Mindfulness

Just one thing

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Yep. I would add my cats and books, but essentially this is it for me, especially lately. Not even the beer that much anymore, and I’d say I’m down to 2 people…but the riding…

Bicycles. Bike stuff.

It’s what makes me happy. Always. Starting as a little kid on a sparkly green Schwinn Stingray, through the years and many bikes, cycling has literally kept me moving through life. Doesn’t matter what’s going on in my life or my head, if I can get out on my bike, hear the wind in my ears, feel the burn in my legs, and the sun on my face, I’m good.

This has been a fairly crappy week at work, but I’ve come in early and left early the past two days so I can get a ride in after work before dinner, and that has made all the difference. It doesn’t change what’s going on at work, or with my mother, but it changes me – my head – and that’s what matters.

I’ve been following the Tour de France online in the mornings at my desk, and listening to Lance Armstrong’s podcasts in the afternoons. On my breaks I look at bikes and bike kits online, dreaming about something new and shiny. At 4:30 I go home and get changed, fill a water bottle, strap on my helmet, climb on my pretty purple bike and go.

Freedom.

That moment when I roll out of the driveway and turn onto the street is golden. Whatever is bugging me floats away and for at least an hour I don’t have to think about anything but keeping my legs moving, my eyes on the road, and how fast and how far I want to go. When I come back I stretch for a while, change out of my sweaty kit and into something comfortable for the evening, and I feel like a different person.

I can breathe. The endorphins are coursing through my brain, telling me that everything’s okay, life is beautiful, and it is.

When I’m riding I’m totally in the moment, totally in my body, not worried about the future or the past. There is just the moment and the road and my legs and turning the pedals. I think about things, but it all seems so far away, and my attention turns quickly  to the trees, the water, and the rabbits, deer, geese and ducks I see all along the way.

What’s here now.

That’s all that matters. That’s true all the time, but it’s easier for me to remember when I’m on my bike. It’s fun and it’s only me doing what I want – what I love – like when I was a little girl flying down the sidewalk on that Stingray.

So, yeah, riding, cats, books, friends, and beer. Simple really. Why does it seem so hard sometimes, so impossible? Life is hard and I get all caught up in what I don’t have and all the crap that drives me nuts. As long as I have those 5 things, though, it’s mostly okay.

Especially that one thing.

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Summer madness

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This greeted me this morning on Instagram, and I realized that the reason I’ve been feeling so cranky lately is because I’m wanting something other than what I have.

Duh.

I know better than this, right? Live in the moment, accept what is. But here I am again, wishing and hoping, looking to the future to save me from the present. Oh well, I’m not perfect. Surprise, surprise.

Summer is my favorite time of year, and where I live it’s short. Three glorious months of sunshine and warm weather. The list of things I like to do in the summer is long, and almost all of them involve being outside. In my present living and working situation my time is limited and by necessity I spend most of my time indoors.

Not what I want.

I really enjoyed my 5-day mini-vacation before the 4th. The weather was fabulous and I took long bike rides every afternoon, spent most mornings reading on the patio, and had campfires (s’mores!) a couple of evenings. This past weekend was nice, too, and I enjoyed a couple of nice rides, which really is my priority in the summer, so I was a happy girl.

Now today I’m back at work, freezing in my ridiculously over-air conditioned office, trying to keep up with today’s Tour de France stage via live feed from Cycling News, and feeling sorry for myself that I’m not retired and free to enjoy this lovely summer day doing something fun outside.

Not what I want.

Tonight when I get home I may have time for a short ride, but the bulk of the evening will be spent cooking dinner, doing dishes, and hanging out with mom inside watching TV. Tomorrow night groceries, cooking, dishes, TV. Rinse, repeat. Everyday until the weekend, when I’m freer to be outside more because I’m not working and mom hasn’t been alone all day. If the weather holds I can have a nice long ride each afternoon, as I did this weekend.

Not horrible, but not what I want.

I want to be free. I want to ride for a couple of hours after work every night like I used to. I want to walk home for lunch and sit at my table outside in the backyard and eat while reading. I want to go out with friends and sit at a table outside and drink a beer and laugh and have fun. I want to go down to the park and enjoy whatever band is playing on Thursday night and look at the boats and people in the marina while I listen. I want to go to the beach and spend all day there soaking up the sun and swimming in the lake and reading.

I don’t want to sit in this cold office and do work I don’t like for difficult people. I don’t want to cover the front office at noon and deal with all the questions I don’t know the answers to that people come in or call with. I don’t want to hear about all the fun things my co-workers did last weekend or last night. I don’t want to deal with the tourist traffic to get home to make lunch for mom and scarf my lunch so I can get back in time.

I don’t want to have every minute of everyday scheduled with things I do for other people and don’t enjoy. I want to be free.

But I’m not. I’m not free, and I’m not having a lot of fun. Wishing and hoping and thinking about the future (when I’m retired and my mother is gone) doesn’t change that. And in the big scheme of things it’s not even that important. Lots of people work in jobs they don’t like and have family responsibilities. Most people, in fact. I have always worked and there seemed to be enough time for other things. I was lucky to have the freedom I did before.

And I totally get how lucky I am that my biggest complaint right now is that I’m not having fun.

So, poor me. I need to gently remind myself to just be here now. This is how it is, and until it changes (and it will, for better or worse) I need to find contentment in the moment right now, cuz really that’s all there is. The future is not guaranteed. Anything can happen.

Eckhart Tolle says, “Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it. All else is madness.”

Exactly. I’m driving myself mad for no reason. I can’t leave my mother or my job, and changing anything right now would be counterproductive. So acceptance is the only way. It works the way it is, and that’s what matters. The rest is gravy and that just makes you fat.

On with the day, and the summer, and the year. one minute at a time. Appreciating what is.

Got it. Whew!

 

 

Back to the future

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Dick Eastman shared this video on his blog yesterday, and I’m captivated by it. It’s been modified on a computer so that it plays at normal speed and you can hear the sound. It looks like real life – not the speedy herky-jerkiness of most old films that make the people seem like cartoons. These folks look like real people. It’s a window into time. Dick says:

“As you watch this video, please think about this: every single person in it is no longer alive, and strangers 100 years later are watching them from devices the folks in the video had never seen or heard of before, called “computers” and “smart phones.”

I think that’s exactly what fascinates me about it. We’re watching ghosts. Only they weren’t ghosts then. They were people, just like you and me, living their lives that day, just like any other day. Worried about their kids, or their job, or thinking about the weekend, or whatever. They mattered to other people – their families, friends, co-workers. They had names and addresses.

In no way could they know what the next day would bring, or the next hour, or even the next minute. Just like us. They couldn’t see into the future. They certainly couldn’t have imagined that a 56 year-old woman in Michigan would be watching them walk down a street in New York City 107 years later on a little screen, while sitting at her desk, taking a break from work.

In 1911 so much was ahead that would affect their lives – the Titanic sinking, WWI, the influenza epidemic, all just in the next few years. And beyond – could the black man driving that car envision a time in this country when all people of color would be free and able to vote? How many of those women in their hats and long dresses were suffragettes? Just 9 years until they were able to vote. Much longer for the black driver  – did he live to enter a voting booth legally?

It’s all so strange to think about – individuals and history, and the reality that we’re all here for a short time and that the world will go on after we’re gone. Whatever troubled those people in 1911, or gave them joy is gone with them. The baby in the stroller had a whole life ahead. Just a little younger than my grandmother – I wonder where she lived and whether she married, whether her children and grandchildren carry on now. Perhaps she died in childhood. Many children died then from diseases we think nothing of now.

What will the world be like in 2125? What will the people then make of our lives 107 years earlier, in which every moment is documented on social media? That’s if there still are humans then, and a planet for them to inhabit. We can no more imagine life in 2125 than these folks in 1911 could envision 2018.

I love to think about things like this, but it sort of sends my head spinning, too. In 1911 there were roughly 1.6 billion people on this planet. In 2018 it’s 7 times that. Six billion more people. Walking around, living their lives, just like you and me. Some will be born today. Some will die. Most of us are known only to a handful of people  – more now, I guess, thanks to social media – not very important in the big scheme of things. Important, though, to ourselves and to our family and friends and our communities.

Ultimately, my life still comes down to what is facing me today – my mom, my work, my bike ride this evening. What I had for breakfast, what I’m going to have for lunch and dinner. How much sleep I got last night and how much I’m going to get tonight, what comes in the mail, and whether I’ll hear from a friend or family member online or via text. What I think about or read or watch. Who and what I care about.

Tomorrow will be much the same, probably. And after that, and after that…

The same was true for the people in the video, because that’s life. It’s in each moment, each activity, each thought, each emotion. They had their joys and sorrows, and so do we, played out in each moment of our time on this planet. Life doesn’t happen in hundreds of years, not really. It happens now, moment by moment.

That’s the challenge: BE HERE NOW. I struggle with it everyday – I want to know what’s ahead. I worry and I plan until anxiety starts to rule my life again, and then I have to step back – literally – into the moment, and breathe. Breathe.

Breathe.

We can’t see the future. We head into it blindly moment by moment, day by day. That’s the way it’s always been, and probably will always be. It’s scary and exciting, and the only way to do it is just to take a step. And another.

And another.

And breathe. Just breathe.

 

 

How do you mend a broken heart?

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This has been a pretty intense week. All about life and death, really, nothing less.

On Monday my mom had an episode of some kind – I’m not sure if it was a stroke or a seizure – and she fainted. She was out cold for 2-3 minutes. She stopped breathing twice, and for several seconds I thought she was dead. She woke up, though, and over the course of that day came fully back to herself, though she felt a little like she had been hit by a truck. By Tuesday evening, though, you would never know it had happened.

On Wednesday I went to have an echocardiogram, cuz when I was at the doc for a physical last week she thought she heard a murmur, and was concerned that maybe I have a partially blocked artery. I had high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and in the past 2 years or so I’ve managed to control both with exercise and diet, and bring those numbers down. So I thought I was in pretty good shape, and honestly, I’m not that worried about something that’s going to kill me in 30 years. Cancer is what concerns me. I’ve had 2 middle-aged friends die in the past 2 weeks from cancer, not heart disease. I don’t know anyone who has died from heart disease, in fact; everyone I know died from cancer.

Laying there listening to the blood whoosh through my heart was sobering, though. I had a psychic tell me a long time ago that I had a broken heart; that’s what I was thinking about while the friendly young women was moving the sensor around my chest. Could there really be something wrong? Is my heart broken? I’m only 56. How could I be having heart trouble? I don’t have the results of the test yet, but I’m hopeful that it was nothing and that I’m as healthy as I think I am.

Then yesterday, I got word via Facebook that a friend who has been battling cancer for a few years had taken a turn for the worse and the doctors had sent her home to die. She was only 50, a recent grandmother, a bright spot in our little community – just a beautiful soul. Last night she died, with her very large family around her, and I just feel so bad about that. I will miss her, even though I didn’t know her very well. She always made me smile.

So near-death, worrying about death, and actual death in the space of 5 days. My head is spinning a little and my heart is breaking (figuratively) for Leslie and her family and friends. Through it all I’ve really been trying to just take it all in, let it be, and then let it go. So much sadness and loss in the last 2 weeks; but life goes on. My mom will die, people I care about will die, and I will die. That’s the reality of this Life, and there’s no getting around it.

Don’t take a minute for granted.

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Leslie Anne Miller Knoop 1967-2018

Rest in peace.

Truth be told

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Some of the most difficult things I’ve had to come to terms with over the years are:

  1. Life isn’t fair.
  2. You can still fail, no matter how hard you try.
  3. Not every problem can be solved.

Like most children, I learned the first one pretty early on. I wasn’t happy about it, and I’m still not, but I certainly know it’s true. Over the years and into adulthood, it led directly to a distrust of the idea of the Christian God, or any god worth believing in, cuz in my mind, what would be the purpose of a god if not to make life fair?

I was drawn to Buddhism, and more simply, mindfulness, because it starts out by telling you that life is hard. Period. No illusion. No Santa Claus god. No notions of good and evil, fair or unjust. There is only us, here now, and this life and being kind. Embracing everything and then letting go, cuz none of it matters ultimately. It’s all in the past. There is only what is, not what should be. Not only what’s fair, but what isn’t. All of it. Everything.

The second one hit me square in the gut almost 20 years ago when I lost my business and had to get a job and file for bankruptcy. Like most American kids, I was raised with the idea that if you worked hard enough, you could achieve anything. The American Dream! I was living exactly the life I wanted, the one I had worked for, for a while, and then BAM! It was gone. I was stunned. I had been so determined. I had worked so hard and I wanted it so much, surely that would make it so.

Nope. I fell to earth and landed on my butt with a resounding and painful thud. It took me a long time to come to terms that what I had been told and what I believed to be true all of my life to that point was not true. There it was again: Life is not fair. Add to that: It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you can’t make it so.

Ouch.

Even though I had struggled with depression since I was a teenager, that event and finally realizing that fundamental truth about life was the thing that made me decide I couldn’t go on. Prior to that I believed the I was the problem, Not life. That I was doing something wrong. I had hope that someday I would get it right and then life would be what I hoped it would be, what I thought it could be. What I thought it was supposed to be.

I always knew that people suffered horrible lives, especially in other countries and in other times. I was an avid reader and some of the books I read were about really difficult lives, but I guess I always thought they were just unlucky or they didn’t work hard enough, or something. I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I didn’t really think about it, or maybe I just thought that it would be different for me because…I don’t know.

I was absolutely convinced growing up that despite all evidence to the contrary, I would have a wonderful life once I got to be an adult and could take control of my life. I was raised in the Christian church and I fell for all those stories in Sunday school about right and wrong and God helping good people and punishing bad people. I believed all the stuff in school, too, about the American Dream and Manifest Destiny, George Washington never telling a lie, and Abraham Lincoln walking through the snow for 1000 miles to return a book cuz it was the right thing to do.

I had fought through the depression over and over again because I believed that I could have the life I wanted if I just worked for it. Then, suddenly that was all a lie and I felt betrayed and stupid and that there was just no point in going on with this ridiculous unfair life – in which bad people thrived and good people got screwed. Knowing that there was nothing I could do to change that – no matter how hard I tried – was more than I could take for a long time. It took 10 years of medication and 3 years of therapy to get me past it.

The third thing – that for some problems there are no solutions – was the last bastion of earlier life to fall. Living again with my mother and her health problems finally beat that one down. Not only are some of her medical challenges baffling, even to her doctors, but more simply, the challenge of living with her and caring for her has become less of a problem to be solved, and more of a truth to be accepted.

It just is.

She’s not a problem to be solved. She’s a person. My difficulty at times with this situation can’t be solved, either, it is just part of my life, something I have to embrace and then let go of, just like everything else. It’s another step on the path for both of us. We’re traveling together on this journey.

Life.

Not a problem, not fair or unfair, not good or bad, just what’s happening now and no matter how hard I try, I can’t solve it all for her, or for me, or for anyone. We celebrate the good things and mourn the losses, but ultimately it’s all the same. What is, and what was, and what will be.

Us. In it together. All of us just doing the best we can to accept the truth.

Life is hard. And beautiful. And painful. And amazing. So big sometimes it crushes us, and other times lifts us to great heights. It’s everything and nothing.

And that’s the truth.

The beat goes on

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Remember those really old Kung Fu movies in which the sound track was a beat or two behind the video, so the actors’ mouths were not in sync with their voices? Or you know those dreams where you forget to set your alarm for the biggest test/appointment/job interview of your life and you wake up in a panic and realize you’re late, but you can only move in slow motion and you get further and further behind?

That’s exactly how I feel today: out of sync, a beat or two behind. I didn’t sleep well last night or the night before and I’m feeling it today. I treated myself to some comfort food for lunch, and a visit to the chiropractor perked me up a bit, but still I’m just not that interested in being a functioning human today. The workday is almost over, though, so after I go grocery shopping, unload and put away the groceries, make dinner, and do the dishes, I’ll be able to slump in a chair, which is really all I’ve wanted to do all day.

I’m tired, and a little cranky, and by the time I get in bed tonight, it will have been a long day. They’re all long days lately. I wish I could say that I’m just sailing through, on top of everything, multi-tasking and having a grand ol’ time, but that’s not the case. I’m making it through, and everything’s getting done – mostly – but I’m not Doris Day and this isn’t a movie. This is just imperfect, exhausting, fabulous life.

I have good days and not-so-good days, and both are okay.

There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to accept the not-so-good days; I beat myself up mercilessly for the things I didn’t accomplish perfectly, and even worse for things I didn’t accomplish at all. The message I got growing up was that if you’re not perfect, you’re nothing. The definition of “perfect” had everything to do with other people, and nothing to do with me, but I didn’t really get that. I heard their voices in my head, so I thought those expectations were mine.

Turns out – no, not so much. By the time I realized that, however, I was in my 40s and then I had to figure out what I thought of myself, and what I wanted for my life.

I still hear those other voices, but I’ve gotten better at telling them to quiet down, and then telling myself that everything’s okay just as it is. I’m not perfect today. I’ve been a little anti-social, I gave into my desire for comfort food and enjoyed every minute of it, and I’m feeling a little sorry for myself that I have so much to do yet tonight when I’m so tired.

Tomorrow I’ll probably be better, but if I’m not, that’s okay. I don’t like feeling cranky or anti-social, or sorry for myself, but that’s just the way it is today. Good things happened, too, and I’m remembering to try to be aware of those things – I made it  to work, I got some stuff done. My crankiness didn’t get in the way of any of the conversations I had today, lunch was really, really good, and the sun is shining.

Today was everything – all of it. Good and bad. Not really good and not really bad. Just a day. I showed up, and today that was all I could manage. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be fabulous, maybe not. I’m okay with it all. I have learned to treat myself with compassion and that has made all the difference. Life is hard. We all deserve a break. Sometimes you have to give it to yourself, if no one else will.

 

 

Every bloomin’ thing

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Ahhhhh, Spring.

First bike ride of the season on Friday after work. I didn’t go fast or far, but it was wonderful, just the same. Yesterday I liberated the purple bike from the trainer and put it next to its siblings in the garage – no more indoor riding this year. Thank goodness. Nothing I love about bicycling has anything to do with being indoors or stationary.

When I got home, mom and I took a walk around the block and in our neighbor’s yard – the one in which they tore down the house this winter – we saw a little bunny. She was hopping back and forth to a bush on the property, under which, several years ago I had found a bunny nest while raking. So we thought maybe she had been born there last year and was now tending her own nest. Maybe there’s been a bunny nest right under our noses for years and years and we weren’t aware! A metaphor for life. I love thinking of her out there taking care of another generation – the future. New beginnings everywhere.

Too cold and windy for a ride yesterday, so I took a nice long walk and had the most amazing encounter with a deer that stayed with me all day. It was a young deer, a doe, I’m guessing, and while she was wary of me as I approached, she didn’t run and she didn’t seem to be afraid. I spoke to her softly, and she cocked her head so she could get a better view of me. We stood and talked like that for 60 seconds or so, then I said goodbye and thank you and quietly walked off. I didn’t hear her crashing through the brush behind me, so I don’t think she ran away. Very cool.

I have been trying to focus on good things lately – trying to train my brain to be aware of everything, not just the bad, which seems so pervasive lately – and these encounters felt like gifts in return for my attentiveness. At least I choose to see them that way, in order to convince the grey matter that there are rewards for positive thinking that are way better than for negative and fearful thinking.

Cuz I’m always scanning for danger. Always. That’s been the default my whole life – not without reason – but especially lately. Probably most people do that. Life is big and scary. But it’s also big and wonderful and lovely and awesome, and that’s the part I overlook so often cuz my brain is wearing itself out looking for the icky stuff.

Part of living in the moment  – mindfully living life – however, is trying to be aware of everything. All of it. The good and the bad, the scary and the wonderful. So I’m trying to expand my vision. There are sooooo many good things! Nature alone is the source of countless amazing, beautiful, awe-inspiring things, and you can’t beat Michigan in the Spring and Summer for being in nature. And **bonus** walking and biking – outside in nature – are wonderful and good for me! Win, win, win, win, win.

Welcome, Spring. So good to see you again.

Another step forward

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I was listening to a talk by Dr. Christine Carter today. I’ve heard her speak before, and I read her blog, but she said something in this talk I’ve never heard or thought about before that really resonated with me.

She pointed out that being comfortable is a relatively new thing for human beings. For the most part, our ancestors led mostly uncomfortable lives by comparison to ours – long days of manual labor, the constant threat of disease, early death by our standards. Even creature comforts like a warm house, readily available food, and comfortable clothes were not something they could take for granted.

Pleasure was an occasional thing. Not the focus of every day and every activity for most people. Folks were much too busy just staying alive to make pleasure a priority. Certainly they found pleasure in life, but it wasn’t the focus or the expectation. Those who survived were those who could tolerate and survive physical adversity. Until relatively recently humans didn’t have the luxury of considering their mental health – about whether they were happy or comfortable or leading a meaningful life – they just lived. They got through each day doing what needed to be done to survive to the next.

In some countries, this is still true, as well as for the poorest in this country, to some degree. But for most humans living now, life is relatively easy in those terms – our basic physical needs have been met and in many cases, exceeded. Now we are free to spend our time and energy pursuing pleasure – and we’ve gotten very good at it. Sugary foods, mind-altering substances, shopping, the internet, gambling, TV, porn, etc. are all readily available.

The trouble is that we’ve confused pleasure with happiness. They are not the same thing, and we’ve lost sight of the distinction. We’ve become addicted to pleasure, but we’re unhappier than ever. We’re too comfortable and we’ve become complacent and dissatisfied because it takes more and more to meet our need for pleasure. The “high” wears off too quickly. It’s not the robust, sustaining happiness we really need and that we think we’re reaching for. Pleasure is merely a brain receptor thing, not a soul thing. It doesn’t feed us fully – quite literally, pleasure provides only empty calories.

This was quite a revelation to me this morning, let me tell you. It caused me to evaluate my perception of my situation with my mother yet again in these terms. I realized that some of the things I’m missing by devoting so much time and energy to her care are things that really only bring me short-term pleasure, not necessarily happiness, and that being without them for a time isn’t that big a deal.

Further, my anxiety stems from the fear of discomfort in this situation. I’m not comfortable having her rely on me for everything. I’m not comfortable going to the emergency room every few weeks. I’m not comfortable being unable to solve all her problems. I’m not comfortable having another person, especially her because of our history together, determine the course of my days. I’m uncomfortable spending so much time with her because I’ve always been uncomfortable with her.

So.

Life is uncertain. Life with my mother is, and always has been, uncertain. This is something I’ve struggled with all my life – I am never safe from having to deal with her. She has always been ill, she has always been needy. She has always been a big source of discomfort. All of my life.

So.

I survived, didn’t I? The discomfort hasn’t killed me to this point, and it won’t going forward. As Dr. Carter said in this talk, human beings have survived for millennia being uncomfortable. I can make it through a couple of months, or in this case, years. Being with her and taking care of her now is still the right thing to do, and the fact that it makes me uncomfortable doesn’t change that. Having less pleasure in my life makes it dull, but that won’t kill me, either. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger is a real thing – adversity helps us learn and grow as humans. It’s hard-wired.

Having said that, there are a couple of things that I’ve identified in the past couple of months as being necessary to my health and well-being – my long-term happiness – and mom and I are figuring out ways together to insure that I have time and energy for those things. So that is easing the discomfort to a great degree and has raised the pleasure quotient at the same time. It doesn’t remove the uncertainty, but that’s just the way it is. Life is uncertain for everyone, all the time. Even under the best of circumstances.

This too shall pass is true of all of life – the good and the bad. The pleasure and the discomfort. The trick is to be happy through all of it. In each moment joy is available to us, and if we reside there as much as possible, focus on what’s good, even joyful, in each moment, we tilt our brain scale toward happiness. That’s a lot easier to say than it is to do, but it’s worth a try every single day.

In another talk I heard yesterday, Geneen Roth said she tells her students to list everyday the 5 things that aren’t wrong. It made me laugh when I heard it, but it resonated with me because it’s related to gratitude, but it’s not as hard as gratitude. Sometimes I find it hard to feel grateful for really difficult things, really difficult days. Often I look back on those times and realize what I’ve gained from going through those uncomfortable experiences and then I am grateful, but in the moment, not so much.

But even when everything seems to be falling apart, there are things that aren’t wrong, that are still wonderful and helpful and beautiful – friends, pets, books, flowers, bicycling – and focusing on those things and knowing they’ll be available to us again at some point, is very comforting.

I may not always be able to list 5 things on any given day that I’m grateful for, but certainly I can think of 5 things – even really mundane things like the hot water heater is still working – that aren’t wrong. A shift in thinking is sometimes all it takes to turn things around even when you’re the most uncomfortable and feeling low.

So. I learned a lot this week, and that makes me happy.

I’m grateful without reservation for these and other teachers who offer their wisdom and insight to us daily. Thanks to the Awake Network and the Shambala Mountain Center who sponsored Mindful Living Week, I have been able to listen to these speakers and others for free. What a gift. Definitely tops the list everyday this week of things that aren’t wrong, and how appropriate during this time of new beginnings.

Happy Spring.

Fuzzy thinking

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312645_1988371195600_758685913_nI have two cats, Clare and Grace. They don’t like each other much, even though they have lived together since they were both kittens. Clare likes to ambush Grace with some regularity, usually on the stairs, and Grace falls for it every time. I think she knows Clare’s waiting for her – she’s always in the same place – but it’s a game, so what the heck? Breaks up a long, boring day.

Today at lunchtime, Clare saw Grace heading through the den on her way upstairs, so she scooted through the living room quickly to get in position. She waited…and waited…and waited. I have no idea what Grace was doing in the den, but in a few minutes she wandered back into the living room.

It took Clare a few minutes to realize her plan had been foiled, but when she did, she sauntered back into the living room, grabbed a toy and plopped down on the floor to play. Grace walked past her on her way upstairs and that was that.

That is exactly what I’m trying to get to in my life: immediate acceptance when things don’t go as planned, and the willingness to move on to the next thing without looking back. Totally in the moment, totally in the flow of life. A lofty goal, and one I will never achieve totally, but I’m working toward it everyday now.

It’s the default for animals, of course. They are, for the most part, free of worry about the future, as well as regret over the past. Humans…not so much. In fact, almost not at all. Anxiety and depression are pervasive among humans. Life is hard, and our brains are hard-wired to alert us to that fact. The fact that it’s not hard in the same ways it used to be – we rarely encounter animals that mean to kill us anymore – doesn’t matter. That wiring is in place and it works very well. Too well.

Granted, some folks are more prone to anxiety and depression; either we’re born with faulty brain components which overreact to life’s difficulties – real or imagined – or something happens to us which causes the wiring to short out or the chemistry to be thrown out of whack. In my case I think it was a combination of both.

Whatever the cause, my life has been shaped by depression, mostly, but since menopause, anxiety has joined the party. It’s very popular there in Brainland, and is  now selecting the music and serving the drinks. The life of the party, and the life of my life.

I could take medication, but I don’t want to. I took drugs for depression for a number of years. They saved my life. After 10 years or so, though, the side effects outweighed the benefits, and I weaned off of them. I don’t regret that decision – it was the right one for me at the time and it still is. I had been through therapy and was going through peri-menopause – consequently I was in a much healthier place at that point, and depression no longer ruled my life as it had when I was younger. Therapy had given me tools to deal with my emotions, and menopause had stemmed the tide of hormones.

After I moved in with my mother and I was post-menopausal, the anxiety moved in, too. So it’s been about 5 years now, and I’ve been looking into natural remedies and coping techniques. That’s how I came to mindfulness. It’s been on my radar for a long time. I was a yoga practitioner and a regular meditator many years ago, so it has been like welcoming an old friend to revisit those teachings.  Mindfulness is more than just meditation, though, and my practice now is more meaningful.

Gratitude and self-compassion are part of my mindful journey now, but when I was a young woman, both of those concepts were utterly foreign to me. I wasn’t ungrateful, necessarily, but I didn’t really think about gratitude in the real, tangible way I do now.

Self-compassion was the farthest thing from my mind as a young person. I was very hard on myself – and on other people. Very judgmental, beating myself up for everything that didn’t go well, certain there was something different and terribly wrong with me. There was, of course – my brain didn’t work like most other people’s – but that wasn’t something people acknowledged or talked about then. I, and probably most everyone I knew at the time, thought I was just immature and lazy, terribly needy and self-centered, difficult to get along with, and an unforgiving perfectionist.

It took decades of suffering for me to finally learn just to give myself a break. It took being ready to end my life to get me into therapy, and it took 3 years of therapy to get to the point where I could accept myself as I am: flawed.

Not perfect. Just like everyone else.

What a relief. That was quite a few years ago, and since then I’ve been trying to keep my head and my priorities straight, manage the anxiety, be kind to myself, stay well, and take care of my mother.

This winter life with my mother got a lot harder, and I found myself at my wit’s end again. So I started reading and watching videos about mindfulness and taking baby steps toward meditating with regularity. Life is not much easier yet, but I am starting to feel better-equipped to cope with the daily twists and turns, and that helps keep the anxiety at a more manageable level.

I simply try to focus in the moment. In each moment there is safety and sanity, and as long as I stay there and pay attention to what’s happening now and how I’m feeling now, anxiety doesn’t have a chance to sneak up on me and start spinning everything into chaos.

Is mindfulness the cure for anxiety? No. It’s a way of thinking about and experiencing life that makes you more aware: of your mind, your body, other people, the planet, life. Studies have shown, though, that being more mindful can fundamentally change the way your brain works, including calming the centers that send the erroneous danger signals to the rest of your brain and body all the time. So though it is not the intention, mindfulness has the effect of calming anxiety.

That’s a side-effect I can live with.

 

What a ride

wsquared2 Comments

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My 97 year-old neighbor died last summer, and her memorial was this weekend. Her family had been our neighbors for 50+ years; almost all of my life. Her daughters were like older sisters to me. Our houses were 20 feet apart; our families were close in proximity and close in feeling. Now the house and Jean are gone. Her daughters sold the house soon after she died, and after Christmas this year an excavator came and knocked the whole thing down.

Almost 100 years old.  An orphan in England, she joined the RAF as a young woman, met and married an American serviceman, and immigrated to the US after WWII. She had six children, countless grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She worked hard, raised her kids, loved cooking and gardening. She had a picture of Queen Elizabeth in her living room.

And now she’s gone. There’s a big hole in our neighborhood. Something that has always been there is gone. Such a long and full life, and now it’s over. Life keeps moving on.

So on Saturday I attended a Catholic mass for the second time in my life. It was dedicated to Jean and her husband Clem, and following there was a buffet and family get-together in another part of the church. Four of her daughters and their kids and grandkids were there, and also another 50+ year neighbor couple, who I hadn’t seen in person for a number of years even though they still come back for the summer every year.

I was raised in the Episcopal church, so the Catholic Eucharist was familiar, though I didn’t really participate. I just don’t believe anymore, so I found it hard to say the prayers and sing the hymns. I sat in the pew and focused on being present and respectful, and I thought about Jean and Clem and the memories I had of life next door to their family, and about how much has changed.

In his homily, the priest mentioned that he would be performing a baptism following the mass. It struck me that in one part of the building we would be celebrating a very long life completed, and in another part a new life was being welcomed to the world.

There it was – the whole thing – start to finish – in one small church on a Saturday afternoon in May. Life keeps moving on. What will that baby see and experience in her life? What will life on this planet be like in 97 years? I wonder what the world was like when Jean was baptized in 1920? Could anyone then have imagined the way her life unfolded?

And the house that had always been there – what will fill that space? In another 10 years, who will remember the big yellow house and the big family who lived in it? Most likely there will be another house, another family. That’s the nature of life – it’s fleeting, and so are we. Nothing lasts forever, not even memories once there’s no one around to carry them anymore.

So I guess that’s what’s so appealing about religion, right? It reassures us that we will go on beyond the physical, beyond memory, even. Presumably God knows who we are and will remember us forever. In the mass Saturday, the priest proclaimed the “victory over death!” and everybody said, “Amen!” That “victory” is comforting when you fear death, fear loss of those you love.

So the mystery of life is less of a mystery to the believers, I guess. I’m not one of them, so I guess that means for me the mystery is unsolved. Lately I’m content to leave those questions unanswered. In each moment is the opportunity to experience life directly and appreciate what’s present and that’s where I want to be. In this moment. I have fond memories of the past, and I love to ponder the possibilities of the future sometimes, but mostly, I like being right here, right now.

Someday maybe, someone will be looking back over my life at the end and remembering me, and that would be nice. Maybe someone will even celebrate that I was here. There will be a point, however, where I am completely erased from memory, and that’s okay, too. I will have enjoyed my ride, but when it’s over it’ll be time for someone else to take my seat and have their turn. That is as it should be. Like a roller coaster, life blows by in a flash. The only way to get your money’s worth is to experience and appreciate it moment by moment. It’ll be over before you know it.

RIP Jean. I hope you got your money’s worth.