A bunch of years ago, someone important in my life, a mentor, did me dirty. The details don’t matter. The consequences of her betrayal were minimal, but seeing a side of her that was toxic to our interaction and potentially much more so in the future, I turned my back and walked away.

Life went on, until she sent me a friend request on Facebook. Without thinking, I confirmed it. And answered a direct message from her.

At this point I felt a bone-chilling surge of regret. Through the mindless compulsion to play the FB Like Me-Like You game, I’d said yes when with a little thought I would simply have ignored the request.

My brain began to rationalize. Maybe she’d changed. Maybe it would be interesting to see her again. Maybe things hadn’t been so bad.

That didn’t help. I was still feeling pretty creeped out.

Days later, I told a true pal how I’d dug a hole too deep to climb out of. “Are you crazy?” she asked. “You can just unfriend her. Like I unfriended my ex-husband.”

“She did a lot of good in my life,” I said.

“And she was destructive,” my pal pointed out.

“Well, yes,” I said. I went back over the history, some good deeds followed by an egregious breach of decency. I saw my pal’s point.

I sat with this for 24 hours. And then realized what was going on. The Facebook dynamics with Bad Friend, along with the other interactions with her in the past, had ignited stories from my own long ago past, now hard-wired into my brain. In that hurt people hurt people way, the past stories I was reliving in the present came from my mother.

Mom, I should say, left this earthly life 12 years ago. But she lives on in my head, as mothers usually do, given the nature of human psychology.

And some of what she does in her Gay-run incarnation is not so nice. Using my own voice now, she berates, criticizes, ridicules, derides, undermines, harangues, disrespects and gives no peace.

I’ve been working against this for years, all my adult life, really, with a ton of tools.

And change is happening. Year in and year out, with all kinds of loving, strong mentors, I moved through the stuff, chipping away, chipping away. I became a more relaxed person. I forgave her, developed true compassion for the heartbreaks that left her too impaired to nurture. Miracle of miracles, in recent years, some genuine good memories have begun to emerge.

I was glad, because the little girl inside who so desperately wanted her mother’s love, who has lived ever since with the crushing sense of failure at not having won it, is enlivened and empowered by an unimaginable sense of freedom and power.

There isn’t even regret now, about how things were with her. In fact, the loss of a proper mother has become a gift. When your wounds are healed, you learn a thing or two that you can use to help others. You can be the peace you want to see in the world. And I try to do that, humbly, joyously, every day.

But that does not mean I have to keep unpleasant folks in my life.

As best I am able, I don’t permit unsavory characters to live in my head—and as much as possible I don’t allow them in my life. Every day I pray for the courage to change the things that should be changed. Even on Facebook. I unfriended her.

************************************************************************************

Want to explore more? Try these: 

Soul Stories Writing Retreats at Project Write Now studios in Red Bank, NJ.  

Get Unstuck. Having trouble getting around to that novel, blog, article, memoir or poetry collection? Join other gridlocked writers to learn how best to launch and sustain your work. In this small, safe gathering you will:

• Explore your best writing time, ideal writing space, how to pace yourself

• Build a specific plan for executing your writing vision

• Expand the inner and outer resources that support your creativity

• Leave feeling energized, inspired and confident about keep your writing alive and thriving

Held at Project Write Now studios, Red Bank, NJ. Saturday, October 1, 2016. 9:30 am to noon. $45. Limited to 10 participants. Newbies and pros welcome. Register here. Questions? Call 908-675-0467.

 **************************************************************

Stop the Mind Madness. Ever feel like you’re your own worst enemy? It’s that wild mind of yours! You can transform negative thinking to positive. In this small gathering you will

• Learn how to still your monkey mind, one moment at a time

• Build a stockpile of simple sayings to keep your mind calm any time, any place

• Design ideal self-care practices to keep you present to your life

• Leave feeling calm, refreshed and energized, with simple tools for sustaining your serenity

Held at Project Write Now studios, Red Bank, NJ. Saturday, November 5, 2016. 9:30 am to noon. $45. Limited to 10 participants. Newbies and pros welcome. Registration link to come. Questions? Call 908-675-0467.

                         **************************************************************

Family Love, Family Drama We love them—and they drive us nuts. At the beginning of the hectic holiday season, you deserve the time and space to build your inner resources and plan for your sanest December. In this small gathering you will

Explore reasonable ways to balance your needs with the demands of the season

Develop in-the-moment strategies for sweeter family gatherings

Delve into the unique meaning of the season for you

Leave feeling relaxed and prepared for a lovely, peaceful holiday season

Held at Project Write Now studios, Red Bank, NJ. Saturday, December 3, 2016. 9:30 am to noon. $45. Limited to 10 participants. Newbies and pros welcome. Registration link to come. Questions? Call 908-675-0467.

How are you at receiving, really taking in, the love and abundance around you? In the clamor of everyday life, can you feel the great joy that is your natural state?

Me, not so good.

I know in my head that I am loved and respected, but I often can’t feel it. Old experiences taught me that vulnerability is dangerous, and I am still recovering from the life-long habit of numbing myself out as protection from hurt. This is frustrating not only for me (leaving me deprived and lonely and set up for some type of binge), but for people who appreciate me. It’s not nice for them when I deflect their compliments and affection.

Today while I was cycling in the park a simple new little practice popped into my head:

Start where I am! I adore music, dance and other movement, and nature. Why not load up on these fun, nurturing things and sink way down into them as they are happening. Deepening my experience with these safe, joyful activities, I know from brain science, educates body and mind for ever-deepening enjoyment of the bigger, deeper, eternal joys of life.

This involves putting fun stuff on my calendar, and letting them happen spontaneously, then slowing down enough while doing them to feel the delight in my throat, chest and solar plexus. The sweet, cool, relaxed sensation that comes, that’s love. That’s contentment. That’s serenity. Unshakeable. The real deal. Infinite, eternal, sustaining, curative, centering, powerful.

Thus educated, my system is all the more ready to build resilience, and  better serve, through receiving the higher order forms of love, including genuine success and the appreciation of those who really, truly do wish me well.

How about that?

Find more blogs like this at gayedelman.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Join me for Religion Rehab, a one-hour telephone workshop to explore how to heal hurts left from religion, and develop our spiritual tools. Thursday, October 29, 2015 at 7 pm eastern. $20. Tickets via Eventbrite. 

Facilitated Monthly Writing Group  Third Thursdays 10am to 12noon at Renew Wellness, 252 Maple Ave, Red Bank, NJ. Meditate, write together, receive and give gentle feedback, brainstorm, set goals, be inspired and energized! $40/month. Use the “contact” button for more info or to start the sign-up process. 

What smells so good? That was my question the first time I ventured into my friend Wendy Bright-Fallon’s office in Red Bank, New Jersey.

It was a lemon. From a diffuser, a wee humidifier type thingy shaped like an egg that was gently wafting this scent.

For the next two hours that scent went straight to my head, in the nicest, sweetest way possible. Wendy and a small group of us were meeting for some gentle networking and support. That scent added so much to the room and the meeting, beyond my ability to even understand.

Which is a good thing.

I need not to be so much up in my head. For years and years I lived as if my body was there solely to carry my head around. Then I gave up my obesity, the story chronicled in The Hungry Ghost: How I Ditched 100 Pounds and Came Fully Alive.

It probably won’t surprise you that there is far more to sustainable weight loss than eating less and moving more.

For me there was dealing with onslaught anxiety that came when I was no longer taking the edge off my emotions with binge eating.

Big time angst. Nearly paralyzing fear sometimes.

Enter, body awareness. I started working with a therapist who ever-so-slowly introduced me to staying centered, present and calm by consciously being in touch with my senses. Whenever I felt excess stress rising, I could feel my feet on the floor, my butt in the chair, the waistband of my jeans. I could gently tap my fingertips together, or stroke the insides of my arm. I could tune into the ambient sounds, or look around the room and pick out a color, say all the reds.

Sense of smell, that one was harder, depending on where I was, who was around and how recently they had, um, bathed.

At that lemony meeting, I learned from Wendy and another highly aromatically-inclined friend, DeeAnna Nagel, I could actively work with sense of smell.

I ordered a sampling of essential oils and a diffuser like Wendy’s and I’m just playing around. I use it in my office, where I often don’t want to be. (Naps and novels are so much more alluring.) Yet associating my office with the delicate scents wafting from my own egg-shaped diffuser has made not only easier, but more fun to face down the gremlins who try to keep me from showing up to work.

I also run the diffuser when I’m meditating, and find I go deeper. I dot my favorite oils, lemon and/or frankincense, on the insides of my wrists when I’m going out into the world. When the going gets tough, I put my hands near my face, take a quiet, deep breath, and feel calmer calm.

What a gift. I’m having so much fun playing!

Most recently I’ve been experimenting with scents in support of creativity. As a writing coach, for years I’ve taught how checking in with our senses is so incredibly, wonderfully essential, so vital and nourishing for inspiration. So it seemed perfectly natural that when I do writing workshops I use the aromas.

My clients and students love it!

A person’s best work comes from being centered. And our best as writers includes tons of words invoking sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touchy-feeling words.

I love finding and integrating new tools to support my personal growth, my deepening spirituality and my need to express myself—and help others do the same.

And that’s the story (so far!) of my aromatic adventures! How about you? How are you actively using your senses these days? Do tell!

——————————————-

My upcoming events–including more aromatic adventures! 

Aroma Writing Workshop. Saturday, March 7, 10 am to noon. Renew Wellness 252 Maple Ave, Red Bank, N.J. Gay Edelman, guest speaker. Hosted by Wendy Bright-Fallon and DeeAnna Merz Nagel. $25. Prepare be nurtured, inspired, relaxed and motivated! All kinds of writers welcome.

Talk and book signing. “How I Lost 100 Pounds and Kept Them Off for 20 years.” Saturday, March 14, 2 pm. Middletown Township Public Library, 55 New Monmouth Road, Middletown, NJ. Free. No registration required. Everyone welcome!

Talk, “Beyond Perfectionism.” Sunday, March 15, 9 am. Unitarian Universalist Meetinghouse, 1475 West Front Street, Lincroft, NJ. 07738. How to back off, relax, lighten up and increase the peace in yourself and the world. Free. No registration required. You are welcome!

I love the golden light of fall and the poignancy of the long, slow slide into the dark, cold days and nights of winter.

It’s a latency time for Mother Nature, a time to rest and restore. For me, it’s also time of feeling shut in, disrupted from nurturing routines of long walks in the park and daily solitude and meditation in my backyard gazebo.

Last winter’s biting cold and relentless storms were so awful that I resolved to go into this one better prepared.

Essential was to find a space for meditation and prayer. The dining room is nice enough except for the interruptions, and there are always interruptions. Have you ever resolved to give yourself a few minutes of reflection at home, only to find yourself throwing on a load of wash with no idea how you got from the chair to the basement? Happens to me all the time. I’ve lived in this house for 36 years and it knows very well how to whine for my attention.

Or I’ll decide to check something quick-quick on the computer and before I know it I’ve just spent 20 minutes on Facebook. Yikes! I love Facebook. But wasn’t I planning to meditate? Don’t I know that centering myself first thing in the day is the greatest gift I can give myself—and everybody else in my life?

When a new friend heard my dilemma, she made a brilliant, simple suggestion:  Turn a closet into a meditation nook. So I did! The crates of office supplies found a new home. Then, a chair, a little table and a lamp and I have someplace to go to be alone with my highest self, there behind a “do not disturb” sign and a nice blue curtain.

Some days, I expect to spend an hour or two; others, when the world calls or the brain just won’t settle down, 20 minutes. But do it I must, in acceptance that outdoor meditation is wrapping up for this season, in gratitude for good friends with great ideas, and in awe of the relentless inner call to deepen my conscious contact with the one who created me.

How about you? Do you meditate? Do you have a special place for it? What’s it like? I’d love to hear about it…

Find more about connecting with your inner truth in my book The Hungry Ghost: How I Ditched 100 Pounds and Came Fully Alive. Find more inspirational suggestions in other blogs at gayedelman.com where you can also sign up to receive the blog as an email newsletter.  On Twitter, follow @GayEdelman

“In your face” took on an entirely new meaning for me while on vacation a couple weeks ago. One minute I was cycling along a quiet Adirondack road. The next, SMACK! I was face down on the pavement making hurt animal noises.

“I broke my nose,” I wailed to my husband, who rounded the bend too late to witness my flight over the handlebars but plenty soon enough to see the blood pouring down.

We quickly concluded I was more or less intact. No loss of consciousness. Mind was clear. Bleeding controllable. So we climbed back on our bikes and slowly tootled on back to the camp. (Adirondack word for cottage.)

The phone triage nurse kindly provided by our health insurance company reassured me after lengthy questioning that an ER visit wasn’t necessary, and advised on home care and what to watch for regarding head trauma. Yes, I was wearing a helmet.

So our low-key, relax-and-relax-some-more-then-take-a-nap vacation got dialed back a little. I rested, entertaining myself and my long-suffering husband with detective work as new bruises emerged, trying to figure out from the shape and location of the marks what hit what when.

I’m home now and my ENT doc assures me that, yes, the nose is broken and no, it doesn’t need repair. Yay! But still,  I’m feeling just a tad bit fragile. Friends who’ve taken such spills tell me this is to be expected. And this isn’t my first rodeo (so to speak) so even as my body’s still going, Whaaaa?????, my mind knows they’re correct.

And I expect a full recovery, including a return to cycling as soon as I can put weigh on my hands and arms (I hit so hard my triceps are STILL sore.)

Morals of the story:

Mindfulness isn’t just for calming yourself. It’s also about being present where you are so you don’t hit the pothole, panic and brake too hard too soon.

 While panic is not useful, it can’t, by definition, be prevented in the moment. Advance treatment, through prayer and meditation, rest, good nutrition and smart therapy, is advised. I’m on the case, but being on the case doesn’t mean that shit doesn’t happen.

Shit happens. My dentist broke his leg skiing. Broke his arm taking out the garbage. A friend nearly broke her back tumbling down a full set of stairs in her house. My son, when he was three, broke his collar bone falling out of bed, a mattress on the floor. And that’s just the ordinary stuff. For now at least, let’s not even go toward the evils folks do.

Fun involves risk. Sometimes even requires risk. I will not give up cycling. I will, however, always wear long sleeves and long pants from now on. My elbow was scraped open though the sweatshirt.  Let us not imagine the hamburger elbow that could have resulted had I ventured out with more skin showing. My knees, covered by my favorite stretchy jeans, were also battered but the skin was unbroken.

Don’t go global. My first reaction, after the shock, was, “Great. There goes a great vacation.” But within moments I talked myself right out of that crap—I was sill in my beloved Adirondacks, and still with my beloved husband. And I was still alive!

Neglect self-care at your own risk. I considered going sight-seeing the next day. I felt bad I’d ruined a day trip we’d sort of been planning. But, you know what? Healing takes what it takes. That has to be honored. Still, two weeks later, at home now, I need to be aware that  recovery takes time, including extra naps and more time for soul reading and contemplation.

And thank God for the helmet. Amen

In fact, thank God for it all. Appreciation is a great state of consciousness. Life is precious. There are certainly better ways to be reminded than landing smack-down on your face in the road, but there it is.

All’s well that ends well. Happy cycling! Let’s have some fun, shall we?

You can read more like this (not including the broken nose!) in my other blogs here and in my new book, The Hungry Ghost: How I Ditched 100 Pounds and Came Fully Alive.  Not just a diet book, it’s about finding your way home to your very own special soul. 

My gazebo is upside down in my marigold patch.

Or it was until yesterday.

This is a story of a small disappointment and a sweet gift.

Big storm came along Tuesday night and with the sound of a freight train upended my dear backyard morning meditation/picnic breakfast meditation spot that my son Ed gave for Mother’s Day five years ago and has put up for me every year since.

Did I mention I love this spot? Here it is, before.

Perfect spot for that morning-time centering.

 When the power went out, I shone my flashlight out back, and there she was. Upside down. Bent and broken

In the grand scheme of sadnesses, this one was very, very small. I knew that even as the wind wailed and I remembered how hurricane Sandy hit my area so hard back when.

But still. It was a mess.

Then, yesterday, my husband and I got our first chance to inspect the damage. And this darling fellow stepped up to resurrect my special place. Took it apart, assessed what parts we needed to order, and asserted confidently that it could be fixed and he’d do it.

Now, we live in an old house where there are always way more things to fix than time to fix them. The last thing he needed was another repair job. But, there it was.

A whole lotta love, right? I didn’t use to know how to receive love. Consequence, don’t you know, of a bumpy childhood. Like lots of folks.

But I’m learning to let in the sweetness. And revel in it.

Meanwhile, I going ahead with the picnic breakfasts/meditation, just me and the no-see-ums and the mosquitoes.

And my certain sense that it’s an ill wind indeed that blows no good.

We all do it. Resist change, avoid facing tough facts and feeling even tougher feelings. Resistance to me means being closed to what’s being said, closed to what’s being suggested, closed to facing the pain that needs to be healed, because it is so very painful.

Of course we are wounded. Of course we need to protect ourselves. Some wounds are from the everyday disappointments of life on the planet. Some are so deep and awful that we may not speak of them for years, if ever, though they thread, unacknowledged and unhealed, through our daily lives.

We are all wounded. And we are all fine.

Perhaps something in you protests, saying, “But I was really really hurt, abused, damaged. It was real and true, by God!”

Of course it was. Of course.

But beware of overprotecting yourself now from what happened then. What you absolutely needed to do then to survive probably no longer serves. It may in fact be creating new wounds. Shutting down, refusing genuine help, refusing to face facts about yourself and your life, that only stifles you. Many of us perform our shut-downs with addictions—food, drugs, alcohol, shopping, TV, computer time, relationships. You don’t have to be addicted to something  to shut down, though. You can simply clench yourself up and refuse to feel.

When we do these things, we are looking for rescue and relief in all the wrong places. At best, we’ll be endlessly stuck looping through our old stories where the themes are the same and only the characters change. You pick a fight with your mate to try to win the way you never could with your overbearing father. You glom onto a new friend, doctor or colleague in hopes she’ll give you the care you needed from your mother but never received.  At worst, we’ll be in a living death.

Self-protection is important. Of course we have to take very, very good care of ourselves. Eat healthy foods mindfully. Gently move and stretch our bodies.  Form healthy relationships where reciprocity rules. Get plenty of rest. Keep our thoughts on a positive plane. Play. Solitude.

And we never need take on more emotional, psychological or spiritual work than we feel able.

But brain science tells us that the human organism thrives on novelty, challenge and spontaneity. Most of all it thrives on thriving. On growth. We never stop. We never arrive. Flow is where it’s at. As someone once said, change is the only form of permanence nature can achieve.

And growth flourishes when we are willing, on any given day, to relax the clenched body, heart and mind, to hear what we need to hear, say what we need to say, face what we need to face, feel what we need to feel. To stop defending our right to be wounded and start dealing with the facts as raw material for change.

I know this because I have experienced it. It takes courage. It does. But it is so worth it. Deep healing happens, even as we discover wounds we didn’t even know were there, they were buried so deep. More amazingly, it creates miracles. Psychic shifts so deep, so profound, that they bring riches once unimaginable.

What we are given to feel when we drop the fight-back, hide-out escapism, is information. When we do this feeling work in the company of supportive, helpful others, perhaps including trained professionals, our lives open up and we flourish.

Not everyone is willing or able to do such deep work. But many of us are called to it.  We don’t have to push. Timing and pacing are important. We don’t have to go it alone. We have each other, our anam caras, soul friends. And we have a higher power—whatever you call it—an inner source, that wants us all to be happy, safe, nourished, sheltered and fully alive, right here and right now,  who will give is strength and grace when asked.

Resistance? It too can be faced, felt and healed. In the end, is simply an opportunity to grow. If we dare.

—————————————-

You can read more thoughts like these in my new book The Hungry Ghost: How I Ditched 100 Pounds and Came Fully Alive. You can also sign up to receive the Joyblog as a newsletter.