Grace Under Pressure

By Guest Blogger, Mary Swanson

Back in the day, Toots & the Maytals had a song called “Pressure Drop” that seemed to be the soundtrack of my life:

It is you (oh yeah)
It is you, you (oh yeah)
It is you (oh yeah)

Cause a pressure drop, oh pressure
Oh yeah pressure drop a drop on you
I say a pressure drop, oh pressure
Oh yeah pressure drop a drop on you

I say when it drops, oh you gonna feel it
Know that you were doing wrong.

Hmm hmm hmm, yeah… [3x]
I say a pressure drop, oh pressure
Oh yeah, pressure drop a drop on you [2x]

When it drops, you gonna feel it, indeed.

I’ve never been particularly graceful in life. I’ve crashed & burned so many times… starting and stopping, running headlong into things, not looking where I was going… literally and figuratively. I’ve been knocked unconscious at least a dozen times. I give all my time & energy to people I hardly know & the people I love the most I hardly ever see. I want to balance my life because I’m tired of feeling that ridiculous pressure in the center of my chest. I’m tired of wasting time being asleep. I hate feeling scared and stupid and vulnerable. I hate listening to my boring, shit-throwing monkey-mind*, trying to get me to waste more time hating myself.

Grace Under Pressure… what does that even mean?

… I go right back to my Catholic childhood & the line “Hail Mary, full of Grace.” Grace seemed like a kind of blessing –a radiant light that bestowed peace, acceptance, and something more than forgiveness… an understanding forgiveness, like it wasn’t even a big deal to forgive my relentless stupidity. Grace seemed then to be a state of being seen and accepted, completely– to be protected in an understanding greater than my own.

Both times I’ve been in the presence of the Dalai Lama, I’ve felt myself to be in a juicy, flowing, easy, awake, alive state of Grace. I want to live in Grace and as the pressure cooker intensifies, I want it even more.

The whole world is under pressure. Who hasn’t been feeling it? In the macro of world events & the micro of trying to bring our own lives into balance, these last two years especially have been a serious “pressure drop.” I’ve spent most of the last year back in the womb of Plutonian Descent: letting go of relationships, hopes, naivete, what I thought was real… looking at my own blind spots & having to crumble in that alone, dark-night-of-the-soul place. –once again waking up to a reality that is far, far different from what I’d hoped.

Is the world really about to end? Is my life hopelessly ruined? Have I irretrievably screwed up? Has the human race irretrievably screwed up? Ack!! How do we not panic?

When I feel the most crazy I climb the hill behind my house and go up to the service road that runs through a big stand of cedars. The crows like it up there & i’ve got a good view to the south & west. I call the 4 directions** and cry like an old fool, laying it all down at the feet of those giant trees. The old Swede in me feels at home in the ‘old way’ of connecting to Spirit.

When I can reconnect with that basic Ritual of going into Nature and declaring my relationship with all of life, something happens. As I literally face each direction and think about all my relations: the people & animals, the land & trees and waterways and how interconnected we are, I start to take my own troubles a little less personally.

In the toughest moments, when I hate and want to blame someone for hurting me, I breathe and observe… what is it I’m afraid to feel? What defenses are coming up in me to protect what wound? What belief is being challenged? If I can just admit to myself what I am really feeling I can stop projecting that feeling… and it stops coming back at me via the person or situation I’m so convinced is hurting me.

“No Blame” is an old, old idea. But it’s not about being nice or naive or forgiving. “No Blame” is a very practical tool that can unlock suffering. Every time you blame, every time you think “It’s your fault” or “you made me” or “you hurt me,” you’ve missed an opportunity to silence your monkey-mind and step into an awareness of a previously unaccepted part of yourself. Some feeling, some attribute of you that has been banished is trying to reintegrate into your being. Monkey-mind is trying to keep that from happening at all costs.

What are we suffering from if not projections of unintegrated/unaccepted parts of our own beautiful beings?

Watching the astrology of the last few years has been so fascinating. The language of astrology describes Pluto squaring off with Saturn as a clashing of interests: Saturn, with its need to maintain authority & the status quo is having its underbelly ripped open by Pluto’s need to get at what is false, dead, poisonous. It is a picture of the slow rendering of naive fantasies about what you hope is real, revealing what actually lies beneath the facade. Surrender Dorothy… none of the old rules apply. Throw Uranus into the mix to provide some sudden, unexpected releases of the unbearable pressure and we’ve got erupting oil wells & volcanos, cracking levees, dams & nuclear reactors, revelations of corruption, greed & failing governments, and a lot of really freaked out people. Not to mention Climate Change & Punctuated Equilibrium.

But there is another way to interpret the great t-square we’re living in as a conversation between what has been repressed (Pluto) by the practical concerns of survival (Saturn) being taught some new ways of communicating by looking at things from another viewpoint (Uranus).

I can’t predict the future. The past is fragments of my own projections and self-serving memories. Everything I’ve ever learned about The Power of Now, bringing my energy into the present and the amazingly practical approach to life found in the simple phrase: No Blame (Lao Tsu, The Watercourse Way) is showing up in response to that old monkey-mind trickster. Every time I feel wronged, I’m learning to laugh at my own self hatred.

What if everything were actually ok? What if all we have to do is stop blaming anyone and accept, in the moment of triggered emotions, that we are protected in an understanding greater than our own— what if the Billions of Monkey Minds all over our planet stopped reeking havoc in our worlds and we could experience Grace?

Try it… the next time you get all twisted up in your own misery, stop blaming whoever or whatever and ask yourself… “What am I afraid to feel?” As you take a step toward some banished part of yourself, you may find yourself stepping into Grace.

Mary Swanson is a full-time Medical Intuitive. She received her certification from the Academy of Intuition Medicine in Sausalito, CA in 1994. She teaches her students “how to be happy” by using meditation, conscious awareness, writing, painting and Ritual in her many workshops and classes. Mary is also a writer and visual artist. She lives in Middlebury, VT. You can find her at maryswanson.netand arthousevt.com.

Image: Phoenix Rising by Mary Swanson 2007, Acrylic on carved linoleum, 30″ diameter. Available for sale.

*Monkey-Mind: Your physical-emotional body mind. It’s job is to get you to never, ever change. It will stop at nothing to convince you that breaking the old rules of engagement with life are really bad ideas. To the monkey-mind, your only hope of survival is based on doing what you have done before and only what you have done before. Precedent is the only acceptable reality. It is called the monkey mind because it’s methods and actions resemble an interesting monkey, chattering away at you while tossing the occasional handful of excrement your way.

**Calling The Four Directions: An ancient Ritual to acknowledge the interconnectedness of all Life. Performing the Ritual brings one into communication with the Unknown, quiets the Heart and balances the Soul. Also see Sacred Space and The Elements

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