Julie Tallard Johnson’s Blog

“Our soul is always calling us home. And the way home is through the mind” –Jiivanii

So you are moving along in your life and then something happens that stops everything. You find yourself unable to get out of bed or off the couch. What once was easy is now riddled with anxiety and dificulty. Panic sets in and takes over the mind, body and spirit. What’s happening?

Clearly a lot of people experience various degrees of depression and anxiety. Even in good times, there is an average of 16 million new cases of depression in the United States every year, leading me to ask, “What is really going on here?” There are numerous ads announcing the latest drug treatment. A friend told me recently that one such television ad (we don’t have television) announces that “If none of your other medications work for depression tell your doctor about this one!” An implication here is that this drug may be your last chance.

There are no last chances until you are dead. And even then I am certain our karma continues, as do our chances.

You probably want my position on drug treatment. I am not opposed to it; I am also not in favor of it as the “first or only” response to depression and anxiety. In fact, in all cases of drug treatment one should be engaged in psychological, spiritual, social and environmental remedies.

There is a cure for depression and anxiety. Just as the African proverb suggests: “the treatment is right next to the wound.” The solutions are right next to the problems. In my thirty years of offering counseling I find that the answers are in the questions. Each client carries within themselves the answers they need. Look at your life and find the cure.

When confronted with such suffering as depression and anxiety, your cure is in your response. So don’t kill the messenger.

 

Don’t Kill the Messenger 

Depression is a part of a whole life, not something one can separate out and label only as “chemical” or biological. Even so in those situations where biology may be a primary factor—to leave out the rest of the human experience (emotional, mental, spiritual, social and environmental) would be a failure in treatment. In fact, when someone experiences an onset of depression their life is talking to them. Their soul is sending out an SOS  – something is not working here! So to just take medication would be to cover up the discomfort of the message and in so doing kill the messenger. To be free of depression or anxiety or to at least not be run down by them, one must be able to listen to the Voice of the antagonist. So even in the situation where medications help, be mindful to take enough to help but not so much to kill the messenger before you understand the message.

 

Narcissism In Healing

When we become ill or dis-eased there is a need for us to become somewhat self-absorbed. For example, if we are hit in the head with a brick we need to clean the wound and bandage our head. We would need to stop the bleeding. What tends to happen though with depression and anxiety is we may get too caught up in the whole drama of it all. Everything is about our depression and anxiety. As soon as possible we have to agree that this dis-ease, this problem is not just about me. It affects everyone around me. Self-absorption is not a cure and will result in more sense of isolation. Take care of the bleeding and then get on with the transformational healing.

So, at the same time you will need to hold up the mirror and be willing to take a look at your life and ask yourself some questions. What in my life is not working?

 

A New Map of the World

Your view of the world will need to change – you can’t keep looking out into the world in the same way, it is not working for you anymore. For this change in view to take place you will need some process of thought transformation. Such practices can be found in Buddhism (Lojong practices, meditation,) cognitive-behavioral and didactic therapies, and awareness techniques, for examples.

Often depression and anxiety is brought on by one’s paradigm shifting, life has brought to your doorstep some big changes. But you keep holding on to the same view, the same way of relating to your life. Depression and anxiety then is again the call of your soul to change your view, to transform your self. For example, where in the past everything came easily, you didn’t have much to worry about. Then you lost your job or a loved one. Or some other outward circumstance triggered a big change. Now you need a new map of the world since the world around you has changed. If you keep trying to take the old road to the new place you will remain lost. Other times it is that the life you thought would bring you happiness isn’t. So the paradigm wants to shift but you may not know how to go about this transformation, this change in view. You will have to choose some antidotes to the depression: some techniques of thought transformation so your view and relationship to your life can change.

 

The Unlived Life

Your response, your cure, will need to include a spiritual component. Spiritual for me means bringing forth such qualities as love, forgiveness, creativity, compassion, and awareness.

Many times someone has come to me depressed and angry and it doesn’t take a long search to find out that they are leaving a large part of their life unlived. Their cure is simple (but not easy): they need to activate their creative life – take that class, bring out the guitar, write that book, move to the country and raise organic chickens, or simply read more books and take more trips. They need to commit to the creative life.

If you don’t fulfill your creative calling, we all lose

            Spirituality also means that we come to deeply understand that we are all connected somehow, that our life and what we do with it touches everything and everyone. Your life matters and it matters in a big way. For me this includes holding the awareness of karma and how every experience (result) has causes. We didn’t get here alone or by accident. Our entire life leads up to this moment, to this experience. Furthermore, in my Buddhist practice I understand that I am also influencing future lives. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who threw the brick or why, it is best to put our energy in applying the antidote.

 

I hope for you a happy, creative life. I hope you listen to the messenger and seek the antidotes for true happiness. It is never too late and there are no last chances, just the one before you now. Something beautiful wants to happen; a treasure wants to be revealed! Get that updated map and get going!

 

            Consider these:

Spend some time outside aware of what gets your attention. Allow the natural beat of nature to sooth you. Breathe in some outdoor air, notice where the moon or sun is in the sky. Take some time to journal afterward.

Watch the Movie Off the Map. What do you think brought the husband and the visitor out of their depressions? Consider how the entire movie is a metaphor for our life’s journey and the difference choices we have. How does each person represent different parts of your self? Notice how we influence one another.

Read, Parker Palmer’s book, An Active Life.

Find a qualified spiritual teacher or a transpersonal psychotherapist that will help you with thought transformation, meditation practices and experiencing the reality of oneness.

Keep a spiritual journal. In October I will be offering another round of Spiritual Journaling Classes. See my calendar.

Check out your area for Shambhala trainings, and mindfulness meditation classes.

Watch the movie 10 Questions for His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Read the 14^th Dalai Lama’s book, Ethics for a New Millennium. 

Preorder my book: The Wheel of Initiation: Practices for Releasing Your Inner Light. 

 

Someone recently inquired about what I thought a miracle was. So, in response of course I sat down and wrote my thoughts in my journal. After all, everything is grist for the mill when it comes to spiritual journaling and the writer’s life.

The response came quickly because I have experienced many miracles in my life. Just yesterday morning looking out my window I witnessed a miracle.

Miracles often go beyond our ability to explain how they happened. Of course there is much around us that cannot easily be explained. However, when we have a miracle show up it is through our understanding of it that we experience it as a miracle.

There are many levels of miracles and depending on and through one’s view, one experiences a miracle. Your view includes your perspective, your mind set, your assumptions and your spiritual knowledge.

One “level” of miracle is through synchronistic encounters, another “level” is through experiencing our oneness with all of life (this can be a healing miracle or a spiritual epiphany). Paradoxically, I experience many miracles in nature and through scientific phenomenon. Seeing a redheaded woodpecker at my feeder can be understood as a miracle due to their rarity. Being in a terrible accident without a scratch on you could be a miracle. Someone recovering from cancer could be a miracle. Someone having cancer could be a miracle. 

Miracles are relative to the person witnessing or experiencing one.

Just yesterday I was sharing a story of a personal miracle I experienced back in the late 1970’s. (And even though I consider this a more personal miracle it fulfills my requirement for an authentic miracle.) An authentic miracle is one that moves the individual and environment (social and natural) in the direction of one’s evolutionary destiny (destination). An authentic miracle is recognized as such. An authentic miracle is perfectly timed (but this timing cannot be explained rationally). 

An authentic miracle holds an opportunity for the recipient. 

So, back in the second summer after I graduated from High School I went to the admissions office of the University. I had attended my last two years of High School at one of the first alternative high schools: Malcolm Shabazz. Grades were not important, but one still had to get credits to graduate. Up until my senior year I had no plans of going on to college. But upon graduation I decided I wanted to be a writer and become a social worker. So with my “eggs all in one basket,” I took my transcripts to the admission’s office with the plan to attend the University that Fall. The woman at the admissions took my material and told me to come back the next day. Which I did. When she retrieved my transcripts she informed me that I did not have enough algebra credits for admission.

I left confused and stumped. My plan felt SO correct for me. I could feel the momentum of this idea I held for my self and my life. 

I went for a walk down to a local drug store that at the time had a counter where one could get sodas, sandwiches and ice cream. (Back then they were known for grilled cinnamon rolls — buttered and flipped on the grill!) I sat down and ordered a coca-cola. As I sipped and considered my predicament (I was also asking Spirit, How can this be, and What should I do now?), someone sat down next to me. I was pretty self-absorbed but I did look up to greet this person.

Can you guess who sat next to me that day?

My algebra teacher from Malcolm Shabazz. I told him what just happened and he told me that I did in fact take enough algebra and that he would write a letter stating so.

I was admitted into the University that Fall. (I now have eight published books and hold a Masters in Social Work).

I know we have to show up for these miracles, they don’t come to us. We have to “meet the Creative” halfway as the I Ching consults us to do. We have to participate in the evolutionary momentum of our life and the life of the planet. When we do this, miracles show up to help us.

I witnessed a miracle recently. One that is relatively common — someone addicted to drugs and alcohol hit the wall, hard. The wall was the miracle. The miracle was his feeling the impact of the wall. The miracle was in his choice of recovery.

In the movie The Cave of The Yellow Dog the Grandmother shows her granddaughter the miracle of life. She asks her to try and get a grain of sand to land on the top of a needle. When she is unsuccessful her Grandmother says, “That is how difficult it is to have a human birth.” 

Ideally, miracles are recognized as such and not wasted.

 

Journaling Around Miracles

What do you consider a miracle? Write about a recent one. What kind of miracle would help you at this point with your intentions or life?

Write about a missed opportunity (or wasted miracle) using the following words: precious, reluctant, chance, future, sunset, over. 

How can such difficulty as cancer or losing something be a miracle?

Take a different bus or route home. Notice something unusual and write about that.

 

 Freedom involves making decisions, and each decision is a destiny decision.- Joseph Campbell

 

What do a snowstorm, winter prairie, prayer flags, frozen seeds and enlightenment have in common?

 

Well, being a meaning-maker, I decide that. Oh how I love the writer’s life, I can take and make meaning of everything!  As the spiritual practitioner I am also the meaning maker but use sacred texts as a skillful means to make meaning of my encounters and experiences. After all, awakened Beings have gone before me and traversed the difficulties and distractions leaving behind many maps for me to use.

 

So my walk through the prairie and its 12 inches of snow afforded me inspiration for both my writing and spiritual life. It usually does. This of course is in part due to what I bring into the spiral with me, my view as a writer and as a spiritual practitioner. Joseph Campbell in his work often pointed to that it is not so much the experience itself (any one can walk through the prairie, attend church, or listen to a spiritual teaching) it is “what we bring to it.” We all bring our view to our encounters and this view determines what we get out of it. One’s view includes beliefs, intentions and assumptions. If you are having an unpleasant experience, check your view; check what you are bringing to it.

 

Then as a writer, notice what arises from your view and write about it. As a spiritual practitioner notice what arises from within and without during a certain event and use it as material for your spiritual practice. And then, if you want, bring the two together.

 

On my winter walk I noticed how the sun appeared like a phantom through the haze of snow and cloud. This reminded me how even though we don’t see the sun or the moon they are always there. Much like the Buddha or my root guru Padmasambhava. They are always there but often hidden behind something. Then I realized that I see the Buddha when I practice, when I come out from hiding. The Buddha is in the practice. Actually more what I mean is that the Buddha is seen through my practice. When I bring the Buddha into my experience I get more of the Buddha back. I bring him or her out from hiding. 

 

This took me further into the realization that the only teachers I rely on (and recommend others rely on) are ones that are first most practitioners. They too bring the Light of the Buddha or the Christ or the Truth out as they practice what they teach.

 

On this walk through the prairie the sun remained hidden behind a haze of cloud and snow but still sent out some light, enough for me to get through the prairie, enough to make my way on the unhiked and snow covered path.

 

As I continued I remained aware of what I was bringing to my walk as well as what caught my attention as I walked . . .

 

I saw seeds frozen on top of the snow, small tracks of mouse having braved it across the white landscape, how the path disappeared and reappeared, the faded Tibetan prayer flags moving with the wind, the call of the crows as I walked deeper into the spiral, the familiarity of it all and how the prairie gives me the feeling of belonging.

 

Instant Enlightenment

 

Frozen seeds crown the December snow

some will make it to bloom yet.

While others will be devoured whole

by the local residents.

 

Searching

 

When in the prairie

I need not search around for enlightenment,

This would be like the Echinacea

trying to conceal its seeds.

 

Here, Now,

 

 I feel a thousand lifetimes away from awakening,

Unknowingly

walking at the feet of the Buddha.

 

So that’s what destiny is: simply the fulfillment of the potentialities of the energies in your own system. The energies are committed in a certain way, and that commitment out there is coming toward you.  –Joseph Campbell

 

Journaling Practices for You –

Take five subjects you notice while either on a meditative walk outside or just throughout your day:  snow stuck on trees (what kind of tree?), the sounds of a child playing with a friend in the adjoining room (playing what?), red-tailed hawk swooping down on a mouse (does she get it? Are you happy for the bird?), the frozen foot print (of a boot, a coyote, mouse?), etc. . . . Write about them with the intention to draw some spiritual meaning from them. Notice what you “bring to” any given encounter. Write this into your piece. Spend a good deal of your time outdoors or during the day simply noticing. Notice what you are bringing to something (attitude, assumptions, ideas.) Notice what comes to you, what gets your attention on your walk or during the day. Who or what shows up? Where is the sun? What’s in your pockets? What do you want? What do you hear? How does what you bring to an encounter (walk, visit with a relative) change the experience? Write about that. Write about experiencing something for the last time (a meal, a walk in your favorite spot, a sound of your child, for examples.)

 

Write a poem beginning with, “I am called”.

I am called

Write a poem beginning with, “Earth brings me.”

Earth brings me

Write a poem ending with

I watched as it fell

 

 

Happy Writing to you. Happy Awakening. Blessings on this Winter Solstice.

 

I am called to sing

a song I’ve never heard

Visit the friend

I’ve never met.

 

I am called to dig

For the words hidden deep

Find the meaning

of this unknown place.

 

I am called to undo

the pain of the past

And to know you

for the first time

again and again.

 

For more on poetry go to my Poet’s Page at my website. Enjoy my guest poet William Stafford. And did you know that you can back order my book on Initiation that is going to be released this August? Simply go to Inner Traditions/Bear & Company! Spring/Summer 2010 frontlist catalog. You will find my book on page 32.  Thank you!

 

 

There is a great theft going on, one that steals our power, our medicine and our ability to hold our seat when necessary. Words are being stolen right out from under us.  What happens then is we find we are going right when we thought we were going left. We find ourselves believing without reservation that North is up and South is down. We find ourselves being scared of someone because they are a Christian or a Muslim. We find we shouldn’t feel entitled or hungry. And that selfish is always bad and love is always good. (Many, many nasty acts have been done in the name of love.)

War is patriotic but peace is unpatriotic. 

We need to claim these stolen words back and do so bravely and relentlessly. In our writing and in our speech we must use and speak out forbidden and stolen words, reframing them when necessary. “I am a monger of peace.”

Find the root meaning of words. Know the original intentions of a word.

Listen to what you are agreeing to when someone tells you something.  “I did it out of love.” “This is what a patriot does.”

 Listen for assumptions in someone’s speech and help reframe words and watch the world transform around you. This transformation is much like the restoring of a prairie to a more natural and honest state. We don’t let one plant horde the soil and light; we don’t let a word’s stolen meaning reek havoc on our intentions. We are not robots to other’s meaning of words. (We are the Meaning Maker.)

 Break the pattern of agreeing to a stolen meaning of a word or phrase and allow for a diversity of meaning to beautify a prairie and a conversation. Speak up. 

Shake up the conversation. 

Consider every word we carry as sacred and itself a container of a potent elixir or poison. You carry this word around with you affecting your psychophysical body as well as when spoken you impact the world around you. You release the elixir or poison from the bottle. When a word is stolen and we haven’t claimed it back then the vibration and meaning of the stolen word is the one carried in our psyches as well as the one heard and felt by others.

 “The penthouse is always on the top floor because the higher up you are the better. The better view is from on top.”

 “Dark is dangerous and bad.” 

“You bring me down.”

“This is ugly.”  What makes something ugly? And I wonder, where does this word originate? If something is considered ugly, is it considered bad?

 “Many of us know the northern countries are ‘on top’ and it is always better to be on top.”

“She’s ugly.”  “She’s beautiful.”

“I am patriotic.”

“Let’s be friends.”

“He’s a Pagan.”

Stolen words hold many assumptions and agreements and often hidden lies. When we numbly agree to stolen words our creative expression is halted. Stolen too. If top is always better than bottom where does that leave the snake, the inhabitant of the first floor apartment, or the earthworm? If hot is always red? . . . The day was blue-hot. A hot so uncontaminated it purified and released the long-ago deceased. It was time for everyone to go home. The dead knew their way and fell into the blue of sky, the blue of heat. Even the dead seek the warmth.

I hear people often say, “I think,” when what they are often trying to say is, “I know.” “I think,” communicates a wavering, an invitation for a robbery. “I think I want to try that,” sounds quite a bit different than, “I know I want to try that.”

“I think so.”

“I know so.”

  When you only think you know then others can easily step in and hold a conviction in your place. Predators enter where we waiver. Resistance arises where we hesitate.

Maybe the volume of stolen words is just too great to tackle. Just too premeditated to wrestle. Just too much to even consider. But let me remind you, words and the use of words make up both our inner and outer world. Words and the stories they weave are the world. What better past time to have but shouting out on the page or at the gathering, “I don’t agree”!  ”I don’t agree!”

“I don’t agree!”

“Hey, I don’t agree!”

Here are several stolen words, can you add to the list? –

 Up 

Down

Lesbian

Black

Dyke

Homosexual

spiritual

Christian

God

Medicine

patriotic

Muslim

natural

winning

love

forgiveness

entitled

pagan

justice

to be fair

ritual

democrats

I know 

republicans

green

divorced

stoned

beautiful

childless

family

home

sin

goddess

crazy

Buddhist

Caring

Humility/humble

Shadow

Selfish 

“If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?”  Written by Jane Wagner for Lily Tomlin.

Write about what you were taught love is. How was love used (or misused) in your family, religious institution, or community?  Is love, “never having to say you’re sorry?” Is love, “This hurts me more than it hurts you?” “She loved him so much she had to do what she did.” What does it mean to love god?  What is god’s love? What does love mean to you now? Whom do you love and how? Choose a better word to represent this affection for others. Sometimes we reclaim a word by finding another one to takes it’s place.

 “Fire has a love for itself­–

It wants to keep burning.”   Hafiz,  Sufi Master and Poet

 Write a piece repeating the sentence:  “This is what I know . . .” Remember not to stop to think instead repeat the above sentence until the muse begins to flow. Fill up one page without stopping your pen.

Reclaim the above stolen words for yourself. Write a story or a letter to someone using several of the stolen words, claiming them back in the process. 

Identify and write about several other stolen words. What makes them stolen? Win them back by writing about them.

Write about an enemy using the following words: reluctant, inside, fearless, grasping, mirror, revelation.

What makes up a family for you?

You are fourteen years old. You just slept over at your best friends house. The next morning you are sitting in her room watching a show where someone reveals they are gay and your friend says, “What do you think about being gay?” Finish this conversation. 

Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself

In dark woods, the right road lost.                  Dante’s Inferno