Many years ago, I went through an intensive teacher training course in England. In order to get on it, you had to have taught full time for five years after obtaining your initial teaching certificate. I was thrilled to get accepted on the course, since it was at one of the top institutions in the U.K., and I knew it would end up being the resume equivalent of a feather in my cap.

I took the course, and it wasn’t until I was halfway through it and feeling more stress than I’d ever experienced in a learning environment, that the instructor let something drop that reframed the entire experience for me. He said “our intent is to entirely deconstruct your teaching so you can rebuild it here.”

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been going through a similar deconstruction process with regards to a professional goal I’d set myself—one also related to teaching. I won’t go into it in detail, but the penny finally dropped yesterday. My plan, that I’d designed, spent thousands of dollars on, and have spent thousands of hours carrying out…is just garbage. It’s unworkable because I’ve realized that the professional goal I’d set just isn’t attainable. The world of education I’d experienced as a student has completely disappeared, and it isn’t coming back. As it is impossible to participate in a world that is extinct, I’m left with the realization that there is no point in continuing to pursue my goal. The object of it doesn’t exist!

I feel a little bit like Don Quioxte, having tilted at windmills. One of my Celtic tarot cards shows a woman who has found that the entrance to a sacred place has been completely blocked. She has turned away from the place, but is standing on the road with her back to it. She is standing still, looking a bit lost and baffled. She knows that what she wanted just isn’t going to happen, but she doesn’t know where to go now. Whoops!

Sometimes it just goes like that, gentle readers. Sometimes we just have things fall apart. After the disappointment, anger or frustrated feelings pass, however, we can start to lighten up. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” we can joke. Strangely enough, I know that my decision to abandon this plan altogether is a good one, because underneath it all, I feel a sense of relief.

So when you are faced with a similar situation, don’t be afraid to just let it all go. You do NOT have to finish everything you start, just because you started it. If you realize you’re onto a fool’s game, then stop playing it. It’s OK to give up what’s not working. And it’s also OK to sit in that stunned silence as the ground slips away from under your feet. Out of the chaos will come stillness, and out of the stillness will emerge a new order. (Out of that order, of course, chaos will come again, but you know the drill by now.)

If you are feeling some doubt about your plans, like a nagging feeling that just won’t go away no matter how hard your rational mind argues, then take a moment and imagine this: what if the King of the World told you that you could do anything else you wanted to, but that you were absolutely forbidden to continue working towards your present goal?  If you thought of this hypothetical situation and felt a glimmer of relief, joy, peace or happiness, then you really need to do some digging. What is your higher mind telling you about the situation as a whole? What about your heart? Who or what are you pursuing this goal for, and why? As Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Don’t be afraid to look deep within, and be willing to see the truth that is inside you.

Good luck!

Hello, everyone! It’s great to be back writing Psychic Thought…I’ve missed doing it, even though I haven’t been doing it for several weeks now. (I’m saying the same thing about exercising, but I still haven’t gotten back to doing THAT yet, but first things first!) Let me explain my absence.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that a family member has been diagnosed with the late stages of terminal bone cancer, and that knocked me for a loop. Indeed, it did. Now that I understand that the family member in question is being very open about it, calling up old friends and colleagues to give them the news, I can reveal that the family member is, in fact, my father. Born in Bremerton, Washington, my dad has spent his adult life living in Seattle, Washington. I just returned from a visit to see him and my stepmother there a few days ago, and also spent a couple of days with my mother and stepmother in Bellingham, Washington. Dad is resting comfortably at home, in hospice care. He’s not going to have any medical treatment other than pain management, aka “palliative care,” and so it’s sure he’ll be able to pass away at home. He’s able to eat, talk, and walk a little, and is still as sharp and as funny as ever. He also has great meds…a blessing!

To say that I was bit surprised at the news about my dad’s health really is quite an understatement. Indeed, I now realize I’ve been walking around in a state of deep shock for a few weeks now. Really, some days I can barely remember my own name, much less think of anything articulate to say about psychic matters! Reading Lobsang Rampa’s book last night, “You, Forever,” he mentioned that when someone is grieving, the body sends out electrochemical signals to the brain to create a kind of numbness. He said that this allows the body to go through the massive energetic shift that takes place in grief, without having the person go through a total meltdown from pain. In other words, the sensation of being numb with grief is actually just a protective mechanism for the body while deep internal changes take place. The stronger the attachment, the greater the reaction—thus, the greater need for this kind of temporary psychological anesthesia.

It’s been an interesting ride so far. The two strangest things I’ve noticed about my own reaction to the news is that first, my energy levels and ability to concentrate have fluctuated both wildly and very unpredictably. Some days, I’m fine. Other days, I wake up and it’s as if I’m missing a few batteries. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to these fluctuations, at least to my conscious mind. The second thing I’ve noticed is that I seem to be doing “pre-grieving.” How strange! It doesn’t make any sense…Dad is still alive and he has the best possible care. Chances are good that he has several, maybe even many, good months left. So why am I crying about something that hasn’t happened yet? He’s not gone, and yet I’m acting as if he already is! So strange.

I was commenting to my stepmother that you never get to “practice” losing a parent. There’s no dress rehearsal, no do-overs. We agreed that for all the great care my dad’s getting, the hospice, the good meds and all the “extra” time he’s gotten to get his affairs in order and say his goodbyes, it really just amounts to a “nice silver lining on a giant, crap-filled cloud!”

An old story about a yogi and his student comes to my mind frequently. The yogi was crying over the death of one of his loved ones…I can’t remember if it was one of his students or his own guru. Anyway, there he was, the great master in floods of tears. His student asked, “Guru, why are you crying like this? You know that life is impermanent, you know the man has gone on to a new life, you know that all this is just “maya”…an illusion.” The yogi replied, “Yes, and this is a HEAVY illusion!”

Thus, my family and I are in the midst of our own heavy, heavy illusion.

Best wishes,

Lana

It’s been a week of change in my life, as well as for the lives of others, of course. The good news is that we have added a new member to the family, a young lady cat we got from the pound, whom we’ve named “Eve.” (My husband and I have a thing about palindromes, which indicates our level of geekdom nicely.) She’s getting used to the changes in her life, as is our cat Man Ray, who is 12 and is getting grouchy and habituated in his advancing years. He doesn’t like change! But little Evie is adjusting quite well, embracing new things, people and places with a lot of verve and affection. Welcome, Eve…you’ve really joined a house full of characters now!

The bad news is that a very close family member got the excruciating news that he seems to have a very serious, life-threatening illness. The family is waiting to hear from the doctors what the actual diagnosis and prognosis is, but clearly everyone is very upset about it. We are all struggling with the inevitability of “no solid ground” phenomena in our lives. And of course, there’s that ever-present struggle with attachment and aversion. Attachment to the person, aversion to suffering, and all the mental and philosophical arguments we’re having in our heads and in our hearts.

I sure appreciate being given the opportunity to practice what I preach! Blah…how can I communicate to you my sarcasm in that last statement! But seriously, it is an opportunity—many opportunities, really. This is a chance for everyone in the family, including myself, to let our hearts soften and let love and compassion flow. This is a chance to turn the other cheek, when “life” doesn’t give us what we want. This is a chance for us to all face up to a new reality…one we didn’t want, but one we’re going to experience sooner or later.

The night before I got the news about my family member, I had a dream. I dreamed that I was talking to him “on the other side.” He was showing me a machine, somewhat like an old Victrola, with a kind of mechanical box at the base and a large, horn-like funnel protruding from it. Emitting from the horn was a kind of targeted, focused energy, like a large, white column of moving energy resembling television static. It had a unique sound, and a very beautiful one. My family member was excitedly pointing to it and saying “Listen! This is the sight and the sound of the collective consciousness! See what focused, collective mind energy looks like when it’s specifically directed!” He was so excited about being there, and being able to uncover so many mysteries of the Earth-life system.

We’ve all got one heck of a journey ahead of us, with everyone’s life changing. Change is constant. The more we try to accept this and be OK with it, the less damage we will do to ourselves and others. How our lives change, whether it be for better or for worse, is up to us. I hope I can meet this challenge, and I hope the same for anyone undergoing change that shakes us to the core.

Anytime I hear the words “good grief,” I always mentally jump in and add “Charlie Brown!” to the end of it. But what exactly is “good grief,” anyway? Is there such a thing as grieving in a good way? If so, does that mean there is a way to grieve in a bad way, too? If there is a difference, how do you tell which is which?

Philosophically speaking, grief is a response to the rupture of an attachment. Grief is an unpleasant sensation, wherein we crave the return of our object of attachment. We want to see, touch, feel, smell, be with the person or animal again. We suffer because of our cravings, and we have an aversion to the reality of loss.

Energetically, we can see attachments between people in their auras. Auras can have connections between people, and even groups, that can originate in any one or more of the chakras. This is why our language reflects grief by using such physical metaphors. The sensation of a ruptured energetic tie between yourself and another is felt by the body intensely. Feeling broken-hearted, hollowed out, a lump in one’s throat, “mad” with grief, sick to one’s stomach, feeling like the world has turned upside down, and even experiences of dissociation (“nothing seemed real for awhile, I felt like I was in a fog”) are all physical manifestations of massive energetic and psychological shifts. The mind/body connection is never more apparent than when we’re going through extreme periods of grief. I do not feel that grief should be labeled as good or bad. It is a process. It is as natural as digestion or circulation.

 We are constantly going through the process of grief, really. Whether it is something relatively insignificant, like accidentally breaking one of your possessions, or something as major as losing a loved one, we are constantly moving into and out of various stages of the cycle of grief. Since it is a natural, and inevitable part of life, though, educating yourself on grief is not a bad thing. If you are grieving and intuitively sense that you are feeling more lost or incapacitated than you would normally expect, then by all means seek help.

An analogy to this might be if you were sick with a cold. Most of us can recognize when we have colds, and although we suffer through them and might slow down and take some time off work, we probably won’t panic and rush to the hospital. But if our cold worsened and worsened and worsened, we would be doing the right thing to seek treatment. Such is the same with grief. Honor the natural process you are going through, and be patient with yourself. But if you are feeling entirely overwhelmed and that you’re just “losing it,” see someone about it!

Again, there is no such thing as “bad grief.” Sometimes we just have more intense versions of the same grief process, and we need help in handling the intensity of the experience. That’s all.

Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself, and to others. You never know who might be grieving.

 Good luck!

I wish I were as wise to say that I was the first to espouse this profound piece of advice, but sadly, I wasn’t. Epictetus said it. Actually, what he said specifically was “the essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.” Buddha said the same thing, essentially, but as I don’t have a Pali text to back it up right now, we’ll be content with Epictetus for today.

So what does it mean, to not make your happiness depend upon external things? Well, like Albert Camus famously said, “hell is other people.” Once you put your happiness, your peace of mind, your equanimity in the hands of other people and rotten circumstance, you are truly on the road to an inner hell. “All component things decay,” as Buddha said, and that includes promises, relationships, your body, and even high-definition televisions!

I personally find the easiest way to return to happiness is to just sit and return to awareness of my breath, of my body’s sensation. Just observing these sensations rising, growing, and passing away, lets me free my mind of its chains to my external circumstances and my assessment of them. To step out of the mode of judgment and into that of peaceful awareness is truly the key to happiness. As long as you are able to control your thoughts and your attention, you have the ability to find inner peace. Believe me, the more peaceful you are, the happier you will be. I don’t mean that by being peaceful you won’t have pleasure, but rather that by maintaining a peaceful mind you will naturally stop giving external circumstances power over your mood. In other words, the more you cultivate this inner peace of mind, the less effect the traffic jam, the broken promise, or the sick body will have on your experience of happiness.

Let’s face it: we’re not in charge of other people, the weather, or the inevitable progression of the cycle of life. But as human beings, we were given the gift of being able to “meta-cognate,” which is the ability to think about how we are thinking. We can not only be aware of our thoughts, but we can also consciously choose to change them. Perhaps other species can do this too…I don’t know. But what I do know is that until you really learn to operate that wonderful machine between your years known as your brain, you really don’t have access to all the power available to you.

Work your brain, and free your mind!

Good luck!