One Breath at a Time: Taming the Hurricane Sandy Tiger

"You see, the past is past, and the future is yet to come. That means the future is in your hands—the future entirely depends on the present. That realization gives you a great responsibility." ~ H.H. the Dalai Lama

I'm trying very hard this morning to let the wisdom of the Dalai Lama be absorbed by my heart.

Intellectually, I know what he says is totally true. But try as I may, the trauma of Hurricane Sandy and her aftermath has hijacked every cell of my body, making new information impossible to enter.

No, it isn't this one-time weather event in which my state's shoreline was decimated; my township rendered powerless; its lawns/sidewalks/roads still littered with fallen trees, posts, and power lines; and its schools closed.

It isn't the absence of open gas stations to fill cans with fuel for small generators or even the absence of generators themselves.

And it isn't even the terrifying memory of the wind howling in the pitch dark and rattling every window.

It isn't this one-time event at all.

For me, it is the combination of one-time trauma events sprinkled across nearly seven decades of such occurrences, and they aren't even all weather related.

(In no particular order) there's a couple of automobile crashes, important relationship breakups, job losses, loved ones getting sick and dying, pets getting sick and dying, a divorce, a diagnosis, a roof leaking, a furnace refusing to start on one of the coldest days of the year, parental fights, growing up in an alcoholic/addictive/mentally ill household, several national threats of war, getting a failing grade on an important exam, and many others like that.

You have your own list. A list that is as significant to you in terms of uncontrolled and unexpected loss, as mine is to me.

There is no one who has lived even one decade who does not have a long list of such traumas. It is the nature of life in the 21st century.

It is this "past" that the Dalai Lama wants us to consider past and somehow I have to convince each cell in my body that carries traumatic memories to surrender these scary burdens to a power greater than each of them.

But, as everyone knows, no one can "convince" another of anything. The way -- whatever the way -- needs to be demonstrated.

So, with my heart pounding, my ears ringing, my breath rapid, and my concentration nearly nonexistent, I commit to also mindfully meditate.

I commit to allowing my conscious in- and out-breath to coexist with my body anxiety.

I commit to doing this whether it is peaceful coexistence, uncomfortable coexistence, or "feeling impossible to do" coexistence between the fear and faith parts of me.

I will do this to honor my historical survival skills (I lived through every previous trauma, even though survival seemed impossible at the time) and to honor my newly learned self-comforting, self-healing meditation skills.

Hopefully this exercise will generate a blanket of soft compassion that will swaddle me, those I love, and those I don't even know in a comforting embrace.

At least this is how it feels here in storm-torn Central NJ, USA on a November 2nd mid-morning in which the blue sky masks a prediction of a nor'easter heading our way next Tuesday.

Judy Shepps Battle is a New Jersey resident, addictions specialist, consultant and freelance writer. Her weekly column "It Takes a Village" appeared in the South Brunswick Patch for a year. She can be reached by e-mail at writeaction@aol.com. Additional information on this and other topics can be found at her website at http://www.writeaction.com/.

Copyright 2012 Judy Shepps Battle