It is not about me, It is all about me

I have not had a chance to write since giving birth to my son, Leif Leander Gantert, on December 22 here in my Half Moon Bay home.

Of course, there is no better teacher in my life than parenting a new born baby and the importance of living "I LOVE ME" for their sake. The funny thing about new little babies is they are still so unformed. They are one big bundle of "present moment" experience. So what I mean when I say, "It is not about me" is that it is easy to project all kinds of our own "shite" onto our infant, personifying them with all kinds of personality traits and assuming cause and effect tied to "me" the parent when in reality, they are just having their own experience and my job is to figure that out.

Simple enough and most people already know this. What is important is that the exact same thing is true about people. Sometimes I can get so completely self absorbed that I assume that someone else's reaction, tone, or even joy is about me when in fact it has nothing, whatsoever, to do with me. To be honest, this is a relief.

What IS "all about me" however, is how I choose to respond to my infant son or to the other person - be it friend, colleague, family member, etc. I often think of Pema Chodron's teachings of the "soft spot". We can take in the joys, sorrows and angers and reactions of others and simply empathize or see the world from their shoes. I always thought I understood what this meant until I had a baby. I intellectualize, so often, in how I empathize with others but with a baby it is literally feeling the cry of your baby and taking it right to the center of your heart, the softest part of you and feeling what it must feel like to have a gassy tummy without any understanding of why this huge tornado is building inside your stomach. It is more than a heady understanding, it is literally taking in the experience, metabolizing it and then turning it in to big hearted empathy rather than heady empathy.

The prerequisite, of course, for big hearted empathy with both babies but especially adults and most especially teens is the ability to tolerate dwelling in our softest parts. It is hard to do that, isn't it? It is for me. I have spent years and years in one spiritual practice or another trying to master this and am still working on it. Being a therapist and now being a mom have been gigantic teachers for inhabiting this place. I will say, there is a huge misconception that somehow this place is a stance of weakness...the eternal doormat...couldn't be farther from the truth. There is so much strength in this quiet, grounded, soft hearted place. Sometimes, the empathy comes in a package of firmer boundaries with an invasive person, but not out of reaction, out of genuine loving kindness.

Practicing the "I LOVE ME" meditation helps remind me to dwell here in my "soft spot" so I can know what is and isn't about me but more importantly so I can really see you. I was discussing with my dad this weekend, Divinity is found at that intersection of human to human authenticity. When we can make contact with another person from our softest places, that is where we find "God". Maybe a good title for the next blog post.

Anyway, here's to meeting you in the soft spot.