taming the tyrant

Image via Wikipedia

I like to blog.  Really, I do.

It does seem that lately, though, I spend much more energy thinking about blogging than actually blogging.

Instead of going on an on about how awful a blogger I am, I am going to use this as an opportunity to practice not beating myself up.  I get these opportunities a lot, it seems.  Another way to phrase that would be that the habit of self-berating crops up almost everywhere I look, but I am more and more on guard and more and more learning not to fall into that easy pattern that kills me not so softly.

I read a great blog post today about this “inner tyrant,” and about harnessing it’s energy for something positive.  I also tried to make a dietary change today (no, not going on a diet, just changing one thing—hint: it has to do with a certain sugary caffeinated beverage).  I have realized that I need to make this change more slowly, to ease into it a bit.  I had planned to go “cold turkey,” so to speak, but it seems that’s not such a good idea.  That tyrant, who always seems to be with me, wants to tell me that this is a failure.  I am choosing to see this as another example of slow change, another way I can care for myself.

I said, “another example of slow change.”  The first example of slow change is somewhat silly, but it has stuck with me and comes back to me over and over as a reminder to not expect immediate and dramatic results the minute I decide something should be different.  “So what is this example?” you ask.

Spider solitaire.

I have been playing quite a bit of spider solitaire these last couple of months.  When I started, I could win on the first level every time, but it was pretty boring.  I tried playing on the second level, but I would rarely win.  So rarely it seemed like I never won.  In a very un-me-like move, I decided that winning didn’t matter, and I would play the second level because it was more fun, even if I lost nearly every time.  Then something weird started happening.

I started getting better.

The spider solitaire game on my computer will tell you your win/loss statistics after every game.  When I started playing, I was winning about 2% of the time.  I didn’t pay too much attention to those statistics until I noticed that they were going up.  Before I knew it I was at 7%.  Then 10%.  Dear readers, I now win 26% of the time (um, I played a LOT of this game while I was recovering from my surgery).  The thing is, normally a 75% loss rate would normally really bother me.  In light of the 98% loss rate when I started, 75% doesn’t look half bad.

The spider solitaire is serving as a good reminder to me that change comes slowly, that I don’t have to go from 0 to 60 overnight, and that beating myself up doesn’t make me go any faster, anyway.

I’m hoping there’s a way to get this inner tyrant to remind me to be gentle, to remind me that if change comes at all, it comes at a creeping pace, so slowly that we scarcely notice it.

Meanwhile, I’ll be playing some spider solitaire.  27%, here I come!

famous friday: makin’ a mess

Miss Famous can ignore her basket of toys for weeks, somewhat like this:

Miss Famous, ignoring her basket of toys

Then, suddenly, with no apparent explanation, she will take out half her toys just to hear them squeak.  And no, I did not stage this photo.  Except the dog.  I staged the dog, if by staging you mean telling her to sit/stay.

she likes it squeaky

Have a good weekend from the Famous house!

an assortment

• After my last couple of posts, I realized that it might seem that I’m in a funk.  I’m not.  I’ve been meaning to do a whole post about it, but the gist is that while things have been happening (family drama, etc.) I’ve been noticing a real difference in my response.  I can feel that things are sad or upsetting, but I’m not getting knocked down by it; I’m not in a deep, dark place.

• On that note, I am going to start seeing my therapist only every other week.  I was partly hoping to just be able to stop, but I think it’s good for me to have a slower transition.

• Drama with the sister/family continues.  It astounds me that my parents are still in such denial about her illness.  My dad in particular has seemed surprised by how she has responded about some things and some things she has said.

• My friend who owns the house I live in (“Nanette”) has decided to take a break from work and will be moving back home.  She has decided to have me stay in the house and have my housemate move out.  The positives:  I will finally have a decent amount of storage space (i.e. all the closet space in my room and all the cabinets in my bathroom), and I will like having Nanette around.  Also, Nanette will probably take short term jobs (1-2 mos) so I’ll get the house to myself some of the time.  The negative: my rent will go up.  Of course, it will all be cheaper than having to find an apartment and fill it up (remember, I don’t really have any furniture and very few household goods).

• I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot, I just haven’t made that transition from thought to action.

• Miss Famous is the sweetest doggy ever.  She may actually have a Famous Friday post for tomorrow, too.

• That is all.

my thing

There are a number of things I could post about right now.  Scratch that…there are a number of things I would like to post about right now, however, my emotions have gotten the best of me for the second time this weekend and I don’t think I can post about much except this.

Stuff with my sister is not going so well (welcome to the understatement part of the post).  We are to the point of hoping that she’ll get involved somehow with law enforcement so that she can get some help for this bipolar “episode.”  And by “help” I mean “checking into the hospital so they can regulate her meds.”

Sigh.

Her kids are ok (in case you were wondering).  My parents have custody of her daughter (for about 10 years now) so she’s with them as usual, and her son is with his dad, who has separated from her for the time being, but is hoping she gets some help.  As do we all.

Have you ever had one of those things that you wanted so bad to be one way, but it wasn’t, it was another way instead?

Dumb question.  We all have, I know.  This is my thing right now that I want to be different than it is.  This is my thing that I can’t change.

flashback

I got a glimpse of myself tonight.

Not myself now, but maybe a year and a half ago…that was me, then.

Before I arrived tonight, I was already expecting some heavy stuff at the meeting.  One of the other “professionals” who was there had sent me an email, letting me know about some recent events for this family.  And these events didn’t come out of the blue.  I knew their past, I knew why their husband and father no longer lived at home, though he’s still around.  I knew about his temper.

The topic came up, I asked her if she would be willing to get some help now (she wasn’t ready before).

She started talking, it seemed like she couldn’t stop.

And I heard myself in her words.

The denial, the fear, the doubt that she would be taken seriously by the domestic violence counselors—it was all so familiar.

She mentioned PTSD, and in an apologetic way said that the incident the previous week had brought it all up for her again, the way any number of things can do.  Triggers, I said.  I knew because I was experiencing my own.  I could have finished her sentences.  I know about feeling unsafe.

There were some other things that were hard about the meeting, details about the “incident” that I won’t share (you’re welcome).

Something I found interesting was that though she has experienced physical violence (which I never had to deal with, thankfully), that wasn’t what she wanted to talk about.  She kept telling us about the things he would say to her, the things he still says to her.  She didn’t go on about the bruises he left, but she went on and on about how stupid he tells her she is, how weak, how worthless.

The one bright moment of the meeting was when, as the three professionals were working at convincing this woman how strong she is, her child told her mom she was like a Rottweiler, while he is just a Chihuahua.

Image via Wikipedia

I started crying when I was on the freeway, headed home.  My hands shook a bit, but I didn’t go down the rabbit hole.  I cried because it was sad.  I cried because I remembered how I used to feel.  This time, though, it didn’t feel bottomless.  This time I could feel the ground beneath me.

And as I realized how glad I was that I could go home after a meeting like that and not deal with X, I thought about Chihuahuas and seemed to hear my inner Rottweiler give a satisfied little growl.

perfect moment monday: one year later

I’ve been thinking a lot in the past week or so about this time one year ago.  It was just about this time that I started going really crazy living at my parents’ house and starting to feel like I needed to get out of there now.

One year ago I was in the throes of divorce details, worried about my house selling (which eventually went into foreclosure), and was basically swimming in a sea of angst about Mr. X.

One year ago I was jobless, had very little money in the bank, was living with mom and dad, and was having a very difficult time imagining a better future.

Today…today is amazing.  Today I have a good job in a great city, I no longer have to depend on my parents’ help for my basic needs, and I have a great place to live.  The best thing, however, is the change within myself.  I noticed this weekend, at the second of two get-togethers with some dear friends and several of their friends (who have brought me into the circle without question) that I had a sense of belonging and peace that was quite foreign to me a year ago.  Today I don’t feel like the “pause” button is set on my life anymore.  Last night I laughed with friends, enjoyed food, and was happy.

Pretty darn perfect.

Read about some more perfect moments over at Lavender Luz’s.

famous friday: famously tolerant

Miss Famous has had a very busy week.

Last Friday night, my 12 year old niece, aka The Whirlwind, came to visit for the weekend.  Miss Famous LURVES her.

On Sunday, the Whirlwind’s 3 year old brother joined my parents to come pick her up.  Miss Famous tolerates my nephew.  I think she loves him, just more when he’s occupied with things other than bestowing affection on her.  But she puts up with it.
(If you could see her eyes in this photo, they would be staring at you beseechingly.  Oh, and, um, forgive the elementary paint job.)

Then, on Monday La Famosa and I drove a few hours to my younger sister’s house, home of my other three nieces, who believed the visit was all about their getting to play with their new babydoll Miss Famous.Supposedly, this shot is of Miss Famous in her “pajamas,” but I think she looks more like an 80s aerobics instructor:Well, all of the visiting is over, so her Famousness is free to loll around the couch, cuddling with her squeaky toys:

anything and everything

The few hours before my appendectomy were very surreal.  I went to my doctor’s office that evening with half of me thinking of all the terrible things that could be going wrong, and the other half thinking that I would just be wasting everyone’s time and causing a fuss over nothing.  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” one half whispered.  “You could die on the operating table,” whispered the other half, which is well-known for it’s speed in jumping to the worst possible conclusion in any scenario, and this well before anything was even diagnosed.

There was actually another voice somewhere in there (and pay no attention to my math skills—sometimes one-half plus one-half still leaves room for some other thoughts to creep in).  This was the quietest voice, the voice that remembered Lavender Luz’s amazing post about abiding in the unknown space, the place where we are painfully aware of our powerlessness.

I will not pretend that I was peaceful in all of the time leading up to my surgery, or even most of the time.  I can say, though, that part of the time I was able to take a step back and notice how I was responding.  There were some brief moments of awareness that the back and forth game that was going on in my mind was simply the way my mind usually works.  There was nothing unusual about my responses to this situation; my responses were as familiar to me as the back of my hand.  The only “different” in this situation were the circumstances, my insides kept up their usual dialogue.

A phrase came to me during those hours, and I remembered it over and over during the next couple of weeks.*

How you do anything is how you do everything.

How I “did” the few hours before my appendectomy followed the same pattern of how I do most things:  part of me jumps to the worst-case-scenario and starts brainstorming about how I will handle it, and part of me berates myself for not doing the right thing, or causing a fuss, or not doing things perfectly, whatever “perfect” means.  How I function at work follows the same basic pattern of how I function at the grocery store (if you don’t believe me, check out my desk drawers and my pantry; both are full of way too many “just in case” items, be they canned goods or post-its).  How I relate to my family follows the same pattern of how I relate to people I just met.  How I drive my car looks a lot like how I walk my dog.  And on and on.

My pattern, of course, would be to take all of this information and start berating myself for not doing it “right,” whatever “right” is.  At this moment I’m just working on noticing when I’m in those patterns, when I jump to that place in my mind that causes my heart to pound and my hands to shake.  Right now I’m working on noticing when I’ve slipped into scolding myself.  For now, noticing is enough.  For now, opening my eyes is enough.  For now, it’s enough.

*I’m not sure where it comes from, so if you know, please let me know.

what’s another word for “quickie?”

All is well.  I had planned to write and publish a nice juicy post, but then my 12 year old niece ended up spending the weekend with me (and she takes quite a bit of energy even aside from the back-to-school shopping we did) and bright and early tomorrow I’m heading to my younger sister’s for 3 days, where it is very unlikely I will have the peace and quiet to post.  So all is well, but it may be a few days before you hear from me again.

hold on tight

Jo asked me how I am.

The answer is—really, really great.

In the couple of weeks before my appendectomy I felt a definite shift in my thinking, a definite shift in my approach to the world.  (Then the appendicitis hit and all of July was basically a wash.)  Of course, I didn’t become a different person and I have plenty of neuroses and issues left to sift through, but right now they’re not making me feel like a failure.  Right now I feel like I’ve turned a corner.

A piece of this corner-turning has come from starting to learn the Alexander Technique.  For quite a while my therapist had been suggesting that I take up an activity to help me have better awareness of my body.  She suggested both yoga and the Feldenkrais method and I was trying to figure out something that would work well for me.  Serendipitously, I discovered that a woman from my divorce recovery class is a teacher of the Alexander Technique, which I had never heard of before.  It’s a bit hard for me to explain what it is, but Wikipedia says it is

an alternative medicine and educational discipline focusing on bodily coordination, including psychological principles of awareness. It is applied for purposes of recovering freedom of movement, in the mastery of performing arts, and for general self-improvement affecting poise, impulse control and attention.

During the lessons I’ve had, my teacher will have me sit, stand, or do other basic movements.  She then instructs me (often using light touch) to change my movement or position.  The changes are usually quite subtle, but I have found the sessions quite powerful, even overwhelming.  I often get dizzy, which seems to be a signal that we’re moving too quickly (I never would have thought before that such slight movements could cause a change in my blood pressure, but there you go).  Also, the idea that we’re moving too “quickly” often seems strange, as the changes in movement or position I make are quite slight.

The thing I like the best about my lessons (other than my friend’s giving me a hefty discount in her fee) is how I feel when I leave.  I feel really present inside my body, and have an awareness of my body that does not normally come easily to me.

Another thing I really like about learning this technique is that I am not just learning better posture, but the lessons that I learn about my physical self all seem to be mirrored in the rest of my life, and so I am learning about me.

I could give you a number of examples (and may, in the coming days), but the one I think about the most has to do with how I hold my shoulders, neck, and jaw.  Much of the time I hold everything very tightly:  clenching my jaw, scrunching my shoulders up, tensing my neck.

This is actually the same way that I hold on to the rest of my life.  I’ve noticed this posture in myself most when I am anxious (which comes much more frequently than I ever was aware before), when I feel that something is out of my control, out of my grasp, when I feel the ground shifting below my feet.  I have noticed that this feeling comes many, many times a day.  I hold myself as if bracing for a blow, as if trying to keep all the plates spinning.  And that’s exactly what I’m doing.

In learning to let my shoulders release, my jaw unclench, I have noticed that as soon as I am able to do so, a bit of the angst leaves my belly, my arms feel looser, my heart is lighter.  This has become a physical reminder that I don’t have to hold all the pieces in place, I will be okay if the plates fall, there is no theoretical fist waiting in the wings to wallop me.

My teacher suggested that when I notice that my jaw is tight, to focus on how my feet are stable on the ground, how I am solid in my chair.  I don’t have to hold myself up completely.  The earth is perfectly capable of holding my weight.  It is not all on my shoulders to micro-manage.  If the plates fall and crash, the earth will still be here, holding me up.