God in the Walls: The Gift of Self Awareness

Self-acceptance comes from meeting life’s challenges vigorously.  Don’t numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life.  You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously.  You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.

J. Donald Walters

Rain is pouring through downspouts on my roofline.    Prayer flags are hanging from my trees, drooping under the weight of the water and buffeted by the winds that push and prod plant and tree in my back yard.  On each flag, etched ancient symbols resemble graffiti.  They mean something; right now it’s not clear.

The steady sound of rain on my roof lulls me. Sitting at the computer, my brain seeks focus so that a promise of a written piece is fulfilled.  Nothing seems worthy of capturing on blue and white screen.  My creative genius is bereft, like many a writer, I’ve hit the wall.

A wall……………………………………….my mind begins to traverse in new focus.

Recently, I was verbally assaulted at a business event.  Because this person means so much to me, the words slammed into me with such force that an “iron wall” clanged down in my solar plexus.  It clanged with heavy weight, protecting the softness within.  

Mewing insecurities are huddled deep in layers of well crafted defenses. That protective barricade leaps to the rescue when fear flies from my inner shadows. 

Wall building becomes a talent when the pain experience is so frightening.  Walls of protection have been an important method for me to deal with scary stuff. 

Now walls are holdovers, familiar fortresses with graffiti labels.

There are walls at my job built by huge agencies with limited vision.  Those walls limit progress. Those walls make my job difficult as I attempt to parlay around their strategies and arbitrary policies.  My responding walls are self doubt that has flourished since childhood.  The painted graffiti on those walls say “inadequate”.

Another wall rebuilt itself when I learned that a volunteer activity I eagerly wanted to do was abruptly assigned to another person.  The wall is mortared with disappointment and distrust. It is that recognizable wall of not being part of the “in-crowd”.  Graffiti on that wall spells out “undesirable”.

The wall that clanged at the business event was covered with “failure” graffiti.

Now there is great sadness in knowing that walls built from fear and insecurity have prevent the fully loving relationships that we truly want and need. 

Walls teach us our stories. If open to the voice deep within walls can be tools of healing. By naming the walls for why they were built, they become pliable.  If we take time to lovingly guide ourselves, we would see the graffiti for what it is; age old labels that no longer fit today’s scenarios.  Graffiti becomes the affirmation of a life open to new connections, rather than ongoing isolation.

 Like Joshua, it’s good to find ways to see those walls come tumbling down.

Walls of defensiveness fall when admitting our part in conflict of any kind.  “I’m sorry” is graffiti that opens the heart to soft humility.

Walls of anger become waterfalls when tears melt the coldness of the heart.  “Forgive me” is the graffiti of the free person, letting go of the wrong and opening to love.

Walls of judgment are especially thick.  They are built by those who need to feel exalted, but really feel very isolated.  The graffiti of “I love you for everything you are” marks the shattered stone blocks with bold vibrant letters.

Diminished walls and new affirmed graffiti bring us in intimate community with each other.  When our walls fall, we find our true sense of human frailty.  We lose the need for blame or shame, we accept ourselves as we are, we open to all of life experiences.  Walls no longer make sense.

When we understand another’s wall, we are truly their friend.  How wonderful when we reach out with acceptance and oneness and let a wall diminish just enough to feel the freedom of our heart song to each other.

The walls within me are lighter, just for having been recognized and named for what they are.  Reaching into my deepest being, self acceptance is a soft blanket that holds me in love.  My world becomes much more welcoming.    

The rain has stopped and a gentle breeze now wafts in the back yard.  As the prayer flags dance in the wind, my solar plexus dances with the lightness of Self from this deepening journey. On those flags is the ancient graffiti promoting peace, harmony, acceptance, and joy.

A smile of thanks, a prayerful salute, I rest against the walls of life.

She Loved Food

Everyone felt lucky to know Marcia.   There was a time when we boogied to Johnny Limbo and the Lug Nuts and enjoyed the smaller, “off-Broadway” Portland plays.  She was my colleague at legislative sessions.  I watched on the sidelines as she faced breast cancer with courage and resilience.  She faced divorce with the same flair.  She always wore an impish smile.

Marcia died on a Sunday morning in August, and I tucked that news into the back reaches of my mind, willing myself to deal with it later.  By that Tuesday, “later” was “now”.  Driving down Highway 101, I listened to her obituary read to me over my cell phone.   I was fine until I heard “She loved food”.  I remembered seeing her in the capitol coffee shop in 2003.  She’d gained a lot of weight, and she laughingly pointed that out.  “I sure had fun doing it” she chortled.  I was reminded that Marcia didn’t operate under embarrassment or apology, she just faced whatever came with that sweet smile and mischievous glint in her eye. 

Marcia was gone.  I felt a tsunami of grief rise up from the depths of my soul, and I found myself driving with tears streaming down my cheeks, my chest heaving with sorrow.  I eased my way carefully back to the beach condominium and plopped heavily into the bed.  Through the bedroom window I could see large oak trees and birds fly through them – and I found the scene comforting and solid.  My cells felt anchored down by feelings akin to words like forlorn and cheerless.  I lay for hours, dozing on and off, searching for meaning in this world of pain and despair.

Toward noon I began to realize that when I remembered Marcia, I saw me.  She had the same Kris Kringle balloon tummy that I’ve cultivated over the past year.  She had the same deep crow’s feet around the same green eyes.  She had the marionette lines reaching down from her smiling mouth on the same fair freckled skin.  I realized that I was taking her death very personally.  Marcia was dead.  She would never see Italy again, or play another round of golf.  She would not hug her nieces and nephews or care for her ninety-year old father.  It was done for Marcia, and every day I’m vulnerable to the same fate.  The world hadn’t just lost a fabulous woman; my world had turned upside down with grim reality.

I pulled myself up out of bed and logged on to the laptop, downloading the obituary so I could read it and catch the parts I missed when it was read.  That’s when I got her message and her legacy.  A minute part of the obituary mentioned her career.  What really mattered was her love of travel, theater, music, and reading.  The obituary writer made it clear that she loved golf, and made a point of playing every chance she got.  And, she loved food.  And, she loved her friends (who, like me, will miss her desperately).  She wasn’t important because she worked for Congresswomen and lobbyists.  She was important because she adored life and embraced all things so completely.

I shut off the computer and dressed for town.  I drove to the spa and signed up for a massage. 

The next day I was at the Lincoln City community center at 10:00, lifting weights.  By 11:00 I was in the pool, bouncing up and down with fifty others, laughing and joking and relishing in the aliveness of each man and woman alongside me in the clear blue water.  Later I instructed the massage therapist to lay many of the pacific stones on my heart chakra, because it needed healing.  I frolicked in the water pool naked, and laid my head against the side of the mineral pool as I gazed out over the spit and the distant ocean.  I stood for a long while under the rain shower, feeling the warm simulated rain fall around me.  That night I went to a meditation group and basked in the joy of peaceful reflection and found even more new friends.

It was one of the best days of my entire life.  It is the beginning of many.

I too love food.