Showing posts with label Mindfulness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mindfulness. Show all posts

Monday, August 3, 2020

Thoughts on trauma, with a story

I'm risking a bunch by writing this post. Trauma warning - child sexual assault

When I was 7, I broke my elbow. I had been to my mom's work that day, and I grabbed a tiny plastic bag with the emblem of her employer. My mom and I went together to a nearby park, and I begged to stay at the playground while she went across the street for some lunch. Not long after she left, I decided to go across the monkey bars with the bag on my hand. I made it 2 rungs - once the hand that had the bag on it gripped the bar, I immediately fell on the sand, breaking my left elbow pretty badly. At the hospital, the doctor on call set my arm and we went on our way. He ended up being a great orthopedic doctor and surgeon and so we stuck with him for a few years after my break.

A few months or years after I broke the arm, I had something going on with my back. I don't remember it being a big deal, just that my mom made me an appointment and we went to see the doctor who fixed my arm. By this time we knew him well. I later broke my other elbow, and he treated that as well (but I'm not sure where that fits into this timeline). The doctor was a big jovial person. He had thinning red hair and talked fast and jokingly. My mom and he got along well.

So I went in to see if anything was wrong with my back. And that required an xray. I left my mom with a male tech and went into the xray room. I had to get up on the table. I still had my underwear on, but I'm not sure about a shirt. I just know that the tech had me take my underwear down, which was appropriate for the xray, and seemed normal (I had had more xrays by this time in my life than I could count. My clubfoot surgery the prior year had fixed a problem I'd been born with and so many xrays were taken of my foot. Plus add in the broken elbow from the year or two before and - xrays were old hat to me.) Once my underwear were down though, he touched me inappropriately and then asked if it "felt good." I said no and he stopped. But I was frozen on the table, waiting for the xray, and so I had to hold still in the same position as when he had touched me for the xray. My body memorized that feeling of frozen, of holding my body so still so I could have the back xray done, and that tension became something that I still find myself doing even today when my body encounters stress.

There were two parts to the event in the room that couldn't have been longer than 7 minutes. There was the part when he touched me and the part when he xrayed my back. They may as well be two different days or appointments for how disconnected they are.

I put my clothes back on and walked back in the room where my mom and the jovial world class surgeon were. I didn't have any space to tell her, so I never did.

 The first time I said out loud that this had happened was in about 1994 when I told my best friend Cindy. And then I never told another person until the 2016 election when the Access Hollywood tape came out and the whole world was talking about sexual assault. At that time, I created a generic Twitter profile and wrote that this had happened to me, along with 2 other incidents. That gave me the courage to tell my husband later in the day about my "Me Too" experiences.

I'm going to therapy currently in my life. My therapist is wonderful and is using EMDR techniques to help me get to a better version of myself. I have been telling her about this experience for a while, but a few appointments ago we got to an amazing level of memory with this event. I realized how mad I was that the doctor was already in the room when I got back from the xray. I realized how I felt crowded out and there wasn't space for me, even though it was MY appointment. I don't know if I had the level of trust with my mom at that point in my life that I would have told if the room had been empty of the doctor's presence, but maybe I would have. 

What I do know is that thanks to that appointment, I have now dislodged the block in my energy that this event caused, but like a boulder that crumbles and allows long held back waters to flow. The energy that was held in my body, the frozenness that I felt after the assault (I couldn't have called it that then, but I will now) was released.

Bodies have memories stored in them. I've known that a long time. But now I've processed that memory and the energy is clearing through.

Trauma can be healed. For me, I've realized that I can say I am healed/healing when I can put a beginning, middle, and end to the story. I didn't know that 3 weeks ago. But I do now. Another "me too" event has also been given a beginning, middle, and end as well. It is a relief.

My thoughts right now are saying many things to me, mostly - you shouldn't put this here. No one needs to read this, keep it to yourself. It's not "that bad" what happened to you, after all person A had X happen to her. It happened so long ago, it doesn't matter. Don't be dramatic.

But those are the things that kept me from telling.

Fuck that (sorry, that's two posts in a row using the F word.)

Tell your story. Tell your husband or wife or therapist or your sister or your mom or all of the above. If you want to, put your story on your blog or write it in a 100 long tweet thread, or buy a journal and write it all out.

Don't make excuses that your story doesn't matter.

Find some way to put a beginning, a middle, and an end to it.

If you can't, that's ok.

Just do your work. DO YOUR WORK. When the time is right. Be brave and take the step. The money won't matter. It will take time. But your fucking life matters and you deserve to own your stories.

I am so grateful to be right here. I have an endgame for therapy and I know what I want that Becky to look like. But I like the person that Becky is right now, too. She is all I have, and I'll stay with her.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Corona Virus Lists: A Post for the Ages - March - May 2020

Things we ate that I cooked:

  1. Breakfast for dinner
  2. Pork fajitas (cookie sheet baked)
  3. Hamburgers
  4. Hawaiian chicken
  5. Chorizo burritos (with ground beef)
  6. Chicken with little potatoes
  7. BBQ chicken with fried rice
  8. Hershey's chocolate chip cookies
  9. Banana bread
  10. Brownies

Frequent Takout items
  1. Costa Vida (was sad when the chili verde went away - I want my chili verde nachos back)
  2. Buffalo Wild Wings (Doordash)
  3. Zao 
  4. Village Baker
  5. Zupas
  6. Apollo Burger
  7. Papa Murphy's
  8. Chick-Fil-A

Books I read
  1. Untamed
  2. Welcoming the Unwelcome
  3. Where the Crawdad's Sing
  4. Circe
  5. Spinning Silver
  6. Getting Past your Past
  7. The Path of Liberation (on going)

Zoom Meeting sources
  1. Book club meeting with some of my dearest friends
  2. Team meetings
  3. Buddhist Meditation group meetings
  4. Visit with a sister and a few nieces

What we watched
  1. Finished Lost for 3rd time (2nd with Ben)
  2. Bear Grylls 
  3. Shark Tank 
  4. Last Dance documentary
  5. SGN with Jon Krasinksky
  6. CNN/Morning Andrew Cuomo press conferences
  7. 50 First Dates
  8. Modern Family finale
  9. Finished This is Us
  10. Some Kind of Wonderful
  11. When Harry Met Sally
  12. Tiger King (only 1 episode)

Beverages we enjoyed
  1. So. Much. Coffee
  2. Hot and then iced vanilla latte with amaretto from High Point Coffee (on my way to the fabric store!)
  3. Mike's Margaritas
  4. Lime Pilsner
  5. Birthday Suit 
  6. Rogue - Just a Pinch

Types of masks I made
  1. 1/2 inch elastic cut down to 1/4 with disastrous results with 3 pleats (geisha cat, Annie Oakley, mom's stash)
  2. Hair band (disastrous) 3 pleats
  3. Cut open thick-hair hair ties (3 pleats, soccer balls and field fabric, Jeep fabric, Dodge fabric, plain for 1 missionary)
  4. Curvy no pleat with regular hair ties (more Jeep, more Dodge, soccer balls)
  5. Double folds fabric ties yellow N95 covering for Suzette

Other stuff I sewed - mostly still unfinished
  1. 60 Degree diamond top (currently still being quilted)
  2. finished UFOs from 3 years ago (put log cabin borders have, need to border, bind, and quilt)
  3. triangle hexies
  4. fairy star - need to quilt and bind

Stuff I like to wear
  1. Callia blue tights
  2. 2 Callia sport bras
  3. Lagoon print LBS
  4. Title Nine tanks
  5. Kuhl shorts
  6. Various skirt sports skirts - almost every day, different skirt. 
  7. Vacay Jaguar
  8. Tree of Life tee
  9. Blue Title Nine hoodie
  10. running shoes for walking Willow
  11. My moon phases Alex and Ani bracelet every day

Places I went every week at some point
  1. Harmons
  2. Sam's
  3. Pine Needles fabric store
  4. District for takeout
  5. Lowes
  6. Jordan Landing for Takeout
  7. High Point Coffee
  8. Costco several times
  9. Rarely Walmart
  10. Therapy/EMDR (online)

Places I ran
  1. Trail
  2. Around sunken park
  3. Daybreak Lake
  4. to Discount Tire

Types of workouts
  1. Peloton Yoga
  2. Peloton Outdoor runs
  3. Walk Willow
  4. Run with Audio
  5. Sunday Hills walks

What I want to remember
  1. Working at the kitchen table
  2. Looking so forward every night to dinner that we made a calendar of dinners for 2 week periods, including takeout
  3. So much cooking and actually enjoying it
  4. Everyone being home all the time.
  5. Forgetting a mask and covering my face with a hoodie or my arm
  6. Zoom meetings in my front room and at the desk downstairs
  7. Yoga in the front room
  8. The earthquake/aftershocks
  9. Getting toilet paper from an acquaintance who worked at Costco and feeling grateful
  10. Getting excited over finding my favorite butter, any flour, and frozen avocado
  11. Mid morning getting "ready" for the day - running skirt, tank top, hoodie, sports bra - and wavy hair from braid/humidity
  12. Mid morning walks with Shane and Willow
  13. Evening trips to park to let Willow chase the frisbee
  14. The hawks (or are they falcons?) courting at the park
  15. Ben working out at park
  16. Thomas doing online school - finishing his second semester at SLCC
  17. Thomas's friends coming home and a few going back out to stateside missions
  18. Thomas doing maintenance at his work, then missing a month, then going back a few days before they opened again
  19. Ben doing online school from his bed in the late morning, coming down to scan a math page, then eating waffles
  20. Dog self wash 
  21. late bedtimes
  22. Marco polos with Camie
  23. Marco polos with Rebecca, Cindy, Janna
  24. Sewing in the evenings, making masks and finishing projects before Ben went downstairs
  25. New birth control
  26. Missing the library
  27. Getting our side fence
  28. rebuilding the back deck, lots of solar lights
  29. watching all the neighborhood trees every day go from bare branches to flowers and leaves
  30. Finding a random allium in my bleeding heart
  31. Blueberry yogurt with blueberries and granola
  32. Facetime with the Bells a few Saturday evenings
  33. A lot of online shopping

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Introducing Spring, DBD, Holly, and the rest of the characters in my head

One of my favorite podcasts is 10% Happier with Dan Harris. I've listened to most of the podcasts; ok, maybe lately I've been behind because I can't stop listening to political podcasts (I'm looking at you, Rachel Maddow.)

The podcast today had Dan talking about an idea that I've liked for a while but not spent much time doing or paying attention to. When Dan gets distracted while meditating, he sometimes slips into common personality aspects that he's given real-life names to. The idea is that when we realize our brain is thinking the thoughts common to that character, we catch ourselves and come back to the present by naming them.

Anyway, based on Dan's advice, I'm going to devote this blog post to the different characters who often spend time in my mental ramblings. I'm going to attempt to name them, but I won't promise the names will stick. Maybe just identifying them will help me in some way to get myself out of the stories I often cast myself in.

Disclaimer 1: I promise, these are not evidence of any multiple personality disorder.
Disclaimer 2: These personalities might show a bit of my vulnerabilities, gulp.


  • Spring. Spring comes around when I'm feeling particularly mother-earth-goddess-yoga-slash-meditation-instructor-y. She wants to be one with the earth and think that she can rise above all the problems if she just remembers that All! Things! Are! Impermanent! She narrates when I'm very, very content, or trying to Just Be With The Universe. Sometimes she's natural, sometimes she's forced. She's not a super common visitor, but she's always wanting to get her .02 cents in. Or just her sunshiny outlook, because Money Doesn't Matter to Spring so she doesn't have .02 cents.
  • DBD. DBD is when I'm working something out with certain family members in my head. She is always undefended from other people's points, and she never wins. She pleads her case, citing examples of what she's done since birth that makes her not guilty of being a terrible person. DBD used to be really loud, and she would very often show up while driving. I can spend a lot of time lost in DBD's thoughts. I've made a lot effort to tell her to shut the efff up. But she's always there, waiting. DBD knows she is guilty of Everything.
  • Writer McWriterson. This is the person who shows up mostly when I'm working something out in my life or mind, who thinks Everything She Has to Say is going to be important to society. She comes out most of the time when I'm walking in the tunnel beneath State Street on my way back from McDonalds. She can ALWAYS come up with the most profound blog posts, and they are really well written and flow and make the exact point that is important in my head. 
  • Writer's Cousin, Photo McPhotoson, who takes the perfect photo. 
  • Sister K. She is the Becky that both loves and resents religion. She's around a lot lately.
  • Holly Hobby Lobby. She's the one who buys 2 or 3 extra fat quarters at the fabric store, and then also gets 3 more books that weren't on hold at the library 20 minutes later. She gives me grand visions of finishing my housework so I can sew followed by reading followed by deadheading the lilies outside followed by a nice walk or run followed by 20 minutes of meditation on the porch in the sun followed by making banana bread for the neighbor followed by listening to that awesome podcast while also singing loudly to all of the songs from my favorite bands followed by re-reading the Harry Potter series. And then, vacuuming takes forever because I keep taking breaks to look at my phone and I need another coffee before I sit down to sew, so....I never get my sewing machine out. and the rest of it was never happening to begin with.
I'm thinking six people to identify at first shot is pretty good. I'll try to notice when they stop by. Hopefully I can say hello, give them a lemon drop, and send them on their way.

Who is taking up space in your head?

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

41, A year in review, of sorts


Subtitle and spoiler alert: there is nothing to figure out.

A year ago *today!*, I decided I’d had enough of living how I’d lived for the past year and I determined that I would Turn Over A New Leaf. I’d Power Through Anxiety. I would Stop Living In Fear. I had Figured It Out.

As if one can just decide that. (Well, they can.) As a high-achieving sort of person, I could will myself through any struggle. Push through, determination, rah rah rah!, and all of that. It was cute, and a good goal. It was me, setting out to run a figurative marathon that I was not trained for, at a full sprint, wearing spikey shoes and cotton clothes and needing to go to the bathroom.

Cute, as I said.

So the thing with life and milestones and stuff that we want/need to overcome is that we think we can do this. Our sheer willpower will help power us through the things we don’t like, the ways that we suffer. But, a year ago, I still had so many things going against me. Resistance to reality being one of them, thus the cotton clothes I was wearing. I thought that just by not wanting something to be the way it was, it could somehow be magically better. My spikey shoes were my constant self-battering, my internal dialogue of criticism and negative though patterns and feeling unsafe with myself, because, well, I was unsafe with myself. I set out in spikey shoes because were a symbol source of pride and of immense pain. There was no safety or compassion or understanding or forgiveness for that person. She evoked my ire simply by failing to drive to work one day. And I was going to fix it all as soon as possible, so I set out in a sprint, because I had to Win. Needing to go to the bathroom symbolizes just how unprepared I was to go, carrying uncomfortable truths with me that I couldn’t let go even though they begged to be released from me.

“But Becky, here you are again, saying you know so much more than before, and NOW you’re going to be so much better?!” I hear you, dear reader, and see the irony.

But the thing is, there isn’t a race or anything to figure out. That’s the huge irony and wonderfulness of it all. It’s just my life. It’s changed and I often hate the changes that have happened more than anything, but I also love them too. “Who knows, what is good and what is bad?” It’s all bad and good. It brings us to our now, and whatever the reality of that now is.

I’d like to acknowledge some of the things/people/books/whatever that has brought me to my current now.

Shane, who read a marriage book with me and then went on to find a source of peace for us that is as surprising as it is effective. He found us a common language, a gift that can never stop blessing us. Who has been patient with me even when I’m kinda crazy in an effort to make all of this work. I told him things this year that I’ve never told anyone.

Podcasts (and the personalities in the podcasts) 
  •  Secular Buddhism
  • 10% Happier
  •  Happier with Gretchen Rubin
  • Waking Up with Sam Harris


Books
  • The Places that Scare You – Pema Chodron
  • 10% Happier – Dan Harris
  • When Things Fall Apart – Pema Chodron
  • Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) handbook/guide – Jon Kabat-Zinn
  • Wild – Cheryl Strayed

Playing the piano, which is finally something I can say that I do. I love it dearly. I love when my left wrist aches from playing chords. I love when I can learn a single song in a night. I love that I can’t think when I play the piano and so it is a source of pure delight and enjoyment.

Meditation: podcasts, learning about emotions, learning how to meditate from Pema Chrodron’s audiobook How to Meditate and finding out what meditation can and cannot do for a person. Knowing that it won’t solve all of my problems and not asking it to. Knowing that it gives me space to react. Feeling it bleed into parts of my life that need calm. Feeling so damn grateful for this bit of craziness. When I compare the feeling in my body and soul today to where it was 2 years ago today – I don’t know how that person made it through a day, she was so wound up and hard on herself.

My time spent in Young Women, and now being released. It’s strange, but since I’ve been released I have a sense that things are easier, that a force that has been unrelentingly pushing against me has left. It’s surprising and I don’t really know what it means, but that’s ok. I loved the girls and women I served with.

Friends and family: watching my kids get older and wiser, texting and hiking and running and everything with Amy, seeing and texting and playing the piano and all the things I do with Melanie, my piano teacher Nicole, my high school friends and our long-running group text, God for letting me tell Him I was angry and for helping me find answers in places that are strange but are a blessing, for letting me see the path ahead sometimes.

And now I get to be 42. But I’ll admit, 41 wasn’t too bad.


Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Tools in my backpack



Remember in January when I wrote that I never wanted to write about anxiety on my blog again? I still hold to that, in that I don’t want to have post after post chronicling my day to day successes and missteps with anxiety. But in a different way, I want to still write about it if only to help me remember when times get tough again, and to maybe somewhere, somehow help someone else.

Last Friday, I spent all morning trying to write a post about podcasts. But all of the words that I had were about anxiety, not podcasts. After multiple attempts at writing, I thought I figured out what was missing. For months, I’ve been thinking about drawing a…map of sorts about my anxiety, but I couldn’t think of a way that it would work. I decided that I needed my map for the podcast post, and so I dove in to making the map. And then I had a super exciting creative breakthrough. My quandary was still how to illustrate the nuclear bomb that was my meltdown with what lead up to it and what came out of it. All the vaporous clouds and squiggly lines that were in my head didn’t make a very interesting or satisfying depiction of what I wanted to put on paper.

And then came my breakthrough. A comic strip!  I loved the idea of a comic strip because I could use all the pictures and words that I wanted. It didn’t have to be one concise depiction. It allowed me to tell the story that I wanted to tell using bits of words and, mostly importantly, memories of moments that are already like a comic strip in my head. And while I’m a stick-figure person with no natural art talent, I could still get across exactly what I wanted to. I mean, it’s not as if I will ever share it with the wide world. I just needed it for me. I eagerly grabbed my markers and sketchbook and dove in.

The journey I’ve been on in the past year has been interesting. I got a lot of answers at the end of 2016, but the answers weren’t enough. I had made resolutions, such as:

·         Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable
·         Dropping the story line that constantly ran through my head
·         Not looking for the magic solution to my emotional states

Which are all great things to realize and want for oneself. However, I kept realizing in January and February that I had what equated to backpack (I’m going with backpack instead of purse, because, well, if you know me in real life, you know that purses aren’t my thing. But I’m currently carrying a backpack around, so it works!) with nothing in it that mattered. No wallet or keys or gum or hand lotion or chapstick or notebook or pen or half-read novel, all the things that make a backpack a helpful item.

One of the most important pictures in my comic strip is of my empty backpack. After the initial creative rush that I had on Friday morning (which was essentially an hour and a half of filling up 3 pages of my sketchbook with little boxes of words and stick pictures and one airplane that looked more like a UFO) I spent time on Saturday coloring in some of the pictures and finally working on the items I’ve discovered help me that go in my backpack. Because I can say finally, that I can spend whole days now in which I’m not terrified of remote but terrible things happening to me. I don’t have the electricity flashes that used travel through my body on a regular basis, resulting in my heart beating extra fast and my breath being hard to find. The vague underlying fear that I couldn’t put a finger on but made me withdrawn and stuck in my head and unhappy to the worst degree.

I will say it did not happen overnight. And just like a hammer can’t stand in for all of the other tools in a tool bag, there hasn’t been one figurative tool that could have gotten me here by itself (not for lack of trying - I looked high and low for that one magical tool for almost two years!) But I finally have multiple tools that can all work together to make it so that I can now get on the freeway without fear. And on the days that I do have fear, I can handle that fear. I didn’t think that would ever be possible.

I want to do a series of posts on my tools. Now that I’ve explained where they come from, I won’t feel like I have to go back to the beginning each time. I can now finish the podcasts post, write a post about playing the piano, and another about a book my husband and I read together, because I don’t have to start with anxiety. Which means that maybe it will stop being a major theme in my life.

I’m looking forward to those posts. Mostly because of the pleasure and healing that those things have brought to me. I couldn’t have gotten to them earlier – I had go through the hell of 2015 and 2016 to have them be so meaningful.


If you have tools that have built up your backpack, I’d love for you to share. I don’t think a person can have too many tools. And if you are searching for tools, come back and maybe some of mine can help you.

Friday, December 2, 2016

Thoughts about thoughts



A very clear memory from my childhood is of doing the dishes. Once my oldest sister got married, I was assigned to a night of dishes, just like my other sisters. I can remember being bewildered at first, and it didn’t really improve from there. 

My mom didn’t skimp when it came to meal time. She used as many pots and pans as needed to create a main dish, one or more side dishes, and a vegetable. We all sat at the table together, which had been set with plates and silverware in their proper placement, a butter dish, filled glasses, and salt and pepper. We served our meal from the table as well, which meant serving dishes and hot pads and anything else that was necessary.

After a meal like this, doing the dishes meant doing everything – clearing the table, rinsing the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, putting away the leftovers, washing the pans, cleaning counters, and sweeping the floor. And most of the time, it was really just up to whomever was doing the dishes to get it clean. My parents or sisters (or me, when it wasn’t my turn!) didn’t take pity on you and pitch in. It was just you and a very dirty kitchen for the next 45 minutes to an hour.

What I remember from this chore isn’t really the amount of work involved, even though it was a lot. What I remember is standing at the kitchen sink, angrily washing pan after pan, and ruminating on how unfair it was that I was left to do them. I thought about what jerks everyone was for not helping me, I railed against my mom for how many pans she used, I would internally complain at the latest way one sister or another had been mean to me, or I would think about how I was the best dishes-doer in the family and that no one appreciated it.

I’m sure that all kids have these exact thoughts when doing a chore (in fact, Ben said just as much to me this morning when I asked him to clean out the dishwasher!), so I realize I’m not really unique in this. The important thing about this memory is remembering how loud my thoughts felt, and how those thoughts made me feel such anger towards my family, and yet: I never spoke those words to anyone. Oh, I might complain here or there, but I had real, honestly painful feelings or thoughts that I would ruminate over but never felt safe saying them.

Which is really

I didn’t feel safe telling my mom my feelings. I couldn’t tell my sister I was angry with her. I didn’t have words to express any negative emotion. I didn’t have confidence that it would matter to them or that it would get solved. I taught myself to think about my feelings instead of feeling them. I taught myself to bottle up my words, which caused resentments to build that could have otherwise been worked out without much trouble.

Rumination became my way to “solve” my problems. Ironically, tasks that occupied my hands like dishes or cleaning freed my mind to wander in all the places that it wanted to. A slight from a friend was irresistible thinking fodder; all of the words wanted to use to defend myself could be thought over and perfected; their words could be imagined, although often, ironically making the point that really showed me how it was my fault, just so I could justify myself again. I would replay situations over and over, wishing for a different outcome, playing all the roles of myself, the other, and the morality judge (an internal moderator who was never on my side because they could always point right at the element of guilt that I was really at fault.) It was automatic and I never made any attempt to corral it or think it irrational, untrue, or undeserved.

This approach to life would have been great if I could have locked myself in a cabin where I never interacted with another human being. This inability to let someone know that they had hurt me was later extended to friends and boyfriends and coworkers and pretty much anyone with whom I eventually had conflict. And I never saw any reason to change it.

It served another purpose to work out my anxieties. I say “work out,” which is completely inaccurate. If I couldn’t find something that I had done wrong, I would find loved ones to worry over, replaying their situations and thinking up better solutions that would make them happier or safer or whatever-er. Often these worries came with an extra dose of internal guilt at my own feeling of failure in not being a better (insert relationship here) to this person, because obviously, I could save them, but was too selfish and caught up in my own life to do so. (I told you a few paragraphs ago – it’s messed up.)

It was the perfect forum where everyone was fair game, and no one, including myself, got off too easily. 

Enter midlife crisis. Enter an internal dialogue that already turns to over-examining each detail of painful events and thoughts. Enter panicked event that eroded my faith in my physical well-being and ability to be safe in both my thoughts and my body.

It was bound to turn on me eventually.

To be continued. And sorry for the swears.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Weakest link


Last week, I discovered 2 new-to-me podcasts. One was Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History, where he takes an event that happened in the past and goes over it with a new angle, and Happier with Gretchen Rubin, where she talks about, amazingly enough, things you can do to be happier.

I’m happy to say that both podcasts have been very enjoyable and instrumental in me being happier, and in my seeing things from my own past with new eyes.

One of Malcolm Gladwell podcasts talked about soccer versus basketball, and how soccer can be viewed as a sport that the team is only as strong as its weakest player, whereas basketball is a strongest link sport that relies on the best player for its success. Gladwell applied this principle to large donations given to small universities versus giant wealthy universities (your Stanfords and Harvards) to see which would make the largest impact on both the university and the country as a whole. It was fascinating. It got me to think of my current life and the things I’m struggling with – mostly anxiety – in a light of the weakest link.

In August, I started food journaling. I know – it’s super, super sexy to journal all the food I eat! But late in the summer, I looked back and realized that I’d felt mostly shitty in the morning for months and months. It wasn’t anything that was easy to identify or point to as particularly upsetting, but most of the feelings that I tended to blame on anxiety – i.e., bad drives to work, dizzy feelings, a sense of unease, lack of emotional reserves – happened when I failed to eat early enough and/or drank caffeine on an empty stomach. Then, in August when my favorite oatmeal flavor was mysteriously and permanently gone from the shelves and I tried to eat something different for breakfast on the days I went to work, I had some really bad mornings. As I was blaming anything that felt strange on anxiety, I tried to pin two events that happened at work on it as well, but I wasn’t successful. Anxiety just wasn’t the culprit, although it didn’t hesitate in roaring into the limelight during both. So I decided to write down everything I ate, being totally honest and not worrying about the calories or judging my food choices to see if there was a link.

Eureka!

After about a week, I changed two habits – one, my years-old habit of waiting to eat breakfast until after I got to work to eating before work, and two, bringing snacks to work to have between meals. Now, it doesn’t seem like this would be a life-changing event, but it kind of was. Eating before driving to work kept me calmer in the moments that I’ve trained myself to feel anxiety on the road. Having snacks in the mid-morning and in the afternoon allowed me to eat lunch later and not be a raving b**** the moment I walked in the door after work. I even changed another habit of drinking hot chocolate first thing on an empty stomach to eating something small first – an egg or a string cheese or going whole-hog and eating all my breakfast and then topping it off with hot chocolate. Again, such a small change, but I found it made things better.

Eating (and blood sugar) is my weak link. I’m following Gladwell’s example and looking back to see patterns. I realized that so often, the times I get completely overwhelmed or freak out at my kids or husband or get angry for no reason or get emotional at a family function, I’ve usually waited too long to eat. It sounds so dumb. But if you know me or have been around me much in the past 5 or so years, you probably know what I’m talking about. I can have all the best intentions to keep my emotions under control, I can exercise to keep my stress level good, I can speak my feelings instead of thinking about them or pushing them away, I can meditate until my eyes change color – but it all, and I mean ALL, goes out the window when my blood sugar dips. I get hangry. Weak link gets me every time.

Anyone who might be reading this: I cannot tell you how much this helps. In the past year, when I’ve felt betrayed by my body at every turn, when I’ve felt my anxiety get every bit of limelight, when I’ve tried to find out why, why, why do I feel like an alien in my body – to have something that is easy to control that helps me manage is nothing short of amazing.

I know that it doesn’t solve everything. Just today while driving on the freeway where there was a ton of traffic and construction, I got anxious and had to pull off on an exit. But I dealt with it. I talked myself down and got my breathing under control and drove in a circle to get back on the freeway I’d just exited and finished my drive to work. I was kind to myself and wrote myself a note when I got to work and decided that it wasn’t a big deal and that I didn’t need to make any more of it than it was. All of the positive habits I’ve built up over the past year – remembering to breathe, being kinder to myself, taking a break if I need it, and then getting back on that horse – worked, because my weakest link wasn’t a factor. I doubt things would have gone as well if I’d been hungry. I'm so grateful and excited that I've figured this out.


Weakest links. They are important. Do you know what yours is? Do you have one? Tell me if you think this could be a good discovery for you, too.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Hallelujah - I'm 41!

I'm 41. Good riddance to 40.

The past year - gah, I've been a mess. I may still be, but just being past the year in which I was 40 is a giant relief. 

In the late evening last night, I went to the library. After an enjoyable 20 minutes of texting with Amy in library-desperation of finding a book, I walked out into a beautiful sunset. I sat on a bench and took a picture and I realized: it's over. I don't have to be 40 anymore. The sky and the birds and the trees and the twilight all over made me so happy and relieved. 

There haven't been many moments of sheer joy. There have been way too many filled with other emotions (that just writing about feels me with dread.) I know that an age really doesn't matter, but the 365 days that began on July 4, 2015 were all tied in to the idea of turning 40 and feeling betrayed by my body and my mind and everything about myself that I thought I knew. 

I went to bed feeling happy. I woke up feeling happy. My birthday has been really great and it all seems so simple and unexpected. I wish I could have felt on my 40th birthday what I feel today. But I was a different person then and I guess I needed to go through this past year to know what it can be like.

At 41 -

I'm more willing be authentic.

I'm more willing to say my feelings.

I'm able to understand my feelings.

I'm able to control my reactions. Maybe not perfectly every time, but I'm much less reactionary.

I'm less willing to believe everything I think.

I'm trying hard not to spend so much time in my head.

I realize that not making a choice is making a choice, so I'd rather just decide and move on.

I'm trying to not worry about what others think.

I've been thinking about the Harry Potter quote from Deathly Hallows, when Harry is asks Dumbledore "Is this real, or is it just happening in my head?" And how Dumbledore says, "Well of course it's happening in your head, but that doesn't make it any less real." (I'm paraphrasing!) It's sort of been playing out daily for me in two ways: real things seem less so, and my thoughts seem immeasurably real and giant (and, honestly: frightening!) But I'm ready to believe more in the things I can taste and see and smell and feel and that are real and stop living in the imagined future and reimagined past.

41. I'm only 1 day into it, but I'm so happy it's here.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Review: Bikram Yoga Express Class.

I've been inconsistent with yoga this year. During the fall, I was able to attend more than one class a month, and I was starting to feel the benefits. So far in 2015, I've only been to a few classes. But, as they say, it is what it is.

The Bikram studio that I frequent started offering an express class - a 60 minute class instead of the traditional 90 minutes. I love to practice Bikram, but there are challenges. Eating has been a hard thing to figure out for me - I like to give myself 3 or so hours after a meal before I practice, and that is hard to do for a non-morning person. My time is limited (whose isn't?) so a typical  class can feel like a strain on my day. And, I tend to feel sleepy and a bit spacey after class. I'm not sure if it is the heat or the time of day that I take class (either morning or late afternoon) that causes this.These aren't things that keep me from practicing, just items that I have to manage on the days I practice.

I went to my first class last week, and it helped me with a lot of these issues. The mid-day class gave me enough time to have my morning with my kids and then do errands or chores once they were off to school. I could breakfast like normal and still had time to digest. Plus, I still have a bit of time after class if I need to finish up any projects or tasks.

During the class, I had a lot of trouble keeping my mind in the room. I had overheard two of the instructors talking about teaching an express class and how to best manage the time. I ingested too much of what the one instructor said about how they organize their classes. I wish I hadn't. It kept me from experiencing and trusting my instructor. I wanted to think I knew what was coming next (hello, control issues!), and so when I had to repeat certain poses that I had anticipated being singular, I felt mental anguish, especially the ones that I don't enjoy! I wished so much that I could quiet my brain and simply experience the great class my instructor was giving me. She is an instructor I know and enjoy, and I didn't like feeling distracted by my expectations.

I also learned about trust. My overly-anxious mind kept me watching the clock, wondering how we would finish on time. Part of it was curiosity, but most of it is related to my tendency to second guess others. This is an issue that bleeds into a lot of areas in my life. I want to get better at letting things happen, trusting others expertise, and quieting my anxieties.

We have been learning about mindfulness (which is really just an easier-to-swallow word for meditation) at work. It has has extended my knowledge and understanding of meditation and the effect that our thoughts and feelings about stress have on our lives. This class and my mindset was a good example for me of my bad habits. I'm trying to break the cycle of anxiety caused from anticipation and overthinking. My old habits keep me from being in the moment and more fully experiencing what I am doing.

The class itself was a whirlwind. Here are some thoughts:

  •  I loved moving through the poses quickly. I didn't have time to dread either what I was doing, or what was coming next. 
  • When it came time for Camel, I found it less difficult emotionally. We did two sets, and I did both with a sense of surprise that they came so fast, and that they were so much easier than normal. I almost didn't hate the pose. Almost!
  • I liked that my feet didn't ache as much as they do in a 90 minute class. I get so distracted by them.
  • I tried to be thoughtful in the poses that were singular. I know a few of my bad habits now, thanks to receiving corrections for things I do wrong in the back strengthening poses. I put extra effort into them, which helped me feel that I got just as much back from doing them once as I would have doing them twice.
  • I left feeling every bit as challenged as I usually do, and just a bit less spent, which was very helpful to the rest of my day. I wasn't tired or groggy like I usually am, which my family appreciated.

I am sold on the express class. It is something I plan on incorporating into my weekly workout regimen. Also, the more I experience at Bikram West Jordan, the more I enjoy and appreciate the studio. Everyone is welcome and valued.  I hope that this class is successful and stays around permanently.