THE THREE A’S

April 1 2014When I was in the practice of helping people professionally, I would at some point mention what I call the three A’s necessary for achieving personal evolution. The three A’s stand for Awareness, Acceptance and Action, the order of which is simple yet crucial.Awareness: one must become aware of what it is one is afraid of, or anxious about. Awareness means articulation. It means being willing to come out of the convenient, self-imposed fog of confusion and naming the beastie, so that a) it is no longer the boogieman waiting to jump out and catch you un-Aware, and b) so that you can examine and question the role it plays in your life.Acceptance: and again, you can’t get there until you’re Aware of what it is you need to Accept about yourself; acceptance, not as resignation, but in the sense of having mercy and compassion for oneself. Big deal, you’re a flawed human being. Of course, as easy as acceptance might appear to be, it ain’t. It takes practice and continual application, not too mention letting go of a whole lot of ego.Action:  If you haven’t taken the first two steps then any action you take will only be a superficial stopgap. And yet Action is the only one of the three steps that will make the difference in your life that you wish someone else would just give you nicely gift-wrapped. Action requires the commitment to changing habitual thinking and behavioral patterns.A case in point: During the last year, I became aware of an almost constant subterranean trickle of anxiety which could flare up at any moment into the above-ground variety of anxiety usually accompanied by heart palpitations and the fear of impending death. I kept this Awareness to myself many months, having judged myself as pathetic and certainly not wishing to give anyone else the opportunity to come to the same conclusion. I mean really, 20 years of therapy, 25 years of sobriety, a wonderful husband, great kids and grandkids, friends, living in Europe, writing a novel…what the hell?Several years ago, when I tried addressing this “problem,” my teacher told me that keeping anxiety in my life was my way of feeling alive. I knew he was right but it didn’t make a difference. Nothing seemed to make a difference.One of the many great things about AA (don’t you just love all these A’s) is that everyone gets to say this stuff out loud to a roomful of people, none of whom throw rotten eggs at you or walk out of the room in disgust. Acceptance by others is such a necessary part of gaining self-acceptance. So, finally, around Christmastime, I told Joel about my anxiety and as I did I became Aware that every time I felt anxious, I immediately became angry, because I didn’t want to Accept it. Me? Anxious? How uncool.Once voiced, the anxiety was no longer something bad, it just was. And once I accepted that and accepted that I needed to take Action the necessary action appeared. And again, I stress the importance of the first 2 A’s, because as is so often the case in life, if we are willing to take the necessary steps the universe usually provides an answer.And so it was that while we were in New York in January, I took a course in Transcendental Meditation, packed my mantra and brought it back to Europe where I have been practicing meditation for 20 minutes twice a day with very nice results.What attracted me to Transcendental Meditation, apart from the fact that no religion is involved, was the realization that I needed to re-route some channel in my brain, which had been carved into a rut by habitual thoughts. This is exactly what scientific research proves TM achieves. It’s not magic, it’s not Nirvana, and I have no idea what transcendence means beyond the fact that while my thoughts haven’t necessarily changed, my attachment to them has. So that now, if say we go careening around a vicious French bend in the road and my side of the car comes perilously close to an immigration ditch, I no longer feel anxious about impending death. It’s more sort of ho-hum, look at that, feeling.I can’t tell you that in a mere 2 plus months I am completely cured of all anxiety…which of course is what we westerners demand…the instant cure for anything that’s uncomfortable…but it is easing every day and I know that if I continue to take Action, in this case, the commitment to twice a day meditation, it will continue to ease.  At which point I will be free to become Aware of the next aspect of myself that could use some Acceptance and Action. Life: the biggest onion of them all.I’m always fascinated by what comes out when I sit down to write. I had thought I would write today about the joy of spring; the wonderful hikes we’ve been taking with Paul and Sharon; the amazement of carpets of wild flowers gracing the earth beneath the cherry orchards; the orchards full of vibration from the flutter of their petals to the drone of the nectar-sucking bees. Fields and fields of trees, their branches pruned skyward, singing their glory. We lie down beneath them. We talk about building a communal house amongst them; a place to grow old in while spring does its thing. And then we mosey down the lanes and before separating to go to the home we have, these separations now coming with poignancy because soon we will be going to different countries; they to Maine, we to Tuscany.Yet I see now that the next piece of Awareness has arrived: the awareness that this year is very different than last year. Last year had the freedom of a sabbatical. It was the beginning of a new phase of our lives and, as with anything one does for the first time, it was easy to believe that the honeymoon would last forever. Last year I was experiencing the creative joy of writing a novel. This year I am in the process of marketing it. A process that will provide me the opportunity of Accepting that rejection still has a profound affect on me.Last year Joel was making new work, too, and like me, he is now marketing it. So there is the need to accept these phases and take the appropriate actions. But for me, I see there is the need to accept how differently the two of approach this seemingly similar phase. Joel is completely caught up in it. Whereas I am not prepared to let go of that which I love: the ‘being’ in this beautiful world. Sitting outside now, with my old fashioned pen, soaking up the last of the day’s sun while Joel remains inside at his computer.The awareness of this difference between us is not something I’ve fully accepted yet. No, I still want him to change so that I don’t have to Accept that I might have to sometimes take Action that involves the solitary experience of life. Like I said, Acceptance is hard to do.