prince
I went out on my deck one might last week and glanced under a small round table to see a big fat frog half hidden under a broken piece of cobalt blue pottery. He was a fine specimen: prince material I thought, smiling. So much so that I got my camera and took a couple of close ups. He didn’t blink an eye and sat stone still.
A couple of days later, I was cleaning the deck and threw out the little pool of slimy, green water. And then I thought “Oh No! that little stagnant pool was probably his HOME and I just destroyed it! He could have happily eaten the green slime growing in that mini pool. I felt badly that I had totally not been thinking of the frog.
Which made me wonder what and who else I am totally not thinking of right now or anytime. Not because I want to add more pressure to my life, but because I’d like to expand my vision to include all this cool stuff (like frog princes) and become more sensitive to how my littlest action can have such a big impact.
We are such clumsy beings walking the earth now that the dinosaurs are gone. Every time we take a step, or dig a trench or clear land or even dust, we are impacting and often destroying some ecosystem that we can’t even see, aren’t aware or don’t think is important.
We clean up our kids’ rooms not realizing that we have ‘cleaned up’ some little universe in progress. We say something without stopping to think and everything changes. We are bulls in the china shop that is the world. There is always a ripple effect and once we grasp the impact we have with our littlest actions (and with our thoughts), we can intervene. When we realize we are not being mindful, we can breathe, pay attention and move forth with wider eyes, more listening ears, a softer touch and a compassionate heart.
I was happily surprised this morning when I went out on the deck and saw that my Frog Prince had returned. He has taken up residence in his spot under the piece of blue pot and, because it has been raining, it is once again filled with water. Welcome Home.
Under The Boardwalk – The Drifters (click here for your listening pleasure while you’re reading this post!)
I just finished “Live at the Beach” my 4 part teleseminar. The Hot Topic this week was “Under the Boardwalk – Love and the Law of Attraction. I wish you could have been there – great conversation, high energy and lots of aha moments. Putting it together helped me be clearer about the main ingredient of a harmonious, loving, successful relationship.
Even though it’s hard to stop blaming the people, places and things in our lives for derailing and keeping us stuck – it is so much more liberating and productive to stop being victims, to take back our power and make changes on our own internal hard-drives.
First we have to become aware of and clear our negative beliefs about relationships. These beliefs (ex: long term relationships NEVER work out, he’s only wants one thing, she only wants one thing etc…. fill in the blank with your own limiting belief here_____________….) make it unlikely that our relationships will be happy and successful.
We so often look for another person to ‘save’ us, think they will complete us and make our problems vanish. Especially when we’re not feeling so great, we look outside for someone to make us feel better.
Abraham reminds us, “It is never possible for another person to behave sufficiently or consistently enough to keep us in balance. That’s our job. If you can accept that when you do not feel good, that it is no one else’s responsibility to bring you back to feeling good, you will discover the freedom that is essential to your maintenance of personal joy.
Wow! I’m all about personal joy and spreading it around and getting plugged in using my law of attraction tools and processes. I want to be all about tapping into my inner guidance system as a navigational tool. I know that how connected I am to my own source energy (God, higher power, intuition, gut feelings etc..) tells me how connected I am in my relationships with others. How we treat others is how we treat ourselves.
When we have our own power sources and we come together with another person who is plugged into their power source, it’s for the purpose of co-creation. It’s not about fixing one another but of creating something new.
So the paradox is that the main ingredient of a happy, healthy, loving relationship is our own connection with source energy. It’s an inside job. If we can get lined up inside, the outside will be a grand reflection and it will be good and make us all smile from the inside out.
Obstacle filled street in Greece
Pave the road smooth. See the bumps, potholes and mirages “interesting.” Check them out as if you have never seen them before, as gifts. Go slowly. It is truly astounding how we create our own obstacles to enjoying the journey. The rock in the stream (the difficult boss, the physical limitation) is not the obstacle. It’s how we fear them, paddles around them, panic, crash and burn, spurn and spend ages beating ourselves (or the rocks) up.
Such intractable creatures are we. We’d rather lug around our overweight baggage and live within the templates that we have accepted as “us”. We make excuses as we go, “That’s just the way I am.” “I’m always a basket case when it comes to (fill in the blank)…” “I always have a hard time…”
I have come to see dithering and worrying as a colossal waste of precious time when we could be enjoying or, at least, not resisting what is going on.
Sometimes I get a glimpse of how things might look from a broader perspective. I smile, shake my head and am bemused. We bumble along, tumbling toward happiness. It’s hard for us t grasp that, like Abraham says, ”we’ll never get it done and we have all the time in the world.” We might as well relax and enjoy.
See obstacles as opportunities – even if it’s the opportunity to sit, down, hydrate and have another look/see.