Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: emotions

  • A World of Our Own Making

    Grateful, Friday was an extraordinary day of shifts in perspective….

    I had been being drawn down a dim alley when our grand-daughter-in-love-to-be had not responded to text or email about their upcoming wedding ceremony. Thursday evening she and I had opportunity for a call that answered a lot of questions. As I rode my bike early the next morning, I was feeling a tremendous amount of love along with relief and gratitude for clearer understanding.

    Returning home from my ride, Barbara Brodsky’s email response to my request to share her recent journal post touched me in that soft spot as I read, “Thank you for loving the journal, Debra. Of course you may share it… anywhere…. I’m honored.”

    April Journal #7

    I sat in my hot tub at dawn looking with wonder at the tiny new maple leaves just emerging, that precious, vibrant pale green of spring; seeing the red buds on the crab apple tree; the lawn sprinkled with dandelions; garden filled with daffodils and tulips; tiny pale green cones emerging on the giant spruce tops, awed by the deep blue sky. Here is the wonder of life emerging into a new spring, a new season.

    I’m aware that I’ve been in internal winter, dormant and frozen. It’s time to emerge.

    Asking what has led to closure is a necessary step: it’s painful to become aware of body discomfort, anger and sadness, old habitual ways of dealing with physical and emotional pain. This is partially just the mammalian “fight, flight, freeze” reflex. For me one important step is just awareness that I’ve turned to “automatic,” and to remember my intention to be present and awake. I choose not to become a Tesla! I am driving this vehicle! That connects me to intentions: do no harm and I DO harm others by withdrawing. And harm myself. The flowers need the nourishment of rich soil, water and warm sunshine to flourish. Armoring myself, the sun cannot reach me.

    Aaron asks me gently, what do I fear? Aging, increasing personal feelings of diminishment and lack of any control in a world gone crazy! Sadness, really grief, that we are destroying ourselves, each other and the earth and I cannot do anything about it. I’m feeling the full weight of my years, running out of time to do anything positive. I see grief is predominant. The anger is an expression of the grief, and grief of the anger.

    Aaron: And what helps to resolve the causes for grief?
    Barbara: Joy, but how do I get to joy?
    A: Joy is inherent in you and will be experienced when the blockage releases.
    B: Are you saying I’m holding on to the blockage?
    A: Not consciously, with intention, but if you touch each of those places of pain within with gentle love and light, as a parent holds a frightened child, you will feel gradual opening. Then you will see the base for blockage. There must be intention for release to happen, and consciousness of the pain of continued closure.

    We leave off conversation here as I begin to meditate. “Breathing in, I touch my heart with love; breathing out, I choose to let go of old pain.”

    I see it like October leaves releasing from a tree.… no force, just releasing whatever chooses to go, and again… after a few minutes, mind settles into presence, with body, mind, breath, nothing sticking, opening into more spacious presence.

    Barbara closed her post with this precious photo of her youngest granddaughter swinging from the flowering crab apple tree planted from a seedling in 1974.


    My emotional load was certainly lighter as I headed to my sister’s to assist with some spring cleaning. We ended up doing her kitchen.

    As I began, she was sharing frustration with the messes made by her husband. I had already shared Barbara’s Journal #7 with her, and I had been sharing my insight and relief after the previous night’s call about the wedding. I stopped in the middle of cleaning and said, “It is frustrating to have the same messes over and over, but if you got a call saying he had died your heart would be broken and you would pray to be able to clean up after him again…. We are learning to hold all sides of our emotions.”

    We shared some tears and a hug as I whispered, “We live in a world of our own making giving our experiences their meaning.”

    As we worked our way around her entire kitchen she shared, “It feels so good in here now.”

    We both knew mammalian messes of our own made were also being deep cleaned as she and I worked side by side….

  • Looking for the True Self

    Wow… I had a very unskillful time of things at the Jam last evening. When John and I arrived there were only two others there and one of the guys asked me to drum on the first and third beat only. He played a bit of a song he was going to do, and he coached me, and then my emotions went on a demented detour. A wounded state got triggered (honestly, that wounded state had come into the jam with me after it was previously triggered by another situation). It was all I could do to stay in that room for two hours. I did not put my hands on my drum for one beat.

    He apologized to me after the jam.

    I apologized to him by text this morning.

    So much unnecessary suffering….

    Yesterday’s Daily Arron Quote: Decisions made from a space of contraction will always carry karma. They will always come from the self, from the ego. Decisions made while resting in that spaciousness that is aware of the contraction and is not hooked into a self-identity with it are free of karma and can hold the spaciousness of the loving heart as ground for the decision or words.

    I was self-identified as the person who could not drum correctly; the person who was not allowed to drum the way I wanted to drum; the person who was not good enough.

    Those are familiar thoughts and feelings, but they are not who I am. As I am writing this post a text message from Empty Circle Zen group arrived:

    We ARE IN the habit of identifying ourselves with our bodies. The idea that we are this body is deeply entrenched in us. But we are not just this body; we are much more than that.

    The idea that “This body is me and I am this body” is an idea we must get rid of. If we do not, we will suffer a great deal. We are life, and life is far vaster than this body, this concept, this mind. We are connected with everything and everything with us.

    My emotions did not originate in the interaction about the drumming. My emotions came from old habit energies of feeling judged or rejected or controlled, resulting in not feeling good enough and believing that someone or everyone was doing something or everything wrong.

    The true self has deep compassion for all humans navigating these bodies, these concepts, these minds. The true self has wisdom to recognize the suffering that comes from self-identification with all of that.

    While the true self was working on this post, I received an email from a friend saying a digital copy of his book, Looking for the True Self, is now available. (The title of this post comes from the title of his boo k.) The downloadable, virus-free, printable, and shareable file is freely available on his website (www.georgesanfacon.com).

    Note: George says you may get a pop-up message box that reads “This file is too large to preview” or “This file is too large to scan for viruses” but fear not — the file is safe and you can click the “download” or “download anyway” button.

    Excerpted from “Looking for the True Self:”

      a spark is born and dies in a split second, while the sun seems to last forever

      but if your time shifted to a longer perspective,
      you could watch the sun flicker in and out of existence, too,
      same as a spark from a fire

      and so your body is flickering, too

      the Universe scooped you up into manifest existence,
      and will soon pour you back …. …. ….

    May all beings enjoy looking for the true self!

  • Don’t Know

    “The truth is that you already are what you are seeking. You are looking for God with his eyes. This truth is so simple and shocking, so radical and taboo that it is easy to miss among your flurry of seeking.

    You may have heard what I am saying in the past and you may even believe it, but my question is, have you realized it with your whole being? Are you living it?” ~ Adyashanti

    The emotional experience this winter is challenging terrain. It is so interesting that for a while I have been navigating a lot of stuff with a fairly stable inner essence. At this time, not navigating so much, but experiencing a lot of inner instability.

    Words seem to be part of the conditions that give rise to this. Co-housing with three others plays a part of the conditions for sure. But these are not what is really happening.

    I was sharing something that had happened earlier in the day with the Deep Spring Group 2 on Tuesday night. John had gone in to take a nap. A while later Linda asked me, “Is John sleeping?” On the surface that seems like an easy question to answer, but a yes did not come to be. My response was more honest than a yes would have (or could have) been.

    “Say only he went into the bedroom to take a nap,” I heard the words as they were being spoken. “I have no way of knowing if he is sleeping or not.”

    This is so literally true, however it did not feel skillful. I fumbled trying to explain what was happening within my mind that would not let me speak something I knew I did not know. I watched emotion arise: sadness. I have been feeling a lot of sadness of late.

    John Orr shed some light on my experience by speaking of the practice of DON’T KNOW MIND. John said just as there is within “the one who knows” there is also within “the one who does not know.” We are encouraged to practice don’t know mind until you are comfortable resting in uncertainty, until you can do your best and laugh and say “Don’t know.”

    I can say I don’t know what has my emotions so stirred. I don’t know what will allow those waters to settle.

    With certainty I can say it has not been easy living with me these months of co-housing.

    With certainty I can say the emotions are not “me” or “mine” but they are mine to navigate.

    On Sunday we went to Farmer Joe’s to buy fresh produce. Linda and I had a lengthy conversation about apples prior to our going. My lunch every day is an apple with some cheese. Earlier in the season we got Honey Crisp apples for 99 cents a pound. That day they were priced at one dollar and 99 cents a pound. I told her the price was not much different from the Pink Lady variety we had been buying of late, and, yes, I would appreciate her getting some Honey Crisp apples while they were at the market.

    As we pulled into the parking lot, however, John announced that they had Fuji apples on sale, suggesting we buy those. When Linda turned to me and asked did I want her to get those my emotions flared. They got the Fuji apples and I had the first one yesterday. Say only, they are in my experience an inferior apple.

    The sadness that rises within speaks many phrases. Why can others in our home be indulged for the things they prefer: John gets yogurt and milk and English muffins. Larry gets his grits and wine. Linda gets her carbonated water. I hear myself thinking, “I ask for so little.”

    This could be seen as something happening inside of me or outside of me or both. But what is it really? The one who knows knows it is not about apples. The one who does not know watches the emotions cloud the sky. It has been most interesting to me to notice how much separation I am feeling. Lonely feelings in the midst of my dear ones.

    One of my dharma sisters said to me at the end of our Group 2 sharing that I am likely feeling the emotional weight of the collective. We are here in the midst of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. People still don’t have roofs; have not settled with their insurance companies; are sifting through rubble or do not even have access to rubble. So much familiar and favored has vanished. I have my personal experience of all of this, for sure, but nothing is happening in a vacuum.

    Today John and I will drive to Pine Island and clean windows for our dear friend Nancy Green. Nancy has just purchased her half of a duplex near center island; she is now sharing a wall with a long-time friend who also was displaced by the winds and the rains.

    We have seventeen days of this season here in Port Charlotte before we will return to our respective homes in Michigan.

    Sufficient time for seeing these emotional distortions as real experiences rising out of the conditions but not having any permanent nature; days and nights for shining the light of compassion on it all; an eternity of time for practicing that don’t know mind until we are comfortable resting in uncertainty.

    How long will this all take? Say only, “Don’t know.”


  • Motherless Child

    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    A long way from home, a long way from home.

    Odetta knew what LIFE can feel like.

    Just yesterday — one day of LIFE holding sooooo much feeling.

    A dear friend, navigating tenuous steps speaking her feelings toward her husband (related to the complications of decisions that could birth a new beginning):”This father does not want the child,” she says, speaking metaphorically, of course.

    Another dear friend welcoming a companion as she was filled with trepidation reading online the results of a recent PET scan (positron emission tomography).

    Sad news from our daughter that our grand-kitty, Thor, crossed the rainbow bridge. Thor, one of THOSE beings. Love oozed from Thor’s pores. Thor massaged love into your most tender spots, and his purr moved mountains of misunderstandings.


    Utterances from the lips of a wife, candidly wondering aloud if they would both be better off if her husband stayed in long-term care.

    “We are called beyond and empowered by the silver thread of hope that hangs by a thread below,” this expression of LIFE written by my friend in the midst of it all drapes over the feelings of the day like low-hanging clouds.

    Don’t do things for personal benefit. And don’t do things to avoid personal damage. Do things to feel personal authenticity. Then your life will make sense, no matter what is going on around you. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

    Today is the anniversary of my mom’s “rebirth” day on May 20, 2003.

    May 20 is also the rebirth day of the woman who owned and lived in this tiny home for 33 years before we purchased it in 2017. Ursel had actually purchased the home on May 20 – 33 years prior.

    According to the teachings of the Buddha, emotions are a fundamental part of who you are — an expression of our basic intelligence and creative energy. “When you can connect with the essence of your emotions, you can respond without preconceptions and judgments.”

    Experiences are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

    We tend to grasp after the pleasant feelings, try to avoid unpleasant feelings, and miss the neutral feelings much of the time.

    Thought for Today

    Breathing in, I am aware of you, of your suffering. Breathing out, I hold space for your suffering. Breathing in, I am aware of my suffering. Breathing out, I hold space for my suffering. Your suffering and my suffering, the same.

    ~ Aaron

  • Roller Coaster of Emotions

    “Whatever happens to me is not nearly so important as the way I look at the happening — the way I feel about it.”

    Columbus, Ohio, August 1982, “Little Surrenders,”, Step By Step

    My former Yellow Brick Road post ended on a high note, but the circumstances around COVID-19 are stimulating a roller coaster of emotions for most of us.

    The evening after I baked and delivered cookies, John and I saw Louie, one of the guys from shuffleboard. Louie said, “You think about it like ‘I have the virus’ and you’ll do the right thing.”

    Having seen the stability chart of this virus, I was awake in the middle of the night, writing in my journal, “If I knew I had the virus would I have baked the cookies and delivered them to people I love?”

    Later that morning, I shared my concern and remorse with Nancy, a recipient of oatmeal raisin cookies, who brought me to tears with her response, “If I were to die from an infected cookie, I would die with gratitude for the savoring of it.”

    If I were ever to get a tatoo, mine would be: UNPRECIDENTED.

    Every action has myriad thought, word, and deed.

    The better consciousness in me lifts me into a world where there is no longer personality and causality or subject or object.

    ~ Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860), known as the first German philosopher to incorporate Eastern thought into his writings

    I notice how many individual lives seem to have been lined up with our collective (global) experience. My belief is that has been/is true for EVERY individual life, but some examples are totally obvious.

    One friend moved to another state for family support as they hoped to have a baby. They gave birth to Athena in February, and are now safe sheltering alone. Amazingly, this couple mindfully allowed their daughter to choose her own name. Athena means: One who is wise. Athena is the goddess of war and wisdom. The name is associated with the “lucky number” of four. 2020 equals four in simple numerology….

    Late last fall, one couple got their finances in order by closing out high-interest credit cards and consolidating to a family run bank with reasonable interest, and no risk of foreclosure.

    The husband of a dear friend passed in late January. He had been receiving hospice care at home, and it would have been so much more stressful for her to still be trying to care for him. Thankfully, she had some time to adjust to living alone before the order to stay in place came down.

    Our daughter, Stacey, and her husband, Doug, would have had a very drastic life-style change if they had not been living on their sailboat since October. We saw them on Facetime briefly yesterday and they are content, and appreciating the sun shade Doug just put up over their deck.



    My anxiety level is increased because (as of the moment of this writing) we do not yet know if our house is Michigan is ready for us to return, or if the team that has been doing the mold remediation will be allowed to finish. This fear around “home” is a childhood pattern for me and I am doing my best to comfort the frightened feelings and remind myself I am safe. We will get through this.

    It takes a lot to navigate these situations, but we do know they are impermanent.

    From this morning’s journal: You have so little to do now. I would want you to be easy with yourselves, and truly be easily delighted, Soften up…. Be sure you are calling on the light in your heart. That is truly your HOME.

    And these words from Aaron, “Each of you, as you find compassion for your own fear and negativity, will intuitively understand how to bring that compassion out in the world so as to say no to those who hoard, those who manipulate, those who turn their backs on others’ suffering. You say no with love. Acting from fear has nothing to do with how much wealth or power you have, it has to do with the level of consciousness.”

    P.S. Here is the face of Barbara Brodsky, my beloved teacher and friend, from last night’s ZOOM class. She is such a role model!

  • What are the Odds?

    When we were kids, we dealt with difficult situations.
    Sometimes we were bullied.
    Sometimes we didn’t get a new toy.
    Sometimes we were yelled at.
    We then developed defenses based on these events.
    The problem is that a lot of the times we don’t grow up
    and move on past these defenses or events.
    They stay repressed and lodged within our brains,
    and come out if we feel something similar to the past occurring.

    As the saying goes: “You don’t fear the future, you fear the past recurring.”

    Noam Lightstone, How to Deal with Repressed Emotions and How They Might Be Harming You

    The early morning events of December 8, 2016, were so unpredictable they beg being honored as the movement of the divine.

    I had done a lunch & learn for a delightful group at the Kalamazoo County Justice Complex on Wednesday, and I had stayed over in Parkview Hills. About 7:00 am, Joel and I went out into his garage to leave for Full City Café to meet our breakfast book club group.

    Joel pushed his garage door opener. The motor started and the door came up about six or eight inches and stopped as the motor kept turning. He repeated the process a couple more times with the same results.

    “I can drive,” I offered. (He has two garage doors so each is on a separate opener. The door opener to the side of his garage that my van was parked in worked fine.)

    We transferred all of our stuff into my van. I slid in behind the wheel. Joel got into the passenger seat.

    “Let me see if I can open it manually,” Joel said as I backed out of the garage. I stopped.

    Everything in me felt I should drive. I said nothing. Joel tried unsuccessfully to trip the release and open the door manually.

    While we were at breakfast, it began to snow. It was coming down pretty hard, and we had to clean my van off when we left the restaurant. We had run some errands the evening before, and we agreed it was a good thing we had done that given the weather.

    Traffic was backed up on Oakland as we headed back toward Joel’s. It was hard to see what was holding things up, but as we got a bit closer it was obvious cars were having difficulty getting up the hill after stopping at the light at Kilgore. Each time the light turned green, one or two cars managed to slip-slide up the hill before the light was red again.

    When it was my turn my wheels just keep spinning. Any attempt to give it more gas only caused my van to slide sideways. It is a new vehicle and I don’t yet feel like I have a familiar sense of how it handles.

    My nerves snapped. My breathing was spasmodic, and I could hear myself sighing. My heart was racing and I was gripping the wheel as though this was a life-or-death situation.

    Joel sat calmly (if not patiently) in the passenger seat.

    I swear my legs were jumping almost out of the sockets. I was so close to bursting into tears it is not even funny. Fortunately, after a couple more lights, I got enough traction to make it up the hill. We stopped at the health food store, and got back to Joel’s house without additional incident.

    A bit later, as I left Joel’s house and headed back to St. Joseph, I had a powerful flashback.

    I was five years old. My family had gone to Arkansas because I father’s father was gravely ill and not expected to live. On our way back to Michigan, we got caught in an ice storm in Cairo, Illinois. The hill was steep. Cars were sliding off into the ditches, some were bumping into each other. I remember seeing police flashers.

    I think my dad must have been drinking. When my dad got out of the car to see if something could be done, he fell down. My mom was hysterical. I could feel my little body trembling.

    Suddenly, my emotions behind the wheel a bit earlier made sense. My inner child was reliving that frightening event… My heart was overwhelmed with compassion.

    As I was driving west, the eastbound vehicles on the overpass were having the same challenge we had been having on Oakland. I saw them in my rear view mirror.

    In the sixteen years I have gone to breakfast book club with Joel I think that is only the second time I have driven. The other time was after his hernia surgery.

    One of the other women in the book club (Deb) had just had their garage door opener not work; they could not open the door manually. Deb had the name and number of a repair company. Joel made the call and the door was repaired right after lunch.

    What are the odds?

    While it did not feel like gift at the time, I appreciate being aware and able to release those old fears by bringing love to myself for all time and on all levels.