Dear Friends,

This post will be a place-holder, a reminder and commitment to write at more length about the importance of our self-talk, especially when dealing with chronic challenges.

What I want to suggest is that we reflect on how we talk to ourselves.  Do you speak to yourself kindly, compassionately?  Or do phrases like “oh, you stupid stupid. . . !” or “I can’t do what I want to, I can’t move forward” come to mind much more often?

First off, do you have a name for yourself that reflects who you see yourself to be, how you want to be called?  What is the etymology of your given name?  Does your family name insert you in a genealogy of survivors?  Or, do you have a secret name you’ve chosen, that you use to encourage yourself in the hard times?  It’s never too late to call yourself by a name that calls you to your self, to your chosen self.

My last name, “Charissage”, is a chosen name.  I legally had it changed from my father’s last name when I was in my early thirties, more than 25 years ago now, and I’ve never regretted it.  In fact, it’s been a name that truly calls  me to my Self, every single day.  “Charis” is the Greek word for “grace”, and “sage” come from the Latin for a wise person.  Grace and wisdom:  hard to live up to, but I have my whole life to grow into it.

Every time I introduce myself it’s a reminder of who I want to be, how I want to live my life.  Every time I fill in a form I have a little nudge reminding me to try to live up to my vision.

As most of you know, I studied theology for many years, 8 years and counting.  Yet I have not continued practising the Catholic religion of my youth.  I went through the changing of my name the year that I was leaving the formal study of theology, a year that saw many losses.  By choosing “charis”, though, I was able to still bring along with me the inspirations that had brought me to the study of theology in the first place, for “charis” is the word used for God’s grace, the self-communication of God’s self to us, in mystery and paradox.  It refers to the Giver, the Gift, and the ground of the acceptance of the Gift, all at once.  It is gift and call, both at the same time.  Even if I experience “charis” as more mystery and paradox than revelation and comfort, I’m still gonna carry that name forward —- that’s what and how  I’m called, and that’s who I wanna be!

Oh, and “sage”:  at the time I changed my name I was immersed in the study of midwifery and herbalism and was working as a labour coach (babies, not unions).  As I examined my world under the lens of feminist critiques, I came to realize that what I wanted to know, really wanted to know, my theology teachers didn’t know to teach, and what they had to teach, I no longer cared to know.  Now, those are my words of 25 year ago or more, and while I would qualify them a bit more today, there is still much truth there for me.  After reading, among dozens of other books, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses:  A History of Women Healers by B. Ehrenreich and D. English, along with their Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness, I knew that my allegiance, my heritage, was with the witches rather than with those who were so zealously burning them.  The French word for midwives, sagefemme, is literally “wise woman”, an unbroken literary connection with the wise women healers of old.   And that, too, was where I wanted to be, in unbroken connection with wise women healers of this world.

So:  What is your name?  What, how, are you called?  Who calls you?  If your name is not what you are deeply and truly called, find the name that calls you into the future, and into this moment.

With much warmth,

Cat

In Buddhism there is the concept of impermanence.  It’s the idea that everything is always changing, and that our attachment to things as they are can be a source of suffering.  We cannot keep people, situations . . . . life itself, from changing.  When we cannot flow with that, with non-attachment to the ways things were, then it can hurt.  Badly.

Impermanence, however, can be a blessing and a comfort to those of us who are in a bad space, whether in suffering or indecision or waiting for something, anything, sometimes, to happen.  Last week I had a busy day taking my son to see the Hamlet at the local university.  At first glance, the day looked like it could almost be a holiday.  No lessons that day, just a short drive to see excellent performers in a version of one of Western civilization’s great plays.  A classic! Then we had lunch with dear friends, and after a short rest at home my son went on to a cherished activity at the library, leaving me home for a (rare) solitary evening of relaxation and reading.  See?  It really did seem like a good idea at the time.

I hadn’t sufficiently taken into account quite a bit, it turned out.  I had to leave the house fairly early in the morning.  It’s really hard to get the old stiff protesting body consort to move without my usual slow walking, stretching, resting, then stretching some more that makes leaving the house more pleasure than pain.  Once at the university, there’s the parking, walking back to get the parking validation, putting it in the car, and walking farther than I usually walk in three days to get to the theatre (remember, wherever you go, you’ve got to have enough strength for the return!).  At the theatre is the line-up to pay for the reserved tickets, then the line-up to enter the theatre in the midst of 398 other high school students and teachers.  We were told we had to be there 45 minutes before the starting time.  I hadn’t known that I would have to stand for most of that time.  The play was wonderful — except that it was 3 hours and 40 minutes long rather than the two hours  I’d originally expected.  Fortunately, I had with me a protein bar to eat surreptitiously while Shakespeare played on over my usual lunch time.  With insulin-dependent diabetes one needs to take these things into account.

Lunch was another 1/2 mile away in the student cafe area, but our friends’ packed lunches were in their car that was 3/4 of a mile away — in the other direction.  Some of the kids and I waited reasonably patiently.  The lunch chatter was fun, but in the back of my mind I was remembering that the car that might bring me home to my comfy chairs was 3 days’ walk plus 1/2 mile away, and I with a son who is not quite old enough to drive (and that’s if he were interested in driving anyway).  Sigh.  At least in airports they have those golf carts to get around in!

It took a long time to get to the car, and I blessed whoever it was who hadn’t given me a ticket for overstaying my time by 3 hours.  But there was still the drive home and the getting through a simple supper before collapse on the couch became available.

Now, one of the ways that I usually live through difficult sessions of pain is by reading.  I have semi-completed books on the go for every sort of attention level possible in the moment.  In some situations only short sections and wide margins will do.  I love the books that have chapters of only a few pages, but where each chapter is a gem, such as Rachel Naomi Remen’s Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings.  Stay with me here, I haven’t totally strayed off topic:

There are some evenings, though, when my muscles won’t let me rest in one position and my brain won’t let me attend to even a sentence or two.  When reading is impossible I move to aural comfort —- cd’s or internet podcasts while I move around finding a spot that might hold me for a few minutes.  Most nights it’s Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ The Power of the Crone series; that night it was Krista Tippett’s podcast On Being.  TV or DVDs are too stimulating with the shifting of images along with a soundtrack.  I need distraction and nourishment, but not too much of it, if you know what I mean.

That evening while I tossed and turned in the well-padded chairs I was reminded by Tippett’s guest, singer and composer Meredith Monk, of impermanence.  Monk was speaking of her partner’s recent death and how all we leave behind, in the end, is love.  I thought about how things change. I was reminded, then, that impermanence meant that my job in that moment was to witness my pain with compassion and to wait for the inevitable change.  And it came.  It took a few hours, but the pain subsided just as tempests do.

What was left?  Tempests usually leave a legacy of damaged living spaces, but this tempest left my living space, my dear body, a home of kindness and peace.  And my legacy?  I so hope that others will be able to say it is love, just love.

Dear Friends,

On Thursday Liberty and I went to see the University of Lethbridge’s production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  By the time evening came, with its tiredness, extra day’s activity, and throbbing “discomfort”, I had plenty of material for another blog post.  However, this isn’t it.  Instead, I want to remind you all of the spirit- and thought-provoking words

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  Act I, Scene v

May you have a night where at least some of your mysteries unfold,

Cat

Dear Reader,

Although I live with chronic pain and several chronic diseases, I want to broaden my discussions to deal with challenges in general.  As we baby boomers age, more of us will be living with chronic disease.  More effective cancer treatments mean that fewer people die from cancer, but more people are living with it, on a day to day challenging basis.  And there are many other challenges.

Many have social or familial challenges, such as caring for aging parents in their final years, where their social lives consist primarily in their numerous medical appointments.  Other friends have children with disabilities or who are on the autism spectrum, where there’s no such thing as a simple life anymore.  Mental illness still remain hidden all too often.  And there are many other challenges.

There are those of us who are committed to making this world a better place in a larger context, who spend hours a week, for weeks going into years and yet more years, working for social or political changes.  The challenges of remaining committed without becoming cynical or burnt out are huge.  Developing our consciousness means that once we know what we know we can never not know it again.  You can’t take a vacation from knowing and caring about the deep injustices or deep traumas of this world.  And there are many other challenges.

How do we live, day by day, with ongoing challenges that may change, but will never fully go away?  If a “cure” isn’t in the picture, what do we call “success”, and how can we measure it?  How do we keep our hearts open?  How can we make meaning and nourish soul life?  These are the questions that have grabbed me; this is what I want to write about.

With warmth and care,

Cat

Dear Reader,

“Soul” is one of those words like “love”.  Those words can be used in so many different ways that they can practically lose their meanings altogether.  When I use “soul”, I’m talking about that which is deepest within us that at the same time transcends us, helping us grasp our radical interconnectedness with all that is.  “Soul” is that point where our unique selves meet “us”, and where we touch that Benevolence/Goodness/”God-ness” that so many of us, across all cultures and throughout history, have intuited.  I like the ambiguity of the word, a lot.  “Soul” is a symbol that points beyond itself, encouraging associations and resonances with much that is within our human depths of psyche.

Recently I came across a description of “soul” that fully resonates with my understanding:  “Finally, we use the term ‘soul’ to denote our immanent human value. . .  soul implies relatedness, complexity, and vulnerability.  Frequently, we are forced as children to abandon the tender, authentic needs of our souls.  As James Hillman has pointed out, soul offers an approach to life as sacred, an orientation toward depth.  It brings a a quality of awareness that is reflective, imaginative, and downward, engaged with the dailiness of things.”  Romancing the Shadow:  Illuminating the Dark Side of the Soul, by Connie Zweig, Ph.D., and Steve Wolf, Ph.D.; p. 19.

So what I mean by “making soul” is the cultivation of depth awareness, of the awareness that life is so much bigger and more mysterious than we grasp at any particular moment, and the openness to making this depth more and more conscious in our daily reflections, tasks, and interactions.

So does that make sense?  Remember, things don’t always have to make complete sense before we can know that these insights are valuable and intriguing, helping us to create ourselves in conscious response to all that is around us.  Mystery.  Unfolding.

With warmth and care,

Cat

Dear Reader,

So you ask, “What do you mean by ‘making meaning, making soul’?”  I’ll start with the “making meaning”.

I mean making the attempt to see our personal daily experiences as part of a much larger picture, as part of the political, social, and spiritual landscapes of our times.  Who we are and what we experience are made not only by our own choices, but by the particular matrix of our familial, cultural, ethnic, religious, educational, racial, political and economic conditions in which we find ourselves.  I want to make some of those pieces of the matrix visible in my life, and explore what is under my control to change or make better.

While I can only speak from my own voice and experience, I want to use my particular challenges as entry points to understand those others with ongoing challenges.  I believe that we can make ourselves larger and see ourselves in a much larger picture of life by stepping into those entrances to see, to enquire, and hopefully, to understand not only my own self, but whoever and whatever is other.  This making meaning is a first step toward having a life of depth and purpose, of contentment and joy.  What does it mean to live a more or less middle class life, with chronic illness, in Canada at the beginning of the 21st century?  As a woman with invisible challenges?  What can I do with this?  How free am I?  How free are you?  And what are you making of your one wild and precious life (to paraphrase the poet Mary Oliver)?

These questions help me transform the chaos of unfair suffering into a carefully woven web of connectivity and belonging.  It helps me know and walk together with all those walking in the same direction, towards compassion for self, for others, for all.  Join me.

With warmth and care,

Cat

God Says Yes to Me

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she said yes

I asked her if it was okay to be short

and she said it sure is

I asked her if I could wear nail polish

or not wear nail polish

and she said honey

she calls me that sometimes

she said you can do just exactly

what you want to

Thanks God I said

And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph

my letters

Sweetcakes God said

who knows where she picked that up

what I’m telling you is

Yes Yes Yes

—– Kaylin Haught, from Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, Billy Collins, ed.

There are some problems, or challenges, that I simply don’t have.  Take opportunities, or resources, for example.  When  people ask me about how I home educate my son, the first question I often get is “Where do you get resources?  Is there anything available outside of regular school books?”  I want to reply, “Honey, I’m drowning in resources —- figuring out how to swim in that abundance is the problem, NOT the lack of resources!”  Or with health issues, some people say to me, “There’s not much they can do about osteoarthritis [or fibromyalgia], is there?  You just have to suffer through it.”  Again, my desired response is more along the lines, “There are lots of possibilities, actually, and many different things work for different people.  I could spend almost all of my waking hours researching those possibilities and then trying out all the ones that might fit for me.”

My favorite (?) question is, “You’re home all day — whatever do you do with all that time?”  “Oh, my,” I think.  “You really don’t have any understanding of what my life is really like, do you?”

It’s somewhat embarrassing to “complain” about having too much.  Years ago, when I worked at the sexual assault center, I was in the enviable position of needing to spend a good chunk of government funding before the new fiscal year started.   It was one of those situations where if we just gave back the money, we would lose that funding for not just that year, but for all the years in the foreseeable future.  The needs at the center were just too great to not use all the resources we could get.  It was overwhelming.  The year before I had been bringing in chairs and other supplies from home because of the center’s lack of resources, and a year later I had to look for ways to spend money.  Trying to do this responsibly and with accountability was challenging, to say the least.  I coined a new word then, “overwealmth”, a combination of “overwhelm” and “wealth”.

So now, twenty years later, I find myself in another iteration of “overwealmth”.  I have plenty of books I can barely wait to read, plenty of interesting people who are either friends or possible friends, plenty of home education supplies both online and in print, plenty of possible activities for both myself and my son, plenty of. . . .  lots, actually.  And that is wonderful, no doubt about it.  The challenge is to choose, mindfully and responsibly, how to use the precious few hours of each day.

Sometimes I feel a strong conviction about pursuing some option.  Alas, I seldom feel strong convictions about any particular book or activity — all seem good and delicious and full of possibility!  But not to decide is itself a decision, as event dates come and go, or particular books get lost among the piles of other great books.   I have developed a short series of questions that do help me decide, and I offer them to you in the hopes that they may be helpful.

First of all,  am I interested in doing it, or do I feel I “should” do it?  I remember not to “should” on myself, and then ask how much, on a scale of 1 to 10, it appeals to me.  Do I feel I ought to do it?  This time, I mean “ought” in a positive, responsible way, not in a societally or culturally pressure-filled way.  Where does this fit in with my current top priorities?  If it doesn’t, is it a possibility that I have the interest and time to explore?  Can I do it physically?  Can I do it pragmatically, within other obligations of self and family?  Who benefits from my doing it?  Is it within my circle of influence, or my circle of concern?  Are there any coincidences that make an initial urge stronger?  These questions aren’t in order of importance, nor are they the only questions.  But just those questions help me eliminate a lot of “shiny objects that grab my interest”.  And also, of course there are sometimes things I feel strongly I ought to do even though I don’t want to do them, like caring for myself well regarding diabetes, or leaving enough time to wind down at night so as to allow a better night’s sleep, or stretching and exercising, etc.

Here’s my most recent “Exhibit A” which called for this kind of discernment:  I have been invited to join a book club.  It really appeals to me, up around an 8 or 9 on my “interest scale” because the facilitator is an interesting, intelligent woman, and because the book that the group is reading is one of my all time favorites.  I would just love to hear what other women are thinking about that book, and to be able to discuss it with them.  On the other hand, I feel so short on time that the last thing I want to do is to take on another commitment, and a commitment with homework at that!  As well, my days are fully committed, though there is some flexibility.  Then, as our family has only one car that dear spouse needs to use to get to work, all extra outings need careful scheduling.  And finally, the book group meets over the lunch hour;  we have our main meal at lunch.   Going to the book group would entail figuring out how to get our meal cooked and shared with enough time to attend the book group and get back in time to finish the homeschooling in the afternoon — oh, and get Andrew to and from work, too.

Then the coincidences started piling up:  Since the book currently under discussion, and the possibilities for the next book, are ones that I love or have wanted to read myself, there wouldn’t really be much extra homework.  And getting there and back would fit into Liberty and Andrew going to the gym for their regular exercise, just a block from where the book group meets,  so no extra driving is needed.  The meal could be prepared ahead of time and carried with us, with the guys having their lunch at the library, which is smack dab between the gym and my meeting, while I eat my packed lunch with the women at the book group.

So!  I want to do it. I can do it both physically and pragmatically.  It fits in with my other commitments and priorities.  Many benefit from my going, not least of whom is Liberty, who likes to hang around the library.  And it will be within my circle of influence.  I’m going!

Dear Kind Reader,

Whenever someone learns of my health challenges, the compassionate ones want so badly to help ease suffering.  They recommend health products, herbs, diets, medications, exercises, counselling, physiotherapy, etc., etc., etc.

While I appreciate the sentiment behind it, and am glad to know of new possibilities that just might help, I need people to know that I have tried many, many therapies, natural as well as allopathic.  Some have helped; others not.  It’s been going on 30 years that I’ve dealt with these chronic challenges, and I’ve seen many therapies come and go.  I now have a regimen, or “rule of life”, that keeps me functioning at my best.

So, dear reader, please know that you don’t have to “do” anything about my health challenges.  I thank you for your best thoughts and ideas, but also please don’t take it as rejection if I do not follow through on any suggestions you might offer.  Chances are, I might have already incorporated them into my life.  My challenges are not new to me and I’m working with things the best way I know with the knowledge I have now.  And it’s all okay — or at least okay enough.  Life’s good.

With thanks,

Cat

Dear Reader,

One of the things I find perplexing about chronic pain is that the best way I’ve dealt with it is the wrong way for a longterm strategy toward my pain.  Historically, my main way of dealing with it has been to do my best to pretend it isn’t there, and to just carry on with my life.  Gritted teeth optional.  Mind over (my) matter, and all that.    Mind over mattress, too, to keep me from becoming bedridden.  Once other kinds of organic tissue damage had been ruled out, I kept telling myself that though the pain was real, there was not much to be done about it, so just keep on keeping on.

Which (sort of) works, until the dear body just won’t cooperate, and more or less collapses.  The pain has gotten so bad at times that it has been impossible to focus on anything else at all, no matter how hard I’ve tried, and no matter how compelling the distraction.

Now, the very best way to avoid getting into that kind of state is to pay attention to the intensity of my pain, and to modify my activity, stimulation, and thoughts on a constant basis in order to help my dear nervous system calm down and stay calmed down.

But paying attention to the pain means that instead of paying attention to all the other wonderful things in my life, I need to pay attention to that which I most want to distract myself from.  Paying attention to my pain makes me realize just how badly I hurt much of the time, and to tell you the truth, that’s pretty depressing.  To sidestep depression I need to focus on other things — the 1001 truly great things that are happening just about every day.

So, to sidestep pain and depression I need to focus on the rainbows splayed on my walls caused by the bright cold winter sun streaming through the front windows.  But if I lose myself in the joy of that, and then become inspired to create a Renaissance doublet out of the upholstery remnant I got at the discount store, I can overdo it.  I’ve mindlessly stretched in too many new and funny ways wrestling with the cheap fabric that melts under the iron, and coaxed my ancient sewing machine to shape the sticky fabric for just too many hours.  The next day my regular achiness is notched up 3 or 4 points on the subjective 10 point pain scale, and muscles I didn’t know I had are saying “What in tarnation did you do to me?!?!” pretty loudly.

Now, having practiced mindfulness and meditation for many years, I know better how to face and accept my body/mind’s reality at the same time as I notice the rainbows inside and the icicles outside.  I better realize how subjective is each of our experiences of the world “out there”, because it is always mediated by the conditions of the world “in here”.  At the same time that I know more, I know less, because while I can discern my own triggers and stresses, I cannot say with any assurance that they will be your triggers and stresses.

So, as the saying goes, “your mileage may vary”.  You really can’t take anything I say here as definitively “the truth”, yet I may very well have ideas and approaches that may help.  I hope so.  That’s the reason I’m writing, dear reader.

In paradox,

Cat