Overdue

I've been holding on to this library book way past its due date, intending to track down the quote I wanted to remember – and now I finally found it.

Going into your fear is like going through a fog. The key is whether you're regarding what you experience as simply something real or instead as monumental entrapment, imprisonment. If you panic further, you breed cowardice. If you don't descend into cowardice, then you just have an experience of fear. You can break through without being a coward at that point. ... If you are able to join fear and uncertainty with genuine confidence, then you will come through to the other side.

He really nails it here, for me: "If you don't descend into cowardice, then you just have an experience of fear." The problem isn't that I feel afraid sometimes, it's more than when I do, I tend to think of it as monumental, important, life-defining. For some reason I've learned to make it into much more than it is, which is just an experience of fear. End of story.

At least, that's how I'm trying to remember to look at it. It does seem much more manageable when I can remember to do that.

Yoga was great, of course. My friends were sweet – the one who met me there, and the one who teaches the class. I'd never been to her class before and it was quite different from others I've done. It felt really energizing to do something new, in a new setting, with new people. Afterward we sat in the steam room for awhile, and then in the whirlpool, and I met a new woman who seems like she could become a friend. I felt so good on the way home I started imagining myself going to a class every day. There's really no reason I couldn't!

One thing at a time, however. Right now I'm totally focused on passing my statistics class. I'm so focused on it that I can't even remember if I talked about this already; it seems like it's all I think about or do all day long, and all night as well – all I see when I close my eyes is more numbers and formulas, and when I wake up I have the feeling I've been dreaming about them the whole time I was asleep. I'm not certain I'm going to be able to finish by the end of May and still get 100% on my two remaining exams, so I may end up settling for a passing grade after all – which is all that's required, though I really want to do better than that.

It's been interesting to see how this compromise is affecting me. Making a decision about grad school and diving in the way I did this winter is something I've never really done before, at least not with anything this big. Normally I like to plan everything out waaaay far out in advance so I have plenty of time to get things done absolutely perfectly, without having to rush or sacrifice the quality of my work. It's one of the things that drove me crazy about my last job – it seemed like there was never time to do anything very well, and I was the only person who even cared.

Anyway. My intention here was to stretch myself out of my comfort zone and try doing things differently, and I knew it would be uncomfortable, and it has been, but it's also kind of cool to see what I'm capable of. Maybe I am blasting through this class in less than the ideal amount of time, but the whole point of it is to satisfy a prerequisite to the MSW program, not to memorize, recite and interpret the entire textbook by heart.

I still don't like doing just an adequate job of something when I know I could make it perfect, but in this case I'm going to let it be OK.

Other news. Hmm. The hospice work is starting to happen. I visited my first patient a couple of weeks ago but they passed away a couple of days after our visit so I didn't get a chance to do much. I have a new assignment starting next week and in the meantime attended an in-service training on grief vs. depression that I thought was pretty interesting.

A little closer to home, Mr. A's mother is starting to fade pretty fast as well. We spent a couple of hours there yesterday and the situation is not good, but she's on service with hospice now so I'm hoping that will be some comfort to her. I need to spend some time writing about this whole thing offline; it's been pretty intense for me in several different ways.

This decision to not write about Mr. A's family issues makes me think of that situation that happened with me and my group of friends about a year and a half ago, in which my trying to process my own experience of it in this blog contributed to the person in question deciding that they couldn't talk to me anymore. I've wondered if I might have made a mistake there ... and while I'm still sad about the loss of that friendship, I don't feel like I did anything wrong. So what's different here? I guess the first thing is that the first situation had to do with a serious breach of trust that affected me personally and profoundly, and in this situation, while it's definitely affecting me, I don't feel like I've been wronged in any way. I guess that's it. It's a very sad situation that I'm a witness to, and there isn't a lot I can do to make it better, though I am (we are) doing what we can.

Actually, I'm not sure I'm being totally honest here. I could have chosen to write about that other situation offline too – why didn't I? Partly it was because I know that only a handful of people read this blog (seriously, I get the stats!), and all of them either already knew all about what had happened, or don't know me personally at all. So I didn't feel like I was revealing anything sensitive. Looking back on it though I think I was also trying to regain a little bit of my own power in the situation, by talking about it because I wanted to talk about it, even though I knew the other person didn't want me to. Was I passive-aggressively trying to hurt him?

I sat here for several minutes trying to answer that question and I keep coming back to "no." I knew he would probably hate it that I wrote anything at all, but that isn't the reason I did it. Still, if I had it to do over again I think I would have taken that one offline too. It wasn't malicious or extreme but it wasn't really very sensitive or kind, either. Or necessary.

Yeah, the therapy function of this blog is becoming pretty evident again of late.

In any case – getting back to the matters at hand – I'm getting some practice here in what it's like to be with someone who is actively dying, and it's making me very grateful for everything I've learned (and continue to learn) about staying calm, staying present, and accepting life as it comes without judgment or drama.

One other thing I don't think I've mentioned is that my parents have gone on a mission for their church. They left last week and will be gone six months. I'm proud of them and excited that they get to have this experience. I'm also feeling lonely for them, knowing they're even farther away now than they usually are. My mom emailed me that on their first day there they found several other couples and friends they've known for years and decades. That seems to be a pretty common experience in Mormonism (maybe other organizations too) – arriving in a place you've never seen before and being instantly assimilated into a deeply connected community life. There's a lot I don't miss about being part of the Mormon church but that one aspect just makes me want to weep from the loss of it. I've lived here 15 years and still don't feel as connected here as my parents do after just one day in their new town.

Something to strive for.

A soundtrack for winter

Apropos of nothing but my need for constant reminders, I give to you: the new wallpaper on my phone.

I discovered this band recently and have been keeping this song on repeat as I move about my days. Really loving the way it's coloring my life as the fall moves into winter. Click here to download the file.

Not too much happening on the job front. Nothing at all happening, in fact. I'm OK with it at the moment; this time of year is so slow and quiet and inward-turning for me – despite the holiday rush – that I'm mostly just grateful to have the time, for a change, to experience the shifting seasons out in the weather and under the sky, rather than from inside a building. It's been beautiful.

Seems like every day there's something I want to write about, and then suddenly the day is over and I haven't written anything. That's probably OK too.

So, what have I been doing? Reconnecting with a few old friends and a couple of new ones, too. Getting ready for Christmas. Dealing with some financial matters that I've been meaning to organize for a very long time. Taking lots of dog walks. Roasting lots of chickens, and making lots of soup. Over the weekend I went to a great daylong program at Spirit Rock, on the topic of neuroplasticity and the brain, and how meditation practice and consciously choosing to focus on positive experiences can help the brain heal from neurological and psychological trauma, including post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries like strokes. They also spent a lot of time talking about anxiety and teaching specific practices to help protect the brain from the damage (yes, actual measurable damage) that can occur when brain tissues are exposed to prolonged stress of any kind.

One simple practice that I especially love is to make a point, six or more times a day, to focus on a pleasant experience for at least 30 seconds. It could be anything – I think of the smell when I peel one of my beloved Satsuma tangerines, or the way it feels to snuggle up with Tater in the morning. Or the way his adorable legs move when we're out walking, and his ears are bouncing up and down, and he turns around to look at me and smile. The point is that "neurons that fire together, wire together" so the more you run your brain in the pathways of positive experience, the more connected those pathways become, so that the brain actually grows increasingly capable of experiencing feelings of happiness, contentment and well-being. And they're not just making it all up – as a neurologist and a neuropsychologist, they know their stuff. They've also written a book, which I've ordered from the library and am excited about reading.

Another sort of interesting thing that happened recently is that I ran across a folder containing printouts of all the email I wrote to a nice variety of friends and family over a period of about 11 months in 1996-7, when I was in the process of getting out of my marriage. Reading through it all (it's a fairly tall stack) was a bittersweet experience. There were so many things I'd forgotten about, especially having to do with my job (which was far from secure that year) and the clarity I felt that it was going to be really difficult to make a good living here with the skills and experience I had at the time. I've sort of been soldiering on ever since, teaching myself to do lots of different things to stay afloat but never feeling quite secure enough to make a real investment in the kind of training I would need to actually thrive.

It still scares me to think of what I'm going to need to do to change direction at this point. First of all, I don't really know what I need to do. So I need to get clear on that. And whatever it is, it's going to take some money to get there. More than anything else it terrifies me to think of going into debt, even for something as important as a degree or certification that could help me get a truly decent job for the first time in ... well, awhile. Possibly there are grants and other ways to fund my next steps, or maybe I'll have to find another job first and then work and go to school at the same time. Yet another thing to figure out.

Somehow I feel like I've said all this before. Probably many times. Possibly even in the last post I wrote before this one. As I was reminded while reading those letters, and other things I've written since I was a little kid, I tend to repeat myself over and over and over again ... My core concerns and emotional tendencies have remained basically unchanged for at least 35 of my 44 years. In one way, that seems kind of depressing. In another way, I guess at least I know more or less what I'm dealing with when one of those fears or mental roadblocks arises for the 16 millionth time. And every year I feel I get better at working with the conditions I've been given.

Anyway. One way or another, I'll get through it.

Last night I was in the checkout line at the market and noticed my favorite checker's stand was closed. Then I noticed the conveyer belt was covered with flowers and garlands of nuts and berries. Then I noticed a picture of him on a little easel, and I turned around to raise my eyebrows at the kid who was checking me out and he said, "Yeah. He died last night." Just like that, of liver failure. He was only about 10 years older than I am. We both teared up and spent a few minutes talking about him, and as I was leaving it occurred to me – he's done now. He made it. He's out of range, safe from everything I'm most anxious about these days: the grand trifecta of sickness, old age and death.

Not that I'm feeling quite ready to go myself, just yet. But remembering that it's going to happen someday does help me bring myself back to reality in a way that feels healthy and grounding. I really don't need to make such a big deal about all the stuff I don't like – my job insecurity, my general lack of confidence, my boring mental and physical health issues ... Those things are not unique to me, and they're not even remotely the most important elements of my life. And I feel so much better when I focus on the parts that feel good – life is too short to do anything else.

Wow. I just put that song on the iPod (in preparation for a rainy day sunset dog walk) while I still had it playing on the computer, so now I'm hearing it playing over itself like a round. Very interesting.

P.S. Also: I got some gorgeous cranberry colored alpaca wool the other day and have been knitting neck warmers for bike riding. Speaking of things that feel good! Oh – and also – this tea, with milk and a tiny bit of honey – is making me so very, very happy each and every afternoon of late. Highly recommended.

I'm here

Just a quickie to write down something interesting that happened to me this morning.

I've been waking up way too early as it is, and Daylight Saving Time has not helped. Usually the first thing I notice when I realize I'm awake is that flood of adrenaline sloshing through my guts. Once I'm up I can get it back down to a manageable level by exercising – I feel fine as long as I'm moving fairly fast, walking or hiking or riding my bike. If I go hard enough, the effect lasts awhile, at least long enough to give me a few good hours to focus on freelance work. But it always seems to creep back up again, the longer I sit ... bad news for someone whose only source of income depends on spending time in front of a computer.

I feel good while I'm walking. But I can't walk all day.

This gives me pause, when I think about what I'm going to do next for work. Am I really going to try to find another job that involves sitting at a desk? What else do I really know how to do? When I get back from this little Utah trip (driving out tomorrow for a few days, with a friend who's going for business – so, free gas and hotels!) I'm thinking I might re-activate my substitute teaching credential and see if I like being in a classroom at all. That's a job where you actually get to stand up every once in awhile ....

Anyway – on to what happened this morning, and then I've gotta get out of here and get some exercise so I can get this little project finished before I leave tomorrow.

So this morning I had an experience of pure, open awareness, just as I was waking up. I realized I was awake, but there were no thoughts there – I was just there, warm and safe and quiet with the sun shining through the window. Then, the first thought that came into my mind was, "I'm here." That was all. It was just like what the Buddhist texts describe as emptiness – I was just there, and there wasn't any story attached to that moment, or emotion, or judgment, or anything.

It only lasted a few seconds and then there was a thought, "NO JOB!!!!!!!!!!" Then an immediate stab of adrenaline, a gush of terror .... And then for a few more seconds I was actually able to clear all that out and go back to just being there. Then it came back, and I started twitching and shaking and had to get up. Sucks to be sensitive.

What caught my attention thinking about it later was that nothing had changed in my circumstances to cause the change in my physical state. I hadn't even moved my body. It was the story that was being told inside my head that was causing all the hullabaloo. It was in my mind, and not in my body – because my body was totally fine, relaxed and even kind of happy until the story asserted itself again.

Not to discount the story, exactly – it is true that I don't have a job, and I'm going to need to figure out what to do about that. But that fact doesn't have to be the central defining feature of my existence or my state of mind.

So today I'm thinking about how I might learn to have more of those moments of OKness, by practicing refocusing on the present instead of letting my mind go to town on hyperinflated fear stories.

In the meantime, I'm just feeling grateful to have experienced it. The memory of that moment feels like something I'm going to be able to work with for a long time.

Again with the yelling

There are an awful lot of people driving pickup trucks around here who think bicycles are supposed to be ridden only on the sidewalk. A few days ago, in almost the same spot where last week's "incident" took place, a guy in an orange pickup rolled down his window and leaned all the way across his front seat while driving by in order to shout at me, "GET ON THE SIDEWALK!"

As soon as he was clear of me, he steered to the right until he was driving right on top of the white line on the edge of the pavement, and zoomed away glaring at me in his rear view mirror.

Ever since it happened, the image of last week's Mr. Road Rage screaming at me has been burned into my brain. Maybe that's why I was able to stay relatively calm with the orange truck, instead of flooding with adrenaline and having the rest of the day poisoned by leftover anger and anxiety. Inside I felt a little blast of fear, but I let it pass. Outwardly I was able to just keep my lane and ignore the guy, which I think is a much better response than the one I had last week.

About that incident, several people have congratulated me on being "brave" enough to stand up for myself and confront the guy. I have not been feeling that way. Mostly, I've felt two things: 1) retroactive fear, once I realized how stupid it was to put myself in such close proximity to someone who'd just shown himself to be very dangerous, and 2) disappointment that in a moment when I had a chance to practice what I preach, I totally lost sight of my better self and reacted in a way that only amplified the violence and anger.

There's a slogan in the tradition I've been studying, "Be grateful to everyone." It's been on my mind a lot this week as I've been coming down from the adrenaline high and trying to clarify exactly what I would like to do the next time something like that happens. Which of course it will, in one way or another, eventually. Anyone who has any contact with other humans is going to experience conflict, and that guy in a way did me a favor by reminding me that it really doesn't work to stake my entire peace of mind on my ability to never clash with anyone. The result of that strategy is that my "dealing with it" skills have become so weak as to be next to useless when I need them most.

That guy could've flattened me. Whether he's a jerk or a psychopath or just a regular guy having a really bad day doesn't matter – a person driving in that state of mind is just as dangerous as a two-ton wild grizzly bear, and from now on I'm going to treat them the same. I've re-routed my commute to roads where that kind of encounter is less likely, and if it happens anyway, my plan is to get out of the way and off the road immediately, and stay there until it's safe to go on.

I'm choosing to think of this as "self-preservation" rather than "avoidance." Whatever you want to call it, the goal is to stay alive and safe and whole for as long as possible.

Which, if I'm able to achieve it, will mean I'll have future opportunities to practice dealing more constructively with anger – my own and other people's.

Unmindful me

This one starts with a quote – the Fourth Wonderful Precept:

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and to relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.

Yesterday something reminded me of my friend who assaulted my other friend in November, and I decided to go back and re-read the emails I sent to the group right after the shit hit the fan. I was really surprised at how angry and condemning my messages sounded, and dismayed to find in them almost no trace of the kindness, compassion and willingness to listen and engage even in the face of great obstacles that I have supposedly been trying to integrate into my life for lo these many years.

The opinions I expressed then have not changed, but my feelings have, somewhat. Now that the shock has worn off a bit and the reality of the situation is sinking in – this person is never going to be in my life the way he was before, if at all – I'm still angry, but mostly just sad. To try to work through it, I've been reviewing the whole situation again, looking for ways I might channel those kinds of feelings in a more positive direction if I ever have to deal with something like this again. Which I really hope I don't. But – things happen. I know so many people who've been molested or abused, or victimized in some way by someone they trusted ... you can't always just cut the offender out of your life and forget about them, even if you wanted to. And even if you could, that doesn't necessarily solve the problem.

I've read probably hundreds of books about how people heal from the various kinds of damage we all experience. But this incident has re-ignited my curiosity about how perpetrators might also be healed. A few years ago I read this book on engaged Buddhism and restorative justice (among other things), which I've just started reading again. In the introduction, the editor talks about how easy it is, in our eagerness to alleviate suffering in the world, to try to "leapfrog over our own situation – as if the pickle we ourselves are in doesn't count." As an example she mentions Mrs. Jellyby, from Dickens's Bleak House (one of my favorite books of all time) – a woman who spends all her time working for the education of African natives, while her own children fall ill from neglect.

That made me think. What does all my study and practice really mean, if the moment somebody I care about fucks up – really seriously fucks up something that really matters – my only "official" response is to angrily condemn their actions and sever the friendship and never speak to that person again? Even if those relationships can't be repaired, there must still be some way to ... I don't know. Let go of the anger? Say good-bye with love? Forgive? What does that mean, exactly? How do you actually DO that? And what do you do afterwards?

I keep coming back to that phrase, "to speak ... with words that inspire self-confidence, joy and hope." What would those words have been, under those circumstances? I've felt haunted by the memory of several different moments during that weekend when I wanted to say something about what was going on, and decided not to. Why did I do that? To put it in the plainest terms, it was because I valued my own comfort more than my friend's distress. I felt concerned, but also annoyed at him for making people uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable. I felt compassion, and I also wanted to control his mood so everyone could enjoy the weekend – and then I identified that thought as "codependent" and disengaged. I reminded myself that he's a grown man, he's responsible for his own feelings and behavior. I still think that. But it wouldn't have cost me anything to find a private moment to let him know I was aware of his pain, and offer a little support. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference in what happened. But maybe it would have. I wish I'd done it.

The other part of mindful speech that I will be working with again for awhile is the "deep listening" part. I wonder what would have happened if I'd been willing to really listen.

Also: completeness. I was relieved in reading those emails to see that even though the feelings I expressed were extreme, I'd been able to refrain from exaggerating or overstating them. But there were other things I also felt and thought that I didn't say, that might have been worth saying. Like the fact that my own personal experience with this person has been that he's always respected the boundaries I've set, when I've made them clear. I didn't say it because it didn't seem relative to what he had just done, and because I didn't want to seem to be blaming his victims for not being clear about their boundaries – not least of all because I know many of them were clear with him. And with me. A lot of people knew about this person's "habits." So why didn't I just say what was on my mind?

My point though was that I personally have not felt exploited or abused by him, and the few times when I have felt uncomfortable about some conversation or something, he always dialed it down as soon as I said something. I felt he respected me. Was I deluded? Was he just different with me? If so, why? Why does it seem so important to understand his point of view about all this? Why do I still feel so invested in trying to work out some kind of reconciliation?

Is this the kind of thing I should not be blogging about? Is it too personal? Is it a violation of other people's privacy, even if I don't use anybody's names (even my own)? Is this unmindful speech? I somehow doubt it's going to inspire joy or happiness in the person I'm writing about, or relieve his suffering. Although I would dearly love to do that, too. First I need to get clear with my own self, and this is one of the ways I do that.

I think in this case I'm going to go with my dad's advice about mindful speech, though that's not what he calls it. He says if you're ever wondering whether or not to say something, ask yourself whether it's true, kind and necessary. If it isn't at least two out of the three, you probably shouldn't say it.

Some of what I'm saying here will probably be painful for certain people to read, but I don't think that necessarily makes it unkind. It's also true, and for me, necessary.

Sharing these thoughts in a public blog may not seem necessary to some, but that's part of my process, too. I'm going to go ahead and post this. If anyone out in the blogosphere gets any benefit from following my story as it unfolds, well ... that would make me happy.

6:44

Well, I did it. It wasn't so bad. In fact, I was actually awake by 6:20 anyway, so I got to sleep in a little after all.

The first thing I did was notice the thought, "I don't have to say I'm giving up the snooze button – I could say I'm getting acquainted with the early morning." I mulled that over as I made the bed, put on my slippers and shambled into the kitchen to put on some water for tea, something I never do at home, as this is more properly the first step in my settling-in-at-the-office routine. Maybe to emphasize the idea that this is the time of year when I try to examine a pattern and practice doing something different, I decided to wipe off the top of the stove while my water was heating, and promptly seared the hell out of my left middle fingertip. That effectively ended any trouble I might have had waking up, as I plunged my entire hand into a small blue bowl of ice water.

And thus it began: my spring practice period for 2007. I've decided to call it "spring training" instead of Lent this year, first of all out of respect to Catholics who might take offense to my weird co-opting of their tradition, and second, because I think it's a more accurate description of what I'm trying to do – train myself. Stepping out of my beloved rut for a few weeks is a great way to increase my awareness of my own thoughts and actions, and hopefully become more free to act appropriately in response to what is actually happening in my life from moment to moment, instead of relying so much on auto-pilot.

This seems to be a theme for me right now. I got to my office and found my horoscope for this week had already been emailed:

Question: Which part of you is too tame, overcivilized, and super-domesticated, and what are you going to do about it? Answer, from Jason R., a Cancerian reader: "I was like a mole in a suburban backyard. I had just one little path I trod each day: to the compost pile and back. I chewed on orange rinds and leftover cabbage. I was tamed by the comfort of my familiar environment, content to have a narrow vision. But then I was eaten by a hawk, and became part of a wild, free body. Now I perch on the tops of trees and the peaks of roofs. I survey giddy-wide horizons, from the river to the mesa and far beyond. I have a wealth of choices. Where to fly? What to hunt? Who are my allies? My thoughts breathe deep, like the slow explosion of sun on the morning lake."

"But then I was eaten by a hawk." I love that! Not that I want to be eaten – but that idea of rising above the fear of change and using it as an opportunity to look at things in a new way – that, I think, is useful, and something I try to remember every year at this time. It all ties into Easter, too, and the whole message of Christianity, as far as I'm concerned – the belief that we are both finite and eternal, that we can choose to die to the life we've lived so far and be reborn with a new understanding of who we are, that this can happen every day, every moment, at any time, and that this is something to celebrate!

I like the way Christianity embodies this concept in the physical being called Jesus. It makes me nervous to write about this, because I don't want to offend certain people or make them feel bad that I believe something different than what they believe ... but with that disclaimer I'll go ahead and say that I really like the story of the resurrection! I like the Buddhist way of teaching the same idea of impermanence, that we have no fixed identity, that nothing has any inherent existence, that some things are just a mystery ... but I will admit that it's been hard for me to really understand these ideas in the language of Buddhism, sometimes (although that could be because I grew up speaking a different symbolic language). The story of an actual guy who came back from the dead makes it all seem so much more real – he's a person, I'm a person, I've seen people die, I'm not just thinking about all this, I know what it's like. And if it's possible for a dead person to come back to life, then maybe it really could be possible for me to change, too. I could stop being addicted to sugar, for example. Or start waking up earlier in the morning.

Maybe that's why so many people feel so compelled to insist on a literal interpretation of the story. They somehow feel like if he didn't really die and really come back, then the whole story falls apart. But to me it doesn't. Wasn't Jesus famous for teaching via parables, anyway? And what parable could be more compelling than one about the dead guy who got his life back? He was dead, and then he got his LIFE BACK.

Form and emptiness, emptiness and form. Funny that only by studying Buddhism is all this starting to sink in with me.

(Sigh) I dunno. I'm no theologian, and I'm okay with that. Today I am just enjoying thinking about the possibilities that may arise for me once I get into the groove of this earlier-morning thing.

P.S. Just before I woke up this morning I dreamed I was doing yoga, resting comfortably in a full forward bend (Paschimothanasana) – like this, only stretched out on the floor. It felt so good (in the dream) to stretch my back and legs, and to be able to relax and breathe in this position – something I used to be able to do, but not anymore. I decided to make that a goal, too – not to have accomplished by Easter, but just something to work toward. Maybe next year I'll be able to take a nap like this! (And yes, I'm already beginning to obsess about naps – yet another benefit of early rising – better naps!)