The Eye of the Storm

Have you noticed that life is running at high speed these days? Not just the small stuff, the everyday busyness we all face of work and family and mowing the lawn, and keeping the house at least mostly clean. No, I'm talking about the big stuff, too. Off the top of my head, I can think of five people in my immediate circle of family and friends recently diagnosed with or dying from cancer - ranging in age from 31 to 85. People are being asked to work harder and longer hours at their jobs. The TV news is filled with horror stories of mass shootings, missing or murdered women, wars on the verge, foiled terrorist plots, economic crisis narrowly averted...this all swirls around us like a hurricane in motion, threatening to pull us into a chaotic mess of fear and despair. I hear people talking about feeling as if they are spinning, sometimes out of control, in their lives. Do you sometimes feel like that? Flying around from one thing to another, always just a little bit late, rushed, and harried?

Years ago, a teacher I studied with by the name of Nadia Eagles, spoke words along these lines: What we notice directly determines what we miss. So, what does that mean? It's simple, right? When things get tough, just focus on something else? Well, that's a fine thought. I'm thinking it'll be pretty hard not to notice my friends and family with cancer. I'm pretty sure that's not what she meant.

She was not talking about ignoring what goes on around us. In fact, she was talking about exactly the opposite of ignoring what goes on around us. She spoke of noticing it all. Every bit of it. The moment we notice a feeling and label it as "bad," we completely miss any other aspects of that experience. Feelings are not usually one-dimensional. They are rich, and subtle, and often multi-layered. Even the most intense and painful feelings quite often bring us to a new understanding on some level. 

What if we broadened our view, and really learned to see life's experiences as simply that - Life's Experiences. What if we noticed everything about each experience we have - and our feelings related to it?

I've been a nurse for 30 years, and have worked with patients and their families in all phases of life. I helped bring new life into the world for hundreds of happy and excited families. I've also helped women through the tragedy of delivering a stillborn baby. I've been there for unexpected, traumatic deaths, and equally unexpected miraculous recoveries; for long, drawn-out "life support" used on dying patients, and for transitions from life that were filled with unspeakable grace. Some of these folks were only able to see the "bad" in their situations. However, there were many who live in my memory today because they were so present with what they were experiencing. They found beauty in the most difficult of times. Their lives were enriched because they were open to the truth of what was happening to them.

What I know to be true is that this life is made up of millions of different kinds of experiences. We, as humans, have emotional range that is vast. Whether we label our experiences and emotions as good, bad, or ugly fundamentally doesn't matter a bit. We're going to have them. It is simply life in action, and if we can find a way to show up for ALL of it, then we can discover beauty in literally any situation. Yes, I did say any.

So, all of that said - what does it mean to show up for these experiences? How do we become present to all aspects life? Another great teacher I've had the fortune of studying with, Wind Eagle, teaches how to become open to the stillness. This is a powerful practice, and with some conscious intention, you can build the skill to drop into the stillness any time, any place, under any circumstances. Really! All you need is your body and your breath. Any you have both of these along with you, no matter where you go.

It's like finding the eye of the hurricane. Sure, the wind is whipping around you, blowing everything and everybody in its path all over the place. However, at the center of every hurricane is the eye. The still place. No wind. No chaos. Just stillness. 

When centered in that eye, nothing can blow you off course. Nature provides us with a beautiful teaching here, right? What if we were able to stay in the eye of our personal hurricane - able to see all that is going on, a 360-degree view? Able to take it all in. And because you're tethered to the quiet place that lives inside of you, you're not sucked into it.

Hurricane photo credit - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

How do you find this quiet place? And how do you hang onto it when the fur starts flying?

One of the most easy and effective ways is to start building bridges in your heart and your mind to times when you had peak experiences of happiness, peace, calm, and connection with the very core of yourself. Sometimes people experience this when they are in nature, or in church, or while they are creating some item of beauty. Remember vividly what this experience felt like. Or, go out and create some new experiences! Focus on really getting the sensations and feelings locked into your body. Like Happy Gilmore said in the movie:  go to your happy place! 

It's when we vividly remember these experiences in our bodies that we can begin to use them as a bridge back to the experience any time or any place. It really is as simple as remembering the state. Imagining the state. It's been said that the body, the emotions, can't tell the difference between a real experience and a vividly imagined experience. We're relying on that idea here.

Then, when you find yourself starting to spin with the hurricane of life, take a deep breath and re-create those physical sensations in your body. Visualize the eye of the hurricane, and go there. Don't under estimate the power of this activity. With practice, you can drop into a state of openness and quiet with just a few breaths. No one needs to know you're doing anything at all. I used this countless times in meetings when it was either that or get up and start banging my head on the wall. Which is almost never a good idea during a business meeting. I've used it when someone was up in my face yelling at me. It works. I promise, if you practice this technique, it works. 

So have fun with it. Create your own little happy-world that you can access whenever you want. It might not take the painful experiences away from your life. Likely won't. But when you live from this strong, quiet core within yourself, you are in a much better position to fully experience whatever life puts in front of you. 

And that, my friends, is the Peace Lane.