Ruminations and Rumi

Tags

adoption, Adoption recovery, Attitude adjustment, Houses, Moving, Perspective, Purging

November is National Adoption Awareness Month. I’ve been increasingly aware of my own growing acceptance of the old issues and my continuing transcendence, rising above old ways of thinking. Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” describes my emotions perfectly. My aim is to be welcoming to all feelings. Easier said than done, but if I succeeds, I will have accomplished a lot. The adoptee’s journey is about being at home in ones own skin.

Although he wrote seven centuries ago, the Persian poet, theologian, and Sufi mystic Rumi provided insights that serve us well today. The “guests” are emotions and thoughts to which one awakens each morning. Rumi advises welcoming them all rather than disdaining some as unwelcome pests and others as “right” and correct. It is true that we enjoy those guests that empower, buoy us up, and make us feel successful, capable, happy. But as I’ve traveled the adoptee’s road to discovering who I really am, I’ve found that we need to accept all the feelings and learn to live with them.

The emotions that appear in our personal guest houses can, after all, serve as guides from beyond.

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes  as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. ~ Jelaluddin Rumi

Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on the writing, hiking and the outdoors, Santa Fe life, and the world as seen through adoption-colored glasses. Check out her newest novel The Hand of Ganesh. Follow adoptees Clara Jordan and Dottie Benet in their  quest to find Dottie’s birthparents. Order today from Amazon or http://www.pocolpress.com. And thanks for reading.

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Poetry Live: May it soon Return

Tags

Acceptance, adoption, Adoption recovery, Attitude adjustment, Coleman Barks, Emotional journeys, Hope, Memory, Performance, Perspective, Poetry, Rumi, Self-realization

The pending new year is filled with promise. With the development of a Corona virus to end the pandemic, we will, hopefully, be able to join live audiences. Zoom will still be around, of course, but there will be other options. I can imagine a time when we will sit with others, in person, to share music, movies, dance and theater performances. I am ready to adopt and embrace that time. Lately, I’ve been remembering Coleman Barks, the famous translator of Jelaluddin Rumi. In the past, Barks regularly came to Santa Fe. His show, “Rumi Concert—A Feast of Poetry, Humor, Music, Dance & Story,” offered a mesmerizing combination of poetry recitation by poet/professor Coleman Barks, music by David Darling and Glen Velez and dancing by Zuleikha, international Storydancer. And it led me to offer you, dear Reader, my favorite Rumi poem.
The following masterpiece fits my topic because the adoptee’s journey is about being at home in ones own skin.
***************************************************************************
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes 
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house 
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out 
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice. 
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes 
because each has been sent
 as a guide from beyond.– Jelaluddin Rumi,

********************************************************************** Although he wrote seven centuries ago, the Persian poet, theologian, and Sufi mystic Rumi provided insights that serve us well today. The “guests” are emotions and thoughts to which one awakens each morning. Rumi advises welcoming them all rather than disdaining some as unwelcome pests and others as “right” and correct. It is true that we enjoy those guests that empower, buoy us up, and make us feel successful, capable, happy. But as I’ve traveled the adoptee’s road to discovering who I really am, I’ve found that we need to accept all the feelings and learn to live with them.
The emotions that appear in our personal guest houses can, after all, serve as guides from beyond.

Looking at the world through adoption-colored glasses.

Ruminations and Rumi

Tags

adoption, Adoption recovery, Attitude adjustment, Houses, Moving, Perspective, Purging

I’d nearly forgotten that November is National Adoption Awareness Month. Instead, I’ve paid too much attention to the news. Are we out of the Covid Era? Will we ever be? Is our limbo state, when it comes to what’s safe and what isn’t,  a permanent condition? All we have, really is this day. Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” describes my emotions perfectly. If only I can be welcoming to all feelings, I will have accomplished a lot. After all, the adoptee’s journey is about being at home in ones own skin.

Although he wrote seven centuries ago, the Persian poet, theologian, and Sufi mystic Rumi provided insights that serve us well today. The “guests” are emotions and thoughts to which one awakens each morning. Rumi advises welcoming them all rather than disdaining some as unwelcome pests and others as “right” and correct. It is true that we enjoy those guests that empower, buoy us up, and make us feel successful, capable, happy. But as I’ve traveled the adoptee’s road to discovering who I really am, I’ve found that we need to accept all the feelings and learn to live with them.
The emotions that appear in our personal guest houses can, after all, serve as guides from beyond.

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
 Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
 some momentary awareness comes 
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
 Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house 
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
 He may be clearing you out 
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice. 
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes 
because each has been sent
 as a guide from beyond.– Jelaluddin Rumi

*********************************************************************

*********************************************************************Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on life through adoption-colored glasses.

Over the past season, I’ve seen this fawn grow into a doe. Her name is Emma, I decided. Her concerns stay within the confines of each day. A worthy goal.

Three Steps toward Gratitude

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Attitude adjustment, Daily Practice, Deepak Chopra, Gratitude, Henri Nouwen

Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift…Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions or feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. – Henri Nouwen

As we begin October, I’m counting my blessings. It’s been a year since a hiking injury resulted in a spinal fracture, and for months I thought I’d never be OK. Months of physical therapy and lots of walking have made me whole again.

But equally helpful has been practicing what Henri Nouwen calls The Discipline of Gratitude. Being out in nature with daily walking, savoring the good parts of every day, and support from wonderful friends: all of that has made a profound difference.

Santa Fe Botanical Garden offers a beautiful place to ramble.

While the issues of adoption never go away completely (You wake up in the morning and you’re still an adoptee), I’ve learned to cut through gloom by using the following tools. The first two mental routines are best practiced during a walk outdoors. The final process is to be done at day’s end.

STEPS TOWARD DEVELOPING THE DISCIPLINE OF GRATITUDE:
1. Walk your brain: This is a technique developed by my friend Beth, who leads a women’s Tuesday-morning brisk aerobic jaunt. After you’ve started walking, imagine a goal and think of five things that will move you toward accomplishing it. The goal need not be lofty: Anything from a chore you’ve put off for too long to applying for a job or writing an overdue important letter. Name your intention and concentrate on the five steps to achieve that goal. Do this throughout your 15 or 30 minute walk, and put the plan into action right away.

2. Practice the “shake it off” mental housecleaning movement: This is another technique best practiced while strolling. When you find yourself dwelling on the dark side, shake either your right or left hand out into the air, as though shooing away pesky insects.

3. Every night before falling asleep, think of five things that you’re thankful for, events of that particular day or conditions of your life in general.
Author, physician, and New Age guru Deepak Chopra maintains that “a gift resides in every moment.” By practicing the discipline of gratitude, one can learn to see those gifts, to find an opportunity behind every problem, and to walk through the darkest hours and come out on the other side.
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Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and life. And check out her memoir The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries

Aspen Vista, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Adopting the Road to Gratitude

Tags

adoption, Attitude adjustment, Diaries, Gratitude, healing, Insight, Life as a Journey, Self-acceptance, Solutions

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie

The highway from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, New Mexico

 

 

NOTE FROM ELAINE:  Summer has been hectic! House guests and helping a family member move to a job in another part of the country have been all-consuming. Therefore, I’m taking a brief blog-cation, republishing a favorite post from the past. This one contains a message that’s always relevant.

Several years have passed since the publication of The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries. My memoir comprises diary entries from years of dwelling on unanswered questions about my adoption. Most of those questions have been answered; now I am free to live my life. This journey—writing the book—has opened up a multitude of insights. Being in touch with the many wonderful adoption posts available on the Interenet has deepened my tolerance and understanding of not only my adoptee status but of the personal issues unique to fitting in with friends and families.
I feel that I’m traveling an entirely new highway, going from overcast skies to wide open sunny plains. The secrecy that surrounded my adoption caused weary decades of self-doubt and recrimination. The lack of a family tree that was authentically mine felt like a character flaw. Being an adoptee and the insecurities attached to that label defined, at least to myself, who I was.
Finally it seems possible to turn problems into opportunities. Of all the insights gained, perhaps the most stunning is this: growing up as an adoptee was the source of my problems but, paradoxically, the springboard of my success.
Through the Internet’s vast, far-reaching adoption community, I’ve met adoptees young and old, birthparents, adoptive parents, couples wanting to adopt, and people who care about adoption issues. Seeing the “land of adoption” with a wide-angle camera has opened up a new landscape.
Its been said that eighty percent of our information comes through our eyes. Since accepting  the past and steadfastly refusing to stay mired in it, I’ve gained a new appreciation for the beauty all around us. I’m fortunate to live in northern New Mexico’s high desert country, a land of astonishingly beautiful sunsets, the Rocky Mountain foothills, majestic forests and scenic plains.
Sometimes all that’s needed is to spend less time “over-thinking”—a notorious flaw of adult adoptees I’ve met—and more time simply really looking at the world.This is a step toward discovering the fullness of your life. BEING HERE is a gift.

******************************************************************

The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries is available from Amazon and on Kindle. Join me on alternate Mondays for reflections on the world as seen through “adoption-colored glasses.” Your comments are invited!

 

How to Achieve a Happiness Breakthrough

Tags

adoptee, Adoption recovery, Attitude adjustment, Authenticity, Empowerment, Happiness, Resolutions, Transformation

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. -Robert Louis Stevenson

Throughout three years of blogging I’ve touted the benefits of working through post-adoption hangups. OK, so adoptees have deep-seated challenges to deal with, issues that will never completely vanish but need to be tamed, subdued and controlled. Enough already! Having grown weary of these “issues,” I’ve set a new goal for the rest of 2017: ADOPTING HAPPINESS.

I’ve been greatly helped in this quest by Claire Cook’s new book, Shine On~How to Grow Awesome Instead of Old. This volume appeared in my life at the perfect time. As I embark upon this last part of the year, I’m armed with inspiration and optimism, thanks to Shine On. Unlike so many “self-help” books I’ve read and long forgotten, this charming volume will stay with me. Far more than a book, it offers a concept—a refreshing new “flip the script” approach. Claire Cook took me on her journey, sharing ups and downs, challenges I related to. The brevity of the chapters, the delightful surprises (recipes, lists to be made, beauty tips), good advice, and a friendly, confidential tone all made the reading sheer delight. Shine On was like a visit with a dear friend who had only my best interests at heart!

Google “happiness” articles and you’ll find a tsunami of lists, formulas, and “foolproof” methods for achieving happiness. These suggestions invariably include such advice as practicing gratitude, expressing emotions, and giving up on perfection. Fine, sensible ideas, and do-able. Claire Cook’s book is unique in that it helps the reader craft a personal list of top five happiness breakthrough resolutions.

Here are my five:
Write every day (this is important, as I’ve just started a new novel).
Have some fun.
Refresh wardrobe – not with buying new stuff but using the old with more flair. Eliminate the duds.
Take time daily to read. This relates to #2 on the list, as one of my most fun activities is escaping into a good book.
Return to playing bridge. I grew up with this card game but have grown rusty. Established a foursome; we plan to play weekly.

YOUR TURN: What are your top five?

________    ________    _________    __________    _______

Read Claire Cook’s book to learn specifics about the list of five. But until you do, just go for it, make your own manifesto.

As Sarah Ban Breathnach puts it in Simple Abundance, “Be courageous. Ask yourself: what is it I need to make me happy? The deeply personal answers to this vital question will be different for each of us. Trust the loving wisdom of your heart.”

Join Elaine every other Monday ~ for reflections on Adoption and Life

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Adoptee’s Poetry Monday

Tags

adoptee, Adoption Month, Amelia Island, Atlantic Ocean, Attitude adjustment, Empowerment, Florida, Friendship, national adoption month, Searching

Note from Elaine: Just remembered that November is National Adoption Month! When I was adopted at the tender age of five, I adjusted to a whole

Seashells remind me of simple pleasures

new paradigm. A load of baggage came with that. My personal silver lining might have been “adaptation” and “resourcefulness.” (I’ve been told that these are some of my best traits.) Like many, I am striving to give the recent election results a positive interpretation. This reflection (by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat) was sent to me by dear friend Joalie, one of the smartest women I know. I’m passing it on to you, dear readers, in the hope it will help you as much as it did me.

A PRAYER AFTER THE ELECTION

Today mourning and celebration commingle.
Jubilation and heartache are juxtaposed
In neighborhoods where lawns proclaimed
Support for different candidates, on Facebook walls
And Twitter streams where clashing viewpoints meet.

Grant us awareness of each others’ hopes and fears
Even across the great divides of red state and blue state,
Urban and rural. Open us to each others’ needs.
Purify our hearts so that those who rejoice do not gloat
And those who grieve do not despair.

Strengthen our ability to be kind to one another
And to ourselves. Awaken in us the yearning
To build a more perfect union. Let us roll up our sleeves
Whether today we feel exultation or sorrow, and together
Shape a nation of welcome and compassion.

Let ours be a land where no one need fear abuse
Or retribution, where every diversity is celebrated,
Where those who are most vulnerable are protected.
May bigotry and violence vanish like smoke.
May compassion prevail from sea to shining sea.

By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

 

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Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections about adoption, hiking, and life. I’d love your comments. Include your email if you’d like to continue a dialogue. Thank you for reading my blog!

Visiting the ocean: Fernandina/Amelia Island/Florida

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Tags

adoption, Attitude adjustment, Childhood, Climate Change, Innocence, Mr. Rogers, Optimism, serenity, Transcendence

As I’ve traveled the road to what I call “adoption recovery,” I’ve learned a few things. It is those reflections that will be the topic of today’s blog post.
Whenever I visit my young grandchildren, as I currently am, I like to tell them stories of what the world was like when their Dad was their age. In this age of streaming and electronic books, it’s hard for them to imagine coming home from school every day to a beloved television program. In a way, it’s a lost magic garden; at another level, I’m glad for the memory.

On this Grandparents Day weekend 2015, as my four-year-old grandson and I stroll to the corner park, I’m reminded of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, a 1970s television show that came on every weekday afternoon. It was a favorite of my children when they were four or so. There was something very reassuring about the dapper, genteel no-longer-young gentleman singing It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood…Would you be mine, could you be mine, won’t you be my neighbor?
The show always started in precisely the same way, inviting the viewer into an orderly and benign world. Mr. Rogers puts on his cardigan sweater, flips his shoes in the air before lacing them up, and invites you into the Rogers world of green lawns and painted shutters. It’s a world seen through a child’s innocent eyes. There is room for optimism. Happiness seems a natural state of being rather than an act of courage. Mr. Rogers beams his charming smile and asks, “Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind?”
Back to the present: I’m here in southern California for my summer visit to see the family. It’s been way too hot for a San Diego September. Monstrous wildfires rage to the north. Mercifully, however, there is a refreshing breeze wafting through the palm trees surrounding the playground. Following a fierce heat wave in San Diego during which temperatures reached 98 degrees,this is a blessing. The day itself is a blessing .As my grandson digs contentedly in the sandbox, I reflect on everything that, despite a world full of troubles, is still right.
The gratitude list. It never fails me as an attitude adjuster. I have family that’s small but close-knit, wonderful friends, and I live in a place I love. My health seems to be holding up. I have two books scheduled for publication—Santa Fe on Foot, a guidebook, and Murder at Red Mesa, my second suspense novel. Though I’ve held many other jobs over the years, my hope has always been to be a full time writer. While I may not be on the road to fame or fortune, I am pursuing a lifetime dream.

Feel the heat and spend time outdoors anyway! (Just remember sunscreen)

Beyond all of that, however, is the growing realization that we always have a choice. We can be buffeted by outward events, emotionally crippled by self-fulfilling prophecies, blinded by being too much in our heads. Or we can choose , as a hiking buddy once recommended, to “stay within the confines of the day.”

I like to dwell on an anonymous quote I discovered while walking a Santa Fe labyrinth. Engraved in a large rock is the following:
There’s a new world coming. She is on her way. On a still day we can hear her breathing.

Join Elaine every other Monday for insights on adoption and life.

 

A is for Ascending

Tags

adoptee, Adoptee Recovery, adopting a new attitude, Attitude adjustment, Self-realization

Rising above adoption injuries may be the work of a lifetime, but it is work worth doing.

November is National Adoption Month, and in that spirit, I’m re-visiting some of my earlier realizations about recovering from the invisible wounds of adoption.  As every adult adoptee realizes, the deep-seated after-affects of adoption don’t go away. Impossible to change the past history that so shaped us as we grew up. What we can change is how we regard that baggage. It is something we must bear, and the stronger we become, the lighter seems the burden. I think of it as ASCENDING.

Here, slightly altered, is my realization about the anger that arose from my “adoptee status.” It was originally published on this website two years ago. Happily, I spend less and less time in the Canyon and more time, both metaphorically and actually, climbing mountains.

Anger is a terrible thing. Unless one deals with it, the feeling can deepen into a Canyon of Despondency. It seems there is no bottom and that one can never escape this negative emotion.

Until I admitted that unresolved issues about adoption were the root of my unhappiness, I was doomed to be the victim of angry, hurtful emotions. Because I had wonderful adoptive parents, it was very hard to blame them for anything. I admired and respected them. Only after they were gone did I realize how much the shame and secrecy about adoption had drained my self-confidence.

Separation at any age leaves invisible scars.

Adoption adds so much to a child’s life: parents who chose him or her, security and stability, a room of one’s own.
But it also takes away: blood ties, growing up with someone who shares your DNA, parents who probably look like you. As a baby, you resided for nine months inside your mother’s womb; you were connected at a primal level.
The adoption that followed your birth also represents a LOSS.

During the long years I dwelled on the loss of connection with my birthparents, I wandered a bottomless pit of unhappiness. I could never resolve my feelings of deprivation. I’d been part of my birthmother. I spent the first few years of my life with her. Didn’t that bond us forever?

When I was adopted at age five, which I describe in my memoir The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption, I did not ask questions. Instead, I grew up longing to know where I came from, why I was relinquished. I desperately needed to parse out what part of me was nature and what was nurture.

To articulate my anger would have seemed ungrateful; Depressed and resentful, I was a wild and uncontrolled adolescent. Re-reading diary entries about my teenage escapades, I pitied my adoptive parents. The diaries revealed an unflattering truth. They showed how slow-burning rage drove me to recklessness, to throwing myself into dangerous situations. All the outward successes—good grades, a nice appearance, friends and a social life—were a facade. I felt I had no value, which deepened my sense of loss.

As I entered adulthood, I began to realize that my outlook on life had developed around a perceived loss. Never mind that I had wonderful adoptive parents. I pay tribute to them in From Calcutta with Love: the WWII Letters of Richard and Reva Beard. However, they either could not or would not talk about what happened. I had to accept their philosophy, that I began life as the “born again daughter.”

Join Elaine every Monday for reflections on adoption and life.

Anger, unchecked, tends to grow.  At least, in my case, this was true. It intensified over time. Before I looked back at the past revealed in diary entries of The Goodbye Baby, I wandered the canyons of despair.  I had to climb my way out to release my anger. For me the path was, and still is, writing. Spend time with your inner self to discover who you really are. Dig deep and then ascend. YOU are worth it!

Sail to your own New World

Tags

Adopting positivity, Attitude adjustment, Bravery, Courage, Determination, Inspiration, Resolution, Strength

 

“Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.”
― Cathy Hopkins

If you are landlocked, do you long for oceans, lakes and rivers?

Life as an Ocean Odyssey

For me, the answer is “yes.” I live in the arid state of New Mexico, and as much as I love my home in the high desert, I’m increasingly drawn to ocean metaphors.  Some personal favorites are the film “All is Lost,” the book and movie “Life of Pi,” and Tanya Aebi’s memoir Maiden Voyage (written in conjunction with Bernadette Brennan).

About Maiden Voyage: When she was eighteen and going nowhere fast, Tanya was offered a challenge. She could either go to college or accept her father’s offer of a twenty-six-foot sloop in which she was to sail around the world alone. She chose the latter. For two years, her boat was her home. She not only survived but triumphed over fear, uncertainty, feeling lost, being alone.

She did not allow herself an emotional breakdown. To do so would have been dangerous. For months, sometimes off course, she negotiated skyscraper-tall waves, incredible storms, weather and illness, and her journey became, in the words of one review, “a spiritual quest that brought her home to herself.”

Sailing Home to Yourself

Two years ago, I published The Goodbye Baby-A Diary about Adoption, a memoir comprised of diary entries from the 1950s through 1980s. Through the act of writing, I began to heal from years of repressed anger and pain. I forgave the past and myself. I redirected my imagination. Instead of dwelling on all those invisible wounds from being separated from my birthparents for most of my life, I was able to focus on writing.

Tanya Aebi had to conquer herself and focus on surviving the elements. She focused on the journey. For me, the unveiling of past suffering, my miasma of self-recrimination, was a journey at sea. Not Aebi’s voyage alone at sea, an endeavor that required extraordinary bravery and focus, but nonetheless, a voyage to a fresh beginning.

Join Elaine every Monday for reflections on adoption and life.