Rejection Fear and Five Elements Acupuncture

I wrote in the past about my old teacher’s theory that we are all consciously avoiding one of three fears - rejection, worthlessness or abandonment. In that post I mentioned that some people have trouble distinguishing their conscious fear because all three are valid fears that they’ve experienced at one time in their life or another. The key to locating your conscious fear is recognizing the habit pattern you play out repeatedly to avoid one of those three feelings. For myself, i had zero problem diagnosing myself as rejection fear.

The feeling of being ousted or unwelcome by a person, place or situation where I had once felt welcomed, loved and supported is just the worst feeling for me. I will do Olympic level feats of mind, emotion and body to avoid experiencing this feeling.

The first time I came back to Paris after having lived here as my home for three months, I cringed at every single experience of feeling more like a tourist than a resident. Needing to stay at a hostel for a few days instead of an apartment just felt like I was living in a cardboard box outside my home. And the more I saw it this way, the more I steeped myself in this feeling. Eventually, circumstances worked me out of the feeling. But I never really learned how to work myself out of the feeling.

A few weeks ago, back in Philly, I met an acupuncturist (Doren Day) at a healers networking event and she talked a little bit about her specific type of acupuncture - five elements. This type focuses on the main element that the person seems to be unbalanced in and treats that, rather than the symptoms. The idea was really interesting to me and after more conversation we set up a trade.

Doren suggested doing Medical Qi Gong on me with a little bit of Zero Balancing. I had a good sense of her intuition and skill as a healer, so I was all for whatever modality she wanted to use. In the session, she located a block between the heart and the spleen. This block is exactly in the place that I have felt energy stuck for a really long time. She said that it was in part due to a repeated emotional trauma in childhood and in part due to the perception that was created in that trauma. Which is very much in line with the Buddhist idea of how habit patterns are created. There is an initial trauma and then the ego/mind perpetuates it in a kind of ham-fisted effort to ‘fix’ that initial trauma. ‘Fix it’ by repeating it over and over and over again.

Awesome. Thanks, ego/mind.

I left the session feeling really clear and grounded energetically. But I also knew that I had homework to do beyond the qi gong exercises that can keep this meridian channel clear. I had to work on the mental perception that paired up with this energy and played ping pong back and forth in the space between my heart and solar plexus.

I knew, in part, that this repeated emotional trauma had to do with my experience of being one of six kids. One of six kids of parents who were young and incredibly stressed out and overburdened by regular life and paying bills. During my early childhood, their individual thresholds for any kind of emotional disturbance was incredibly low. Being human, they were often impatient with the problems and emotional hurts I brought to them for attention and healing. Being incredibly overwhelmed, I was sometimes answered with irritation when I came to them and expressed a need or source of pain.

That is the energetic imprint that was blocking the heart and spleen. The mental one is what my ego/mind did with their response. My little four year old self decided that it was my needs and pains that were the problem and so I had to deal with them myself - hide them almost. And so I developed a habit very early on of being hurt and adapting that old ‘mind over matter’, ‘stiff upper lip’ ‘don’t rock the boat’ mentality.

It was the way my ego decided to avoid the feeling of rejection that came when I brought a pain or need to a loved one and felt that I was wrong for doing so, wrong for needing help or comfort, wrong for expressing myself.

The ego will tell me that this is how to avoid suffering. In Paris three years ago, it told me to avoid coming back here and not put myself in the position of wanting to be at home in a place that didn’t seem to allow my need for a reliable internet signal, a bedroom of my own and a key to a place where I could leave all my stuff instead of bungling through the metro like a pack-mule.

A few weeks ago, when I was getting ready to come back to Paris for three months and I couldn’t find an affordable sublet, my ego told me the same thing. Nepal is nice, why not go to Nepal? You’ve never felt at home there so you can’t feel rejected! I caved for a moment, planned weeks in Spain and Marseilles, but there is that part of me that will always want to feel at home in Paris. And eventually Paris won out, or won two thirds of the three months. But here I am, in Paris for four days before heading to Spain. Here I am at a hostel with bags that weigh more than I’d like to carry around with me, searching for a wifi signal.

I decided to do some research on the spleen. I get the heart part of this blockage, but what’s the deal with the spleen? I had already read that it supports the heart in the cycle of chi through the body. But what does it do individually?

Turns out its ‘element’ in five elements acupuncture is Earth, which is about nurturing. The kind of nurturing that comes from paying attention to your body’s needs but also your emotional needs. It can become unbalanced if this nurturing isn’t felt in childhood. And the mental perception that we don’t deserve nurturing keeps it unbalanced. The emotion associated with the Spleen is sympathy and understanding. In my case, this information was really interesting. I tend to be pretty good at understanding other people and sympathizing/empathizing with them.
And then I kept reading -

'As well as the ability to express sympathy toward others, however, we must be able to receive it, too. It is necessary that others understand how and when we hurt, that others know what we are going through. When a child is in pain, it calls immediately for its mother, the source for sympathy and understanding. But with an Earth imbalance, the need for sympathy can become excessive and insatiable; or, in its opposite manifestation, sympathy may be completely absent. We all know people from whom we can expect no compassion, regardless of circumstance. And there are also those who cannot receive sympathy or help at all - the sort who say, "No, I can do it myself.” '

Ahh, that last sentence is me, especially as a child. I thought that if needing understanding and compassion was the problem, then NOT needing it must be a good thing! If I can take care of myself completely, then I won’t be rejected.

The problem is, especially then, but even now, I can’t take care of myself completely. I need others to understand me and be compassionate toward me. I’ve kinda dug myself into a hole though, because in the years of trying to not need any help, I often have difficulty recognizing when I need nurturing. I am notorious for forgetting to eat. I never drink enough water. When my feelings are hurt I tend to withdrawal rather than express that pain. And when I come out of my cocoon, the hurt is not healed and soothed, it’s just quieter.

This afternoon, while I was writing about this in my journal trying to form some kind of coherent point, I sat down on the curb of a Parisian street to tackle the issue at hand. It had become a little chilly, but in typical fashion, I hadn’t really noticed. I just focused on the writing.

Suddenly a man called to me ‘Mademoiselle!’ I turned and saw that he was the owner of the kebab shop behind me. He asked me why I was sitting there. I stood up and apologized. My mind was interpreting his french rather quickly but my ego was interpreting it quicker. ‘He wants you to stop loitering like a freaking vagabond in front of his shop!’ Then the translation came through of what he was actually saying. He was pointing to the only table in front of his shop. ‘Why don’t you sit here? It’s better than the curb, right?’
‘Yes,’ I smiled ‘Thank you, it’s much better than the curb.’ He nodded and went back into his shop. I sat and wrote some more. Then suddenly a small steaming cup of hot fragrant tea was placed in front of me. I looked up and the kebob shop owner nodded. I smiled and thanked him again and he went back into his shop.

And then I realized that I was pretty cold and the tea was very good but more than anything, in this moment, I needed that experience of hospitality, nourishment and kindness. I needed that experiential lesson of how I should be treating myself and what I should allow others to give me.

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words and energy

Mindfulness

People talk about yoga being a moving meditation. It helps us be present in the moment, helps us connect to our bodies, emotions, thoughts and experiences. I feel great after every yoga class I take, and yet,,,when I'm going through difficult times in my life I avoid yoga like the plague. 

Being present is the last thing I want to do when I'm feeling sad or upset. I want to focus on things that will get me out of my sad state of feeling instead of settling down into it to really 'experience' it. 

1) because I'm not a masochist

2) because my inherent nature is to be delighted by the world and people around me and gravitate toward optimism, humor, hope and positivity. 

3) because my ego keeps intentionally forgetting what buddhism has taught me - that true freedom and peace are found in the middle ground between extremes. As JD Salinger put it 'I can't be running back and forth forever between grief and high delight.'

So despite my reluctance to be present with myself this winter, I went to yoga at least once a week. I made some existential discoveries via  handstands . I started going to a class with a teacher who occasional curses and consistently plays music by The Cure. 

Last Friday in this class, while Morissey was singing 'Love Cats' I put my mat against a wall and got ready to fight with handstands. With my palms flat on the mat, I watched my feet walk towards my hands then struggle to kick up into the handstand. This fight against gravity and physics and my concept of my capabilities went on for a few minutes. Then  I  remembered a teacher at some point in the past year  telling me that I was supposed to look at my hands - look down at my mat. So I tried it and to my astonishment my legs kicked up into a handstand like there was no fight at all, like gravity was on their side. It felt light, natural and easy. 

I flipped out of the handstand and thought for a moment. It worked once, but maybe that wasn't the only thing that was different. So I tried again, palms on mat, eyes on mat, bam- feet in the air. 

It's now four days later and I've been testing this method every day in lots of different places. My kitchen, the living room, at work... each time it's the same. If I look down at my hands, my upper spine is stacked in a way that gives the legs a stable foundation. In handstands, like in life, my gaze was always on where I was going- movement, the future, hope. The idea that there was something to be gained by looking down at where I was in the moment felt counter intuitive. It felt limiting. And yet, as I learned in yoga - there is stability, strength and lightness in being present. 

Which brings me to Kung Fu Panda. 

And how much I love Master Oogway. The sweet old tortoise zen master tells his student 'The past is history, the future's a mystery but today is a gift, that's why it's called 'the present.' 

Not being enlightened, like Oogway, into a beautiful shower of cherry blossom petals, I must point out that while there is wisdom in this quote, it has also been my experience that sometimes the present moment sucks. Sometimes it feels like quicksand and if I hang out too long, I will just get stuck in that experience forever.

The wisdom of that quote, from a buddhist perspective, is that the past consists of millions of present moments and so does the future. In the present moment, we have the ability to experience not just pain but also healing. We have the ability to apply something we learned months ago to the present moment and witness how it alters the physical experience as well as the mental experience.

This is where mindfulness comes in. Mindfulness is 'the intentional, nonjudgmental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment.' Throughout the winter, I felt too overwelmed by my sadness to allow myself to be mindful of it outside of designated moments - in meditation or yoga classes. I struggled with the 'nonjudgmental' part of the definition.

My struggle, my resistance to my sadness was in part because I felt like if I was present in the sadness, I would lose perspective. That by being present in the present moment, I would be overcome by sadness and lose sight of the positive aspects in life that I knew were all around me.

I was always afraid to focus too much on the present moment because I thought I'd miss the big picture. If I just focused on today, I would feel trapped. But at the same time, if I just focus on tomorrow, it's ungrounded and I miss the chances the present moment offers for change.

If I were an enlightened tortoise, perhaps I'd be able to recognize in the present moment how my experience was created by the past and how what I choose to do in this moment will help shape my future experience. For now, I will keep doing handstands to build up muscle memory. And more importantly - the ego memory, that despite the strong energy of my habitual tendencies, it is possible to be grounded, balanced and upside down all because of a small change in perspective.

And I will remind myself that the present moment may include feelings of sadness, but it also includes experiences of growth, it also includes 'Love Cats', it also includes hope.

handstands

 I had coffee on sunday with one of my closest friends, who was also my first buddhist teacher. Over the years our friendship has become a kind of sangha of two. We've shared our deepest struggles and trusted each other to offer wisdom and compassion. Our conversations have the tendency to start with very simple topics and end in very deep revelations. But over the past few months, something has been off. She's been going through a lot of pain in her life and I often felt unable to offer her anything of value. 

After a few minutes of ordinary catching-up, I mentioned that a mutual friend of ours had felt like I was being short with him lately. I told Ellen that I recognized myself being impatient with him, but that there was no real reason for it, certainly nothing that he'd done and so I had apologized. 

Ellen was silent for a moment and then she said 'I've felt the same thing, like you're different in the past few months.' 

I thought back to the past few months and pointed out a few instances where I had recognized that something was off in myself. In the summer, during a yoga class, my teacher had pointed out that I'm pretty fearless with inversions. I don't have any trouble popping up into a bridge or leaping face down into a handstand. She suggested I try to go into a handstand from downward facing dog, instead of leaping into it like a gymnast. That way, the handstand would be grounded from the strength of my core instead of relying on momentum. And I had spent the next couple months thinking about that. My habit has always been to leap into things and not be afraid, but when it comes to things that require stability and groundedness, I find myself floundering. Talking to friends of mine who do yoga and have trouble going into inversions, I realized that the idea of flipping upside down was the antithesis of security to them. But to me, perhaps I didn't feel grounded enough when I was upright to really feel the insecurity of being upside down. 

I began to consider the root chakra. In the fall, I visited friends in Europe and on the flight into Paris I felt the city pull to me as strongly as it ever had, perhaps more so. But as much as my heart rejoiced in that feeling of homecoming, my mind worried over my struggle to find a way to make Paris my home more permanently. In the weeks after that trip, I found myself becoming dizzy and feel disconnected to my life in Philly. I felt powerless to create the massive change I wanted to make in my life. So in the span of a few months, prompted by my efforts to do a handstand from a position of power and stability - I began to open up the energy blockages in my root chakra (groundedness, stability), sacral chakra (trust in emotional nourishment, acceptance of change)  and solar plexus chakra (personal power)  that were impeding me from finding a way to act. 

I shared some of this with Ellen, explaining that I've felt disconnected for a while and just kind of overwhelmed. She listened and then, explaining her experience talking to me in the past few months, said 'A lot of the time, when we were talking, I would share something and your response felt like you hadn't really heard me. Which never happened with you before. You always used to hear what was between the lines and respond to what I was really saying, even if I wasn't able to articulate it.' 

And that's when I realized that my heart was clogged up. 'I know what you mean. My responses missed the mark because I was listening to you with just my mind, not my heart.' 

As I said it I recognized the truth of it, all of this energy swirling around in the first three chakras, all these fears about not being powerful enough, connected enough, supported enough had reached the fourth chakra - the heart.  And instead of letting the heart be compassionate toward my fears, I shut it down and tried to find a solution with my mind. 

My teacher once equated each of the first four chakras with a natural element. The root chakra is earth, the sacral- water, the solar plexus - air and the heart chakra - fire. He reminded us that the heart chakra is the biggest of all the chakras and he equated it to a furnace or the sun. It is more powerful than we ever give it credit for. It has the power to clear blockages in the other chakras - through compassion. 

My friends were the helpful mirror who showed me that my heart wasn't open to them, which made me realize that my heart wasn't open to myself, either. So all the handstands I tried, all the analysis used to solve my struggles with the first three chakras - they wouldn't work unless my heart was open. 

Because as the Little Prince told us, 'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.' 

engaged buddhism and political activism

On my way to New York yesterday for the People's climate march I fell into a very productive facebook hole that led me to an article someone had posted about Thich Nhat Hanh's perspective on climate change 


'The 86-year-old Vietnamese monk, who has hundreds of thousands of followers around the world, believes the reason most people are not responding to the threat of global warming, despite overwhelming scientific evidence, is that they are unable to save themselves from their own personal suffering, never mind worry about the plight of Mother Earth.'

The timing was perfect.  I was going to the march because I believe that we need to change the way we live on this planet, to protect our trees, our air and our water. Yet I had become a little jaded about the effect of protests and petitions against the seemingly all-powerful corporate monoliths who continue to treat the planet with a disrespect and disregard that I can't comprehend. And honestly, I had become increasingly frustrated and angry with the corporate and political structures that continued to operate in ways that harm the planet or obstruct efforts to protect it. 

This article helped me recognize that my compassion for the planet, my feeling of connection to it, was causing me to take a side in a way that was actually NOT compassionate because it fostered an 'us versus them' attitude. My compassion was very focused, to the point where it lost sight of the basic principle of compassion - that we are all connected. And if we are all connected, then we are all connected to the people who are harming the planet. 

There are many elements of Buddhist philosophy to study and meditate on but I always come back to compassion. It is a mirror and a teacher in so many ways. 
It's a struggle to feel compassion for someone who we feel is acting violently against us and those we feel connected to. 



In the past six months or so, I had begun to feel very overwhelmed by violence in the world. Violence on a global level, violence against the planet, as well as violence at home.
On a local level, two gay men were savagely beaten in Philadelphia while walking to get pizza. The people who beat them up, a group of young men and women, did so simply because they were gay. In the week after the attack, the city's citizens used social media as an outlet for their anger against this group of attackers as well as a means to help the police identify them. In the midst of facebook posts calling for these people to be locked up forever,tarred and feathered, etc., my roommate and I sat in our kitchen and talked about it. As a gay man, he had personally never experienced anything like this attack and he struggled to understand the mindset of these people who would do such a thing. Yet neither of us felt this sense of violence in response to the attackers that was peppering our facebook feeds, just a profound confusion and sadness.

With these events weighing heavily on my heart and a growing uncertainty about how my buddhist perspective could be acted upon in these situations, this reminder about compassion again comes in handy. It also reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Bob Dylan. When offered a peace prize in the 60s, his acceptance speech was met with boos and later, a request that he return the award. The reason for this was that he tried to express a sentiment that was very unpopular with the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee who had given him the award. In a poetic sorry/not sorry letter, he explained his point of view -

"yes  if there's violence in the times then
there must be violence in me
I am not a perfect mute.
I hear the thunder an I cant avoid hearin it
once this is straight between us, it's then an
only then that we can say "we" an really mean
it... an go on from there t do something about
it"
-Bob Dylan

This is the tricky thing to remember. That if there's violence in the times, there's violence in me. And only if my 'we' includes everyone, can something really change. Only if my 'we' includes everyone am I really acting from compassion. 

What makes me hopeful about the planet is that 400,000 people marched in New York yesterday and did so with an affirmative sense of connection to the earth and to those around them and to everyone on the planet who would be affected by climate change. 

What makes me hopeful about Philadelphia is that so many people of all sexual orientations spoke out in defense of those two men. Local politicians are making efforts to change the state law to categorize attacks like this as a hate crime and a rally is scheduled this week that is titled 'love over hate.' 

From a buddhist point of view, I see these events overall as being steps toward connection over disconnection. We can only do violence to something or someone that we are disconnected from. When we see the planet and others as connected to ourselves, we  act with compassion.  Their problems are our problems, their suffering our suffering. 

The struggle is to keep expanding who we include in our 'we' - Which leads me again to a piece of writing by Thich Nhat Hanh -

Call Me by My True Names
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.
I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Thich Nhat Hanh

Presence

'If you love someone, the greatest gift you can give them is your presence.'
-Thich Nhat Hanh

A few months ago I heard about Marina Abramovic's retrospective at the MOMA, called 'The Artist Is Present'. For three months, she sat in a chair in the museum and wordlessly kept eye contact with anyone who sat down in the chair across from her. Many people had intense reactions to this experience, sometimes even crying. When I heard about these reactions, it seemed quite natural to me that people would respond so strongly to the profound experience of simply sitting and looking at someone who was simply sitting and looking at them.

When you think about our daily interactions, even with those who are close to us, they are usually filled with conversation, activity, individual thoughts about the past or plans for the future, not to mention the endless checking-in with social media. It is incredibly difficult to do what Abramovic did - just be present.

There is a such a strong impulse to fill the space between ourselves and others. And it can be an incredibly vulnerable experience when there is nothing to distract us.

And an incredibly powerful experience.

Metta meditation

Of all the different types of meditation practices, Metta meditation is my favorite.

"The Pali word metta is a multi-significant term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship, amity, concord, inoffensiveness and non-violence. The Pali commentators define metta as the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others (parahita-parasukha-kamana). Essentially metta is an altruistic attitude of love and friendliness as distinguished from mere amiability based on self-interest."
-Metta, the philosophy and practice of universal love


While this concept of Metta is lovely, it may seem hard to access on a daily basis when we are caught up in our daily stresses and worries. The method of Metta meditation is very simple and I've always found it incredibly effective. Even at my most selfish, ego-ridden and closed-hearted moments, when I take fifteen minutes to practice this meditation, I am always struck at how I am able to open my heart and how much more comfortable and happy I am when I do. It begins by offering Metta to ourselves, then a loved one, then a person we feel neutrally about, then someone we feel hostile toward, then all sentient beings.

The method is simple. Begin in a comfortable position and breathe calmly for a few minutes, letting the mind rest and thoughts come and go. When you feel settled, bring your awareness to your heart center.  (I imagine that I am breathing through my heart chakra, that each inhale brings energy into my heart and each exhale releases energy from my heart.)
When you are ready offer yourself metta by saying the following:
May I be happy
May I be peaceful
May I live with ease of heart

When you feel ready to move on, bring to mind someone you love and offer them metta:
May you be happy
May you be peaceful
May you live with ease of heart.

Now move on to someone you feel neutrally about and offer them metta:
May you be happy
May you be peaceful
May you live with ease of heart.

At this point in the meditation, we imagine someone that we have had some difficulty with. At first, it doesn't have to be someone who has hurt you very deeply, it can be someone you find irritating or someone with whom you've had hostile interactions or arguments with in the past. Building from the metta you have offered to yourself, a loved one, and a stranger, bring this 'difficult' person to mind and offer them metta.
May you be happy
May you be peaceful
May you live with ease of heart

Now imagine the entire world and all sentient beings. (I always find that it's incredibly easy to offer metta to the whole world after facing the hurdle of offering it to someone I find difficult :)
Offer them metta:
May all sentient beings be happy
May all sentient beings be peaceful
May all sentient beings live with ease of heart

Remain in this stage until you feel ready to end your meditation. 

When I'm finished with this meditation I always find it refreshing and it grounds me in the nature of the heart, which says 'Of course I wish all sentient beings are happy, peaceful and live with ease of heart.' It costs me absolutely nothing to wish it and yet the nature of the ego and our daily fears and stresses can make it seem like a concession to wish well for others.