How to be Sick – Chapter 8, part one (p61-69)

[Kokuu]

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This chapter is longer than normal so we are splitting it into two.

In chapter eight Toni talks about compassion, and specifically compassion for ourselves, which can be something we put behind compassion for others. Self care seems increasingly spoken about now in the knowledge that kindness for oneself is important but many people are brought up in families and cultures in which this is seen as self-indulgent.

She also talks about the inner critic and our tendency to blame ourselves for getting sick as well as any flare-ups or finding ourselves in difficult situations.

One friend once told me that when they were going through a hard time of illness they would try to talk to themselves as they would a close friend or even a small child and I have always found this helpful.

How easy do you find self-compassion? Do you have any ‘stories’ around it in terms of whether you are worthy of it or not? What does self-compassion look like for you?

How do you talk to yourself if you are going through a hard time? Would you speak the same way to a friend? Do you have ways of dealing with your inner critic? (For carers do you notice how the person you care for talks to themselves about difficult situations? Do you have ways of helping them with any issues around this?)

Have you found yourself in situations in which you become ill in unfamiliar circumstances or surroundings? How did you deal with that? (Likewise, carers, have there been instances in which you have needed to deal with this and the emotions it invoked in the person you are caring for?)

Feel free to answer any or all of those questions or talk about anything else that came up for you.


If you would like the continue with the daily practice of reciting the Metta Verses (you can find them here) that would be a very lovely thing! Also, see if you notice when your inner critic shows up and how you deal with that.


Gassho
Kokuu

[Tai Shi]

How to be Sick – Chapter 8, part one (p61-69)

My father would “grit his teeth and put his nose to the grindstone.” These are only two cliches my father, born in 1930, brought from the American Great Depression which influenced every country of the 1930s then even World Wars and Korean War bearing on liberation. This what was fromed a different work ethic these metaphors emerge, pluralism and Democratic politics in the 20th Century which first brought Buddhism in the person of Suzuki Roshi first true Japanese missionary to the San Francisco Zen Center. It was here where disabled Zen practitioners first emerged and Insight Meditation of Toni first flowered in Spirit Rock Meditation Center. This inclusive meditation has allowed those of us practicing Zen to emerge throughout America and in addition German Zen of 1950s and 1960s, all inclusive of disabled folks right from the foundations of Zen in the Haiku translations of Kenneth Koch. I was first attracted to this literature with my first mental break of 1974 discovering Suzuki as my way out with even misdiagnosis of my Ankylosing Spondylitis in 1975. This is because at that time there was so much ignorance in medicine and in the West about Zen. For me it was “This Way Out.” Finally I thank our moderators for introducing me to How to Be Sick, a way to understand my father who has lived long enough to realize his own Age and disabilities. His is no longer “put your nose to the grind stone,” but please help me.
Gassho
sat / lah
Tai Shi



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Tai Shi]

This morning after talking last night with a Treeleaf Zendo priest, and evaluating Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in light of current psychotherapy; it is not the epitome of psychology. Many techniqes helped heal my behavior. I look at my copassionate therapist. First he convinced me to have copassion on that 15-year-old boy, and now to reconcile learned behavior with needs. This is not so much CBT but compassion. This man is a Christian. He promised me from our begining he would not use his religion. His compassion has come out of my needs. I showed him meditation eight years ago. What is this but coimpassion of the Buddha. Why criticize my Buddhism when I hurt no one. This has been his stumbling block, not mine. He now knows that meditation, even Zen is a current practice. He allows my zazen, my Buddhism. I do not bring Biddhism to our therapy. We are compassionate toward each other because of our needs. My comment, "You look young." His comment, "Well, you would be surprised. I try." Our compassion for each other has made us both care more. Two months ago he said, "You don't need me anymore. We will stop your therapy and meet every six or eight weeks. I exclaimed, "But, I need you!" "Yes you have a serious mental illness, so we will check that before anything starts." He allows me compassion no other therapist has ever granted. This is my Buddhism. This is my behavior now.
Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[Koushi]

How easy do you find self-compassion? Do you have any ‘stories’ around it in terms of whether you are worthy of it or not? What does self-compassion look like for you?
Self-compassion is still a struggle with me, though admittedly getting a bit better over the last few weeks, with the help of this group and some others I've talked at-length with. It's been a constant reframing exercise, in that self-compassion is an inward expression of compassion for all beings that I find so much easier to express outwardly to everyone/thing else.

I'm trying my best not to beat myself up about whether I'm worthy of it or not. To be honest, conditions aside, I'm also dealing with a breakup that is forcing me to be kinder to myself. That said, it's still an uphill climb due to the many decades of not considering myself good enough for self-care. Between trauma and mental conditions, it never seemed like something I was attuned for.

Self-compassion these last few weeks has looked like, well, being at rest. Allowing myself the space to feel whatever it is I'm feeling at the time without spiraling, latching on, defeatist speech, or audible defamatory talk against myself. I'm the self holding space for the self. It's difficult.

How do you talk to yourself if you are going through a hard time? Would you speak the same way to a friend? Do you have ways of dealing with your inner critic?
Before actually putting in the effort to change the self-talk, it normally revolved around the words "stupid," "idiot," "shit," and "worthless." Would I ever talk to a friend or stranger like this? Absolutely not. In fact, it got so bad last year, that I took a vow of silence for a week. One week turned into two before I knew it. Having no external talk left internal talk, which I was able to drop easier in comparison.

Now I just do my best to allow myself room to feel whatever's going on without adding talk or thoughts to it. So for example, instead of beating myself up right now about a "failed" relationship, going over all my faults, spiraling in heartbreak — I'm just feeling the physical manifestation of heartbreak and letting it swirl and ebb and flow. When it settles, I might journal about things, but until then I'm just allowing. Giving up the resistance.

Have you found yourself in situations in which you become ill in unfamiliar circumstances or surroundings? How did you deal with that?
Oof. Big one here. When I'm in unfamiliar circumstances, surroundings, or stuck in traffic/anywhere without a clear line of "escape," panic sets in. On top of the mental condition itself, there's the risk of embarrassment that being ill or having an episode publicly brings. Like everything else, the only thing that has been a consistent help is facing what-is, allowing it, and floating through whatever sensation or feelings arise. I'll be uncomfortable as hell, but usually it doesn't progress further than that. Some instances are easier than others. Sometimes I do have to leave and head back home. Sometimes it is a disappointment to others. It's a process, though. Most people are understanding. Most people also have zero idea that I'm going through an episode.

Gassho,
Koushi
STLaH

[Shonin Risa Bear]

How easy do you find self-compassion? Do you have any ‘stories’ around it in terms of whether you are worthy of it or not? What does self-compassion look like for you?

This has, I think, been relatively easy for me. As a self-referenced very deaf only child with few social skills, I was able to convert loneliness to preferred solitude very early. Who was going to bolster my self-worth if not me? Mind you, I think this was associated with some defensive adroitness that has led to harm -- skilled in subterfuge, thinking fast on my feet when confronted with my errors for example -- blame shifting, gaslighting.

How do you talk to yourself if you are going through a hard time? Would you speak the same way to a friend? Do you have ways of dealing with your inner critic? (For carers do you notice how the person you care for talks to themselves about difficult situations? Do you have ways of helping them with any issues around this?)

Inability to accept criticism has led to my maintaining an insular world of my own. Unable to face the hard slog of finding an agent and publisher, I've vanity press published books that probably had merit and could have had a wider audience. You'd never know -- at parties, which I profess to hate, I'm a garrulous autocrat. This is associated with the hearing impairment and the only child. Can't really tell what other people are saying, so I just take up the airwaves in self-defense.

I do quickly spot people who are tearing themselves down and try to engage them about it, but haven't much internal experience that I'm aware of or have much access to. Mommy issues, sure. Parents assumed I was a genius (not quite) but also kneecapped me continually whenever I showed actual promise (not their fault; they had horrendous upbringings). I suppose I've internalized that too well to be able to see it properly in the moment.

Have you found yourself in situations in which you become ill in unfamiliar circumstances or surroundings? How did you deal with that? (Likewise, carers, have there been instances in which you have needed to deal with this and the emotions it invoked in the person you are caring for?)

Yes. I have, apparently, seizures that mimic eschemic cardio events in the right-side carotid artery. When this happens in public I stand there frozen and bystanders think I'm having a stroke. Tests have not shown any cause. I also collapsed once due to post-surgery trauma in an airport, and collapsed at my desk at work with a failing gall bladder/pancreas. Other people around at these times were competent and took charge. I always felt, deep inside, rather calm and peaceful and grateful at these times, and once told a nurse, when it was touch and go, that I'd had a good life and had no regrets.

Here's a podcast where a dying mom talks with her grieving son about these things; it conveys it better: http://www.duncantrussell.com/episod.../my-mom-part-2

gassho
ds sat and a bit of lah today

[Kokuu]

Two months ago he said, "You don't need me anymore. We will stop your therapy and meet every six or eight weeks. I exclaimed, "But, I need you!" "Yes you have a serious mental illness, so we will check that before anything starts." He allows me compassion no other therapist has ever granted. This is my Buddhism. This is my behavior now.

This sounds like a lovely relationship, Tai Shi, and I am so glad he overcame his initial resistance to your meditation practice.

I thank our moderators for introducing me to How to Be Sick, a way to understand my father who has lived long enough to realize his own Age and disabilities. His is no longer “put your nose to the grind stone,” but please help me.

Sadly, I think that the only way some people learn to appreciate illness and disability is when then experience it themselves.


Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Kokuu]

I'm trying my best not to beat myself up about whether I'm worthy of it or not. To be honest, conditions aside, I'm also dealing with a breakup that is forcing me to be kinder to myself. That said, it's still an uphill climb due to the many decades of not considering myself good enough for self-care. Between trauma and mental conditions, it never seemed like something I was attuned for.

Self-compassion these last few weeks has looked like, well, being at rest. Allowing myself the space to feel whatever it is I'm feeling at the time without spiraling, latching on, defeatist speech, or audible defamatory talk against myself. I'm the self holding space for the self. It's difficult.

Koushi, reading this and the rest of your comment, it sounds like you are doing the hard stuff right now. Allowing yourself the space to feel is really important but by no means easy.

Now I just do my best to allow myself room to feel whatever's going on without adding talk or thoughts to it. So for example, instead of beating myself up right now about a "failed" relationship, going over all my faults, spiraling in heartbreak — I'm just feeling the physical manifestation of heartbreak and letting it swirl and ebb and flow. When it settles, I might journal about things, but until then I'm just allowing. Giving up the resistance.

This sounds perfect although, again, I am sure is by no means easy.

I am glad that you do feel that you can leave when you are too uncomfortable or just can't do it. I have always found the part of disappointing people to be hard but, as you say, it is a process and learning to put our own health first is not something that comes easily to many people.

Thank you for sharing here. I am sorry for your breakup.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Onka]

How easy do you find self-compassion? Do you have any ‘stories’ around it in terms of whether you are worthy of it or not? What does self-compassion look like for you?

I find self-compassion extremely difficult. Having been born unwell and with a number of physical disabilities and (undiagnosed at the time) Autism and ADHD I felt like a burden in our working class household. I was acutely aware that my parents struggled financially and I knew that the seemingly never ending surgeries placed a lot of strain on them. Add to this my (what I now know to be) Autistic and ADHD meltdowns which got me in trouble at home, school, at sporting clubs, in the neighbourhood and later in places of employment, there were pretty good reasons why I felt like a burden. This is a label I've placed on myself more than have had thrust upon me. Labels that were thrust upon me were much more damaging. I have tried to somewhat alleviate or balance out failings by being active in some form or other in volunteer work within the community but of course being "different" or "intense" provides challenges in this realm of life too.
Self-compassion to me looks, sounds and feels like it would feel peaceful. I'd do almost anything to experience the feeling of peace or a mere moment of freedom from pain.

How do you talk to yourself if you are going through a hard time? Would you speak the same way to a friend? Do you have ways of dealing with your inner critic? (For carers do you notice how the person you care for talks to themselves about difficult situations? Do you have ways of helping them with any issues around this?)

I am terribly hard on myself in the language I use on myself. I wouldn't necessarily use the negative put downs I use on myself, on a friend. In saying that I will and have used extremely aggressive language when trying to get my friend who lives a Bipolar life to either get her arse out of bed when her parents have called me exasperated when she was hitting a particularly low low. I've also used aggressive language to help manage her when she's in a manic state. Getting her to hospital can be particularly difficult and she (like me) would not respond well to police intervention.
I'm getting better at challenging my inner critic... kinda. The challenge is to be fast enough to intervene with the word "nin" before the self-loathing and focusing on limitations rather than abilities kicks in. But hey, Practice takes practice.
Putting my carer hat on, my partner internalises everything so I need to watch for changes in her demeanour and then start chipping away until the tears flow openly. Her self talk is mostly around "it's not fair" and particularly at her increasing physical limitations, as well as diminished cognitive ability. As a carer but more so a partner I need to let her continue to try whatever she wants, knowing that failure is inevitable, and be there to pick up the pieces and build her up again. I'm not convinced I've expressed this well enough but it's all more than a bit exhausting and overwhelming if I pause too long to think about it.

Have you found yourself in situations in which you become ill in unfamiliar circumstances or surroundings? How did you deal with that? (Likewise, carers, have there been instances in which you have needed to deal with this and the emotions it invoked in the person you are caring for?)

I don't become ill in unfamiliar circumstances or surroundings but I can very easily become overwhelmed or overstimulated. I remove myself from such situations, often without thinking about the social etiquette involved. Pain prevents me from being social as my threshold seems to be no more than around 20 minutes. As my partner can no longer drive, my threshold is often used up driving her to her medical appointments. As for my partner herself, if she has to wait for any kind of time her pain levels rise and may take many days to level out again. She also overheats very easily and this causes her to become very very sick and even puts her at risk of passing out. I could go on and on (not that I haven't) but it's safe to say that every single day takes an immense amount of planning but that planning can't happen until we both wake up that day because we don't know what each other is going to be capable of that particular day until we do wake up.
We both get bummed regularly that we can't do a lot of anything, are living fairly isolated, have no familial support, external support or many people we can call friends, but we build each other up and somehow always get through each day.

gassho
onka
st

[Tai Shi]

How to be Sick – Chapter 8, part one (p61-69)

With the pandemic on, my (partner) wife/ best friend. So, what do yo want to call the person you’ve spent more than half your life with. We met and I was 27, now I am 69. I have chronic pain. The arthritis is inside me. You can’t see it. You can’t tell that at one time I was 5’8” and now I’m 5’61/2” yes because of my disease I’m shorter. All that stuff between bones which keeps your spine from feeling shock. Well it isn’t there for me. As far as we can tell the damage has leveled off and left me shorter and in pain almost every waking minute. Then there’s the bipolar. It started showing up when I was in HS with temper and acting out. But I was pretty smart so I wizzed through to graduate and go to college oh most of this history junk can be found somewhere on the Zendo. Rightb now at this moment I am the most content I have been all day. I’m not hungry or thirsty and I don’t need much. The cat is sprawled on a brown comforter while my knees form a warm bed for her. She is large as cats go and needy. I’m a bit needy myself. I’m not crazy that was one of those important things I learned in the last 10 years.I like to see it go’s way “You might think I’m crazy, but I only have bipolar disorder lol, lol. So to most people, they couldn’t tell you the difference between BP type 1 or schizophrenia and just say ah that mental case. Or that sick o or that pervert. I’ve heard them all. It does t much matter. I’m old and a computer printer and device. I
Can print from my email. So all I need is a phone and a printer. Words adhere to any electronic surface. Word processor. Typed work. Words have been fashioned into my most useful tool. This is what I found. At best words saved me. At worst, words condemned me. Write about it, on ward B of those Behavioral Health Hospitals, that’s what they tell you. “Go write about it. Quit bugging us and go write about it.” That’s
Exactly what they mean. You are all locked up with a double lock system, and you are all out here in the middle of nowhere so quit bugging them because you are crazy! I hate mental wards. The food is bad, and the Techs act a certain way. Ah, can’t trust what anyone tells you. Just keep your mouth shut and they’ll let you go eventually,
Gassho
sat/ TainShi


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Kokuu]

Add to this my (what I now know to be) Autistic and ADHD meltdowns which got me in trouble at home, school, at sporting clubs, in the neighbourhood and later in places of employment, there were pretty good reasons why I felt like a burden. This is a label I've placed on myself more than have had thrust upon me. Labels that were thrust upon me were much more damaging. I have tried to somewhat alleviate or balance out failings by being active in some form or other in volunteer work within the community but of course being "different" or "intense" provides challenges in this realm of life too.
Self-compassion to me looks, sounds and feels like it would feel peaceful. I'd do almost anything to experience the feeling of peace or a mere moment of freedom from pain.

I think it is hard not to pick up some of those labels and feelings, especially when many of them are prevalent in society. I was talking with a Zen friend recently who has mental health issues and is also actively aware when the system is failing people. We both observed that a lot of the media operates a system in which they are very good at talking about mental health awareness, yet at the same time sees many of the circumstances that are a factor in poor mental health (poverty, location, ethnicity) to be either a personal failing or non-existent.

You seem to be very good at having compassion for others, Onka,and working to support them. However, it has long been observed that the hardest part of metta and tonglen practice for many people is including the self as a sentient being of equal worth to other sentient beings.

Putting my carer hat on, my partner internalises everything so I need to watch for changes in her demeanour and then start chipping away until the tears flow openly. Her self talk is mostly around "it's not fair" and particularly at her increasing physical limitations, as well as diminished cognitive ability. As a carer but more so a partner I need to let her continue to try whatever she wants, knowing that failure is inevitable, and be there to pick up the pieces and build her up again.

I think this is so hard to do and all of you here who are carers have my utmost respect. We cannot protect people from their own thoughts and instead have to be the support, allowing them to try new things rather than cut off hope, even if we think that it will end in tears. Seeing that suffering play out without being able to control it seems to me to be harder than when we experience it ourselves. I know as a parent that this is the case for me.

Thank you for expressing your practice so honestly as ever, Onka.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Kokuu]

Rightb now at this moment I am the most content I have been all day. I’m not hungry or thirsty and I don’t need much. The cat is sprawled on a brown comforter while my knees form a warm bed for her. She is large as cats go and needy. I’m a bit needy myself.

Ah, we all have needs but I don't know if that makes us needy! That sounds like a lovely scene and it is wonderful you are finding contentment, Tai Shi, even with all that you go through mentally and physically.

I hope that today is a good day.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-