A Quiet Feast

Most of last week, I was miserable. My husband had had significant back surgery on Friday the 13th which, during the time of COVID-19, meant that I dropped him off at the hospital in the city and picked him up when it was over. The Hospital for Special Surgery was amazingly sensitive and communicative through a text system, but I didn’t do well with leaving a loved one alone to go under the knife. All of my fear-based gremlins, normally soothed by the illusion of control, were activated. I put the gremlins to good use though. They cleaned – detailed, really – my house and kept me in shark-like life sustaining motion until I set eyes on him again. 

Then, once my husband was safely home, the gremlins, unbeknownst to me, became his nurse. They griped and grimaced while administering to an invalid. It was shameful. They huffed while fluffing pillows, rolled their eyes when he asked for a straw or needed help to put on his socks, tapped their feet while waiting in line at the pharmacy for the pain meds. And while they kvetched, I scolded them. 

It was torture inside of my head. Mind you, I behaved well, but the gremlins had seriously distorted my face.

Finally, around the time my husband could walk with the aid of a cane to fetch his own drink of water, the gremlins slunk back into the shadows of my psyche. And, as soon as I was dispossessed, I made amends. “I’m sorry. I guess I was overwhelmed. Whatever, you didn’t deserve my lousy attitude.”

His response: “That’s okay. I knew that wasn’t you. It was some wounded part of you.”

Oh, man. When his Buddha-nature kissed the boo-boos on the knees of my inner child, I lost it. I wanted to scream, hide, I don’t know – die! Believe it or not, I generally wear the spiritually fit pants in the family. That was too humbling. For the next many hours, my head hung low, heavy with the weight of self-recrimination.

Then, voila! I had a breakthrough. I applied one of the exercises I teach students in my Write From Your Heart workshop to help bypass the tyranny (lies & resistance) of the disturbed mind to access the truth. It’s a short, 5 minute, cleansing practice that isn’t typically elegant, but it is usually effective and often a surprise. For me it was. 

Here’s what I wrote:

11/23/20 – Monday – What’s on my mind?

5 mins: I have decided – just this minute came to the decision – that I will give myself a holiday from myself! After all it is Thanksgiving week which for me is not about pilgrims settling this country or planting their flag on Native American Indian land to claim a new colony apart from Great Britain. No. I do not celebrate history as I was taught to do in elementary school.

I celebrate the harvest.

So, what if I train my thoughts on gratitude this week? I can focus on all the wonderful accomplishments I’ve had rather than focusing on all that I want to do, should do, have to get done, and, worst of all, what I haven’t done and should’ve done and the chronic soundtrack of not enoughness.

Starting today, I will appreciate myself and recognize the bountiful harvest that I am. 

Happy Thanksgiving! Wishing you all a peaceful feast of blessings today.