Silence

I listened over these last weeks, hearing patients, friends, and family members talk about what they are seeking over the winter holidays.

To summarize what I have heard in one word:

Silence.

I hear a need to quiet the chatter and clamor, internal and external.

In a world addicted to noise, where every moment is furiously filled with sound, our bodies yearn for that space where we can again hear our breath breathing life.

Where will you find silence in these next weeks?

How will you actively create space for silence?

What do your traditions teach you about silence?

What sound does silence have for you?

 

I can remember one of my first conversations with silence. 

I was on the Navajo Nation for the first time, seeing a landscape that was completely new to me. I knew cities and highways and constant noise, but I lacked an appreciation for the vastness of the desert. I was on a run (surprise!) and had gotten far from town and suddenly silence was upon me.

Silence became stillness.

I stopped moving to commune with what I was hearing.

And I was indeed hearing something.

Silence was loud, in a sense.

It was a life force pressing upon malleus, incus and stapes (bones of the ear).

Silence, I discovered, was not the absence of sound, but the presence of something. Myself. The Divine. Life speaking to me, frustrated that I had drowned it out with so much noise.

I bowed, asking for forgiveness, and continued to listen.

Stillness.

Silence.

Heartbeat pounding.

Eyes taking in the mesas before me.

 

 

My relatives, look for ways to invite silence in over these next weeks.

Know that she wants to be invited into your sphere.

She has been waiting patiently for you to seek her out.

 

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A few thoughts for your journey with silence…

Get outside and find silence in a place you have wanted to explore.

Curl up with a pen and paper and write. Or doodle.

After busy days with family, make time and space for silence before resting head to pillow.

Go screen-free for a period of time. (Try this with everyone in your house)

I will share a personal practice that I do each winter break that has been quite helpful in this quest. I shut off my phone for 9-10 days, understanding that these devices create much of the noise in our lives. After a first day where there is a legitimate withdrawal symptoms (as with any addictive substance taken away), I notice how things slow. My thinking slows. My ability to be present improves.

John Cage produced a piece 4'33'' in which the musicians are instructed to sit in silence with their instruments for the duration of the piece. As Mr. Cage says, "Everything we do is music". This is a  performance of 4'33''.

The Sacred Pause

Debbie struggled with a deluge of negative thoughts.

She asked me for ideas. I didn’t have much to offer.

Searching for herself, she figured out the simplest of answers.

At her next visit, I asked her how she was doing with the thoughts.

“Much better.”

“Really? Tell me more.”

“The thoughts are still there, but when something negative pops into my mind, I pause.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“But that’s not it. After the pause, I ask myself ‘I wonder what my next thought is going to be?’ It gives me a chance to see the thought as an observer so that I am not consumed by it. I might even smile as I come up with a few possibilities to answer the question, ‘What will come next in my stream of thoughts?’”

“I knew you would come up with the answer, Debbie.”

She smiled.

 

The sacred pause.

An invitation to sit with discomfort as opposed to reacting to it.

Observing as opposed to consuming.

Jumping to the shore instead of going with the current of negativity.

A chance to center again as opposed to being toppled.

 

“Today is going to be a horrible day.”

Pause.

Deep breath.

“I wonder what my next thought is going to be.”

“Maybe that I am going to be fired today even though I know my boss supports me?” Smile.

“Or is my next thought going to be about that report I am having trouble completing? I could see my brain coming up with that one.”

“Was I going to have a thought about that stressful conversation from last week that I can’t seem to let go of?”

“Wait, what was the negative thought I had a few moments ago??”

 

Try out the sacred pause today.

Share it with others.

Debbie, thank you for answering your own question in a such a beautiful way.

Thank you for allowing me to share it with these amazing people!

 

Gifting

The 1^st day of the last month of this year.

31 days to close out 2023.

From a heart perspective, 3 million heartbeats to get us to 2024.

For some, the best part of the year. For others, the hardest time of the year.

 

What is it that you need at this moment?

If you were to gift yourself with something for your own wellness, what would it be?

Quiet time each morning?

Reading for pleasure each evening?

Rekindling a friendship?

Reinvigorated spiritual practice?

Reintegration with community?

Journaling?

Movement?

 

Commercials will do their best to get us to listen to them as they tell us what we need and what we should buy for everyone in our lives. 

They feed into the pressures of the holiday season to buy things to show how much we care about the people in our lives. 

The implication is that with this new thing they want us to buy for $199.99, we will find contentment and joy. Ditto for the people we gift.

 

Brothers and sisters,

Turn off that noise.

Close your eyes.

Listen to stillness.

Listen to silence.

Listen to life.

Listen 

            to the soft rhythm of your own breath.

Listen 

            to the beautiful beat of the heart in your chest.

Keep listening.

You will see that what you need in these last 31 days of 2023 cannot be bought.

Start there and give freely and unconditionally to yourself.

Let that self-care ground your gifting to others.

Joy

“Each day, I look for joy.”

My patient shared her perspective on life and health in these six simple words.

Not some days, but each day.

The act of looking, a reminder that we are active participants, not passive recipients, of our journey, of our healing.

Joy.

Not happiness. Joy.

Not elation. Joy.

Not drama or discord. Joy.

 

A moment to consider what we choose to seek today and everyday.

How does seeking joy differ from seeking happiness?

“Even though we may seek it, desire it, pursue it, etc., feeling happiness is not a choice we make. Joy, on the other hand, is a choice purposefully made.” (courtesy of Compassion International)

Another perspective: “Happiness comes from things happening. It is circumstantial. Joy is about where your confidence lies. Where is your confidence when things are not going your way?” (Purpose City Church)

 

Cultivate joy, brothers and sisters.

If you have lost touch with joy, give her a ring today. (She always picks up when we call)

Find a person next to you and share your joy with them. And then be open to them sharing similarly. Joy, like most of life, is best experienced with others, in community.

 

Each day, I look for joy.

May it be so.

A pic that is joy to me. It is rain clouds and water and transition and brilliant colors. All offering us different medicine. I took this a few weeks ago on the shore of the Rio Grande.

The 26.2 Healing Journey: Race Day

We huddled as night turned to day, each of us ready for our own unique journey.

I knew in the early miles that the marathon would give me more life lessons. My healing journey had gotten me to here, but the run itself was going to continue the teaching.

So, I listened. And here is what I learned.

Replace Win vs. Lose with Winning Your Own Race

The wonderful thing about running races is that everyone wins. Of the hundreds of us lining up for the marathon, each person toes the line with a chance to beat their own expectations, limitations and self-doubt. We all run with a chance to overcome - addiction, depression, and anything else we may be struggling with. Each person is engaged in a competition to see what incredible new things they will accomplish today. In this sense, the race clock and one’s place in the race fade into the background, formalities to record the event. This week, when life tempts you into a “win vs. lose” mentality, you can choose instead to focus on winning your own race.

Patience and Rest = Work

The first half of a marathon is a very unique place. Most of my mental energy over the first miles was focused not on speeding up, but on slowing down. You run this part of the race in a way that seems uncomfortably slow so that your body is able to run the entire distance. The first 13 miles remind that in a world that asks us to “go hard, all the time” that there are times where the best thing we can do is to hold back and become patient. There will be moments, as there were in my own head during the race’s opening miles, where you dismiss yourself and your effort, as we have been trained to see rest and patience as un-important and even as a failure. In actuality, finding time for rest may be the most important work we do this week.

 The beauty of leaving our comfort zone

Despite my months of hard and despite my meticulous attention to nutrition and hydration on race day, my body and mind started to fatigue with eight miles to go in the marathon. From a competitive running perspective, this is where the race unraveled. My mile splits slowed considerably. My dreams of finishing fast vanished. From a life perspective, however, this is where the most important lessons were being taught. Life took me from my comfort zone and reminded me that I was not in control. Embrace those moments of struggle this week. They are a gift, a place where you can see what cannot be seen when we are in our comfort zone.

The most important part of healing is not crossing the finish line, but rather, crossing the starting line

At 3^rd and Tijeras, we all gazed at the road ahead of us.

The horn sounded and the race began. Over the next sixty seconds, hundreds of feet crossed from one side of the starting line where you could still turn back, to the other side of the starting line where we committed to the journey.

By crossing the starting line, each of us was finishing a journey that took us through doubt, injury and other hurdles unique to each person.

The journey

to my healing

to your healing

to our healing

both starts and finishes

when we cross the starting line

 

Celebrating with friends and family at the finish!

The 26.2 Healing Journey

From hurt to healing to healed.

From a muscle tear to tearing up the miles once again.

My 6-month journey from a calf tear to today has been a “beautiful struggle”.

I am going to line up this Sunday to run 26.2 miles at the Duke City Marathon, feeling fit and healthy. Ironically, even though this marathon has been centered on coming back from injury, I am the healthiest I have ever been going into race day at this distance. (Marathoners and distance runners have very accurately been called “the healthiest group of injured people in the world”)

Had a patient of mine said, “Doc, what do you think about me coming off the injured list to run a marathon?” I surely would have done all I could to knock some sense into them. Maybe a psychiatry referral as well.

But, luckily, I have not been to the doctor in these last months.

As I ran in the liminal space between day and night this morning, I reflected on the larger life lessons these last months have given me. I will share a few of those here with you. I trust that they can support your healing journey.

Lesson #1 – Activating your healing journey is the hardest step

After months of limping around, I began to try short runs at very slow pace. It was hard on many levels. The calf still gave me pain that made me question if I was really ready to run again. The runs on a body that was out of shape were a mix of humbling and humiliating. When we are hurt, we have become stagnant because of that injury. Moving toward wellness begins with those first slow and timid steps.

Lesson #1A – The most important part of healing is not crossing the finish line, but rather, crossing the starting line

When I look at the last 18 weeks of running, it was crossing the starting line (e.g. starting to run again) that was the critical moment. In doing so, I was proclaiming to life and myself that I believed in my healing. Before that moment, I was holding onto my injured status. And beyond that, well, everything flows once we believe in our healing.

Lesson #2 – Learn to ignore the things that do not matter

As a runner, you can fill your mind with lots of numbers and metrics for your training. Pace per mile. Miles per week. Coming back from injury made me slightly better at seeing the bigger picture (“Wow, I am running again. Grateful to be out here!”) and better at ignoring meaningful stuff that does not matter (“Darn, that last interval was 3 seconds too slow”)

Lesson #3 – Put yourself around healing energy

It was a silly thought. I was very early in my training, but showed up in the foothills where some elite runners were doing a hill workout. I knew that I was not going to run with them, but a voice inside me said “Just go”. I think it the voice of wisdom, telling me that I needed to get around people who would remind me of where I was headed, helping me to forget where I had been. I continued to seek people who could help me heal in these last months – from physical therapy to Running Medicine friends to Solomon, Keenan, Chris and others. Injury isolates us. Healing requires us to connect back with those around us.

Lesson #4 – Shout your vision to the world (even if it comes out as a whisper)

It was a family vacation in July when I first uttered the words, “I might even run a marathon this fall.” I remember saying it in a whisper, not believing yet that this was more than a laughable hallucination. There is power in our words, and even more power when we share with others what our vision for healing looks like. What are you ready to shout out to the world?

 

 

My friends and relatives, brothers and sisters,

I embrace this healing journey with joy and gratitude. Thank you for listening and may it allow you, in some way, to move from hurt to healing to healed.

I will run for all of you.

I will run for all who cannot run.

I will run for healing.

Solomon and me, on a last tempo run along the race course. He pretended to breathe hard on the run, which was quite slow for his pace.

Balloon Week

 

Balloon week has brought near-perfect weather to Burque.

It is a week that invites us all to be a child again.

It is a chance to appreciate this place we call home.

Stressed? Angry?

Try this – go outside to get a glimpse of one or hundreds of hot air balloons. Let go and let the balloons take you to a better place.

Or even better, try chasing one to see if you can follow it to its place of landing.

 ~~~

Balloon week is special in our house as my parents often come from Baltimore to enjoy time with us. They take a balloon that says “Southwest Airlines” on its side, one that actually has steering on board. 

The week with them is always a full one.

 A meal or two at Frontier. Time in the Bosque, biking and hiking. 

And lots of balloon mornings and an occasional balloon glow evening.

The balloons become the backdrop for lots of quality family time and a chance to slow down.

Mom and dad, thank you for being our best part of balloon week!

A morning with mom and dad this week on a perfect balloon morning