Amy G. Casey

That’s the phrase I saw on the car ahead of me last night. I chuckled as I read it, thinking about all the crazy drivers I share the road with every day.

Today I realized that I am one of those crazy drivers. I was driving down a steep and twisty mountain road this morning – and I lost control on the loose dirt on a sharp curve. I did everything wrong – turning too hard to compensate, then getting whipped around the other direction. At one point I saw the steep dropoff I was heading for, and hoped that the aspen trees would stop my fall – but not too hard. I guess that during all of this I was tapping the brake, so eventually I came to a stop.

I’m writing this tonight from my home rather than a hospital bed because I got really, really lucky. I never left the road and no other drivers or cyclists were there. I feel that I was held and watched over as this frightening thing was happening. I realize that it was just not my day to be injured or killed – but to learn an important lesson early in my life in the mountains: don’t drive faster than your angels can fly…

The purple iris did it. Yesterday I spotted the first purple iris of the season, and I lost it. I was instantly crying for our house, for Gertrude, for my history. Those purple blooms define my connections to the house I’ve lived in for the past 14 years. After we bought the house, my husband Tom taught me about flowers – how to plant them, how to care for them, what their names are. The bulbs originally came from the house Tom grew up in. The whole family gets nostalgic when they see those flowers spring up in our yard. Tom’s mother, Gertrude, loved those iris – she passed away last December.

It’s time now for us to leave this house and the purple iris behind. The tears that came when I saw them at first made me put on the brakes and think – oh, no. Maybe we’re making a mistake. Maybe we should stay here forever instead of following our hearts to new places…

And then I smiled. My guidance let me know that it was one of those transformation moments. The lesson is that there are ties here. Those ties could hold me down, or I can acknowledge, honor, and release them. One way to do that is to give myself some time to reflect, remember, and grieve. To be grateful for the good times and the beautiful memories. To thank this house for being a safe and welcome home to us and to the friends and family who have found refuge here.

Then I can move on to our next adventure. And the purple iris will be a happy touchstone to connect me to this part of my life. When they come up next year, I’ll remember.

The most recent revelations about the Pope and his involvement in protecting pedophile priests has made me almost physically ill. I was getting emotional talking about it with a friend this morning on the phone. It is unfathomable to me that what some have called an indifference to the welfare of children is really a profound disrespect to the young people who have been raped by men in the utmost position of trust.

I’m always trying to find the path to transformation in a bad experience, but this time I couldn’t see it. Fortunately, my friend could. She said that now there is so much light shining on this situation that people cannot fail to see what is going on. When every corner of this darkness is lit up like this, we can’t hide from the truth, and, most importantly, must insist on it never going dark again.

Catholics are finding all kinds of ways to make this happen for themselves. Many can no longer support a church whose culture is this ingrained in avoiding scandal that they keep rapists in charge of kids. Many Catholics I know are finding other ways to practice their faith and feel their connection to God. Some are fighting to change the culture of the church, trying to make it reflect the true teachings of Christ. Regardless of our approach to the church – the light is not going away. May it shine on a safe path for the church and for all of us.

A couple weeks ago my friend Joan told me that she’d had the perfect day. I had in mind what a perfect day looked like for me. And I’ve had a lot of the elements of my perfect day, just not all in the same day.

But then I thought – a perfect day could look a lot of different ways. So – I started looking.

The gift is that I’ve started seeing what makes me happy – and making some of those things happen more often.  Some of the elements of a perfect day for me:

• Waking up with the love of my life – this happens every day!
• Being with friends – even a quick coffee, a hug, even a phone call
• Connecting with myself – through meditation, reading, writing
• Nature – a walk by the creek, a visit with a dog, seeing a hawk
• Moving my body – walking, biking, or my favorite – dance
• Healthy food – another way to be good to myself
• Good work – serving others and the world, however that work looks today
• Great sleep – my bedroom is a sacred space, safe and comforting

I invite you to make a list of what might make up your perfect day. Instead of waiting for them all to happen on the same day – look for those elements today.

Everybody I was around last week felt lighter and happier – the sun was out and it felt like spring! I had an extra bounce in my step, too, smiling at the sunshine and every little daffodil I saw.

And then the snow came back. Well, it’s Colorado and we know to expect snow in March and April, sometimes even into May. But I tell you, the grumpiness that met the snowfall was another huge shift.

It made me realize how quickly things can change, and how quickly we adapt. After “I’m so sick of winter,” the next phrase out of peoples’ mouths is, “but the moisture is so great.”  We realize that the snow makes helps those flowers bloom and transforms the brown landscape to green.

So out of nature comes another great mirror. This shift into spring shows that however we react to changes is a choice. That a struggle can also be an opportunity to look at something in a new way.

Happy spring!

Remember as a kid the thrill you felt when someone told you a secret? It was so much fun to know that you were trusted with your friend’s hidden knowledge. But even as a kid, you knew a secret because you were withholding that information from someone – your parents, other kids, the teachers.

So why do we keep secrets now? Is it loving for us to keep secrets?

Years ago, a friend asked me to keep a secret for her. She asked me to keep confidential the fact that she was thinking about having an affair. And for awhile I went along with it. I hoped she might change her mind, and I didn’t want to lose the friendship. Until the deception was turned on me. We had plans for a weekend retreat, until she told me at the last minute that she intended to be with her lover. Now I knew what it was like to have the secret held from me.

This friend had surrounded herself with secrets and then more lies to cover them up. I could see how toxic it was for her to live like that and become a person I didn’t know and couldn’t trust. I had a choice to make to end this relationship – and it  hurt like crazy.  By supporting her I thought I was being a good friend, but by living outside my integrity, I was not being loving to myself.

This has been a deep and lasting reminder to me to be careful about keeping secrets. Every once in a while I’m tempted to hide something. But it’s an uncomfortable feeling – worrying that I’ll be “caught.” I grew up with secrets – hiding the facts about what went on at home – the drinking, the fighting, the financial trouble. So it feels natural to just not tell the entire truth.  Even writing now about that childhood stuff makes my stomach churn – it’s not for public consumption – or so I was taught.

So the lesson for me is to always check in with myself about what’s good and loving for me. Telling the simple truth and asking others in my life to do the same feels strangely liberating.

I woke up a couple of days ago to an amazing and disorienting sight – the big, almost-full moon was shining right in my face through my bedroom window. You know how moonlight can be so bright that you’re not sure if it’s really daylight? Once I got used to the brightness, I relaxed and bathed in the moonlight.

But the truly amazing thing is that my friend Michelle had a vision during a Circle of Light a couple of weeks ago, predicting this exact thing. She saw me facing the moon, with my face lit up, supported by the connection.

When I told her about my experience, she spontaneously wrote these beautiful lines:

I woke up this morning worrying – I think I was worrying in my dreams. Waking up like this used to be a common occurrence, but I thought I had my worrying tendencies under control. I guess the worry snuck in when I wasn’t paying attention…

I read a wonderful book about how to worry less. It’s called “Feel the Fear . . . and Do It Anyway” by Susan J. Jeffers. We’re not talking about the real fear you feel in a dangerous situation. These are fears that live in your mind – spinning around until they become a part of your everyday life – diminishing your joy bit by bit.

Jeffers guides you through some simple processes to get to the other side of crazy. And – they work! One of her techniques is to deeply feel the worst case outcome of your worst fear. It might be awful – really horrible. And – you find out that you don’t die. That you probably could live through your worst fear if it did come to pass – which it most likely won’t.

That alone is amazing. The energy you used to spend on this constant worry can now be turned to something else. And just like with any habit, it’s a good idea to replace it with something else, or you might just slip back into it. But I wanted to take it further, to turn that depleted energy of worry into a machine for happiness.

Meditation is my method, so I chose to turn the scary scenarios of my worry into a platform for transformation. My biggest worry was that my husband would die. At times I was convinced of it happening, and felt my own grief at the news. It did make me feel kind of crazy sometimes. If that energy was having that effect on me, what was it doing to him? I know as a kid the drain that my mother’s worry was on me. I felt responsible for her obsessive focus on imminent danger and death. It surrounded me with fear.

So, in meditation I began to picture a time when my husband was happy, when he was filled with what makes him whole. And I focused on seeing him that way and how it felt. I breathed out love toward him, surrounding him with light and lifting him up in joy. This practice makes me so happy that I easily slip into seeing myself in the same light and love.

The more I practice, the less I worry. And the energy of fear dissipates and becomes peace.

Please enjoy this meditation as a first step to transforming worry to peace:

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I knew this film might be hard to watch, and it was. But I loved it and highly recommend it. Jeff Bridges unflinchingly portrays the brutal reality of life as an alcoholic. The ugly truth is that an addict constantly makes a choice – between the people he loves and his addiction.

It looked to me like Jeff Bridges’ character, Bad Blake, had hit bottom at one point in the film after an accident left his body broken. But hurting himself wasn’t enough. It took hurting someone he loved to let him see how low he was, that he needed help.

The story is really about redemption – for me it validates that undying spark of light within  us that wants to shine, even when we don’t want to let it. I’ve seen this transformation in my father – like Bad Blake in the movie, he was a musician, and a heavy smoker and drinker. That life seemed glamorous for awhile, until he realized that he had to have a bottle  just to make it through the day. He hit bottom when I was a teenager,  when he finally went to rehab.  He told me, “Ames, I’m never gonna drink again.” I didn’t believe him.

But he showed me the strength he found inside, and has lived up to his word. I’m  grateful that he made that decision to live and become a different man – he’s been clean and sober now for decades. His choices left a lot of damage in his wake. Bad Blake sums it up in the song “Somebody Else” on the Crazy Heart soundtrack:

“I used to be somebody, now I am somebody else, who I’ll be tomorrow, is anybody’s guess… Now that I’m a brand-new man, you belong to someone else.”

Redemption was a choice for Bad Blake and for my dad – one that takes tremendous strength. I consider my father’s redemption one of the miracles in my life. Thanks, Dad, for choosing the people you love.

In a long meeting today, I realized I was fiddling with the hem of my blouse.  I was a little embarrassed – I felt like I was caught doodling or daydreaming. Then I noticed almost everyone else in the room was twitchy in their own way – bopping a leg up and down, twirling a pen, or running a hand through their hair.

We all seem to do it – little nervous habits. But we don’t usually call that behavior anxiety. It’s just twitchiness, right?

Well… it really is a low-level anxiety. The fidgeting and twitching are ways to move anxiety through your body. The reasons for your anxiety could be anything – worrying about what you’re going to say, about making a decision, about how you look, or what’s going on in the head of your client across the room.

In my case, my fidgeting and then worrying about my fidgeting made me lose focus on what was happening in the meeting. Then I was wondering who noticed… I needed to get my head back in the game.

I’ve gathered a bunch of techniques to help me focus again. First – sit up instead of slumping in the chair. Then, start some deep, regular breathing (discreetly – not huge gulps of air and loud exhales). Relax – your mind can’t concentrate on the present if your body is tense and twitchy. Focus on the speaker – really put your energy into listening to what is happening, without making judgments about if it’s right or wrong.  Finally, think about whether you need to reply, react, or just keep listening. When you’re twitchy, you want to react. You may think you always need to agree or disagree, or to say something just to get noticed. When you’re relaxed and focused, your mind is free to make other decisions – like continuing to listen, asking a relevant question, or asking another person for their input.

Keep in mind – this takes practice! In my next meeting, I’m going to start the slow breathing before I go into the room…