Mariangela Maguire

Solemn promises

Although I had some trepidation about attending, my friends’ wedding was a deeply satisfying experience filled with warm conversations where I felt welcome. I appreciated that each element was an expression of the couple’s individual personalities as well as their sense of themselves as a couple. I admired their ability to withstand the pressure of the Wedding Industrial Complex. Their strength and clarity in making the wedding their own included the vows they exchanged. It was not a simple recitation of something handed to them by a religious figure or a wedding planner. They didn’t write their own vows but consciously, carefully, and freely chose the vows of their faith tradition.

I knew going in that we hold different beliefs about many topics. Some of those differences were evident in their ceremony. When people I care about make choices I wouldn’t make because I hold a different worldview, I notice how quickly my mind sees the situation as a threat. I doubt that I’m alone in this reaction. Feeling threatened and defensive I seek safety in disapproval—criticizing or dismissing their decisions, confident that I know better as I seek to substitute my judgment for theirs.

All of that thinking was like a flashing red light telling me to look inward. As I struggled to find a place of non-judging awareness from which to view their choices I reminded myself to stay present to the moment. That allowed me to see there was nothing in my immediate environment that was a threat to me. Truly, their choices have no impact on me, were not aimed at me, were not a condemnation of me. Reminding myself to stay present had another benefit. It made my own deeply held beliefs visible to me. And there it was—the place where my friends and I are in sync.

Each day I seek to achieve what Michael Singer calls, “persistently centered consciousness.” Although I don’t always succeed, I also learn and grow and I’m grateful to be on this path. Making a solemn promise to live each day according to our deeply held beliefs is a wonderful thing to have in common.

What deeply held beliefs do you try to live up to each day?

How do you react when people you care about have beliefs that are different from your own?

Prickly stuff

I bought a pair of shoes I’ve convinced myself won’t leave my feet aching within an hour. What else do I need to do to prepare to attend this wedding? Relentlessly anticipate any emotional discomfort attendance may cause me, of course. I want to go and be a presence of light and love and peace but I know I can be prickly and go quiet and sullen at the slightest whiff of something that hits what Michael Singer would call my “stuff.” (Isn’t it funny how the people getting married think their wedding is about them?)

This particular wedding should be easy. I love the bride and I’ve met the groom who seems like a wonderful person. I’m happy they found each other. But this one also ticks a lot of the boxes in which my stuff is packed. Will I hear things said in the church service that I find alienating? Yes. Do many of the wedding participants work in politics and hold views diametrically opposed to mine? Yes. Will the majority of people be strangers making this my least comfortable social situation? Yes. Are some of the participants, the non-strangers, people I struggle to relax around? Yes. Is this three-day event taking place several hundred miles from my home thus requiring a 12 hour drive each way? Yes. Really, what could I possible have to worry about?

According Singer, nothing. I’ve been rereading his book Untethered Soul. He’s wise but it’s his bracing honesty that gets to me. “If somebody does something that stimulates fear, you think they did something wrong.” Yes, I do. Ask my partner she’ll confirm that. He’s talking about the fears lodged deep inside us—fear of feeling less-than, of feeling that we don’t belong. It doesn’t take much for someone to stimulate those fears and my immediate reaction is to blame them with a certainty that suggests I genuinely believe they have complete knowledge of my psyche and are deliberately trying to upset me. This pattern of reacting with defensiveness and anger illustrates Singer’s observation, “We’re really not trying to be free of our stuff; we’re trying to justify keeping it.”

Months ago I gave up my beloved strategy of rehearsing angry conversations with imagined adversaries, conversations from which I emerge wounded but morally superior. I’m going a little further this time and letting go of the illusion that imagining eloquent retorts is a meaningful substitute for taking action. When my attention goes in that direction I’m spending my precious energy to justify holding on to my stuff. With my new strategy I focus my early morning mediation on energy flowing through me so I can put my fists down, put my new shoes on, and open my heart chakra.

Presence absence presence absence

My father died earlier this month while my partner and I were traveling out of the country. My oldest brother tried to reach me by phone but finally sent a text, “Dad passed last night.” I said to my partner, “My father died.” She said, “I’m sorry. Am I?”

Where my father is concerned, I have never known very much about my feelings. Apparently my lack of clarity is transferrable.

When I told my oldest friend my father had died, he listened to me talk for a while then said, “You’re telling me a lot about your brothers and sister and even how your mother might feel [she died three years ago] but I don’t know how you feel.”

There’s a photograph. I am five, wearing pajamas, clutching Raggedy Ann. Grinning broadly I reveal a gap where I’ve lost a front tooth. I’m perched on the edge of the overstuffed chair we inherited from my mother’s mother. Behind me, my father sits legs crossed, also grinning, with a cigar in one hand and a tumbler of whiskey in the other. Less than a year later he left and I didn’t see him again for more than 30 years.

Once, when talking with grad school friends, I made a passing reference to my father. They turned to each other and nodded. “What?” I said. They looked uncomfortable and finally Debbie said, “You’ve never mentioned your father before but you talk about your mom. So we’ve tried to figure out if he was dead or just out of the picture.”

I felt surprised that my friends speculated about my father. I also felt something like satisfaction. To have elided him from my biography such that others couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive gave me hope. If they couldn’t see him, maybe they also couldn’t see the shame and inferiority that hung over me like a shroud because I have a father who deserted his family.

After he left, my mother’s anger and my siblings’ grief filtered every view I had of him. Like a ghostly presence, he was often discussed, but no more than a face in some photographs to me. I could tell you everything my mother ever said to indict him. I could tell you everything my siblings ever said in an effort to rehabilitate him in my eyes. And I still would be no closer to telling you how I feel about him. But I can tell you what I want to feel.

Compassion.

For my siblings caught between a terrified, angry mother and an absent father.

For my mother shamed by family, church, and culture into believing a failed marriage made her a failure.

For my father who did the only thing he could think of to save his life.

For myself struggling to find my truth among people I love whose truth will never be the same as mine.

Being there

We traveled for 24 days. We were gone so long that the days ran together and the routines of home were completely displaced. The opportunity to travel is such a gift—the planning, the preparation, and being there–that I always forget that it also includes discomfort and stress. Tummy trouble, a lumpy bed, changes affecting sleep patterns, and very little time alone. Constantly surrounded by unfamiliar sights and sounds and customs, at the end of each day I feel both exhilarated and exhausted.

In a depleted state, I am vulnerable to an old habit of mind: judgment. Initially my thoughts are overwhelmingly positive—beautiful churches, interesting museums, and wondrous natural beauty. But as time passes, and the stresses mount, negative judgments increase. I’ve often joked that my life’s ambition is to learn to say, “Pay attention,” “Keep moving,” and “Single file,” in all the world’s languages.

“Come on, it’s a narrow two-lane bridge with even narrower sidewalks. Must you stroll arm-in-arm even if that means I have to step into oncoming traffic? Single file please!”

“I know you are entranced by the tile work in the palace but there are 200 people waiting in line to see it. Keep moving!”

“Yes, it’s delightful to visit one of the world’s great cities but the streets are packed and everyone’s maneuvering around you as you stand there talking on your phone. Pay attention!”

I can tell myself that fatigue induces impatience and impatience results in a sour view of humanity. But that’s not the whole story. To the extent that I am fixated on other people, I must ask myself, “What in me is disturbed by their behavior?” I see that they are taking their time, walking aimlessly, looking relaxed and at ease. In contrast, particularly during international travel, I’m constantly on guard, fearful of making mistakes, of embarrassing myself. Watching other tourists makes me more self-conscious and my ego fights back with negative judgments.

When I finally grew sick of that crabby voice in my head, I tried to counter it. Each time my eyes settled other people I identified something positive about them. But it was still all about judging. I finally remembered my favorite practice: non-judging awareness. I don’t want to use my energy to make irrelevant, inane, mindless assessments of the world around me. But as a client once wisely asked, “What am I supposed to do with my brain?”

Observe, observe, observe. Describe, describe, describe. And avoid using evaluative language. What a relief! The world was so much more interesting. Out walking in the swirling crowds I just noticed people. Naming their features—balding, tall, green shorts, I felt like a crime novelist providing descriptions of characters. I started asking myself, “What’s that person distinctive feature? One that can’t be easily changed?” You know, in case they had to go on the lam. We were in small enough places that I often saw the same people later and recognized them because I’d so closely observed them. I also brought this practice to art and architecture, museums and cultural attractions. I realized how limited and superficial my assessments had been. “Yeah, yeah, another beautiful church” which is so dismissive, was replaced with, “I notice that almost all of the iconography in this church is of female figures.” As I paid more attention to guides than to the behavior of other people in the group, I asked more questions. I wasn’t trying to become a bigger nerd than I already am. I was trying to eliminate toxic negativity and shallow positivity.

I can go to the most interesting places, learn things that sharpen my understanding of the complexity of the world we share, meet kind, funny, clever people from all over the world. But I have to take myself along for the ride and that turns out to be the biggest challenge. With each and every thought I can either defend myself against my own discomfort and anxiety or open myself to the present moment and just be there taking it all in.

Moving and storage

Less than a week after they moved into their beautiful new home I arrived for a weekend visit with my friends C and J. That first evening we enjoyed a delicious supper prepared by J then spent the better part of the next two days opening boxes, removing each item, and finding its proper place. C and J kept telling me I was a great friend for helping them and I accept their praise. However, it’s their behavior I find a true testament to friendship because I can’t imagine allowing anyone to watch my partner and me unpack our possessions. I know C and J love me but now I know they also trust me.

Although our efforts concentrated on the kitchen the things we unpacked were more than tools for meal preparation. There were gifts and inheritances; there were items that resolved a problem and others that remain a point of contention. I was in awe of their ability to lovingly recall the stories, connections, and meanings associated with these objects yet still get everything put away in the gorgeous new blue cupboards or let it go.

In addition to putting things away, C and J were also figuring out how to live in their new ranch style house, which has almost nothing in common with the farmhouse they just sold. For instance, the simple act of entering their home has been totally upended. In the old house they entered through the front door, put coats in the closet to the right, put bags and keys on the hall table in front of them, and removed their shoes placing them to the left of the table. In the new house they enter from the garage and the coat closet wall, rather than door, is to their immediate right. There’s no good place for a table where keys and bags can be dropped and the entire entry area is visible from the living room thus the challenge of dumping stuff but wanting all to remain neat and tidy.

As I watched them confront the challenge of transferring a necessary routine into a new space I thought about how deep our need is for a few taken-for-granted assumptions about how we function in the world. I wondered if craving the ability to put my keys down without deliberate thought, sure in the knowledge that I won’t spend 20 minute searching for them later, is a failure of mindfulness. Our habits, like our possessions, have a story, connections, meaning. Some are gifts, others we inherit. Mindfulness means staying alert to routines that have so hardened we can’t bear to let them go. They will surely cause me more suffering than struggling to find my keys once in awhile.

Round and round I go

We had to make last minute airline reservations. The next morning I found two emails from our credit card company asking if I recognized the transaction. My partner, who made the reservations, had already gone to the gym. After I stopped screaming when I saw that the second email informed me the charges had been declined, I went downstairs in search of her phone to find the confirmation email of the reservation. There was no email. I felt a small measure of dirty relief that at least we now shared the blame: I hadn’t seen the emails from the credit card company and she hadn’t noticed that there was no confirmation email. I went back to the emails from the credit card company and hit the “Yes, I recognize the charges” button but I suspected that wasn’t going to preserve our reservations. I went to the airline’s website but couldn’t check our reservation without a reservation code—which would have been in the confirmation email. I looked to see if the flights were still available. They were not. It was now well after 7:30 the time at which Laura said she’d be home from the gym.

I sat at the table and thought about mindfulness and non-judging awareness and how, in this moment, they both seemed utterly irrelevant. In this moment, my habit of seeing the worst possible outcomes, my capacity for judging my partner, and my conviction that we were going to have an ugly, stress-filled morning felt perfectly justified. With a smirk on my face I answered the three key questions: What is my mind doing? Racing, panicking, raging. What emotions do I feel? Anger and fear. How do I feel in my body? Tense, tense, tense. Then I started talking out loud as if to further convince myself that my reaction was reasonable. “I am frustrated that this happened. I’m angry that I didn’t look at my email once more last night. I’m mad at Laura for not noticing that she didn’t get a confirmation email. I’m mad that she’s not back from the gym and I’m dealing with this all by myself.” Then I got up and went into the family room to straighten up. I don’t know why. But while I was in there I realized I could call the credit card company and see what they could do. As I was talking to the credit card rep, being assured that she could not reinstate the reservation but that the next time we tried it would go through, Laura came home. I got off the phone and told her what had happened. She said, “Oh, okay. Yeah, I wondered why there was no confirmation email.” She went to get a piece of paper where she’d written down the reservation code. When she came back we looked up our reservation and saw its status was “pending.” We called the airline, waited ten minutes for a callback, they resubmitted the reservation, and all was well again.

As we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee, I said, “You really didn’t seem upset by this whole thing” She looked at me, the picture of innocence, and said, “Well we talked about this. I’m trying to be calmer about things.” My laughter was loud and long. We had indeed talked about this just the day before when she asked me to teach her more about mindfulness. I said, “Well you sure are a quick study.” And I am not and that’s okay.

The map is not the territory

I had to turn left out of the parking garage sending me west when I needed to go east. I could have turned right at the next street but didn’t react quickly enough. The one-way streets meant going two blocks further west. But after two right turns I was on the street I wanted to take to cross Michigan Avenue. After Michigan, I looked for the Fairbanks/Columbus Drive intersection but it came up faster than I anticipated so I missed the turn. Again I had to go two blocks further to the next available right. I made that turn and the next right successfully scooting over into the far left lane in time to turn left onto Columbus Drive. As I crossed the river I saw that Columbus became a tunnel and didn’t allow me to turn onto Wacker Drive. I hadn’t noticed the tunnel on the map but I knew it must eventually take me to the surface. I came up near the modern wing of the Art Institute, turned right on Monroe then right again on Michigan. I intended to take a right on to Wacker which would put me in front of the hotel but we’d agreed to meet on Stetson, the side street between the two parts of the Hyatt. I was pretty sure I could get to Stetson by turning right on Randolph. So I did and was immediately facing another tunnel. I didn’t know where it would take me and I had the option to stay on a surface street which I did. I took the first available left which led me directly to Wacker where I promptly turned right because I’d lost track of where I was in relation to where I wanted to be. I was now east of the hotel. I planned to just go around the block but the street was a dead end closed off by construction.

When I reached the end of the street, worried that it wasn’t wide enough for me to turn the car around, my breathing was shallow. Tears were welling up and there was a voice in my head screaming at me to give up. Pull over, call Laura, and tell her she needs to walk to find me and get me out of this.

I’ve spent the last two years studying the map of self-acceptance. I’ve read wonderful books, studied with excellent teachers, listened to inspiring podcasts. I not only understand the principle of observing and acknowledging my feelings as a way to keep from getting entangled in them, I even teach effective techniques to others. But the territory, that is, my lived experience, is filled with missed turns, unanticipated tunnels, and on-the-fly decisions that don’t always take me where I intend to go. Each day is an opportunity to go beyond simply understanding the map and face the challenge of putting the map to use, creating calm within the territory of my real life.

On the dead end street I followed Laurie Cameron’s advice: First breath—pay attention to my breath. Second breath—relax my body. Third breath—ask what’s important right now. I turned the car around, saw the hotel sign one block in front of me, made three turns, and there was Laura, calmly waiting for me and ready to take the wheel.

Order my days and my deeds

I like hanging out with me a lot more when I’m not being a jerk to myself.

My mother let me quit Girl Scouts in fourth grade because she knew my troop didn’t have the vitality of the troop my sister had loved so well. She was right but I wanted out because I chafed under the obligation of those weekly meetings. It’s not that I had urgent business elsewhere on Mondays at 3:30. I just craved the freedom to do as I pleased at least until my mother got home from work.

I’ve spent my life resisting and resenting entanglements, personal and professional that control my time too closely. They make my soul itch.

When my partner said she was going to Bulgaria for two and a half weeks, did I anticipate 17 luxurious days of 24 hour a day freedom? In fact, what I said a few days before her departure was, “You know, I fall a part a little when you’re gone.” She nodded knowingly.

Laura’s had several extended solo journeys during our 18 years together. Although I knew I would miss her, I anticipated each one with some glee at the prospect of so much unfettered time. I thought about all the things I’d do once free of our shared routine. And I can look back at each of those experiences and recall how miserable I was for most of her absence.

For the first day or so I would stay up late reading, watch shows she doesn’t care for, bake frozen pizza for dinner. But I couldn’t enjoy myself for very long. My wheedling ego started using words like “self-indulgent” to describe my behavior. Feeling not free but adrift I craved escape from the self-criticism and sank into behavior that made me feel worse. I spent hours in front of the television but barely watched it as I read the news and played games on my phone. Every unfamiliar creak and squeak in the house sent my mind whirling with fear and I slept badly. I thought about the projects I wanted to work on but failed to even get started. I let dishes and laundry pile up then scrambled before Laura came home to limit the evidence of sloth. Not because I feared her criticism but because I didn’t want a witness to my shame.

It’s been a few years since Laura’s last long trip and I’m happy to report that my ongoing work at being present and practicing self-acceptance has been beneficial. Telling her that I fall apart was something I’d never done before. It helped to say it out loud and without judgment toward myself for experiencing it or toward her for taking the trip.

Approaching her departure date, I did not make grand plans but I did say yes to opportunities despite the risk to my sense of freedom. My brother made a short visit, I went to meetings about the community kitchen and two coaching webinars, and friends in Minnesota invited me to visit for a weekend. That still left a lot of unstructured time. Over the first weekend, when an ice storm cancelled the few plans I had, I decided to lean into the prospect of two days alone to work on my phone/news/games habit. For 24 of those hours I put the phone down (often in a room where I was not). I’ve watched plenty of television and I finished my taxes and kept up with my blog. I’ve done laundry, managed a plumbing problem, and hit a really high score on my favorite app. I eat fruits and vegetables most days but I’ve also baked more than one frozen pizza.

I’ve felt productive and energized. I’ve also felt lonely and sad. I accept all of these moments for what they are—moments that will pass. And it turns out that no matter how I spend my time I like hanging out with me a lot more when I’m not being a jerk to myself.

Piece by piece

I begin to let go of the belief that martyrdom is essential to my self-esteem.

The community dinner I work with offers a vegetarian option at each meal and I’ve taken responsibility for choosing it, shopping for it, and preparing it. However, after taking on new responsibilities with the organization, I wanted to unload this obligation. Each year the local college assigns a student to work with us, and our current student loves to cook so I asked her if she would take over. She agreed to do it and I was SO pleased with myself for letting this responsibility go. Then life intervened. Sherry’s class schedule changed limiting her hours at the kitchen, another volunteer told me our kitchen manager wouldn’t buy some of the ingredients Sherry requested, and then she got sick before one meal and couldn’t be there at all. I nearly careened over the edge this week when the she sent me a quiche recipe, one she didn’t think she would be available to prepare, and the ingredient list seemed poor to me (pro-tip: plain yogurt is much better in quiche than heavy cream). Feeling aggravated and fed-up, I was on the verge of sending a text to the kitchen manager telling her I would go back to making the vegetarian option from now one when a tiny voice inside me said, “Stay out of it.”

I put my phone down but I struggled to quiet my mind. My impulse was to frame this situation as beyond my control and as the fault of those around me. After stewing about it I moved on to the question, “How did I end up right back in the middle of the vegetarian option?” and I see that I did it piece by piece. For instance, I’m the primary liaison between the kitchen and the college program that sends us a student. Sherry, appropriately, assumes I’m the person she should talk to about scheduling problems. I didn’t take myself out of that loop. Also, I assume, despite some counter-evidence, that the other dinner prep volunteers don’t want to take responsibility for the vegetarian option. I also assume that if they do take it on they won’t do it the way I think it should be done.

Piece by piece I give myself away. “It’s okay, I’ll do it this time.” “Yes, I’ll listen to your concerns rather than urge you to talk to the person who is the source of those concerns.” “No, I appreciate your offer but I’ll take care of it.” One decision at a time I hand pieces of myself over until I feel as if there’s nothing left of me. I tell myself as it’s happening that I’m patient and accommodating, that I put others’ or the organization’s needs before my own. I use that reasoning as evidence that I’m a good person. And when I feel as if there are no pieces of me left I am angry and blame others and I feel justified because, after all, I’ve been accommodating and patient and selfless.

As I learn to watch myself, to see my habits of thought as an object of curiosity, I gain freedom. And I learn to identify the actions that will keep me free—being direct about my limits, trusting others when they say they’ll take care of something, accepting that they won’t do things the way I would. Above all, I begin to let go of the belief that martyrdom is essential to my self-esteem.

Family politics

My brother Jim is a smart guy and like everyone else in my family a news junkie with very strong opinions that he likes to share. Adjectives that describe this sharing might include adamant, insistent, emphatic, and loud. His style of sharing didn’t bother me until our political views started to diverge. A lot.

Initially, I was so surprised by that I either avoided the subject like the plague or said, “Uh huh, uh huh” until he ran out of gas. But inside, I felt awful for stifling myself and creating a feeling of distance between us. Then during a summer visit we were alone in his car when he started talking about politics and I found myself using the listening strategies I used to teach. Specifically, I listened to understand rather than to refute.

This was pretty helpful because it allowed me to respond in a way that affirmed him as a person without agreeing with what he was saying. I don’t agree with his point of view, but after listening to him I could honestly say I understood how he’d arrived at it. This was so much better than saying, “Uh huh, uh huh,” while thinking he was full of crap.

Another time, we were on the phone when he got going and a voice inside me said, “Go for it.” I matched him point for point. The conversation grew heated at times because political views emerge from our lived experience, our sense of how the social world impinges on and limits our lives. I heard us both identify core beliefs that have become core differences between us. In that sense there was nothing lighthearted about our exchange. I was tired at the end of it but also exhilarated. I don’t have a lot of conversations about politics with people who disagree with me and I enjoyed the mental workout. I suspect he’s in the same boat. Very few people in his life engage with him in these conversations probably because his passion often sounds like fury and overwhelms them.

Last week he sent me a youtube video, describing it as a “good history lesson.” Reasonably confident that I would not see it the same way my first impulse was to ignore it. Then I reconsidered because he matters to me. I watched it and sure enough I found the speaker’s point of view utterly ridiculous. Now what? I wrote him a message telling him my thoughts about the speaker’s argument but I’m not going to send it. What I realize is that I’m willing to engage him, my flesh and blood brother, but I’m not willing to create an exchange where we use other people’s words in an effort to educate and persuade each other. I know that if I do that, I will spend an enormous amount of mental energy arguing with him and his surrogates and that’s not acceptable to me. I’m comfortable with this boundary.

When I can do no more than listen, I listen to understand. When I have the energy to debate, I go for it. Above all, I keep my desire for an authentic relationship with him in the foreground and view him with non-judging awareness so that whatever form my engagement takes, it does not include trying to change him.