Blog 1 of 2013 6-24-2013

The Turning of the Wheel, Where Have I Been; What is here, now?

The long, lingering salmon sunset of the solstice seemed to go on forever. Now, it is summer again. Where was I this day in 2012? I was driving from Irapetra, Crete to Iraklion in preparation to take a ferry across the Ionian Sea to Santorini. It was the final day of my month long retreat on the little travelled southeast coast of Crete.

I returned home from my sabbatical pilgrimage to Europe and Turkey at the beginning of August, 2012. My 3 1/2 months on the road had begun to break the many scripted patterns of house holding, family, and work that had long gripped me.
So, began the next challenge, reentry. It was wonderful, at first. The honeymoon of homecoming, the sunny pleasure of Lake Chelan with Maureen and David, swimming, sunning, wine tasting, hanging out with Pat and Ralph, her brother and his family. Spending time with David and helping him move out of his apartment and prepare to depart for active duty training in the Navy, en route to Djibouti, Africa, as an Information Dominance Warfare Officer (IWDO) was a valuable father-son time together. And then, he was gone.

The next stage of reentry arrived with the fall of 2012. In September, There was a Ceile De silent retreat in Oregon, packed with learning Celtic spiritual lore, legend, tradition, and Gaelic chants, and sacred movement.

Then in early October, Pat and I attended a Yoga retreat at beautiful Harmony Hills, just above the Hood Canal, a vast deep water extension of Puget Sound adjacent to the Olympic Mountains and National Park.

I had mostly avoided full Yoga practice in the preceding few years, after experiencing several injuries. However, I entered into the Yoga practice, over the three days, engaging 3 extensive sets, with caution and consciousness. It was centering and grounding, as it always had been, and I emerged without injury, feeling grateful to be back among the Three Trees yoga community.

Concomitantly, I began an 8 week course in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), the profound training practice pioneered and extensively researched by Jon Kabat-Zin. I was, and I am very impressed with the ingenious simplicity and depth of teaching, not only of mindfulness meditation practice, but also body scan, walking meditation, mindful practice in every aspect of daily life, and metta (loving kindness) meditation.

Thus began a new routine of Yoga twice a week and daily Mindfulness meditation. I resolved to seek further training to become a teacher of MBSR, certified through the University of Massachusetts teacher certification program. As I attempted to sign up for the initial week of training with the originators, Drs Kabot-Zinn and Saki Sakerelli, I was disappointed to discover that it was full with a long waiting list.

In addition to the yoga, meditation, walking, and house holding, I began aerobic workouts and resistance training at the gym, in preparation for a long planned “bucket-list” trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. It was a “moderate” intensity REI Adventures guided expedition, with 7-10 mile hikes at over 11,000 feet elevation.

Meanwhile, I began to follow the “paleolithic” diet, recommended by my Naturopath to lose 10-15 pounds accumulated over the preceding few years, especially during my travels. My blood pressure and heart rate had increased over the previous two years and I was determined to reclaim cardiac fitness. The paleo diet is a high protein diet modeled after what early human “hunter-gatherer” populations must have eaten. No grains or dairy products are allowed, almost no starches at all. I began to eat more meat, poultry, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. It was remarkable how quickly 10 pounds dropped away, and later, another 5 pounds. I felt more fit by the time we departed for Ecuador, in late December, than I had in years. I had, however, developed a pain in my right S-I joint, (pain in the butt) during the course of my increasing intensity of workout in yoga and the gym.

Pat and I had an excellent and vigorous adventure, hiking in the Otovalo Highlands, up the flanks of active volcanos, bicycling, kayaking, swimming, and snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands. The amazing, exotic wildlife, giant tortoises, iguanas, bird life, and under-sea rays, sharks, fish, and coral were breath taking, exceeding my expectations!

We returned from the equatorial climate to the depth of NW winter and the new year, 2013. I began to feel inner compulsion to “get busy” and validate my time off with some “productive” outcome. Meanwhile, Pat was ill for several months and clearly recognized that she was burning out with the intensity of her work and would need to reduce her hours. Without realizing it, I began to push myself again. I signed up for 9 intense days of training in Part 2 of the Enneagram professional teacher training in Menlo Park, then flew down to visit my sister and her family in LA.

I signed up for a week long silent retreat sponsored by Spirit Rock, Buddhist Center, entitled “The Convergence of Mindfulness Based Interventions with Buddhist Dharma Traditions”. I had called repeatedly and failed again to gain entry to the Kabot-Zinn primary MBSR program. However, at least three 5-10 day silent mindfulness retreats are a part of the requirements for the teacher certification. It became apparent that it would take 3-4 years to complete all of the extensive and expensive requirements to become a certified teacher of MBSR. Nevertheless, I was discovering a continuing deepening of meditation and a quieting of my mind, and increased alertness to the daily life around me.

Feeling more fit, and Pat recovering, we went skiing at Crystal Mountain, on Mount Rainier. I had not skied for several years and rented the new wider type of skis. We had a wonderful time in the morning, ate lunch at the top of the ridge facing mighty Mt. Rainier. However, in the afternoon, we got ambitious and tried several, more challenging slopes as the sun turned the snow to “mashed potatoes”, heavy thick sticky snow. At one point, skiing, traversing back and forth across a steep slope, I turned my skis upslope and tore my left calf muscle. It was like a molten spike was plunged into my calf. It was very difficult to ski down the rest of the slope. I knew right away that I had done significant damage. Also, very unmindfully, I had worn my contact lenses under my ski goggles. I had not worn them for many months. When I got down from the slope and back home, I not only was lame, but I also had a virulent eye infection, purulent and losing vision rapidly. Fortunately, I was able to get in to see my optometrist emergently that night. With antibiotic drops, I recovered over the following week. I had not been mindful….

For the next three weeks, I was unable to walk, do yoga, or any other workouts. I was soundly chastened for my recklessness. Gradually, however, My leg improved, I began to walk, walk further, go to yoga, and then to jog a small amount. Feeling better and vitality returning, I jogged a bit the next two days. Suddenly, my calf gave way and the molten spike was worse. I had retorn the injured, partially healed muscle fibers and I was lame again, but worse this time.

In the fall, 2012, I had also participated in an annual Dance of Universal Peace combined with the enneagram, a program that I loved every year. I had completed the Part 2 of the professional Enneagram teacher training and now was faced with the decision as to whether to embark on the internship required for enneagram teacher certification. I attended another intensive three day enneagram program taught by the pioneer Stanford psychiatrist, Dr. David Daniels. I had resumed attendance at the monthly Seattle enneagram society meetings. I resolved to begin the internship process which required that I engage a professional enneagram supervisor, purchase a video camera, and complete at least 20, 1 – 1 1/2 hour enneagram typing interviews, at least 10 video recorded and discussed with my supervisor. There are other requirements, as well.

Meanwhile, I saw a world Mindfulness scientific research conference, in Boston, and decided to fit it in. It was an amazing conference, the science from researchers all over the world that is demonstrating powerful health and resilience effects in multiple populations, including students, soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, elderly, and hospice patients, among others. The day before I arrived in Boston, however, the terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon occurred. The experience of being in Boston during the manhunt, confined to the hotel, sharing in the frozen shock of the Bostonians, was almost paralyzing, especially with intensive mindfulness practice during the seminar.

I returned home for a few days, and that was the time that I reinjured my torn calf muscle. When I departed for the Spirit Rock Mindfulness 7 day silent retreat a few days later, I could barely walk through the airport. I limped painfully and remained mostly sedentary during the week of meditation in California. I recognized that I had fallen back into an old pattern of over-performance, pushing too hard. I could feel the too muchness of it. I had to slow down.

I began to recognize that I was experiencing a return of the old “driven to perform in order to feel worthy” pattern. Specifically, I was approaching the anniversary of my one year sabbatical, April 1, April fools day, and I had no plan for return to work.

I did not feel called to any specific career activity. I had been networking with various professional colleagues, especially hospice and palliative care psychiatry, psychooncology, and spiritual/existential psychotherapy practice. I also had met with some colleagues that invited me to join their Wellness Development Group (WDG) as a teacher, retreat leader, and consultant. As I investigated, both areas seemed elusive and uncertain. Meanwhile, I prepared and taught two different presentations on spirituality and psychiatry to the UWMC psychiatry residents that went extremely well.

As I faced the end of my formal sabbatical, on April Fools Day, I began to acknowledge that the term “one year sabbatical” was a cosmetic disguise for semiretirement. I did not feel any energy or desire to return to work at that point. For several weeks, I experienced painful insecurity, a siege of comparing myself to other physicians and psychiatrists, and feeling ashamed of my weakness, chronic pain, and lack of energy. I walked painfully with a slight limp, could not do yoga, and felt vulnerable to reinjure myself. Meanwhile, the pain in my right S-I joint had increased. I had mostly ignored it, as it was overshadowed by my acutely injured calf. Gradually, I came to terms with myself that my sabbatical was going to take more than a year and I had no idea if I really wanted to return to professional work.

As the weeks past, and I settled and slowed down at home, after the flurry of traveling and workshops, I began to feel a sense of peace and decreasing muscular and personal tension. I began physical therapy twice a week with new, additional daily exercises and avoidance of many yoga stretch movements and positions. After 7 weeks post reinjury of my torn calf muscle, I began to resume my daily walking by the water at Redondo. As I walked, however, I noted increasing pain in my right S-I joint and I tried to listen to my body to understand what it was expressing or acting out.

I had purchased a small video camera and begun enneagram typing interviews. I recorded several interviews and discussed and was mentored by my supervisor by phone from the east coast. I began scheduling weekly interviews months ahead. I and my interviewees enjoyed the interview process and several referred their friends. I have begun to consider how I might make use of this growing expertise professionally.

Two other growth edges began during the first half of the year. After clinging to the edge of membership at my long time Missouri Synod Lutheran church for a decade despite feeling progressively more constricted and unseen, I visited a small Unity Church nearby. Immediately, I felt at home. It was easy to be open fully with the people I met there. They were pursuing spiritual growth through meditation, prayer, and direct experience of the divine in all things, just as I am. I began attending week day seminars and discussions and meeting new friends, including a couple of coaches who invited me to join their coaching group in Tacoma. The pastor, Darlene Strickland was very real and genuine, with a sense of humor and advanced and broad spiritual perspective. I had much that I could learn from her. I look forward to Sunday services and other Unity events. I am reading about, learning, and practicing “affirmative prayer” as part of my daily 45 minute mindfulness meditation practice. I find this “affirmative prayer” difficult.

One of the hopes that I had for my sabbatical year was that of developing a writing practice. During my time overseas, I wrote regularly for my blog and journaled frequently, but I experienced a block in trying to write anything serious or goal oriented (publishable). At the beginning of 2013, I discovered and joined a writers group and began practicing small writing experiments and stories. I continue to nourish a small hope that I might develop as a writer, though I have not developed or devoted myself to daily writing commitment. My return to this blog is a manifestation of my intent to grow my writing, as well as my observation of “what is here, now”. I have been experimenting with writing fiction, watching what emerges for fun as well as practice.

My life feels full and growing organically, less pressured or intensely trying hard. I am developing an inner observer through my mindfulness practice and enneagram awareness that alerts me when I relapse into unconscious old reactive patterns of unworthiness, scarcity, and effort-fulness. I am developing friendships and social and spiritual community, having fun and fascinating conversations through my enneagram interviewing. I have continued weekly chiropracty, massage, and now physical therapy accompanied by daily walking and other exercises. Though, at times, I despair of healing in my body to become relatively free of constant pain, I believe that it might be possible to heal and gain relief of the wearing, tiring effects of living with chronic pain.

Do I want to return to work professionally? Not in the next 6-8 months, I don’t. It is not calling me; there is no sense of urgency. Do I think that I will return to my profession? Yes, I think it is likely when I have fulfilled the calling of this extended sabbatical. But, I am not sure. If writing were to become more of a passion, if opportunities to coach, teach, and lead retreats presented themselves, I might move beyond the complicated workaday medical model, focused on clinical pathology. Perhaps, I might volunteer somewhere, hospice, or some activity with children.

My wife, Pat has begun to feel burnt out with her overwork in the past year or two and plans to cut back on her work to 3/5s time. This will make our finances much tighter and require living partially from our savings and investments. I have been deeply engaged in organizing and tracking our finances, our budget, savings, and pension investments. Pat and I will soon conference with a financial planner to assist us in understanding how much we need to live on and how much we can afford to take as pension distributions without running out of money in old age. We are beginning to investigate long term care insurance (LTC). We plan to investigate home and landscape remodeling as well as decluttering, with the aim of eventually selling this house.

Meanwhile, summer rain is falling softly on my garden. This year, for the first time in perhaps a decade, I am tending my roses carefully and growing tomatoes, strawberries, and zucchini. Palisades of scudding clouds present fantastical figures against the blue sky. It is quiet, here, now, only the birds, the gentle rain, and distant airplanes punctuate the silence. All is well.

A Unity blessing

The light of God surrounds me; the love of God enfolds me; the power of God protects me; the presence of God watches over me; wherever, I am, God is! And all is well.