I have been absent for a couple weeks as I have been recovering from elbow surgery. Now that I’m feeling better, I’m back to my blog and podcast.

So here we go with Bargaining…Bargaining seems almost funny in the way I think of it…like the game show “Let’s Make A Deal” from when I was a kid. People dressed up crazy and if they were picked they got to choose between door #1, door #2, and door #3…then they’d have something that they won already but they had to decide if they wanted to trade it and take a chance on what was behind the door or inside the box…it was kind of a goofy show but sometimes it was cool to see what people won. People on game shows want to bargain…they want a deal and they want the most they can win…not $5,000 they want $10,000…not $100,000 they want $1,000,000…they want it all…we want it all. Death and loss are reminders that there are some things that aren’t up for negotiation.

We think of bargaining generally when someone we love or when we ourselves are diagnosed with a terminal illness. We plead to have our loved one healed completely and live a long life…. we ask that we be taken instead of them…especially a child. If we’re sick then we try and bargain with promises, heal me and I’ll never do drugs again or drink again or eat meat or I’ll lose weight or gain weight or whatever we think is the best deal…for us of course….it’s all about us…not in a mean way, but it’s our own pain we want to ease.

We may become more religious at a time of a crisis…we want something to be more powerful than whatever crisis we are enthralled in…so we ask God to take away the illness and restore our loved one to health. We may be angry with God as we bargain, or we take a milder tone, so we don’t piss God off more…well that’s my thinking. We think that illness or pain are a punishment and health or lack of pain as a reward…in which case there are winners or losers…if you win and get well you are favored by God or whoever you were pleading to. If you do not get well or the pain does not end, then you are not favored…and that sucks. There is some kind of crazy logic out there like that…for example, in my own head…I have struggled with that thinking for a long time…and still do sometimes.

In my 30’s I had to deal with a lot of emotional baggage from childhood…physical and sexual abuse and I was going through a divorce with 3 small children, the youngest an infant. That thinking of not being favored or liked by God the same as everyone else, or even more than everyone else…who wouldn’t what that. That thinking plagued me for several years (and sometimes still does) as I tried to make sense of my past.

I was a part of a church as I was going through the divorce and people would say, “Oh, God must have a special plan for you because of all you’re going through.” Fuck that shit is what I said…although I doubt it was out loud. I don’t believe in a God or a Universe that puts someone through horrible pain just to make me be how you want me to be…so much for free will. Or they’d say, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” Fuck that too! I do not believe in a God or Universe that causes things or prevents things…shit happens. If God causes and prevents things then God is capricious and plays favorites.

I had to learn that the things that happened to me are not me…they are a part of me, and they helped to shape who I am, but they are not me. I am not my story. My story doesn’t define me, and it doesn’t dictate what is possible in my life.

In my experience people turn to religion, or God, as a way to feel control in a situation you are clearly are not the boss of…and that is scary as shit…go to church more, pray more, give more, anything to try and change reality…to find some ground in our groundlessness. Apparently, I am a big believer in trying to control what I can’t…it takes time to wrap my head around the fact that I am not in control of all things…not even most things…very little in fact.

Bargaining also applies to losses with chronic pain. We try and make deals with the Universe or God or whatever is out there or whoever we look to for a bargain…let this be the last surgery…please don’t let anything be broken or torn…please ease my pain…please, please, please…help me…I need help here. Bargaining can be a temporary distraction from our pain.

I have had many elbow surgeries…my wife says 9 including the one that I just had a couple weeks ago…regretfully I think she’s correct. My elbow replacement was loose and needed to be revised…my replacement needed to be replaced. So, I promise…if this one can be the last, I will never lift anything heavier than a paper plate with my left arm. If this can be the last one I won’t fall anymore (as if I wanted to fall when it happened) or if I do fall I’ll keep my left arm in the air so it isn’t touched…as if I can do that in the middle of falling. But I want to promise something so that things can be the way I want them to be…and in this case it doesn’t seem bad or wrong to want this…perhaps controlling but not wrong…I want a bargain…I do, I do, I do want a bargain.

Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk, writes, “Our wound is our way through.” I have been thinking about this quote for a few weeks now…I think it’s another way of saying that we have to face what is…face what is reality….and to even lean into our woundedness so that we can grow to understand it, instead of fighting it.

By my “wound?” Does he mean just my physical woundedness or does it include the wounds to my soul or my spirit? Richard Rohr goes on to say that, “God sees the wounds and sees them not as scars but as honors….” Now as spiritual or evolved or whatever kind of person I see myself as, I don’t see all my physical disabilities and pain as an “honor.” “Honor” means “high respect, great esteem…to regard with great respect “and that sounds good and if it’s true and God regards me with great respect, I’m grateful…surprised but grateful….still not sure I’m happy about it.

He says, “We need to look for our shadow, what we dismiss and what we disdain. Look at what we’ve spent our whole life avoiding.” I already know that I have avoided the issue of chronic pain and the label of “disabled” or “handicapped” and I know that’s because I feel less than everyone else when that label is attached to me. I have worked hard to accept those labels…sometimes better than others…and to try not to fight what is…which is often my specialty.

The fact is that I am differently-able or handi-capable as I like to say…my kids hate when I say that…I heard it in an episode of the old sitcom “Reba” and I think it’s funny, but not at anyone’s expense. Disabled feels like a put down. “Dis” is a Latin prefix meaning “apart,” “asunder,” “away,” “or having a negative or reversing force.” Thank-you Merriam Webster for that uplifting definition.

I don’t want to move too far from the topic of grief, and in particular, bargaining, but the word “dis” is offensive to me. I’m not sure I like “differently able” because it still feels like being set apart…not being normal. And we can all say, “But really what’s normal anyway?” But if you’re the “not normal” you know what “normal” is and so does everyone else.

So, here’s the thing…We say we don’t discriminate based on sex, age, race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, economic status, education, physical abilities, mental health issues, substance abuse, or developmental abilities, or all the other things I know I’m leaving out…but we do! Seriously we know we do!

If we really valued diversity like we say we do, then, for example, the norm would be handicapped parking everywhere and curb cuts, all showers would be wheelchair accessible, there would be touch pads to open all doors, bathrooms would all have larger stalls with rails and higher stools, there would be alternatives to stairs everywhere, seating in restaurants would accommodate everyone regardless of their size, shape, or ability…if all of that was just “the norm” then we might get close to acceptance. As it is those things only exist sometimes, why? because we don’t care.

Just look at mask wearing. It has become this huge personal freedom thing when really, it’s just caring for each other…we can’t even manage that. We only care when something affects us or someone we care about, otherwise we don’t even notice. We bargain for what we care about…what impacts us.

How can we even get close to compassion first when we don’t even see each other…really see each other? When was the last time we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and tried to imagine what it would be like to be them? What about the 302,000 people who have lost their lives, have we tried to put ourselves in the shoes of their families? I imagine they tried to bargain and save the life of the person they loved. We have been missing compassion in our country…our world for a long time…maybe especially the last 4 years.

Loss scary and as much as we try…and we try…bargaining does not work…things may turn out as we want but it isn’t because of our exceptional bargaining skills or a deal we think we’ve struck. People are hurting, we are hurting…let’s do some walking in different shoes…

So here’s the thing…Compassion first is the deal of the day…today and every day.

So here’s something you may not know about me and it’s amazing….I can read people’s minds. I know why people do what they do all the time. And that’s not true only for people I know, that is true for all the people I come across everywhere…I always know why a person does what they do…

If you cut me off in traffic I know it’s because you can’t drive…asshole. If you bump into me (and my cane) I know it’s because you don’t pay attention to your surroundings and you’re rude. If you cut in front of me in line you are arrogant and entitled. When you don’t wring out the sponge in the sink and it sits in cold, yucky water, and I have to wring it out, I know it’s because you don’t love me or care about my feelings. It is helpful to know what everyone is thinking but it is a burden as well…lol.

Seriously though…last week ended with a quote from the Buddha saying that we are what we think and that with our thoughts we create the world. One of the things I like best about Buddha is that he doesn’t mandate belief or doctrine, he says to test what he’s saying and see if it’s true or not…in other words make your own thoughtful decisions.

One of the ways I know what Buddha says here is true is in people’s reactions to life. The same thing can happen to two people and you’ll get two completely different reactions…because we create the world we live in and our reactions to it.

Say two people get fired from their job and, all other things being equal, one is devastated and one just quietly clears out their desk and leaves. What’s the difference? They both lost jobs at the same place for the same reason…If the first person believes that they are worthless and that’s why they got laid off and that without a job they will be homeless and unable to care for their kids so they will lose custody of them…etc., etc., etc. With those thoughts a world of fear and anxiety has been created…and the experience of the world continues to fit their design…events are interpreted based on those beliefs. The other person merely clears out their desk because they believe that the loss of this job means something better is out there for them…their world is friendly and kind with nothing to fear.

How we feel drives the choices we make…How do I feel? What choices am I making? Am I making choices based on fear and anxiety or on the belief in kindness and goodness? Do I even know?

We react to situations quickly and, much of the time, before we know what we’re doing. One practice I have developed, even though I can read people’s minds, is to ask myself, “Am I sure?”. I lose my job and believe it’s because I’m not smart enough. Am I sure? Not unless I asked and that was the feedback I was given…and even then, am I sure it’s true? NO! JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE SAYS SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE. That is so important and took me so long to understand…and even now I still get caught up in it.

If someone says they think I’m a bitch that doesn’t make it true. What do I know of myself and what was the situation? Do I take it to be a compliment to me and so I embrace it or does it offend and hurt me? There are so many factors to consider before we allow our thoughts to carry us away.

Say I am driving down the street and someone cuts me off.. I may feel angry and scream, “Asshole!” Now Am I sure? Am I sure that the person in that car is an asshole? If I am honest the answer is no. I don’t know why they cut me off…maybe they just didn’t see me…maybe they are going to the hospital to visit a loved one…maybe they just lost their job…maybe someone just died and they are distracted…people have whole lives that we are unaware of…we don’t know! And how much of my reaction is fueled by fear? They cut me off and it scared me…I may act angry and scream but underneath the anger there may be fear…fear of being hurt, of dying, of missing something important to us…you get the idea.

Frequently I am not sure of myself, so what makes me think I can be sure about someone else?

Am I sure? This is a tiny question…but it has had a huge impact on me…on us. For me it is one of the pillars of learning to live Compassion First. I need to acknowledge that I am not all knowing…although sometimes I am pretty sure I am…or I should be. As I become more able to see that I really am not sure of much, I can have compassion for myself and for others…I am doing the best I can…other people are doing the best they can…they need compassion…I need compassion.

I heard Jack Kornfield tell a story about a woman in line at the grocery store and she was in a hurry. There was a woman with a baby in front of her in line. The woman was talking to the cashier and even let her hold the baby. The woman was growing more and more impatient. When it was finally her turn, and before she could yell at the cashier for wasting her time… the cashier thanked the woman for her patience. She explained that that was her mother and her baby daughter. She said that she was working extra-long hours to help her mother through a difficult time…so her time was limited with the baby. Her mom brought her in so she could spend a few minutes with the baby because she’ll be asleep when she gets home and she won’t have much time in the morning….WE DON’T KNOW! WE THINK WE DO BUT WE DON’T!

So Here’s The Thing…Asking ourselves Am I sure? Before we react to a situation can save us a lot of misunderstandings and hurt feelings…because we don’t know. We create suffering in our own lives when we tell ourselves something is fixed and true when we don’t know…we create suffering for others as well when we think we know things about them we can’t know…what they think, what they feel, why they do what they do…we don’t know…shit, I barely know why I do what I do…and even then I only know sometimes.

In the time we take to ask ourselves, Am I sure?, we also allow for a space…a gap…in-between asking and doing…that pause makes all the difference….that pause is where we find compassion first

Last week I talked about asking ourselves “Am I sure?” before responding to a situation and that, in the pause created by asking the question, we can allow ourselves to see more clearly and to let go of unhelpful reactions based on misinformation or our own stuff…now, allowing and letting go are two things I kind of suck at…I read a quote in a book once and the author said something like, “I’ve never let go of anything that didn’t have claw marks on it…I feel a bit that way too…so with letting go in mind, today we’re going to begin a mini-series on grief…

Right now our country is swimming in grief…maybe drowning is more accurate…over 221,000 people have died of coronavirus…almost a quarter of a million people have died in this country alone…I think sadness blankets our country…and it’s not just coronavirus…there are wildfires in California, Colorado, Oregon…hurricanes in the south and on the east coast…tornados in the Midwest…and I live in Colorado where the air is not fit to breathe and the sky is raining ash…just typing all of this is overwhelming…but we are here and we need to figure out a path forward…a way to survive and even thrive again…although that is difficult to imagine right now.

I’m pretty sure we all remember there are 5 stages of grief, and I bet most people can name at least 3 of them easily…denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance…they all just sound fun don’t they?! Don’t ya just wanna jump on in? And so we begin with denial…I’m an expert at that…deny, deny, deny….that is frequently my go to plan…if it doesn’t exist then there isn’t anything to worry about.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book, On Grief and Grieving,“ says, “Denial helps us pace our feelings of grief. There is grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle.”

Over 221,000 people are dead in this country from coronavirus….and whether we experienced a loss personally or not we are all heartbroken in some way and we feel the collective loss…I feel it deeply…sometimes it’s paralyzing.

I am disabled and have chronic pain…both of those things also involve grieving because I have experienced great loss from my disability…I have lost so much and others with chronic pain and disability have as well….and we need to grieve…I need to grieve. We share common grief and yet how we experience it may be different…because we all experience and process grief and loss differently. So the process, and how it looks externally, may be different but we are all in pain and we have all experienced tremendous loss…and we need to grieve…the world needs to grieve.

The losses created by chronic pain and disability are not tangible losses…you may not be able to see them and so they frequently go unnoticed by other people, even people who are close to us. When someone dies grief feels clearer…you mourn the loss of someone you loved. You understand the loss and the world around you understands…we offer sympathy because we can see that you are grieving and we know what you lost…or we think we do.

Although, seriously…if we’re honest, we only understand for a period of time…then we become impatient with people and with their sadness…it makes us uncomfortable…we don’t like it. We want them to get over it already.

When I was in my 20’s, I had a miscarriage in between my second and third child. Miscarriage is such a hard thing…you go to the doctor because you’re having a baby and when you leave the doctor you aren’t having a baby anymore…there was no heartbeat. Friends and family expressed their sorrow for us…I still felt pregnant…my body had not registered the loss yet…but then it did. A close friend at the time, grew impatient with me and my sadness. She told me that she was worried about me because I was still so depressed. She said it was time to let it go and move on…I’m not sure how anyone thinks they can decide for me when I should be done grieving…I don’t think you’re done until you’re done…I frequently say…”You can’t do what you can’t do until you can.”

Part of the reason I talked about sitting Shiva, a couple weeks ago, was because I think we need rituals around intangible grief….just like we do when someone dies. In the Jewish tradition people sit Shiva for a week…they are allowed to focus on the loss they have experienced for a week…nothing else just the loss….

I was raised Catholic and so I experienced a few “Wakes” when I was young. I have to say as a kid seeing someone dead in a coffin was a little hard to process…I remember the first wake I was taken to…and let me just say Irish people are serious about their wakes…I wasn’t sure what would happen…although someone must have prepared me…it was my godmother’s brother-in-law…not anyone I was close to. I remember walking in the room and saying the 9 or 10 version of what the fuck!…although quietly because I didn’t want to get in trouble…no way was I getting close to him…and I swear I could see him breathing…clearly I needed more preparation.

As an adult, experiencing a Wake was completely different…I got it…I got the reasons we want to see someone before they are cremated or buried…or whatever they have chosen…because seeing the person helps your brain understand that that person died…you can physically see them…that’s really real. It also provides an opportunity to say goodbye…which is especially important if a person dies suddenly…you can touch the person and feel the death in their body…you can see that the person you loved isn’t in that body anymore…a Wake kind of bitch slaps denial…it’s hard to deny what you see in front of you…it’s gut-wrenching and helpful, although it does not feel helpful at the time.

I have learned that we cannot let go of something or grieve a loss until we know what we have lost…that’s what sitting Shiva and attending a Wake help us to recognize…we sit with the loss for a week or for several hours…and others understand and share our grief…they are there in our grief with us…we have a community around us grieving with us…they see the loss too.

I think rituals around grief are so important…I don’t know of any rituals to grieve the losses of chronic pain and disability…we need rituals…without them we may not even recognize that our grief exists, or that we have experienced any losses…because are in denial…I know this because I live in the house of denial…I may not own it, but I definitely have a suite there. Rituals help to ground us when we feel groundless.

Rituals, like sitting Shiva or attending a Wake, help us begin to move through grief…through the denial…initially…grief is a process…a process that takes as long as it takes…everyone is unique and so is their grieving process.

But what about chronic pain, which is often invisible to other people? How do we grieve? Can we identify what we have lost so we can mourn? Can we feel the death, like we can at a Wake with a casket in the room? What about a community to grieve with? Would anyone even want to grieve with me? Can I make my loss understood so others can feel it?

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says, “The limbo of loss is in itself a loss to be mourned. Uncertainty can be an excruciating existence.” There is so much uncertainty with chronic pain…not knowing what the future will hold…or what will happen to us…that limbo can be excruciating.

The whole country is in an excruciating limbo right now with COVID….We are afraid and don’t know what will happen next. And there are other losses…the death of people we love, we have restrictions we never had before…(Put your fucking mask on!)…loss of freedom, safety, security, health, feeling isolated and lonely, we fear of the unknown…and so much is unknown. Now the bitchy part of myself wants to say, “Welcome to my world” but that is unhelpful…

Because of COVID people are experiencing some of what we experience with chronic pain…there is the loss of people we love…only there is no casket…instead it’s people who get tired of you not being well and so they leave your life, I have restrictions on where I can go, how I move or get around…I have to plan…I have to know if there are stairs, heavy doors, low seating, chairs without backs, handicapped bathrooms, handicap parking…for safety…I have to watch out because people don’t pay attention and bump into me or kick my crutch…I have to be careful of falling, so my freedom is definitely restricted in all kinds of ways. And I have lost parts of me…of who I am…things I can’t do but used to, like work. So my idea of who I am has had to change more than once.

The limbo of loss is excruciating…for sure….for everyone grieving

We may not see it, while we’re in it, but grieving all of these losses from chronic pain is a process…a similar process regardless of the loss…we need to grieve…we need to talk about our feelings and that we are grieving…we need to let others in and educate them…we need to allow ourselves the process of grieving…we have to be willing to sit with the pain and the loss.

WE MUST LEARN TO LIVE WITH THE LOSS…whether it’s the death of a person or a part of ourselves…BECAUSE WE DO NOT JUST “GET BETTER” OR “GET OVER IT”…We do move and change and so our understanding and interaction with loss changes over time.

SO what do we do? Aside from sitting with grief and pain, and creating our own rituals, we can start a contemplative practice…like meditation or contemplative prayer…A practice where we silence ourselves and our thoughts. Where we move deep into the Knowing part of ourselves. The place we know we can relax and Be…where we know who we are and what we need…maybe it’s where the intuitive part of ourselves resides. Grieving needs silence and space…meditation and contemplative prayer provide that space.

We use the word “grief” when someone dies…death needs grieving. But I wonder if the word “grief” would allow me, and then other people, to understand my pain…maybe I don’t understand either…maybe I don’t spend enough time with my own grief to understand it…if I don’t understand, how can other people understand.

The finality of a disability or chronic pain is hard to wrap your head around…or hard to even want to wrap your head around…you reach a point where the illusion, the denial, can’t stand…even my denying self knows what’s real

LETS BE REAL…Maya Angelou has said, “You may not be able to control all the events that happen to you, BUT you CAN decide NOT to be reduced by them.”

We MUST become more from grief not less…become more compassionate, not less, more kind, aware, understanding, patient, sensitive…share more, not less, listen more…speak less…

There’s a saying that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger but maybe, what doesn’t kill us can make us more compassionate…perhaps even give us more insight into ourselves and others.

Remember compassion 1st…it’s what we all need…even if we are in denial.