Suzanne Falter's Blog, page 11

How Accepting Hardships Helps Us Grow Wiser in the Years After 60

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t really get the concept of acceptance until I hit 59. At that point, I could finally see that my senior years were inevitable. I wasn’t thrilled, but I was willing to put up with them. Mainly because I had no choice.

What I hadn’t counted on were the remarkable benefits.

As I age, a new patina has settled over my life – a comforting smudge of acceptance on all my old anxieties. It occurred to me that this is actually the gift of our senior years.

We can develop new, helpful mindsets that can help us tackle any crisis and surmount any hurdle. I say we are far better positioned to do this than our younger cohorts. For one thing, we can accept hard things in life with greater ease.

I know this because in 2012, my 22-year-old daughter Teal dropped dead from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest.

That single event knocked me from being driven, type A workaholic with a relentless drive to succeed to… well… an inert blob, for several years. I spent those years writing, examining, and learning as I went.

When I emerged from my grief, I found I was wiser and far better off because of the experience of real, enduring loss. Turns out that somewhere in all that acceptance, I’d found my wisdom.

Here are the takeaway mindsets that have helped me navigate my 60s with a new, unexpected joy. Hopefully, you’ll find them useful as well.

It’s All Good

I’ve always hated the pat little phrase, “It’s all good” – but it turns out there is some truth to it. There really is some kind of humbling, or empowering, or love-provoking, reason for pretty much everything that happens to us. If you look hard enough, you can usually find it.

An unexpected benefit of my daughter’s death was that it helped me strip away the masks of illusion I’d lived with for so long. Finally, I had to let go of that old, overworking false persona – and with it, all my prickly defensive behaviors.

I was left a vulnerable pussy cat who didn’t work nearly so hard – and enjoyed life more. That’s when, quite unexpectedly, I met the love of my life. We are now quite happily married.

We Are Not Alone

After Teal died, I was more alone than I’d ever been in my life. My 25-year marriage had ended, and I was still relatively new to San Francisco. The one family member who lived near me was now dead, and I had few friends.

I dreaded that first miserable Thanksgiving because I had no place to go. Yet that weekend I found my way to a church where a hilarious, highly-organized group of drag queens were serving Thanksgiving dinner to hundreds of homeless people.

I joined in the fun, and that afternoon made my first real friends in California.

Willing and friendly people are out there – and you may have to go looking for them.

It’s Fine to Ask for and Get Help

I’m thinking of how I learned to ask for help after Teal’s death. I’d always been the stoic lone wolf – the powerful one-woman show who needed no one’s support.

The minute I let go of that narrative, in came remarkable resources. Free grief support groups, caring friends and family, and even a pair of pals who advised me wisely on my finances, all showed up. This support emerged naturally and easily, simply because I asked for help.

There are no two ways about it. As we age, we need more support. The opportunity is to surrender, ask for it, and enjoy what comes.

We’ve Become Street Smart

You know all those little tricks you’ve figured out along the way? From opening jars to learning how to console a distraught friend, we’ve learned a lot in our decades on this planet. This is not wisdom you can read in a book or learn from a teacher (though that can help.)

Mostly, we’ve learned these things by doing. For instance, when my spouse is in pain, I’ve found I can provide the same loving comfort I did when I was a mom, anxiously leaning over my feverish toddler.

I’ve learned how to move towards what works, and drift away from what doesn’t. And since my daughter’s death, I’ve learned how to tune into my own needs and meet them.

The lessons life gives us every day really are our greatest teachers. The longer we live, the more of them we’ve learned.

We Know We Deserve Good Care

Do you remember when we were younger, how hard it could be to get ourselves to exercise – or diet? To ask for help when we need it? Perhaps we were too busy then, working, and possibly even raising children. Now, however, we have time on our hands. We can finally become our highest priority.

That’s true even – or perhaps especially – if we are also caregivers to an ailing spouse. For without adequate self-care, we simply can’t get the job done.

Not only do we realize we need to take excellent care of ourselves – we know we deserve it. We finally know how to “put on the oxygen mask first,” as flight attendants always advise us. Because now we get it.

We deserve the best possible health, comfort, and ease we can give ourselves. No matter what our circumstances.

The gift of hard things – and aging – is this basic return to our own intrinsic power. It’s a power based on great love and self-compassion, and it can make the last quarter of your life sing instead of moan.

From my article in Sixty + Me

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How Singing Became My Personal Road to Redemption

I have always been an ‘almost’ singer – as in, I could almost really do this.

Maybe. Someday. If I had about ten times more courage.

At least, that’s what I told myself as I danced along as a nun in yet another community theater production of The Sound of Music. Or I wowed the crowd, briefly, at one more terrified open mic night in some bar in the middle of nowhere.

Singing was something I was always naturally good at, and trained in, from an early age. My voice was big and clear, and my eager father fantasized I might someday be a star. This was a fact he reminded me about frequently, including on his death bed.

“Sing! Sing!” Dad would implore. I’d stand in a kitchen doorway in my socks, singing ‘Edelweiss’, and tears would stream down his face. Wordless, he’d shake his head in appreciation.

I was the kid with lots of potential. It was terrifying.

There were voice lessons in New York, and a brief stint as a cabaret performer in a Kosher Japanese restaurant. I gamely showed up for the non-union, ‘cattle call’ auditions posted in Backstage, where I was surrounded by limber dancers in spandex who could sing. Once I even got a call back. But I didn’t go. I simply couldn’t handle the pressure.

The fact was that I felt awkward and exposed when I sang, and my knees literally shook in front of audiences. And that teary, verklempt image of my Dad was never far from my mind, as well. I knew that I would never be brilliant enough to be that star he so badly wanted me to be.

By the time I was thirty, the dream of being a singer was pretty much dead. Ultimately, I found other things to do with my life, including having a daughter. As luck would have it, she, too, could sing. In fact, she was a better singer than me.

At the age of 14 months, Teal could sing Happy Birthday perfectly to her own lyrics (“Appa-ju-ju … Appa juice!”) And by the time she was eight, she was discovered by a Broadway agent who heard her singing on a play date with her child. Immediately, Teal began auditioning for Broadway shows and getting call backs. Yet, all of this happened just as we were leaving New York, and so her would-be career was nipped in the bud.

Teal didn’t seem to mind one bit. “I’m only eight,” she reasoned.

The fact was that, like me, Teal was also an ‘almost’ singer. Her heart was tender and her sensitivity paramount, though she did, indeed, love to sing. Ten years later, she arrived at a world famous institute of music to study the blues. Again, her biggest hurdle was her massive stage fright.

By the end of her first semester, I got a frantic call from her roommates. Teal had been in bed for two days having severe anxiety attacks. In fact, she was having a nervous breakdown. “Don’t call my mother,” she’d begged her friends.

She didn’t want me to know that she, too, felt incapable of becoming a star. It was that exquisite torture I knew so well … the need to sing, yet the abject fear of not getting it right. And of disappointing the people you loved.

Though Teal returned to music school for one more year, she eventually drifted towards the blues scene in Austin, Texas, where her panic worsened. Finally, she called me up. “Mom,” she said plaintively. “I just don’t want to do this anymore.” She was done with the constant fear and pressure of performing, she said. Teal packed up her guitar, and moved on to look for the next thing.

But then, two years later, the unthinkable happened. Teal had collapsed from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest and died six days later.

So I did what all mothers who lose children must eventually do. I had to either crumble into a million irretrievable pieces … or make something out of the rest of my life. I chose the latter, operating on the theory that this was my chance to push the reset button. And that it was a way to deeply honor my daughter the best I could.

I told myself I would get on with all those things I’d always been too afraid or resistant to try.

Not surprisingly, singing found me once more. I was at a dinner party that evolved into a music jam. It was late and the crowd had thinned, so I figured it might be safe to actually sing something. A new friend pulled out her guitar, and I began to sing ballads. Soon after, she called to ask if I’d like to be a back up singer with her band.

At the same time, I joined a church with a choir led by a charismatic gospel singer, and I knew as soon as I heard them that this was where I belonged. Only this time, I simply went for the love of signing.

Somehow, now my performance didn’t seem to matter so much. At first, I was primarily focused on keeping it together. But as time went by, my grief began to recede and I relaxed. More importantly, I was doing what I loved now without a bit of hesitation.

Within a year, I was performing for the congregation on occasional non-choir Sundays. I could sing anything I wanted, so I found myself drawn to pieces Teal might have chosen. The first Sunday I did this, a friend and I sang a slowed-down blues interpretation of ‘If I Had a Hammer’.

As I stood there and let the words pour through me, I found myself letting go in an entirely new way. Gone was the old pressure for perfection or the need to be a star. Gone was the desire to make anyone happy but myself. Instead, I was a new singer now, forged out of some impenetrable metal that helped me stand in my strength and own every inch of that song. Now I was connected not only to my heart, but to all the people listening to my song as well.

In that moment of transformation, the piece became a wailing tribute to all the pain and suffering I saw all around me, and how much I wanted to heal it. I found myself lifting off into improvised riffs, the notes soaring through the air as I sang from my gut.

This, I began to understand, was the gift of my daughter’s death. It had, in fact, set me free.

After the service, congregants shook my hand with tears in their eyes, and I realized I was singing the song just as Teal might have. In fact, I was singing it for her … in gratitude for who’d she’d been when she walked this earth. And for who I’d become, as I reinvented myself after her death.

I was no longer here to please anyone but myself, for I’d been to the edge of life and now I knew the truth. Our days are meant to be lived with joy, every last one of them. So I sing on for Teal … but also, mostly, for me.

Want to seriously ramp up your self-care?
Grab Suzanne’s Gifts on Her Patreon Page.

 

The post How Singing Became My Personal Road to Redemption appeared first on Suzanne Falter.

How to Talk Yourself Out of a Funk

Okay, everyone, repeat after me.

We are good and wonderful people – even WHEN we feel like hell.

I woke up with the blues the other day, and had a profound experience of finding my way back to some good and loving self-kindness.

Here are the steps I took. May they serve you well the next time you feel back to black.

1. Call a friend. Really, we were never meant to slog through this life alone – whether we are with a soul mate or not. Furthermore, those who care about you do want to help. So resist the urge to go off and lick your wounds alone. Generally that just makes things worse, right?

2. Remember you have no perspective. It’s your life, so generally you can’t see the forest for the trees. Just like Mark Twain thought Huckleberry Finn was a piece of trash, and Michelangelo said, about the Sistine Chapel, “I am no painter.” If you’re doubting your self worth, keep in mind your perspective is not reliable. (Then see #1 above.)

3. Expect the occasional s**tstorm. Because that’s how life is. You will know suffering just as you know joy – even sometimes at the same time. Not only is suffering a reliable life experience, but it will ultimately become your post powerful teacher. Because that’s how it is in this mortal coil.

4. Know you will be fine. Think about it. Even when times were bleak, you came out of it okay, if a bit dinged up. You always have been fine, and you always will be fine. And then one day you’ll die. Job completed. Mission accomplished. Discomfort always, inevitably leads to something better.

5. Expect a miracle (or ask for one.) Even if you don’t believe in a great spiritual organizing principle in this life, why not give it a whirl? No matter what, your mind will be soothed, your body will relax, and you will feel protected. Which ultimately leads to … yes … miracles.

6. Ask for guidance to ‘Bless it or Block it.’ This is a little trick a friend showed me who has a profound faith in a higher power that guides us all. When you are really feeling uncertain about which course to take – or so scared you literally can’t take the next step – ask Spirit to bless or block your endeavor. The answer usually follows.

7. Remember the stuff that is working in your life. Somewhere in your dark stew of an existence, there are soft, clear, sweet spots. Perhaps that’s a beloved friend, or a special place that makes you feel wonderful. Maybe even a treasured letter or photograph. Possibly it’s your work, or your health, or your kids. Name it now and thank it profusely for being in your life. Then see if that doesn’t give you a bit of a shift.

8. Know that this, too, will pass. Tomorrow you will wake up with 232 billion new cells in your body. That, alone, is reason for hope. Your life is constantly changing and evolving towards what is just ahead. So this place you’re in right now? By tomorrow, it will probably be gone.

9. Above all, believe in your own perfection. Yes, you are already perfect, just as you are, and this experience or uncertainty or doubt or dilemma is perfect, too. Easy for me to say, right? Yes! And … it’s all happening for a reason.

The key is to trust that you have everything you need, here and now, to resolve anything you must resolve.

Not only do you have everything – you are everything. You were born whole and complete, and you will die whole and complete. We were designed to be enough, and have enough, every minute of every day. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Once you even begin to wrap your head around this truth, the next one falls neatly into place.

10. Give back and know peace. The ultimate game changer is service, given from the heart. Try it, even if you don’t want to. What is your special gift you could give someone today?Go give it, and immediately, you really will know peace.

 

Want to seriously ramp up your self-care?
Grab Suzanne’s Gifts on Her Patreon Page.

 

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Seven Years After My Meltdown; What Mid Life Crisis Teaches Us [UPDATED]

 

As many of you know, I have been on a guided path as direct as a speeding bullet for the last seven years since the death of my daughter, Teal, the end of my business, my relationship and pretty much everything I held dear. I even lost my home in the bargain, for that went with the failed relationship.  I’d say the progress, growth and lessons just keep on coming. As well as the happiness.

When I first wrote this blog, I was still feeling the effects of my grief. Today I am fully back to work and have been for some time. I’m also far more grounded in my new life — to the point that it no longer feels new at all.

What I’m aware of now is what a massive blessing my meltdown was, for I was truly reborn. But that, I think, is what the real value of falling apart is all about. Here’s my own personal timeline:

Years 1 to 3

This ‘speeding bullet’ meandered here and there. Most of the time I had no idea where it was leading me; I just knew that it was. And I went.

Turns out this meandering path is entirely about spiritual growth. You see it again and again in stories big and small. Most of the world’s great spiritual leaders passed through such a time of testing. Jesus, for one, wandered in the

Judean desert for forty days and night, said a big fat no to temptation, and came back more surrendered than ever to his path.

My own father, John Falter, an artist known for his many Saturday Evening Post covers, crashed and burned in his early fifties after the magazines he illustrated began to use photography. During those confusing years, I can remember the stress in his face as he attempted to get work to feed our family.

He tried everything. Chalk talks in the manner of Mark Twain. Humorous engraved prints which he had printed by the thousands. Even an animated dog food commercial. None of it came to anything. Eventually, after five lost, wandering years, my father was reborn as a successful painter of American history. That became his path, his contribution, his legacy — and one of his greatest passions.

The final phase of his career fell into perfect alignment with who he was, at his core. And, I say, helped him to complete his purpose in this lifetime.

Years 3 to 5

This midlife crisis path always appears to be about life change, but really it’s about faith. During this time I went from being confused to seeing a light at the end of the tunnel — but only if I truly, absolutely, completely let go. I had to give up ALL plans, goals, ideas and strategies. Instead, I waited for life to come for me and show me the way … and it did.

Can we surrender to the idea that we need to change, and that this is all for something bigger? Can we accept we are being changed in a way that can only be beneficial … if we let it? Even if it hurts a hell of a lot on the way, and it’s basically terrifying?

Doubt abounds. Can we make it? Will we implode, never to be heard from again? How will we keep body and soul together?

We have only one job at such times. Stay true to ourselves, no matter what. Woe to those who do not listen! The older we are, the more treacherous it is to stray from this uncertain path.

In short, you learn the real value of letting go.

In my own crash and burn period I tried twice to resurrect my old business, even though it no longer reflected my values, and even though I knew it was a mistake. It was something – anything — I could chase after in the face of

uncertainty. Yet, when I did those launches, the result was clear. My site

Yet, when I did those launches, the result was clear. My site was hacked into five times in two weeks. All the purchasers refunded. My work was dead in the water. Yet again … I surrendered.

My daughter Teal’s death and all the other losses I experienced during this time showed me that it’s the unknowability of the path that makes it both hard and healing.

By not knowing, for instance, how I would make money, I had to trust. I trusted that my instinct to stop my business coaching was right, and that this would lead, eventually, to the right thing. First, I needed to shift back to a place of greater alignment, before the better work could arrive.

Ultimately, that trust has been rewarded. When I was ready – at the two year point, and not a moment sooner — writing jobs dropped in my lap out of nowhere. They provided fun work and a steady income, and a way to ease back into working.

Then I began to get hired – again out of nowhere – to speak to national audiences about self-care and my experiences as a Donor Mom. Now I’ve begun to distill these learnings into a memoir, corporate workshops, and an upcoming online learning program.

Years 5 to 7

Along this way, I’ve had the opportunity to detach from all my pre-conceived ideas of ‘success’, fame and fortune. Instead, I was forced to focus on what’s happening here and now. So I discovered the incredible release of old

internal pressures to overwork and ‘push through’.

I realized I’d lost all of my ‘must succeed at all costs’ ambition. Now quality of life, day to day, was far more important. By now I’d found the love of my life and married her. And delved into a peaceful, happy day to day existence.

Over the years, I had learned to live simply, spend my money consciously, and cut out all the old excesses. My desire for that nightly glass of Chardonnay disappeared right along with the need to throw money at high-end consultants who will ‘save me’.

Turns out the answers were all right here, as they have always been. A beautiful walk in the hills of Oakland as the sun is setting is just a rewarding as a pricey concert ticket or a fancy dinner out. And yet, interestingly, the money has come easily so I actually could enjoy a concert or a dinner out if I so wanted. It’s just that that’s not at all so important any more.

Along the way, I was also led to paid work that is far more authentic for me. Now I make my living writing both nonfiction and novels. An investor approached me about writing queer fiction, magazines began to buy my essays again, and my new book, Self Care for Extremely Busy Women will be out in December with a major publisher.

On this beautiful, golden path, I don’t have to be anyone other than me. I don’t have to sway millions to buy my info products. I don’t have to even become a household name. Instead, I simply have to stay true to what feels right, and keep looking for ways to serve.

Ironically, for the first time in my life, I now understand true ‘enoughness’. I am enough, I have enough, and I do enough. And that is simply bliss.

Our spiritual paths in moments of crisis are all about being willing to not know, and show up in full willingness anyway. This act of surrender allows the Universe to meet you full on, wrap its arms around you and carry you through.

And so you discover that you are not alone, and that every midlife meltdown does indeed have a much bigger purpose in your life. If any of this sounds familiar, or you’re facing a crisis of your own, I urge you to trust it.

Your meltdown will lead you exactly where you need to go.

 

 

 

Want to seriously ramp up your self-care?
Grab Suzanne’s Gifts on Her Patreon Page.

 

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Getting Out of the Cage of Self-Doubt

The image was frightening. Hannibal Lector’s face, complete with face mask, peered out from inside a small cage. The metal bars covering his mouth glinted in the sun.

No, this wasn’t Silence of the Lambs 2. It was my dream, and it annoyed the hell out of me.

Because for me, the message was clear: Stop locking yourself in a cage of your own making, refusing to be heard.

The previous day I’d been in a slump, damning myself for not being more productive, more inspired, more ‘fire in the belly’.

Now in my fifth year of grief after the death of my daughter, now at the ripe old age of 57, I should be all better. Or so argues my mind.

I should be just like I was before her death — even though I am now a significantly different, older person. And even though my life has been profoundly changed.

Somehow it feels like my current level of productivity is not enough. Enter Hannibal Lector.

When you suffer a shocking loss, you grow and evolve differently as a result. You can’t help but be changed by it, and perhaps that is the point. For what is life but a non-stop series of tumbles, splats, triumphs and recoveries?

This is how we learn.

Furthermore, we are designed to take big hits, so if we choose we can rise up again. Still we won’t ever be the way we once were. Nor should we be. We will be altered forever by our misfortune, and hopefully become wiser as a result.

For me, I am definitely humbler. I don’t need to wave flags and get all eyes in the room on me anymore. And my spirituality has grown deeper and far more connected. Part of me no longer cares about my prospects for success, either.

Yet at the same time I often feel like I just don’t quite measure up.

My mind wonders … is this softer, gentler me who lacks ambition really okay?

Is it alright, after years of grief, to not need to burn the world up anymore? My needs are met. I have everything I could possibly ask for.

So is this life I’m living actually enough, right here and right now? Even in this driven world of striving and ambition?

At such times I always come back to an important set point. There are only two things that matter to me now. Self care, which includes the deep love I share with my partner, and my call to become a better person and share that path, step by step, with my readers.

But when I’m locked in my cage of self-doubt, I forget all of that. Then nothing I’ve done seems significant at all. The Buddhists say I’m at choice here. I can give in to the voice of dukkha, or ‘unsatisfactoriness’, in my head and really milk it for all it’s worth. Or I can just observe it, acknowledge it and let it go.

It’s sort of like turning off the current state of politics, and deciding I don’t need all that negativity in my head.

So I am cultivating a practice of letting my feelings of weakness simply be. Because that’s all they are — just feelings and nothing more.

They are not a pronouncement about my worth in the world. They aren’t predictors of my future. And they certainly aren’t reliable signposts.

For this, too, will change. Today I might feel weak and indecisive. But tomorrow, I could get a whole new outlook on life. We are always in flux and that is an exciting thing. We never really know what could happen next.

What’s important today is to forgive myself for not being as ‘on’ as I once was. I need to give myself a compassionate pat on the back, and allow myself to do what I can comfortably do … expecting nothing more.

Then, magically, I am enough and the cage door swings slowly open.  So I emerge once again, ready, willing and able to help.

Ironic, isn’t it?

But then isn’t this the sweet process of life as it unfolds, one day at a time, ever pushing us forth to become better, humbler, kinder … the embodiment of love.

 

 

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On Learning to Be Compassionate and Why It Is So Important

I’ve never been big on compassion. Instead, as the child of two fairly narcissistic people, I focused a lot on making my parents happy.

The rest of the time, I sank back into myself with the relief of a drowning sailor: You’ve done your time on the ship … now go to your rest.

By the time I was ten, I felt world-weary and exhausted. And somewhat grumpy.

My sights never got turned towards others with any real sense of caring or desire to help. I was never one to hand out dollars to street corner beggars, teach reading, or feed the homeless.

I was too busy just trying to hang on, afraid that the bottom could drop out of my own life at any moment. For most of my adult life, the bottom I was nowhere near any kind of bottom. But I believed I was … and that was enough to keep me locked in survival.

Then my daughter Teal died in 2012 and the bottom really did drop out. And ironically, it is only then that I began to discover my natural compassion. Losing a child does that to you.

All the things you were always so afraid of suddenly seem small by comparison, and so life is no longer scary. Instead, it’s just what is. You develop a new appreciation for reality, and you eschew all that is mired in illusion and false hope.

And so you can raise your head and look around, unimpeded.

That’s when you begin to realize that there is a world outside of yourself.

In my post-Teal life, I find myself connecting to strangers who I once might have judged. And I reach out with a new lightness that is both unusual, and yet very authentically me. Turns out this is the part that was getting squelched all those years ago.

When I hear that judging voice in my head, I find it fills me with remorse; I am repulsed by it. And yet, I cannot turn it off quite yet.

It still has something to say to me … what, I’m not exactly sure.

I dreamt of a lion the other night. It had once been fearsome, toothy, all those lion-esque things. But in my dream, it lay down beside me, put its head on its paws and rested. Simply because I was kind to it.

This is the richest discovery in this period of my life — the extraordinary power of loving kindness. Instead of going after those who I once judged mercilessly, I realize now that they are doing the best they can. Really. Even when it doesn’t seem like it.

Because if they actually could do any better, they would. Right?

I notice a powerful thing when I let go of being self-righteous: I don’t suffer either. It’s the old Buddhist parable of the two arrows. Buddha’s teachings point out that when suffering happens, through either an arrow life delivers to us, or one that we send out, a second arrow follows.

This is the one we inflict on ourselves. In other words, when I judge another harshly, I immediately feel several things: self-righteousness, anger, and contempt.

And yet, my opportunity at that moment is to drop the judgement and simply be kind. If I’m the one who wants to send out the first arrow, I try to stop. I remind myself to be like the lion in my dream, and chill the hell out before the arrow ever hits the quiver.

Then I sit on my hands, or take myself for a walk. Or I meditate and journal if it really gets bad. And sometimes I don’t succeed.

If that first arrow flies, then I know I must immediately make my amends. And forgive myself as well. Because that second arrow is always in my hands, wanting to be sent. Yet it is also in my control.

How do I forgive myself so easily? Simple. I now realize I’m a total work in progress.

I’m not going to get this human thing totally right anytime soon. I’m just not – and expecting it is simply too much to ask. So I practice self-compassion, and I move on.

A little compassion can take us far in this short life. It is the grease that keeps the wheels of kindness moving.

And so all of life becomes far more enjoyable.

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A Codependent’s Checklist for Navigating Hard Times

I don’t know about you, but I’m a recovering codependent. I’ve spent my life sticking my nose in everyone’s business, taking on way too much suffering and responsibility, and generally thinking I have to save the world.

Turns out I don’t. All I really have to do is keep my attention focused squarely on myself. But just that simple awareness, alone, has not stopped me. I find that in order to worm my way back to serenity, I must rethink my entire way of rolling through life.

Ah, were it so easy.

The problem with being a codependent is that this is hard. Mainly because we’re often traveling the well-worn mental grooves of our wounded childhoods … even after we hit the recovery trail.

We may KNOW, intellectually, that we really can’t change that abuser/alcoholic/otherwise sick or difficult person’s ways. We may even really, truly know how powerless we are.

But still we try, again and again, to save the day. It’s just an automatic response. Can you relate?

I put together this little checklist for those times when you’ve slid dangerously off course and you really need to stop and check in with yourself.

You’ll know you need this checklist because you’ll feel dangerously unsettled. You’ll find your thoughts turning around and around again in the same twisted rope of logic. And no matter how you try, you can’t think yourself right again. Nor can you change your circumstances in this moment.

This is when a reality check is needed. Take a look at the questions below and see if any ring true in this moment.

☐ Am I being preachy?

☐ Am I being ‘helpful’?

☐ Am I being charming for my own gain?

☐ Am I trying to force a solution?

☐ Am I zoned out and trying to avoid reality?

☐ Do I feel unsafe?

☐ Have I asked for help if I need it?

☐ Have I forgotten I’m not in charge?

☐ Do I still think I can figure my way out of this mess?

If you’ve checked any of the items on this list, you may know just what you need to do next. Or maybe not.

Either way, remember this. Your circumstances are far more perfect than you may realize. They may be uncomfortable. They may be so challenging that they demand every ounce of courage and fortitude you’ve got.

Yet, you are here for a reason. The Universe, God or whomever you believe in plunked you down in this mess because this is simply your next lesson.

You’re simply having your next “freaking growth experience”, as one of my friends puts it.

To get into what that lesson might actually be, ask yourself these two questions:

— Have I forgotten to meet my own needs?

— What do I actually need right now?

When our attention is squarely focused on someone else, we have often forgotten all about ourselves. Our breathing may have become constricted. We may be tossing and turning, unable to sleep. We may have lost touch with our very essence.

I find that when the wolf is at the door, and I can’t stop thinking about it, I’m often running away from something else much bigger. My own anxiety often is the culprit – and it is often not even related to the issue at hand. That’s when I ask myself this:

— What am I afraid of right now?

Pull out a journal and have at it. See if you can really get underneath the current worries on the table, and address the bigger picture. Perhaps, for example, you’re worried your partner will come home late and begin abusing you. So you’re busy trying to out think him/her before anything has even happened.

Could be behind all of that angling is your own simple fear of being alone? Or being unloved? Or being left? Or becoming old?

That is when you need to have a conversation with yourself, and remind yourself that you’ve got your own back. You are here for YOU. No matter how hard things may get. No matter how old or sick or poor you become. No matter what crazy crisis happens next.

You actually do know how to comfort, console and soothe yourself.

You also know how to meet your own needs.

You, alone, can move you back towards serenity.

May this little exercise come in handy the next time you feel particularly alone.

You are stronger than you think.

The post A Codependent’s Checklist for Navigating Hard Times appeared first on Suzanne Falter.

My Declaration of Independence

This is a series of essays that have not appeared before on this blog. They were taken from my book, Surrendering to Joy, which I wrote in the year immediately following my daughter Teal’s death in 2012.

There came a time when I had to finally emerge, to release my mother, my story, my struggle and my suffering.

I had to release my grip on so-called reality.  I had to let go of the steely, inflexible view with which I have seen myself most of my life – a “reality” that was witheringly harsh.

It led me to angry, controlling lovers, compulsive behaviors, and smaller work in which I could hide for years and years.

In doing so, I crafted a reality that wasn’t actually real.

If I don’t let go of this, no business can be built, no writing can be truly shared, and no destiny can be lived. I cannot make the impact I was born to make. This place of illusion feels safe and comfortable. Yet it is also a place of stasis.

Here is what I’m learning about coming into my own in this, my fifty-fourth year.

It is safe to be seen and heard. I no longer have to hide in any way – spiritual, emotional, strategic or otherwise.

I no longer have to sequester myself in inappropriate work that is a cover for my greatness. And I don’t have to be a “success story” that’s really about scoring validation and avoiding the thing I was born to do.

Now I really know the truth: I was born to move people by writing and speaking from the heart.

So why would a perfectly decent writer and speaker hide from her much-loved crafts? Many reasons. As a child it was about protecting my mother from the sense that she, herself, was a failure by comparison.

Oh, how my mother struggled with her own anxiety and insecurity. Nothing was ever good enough. Ever. So many dreams got laid to dust, incomplete. She became a woman who lived solely for her children. And I, a sensitive child, didn’t want to forge ahead and surpass her.

It just didn’t seem like good form.

Then there was always the sheer terror of truly emerging. For what I know now is that this writing is only meant to exist in one form: fantastically honest and without a shred of pretense.

It doesn’t require particular effort. Nor does it need much more time and space. What it demands is simple courage.

I can no longer be the guarded, wary person I once was to do this work. I must be that essential self – what my former husband called my “little flower.” He knew it was in there, just as others have. But how frightened I have always been of this flower, this self, this Suzanne.

But, now, the flower is opening. The writing has begun. And it is unstoppable. And so I show up to feed this beautiful engine that has patiently waited for me all these years. The feeding of it is the feeding of me – a Me I can now proudly reclaim.

Three things happened in the past few days that confirm this transition has begun.

First, I woke up to find a bat flying around the room I’ve been sleeping in, Teal’s childhood bedroom. Where the bat came from is a mystery, but there it was, big and black and coming right at me.

According to a shamanic website, the bat is a harbinger of a new beginning and the release of the old, which is precisely what I’d determined this particular trip East would be for me. It marks a turning point, a shift in my grief as we near the one-year anniversary of Teal’s death.

Then last night I had a dream in which I was back at The New York Times, where I once worked in the marketing department. In the dream, I was trying to sneak into a meeting for the editorial writers. They said, “Suzanne, why aren’t you taking your seat here in the front? This is for you and your writing.”

I’d been discovered! How afraid I felt. I was so resistant to God’s very gift for me. I knew I had to get back to the marketing department, figuring they’d be looking for me! Yet here was the recognition I’d always craved but never sought to claim. Even when I actually worked at the Times.

Perhaps I wasn’t ready then. I had to live more, lose more, and surrender so much more. Instead of being more mighty, I had to become more undone. Only then could I finally claim that one precious pearl I had left, my own sweet soul.

That brings me to the third incident, a brief snippet of a dream in which a jaguar embraced me. As I wrapped my arms around its massive cat shoulders and nuzzled my face into its warm, golden neck, I heard its forceful purring. And I knew it loved me. As did the huge, aging, slightly beaten-up dog that joined us. This dog was my inner protector, just as the jaguar was my power. I knew I loved them both immeasurably.

So I step forth, gently and carefully, minding my way and feeding myself just what I need as I go.

This is the only way we can ever honor the God-self that we are. By listening, understanding, and providing ourselves with exactly what we need.

Today, I have awakened to this new, beautiful reality with Teal riding shotgun on my shoulder. And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take, through pieces of my writing, scattered throughout the Universe like stars. Or slices of the very best chocolate cake.

What I know now is my soul is yours for the taking, for I am no longer afraid.

***

Reprinted from my book, Surrendering to Joy .

 

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10 Ways to Heal Your Anger

I don’t know about you, but I used to hate getting mad.

Some years ago, I lost my daughter to a sudden cardiac arrest. Along with my grief rode a sidecar of toxic, bitter anger. I found myself becoming furious at small, irrational things.

Turns out my anger was the sign of something stirring in the dark, narrow passageways of my grief. It was the ghost just down the way, beckoning for me to come hither.

Furthermore, my anger was not only fine, but a normal response to grief. Even Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said I was supposed to get mad.

And yet … if you were like me, you were raised to believe that anger is bad and that good girls don’t get mad. Ever. And certainly not at their controlling addict mothers.

In my family or origin, I could never get mad at Mom under penalty of serious punishment. So I pretended ‘mad’ didn’t exist, stuck my fingers in my ears and avoided such things for the next 50 years.

This is how many of us grow up: numb and afraid to own or even know our anger – until it comes exploding out of us in untoward ways. Of course, one must handle the sword of anger responsibly. But this can be learned. It simply takes practice.

Just like a cool breeze on a hot day, when I finally allowed myself to feel my anger, it refreshed and restored me. It literally healed me, and became just as critical to my well-being as clean water, rest and the great outdoors. I moved on in far greater peace once I began to own ALL of my feelings — even the less attractive ones.

Here are some ideas on how to heal and access your own anger in a safe, responsible way.

Own that you have anger. In the great storehouse of the soul, we all have hurts, disappointments and furies we must nurse throughout our lives. The body, heart and soul simply don’t forget these things. Over time, however, our hurts do lose their charge. A first healthy step is just to give ourselves a break for having anger. Most of it was acquired when we were too small to have any critical awareness of our situation, or to give ourselves a break. We just equated anger with rage, or shame, and being ‘bad’. A good deal of that sludge is likely still in there.

Take time to process your anger. Whether you’re struck by an immediate outrage, or simmering over hurts from long ago, anger is best processed slowly. So when you’re pissed about something, stop, breathe and literally walk away. This helps us avoid saying and doing the things that will come back to haunt us later. Choosing a thoughtful, careful, honest response takes time to develop. Yet, it also takes care of you – and that is the most important thing.
Journal about your anger. A great way to process your anger is just to hold it close while you write about it. Ask yourself what it’s all about – dig in as deep as you can and just write and write until there is nothing more to say. To help you with this, I’ve included a link below to the Heal Your Anger Worksheet. Print it out and give yourself a little time to process your pain. It will lift.

Go ahead. Break or beat something. One of the real delights in getting angry is physical expression. I can’t tell you how many pillows and mattresses I’ve pounded the hell out of. Choose safe, non-harming items. Pencils break with a satisfying crack. Cardboard boxes can be stomped on without much risk. Putting on some boots and stomping around in mud or puddles can be pretty enjoyable, too.
Get your anger out of your body. Long ago I learned about punching the air, throwing your arms out in front of you in air punches just to get that anger out. Another approach can be lying on the floor and just kicking and pounding the floor with your fists. Try this on a rug or carpeted floor. You can vocalize as well if you need to … just make sure if any kids are around, they know you are doing something safe and healing.

Say what you have to say. This is difficult … and often necessary. And yet – it can be done if it must! If you know you can’t just let this anger go, then do speak up. But do so carefully. Think of it as a chance to get on the express lane to deeper personal growth. First formulate your thoughts (see #2 above), then make time to talk to the other involved. Remember that instead of coming down on them, you can frame your thoughts around a request. What do you need from them moving forward?
Know you don’t have to rage to be effective. Psychotherapist Dr. Andrea Brandt, author of Mindful Anger, says that talking to the other with a calm, measured approach – a mindful approach – yields true healing results, especially for you. This is true even when taking on difficult people. You can always begin with the phrase, “This is a difficult conversation, but there’s something we need to talk about …” (A full script follows during my interview with Dr. Brandt later in this podcast.)
Don’t feel you have to follow up. Part of letting things go is literally walking away, and in some cases maintaining a no contact policy. This is useful when your anger is attached to someone with a personality disorder like extreme codependency or malignant narcissism. While forgiveness is indeed a healing thing, it isn’t always something that must be expressed. When and if dangerous people reach out, that’s when we need to walk away without a response. No engagement really is better self-care in such situations.
Be willing to let it go. Over time, I’ve found that I’ve been attached to some small, petty angers, mainly because they make me feel more powerful. Yet, the true power is in becoming non-attached. We lose our mojo when we become obsessive or can’t budge past the fury. This is when forgiveness and moving on are the best approach. Psychologists refer to ‘Negative Bonding Patterns’, in which we stay attached to someone who has riled us in some way. They harken back to familiar dysfunctional behaviors in our past, and they can be hard to let go of. And yep, they trigger a lot of anger. Which explains why vitriolic divorces can drag on for years.
Forgive yourself. One of the most painful parts of anger for a lot of us is the shame that is attached. But when we process our anger completely, we come to a place of forgiveness – not only of the other, but of ourselves. This is the real gold that is buried behind our anger. It’s a chance to recover the truth that you are okay. Your anger was okay. Not only are you still loved, but you are lovable, as well.

May you learn to enjoy your anger when it bubbles up … and honor it for the innate and powerful wisdom that it is. As they say in the liquor ads, ‘Enjoy responsibly.’

Download the Heal Your Anger Worksheet

 

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Emptying Teal’s Closet: A Study in Fun, Love and Polka Dots

This is a series of essays that have not appeared before on this blog. They were taken from my book, Surrendering to Joy, which I wrote in the year immediately following my daughter Teal’s death in 2012.

Over the weekend, I did something I haven’t had the strength to do until now: I cleaned out the closet of my late daughter, Teal.

Her closet was like my purse, a receptacle for all that truly matters.  Teal did not drive a car, nor did she even drive her own life. Instead, her existence was a study in existential being, most of it directed toward fun.

Fun was catalogued in the offbeat “experimental” items in the clothing she left behind. Yellow polka-dotted sneakers for instance, and clothing written on by friends.  They said things like, “Teal + Sophie + Luke” and “Be Free!”

It was all there despite the fact that one month prior to her death, she had gone through her things and thrown out a lot. As if she wanted to leave a well-0rganized legacy.

In fact, Teal left behind a record for how we all might approach life. And so I do my best, between sobs, to record what I learned in this closet-based journey through her days.

She kept things for the sweet memories they evoked: cheap, clingy T-shirts with wistful designs, reminiscent of high school Saturdays at the mall. Her white polyester gown from her high school graduation. Prom gowns secured in dry cleaning bags.

I also found a random smattering of truly odd items. A pair of orange fishnets remained, along with a hot pink mini-kilt, and a white wool bustier with a strangely collegiate blue cable knitted into it.

That was Teal. She always made a point of dressing outside the box, combining plaids and prints with anything else she could think of, a practice that began as a toddler.

Clothing was an all-dessert buffet to my girl, and she delighted in the exploration of every flavor.

One day, when Teal was four, she announced she would wear her favorite pink pleated skirt and her Mary Janes to school. And nothing else. Teal was not messing around when it came to fun, no siree.

Deep in her core, she also believed in the energy of all things, which, I suspect, is why I found, tucked into the back, the small pair of lavender cotton pajamas printed with stars I bought for her when she was eight years old. Along with that was the hot pink shirt covered with iridescent ladybugs, her favorite item at age six.

Teal had invested too much love in these items to throw them away.

Then there were her beautiful floral sundresses. They were so imbued with summer, with picking strawberries, with hours and hours with nothing to do but laze in the grass, with all of the hope and possibility that life at its carefree best invokes.

T-shirts chronicled life events: volunteering in Africa (“Ghana @ 50”), an appearance in the musical Cabaret (“Life is Wonderful!”), her trip to Morocco with her dad when she was ten, and her job as a hostess at The Old Dock.

There were several pairs of Keds worn nearly through from backpacking her way around the world. Sneakers she wore well past their prime because life was to be explored fully, wasn’t it?

As I dug deeper into her closet, layers fell away, revealing more and more about what was of greatest importance to Teal.

A tangled ball of hand wraps from her beloved San Francisco gym where she practiced Thai Boxing and learned about her own mettle emerged. And there was the stack of childhood scripts from the theater where she learned to perform beginning at age six. There were 17 scripts in all.

I also found her warm-up jacket from high school soccer, her name stitched on the sleeve. Teal was no athlete, but how she loved being part of something bigger than herself. The glue of a team of girls trying their best on the playing fields of an Adirondack autumn was its own aphrodisiac.

I found her beloved blue T-shirt, shot through with holes, the words “Peace Corps” nearly invisible on it. It was purchased by her father, a retired Peace Corps volunteer, years before she was born. He’d gotten it for the child he hoped he might have someday.

Teal wore it to tatters in high school and to her admissions interview at Berklee. That day she sat in the waiting room filled with hopeful musicians in their suits and dresses. By contrast, Teal was proud and confident in her ratty Peace Corps T-shirt, ready to save the world with her music and her message. It was one of the great wins of her life when she was accepted.

Finally, behind everything, I found something in Teal’s closet that brought me to my knees. This was when I finally had to lie down on the floor and surrender to my grief.

Here was the hand-painted, six-foot-long banner her father had stayed up all night making on the night she was born. “Welcome Home Teal!” it announced proudly in carefully painted letters. On it were the signatures of every person who came to visit her in those first precious weeks.

Every inch of it is filled with the deep love and promise of our marriage; the coming together of two souls who may not have always agreed, and in the end were no longer compatible. Yet we knew enough to fulfill our souls’ purposes together, and so Teal and her brother Luke were born.

Lovingly, hour after hour, I folded each of Teal’s items into paper bags from Trader Joes that said, “Please Recycle This Bag.” All of it would go to Goodwill, which is just what she would have wanted.

As I worked and wept, and then fell apart completely, I began to accept the impossible. My little girl really is gone but she is also right here, alive within me and as full of love as ever. This is true for all of us, both the quick and the dead.

I left what should be left in her closet – a dozen items representing each stage of her life, including that glorious sign, folded neatly and displayed on a shelf. Now there is plenty of empty space for what must emerge next.

We should never hang on to what has departed but let it go in full gratitude and grace, knowing that what has come to be is always for the best.

No matter how sudden. No matter how dramatic. And no matter how painful.

You truly are in a better place, Teal. I know that much after celebrating your life, hanger by hanger, piece by piece. And curiously, happily, I am in a better place now as well.

Perhaps this was just what you had in mind.

***

Reprinted from my book, Surrendering to Joy .

 

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