Teddy Bears, Quiet, and Fun by Cat Saunders You take good care of yourself. If you do, all will be beneficiaries. — Ihaleakala Hew Len   Something good is happening, and I like it. Although my life continues to be a dance along a razor's edge of balance, I notice a new theme emerging. Actually, it's more like a tectonic shift in the bedrock of my soul. I hesitate to talk about it because I've had some serious run-ins with that obnoxious belief that says "bad things will happen to you" if you talk about the good things in your life. But hell, I don't want to let some stupid pattern stand in the way of me acknowledging the good stuff. Besides, I've certainly written my share of articles about difficult subjects, so I figure it's high time I played hooky from the School of Hard Knocks. No doubt that infamous school isn't going to disappear anytime soon. I'm sure it will be waiting patiently, like an alligator in a swamp full of fish, knowing it hasn't seen the last of me. The truth is, I could just as easily write another article about the hard stuff in my life. It's not like there's a shortage of challenges. It's just that I can't get into talking about that right now. I'd rather play. Near as I can pin down the timing, I think the shift began last fall on Halloween, which is one of my high holy days. All that delicious shadow dancing! In any case, I made a lifestyle change that day which deepened my commitment to self-care. I'll skip the details about why I made this change, but the punch line is that once again, a dark passage gave way to more grace in my life. Pain, Prayer, and Maniacal Dancing On Halloween, I made a commitment to spend every morning, all morning, in silent retreat. Seven days a week, I get up and hit the floor (because that's where my altar is). Before I do anything else, I turn my attention inward. In other words, I pray. I even do my morning workout — with stretches, exercises, and free weights — in a state of prayer. Have you ever looked up the definition of prayer? Although I don't think prayer has to include God, I like this definition: "to address God with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving." Along those lines, prayer takes many forms for me. I may contemplate a troublesome situation and ask for guidance. I may consult the I Ching, work with dreams, pour my heart out on paper with words or drawings, or sing my gratitude to all that is (yes, sometimes I sing even though I'm not talking). I also do a lot of spiritual work for others who have requested my assistance. Sometimes I just sit quietly and tune in to whatever timespirits are drifting about. I may notice a particular sensation in my body, and when I follow it, I might discover a hidden pocket of pain. When I come across a chunk of pain, I invite it to speak a little louder and tell me what it needs. Sometimes pain simply needs to be witnessed and accepted. Other times, it wants to be expressed. Dancing is handy for that. Actually, I think dancing is handy for just about anything. For one thing, it's one of my favorite forms of prayer. To the outside world looking in, it might seem like I'm doing something other than praying when I dance, but I know better. In the course of one dance, I can "address God with adoration, confession, supplication, and thanksgiving." It's all there, even in the smallest of movements. To me, it's all a dance to God. I don't even care if this sounds corny to you or anyone else. It's simply how I pray. I turn up the music on my headphones (I'm big on not disturbing others), and I dance like a maniac. Or I dance like a woman whose heart has been broken so many times that it's permanently broken open now. Or I dance like a man who is embarking on the most important voyage of his life. Or I dance like a drop of water that glistens, joins forces with a zillion other drops to make a sea, dissipates into the sky and becomes a cloud, and then rains to the earth again. When I dance, everything moves me as I move with everything. For me, that's prayer. Quiet Time: Balance and Big Boundaries For as long as I can remember, I've devoted an hour every evening to altar time. Since I spend all morning in retreat now, my altar time has increased dramatically. Although the flexibility of self-employment allows me to schedule this daily quiet time, it's not always easy to maintain my inward focus. Outside stimuli beckon constantly, and the pull of external distractions can be quite addictive for a diehard overdoer like me. As it happens, my increase in quiet time coincided with the startup of my counseling practice after a two-year hiatus, during which I finished Dr. Cat's Helping Handbook and founded Rent-A-Monk, a personalized daily prayer service. After living as a writer-monk for the past two years, I realized that I needed to compensate for the new influx of public contact with a corresponding increase in "official" (i.e., inviolate) quiet time. I knew myself well enough to know that if I didn't make big boundaries around self-care, I'd end up back where I was three years ago: burned out from a serious over-giving script. After a month of silent retreats every morning on top of my weekly silent day (which I've done for 15 years), I sensed that I needed even more quiet time. Thus, I decided not to talk for two days each week. Now I never go more than three days in a row without injecting a day of silence. Although I love my telephone consultation work, and I love my increased contact with close friends, I also love balance, and my two silent days and daily morning retreats provide balance. They form a steady drumbeat in the rhythm of my life, bringing me back to center again and again when I get too caught up in the fray. By now, you may be wondering when I work — or get anything else done — if I take so much quiet time. Well, I usually am working when I'm silent. For one thing, my spiritual work is definitely work. In fact, I think spiritual work is probably the most important work I do, not just for me, but for everyone it touches. There's also a practical reason that I get a lot done even though I also retreat a lot. That is, I have a 25-year sleep disorder that prevents me from sleeping very much. As a result, it's not unusual to find me working well into the wee hours of the night. So you see, even though I now spend nearly two-thirds of each week's hours with my mouth closed, there are still about sixty hours a week when I'm available to others. That leaves plenty of time for consultation sessions, family and friends, and errands. The rest of the time, I get a lot done without talking. For better or worse, I don't think there's any danger of Cat Saunders dumping her overdoing script anytime soon. The Gentle Wind Project and My Fun Barometer Although I'll probably never dump my overdoing script entirely, it has definitely been getting an overhaul lately. After partaking of a free session with the Gentle Wind Project's "System Ten Healing Instrument" last December (see end of article for details), I noticed that my fun barometer has been kicking in, and, occasionally, kicking butt (mine). Though I did the session out of curiosity and didn't expect much from it, I have to admit that as the weeks progressed, there's been a noticeable lightening in my spirit. Of course, it's impossible to tell what causes what in the midst of complicated human life. In my case, I was certainly undergoing big changes as a result of many other kinds of inner work. However, in my meditations after the session, I kept getting that I needed to give some of the credit to the healing instrument. Since the Gentle Wind Project has a twenty-year-plus track record, and since its founders have made the instrument available for free to millions of people around the world with only good results, I'm more than happy to give them some credit. Personally, I notice that the effects of the healing instrument were subtle yet profound, and they've gradually increased over time. It seems easier for me now to act on my commitment to self-care. I catch my over-giving script sooner now, and best of all, it's easier for me to do something about it. One thing I've especially been enjoying is the influx of the word fun. Now, you must understand how amazing it is for a recovering workaholic to use the word fun. It's not that I didn't have fun. It's just that I didn't really think in terms of fun, having grown up in a family where everyone's middle name was "Productive." Now, though, I can be sitting at my typewriter, working away, when suddenly I'll hear this loud voice that says, "Okay, I need to have some fun now!" What's really incredible is that I actually listen to this voice and stop! It's as if the shutters on my workshop close, and I have to go do something fun. It's great! Months ago, when I was at the storage locker where all my stuff has been for the last two and a half years while I await a real home, I thought about bringing my teddy bears back with me to the place where I've been living. However, my practical adult side got the upper hand, and it insisted that I didn't really need my teddy bears. So my stuffed animals stayed in storage, piled on top of each other in a big black Hefty bag, all alone in the dark. More recently, after a particularly difficult day, I walked into my workspace, and as I entered the threshold, I heard that fun barometer voice say loudly, "I need my teddy bears!" So I went to storage and got my teddy bears, T. Bear II and Rusty the Panda (Simba the Lion came along, too). Frankly, it cracks me up that "Dr. Cat," who writes books and teaches seminars and counsels clients, is someone who also needs her teddy bears. As Dr. Seuss would say, "Without whimsy, none of us can live." For more information about the Gentle Wind Project, please visit <http://www.gentlewindproject.org/>, or call David and Chloé Patton in Seattle at (206) 284-6825. Cat Saunders, Ph.D., is the author of Dr. Cat's Helping Handbook (due out soon). You can learn more about the book, Cat's consultation services, her 13-part series on death, and her work with Rent-A-Monk by visiting <www.drcat.org>.