Patricia Pearce

Helping You Be the Change

The Gift of Surrender

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When have you surrendered to something you could no longer fight?

Many years ago my spouse and I took a vacation in the Ozarks during an unusually warm spell in late December. One day, since it was so mild, we decided to go canoeing. We located a canoe rental place and one of the employees loaded the canoe in his truck and drove us up river.

Just as he was dropping us off, he told us that nobody had canoed down since the severe floods that had come through earlier that year, so there might be debris in the river. His warning made me uneasy because, although my husband had experience canoeing, it was my first time.

We got our canoe into the water–I managed to climb in without tipping it over–and once we set out my anxiety began to lift. It was a gorgeous day and I was enjoying paddling along with the gentle current. We came on a few mild rapids that made the ride a bit more exciting, but for the most part  the river was tranquil.

We came to a bend in the river where it forked around a small island. Because the riverbank obstructed our view of the left fork and the island obstructed our view of the right we couldn’t see which side was the better to take, so we just took a chance and steered to the left.

Just as we came around the bend, we saw that there was a fallen tree blocking most of the channel. We both started paddling as hard as we could to get the canoe far enough over to the right to clear the tree, and for a moment it looked like we were going to make it. The bow and I cleared the snag but the back of the canoe didn’t. A branch caught my husband in the chest, and we capsized.

We grabbed the canoe and were dragging it toward the island when I saw that my backpack was floating away. I reached out to grab it. The current caught me and started carrying me downstream.

I tried as hard as I could to swim to the shore, but the current was too strong. Even though it was a mild day, it was December and the frigid water saturated my jeans, my parka, my shoes. It flowed beneath my clothing, against my bare skin. I was frantic. As the river carried me further and further downstream, I knew there was a very real possibility I could die.

I couldn’t fight the current. It was simply stronger than I was. So eventually I did the only thing I could do. I let the river have me. I surrendered.

Just as I surrendered, the most profound peace came over me. I was awestruck at the beauty surrounding me–the rolling landscape, the bare trees, the blue sky, the music of the water lapping against my body. “I might die,”I thought, “but this is so beautiful!”

It was a moment of revelation for me. My circumstances were just as dire as they had been a moment before, but by surrendering to them my panic had instantly shifted into a profound peace.

Eventually there was a piece of land jutting out into the river that I managed to grab hold of and I was able to climb ashore, and though what happened next is a story unto itself, with its own lesson that perhaps I’ll tell about some other time, for now I am letting myself revisit the deep peace that came upon me in that moment of complete surrender.

As I look back over my life I can safely say that the most significant spiritual moments I have ever had have not come as a result of my striving, but as a result of my surrendering. It makes me wonder if people in our society often feel spiritually unfulfilled because surrender is not something we are taught to do. We idolize the fighters and disdain the “quitters.” But there are times when quitting is the only sane choice.

Buddhists call this surrender to what is non-resistance. The Tao te Ching speaks of it as yielding. Jesus spoke of it as giving oneself over to the divine will. This willingness to let go–so terrifying to the ego–is at the heart of all spiritual life.

Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote the prayer which was made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous. Known as the Serenity Prayer, the first four lines are the most familiar:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I appreciate the insight in Niebuhr’s prayer because it articulates the dance we do as humans. Sometimes we need to do what is required to correct circumstances that need correcting. But oftentimes the harder thing is to surrender to that which is.

In my experience though, it isn’t serenity that makes me able to accept the things that I cannot change. Serenity is what comes when I do.

 

Home Field Advantage

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Are you in need of cheering?

Along with a lot of other people in the country I’ve been thinking about football lately, though not for the same reasons as most everybody else. If the truth be told, I don’t even know which teams are still in the running for the Super Bowl.

What I’ve been thinking about, rather than teams’ records and the playoff results, is home field advantage.

Everybody knows that teams stand a higher chance of winning when they’re playing at home where the stands are filled with people who want them to succeed and are yelling, ringing cowbells and blowing horns to cheer them on. It’s actually surprising that teams ever manage to win their away games when they are playing in the presence of people who are rooting for their demise. But then, they are a team after all, and at least if every last person in the stands would like nothing more than to see them fall flat on their faces, they still have each other to turn to for encouragement.

In spite of our culture’s cult of individualism that tells us we should all be completely self-reliant, the truth is that most of us play our best game when we are in the company of people who believe in us and who are encouraging us to bring our best selves forth.

It reminds me of geese when they are flying long distances in formation. The lead goose in the V formation has the hardest job because he or she has to fly into the greatest resistance, while the geese behind have it easier because they are able to ride the air currents created by the lead goose. Those following in formation encourage the lead goose by honking, and eventually, when the lead goose gets tired it drops back into the formation and another takes its place to be urged on by the rest of the flock.

I love that image of being followed by a great honking chorus encouraging me on as I fly into the challenge of a difficult task.  I know that kind of affirmation can make all the difference. There have been many times in my life when I could have easily become disheartened and given into weariness and discouragement were it not for the presence of people who believed in me and were cheering me on.  For them I am grateful beyond words.

If you don’t have already have a community of affirmation in your life, can you imagine creating one? Are there people you know who might need you to be part of their honking chorus, calling forth their best efforts and greatest gifts? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, I hope you’ll act on the invitation, because affirmation and encouragement can be just as essential to our success as the talents we have and the visions we hold.

The Art of Being Afraid

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emerald heart on white cloth
When have you done something you were afraid to do?

I used to think that courage was the absence of fear, and I thought courageous people could do brave things because they weren’t afraid of doing them. I have come to see, though, that courage isn’t the absence of fear at all, but the willingness to step into it.

In spite of F.D.R.’s famous injunction, fear is not something to fear. It is a normal, universal human experience. In fact, being afraid of fear only amplifies its effect.

Rather than fearing fear, I have found the most helpful approach is to learn how to be with it, yet not allow it to dictate my actions.

Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, famously said, “Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind—even if your voice shakes.” Maggie’s words exemplify what courage really is: the willingness to feel fear and still do what we must do.

Fear is uncomfortable, which is why we try to avoid it. It makes us feel queasy. Our voice trembles, our hands shake, we sweat. It is not a pleasant experience—and it’s not supposed to be. It is part of our hardwiring, designed to keep us out of harm’s way. It serves a useful evolutionary purpose.

But it can become an obstacle if we allow it to keep us from living into our full potential—from doing something that needs to be done, or speaking a truth that needs to be spoken.

Several years ago, I was on an airplane going to Denver. As the plane began its descent, a woman across the aisle and a couple rows behind me began to hyperventilate, clearly in distress. She told the people around her that she had survived a plane crash. This was the first time she’d flown since, something her therapist had encouraged her to do to help her heal from the trauma.

For most of us, getting on the plane that day had just been a matter of course. For that woman, though, it had been an act of tremendous courage. She may have been hyperventilating and clutching the armrests for all she was worth, but let me tell you, she was the most courageous person on the plane that day. It was her fear that made her so.

As the airplane safely touched down, the passengers around her applauded her for her courage. She was visibly relieved—and also empowered. She had done the very thing she was most afraid of doing.

Sometimes we believe that before we attempt something scary we need to get over our fear of doing it. But that isn’t how it works. We get over our fear by doing the thing we’re afraid to do.

It helps to approach fear like a curious observer, taking note of the physical sensations of being afraid. This engages the witnessing mind that can stand apart from the experience and watch what is happening without being caught in it. The more we observe the physiological effects of fear, the more we discover how similar it is to the physiological sensations of exhilaration. Simply noticing that can help us reframe the experience as something exciting rather than frightful.

Courage comes from the French word for heart, which I find quite beautiful. It suggests to me that courage is the willingness to live our lives guided by the heart regardless of the risks. Just as we do cardiovascular exercises to strengthen our physical heart, we can exercise our heart of courage by incrementally and regularly stepping into our fear.

That way, if we are ever called upon to do a truly daring thing, we will be ready—because we will have mastered the art of being afraid.

Getting to the Roots

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Without its roots the tree will die.

Christmastide is ending today, the twelfth day of Christmas, and this weekend our Christmas tree will be coming down to be recycled. Surprisingly, even though it’s been up for almost three weeks, it is still drinking water and hasn’t yet begun dropping its needles. I know, though, if I left it long enough it would eventually lose the capacity to pull up the moisture it needs to remain supple and green and would begin to turn brittle and brown.

A few years ago, early one Sunday morning in December, I was parking my car near a place in our neighborhood where they sell Christmas trees just as the workers were unloading the trees from their truck and setting them up on the sidewalk to sell. As I watched them, I had a visceral feeling of repulsion. I saw Christmas trees in a way I never had before: as living beings whose bodies had been cut in half. Suddenly this yuletide practice seemed brutal and irrational to me, that we should slaughter trees by amputating them from their roots in order to celebrate a spiritual holiday.

And yet, in spite of my ambivalence about it, we have continued to buy a tree each year not only because we love the beauty of a decorated Christmas tree, but because it helps support the tree farmers in our region who would otherwise be selling their land off to developers. In an ironic way, the slaughter of trees helps save the land. Realizing this strange paradox, I feel enormous gratitude for the tree that stands in our living room, and in my heart I thank it for its sacrifice.

I think we are more like trees than we know. We have an outer, visible aspect of ourselves that everyone can see, the aspect that interacts with the external world and is engaged in activities, and, just like we do with our Christmas trees, we usually take great care to attend to its appearance. But there’s also the inward, hidden part of us that is just as essential to our well being but from which too many of us are cut off. It is the aspect of ourselves that taps into mystery, the unseen dimension out of which the outer being arises. Jungians would speak of it in terms of the unconscious that has access to the archetypal energies that fuel our psyches.

Ours is an externally oriented culture, and seems to be more so than ever now that we have technologies that keep us plugged into the external world 24/7. Trying to live constantly attentive to the external world, though, is like trying to live like a tree cut off from its roots. We lose our connection with something vital and life-giving and, over time, we begin to wither and die.

Some cultures are much wiser than ours about staying connected with their roots. In some cultures, for instance, people wouldn’t dream of starting their day before they’d gathered to talk about the dreams that had visited them at night. They understand that it is the unseen realm of mystery that offers them the wisdom they need to live well, and that only by being rooted in and nourished by that dark, unseen realm can the external self thrive.

People in the Western world might be wising up, though, to the fact that having to be at the beck and call of the external world round the clock is simply unsustainable. Last week, the Volkswagon company made a landmark agreement with their workers’ union that the company’s email servers would shut down after the work day so that workers will no longer receive work messages on their BlackBerries when they are off-duty. Hopefully it’s the beginning of a trend.

They say that a tree’s roots underground are as extensive as the trunk and branches that are visible above ground. Can you imagine how much healthier, happier and stable we would be — individually and collectively — if we lived our lives as balanced as trees do in their natural state, tending to growing our roots as much as we do our outer selves?

 

2012: More Than a New Year

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If the leaders won’t lead, then it’s up to the people.

Well, here we are, embarking on the auspicious year of 2012, the year in which the current cycle (baktun) of the Long Count of the Mayan calendar comes to its conclusion. A lot of people have been speculating for some time about what that means, including some in Hollywood who have cashed in with their own special effects movie about a 2012 apocalypse. (The ancient Mayans would probably get a kick out of that Judeo-Christian overlay onto their tracking of long cycles of time, and our culture’s curious love of End Times scenarios. The Mayan calendar has, after all, gone through a dozen of these cycles before and the world is still here.)

Mayan calendar or not, I think it is true that we are reaching the culmination of a cycle and that the beginning of something new is at hand. Far from dreading it, though, we ought to be popping the champagne bottles and dancing our welcome to the changes on the horizon because, quite frankly, it’s about time. As we come to grips with the consequences of several centuries of exploitation — including devastating exploitation of the Earth — most everyone recognizes that we won’t be doing “business as usual” for much longer if we want to have a life-supporting planet to live on.Continue Reading

Jumping to New Year’s Conclusions

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What future do you want to imagine?

I am not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions even though I am a firm believer in the power of setting intentions and visions for the future. That’s why my practice, when the year rolls to a close, is not to make a list of “shoulds” for the upcoming year, but to jump ahead and imagine what it is I want to be celebrating a year from now.

I take out a pen and paper and write a letter of thanks to the Universe for all that has come to pass in the year ahead, as though the coming year were not commencing, but concluding. The more I write, the more I can feel myself entering into the reality that I am envisioning. Then, when the new year begins, I feel as though my dreams have already come to pass and all I have to do is cooperate and do my part to let them express themselves.

My New Year’s practice draws on the wisdom of Jesus, that great guru of imagination and intention, who said that whenever we pray for something, we should believe we have already received it and it will be ours. It is our willingness to receive what we ask for, without reservation or resistance, that makes all the difference.Continue Reading

Returning Light

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Do you ever doubt that the light will return?

Some years back we had a lot of rewiring done in our house, which was a huge project. For days on end, the house was crawling with electricians pulling wires through walls, and installing outlets and switches. The basement ceiling looked like a rat’s nest of conduit and copper. To a layperson’s eye it looked like complete chaos, and the work just seemed to go on and on.

One day, just as I was beginning to wonder if this would ever end, our electrician comforted us by saying, “It always looks the worst right before it’s done.” And sure enough, in a couple of days the chaos settled into an orderly array that magically lit up the house with the flip of a switch.

That experience came to my mind probably because tonight is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year for us in the northern hemisphere. Although I love the long nights, I realize that a lot of people don’t. The season seems bleak and depressing to them and they long for the return of the light.Continue Reading

What You See Is What You Get

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Decades ago when I was first learning to drive, one of the first things my driving instructor cautioned me about as soon as I got behind the wheel was that I would instinctively drive towards wherever I was looking. His words of warning have stayed with me over the years not only as an instruction for driving, but as an instruction for living.

One of the challenges we face in our society is that we are constantly bombarded by the news media with stories of catastrophe and violence that draw our attention towards an image of a world fraught with danger. Sure there is danger, that’s part of life. But there is also exquisite beauty, miraculous possibilities, innumerable instances of goodwill, heroic compassion, and just simple kindness.Continue Reading