DIET OF THE MIND

I read recently of someone suggesting that we might need a "diet of the mind". Some of us are over-weight with information.  We gorge ourselves on data.  We have to know what is happening to people in the world. We must know what all our Facebook friends are doing.  We need to keep up with all the latest sports or celebrity news. We need to know what our church or social group is doing. We need to know the latest research about our profession. Information overload!

It's almost like we think that the more we know, the more we can protect ourselves from being caught off-guard. It's like there might be something out there that could save us if we just know what it is. But, what do we need to be saved from? Sometimes I think if I just knew more I wouldn't have to feel alone. If I could get enough friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter I will be OK. If I know enough about the latest global crisis I can keep safe from it's impact.

And sometimes this almost functions like an addiction.  Information overload insulates us from having to interact with the people around us. We can only feel so much. We may feel so much empathy and sympathy for refugees in Syria that we don't have enough energy left to allow the empathy we feel for the person in the nursing home to motivate us to visit them.  If we feel enough excitement over the victory of our favorite sports team, we don't have to interact with groups who are fighting for victory over cancer.

Maybe we need a new organization called Information Anonymous. Much as other addictions keep us from feeling our feelings and sharing our rich and sometimes confusing selves, addiction to information can be a shield against intimacy.  Caring about everything leaves us so little energy that we end up caring about nothing.  If we care so much about everything that we don’t have to decide what matters most.

I don't have to deal with physical weight loss at this point in my life, but I could certainly stand to lose some weight that over-consuming information has contributed to my heavy mind.

STARTING THE DAY

The other day I challenged the frigid cold and went out to get the morning paper.  Headlines were related to a new effort of the state legislature in Indiana to move forward a resolution that would allow state citizens to vote on an amendment to the state constitution that would deny people to legally to commit themselves to each other because they are gay.

I handed the paper to Deb and said, "I'll take the sports page.  I don't want to start my day angry."  I get very angry when I think of people being denied the right to protect their rights to life, liberty and happiness. People I love are committed to persons of the same sex. They are committed to love and fidelity and are working hard to raise their children to be loving and caring humans. It makes me angry that some of them are denied access to their loved ones when they are hospitalized.  It angers me that they don't have the economic benefit that I do as a married tax payer.  It angers me that they are discriminated against because they love someone else.

As I sat down to read the sports section, I wondered about my anger. I know that anger is related to loss. I know that anger is a response to threat. It is the body's way of generating energy to fight that which threatens us or gives us the energy to flee the danger.  What am afraid I am losing?

If this passes and becomes a part of the constitution of this state, I will lose my belief that justice and equality are truly part of the fabric of our society.  People I love will lose hope for the right to be legally protected against discrimination. Family and friends will lose their right to love and be loved the way they want.  The loss of freedom of any threatens the freedom of all. When the rights of the minority are not protected, my rights of all are threatened. I lose hope that the world I leave for my grandchildren will be a far less hospitable place for them and their friends.

What do we do with anger?  We use the energy not to attack and to kill, but to be politically active to influence the legislature to act with compassion and justice for all people.  We use it to support those organizations who work tirelessly for the rights of all humans. I want warm love and merciful justice to be the governing values that shape the world my grandchlldren inherit. Listening to  my anger is an important act of love.

PAIN IGNORED

Pain is a clue to pay attention.  When we have a physical pain, it is important to listen to what it is telling us. It may be that our heart is under stress or it may just be that we pulled a muscle shoveling snow.

Emotional and spiritual pain are also important. When you hurt, pay attention.  It may be a clue to some serious disorientation or just a slight blip on the emotional journey.

In her book, "Mourning and Mitzvah", Anne Brener reports on her chaotic journey through loss as she grieved the death of her mother and sister.  In that journey and in her working with others, she has learned that "the only feelings that do not change are those that are ignored.  Only by facing our feelings do we learn and grow. Pain has a size and shape, a beginning and an end.  It takes over only when it is not allowed voice." 

While the painful feelings of loss are confusing and complex, to ignore them is to miss an opportunity to grow and learn. Loss creates a fizzier in our facade.  Just as the earth cracked open by an earthquake reveals layers of history, more of our souls are revealed when our hearts are in upheaval. Paying attention to the clues that pain uncovers helps us explore the mystery of our vast and expansive souls.

Pain has it's own size, its beginning and it's end. We are able to reduce it's size and journey toward it's end when we allow that pain to have voice.  We get stuck in the pain when we are silenced.

One of the greatest gifts we can give those who have experienced deep loss is a presence that creates space in which they can struggle to speak their confusing and conflicting emotions. It is sometimes a difficult task when we have come to expect that person to "have it together."  Or when we need them to be strong.  But, when they have a chance to give their pain voice, they have a greater opportunity to shrink the size of the pain and experience some healing. By your quiet presence, you can offer the gift of sacred space into which the pain of another might find voice.

BETWEEN PARENT AND TEENAGER

One of the joys of life is the opportunity to learn from others.

Since I wrote "Lose, Love, Live" I have had numerous opportunities to do workshops on grief and loss.  One workshop resulted in an insight that had never occurred to me.

Mark, a youth minister who was in the group listened to me talk about how people respond when they experience a loss. I talked of how people often feel scared when they are losing something that really matters. Anger is generally present in those times.  Anger is normal because anger is a physical response to threat. When we feel threatened the body dispenses adrenaline in our system to give us energy to fight what threatens us, flee from it, or freeze so that the threat might not notice us.  When we lose something that helps us know who we are, we are threatened and get angry.

After the workshop Mark came up to me and said, "This explains the conflict that I deal with all the time when I work with youth and their parents.  At the same time teenagers are reaching for their independence, they are also losing the security and safety of dependence.  Parents, while encouraging independence, are losing the relationship they had with children who were more under their control. That is why there is so much anger."

Mark's observation is important.  Parents and teenagers alike are losing life the way they knew it.  As changes happen, no one is totally confident on how life will turn out. While there is much to celebrate in the new place that both the parent and the teenager occupy, there is much to fear.  That fear results in feeling threatened and thus in feeling anger.

Since this is one of the dynamics between parents and teenagers, knowing that each is dealing with loss can help. Each can listen to the other and help the other explore what is so frightening about these changes. Each can explore what they are afraid they will lose and try to determine if there are grounds for that fear. Some losses may not occur. For example, the normal distancing that happens as a young person becomes independent does not necessarily mean that the relationship will disappear.

When you feel anger rising in your relationships, ask yourself, "What am I afraid I am going to lose?"  It might help you understand and navigate the turbulent waters of parenting. 

CONFUSING EMOTIONS

I have spent much of the past 15 years of my life exploring the impact of change and loss on human life.  I have read the insights of many and explored my own experience.  Some of my discoveries are in a little book I published entitled, "Lose, Love, Live: The Spiritual Gifts of Loss and Change."

But, since I first wrote that book I have encountered other epiphanies that contribute to my understanding of this subject.  I have long known that significant loss can make one feel totally out of control.  The emotions that people feel fluctuate so quickly that one feels like one is on an emotional roller-coaster.  Some people feel as if they are going crazy.  These emotional shifts are so frequent and disconcerting that panic sets in.

To grieve loss well, it is important to feel the range of emotions and to be able to speak about them.  Speaking about our emotions help us get some insights into our own actions and also gain some strength to carry those emotions.  But, many have difficulty speaking about their feelings.

I recently read a book (Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides ) which contributed to  my thinking about why it might be difficult to speak about those emotions. The narrator writes about the conflicting emotions of his grandmother when she thought her husband had died.  She not only was overcome with a sudden sense of panic and sadness, but also, almost at the same moment, a sense of happiness that the secret of their life would not be revealed. He then says, "Emotions in my experience are not covered by single words." He then proceeds to search for complex words that would express the complexity of simultaneous, conflicting feelings.

He goes on to postulate that the belief that we can name emotions in single words "may be the best proof that the language is patriarchal in that it over simplifies feeling."  The implication is that men are more inclined to shrink feelings to words that they can comprehend and control than are women.  

Now, I am not inclined to generalize. But, grieving loss requires experiencing the feelings that we feel. Being able to name them helps. And whether your are a man or woman, the ability to simplify feelings is compromised when you suffer the trauma of significant loss. If you know that one who is grieving can’t simplify feelings, you can be patient with them (whether it is you who are grieving or someone about whom you care.)  When the crisis of loss occurs, our disorientation is made worse because of the complexity of our feelings. It takes time to name those feelings.

When you are in a situation like this, allow yourself or another person to name their feelings over and over because they are so complex.  Be patient with yourself or others.  Create opportunities for those feelings to be spoken.  When that occurs, we gain strength to navigate the pain that overwhelms us.