S leeping — Resting Energy

Nature supplies everything with a quantity of energy. The amazing thing about the human species is that we have the ability to take the energy we are given and change its quality. As a result, with the healthy cultivation of this energy, we feel as if we have more energy. Perhaps the truth is we only changed the quality of this energy, not the quantity. Resting, recharging, and rejuvenating energy seems to have the power to change its quality. The power of this transformation starts with knowing when this time comes.

After and during the time my mom was letting go of her mind and body, I clearly felt the need to exercise. And I did, although this time, I no longer had a studio or at least a studio with a roof on top. But this was fine, like any other studio I occupied. I first looked to see if I had daylight in which to work. Now my studio was the streets of New York City, and there was plenty of light and an abundance of dense energy inside me and surrounding me. So I got it all out of my system once again for the next two or three years by painting the iron circles and surfaces in this city “that never sleeps.” From one manhole cover to the next, until each ounce of pain dissipated into the already restless pulse of the streets. I truly did not start really resting my energy until I parted ways with my job of 10 years at Madison Square Garden. It was then that I soon realized it was time to sleep on the process of taking in energy, whether it was the twenty-thousand people I worked with and was in front of each night or the one person inside of myself. These days of rest consisted of trying to sell all I had created in the past few years, seeing my daughter off to school, and picking her up on any day I was asked or allowed to. I would take odd jobs, and with every ounce of energy left over, I did my best to get to a place where I could rest and write what you read today.

My word seemed like a good place to start in transforming what surfaced as I rested. Although, at times, I saw my word like the battery supplied on a cell phone. Talk-time used up more energy. Even though sometimes talk can charge you up, the power lies in choosing who, what, where, when, why, and how much we talk. The first question I asked myself was “Who do I talk to?” The answer, at the time, was to pen and paper.

At first, it took some time to rest the reactive energy I possessed. Thus, I often found it a priority to allow the essence of myself to remain still. Sometimes, this took suspending all of my judgments and definitions of success. Though I was “resting,” I worked at finding the “now” not by searching for it, but rather allowing my mind to arrive at a state where the “now” naturally surfaces. With this, I was often given the efficient ability to improve the quality of my energy.

E ating - Receiving Energy

I used to think of “eating” as only food that entered my stomach, but now I see it as any form of energy that comes through my senses. Our choices of what to eat are essential to our ability to use our “tool of vision.” For example, in terms of edible food, we might eat a particular food and experience the affects of it seconds or hours later. Or it might have an effect that could trigger us to decide that we absolutely do not want to eat this food again for the rest of our lives. Or we might crave it every day.

If we broaden our perspectives of eating, we might realize that, from the moment we rise in the morning, we start eating. We eat the temperature of the room and how the daylight makes us feel. We can eat all kinds of things. We consume the energy of our kids waking up nervously from a bad dream or our anxiety about starting a day at work. Maybe we eat the fact that we might be single and longing for a partner to wake up next to or wondering how to fix our troubled relationships. As a result, we can still be digesting the energy we consumed yesterday, in the past month, and so on. Many of these experiences can alter so much, including our health.

Anyone who knew my dad even vaguely knew that he loved to eat. Outside of his eggs, toast, soup, and big Italian meals, what else did he love to eat? It was all the kinds of energy, be it music, traveling, church, the courtroom, nature, his family, or friends. His menu went on and on. I think most of all he enjoyed the process of eating and being in the company of the people surrounding him at the above dinner tables. Sometimes, it seemed that no one could stop him from eating all of the above energy or even just his lunch. (I can only reflect on and laugh at the times when I was a young kid sitting in the back of the courtroom, watching my dad argue a decisive civil case and asking the judge if he could approach the bench. He argued his case as to why he needed to have his lunch at this very moment, which ironically was usually granted, so even the law could not stop him.)

Most outcomes of his eating were positive because of his pure motivation toward the happiness of others, as well as himself. Some might have noticed that my dad would sometimes overeat. When I look at one of my dad’s overeating habits, I formulate the hypothesis that perhaps he failed when it came to respecting the power of the sun. As he consumed its energy, any moment. Often, it was at its strongest for hours, year after year, until the year came when he saw and felt the affects of his unbalanced consumption. He developed skin cancer. And then the day came where he could not eat any longer, and his mind and body moved on.

That was just one effect of his choice of eating. Another affect was my dad’s hunger for life, and as a result, this eating habit has been instilled in so many that he left behind. How did my dad digest and work out all of his energy? It was often with his tools to communicate, mostly his voice, a voice that inspired me to write and a voice that always told me:

“Nothing gets to the intellect that doesn’t go through the senses.”

E xercising - Giving Energy

Many people think of exercising as working out. This is not far off because, throughout our days and lives, we are constantly taking in energy, and a lot of times, we have to find a way to work it out so we can feel more at peace.

I remember a time when I was up late one night in my “non-living” art studio that I lived in. It was a raggedy old place, but it met my needs for an art studio. As far as living was concerned, it was a stretch. It was a stretch to the studio across the hall to use the toilet and sink. It was a stretch of a few blocks so I could shower at the gym. Outside of the living obstacles, the one-hundred-year-old room felt like the right place for me. I needed a place to put out all of the energy I had taken in. For example, in the months before this late night, my dad died of cancer, followed by my daughter’s mother breaking off our engagement and my being forced to move out, in addition to all of the other trivial dramas thirty-year-old men face. So I just needed a safe place to put my love and pain, and this studio and my art ended up being this place.

For months, I would use the materials I discovered for my photographs, and I sculpted a frame for each photo. I exercised using wood, plaster, iron, paint, glue, glass, aluminum, vinyl, rubber, tar, and all that I got my hands on, until this night came. I took a deep breath as I stroked my dog's head and looked around the studio. My job was done, and the work was completed. Although I felt somewhat helpless and empty, maybe this feeling was what I was aiming for if I were to get the energy out of my system. As I attempted to sleep on the beat up old brown couch, my little voice or “sixth sense” said, “Photograph the work… now.” I listened and stayed up until sunrise with an unknown urgency, taking shot after shot, leaving just a few shots left in the roll.

I thought, “Now I can rest without an ounce of energy left in me.” I dropped back on the couch. A moment of silence passed and then Luke, my dog, rushed to the window as a thunderous roar was heard. I darted towards the window, looked out, and there was a huge hole in the building just a few blocks away from my studio. I was speechless. My dog was panicked. I said to myself, “Maybe I’ve fallen back asleep, and I’m dreaming.” To try and reassure myself that I was not sleeping, I picked up my camera, went out on the fire escape, and took a few shots of this hole. When I heard another roar, I was assured. This was no dream. An airplane had crashed into the building next to the other burning building. Now, in the months that followed, I was being served more and more energy that I needed to get rid of (or exercise), whether it was the few thousand people I witnessed die or now my mother struggling with cancer.

I later reflected that maybe the cause of these two events — my mom dying of cancer and the attacks of 9/11 — was the result of the same thing. Perhaps someone could not find the right place or right way to exercise the energy in his or her system. For my mom, it became clear that she did not work out many emotional factors, and I feel it destroyed her on the inside. As for 9/11, I think many failed at working out their wars on the inside, and thus it destroyed others on the outside. Either way, someone did not feel there was a safe place in which to work out his or her love and pain.

There are countless ways to work out the energy we naturally cannot get rid of. The key is finding an “exercise” that is both beneficial and not detrimental to ourselves and others

Inventing “A” Wheel

In my efforts to get a better grasp on how I give, receive, and rest my energy, I began to understand the importance of awareness, adjustment, and acceptance. It soon became the three-spoke wheel that constantly turned inside of my head. The first spoke was being aware of the challenges I face, then turning to the next spoke of learning how to make adjustments, and then lastly rotating around to either accepting the outcome of my adjustments or starting the rotation in motion again. This three-spoke wheel sometimes rotated once, or it turned for years until I finally accepted where I was or wanted to be.

This wheel of the “A’s” usually turned the most when I faced “challenging energy.” For many of us, this “challenging energy” is when we are “working on a relationship.” Whether they are major or minor parts of our lives, our list of relationships goes on and on because we are always “working on a relationship.”

In the past six months, never more had the wheel of the “A’s” kept turning in my head. This was because, once again, I was “working on a relationship.” From the moment I awoke from brain surgery, the “relationship” I was to be working on was my “relationship with healing.”

Awareness

The first spoke on the wheel of the “A’s” is to be aware of what is happening and what is needed. But becoming aware takes more than just understanding the external elements. It also takes reflecting on what you might have learned from your past and what is at stake in the present.

As I laid in bed in the intensive care unit, I did my best to become aware of how I was eating, exercising, and sleeping. Eating was not happening, as I could not keep any food down. As for exercising, it was only (understandably) mental (if that’s possible). As for sleeping, even that was hard in the midst of tubes, wires, beeps, and constant monitoring. (Many times, it seemed to only be just me and this “button” for the nurse.) Yet I thought, “Maybe if I exercise my mind and get to a peaceful state, I could get some rejuvenating rest.” This was not as easy as it was in my past days of prayer and meditation. Here I was on all kinds of drugs to kill the pain. It seemed like the painkillers were making it to harder to use my mind. If I wanted to make an adjustment, I would have to deal with a little more pain in hopes of gaining more control over my mind.

With many of the relationships we might be “working on,” be it with ourselves or others, there will be times when we’ll be doing things that we “don’t like.” I think why many keep moving forward is that they’re able to see the bigger picture of “why” and what is at stake. Many times in my own past, I have avoided a lot of “why” questions that were squeaking from the first spoke on the wheel of the “A’s.” As a result, when the wheel turned to the next spoke of “adjustment,” I would lose my balance.

Adjustment

When I look at many great relationships, I see that people develop their stability in the early stages by being flexible and understanding boundaries. I find it is most important to be flexible in terms of our actions. Many times, we need to make adjustments within a fraction of a second. At these times, we have a choice to react or respond.

I responded by calling the nurse and asked for my pain medication to be decreased. It was not easy, and I had to be flexible, but later that night, I was able reach a peaceful state in my meditation, and the pain felt less like pain and more like healing.

There may have been times in the past when we needed to react. This often happens when there’s less time to communicate. I saw this in my days of being in and around hospitals and seeing professionals react within seconds. As for myself, I find that responding usually works better than reacting. I feel the main difference is responding gives you more flexibility. Thus, responding gives more space, and to be flexible, you need to have space to move. When communicating, you need the mental space more than anything; if not, you or someone else might feel stifled or imprisoned.

Lastly, this brings me to the other part of adjustment that has to do with boundaries. This is where it is important to first communicate with ourselves about becoming aware of our own personal boundaries. Then, we can communicate more clearly with any outside forms of energy. At this point, we have the power to communicate any ideas of adjustment. Flexibility and boundaries will change over time, but this is when the wheel of the “A’s” will turn toward the next spoke of acceptances, and we realize how much we will accept before we decide if and when a change is needed.

I realized that, over the past months, these adjustments and the choice to react or respond was not the only thing I was doing. It was what many nurses, doctors, friends, family, and sometimes strangers were all doing to help others, as well as myself. This is why I feel it is so important to truly understand the many adjustments we each make in our relationships.

Acceptance

Acceptance is the last spoke on the wheel of the “A’s.” Often, it feels like the first step towards truly overcoming the many challenges that come our way. The root of acceptance lies in our own understanding of accountability towards the questions, answers, and actions we face each day. But even though we might embrace our level of accountability, we are also faced with the choice of accepting the direction of the wheel of the “A’s” and where it has taken us.

The question now was, “What next shall I accept?” Well after I left the intensive care unit, I was off to a rehabilitation center to rebuild my brain and body.

It has now been over a month, and I have been released from the rehabilitation center. Doctors tell me that they have “only seen less then 1% recover from what I went through as well and as quick as [I] had.” Although this was reassuring, something told me my journey was far from over. As I was being discharged, I remember the physical therapist telling me, “Paul, just keep working on balance.”

I thought, “Balance… ha!” Isn’t that where my journey started in the first place, and isn’t it where so many of our journeys seem to end? I wonder why I keep striving towards balance and sometimes even seem obsessed with it. I think it is because balance allows me to accept things for what they really are, “the truth.”

Most recently, “the truth” is that I need to make a choice now that this “cancerous tumor” has been removed. Luckily, all of the scans, X-rays, and spinal fluid show no trace of cancer in my system. So, I could continue on with my life, hoping cancer doesn’t return, or I could choose to do radiation and/or chemotherapy and kill any cancer cells that might have gone undetected. If I choose the chemo or radiation, there is a long list of side effects that will most likely change the way I live my life. But there is also a long list of other things I need to accept in making my decision. I need to accept all of the facts and stats. I need to accept the countless opinions of doctors, professionals, family members, and friends. I also need to accept the little voice inside of me. Most of all, I think need to accept the “fear of change.” So many, including myself, fear change, but the truth is it will always be there, because “change” is what makes this world work.

If we do not accept the direction and the outcome of our adjustments, then the wheel of the “A’s” will keep turning until we put on the breaks. There is nothing wrong with rolling, though, as long as with the rotation, we see what is at stake before we move on.

Our mind is the hub. Our world is the rim. Our spokes connect the two. Each rotation can put us in the right direction.

Ultimately, getting to any destination on the wheel of the “A’s” can put us in the right position to develop a good sense of timing. Thus, we can know the right time to stop or go and when to accept the truth of any kind of relationship.