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You wake up. You get dressed. You take your coffee or tea. You eat breakfast. You prepare to set out. You map out the route or you grab your GPS to do the mapping for you.
You’ve planned your day. You know what’s ahead of you.
And then you don’t.
What happened?
You wrote the directions down wrong. The GPS battery died and your forgot the charger. You made a wrong turn. An accident caused a back up. The train broke down. There was a roadblock or a detour.
Yes, that’s what happened. But none of that truly matters, does it?
Seriously, pause and think about it. When all is said and done, and you finally arrive at your destination (whether that destination is the same or different from the one you anticipated), what really matters?
I suggest that what’s real is who you choose to be in the face of road blocks, traffic, and wrong turns.
Do you get to be angry? Or accusatory? Or self-doubting?
Or do you get to be graceful? Forgiving? Accepting?
I got to experience the often frustrating, yet valuable upset that is life while driving in my car this morning. Looking back on my morning, it’s easy to laugh at the real-time metaphors that kept cropping up. It wasn’t so easy at the time, though.
This morning, I had every intention of meeting up with my friend Kathy Smyly Miller of Wellness Possibilities to try out a new fitness/self-improvement program called IntenSati. Knowing I had about a 40 minute drive ahead of me and knowing it would be rush hour traffic, I got into my car with a plan…and plenty of time to spare.
I’m tempted to give you a play by play of my morning. How, beginning with writing down the directions, every wrong turn just led to another one. How I encountered every man-made and natural diversion known to man while trying to make my way to Kathy. Wrong turns, traffic, accidents, slow moving grandma traffic, construction, detours, you name it. Not to mention, I had no gas, no cash, no map (or GPS), and a very full bladder. It sounds like bad planning, I know. Which is even worse for someone who prides herself on being a planner.
I kept telling myself to breathe. I reminded myself of all the tools I have to keep calm. And yet I still succumbed to the upset. I cursed. I cried. I made myself wrong. I replayed over and over again all the mistakes I made that got me into this situation.
Until I finally got to Kathy. I made it. An hour late and about 40 miles from my original destination, I found myself.
Yes, lucky for me, I had a very patient and loving friend waiting for me on the other end. Every step of the way, Kathy gracefully changed directions and altered her own plans to adjust for what life was throwing at me that morning. I joked with her when we finally (FINALLY) met up at a diner in Summit: “You were an unknowing participant in a life lesson for me this morning. I’m treating you to breakfast.”
Within ten minutes of chatting, the upset magically disappeared. From that vantage point, I could finally see what I did right that morning.
I acted with integrity (I called Kathy to let her know what was going on.)
I asked for help (In the absence of maps, I called my husband to help me navigate the way.)
I asked for forgiveness. And I quickly let go.
I was able to laugh at myself. I was able to acknowledge the Universe for knowing that sometimes it’s the “wrong turns” and “roadblocks” that get you where you need to go and show you who you get to be.
I’ve just returned from a two week tour of Israel with my mom, who was experiencing the country for the first time. I, on the other hand, am familiar with Israel in July as three of my four previous trips to the Holy Land were taken in the summer.
Summer in and of itself is a season I associate with love, loss, and other ailments of the heart. Is it just me or is it simply easier to fall in and out of love during the hot, balmy season of summer?
Walking along the beach in Tel Aviv with my mom, I was easily transported back 18 years to my first trip to the country while on a teen tour with other Jewish youth during which I fell head over heels for an Israeli soldier. Lovesick and determined, I made all the adjustments necessary to my schedule to make sure I could spend as much of my free time with him as possible. This included goading my girlfriends to join me at the Dolphinarium club in Tel Aviv one weekend to meet up with him and his buddies.
The Dolphinarium now, literally a shell of its former self after suffering a terrorist attack in 2001, is no longer a love den. But it still sits there…a reminder to locals and to visitors alike.
When I realized where I was, I smiled and could almost feel my heart palpitate as I walked by the spot where my younger self giggled and flirted the night away.
What would my older self think if I could witness that courtship dance taking place just beyond the rocks jutting out from the shore almost two decades prior? Oh, to be able to be an observer of young love.
Almost a decade later, I would walk along a stretch of Mediterranean beach again as one-half of another courtship dance, with my future husband-to-be.
I was a counselor in the summer of 2000, and he a program director, of a teen tour of American Jewish youth. Sound familiar? Back to the scene of the original crime, you might say, but with some life lessons learned and others still to acquire. As I said, summer is a season of love, loss, and other ailments of the heart. That one was no exception. Ten years later, now a grown up and married to that man who once gave me butterflies, I could still feel the fluttering throughout my mid-section, as if I was that young girl once again.
Is time travel really necessary, I wondered? I’m practically back there right now. At least I feel that way…in my heart. In my belly. In my throat.
I don’t experience memories like I imagine most people do. Mine are not albums of yellowed photographs or an out-of-focus film. Mine are not familiar scents or old songs. Mine are not dates or timelines or milestones. For someone who tends to be very much up in her head, I experience the past very…
Heart-centered.
My memories are physical. I can feel in my heart the love or loss or excitement or fear as strongly today as I did when I first experienced it in that moment I am reliving. Even if the original experience was 10 or 20 years ago.
Would you call this a gift or a curse? Perhaps, it’s yet another disease of the heart? And, if so, why isn’t registered in some medical encyclopedia? With tips on how to master it or at least on how to manage it?
Because I don’t only remember love and passion. I remember anger and fear and pain, too.
Travelling through Israel, where I experienced some of the most joyful love and the most painful heartache of my life, I realized the physical impact of how I experience my past. Some of it is glorious and some of it is so painful I can’t even catch my breath.
One the best perks of my work is who I know. Who I get to spend time with on a daily basis. Whose practice I get to observe or experience. Who I get to have conversations with. I feel very, very lucky.
Last night, while at a free hypnosis workshop offered by Frayda Kafka, I was very much aware of this and grateful for it. Not only did I have the ear of an expert in an intimate group, but I also got to experience firsthand a modality that at the very least relaxed me, and at its best may afford me all that I ever dreamed and desired.
As Frayda suggested, hypnosis is actually very similar to guided meditation. Clinical hypnotherapy is not the swinging pocket watches and quacking duck noises you think of when you hear the word hypnosis. It’s not a performance. Hypnosis is actually deliberate and goal-directed. This is likely why it’s a “no brainer,” winning treatment for smoking cessation and weight loss. Those are very clear, intentional goals.
Frayda is trying to educate practitioners and community members about the benefit for hypnosis for “calm, easy pregnancy and birth.” Hypnotherapy has been proven to be quite a successful technique to manage pain during childbirth and labor, as well as to deal with anxiety from a previous birth trauma or “less than” experience. I have a good friend who swears that hypno-birthing was a large part of her successful VBAC. She was so committed to supporting pregnant women with this method she got certified herself.
Last night, I shared with the group of dedicated holistic health and wellness practitioners in attendance that “I wish I had sat in a room like this eight years ago before I gave birth to my first child.” Who you know makes a difference, I said.
I thought I was educating myself before getting pregnant and giving birth. I thought I was reading the right books and articles. I thought a conscious birth plan and a supportive partner would lead to an ideal birth. Not so in my case.
Would I have listened to the “right” people if I had known then what I know now? Or would have I gone my own way? Is my life experience part of the reason I am now more open to listening? Did I have to go through that to get here?
I honestly don’t know.
But, if I can, I’d like to be one of the people “you know” who makes a difference. Someone who was sitting in the right room at the right time talking about the topic you needed to know more about. I believe that we have guides all around us. Real, physical human beings (not ghosts!) who can and will guide us, as long as we are ready and willing to listen.
So often, though, we’re not ready. We’re guarded, hurried, and harried. And we don’t take the time to pause or notice what is right there in front of us.
Think of all we’re missing.
Jen Maidenberg is the founder of Mindful Living NJ. She also wakes people up to wellness choices at www.thewellnessbitch.com
How many different ways do we as human beings ask the same question?
Am I worthy?
Do I matter?
Am I normal?
Am I special?
Am I important?
Do I make a difference?
Do you love me?
From one of my favorite broadway musical-turned-films, Fiddler On The Roof:
How would our relationships with others be different than they are now if we (and they) knew the answer was yes?
When I imagine this other universe, I’m astounded by the changes I can envision. I invite you to play the game. Imagine your interactions during the day with the people in your life — from the seemingly meaningless (like your mailman) to the seemingly important (like your spouse or your boss). What differences do you notice when you believe the answer to the question, “do you love me” is “yes?”
I feel pretty lucky that I have solid memories of all four of my grandparents. Both sets lived within 15 minutes of me during my childhood and were actively involved in my family life. My brother and I often had sleepovers at both their homes. The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and french toast at Bubbi and Pop Pop’s house; Salami with Eggs and storybook records at Nini and BigDaddy’s.
I first experienced death at 13 when my Nini died from cancer. It was also the first time I remember seeing my dad cry. A little over a decade later, my dad’s dad, my Big Daddy, succumbed to Parkinson’s related symptoms right before the birth of my first child. But, amazingly enough, I was fortunate enough to enjoy the love and affection of my two remaining grandparents well into my adulthood. Sadly, though, my Pop Pop passed away this weekend. Somewhat suddenly, I suppose, but not so when you consider he was in his 80s, diabetic, with a heart condition.
Oh, how extraordinarily lucky I feel, though, to have been able to speak with my Pop Pop on Saturday about 1 hour before he suffered a massive stroke. Whether it was fate or circumstances I’ll never know, but to be able to have an engaging conversation with him and to be able to tell him I loved him right before he died seems to me the happiest way for anyone to lose a loved one.
The conversation itself was actually a bit out of the ordinary. Rather than the usual “How do you feel? How’s the weather in Florida?” I decided to try something new with them. (I say “them” because like Jerry Seinfeld’s parents, my grandparents could never be on the phone alone without the other. Bubbi would answer and shout “Manny, it’s Jennifer. Pick up the phone” Or he would and shout, “Marion, pick up, it’s Jennifer.” They’re two of only three people in this world who call me Jennifer. The other being my mother.)
Like most elderly men and women living down in Florida, my grandmother suffers from arthritis. Between the two of them, my grandparents must be on like 99 different medications. Coumadin, insulin, N-saids, benzodiazepines, beta-blockers, you name it.
I asked my grandparents if they eat salmon. “Sure,” they said. “Well,” I explained, “Fish oils are a natural anti-inflammatory. Eating more salmon may help reduce the inflammation from the arthritis. In fact, you can even buy fish oil in a pill form like a vitamin.”
Pops was thrilled at this idea. “We take so many pills anyway, what’s one more,” he said. He was going to rush out the next day and ask the pharmacist all about fish oil and Omega-3s.
I was really excited and proud when I got off the phone. That I could speak my message of holistic health so clearly to my grandfather. It’s funny, and eye-opening to me, because he might have been the last person I would have expected to listen.
When I think of my Pops in the mind of my inner child, I remember a tall, gruff guy with a short temper. But as much as I remember him hollering, I also remember him laughing…and not just quiet laughter, but big belly laughs. Hooting almost.
My Pops wasn’t the most expressive man, but always would rush to hold me or hug me when I walked through his door. He was always ecstatic to see me or hear my voice on the phone.
I wouldn’t call him contemplative, yet when you asked him to tell you stories of the war or of his Depression-era youth, he got a wistful look in his eyes and conjured up details and descriptions you’d never expect.
On the outside, he appeared serious and shy, but was actually a fun-loving, shuffleboard-playing, choir-singing, outgoing-in-his-own way sorta fellow. A dichotomy, I see now, which was not lost on me.
My grandfather was the baby, the last remaining child of his parents. He was a loving and attentive parent, particularly in these last years of his life, to my mother and her brother. He loved 6 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. He’d laugh out loud to hear me say it, but he was a mensch. And a mindful one at that.
You wake up. You get dressed. You take your coffee or tea. You eat breakfast. You prepare to set out. You map out the route or you grab your GPS to do the mapping for you.
