CHAPTER THIRTEEN: "Fear, Fear, Here, There and [NO NO, NO, REBOOT] Not Everywhere!!"

This is the chapter that almost wasn't. This is the chapter where I focus/keep focusing on fear, a chapter which I was so afraid to write that I kept shutting myself down. I had myself convinced that I didn't have anything else to say about matters related to health and healing.

I am sitting on the sofa this morning, staring into the white sky following a spring snowstorm last night here in Denver.

It's 23 degrees outside -- ice and snow coat the streets. Only two days ago, it was sunny and in the mid-sixties. It was so warm that in the evening, we had an impromptu margarita party with some of our neighbors outdoors on the patio in our condo complex.

OK, so it's taken me a couple of weeks, and two important conversations, to understand why fear started to grip me last week, as tight as bark on a tree.

It has all to do with the fact that I made my reservation to return to Massachusetts in mid-April. It's not like I don't have a host of wonderful reasons to go back, including many friends and lots of family -- in particular, two adorable grandchildren in Boston.

But leaving here is difficult, because two children and my son-in-law and grandbaby Monte

are here. As are the mountains where we have been hiking non-stop. And new friends we are getting to know and enjoy in our condo complex and elsewhere. Oh, one other thing: there is almost continual sunshine in Denver.

So anyway, fear began percolating. And once the match had been lit, firing up my fear, then it spread through me like wild fires on a tinder dry chaparral.

OK so that's the bad news.

The good news is that I figured out how to turn the situation around! And that's what I want to talk about here: how I found a way out of the cloud of fear that was engulfing me.

It all started when I happened on a book by one of my heroes: psychologist and neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson, who has made a name for himself with pioneering experiments demonstrating that you can "train" your mind to change your brain in such a way that you improve both your mental and physical health.

I first encountered Davidson's

work more than a dozen years ago, when I began teaching a class called, "Reading and Writing the Happier Self." It was a class I designed with my students in mind, as many of them were plagued by depression. With the help of an experienced mindfulness teacher, I focused on ways that students could bring themselves more life satisfaction. Here is the way I described the goals of the class:

"This upper level seminar, based loosely on a very successful class at Harvard University, will use theoretical, literary and practical readings from a variety of disciplines to help students focus their critical thinking skills on the concept of happiness, and how to use cognitive skills to help achieve a more peaceful and fulfilling life. Reading and writing transform the way we think, and how we see ourselves in the world. Neurological research now shows that changing the way we think can produce positive physiological changes in the brain."

And a few sentences later, I wrote:

"In keeping with research by psychologist James Pennebaker and others who have demonstrated the value of expressive writing, students will engage in extensive journaling and other self-reflective writing assignments as they seek to define what it means, and what it takes, to find happiness."

By revisiting that book, I began to understand what I was feeling, and why I have felt so much fear swirling inside me the last couple of weeks.

That book reminded me of the very great irony of my teaching that class on happiness: with no warning, I became so depressed after the second term I taught it that I had to retire early from my teaching job at the University. The depression swamped me so badly that I ended up in a mental hospital for a couple weeks, and there I endured several rounds of ECT.

So here now is why fear has been crawling around inside me for the last couple of weeks. I realized that I am afraid that by leaving Colorado, where I have been having a ton of fun, I might find myself back East feeling...depressed. I know, that sounds a bit extreme. But when it comes to depression, I have a healthy dose of PTSD. Even when I'm feeling fine, I always have lurking inside me some level of concern that at some point down the line, I might find myself falling into a slump.

I suffer from PTSD despite the fact that I take anti-depressants daily, and have for many years. Medication has been extremely helpful, enabling me to respond more effectively to psychotherapy. But as important as medication has been, it hasn't erased the PTSD, nor does it prevent me from feeling fear and anxiety from time to time. I am still deeply susceptible to fearful and superstitious thinking surrounding my physical health, a holdover from the cancer. Whenever I come down with a chest cold, or any other illness for that matter, almost inevitably, I get scared that my cancer has returned!

It doesn't matter how preposterous the situation is. My husband is forever reminding me that the cancer left me, understandably, with PTSD and it is this PTSD that I have to deal with. He also reminds me to try to laugh at myself, if that's possible.

Not long ago, for example, I noticed a small bump on the palm of my left hand. This may sound ridiculous, but I said to my husband, "Oh my God, honey, I hope I don't have hand cancer." (I don't, as I saw my doctor for a checkup and she told me that bumps like these are a by-product of aging.)

Fear can also blanket me when I have to have routine blood work, or some other diagnostic testing. I start imagining the worst outcomes. That's not surprising when I consider how I was diagnosed with cancer back in June of 2002. It was almost literally overnight. One day I noticed I had a bump the size of a small egg on my collar bone. I wasn't particularly concerned; I thought maybe it was Lyme disease. But a visit to my doctor quickly led to a CT scan with contrast dye. And that led to the dreadful phone call from the doctor -- on a Friday evening as I was getting dressed for my son Noah's Bar Mitzvah.

I was half dressed, in my new navy blue skirt and high heels, when the call came. The doctor, trying to spare me bad news, suggested "we come in on Monday to talk about it." She didn't want to tell me what was going on, but I insisted. So she told me: I had lymphoma, and I would need chemotherapy and radiation.

That's not the kind of phone call you ever want to get. It turns your life inside out, and makes you perpetually afraid of going to the doctor. Any doctor!

Soon after I completed my treatment for cancer in 2003, I started to see a very caring and careful physician who believes in working with both conventional and alternative remedies. I trusted Dr. Ron Stram a lot, and so, when we were discussing lifestyle matters, I remember telling him that I was afraid that my tendency toward depression had brought about my cancer; did I need to worry about that?

In so many words, Ron told me, yes, illnesses like cancer can occur more readily in patients who suffer from depression.

So where am I going with all this?

Here: sometimes fear [feels/has felt/will feel] like an endless swamp of mud that is always on the horizon, threatening to move in to suffocate your life, top to bottom.

As a cancer survivor, and a person with a history of serious depression, I know that it is essential that I devote as much energy as possible each and every day to staying healthy and upbeat. It is also essential that I recognize when fear -- the emotion that has colored the last couple of weeks -- is threatening to pull the rug out from underneath me.

The operative word I live by these days is

REBOOT. As often as fear threatens, I know that I must try to stop the mental program(s) and narratives operating in the machine that is my brain, and start thinking in a more positive way. I must be prepared to "reboot" my thinking as often as necessary.

How do I do this? I rely on a multitude of regular activities:

1) I meditate a half hour each morning. This may be the most important thing I do. As Dr. Davidson has found in his research, long-term, regular meditation helps you identify narratives that don't serve you. It helps you change your self-talk too!

2) I journal before and sometimes after meditating, focusing as much as possible on keeping myself feeling positive. I concentrate on love, joy and gratitude.

3) I chant during meditation. There are four different chants I use; I chant a specific vocalization associated with each of my seven chakras. That chanting is supposed to keep the chakras clear of blockages that might lead to disease. 4) I try to walk at least three miles a day.

5) I do a half hour or more of yoga postures every day, really trying to use my breathing to stay centered.

6) I try to do things I enjoy as often as I can, like painting and hiking and seeing friends and family.

7) I spend time holding my dog. And sometimes, I turn on loud music and we dance together.

8) I stare at the sky, and lately, at the mountains.

9) When things happen that are sad, or disappointing or stressful, I try to slow my breathing down, and focus on acceptance. As my neighbor has begun to tell his four-year old son, "that's the way life is."

10) I try to live mindfully, savoring enjoyable moments, focusing on maintaining a positive outlook.

More often than not, this combination of things work. What's most important for me is reminding myself, over and over again, that I always have a choice. I can choose to change my mind, and my attitude. Interestingly, the word emotion derives from the Latin, "emovere," which translates into "move or move out." I can move myself into another emotion.

Back to that book by Dr. Richard Davidson I mentioned up top. It's called "The Emotional Life of Your Brain," and I highly recommend it. Davidson lays out the findings from many years of brain research using Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines (MRIs). What he's found is that emotional states can be traced to specific neuronal firings in the brain (these firings light up in MRIs.) He has identified six emotional "styles" that compose each one of us: resilience, outlook, social intuition, self-awareness, sensitivity to context, and attention. Each of us demonstrates our own emotional "fingerprint" depending on where on the continuum of each style we fall.

Davidson says he is driven by two central questions: “Why is it that certain people are more vulnerable to life’s slings and arrows, and others are more resilient? And how can you nudge people along whatever these continua are to promote more resilience and well-being?” No one ever managed to do the kind of detailed analysis of our emotional lives before; in fact, when Davidson, who did his graduate work at Harvard, began his research during the 1980s, the field of psychology wasn't inclined to see the point of studying the "fluff" of emotions.

Davidson's work is novel and ground-breaking for another reason: much of his work has involved the scientific study of the MRI scans of the brains of long-time meditators, i.e., Tibetan monks! Many of them have traveled all the way around the world to Davidson's lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in order to get wired up for these brain studies! (The findings have been remarkable!)

Davidson is himself a long-time meditator, and he was moved to begin studying the positive effects of meditation after he was specifically asked to do so by no less than the Dali Lama himself.

Three decades later, Davidson is leading a small research empire at Wisconsin, which includes the Center for Healthy Minds, which has at its central mission to "cultivate well-being and relieve suffering through a scientific understanding of the mind."

"Our research, rooted in neuroscience," Davidson says, "comes down to one basic question: What constitutes a healthy mind?"

The notion that one can train your mind in such a way as to change your brain is for me, a terribly exciting concept. And one that helps assuage my fears because it reinforces the idea that I can exert some control when my emotional life gets bumpy. Davidson's work also confirms what I know to be true for my own well-being: that meditation (along with medication) have been of uppermost importance in keeping me healthy.

CHAPTER TWELVE: "'The Party's Over'" ...or is it?

No sooner had I finished writing that last chapter, "Springtime in the Rockies," when I heard my mother sing another song title into my ear: "The Party's Over."

That song, which first appeared in 1956 in the musical comedy, "Bells are Ringing," with Judy Holliday and Dean Martin, was later popularized by Shirley Bassey.

There is a YouTube video featuring Bassey singing the song on the Ed Sullivan show in November, 1960, when I turned eight years old.

I didn't need to write to my brother to confirm that Mom sang this song. I remember all too clearly how she would launch into the first line, and sing it over and over again. She sang it when Christmas vacation ended. And especially, when summer vacation came to a close around Labor Day. In both cases, we kids were going back to school, and we were finally "getting out of her hair," and so she was happy to see us go. But the summer's end (and the holidays' ending) were sad for us kids! Who wanted to say goodbye to warm temperatures and long lazy afternoons? Who wanted to say goodbye to Christmas?

I've written in great detail in Chapter Six how I felt growing up -- that my family didn't know how to have fun; I wrote too that I believe that my joyless childhood was a core issue in my depression growing up.

In my shamanic healing class,

Dr. Villoldo has been teaching us a core healing practise performed by ancient and modern shamans. It is called "illumination," and in principle, it is very simple. The shaman does not treat a specific disease; rather, the shaman opens the "wiracocha," the luminous energy field that surrounds each and every one of us, and s/he "erases" any toxic energies or negative imprints in that field. When the field is cleared, the body's natural immune functions can kick in and fight whatever disease is present.

I can't read about this idea that negative imprints in the luminous energy field can lead to disease without recalling what happened to me in August of 2003 when doctors were trying to decide if I needed more treatment for cancer. I've written about the miraculous blue tree, and how I believe that the healing ritual beneath the tree helped me to deal with the challenges of chemo, AND the beastly doctor at Sloan Kettering who insisted that I needed a stem cell transplant when I didn't actually need one. (For that, see Chapter Seven.)

But what is perhaps even more amazing is that on the very same day that I found out via a phone call from my wonderful doctor at Dana Farber that I did NOT need the stem cell transplant, I also learned something else, quite remarkably, from a psychic, a healer better known as a medical intuitive.

Her name was Karin N. and she lived in Stowe, Vermont. My sister-in-law Jo Kirsch told me to call Karin and when I asked why, Jo replied simply, "she will blow your mind."

And blow my mind she did. For the longer version of this story, I point you to a post I wrote years ago, called "My Medical Miracle," : which appeared on-line in NPR's "This I Believe."

Basically, the medical intuitive -- who knew absolutely nothing about me except my first name -- and who was 3,000 miles away from me when she did my reading (I was in California visiting my sister) was able to identify the one spot of cancer I had left to cure. No one except my doctors and my husband knew where that spot of cancer was. Nonetheless, Karin the psychic "saw" that the "one spot I had to cure" was located "on the left side of your chest, below your rib cage and above your diaphragm."

To say I was shocked doesn't begin to describe my reaction. But Karin went further. She asked me if my mother had had lung cancer. When I said no, she said, "Well did she have a serious lung disease?" and I said yes, she had asthma. And then Karin said, "Well that's the source of the cancer in your chest. It stems from the resentment you harbor toward your mother. You will need a little chemo and radiation to heal, but you must deal with the resentment you have against your mother."

I was speechless. This reading turned my world upside down. Never again would I look at health and disease in quite the same way.

As I was listening to Dr. Villoldo describe the way shamans can "see" the luminous energy field that surrounds us, and how they heal their clients by replacing dark patches of energy with light, I am finally beginning to understand what Karin was able to see, and what she was trying to say.

Dr. Villoldo says that the luminous energy field is "a matrix that contains information that you inherited from your family of origin regarding how you will live, how you will age, how you will suffer and how you will die." Morever, it contains "imprints" of all the negative experiences that you've ever had. In order to heal those dark imprints, the shaman performs an "illumination," replacing the dark energy with light.

Apparently, Karin the psychic could "read" the dark energy in me, specifically in my chest, and she could "feel" its connection to my mom and her asthma. Quite remarkable! As I contemplate this, I still find it a bit scary. I wonder, have I really cleared the resentment?

Am I bringing back the resentment by recalling the way she sang, "The party's over?"

I force myself to take a big breath in. I concentrate on calming myself. I remind myself that I have worked hard over the years to let go of my bad feelings towards Mom. I have tried to focus on the deep love I have for my mother.

And then I think about a question my poet friend Nancy posed last week after she read Chapter Eleven, "Springtime in the Rockies." Healing, she observed, "is a little like peeling an onion, isn't it?" Just as soon as you heal one "layer" you realize that there are deeper layers underneath that need healing.

As I said, for all intents and purposes, I have largely let go of the resentment I carried toward my mom. But here now, simultaneously, I am writing this post about the fact it still irks me that Mom seemed to enjoy being a "party pooper," as evidenced in her smiling while she sang the first line of Shirley Bassey's depressing song.

Is it possible that I'm kidding myself, that I really haven't entirely let go of my resentment? I wonder.

We kids grew up with an understanding that because of her illness, Mom was restricted from doing certain things. That's one reason why, for example, we didn't go camping. Or have any pets. But the reality was more complex: Mom as a rule did not like outdoor activities. And she didn't like animals.

In many ways, Mom did not know how to enjoy herself.

Is it any wonder why? She grew up having her fun squashed. She had a bicycle -- I think her uncle bought it for her -- until her brothers took it away and sold it so that they could buy themselves a radio. She had one pair of roller skates, too, until she outgrew them; that was it for the fun of roller skating.

I remember Mom telling me the story of an art class she had with the nuns when she was small. She painted a jar in bright yellow and black and the nun took one look at it and told her it was "ugly." Mom was crushed; many decades later she recalled that she had liked the colors because they reminded her of a bumble bee.

Mom learned early on that life wasn't something to enjoy. And that nun taught her in one swift comment that she had no artistic talent (Mom's myriad stained glass creations

later in life put that notion to rest.)

Her "script" was that of women through the ages: get married, have children and be a meticulous homemaker. Which she did, to perfection. When she was just 16, her aunt Gina died, leaving a husband and two children. Mom was called on to help out in her uncle's house a lot.

Whether because of my personality, or the fact that I came of age during the rebellious 1960's, I found myself rejecting my Mom and what she stood for. I wasn't going to have her limited life choices thrust on me. I don't recall how old I was when one morning at breakfast I announced, while Mom was spooning oatmeal from a pan into several bowls: "I'm never going to cook oatmeal for my family!" It's a memory that makes me sad, because I could be such an insulting pain in the butt growing up. It also makes me chuckle, because try as I might, I actually did end up becoming a mother who made oatmeal for her family.

But in those days of my youth, I felt completely compelled to reject the notion that I would not live a life of duty and sacrifice, devoted to serving kids.

When did I soften toward mom and what she represented?

I'm not exactly sure. I tell the following story to illustrate my point: at the age of 25, shortly after I had gotten married, and when I was working for a daily newspaper, and after I had announced that I wasn't having kids, I recall my dad taking me aside and saying, "you know honey, having children is a truly wonderful thing, you really ought to reconsider your decision not to have them."

The next thing I remember, I was 35 years old, and my dad took me aside once again, this time saying, "Honey, you have three kids now, you know, I really think that's enough!"

As I look back, it seems ironic that the medical intuitive reading, in which the psychic linked my cancer to my resentment toward Mom -- came when it did, when I was about 50; I had fully embraced the life of wife and mother.

Which leads me to my main point here: healing is a very complex and inexact process. When exactly are you healed? And how long does healing last? Just because you are healed one day, from one ailment, doesn't mean you're healed the next day or week or month or year, from something else. Like life itself, healing is a fluid process, and one, I believe, that we must work on day by day.

Also, as I write this, I am reminded that "time doesn't exist,"

at least according to some physicists. If time doesn't exist, can I still continue to heal from something that affected me two decades ago? Can I heal an ancestor who lived 150 years ago? All this seems so complicated sometimes!

I'm not sure when I fully let go of my resentment toward my mother. But I think traveling to southern Italy last fall and "falling in love" with myself and my Italian heritage while in the Piazza Plebiscito in Naples (and meandering throughout southern Italy) helped a lot to scour me of all my resentment. As a result of the writing in Italian I started doing four years ago, telling stories about my ancestors, I have come to see that Mom and Dad had their shortcomings and limitations in large part because of the limitations of their own parents.

Mom and Dad did not have the luxury to travel to Italy, or at least, they didn't have the wherewithal to make it happen. They missed out, big-time. But simultaneously, I realize how incredibly fortunate I have been to travel. For that, I am extremely grateful! That gratitude has led me to become far more generous and accepting of my mom and my dad and the choices they made, or had made for them, and how all those choices affected me.

So what about this song Mom has been whispering in my ear of late? She did indeed love to sing "The Party's Over." But from this vantage point, even as I can still hear her singing it, I am nonetheless able to hold mom in loving memory. At least as often as she was a killjoy, mom could also be an incredible tease (like her father, Claude, and like me, too.)

In her vernacular, Mom was a "scootch," someone who really loved poking fun at loved ones and others, but not in a malicious way. She liked to get your goat (as my other grandmother would say.) Italians have a way of teasing each other, often by making up funny nicknames for close family members and others living in their small villages. Humor, I think, helped them cope with life.

*******

I was wondering how to end this post -- the ending came to me quite suddenly when my husband and I went out for a hike this afternoon at one of our favorite spots: Red Rocks, a remarkable formation that sits about 20 minutes from Denver. The mammoth red stone towers overhead; it is threaded with yellows and pinks and tans. It is warm and sinuous and it bends and folds and is endlessly magnificent. It's a bit like the Grand Canyon in that you cannot begin to take it in!

At least 32 Native American tribes in the U.S. consider Red Rocks to be a sacred place. It is certainly sacred for me; no matter how often we go, I never tire of being near the rocks.

"It's a river of stone," my husband said today

as we set off down the dustry red trail with Poco in tow. Soon, the rhythm of the hike was beginning to relax me, as hiking always does. That's when I realized what I wanted to say to end this post. I've gone back and forth trying to answer the question, when do you know that you're healed? How can you be sure you've let go of all of your resentment toward a loved one?

The answers lie in the moment by moment awareness that is mindfulness. When I'm hiking,

all of my energy is moving me forward, step by step. I'm focused on the beauty of the trees and plants, the birds, the sky and the rocks. I'm breathing in clean air. Right then and there, as I am walking along, I feel an abundance of good health and well-being filling me up!

Of course I'm not always hiking. There are days when I don't feel up to par, and times that I start to feel swamped by negative thoughts. That's when I try to remind myself that I have a choice. I can choose to do something to change my point of view. I can go outdoors and take a walk, or I stay indoors, roll out my mat and do some yoga postures, or just stretch.

These activities give me health, moment by moment. They make me feel better. In the end, you only get the present moment, and it behooves all of us to to do whatever we can to make ourselves feel as healthy as possible as often as possible.

And so, writing this post was a choice I made, to explore some difficult memories about my mother. I'm glad I wrote it because it's left me feeling positive; I have put aside my resentment. I think about Mom right now,

in this moment, and I feel the glow of my love for her, and that makes me smile.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: "Springtime in the Rockies!"

A day or so ago, my mother -- who passed away in 2015 -- whispered something in my ear.

At first, I wasn’t sure I was hearing correctly.

What I thought I heard her say to me was:

“What do you think this is, 'Springtime in the Rockies?'”

But wait, was I imagining that she said this? Did she really used to pose this question to me when I was a child? I couldn't be sure.

It occurred to me that maybe Mom had heard this phrase somewhere. So I googled Springtime in the Rockies, and lo and behold, I found out that there was a musical released in 1942 by that name!

The movie is still on YouTube. And there was the song from the musical, sung by Gene Autry and others through the years.

Still, I wasn’t certain. Had Mom really said this to me? And why was I having this memory now?

The memory is this: I remember her saying it to me whenever I wanted to wear a T shirt or shorts or some other inappropriate clothing and she thought it was too cold outdoors.

I decided to email my older brother to ask him if he recalled Mom saying this. He confirmed it:

“I definitely recall mom saying that phrase on numerous occasions," Rich wrote back. "Makes sense as she was 16 years old when the movie came out...and most likely she saw the movie at the Cameo theater in Bristol!!!”

OK, but still, why was I thinking about this phrase now?

And this morning, it hit me. Obviously, it has something to do with the fact that I’ve been living in Colorado for the past two months. I love living here.

I told my husband a few days ago that I feel younger than I did a few years back. Living here has helped. Having so much sunshine (Denver has 300 sunny days a year, on average) has been exhilarating. And I have become addicted to hiking, especially in beautiful places. I'm also addicted to being outdoors. Just this past week, we went hiking three times.

Just saying "the Rockies" suggests great power, a place that figures large in our American imagination because of the whole pioneer experience. As the nation pushed West, the pioneers and explorers headed over flat terrain for at least 1500 miles. And then, all of a sudden, this gigantic mountain range rose up on the horizon, mammoth rocks soaring into the sky. It was gorgeous and frightening and awe-inspiring all at once. It is a magical place, too.

So mom was asking me: do you really think you're in the Rockies, a place that borders on being mythic? A place that is huge and faraway? A place where you seem to enjoy yourself so much?

There is another reason my mom's question came to me now: I have been taking a fascinating on-line class on shamanic healing, with medical anthropologist Dr. Alberto Villoldo. In this class, he emphasizes strongly that we need to revise the stories that we heard from our parents as we were growing up.

He talks repeatedly about the Luminous Energy Field,

which is called the "wiracocha" by the Andean shamans; the term means the “sacred source.”

Otherwise known as the soul, this energy field – which we can actually touch, as I described in Chapter Ten – “organizes the body’s health,” Dr. Villoldo says.

“Your Luminous Energy Field is a reservoir of living energy that is in constant flux and motion. It is who you were before you were born and who you will be after you die." It contains all of your stories and experiences, your good and bad genes and your diseases -- imprints which are then passed from one generation to the next. It is only by clearing the negative stories from your energy field that you can begin writing an original story for yourself.”

The shamans were able to see the wiracocha, and they can also use their consciousness to manipulate how the energy field affects the body, Villoldo says. When the energy field is marred by bad experiences, or negative stories, or anger or feelings of loss, hatred, betrayal or resentment, disease can occur. In our class, Villoldo challenges us to step out of time, into our wiracocha, to let go of negative emotions, and to revise the stories we grew up hearing.

OK, so now I am beginning to see the significance of that “story” my mother used to tell me! "What do you think this is, ‘Springtime in the Rockies?’" was a core message from my Mom. Remember how I had pneumonia three times before I was seven years old? Remember, too, how sick mom was with asthma?

Well, naturally, it would follow that Mom didn't want to risk her or me going outdoors without plenty of warm clothing!

But it goes beyond clothing. Implicit in the question she used to ask is whose authority was going to reign? In other words, who was going to be the boss? Was I going to challenge her authority? Moreover, the question raises the issue, who is going to decide when it's "springtime," i.e., when the weather has warmed enough for scanty clothing. Even thinking about wearing the scanty clothing was a challenge to my mom's worldview!

Further, mom asking me the question, "what do you think this is, "Springtime in the Rockies?" suggests that I was in danger of being too big for my britches! In my family, especially in my mother's family, it wasn't "good" or "right" to act in a way that was boastful or showy. By all means, it wasn't right to brag or to be, in her words, a "big shot!"

Like so many people in her situation, Mom was taught to feel ashamed of herself as she grew up, as if she really didn't count. The message that came through was that she wasn't good or deserving enough. And indeed, Mom always tended to be very meek when she was around other people. I recall her saying how friends of hers would often brag about their children. She knew full well that she too had plenty to brag about when it came to her own kids, but it just wasn't in her nature to do it. Nor was it in her mother's, my grandma Mish's, nature, nor my grandfather's, my grandpa Claude's, either.

If you were superstitious, which my ancestors tended to be, you were tempting fate if you were too boastful or too cocksure of yourself. In effect, you were asking for trouble. Like my mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother, I was raised in a climate of constant fear and worry that something bad was going to happen.

It's understandable that my ancestors felt fearful.

The world that my immigrant ancestors lived in was in fact rather dangerous. Money was very scarce, and you had to toe the line, working hard and keeping your nose to the grindstone, to ensure that you would have security now and in the future.

From Villoldo's point of view, this fear is really just a leftover of our ancient mammalian (or limbic) brains. The limbic brain is the seat of the emotions, “developed in the time of the Neanderthals,” he says.

Trained as a brain scientist, Villoldo explains that the limbic brain is the brain of the four F’s: fear, feeding, fighting and fornication. It is also that section of the brain that leads us into the fight or flight emotions. It makes us feel anger and scarcity, and a host of other negative and “non-forgiving” feelings. From the point of view of Villoldo, who counts himself among the shamans,

these emotions are “outdated,” and we need to be rid of them in order to live happy and healthy lives, lives devoted to raising our consciousness.

I have been frequently a fearful person in the past. Like my mother, I grew up worrying, a lot! Unfortunately, I know I passed some of that fear along to my children.

Living here in the Rockies feels like it is challenging me to let go of some of the fears that I grew up with!

Have I gotten over worrying? In certain respects, yes. But it is definitely a work in progress.

This morning, March 3, 2024, we are days away from the spring equinox. It is 44 degrees and sunny out. What shall I wear????

Shall I put on my long grey winter coat? (I left my green parka back in Massachusetts!) Or shall I step outside in simply my thin yoga clothes and a vest?

I grab my husband's navy blue Patagonia fleece. And my running shoes. And the cap I bought at Red Rocks,

the breathtaking rock formation that sits only about 20 minutes from Denver where Rich and I live. We walk there as often as we can.

Maybe later, when I get back from my walk, I will write more about how living here – far away from the family hub back east – is helping me see how family fears have shaped and controlled me through the years.

Meanwhile, the nice thing about "Springtime in the Rockies" is that it has unlocked Mom in my heart. She is really here with me today, and because she is no longer an earthbound creature controlled by primitive fears and worries, she is saying exactly what I want to hear: "OK, Claudia, you wear whatever you want to wear -- you'll be fine!"