Hi. I’m a day late, but here I am. This is the “Living in a Body” Podcast. Press the PLAY button above or read the full transcription below. Enjoy. ❤️ H
No Escape
Hi, I'm Hal. This is the “Living in a Body” Podcast. I'm feeling pretty weak, pretty out of breath. But I'm wanting to make this Episode. It’s Episode 84. I don't even know what I'm going to say, but I'm gonna call it “No Escape… So what are you gonna do with it?” Here we go… episode 84. No escape. It goes like this.
Occasionally, I ask myself this intriguing question. Would I rather live with ME/CFS or be a prisoner in a prison cell with a healthy body? It's an interesting question because they're both forms of prison. There's no escape. There's no escape from this illness. If I had a healthy body in prison, I could work out. I could write a book. I could interact with many different people. I could build community. I could practice meditation, probably become a really good watercolor artist. Similar to prison. with ME/CFS, there's no escape. I could possibly do some of those things I mentioned, but I’m sick all the time. My limitations are very severe. There's no escape from this illness.
There are many times like this morning when I was feeling like I was in hell. And there was no end in sight to the hell. And I just wanted an escape. Give me an escape, I'll take anything. But there is no escape. (Full disclosure, I took a half milligram of Ativan and it's not doing like it used to do because my symptoms have been worse lately, but it cut the edge a little bit and I'm not in as much hell.)
Okay, that's the end of the episode. (lol) That's all I got for you.
Someone turned me on to this book by Pema Chodron called “The Wisdom of No Escape.” And I read the first chapter. And it was inspiring….this idea that when we have no escape, we get to find out who we are. Using curiosity, we explore the fear, explore the grief, explore the discomfort, explore the sadness, explore the joy. And it all happens in this moment, in this body. This is what we have to work with. This is our canvas. This is where we do the exploring with exactly what we have now. We don’t run from the discomfort. We go into it and let it grow us.
And that inspires me, like wow, I have the opportunity to do the hardest to do the hard work. We do hard things. That's one of the mottos in my 12 STEP program is “we do hard things.” In recovery, we learn to be adults. We learn to face life on life's terms and do hard things. And the spiritual work of finding out who I am, under very difficult circumstances is the hard work that I have to do.
But I don't want to do hard things. I want an easy life. I just want to have fun like everybody else. I just want to go out for dinner and play ping pong and go contra dancing and make love and play frisbee and go to cool music festivals. But a friend reminds me that not everyone is just having fun. They've got their own problems. If we piled up everyone's troubles in a big pile, they say that most of us would choose our own troubles back. I get to be Hal Walker with all my troubles. It's not easy living in this body with no escape.
And I'm just a folk singer from Ohio. Lots of times I don't feel like I'm cut out for this kind of work. Sometimes my mind gets so crowded with fear and dread and grief and despair and hopelessness and it's hard to see the light through all that. It's hard to listen for the still small voice hidden beneath all those feelings and all that clutter of negativity and all these crazy uncomfortable physical sensations.
As I was approaching this podcast, I was thinking, “How can I be of service? What can I offer that might help?” I'm not sure what that is. I'm not sure what kind of help you need, but I guess I'd like to provide hope. I wish I had smarter thoughts. I wish I had wiser thoughts. I was thinking, why don't I get to be a Pema Chodron? Sometimes I'm writing in my “freewrite,” and I write hundreds and hundreds of words. And most of them are just frivolous gibberish. There's not a whole lot of wise phrases that you would cut out and post on a spiritual billboard. (lol) Why don't I get to be one of those guys. That's all my ego, I just want to… if all else fails, maybe the one thing that this illness can do for me, is make me wiser so that so that people would want to quote me on spiritual billboards. (lol) That's funny.
But really the practice is to be one among many, one special shining light among many shining lights. One Bozo on the bus, just another Bozo on the bus. One among the millions missing of ME/CFS.
I feel missing today. The “Who’s Your Mama” festival is happening downtown. And I was always down there. You know, I never felt particularly comfortable there. I was always…. you know, it's been hard for me to connect with people my whole life. I go into a crowd and I’m nice and I'm friendly and I say the right things. But I have a long history of just lacking that feeling of connection. So all my songs that I ever wrote are about connection, about community. I love this one song, It goes…
I've been writing community with every song I promise,
but the words are nothing but poetry till the work of love begins.
It's the beauty I’m seeking in you and me. That'll carry me through these questions.
And to move together in unity is the action that I choose.
What's the point of us doing this? What's the point of us holding hands?
How do we trust the truth of this? How do we make the circle dance?
How are we held accountable? How do we hold the mystery?
How do we join together and stay free?
I'm on a small boat riding wild oceans.
Oh, how can I just go and roll with the motion?
Oh, we're on a wide ship, riding in open seas.
It's been such a long trip, it’s taken its toll on me.
That's it. That's a great song. I've been writing community with every song I promise. But the words are nothing but poetry until the work of love begins. It's time to begin the work of love. And here I am living in a big house by myself. Forgotten.
I was complaining to a friend saying, “why don’t people check up on me? Why don't people visit and check up on me.” There are several people that do, but then I said, “but I don't check up on them. I don't check up on them.” Hal, you don't check up on them. In order to have friends, you have to be a friend. That's my service for today. That's my wise words. It's sort of a cliche. I'm not sure that I'm making this up in this moment. In order to have a friend, you have to be a friend. And I'm getting better at that. I'm getting better at sending cards, making phone calls and saying, “how are you doing?” A friend sent to me this prayer of Saint Francis. Let me get it. Let me grab it. (Phone Rings) Hold on I’m getting a call.
That was a call from my new sponsee Peter, who has been the highlight of my week. We've been working together for about three days now. And we spent about three days getting to know each other before that, and he eventually asked if I would be his sponsor. And it has just been a wonderful three days of being of service, helping. You know, I have something to offer, which is a program of recovery. And I have lots of experience in it and he's a delightful guy and we talk every day on the phone and we talk sometimes several times a day on the phone. And when I'm helping this guy, I'm not thinking about my own problems. So it's beautiful the way the 12-step program works that way. You know, in order to keep it, we got to give it away and I'm giving it away to Peter one day at a time. And I'm so grateful. That was him just then, just wanting to share a funny little story.
So anyway, I’ve got this other friend, Andrew who sent me this text. And the short version is “Let me seek to love, to comfort and to understand,” (Rather than to be loved, be comforted and be understood.) In my illness, I have been craving comfort. Like… please, someone comfort me. Where is the comfort? Please, understand how hard this is. Somebody understand how hard this is. Somebody love me.
And no matter how many friends I have, no matter how many phone calls I make, no matter how many likes I get on my Substack post, no matter how many people hold my hand while I cry, it doesn't take away this illness. Every night, I’ve still got to face my mortality on my own. It certainly makes me feel like I'm not alone. But it doesn't fill up what we refer to as the “god sized hole” in me. People keep saying it's God's love that can comfort. Only God can comfort me in the way that I'm seeking to be comforted. And I don't know what they're talking about. But I'm open to it. Because where else am I gonna get comfort? Maybe I could try medical Marijuana again. It didn’t work the first time though.
Generations of people and a lot of the people that I'm in contact with are having that experience of God's love in their life, the love of a higher power. It's our own understanding of a higher power. And I get glimpses. I get glimpses of what they’re talking about, that power. And it's mainly when I quiet my thinking, when I get quiet. My mind is so full of what I want. Like, I want an easier life. I want to go to the Who’s Your Mama festival. I want a life partner. I want somebody to comfort me. I want to go shopping. I want to play ping pong. I want to do all the things I used to do.
But that's not what I have. This is the body that I have. This is the situation that I have. This is the life that I've been given. “There is no escape, Hal. What are you going to do with this?” We do hard things. This is a hard life but we do hard things. What's the next right action? It's easier to say right now because I'm cutting the edge a little bit with the Ativan. This morning was so hellish.
Three days ago, I basically experienced a dip, a worsening of symptoms. It wasn't a crash like I had been having. I've had about five weeks free of crashes and some stability. But three days ago, it took a turn. I felt this weakness in my gut that sort of emanates to a weakness in my arms and a weakness in my legs and a weakness in my brain. And I have just felt like an emaciated muscle-less, limp rag with zero or negative energy. I keep hoping that it's gonna get better and I wake up every morning not knowing what body I'm going to wake up into.
It occurs to me that some people choose a life of severe limitation in order to explore the inner life, in order to find out who they are and how the world works. I sure didn’t choose this but sometimes if I imagine that I did choose it, it helps me a little bit. There’s so much to learn here.
Anyway, I hope you can glean… (I've used that word twice in three weeks.) Hope you can glean some wisdom out of all I've said. Maybe you can use some of it for yourself. But you know, here's my wisdom. Reach out to someone and check on how they're doing. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to make several phone calls this afternoon and say, “How are you doing? …How are you doing? No really?” Don't say “how are you!?” Don’t say, “Hey, Jimmy, how are you!?” Say, “Hey Jimmy, it’s Hal. I was just thinking about you. Yeah, I'd love to hear how you are.” I don't know anyone named Jimmy. But no, you say it however you want to say it. I'm not gonna tell you how to say it. But just reach out to someone and find out how they are. And maybe even write them a card. But better yet a phone call. And maybe they'll ask you how you are and you can share your burdens.
I think that may be it for today. I'm glad I turned on the microphone. Turns out I had more to say than I thought I did. It's called “No Escape. What are we going to do with it?” I love you… and I don’t even know you. And I'm also resentful of you (lol) for not having checked in on me and not leaving a comment and not signing up for “Quiet Time with Hal” and not sharing this podcast. I'm just kidding.
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After I'm done with an episode, when it goes up, I'm done. It's all God. Now God you do the work. Whoever it reaches, whoever it touches, that's enough. My job is done. Enjoy living in that body of yours today. It’s a beautiful, beautiful world we live in. Even this room I live in is a beautiful room with this “Healing is Possible” painting. There's a photo of my wild daughter at the age of six, doing this beautiful pose. I've got these watercolor supplies nearby. I've got several cool devices nearby. I'm well blessed in the devices department.
Anyway, I’ve said enough. Have a good day. Bye
No Escape