Colette Lafia

It is 8:30 in the morning, and I am late again leaving for work. All I want is some breathing room but the minutes are ticking away as I drink my last sips of black tea with milk and then wash the breakfast dishes.

I find myself thinking: I just want some breathing room. And I am acutely aware that I need to be at work in half an hour, and it takes 18 minutes to drive there. How was I going to get some  space inside myself?

A few tried and tre practices did help in the moment: I didn’t rush, and in fact, I slowed down a little. A friend once told me about this secret: when  you feel rushed, slow down. It’s amazing advice and it works! Not rushing takes the edge off.  It was a little better.

As I drove to work, I didn’t talk on the cell phone or listen to music. The silence also makes some space for more breathing room inside myself. It was a little better.

When I got to work, after I settled in, I sat still in my chair and quietly concentrated on the rhythm of my breathing, of the in-breath and the out-breath — just for a few minutes. It was a little better.

Lately, I’ve noticed that there usually isn’t a big action to take to alleviate the pressure that begins to build up inside of me. It’s usually small actions that really help. Ones I can take in the moment. And not waiting until I’m sitting on a beach in Hawaii, which in my case isn’t going to happen any time soon. What’s more important is for me to find little ways to release the build up along the way.

Recently, I went to a meditation retreat, and after a day I wanted to leave. I noticed that with each meditation session, I felt more strained, rather than relaxed, which was the reason I went on the retreat in the first place. I noticed I was getting restless with myself, as I tried to sit in meditation, focus on my breath, and be still.

My mind rolled around in judgment that things weren’t going well, and the more I tried to get it right, the more things went awry. My lungs were tired from concentrating on controlling my breath, as I kept trying to stop the constant chatter in my mind by focusing harder on my breathing.

Finally, by the end of the day, I went out for a long walk, and decided to call my husband on the cell phone. “You’re stretching yourself,” he reminded me. He was right. I went on the retreat to push past my current limitations and to step into some unknown territory. I hit against my own wall. I was trying too hard. I was trying to control my experience.

I knew that going on a retreat that involved many hours of daily meditation, although optional, would present challenges, and there I was encountering them — my resistance, my restless, my judgment.

Fortunately, the next morning I was able to have a conversation with the retreat teacher about what was happening. I shared with him how I noticed how much effort I was exerting in meditation, in forcing my breath, rather than receiving it. My breath felt strained. I was growing weary. I was trying too hard.

His advice: Relax in the practice. Let go.

This strained effort was symbolic of how I was living my life right now. Clutching. Looking to attain results instead of honoring the experience.  Demanding from myself — even to relax and to let go. Force. Will power. Excessive effort. These would not work here. But what?

“No one can tell you how to let go,” said the meditation teacher, “but you’ll know when you are there.” His insight: I could not use the kind of strained effort I had been using to reach a place of letting go inside myself.

My insight: I didn’t need to pressure myself to figure this out and get it right. I could lean into Divine support. So I prayed for the grace to let go, for the gift to breathe with ease. I realized that I didn’t have to make anything happen. I could allow my breath to enter me. I could receive my breath. I could trust. One breath at a time.

I sat on my meditation cushion. Receiving the breath. Not trying to breathe. Thoughts wandered in and out of the revolving door of my mind, but now with less forcefulness. At moments, I was even allowing the thoughts to breath through me,  letting the chaos and scattered feelings come and go, in between slices of stillness.

I chose to trust that I would find my way. It’s a daily journey.

What do you need to let go of so that you can breathe with more ease?

Last week, I took a day off and participated in a workshop entitled: A Day of Rest. The workshop was focused on how we allow ourselves or don’t allow ourselves to rest in our lives. The concept of rest was not related to sleep, but rather to a state of being and not doing. It used the notion of the Sabbath as the focal point. Traditionally, the Sabbath is a day of rest, a time out from being productive and a time to restore ourselves. The ideas of  Wayne Muller were incorporated into the workshop. In an article on the importance of returning to the practice of the Sabbath, Muller says:

Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We miss the compass points that show us where to go. We lose the nourishment that gives us succor. We miss the quiet that gives us wisdom. Poisoned by the hypnotic belief that good things come only through tireless effort, we never truly rest. And for want of rest, our lives are in danger.

I have come to realize that I need to re-learn how to rest. Somehow, I have lost my way. Perhaps it goes as far back as childhood, when I was always being called on to help around the house. The idea of sitting around and doing nothing was never allowed. We always had to be helping and productive.

This workshop was poignant for me because in the midst of my sleeping disorder and struggle with insomnia for the past two years, I have had to face my relationship to rest. It’s hard for me to accept rest, when I am craving sleeping. It’s hard for me to accept rest, when I have such little free time to pursue my own interests outside of work. There’s a tension for me with my time, and in truth, I am craving more time for myself and my own interests. And now, I am facing the truth of having limited energy because of my sleep disorder, which is tough to deal with. Where does this leave me, I wonder?

The idea of rest is compelling, because I am tired, but Muller is inviting me into a deeper relationship with rest, a spiritual relationship. For the Sabbath is a spiritual tradition. It is a day to honor and remember our relationship to the Divine. It’s about letting go of my agenda, my need to be productive, and to allow for a different sense of time, a time that is not defined by accomplishing everything on my to-do list. It’s even about letting go of my exhaustion and my craving for more sleep.

Can we allow ourselves to enter into sacred rest?

Acceptance is a practice. Yesterday, I left work and I could feel that I was exploding with restlessness and non-acceptance. So many times throughout the day I just wanted to walk up the stairs and out the doors of the school where I work as a school librarian. I like my job, but sometimes, I want to be free and not have the responsibility.

It has been raining all week, and finally there was a break in the weather, so I decided to take a long walk after work through the park and out to the ocean. As I walked swiftly with the wind sweeping around me, I could feel the intensity of my stormy energy  pumping through me. The tendency to be consumed by negative emotions is a strong pull in my psyche. How could I break the cycle?

Walking was the first step. As I walked, I prayed not to get sucked into the vortex of my habit thinking — with thoughts such as “I’ve amounted to nothing,” or “My whole life is about doing what I have to do and not what I want to do.”  To break the cycle, I began listing all the things I was grateful for: the fact that I had a job, time to walk in the park, the homemade soup I had for lunch, my sister to talk to on the telephone. 

Finally, I reached the ocean. The water was roaring from the storm, and the waves were pounding on the shore. I allowed the intensity of the sound to fill my entire being. Yes, I was feeling a storm inside of me. I was raging like the sea. And in that moment, the sun broke free from behind the clouds. Ah, the sun. Yes. Sunshine follows rain.

I went home, took a bath, and just gave myself the patience and acceptance for my stormy feelings, trusting that the sunshine will follow the rain in my heart.

Acceptance — this is the theme that is emerging for me as the new year begins.

There are certain things in my life that just need to be accepted, and not with a sense of defeat or disappointment. Not accepting some major aspects of my life does weigh down my spirit. I can feel it.

But this lack of acceptance is so deeply set into my psyche that to change it will take effort and surrender. The effort comes in identifying the patterns and habits of thought, and the surrender comes in letting go and accepting what is.

My mother had surgery at the end of last year to have a rod placed in her collapased femur. She is recovering slowly and is now home, where she can move around with the aid of a walker. Fortunately, she has a wonderful woman helping her with her daily chores and maintenance.

When I visited her over Christmas break, she looked good, but I was confronted with the truth of accepting what is. My mother is healing, but her mobility will be limited. She is an 85 year old woman. It’s hard to see, and it’s hard to accept. My mother was not available to us during our childhood because of attending college, addiction to alcohol, and other preoccupations. In many ways, I have been waiting for her to be my mother my whole life, and now it’s at this stage.

I have arrived here, with my aging mother doing her best to handle a difficult situation, and the need for me to either accept what is or to live in denial. How do you accept something that has brought so much pain and disappointment into your life? How do you begin to remember the story of love and forgiveness that also did exist?

I don’t have a quick answers here. I am praying for acceptance. I am paying attention to how acceptance wants to take refuge in my heart and find room to live in me.

What does acceptance look like, feel like, and act like in my life today?

I woke up this morning thinking about the gratitude workshop I am giving tomorrow. I have had a tremendously busy week at work and I was feeling overloaded. After I dropped my husband at the bus stop, I decided to go home and sit still for awhile, instead of rushing around running errands. I could tell that I was bursting at the seams and just needed to stop.

I have a chair in my bedroom that I reserve for just plain sitting. In this space, I usually light a candle, sit in the chair, and let myself settle down. I might quietly concentrate on my breath to come into the present moment more or read a passage from an inspirational book. The most important thing I find is to just stop. Stop doing.

As I am sitting, I slowly begin to feel my back against the chair, and I connect more gently with my breath. Here, I can ask myself some important questions and listen to the answers that are inside of me just waiting for some space to come out.

It is now mid-morning. It is lightly raining. I am now sitting at my dining room table and I am ready to plan my workshop. We are like nature, in need of periods of rest and activity. The rain is a wonderful reminder of the natural pace: when it’s time to rain, it rains.

It’s amazing how just a short exercise like sitting still can have such a profound effect — it calmed me down and created some opening inside of me to continue doing what I need to do today. There is such a power in stopping and sitting still. You might want to try it today — even fifteen minutes of stopping, slowing down, and sitting still can work wonders.

These days I am returning to the practice of gratitude in a more conscious way. I know I’ve written about this before, but gratitude is an inexhaustible source of inspiration and comfort. So, I picked up my copy of Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer by Brother David Steindl-Rast, and began reading it again. The first chapter is full of good stuff — did you ever stop to consider that the trees, the ocean, the sky, and everything that sustains our lives are pure and absolute gifts.

But let’s be honest, it’s easy to lose track of gratitude, in the demands of work, the fatigue of the body and the spirit, and the constant feeling of pressure over time, money, and other concerns. So how do we keep ourselves encouraged? By finding ways to remember and practice gratitude through the day.

I have been listening to a CD by Angeles Arrien called Gratitude. I listen to it on the way to work, and it sets the tone for my day, by helping me to remain open to giving and receiving gratitude throughout the course of my day. I’ve been practicing this in the hard moments, too, and it’s helping. When I wake up in the morning, even after a difficult night’s sleep, I take a moment to be grateful for the sleep I did receive. When I’m rushing at work, I take a moment to be grateful for my lunch.

Recently, my mother fell and needed to get hip surgery. After the shock and fear of the situation, I found a way to be grateful for the good care she was receiving. Again and again, we face so many situations that we can’t change in the moment, but we can change our response to them. A few hours after the surgery, my mother said to us, “I’m so grateful.” She was grateful to be alive, for the surgery to have gone well, and for having us around to comfort and support her.

After hearing about all the benefits of practicing gratitude, such as increased happiness, less anxiety, greater motivation, and more contentment, I decided to engage in a very basic practice that I had heard about so many times: keeping a gratitude journal. It’s really simple. Every day, I write five things I’m grateful for. I can write in the morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s been almost three weeks, and I am beginning to notice that the practice is helping me to recognize and acknowledge the gifts in my daily life — in work, in relationships, and all around me. I am committed to keeping my gratitude journal for now and see what happens.

Meister Eckhart, the German philosopher of the 13th century, said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

Several readers have inquired recently about the title of “spiritual director” after my name. My posts mostly reflect my own orientation to finding spirit, or the divine, in everyday life. And that’s mostly what I try to do. But spiritual direction is an actual discipline, although not confined to one religion or denomination; but rather it is a type of counseling that supports one’s relationship to, and engagement with, the divine. I graduated from a three-year program in Spiritual Direction from Mercy Center, in Burlingame, Ca.

I never planned on becoming a spiritual director. It was never something that was foremost on my mind. I was busy trying to write children’s picture-book manuscripts, working hard at a educational non-profit in the City, and trying to start a family. It was ultimately my need to surrender to what I couldn’t control that led me on the path to my spiritual deepening.

But I will say there has been a thread of spiritual consciousness throughout my life. My parents were both spiritual, and were perhaps the first wave of Catholics to embrace eastern meditation as part of their spiritual practice. They visited Japan and experimented with meditation long before it became mainstream.

My mother is herself a spiritual director, and also an early graduate of the Mercy Center program. She is 85 yrs old and still devoted to helping others in their spiritual journey. My father, who passed away a year ago, was himself a man who, in his later years, was able to see his life through a spiritual lens.

What my parents both taught me was that our relationship to the divine is a journey. I don’t pretend to have any extra or special insight myself, but I am deeply interested in the landscape of this journey — both my own, and the people who I counsel, either individually, or in groups.

My father was a big believer in depositing funds in what he called his “spiritual bank account,” because he believed that one way or another, at some point, we all come to the realization that the spiritual dimension of our lives is just as important as our physical or ego-centered dimension. This is the orientation that I’ve inherited, and each day, I struggle with the movement towards, and away, from my spiritual center.

I Googled ’spiritual direction’ recently and was led to Wikipedia. I was pleasantly surprised to see that spiritual direction had found a place in the mainstream.

Wikipedia defines spiritual direction as follows:
Spiritual direction is the practice of being with people as they attempt to deepen their relationship with the divine, or to learn and grow in their own personal spirituality. The person seeking direction shares stories of his or her encounters of the divine, or how he or she is experiencing spiritual issues. The director listens and asks questions to assist the directee in his or her process of reflection and spiritual growth. Spiritual direction develops a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human. It is not psychotherapy, counseling, or financial planning. The training for spiritual direction focuses on the art of listening. In fact, at the heart of most relationships is the need to develop the ability to listen.

I’m listening to myself right now. One of the challenges in daily life is finding enough quiet to hear oneself. Try driving without the radio on some time. Try being silent for an hour. See what is stirring within you. That is the voice of the divine. Follow the scent, open your heart.

The Power of Love

My sister died of breast cancer thirteen years ago, leaving a six-year old daughter at the time.  After several years, her father remarried and decided to return to his native country.  My niece ending up moving away and living abroad since she was nine years old. Over the years, I have managed to stay in touch with her and every year on her birthday I call her.

This year she turned nineteen, and we were able talk through Skype, which is a way of talking via the internet. It’s amazing, really, and we ended up talking across the globe for 2 1/2 hours. I was sitting at my dining table in San Francisco, and she was sitting in her dorm room in college, in Jordan, studying for a chemistry test.  At one point, she turned on the camera that was hooked up to her computer, and I could see her.

It was a strange moment. I could see her. The shape and color of her hair, her smile, her laughter, her hands moving across her face as she straightened her glasses.  She had a striking resemblance to our side of the family. At one point, she even stood up and I could see her form and figure. It was incredible. I could almost reach out and touch her.

Seeing her image only intensified our conversation, and brought her even more to life for me. On one hand, speaking with her was poignant, and afterward I couldn’t help but remember the sadness and loss of my sister’s tragic death. It was an event that shook my world forever, and of course, changed the course of my niece’s life forever. Loss is an integral part of the human of condition, and yet it always leaves me feeling vulnerable.  My father once said, “Be grateful you can have such feelings of loss, because it means you loved deeply.”

When I finally said goodbye to my niece, my heart was overflowing with love. We were able to talk about so many things, her challenges with college, the loss of her mother, her traveling experiences, and the need for faith and hope in life. I realized, once again, that love is the strongest positive force between people. It transcends loss, and fear, and wraps our vulnerability in strength and courage.

This week, I spent time in a kindergarten classroom, helping the teacher get the students into the new routine. It’s amazing to be reminded of all the things children need to learn in kindergarten — waiting one’s turn, listening to directions, sharing the building blocks, and so much more.

There was one little boy in particular who was having a hard time following the routine and the teacher’s directions. When I would tell him to sit down, he would look at me and say no. What was I going to do? I decided to look to the teacher for clues on ways she was handling the four and five year old children. She was firm but gentle. Her gentleness had an quality of peacefulness to it, and the children reacted positively to it. And so for the rest of the morning, I was firm but gentle with the boy, and I noticed that the more I responded to him with gentleness, the more responsive he became.

I thought about the qualities of gentleness — encouraging, trusting, and soothing. I needed gentleness and so did the people around me. I started to realize that so many situation would benefit from gentleness. When I couldn’t sleep at night, could I be gentle with myself? When my husband was tired at the end of the day, could I be gentle with him? When my sister cried about being lonely, could I be gentle with her?

Can we bring more gentleness in our daily life, in the ways we respond and treat both ourselves and others?