Category: Polly Hansen

The Serenity Prayer recited at  12-step programs meetings around the world goes like this:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And the wisdom to know the difference.”

Here’s the line that is challenging me these days…courage to change the things I can. I can change things about me. That’s it. I can’t change other people. I can’t get people to do things I want them to do or treat me a certain way. But I can speak up and use my voice. I can let people know what I want instead of staying silent. That doesn’t mean I’m going to get what I want, but at least no one has to guess what it is I want. And I certainly don’t have any chance of getting what I want if I don’t ask for it.

I can push myself into situations where I want attention and want to be noticed instead of waiting to be noticed.

The actor Liam Neeson is on the cover of two magazines this month. He is quoted as saying, “You create your own luck. It’s not gonna come to you.”

I’ve known that. Hard work. Persistence. Beat the pavement. Get out there and do what you need to do to make it happen.

But when does the effort evolve into… “And the wisdom to know the difference”?

I don’t know that I’ve arrived there yet with this memoir I’m querying. I’ve gotten nibbles from agents and encouragement, but that is all. No one has said, “I love this! I’d love to be your agent!” Is it back to the drawing board to make the story more palatable for readers? It isn’t a fun book, but it should be engaging and not too difficult to stomach. Who wants that? But the “Tattooist of Auschwitz” by Heather Morris was hard to stomach and yet I couldn’t put it down because I loved the main character and wanted him to survive.

How do I get readers to love the main character in my memoir (guess who?) and want her to survive? Well, I love the main character in my memoir and want her to survive! And she did! And happily so, though it was hard, hard work. Painful, challenging, and oh, so rewarding.

So, I keep plodding on, writing articles, submitting short pieces from the memoir. I believe in this story because it’s about believing in yourself when no one else does. Believing in ourselves is sometimes all that matters. If I believe in me, I can’t make other people believe in me and my work and want to support it. But I believe in it, which is why I keep going.

We matter. We can’t make people believe we matter, but our belief in ourselves is what matters most.

So I’ll keep trying, keep putting myself and my work and my voice out there because I believe in me and what I have to say. That persistence is the key. Courage to change the things I can means courage to keep trying, to not give up. And that’s how I survived. I never gave up. I never quit and said I can’t do this. This being alive thing. I never said, I can’t live anymore. I can’t go on. No, I wanted to survive, to thrive, and I’d like my book to thrive as well. So I’ll keep trying to find an agent who believes in my story as much as I do. I won’t give up.

And the serenity to accept what I cannot change? I accept that I have a mission, and it ain’t over yet. Perhaps I need to accept that the exertion is the journey and to accept that with serenity, and not expect an outcome. Not have a goal. I do, but maybe I should let go of the goal and simply do my best.

Joyous Exertion

The paramita of exertion is connected with joy. In practicing this paramita, like little children learning to walk, we train with eagerness but without a goal. This joyful uplifted energy isn't a matter of luck. ..[W]hen we begin to practice exertion, we see that sometimes we can do it, and sometimes we can't. The question becomes: How do we connect with inspiration? How do we connect with the spark and joy that's available in every moment?"-- Teaching No. 72 from Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chödrön

Sometimes I have difficulty asking my husband for what I need because I don’t yet know what it is I want. I beat around the bush, unable to say even to myself what I need because the words haven’t formed in my mind yet. They lay in my heart like a cautious animal, waiting for a sign that it’s safe to come out.

Let’s just pretend my husband and I were baking cookies together when a lump of dough dropped on the kitchen floor, and he didn’t bend over to pick it up. I waited for him to. When he didn’t, I was uncomfortable. I wanted him to do something, but he didn’t. “I’m just curious,” I said. “How does that make you feel to see the dough on the ground? Does it bother you?”

“Oh, it didn’t register. I’m not going to catch it all the time,” he said.

Well, it had registered with me! But I was trying not to take responsibility for his actions, trying not to tell him what to do.

Later that evening, my husband was reading in bed while I was still puttering around. “Can you come sit for a moment?” he asked, patting the space next to him. “I want to talk about what happened with the dough.”

I rounded the bed and nestled on the edge next to his legs. “Yes, because I want to make amends.”

He looked surprised. “Amends? For what?”

“For not being straight with you. For not telling you I was uncomfortable.”

“Let me go first,” he said. “I’m sorry I was so glib. I shouldn’t have been. It really didn’t bother me about the dough. I didn’t realize it had happened, but I didn’t have to brush you off like that. I could see you were upset.”

I started to tear up but stopped myself. “I felt unsafe. I was afraid one of the dogs might eat it and then they’d get sick and vomit in the night. I remember the last time she ate cookie dough. I don’t want to go through that again.”

And then it hit me what I wanted to ask my husband. What I had wanted to ask all along but didn’t realize I could. But this is what two people who love each other do. They ask each other to make sacrifices. They don’t tell them they must. They just ask and accept the yes or no that comes. But they have the vulnerability to ask.

I have finally learned I am worth taking care of myself.

“This is what I want.” My husband waited patiently with compassionate eyes. “I want you to notice when dough drops and to pick it up right away. Even if it doesn’t bother you or it’s just a tiny lump. I want you to do that so I can feel safe”

My husband nodded as if this was an entirely reasonable request, for which I was relieved and grateful. “I can do that. For both of us. For me, especially, because I should notice. It’s not good for me to not notice.”

We kissed.

“Thank you,” I said. “I feel safer.”

So, taking care of myself means asking for what I need, for what makes me feel safe. Or I need or remove myself from what feels like an unsafe situation, and this marriage is a situation I don’t want to remove myself from.

I have finally learned I am worth taking care of myself; I am worth using my voice and making my needs and wants known, even if they seem absurd. I need to pay attention to the little child whose needs were ignored. And my husband, in this instance, was fine with that. He wants to take care of me, the dogs, and himself, too.

So, it all worked out, and now I can enjoy making cookies with my husband without worrying about dropped dough. I asked for what I needed. He’ll notice and pick up any dough that drops on the floor, and our love, and my safety and comfort continue.

Here’s a thought—don’t take life personally. Don’t take what befalls you as condemnation of your soul. People may be mean, may bully you, single you out for personal attack. But whatever harm they perpetrate on you is a reflection of how they feel about themselves. How you feel about yourself is what matters.

Sure, it is difficult, and feels downright impossible to have faith in ourselves when we are hurting or someone is hurting us, perhaps even hating us.

Growing up in my family, I got the message from my parents that I did not matter. They may not have believed that, but that’s what I picked up subconsciously. When I revealed to them that I was in a sexual relationship with a twenty-five-year-old man in our neighborhood and that I said I loved him, they didn’t do anything. They were overwhelmed. That was just too much, so, life went on as usual. I continued seeing this man. Mandated reporters knew about him, like my pediatrician, who in all fairness hoped my parents would do something, but his hands were tied once they were notified; and the psychologist I saw exactly once for fifteen minutes in his office. He didn’t do anything. My parents didn’t press charges. They didn’t protect or hinder me. The message I got was, “You don’t matter.” I continued seeing this man, becoming more and more miserable as the months and years went by because I couldn’t break away from him. I wanted him to care about me; I wanted to matter to him. I wanted to be somebody in the world. I just went about it in the wrong way and didn’t get proper help for a long time.

But I persevered. I didn’t give up on myself. I was persistent in discovering who I am in this world and where I belong in it, which is with all of you.

We belong to one another. All of us belong to one another. We may feel isolated, damaged, disconnected, like we don’t belong to the human race. But like Carl Jung said, our collective unconscious is like a chain of islands that look like separate entities, but beneath the surface we are all connected. We swim in the waters of divinity.

It’s taken years and decades for me to learn that I do matter and I don’t need to get the world to prove it to me. A dear friend recently shared a realization she had: “I’m valuable just because I am.” I love that statement. Lucky for her she found that wisdom relatively early in life and is now walking in the light of that soul knowledge. It has changed her outlook on life, her attitude towards herself and others. She treats herself with respect and honors the autonomy of others with the dignity they deserve.

My spin on that statement is: “I matter because I am.”

I believe anyone who survives the trauma of birth, who leaves the protective warmth of the womb and explodes into the cold brightness of this world deserves that badge of courage and honor just to have survived. Here we are, no matter what our status or position in life or what we have done with it, we matter. We can’t control what befalls us. We can’t control whether someone rapes us, molests us, bombs us, spits on us, or whether we get cancer or some other horrible disease, or whether our house burns down, or our child dies in a car crash. We can’t control the way people treat us because we were born with skin the color of pale brown sand or black loamy earth. We matter and are beautiful and valuable despite all the ugly horrible, painful things that happen to us in this world.

When our solar system was born suns exploded, planets collided. It was violent and terrible, and yet here we are in this gorgeous solar system of planets floating in orbit around one another in peaceful synchronicity.

This is who we are—family. We may not realize it and treat each other as if we are enemies. But life is long and maybe we’ll use this time on Earth to slowly evolve and eventually to realize we are valuable just because we are. You matter. I matter. We matter to each other. Just because we are.

"Life is a gift for which we are grateful. We gather in community to celebrate the wonders and mysteries of this great gift."--Chalice lighting blessing of the Unitarian Universalist Church

Today, I call on Quan Yin, goddess of compassion, kindness, and mercy, to be me guide, to slow my breathing and be present with me as I meditate. She is my replacement for the years, the decades of doubting and second guessing myself. I let her be for me. I let her think and meditate for me. I am saturated in presence, in this moment of goodness and wholeness. I feel the Qi — life force energy, pouring through me, circulating all around me. I feel my Qi, this gift of the universe of which I am a part, not separate. It.

Even if I slip into second guessing myself today, I know it isn’t important; it doesn’t matter because Qi — life force energy is all there is.

Worry all you like. It doesn’t matter. You could be enjoying instead in blissful awareness how splendid Life is.

Sure, there is heartache, suffering, war, death, cruelty, pain, sadness, despair, grief. All of that.

But there is also love, compassion, kindness, devotion, mercy. I will choose today to focus on these qualities.

May I accept the kindness, compassion, and mercy that is in my heart and all around me. May I accept the possibility of kindness, the essence and potential of it. May I be it.

So mote it be.

My husband and I were out to dinner this weekend. He was telling me about his job interviews. I was relieved to hear he was not going to take the jobs he’d been considering. Not either of them. “Instead, I’d like to take a minimum of two months off,” he said.

I reached my hand across the table and took his. “I’m glad,” I said. “I’m so glad. You deserve it.”

His eyes grew red and welled with tears. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m just so tired.” I held his hand, the moment passed, and I was about to ask him a question when my intuition interrupted. Not now, Polly. Now is not the time. So, I paused and said something else, since I had already opened my mouth. The moment continued smoothly, unspoiled by my initial intended query.

My husband and I continued our conversation, and then he brought up the topic I had wanted to ask him about, brought it up on his own, so that it was no longer a non sequitur but an organic flow in our give-and-take. I thanked my Higher Power for guiding me, because that is what my intuition is, wisdom from my Higher Power guiding my words.

This obedience to the divine is but one way I allow intimacy to blossom between me and another, by pausing, paying attention, and listening, putting my impulses and sometimes even urgency aside to wait a beat. Gentleness presides and hearts open rather than close like a sensitive flower.

This gentle guidance I received is available to all of us, keeping the sacred bond between two people pure just by paying attention.

Even though love is innate and we are born with it in our hearts, we need to be taught how to love one another and ourselves.

I loved myself when I was a young child, but that love was quickly distorted by the sick adults raising me. This world is full of them, wounded people who in turn hurt others. How are we to learn to love when everyone is so wounded?

The Old Testament says God gave Moses the Ten Commandments so that people would have a very simple guide as to how to live their lives, how to comport themselves, how to treat one another. It’s hard being human. We have so many wild impulses. At times we want to hurt, to harm. Why is that? Because we hurt. And so, the cycle continues, on and on.

We must find a teacher and learn to love ourselves and break that cycle.

When I was a homeless teenager, I thought sex was the most important sign of love. So, that’s what I engaged in, and guess what? I suffered. Help was out there, but where? I didn’t know how to find it, and I tried. Does God mean for us to suffer? Maybe we are doing penance for the sins of our past lives. I don’t know. It’s a mystery. Maybe that’s why our lives are so long, so we have a chance, God willing, to make the journey to self-realization.

They say the right teacher comes along when we are ready. Maybe I wasn’t ready when I was a teenager. Maybe I had to suffer and engage in survival sex to work off bad karma. I knew no other way to survive, had no idea how to care for myself, and was not taught by my parents how to do so. They were damaged babies raising more damaged babies.

I was fortunate to find a spiritual teacher, imperfect though she was, but healthy enough to teach me how to love myself, or at least get me started on that path. I surrendered to her completely. Until I didn’t. I surpassed my teacher and became my own person. That is my role now—to be a spiritual teacher, to impart to others what I have learned about loving myself.

And let me tell you, I was at the bottom, wallowing in the dregs of my humanity. But I had not given up on myself entirely. I still had hope that there was some spark of good in me.

With my teacher’s help, I blew on those dying embers and they sparked into life. I have been blowing on them ever since and now they blaze to the heavens in all their magnificence. I am alive and well and praise God with all my heart for the mystery and majesty of living and learning. There is hope. There is always hope. For you, for me, for all of us.

“....Teachers and students need to be 'associate lovers,' helping each other and all living beings touch the goodness, beauty, and truth in themselves. This is the Path of Awakening." From a talk titled ‘The Path of Awakening‘ given at Plum Village on November 20, 1997. It was translated from the Vietnamese by Sister Annabel Laity and edited for publication by Arnie Kotler. You can find the full transcript here.

Hello, dears. Today I read in the paper this question: When fear is trying to get the best of you, continually ask, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

People could shun me. Talk behind my back. Insult me openly. Consider me crazy. Misguided. Hate me. Ridicule me. Be embarrassed for me. For my family. My family will be humiliated and embarrassed by me. I could feel embarrassed and humiliated, regretting my choice to speak out.

When I was sixteen, I engaged in survival sex. That’s often what a teen does when (s)he is homeless, penniless, terrified, hungry, lost, and powerless. (S)he engages in sex in exchange for shelter and food. I write about my experiences in my memoir, NASTY GIRL, so titled because that’s what a psychologist called me when I went to him for help. It’s what the other clients called me in a show of so-called love. “That’s nasty, Polly,” they would say to me on various occasions. I knew I was nasty, that my behavior was nasty. I saw myself as the daughter the rock group The Mothers of Invention lead by Frank Zappa sang about in the song “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It.” I’m going to make her do a nasty on the White House lawn, Zappa sings. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Nasty, nasty, nasty, goes the chorus.

I have since retitled the memoir to A Minor, Unaccompanied. Most importantly, many services are now available to homeless teens. If you are homeless and need shelter, contact: National Safe Place.

So, here’s my quandary. Why write about it?

Because girls, and boys, who engage in survival sex, and who often get lured or trapped into sex trafficking are not nasty. They are wretched. They are miserable. They are in pain, but desperate to survive by the only means available to them.

My experience was 50 years ago. Fifty years, and still, I am hesitant to write about it. What will people say? What will they think? Will they call me a nasty girl all over again?

Because I want others to know how much it hurt, how it hurt, and why it hurt. I want others to know I understand. Whatever you are struggling with, I get it. I don’t hurt anymore, for the most part. Every once in a while, I run into a pocket of pain that I express with surprise, release, and let go. The feeling passes and I am that much stronger. I love myself now. I adore myself. You can adore yourself, too.

But you’ve got to love the pain as well. You have to cherish it and hold it dear. That’s where recovery begins. Until we are able to embrace the pain it will keep us chained. Face your nightmare. Own it, with help. And get free.

"You don't have to like your experience; you simply don't resist it. Resisting your experience is the same as not trusting the movement of true nature -- believing you must control things to ensure movement because you do not experience the larger flow of reality. By not resisting, you don't get stuck or fixed on a particular feeling or concern, so your experience is able to flow and transform more easily and naturally."

"Soul Without Shame--A Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge Within" by Byron Brown

My bed, when it is freshly made looks like a newly opened carton of French vanilla ice cream and I want to scoop out a bite. I am hesitant to sit on such a smooth creamy surface, but I do, even though it hurts a little, that tiny intake of breath like touching hot water. I don’t want to disturb its surface and yet I must.

When I was a girl, I had a friend, Marybeth, who panicked when I sat on her bed. It was my first time in her room. She screamed at me, “What are you doing?” I looked at her as if she were mad. I wasn’t doing anything. What was she talking about? “Get up! Get up! Get up!” she shrieked. Not until she pulled on my arm could I tell from the look on her face she was dead serious.

“What is wrong with you?” I laughed unnerved and wanting to tease my friend.

“I’ll get in trouble,” she insisted. “My mom doesn’t let me sit on the bed.”

“What? That doesn’t make sense,” I said, bouncing back onto her bed.

Marybeth shoved me. “Get off!”

Not two seconds later the bedroom door opens and in walks her mother wearing a dress and apron as if she were auditioning for the part of Mrs. Cleaver in Leave it to Beaver. She may have barged in to see what the commotion was all about, but what she said was, “Marybeth Bianco, how many times have I told you not to sit on your bed?” Mrs. Bianco lifted a corner of the bedspread, vigorously tugged the sheets tight and tucked them under the mattress as if she were in a wrestling match with it. She smoothed the bedspread and folded the edges just so, then stood, hands on hips, victorious but aggrieved.

“I warned you, Marybeth. Never again.”

When she left, Marybeth fumed. “I told you. Now I’m in trouble. My mom’s going to kill me.”

I stared at my friend. “No, she’s not. You didn’t do anything wrong.” But I worried. I had just seen evidence of how crazy Marybeth’s mother was, not knowing back then that her mother wasn’t crazy but probably had severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Which is why I make myself sit on my unblemished bed. And when I stand, impressions of my rump lay in folds. Sometimes I whack them out of place. And sometimes I leave them to make sure I still can.

May all sentient beings enjoy happiness
and the root of happiness.
May we be free from suffering
and the root of suffering.
May we not be separated from the great
happiness devoid of suffering.
May we dwell in the great equanimity free
from passion, aggression, and prejudice.

-- The Four Immeasurables

http://www.thomas-ciszewski.photos/

Do you know how magnificent and incredible you are?

It is quite all right to admit this, to know this in your heart of hearts, deep in your marrow and psyche.

Do not feel guilty or embarrassed by this self-proclamation. Rather, celebrate the glory of being, the glory that is you, for you are wonderfully made. Your being is a gift of creation. You are knit into the fabric of this holy universe.

When you look up into the sky at night in awe at the splendors and unfathomable mystery of the universe, you are looking at yourself; you are standing in awe before a mirror. That is you up there, your birth home. In that sense, when you look at the stars at night, you are looking at your Mother, the perfect Mother—the one who loves you with all Her awesome might.

We should always ask for discipline.
One who has no self-control cannot receive grace.

And it’s not just himself he hurts. Undisciplined
People set fire to the landscape!

A table of food was once coming down from the sky to feed Moses
and his people, when suddenly voices from the crowd
called out, “Where’s the garlic?” and “We want lentils!”

At once the bread and dishes of grace-food disappeared.
Everyone had to keep digging with mattocks
and cutting with long scythes.

Then Jesus interceded and sent more trays of food.
But again some insolent people showed no respect.
They grabbed like it wouldn’t be enough, even though Jesus
kept telling them, “This food will last. It will always be here.”

To be suspicious and greedy when majesty arrives
is the worst arrogance.
Withhold your giving, and no rainclouds will form. 

When sex goes on between everybody all the time, 
epidemics spread in every direction.
When you feel gloomed over,
it’s your failure to praise. 
Irreverence and no discipline rob your soul of light.

--Rumi "The King and the Handmaiden and the doctor" from The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

Connection is what I want.

Connection with Spirit, connection with my heart and soul, connection with you, my loved ones. You are all out there, with your hearts and minds, thoughts, worries, fears, and insecurities. Just like me.

Even at my darkest times, I was determined to survive, to find myself, to live, to get out of the pain and suffering. Even when I felt lost for long periods, I never gave up. Even when I felt worthless, I hoped in that spark of goodness.

Today, I thrive and thrill in this life, in the splendor of it, in the wildness of my heart and soul.

Self-realization and Thou. Steeping in divinity with every breath, every heartbeat. That is our reality, whether we realize it or not.

Never give up on yourself. Never give up on your hopes and dreams. The dream of self-love can be a reality. Believe it. You are worth defending, worth striving for. You are golden and precious.

Even if you can only entertain the thought of self-love and hope someday to feel it is true, do so. With time you will know it to be true, know it with all your heart. You will connect with yourself with acceptance and love. You will become your own best friend. And then you can be a great friend to others. You will find connection and love everywhere.

Isn’t that what we all desire? Connection and love?

Life leads the thoughtful person on a path of many windings. 
Now the course is checked, now it runs straight again. 
Here winged thoughts may pour freely forth in words, 
There the heavy burden of knowledge must be shut away in silence.
But when two people are at one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron and bronze.
And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts, 
Their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids.

-- Confucius from The I Ching, T'ung Jên, Fellowship with Men