Mental Health!? — What’s it all about? #amreading #MentalHealthAwareness

As part of a larger annual Unitarian Universalist service on Rosh Hashanah and mental health, I talked about how I have been taking care of my mental health lately. The talk is on YouTube and below the video is the text.

Lately, I’ve been consciously taking care of my mental health. Perhaps this is because we are increasingly living in a toxic society—so it seems to me.

Perhaps it is because I am a writer and the flip side of having the muse come to me and insisting that I write a novel in a few months, leaves a huge swirling void inside of me, where negative emotions can and do linger.

This past summer was a particularly good one (for my writing) and a bad one for me personally as the result of going so much deeper in my work was that I felt myself to be physically depleted when I was done, which was an unusual feeling for me.  I felt empty, numb, and uncharacteristically angry. The lingering effects were that I felt myself being a bit depressed or more than a bit, also unusual for me. At this point, I felt myself as being outside of my life. I felt disconnected.

Fortunately, I was able to get back on track through my routine of self-care which includes a daily walk for at least twenty minutes, avoiding all animal products, and doing a regular yoga practice. Perhaps it was my new little cat Peanut who brought me back to myself. For who can stay depressed with a morning routine of a rapidly growing young adult cat pouncing onto your chest and licking your face?

In my mid-sixties, I have come to the conclusion that I must consciously work on myself not only to survive but to thrive. All of this caring for my physical body also helps my mental health because everything is connected. After a medical scare about four years ago, I am still thankful and relieved to be healthy and to be here.

The I Am affirmations are similar to Buddhist affirmations, such as “May I be peaceful.” Except that by using the words “I Am,” the speaker and the hearer are placing themselves in the present and using positive thoughts to create what is already in them.

Now, thanks to the I Am affirmations I have found on YouTube, I have also been able to consciously raise my vibration. I can feel myself getting lighter and happier as I listen to the words.

It is thought that the I Am philosophy dates back to teachings described in sacred texts.  I learned that the first recorded use of the term “affirmation” was in 1843 by the philosopher, writer, and Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson wrote: “Every man is an affirmation of himself.”

In some of the I Am affirmations that I listen to, the announcer says, “I am patience; I am tolerance; I am good enough; I am pure love.”

I listen to the meditations some mornings; sometimes when I am doing my yoga practice; and several times I found I am meditations that lasted all night long. The words entered my subconscious and came back to me when I needed them.

Another meditation focuses on gratitude and says, “I am grateful for the air in my lungs.”

Would you all say that with me now?

“I am grateful for the air in my lungs” …

Thank you!

This is a good reminder that I am indeed grateful for the air in my lungs.

On this Jewish New Year – as always – I am also grateful to be here with you.

–Namaste–

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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LOST: reading from a new memoir and reflecting on Buddhist teachings — #UU #amreading #fathers #govegan

This morning I participated in a service on life and death at the Unitarian Universalists of Mt. Airy in Philadelphia. The YouTube video of my part of the service is above and the text is below.

Good morning

     I am going to read the opening two paragraphs of my memoir which is now titled LOST: a daughter navigates father loss and discovers what it means to belong. 

Above the Washington Crossing National Cemetery—its squat white markers on even green grass flanked by low walls that would soon hold my father’s ashes—the blue sky, with white whisps of clouds, was vast. It seemed endless— I would say eternal, but my father was not religious. He was agnostic and along with my atheist mother, had raised me secular. But now I was Unitarian, with Buddhism selected as my root religion because it felt most natural to me.

     Buddhists believe that energy is eternal. The death of a father has been compared to a cloud. The cloud becomes rain and then eventually returns to the sky and so on. The energy of the cloud never dies, and the father’s essence doesn’t die either. It is a comforting theory. But I was too upset that day to be thinking of Buddhist theories. Grief had carved a hole the size of the universe through my chest. I was on automatic pilot. My only thought was to get through the day.

It seems like I have been working on this memoir forever. Maybe I have because it is about my father’s life and my life which adds up to a lot of years. It has been five years since my father died. I was close to sixty when he died, and he was nearly a hundred years old. I have been through a lot a changes since my father died. In many ways, I have become my own parent.

The late Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhất Hạnh was and continues to be an important influence on my revision process. I have been particularly influenced by his teachings about how a parent lives on in the child. He has said that it is hard for a son to be angry at his father because the son is the father—an extension of the father. I would say the same thing goes for daughters. This scientifically accurate statement might explain why so many are at odds with themselves.

Working on this memoir has not been easy. In fact, there have been times when it was physically painful. But working on this memoir has forced me to drill down into the marrow of my bones and uncover the forces that shaped me. And I find a certain satisfaction in self-discovery.  

Recently, I was talking to an old friend about my father living so long. I explained that he had lived twenty years longer than most people. I described him as a tough old bird.  Like me, he was stubborn, strong, and when he still could, did exercises every morning and night and took a walk nearly every day.

A few days after describing my father as a tough old bird to this friend, I realized I had been describing myself.

I am fast becoming a tough, old vegan bird.

–Namaste–

To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.

To learn more about my latest published novel — The Unicorn, The Mystery, click here:

The Unicorn, The Mystery now available from Adelaide Books — #amreading #FaithfullyLGBT

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The Unicorn, The Mystery, a novel debut by Janet Mason — #UU #amreading

This morning, I led a Unitarian Universalist Memorial Day service on the topic of forgiveness.  In my talk about forgiveness, I debuted my latest novel The Unicorn, The Mystery. The YouTube video of part of  is below. The complete text of my talk is below that.  The service took place at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration on Stenton Ave. in Philadelphia.

 

 

For me, forgiveness is a thorny issue.  I suspect I’m not alone.  I may forgive – but I do it on my own terms and this means taking the time that I need to understand the deeper reasons of why I was offended by someone’s actions. So, for me, learning to be more forgiving is wrapped up with protecting myself and having good boundaries.

As a practicing Buddhist, I understand that forgiving others is a way of forgiving yourself.  But as I did research on forgiveness, there were so many conflicting theories, that really the only thing that ultimately made coherent sense to me was this quote from Oscar Wilde:

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

A few years ago, I was leafing through a slim book on Christianity and was surprised to read that forgiveness is expected in the Christian tradition.  As a tenet, this one is not so bad. But it did occur to me that a reason why traditional religion has never appealed to me is that, on principal, I would never believe what someone tells me I should believe.

So when it comes to forgiveness, I process things the way that I usually do – in my writing. The novel I am currently writing The Unicorn, The Mystery, is set in the late Middle Ages and addresses some religious themes.  I am going to read you a short excerpt of a monk talking with his Latin teacher, also a Priest:

 

“One of the things that Augustine is known for is his ‘doctrine of love.’ He wrote about forgiveness – which of course is related to love.  In addition to forgiving others, it’s important to forgive ourselves. In fact, some argue that you cannot forgive another without first forgiving yourself,” said my teacher.

I smiled and nodded.  This all made sense. No words were necessary from me.

“He also was the first to write about loving your neighbor as yourself. In saying this, he infers that it is first necessary to love yourself. When you truly love yourself, then you can love your neighbor and you can love God unconditionally,” he stated.

The Priest was silent – and so was I for a moment.

My curiosity got the best of me and I asked, “What if you are ashamed of yourself – how can you find it in your heart to forgive yourself? And if you can’t, how can you ever love your neighbor and how can you love God?”

The Priest looked at me oddly.

“That’s a good question,” he replied finally. “I do not know the answer. Perhaps I am not the best person to talk about love. I take the Christian writings seriously.  I try to follow them.  I follow my heart and each time it is a disaster. I love teaching and I love my students. But each term, things go too far, and I have my heart broken again,” he cried.

I looked at him with sadness.  He had his reasons for hating himself. Perhaps that’s why he was snippy at times. How could he forgive himself, when the church told him he should be ashamed of himself?

This time I cleared my throat. I looked at him with tears in my eyes, and said, “Father – it is true that you know how to love and it is true that you are worthy of love – from others, from God. I came to your office that night after vespers a few months ago. I saw you bent over the desk with Gregory – I saw the love that surrounded you.”

The Priest looked at me as if he had seen a ghost.

 

 

I attended the Episcopal Church until I was about five — when my mother became a card-carrying atheist.  It’s a long story.  I remember reciting the Lord’s Prayer. When I think about forgiveness, I think about the lines:

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive them that trespass against us;

 

As I did my research, I was fascinated to learn that in the “Book of Matthew,” chapter 6, of the New Testament, the line after the Lord’s Prayer says:

 

“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

 

Of course, in my Unitarian Universalist interpretation, God the Father could be the Universe, the Great Spirit, or the Mother/ Father God or God the Father.  It depends on what day it is.

If I’ve offended anyone, please forgive me.

 

Namaste.

 

To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (just published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.

 

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