Hi, I'm Hal, this is the “Living in a Body” podcast. I sure am glad you're here. I'm glad that in some virtual way, we get to be here together… you and me. Thank you so much. Press PLAY above to hear episode 103. Please consider upgrading to a paid subscriber to help support this endeavor. Thank you!
In the Eye of the Storm
I've been up since about 2:30 this morning. At night, I take three milligrams of melatonin and that usually puts me to sleep pretty well. But every night, I wake up at about two o'clock in the morning or 2:30 or three, and I usually take a half dose of ZzzQuil in a liquid form and I found it works real well. It puts me out for the rest of the night ‘till I wake up at about seven o'clock.
But last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I realized my bottle of ZzzQuil was empty. So I said, “Okay, God, just you and me tonight and that three milligrams of melatonin.” So that's what I did. I fell asleep fairly easy and at 2:30 I woke up and I pretty much knew that that was it for the night. I was too ill to fall back to sleep, so I settled into that more and more familiar mode of “welcome it all.” Hours and hours of welcoming it all. And I'm going to try and tell you what I mean by that.
I recently heard a story about bison or buffalo. I don't remember exactly how the story goes, but what I recall is that bison are the one animal that when there's a storm coming, they run toward the storm. They run toward the eye of the storm and somehow they find peace in the eye of the storm. Rather than running away from the storm like all the other animals and all the people, they run directly into the storm and they wait there.
And that's kind of what I've been practicing in my meditation practice, not perfectly. I got a long way to go, but it's just an intention I have as I enter my meditation is to go into the eye of the storm, to welcome it all, to find rest, to find peace within the mess of all that is. And believe me, living with ME/CFS, when I say all that is… when I talk about the mess, it's a lot. It's a messy, messy internal world.
Loud ringing in my ears. Burning weakness in my belly. Aching weakness in my arms and legs, overall sickness, deep illness. (lol)
Sometimes on this podcast, I make it look kind of light and I make it sound funny. It ain't funny, my brother and my sister. It ain't funny. It's a lot of suffering. Your friend Hal, the old folk charmer. Whenever you get a minute, send a little prayer my way and say, “I hope he's making it okay today.” Because this illness is a — oh, what was the word I used today, when I sent Cameron a text, I said, “Cameron, it's a grueling illness, but I keep going.” It's a grueling illness, but I keep going. Grueling is a beautiful word. It's a beautifully descriptive word for this illness.
You know, the nice thing about those Buffalo is they run to the eye of the storm and then they wait it out there in the middle of it all. And then the storm passes and the blue skies open up. The blue skies open up — those Montana skies. Yeah, those Montana skies. I've never been to Montana, but I I can imagine those Montana skies. I don't even know that's where Bison live, but that's the first thing that came to my mind is those Montana skies. They open up — big, wide, open skies. And the Bison get to just lay back in the sun, in the blue, and soak it all up.
ME/CFS doesn't really work like that. It's more like the storm never ends. You stay in the middle of the storm. You stay in the middle of the chaos. You know, I certainly have my moments. There are moments that are better than others, but I'm still waiting for that Montana sky to open up. It may not be in this lifetime or it may be. You know, maybe little by little, that inner sky, that inner sky is opening. That's what I'm looking for is the inner sky, that inner Montana sky. Yeah, I can feel that right now, the inner Montana sky.
So I got to let you know I have a fairly robust meditation practice. So much of the doing has been taken away from me. I've spent my life as a human doing, a human project-maker, a human creator, and most of it's been taken away. I'm mostly bed bound. I have very little capacity for doing, but the one thing that has not been taken away from me is meditation.
You know, the inner life will always be there and I'm grateful for that, because fortunately, thank God, I have an interest in the inner life. I have a much greater interest in the outer life. (lol) Believe me, believe me. I love the outer life, but the inner life has not yet been taken away from me. So here we are.
And it's times like last night when I was up for six hours meditating — or four hours, that I realized all that practice came into good use. I spent the night with my eyes closed. Just looking around at the internal world. Watching things rise and fall. Watching things come and go and smiling, essentially smiling all night long. (lol)
It might seem strange. It might seem crazy, considering the extent of my discomfort and illness and wishing I were asleep. I laid there watching the inner world, and smiling. Now, I don't want to deceive you into thinking my life is all smiles and there's no reason to feel sorry for me. (lol)
Actually, that was a joke. I don't find people feeling sorry for me to be helpful. But there is that little part of me that wants you to know how hard this is. Sometimes, I'd go so far as to call it excruciatingly difficult. I don't really know what I want your reaction to be, but I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I guess I'm just here to tell my story and I want you to remember that this illness exists and that I exist over here on South Chestnut Street in this room, up in the second floor. I guess I wanna remember all the people living with this illness — isolated, poorly treated, barely diagnosed, many without the resources that I have to survive this thing
in the whole school of life. ME/CFS is one of the meanest teachers. Yep, that's the class I'm in. But you know, there are a lot of hard lives out there and it's the hard life that either destroys us or makes us transform. And I have a feeling that welcoming it all has something to do with the transformation. That's what I'm betting on anyway.
But I want to tell you about my meditation practice. I've joined an online meditation community called “Meditate Together” and it is a wonderful community. It's run by an organization called Mindful Leader. Mindful Leader and Meditate-Together were the brain children of a guy named Mo Edjlali and I am a big fan. Here's how it goes:
For $5 a month or $40 a year, there's online meditation every hour on the hour, led by a facilitator. Let me say that again. Every hour on the hour, you click a button and get on Zoom, and there's anywhere from four to 20 people there being welcomed by a facilitator, and here's how the program goes.
It's 20 minutes of meditation. The meditation begins about two minutes after the hour, and we have 20 minutes of meditation. It's basically 20 minutes of silence for you to meditate in any way you want. And then here's the beautiful thing. After they call you back in a very mindful way, there's an optional reflection time that lasts about eight minutes. The facilitator will ask a thoughtful and intriguing question about mindfulness or meditation and it's followed by an optional sharing time where people get to share honestly about their experience.
It's so beautiful and it happens 24 hours a day, every hour on the hour, except on the weekends. There's just a few sessions on the weekends. But sometimes I'm on there six or even eight times. I'm usually on there for three, four, six, or eight times, and I benefit greatly from it. Meditating with a community of people that I'm getting to know their faces and getting to hear their stories during the reflection time.
I'm just gonna take this time now to humbly suggest or recommend that you give it a try for a month. Bring “Meditate Together” into your life once a day. For a bed-bound guy like me, craving community, it's been a blessing and a game changer for my meditation practice. And for $5 for a month, you got nothing to lose. Anyway… back to welcoming it all.
During each of my 20 minute meditation sessions, I alternate between a couple different meditation techniques. One of them is Transcendental Meditation, which I learned a couple years ago, and have done consistently almost twice a day for the last couple years or so. It's a mantra that I was given and I repeat it over and over again in my thoughts. It's such a restful way to meditate. I don't have to think of anything. They say if it's easy, you're doing it correctly. It's so delightful to close my eyes and think, “okay, all I got to do is say the mantra”and I say the mantra over and over again, and I rest beneath that mantra.
But the other technique I use has been introduced to me by several people. My awesome English girlfriend, who I've mentioned several times, Emma turned me on to this guy, Jeff Foster, who does YouTube meditations. Jeff talks about “resting in the mess.” You know, welcoming it all. Welcoming the thoughts, welcoming the feelings, welcoming the bodily sensations. Welcoming the resistance to the welcoming. Welcoming it all and finding the rest, finding the peace. Allowing that welcome to create the peace.
Like if you welcome it all… that's my big challenge, is to find peace, in this body of chaos. And at those moments where I'm able to welcome it all like right now. I breathe. I welcome that discomfort in my lungs. I don't say “yay, welcome!” I just quietly say “hello, welcome.”
The ringing in my ears, I welcome. “Hello, welcome.” The tingling in my feet, I welcome. The thoughts that come my way, I welcome. The fear. That's a hard one, welcoming the fear. That fear is just so uncomfortable. Welcoming the terror. And this illness comes with terror. I carry around the terror of it getting worse. I carry around the thought of it getting worse and how much worse can it get? How much more suffering can I handle?
But I welcome it. Even welcoming the fear. Even welcoming the resistance to welcoming. (lol) Jeff sort of spins an interesting circle. But I’ve really found it to be a useful meditation. I just spent four hours this morning when I couldn't sleep, just lying there, welcoming.
And one important aspect of this is that there's no goal to the meditation practice. There's no goal to the welcoming. I'm not doing the welcoming so that I can get somewhere. All I'm doing in each moment is welcoming the moment and that's it and I'm done with it. Move on to the next moment.
So I invite you, as you go through your day today, go into the eye of the storm and welcome it all. Welcome the blue sky, welcome the snow, welcome the insane news that might be coming across your feed and all the feelings that come with it.
By the way, I gave up looking at the news. I gave up TikTok and Instagram recently, and also Facebook. And it opened up a whole bunch of space in my brain. It's much more peaceful in there without scrolling on TikTok looking at tragic plane crashes and insane new shit happening by the crazies in office.
When my mom was asking me how I deal with it all, I said, “I mainly focus on the inner world. I mainly focus on the inner life.” And she said, “that sounds very self centered.” I'm not sure it is. I'm not sure. I think my best role in this world is to be at peace and to be a grounded, calm, loving, present, welcomer of it all. And I don't think that all the news I was getting off of TikTok and Instagram, my two main sources of news, (lol - don't make fun of me) I don't think those were helping me.
But man, I sure did want to scroll last night in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, but I didn't. I just laid there and welcomed it all. Welcomed it all. Welcome that nervous system on fire, welcome. Welcome the blaring of the ears, welcome. Welcome the thoughts, welcome the scary thoughts, welcome. Welcome, the resistance to the welcoming, welcome. Welcome to that voice that says, I don't think I can handle this, this is impossible to welcome. Here's one, welcome to the limitations and welcome to all the grief around the limitations. Welcome the angel that walks into my room whenever a visitor comes, welcome. Welcome my caregiver, Mango, who's so dedicated to me and so loving toward me, welcome.
Alright everybody, I think that's all the welcoming I'm gonna do right now. This was supposed to be short, and I think we're going on 20 minutes. (lol)
My daughter put out her first podcast yesterday and I loved watching it. She reminds me of myself. Hers is 32 minutes, so maybe I'll leave a link here. You can go check it out.
I love you. I love you and I miss you. I miss running with you. I miss walking with you. I miss riding bikes with you. I miss seeing you at the grocery store. I miss seeing you down at the river on the Riveredge Park. I miss seeing you at the Kent Natural Foods store. I miss seeing you at church. I miss seeing you up on the top of the 14,000 foot peaks, up in the Indian Peaks Wilderness in Colorado, in that huge field of wildflowers. It's rough man. I could start crying right now if I wanted to, but…. and I can welcome all that missing.
Hey, enjoy that body. Whatever body you got. Enjoy it today.
Enjoy the body today and I'll do the same.
And I ordered some ZzzQuil so I'm looking forward to a better night's sleep tonight.
I love you. Bye bye. Stay in touch.
I'm signing off. I'll see you next time, bye bye.
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