Making Lists

I've always loved lists. They help me remember errands and purchases I need to make. There's a certain satisfaction in making lists of the most mundane tasks and ticking off each one at its completion.

Then there are the internal lists, the shoulds and shouldn'ts we have floating around in our psyches. You have them. We all do. Some you put there yourself, but most of the time, they were started by our parents, our schools, the culture in which we grew up. They gnaw at us, pester us from deep within, creating a distinct sense of unease. Am I doing the right thing? Am I reaching my potential? Am I failing to do something I should be doing? Often, the tension is there but ill-defined.

There's a positive function to that internal set of lists. No doubt, some of our best behaviour is a result of the list of do's and don'ts perpetuating within us from early childhood. However, it's also necessary to dig those lists up now and then and check them. Check them twice. Find out if they're naughty or nice. Do they ripple out of your head as judgement and denigration? Or do they inspire?

Scratch everything off of those lists that feels like a personal putdown - anything that tells you that you can't, that you're not capable. Better yet, create a new list and throw out the dysfunctional ones. Read inspiring books and jot down on your list the words of others that uplift and challenge you in positive ways. Now type up that list and post it somewhere you'll see it every day.

Read it often and imprint it on your mind. Live by it. The best lists don't involve any scratching off of items, because they are things you'll want to do each day for the rest of your life.

The Irony of the Red Rug

At Poetry & Company in Kingston on Thursday night, I performed my latest piece, entitled "Rug". The poem is about the last home occupied by our entire family before my parents split up and my mother moved us kids out of the house:

the rich red rug
ran all through the house
upper middle-class opulence
a la 1974

it muffled the sound of your feet
creeping down the hall

(Edited for adult content)

it brimmed over with
her keening pathos
and your snarling invective

running through the house
barking and lascivious
the rich red rug
absorbed our family secrets
congealed them in wealthy prominence

so when your self-congratulating colleagues
came to walk upon it
with their Italian leather shoes
we stiffly wore our happy plastic grins
while rich red rage
rumbled beneath our feet

This poem is indicative of the contrast in our family between the rage buried in each of us and the successful, happy exterior we were expected to show the world. The luxurious, deep-pile rug, which cloaked the floor of the entire house, save for the kitchen and laundry room was symbolic of this cover-up. In the 70's, such wall-to-wall carpeting was associated with wealth and, therefore, well-being.

Today, many of us would tear the rug out, knowing it off-gasses toxins of its own and harbours impurities. I think about that rug and the poison it carried from a deeply unhappy and violent family. I hope that the homeowners who came later had the good sense to rip it out.

However, with Father's Day approaching, I don't remember just the unhappiness, but the intelligence of my father, how hardworking he has always been, his artistic ability, his sense of humour, and the way I felt special as a very young girl, cuddling with him while he watched sports on TV, or the way I thrilled to the horror stories he read to me (at an age when I probably shouldn't have been privy to such tales, but they fueled my interest in the macabre in general and the works of Poe in particular).

I think it must be said that the ones who can inflict great pain upon us can also be the ones who teach and inspire us. From both of my parents, I got my drive, my intelligence, and artistic abilities that find their way into my writing, dancing and singing.

It is healing to remind myself that my parents are complex beings, and that there is nothing black and white about their behaviour. Just like me, they've sought to end their suffering - and as humans, we don't always choose a path to happiness that is kind to others. May they both have joy in their lives today. I wish they knew that they have a daughter who still loves them, even if it must be from afar.

Mask Work - Swimming in the Subconscious

I'm standing before Jacob James, actor and director with the Stratford Theatre, who is graciously taking time from his busy schedule to teach a series of acting classes at the Wellington Street Theatre in Kingston.

I'm new to acting, but not to energy work or tapping into the subconscious, so this feels like familiar ground. With a few preliminary instructions on the sacred art of mask work, he has me don a white mask and slip into a scenario that takes me on a journey into my own mind.

Placing the mask over my face, I close my eyes, and lie down on the floor. Breathing into the mask, I awaken and find myself on the shore of a vast ocean. Walking into the water, I find myself going deeper, ever deeper, and yet able to breathe in the water. I've been instructed to find a gift and see an animal and then fall back to sleep.

As I descend lower, I can feel my limbs become lighter, bobbing with the current. Soon, I notice a Venus flytrap (no matter that they do not exist at the bottom of the ocean - this is my dream). Prying open one of the pods, I find a pearl. I hold it in my hand and relish its glow as it catches the light from above the waves.

Suddenly, a large snake appears. I stroke its head and body as it coils around my waist, drawing me down to the sandy ocean floor where I fall asleep.

It's quite astonishing when we completely let go what we experience of our own mind, whether in an acting scenario, meditation, a Holotropic breathwork or other practice designed to open us to our inner terrain. When we really allow, all kinds of interesting imagery will arise. Why a snake, a Venus flytrap, a pearl? That is for me to ponder at my leisure.

Even more interesting to me is how the brain can generate the environment and objects in the scenario with mere prompting and my willingness to access the subconscious without editing its input.

As I continue to read "The Brain that Changes Itself", I'm astonished at learning how much of our perception is based on the way our brain works - and the choices we make in terms of perception. In his book, Norman Doidge MD writes about an experiment conducted by V.S. Ramachandran, who works to help amputees resolve "phantom pain", which is pain felt in limbs despite the fact that they are no longer there.

In this experiment, Ramachandran asked volunteers to put their right hand under a table while he simultaneously stroked and tapped the hand and the tabletop. This activity caused their brains to associate the tabletop as part of the body (to learn more about brain maps and how they do this, read the book). Then, he smashed the tabletop with a hammer and watched the stress levels of the volunteers skyrocket (measured by instruments to which they were attached). He discovered that the brain determines whether people register pain, and that altering participants' sense of reality (by getting them to associate the tabletop with the body) can influence their experience.

I find this particularly interesting given that I used meditation and self-hypnosis during my last two labours to circumvent the pain process. I suspect few doctors have seen women calmly sitting in a lotus position in hard labour indicating, "I'm ready to push now." The staff were so surprised, they actually placed me on a gurney in that sitting position and wheeled me to the operatory for the birth of my third child. With my ability to bypass the pain process, my husband and I were able to conduct the fourth birth at home by ourselves.

The brain's capacity to create our experience and our ability to consciously determine that experience continues to amaze me. Though we cannot control the external world, we can determine how we will respond to it, and thus influence whether we benefit or suffer as a result.