THIS HOLIDAY SEASON GIVE US THE GIFT OF YOU

So it’s Christmas time, Hanukah time, the Holiday Season, a time of giving and receiving brightly wrapped gifts with ribbons and bows, all sorts of gifts from large to small, mundane gifts like screwdrivers and exotic gifts like $100 an ounce truffles, but what about giving the gift of yourself?

As we get older, for many of us, that seems harder and harder to do. Over time we seem to hold back more and more. We seem to close up and harden. Oftentimes, this process of closing up and fitting in begins when we’re in school, and continues throughout our work life where we think we need to keep ourselves in line, fit in and do our work so our employers, colleagues, customers and clients will be happy with us, and we’ll get paid. As the years go by we play it safer and safer all the time.

Not all of us, but most of us, hold back one or another of our gifts. We withhold our love, or our passion, or our enthusiasm, or our ideas, or our smile, or our laughter, or our creativity and artistry, our commitment, or our dreams.

How many of us consider ourselves artists by the time we’re fifty, and who wasn’t an artist in kindergarten? How much of ourselves we give up as the years go by if we’re not careful. How many of our gifts lie dormant within us waiting to be shared?

My idea, this Holiday Season, is to begin to share your gifts more and more throughout the year.          

“What,” you may be asking, “is he talking about? What gifts?”

And that’s where you begin. You need to ask yourself some questions and consider their answers seriously.

What are my gifts? How do I share them? How do I hold them back?

Why? Am I afraid? Too tired? Too unemployed? Too serious?

What price have I paid for not sharing my gifts?

How can I share my gifts more fully?

Will I?

Before you can give your gifts to anyone else, you have to give them to yourself. You have to own the fact that you have gifts worth giving and that you want to give them.

And this can be hard.

“I have no gifts,” you might be saying, “and even if I did, why would I share them with you or anyone else? Bah, humbug.”

If you feel this way, and we all do to some extent, there’s probably a reason. Things didn’t go as you had planned. Something was taken from you. Someone laughed or tossed aside some part of you that you offered as a gift, so you closed up shop.

“That hurt. I’m not doing that again. Thank you, very much.”

With each of life’s cuts we scar a bit and close up more. In the process we lose sight of our gifts, of who we are and what we have to offer. We withhold our gifts and we suffer. We start to become more like Scrooge, and less like ourselves.

Dylan wrote, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”

One way we die is by withholding our gifts. Giving of ourselves keeps us young and alive. As we birth our next gift, we give birth to ourselves.

You may be saying this guy is smoking dope or something stronger, but check it out. Who’s alive and who’s dead? The givers or the horders? The generous souls or the misers?

Look at where you are dying. There’s probably a gift you are withholding, or feel unable to give.

That’s it, you might say. It’s not that I don’t want to give it, but I don’t have anyone to receive it. Or I don’t know how to give it. Or if I put it out there, I might not be recognized for it. Worse still, they might laugh and reject it. It might not be good enough. 

No one said it was going to be easy, but what’s your alternative? Are you going to figure out a way to share your gifts, or are you going to withhold them? Are you going to be busy being born, or busy dying?

Often, it’s our dreams we withhold the most, because that’s where we can really hurt. Better forget about dreams, but our buried dreams can be seen in the lines on our faces, and in our tired bodies. No one sees them better than our children and others who love us, and often they carry much of the weight. And this weight can seem heavier during this Holiday Season than at any other time. 

In the real world many dreams do not come true, at least not how you first dreamt them, but that doesn’t mean you need to have no dreams, no hope, and nothing new. You mature and learn to work with what you have. Your dreams of singing on Broadway turn into the reality of singing at a local senior citizen’s home. Your dreams of writing the great American novel become the blog you write. Your dreams of becoming the next Jacques Cousteau become your weekend walks on the beach exploring the tidepools with your kids, and volunteering at the Sea Center.

You don’t shrivel up, you rave on, where and how you can. You don’t just look for the work that is your passion; you bring your passion to your work wherever you work. You show up like an artist at the restaurant where you cook, and people can feel it and come back. You run plumbing lines that would make Michelangelo proud.

At work and at play, (There might not be a significant difference for the most successful amongst us.) the happiest and most successful people are those who show up and share their gifts most fully. This is true whether you’re a lawyer, plumber, builder, teacher, real estate agent, restauranteur, winemaker, artist, or stockbroker.

It’s harsh, but death is coming. Do you want it to come sooner or later?

You have to choose. You have to do the hard work of putting yourself fully into your life as best you can.

Remember, it’s gifts you are giving. It’s not about you. It’s about something or someone outside youself.

We all have gifts to give. We can smile. We can care. We can listen. We can encourage. We can love. We can create. We can help. We can praise. We can share. We can support. We can acknowledge. We can ask. We can teach. We can learn. We can give. We can receive. We can sing. We can lead. We can follow. We can be open. We can hold. We can envision. We can celebrate. We can create. We can dance. We can design. We can cook. We can offer excellent service. We can mean it. We can do our best. We can forgive. We can remember.

We really can do all these things and infinitely more.

So, it’s Christmas, it’s Hanukah, it’s the Festival of Lights, it’s the Holiday Season. Give what really matters. Come home to yourself. Celebrate the gifts you find there, and then share with the rest of us.

             Happy Holidays.
             I can be reached at drjohnluca@gmail.com and 805/680-5572

HOW GOOD WAS I? COMPARING YOURSELF INTO A FUNK

             It’s been a hard few days, I must confess. Not sure why. I think it’s the economy. People are struggling. I feel under-utilized. My circuits jammed on me. I had a meltdown. Found myself very frustrated. Negative. Physically upset with a headache that wouldn’t respond to meditation or medication.

Who wants to hear about a helping professional and life coach having a trying few days? 

“I have enough of those, myself,” I can hear you saying, “I don’t need to hear about yours.”

I was worried. How could I write something that might help someone else when I can’t keep myself from feeling this way?

I felt like a bit of a sham.

I sometimes envy people who seem to glide through life, like the old James Bond, seemingly without a sensitive, self-reflective moment of doubt, worry, weakness, or a bit of despondency.

Do those people really exist? They might, and bully for them. Oh, I have my days, and even my weeks and months, when things are just going swimmingly and everything is great with the world, days when I could probably kick 007’s butt.

Then there are, what I call, the ‘drowning’ days, days when I have to work hard to keep from sinking. And though they’ve gotten fewer and further apart and less severe, I still have my drowning days. That’s how it is.

I know there are billions who have to struggle. Maybe everyone struggles, sometimes, and James Bond is a big fat liar. He leaves out the parts where he’s lonely, and worries about that arthritic shoulder and, well, sometimes, even with a beautiful woman, he just doesn’t seem, well, as solid down there as he once was.

Know what I mean?

Sure you do.

Anti-depressants, anxiety medication, joints, pints, and kegs are sold by the boatload each hour to help us get through the tough work of being a human being.

Maybe that’s what it’s all about: how you make it through the tough times, how you behave, how you show up, how you keep going.

Do you get your work done, the real work of living? Can you keep loving those around you, lending a helping hand and a listening heart? Can you forgive yourself when you fall so that you can get up stronger and more quickly?

The Prophet Mohammed said, “There will always be times tougher than these.”
The Buddha said suffering is part of the world.

So, it’s all about how you handle the tough times. How you learn from them. How you take responsibility and action. How you move on.

The tough times will always be with us.

But why do I compare myself to others, even James Bond, or to myself on better days?

It was the teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti who first showed me the damage we cause by comparing. I can hear his high distinctive voice with his British-Indian accent and I can see his raised finger as he admonished his listeners, “Never to compare.”

What would a mind be like if it were never to compare, but to simply be with itself just as it is from moment to moment?

There is a Buddhist practice of labeling our thoughts and feelings as they are happening. You experience a thought and you label it, “thinking,” for instance. You feel an emotion, and you label it, “fear”, and so on.

But that already has a separation between the part of you that is experiencing the emotion or thought, and the part that is labeling it.

It seems you have to compare your experience to something else to be able to know it is fear, or anger, or desire, or joy.

You have to compare it before you can label it.

But what if you could never compare?

Wow.

But what did I do just then? Did I compare my good-old comparing self to some amazing me who might someday never compare?

What a drag, because obviously you can’t use comparison as a way to get to a point in your life where you no longer compare, just like you can’t go north by going south.

            Never to compare, and to go on doing your work and living your life from moment to moment. What would that be like?

But if I don’t compare, you might ask, how will I know how I’m doing?

Why does it matter? Why do you need to know how you are doing? Who will tell you? How will you keep score? What will it mean?

Of course you might use a scale to see how your weight is doing, and things like that, but you would not use anything to tell you how you were doing. That’s the kind of comparison we’re talking about, not whether this box of cereal is a better deal than that box. Never to compare your self with anyone and anything, but to simply be yourself from moment to moment.

What would that be like?

I don’t know, but I do know the pain of comparison. That I know. Comparison has often made me miserable.

There’s an old eastern teaching that says, “You suffer because you spend 99% of your time thinking about your self, but there isn’t one.”

I think comparison gives rise to the self. When you are not comparing, but just being and doing in the moment, it’s like you, your self, are not there. You forget about yourself and simply drop into life. When you’re really happy, you don’t know about it in the moment, because you’re so in the thick of your happiness. It’s only afterwards, when it’s over a little bit, that you can compare and notice how happy you were. You have to come out of your happiness a bit to even know that you’re happy.
 It’s like a great orgasm. In the middle of it, you’re gone. That’s what we love about it. Great sex or lovemaking is one of the best ways to get out of your own head so that you’re not there for a while.

And then, of course, we return and say, “Wow, that was great. Can we do that again?” It's amazing how good it feels to have your doors blown off for awhile so that you're gone, even if only for a moment or two.

 Check it out for yourself. Observe how comparing serves you and hurts you. Let me know what you think.

So, there it is. I wrote it. My commitment is two articles per week and this is article number two. That’s all I can tell you. You put one foot in front of the other, eyes open, mind quiet or mind in turmoil, you do what you can to keep walking the walk. You walk through fear, confusion, doubt, worry, moodiness, and even depression. You walk like you’re on some great mission like Frodo, in Lord of the Rings, because you are. You are walking the path of your one and only life—at least till you get to heaven or you reincarnate.

             Namaste. 
             I can be reached at drjohnluca@gmail.com or 805/680-5572.

SAYING NO, SAYING YES, AND CHANGING YOUR LIFE

For some, Monday morning is a hard day. For others, it’s Tuesday, or Thursday, or maybe Sunday. Any morning can be especially hard if you’re unemployed or under-employed. It can be especially hard if you’re unemployed and over fifty. I’ve read that many unemployed men over 55 are not expected to ever work again, even though they want to and need to.

What’s up with that?

If you’re expected to live to be 80 or so, and you’re now 55 and unemployed, that’s 25 years of being an unemployed monumental pain to yourself and everyone around you.

Of course, we may find that unemployed men and women just don’t live that long, and that will solve the problem.

Well, my response to that is, “To hell with that.”

            Now, I know that strikes a different tone for a guy like me, at least in writing. Usually, I’m a touchy-feely, let’s talk calmly, understanding-the-other-guy’s-point-of-view, kind of guy. 

            Not today.

Today, my attitude is, “To hell with that.”

            I say this quietly, not stridently. I’m not shouting it out my second floor window like Albert Finney in Network, who screamed, ‘I’m mad as hell, and I won’t take it anymore.”        

A lot of us are getting our butts kicked, one way or another, by the changes in the American and global economy. While one-third of Americans can’t pay their mortgages, corporations have their most profitable quarter ever, and an Andy Warhol painting sells for a record-breaking 71 million dollars.

To those inclined politically, I say continue to fight the good fight to get this country more equitable, and to re-direct some of the cash that relentlessly and dangerously keeps floating to the top of the economic pie where it accumulates in the portfolios and bank accounts of the ever more wealthy top 1% of the population.

But here, I’m not talking only to the political types. I’m talking to the rest of us who have to do our best while the machine whirs away, sometimes grinding us down as we go about our daily business.

            There are many empowering emotions. Just a few days ago we celebrated Thanksgiving, and I, along with a host of others, put out a few words in praise of gratitude.

            But that was yesterday.

Today I feel the need to offer a few words in praise of attitude, the attitude captured by the words, “To hell with that.’

            I can hear some of you now. “Oh, John, please watch your tone, and your language. You’re starting to sound like one of them.”

Them, being those people who get upset and make loud noises that make finding solutions even more difficult.

I’m not offering, “To hell with that,” as an addition to the noise.

            “To hell with that”, is a strong way of saying ‘no’ to what we don’t want, and “yes” to something else.

The ‘yes’ part is crucial.

Mother Teresa embodied the, “To hell with that,” attitude towards the idea that the poor always suffered and there wasn’t anything she or anyone else could do about it.

She said, “To hell with that,” rolled up her sleeves and got to work.

How about Martin Luther King Jr.?

What was his attitude towards, “The Negro in America would never have rights and opportunities equal to those of Whites”?

And what did he do about it?

What about Gandhi?

Can you hear a little of the, “To hell with that,” attitude spoken with love, but with the strength and conviction of shifting tectonic plates?

            We all need a bit of that, “To hell with that,” attitude sometimes.

But attitude can get us only so far. After attitude comes the hard of work of making things better.

            I heard a very insightful person say that to live effectively you need to be able to take your life in your hands like a crisp apple, bite it, break off a piece and chew.

What’s the energy that helps us do that?

That’s what I’m calling the, “To hell with that,” energy.

There’s the energy of inertia, the resistance that says, “No, you won’t work again. No, you will not solve that problem. No, you will not write that book, or get that job, or overcome that illness, or make that contribution. No. No. No.”

            Then there’s, “To hell with that.”

“To hell with that,” is Yes. Yes. Yes.

Or it’s just feckless noise.  

To those who say we are down for the count, we have to say, ”To hell with that.”

“To hell with that depression.”

“To hell with that anger.”

“To hell with that stuff about the glory days of the past.”

 “To hell with that stuff about Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, and Socialists.”

I’ve got work to do. Decisions to make. Things to learn. People to meet.

Life itself is nothing but an epochs-long struggle with inertia and resistance, a counter-force to increasing disorder.

Life is one big, TO HELL WITH THAT, to decay, death, and nothingness.

You need gratitude, but sometimes you need a little attitude.

“You can never find peace and liberation from the suffering created by your own mind.”

            Can you hear the Buddha’s response to that?

            Maybe, if Buddha were from Brooklyn rather than from India, instead of chanting “OM,” we’d be chanting, ever so slowly, but clearly, “To hell with that.” 
            Namaste.
            I can be reached at drjohnfluca@gmail.com. Or 805/680-5572.