The last few weeks have been intense.  My kids are out of school which is a relief from the daily monitoring of progress but is chaos on my schedule.  My self-employed husband and I go from a seven-hour work day to squeezing in two daytime hours of focused productivity.  On top of that, add throwing three birthday parties this summer (the twins get half-birthday parties since their birthdays fall during Christmas week and older boy’s actual b-day is in summer) organizing our summer getaway, trying to work out when I dropped a suitcase on my foot two weeks ago (it still looks like an eggplant) AND cooking up the most exciting business offerings I’ve done in years. (more to come)

With all that said, the recent weeks have also been S-A-W-E-E-T as I have had a chance to relive my own history and a friend’s as well.

My good bud and radio partner, DJ Mitsch, just published her book, “Mystic Grits”, which is about her life growing up in the deep south and her success as a business mystic.  She has had magical experiences during her journey that span from sound business moves to listening to the wisdom of her childhood Ouija board to the sighting of angels.  By reading her story, which was shared through journal entries and her own commentary on her life, I was transported to a wonderful place where my friend’s history made clear to me why she is who she is today. I’d always loved her but knowing her story made me appreciate her even more.

Just this past weekend, I got to relive part of my history by visiting with folks who I knew from Boston University’s Stage Troupe. We had not all been together in 24 years! ( I can’t be that old!)  What a treat to see these wonderful people and learn how their lives have evolved.  We laughed so hard retelling stories of our escapades in college and looking at old pictures. Besides reminiscing, however, there was great meaning in the visit for me.

The people who gathered were so dear.  They were part of an important time in my life.  We also all shared a love and passion for theatre although we were not theatre majors.  That passion lives on as a common thread among us today .These are the people that knew me before I had any career to speak of and being with them as we reveled in each others’ successes and struggles was so natural. There was no posturing from anyone–anything we did was an accomplishment compared to our student selves so it was fun to just be in the stories.  We had no expectations of each other (I think) so the evening went on as if twenty four years ago was yesterday.  Yet, we listened to each other with great interest, drinking up every detail. It’s not everyday that a group of people show that kind of rapt attention.  Everyone’s love and respect for each other had matured with us and it was an unusual experience that I still don’t have all the words to describe.

I suppose it’s  understandable why many people choose to bury their past even if they’ve worked hard to triumph against it. There is really nothing wrong with that, but maybe it is a spiritual milestone when you can make peace with both the past and the present and integrate them as the seamless, delicate path to the wonderous life that is yours. We all have our stories and they are all worth sharing.

Both my friend DJ and I were a bit apprehensive about putting out such personally revealing books this year, but as I heard Jill Bolte Taylor explain in a video about preparing for her TED speech, “the fruit is out on the limb”.  Jill went out on a limb in her 18 minute TED talk and it has been an internet hit ever since.  DJ and I hope that by reaching out on a limb, we will reap fruit as well.  We have already heard from so many folks about how the books have given them courage or helped them heal or has moved them in some way. By revisting our history we helped the present make sense.

That’s what makes it a meaningful life.

DJ and I will be speaking together in Cary, NC, on July 23rd

I am not depressed.  Right now.  I suffered one, huge, three-year clinical depression in my twenties which I wrote about in my new book and I’ve lived with mild, recurring depression ever since.  Except for the occassional need for a nap, it really does not stop me.  I manage it and usually, my  skill set is strong enough to thwart it before it can embed itself for any long haul. And truly, most of the time, I can follow my own best advice and have the purest outlook that does not even allow it to register as a possibility in my psyche or body.

What pains me most, however, is to see other people suffer with depression or to see that someone has the mental habits that set them up for a fall into the pit of the Big ‘D’.  In the medical community, depression does not register as an addiction, but when I see someone headed into ‘the pit’, it’s like watching someone with a drinking problem who doesn’t think they have one and whom you cannot get through to to warn them of their eminent downfall.  The mental rigidity that allows depression is a fortress of its own.  It does not want to hear that it can be threatened.  It does not want its walls to come down.  It is cemented and going to do its job.

I am not a doctor or psychologist, but from my point of view as someone who has disentangled themselves from the sticky web of deep depression and who encounters less than productive mental habits in coaching clients and has for almost twenty years, I can tell you that depression does not hit someone over night.  It’s been building ever so clandestinely in the form of a belief system about yourself or life in general.  That’s one way.  Certainly, there is the kind that comes from sudden trauma or tremendous loss.  After proper mourning and healing, those that bounce back do so because they have not made up their mind like a soldier’s bunk, tight and rigid.  They have refuted mental patterns and beliefs about oneself that keep the brain firing neurons down the same paths that suffered the trauma.  They recover when they can mentally  put their attention somewhere other than the pain, the event, the negative beliefs about what is happening and more.

Depression feels bad.  And when we feel bad, we don’t want to do anything.  But very important to getting out of the dark is moving toward the light.  Literally, moving is key.  Exercising, walking, dancing, stretching—anything that allows the body to start dictating to the mind instead of the other way around.

Depression requires focus.  It wants you to focus on it so it can keep growing like ‘the blob’ in old “B” movies and take you over.  What we focus on, we get, and depression is very good at getting you to focus on it.  Beating it back requires focusing elsewhere, even if it is only for a minute at a time.  Notice something else—something positive, something life-affirming.  Read something positive to start getting the mind to focus on something else.

Depression is often the derailment of your spirit.  It was hijacked by your psyche (or mind).  Your soul and the joy it holds want desperately to come through, but decisions and sometimes circumstances will hold it at bay.  It requires a bit of  surrender—not to lie down and let the blob get you, but to surrender to whatever you are trying to scare away—most likely you are resisting love or self-love.  You’ll need to surrender to your wholeness and surrender to the fact that you are a spark of divinity.  Surrender to the fact that you are loved even if you have or do NOTHING!!!!  If you can allow that truth to permeate your being and your brain cells, you will be on your way to pulling yourself out of the vortex of the dark side.

Forgiveness is a major factor in healing a depression.  Forgiving yourself is probably paramount.  Furthermore, forgiveness is a tremendous opportunity to reprogram your mind to feed you better fuel.  Fuel that will allow you to accept love and be loving towards yourself.  Any fuel that feeds your insecurities or negative self-talk has to be avoided.  Sometimes, the very people you hold most dear are the ones that echo your greatest fears.  Many of those relationships may need to be renegotiated.

It seems that without doing so consciously, I have written a quick prescription for healing depression.  That isn’t my intent.  It is simply to share something I know about. However, I speak only from my personal experience and observation and ask that you use what resonates with you but not consider it a proven remedy.  My ideas are only one way.  There are many more— medical and spiritual.

I care about this topic deeply.  I care about the end of suffering for all.

Passover was this week.  Another excuse to eat and a lovely opportunity to teach the kids a bible story.  The observance of Passover is the exodus of the Jewish slaves from Egypt.  The ‘pass-over’ part is about the Jews being passed-over when plagues and diseases were being inflicted on the Egyptians by God.  The doorways donning lamb’s blood were passed-over. (pretty!) The Jews knew to prepare for the onset of these plagues and in desperation for the salvation of his people stricken by disease, Pharaoh let the Jews be free. Once they were on their way, Pharaoh sent his army to stop them and therefore, Moses’ parting of the Red Sea as they forged on to freedom.

Over the years however, I have found my own symbolism for this annual observance of the Jews’ freedom from slavery.  It was a ‘breaking of chains’ if you will, and I look to this time of year to meditate upon what chains I may need to break free of.  What is holding me back from being fully myself or being fully at ease? Unlike a resolution or goal, the releasing of something that enslaves you is a deeper change that requires an inside-out transformation.

This year, I got more than I bargained for when the answer came upon me.  What bubbled up as this year’s focus was getting a difficult relationship straightened out.  That was confronting enough to deal with. However, when I shared it with the talented EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) practitioner I work with, we bore down a little deeper to discover that the real chain that needed to be broken was anger. Not just anger as far as the relationship in question, but anger as an M.O. altogether.  Whoa!  

That’s all I care to share about that for now, but I wanted to give an example of what I mean by breaking free of what enslaves you.  This is big stuff.  It’s not for weenies.  But imagine what would be possible if you were really ‘free’. It as to be done to lead ‘a meaningful life’.

Growing up, we were one of the only Jewish families in our school system and in truth, it’s not that much different for my kids, but the times have changed.  In my day, we did our Hannukah thing and no one really noticed.  My children, in contrast, are asked by their classmates to report what gift they received for Hannukah on a daily basis and actually have kids say they are jealous that the holiday last for eight days. Their teachers wonder if I’ll be bringing in latkes each year and look at me with eager anticipation so I’ll get the hint as this time rolls around.

When I was young, we had an electric menorah that lit up with those familiar orange bulbs.  No such gadget has ever entered my home. We have a very traditional menorah now and I love finding beautiful, artisan’s candles each year to grace it and help us honor the ‘festival of light’.

Hannukah is a relatively minor holiday in the scheme of all things Jewish but the commercialization of Christmas and this time of year makes it seem bigger than it is.  As a result of this and my kids getting older, their attention and expectation of gifts has became more intense.  As a kid, I remember getting socks for Hannukah which my children would scoff at if dared to suggest such a thing.

A couple of years ago, while I was in seminary, I came up with a new Hannukah tradition in our home to divert my children’s focus from the gift-giving aspect of the holiday. Hannukah celebrates the miracle of “light”.  When the destruction of the temple, led to a shortage of oil, one night’s oil miraculously burned for eight nights–therefore, the eight nights of Hannukah.  So, now, on each night of Hannukah, we talk about our ‘light and our ‘gifts’.  We focus on one person each night (before opening gifts)  and talk about what we see their gifts are and ask them to share how they will share their ‘light’ with us or the world.  On the extra nights (since we are five in the family) the kids bring something from their rooms that reflects their ‘light’, meaning sharing something that represents who they are.  They don’t always have the patience for mom’s ritual, but we do do it and they have been caught looking forward to it!

I look forward to each night myself.  I like that the kids have to wait 24 hours for their next gift because it seems they actually spend some time with the gift they are given this way.  I get to live their anticipation and excitement every night for eight days which is great fun. (although the last 12 hours before the first night of Hannukah just about drove me crazy as my daughter inquired about the start of the holiday every fifteen minutes!) I love that my kids know the Hebrew candle lighting prayer even though they have not had formal religious training and that they wait to open their gift one person at a time so they are present to each person’s experience.  The whole thing may last no more than ten minutes but those rich minutes are creating the memories of Hannukah that my children may write about someday. I hope I’m around to see how their kids’ Hannukah differs from theirs.

May the light burn bright within you, too.  Happy Hannukah.

I can really only speak for this Jew, but I love Christmas. ( Something tells me I’m not alone.) For me, it gets down to two reasons.  One, the fascination as an ‘outsider’ who did not have Christmas in their home and two, the mood that permeates the air at Christmastime.

As a kid, I loudly proclaimed every year that when I grew up, I’d get a Christmas tree in my house. I could not stand that we did not get to share in the beauty of that tradition. I did not grow up in a religious household nor am I a religious Jew now, (I’m an interfaith minister for goodness sake!) but we did not cross the line to have Christmas in our home other than one gift from Santa every year.  ( I assume it was just too heartbreaking for my parents to see us wonder why Santa forgot us) Once I lived on my own, I never got that tree.  Nowadays, we hang ornaments the kids have made at school on the mantle, we have a garland of pine somewhere in the house because I love the scent and we’ve commercialized Hannukah with some blue and white lights around the Menorah’s perch, but that’s it.

The real reason I love Christmas then, is the spirit in the air that emerges at this time of year.  I love wishing people Merry Christmas and I don’t mind at all when they say it to me. In fact, I cringe if someone feels awkward not knowing what to say back because I am Jewish.  When the words are exchanged, a warm wish is extended that feels like the hug we should all give each other every day anyway.  Christmas is a time when people remember to walk in love.

The commemoration of Christ’s birth puts focus on the qualities Jesus lived.  Love, compassion and generosity are just a few, but they are the cornerstone of Christmas.  Families get together despite their dysfunctions, people count their blessings and give of themselves and their pocketbooks and kindness makes an appearance centerstage.  Hey, and we all eat like it’s the last supper.  ( I do have an Italian Catholic side to my family–we know ALL about eating from morning ’till nite on Jesus’ birthday!)

Walking in love is really my point here.  A smile, a Christmas wish, a card telling you how much you mean to someone, a door held open for your fellow shopper, a basket of food delivered to someone who needs it, buying gifts for a family that won’t have a holiday without help, talking to your neighbors who you rarely see, choosing something special to gift someone you love–they all add up to the warmth of the holiday season.  I know it’s not just about Christmas because Kwanza and Hannukah come now too, but as someone who grew up and has always lived as a minority to this predominantly Christian holiday, I don’t feel left out and I don’t mind it at all.  I only wish the spirit of it could be our way of being all year round.

As I write this, my heart swells with love that spreads a smile across my face, but I am also remembering how much wrapping I have to do. (Hannukah starts this Sunday night on the winter solstice)  Stress is trying to find its opening, but I won’t let it in. I’ll get out and catch some holiday spirit to combat it.  I dare suggest that you do the same. But first, I’ll make my reservation at the Chinese restaurant for Christmas Eve.  (That’s what Jews do on Christmas eve.  And if you ever wonder why they premier movies on Christmas, those are for us too!)