Trusting The Influence Of Inherited Family Traumas

Major life transitions are a funky thing, aren’t they? Oftentimes, we may find ourselves feeling as if we are a fish out of water. We do our best to adapt. We might feel as if we’re succeeding. We may feel as if we’re gasping for air, completely failing on our promise to be our most authentic self.

So many things come into play, too, to affect us: Money, relationship, employment, children, our own moods. Sometimes, we may find ourselves falling into a deep esoteric and existential funk. What to do? What is this quirky life about—really? Who are we—now?

My three favorite words: Don’t freak out.

It’s all part of the process—at least that is what I keep hearing. At times, I really believed it to be true. Lately, I have questioned the process (well, my process) more and more. Still … as an eternal optimist, onward I go as I find myself in the thick of things—emotionally, spiritually—here in Chicagoland.

The issue at hand: The best was to move through (and beyond) this current leg of my spiritual odyssey, which finds me living back in the home I grew up in. Lessons galore here, that is for sure, but ever since I arrived, it has felt as if a  thick, lingering blanket of uncertainty has been placed over me. Once, where there was a bright burning internal flame, now … there is barely a few sparks. When people speak, I hear murmurs—like those teachers in the “Charlie Brown” cartoons. I suppose this can happen when one returns to one’s family home and on some level, I’m irked: All that money I spent on therapy with that Jungian Therapist who fell asleep while listening to me … and I wind up just feeling like a troubled teen.

All.

Over.

Again?

How rude. I mean, how many chants does it take upon a California mountaintop to reach an ongoing state of Nirvana?

Endless amounts apparently. And maybe that “state” is only attainable beyond this life. (On a side note: I do think, that in my next life, I may take up residence in another galaxy. For starters, I’m pooped. I’m continually influenced by Mercury Retros and with four planets in Scorpio, The Donald, and brutal Saturn retros, what’s a beduffled Polish dude to do? So, yes, next lifetime: Another star system …. I pray there is good catering.)

Back to the issue at hand: Moving through times of major life transitions.

Here’s the thing: The beginning point of my journey began with a “sign.” After a job I held for 14 years was terminated during in a buyout, I was led to return to the midwest to write about my Polish family’s haunting WWII experience. And I did. I went on a kind of serendipitous ride—one that felt like a quirky magic carpet ride, in fact—and somehow, became a nomad.

It’s been going on three years now—this nomadicness—and my latest “return” back home has solidified something I suspected when I was writing about Polish refugees: That inherited family trauma, and epigenetics, is, in fact, a real thing. It’s a real “living thing, actually, and I have been experiencing it. Full time and in present time, although the “pain” began in the past.

What I also know is this: That I must be going through this in an effort to share it with people, and, hopefully, heal something that has been wanting to deeply play out from inside of me: my Polish family’s traumatic experience.

Let’s break it down:

Stalin’s men uproots and deports Polish family with nearly a million other Poles in Eastern Poland in the early 1940s. Polish family lives in labor camp for 18 months. “Get us out, get us out!” The Poles plead. Nobody listens. Upon release in the summer of 1941 (when Hitler attacked Russia and Stalin joined the Allied Forces), Polish family is released and wanders, like the Polish refugees they suddenly are, thousands of miles to—hopefully (they think), safety—all the way to Uzbekistan. After many months, Polish family is absorbed into a cluster of refugees being saved and evacuated by the Polish Army-in-Exile under Gen. Anders’ command, and taken out of Russia. Polish family arrives in Iran. Polish family is taken to refuge in British colonies sprouting orphanages for displaced people—in Tanzania, Africa. Polish family lives there for eight years, craving home and place. Polish family finally arrives in Chicago in 1950.

My journey: I get a sign to write about my Polish family. I resist. Ouch, I say. That will hurt. Can I just write about celebrities and TV instead? The signs keep coming. Finally, I agree. A pandora’s box is opened.

“At last!” I hear my grandmother, Jadwiga’s spirit, say, as I open the door in the living room of my mind. “We’ve been pounding on that damn thing for years.”

My Aunt Mary strolls inside and takes a seat. “Oh, I really love what you’ve done with the place!”

It’s the nicest thing anybody has ever said about the interior of my mind.

Polish guy listens to their tale. Polish guy feels their angst. Polish boy writes about it. Polish guy prays to move on from job—”get me out, get me out,” he pleads. (Or think he is pleading.) Polish guy loses job. Polish guy gets a sign to go back to Midwest. Polish guy goes. Polish guy lives off savings and 401k. Polish guy bops around, subletting one apartment after another, until book is published. Polish guy has stellar book launch and feels ethereal vibes at every book event. Polish guy gets an offer to watch olive tree farm in Maui. Polish guy goes. Ninety days later, Polish guy returns to Mainland. Polish guy falls into deep depression. Polish guy takes job in Palm Springs. Miracles and angst happen. Polish guy leaves Palm Springs a year later. Polish guy returns back to his family home. Polish guy becomes more depressed. Polish guy is tired of wandering. Polish guy contemplates the meaning of home. Polish guy wants to go home. Polish guy doesn’t know where that is.

My sense of what inherited family trauma and the epigenetic threads that may dwell within us, is this: When activated, particularly during times of stress or change, they act like a hologram. As if by magic, something is turned on. The hologram is awakened and the energy vibration of that particular hologram begins to play itself out—in the mind, psyche, and spirit—of the individual. It’s as if the “host’s” entire being is overtaken by this energetic thread.

For what purpose?

Perhaps that living thread needs to finally be dissipated and sent back into the ethers? Who knows? For me, perhaps all this nomadic wandering around and search for home needs to be played out so that something so deeply wounding from my family’s past—some energetic thread that was never really dealt with on any level—can, at last, find its transformative ta-da moment, and the curtain can gracefully fall, and the lights in the living theater can, gracefully, go dark.

One never knows. I don’t know. I was never good at math, but I can add this thing and that thing together, draw a line under it, and look at the final number.

Somehow, when I decided to write about my family, when I truly explored the brutal depths of their journey, I became a host to my family’s deep haunting trauma.

However, I need to remember something very important. They survived.

And I will, too.

 

 

Universal Insurance (And Assurance)

So there I was driving a and minding my own business …

… contemplating the Quantum Universe and time/space when, as if by David Lynch-ian magic, a deer appeared on the country road.

RIGHT. IN. FRONT. OF. ME.

I wasn’t going very fast and my attempts to fully brake were chuckled at by the Universe. I heard a THUMP. The deer and I locked eyes. I recognized her. Most likely from
another life, I later thought. There was something timeless there however—in her eyes. Something timeless and full of wisdom. How, we both must have thought, had we both met at this exact moment in time/space? Me .. traveling, randomly on a Wisconsin country road, a nomadic soul searching for his true physical home. She, a native creature adept at wandering. Here. There. Everywhere. The open expansive of prairie, of forests—these are the places she calls home.

Who knows with these sort of things. I can’t seem to escape a day without moments of deep reflection, lately. Every day brings another cycle of Where Am I? What Now? What’s This? If I had known several years ago that in writing my family’s memoir, I would have been thrust into a microcosmic—well, at times, macro, too—reenactment of their Polish refuge experience in the 1940s, I may changed careers entirely.

On the flipside: Who knew epigenetics and inherited family trauma could be so potent and juicy!

So, what I am left with is a recurring question: What lessons must I learn … while I wander; while I am a nomad?

Let’s start with the deer.

Fortunately, she wasn’t injured. Strong and versatile, after impact, I watched in slo-mo as she sprang into the forest on the other side of the road, taking some flying car parts with her. It could have been much worse. Dumbstruck, I kept one, sending out a blessing out to the creature, hoping that she wasn’t truly injured and she’d be okay; that she would heal.

Later, I did what any soul-searching, questioning recovering Polish Catholic boy who fled to Northern California to find himself would have done: I looked up the meaning of deer totem animal.

Here is what I found: “Deer spirit appearing in your life acts as a teacher of how to be gentle, determined and sure, even in difficult situations. Remember that a gentle soul is not a helpless one. Deer wisdom shows you how to use your great horns for defense. Deer may also challenge you to leave behind the safety of your grassy bedding for fresh horizons.”

Fresh horizons. Now, that I like. That I can hang onto. For what is a guy with labile mood disorder, somebody capable of mood swinging with reckless abandon, supposed to do when he finds himself living back in his family home, attempting to step into his Next Best Self, and feeling completely gutted by the industry that he spent so many years devoted to: Journalism and Media?

What happens when, during our life’s most curious and head-scratching transitions, we discover that no matter which direction we turn, none of those directions feels familiar? What happens when we realize that we may very well be lost in the maze of our own minds, attempting to figure a way out of it? What happens when God forces our hand and asks us to surrender and trust in the process?

Can we be patient enough to know that at some point, we WILL come up for air and realize that our “flight or fight” mechanism—our lovely amygdala or repitlian brain—has been working overtime?

In the game of surrender and trust, in the spiritual playing field where the baseball players are all Gods, can we surrender long enough and trust that something bigger than ourselves actually has our backs? Or, will we opt for trying to control the situation?

A few things I have learned over the last few years, since this spiritual endeavor began. 1) Sometimes, the greatest suffering arrives when we try to make something happen. 2) It may not be serving us to attempt to make sense of mystical experiences. By their very design, that absolutely defy logic.

With that in mind, one cannot rush the cycles of our own soul. Like nature itself, we will bloom when the timing is right. In the meantime, it’s best to pay attention to as many “signs” as possible. (And have good insurance, spiritual or otherwise.)

 

Sand In The Hourglass Of ‘Trust’

For many of us who seek a spiritual life, there comes a time when we realize that the life we once lived is no longer the one we must keep living.

We do the spiritual “work.” We walk the “path.” Heck. Sometimes, it may feel as if we really tripped along that path, tumbling down a ravine and scraping ourselves so badly. Yet we surprise ourself when we pick ourself up, dust ourself off, and venture forth … trusting, yet again, in something greater than ourself, and believing, intermittently, and gosh, as best we can, that we are indeed being guided on our journey.

We get additional spiritual clues: “Go this way. No, that way. Wait—over here. Follow the magical pennies on the ground. The blinking streetlamp above your head. The number 11:11 on the clock.”

We continue on. Maybe one day, we feel pulled to go in a direction that would find us sacrificing much more than we are comfortable sacrificing. And … still … we do so, only to find ourselves in the thick of a mystical journey and suddenly looking at the imaginary wristwatch on our arm and wondering: Isn’t this enough? Can I go back to the life I had and feel “comfortable” again?

I have experienced many nuances of all that over the last three years only to find myself asking a curious question that I already know the answer to: Is there a time limit to Trust?

Inevitably along any spiritual journey or, if we’re double winners, a truly mystical experience, the human side of us tends to doubt. We might question what we’ve gotten ourselves into, boldly following what we thought was our intuition—or a “sign from God.” We wonder if we’ve walked the path correctly and if we may ever arrive at the destination we thought would be on the other side. But in performing acts of Surrender and Trust with the Divine, the spiritual hourglass doesn’t ever really run out, does it?

Spirituality is not linear.

Mystical experiences cannot be explained or understood rationally. They just are.

If we trust the “signs” we are given; if we truly believe in what the Divine is whispering into the ears of our soul … and we really go for it … then how can we think we’re ever finished? Maybe the only thing we finished is bootcamp.

Three years ago, I left behind everything I knew. A longtime job ended. I had a memoir due. It was clear to me that it was time to move on from the vibrant Northern California community in which I had lived for nearly twenty-five years. My intuition told me to head back to the Midwest, finish a book about my Polish family, stay in Chicagoland to launch that book, and see what happens. What happened was that the book was released amidst a flurry of mystical acts: Random connections to strangers; special events planned; links to the Polish community; blessings from spiritual titans—who came “from nowhere”—for the book and the unforgotten histories of nearly a million Polish people who were deported to Siberian slave labor camps, which I wrote about in the book because my family miraculously survived the ordeal in the 1940s. I could not have orchestrated any of it—alone. Some power or powers greater than myself were working through me. However, by saying “Yes” to Surrender and Trust and affirming … “OK … I don’t understand the path I am being taken on and I have no guarantee of what will emerge, but I’ll do my part; start walking along this new path and I’ll keep paying attention and we’ll see what happens”… I was giving the Divine my thumbs up that I knew it had my back.

Other, more head-scratching events occurred too. Just when I thought I would return to California and return to a life I had known there, I was asked by a former colleague if I wanted to oversee an olive tree plantation on Maui for 90 days, which I wrote about extensively in this blog. Well, that certainly put a new spin on things. So, I said yes to that … and then things really changed. I unplugged from the world. I lived in the moment. I was bathed in native culture. I realized that there is never an endpoint to the game of Do More/Get More/Be More/KaChing.

When I returned to the Mainland nothing felt the same. I had become a different human. But I felt “off” swirling around in a society that was all about consumption. I wound up living with my Polish mother for a while before taking on another corporate job in California—in Palm Springs, where, I am sorry to say, there was more chatter about the unattractive and hard-to-remove cat lint on “those puffy new pillows” on the imported living room couch in the freshly renovated midcentury modern home people labored to keep in pristine condition than, say, discussions of spiritual growth and the state of humanity. After six weeks, my intuition told me to leave the job. It defied logic: “But I need to ‘make’ and income.”

So I trusted, yet again. I left. Other opportunities emerged without much effort on my part. I remained in Palm Springs for a while. I didn’t want to yet something stirred within: “Stay just a bit longer.” I did. A few months later a miracle arrived in the form of a medical treatment I needed and I one that I never saw coming; one that dramatically shifted my health for the better—all because two lesbian nurses fought with the insurance company to approve treatment. Clearly, I could not have orchestrated that either.

When I returned to Chicago about three months ago, that, too, defied logic. “What on Earth? Why? Again?” Once again, during another time of transition, I found myself residing with my 80-year-old Polish mother, a robust, spritely human who doesn’t take any crap from anybody. I thought I had returned to Chicago to get another job; to “make money”; to settle down—all the things that my Polish mother would have loved to see happen.

The Universe chuckled at that.

Trust me: There is nothing like having to camp out in your parents’ former bedroom; the same bedroom that witnessed the demise of their marriage. What I have learned in being back in the Midwest is that I was never brought back here to settle down or to find a “home.” (One gets intuitive hits when you feel you are in the right place—or not—and belong where you need to belong.) No. In many ways, I returned to do another kind of work: Inner work. It seems my teenage self had a gaggle of unresolved emotions—disappointment, sadness, grief—and from those places he had made a bevy of decisions about life before he hightailed it out of Chicago at the age of eighteen.

When I realized this, that proverbial lightbulb when on above my head. “What would happen,” I thought, “if I take a look at who I was as a teenager and study that me who was so, well, wounded, over my parents’ divorce and feeling misplaced in a world he didn’t know how to maneuver in? What would happen if I made that my job, for a while, instead of looking for jobs that I found absolutely no interest in?

What would happen if I realized that I had never stopped walking the path … that, in fact, I was still on it, and that I had been given the most remarkable opportunity to heal—and to heel—some emotional imbalances within me?

What would happen if simply allowed myself to Trust and to know that I didn’t need to be anywhere other than where I was, and that the hourglass of Trust may just be an illusion.

Because the sand inside that hourglass never runs out.

Until we do.

 

 

 

 

30 Days of Inspiration: Day Four

The idea behind this project was simple: Create something new for 30 days, mostly in video form. I wanted to see what would happen when creativity was stirred up, and then shared.

The other day I woke up and my mind immediately went into hyperdrive and the “Gotta do” list was unleashed.

“I gotta move on with my life … ”

“I gotta write more today …”

“I gotta move back to Maui …”

“I gotta get it together …”

There was more, but then I thought: Who is telling me all these “gotta do’s?”  Clearly, it was me, but what aspect of me? Certainly not a ME that was centered and still. Certainly not a me that was kind and compassionate. And certainly not a me that was patient.

So, right there, in my slightly manic state, I sat down and made a video. I think that became DAY TWO of this series. Immediately, my entire being shifted. By stepping into a playful place of possibility and creativity, I felt more at home with, well, me.

When we allow ourselves to play around in possibility, magic happens.

So … onward. Day Four. Enjoy. And send me some of your positive quotes and ideas to greg@gregarcher.com.

Peace.

30 Days of Inspiration: Day 1

Inspiration on a chalkboard

You never know when the winds of fate may change.

I attended a workshop several weeks ago—Kyle Cease. Check the guy out at http://www.kylecease.com. During the two-day endeavor, I was inspired to create something inspiring. The result is a  30-day video series that, hopefully, will spark the imagination and inspire others.

What inspires you? Email me at greg@gregarcher.com. Let’s keep the conversation flowing. Peace!

#TalkToMe: A Conversation With My Polish Mother

I’ve been writing for Huffington Post for several years, so when I heard about the opportunity to participate in its “#TalkToMe series, in which children were asked to interview their parents, I jumped at the chance.

My Polish family’s history is deeply embedded into my internal framework. I learned that all too well after researching, writing and then submitting to a publisher, my memoir, “Grace Revealed.”  In it, I document my account of unraveling how my mother, her siblings and their parents, managed to maneuver through WWII, in the wake of Stalin’s mass deportations of Polish people. Their quest for home was astounding.

Seventy-five years later, my own search for home and place took an interesting turn.

Here is our conversation.

Mood Swings, Epigenetics and Me

When the mood swings …

I was sitting on the deck of the place I am renting in Palm Springs and looking at the wonderful view when I felt it coming: the swing. It was about to mood.

Again.

Well, for chuckles I Googled Mood Swing and one of the first pictures that arrived on screen was the one you see above, which helped me move through the sudden emotional picnic lunch I unwrapped only to find Fear, Despair, Uncertainty  and a gaggle of WTF’s in the basket.

(Oh, It’s OK: I sense it was just another layer being uncovered from the depths of my being about my current travails on the Esoteric Epigenetic Gravy Train.)

But let’s press a Pause button for a moment on that because I must state the obvious: The image above is sexist. Men have mood swings, too. Yet I find it interesting that the image conjured up that 1950s/1960s’ notion that women are over-reactive; that women “feel” too much and, in this sad case, wear horrible shoes, a questionable dress and curious leggings.

The nerve. And let’s be honest? In that outfit, this wonderful woman would not feel “great.”

Ah, I joke. But levity is good for the soul.

Still, men near and far are prone to the F-word: Feelings. It’s true, but men’s feelings—their core feelings and the fact that even have them—are not openly discussed or acknowledged as much as they could be. Men have been raised to suppress a great deal of their emotions. This we know. But maybe we all have — boys and girls. As children and teens, we’re often told we “shouldn’t feel that way,” or that we are being “way too dramatic.” Even as adults, some of us are told we are just too “emotional.”

For whom?

So what can any of us do when, as adults, we are seriously confronted with waves of emotions that may not just be passing frustration, anger, or disappointment. What then? What if we realize we are, for whatever reason, in the throes of a deep spiritual shift and transformation; when we rarely feel “at home” within ourselves or we realize we are in between significant eras of our adult lives. Maneuvering our way through such transitions requires trust and a lot of grit. And really, many friends to which we can turn and find support. Perhaps even a therapist.

As I trace back each week of this year, I see now that I must be transitioning from one era to another and yet … it also feels like something deeper; something that cannot be “fixed” by just taking on a new job, or moving to a new town. For some reason, I seem to be led to explore epigenetics and unresolved family trauma, or, as some pros say, “inherited family trauma.” I discovered that phrase when I began writing about my Polish family and their ordeals during World War II, particularly surviving Stalin’s wrath and winding up as Polish refugees. I began to notice that my own emotional weather throughout my life mirrored some of the emotional intensity of, say, my grandparents, my aunt, my uncles, even my mother. I realized this while conducting extensive research about my family’s story — actually hearing what had happened to them, and having them share, as best they could, what they felt while going through the ordeal.  I began to question myself about the idea of home and place — my family had been technically “homeless” for nearly eight years.  I began draw “survival” parallels. Of course, the events of my own life were not as traumatic as what my own family went through … but my emotions … that was a different story. Why, I wondered, did I often react in the ways I had … as if I were lost in a rerun of something that happened before I was born? And why, I wondered, did I always carry a sense of displacement … and not truly feeling “at home.”

Maybe I’m not alone. Other people feel this way, too, no doubt. And maybe some of the feelings I have been questioning may not have anything to do with what my family went through.

Still … I can tell that, from the depths of my being, when strong waves of emotions emerge, my gut feeling tells me it’s either a core issue or … something embedded within the fabric of my emotional DNA.

I don’t have all of the answers yet and I am not certain the answers will be the cure. I remain fascinated with the study of epigenetics. What needs to happen, for me and for others like me perhaps, may just be to “feel” … to allow those deep, deep emotions to have a safe outlet for release. By allowing emotions to move through us, rather than sweeping them further underneath the carpets of our souls, maybe we can shift, evolve and transform.

Maybe we really can heal — the past, the present and the future.

Epigenetic Smackdown And Other Forks In The Road

When I was a kid, I came home after school and watched cartoons. I was amused by the antics of Bugs and Daffy and Sylvester the Cat, among other vibrant characters. Daffy and Sylvester were always on the receiving end of some kind of blunt force. Those guys couldn’t get a break.

But what I also remember is some of the commercials that aired repeatedly in between those cartoon assaults. The ones that stood out depicted an elderly man or woman in their home. (You may recall these.) These folks were lying on the kitchen or bathroom floor, hollering: “Help me! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” Of course, the point was to advertise a devise that would alert others. Help, we viewers in TV Land were assured, would soon be on the way.

You know … I think that we all could, at one point or another, benefit from such a device — at least emotionally and psychologically.

Over the past month, I’ve recalled those commercials, and other parts my own past. (Not that I need an excuse, there are about five planets in retrograde at the moment — if you follow that sort of thing: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, and Mercury. The time is ripe for reflection.)

So, yes, thinking about those commercials made me take pause — for me, those commercials would play out like this today: “Help! I think I have fallen down an epigenetic rabbit hole and I can’t get out!”

Needless to say, I have arrived at another fork in the road — who knew there would be so many of them? I am at a profoundly challenging (23.5 percent exaggerating; the rest of the percentage is real truth) juncture on my quest to more deeply understand the concept of home and the idea of having a sense of place in life; the sense of feeling settled and rooted in the most healthiest of ways.

Let’s face it. It’s likely that all of us, at one point or another in life, find ourselves at a crossroads and in some kind of deeply unsettling transition. We may leave home in search of a new one. We leave a job, a lover, lose touch with somebody who used to be a very close friend. It happens. Sometimes, we just wish to find a sense of normalcy — to rush through these transitions because, well, they may not feel that comfortable. But what happens when we feel thrust upon what seems like a spiritual odyssey that defies reason and, for that matter, an easily digestible explanation? Life always seems to want us to experience it; to learn, grow, evolve. Good lord — it can be exhausting, however, for now, the alternative isn’t pretty.

I thought my current misadventures began about four years ago, when I finally stopped resisting something that needed to be done: write about my Polish family, who were deported to Siberia along with with nearly 1 million other Poles. I was deeply impacted after learning about their refugee experience.

But what did all of their survival stuff have to do with me?

Quite a bit.

I chronicled their story in the memoir, “Grace Revealed,” which was published last year. However, now that I have fulfilled what felt like a cosmic mission to shed light on this under-reported part of history, to the best of my ability, I have come to believe that the Universe is not ready to sign off on me —just yet.

Writing about any family trauma can be rife with emotion. There were many times where I felt as if something deeply existential was taking place. (I still do.) I felt that by writing about my family’s plight — and the terrors many Poles faced — that I had touched upon emotions and family traumas that had possibly been tucked away underneath the carpets of my Polish family’s psyches. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I have not fully been able to shake off a deep, harrowing sense of loss, of grief, of displacement … as if it were swimming through my veins with no emotional bay to pore out into.

I wondered: In writing my family’s story, had I opened up a Pandora’s Box?

Through my recent haze of lingering depression and an overall distorted sense of self, I recalled a term I wrote about in the book and which I had tucked away in the wake of varying stretches of emotional exhaustion: Epigenetics. I found articles that referred to something called “inherited family trauma” and the “echo effect.” I read case studies about how unresolved trauma can be passed down through the genes, and how, in cases of extreme stress, something is triggered; something like, for lack of better terminology, “echoes of the past.”

Recently, my attention once again fell upon the Epigenetic rerun that could be playing out within me; this in the aftermath of another major life change.

I discovered an article by speaker and nutritionist Niki Gratrix, which suggested: “the fact that emotional trauma can be inherited is part of understanding the science of ‘epigenetics.’ This is the study of how environmental factors can affect how our DNA is expressed. Remember health isn’t really about what genes you inherit — it’s whether your genes express themselves or not — and that is controlled by factors in the environment, which are in our control: diet, exercise, lifestyle and psycho-emotional factors.”

Yes, and … the idea that traumatic experiences influence the children of, say, Holocaust and other war survivors, is not really breaking news. Virginia Hughes wrote in a Nature article that many people who were traumatized during the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia had the tendency to have children who suffered from depression and anxiety. Another study noted that children of Australian veterans of the Vietnam War had higher rates of suicide than the general population.

So, I began to ask myself: were my current mood swings more than just your garden-variety mood swings? Are they in essence, giving me a “sign” to explore something much deeper, and, truthfully, kind of trippy. I love how “Women Food and God” author Geneen Roth notes that an eating disorder is about something much deeper than just “food” — it is, in fact, a bold signal from one’s inner world to look at what the food issue is attempting to numb; a deeper wound calling out for “attention” or healing, if you will.

And then … maybe I am just making everything up. Maybe I was just burnt out and am having a tough time maneuvering through life’s transitions.

To know for sure — to really understand the so-called “powers” of epigenetics — I decided to sit down and write. My family was among hundreds of thousands of Polish refugees. For many years, they were homeless. They felt misplaced.

And me …?

In winter of this year, I had moved to a new town— my umpteenth move in two years. One day, I looked out at the Coachella Valley and Palm Springs proper from the temporary home I was in, and created a list of bullet points for the last two years of my life. I sat back, looked at my list and straddled the amusement and confusion that arose. Was it possible that I was being given a very vivid opportunity to see something that, on the surface, sounded completely ludicrous yet, somehow was positively fascinating … for it seemed as if ever since I fully stepped into my family’s odyssey, I was never given a roadmap out of it. For that matter, it now appears that it could very well be possible that I (and perhaps others like me) now find myself curiously floating on the invisible epigenetical coattails of my refugee family’s traumatic “echoes” of the past.

My list:

• Spring 2014: Newspaper you run as editor in Northern California for 14 years gets bought out by a media conglomerate; editorial staff, yourself included, gets laid off. The very next day, the daily newspaper runs a political cartoon depicting me on the countryside as Russian Prime Minister Putin and members of the new media operation sit above a tank practically bulldozing the land. (Haunting coincidence or …?)

• JUNE 2014: Decide to finish writing the memoir so that it can be turned into publisher by August. Head to the Midwest, wind up in Wisconsin. One day, after a long day of editing and drinking three double lattes, I drive around and ask the Universe: What the hell I am doing in Wisconsin? Stop at an intersection along a country road. To the left: cornstalks. To the right: cornstalks. I’m about to drive off when it hits me: I’m surrounded by farmland in Wisconsin. My Polish family — they were taken from a farm. The hairs on my arms stand on end.

• AUGUST 2014 – MARCH 2015: Bop around from one person’s home to another; from one sublet to another; in suburban Chicago. Can’t shake the haunting feeling of displacement. Something feels “off.” The book is released in late January. By some miracle, a colleague and I arrange a vigil that takes place on February 10, 75 years to the day from the first deportations of Poles. Outside of Chicago’s Copernicus Center, where the vigil takes place, a procession of community members and leaders stand outside — several meters away from … traintracks.

• MARCH – JUNE 2015: After heading back to California for book events in March, I nearly take a full-time job at a magazine in Palm Springs but … the day before an interview … receive an email from a former acupuncturist. She invites me to watch over her property in Maui from July to September. They have … farmland. They need somebody to watch over 300 olive trees. I say yes. I spend the next three months couch surfing and feeling … displaced.

• JULY – EARLY OCTOBER 2015: Become the olive tree whisper on Maui and experience a spiritual unfoldment that defies articulation. Wonder if Maui is “home.” Notice there is fear about staying. Feel lost in a timeless place.

• OCTOBER 2015 – EARLY FEBRUARY 2016: Return to Chicago, live with my mother, and help care for family member in need, as well as participate in book-related events. Experience rising grief and feel displaced and home-less. When funds run low, swing from fear to faith and back again. Marvel at the miracles that occur. Still feel displaced.

• EARLY FEBRUARY 2016 – APRIL: Accept job in Palm Springs. Wander (read: drive) more than 2,000 miles from Chicago, settle into a temporary home in Palm Springs. Begin work. Notice that it feels like a toxic environment. Realize that it is a toxic environment. Resist what gut feeling tells me: Leave the job. Finally accept what gut feeling tells me. Leave job after nearly two months. Feel better. And then, feel … displaced.

That’s some list, one that warrants a cocktail perhaps.

What happens when the quest to feel deeply rooted cannot, for whatever, be fulfilled? In that floating space of in-between, where do we find grace?

And a sense of home?

One thing is certain: My journey continues. I have no clue where the road leads to next for me, however one thing is evident: It won’t be boring.

More reports from the road soon …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shadows Have Nowhere to Hide in the Desert

Shadows have nowhere to hide in the desert. It’s true.

Here’s how I know for sure.

My most recent quest to finally find “home” has taken a curious turn. I relocated to Palm Springs earlier this year, took a full-time job, yet after several weeks of “working” and mulling about town, a feeling from the pit of my belly emerged and could not be ignored.

Something did not feel “right.” I did not feel right. Or, I should be more clear: I did not feel comfortable or settled.

At all.

Was it the job? Was it the town? Was it my new home?

(Good God. Could it be just me?)

After spending nearly two years experiencing magic carpet rides (with occasional turbulence) in my attempts to finish writing about, and publish, my Polish family’s haunting World War II survival story, I had hoped that re-rentering the workforce and settling into a new arena would offer me some well-needed time to reboot and … thrive. Um … I was never good at math and, gosh darn it, I totally miscalculated the true impact of my gritty re-entry back into the “real world.” I still feel like a navel-gazing Goldilocks trapped on the second round of fairy tale chairs, porridge and beds.

Freak outs occurred. I wanted to know: “Hey … when can I be like that pushy blond, Goldi, and feel ‘just right?'”

Then again, I must refer back to the fairy tale. Was that chick devoured by the bears? (Be careful what you wish for …)

My discomfort persisted. I did what I had to do … which in this case, meant shoving hefty spoonfuls of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia into my mouth. One evening, I wiped a few tears off of my cheeks — oh, cry some time, it’s good for you! — and realized that everything leading up to my current Here and Now had been far from ordinary. In fact, it had been quite extraordinary … as if I had been blessed with and immeasurable amount of grace. I had been on a spiritual/mystical journey over the last few years … something akin to a vision quest. My gut feeling told me that I was in need of some time to assimilate and integrate it all.

“Oh Greg,” I heard myself tell myself. “You’re an artist. You’re sensitive. You’re rising sign is Scorpio. Did you really think that anything would feel ‘just right’ after spending 14 years at the helm of a Northern California publication only to be tossed out into the cosmos, and through the veils of time and space so that you could follow the breadcrumbs left by Polish ghosts who seemed so desperately in need to capture the true breadth of what your Polish family, and nearly 1 million other Poles, endured under Stalin’s wrath?”

(Real or imagined, that is how it felt.)

So … shift happens. After praying and meditating on it, I decided to put in my notice at the job. I realized that life is too short to endure something that simply does not feel like a good fit. It did not make much sense, really, considering the amount of money that was in my bank account. But … the Universe tends to work in paradoxes — what’s big is really small; what’s small is really big; what looks challenging is actually a blessing to move your forward and grow. Sometimes the things that defy reason — “leave your new job and trust that you will be OK! — are actually the most sensible thing to do.

However, those kind of leaps take grit. Had I lost my mind (again) by following my heart?

I realized something the other day while driving through Palm Springs: Shadows have nowhere to hide in the desert. (The sun and all …)

I’m actually referring to the “shadow sides” of oneself and being willing to see them and, perhaps, embrace them rather than ignore them entirely. So, I began asking myself: What is it I am here to learn? What is it that this suddenly temporary job is trying to teach me about myself and life? What shadow aspects of myself am I being asked to see more clearly?

The insights continue to arrive: Creative writing skills could use sharpening; I am not “all that” and I am “all that” — meaning, simply, humility can do wonders; I know a lot/I don’t know it all; I was good at what I did but what good am I doing not following my heart?

Other things are evident: Something new is attempting to emerge from within me. And that something new seems to have something to do with a deeper sense of confidence, trust, self-acceptance, enhanced commitment to the soul and (wait for it …) trusting and acting upon my gut feeling sooner rather than later.

It seems that our valiant attempts to live a more authentic life must be done with a willingness to appreciate and water not just the healthy aspects of ourselves, but to also look at the sides of ourselves that are in desperate need of attention. Just as they do on any other kind of lawn …

… the weeds have a way of always capturing our attention.

Onward. More soon …

 

When Ghosts Want To Chit-Chat

Several years ago, after a medical “scare”—which I now refer to as an awakening and path toward realignment and enhanced self-love (an ongoing journey)—it was clear to me that I must follow the clues the Universe was giving me and write about my Polish family’s history. I resisted doing it for years, but I finally bit the pierogi and swallowed. Hard.

This was not a tasty endeavor, although the spiritual filling was rich. My family, along with nearly 1 million other Poles, survived Stalin during the 1940s, after all. I would have to collect all of the interviews I conducted with family members and sit with it. All of it. And a lot of it pretty dark and haunting. In a way, I would also have to turn toward the ghosts of my family’s past, many of whom, I felt, must have sensed that I was a creative person. “Oh lookie!” I imagined some of them rejoicing. “Here’s a way back into their Here and Now!”  I suspect that wanted back in—for a time …. and only so that they, and their experiences, could be heard and valued and honored. (Note to anybody ever considering writing about or unearthing untold stories of WWII: wear real long and sturdy emotional/spiritual boots. It is not for the faint of heart and the energy frequencies one opens oneself up to is somewhat extraordinary if not mystical and few people in the Here and Now will “get” it and if you start talking about it, you’ll just sound crazy—much like I do, right about now.)

You know, it’s odd, in the retelling of the events of the last few years, because it actually does sound like I am saying: I was visited by ghosts and they gave me clues to write about their experiences. In truth, I feel they gave me much more: Their feelings. Their unresolved feelings—grief, despair, sorrow so deep that reaching out of it would still require a massive drilling into the ethers.

And even that sounds weird, too. Greg, have you just called yourself a kind of therapist—for ghosts?

(I am sure I am make some money on this. Hmmm. No. No. I mustn’t. Wait. Can I?)

Well, real or imagined, it sure felt like I was interacting with folks from “the other side.” Or at least, their energy field.

Coming out the other side of this has been fascinating to observe—when I am grounded. At times, it appears as if my entire world exploded in the process of bringing my family’s story to life in “Grace Revealed” and writing about homeless Polish refugees: My longtime job ended, I left the community in which I was a valuable contributor, I followed the clues the Universe kept tossing me and went from pillar to post, on wild excursions and somehow launched the book in Chicago in early 2015, and managed to spearhead a vigil (and so much more) and so much for those forgotten Poles to commemorate their experiences.

That was last year. It is just now that all of this is integrating in me. I look back and wonder how it all happened; how I managed to bop from home to home, sublet to sublet, brave unemployment, milk my life savings and make it all work.

One word comes to mind: Grace.

Like revered spiritual teacher Caroline Myss, I, too, believe grace is a “substance.” It’s real. It’s tangible. You know when it’s around. And you know when it’s filtering into your life because you have ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL OVER IT.

It’s not from you. It’s a gift. (Or … perhaps, akin to a spiritual boomerang you may have tossed up into the stars and forgotten about, and which has suddenly returned to you in bounty.)

So, yes, Grace was what pulled me through the muck of mood swings, the doubts and uncertainties of all of the “What The Hell Am I Doing With My Life Nows?”

Grace, and my immeasurable wealth of friendships and colleagues. For the latter … I now refer to them as angels—the friends who just randomly reached out to see how I was doing, or those who just happened to have a villa on a mountain I can stay at for a few weeks, or an olive orchard on Maui to oversee. I mean, couldn’t concoct all to it. Or maybe I did. Or, rather, maybe it was co-created. Who knows. Weird things like that, yet, all of it, gave me endless opportunities to reflect on the concept of home and place.

What is it? Home?

Is it … as they say, “where the heart is?” Sure. It’s more than a place. It’s internal. It’s how we feel within our own skin; how we feel about ourselves; how we love ourselves. But home is also a physical place. And for some reason, I am blessed with a fascinating journey—not often comfortable—which is giving me ample opportunities to attempt to understand this, integrate what it means to me and get a deeper sense of value of self.

I could have hidden myself in another corporate job and wondered why I was so frustrated. (And I am not implying that all people who work in corporate America are hiding, although, I wonder what all this mad dashing to “arrive” somewhere and “get” something—status, more money, more debt, whatever—is really all about.) However, I opted to take a different path for a time.

I returned to Chicago for some family matters and book-related events in fall of 2015. I thought: “Let’s see if I can live here and be with my family.”  Well, you can take the boy out of California, but …

My Chicago friends were kind and gracious as I stumbled emotionally from one “Where I am? What do I? I don’t understand what I am doing here?” to the next. After several months of fulfilling some commitments in Chicago and assessing what might be best, it became clear that it was one thing: Keep moving forward.

And for me, that meant returning west. Some creative work possibilities have sprung up back in California and I decided to head back to check that out. Or … return to Maui and sit on a beach, meditate and be of service to some cool organization. More will be revealed.

On Feb. 1, the day I left Chicago, I was experiencing a wave of doubt and fear. I questioned if I was really going to do it again—embark on another drive across the country and into another “unknown.” So, I went out to the back patio of my Mother’s home and did a very California/Maui thing: I placed my hand on the bricks of the house and said a prayer; “Take care of this woman that is my mother, this house, everything. May it all be filled with grace.”

At that moment, a dog barked. I turned toward the back fence. Standing on its hind legs on the other side of the fence was a white shepard/wolf breed. White. A vision in dog fur. Lovely. I walked over toward the fence. The dog was getting exciting. I asked her name—because, you know, dogs talk back—but I knew who she was.

Yes. A sign.

An angel? Maybe, but definitely a good sign.

We bonded, the dog and I—she loved on me and I felt that the random occurrence was a good indication of the purity and playfulness that might be waiting for me on the road and beyond.

After a tearful goodbye with my Polish mother—dear Lord, it becomes harder to leave our loved ones when we, ourselves, have physically aged—I stopped at a local coffee portal, Pilot Pete’s, at the Elmhurst Train Station. There was a jar on the counter filled with paper.

“What’s that?” I asked twentysomething Pete, the owner.

“It’s a quote. It’s a tip for you—the customers. This way we both get tips.”

I smiled. He reminded me of me when I ran a coffee bar when I was in my twenties.

“Here,” Pete said, “I’ll pull one for you.”

I read the quote:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

And suddenly … the mental flurry of moving on and having things Make Sense; and the uncertainty of delving into even more uncertainty, and the WTF Brene Brown of it all—BE BRAVE BE BRAVE BE BRAVE; and the insistence of Having To Figure It All Out; and the Now What? a moment of clarity emerged.

Had another ghost—Mark Twain—just told me everything would be more than OK?

I’ll take it.

Onward …

 

 

(More reports from to road to come ….)