Beyond Breast Cancer

Greetings Beloveds!  

It's been a while since I posted.  Confronting breast cancer is one of many reasons why. On September 2nd, 2021 I had the cancer removed from my left breast.  I'm lucky that it was small (6mm), slow growing and "well-behaved" and that all was removed with no questions remaining.  I was one in every 8 women that get breast cancer in the US.  Shocking statistics!  This all has been, at times, overwhelming. I was out of it from the anesthesia for several days after my out patient 'Twilight Sleep' surgery.  My incision healed well but has left me with a 3 to 4 inch scar to remind me of the day.  I no longer match my early nude photos here.  Lots of changes before that too, as age will do.  The 'cancer medical machine' helped me and was also part of what overwhelmed me.  Happily I've been lifted up by friends and loving healers that lead me to decide not to continue any treatment. None of those friends or healers told me what to do. I chose. The well-behaved nature of my cancer makes me comfortable with my decision.  I know I am very lucky in the type of cancer that showed up and for that I'm deeply grateful!  

This has been a pivotal experience that's made me look at my life and make a few new choices.  Here's part of my October newsletter to share some of my process.  Sending you love as you move through your days!

Saying goodbye to Sofie

The Noble Victim aka Holier Than Thou So I have another confession. I’ve been holding on to my victim. I really wasn’t aware of it till after my breast cancer surgery. I just thought it normal to continue grieving over my many losses and, in part, it absolutely is but there was a subtler undertone of victim lurking about in the natural grief. I’d thought that I had confronted the victim in me and let it go years ago. I was apparently deluding myself. Close friends will tell you happily that that is not unusual for me. After my lumpectomy, while I confronted having cancer, I realized I really don’t want to be alone. Sitting alone in the days prior to my surgery, I grieved the loss of Margie who was a wonderful constant companion. I wanted a companion, a friend and more than Margie, a partner/lover. I know now that I don’t “have to have it” but I do honestly want that special someone in my life. My litany of doubts and fears flooded out of me. I was afraid to want someone again. I didn’t know if I could handle another loss that intimate. I didn’t know if I could watch another become ill and slowly or not so slowly die. I wasn’t sure it was worth it to risk the loss. This is the complete reversal of my earlier “got to have it” drive that filled my life with longing whenever I was out of relationship and, truthfully, sometimes when I was in one. I’m relieved and proud of myself that I no longer long for someone to complete me. But somewhere along the way I may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. My fear of loss created a barrier. My victim from those losses is keeping away any potential lover-companion. The day of my surgery I asked my gifted friend Kathy if there was a lover in my future. She felt a prickliness inside me that was keeping away any possible connection. When I looked at what it was, I quickly recognized my victim energy. Why was I holding onto this energy? Then I remembered that when my second husband left me, I used that victimization as a moral high ground. I was somehow the noble victim. I had a self-righteous indignation and it felt good or at least I was quite comfortable using my position to get whatever needs I had filled. Not an attractive look on me, for sure. It’s hard to admit how my ‘holier than thou’ played out. It’s not easy looking at this and to confess it here. Of all the losses where I ended up feeling victim to the experience, there is only one loss that causes me embarrassment or a sense of shame. That’s the loss where I feel victim to my own inadequacy. I blame myself for the loss of my beautiful home in Towson. I grieve it still but have no noble victim energy around that loss. Instead, there is the tinge of shame. I never became the millionaire I tried to attract into my life. I failed at my ‘law of attraction’. Well, I’ve failed so far. LOL! The ‘noble victim’ does raise its head around the many deaths of loved ones over recent years. That's where most of that prickly energy resides, putting a full stop to any potential intimate partnership. Happily, my heart is still open to loving friendships. I do admit that even as those friendships deepen there is a bit of fear in the me. I watch it and let it go. I like to think of myself as a well-balanced openhearted individual. I’ve recently discovered, once again, that ‘it ain’t necessarily so’. My shadow is still in need of the light of consciousness. I’m choosing to, once again, let go of my victim. I love her and honor her for all that she has done trying to protect me as I enfold her in my arms and I let her go. She is a part of me that can step back now as I unlock the hidden doors in my heart. Doors I thought were open. I’m willing to suffer a great loss again. I am willing to open my heart fully, partner or no partner. And so it is.

A Little Osho Wisdom All these waves of emotion and my recent wants and fears have once again shown how discontent I am. My busy mind is very good at finding ways to be miserable. I thought I'd share some Osho wisdom that kicked my ass: "People are constantly living in discontent about everything. It is a habit. It is not that if they have more money and a better house and a better wife or a better son or a better job they will be contented - it is not that. Whatsoever they have they will remain discontented. Poor, they will be discontented; rich, they will be discontented. Discontent is a habit of the mind. Mind can never be contented. Once you understand this, a miracle happens; then you can put the mind aside because it is never going to give you contentment. That is not in its nature, so you are asking for the impossible. And what cannot happen, cannot happen - it is futile. This has been the experience of the whole of humanity for centuries. Still, everybody tries, hoping that he is an exception - nobody is an exception. And discontentment creates misery. If you understand why you are discontented, if you don't find any excuses on the outside and you see that it is the functioning of the mind, then the functioning can be dropped. The question is to see it. Don't believe it because I say it is so - you have to see it. Watch your mind. Look at the past. Many times you thought if you could get a certain thing you would be happy, and you got it and you were not happy. This has happened so many times but you don't learn the lesson, nobody learns the lesson. People go on landing in the same pitfalls again and again. Learn that your mind is the cause of all discontentment and then there is misery and then there is hell. Drop the mind and with it all misery and all hell disappears and suddenly a revelation happens to you - your innermost core is full of bliss. So, watch the mind and all its tricks that it goes on playing upon you. To have a transformation nothing else is required, only watchfulness of the mechanism of mind. And, through that understanding, things start happening of their own accord, effortlessly, quietly." ~Osho

Monday evenings are precious to me since beginning my All Love Zoom. The gatherings open my heart and fill me with deep peace. The sweet connection between those who gather makes my week! I hope you will join us. Drop me an email at sherrytuegel@verizon.net for the link!

In Closing I love Abraham Hicks's question, "Are you enjoying your contrasts?" I have been riding through a bunch recently. Life is all about contrast. I'm still working with being with what is as I restart my 'meditation practice'. I have spent the last years stopping briefly and becoming present tasting momentary stillness and peace with only occasional long meditations. I intend to begin my daily sitting again to stop my "monkey mind" from its amazingly creative dramas. It amazes me how I still run away from the very thing that brings me Bliss. WTF? On the embodied front, I begin a medication soon to keep cancer from returning. I'm very lucky to not have to do radiation or Chemo. I wanted to just believe it was gone for good after surgery but that isn't how cancer works, apparently. This has been hard for me to accept. Hopefully this new medication will be healthy for my body. Prayers welcome, Beloveds! Thank you for reading my newsletter to the end and riding along with me in my ups and downs recently. I'd love to hear from you about your journeys and if any of my confessions and realizations ring a bell for you. Have a wonderful October and remember to be kind to yourself! Love and Blessings Always, Sherry

410-598-1010 www.body-beloved.com

©2021 Body Beloved | sherrytuegel@verizon.net

Ego Egat Egolly

Self Consumed  -  July 7, 2021

I’ve spent my life self-consumed, I’m sad to say. I never was very interested in service or volunteer work. In the 1970s a friend said to me that the ‘yoke’ had walked away. She was referring to the women who had gone to work and no longer volunteered their services. These women had been the yoke that held society together through their volunteer service. After that conversation I frowned upon offering work for free, even though I seldom volunteered prior to that conversation. I wanted to be valued as men were valued and paid for their work. It made me suspicious of organizations that expected volunteerism. Most were run by men who benefited financially and emotionally from the care of their volunteers who were, indeed, mostly women.

Now, late in life, I’ve begun to value service. As I look back on my life, I’m seeing a selfish self-absorbed individual. I’m part amused and part ashamed of the values I carried in my younger years. I was fully enmeshed in the consumer culture and bought into the ideas of winning by making a lot of money. From the part of me that felt inferior I had an “I’ll show them” attitude. I never did. I thought I was definitely out to win and at the same time I was a lazy maverick, quite comfortable with B and C grades. It was more important for me to have fun then to study and work hard. I have a big lazy streak along with a deep desire for pleasure. Food and sex rank high on my list but above all friendship and good conversation. 

I was raised by a proper Southern woman. You were to dress and act in a polite socially acceptable manner. Wearing overalls and no bra in front of my grandparents was not acceptable but, of course, in the 70s I did. Part of me has totally accepted the cultural conditioning I was raised in. I have a very functional super ego. The other part of me, the maverick, disdains my conditioning. My super ego wasn't embedded with much drive for volunteerism, however. I don’t remember my parents encouraging me to volunteer other than once or twice for our Quaker Meeting’s yard sale. Maybe it just fell on deaf ears.

Now, at this late age, I hope to be of better service and be less self-absorbed. As always, I’m a work in progress. It’s not that I haven’t offered support and assistance of some kind over the years. I just wish I had been more aware of what I could have offered and had not been so busy trying to mimicking Martha Stewart. For example, in the early 1990s I had a beautiful wedding and have the pictures to prove it. I loved being fussed over by my bridesmaids before the service. It may have been my favorite part of the wedding. I did my best to make Martha Stewart proud that day. During the event my father had to wear a wool tuxedo. He did so even though he was terribly allergic to wool. I glimpsed the suffering on his face when he asked to change before the pictures were taken. Add to that my mother’s Alzheimer’s kept my family on high alert, making sure she was okay. I look back at the selfishness of that day now and sometimes weep.     “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.”  

It’s as if I have lived many lives and most of the time I’ve sung the “me me me” song. Sometime in the early 80s I wrote this little poem that I recite to myself on occasion:

Ego…Egat…Egolly,

I’m stuck on a self-possessed trolley.

I’d get off the train,

but it feels such a strain,

and leaving seems such a great folly. 

I think I’m ready to get off the train!  Please let me know if you see me taking another ride. I'm sure I will.

Greetings Beloveds after many moons have passed!

In my recent newsletter I made a confession and wanted to share it here. I was talking recently to a beloved friend who was very worried about her ailing dad. I encouraged her to let the worry go even though I’ve spent most of my life worrying. Yes, I’m a champion worrier and came by it honest, following in the footsteps of my grandmother and mom. As someone said, ‘my life is full of tragedies that never happened’. I’m tired of the ghosts of possible tragedies stealing the light of my present moment. The lead character in the movie 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' tells his friend not to worry as they confront one of the Beasts. His friend asks if there is any danger as he is being donned with protective gear. The lead replies, 'yes there's danger, but why suffer twice? So I’m turning over a new leaf and working on worrying less. When I catch myself feeling anxious about what might happen, I stop and remember that I’m imagining and fearing an illusion. I breathe deeply into the now and let it go. My life has a lot more peace and ease these days.

Speaking of worry and danger, Osho, the amazing rascal guru, has a book called Courage, The Joy of Living Dangerously. He says the more we try to be safe the more we're trying to be dead. Life is unsafe, only death is safe since then the fear of pain and death is gone. It's a radical but honest view. Somehow I believed that worry would make me safer. It didn't. It only made me more miserable. So, wish me well on my new 'leaf' and if you catch me worrying point it out so I can let it go!

Love to you!