the processing princess

Today I cried.
And cried.
And cried.

And I am not, never have been, a crier. I’ve almost always been envious of criers. Even lying on a yoga mat, going through meditations dispelling grievances, I listened to a bestie’s unmistakable avalanches of tears in the nearby front row, admiring, “wow, she really lets herself go there… kinda jealous.”

Several of us participated in a weekend workshop whose main premise was to remove the barriers and charges that we construct in our lifetimes of conditioning via media and society, in turn releasing patterns of hurt from relationships and images of what we think things are supposed to look like. Awakening into a daily practice and journey of living a life of integrity and true authenticity. Geez louise, that sounds so blahbitty blah. I almost just fell asleep myself re-reading that just now.

It’s about being real.

Real in a society that prizes dramatic camera angle shifts and theatrical underscoring in game shows. Real when “have a nice day” can often be a rote response devoid of eye contact.

All this processing was not easy, but necessary. Beautiful, but sticky and unglamorous.

Thank God for two urban upscale chic twin sisters out from Cali who kept it all on the level and led us through it all, b.s. flowery spiritual pretension aside. Shout out to Catherine and Elizabeth, um, you rock beyond belief.

After a very long and gorgeously arduous Day One of our workshop, I rousted from leggings and blankie, quick-changed to designer jeans with a sweep of shadow from my Mac palette, and out the door to meet the person who is a new great joy of my life. Who I hope will continue to be the great joy in my life...

Instead of finding a sweet respite my (ugh, HATED this word at this moment) my f’ing PROCESSING brought up a state of irritability usually completely foreign to me these days. Grouchiness, disconnection, poutiness, exhaustion—all in the middle of what was supposed to be my awakening, enlightening, om shanti weekend. I was meant to be walking on water, bestowing virtual rose petals to those around me, blessing people with my angelic presence by having them waft through my wake, and instead I was stomping my feet on Houston like a sorority girl just shy of her daily minimum iced-venti-skinny-sugar-free-vanilla latte requirement.

The universe was telling me, sorry sweetheart—no comfort here, you’re going to have to process this one on your own.

And I did, at 4:30am sleeplessly and restlessly pacing in my kitchen, owning my own aggravations, taking responsibility for my reactions, and in that magic transmutation of accepting and letting go of our charges, awoke to a blackberry blinking with words of forgiveness, acceptance from the aforementioned person I would like to keep around in my life. I owned my own bull-sh*% and everything else worked out.

And today after another ridiculous day of intense exercises and meditations, of people moaning, wailing, growling, laughing unabashedly (so much so an outside observer might doubt the laughter’s verity,) I sat relatively calmly in a Neo state of observing, holding space. A slight nausea, a quickening of cell fluctuation and a determined quest during the break for a person holding chocolate to share, were my greatest outbursts.

Until the end of the day, when each of my friends, and several were present, went up to experience something known as mukti deeksha, which is not to be explained or fruitlessly detailed other than to say it is profound and sacred.

My ex and bestie got up and as I held my hands palm to palm, whispering silently to whomever was listening for his highest good, I broke out into rivers of tears. Maybelline Great Lash in Very Very Black waterproof (hardly) mascara staining my cheeks.

Vocal sobs. Not of pain. The emotion of the moment was too overwhelming to barrier behind tear ducts, too visceral to contain inside any subdued or appropriate behavior. (This was a safe space, this would not show up on YouTube, so you know, why not go there?) A moment of almost maternal pride, of honor, of deeply humble appreciation. As each of my peeps went up and the tears ebbed and flowed, it was as though watching family, the connection so strong, and like witnessing a sacrament, the experience so, for lack of a better word (or perhaps it is precisely the right one) holy.

Almost a decade ago, I threw vicious, stiletto-like puncturing wounds of words at the ex and bestie, on a more than regular basis, and wouldn’t be surprised it he reminded me that there was an actual shoe lobbed in the mix at any one of countless raging battles.

Twenty years ago, I stabbed my sister in her shoulder with a pencil. She has a small blue tattooed dot where the lead now lives, that she will still shuffle out in a show and tell of that obnoxious incident.

Whatever the reason, I used to be not nice and very very angry. As we all collectively went through layers and layers this weekend, excavating tombs of fury and resentment, I found that on all fronts familial and familiar, there was nothing left to unearth.

I had worked through it.

There are varying levels of “success” I’ve had in the dozen years since graduating college. Peaks from an outsider’s perspective could include stage door scenes of people lining up for photos or autographs during a successful run, awards, being able to walk into Louis Vuitton and drop thousands of dollars without the blink of an eye, personal triumphs that, not to mention, led to association at times with celebrities, political notables from Mayors to Presidents, first class plane tickets, invites to exclusive international clubs, stints in exquisite rooms at Four Seasons, Mandarin Orientals, Ritz Carltons the world over. These have not been the course of my daily life, but those peaks have been present and abundant.

Without a doubt my proudest moments have nothing to do with anything that might impress anyone else.

I had a strong reaction this past week when someone new in the picture pressed me to define what I was “doing” with my life. This person did not want to see my talents wasted, and it was a challenge to my ego, for shizzle. What I have been doing is unquantifiable and even I can’t take credit for it because it’s out of my hands. At best, I could point toward a room of sweaty, wrought people with a sparkle in their eye and say, “well, I kinda held a sign that pointed them here.” Not exactly press-clipping worthy.

My most significant triumphs have been private.

Non reactive behavior. A cessation of anger. Someone flicking me off or screaming at me and not having defenses flare up, but instead cocking my head quizzically and silently blessing them instead. A peace that has developed within me that is deep enough to withstand terrific earthquakes, and when they come, they are low on the rictor scale and disperse quickly.

Am I en route to saintliness?
Shall I never sin again?

Has anger or resentment taken a permanent vacation from the emotive contexts of my actions? Absolutely not. I don’t have the desire (or the wherewithal, let’s be honest) to be so virginally, crystal clear because I enjoy the grittiness of life too much. I like vodka. I love being passionate. I am innately feisty. What’s the point of existence if there’s no room for naughty?

But if my major weekend processing was about getting through a marginal princess moment, I think I’m all right.

If my biggest conflict was resolving misaligned communication with someone I care for, although unwelcome, uncomfortable and momentarily heart-wrenching, if we could turn that around in a matter of hours, I will warmly and eagerly accept a brief discomfort in the greater trade off toward authenticity. A wave of pain is so inconsequential when kept in perspective of a life that used to be an ocean of ungrounded grasping. That this was my largest disturbance in a world that used to be full of violence, selfishness, petty acting out and anger, is my most exceptional success.

This afternoon I went up for my own mukti experience, and as I stepped to what could best be described as a makeshift altar, I found myself again, overwhelmed by tears. To be humbled by grace, to feel for others more than I do myself, to know that all of that can only be present when I take care of myself first? Fountains of tears of gratitude for all that is, that I am a part of it, and it is a part of me.

Don't mind me... I'm just processing.

I laughed. I cried. It was better than CATS.

The workshop was grand, thanks. Self-costumed in a “Spiritual Gangster” flashdance outfit (replete with legwarmers, of course) I danced with abandon, loved like a four year old child on a sugar bent, felt an ongoing essence of oneness in the universe and at one point had a good ten minute period where I witnessed: “Holy sh#* I’m totally like Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix” where he’s breathing the world. This is AWESOME.”

There were many more deep, fun, funny, sparkly, crazy things that happened over the course of the workshop, but detailing them doesn’t really suit the practical or philosophical proclivities of this post.

Let’s talk about bile, baby.

We were there for energy, getting it, moving it, giving it, absorbing it, regurgitating it. And although you would think this’d be all easy, hippie, om shanti sunshine and snapdragons, each of us experienced severe physical reactions to what our bodies were processing.

For three days, in a direct juxtaposition to my constantly on-the-go nature and more recent well-rounded relationship with food, I tangoed with fits of narcolepsy and benders rivaling Anthony Bourdain's most adventurous forays into food. Literally all of my free time outside of the workshop was in front of the fridge or on my mattress. An involuntary nap, and then multiple dinners and straight snacking until I passed out.

Outside of the townhouse walls where the workshop was held, there was something in my mouth or in my hand on the way to my mouth, and many times, both, at all times.

I visited the Fairway on the Upper West Side and the Gourmet Garage in the West Village within only a three hour window, vacuuming loads of groceries into my arms at each visit.

My friends suffered through my string of jokes: “I think I’m pregs with mukti.” “Just in time for Easter and Passover… kids, I think I literally may be housing the second coming of Christ.”

When two other slim, sexy girlfriends echoed “Ohmigod, TOTALLY. I CANNOT stop eating—it’s like it’s out of control! I’m so glad it’s not just me!,” I then definitively surmised in dry mock seriousness:

“Guys… It’s ‘cause we’re giving birth to the awakening.”

I was only half kidding.

It seems that the labor pains of life increase profusely when pertaining to pursuits in levels of consciousness.

The day following this workshop, the woman closest to me right now (who would really be more aptly labeled sister than friend,) had to cancel all of her clients and reached out through the course of the day in a play by play of her processing which was coming out of every uncomfortable end.

Another injured her hip to the extent that she was searching for crutches to borrow in Manhattan via Facebook status updates.

There are sacred ceremonies I have participated in, and although I will not detail them here out of respect to the secrecy needed in order to maintain their authenticity, I will say, that one sits down in a room of strangers, you are handed a bucket and a roll of toilet paper and you become intimate with those objects over the course of eight hours.

That stuff is weird.
And it’s gross.
Why do we need to discuss this, Margaret?

Although purging is its own rite of passage and many spiritual traditions will take on these practices as part of ancient rituals still subscribed to, we can manage without detailed accounts of classified religious sacraments or the likes of colon hydrotherapy and panchakarma for now.

What interests me more here, is the way that life overtakes our physical body when we don’t want it to, and how to get past it. It’s not knowingly and consciously undertaking a fast or entering a sweat lodge. It’s the car accident that wakes you up, the broken leg that slows you down just when you’d just hit your invincible speed, or puking your guts out after a weekend workshop.

There is some kind of physical transmutation that coincides with large amounts of change or energy going through the human body. On one hand, it is so impossible to believe that anything mental or “spiritual” could cause these kinds of physical reactions. One could argue, is it not psychosomatic? Well, precisely… what if it is?

What if the association between our brains and our conditioned thought patterns is so linked to our nervous system and physiology that the only way we can release these connections is through a physical dispelling or protection, manifested in various symptoms, whatever they may be.

If a door slams on my hand, I will cry. That is a release. If a guy slams on my heart, I will also cry. The same physical release, although one is an emotional reaction where the other is a physical pain. Is the door slam more valid because matter, velocity and the width of a doorframe can quantify it?

Our bodies and our lives speak to us through these experiences. What that means specifically is an ongoing exploration, but more pressingly, how can we process them? How do we accept where we are with grace when the better part of a rainy Monday is spent with a sweaty forehead dry heaving across the American Standard toilet logo? Or... can eating through four tubs of hummus, two chocolate bars and a pound of organic raw cashews justify as energy needing to ground itself?

Louise Hay’s work is a voyage into these concepts—correlating health and a conversation with our bodies. Her aptly titled “You Can Heal Your Life” is a bible for self-administered mind/body medicine. For example, for the friend/sister sacked with nausea, Hay would list the probable cause as “Fear. Rejecting an idea or experience…” and offers the new thought pattern of “I am safe. I trust that the process of life to bring only good to me.”

My nauseous sistah called me throughout the day yesterday, needing support. She’s so dear to me, I probably spend more time worrying about her than I do myself, the way we needlessly do with those close to us, in some kind of maternal instinct to want to take care of her.

I tried, but it seemed no amount of wisdom or words of solace could comfort her pain. She offered a respectful “I think you need to see that we are processing differently here, I really am not well,” when I think what she really meant was “bitch, I’m on my knees at death’s door, don’t tell me that a massage and a jog by the Hudson made you all dandy.”

What was I doing wrong? How could I help to ease her pain?... because my words weren’t cutting it.

Last night I watched the emotive “Ram Dass: Fierce Grace” documentary. Toward the end of the film he is a counseling woman whose lover had been brutally murdered. Ram Dass was able to be caring, giving her the space to express emotion yet still gently guiding her to experience her pain without wallowing in it. What was most beautiful and enlightening to watch was his reaction to the woman when she told him of her worry that she would not find a love like that again. The deceased boyfriend “visited” her later and told her there was a much larger love in store for her:

“This was small peanuts. And when you find that love, I am part of it.”

Ram Dass responded with an involuntary “Yum yum yum yum” (the bija mantra associated with the heart chakra is ‘yum’, btw) and then he broke out into tears. Tears of beauty; vocal, guttural sobs of empathic pain collocated to the extent that the joy and suffering were at once indistinguishable; a primal yin and yang exposition encompassing both the darkness of despair and a miracle of hope.

This was such a gorgeous lesson for me personally because it so clearly illustrated a twofold process of what we are looking for with comfort. And although he was concerned with grief and a tragic incident this woman was working through, we can use the same concepts in dealing with physical ailments as our bodies process the lessons were are struggling to incorporate into our hearts and minds. The vomit of life comes both in a physical and emotional realm.

We want to be heard/supported in the moment, and we want to be told it will be okay in a larger landscape of the world/life/day.

Faith can provide this for us. A friend may be able to lead us to that faith. If you have Ram Dass handy, it's going to be a pretty spectacularly clear lesson.

However, there are times that no one can offer us relief or consolation. Although it may look like bile, or a fridge and tummy full of too much food, this, even, is a gift from faith itself so that we, in a last vestige of surrender, finally turn to seek that strength within ourselves. If we step up to take responsibility for even our most uncomfortable ailments, we open ourselves to the luster of life.