Author Archives: Susan McNamara

Becoming More Intentional

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For more than twenty-five years, on every retreat I have ever been on, or any training I have ever participated in, I have always created an intention for my time away.

It was no different when I recently did a walking pilgrimage in Scotland. In fact, I had several intentions I was working with while I was away. One for my body. One for my time on the land. One for my traveling companion. And one for the expression of my life’s work.

Each day as we set out on the trail, I would say my intentions, and each night as I was falling asleep, I would repeat them again. And whenever I would hit a difficult patch on the trail, whether mentally or physically, I would repeat my intentions over and over again as a way to keep my mind focused on what I wanted.

Doing this helped me from falling into old patterns I no longer want to engage in, and as a way to bring me back to the present moment. This daily practice left me with a deep sense of clarity and peace, that served as an anchor and as an abiding focus; even when things got challenging.

Every day we have countless choices around how to think about, and be with, what is happening to us. Unfortunately, it’s too easy these days to miss out on that knowing because of the endless stream of distractions and all the ways we have to numb ourselves out. But ultimately, and unfortunately, this allows us to sidestep the necessity for taking responsibility for how we are living. In the process, we miss out on the enormous sovereignty and empowerment gained that comes with knowing we, and only we, get to choose how to live.

The sidestepping we do creates a weak mind. One that lacks the capacity to focus on what we want and who we most want to be. The result? The world we’re living in where so many of us think and behave in ways that are both personally and collectively destructive.

The way forward becomes then our determination to get clear on what it is we want. What it is that matters most to us. And then to choose for that over and over and over again; refusing to allow ourselves to be lulled into a Life we do not like or want.

It takes guts. And perseverance. But firstly it takes spending time with yourself to get clear on where you want to direct your energies. Once you have even a glimmer of that, create a statement. Keep it positive, present tense and direct. For example, My body is healthy, happy, strong and growing in endurance (one of mine from the trip).

Then, every time your mind wanders into anything but that, affirm your direction by stating your intention to yourself over and over again while you watch, and address, every naysaying, negative thought to the contrary.

Yes, it takes time. And lots of hard won determination. But truly, why not? Why be satisfied with a life of negativity, distraction and self-medication? Why not go for what you actually want?

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Beyond Groupthink

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“Courage is fear that has said its prayers” is a powerful statement I came across many years ago at a time when I was first confronting a lot of fears that had long gone unrecognized. Ones I was working my hardest to not see or deal with. Ones that were driving me to be and live in ways that were hurting me.

So it was nothing short of miraculous to hear I could find a way to be with what I thought I could not be with.

I turned to this sentiment as a touchstone to get a handle on the fears that were driving me. Getting into it, I saw the fears that were the scariest were mostly centered around (and still do) what would happen to me if I really stepped into the full expression of who I am.

Stepped into being the one beyond what others believed she should be. Stepped into being the one who used her own unique voice; even when that rattled the status quo. Stepped into being the one who did things differently because she had gotten clear on her values; even when those around her hadn’t and where that clarity might be perceived as a threat.

The fears I am referencing are deep and primal, and are the ones we all carry. They include the fear of being rejected. Of being retaliated against. Of being kicked out, not loved, gossiped about, ridiculed. I think you get the picture. As a matter of fact, I know you get the picture because these are the fears that keep all of us from being who we are.

Whether these fears are intentionally disseminated or are just being passed onto us, they are the ones that cut the deepest because they are the ones we learned about in childhood. The ones that came in when we didn’t have the cognitive capacity to discern whether to take them on as valid or not. The ones that came in at a time when it was impossible to go out on our own.

The ones that showed up at a time when we had to negotiate who we were, in order to stay within the safety and belonging of the group. And now, because we live in a world ever more infused with a kind of growing comfort around being surveilled, where our very actions, and soon to be our thoughts, are known and can be used against us, our belief that being ourselves is dangerous, is being amplified.

If you believe I am overstating something here, or have gone off the deep end, just think about the cancel culture that has been birthed out of our unhealthy attachments to social media where if you say something unpopular, you can be de-platformed and publicly humiliated; serving, in effect, as a kind of modern day stockade in the public square where you are held up as an example of what not to do as your community jeers at you.

Or how about the current practice of the social credit system in effect in China now (as well as being considered by other countries), where if one does something outside of the officially sanctioned government narrative, you lose access to things you need to live as a functioning member of society.

All of this to say: Never has it been more difficult to be who you truly are, and never has it been more important for the future of a world leaning more and more into a kind of enforced groupthink.

It is a very big ask of each of us to explore who we are beyond what “they” expect or demand of us because it requires us to be with our fears. To seek them out and to challenge them. To feel the fears we all experience around being ourselves and to step forward anyway. Not as a way to re-traumatize ourselves, but as an act of sovereignty and bravery that says “My life is far too precious for us all for me allow it to be silenced by out-of-date and culturally-induced fears.

 

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The Journeys We Take

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I am just back from a walking pilgrimage I did with a friend in Scotland. As you might imagine, I started out with ideas about what this time away would be like; how things would go and what it was I wanted to happen. Immediately, as in on my first flight out, I was “gifted” with a wrench in the works in the form of a missed connection to Scotland where I was to be meeting my friend in the airport the next day, and then going on to our first leg of the journey.

I put “gifted” in quotes because we typically don’t associate our plans being interrupted as a gift. But that’s exactly what it was for me. Why? Because I got the chance to see what thirty years of practicing mindfulness, of being present to the moment instead of fighting with it, can do for a person. Especially under less than desirable circumstances. Especially when we feel like something hangs in the balance.

We all want things to go the way we want them to go. We all create scenarios in our minds around what will happen if we don’t get what we want. We all do our best to manage the experience of being alive with all of its uncertainties by believing we have far more control than we actually do.

But that’s precisely where the suffering comes from: Our ideas about how things need to go, or else… Or else we won’t be ok. Or else we won’t be happy, safe, loved, you name it. That things will be ruined. That we won’t be able to handle what life throws our way. That we won’t get what we need.

But none of that is true. What is true is that when we can be with things as they are, even when we don’t like them, we give ourselves the gift of peace of mind. Of sanity. Of being aligned with reality in such a way that not only can we be ok, but miracles can actually occur.

This was my experience while being stranded in an airport as I was missing my connection. Missing my meeting time with my friend in Edinburgh. Missing our first night to get acclimated. Missing our first day out on the trail. Just hearing about all of this missing out could leave many of us feeling frustrated, resentful, angry, or despondent.

But in this situation and on this day, I was none of those things. Without even trying. Without putting on a happy face or trying to think positively. I was plainly and simply, ok to be exactly where I was.

It would be easy here to focus on what a bummer it was or how the trip was ruined. But I’m here to say it was none of that. In fact, it was the exact opposite. I got to discover how many wonderful strangers are out there as I spent time talking with anyone who would talk to me. I got the chance to see how at home I am in my own skin. And I got to be the recipient of so many miracles and kindnesses, small and large, that happen in a busy airport when you are not fighting the ten hours you will be spending there.

Because I allowed myself to surrender so peacefully and so fully to what was happening, I spent a wonderful day in the airport eating, reading, meditating, reflecting, doing yoga and walking. Somewhere in the midst of it all, I realized I hadn’t missed a single thing. That I was in fact, already on my pilgrimage. That what I had been intending for my time away was already happening quite beautifully. That nothing was wrong. Nor was I missing anything.

I don’t tell you this to brag about myself. I tell you this to say, life is going to do what life is going to do, so why not surrender up your ideas about how things need to go? Why not admit when you have no control over a situation? Why not let yourself settle into “what is?”

Of course this requires practice. Lots of it because of how conditioned we are to believe that we are the epicenter of how the world should and must operate. This is as simple as getting into the habit of saying “yes.” Yes to the weather that is here. Yes to the politics of the day. Yes to what the people around you are doing. Yes to what your body is feeling.

Not because you like it or want it to stick around, but purely as the sanest gesture to yourself to admit that, yes, in fact, this is here. Whatever it is. Now you are in a position to be with Life on Life’s terms. Meaning that whatever you do or don’t do will be coming from an alignment with the reality of the situation at hand, as opposed to some fantasy or denial about how you need things to be.

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Waiting To Be OK

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“I am done waiting to be okay.” 

I spontaneously write these words down in my journal one morning. The entry follows on the heels of a particularly difficult night of sleep. One of those times when you wonder if you have even slept at all. All of this follows a week of an achy, cranky hip and a lot of anticipation around an upcoming event.

Watching my mind through the hours of no sleep, one theme emerges over and over again: If things were different I would be better. If I was sleeping, if my hip didn’t hurt and if I wasn’t worried about something, then, then, I would be OK. How everything would be right with the world and I could finally be at peace. If only all these things just weren’t happening right now.

How often are we all waiting to be OK? For something outside of us to make everything all better. The test result. The package to arrive. Another person changing. For the weather, the boss, our partner, anything and everything, to be somehow different as the prerequisite for our OK-ness.

The problem with the waiting game being, we wish our lives away. Always waiting for some other time for things to be better. Different. Never realizing that Life does not revolve around our terms and requirements for what we need to be OK. That the weather will do what the weather will do. As will our friends, families, bosses, co-workers, and at times, even our own bodies.

Because the truth is, even if we get what we believe we need to be OK, there will always be something else that will show up and upend our precarious sense of OK-ness that has been built on outside circumstances needing to line up just so.

It literally never ends. Until, of course, our lives do.

Knowing this, what if we just agreed to take Life at face value? Accepted that being here is not about us trying to make everything OK by our own standards, but is instead, about learning to be OK through it all. Through thick or thin. Through both the wanted and the unwanted. The expected and the unexpected.

But of course this takes practice. Lots of it. So best to begin before the really big things arrive. Maybe with the low stakes moments across your day. For instance, being OK if you don’t get the weather you want, the parking space or the yoga spot you covet. Or being alright with someone making a choice you don’t agree with. Or perhaps, the next time you can’t sleep, letting that be okay. Not making it mean anything other than, right now, you’re not asleep, and that even if you don’t get the rest you need, you will most certainly be OK.

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Standing The Test Of Time

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It can be so incredibly difficult these days to know what is good for you when it comes to how to take care of yourself. Should you eat the new line of fake “meats” being touted as helping to save the climate? Should you choose the latest drug promising to cure obesity? Should you consider wearing or having embedded into you the latest technology to monitor your health?

In a world moving at the speed of light when it comes to what we are being sold around health and self-care, how will we keep up? How will we determine what a human body actually, fundamentally and always needs to be healthy in the face of so many choices that may not have anything to do with real biological Truths?

As a matter of fact, to try and run down every new fad, food item or pill that hits the market would be a full time job. Basically, out of reach for most of us who are just trying to live our lives, pay our bills and raise our kids. Meaning, that most of us will never devote the time or the energy to thoroughly vet what is coming our way in this regard. This leaves us at the mercy of the commercials and other agendas trying to get us to buy or do something.

What then? Isn’t there something we can return to? A kind of infallible North Star to help us navigate far too many choices, hidden agendas and scare tactics?

I believe there is, and I think of it as “Those Things That Stand The Test Of Time.” What this means for me is looking back across history and to earlier generations to see what was naturally done in the past. Not as a way to romanticize earlier times, but as a solid foundation for determining fact from fiction when it comes to what our bodies truly need to be well. What it is we did before all the technological inventions and marketing schemes.

An easy example to work with is food. Each year, we are bombarded with tens of thousands of new and “improved” food items in our supermarkets. And while this is a great way for Big Food to claim more market share, along with the stellar profits that goes with that, is it actually good for your health to eat what they churn out? The current chronic rates of lifestyle diseases, obesity in particular, would say no. As would the food research that tells us these so-called “new and improved” food-like substances are merely a new take on highly processed ingredients created to trick your taste buds in order to get you to buy in order to create more profits for them.

Does this sound like a scenario where your health and well-being are central in the equation? If not, you are onto something and it’s called using your common sense; the main ingredient in what it is that stands the test of time.

To get even more specific, if we apply standing the test of time to our food choices, some simple questions to ask would be, “Is this something my grandmother or great grandmother would have made for her family? Would she have recognized this as food?”

In a world that loves to complicate things, one of the best ways to navigate our way through when it comes to health, or really anything for that matter, is to get simple. There is nothing more simple than common sense. Nothing more basic than looking at what has stood the test of time.

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The Trouble With Needing So Much Stimulation

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It’s raspberry season. Today as I’m picking, it occurs to me that many people would find this dull. Boring. Tedious even. It’s particularly slow going on this morning because the porcupine has been getting into the patch; bending branches down and smooshing everything together. This means I have to painstakingly pick up branch by branch to get all the berries hiding underneath without breaking anything.

As I’m doing this, I’m thinking about us as a people and how extremely stimulating things have become in our world over the past decades. How once we would have found pleasure in something like picking berries. But that now, it would feel too slow. Not worth the effort. How an endeavor like this wouldn’t be exciting or engaging enough for many of us now. Where once it would have been the highlight of the season and a deeply coveted activity. Would even have been seen as an important function for helping to bring in the bounty of the summer, while feeding the family something special.

We are way off course when we allow our lives to be gobbled up by the pace of the machines we are so attached to. In jeopardy of forgetting who we are and what is most important when we live so busy and so over-stimulated day after day after day. With all that we believe we have now with our speed and convenience and ease of access, we are disconnected from the preciousness of Life, and oblivious to what is being lost.

That being, a true sense of ourselves, what matters most in Life and perhaps most missing of all these day, how to live in harmony and in accordance with our truest Nature. If we are rarely outside, if we do not pick our heads up out of the screens, if we are never quiet, we will not have access to our deepest selves and to our real place in the scheme of things.

I am content on this morning to be with the raspberries, despite the slowness of the task, because of two things: I have meditated this morning and because I have made moments like this a priority in my life.

And there it is. If you are looking, yearning even, to feel a greater sense of ease and connection, it requires putting your money (or the raspberries in this case) where your mouth is. Meaning, it is up to you to decide what is most important to you and live accordingly. This despite all the distractions and the pull to keep doing more. This means intentionally choosing to slow down regularly. Daily. Maybe it’s meditation. Maybe it’s looking out the window. Maybe it’s saying no. But certainly it is about getting a hold of your own schedule.

Slowing down and getting quiet serving as the non-negotiable prerequisite for figuring out, and then living, what matters most to you.

The world will not do this for you. The world will continue to encourage, demand even, that you keep over-stimulating yourself. But to choose this is to run right past the truest and the most important and most truly sustaining moments of Life.

 

 

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Catching Up With Yourself

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I have just come through a several week time period of a lot going on, as well as being outside of my regular routine. And while all of it was wanted and wonderful, it was harder than usual to stay connected to myself. Which is why when this week showed up, and my schedule evened back out, the first place I went to (with great anticipation and relief) was my morning practice.

It is the part of my day that brings me in contact with me. A time when I get to answer what I see as one of the most essential questions any of us can ask of ourselves; “How’s it going for me?” It’s the place where I get to show up as is, and where I get to explore feelings and thoughts that are impacting me and that can be hard to get to in the day to day with all of its distractions, noise and expectations.

This is a non-negotiable time for me and I protect it well because of how much I value it. Interestingly enough, as the years have gone by, because of how committed I am to being with myself, nothing ever gets in the way. I attribute this to the knowing that when we really value something and devote ourselves to it, the Universe responds by making it available to us without a struggle.

This is the opposite of what so many of us wrestle with. That being, “finding” time for ourselves. Right there is where the problem starts. There is no finding time for yourself. There is only creating it. This of course, depends on two really important things. One, that you see the value in time on your own. And two, that you see the value in yourself.

These are hard to come by these days. A lot of us are afraid to be on our own. Fearful of what we might find when we are not overly busy or distracted. And then there is the deeper issue of not seeing ourselves as precious enough to give ourselves what we actually need. Something we cannot know, by the way, until we get time on our own away from all of the influences and agendas selling us what we need to be OK. Telling us who we are, that has got absolutely nothing to do with the reality of who we actually are.

There is no magic formula to this. It begins in a yearning. The yearning to feel better. And then it moves to an action. The action of just sitting down regularly. Daily. It does not have to be a formal practice like meditation or journalling. Though it can be.

What matters most is honoring the yearning for things to be different, and then the action of sitting, breathing and asking yourself, “How’s it going for me?” 

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The Body & It’s Many Teachings

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The body is something I wonder about daily, and teach about regularly. I wonder about what it needs, how it’s doing, what it’s trying to tell me. I think about how it interacts with other bodies, and how it is a portal into Something Greater.

Over the years there has been no end of things to learn about when it comes to the body; from anatomical and physiological information to the very immediate and direct experience of being in my own body as I feel what I feel and intuit what I intuit. All the while learning to take better care of it, and to listen to it ever more closely.

My experience with all of this has been that the body is one of the greatest teachers of all times. Often, a very exacting one. What I mean by this is, you cannot BS your body. It’s far too wise to be taken in by the mind and all of its machinations.

Lately, I have been experiencing a new awareness that has been calling me into an even greater understanding of this most miraculous, confounding and ultimately, inspiring relationship.

I will call what has been happening, “The symptoms that arise not so much from a physical basis but as a way to keep you in the here and now.” In other words, sensations built to keep you at home inside of your own form when you would otherwise not be inhabiting your body at all.

Leaving ourselves is something we all do when we put things into our bodies that don’t work or stay up long past it’s signals for sleep or watch things on the screens that frighten and enrage us. You have to be outside of yourself to put up with that. Otherwise, you would stop.

Back to what I’ve been noticing. I started to see there were times I was having transient sensations that seemed to have no physiological basis that I or my practitioners could identify. I am versed enough at this point in my relationship to my body to know that it can take time to discover root causes to bodily expressions. Something I am no stranger to. But this was different.

And while I know some would go straight to fear, believing there was some lurking and hidden malady going undetected, I know it’s not that either.

I also know how powerful our minds and emotions can be when it comes to creating symptoms in the body. A basic biological Truth that has long been either overlooked or pathologized in our culture. As in, it’s all in your head.

But it’s not that either.

What this has felt like is whenever I notice myself off in some made-up scenarios in the mind, some negative or wishful thinking that things were otherwise or some indulgent and destructive walk down the memory lane of the past, my body will do something to get my attention. It could be a twinge. Sometimes I’ll bump into something or drop something.

It seems a plausible hypothesis to me that we need reminders to keep us in the here and now. The only place by the way that the body exists. So while the mind can go traipsing off into the future or the past, the body is alway here, and I think it wants nothing more than our minds to be here too. So what better way to get our attention than through a little discomfort?

Because here’s the thing. As soon as we experience the discomfort, guess where we are? Back in the present moment tending to whatever is happening. We have all had that experience of something hurting and how it pulls us right to where it hurts. Back into the here and now of the body. Our bodies are wise enough to know exactly how to get the attention of the mind. It’s like a partnership where one partner knows exactly what buttons to push to get the other to pay attention.

So while there are many, many things to consider when the body is not well, I’m adding to my list of considerations that maybe there are times when what I am experiencing is my body nudging me to be here. It’s way of saying “Use me as an anchor. Return to me and I will teach you about being here. Then we can be together where the wholeness you most yearn to experience resides.”

 

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All Of Our Made-Up Problems

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Recently, my husband and I are talking about how in his golf league one Tuesday, he noticed fear around making a certain shot. We went on to talk about how bizarre it is that we make things like a golf game a matter of life and death just by the thoughts we create.

Obviously, a bad shot is not dangerous to one’s survival or well-being, but how often do we behave as if it is? How often do we use our mind and all of the thinking we do, to generate a real experience in the body of threat, when no real threat exists?

For starters, your body does not know the difference between real and imagined thoughts. We’ve all had the experience of whipping ourselves up by thoughts of worry and anticipation; enough to create an experience of unease in the body. And even illness. We can keep ourselves from sleeping with our made-up thoughts. Thought patterns can impact our mood, how we eat and how we relate.

As they say, “Perception is everything.” Interestingly enough, we can perceive what is real and true. Or we can perceive made-up stuff.

That’s why I spend so much time being mindful of what I am thinking. I have seen the direct link between my thoughts, my health and how it feels to be alive. Which is why, after the conversation with my husband, I started to watch my own mind even closer; paying attention to where I was creating self-generated fears. All of the ways, on a daily basis, that I make something feel life-threatening just by thought alone.

It can be so small and so mundane, so familiar and so conditioned, that we don’t even notice ourselves doing it. Like fretting about things we cannot control. Like what the weather is going to do when we have plans to be outside. Like imagining worse case scenarios in a difficult conversation. Like wanting something to go a certain way so badly that we feel as though if it doesn’t, something really bad is going to happen.

The day after my husband and I had this conversation, I found myself in one of those loops. Creating fears over whether something went this way or not. In the midst of the fear barrage, I heard:

“Stop making things a problem, that are not a problem.”

There are so many reasons why we make up problems. It gives us a rush to fix them. It’s how we were raised. It’s how we have consciously or unconsciously convinced ourselves that we will be safe. It’s part of living in a culture that pathologizes everything. We are marketed to in this way to get us to buy someone else’s solution. On and on it goes.

But maybe we don’t always need to know the origins of our problem-making tendencies. That alone is never the fix anyway. Maybe we just need to train ourselves to be present enough to notice when we are making something up and then to ask ourselves, “Am I pretending this is a problem when there is not even a problem here?” And then see where that takes us.

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What Causes Us To Suffer?

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I wake recently with a knot in my stomach. I take a moment to wonder about it. I realize it’s linked to the fact that I’m subbing a yoga class for a beloved yoga teacher and I’m worried about how I’m going to be received.

As I stay with the sensation in my gut, all the thoughts related to the knot start to show up, and they all boil down to one theme: If someone doesn’t like what I am offering or what I am doing, it means something bad about me. I didn’t do it right. I’m not competent. What I offer is not valued.  

I think you get the picture.

Miraculously, in the midst of all this going on, and all the techniques I am using to try and make this feeling go away, I hear the words, “The greatest cause of all your suffering, as well as the confusion you create in the world, is believing that someone else’s reaction to you, is who you are.”

In an instant, this Truth cuts right through to the very heart of it. Who needs techniques to try and make something go away when you don’t even believe in the so-called problem to begin with? Like a sharp blade this knowing cuts through all the mental, physical, and emotional attachments I have to the story that in order to be here, I have to make sure others never think ill of me.

Let’s hope it can last.

This personal experience reflects what I see when I look out into the world; especially since the times of co-vid, and especially since the inception of social media where our relationships have been commandeered by a kind of “false presentation, tell-all and then risk annihilation by the mob if they don’t like your brand,” set of rules. I see a life-depleting and dangerous arrangement that has risen up between us based on some fundamentally destructive agreements, tacit though they may be.

Specifically around, Do as I say, Do as I want you to. Or else. Or else you will be cancelled. Or else you will lose your job and the right to be with your family. Or else you will be labeled as a…(fill in the blank). There is a real sickness between us now that has got many of us walking on eggshells; fearing we will be banished, attacked or deemed uncaring if we choose to go another way.

To be sure our social connections can reflect back to us important codes of conduct that help inform us about how to behave with one another. But somewhere along the way a grotesque mob mentality has taken over with the mandate being to suppress and make wrong the full and unique expression of each one of us.

Our social groups lose more than can be counted when we are afraid to be ourselves. Afraid to express an opinion not in line with the ideology du jour. Afraid to act on our own behalf when the group has gone mad.

If you doubt this in yourself, if you don’t see the way you will diminish yourself to belong or the way you will confuse who you are with another’s opinion of you, watch yourself as you move through your day. How often do you say or agree to something that you do not believe in? How often do you smile, as if in agreement, when you definitely do not agree? How many of us took a shot we did not want because we felt pressured by the group?

And how many of us are seeing all kinds of things in the world that are pathological, but keep our mouths shut for fear of social retribution?

Who you are can never be reduced down to what another thinks of you. To spend your life adjusting yourself to keep anyone from ever not liking you or what you’re doing is to add more confusion to an already very confused world.

 

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