Transitions: how to take care of your self when you hit a rough patch

When I hit a rough patch, I usually have two choices: to call on the Warrior, the get up and go survivor who keeps on keeping on, or to call on the Caretaker archetype, the soft, soothing one who wants to fall back into bed with a cozy blanket and have a nap.

I am a stubborn mix of both, Warrior and Caretaker.

It must stem from the way I was raised - I was brought up an army captain Dad, who was an engineer, a planner and builder,  a competitive guy who loved sports and worked hard.

He brought us out into the woods to chop down our own Christmas tree and if we complained our feet were cold he would encourage us to stamp our feet and clap our hands. He got us out the door (almost on time) every Sunday, to mass at 11:00 am  in spite of my mom’s dawdling or purposeful resistance to getting ready on time. He was a leader, a manager, a pusher and a striver. He got things done and he taught us to do the same – shine your shoes, iron your clothes, stand up straight, eat everything on your plate and don’t whine!

My dad would push me to compete in races even when I just knew my wee little legs wouldn’t go as fast on skates as the other kids. “I can’t” was my motto. Yet I loved winning at cards, and I was often left “in charge” of my younger siblings. He was my hero in spite of everything.

My mom was an alcoholic in recovery for most of my life, and as a young mother she was quickly overwhelmed by having eight kids in ten years, one after the other. She was a beautiful, bohemian spirit at heart who would have made a great writer or journalist but instead worked as a secretary and got married at age 21 (1953). She was brought up Catholic, so no birth control was allowed. She cried easily, used the fly swatter to keep us in line, but had a kind, generous heart, loved telling stories and at the bottom was a good caretaker, making us ginger ale and orange juice fizzy drinks when we had measles, mumps, scarlet fever, or chicken pox….imagine four little girls all sick at the same time, nestled in our bunkbeds with the blinds drawn, and her running up and down the narrow stairs in that 3-bedroom house in the country where the pipes froze often in winter. We lived there until I was twelve.

All that to say, I grew up a feminist in my teens, believing she was the weak one, seemingly pushed around by her stronger, bully husband. She was a homemaker, not a role model for me, not a ‘success’ in the outer world – yet, she is still here, a survivor at 89, and he died at 83….she, who can barely digest anything and weighs 90 lbs, has all kinds of health issues from depression to IBS and a heart valve, still smokes, and still survives.  Who am I to call her weak?

She was the one who sang to us, Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. If we were feeling sorry for ourselves, or whimpering, she’d sing, “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m going to the garden to eat worms.” We didn’t cry much in front of her. She grew up in the depression and lived through WWII so she learned a thing or two about Keeping On.

So I am definitely on the fence about how to treat myself in a rough patch - not sure how I feel about this self-compassion thing everybody touts in the yoga and Buddhist community. I am a big proponent of self-care, self-love, and kindness, theoretically. But is it self pity? If I'm truthful with myself, I have a harsh inner critic, nourished and watered from childhood by the belief in Strength, Courage, Soldiering On with the battle.  I hate whiners. Those who fail, are doomed. Those who give up, die. It’s like I am living with WWII forever in my head. The photos and articles on the 75^th anniversary of Auschwitz drum it in to us – to survive, you have to resist, you have to believe, you have to fight. Never surrender.

Warrior Courage with Cougar Protector

I’m lying in yoga class when this insight comes to me. I want to stay in assisted child-pose for another twenty minutes. I want restorative yoga, not strength building, ab-crunching plank pose. Yet, I also want that muscle strength so that when I do downward dog or sun salutation, I can lift myself with ease. 

Where is the middle ground, where I can be strong and soft at the same time? Without fear of collapsing like my mother into a depressive, hoarding mess, (she survives, but she lives in a very disorganized house), or becoming too strident and harsh, in army captain mode, pushing myself beyond my limits all the time, feeling overwhelmed and fatigued.

Caretaker Archetype

So that is my question this morning and I don’t have the answer. I do not want to fall into self-pity, but I also recognize the signs of frozen emotion and know that not allowing myself to cry is not the answer either.

As I lay there, tearing up in corpse pose, (the best recompense of a tough yoga class) the feeling of Presence overcame me. A feeling of a soft, loving power greater than me, a light inside, a feeling I cannot describe. In that moment, everything was ok. All was well. I wanted to stay there longer and soak it up.

Maybe that is the middle ground I seek.

When the struggle quiets down, when the noise in the head calms, when the body lies still. But now, class is over, it’s up and at em, ready to carry that Peace into my day, like a Peace Warrior fighting with calm, reminding myself to simply be Present, Curious, Aware, self-compassionate, and kind to others as well. Let the tears fall, too.

For we are all fighting a hard battle, inside – and we must be kind not only to others, but to ourselves.

namest,

jenn

Why we need Enlightened Warriors of both Genders

There is a lot of talk in the news lately about corporate environments like Google and Facebook, and which gender is most likely to exhibit strengths in their leadership styles, i.e. compassionate and caring based on feelings vs an assertive and technical or scientific approach based on ideas.

Personally, I am tired of using the binary opposites  to describe human traits – women and men both can develop the so-called soft skills and hard skills, both rational thought and emotional capacity. Isn't it limiting and ultimately destructive to try and cage and clip the wings of these two birds called feminine and masculine or even yin and yang.  Why not free them from their labels and restrictions and allow them to fly free and land in whomever they are needed.

Both sets of skills and qualities are in great need today.  But do we have to name them along gender lines? Traditionally, we have seen plenty of examples of  what has been called by psychologists "the immature masculine":  represented as someone who’s sense of self is aggrandized with the judgment and belittlement of others, as well as attempts to control and dominate, leading to aggression and violence.  And yes, there are also studies that show  that women excel at “tending and befriending”; perhaps there are even genes in our DNA evolved from the Paleo age that increase those tendencies. But today, if we want to live harmoniously, we need a larger vision, a more inclusive one, that doesn’t pit one gender against the other by labeling these characteristics along gender lines. We in our 21^st century globally challenged world have an increased need to cooperate with each other, to learn to use diplomacy instead of aggression and weapons, and aim for better understanding amongst co-workers and citizens alike. 

The recent event in Charlottesville VA, a violent clash between white supremacists and those picketing their march, is proof in point. The more we attempt to divide and conquer with hatred and exclusion, the more wedges we drive between gender, cultures, races, age groups, the more violence is generated.

In this battleground, where is the Enlightened Warrior and how can we cultivate this in both men and women?

A recent article in Psychology Today magazine (August 2017, Down with Extremes) suggests Moderation is the key. Those who express too much courage become reckless, and those who are too afraid (cowardly) only run and hide. Pleasing others too much, bending over backwards or being obsequious is no better than being surly and unapproachable.  Call this yin and yang if you will....but what we really need is balance. 

The Warrior stands in the middle – practicing presence, discernment, bold courage, with compassionate wisdom and heart. It’s a practice of being mindful, visible, allowing oneself to feel emotions, not hiding them, nor lashing out in reactivity. Mastery of self is required, and the enlightened, or peaceful, warrior needs awareness of his/her shadow side, the unlovely parts of self or flaws that may throw him or her off-balance. Centeredness and self-control, not control over others, is the answer.

In these days of volatile, emotionally charged twitter feeds and news flashes, we need less talk about what is feminine behaviour or masculine, and more talk about how to cultivate this centered presence and fierce compassion. Standing one’s ground belongs to every gender, even those who are non-gendered. Protecting the weak and voiceless, defending the core values of diversity, inclusion, democracy, and speaking truth to power requires courage with a Capital C from women and men.

In her book The Four-Fold Way, Angeles Arrien describes the Warrior as the archetype of leadership without once naming these qualities by gender. “We come into our leadership skills by staying in our power, by showing up and choosing to be present, by extending honor and respect and by being responsible and accountable.” It is the path of the Warrior to embrace both her/his strengths and weaknesses, the light and dark side of human nature, not to be caught in self-denial or self-indulgence.

Claiming our personal power, being responsible for protecting Mother Earth, and the vulnerable, showing honour and respect to others  in spite of our differences, is something that people of all gender and race can aspire to.

Let’s embrace the code of the Enlightened Warrior, embrace the middle way, and not be reductive in labelling our actions and attitudes with the old monikers of masculine or feminine. “...it is the work of all human beings to attend to the health of both our ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ houses: the inner house of our selves, the limitless world within, and the outer house of the world in which we live our daily lives.”

To live in harmony and balance with our own nature, and our environment if the goal of human life. It’s time to bridge the gap in understanding with some ancient wisdom from the Enlightened Warrior.

On a last note, Seena Frost, founder of SoulCollage(R) also sent out a call to unite the opposites, perhaps for the first time in history. SoulCollage(R) is one of the best creative and intuitive tools I know for discovering and dialoguing with parts of self. 

“Science is now supporting some aspects of intuitive knowing: one, with evidence that the earth is indeed a living organism; two, with proof that humans have evolved over eons and are still evolving; and three, with clear evidence that the planet is in dire straits and we must change how we treat Her. It is becoming more and more evident that Yin and Yang can and must become partners, that the masculine and feminine elements of thinking and intuiting, of acting and of imagining, of doing and holding, of giving and receiving can dance together, perhaps for the first time in history. The feminine is rising now, no longer to be dominated, and also not to dominate. We want to partner and to correct the imbalances of these last thousands of years.”

 Perhaps if we can imagine this dance of the opposites and hold the two as partners, we will find that harmony and balance within which is necessary to create the one in the outer world.