Category: Reflections

Recently in my yoga classes, I’ve been focusing on flow. The flow of your breath, the flow of energy in your body, and the flow of your emotions. It’s so easy for this flow to become stuck.

This can happen due to stress, when we tense our muscles and hold our breath, allowing energy to become constricted. Or, it can happen if we hold on too tightly to an idea of how the world should be, rather than allowing life to play itself out as it is. We can also become stuck in our emotions, refusing to let go of sadness, resentment, anger, or frustration.

I know I’m regularly guilty of all of the above. In recent years, I have experienced stuckness all over the place, and seem to have lost a basic sense of trust. Trust that things will generally work out, trust that certain people will come through for me. I don’t believe any of those things anymore.

And yet, if I allow myself the time to sit still, I can still sense the flow. I can still feel that my breath is a wave. That air flows in, and it also flows out. There is a natural exchange in that flow of energy. And it’s beautiful. I’m trying to trust in that.

A couple of weeks ago, we said a final goodbye to my father-in-law as we spread his ashes in the Niagara River. We gathered in a park by the water, and my husband and his brother took turns emptying the contents of his urn into the river. The sky was a slate grey above us as we watched the proceedings in silence.

His ashes were an interesting tan colour, lighter than the dirt around us, and as the waves gently washed in, they mixed in with my father-in-law’s remains and carried them out to sea. Accepting them, diluting them, spreading them. My father-in-law is now one with the river.

On that day, I looked out at the horizon beyond the water, and then turned back to look at the pretty autumn leaves all around us, and felt that my father-in-law was at peace. He’d always loved Niagara-on-the Lake, and had visited this place regularly during the last few years of his life. I could feel his approval of our choice for his place of rest.

The next day, as we were heading out of town, we decided to stop by the falls. It somehow seemed wrong to leave the area without taking a look at what has always made it famous. As we stepped out of the car into a sunny day, with a clear blue sky, we noticed a big rainbow over the falls. One of the biggest and clearest rainbows I have ever seen.

As legend has it, the rainbow is a Biblical sign of God’s promise, that He will never flood the earth again. But it’s also a sign of hope. Of beauty. Of impending good fortune. On that day, it also felt incredibly fragile, like we could lose it at any moment. So, we all grabbed for our cameras and took plenty of shots, trying to capture the moment forever. Holding on. Blocking flow, as we humans tend to do. Knowing that this moment may not last.

And then, as we slowly walked back to the car under the shadow of the trees, the wind suddenly picked up and showered us with red and gold leaves. They fell all around us, dropping lightly, and swirling, like feathers to the ground. It seemed to me in that moment that the trees weren’t losing their leaves, they were giving them to us as a gift. It wasn’t loss. It was reciprocity. Unlike us, they weren’t trying to hold on. They were giving back to the earth. The natural give and take of life.

In that moment, I could really feel the flow of the universe. The flow of the water that carried away my father-in-law’s ashes, the sudden appearance of a rainbow above the mist the falls, the shower of leaves as they cascaded over our heads – it was all movement. Nothing was stagnant here, except perhaps myself.

The universe was showing me how to inhale and exhale. It was showing me how to trust in the flow. It was reminding me that, even though we may lose things, we can still gain them too. The world will go on – if we let it. We just have to keep breathing, keep moving, and keep watching for that rainbow in the sky.

We all know competitive people. They’re frankly annoying. Whatever you do, they will try to one-up you. They will interrupt you, or block you as a way to get ahead. They can often be found grandstanding in front of a crowd, laughing at themselves in a self-deprecating way so as to appear charming.

They certainly don’t care about you – unless they think they can ride on your coattails. In that case, they will shower you with compliments, sticking as close to you as possible to catch any benefits that may trickle down. But they’ll throw you under the bus as soon as your talents are no longer needed, and without a hint of remorse. Because in the end, they really only care about winning.

Those are the really competitive people. But then, we all compete to a certain extent, don’t we? We are all trying to appear better than we are. We are all trying to impress.

I recall being in yoga classes and trying to do all the poses perfectly. I swear, the bend in my front leg in Warrior II pose was completely horizontal! My lunges were deep. My Triangle pose was a model of symmetry. In short, I was using yoga (of all things) as a way to compete. I was trying to impress. What I failed to notice was that no one really cared, except for me.

The real question is: why did I feel the need to do this? Looking back, it was because I felt inadequate in so many ways. Suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I felt weak and sick and useless most of the time. But if I could do a perfect Extended Side-Angle pose, it meant I still had some value. In the yoga studio, I was faultless – or, at least, I tried to be.

I’m reflecting on this now because of a discussion I had with a customer this week. When I mentioned the yoga classes I teach, she immediately felt the need to tell me that she did yoga for years and can still do a perfect Headstand, as well as a Handstand. She wanted me to know she was no slouch, and didn’t need any help.

In that moment, I saw myself. And I felt so much compassion for her. I can still remember that old ‘me’. The ‘me’ that used to try so hard to be perfect. The ‘me’ that tried a restorative yoga class just once and declared it pointless. As far as I could tell, everyone was just lying around. Where was the benefit in that?

At the time, my idea of exercise was that you needed to strain and sweat. If you weren’t pushing yourself in some way, you weren’t getting any stronger. You weren’t getting any better. And I was in the habit of pushing myself – hard – in all areas of my life. If I wasn’t putting in 110% effort, I thought I was slacking. When I look back, it’s no wonder I got Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In fact, it’s a wonder I didn’t get it sooner!

Which brings me to my point. In Western culture, we are taught that we don’t have value unless we have achieved something important. Unless we have produced something of value. We work all day in offices, in workplaces, and even in our own homes, trying to prove to ourselves and to others that we have worth. That we matter. That we are deserving of love.

I’m here to tell you that you are already deserving of love. You already matter. You don’t have to do anything. The people who truly love you already love you, without condition. You don’t need to prove yourself to them. That was a lesson it took me a long time to learn. Ironically, it’s a lesson you start to learn when you do restorative yoga – precisely the type of yoga class I regularly steered myself away from.

In restorative yoga, you learn that there are supports beneath you that you can rely on. You don’t need to do it all yourself. You can rest. You learn that you have value even when you are still. Even when you are doing nothing.

It’s a very important lesson for all people who suffer from fatigue, burnout, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which I see as an extreme version burnout. Really, it’s an important lesson for everyone who lives in our culture.

If you can see yourself in anything I’ve said here, know that you don’t have to try so hard. Know that you are valued just as you are. Understand that anything you do or create will be of better qualify if it comes from a place of peace, rather than desperation.

And then come visit me at www.rebeccasrestfulyoga.com. Together, we’ll restore your nervous system and help you remember what you were like before competitiveness got hold of you. Before you felt you needed to prove yourself in order to be loved.

Last night, my husband and my eldest son went to Centennial Park to ride the go-carts one last time.

These go-carts, once a cherished part of my children’s memories, will soon be no more. The City of Toronto has plans to demolish this part of the park. No doubt, something new will be installed there, and perhaps it will be something we enjoy even more than the go-carts, but right now, it just feels very sad. It’s the end of an era. Like so many things in my life of late, the go-carts will soon be part of my past.

There was a large crowd of people there, my husband said. Everyone wanted to ride the go-carts one last time before they shut them down. While they were there, my son shared his first memories of the place, riding in the passenger seat with his too-large helmet on, my husband at the wheel, driving for the both of them. I was surprised and pleased that he remembered this. My husband was too. And joy was mixed up with the sadness.

I suppose that’s the way life always is. We never experience just one emotion at a time, but a mix of all of them at once. It part of what makes life so heartbreakingly beautiful – that we can see the beauty mixed in with the sadness, and the laughter mixed in with the pain.

The most important thing, as I’ve been realizing of late, is to recognize and feel all of it. The whole mixed bag. In the past, I think I’ve tried to protect myself from all the harder emotions – the sadness and the hurt and the anger and the jealousy. I’ve pushed them all away, thinking it would keep me more optimistic, that it would prevent me from falling into a depression. It never really worked.

Ironically, what seems to help is not running away, but actually leaning in to all those difficult emotions. And so, I’ve allowed myself to feel every nuance of the shock and bewilderment of my father-in-law’s recent, sudden death. I’ve been feeling into all the love and care that my mother showed me before she died, that in fact, she showed me throughout her entire life. Feelings that I’ve tried to hold at a distance from myself, to protect myself from hurt, I’m finally, unapologetically, allowing inside.

My life has recently encompassed a lot of endings. The go-carts in Centennial Park are just a small reminder of that. But when I reflect on things, it has been filled with a lot of tender, life-giving moments as well. Like when my husband told me how proud he was of my courage, or my brother-in-law showed empathy for my tears, or my kids helped out with chores without being asked.

Just before my father-in-law died, my youngest son visited him in the hospital. My son was trying to be cheerful, expressing optimism about my father-in-law’s condition, telling him that things could still get better. But my father-in-law would have none of it. I think he already knew the score. Instead of humouring my son, he said, bluntly, “Try not to be sad about my death. It’s OK. Just go and live your life!”

And so, that is what we shall do. Without avoiding the sadness of the ending, we will grasp hold of the memories that lift us and sustain us, and we shall move on towards a new beginning. The beginning of Rebecca’s Restful Yoga. The possibility of new adventures and new challenges. And perhaps, just perhaps, those go-carts at Centennial Park will be replaced with something even more beautiful and meaningful than what was there before. A place where even more memories can be made, both happy and sad.

“To greet a lovely morning, we must leave the night behind.” ~Tarang Sinha

I used to have these nightmares as a child. I would be chased by a monster or a ghost, or a group of ghosts. It seemed there was always something evil lurking in the dark, just waiting to pounce on me.

In these dreams, I would be running through the basement of my parent’s house, or the basement of my grandparent’s house (always basements!), with the monster of the night fast on my heels. Unable to get away, I would awaken suddenly, terrified, my heart pounding.

In one memorable dream, I managed to escape my grandparent’s house into the dark of the night. As I continued my escape, running down the road to some imagined safety, I suddenly saw my grandmother up ahead, walking slowly. Relieved, I ran up to hug her, desperate for some feeling of comfort. But as she turned to face me, I saw that her skin was green. She wore a witch’s hat and snarled at me as she reached out with her bony fingers to grab me.

So many terrors.

Many years ago, when my husband and I were first dating, I remember reading something about animal avatars. This was long before the rise of video games. In this article, the female author was describing her personality and trying to choose an animal that best matched her spirit. In the end, she picked a tiger. I thought that so mysterious and sexy .

Intrigued, asked my husband what kind of animal he thought I might be. I imagined he might see me as something equally strong and beautiful, perhaps another kind of cat. But do you know what he said?

A rabbit. He saw me as a frightened, bunny rabbit. Droopy ears, long whiskers, twitching nose and all.

Even then, even through my disappointment, I could see the fit. I’ve always been a frightened girl. I’ve never been described as fierce or courageous. I’ve always been a coward.

Now that you know that, it is probably predictable that these last number of years have found me cowering under the covers, anxiously awaiting news of the next, fresh catastrophe. In my case, it hasn’t just been the pandemic. There’s also been my mother-in-law’s dementia and the uncertainty of running her business without her. There’s been my mother’s Parkinson’s disease, and her slow and steady decline. As each of my mothers approached the end of their lives, they demanded things of me I never felt fully equipped to give.

I’ve been stumbling. Badly.

But then, as I’m realizing now, I’ve also been growing. Unbelievably, in the midst of all this fear and sorrow, I’ve somehow managed to complete my herbal training, mentor at a herbal clinic for a year, and also take three different yoga teacher trainings. Maybe I wasn’t as frozen in place as I thought.

For me, the night appears to be lifting. The pandemic is over. Both of my mothers have quietly passed on to the next world, with my father-in-law unexpectedly following them. As I blink and look ahead, I am dazed by the light of a new morning. A morning I never dreamed could one day exist. And yet, here it is.

I am opening a yoga studio on Sunday, October 1st. I will be teaching gentle yoga for emotional issues like depression, anxiety and burnout, three conditions I am very much acquainted with. Classes will be both in-person and virtual. If you are interested, my website can be found at www.rebeccasrestfulyoga.com.

Come join me as we walk away from the anxiety and fear of the last few years, and create a new beginning. One with presence, peace, and calm. One where connection is valued over competition, and kindness matters more than hate.

“No matter how far you have run , no matter how long you have been lost, it is never too late to be found”. ~ Rene Denfeld

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

My father-in-law loved kitchen gadgets. I suppose he thought they made his life easier. No doubt, they made his food healthier and tastier, and his ingredients more fresh. He owned more than one food processor, two air fryers, four juicers, a vacuum sealer, and more woks and frying pans than could ever fit in his kitchen cupboards – so he stored them in his study.

He also loved movies, but he loved a good deal even more. So, he would borrow movies from the library, copy them onto a compact disc, and then store them in perfectly organized file boxes, which he kept in a series of shelves in his front hall. He had hundreds of these discs. Thousands, even. The shelves were absolutely packed with them, yet I doubt he ever even watched most of them.

He owned shelves and shelves of books, his closet was packed with clothes, and he was starting to build an extensive tool collection. He also filled more than 15 external hard drives with miscellaneous TV recordings. Why did he do this? What was he trying to capture?

You may have noticed that I’m referring to my father-in-law in the past tense. That’s because he died a few weeks ago. Suddenly. Dramatically. None of us were expecting it. His death came completely out of the blue, on a sunny August day, while everyone else was out on vacation enjoying the superb, late-summer weather.

Perhaps we should have known. Or, at least suspected. He’d been struggling with frequent diarrhea, which then progressed to include uncomfortable bloating. In the end, it turned out to be pancreatic cancer. He died less than two weeks after he was diagnosed, before the cancer oncologist could even meet with him to talk about treatment options. The shock of this quick succession of events required time to process. I did nothing but stare at the wall for two days.

I think most everyone has had the experience of cleaning out the home of a recently deceased relative and taken note of all of their things. The things that were so important to them, that they worried over, that they spent outrageous sums of money on. They are all that’s left of my father-in-law now. Our task is to scoop these items up, decide if we want to keep them, and then dump them into boxes and cart them away.

It all feels so disrespectful, and so sad. You become aware, as never before, of how unimportant ‘things’ really are.

My friend Melissa says something often: “Collect memories, not things”. She probably heard it from someone else, but it still resonates with me now. She spends her money and time on experiences: hikes, concerts, parties, friends, and of course, on time with her children and grand-children. She takes pictures. Countless pictures. She captures smiles, funny moments, memorable times.

Looking around me now at all the ‘debris’ my father-in-law has left in his wake, I think she has the right idea. When I die, I don’t want my children to have to clean expensive clothes out of my closet, or weighty, yet meaningless trinkets from my shelves. For the remaining years of my life, I want my heart to sing, not from any power I’ve obtained or from any things that I’ve bought, but from moments of joy and connection with others.

Once we’re gone – and at some unknown hour we will all go – everything we own will turn to dust. It will just be some junk that someone else has to clear away. All of the countless, precious things we have collected will no longer hold any meaning, to us or to others.

So, why not focus on one another instead? Why not observe and listen to the incredibly unique, multi-faceted people sitting all around us, the ones who are themselves ephemeral, flickering lights in the dark. At least these gems will remember some small part of us when were gone. They’ll have a few stories to tell, they’ll warm themselves with laughter, and drink to the memory of our finest hours.

In the end, isn’t that the most meaningful memorial we could hope for? And as a bonus, it doesn’t add to the size of the city garbage dump.

You could say my husband is a “straight talker” – straight talking meaning bluntness, I suppose. But in my opinion, his “straight talk” goes much deeper than that. He doesn’t just state his opinions bluntly, he has this ability to see things that other people don’t.

By this, I don’t mean he is clairvoyant. He can’t see the future. He also can’t see your aura. I guess I would describe his “vision” more as an ability to see through your rationalizations. He can tell when you’re way off base, when your reasoning doesn’t hold up, and when you’re just bull-shitting yourself – or others.

I’ve relied on this particular ability of his many times in my life. In fact, I have valued it most when he sees through my own bullshit. For example, he will bluntly tell me when I am avoiding something out of fear, and not because it doesn’t make sense. He will call out my paranoia, when I think people are saying or doing things behind my back, reminding me that mostly, they’re not thinking about me at all. He has a big problem with lies, and he is contemptuous of manipulators. Somehow, he is able to detect all these things before I even get a whiff of them.

I have often thought he is the quintessential little boy who sees that the emperor has no clothes. Because he doesn’t just notice these things, he also can’t help saying something about them, no matter the social cost. He’s like Toto in the Wizard of Oz, who won’t stop barking and pulling back the curtain until everyone can see that the person they’re afraid of is really just a small, elderly man frantically fiddling with a bunch of levers.

That tiny man – the homunculus – is the supposedly rational mind that, for decades, we’ve been told is directing all of our thoughts and actions. Except that now, we have access to oodles of brain studies showing that this is complete hogwash. Hardly any of our decisions are rationally considered, and we are easily led astray by simple things like the current ratio of hormones in our bodies, consolidated memories from our past, the amount of trees in our environment, and even if we’ve eaten in the past hour.

I learned all this from the book Behave by Robert Sapolsky. It’s a mammoth book, in which he dissects the entire anatomy of human decision-making, from the smallest of neurotransmitters to entire brain regions, from the narrow effect of hormones to how those relate to our larger social environment. Along the way, he cites so many opposing scientific studies that by the time you’re halfway through the book, you’re confused as hell.

What causes us to do what we do? It’s impossible to tell. Every biological marker depends on something else to activate it. So much of what we do is context- dependant. He takes the concept of epigenetics to an entirely new level. In his quest to discover what makes people do what they do, we find no solid answers. You might as well shrug your shoulders and throw a dart, because that’s as close as you’ll ever get to deciphering their reasoning, or lack of it (at least at this time). This should make us all more hesitant when we decide to mete out punishment.

What we do know for sure is that the homunculus has no clothes. Just like my husband, who is constantly pointing out when I get lost in my own head, we as a species are also lost. We need to stop pretending that we’re not. We’ve bungled a lot over the years, from our decision to burn women at the stake for witchcraft, to our long-time defence of slavery.

We make better decisions as a group, when we are confronted, uncomfortably, with many opposing views and perspectives. It helps us to get out of our own heads for awhile and see things from someone else’s point of view. It stimulates openness and creativity. Just like me, we all need someone around to tell us when we’re full of shit. Because it’s rare to the point of impossibility when we can see it for ourselves.

On several different occasions while I was growing up, I remember my mother remarking, “I just love Indian children. They are so well behaved!” At the time, I just shrugged my shoulders. My mother was a teacher at the time, and I was a neurotic adolescent. So, while she had pretty strong opinions about teaching and child-rearing, I mostly had no opinions at all.

I could imagine groups of clean, smiling Indian children, trying their best to be polite. It fit the stereotype. My mother’s remark made a certain sense, even though it rankled a bit. Even then, it seemed wrong to predict someone’s behaviour based entirely on their race.

I also remember when I first met my husband at university. We would often engage in these long, philosophical discussions in my dorm room, and on one particular occasion, I made a comment about all Asians being good at math. Mike bristled, which surprised me at the time. “Not all Asians are good at math,” he told me. “That’s just as ridiculous as saying that all Caucasians are good at math.”

I didn’t quite get it. All the Asian people I knew were good at math (although, admittedly, I didn’t know many). What I didn’t understand at the time is that there could be many different reasons for Asians shining in the classroom.

For one, most Asians who immigrated to North America in the late 50’s and early 60’s (as his parents did), tended to be the best and brightest. They won scholarships to attend university in North America, so it’s natural that their kids might be particularly bright as well. That doesn’t necessarily mean that all Asians everywhere share this same talent, though.

Secondly, and the focus of this particular blog: the kids of many Asian immigrants were often forced to be good at math through repeated beatings and scathing verbal abuse. They were the best and brightest because their parents simply wouldn’t accept anything less.

You might recall a popular book published in 2011 called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. It became a best-seller because it promoted the idea that if you wanted your kids to succeed, you needed to push them hard. Everybody wanted their kids to succeed like Asian kids, so a lot of mothers took Chua’s advice and strived to be Tiger Moms too.

But at what cost? As it turns out, the lives of those Asian immigrant kids was not so great. Now that these kids have reached middle age, they are starting to speak out about their experiences, and this is the subject of Stephanie Foo’s incredible book, What My Bones Know, a memoir of her struggle to overcome complex PTSD as a result of her parents’ excessive discipline when she was growing up.

In the book, Foo describes how her mother would beat her with chopsticks, a tennis racket, a plastic ruler, a wire hanger – anything she could get her hands on – and often for the smallest reasons, like putting her foot up on a chair. Or opening up the plastic wrapping on a copy of People magazine before her mother could read it. Or failing to say she was sorry about any number of things, depending on her mother’s mood of the day. She was regularly told she was useless, ungrateful, and ugly. She was hurled down the stairs by her ponytail, kicked mercilessly, or threatened with a raised cleaver at her wrist, or her neck.

My husband tells similar stories. He was beaten regularly with the rubber Hot Wheels tracks many of us played with as children. When those weren’t immediately at hand, he was also just plain slapped or hit. He was told he was stupid, lazy, and useless. He was also waterboarded: held upside-down with his nose directly under a running tap. On some occasions, his father would strip him naked and then lock him outside the house for an indeterminate amount of time, even during the coldest days of February. When I asked how old he might be when this kind of punishment occurred, he said about 7 or 8.

Those Indian kids who my mother thought remarkably obedient and polite probably acted that way because they’d be beaten savagely if they didn’t. Those Asian kids who got high marks and achieved first place in every mathematics competition likely faced severe punishment if they failed. It shines a different light on all that good behaviour, on all those spectacular successes.

What I like about Stephanie Foo’s book is that, while she doesn’t shy away from showing the abuse, she also strives to understand why her parents did it. She knows the pressure they felt to succeed, having sacrificed so much to get to North America. She knows the traumatic pasts they were often escaping. Her parents had hard lives. They took it out on their kids. It’s incredibly sad, but also incredibly human.

So, what does all this mean? I guess it means that you should never assume someone else has it easier than you unless you’re able to walk a mile in their shoes. I think it also means you should try to appreciate all the good things you have in your own life. You might not get the highest marks in school, or the job promotion at work, but at the very least, you know your parents care about you (at least I hope you do!) Many Asian kids didn’t have that same assurance, and they still suffer because of it.

Very little grows on jagged rock.
Be ground. Be crumbled,
so wildflowers will come up where you are.

You have been stony for too many years.
Try something different. Surrender.

~Rumi

“Where in your life have you demonstrated resilience?”

It’s a question our instructor, Alexa, asked us this past week as part of our compassionate resilience training.

I paused and thought about this for a beat, a note of panic rising in my chest as I searched through the dark woods of my memories for an example to share.

I found it a tough question to answer. It’s not that I haven’t gone through hard times. In fact, I often feel like I’ve spent my entire life stumbling from one disaster to the next. But have I ever demonstrated resilience?

The short answer to that question is a big, fat “No”. I feel like a failure. Tears come to my eyes. I’ve always tried so hard. How is it that despite all those efforts, I’ve still managed to do so badly in life?”

As my tears begin to flow, some of my classmates pipe up. They tell stories of shock and trauma. Of abuse and isolation, and how they’ve managed to pull themselves back up again despite their circumstances. They tell stories of the resources they tried to access, sometimes incompletely, but always making the attempt. They tell stories of how they stumbled, but still moved on as best they could.

Is that what resilience is? The mere survival of difficult circumstances? I’ve always thought of it differently. I’ve always pictured it louder, with a more triumphant ring of success.

When I look resilience up in the dictionary, it says: “the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity,” or “the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.; buoyancy“.

These definitions suggest a return to wholeness, with an unchanged spirit. Like the bad event never even happened. That’s how I’ve always thought of it too. That if you can’t bounce right back to the way you were before, then you’re clearly not resilient and you’ve failed.

But as the stories of my classmates keep coming, they describe something rather different. They detail all the ways they tried to survive. The ways they managed to find some sense of control over difficult events. The steps they took to make themselves feel better, even if only for a moment. Success, when it came, was often far into the future.

And as I begin to reflect further, I think to myself, “Didn’t I do that too”? Didn’t I seek out someone to talk with? Didn’t I start meditating? Didn’t I learn to be with my feelings, rather than constantly pushing them under? Didn’t I create a safe space for myself where I could retreat when times were tough? Didn’t I keep going, despite everything?

Traditionally, my way of dealing with life’s many crises was to criticize myself, often quite severely. It was to deny my feelings and push myself even harder. It was to hate myself for all the mistakes I’ve made, and chip away at my sense of strength and self worth until I was left with nothing. But I am changing. Little by little, I am growing. This time, I didn’t do that.

Slowly and persistently, I have become more resilient.

As my classmates continue to describe their own pain and all the little sparks of resilience that followed, I allow some compassion to flow towards myself, as I’ve learned to do. I soften my heart, and show myself some tenderness, recognizing that I’ve always done the best I could.

Suddenly, my perspective starts to shift, and instead of seeing a life filled with stumbles and mishaps, a new and different narrative opens up. A narrative where I’m not necessarily a failure, a helpless victim bouncing from one crisis to the next, but more of a steadfast warrior. As a woman who has somehow managed to keep going, despite everything, with a heart that’s still beating. With a body that’s still breathing. With a spirit that is still warm and open.

Yes, I am resilient too.

In the past, I’ve always thought that if I wanted to be strong, I had to be hard on myself. But I’m gradually learning that resilience only comes when I can show myself some softness. When I can recognize that I am still a good person, with good intentions, who may have made some mistakes, but is still beautiful, and valuable, and unique, nonetheless.

And when I remind myself of this, the tears stop flowing. My chest opens. My shoulders become less tense and I find I can breathe more deeply again.

The world is full of hardness. This time, try something different. This time, see if you can soften towards yourself. See if you can crumble, so wildflowers grow where you are.

Spring is such a beautiful time. Everywhere you look, there is a sprouting of fresh green. The days have become longer. The sun feels brighter. The temperature is rising, and the tulips in my neighbour’s garden have begun to show their beautiful colours.

And yet, this time of year also marks many endings. It is the end of winter, for one. For university students, another term is now complete, while public school students are looking forward to summer vacation. It is the time of graduations, a time when the end of one block of life is formally marked, even as we anticipate the beginning of another.

I suppose it’s because I am now firmly in mid-life that I keenly feel both the beginnings and the endings of this time of year. When I was younger, I was always caught up in the beginnings, in the excitement of what would be coming next. I don’t think I ever gave much thought over what was being left behind. But now, after a year where I lost both my mother and my mother-in-law, I have to say that I can really feel the endings.

And so, I am feeling sad to report another loss, for me. A mentor of mine is hanging up his spurs and retiring. Michael Tierra, widely considered the father of North American herbalism, has sold the East West School of Planetary Herbology, and is moving on. He is 84 years old this year, so I don’t begrudge him this move. It is just sad to see him go.

Chances are, if you have read any book on herbalism over the last few decades, it was written by him. Author of The Way of Herbs, The Way of Chinese Herbs, The Way of Ayurvedic Herbs, Treating Cancer with Herbs, The Natural Remedy Bible, and the best-selling Planetary Herbology among many others, Michael resurrected herbalism from its doldrums in the 1950’s and 1960’s. He studied with Native American herbalists, and Chinese herbalists, and even started his own line of herbal products. He is the founder of the American Herbalist Guild. Through his school, he taught and inspired scores of new herbalists, including me.

He is also one of the kindest men I have ever known. Over the years, I have attended hours and hours of his lectures and classes. He has overseen many of my cases, and even personally called me to encourage me to join his Free Clinic this past fall. I will miss his encyclopedic volume of knowledge, and also his warmth, his sense of humour and his inclusiveness. He always made everyone feel welcome, and has been resolute in his mission to restore herbalism to its proper place beside conventional medicine. I think it’s safe to say that he changed the world.

This spring may mark the end of Michael’s tenure, but it is also the beginning for those who will carry on with his work. Right now, I am reminding myself that it’s all part of the cycle of life. But I will still miss him.

Every spring without fail, it surprises me when tulips start to sprout out of my garden. Partly, it’s because I’m a half-hearted gardener, at best. But it’s also because I planted those tulip bulbs many years ago during a time of pain and sorrow. By planting them, I was hoping their bright goblets of colour would lift my mood come spring-time. And they did. Every year since then, their faithful sprouting has been a potent reminder of my survival, and also evidence that bad times do end, and better ones can always begin.

The concepts of death and re-birth are common in many religions and myths. The most famous of which is Jesus Christ, who dies on the cross on Good Friday, and is then resurrected on Easter Sunday. But there is also Osiris, the Egyptian god of harvest who is cut down and scattered in the fall, only to rise once again in the spring. And Dionysus, the Greek god who was torn apart and eaten by Titans, and then lovingly restored to life by his grandmother, who finds and stitches back together the broken pieces of his heart.

For those who struggle, stories of death and re-birth can be particularly reassuring. When a dream dies, a friendship fails, or a sickness endures, we may wonder if we’ll ever survive it. Stories of resurrection can then serve as a source of solace and as a guide during those dark times. They encourage us to keep going. They remind us that death is not failure. They tell us that, as long as we keep trying, a happier ending may yet appear.

This Easter, I invite you to gently bring to mind a story of sorrow or hurt from your past. Nothing too traumatic. Just a episode where you felt some emotional pain. As you bring back this memory, start to notice the feelings that arise within you. Observe where in your body you feel them the most. It may be a particular tightness in your chest, a tension in your jaw, or perhaps a clenching of your stomach.

With gentleness and compassion, allow yourself to feel these emotions in all their depth. Don’t be afraid. With each new breath, try to create more space for them. Resist the urge to push them away. Welcome them as honoured guests, as important messages from the deep. Be curious. And then watch as, with enough time and space, they gradually crest, loosen and float away.

By feeling and releasing these old and painful emotions, you are making way for new life to come forth. Opportunities for growth can now emerge. Maybe not right away, but soon. Be patient. Always remember, your story is not yet over. A new one is still waiting to be told. It’s all part of the magic, and the promise, of spring.