Friday, March 27, 2015

Currently: The Early Spring Edition


Reading: My Name is Resolute, Love Letters to the Dead, and Freedom from your Inner Critic. I have one book in different places all over the house so that I can have access wherever I go. I've never read anything by Nancy Turner before (she wrote These is My Words, which has always sort of been on my list) and I'm really enjoying Resolute. I went through an extremely dry reading spell at the first of the year, so I'm relieved to finally have some good books. Although I'm reading really slowly lately - I stopped taking the train to work, so that killed a lot of my good reading time. But, parking under my building and not having to walk over a block to work from the parking garage or train stop for the first time in 15 years is really, really nice.

Enjoying: my spring bulbs. Fears of global warming aside, I've loved seeing my early spring friends. My mini-daffodils were adorable, as were the new giant hyacinth that I planted. But my favorite are the poppy anemones. They are so sweet! They are various shades of white, pink, blue, and purple. I die every time a new one blooms. I planted 100 of them, and I'm tempted to plant more in the fall.






Sewing: baby blankets. I haven't sewn since 2013, how sad is that!? But there is a whole new crop of babies coming. I even picked out the flannel with my mom, which was fun since we don't usually get to do errands together, but she was living nearby for a while during her spinal fusion recovery. I had forgotten how much I love being creative. I think I spent most of January and February looking at my phone, texting and incessantly checking social media. I need more creative outlets.



Practicing: nothing, specifically on the piano. I sort of lost my mojo for playing in January and haven't gotten it back. I'm actually kind of embarrassed now (which is my insecurities showing, I know!) that I was playing in public. Most of the time it sucked. But I'm also sad I'm not practicing anymore. It was a lovely outlet for a few months. And, I'm wasting the piano tuning I had in January, which made my old piano sound so much better! Honestly, I think I miss playing Christmas songs. Church hymns get boring after a while. I don't feel like I can play much else because with those two genres, I have the advantage of always knowing how the song should sound so I can be lazy and not figure out the rhythm.

Running: in my neighborhood. One of my favorite routes is closed now, and is being repaved and sidewalks added. It makes me sort of sad - I ran that stretch of road more times that I can count for over 15 years. But I've found a new route that is making me happy that includes a new road that just opened a few months ago. Again, global warming aside, this winter was lovely for running. I ran in short sleeves in February multiple times. Who knew that could ever happen?

Liking: my new wallet. I bought it at the University of Utah hospital while I was visiting my mom. I'd had my old one since Ben was in diapers, so I think it was justified. Plus, it has two pouches with zippers so I can keep my key and phone all in one handy spot, thus theoretically preventing me from saying "Where's my phone!?" as often.  (I am anti-purse. They just aren't my type.)

Eating: the most delicious breakfast sandwiches ever. We got a breakfast sandwich maker for Christmas and I use it every day that I eat breakfast at home. It has revolutionized breakfast around here. Love.

Smiling: because of this selfie. We didn't get a pic of us when we saw Margaret Atwood in 2004. It was satisfying to get one this time, even if we couldn't get one with Ms. Atwood. (Also, Amy and I are veteran sister-selfie takers. We perfected it in Italy. Just in case you wondered.)


Going: to the gym for a sculpting class. It's been months since I've gone, probably since last summer! I'm going to be so sore. Update: I stayed for 15 minutes of spin class after sculpting. I really, really hate riding a bike. But I like being sore.

Surviving: having my IUD changed. Those 3 minutes when they clamp the cervix are awful. But, the lack of periods and 5 years of birth control pretty much make up for them. Also, I realized that I'm glad I don't have a lot of female problems and pain. The hour of cramps after the insertion before my ibuprofen kicked in were almost more than I could deal with. Kudos to those women who have painful female parts. My apologies if you didn't come here to hear about my cervix and uterus.

What is current in your life?

Thursday, March 26, 2015

The same old fears, part 347

Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.

Wish you were here, Pink Floyd

Last night, I went to a Margaret Atwood lecture at my alma mater. The event was part of a lecture series called the Tanner Lecture on Human Values. There were so many things about the evening that I loved - being with my sister, driving my old route to the university past my first apartment, enjoying the beautiful spring light as I made my way into town, listening to Margaret Atwood talk about the necessity of the arts in society and how they are part of our most basic selves, remembering all the time I spent on that campus when I was young, and attending something that was out of my regular routine and being 100% comfortable with it. It was a great time, a much needed bright spot. Plus, Margaret Atwood is wickedly funny and smart and thought-provoking. And, did I mention, time with my sister? Love.

I've been in a mental rut for a few months. I could blame it on other people and their choices and struggles, but really, it's not their fault. They were the catalyst that set me on this path, but I can only blame myself for the way that things played out. It put me into a tailspin of emotions and guilt. It's complicated, but I think I complicated it more than necessary because I slipped back into old habits that don't serve me or those around me well at all.

I was looking through my journal the other night. I found entries from two years ago when I was desperately trying to dig myself out of the funk of our decision to not have another baby. Later, I found entries of when I was in Italy having both the time of my life and a different kind of emotional revolution. Over and over, I read my own words of the hope I had to finally be a grown-up, to pull my shit together, and stop allowing others to steal my zen.

I keep figuring out the same damn thing about myself, over and over, "running over the same old ground" just using different people or situations or trials. As a result of it all, I have the same "revelation" and try to set the same goals to "fix" myself, which I promptly forget when the crisis abates, to then do it all over again a few years later.

Maybe everyone does this. (Please, please say that other people do this!) But I think I'm really here this time. I think that I'm finally figuring out who I am and what makes me fall into the same self-defeating patterns.

I'm participating in a meditation series hosted by Deepak Chopra. These meditations come around every few months; the most significant time that I have participated, other than this year, was in 2013 when I was trying to get over my back injury. Meditation got me out of a very dark place then and allowed me to stop punishing my body for its injury. This time, I am learning about success. Not the success that comes from being wealthy or fabulous, but the success that comes from making choices that are healthy, from understanding what successful thought patterns and effective emotions look like, and ways to quiet my inner critic and fears.

At church, the young women say a theme each week that begins this way: "We are daughters of our heavenly father, who loves us, and we love him." I was thinking about that statement during a meditation. Every week, I say those words, but I don't know if I believe the first part, that God loves me. If I don't know that, are there people in my life whose love I distrust? I started replacing "we," "daughter," and "heavenly father" with other names and relationships. "I am Thomas and Ben's mom, who love me, and I love them." "I am Don and Sue's daughter, who love me, and I love them."There are people in my life that I am secure in saying that phrase about because I know our love is mutual. There are others whom I know I love, but who I shy away from authentically believing their love for me. I think it's important for me to accept that they love me, even if I don't relate to their mode of love. I'm going work on that.

You know how when you learn a new word, you hear that word constantly for a few days afterward? Between the meditations, talks with my husband and my sister and other good friends, a few books on aging and anxiety and dealing with the inner critic, a writing session from a place in my heart that showed me some of my oldest and most irrational, childish fears and motivators, and last night's lecture from Ms. Atwood, I'm starting to hear what the universe is screaming at me.It wants me to grow up. It wants me to be the same on the outside as I am on the inside. It is showing me who I am with certain people and why and how I can stop being that person (if I am brave and self-aware enough.)

I think I'm ready to make some true internal changes in my world view that will last longer than a family party, a blog post, a few weeks, or a month. Wish me luck.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Emotional road map

Subtitle: Caution - Rough Terrain Ahead

My favorite class in all of my college career was called Ethics and Values. I had the best instructor - a man who introduced topics each week like abortion and euthanasia and then asked us to write an essay on what our opinion was. He never once - until the very last day of class - told us what his stand on any topic was (which I think was so brilliant of him. No one could cozy up to him to get brownie points by following his lead.). I came out of the class knowing where I stood on some things that surprised me, but were authentic to me.

One of the big ideas in the class was intentions versus consequences. Let's say I make my neighbor dinner. No matter what my intentions, the consequences are that she and her family eat for a night. But, I can make her dinner with the following intentions, depending on the situation:

  • So that she will have a meal and not feel stressed about her new baby (or her sickness, or whatever situation requires her to have a meal.)
  • So that I can stop feeling guilty for all of the times that she made me dinner
  • So that my other neighbors can see me taking her dinner and they will think I am fabulous
  • So that I can hope that later, when I am in need, I can hope that she would make me dinner
  • So that she can know that I am much more generous than her, because she didn't make me dinner when I ______.
  • And so on.
Now, I'm not really talking about making my neighbor dinner. I like to think I only make dinners for the first reason, but not the other reasons. It's easy for me, the star in my own story, to say that my intentions are always good. But I'm sure that they aren't. I'm sure that other people would read into my actions and judge and critique.

Recent events have me looking at intentions and consequences in a very serious way. I'm evaluating myself on why I've done what I've done for people. I'm also looking at what motivates me. I find that guilt is one of my most frequent motivator.

Conversely, I see some people around me and they have these emotional holes that they are filling. Some fill it with substances. Others fill it with food. Some fill it with a sheer will to pretend that their holes don't exist, or avoidance, or running away.

I know that I have my own holes. I sort of know what my holes are, and I know what I use to fill them. Some are healthy things, like running and yoga and meditation. But others aren't so healthy, like running to the gas station for a soda, or Starbucks for my favorite hot chocolate. I'll admit that trips like this to reward or cheer myself are frequent.Wow, I visited this person - gotta hit Starbucks. Wow, I had a bad day - I should stop at McDonald's for a $1 drink. It seems like a small thing, but if I look at it for what it is - it's a destructive behavior. Yes, it doesn't have the same effect that shooting heroin would, but it's doing the same thing: filling an emotional void, or pain, that I obviously have.

So, I want this post to come out to say that I want to be different. I have some goals that I want to document. They are all wrapped up in what has been going on around and inside of me for the past 2 months. Call it manifesto or whatever you will.

  • Stop doing things out of guilt.
  • Have better intentions for doing things for other people. I don't want to have the feeling that others are looking over my shoulder and keeping a tally of what I do so that it looks like I am a good mother, friend, daughter, sister, wife, neighbor. I hate that I just had to write that sentence, because it means that I've been doing this. But maybe others around me already know it and I'm just saying what is obvious to them. Regardless, I want my intentions to be more authentic.
  • I don't want to panic anymore when I get into a situation that causes me stress, where someone is asking something of me that I am uncomfortable about or that will not be a possibility. I get into trouble because all of my "training" tells me that I have to do what the person is needing me to do, exactly as they need me to do it. I don't have the security in myself to say the part I can do without torturing myself over not being able to do everything. I worry so much about hurting others feelings when they are already hurting mine. I can't keep doing this. 
  • Learn how to say my honest feelings. I don't trust that others can "handle my truth," which gets me into trouble. At the very least, it degrades my feelings. It also insults them, because I'm not treating them like the grown-up that they are (or should be.) I think it's deep-seated, irrational fears that do this to me. I've applied this in my life in some ways over the past few years, but there are others that I am still "protecting" in this way. I have to stop this.
  • Stop allowing people to make me feel guilty. If I'm doing something out of guilt, it's not authentic to me. If I'm not doing something out of guilt, it's not authentic to me. With a realization that I have people that depend on me, I have to realize my limitations and put them first, and then do what I can for the others around me. Those others are very important and I want to do what I can for them. 
  • I want to find my "holes" and try to not fill them with things or activities that will never satisfy. 

I've been reading a book that has helped me find a road map for to do some of these things. Here are the bullet points:

  • I need to give up on meaningless (guilt-induced, or "checking off the box") attempts to satisfy others
  • I need to stop power struggles
  • I need to avoid situations that put me in conflict with other (there are topics with family members that immediately cause strife. Some of that is my fault, and some of it isn't. It is a situation of intentions verses consequences, and trying to change the outcome regarding certain topics is like beating my head against a wall.) I need to pick my battles and find ways of spending time with those people in less conflictual activities. 
  • I need to make it clear what I can and cannot do in a constructive and non-threatening way, and with the right timing.
  • (This one is my own) I need to stop trying to do certain things to try to anticipate others needs, because of feelings of guilt that I'm not doing enough. I also need to let those people deal with the problems that will come up from their choices, instead of trying to head them off for them. It's impossible, it frustrates me and them, and - ultimately - it's never enough, anyway.
  • (Another one that is my own) I need to realize that I cannot ever repay some people for what they have done for me in my life. I can be grateful, but I can never do enough to satisfy their emotional needs (because, again, it will never be enough.) My enough has to be good enough for me, and I can't change the fact that it isn't enough for them. That isn't my problem, it's theirs.

How strange that I feel that I have to write a blog post to say all of this. If only I could just already have learned all of these lesson. I'm almost 40 years old, for crying out loud. But maybe this is what it means to turn 40. I know when I turned 30, I found I naturally dropped some unhelpful personality traits and picked up others. It might just be another step towards finally being a grown up. And if writing these things helps me remember them better, commit to them better, practice and apply them better, then it's a step in the right direction.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Get a good grip on your heels.

Last week was insane. I can't go into all of the crazy, but suffice it to say, I never want another week like that again. Looking back, if I had to say what caused most of the anguish, I would say it was lack of planning on the part of others, insensitivity and assumptions, and the foolish feeling in me to always need verification of my feelings from others combined with a tendency to want to take care of people in impossible ways.

Basically, a recipe for disaster.

By the time Saturday rolled around, I had an emotional hangover to match the real hangover I had the morning after my bachelorette party. I felt bruised and battered and I had a desperate urge to feel something physical to take away the emotional drama. So I went to hot yoga. While I usually strive to do my very best in class, I gave myself permission to get through whatever I could in the class, even if that meant just laying in Savasana. Plus I knew that even if I cried through the whole class, no one would know because it would just look like sweat. Hopefully.

Luckily, I did okay. I did take a knee for the second set of Triangle Pose. I got through all of the floor poses in a good state of mind until the second set of Half-Tortoise Pose, when I began to have a mini-panic attack at the thought what was next - Camel Pose. Camel is always a hard one for me. If there is anything emotional going in my life at the time, it usually bubbles up during Camel. I've cried in it, I've felt elated in it, I've also felt absolutely nothing in it (but that is rare.)



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I found I was breathing so fast I thought I would hyperventilate. Even though I was 3 feet from the front mirror, I avoided any eye contact with myself. I dragged myself into the beginning position of the pose, head down. Leaning backward into the pose felt like I was being flayed. Or crucified. I could barely endure the feeling of exposure. I kept thinking of the terrible conversations I'd had in the preceding days, and I recognized the same feelings of panic and despair. When it was time to come out, I got out as quickly as possible, collapsed onto my back, and cried, dreading the knowledge I'd just have to do it all again.

But that was when I got pissed. When Savasana was done, I let my anger drive me. I turned around, stood up on my knees, and stomped my way towards the mirror (which looks as comical as it sounds), looking at forward the entire time. Before I dropped my head back to begin the pose, I stared into my own eyes and let the person in the mirror look defiantly back. I went into Camel and let all my anger override my fear of the openness. It was the exact same pose as before, but the intention was completely different. I let that sink in, and thought of the recent conversations and how I could improve my intentions, even if the consequences are the same. I stayed in the pose just a few seconds after the instruction to come out came, just to prove to myself I could face and learn from hard things.

After Camel comes Rabbit. Rabbit is as closed off as a pose can be.



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It was a relief to feel protected again. I listened to the instructions that were given - get a good grip on your heels. What I heard was "Get a grip on your life, Becky." I need to find a good handhold inside of me to balance my recent openness with people I've been closed off to for 20 years with my tendency to close off to those same people. Pulling back in didn't negate the openness I felt before. The thought came to me to adapt to the extremes and find the middle. As I came out of Rabbit, the instructor reminded me to come out slowly, aligning my spine one vertebrae at a time (which is so symbolic of what has been going on lately), tightening my core, bringing up my head last, keeping that good grip on my heels, and finding my eyes in the mirror.

I don't always have such a dramatic yoga class. I went to the class with the hope that Camel pose would do its worst and allow me to see clearer.

What I took away from the class was:

  • I can be open with people without flaying myself or allowing them to flay me. 
  • My Camel doesn't have to be so deep, and my Rabbit doesn't have to be so protected.
  • I need to stop finding the extremes in everything, stop allowing others to ruin my zen, straighten my spine, and lift up my head to face the world.