Find me

Don't find me.

I'm here for you

Just not today.

They're reaching out.

The heart says

Take a number,

But they won't wait.

Some bang on the door,

Some walk away,

Others burn the place to the ground.

I said wait

I said I don't have room for more of you

I said I'm crumbling, can't you see?

And I crumble.

Just small bits at first,

Then like a fully burned log

 which has somehow maintained its shape,

I crumble to dust at the slightest disturbance.

No one can put me back together now.

I am all burned up

Cool ash in the fireplace

I am nirvana 

Dancing through infinite space

Find me

In the harmonic galaxy

That is our shared heart.

I am here with you. 

photo by Billy Smith

Gratitude Poem #19

What a gift

  To live this life

    In human form!

 

To feel touch

  and wind,

 deep emotion

   like undulating 

     waves on the sea

 

To see and hear

  beauty,

    nuanced and garish

   as it pours through

     and around

       this body.

 It's been awhile, I guess I better give a report!

I'm in a gift season currently, which is fun. For Mother's Day, I wrote mom a list of 50 things about her that I am grateful for. It was fun to think up! Lots of memories came through and it was surprisingly easy to get to 50. I thanked her for my Wonder Woman Underoos. I wish I still had them. 

I had a birthday event this past weekend and made a mix CD for my bandmate, Mr. Random. I always enjoy making these, but this one was extra fun because he wanted 'interesting/weird' music. I figured anything I am familiar with is probably also known to him, so I dove into Spotify and found lots of new stuff. It's a gift for both of us!

In work news, I'm finishing a small set of custom cherry door/window trim for some friends. I'm also about to embark on managing my own payroll rather than going through a service. Math! Details! I'm into it! 

What have you been up to?

Gratitude Poem #7

 Heart of the world

drums her landscape

in my chest.

From her dark hollows

I reach out

on the up beat -

in, on the down. 

Now you are beside me.

We reach out

on the up

in, on the down

 

Loving in synchronous time,

Polyphonous parade of divine.

Gratitude Poem #4

 

 Good Morning,

Divine Being.

Let's wrap each other

in sun warm arms

and weep for the 

magic of love.

Self Care

Yesterday I had a panic attack. It lasted about 9 hours, off and on. That's a pretty significant stretch for me. My longest last about a day and half. At the short end, it's usually under an hour. 

I don't feel super comfortable talking about this, but I know I'm not alone in the experience. As Ram Dass said, "We're all just walking each other home", so maybe by sharing I can help others feel comfortable opening up. This profoundly healing work is best done within a safe, loving, and compassionate community. 

 

 

That said, I don't typically reach out for support during the actual experience. It's difficult to verbally communicate through the crying and unclear thinking. Instead, I tend to reach out anonymously toward my favorite teachers (online and print) and into my own heart. Afterward, I can process it with real people if I need to.

 

My experience always starts with a trigger. This trigger could simply be my mind ruminating on the past, something someone said/did, or surprising noises/movements. I don't typically know I'm panicking at first, then before long I'm uncontrollably crying with a deep sense of emotional pain. Physically, my heart rate increases, temperature rises and I feel tightness in my stomach, heart and throat. 

This has been happening since I was a child, but has been most impactful when triggered at work. Suddenly I'm crying and cannot stop. I go into the bathroom to wait it out, but the harder I try to stop it, the more power the pain seems to have. It's embarrassing and has made me feel like such a weirdo, and not in the cool way!

Yesterday it started in the morning. I won't go into the triggers, but know I was alone and safe in my apartment. The feeling at first is that normal thinking starts to spiral in. Tighter and more rapid thoughts fill my awareness and I start to feel out of control. As perceived self-control leaves, panic steps in (the heart racing and all that) and I always start crying. Within seconds my face is hot and red, tears are blurring my vision and sinuses are full. 

By now I have some coping skills. I no longer try to stop it. As I said, that tends to make it worse and it never works anyway. Instead, I acknowledge that I'm having a breakdown. I take the day off and allow my body to move through it as I gently guide my mind and spirit toward healing activities. This time I listened to a talk on healing trauma, watched some videos on gratitude, attended an online meditation group, read some relevant articles and spent a lot of time meditating on my specific circumstance. By about 6 pm I felt better, kind of numb and exhausted, but calm and peaceful. 

I've been working to heal my mental health issues for a long time and am starting to see it all from a wider vantage point. It's like a treasure map, worn and illegible in places, but filled with delightful possibilities of unknown treasures to be found.

Thank you for walking me home.

Mountain Love

 I am the mountain

dressed in fir.

Glittering streams bejewel

my sides

as I sit 

solid and yours

beneath the sun.

Values

I'm listening to The Upside of Stress on Audible.

I could write a whole entry on the pros/cons of audio books, but I came here to talk about values, folks, and that's what I'm gonna do. 

First, a little back story. As part of the 8 week MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) course I am taking (offered for free here https://palousemindfulness.com) I watched a Ted Talk by Dr. McGonigal in which she discussed how it is not the type or amount of stress in one's life that is a predictor for health struggles, but more the attitude toward that stress that makes the difference. I read this in passing awhile back but hadn't looked into it. This is a topic of interest to me, so this time I'm taking a dive. 

McGonigal talks about how, for the 10 years prior she has been teaching her students about the high risks of stress to physical and mental health. Then she started reading studies on how attitude and mindset can vastly improve a person's ability to cope with stress, even for people living in chronic high-stress situations. This completely changed her approach to teaching, reframing the curriculum to be about feeling empowered rather than oppressed when dealing with challenges. The book covers many studies, interventions, and examples of how anyone can adjust their mindset to handle stress in a healthier way. I won't elaborate too much here, but I highly recommend it.

So, one intervention is to interject our strongest value(s) into our stress responses as they occur. The findings show that when people pair their feelings of stress with the values that put them in the situation in the first place, it helps to morph the more toxic "fight or flight" type of stress response into something more like a "tend and befriend" response. For example, maybe a person is supporting a loved one through a chronic health issue, feeling the overwhelm emotionally, physically, financially, etc. If they are able to remember why they are in the situation, because they love this person and want to help them heal, the stress response becomes more meaningful. It turns out, when we remember stress is actually a useful physiological response, helping our bodies prepare for difficult situations, the response itself is modified to be healthy rather than destructive. Crazy, huh? I'm way into it.

I want to try it, so I started with this prompt:

Identify 3 personal values most important and meaningful to you right now. Pick one and write about it for 10 minutes. Describe how it affects daily life, why it is important, how it comes into play during major stress, etc.

3 personal values that are meaningful right now: 

• kindness
• honesty
• humor

In trying times, humor is one of my faves so here we go...

That's funny, I'm trying to write about humor while thinking so seriously about brain schtuff. I love humor. Of course, I don't want it to hurt anybody, but as long as it's well-meaning I think humor makes most parts of life better.  

I just read somewhere that a woman, knowing she was in her final days, hired a flash mob to crash her funeral and turn it into a party. I fucking love this. It was on fb, so I didn't click the link (so many of them are not what they claim) but now I wish I had. How did it go? Did people mostly enjoy it or was it hard to handle? 

This past weekend, Erik and I went to help his brother's family with a house they're building. He and his wife have been working non-stop for over 2 years building this place, mostly by themselves on a limited budget, but they're almost done, yay! 

The work went easily, and we got a good amount done. But it was also challenging. Erik's brother is very ill. They have been going through so much with this; multiple medications, treatments, doctor visits requiring travel; he is in a lot of pain, she is working full-time. All this while raising two kids and building a house. The vibe this weekend could have been heavy, but it wasn't. They both have great senses of humor as do we, so all in all it was surprisingly energizing.

One minute to go... humor is important to me because I tend to be too serious minded, self-sabotaging myself a mountain out of molehill more times than I can count. It's amazing how a shift of mindset can turn a challenge into no biggie in the blink of an eye.

There! 10 minutes. 

I love you all and thank you for reading!

Laundry

I'm in a funk today and I know why. Last night I lost my temper with the cats. Yes, I'm talking about the cats again. 

I've never raised my voice to them, been stern yes but never yelled in anger. Ouch. I've been working to replace that behavior with mindfulness for awhile, with reasonable success! The reality of my behavior has been cringy to face all day. AND, I yelled at my cat who is healing from dog trauma. So here's how it went...

All through Friday night, I would wake to find Louise sleeping at the foot of bed (this is fairly new and rare). Then Thelma joined her for awhile, which is unheard of! I was so excited. We've been together almost a year now and they're still too skiddish to sleep with me, so this was a breakthrough night. Saturday afternoon, I took a nap and Louise joined me. But not at the foot of the bed, she curled up in a spoon with me as I pet her. She fell asleep and I listened to her sweet snores for awhile. It was a perfect moment. 

Saturday night, as I was streaming my stories Louise snoozed at the foot of the bed. After awhile she got down, then awhile later I shifted in the bed and felt moisture. What? Feel around... look... YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!! One full piss was bestowed upon my bed and bedding. Several layers soaked with cat urine. You have got to be fucking kidding me. And there we have the snap. I yelled, cussed, stormed around as I tore the bed apart and replaced all the bedding. It was late and this was very unexpected. I lost it. 

I spent Saturday night nudging her off the bed the few times she tried to join me. "No more Louise on the bed" I said. Fair enough. I feel OK about that one. Still I woke feeling pained, grabbed my phone to see what other people say about dealing with this sort of thing, and came up with a couple of ideas. 

This wasn't the first incident, but it was the first time I could positively identify the culprit. The other 3 times (all involved poop on the rugs, once with a pee puddle on the nearby vinyl flooring) I deduced a reason I was being communicated with, one of the food bowls' bottom was exposed, I took longer than usual to clean the litter, and I had an overnight guest. But this time we had a sunshine and rainbows kind of day, so what's the deal? 

I initially assumed the bed pee was a communication, but that doesn't make sense. I don't think it's a medical issue, she's 2 and an indoor cat, quite healthy. So is it a territory thing with her brother, Thelma? That's my best guess. She has shown signs of jealousy and retribution when she sees him getting attention, even attacking him when we're all playing together. How do I teach a cat to be fair, or at least calm her anxiety enough that she doesn't act out with her waste? There are suggestions, of course. The pheromone plug-in, anxiety supplements, etc. If it keeps happening I'll probably look into those options. But for now I'm trying a couple things. 

One article recommended feeding treats on the bed as most animals won't do their business where they eat. So I moved our twice daily ritual of Treats and Pets to the bed. I tried it tonight. Louise adapted quickly but Thelma got spooked both times he braved the bed and didn't get a single treat or pet. I'll try once or twice more, but that could easily become imbalanced if Louise has an advantage. She is the alpha so Thelma toes the line pretty diligently and would rather miss out than face conflict with his sister.

The other idea is to not allow Louise on the bed again until Thelma starts to feel more confident up there. But the jealousy might make that one backfire. I mean, I wonder if she felt so good after our cuddly day that she was desperate to hold onto it, 'what if Thelma strides in and takes this from me?' I don't know, that's probably anthropomorphizing but I'm looking at all the options I can think of.

 

You're a Cat Lady!

Ok, fine. I'm the cat lady. I love my cats, Thelma and Louise. They're two year old darlings, full of rollypolyfluffyplayfulness. Here are their most recent glamour shots.

 

Purrfect. I know.

Gladdening the Mind Back to Now

 Life. What a journey! We experience everything from deep sorrow to mind blowing elation on a cycle that seems both random and predictable. So much is out of our control, I sometimes feel overwhelmed to the point of motivational paralysis. At these times I reach for habitual comforts: alcohol, social media, TV, etc. These activities are fine in moderation, in my opinion, but I find an over reliance on them creates an undercurrent of ennui that settles deeply. I lose inspiration for experiences that bring pleasure. It's a sort of spiritual water treading that eventually asks to be addressed. 

My main toolbox for this is mindfulness meditation, and for this writing I'm pulling out gladdening the mind and present moment awareness. These are two excellent tools for getting myself back to center, where I can widen and gentle my perspective. From there, life flows more smoothly.

Gladdening the mind is like finding your happy place and hanging out for awhile. One teacher guided a meditation on this by having us visualize the sky filled with a wide smile. Then, seeing that smile grow in our hearts, minds and bodies. Feeling a big smile radiate outward feels really good! 

This idea isn't limited to meditators. Neuroscience supports the idea that we can change our happiness set point by paying more attention to positive experiences. Beyond simply noticing the good stuff, scientists recommend holding these thoughts and feelings in mind for as long as possible. Enjoying a prolonged positive moment builds neural connections in the brain that allow us to more easily do so in the future. It's like building a muscle, or creating a path through the flora to our joy. The happier we are, the happier we will be.

My life is very good, so when I find myself wading through light depressions I know I have this mindfulness toolbox available and that it will help. Recently, I brought it out for some overdue maintenance and decluttering.  

My 50th birthday was this week. I like to use milestones to take stock in my life and retrain my attention toward a chosen direction. So, I planned a solo mindfulness retreat for last weekend. I stocked my house with delicious foods, both healthy and decadent. I bought flowers and candles. I set up a new altar. And I gathered books and documentaries that were in line with my focus for the weekend. 

The daily schedule was somewhat loose. I got up and went to bed when I wanted to. I meditated three times daily, but not at a particular time, and I filled the spaces between with the prearranged books and documentaries I had gathered. I allowed myself to smoke weed, but drank no alcohol and avoided the internet (except for the docs).

It was a beautiful experience. There were no blasts of inspiration or mystical visions, just a gentle, steady gladdening and emptying of this being. I came out of it feeling confident, easy, and totally content to be in my 50s!

I had an interesting observation with the absence of social media. First, it was probably the most challenging restriction I observed over the retreat. This surprised me. I think of social media as a time filler, which is how it began for me. But the days of looking at MySpace for 15 minutes and being done with it are far in the past. Now, I have a twice daily routine of allowing myself to scroll through Facebook, Instagram and several news feeds. I estimate a minimum of 2 hours per day. No judgment on others' habits here, I like to track behavior because it helps me. 

Second, it seems that my mental flow has begun to resemble a media feed. I noticed it Sunday night of the retreat. By then, I was feeling energetic and inspired and found it difficult to fall asleep. I used all my tricks, gummies, mindful breathing, soft music...nothing worked. I lay in bed, observing my mind and noticed how I dash from one thought to another without really completing any of them. Have I always been this easily distracted? I don't think so. I've been noticing it for awhile, asking friends if they too notice that as they get older, the ADHD seems to be getting worse? I don't know, the data set is weak, but it's worth considering just for half a second, then I'll think about puppies. 

The tool I'm using for this is present moment awareness. I've been working on this one for years. It's challenging to be fully present in each moment. My mind is used to worries, plans, and ruminations. How can I just, what, be? Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Again and again, noticing the breath, being present in my body, feeling the energy of other beings, observing the natural world around me...again and again. Slowly acclimating to being glad and just being. 

I know this is a long one, but I want to recommend some of the documentaries I watched. All three of these are deeply inspiring to me:

Mission: Joy Finding Happiness in Troubled Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Have Arrived, I Am Home 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ram Dass, Going Home 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for being!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

 

Today would have been my dad's 68th birthday. This photo is my mom, dad and I in 1973. It looks like my mom is sewing (she's still a crazy active seamstress), I'm dozing, and dad is trying to be cool in what wasn't a great situation. I've always wondered about the crooked drawing taped to the wall. Who drew it? Who is the subject? I'll have to ask mom if she remembers. 

My parents had me at 18. After I was born, they had domestic issues (surprise!) so mom and I moved in with my aunt and uncle for awhile. I'm pretty sure this photo was taken at their house. The writing on the back looks like my maternal grandmother's. Maybe it was a get-together? The date on the photo is July 73. Could have been a barbecue, who knows?

It's hard to imagine what dad would have been like now. He was 51 when he died in a car crash. Mom had left him not long before and he was an emotional mess. It was a shitty time for all of us. I think of him often and wonder if he would have healed through the trauma, ready to start over on his own terms or would he have devolved into alcoholism and anger? Either would have been possible.

Dad was very intelligent but uneducated. He suffered the typical frustration of poor, smart kids. He worked in the trades all his life and was known to gripe frequently about the "rat race". The work was physically hard, often psychologically demeaning then he would come home to four kids. So he was often grumpy, yelling at us to be quiet so he could hear the news.

He was also playful. When I was about 5, he asked mom to sew some knee pads so he could crawl around with me on his back yelling "giddyup!". "Horsie" was one of my favorite games with him back then. I guess it did a number on his knees - until mom made those adorable pink flannel knee pads! He also liked to sing and would do it with an overly expressive, hamming it up kind of performance style. I loved that.  

Happy Birthday, Dad! I hope some fragment of you is out there, singing Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree and having a cold one. Cheers!

Friday the 13th!!!

Friday the 13th!!! Neat! I've never been one to feel any reluctance about this day. Actually, I often find it is perfectly pleasant. Besides, how can one not be a fan of such an excellent prime number?

So far so good anyway. I've coffeed, crossworded, played Treats and Pets with the cats, meditated and now I eat and blog. 

I love it when my cats and I invent a new game together. It can't be forced or contrived. Cat games are like art, the inspiration comes unexpectedly in a little whirlwind of delightful whimsy. Last night Louise was hiding in her tube on our galaxy rug, which was out of place. I told her she was going for a ride then slowly started pulling the rug into place, saying in a sing-song voice "woowoo....woowoo". She darted from the tube a few feet, turned to look at me and I asked if she liked it? She went back in the tube! I then pulled and pushed the rug around gently, saying "woowoo" for a few minutes. She stayed in the tube and Thelma came to investigate. All in all, I think it was a win and hopefully we have a new game! Here's a photo of another playtime on the galaxy rug, which makes for such an excellent backdrop.

As I mentioned previously, I would like to be a regular blogger but I haven't been doing so well with the regularity part. Maybe I need some writer's inspirational fiber, but then wouldn't I just fart words out to relieve internal pressures? I don't want to do that to you! I do crack myself up, pun intended. But seriously folks, my initial goal is to do this once a week. That could mean I post shorter blips sometimes. That's fine. I think it's more important to get a routine established which can then become a habit. Once I don't have to remember to cajole myself into it, I may find a natural, regular urge to have something to write in this abstract, vulnerable, sortofbutnotreally anonymous format.

Cheers!