Reverb14 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

Project Reverb prompt: “Where did you spend your money this year? Did you save it instead? What, if anything, would you like to do with your finances this year?”

My word for 2014 was “home,” and part of my intention for the year was to focus on staying home, not traveling, and focusing all my various energies on home, which meant no giving financial support to anything that wasn’t “mine.” The year before, I spent a lot traveling and helping, and I needed to “lie fallow” for a season. We did take a vacation, a month in Oregon with the dogs, and we paid off our credit cards, started saving more. I cut back on a few things so that I was spending less, and I tried to buy less books, but I was only marginally successful with that. There were projects and causes that came up that I wanted so badly to help with, but I mostly resisted. Besides our family vacation, the other loophole I allowed for was that if Susan Piver had a writing and meditation retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center, I could go (I’ll be there at the end of the month).

Next year, the places I’d like to focus on financially are: my health and wellness (whatever supplements, food, or other support I need to feel better), fixing up our home (we need a new roof, but it would be nice to finally update the bathroom, put a deck out back and a porch on the front), continuing to stay out of debt and saving money, maybe a few classes or retreats (Feast with Rachel Cole, for sure), and consulting for my “business” (the teaching and such I’d like to offer — feels weird to call it a business, but as such that’s why I need the help of a good accountant and a lawyer who understands how to legally set such a thing up).

Reverb14 prompt: “Biting back. Despite our usually sunny dispositions and dedication to the practice of ‘assuming positive intent,’ we all occasionally find ourselves having to deal with an incredibly unpleasant individual. While I’m sure you always handle it with the tact and finesse for which you’ve become so well known, I’m going to ask you to step outside yourself for just a moment. Think back to such a situation: if the gloves were off, how you really would have liked to have dealt with them?”

I don’t think I can give the answer this prompt requests. Sure, I have some examples, and when I was deep in those situations, I told the people closest to me what I really wanted to say, but I don’t at all feel comfortable airing that sort of thing here, and don’t feel like it would help.

In thinking about how I might answer this question instead, I remembered something Pema Chödrön shares in the first chapter of her book Taking the Leap.

There was a story that was widely circulated a few days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that illustrates our dilemma. A Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about violence and cruelty in the world and how it comes about. He said it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, and the other wolf was understanding and kind. The young man asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. And the grandfather answered, “The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.”

I feel like answering this prompt directly, telling you what I really wanted to say that one time, sharing what I held back that other time, “taking the gloves off” would be feeding the wrong wolf. Ultimately, the way I handled those situations, with compassion and self-control, at times with silence, was the right thing to do, fed the right wolf, the one who was understanding and kind.

Project Reverb prompt: “Letting go: For next year, I’m letting go of…”

I try to respond to the Reverb prompts myself before reading what anyone else said because I want my response to be fresh, unique, original, authentic, even if it ends up magically similar to someone else’s answer. I messed up this time. Someone posted a comment to today’s prompt on the Project Reverb website and said they were letting go of “that which no longer serves me.” That phrase is a mantra of sorts for me, the perfect way to describe why I’ve been shedding old habits, thought patterns, and ways of being. Now that I’ve heard it, I can’t answer this any other way.

For next year, I’m letting go of that which no longer serves me. Everything that is too small, too tight, all that is restricting me, pinching me and making me uncomfortable. I’m letting go of what I’m not using. I’m letting go of what I’m afraid to give up, get rid of, surrender. I’m letting go of poverty mentality. I’m letting go of pushing, shoving, forcing, smashing myself to bits. I’m letting go of thinking I can do everything, do it fast and without the necessary rest and nourishment. I’m letting go of needing to be liked, of thinking it’s an issue of survival. I’m letting go of fitting in. I’m letting go of pretending. I’m letting go of “supposed to” and “have to.” I’m letting go of being afraid of suffering, which is really a fear of dying, of impermanence — (well, that one might take some work, a little more time).

Reverb14 prompt: “What is the sound of your own voice?”

Sometimes soft, sometimes fierce. Sometimes it’s too loud and people tell me to keep it down, to be quiet, to shut up. Sometimes it’s not even words. It comes from so deep inside of me that when I hear it echoed back to me from a recording, I don’t recognize it. From far away it can sound a little like a flock of birds or a swarm of bees or a single wolf howling. Sometimes I speak in a language I made up that no one else understands. Sometimes my voice sounds like a whistle that only dogs can hear. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m singing or talking or crying. When it says “I’m sorry” it sounds like sticks breaking. When it says “I love you” it sounds like ocean waves. The sound of my breath, my heartbeat is the same.