Category Archives: The Way

Zen and the art of stuff

Gen Y, The Way

Ending materialism doesn’t mean forsaking all your possessions. Ridding yourself of everything you own would only prove you are still too preoccupied with possessions themselves. Someone who has developed a healthy inner world would see possessions as neutral. This shift is more about attitude than specific actions. ~ Scott H Young

Growing up, I moved every few years because my dad was in the military.  Each time we moved, we had a big moving sale.  While over time I slowly purged most of my old things, I always felt it was important to hold on to certain things from my past. This weekend I helped my mom clean out my old room before she moves.  When I moved to Virginia Beach two years ago, I knew I didn’t have room for all my belongings.  I boxed up everything I couldn’t use at the time and my mom stored all of it in my old closet.

I’ve mentioned before on my blog that I moved six times between 2000 and 2008.  I was never one to stay in one place very long.  Now that I am in a good place in life and love my location, I plan to move into a new place and stay as long as possible.  This new space requires some major downsizing on my part.  It’s time to simplify on a whole new level.

Minimalism vs. Materialism

My Google Reader is filled with great posts about Minimalism. It is a huge movement in our generation.  Rightly so.  Sometimes we become attached to stuff and we allow the stuff to control us. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club: “[…] you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things that you used to own, now they own you.”  I think some of us see our friends and family struggle with needless debt while they keep up with the Joneses and we don’t want to be there in ten years. Sometimes we also hold on to old things because we do not want to let go of the past. We grip tightly to that book or toy or outfit or whatever it is because we cannot allow ourselves to move on.

As I get older, my values change and evolve. What I valued at 10 is not at all what I value at 27; therefore, the things I value now are not the things I valued at 10.  I am also a Pisces.  I am sentimental sometimes to a fault.  I sometimes feel that when I let go of the thing, I will leave part of myself behind. I know memory is often fallible. I feel if I give away a gift from a friend of family member, I will forget those memories created around the object. I will no longer have a salient cue to remind me of those experiences I had with those people who are so important to me.

I believe moving from one end of a spectrum to the opposite side of the spectrum can become a form of attachment in and of itself because we become obsessed with the idea of not being, doing or owning something. So how can we find the middle ground between Material and Minimalism? I don’t think I will ever be a pure minimalist for various personal reasons.  I do know I have to look inward, reflect and ask myself, “What do I keep and why do I keep it?”

How I simplified and still kept my Pottery Barn dishes

 

Barrie Davenport from Love Bold and Bloom wrote an excellent guest post on this topic at Zen Habits: How to Simplify When You Love Your Stuff. She says to consider some “parameters” when thinking about things and to ask yourself if:

  • It brings beauty into your life and stirs your soul.
  • It supports a passion or hobby.
  • It helps bring family and friends together in a creative, meaningful way.
  • It educates and enlightens.
  • It makes life profoundly simpler so that you can pursue more meaningful things.
  • It helps someone who is sick or incapacitated.
  • It is useful and necessary for day-to-day life.
  • It’s part of a meaningful tradition or a reminder of a special event.

Spot. On.  Thinking about my belongings in the context of those parameters makes perfect sense to me.  After some deep breathes, tears, smiles, laughs and long talks with my mom, I decided to keep about 1/4 of the stuff in that old room.

  • I kept my nice Pottery Barn dishes because I will use them for the dinner parties I plan to host in the future with my friends and family.
  • I kept a set of gorgeous pottery someone very special to me brought back from Japan.
  • I kept some of my old books I cannot imagine leaving behind yet.  Most of these books were gifts from loved ones.  Each book represents how much I value relationships, education, learning and growth of mind, body and spirit.
  • I kept a small box of love letters, cards and notes I’ve collected since 1997.  They stir my soul and will always be beautiful reminders of the incredible love in my life.  An old card from my grandmother saying she is proud of me, a letter from my Dad signed with Love when I was in middle school, five handwritten pages from my mother before I went to college and a love letter from someone I almost married are worth more than gold.
  • I kept this Mr. Punch poster that Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean autographed.  It is a beautiful piece of art to me because Neil Gaiman is my favorite writer, Dave McKean is one of my favorite artists and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch was one of the first graphic novels I loved as a teenager.
  • I also picked out a few stuffed animals that carry with them cherished memories of times with my family and friends.

The rest of my things are going in a yard sale, on ebay, to a shelter for victims of domestic violence, to the library and to the local fire station.*

It feels good to know more about what I value as an adult.  It feels good to leave certain aspects of the past behind me.  It feels even better knowing my mom only has five boxes to move from that room instead of twenty.  I know I need to let go of certain things so I can move on.  It is OK to have stuff when I understand why I have that stuff.  I can hold on to a thing that makes my soul shine a little brighter, when it makes me smile, when I can share it with my friends and family or when it reminds me of the most important people in my life.

It’s all about balance and introspection, isn’t it?  It’s all about Zen and the art of everything.

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Not sure what to do with your old toys?  Call your local police department, fire department, domestic violence shelter and children’s hospital to see if they accept toy donations.  You never know when a child or teenager might end up in a tough situation without something to comfort him.  You can also check out these great charities: Project Night Night and Stuffed Animals for Emergencies (SAFE).  And a quick tip: Your kids aren’t going to want your toys from the 80s.  Have you seen the bad ass toys kids have now?  Right.  I promise your Barbies will be happier if they end up in the hands of a child who just lost all her things in a fire and your own child will be happier with a newer, more anatomically correct Barbie.

Boundaries and balance: When do you say No to family?

The Way

Boundaries

So here I am… taking on the role of caretaker (again).  But this time, I’m not OK with it.  This time, the person who needs care is perfectly capable of caring for himself.  This is a person with whom I’ve set clear boundaries in the past so he exhibits as little control over my life as possible.  Setting boundaries is something with which I struggled most of my life.  I was unable to set boundaries with myself.  I took on too much.  I pushed myself too far.  I was never good enough.  I put others before myself.  I was unable to set boundaries with others.  I allowed others to take advantage of me.  Sometimes people hurt me and used me because I could never say No.  I have learned over these last two years in grad school how to find balance, to say Yes to myself and to say No to others. I discovered how to be giving and kind and loving and hard-working without harming myself.

Yet, here I am… once again… attempting to balance what is right for someone else and what is right for me.  Here I am drawing a line in the sand.

When I arrived home after my week in Glasgow, I discovered my mom was in town.  While I was out of the country, my grandfather was hospitalized due to a severe kidney infection, high blood pressure, low pulse and vitamin deficiency. My mom came up to get some things in order before I returned. Namely, she set up automatic bill pay, arranged some finances and hired someone to take care of the yard and clean his house.  She also finalized some things for the condos she and my grandfather purchased because she wanted to make sure they would be ready by September when she moves here.  After a week of madness, she had to return to Alabama.  She has two more months at work before she can retire, she’s trying to sell her house and she’s a single parent.  She has a life.

I’m the only family member who lives here. My mom did what she could over the phone, but I’m it.  There I was in a rehabilitation center every day for three weeks while his kidneys healed, his blood pressure stabilized and his strength returned.  This was a familiar scene given what I went through with my grandmother last summer.  It was also unfamiliar.  My grandmother was bed-ridden.  She needed someone to be with her. I was very close to my grandmother.  My grandfather is not dying.  He just got sick, stopped eating and didn’t feel the need to take care of himself anymore.  I do not have a very positive relationship with my grandfather, for various reasons I wish not to discuss in detail here. In short, I do not want him to have any control over my life. To put it another way without going too far: He is an alcoholic.

He comes home tomorrow. He is not allowed to drive and he refuses to hire an assistant. Heaven forbid we spend any of that money he’s been saving since he was 15.  Lord knows, there’s no reason to spend money to make life more convenient for someone else when you can have it hanging out in the bank when you’re 82 years old.  So here I am taking care of a house, managing bills, buying groceries and keeping track of medications for someone else.  He is perfectly capable of doing these things for himself.  The reasons why he won’t take care of himself are some of the same reasons why I am not close to him. But… he is family.  Because I am the only family he has here, he expects me to play this particular role for him.  I’d be happy to do the things I was doing before, but I have to set boundaries so I can be OK.  He knows I will not cook for him and I will not clean for him.  I do not have the time or desire to do either for him.  Hell, it’s a struggle to do those things for myself.  I think most of my friends and family know it is less about my time and more about his control.  Daily I receive text messages from family members who know the situation: Take care of yourself.

Balance

I have responsibilities just like any other adult.  I pay my own bills and manage my own life.  I have one of those good 9 – 5 government jobs.  I am a graduate student and am trying to finish my Master’s thesis this summer.  I can barely balance those things.  I haven’t been to yoga or the chiropractor in months.  I keep gaining a pound here and a pound there as the summer progresses.  I want to make time for friends, but I find myself relying more and more on the Internet as my sole form of communication.  I was supposed to move next month, but now I have to wait until September. I was so looking forward to making a fresh start and finding a more balanced routine again.  I was looking forward to leaving behind the one person that I feel continues to hold me back emotionally in my personal journey.

I know I must maintain balance in my life because I value it and I need it. Balance and boundaries go hand in hand.  If we don’t establish clear boundaries with ourselves and with others, we can’t possibly find balance.  Without boundaries, the rocks keep piling up until it is too tall to support itself. I was so good with balance.  I could stand in Tree Pose for hours if you asked me.  I always loved the balance board when I was in physical therapy for my hip injury.  Each day, I was able to equalize my footing as my right hip became stronger. But right now, I feel my feet slipping from underneath me.  I feel wobbly.  I know I am about to lose my footing and will need to grab hold of something before I fall.  Right now I’m questioning whether my boundaries are ill-defined.  I know if one rock falls, the tower scatters.

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I read this draft and realize all of this may give you the impression that I’m selfish.  Who wouldn’t want to do these things for a family member? Remember, I am not talking about my child or an ill parent.  This is someone fully capable of being a grown up.  I did take care of someone once… although I think bathing someone who can’t leave the bed is a little different than cleaning a bathroom for someone who just doesn’t want to clean.  We can easily say what we would do if we were in a situation when we are not in that situation. It is understandable if that is your impression. My friends, family and I know the truth.

Photos: Line in the sand & Balancing rocks

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Have you ever been responsible for another human being who wasn’t your child?  Have you said No to someone so you could ensure you would be OK?  Have you said Yes to someone and hurt yourself in the process?  How do you balance managing own life and someone else’s when it isn’t our desire or responsibility to do so?

Solitude is happiness for one who is content

The Way, Travel

Solitude is happiness for one who is content, who has heard the Dhamma and clearly sees. ~ Buddha (Udana 10)

Kaivalya Upanishad

In Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert mentions that some people have neurotic, intuitive, introverted, control freak, anxious tendencies.  They are unable to turn off the chatter in their minds.  Some of us intellectualize our emotions and seek answers to certain questions through scholarly endeavors instead of prayer.  There is an internal tug of war between faith and fact and we are restless well into adulthood.  I began studying psychology, religion, philosophy and spirituality as a Freshman in high school.  I had questions just like Elizabeth Gilbert, just like many of you.  I found endless answers to my questions in those texts. But I still couldn’t seem to answer two: Who am I? Why am I in so much pain?

The Upanishads (followed closely by The Gospel of Thomas), is my favorite spiritual text.  For those of you who are not familiar with it, Upanishad means mystic or inner teachings. I have read it many times.  Still to this day it stirs up confusion, anger, sadness and joy.  But of all the texts I’ve read, it spoke to me more than any other.  It told me awhile ago that I must know myself by being alone with myself completely. Of course, it didn’t tell me a damn thing. I was telling myself to experience pure solitude.

Reading major (and minor) texts does not an Enlightened One make.  First comes knowledge and awareness. We must discover the Self before we can destroy the Ego and become Enlightened, as Carl Jung brilliantly articulates in all of his work.  But Awareness is meaningless without Action, as we learn from Jesus and Buddha.  I took Action in 2008 when I quit my job, moved to Virginia, started grad school, went to therapy, chose three years of celibacy, practiced yoga, changed my diet, etc.  Most importantly, I took Action when I forgave myself and others for the past so I could let go and move forward.  Forgiveness is Love.  This has not been an easy process and it will continue (I hope) until I die.  Freeing oneself from the Ego is probably the most difficult of all human experiences and I can only hope I will be free of even 1/1000th of mine in this lifetime.  If it were easy, we would all be Enlightened.

Kaivalya is a minor Upanishad.   Kaivalya means Aloneness.  The text teaches individuals in their last stage of life how to become liberated by renouncing a life driven by desire and by realizing they are Brahman.  Before I started grad school, I often confused happiness with pleasure.  I often sought out sources of pleasure from the external world to make myself feel happy because I was so so very unhappy and lost.  I was also unable to meditate. I was unable to be still and could not turn off the chatter I mentioned earlier.  For me the chatter was very negative and it usually involved a self-depleting, fearful, self-deprecating internal dialogue.  I was not good enough.  I did not deserve to be happy. Something was wrong with me.

Then I started grad school.  And everything changed.

I was truly alone with myself for the first time.  It was a horrible, ugly, painful, terrifying experience and yet beautiful and liberating.  After the emotional and physical withdrawal from my past life, I formed new patterns of behavior and my brain formed a new cognitive blueprint.  I was happy.  Happy.  Content.  I pushed that contentment out in the world, into my relationships, into my heart, into my work, into everything.  And it has flooded back to me in a way I never could have imagined. It has come back to me in such an amazing way that the girl I once was would have rejected it outright.  She would not have accepted it.  I am now a woman who not only accepts amazing gifts from the Universe, but knows she deserves them.  And I don’t mean I deserve happiness more than anyone else or that my reason for doing certain things is to get something in return.  I mean everyone in the Universe deserves happiness and contentment.  To be happy here or there or anywhere or with this or with that or with whomever, one must confront the Self and be content with his or her own mind, body and soul. I had to find happiness in Me to find happiness outside of this body in which I live.

All of this has little to do with the point of this post.  This post is about a moment of solitude this week that filled my soul to the brim will stillness and pure bliss.  This post is about Kaivalya.  It is about blissful solitude in Glasgow.

Blissful solitude in Glasgow

See, I have this amazing job.  I was in Scotland last week for a series of meetings and a conference in which scientists, engineers, naval architects, grad students and other Human Factors researchers from 20 countries meet to discuss human performance issues at sea.  On Wednesday, I took a break from conference sessions discussing updated physiological models of motion sickness on high speed craft.  I decided I needed to be alone. I had only been alone to sleep in my hotel room since Sunday and it was getting to me. I walked from Strathclyde University to Glasgow Cathedral.

After walking through the cathedral, I felt particularly emotional as I often do in old places of worship.  My mom has always teased me about this because I am not religious and do not believe in God in the Christian sense of the word.  Glasgow Cathedral (or High Kirk of Glasgow, St. Kentigern’s, or St. Mungo’s Cathedral) was constructed in sections between the 11th and 15th century.  It is one of the oldest Celtic churches in Scotland to survive the Reformation.  Across the highway you can see the Necropolis (see below).  I love cemeteries, so I thought I’d pop over for a few minutes.

That few minutes turned into a few hours.  I walked and climbed my way around the park before I sat down and started weeping.  This is what I could see:

I sat still for an hour, accepting that this is my life.  I sat still, thankful for the bliss I am able to feel in solitude.  I was thankful for these last few years in which I have been alone with myself and faced some of the most challenging times of life up to this point with grace and strength.  There was no chatter.  I had nothing negative to say about myself.  I deserve this moment.  My heart and mind were as still as my body.  And I could say with full knowledge and faith that my Heaven was on Earth in that moment.  My Heaven is always with me, in my mind, in my heart, in every moment.  Happiness will always be with me because I can be alone with myself.

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Let your love flow outward through the Universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
~ Buddha – Sutta Nipata ~

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All photos taken by me: June 15-16, 2010