No Problems In The Present Moment

I've written a number of posts now about a major tenet of ho'oponopono, namely that all our problems in life come from our memories. This should be very clear to see as we struggle through bereavement. If you open a newspaper from a neighboring city to the obituaries, I'm sure you can find an obit concerning someone you don't know. Do you feel overwhelming sadness about their death? No? Why? You probably feel overwhelming sadness concerning the death of your spouse. But what is the difference? They are both dead people. The difference is, you have no memories of the dead stranger, but you have tons of memories of your dead spouse.

I was reading part of The Sedona Method yesterday, and I found a great section that takes this concept to a whole new level. It also teaches a powerful life skill that I feel will help you immensely in your grief work.

[from pages 268-270]:

Exploration: There Are No Problems

...I'd like to share one of the most powerful perspectives that we've been exploring in Sedona Method Advanced Courses with you: There are no problems in the present moment. I saved this piece for now, because I know this may be hard for you to accept, but — what if all the supposed problems you have right now are only memories? I challenge you to explore this question for yourself and at least entertain the possibility. If you can even partially accept this notion, and work with it as best you can in the way outlined here, it will give you another powerful tool to transform your life radically for the better.

The reason that problems appear to persist through time is that, whenever they're not here, in this moment, we go looking for them. Yes, we actually seek our problems. We tend to filter our experiences based on the belief that we have a particular problem, unconsciously censoring anything from our awareness that doesn't support that belief, including the fact that the problem is not here NOW.

I have worked with this perspective in the background of my awareness for many years; however it has only been in the last few years that I have used it in our classes and retreats. One of the first times I shared this perspective with a group was at a Seven-day Retreat a few years ago. Henry came to the retreat wearing a leg brace and feeling a lot of pain due to torn ligaments in his knee. His doctors had told him that the pain would probably persist for about six months until all the ligaments healed. So, he was quite skeptical when I told him that even pain is a memory. Yes, there were sensations in the NOW, but the pain itself was only a memory. He was so skeptical, in fact, that he spent the next 24 hours trying to prove me wrong. He was certain that if he got completely present with the sensations he was experiencing, he would still feel pain.

The next day in class, Henry shared that he was more than a little shocked that, despite the fact he had doubted what I said, every time he looked for pain in the present, he couldn't find it. He went on to explain that not only could he not find pain in the present, but there was no more pain to be found period, and his swelling had gone down about 85 percent. He also no longer needed his leg brace to walk!

I invite you to challenge your long cherished problems by embracing at least the possibility that they are only memories and allowing yourself to be open to what you discover.

To release the suffering caused by your perceptions, begin by thinking of a problem that you used to believe you had. (Notice that I have purposely phrased this sentence in the past tense.)

If you have a hard time accepting the problem as being from the past, allow yourself to include the last moment as part of the past. Most of us think of the past as at least yesterday, last year, or years ago. For the sake of understanding what I am suggesting, please view the past as anything that is not happening at this exact moment, including a second ago, or even a nanosecond ago.

Then, ask yourself this question: Could I allow myself to remember how I used to believe I had this problem?

The shift in consciousness that follows the question may make you laugh, it may make you tingle inside, or it may simply open the possibility in your awareness that, "Yes, even this is just a memory."

Next, ask yourself: Would I like to change that from the past?

If the answer is "yes," ask: Could I let go of wanting to change that from the past? Then let go as best you can.

Simply move on to the next step if the answer is "no."

The completion question in this series is: Could I let go of wanting to believe I have that problem again? Or: Could I let go of the expectation of having that problem happen again?

As always, just do your best to let go. If you find that you're still clinging to the memory of the problem in this moment, however, repeat the steps from the beginning until you can let go fully.

There are tons of excellent exercises in this book to help you let go of all your problems, anxieties, fears, and limitations. I highly, highly recommend it.

Memories From A Western Perspective

While attending my monthly meeting at Bereaved Families of Ontario — Ottawa, I was again reminded about memories and the principal role they play in bereavement. I am really noticing now when longer-term widow/ers say that they insist on holding on to their memories of their dead spouse, that the memories are "too good" to let go of. Based on my understanding of Buddhist thought, it is this desire to cling to and hang on to those memories that results in suffering (Saṃsāra). In this tradition, freedom from suffering lies in letting go of cravings and desires.

But tonight I want to give the Western perspective a fair shake. While my preference is clearly for an Eastern view in the long term, I realize that everyone grieves in their own way, and we will likely adopt many different perspectives as we progress through our grief journey. In fact, many consider it vital within that first year to spend a lot of time revisiting our memories and "refiling" them, regardless of how much pain this causes. This is where the advice about taking it easy on yourself comes in ;-) Grief work is exhausting. Some of the hardest grief work I did involved making a conscious decision to revisit memory after memory. And I was hungry for advice on the best way to do this. I'm not a glutton for punishment ;-)

I've just finished reading "Understanding Grief" by Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt, and he explains that the purpose of grief is to change our relationship with our dead spouse from one of presence to one of memory. He has a number of suggestions on how to go about doing this, and I think you will find something that can help you in your own journey [pp 110-112]:

Do you have any kind of relationship with someone when they die? Of course. You have a relationship of memory. This need involves allowing and encouraging yourself to pursue that relationship.

Some people may try to take your memories away. Trying to be helpful, they encourage you to pack all the pictures away, tell you to keep busy, or move out of your house. You also may think avoiding memories would be better for you. And why not? You are living in a culture that teaches you that to move away from your grief is best, instead of toward it. Yes, you still have a relationship with the person in your life who died; however, a change must occur from one of presence to one of memory. Memories that are precious, occasional dreams reflecting the significance of the relationship, and living legacies are examples of some of the things that give testimony to a different form of a continued relationship. Your ultimate healing calls out for this new form of relationship that is firmly rooted in memory.

The process of beginning to embrace your memories often begins with the funeral. The ritual offers you an opportunity to remember the person who died and helps to affirm the value of the life that was lived. The memories you embrace during the time of the funeral set the tone for the changed nature of the relationship. Meaningful rituals encourage the expression of cherished memories and allow for both tears and laughter. Memories that were made in love can be embraced with people who shared in your love for the person who died.

Embracing your memories can be a very slow and, at times, painful process that occurs in small steps. Remember — don't try to do all of your work of mourning at once. Go slowly and be patient with yourself.

In a culture where most people don't understand the value and function of memories, you may need help in keeping your precious memories alive. You will need to have people around you who understand your need to share them. The following are a few examples of things you can do to keep memories alive while at the same time embracing the reality that the person has died:

• Talking out or writing out favorite memories you shared with the person who died.


• Giving yourself permission to retain some special keepsakes that belonged to the person who died.


• Displaying pictures of the person who died.


• Visiting places of special significance that stimulate memories of times shared together.


• Reviewing photo albums at special times such as holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries.

Perhaps one of the best ways to embrace memories is through creating a "Memory Book" which contains special photographs you have selected. Organize them, place them in an album, and write out the memories reflected in the photos. This book can then become a valued collection of memories that you can review whenever it seems appropriate.

I need to mention the reality that memories are not always pleasant. If that applies to you, addressing this need can be made even more difficult. To ignore painful or ambivalent memories is to prevent yourself from healing. You will need someone who can nonjudgmentally explore any painful memories with you. If you repress or deny these memories, you risk carrying an underlying sadness or anger into your future years.

In my experience, remembering the past makes hoping for the future possible. Your future will become open to new experiences only to the extent that past memories have been embraced. Hope for your healing means to embrace memories!

As a reference, you can review all my posts about memories by selecting the memories label link on the left.

Memories Are Not What They Seem

In my last post, I suggested that part of Grief Recovery is being willing to let go of our memories of our dead spouse. I realize that this is anathema for most Westerners. As widow/ers, we are seen by many as the keepers of "the memories" of our deceased mate. Like this is our new profession now — why we are alive, our new reason for living. But memories are slippery things, and they change over time. Clinging to memories of our past married life is a recipe for much pain, especially as those memories begin to fade. It is easy to feel guilty, as though we are not doing our job as delegated by "society" (whatever that is).

As Thomas Blakeslee points out in his book Beyond The Conscious Mind, it is important to understand that the majority of our memories are in fact fabrications. That's right, our mind fills in a lot of detail for gaps where it never recorded the data completely. Out of the 15 million bits of data per second we are exposed to, we are consciously aware of maybe 15 of those bits (1 in a million). Subconsciously we retain more, but there is still huge gaps in between what we are exposed to and what we recall. But our mind does not like gaps or voids, so it fills in the missing data when we recall a memory.

Preposterous. When I first read this, I didn't believe a word of it. But Thomas provided a disturbing example. It turns out that our vision system has a blind spot where the optic nerve connects to the retina [pg 38]:

Close your right eye and hold the book about 8 inches in front of you while your left eye stares directly at the X. Adjust the book position until the hole in the text disappears. Your brain easily fills in words to cover up for the blind spot in your vision (where your optic nerve enters the retina). This tendency of the brain to imaginatively fill-in gaps to make the world seem normal is the cause of much confusion in the world.

He also states, "our mind does such a good job filling in gaps to create the reality we expect that we don't even notice the inconsistencies" [pg 37].

So what am I saying here? That our entire experience of reality is imagined? Made-up? A fabrication? No. What I am trying to point out is that our memories are not cast in stone, especially those of our dead spouse. Those memories change, and we do well as widow/ers to recognize that those memories change and go with the flow of that change. In other words, it is a normal part of being human, and there is no reason whatsoever to feel any guilt when we feel those memories slipping away.

I've also been thinking a great deal about what happens to our memories when we use a tool like ho'oponopono to modify our memories. When we recognize that we are replaying a memory and say "I love you" to that memory, we are expressing our total acceptance of that memory. I think it is important to understand that the memory is inherently flawed and incomplete, and that our mind is filling in missing detail each time we replay the memory. And yet we express our acceptance of that memory. That flawed memory is OK just as it is.

The second part of ho'oponopono is to say "I'm sorry for harboring this memory." Now we are no longer just passively willing to let go of a memory, we are actively letting it go and allowing ourselves to begin living in the present moment.

What I discovered in my grief was that letting go of memories and living in the present moment healed a huge amount of my pain. I strongly believe at this point that we feel pain in bereavement so that we will change our thought patterns and habits. Ho'oponopono provides a powerful tool for changing our thought patterns, which in turn changes our habits. Since my thoughts and habits have changed dramatically, I have been released from my pain. I wish that for you also.

Not-So-Sacred Memories

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions
— Leonardo da Vinci

We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them
— Goethe

I'm reading a fascinating book called Beyond The Conscious Mind that talks a good deal about memories. As I've described in several past posts about ho'oponopono, all our problems are caused by memories. So how do we resolve this fact with the Western mindset of memories being the source of our pleasure and the need to cling to the memories of our dead spouse? Over and over again, I see constant reminders that nothing is more important in our lives as widows and widowers than to honor their memory. As a result, those memories take on a kind of special, sacred status, and we the living are presumed to be duty-bound to be a kind of living Ark of the Covenant, carrying around these sacred memories of our deceased mate, housing them and safeguarding them.

Says who?

Again, let me be clear that I don't think we can erase the memories of our dead spouse — their essence permeates every cell in our bodies. What I do think we can do is let go of wanting to cling to those memories, and in doing so, we can heal and recover from our grief and focus instead on living in the present instead of the past. But if these memories of our past lives are sacred and we are to carry them around as a sort of living tombstone and memorial (after all, we knew them the best and are therefore the most qualified), isn't it paradoxical (if not sacreligious!) to suggest that we let go of these memories?

Tonight I just want to examine this idea about sacred memories of our dead spouse. This implies some unchanging quality to these memories, as though they have been cast in stone to be henceforth unchanged, forevermore.

As Thomas Blakeslee points out in Beyond The Conscious Mind, our memories do change over time. Each recall changes them in some way. One example he gives related to students being questioned immediately after the space shuttle Challenger exploded as to where they were and how they felt, and then a follow-up questionnaire 2 ½ years later. Consider the following [pp 77-78]:

NEXT DAY: I was in my religion class and some people walked in and started talking about [it]. I didn't know any of the details except that it had exploded and the schoolteacher's students has all been watching which I thought was so sad. Then after class I went to my room and watched the TV program talking about it and I got the details from that.
2 1/2 YEARS LATER: When I first heard about the explosion I was sitting in my freshman dorm room with my roommate and we were watching TV. It came on the news flash and we were both totally shocked. I was really upset and I went upstairs to talk to a friend of mine and then I called my parents.

Hard to believe these two accounts came from the same person! But was this just a one-off? No, in fact they were able to find 44 students who had filled out the original questionnaire, and all of them had substantially reworked their memories of the event.

In the next part of this article, I'll explain more about how these memories changed, as well as provide some shocking details about what our memories really consist of. I think it will become clear that the only thing we have to lose by being willing to let go of our memories is our pain.

Zero Limits Basic Principles

What happens in your life is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
— Joe Vitale

I've written at some length about a Hawaiian healing method called Ho'oponopono, and the more I use it, the more I like it. Especially in the context of Grief Recovery, I like how the simple expression of "I love you; I'm sorry; please forgive me; thank you," encapsulates so much of what I need to heal on a daily basis.

These simple yet profound words are based on some solid principles. Joe Vitale's Zero Limits explain these principles on pages 199-201, and I hope you find them intriguing. When we grieve, so often we don't have the wherewithal to remember new-fangled fancy mantras or breathing exercises or visualization techniques. But we can always remember to say "I love you."

---

Zero Limits Basic Principles

1. You don't have a clue what is going on.
It is impossible to be aware of everything happening in and around you, consciously or unconsciously. Your body and mind are regulating themselves right now, without you being aware of it. And numerous invisible signals are in the air, from radio waves to thought forms, which you have no conscious sense of at all. You are indeed co-creating your own reality right now, but it is happening unconsciously, without your conscious knowledge or control. This is why you can think positive thoughts all you like and still be broke. Your conscious mind isn't the creator.

2. You don't have control over everything.
Obviously, if you don't know everything that is happening, you can't control it all. It's an ego trip to think you can make the world do your bidding. Since your ego can't see much of what is going on in the world right now, letting your ego decide what is best for you isn't wise.You have choice, but you don't have control. You can use your conscious mind to begin to choose what you would prefer to experience, but you have to let go of whether you manifest it or not, or how, or when. Surrender is key.

3. You can heal whatever comes your way.
Whatever appears in your life, no matter how it got there, is up for healing simply because it's now on your radar. The assumption here is that if you can feel it, you can heal it. If you can see it in someone else, and it bothers you, then it's up for healing. Or as I'm told Oprah once said, "If you can spot it, you've got it." You may have no idea why it's in your life or how it got there, but you can let it go because you're now aware of it. The more you heal what comes up, the clearer you are to manifest what you prefer, because you will be freeing stuck energy to use for other matters.

4. You are 100 percent responsible for all you experience.
What happens in your life is not your fault, but it is your responsibility. The concept of personal responsibility goes beyond what you say, do, and think. It includes what others say, do, and think that shows up in your life. If you take complete responsibility for all that appears in your life, then when someone surfaces with a problem, then it is your problem, too. This ties in to principle three, which states you can heal whatever comes your way. In short, you can't blame anyone or anything for your current reality. All you can do is take responsibility for it, which means accept it, own it, and love it.The more you heal what comes up, the more you get in tune with the source.

5. Your ticket to zero limits is saying the phrase "I love you."
The pass that gets you peace beyond all understanding, from healing to manifestation, is the simple phrase "I love you." Saying it to the Divine cleans everything in you so you can experience the miracle of this moment: zero limits. The idea is to love everything. Love the extra fat, the addiction, the problem child or neighbor or spouse; love it all. Love transmutes the stuck energy and frees it. Saying "I love you" is the open sesame to experience the Divine.

6. Inspiration is more important than intention.
Intention is a toy of the mind; inspiration is a directive from the Divine. At some point you'll surrender and start listening, rather than begging and waiting. Intention is trying to control life based on the limited view of the ego; inspiration is receiving a message from the Divine and then acting on it. Intention works and brings results; inspiration works and brings miracles.Which do you prefer?

I've heard some misconceptions about grieving from some people who have seen The Secret. Instead of asking, "How did I attract the death of my spouse into my life?" we can now see that it is more helpful to say, "It is not my fault that my spouse is dead, but I am 100 percent responsible for my reaction to his/her death." By taking total responsibility, we are now in a position of power to change our reaction. We can't take complete responsibility and simultaneously remain a victim of tragedy. Responsibility is the path to recovery and healing. And peace.

Everybody Hurts

In some of my recent correspondence, I've been telling people that I've incorporated grieving into my daily living. By that, I mean grief in a much wider context than my status as a widower. Going back to my 29 January post about Letting Go Emotionally, we can get a good idea about what grief is in the context of our dead spouse — the loosening or defusing of the emotional energy we have tied up with our lost loved one. Therèse Rando says grief is withdrawing emotional energy and investment from someone we love. I would also add that grief is the process of changing all our habits from our old, married life: thought habits, feeling habits, physical habits, mental habits, emotional habits, sexual habits, spiritual habits.

What I've discovered, though, is that there is a much wider context to grief. I'm now noticing references to grief concerning getting older (grieving the loss of youth), illness (grieving the loss of health), the empty nest (grieving the loss of parenting), and community (grieving the loss of an era). The grief principle remains the same in each case, namely changing our habits to free up our emotional energy and investment in these concepts.

I'm discovering more and more that our emotional energy is not so much tied up with these concepts per se, but rather with accumulated memories we have related to these concepts. The more accumulated memories we have acquired, the heavier the emotional investment and the stronger the emotional energy. And a subtle process occurs somewhere along the way — we come to believe that we are those memories.

This struck me today when I was reading the following from an interview on BeliefNet:

Do you feel like you're reinventing yourself for a second life?

Reinvention doesn't really say it for me. Nature doesn't reinvent itself every spring. It does what it does. God invents you. As you get older, the spiritual opportunity is to drop that which is false and to reclaim your true self. T.S. Eliot in "Four Quartets" says, "You're always going home. You're going back home." So, it's not so much that you're going forward, you're coming full circle. You are dropping this artificial self that accumulated -- the burdens, the disappointments, the fears, the falsehoods.

What are these accumulated burdens, disappointments, fears, and falsehoods? Memories. Nothing but memories. And we are not our memories. We are something much more than our memories.

I've been thinking of a bus-stop as a good analogy to living life from our memories. Picture yourself sitting peacefully at a bus-stop on a pleasant summer day. Suddenly, a bus screams up to the curb and slows, not stops. Without thinking, you jump on the bus and it careens around the corner, headed off to goodness knows where. You don't know the route exactly, although you have likely ridden this bus many times in the past. You probably don't even know the number of this bus, nor can you clearly articulate what possessed you to climb aboard. After an exhausting journey, you get booted unceremoniously to the curb, only to have another bus pull up, which you dutifully board, again oblivious as to what number it is or what route it will take. And why do we do this? Habit. And some of us get quite skilled at this on-off bus syndrome to the point where we can jump buses mid-stream. And we wonder why we are tired all the time!

As I continue to study alternative healing methods, a similar methodology emerges. The trick seems to be to notice the bus (a memory) pull up, but consciously refuse to board (don't replay that memory). Simply let the bus come and let the bus go. Remain peacefully at the bus-stop. Whether the technique is reciting a mantra, focusing on breathing and recognizing the impermanence, using the Theater of the Mind, or the Ho'oponopono technique of reciting, "I love you; I'm sorry; please forgive me; thank you," each technique seems to serve to occupy the mind long enough to distract it so that the bus can drive away.

I was reminded of this when I read this blog entry yesterday:

Everybody hurts.

You know, there's one little saying I carry very close to my heart:

"Everyone's having a rough time. Don't give them any more grief."

And isn't that just the truth?

We all get down. I mean, sometimes really down.

Down as in wanting the earth's crust to open up and swallow what little pride we have left.

Yes, indeed. Everybody hurts.

However we can always take solice in the idea that everything passes.

Today we hurt. Tomorrow we smile.

In the words of Hercule Poirot, (that oh-so-famous self-help guru), "Now, it is cloudy. In the morning, the sun shines. Such is life, madame."

I hadn't watched the R.E.M. video for this song before, but I was quite interested to see all the subtitles representing people's thoughts as they are stuck in traffic. Notice how many of those thoughts are related to memories:



I'll close with another part of the interview I quoted above:

When the mirror is no longer telling you what you thought you would like to hear and the culture is no longer telling you what you thought you would like to hear, sometimes that's when you finally have ears for what God wants to say to you. That's when you hear him say things sweeter than the mirror ever told you and sweeter than the culture ever told you. That's when you finally realize that you are loved, and you finally realize you are enough.

Memories III

In parts one and two of this series, I explained a different approach to looking at the memories of our departed loved one. In our culture of acquiring things, it can be difficult to accept that letting go of memories could be at all beneficial. I am coming more and more to think that this letting go of memories is essential to experiencing real peace, and it is a Grief Recovery Tool no bereaved person should be without.

I'm reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It gives some good insight into how we should view our thoughts and memories [pg 74]:

We often wonder what to do about negativity or certain troubling emotions. In the spaciousness of meditation, you can view your thoughts and emotions with a totally unbiased attitude. When your attitude changes, then the whole atmosphere of your mind changes, even the very nature of your thoughts and emotions. When you become more agreeable, then they do; if you have no difficulty with them, they will have no difficulty with you either.

So whatever thoughts and emotions arise, allow them to rise and settle, like the waves in the ocean. Whatever you find yourself thinking, let that thought rise and settle, without any constraint. Don't grasp at it, feed it, or indulge it; don't cling to it and don't try to solidify it. Neither follow thoughts nor invite them; be like the ocean looking at its own waves, or the sky gazing down on the clouds that pass through it.

You will soon find that thoughts are like the wind; they come and go. The secret is not to "think" about thoughts, but to allow them to flow through the mind, while keeping your mind free of afterthoughts.

In my case, I experienced this firsthand over the span of 10 days on my Vipassana meditation course. Meditation really helped me to recognize the impermanence of my thoughts and memories. And, knowing of their impermanence, it became easier to let them go.

So, what do Vipassana and Ho'oponopono have in common? They both break the last link in the thought -> feeling -> reaction chain. Once we can arrive at the place where thoughts and memories are accepted as being the ephemeral entities that they are, it then becomes an almost foregone-conclusion to let them go. Once we have let them go, we can begin to experience the deep lasting peace that lies just behind our thoughts and memories.

How can we apply this to our everyday life as widow/ers? A big part of grief, especially that first year, is bringing up all our memories about our dead spouse and re-examining them, thereby changing those memories. However, this can be an exhausting process. We often feel compelled to passively experience these memories over and over, such as the circumstances surrounding a violent or traumatic death. Just as reframing our memories as they play out in the Theater of our mind can greatly reduce our stress, so too can learning how to break the cycle of thought -> feel -> react. Whether you use meditation or ho'oponopono or some other method, I strongly feel that learning how to actively manage our thoughts and memories is the real secret to riding the grief recovery road to its conclusion.

Memories II

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It

In my last post about memories, I wrote about why cleaning or "erasing" our memories about our departed spouse might be a good thing. One method you can use to clean your memories comes from Hawaii and is called Ho'oponopono (pronounced ho-o-pono-pono). Here's a better explanation from their website:

Ho'oponopono is really very simple. For the ancient Hawaiians, all problems begin as thought. But having a thought is not the problem. So what's the problem? The problem is that all our thoughts are imbued with painful memories, memories of persons, places, or things.

The intellect working alone can't solve these problems, because the intellect only manages. Managing things is no way to solve problems. You want to let them go! When you do Ho'oponopono, what happens is that the Divinity takes the painful thought and neutralizes or purifies it. You don't purify the person, place, or thing. You neutralize the energy you associate with that person, place or thing. So the first stage of Ho'oponopono is the purification of that energy.

Now something wonderful happens. Not only does that energy get neutralized; it also gets released, so there's a brand new slate. Buddhists call it the Void. The final step is that you allow the Divinity to come in and fill the void with light.

To do Ho'oponopono, you don't have to know what the problem or error is. All you have to do is notice any problem you are experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever. Once you notice, your responsibility is to immediately begin to clean, to say, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

The whole article is a very interesting read and well worth your time if any of this sounds the slightest bit interesting.

In the first part of this Memories article, I promised I would explain a bit more about how, due to my Vipassana meditation course, I could immediately see the wisdom behind Ho'oponopono, even if I did think it was a little weird. OK, a lot weird ;-) I've taken an extra day to really give this memories concept a lot of thought, and I think I've come up with a good analogy to help explain things a bit better.

As I explained in detail last month, my Vipassana training made me aware of the tight interactions between my thoughts and my bodily sensations. And more than that — it made me aware of the previously-unconscious pattern of events that had been driving me my entire life:

Thought -> Feeling -> Reaction

As I became more adept at meditating, it became easier and easier to break the last step in the chain. I learned how to replace reacting with observing. I became aware of my mind postulating a thought and immediately feeling a sensation somewhere in my body. For example, if the thought pertained to how I was going to achieve a financial goal, I could right away feel not only my brow furrowing, but I could feel every single brow-furrowing muscle tense as the beginnings of worry and anxiety set in. The difference now was that instead of reacting by probing my mind for even more thoughts and possible solutions and setting off an entire chain of thoughts -> feelings -> reactions, I simply recognized the impermanent nature of both the thought and the feeling. I wasn't thinking or feeling anxious moments before. Why then should I become a slave to my thoughts and start to worry just because I had a thought?


By understanding the pattern of thought, feeling, reaction, I could mentally utter "anicca," and right away I could feel my facial muscles relax, my worry evaporated, and I found myself smiling. I was now observing my life objectively instead of reacting subjectively. It was like suddenly being aware that the huge drama I had been watching for years was just a big puppet show. Only now I recognized myself as the marionette and my thoughts as the puppeteer. And now I knew how to cut the strings :-)

For the last month, it has been absolutely amazing to literally snip the strings before any new dramas can even begin. I no longer feel like I'm being driven against my will to think negatively or blindly react to people or events. Instead, I just smile, say "anicca," and laugh as the problem vaporizes. There was no problem before I thought about it, and after I break the thought -> feeling -> reaction cycle, the problem returns to the void from whence it came. I can just be, I don't have to do anything! It has changed my life.

In my next post, I'll close off this short series by pointing out the similarities between Vipassana and Ho'oponopono, and I'll give some concrete examples of how these methods can help in dealing with bereavement.

Oh yeah: anicca is my new cussword ;-)

Memories

The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.
— Friedrich Nietzsche

Memories. Now that our spouse is gone, memories are all we have of them. Never again will they laugh with us, cry with us, or comfort us. No new memories will be created with them. A big part of our grief is learning just how to come to terms with this awful reality. How does one come to terms with this? "How" questions are excellent Grief Recovery Tools and will guide you where you need to go.

As I mentioned in my last post about unbelievable healing, I'm reading Joe Vitale's Zero Limits. Before I share some of the startling insights in the book, be warned that they will likely go against everything you have ever learned about life and relationships here in the West. To say they are controversial, especially in the context of grieving, is an understatement.

It is important to recognize that life in Western civilization is one of acquisition. More money, a bigger house, faster car, prettier wife, smarter kids. A deep undercurrent of grasping greed pervades the newspapers, radio, and television. Your friends and neighbors likely chat about the newest thing they have bought or acquired.

And then one day, your spouse dies. You have lost your spouse, which makes you, by definition, a loser. People don't like to be around losers. If it could happen to you, it could happen to them. And life is just about what you can get, right? He who dies with the most toys wins?

You no longer have your spouse, but you do have your memories of your past life together with him or her. And no one can take those away from you! Whole industries have sprung up to help you memorialize your departed mate. Everything from the traditional tombstone to photo memory books, memorial websites, and charitable donations in their name. You can name buildings, awards, and children after him or her. Make a shrine in your house, hang pictures of them on your walls. Listen to the music they used to listen to. Keep their clothing so you can catch a bit of their smell to trigger the memories.

And then, as the years go by, you notice the memories beginning to fade. How can this be? So much has already been stolen from you! The life you should have had, together with your loved one, snatched away. And now the precious memories are beginning to recede. Their impermanent nature can no longer be ignored. Where is the fairness in all this?

I realize this is going to be a bit too much of a stretch at this point, but try to take the perspective, just for a moment, of looking directly opposite the view that receding memories is a bad thing. Dare to accept, just for a moment, that the day could come where this might not be a bad thing. It might even be a good thing.

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, the therapist who cured the ward of criminally insane patients in Hawaii, says that every problem in our life, every one, is because of our memories. The majority of our thoughts are tied up thinking about our memories. The solution? Let them go [pg 31]:

"When you erase something from your computer, where does it go?" he asked the room.
"To the recycle bin," someone shouted out.
"Exactly," Dr. Hew Len said. "It's still on your computer, but it's out of sight. Your memories are like that. They are still in you, just out of sight. What you want to do is erase them completely and permanently."
I found this fascinating, but I had no idea what it meant or where it was going. Why would I want memories permanently deleted?
"You have two ways to live your life," Dr. Hew Len explained. "From memory or from inspiration. Memories are old programs replaying. Inspiration is the Divine giving you a message.You want to come from inspiration. The only way to hear the Divine and receive inspiration is to clean all memories. The only thing you have to do is clean."
Dr. Hew Len spent a lot of time explaining how the Divine is our zero state — it's where we have zero limits. No memories. No identity. Nothing but the Divine.

You were warned ;-) Before I go on, let me be clear: the essence of your dead spouse has been infused into every cell in your body. They are now a part of you. I talked about this in my early post about some photos I found of Deb in my basement. If the above passage has made you angry, anxious, or afraid, realize that you have literally hundreds of thousands to millions of memories of your loved one. All those memories are recorded in your body somewhere. If you aren't interested in this kind of healing, rest assured that it will take a very long time for all those memories to fade, and there's lots you can do to hang on to those memories if you choose to do so.

If the idea of all your problems stemming from your memories has resonated with you, though, I'll close here with the simple method Dr. Hew Len uses to "clean" his memories. He simply repeats four simple phrases:

"I love you."
"I'm sorry."
"Please forgive me."
"Thank you."

As an experiment, try repeating the four phrases every time a memory of your departed loved one surfaces and causes you pain. In my next post, I'll explain how, due to my Vipassana meditation training, I could immediately see the wisdom of this point of view, and I'll go into a bit more depth as to how I spent 10 days cleaning my memories without ever being aware that I was doing so. All I know is that I am more at peace now than I have ever been in my entire life.