The Pain Hides the Power

Yesterday was one of those days.

I didn't get enough sleep and I had my daughter most of the day and I was feeling tired and anxious and like a bad dad. I haven't spent any time in a Zen monastery (in this lifetime), but I'm fairly certain my daughter is as adept as any monk at making me aware of my ego stuff and compulsive mental patterns.

As the afternoon wore on, I found myself overreacting to potential spills and painted handprints and the incessant repetitive two-year-old chatter:

"I want apple juice. I want apple juice. I want apple juice. I want apple juice. I want apple juice."

"How do you ask politely?"

"Pweeze?!"

"I want to listen to your iPod. I want to listen to your iPod. I want to listen to your iPod...."

And I was thinking, "I really want the magical power to turn you off for an hour and park you in the corner so I can lie down and get thirty minutes of rest. I want the magical power to turn you off..."

And on and on.

My daughter's mom didn't get back from her photo gig until nearly midnight and I still had most of this week's horoscope column to write and by the time I got myself home I was so frustrated I couldn't imagine how I could write a column that people would find helpful, let alone want to read. I fantasized about letting my "bad self" take over and write this week's column:

Aries -- You're such a selfish jerk sometimes, you deserve what you get this week. Quit whining about how nobody will take orders from you and....(Aries is my Moon sign, before all you Rams start feeling picked on.)

Pisces -- You're a whiny bastard and you know it. Why don't you just cut the "But I'm so sensitive routine" and try showing up for work on time and acting like you give a damn?" (And Pisces is my Sun sign....)

After a good thirty seconds of reflection, I decided acting out in that way probably wasn't the best course of action for the highest good of all concerned. Still, I felt better.

Finally I just admitted to myself I was going to be up really late and I might as well take care of myself before I sat down to attempt to be of service to my readers. I got in bed and turned on the light and got out my notebook and began scribbling furiously about all the things I was tired of.

I'm tired of pretending everything is all right even in those times when it isn't.

I'm tired of constantly seeking healing only to fall back into the same dark thoughts that have plagued me this whole lifetime!

I'm tired of judging myself for the dark thoughts.

I'm tired of people judging me when I let the dark side of myself show. I'm tired of being held up to an artificial standard of happiness that is based on denial. The same denial that led to the current economic crisis and that fuels the American consumerism that has left so many people dead and maimed around the globe in the name of cheap gadgets, McMansions and single-occupant SUV traffic jams!

Above all, I'm so fucking tired of denying myself, denying the shadow in me, feeling the need to pretend -- I'm tired of judging myself for being who I am.

I decided to get real honest about what I was feeling at that moment:

Some days I hate being a dad. Some days I hate having to give up the things I love to do to in order to serve a little 35-inch tall dictator/princess. I hate that it's OK for her to say "I want I want I want" a hundred times a day and it's not OK for me to do it.

Some days I hate being in my own mind and having to wade through the quicksand of self-loathing, self-hating, self-negating thoughts all day long.

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Happy New Age People Disclaimer #1: Even while I'm having these thoughts I'm aware of the fact that I chose to set up my life this way (to a certain extent, anyway). I chose to keep my daughter out of daycare and take care of her myself half the week until she's old enough to go to the Waldorf school, an environment that feels healthy for her. I chose to pursue the path of following my dreams of being a writer and a healer, rather than what once felt like the relative safety of a corporate job. I chose the financial uncertainty of my personal path with heart....
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Of course, I started feeling better and better the more I told myself the truth. And then some interesting questions began to arise:

Is what's killing me now the dark thoughts, the feelings of inadequacy, the pain of dragging myself through a long day of fatherhood when I know I'm acting compulsively towards her and taking her way too personally and finding it impossible to stay present or feel much love?

On a broader level, is what's eating me up the feeling that I should be farther along in my career or that I should be experiencing more gratitude for the abundance that I have or that I should have finally evolved past these fits of pique and melancholy?

Or is it -- very simply -- my non-acceptance of reality that is causing me so much pain?

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Happy New Age People Disclaimer #2: I do have a lot of days and groups of days where I'm very engaged in my astrology and hypnotherapy practices, in studying and learning new techniques and perspectives, in experiencing life in New Orleans, drinking coffee with my friends at the cafe and listening to the songs of the calliope and the brass bands and the "Vegetable Man" (our version of the ice cream truck)....in loving my little girl and the time we have to play in the park and feed the baby ducks and run and roll in the grass and make chalk drawings on the sidewalk and lounge on the couch reading books....
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And I had what feels like a pretty radical realization: It's not my guilt that makes me unhappy, it's my unwillingness to accept the guilt. It's not my unhappiness that makes me unhappy, it's my programmed judgment of myself as being bad, a failure, not spiritual enough when I'm unhappy. It's the oldest ego trick in the book: comparing yourself with an impossible standard of perfection and then damning yourself when you inevitably fail to live up to it.

I took a break from writing the column tonight and read a few pages of Masaru Emoto's new book The Secret Life of Water. Dr. Emoto is the guy who takes pictures of water crystals that have been exposed to different words or thoughts:

"We exposed water to the words "happiness" and "unhappiness." As expected, the water exposed to "happiness" formed beautiful round crystals that would make a precious ring. But what about crystals formed from water exposed to "unhappiness"? We expected to find deformed and broken crystals, but the crystals were rather beautiful hexagonal crystals that looked like they had been cut in half. It looked as if the water was trying its best to form crystals. It would seem, then, that unhappiness is not really the opposite of happiness. Unhappiness, in fact, is the process required for the creation of happiness.

[...] We all want to be happy every day and never have to experience sadness. How unnatural that would be! Like the waves that rise and fall, if water never falls, then it could never rise or flow ahead.

[...] You can never own only one side of a coin. If you want to find happiness, then you have to be ready to accept what comes with it. Such is the fate of all those who live in this world.

I was raised a fundamentalist Christian with all the attendant guilt that comes from striving for a standard of perfection that can never be reached. And I find that same guilt to be a potent subtext in the New Age movement, with its emphasis on transcendence, perpetual abundance, perfect peace and love.

As wave after wave of perfectly happy, apparently self-realized teachers and gurus flood the marketplace with their simple (and often worthy) messages of following your dreams, practicing present moment awareness, living in the light, etc., there's an unacknowledged implication that if you're not steadily evolving toward the happiness and self-assurance these people radiate in their publicity photos and TV appearances, then you're probably not all that good or spiritual.

I need to get off that train. Cuz you know what? After spending an hour going deep and really feeling my fear and listening to my shadow's angry cries for more time and love for me, I started to feel pretty damn good. Before I knew it I was flipping to the back of my notebook to write lyrics for an album I'm collaborating on, feeling the thrill of the pen flying across the paper and that warm fire that wells up in my belly and heart when I'm in the grip of creative inspiration!

As I prepare the workshops I've been led to offer this year, especially the all-day session called Transforming Fear Into Power, I've been feeling more fear than usual. Will people engage their fear enough to attend a workshop with "Fear" in the title? Will people be so scared of their shadow, they'll stay away? Will they think that "trance" is equivalent to losing control and clucking like a chicken? Or will they see this as an opportunity to reclaim the power we all invest in trying to deny our fears?

Because, as I experienced again last night, the fear leads us directly to our power, if we allow it to. As one of my teachers, Dr. Gilligan, says, the pain is where the power is. Because wherever we're stuck in feeling pain is exactly the place where our spirit is trying mightily to emerge.

And there's not much that feels better in life than unblocking that river and letting the spirit flow forth.