I gave birth twice, first to my son, later to my daughter. He was born Cesarean, to save his life. When it came time to birth his little sister, I was able to deliver her into her father’s loving arms by what was known as natural childbirth.
No pain medication. Only deep breathing, hours and hours (and hours!) of it. She came when she was ready to show her face. It was all smooshed-up and sticky. Well, labor and delivery had been rough on her too, not just on me. Some of my sticky insides, where she had dwelled her first nine months, was visible on her brand-new wrinkled body. Her father tenderly conveyed her to my cradling arms.
Hard to say which of us was more exhausted, mother or child. We looked and looked and looked at one another. It’s you! My God, what a moment.
It was the sweetness of absolute surrender.
To this moment of my elderly life (she’s been out of my body for nearly 35 years), labor was the most exquisite body pain I have ever experienced. It was also — are you ready? — among the most rapturous experiences of my life.
But this isn’t just about having a baby.
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During the hours of labor (the better part of a day and night), the only reality was the one taking place inside my body and in the immediate scene. All the rest of the world had ceased to exist. A nurse within earshot said something about the kids getting out of school right then, and a voice in me whispered What? Are you telling me that ordinary life has . . . just gone on? While I’m lying here in agony?
If this isn’t about having a baby, what’s it about?
A couple of years after that day, I found myself weirdly missing the state I’d been in during labor. What the hell? I went to a hypnotist, who helped me “relive” the experience. Little by little I began to get it, to account for what it was had happened that day that I was lonely for.
It had to do with the radical surrender that was necessary for me to get through a single contraction. Even just one of them. What I ached to relive was the thing that happened when I gave in completely to the pain wrought by a contraction.
It was the sweetness of absolute surrender. But it also had everything to do with this: each contraction was the now. It was just THIS one I had to give myself to. Now, now, now. When the next one seized me, it was the same again. Be with that one. I could not bear even anticipating that more would come. One contraction after another, I was crushed in the arms of radical allowing.
To this day I can tell you that only a handful of moments in my long life has come close to this one I struggle so to describe. Understand: it was not exactly about “having a baby.” It was about turning myself inside-out with yielding. And what that felt like to the heart of me.
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And what might this have to do with you, dear friend? Ordinary life asks of us one surrender after another. Most of the occasions are minor, not worthy of later recall, unlikely to deliver us into the hands of rapture. But once in a while — you may have noticed — life asks of us a mighty big allowing. Oh yes, it may hurt like holy hell, rather the way delivering a baby does.
But to bow to a thing, even an enormous one — the loss of your lifetime maybe, causer of unending grief — to say yes, this is what is, is to feel the entirety of a heartbreak, even one that holds the heart in its fist, crushing it.
Nobody wishes for such a sorrow. But anybody who lives long enough is likely to be handed such a thing. Look the truth of it in the face. As you can, feel the terrible pain. Not so you can “get on with it”; not so you can protect yourself. But because it’s real. You can avert your eyes from what’s happened, from the feeling in your body, your heart. But it will come back, flooding you with the truth of it all.
As you can manage, bow. Just bow. Consider it life’s version of meditation.
Who knows? You may be surprised (befuddled, even) by the curious taste of rapture around the edges of the agony. Rather the way I was about labor.
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Now I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. I offer it wishing to be a helpful companion on your inner travels. It’s not about selling anything, not about money. It is for that reason — that I didn’t want you to misunderstand my intent — that I’ve never done this previously. But life is short, and I want to help you however I can.
All I have wished for, in having this website, in offering private consultations and writing books and doing periodic teaching events, is to be of use to those who ache to know who they really are. What I have wanted is to help ease their suffering (whether or not waking up ever happens).
I post a new Teaching roughly every 4-6 weeks. These essays are offered without cost. If you would like to receive an email notification when a new one is posted, it’s best to subscribe. Every teaching I have ever posted continues to be available on this website.
I have written five books. (See the Purchase page for details. FYI, there was briefly an issue with ordering books through my website, but it’s been resolved.) The books are When Fear Falls Away: The Story of a Sudden Awakening; The Freedom of Being: At Ease with What Is; Opening the Door: Jan Frazier Teachings on Awakening; The Great Sweetening: Life After Thought; and Love Incarnate: Twenty Years After Awakening. All are available in both paperback and digital format, excepting Opening the Door, which is an ebook only. Briefly, here is what each is about. When Fear Falls Away details the moment of awakening and the subsequent months of development and understanding. The Freedom of Being is more “teacherly” (and many have told me it’s been of great value to them as they grow increasingly self-aware). Opening the Door is a collection of long-ago teachings I had on this website. The Great Sweetening is a collection of relatively more recent ones. (It is now available through me and is less expensive than it is on Amazon.) I wrote Love Incarnate several years ago following the most significant awakening that’s occurred since the initial one. It tells what it’s like for me nowadays. The purchase page also includes several audio options.
Often when I’m speaking with someone in a consultation, they will allude to “your book,” and invariably it’s the first they mean. Of course it’s useful, a view into what waking up can be like. But if you were to ask me which of my books is of most benefit to seekers, I would unhesitatingly say The Freedom of Being and Love Incarnate.
I am happily available to talk with people who want that. See the Consultations page for details. I reserve Zoom for international sessions; all others are via phone.
For a time I produced a Podcast. I no longer record new episodes, but those I made continue to be available. Many have told me these have been very helpful. I have heard the same of the Watch/Listen pages.
Please let me know if you come upon links that are not working! Finally, I am beyond grateful for the kind Donations I receive, small or large, monthly or one-time. Money is tight for me nowadays, as it is for so many. (But there’s more than one way to be “rich.” There is no greater wealth than to know what it is to love.)
Thank you for listening!