One of the books I’ve been reading lately is “There Is Nothing Wrong With You – Going beyond Self-Hate,” by Cheri Huber. I love this lady, she is amazing. She is a Zen Buddhist writer, and very prolific. She also has a way of explaining concepts in such a simple way that it’s easy to get them. Reading her work, I have many “Aha!” moments where suddenly everything becomes very clear and uncomplicated.

To enjoy her work you do not need to be Buddhist, the tools are effective for anyone.

The day before yesterday, I made a mistake. I failed to confirm the time for an interview that I had yesterday. I found out about it when I realized the interview would not be happening because we had had a miscommunication about time. This interview was and is really important to me, and so I’m bummed that I missed it. I also feel bad that my interviewee was inconvenienced.

Normally, after this happening, I might have gone straight into self-hate, “I can’t believe I did this. I’m so irresponsible, stupid, immature, etc.” But, this time, because I’ve been trying out some concepts in this book, I just left it at “oops, I made a mistake.” I didn’t let it reflect anything bad about myself. I decided to make it a policy to send out an e-mail to future interviewees 48-24 hours in advance with the time, location of the interview as well as my phone number. I might even have a pre-interview checklist just to remember better. Then, I might not make this mistake again. But, whether I make the mistake or not again has nothing to do with who I am as a person, it just means I make a mistake again. Somehow, working with these concepts has helped me move beyond personalizing my mistakes (at least in this case). Even if I forget not to self-hate in the future doesn’t mean I should hate myself for it.

One thing Cheri talks about is how good self-hate is at perpetuating itself. It fights us from all sides. Self-hate and the conditioned mind convince us to make a lot of rules about what we should or shouldn’t do. Then, it convinces us to do things we “shouldn’t” do, and punishes us when we do them. We have this illusion in our heads that we need self-hate to keep us motivated, and yet we can learn how to stay motivated from a place of love not hate. Today, in framing my mistake in a neutral light, I allowed myself the opening to motivate myself from self-love (I want future interviews to go well, and in order to do that, I will send out a confirmation email in advance).

So, lately I’ve been reading “When the Women were Drummers,” written by Layne Redmond. On page 174, she talks about entrainment. Entrainment is when different rhythms match up. One example is if you put two metronomes alone in a room together, they sync up. Heartbeats entrain to each other, too. As a drummer, Layne talks a lot about the spiritual technology of rhythm.

Layne states, “To communicate successfully, people must be able to adjust the tempos of their expression to one another. When people converse, they interact in complex rhythms almost like a dance. The harmonious entrainment of their conversational rhythms allows each person to listen and respond at the right intervals…”When a person’s rhythm is continually disrupted or suppressed, the effect can be severe, leading to boredom, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, anger…”

Wow, this makes so much sense, huh? I can think of one person in my life, who I care about deeply, but who I can only tolerate in small measures. It’s not anything that she specifically says or does, but all the same, her manner of communication sometimes wears on me. Reading this, I realized it’s because of her rhythm. First of all, she has a very different rhythm than I tend to, and secondly she is very closed to allowing her own rhythm to harmonize or entrain to my rhythm. So, either I entrain myself to her (which I am sometimes willing to do) or we remain in disharmony, which creates feelings of edginess in me because I feel a pressure to entrain to her but sometimes I want to retain some of my own rhythm. Wow, this makes so much sense!

I am also seeing that in my reactions to other people, I am the one who is not open to entrainment, and I force people to chose entraining with me or living with disharmony.

I don’t exactly know the solution to this, but I’m betting it involves learning more about how rhythm works. In situations where rhythms are not syncing up naturally, would it work to find a way to interlock the rhythms in a way that allows each to retain it’s own beat? I don’t know, but if you have any ideas about this, please let me know!

Here is a beautiful, beautiful peace of music that I just discovered, that is helping me find a little bit of peace about the state of events right now:

Thich Nhat Hahn

Peace of mind is not antithetical to action, or speaking out about that which is wrong in our culture. Peace of mind can help us see the way to correct action. Living in angst does not make us more effective. Outrage can be a good starting point for action, but it burns out quickly and often leads to fighting against instead of for.

I am deeply, deeply troubled by the BP oil spill for many reasons. One reason is that it was probably preventable by observing stiffer safety regulations than are in existence in the US. Another is that we shouldn’t have been out there in the first place, off-shore drilling. The problem is very bad (estimated 5000 barrels a day into the ocean, with some reports that it could soon start leaking a lot more), with no immediate sure solutions in site. Of course, I’m especially worried about the water, plants and animals that will be immediately effected. Louisiana is expected to be hit hardest, with delicate wetlands and marshes especially at risk. Lastly, I’m concerned about all of the human consequences as well (health, economic, general survival of the species, etc).

By some reports, the situation is so dire it could have a permanent negative impact forever (including human extinction). Check out this link and tell me what you think about the ideas in here:
Things Fall Apart These predictions are more apocalyptic than I normally give credence to, but I think the report is correct that this spill is very, very bad.

No matter what happens, I still firmly believe that humankind has a chance to survive, and our chances are not yet lost, although I think we flirt far too much with the razor’s edge of total self-destruction. In situations like this, I do feel helpless, except for that I know that a lot of people in the US (and other places) must be feeling similar things as I am. You know the adage about things getting worse before they get better? US citizens I think have never been so aware of the levels of political corruption in our government, the levels of unchecked corporate greed, or our frailty as a species on a planet. I think we are all waking up together to realizing our predicament, at least I hope so. Are we? Thoughts? Ideas?

I invite you to friend me on Facebook (Virginia Paris). Even if you don’t technically know me, and especially if there’s anything you want to chat with me about. I don’t see Facebook as a venue for only close personal friends, and I rarely chat about personal stuff on there. What I do chat about are happenings in our world, and I post a lot of links. I especially enjoy starting up or engaging in interesting and potentially heated conversations about the nature of reality, politics and spirituality. I insist on discussions being civil, but that doesn’t mean we can’t heartily disagree. Be mean to me or my friends, and I will un-friend you.

If you friend me because you read this post, please say so in your message to me, so I know that this is how you know me. I don’t know who all reads this, but I do know that occasionally I get a comment from someone I don’t know, so “hello out there!” and join me on Facebook too, if you’d like.

Side note… I am very aware of all the issues about Facebook. The interface is crap, and the privacy is non-existant. If these things bother you enough to drop Facebook, I totally understand. I might do the same thing if I was even remotely private about anything I want to put on there. I am not a terribly private person, and I see Facebook as more of an interesting discussion forum than a sharing-personal-information kind of place. It’s deeply flawed and hopelessly corrupt, but it reaches a lot of people, and therefore is a useful tool for getting out information about cool ideas.

This week on Systemic Effect, we will be talking with Starhawk, Pagan author and activist. We will be talking about what Paganism is, the intersections of magic and activism, Permaculture (including composting toilets), consciousness shifting, and the Pagan worldview as it relates to environmental activism.

You can listen at MAIN-FM from 8-9AM Sunday morning, stream live at mainfm.org or listen to archives anytime after that at SystemicEffect.org

Also, I am very interested in your feedback, which can be directed to SystemicEffect.main.nc.us

Thank you, and have a transformative day!

One of my favorite things about being Pagan is that there is an intrinsic understanding about the cycles of all things. The life-death-life cycle effects everyone and everything, and there is a time for activity and a time for rest.

I haven’t posted for a week, which is probably not good because I want to be really regular about this. However, I also understand that I have been in a fallow time this week, and have needed to regroup. This happens to me on a fairly regular basis, and when I come back up for light, I always am fresh with new ideas and understandings.

So, I apologize for my lack of writing this week, and I hope to start writing ahead of myself so that during my next fallow period, I’ll have a reserve of posts to share. I can dream, anyway!

I’m back in business, and ready to write some more. I hope you continue to stay with me as this very interesting journey unfolds!