Monthly Archives: October 2013

by

Life

This is going to be my most personal post yet, I reckon. My wife and I had a daughter in May. My book was nominated for a literary award in Europe. My father passed away last week. Bam. I can see people reading these sentences and going from ‘aww’ to ‘oh no.’ Interesting, because I don’t.

It’s life. Yes, I have gone through these experiences, and I am doing it in a way that some people find and found ‘unusual,’ and others may have thought to themselves that I was nuts in some way. Because I often don’t fit what’s generally expected, normal or even accepted behavior in our current culture. Going through my life experiences the way I choose to most of the time now has truly changed my perspective, and having had these notable events happen to me in the span of five months has shown me that my perspective has taken hold in me and cannot be pushed aside, even by my own ego. And I am glad that this is so. Let me explain.

Before our daughter was born, I had heard numerous stories from other friends who are fathers how having this baby born changes you, how when you see them for the first time, you realize your life is no longer about you, that there is someone else now you have to think of first, and that you are instantly in love the moment you lay your eyes on them. Well, not for this father. Labor was amazing, all natural, no interventions, and I was awed by my wife’s resolve, groundedness and strength. I knew women were strong, but holy crap, that was some kind of strong. Then our daughter suddenly pops out, is placed on my wife, I see her for the first time and my thought was: ‘Holy shit, what the hell is this?!’ No bursting heart, no realizations of any deep kind about anything. Just a big unknown I was looking at. I struggled with this silently. My ego stepped in, trying to make up a positive feeling for me, when that didn’t work, it began to analyze me and concluded that there was something wrong with me. My wife sent me home (it was 5 am), and when I returned a few hours later, she asked me right away what was going on as I walked in the room, and I told her that I didn’t know what to feel for this baby, that I had no sense about it belonging with me. She looked at me and said, ‘me neither.’ Bless her. We laughed and talked about it and decided to trust that we would feel everything in our own way and timing. And we did. We love her until death, she is a hoot, and she has become part of our lives only another parent can understand. But we do not own her. We simply chose each other to share our lives here on earth as child and parent, and we love her, and we will do our utmost to take care of her, and most of all, not fill her head with our own stories of what (her) life should be about. But that it is her choice, always.

So then my father dies. We didn’t live close to each other, so we would talk on the phone or skype, and we knew how to have distance without creating one. In the past few years he had joked more frequently that he was tired of living and really wanted it to be over. One time last year he and I were talking and I asked him if he’d be willing to make a deal with me about this; that he would tell me when he was done joking about it and was serious. He agreed. The call came this August. He had developed some more issues with his prostate cancer, nothing that couldn’t be handled, but on the call he said to me, ‘I am serious, son. I am done. No more.’ It was beautiful how clear and peaceful he was about it. Within a couple of weeks he lost 40 pounds and went downhill fast. I flew to see him and hung out with him for two weeks, talking, laughing, having fun and reminiscing about life and what it is and isn’t about. We talked about his upcoming departure, and that was good too. No fear on his part, more curiosity, if anything he was worried how my mom would do without him. He bounced back for those two weeks and everything I wanted to say and share with him I did. Except my daughter, which was alright he said. After I left he plateaued for another two weeks and was gone within another two. On his terms, and in his way. And I was with him all the way. And now that is complete.

I have been through both of these life changing experiences, and I felt stuff. The whole time I did. From fear, to worry, occasional self-judgment, joy, sadness, loneliness, you name it. Point is, I felt those things, but I never became them. My perspective on life in general and mine in particular have aligned. The perspective that my life is not mine to own, but mine to experience, and that I choose that experience every moment of it. Nothing can change that anymore. Not the birth of my child, not the passing of my father. They represent to me the eternal rhythm of the cosmos (or whatever you may call it) breathing in and out. There is nothing and no thing that is permanent. First we forget this, and then we try everything we can to not remember this. We lose our perspective on life. We get sucked into our story, and we will fight until death to maintain it. And we tell each other all the time that our stories are real and that who and what we are as a result is not only ok, but justified.

The most interesting challenge for me in going through these experiences this year thus far has not been my own feelings, it has been having to listen to other people’s attempts to try and share in them by coming from their limited story perspective. People were well intentioned, I know that, but most of them were coming from their story, and from reiterating the agreed upon collective stories around the joys (and trials) of becoming parents, and losing a parent. I get it. I can appreciate their honest wish to share and to support. But most of it was not helpful, because it wasn’t real. It was a story. The few people that were simply in a space of being with me, asking what they could do, without expectation, were the helpful ones. They did not have to say anything, their presence was what was helpful. Throughout all of this, my perspective remained solid. I will feel what I feel and keep moving through life. I am in a great place about having a daughter, and I am in a great place about my father having gone back to swim in the quantum soup. I am in the unknown as it is. That’s life.

We come in with a breath and we leave with a breath, how beautiful is that? So I wish for you that you can gain your perspective on your life that lets you experience it in all its facets, without having to become trapped in it. No matter what you are going through, remember that you are going through it, but you aren’t it, you are the experiencer. You get to choose what that looks like, no one else, again and again.

Cheers,

Ralf

P.S.: I am not allowed to publicly talk about the literary award nomination until November, when the list is announced.

by

Change again

Funny how these come in twos sometimes…

It occurred to me that I didn’t write about the more natural way to be with change, at least as far as I understand it at this point. Like everyone else, I grew up learning that a certain constant in life was not only good, it was necessary. Children need a certain constant or at the very least rhythm in their day-to-day lives to function well. But that does not mean that they don’t handle or hate change, as a matter of fact, they live in a world of eternal change. By virtue of learning new things every single moment for the first decade and more, change is built in. The underlying structure we as parents provide serves a foundation for them to build their experience on. Ideally anyways. And then some parents go nuts, but that’s another blog post…

Point here is that when I was a kid, I learned that there was a foundation I had in my life and with my parents that was a given. It was there. Call it love, support, acceptance, structure, it was a deep sense of being safe. From that it was easy to go out and play and learn, and to be in change. This began to shift as my ego identification took over slowly but surely, and interestingly enough with that came more resistance to change. It turned into a threat to the status quo. It got hard to change. I didn’t welcome it (as much) anymore. All because I had become my story and my ego id didn’t allow for much change, unless it was in control of it.

In the midst of that shift, my grandmother always reminded me of the fact that change was actually a good thing. Sometimes when we saw each other, she would look at me with a warm smile and say, ‘You are going pregnant with something, I can see it.’ I always knew what she meant, and she was always correct. She saw that I was moving into and through a change, that it was on its way. By saying this she reassured me. She acknowledged that she could ‘see’ something, that it was coming and that it was natural most of all. That was so good to hear and feel. Then she would talk about how exciting it would be to find out what that change may be about, and when it would be ready to materialize. This created a different context and feeling around change for me. I began to notice on my own when I would get into a shifted state if you will, it’s the kind of feeling when we feel out-of-sorts, not only for a day but continuously for a period of time. I am sure that you have experienced this as well. It’s a funny feeling, you can’t quite pin it on something, but it is definitely there, the sense that something is off, something is going to happen, to shift. That is the feeling we have when we naturally move through change and let it do its thing.

We know how to be with change, it’s built in. Getting caught up in ego identification messes it up. When we get stuck in our story of perpetuation, change is an uncomfortable necessity at best and a threat to our existence at worst. It has to be. But when we step out of the story and begin to be in our lives, change becomes a companion on our walk through life. It’s always there, and depending on where we put our focus, we see it in little things all around us, or in the big shifts in our world. Maybe it’s a job change, or we move to another place, we welcome a child into our lives, we get married, divorced, someone passes, we win the lottery, no matter what it is, we are simply with the change, knowing that we are changing continuously as well. Our preferences, tastes, thoughts shift and change all the time. We are not the same person we were yesterday, even if we desperately try to hold on to the story and image we have crafted. Change is there. Not living as our story simply makes it easier to be change(d). We are change(d), all the time. We become change. We can be the change we want to see in the world. I love this saying, and I didn’t quite understand it until last week when I had lunch with a friend.

I used to think that this meant we would have to change to be the person we want everyone else to be (you know, loving, kind, benevolent, etc.) and then go out there and try to change the world to be like that. Quite the tall order. And actually quite arrogant. Missed it entirely. During my conversation with the friend over lunch he talked about this while quoting a spiritual person who had been asked by someone how to change the world, and had answered, ‘go home.’ My friend shared how the presenter ended up explaining what he meant by that and it lead directly to the challenge with the above saying about change. When we live our life outside of our story and end up being in momentness, more here, our whole person and being changes (continuously). Thus our world changes all the time, the very world we live in changes. Because we all may like to believe that we live on the same planet, but we do not, and we most certainly all live in our own world. So when I change, my world changes. And by virtue of this, the worlds of those I come in contact with change. However little, they change. Bingo. So elegant, effective and simple.

So here’s to having some fun with change. Challenge yourself to see it in you, and all around you. Notice when something is shifting in you and pay attention. Get enough rest, eat well, and exercise. You may just be going pregnant with something.

Cheers,

Ralf