Anxiety and Unwinding It

If someone had asked you in early 2020 if you were an anxious person, what would you have said? I’d have probably said no.

And yet, in January 2021, I started using Unwinding Anxiety, an app-based behavior-change program developed by Dr. Jud Brewer.

Now, after two years of practicing many, small moments of mindfulness around uncomfortable behavior habits, I’ve concluded I was more anxious about more things than I’d realized.

And from what I read in the news, see on social media, and observe during weekly zooms with Dr. Brewer and program participants, I’m not alone.

If someone told you anxiety is a feeling of worry or nervousness or unease about an imminent event or something with an uncertain future outcome, you might be suspicious that anxiety is nibbling away at the corners of your calm.

Our world is full of opportunities to feel worried, nervous or uneasy.

It’s Not Just Words, It’s Also Tone

The word no sounds like a door being shut; yes like a door being opened. Yet meaning can be impacted by the tone used when speaking. A yes said with an eye-roll and resentment can cause distress, while a no spoken with gentle kindness can feel compassionate. Tone can change the emotional experience.

Bubba and I refer to that as the background music behind the words. As in the movies, it can set the stage for how an interaction feels or a scene plays out. Is the person swimming in the water about to be grabbed and hugged? Or grabbed and gutted? If Jaws music is playing, you’ve got a good clue.

Meditation Quote: Knowing Oneself

I like this quote, yet I’m having a hard time saying why. There’s something about it that encourages me to rely on myself more; to trust that I know who I am, even if I don’t know myself fully. Is it even possible to know oneself fully?

When I’m uncertain, there may be good cause to look to others for guidance. But there may be equal cause to sit with myself; to try and gain a clearer sense of my own being.

I like to think the quote is reminding me that my sense of self is actually there; that there is a knowing, and I can rely on it.

And to remind me that the opinions of others may, in fact, be clouded by their own not knowing.

Does this quote resonate for you? I’d love to get your take on it.

 

Photo source: Headspace

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Finding—Then Losing—Enlightenment

Sometimes Bubba or I experience a bright ah-ha moment, as if a curtain of confusion is pulled aside and some aspect of life suddenly makes sense. Akin to realizing the snake in the corner we’ve been scared of isn’t a snake at all, but a hose.

We explain our brilliant insight to the other, who nods in enlightened understanding. Yes, yes! That’s my experience too! What an awesome analogy!

We grab pen and paper, write down our insight—as best we can—and sigh with satisfaction.  This, we’re sure, will help us understand life and ourselves better; it will help us navigate the next, similar stress that comes our way. It’s an amazing doorway to self-knowledge.

A few days later we revisit our notes, excited to reignite the spark of awareness we captured; to build on it. We look at what we wrote: Scribble, scribble, “all a giant mustache,” scribble, scribble.

Huh? What the ‘eff does that mean? How is life a “giant mustache?”

Bubba and I look at each other across the table; neither of us has a clue.  It had seemed so clear, so concise, so self-evident at the time. We were sure our shorthand scribble would make sense when we reread it later.

Well, one of us will say, at least we enjoyed our moment of enlightenment while we had it.

Anyone else have cryptic scribbles that leave you puzzled?

 

Photo source: qimono on Pixabay

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Meditation Quote: Freedom of Mind

I recently wrote a two-part piece about navigating relationship when things aren’t going smoothly.  My kernel of understanding is reflected in this Headspace quote. Being okay with my mind—accepting it, even when it’s anxious—feels kinder than disapproving of it.   There’s freedom in that.

Here are my posts:

• Part 1: A Wretched Mess
• Part 2: Finding a Different Way

 

Photo source: Headspace

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Part 2: Finding a Different Way

I want to prepare meals with Bubba without getting defensive and having a tiff. But what if defensive is ok?

Bubba and I have relationship patterns that sometimes scuff up against each other. It can result in momentary relationship glitches. Or derail a day.

Some are random and rare; others, predictable and more frequent.

In A Wretched Mess, I wrote about a common kitchen scuffle we experience: Bubba offers to help me cook, and I resist it, experiencing his help not as help, but as a statement I’m doing it wrong.

Bubba wants to enjoy making meals with me. My getting snippy takes away the fun, so he leaves the kitchen, usually with disapproval.  His leaving means we’re not doing it together, plus we’re both upset. It all feels crappy.

Part 1: A Wretched Mess

Do you ever respond to something—or someone—in a way you wish you didn’t? Yet you respond that same way repeatedly, butting heads in a familiar dance pattern?

When Bubba and I started living together, one place we ran into relationship speed bumps was the kitchen, usually when I was preparing food. I rarely work off a recipe, so my style is free-form. I don’t actually know if what I’m making will work, but based on having watched mom cook—and enough personal success of my own—I’ve been content with my approach.

Then Bubba moved in. He’s comfortable in the kitchen. Sometimes he cooks; sometimes I do. When I’m cooking, he often offers to help. But instead of welcoming his offers, I’ve often resisted them; gotten defensive.

The Power of 10 Motivates

You’d think if I said I wanted to do something, I’d do it, right? Eat less? Exercise more? Sounds easy, and yet, when I take it head-on, it often doesn’t work.

Self-control, self-motivation, self-discipline all depend on one thing: the self. Problem is, in my experience of life, I often don’t have a single, dominating self operating. Different selves want different things, and the self that wants to exercise is met with resistance by a self that, well, doesn’t.

The self that doesn’t want to exercise doesn’t want to mind the self that does.

“You’re not going to tell me what to do,” it huffs, even though the you resisting is also the me wanting. It gets confusing.

Because I have multiple experiences in life where my own mind doesn’t agree with itself, I’ve come up with ways to overcome competing internal characters.  My trick-trash for uncluttering is one of them.

The Power of 10 is another one; a mental tool to help me navigate inner conflicts.

The Power of 10 defines success as 10-minutes of something: weeding, walking,  meditating. Whatever I’m resisting doing, I only have to do it for 10-minutes.

As long as I do it for 10-minutes, I feel good, because I’ve achieved what I set out to achieve.

Funny thing is, a lot of times I do more than 10-minutes. Willingly. Because the hardest part of getting going is, well, getting going; overcoming the inertia that keeps me from starting. Overcoming my own resistance.  Once the engine gets going, keeping it going takes less effort.

But if after 10 minutes I want to stop, I can and will. With a feeling of satisfied accomplishment.

It would be great to be that person who does what they say they want to do, without resistance. But I’m not. I was struggling to get back to blogging. I got this post written by telling myself I only had to write for 10 minutes today.

My fifth 10-minute timer just went off. Time to review, tag, and post.

The Power of 10.

 

Photo source: Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay

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Moving Slowly in a Fast World

The world feels fast: fast food, high-speed trains, supersonic planes. Tech companies move fast and break things. People want things now, resulting in instant Jell-O, instant messaging and Instant Pot.

I’m slow. I read slowly, write slowly, learn slowly. I’m thorough; detail-oriented.

This fault-line between my slow-motion style and the world’s fast-motion expectations sometimes leaves me feeling deficient, concerned I lack a societally-valued trait.

My discomfort intensifies when I try to learn something new. I plod through my learning while images of Neo from The Matrix appear, skills and knowledge insta-loaded into his memory.

I’ve wrestled with this aspect of my personality, being self-critical when I take too long to learn something, aching to speed things up.  Expecting something other than what is.

Saying No to Re-living Old Pain

I recently wrote about a friend’s suicide, an act that took place 21-years ago.  As I read a poem I’d written after his death, I sensed a character shuffling about the edges of my consciousness.  The character was carrying a cloak; a cloak of sadness, anger, guilt and despair, brought forward from those tumultuous days.

I realized this character wanted me to wear those emotions again.

It was as if this character believed there were proper responses to a suicide—no matter how long ago it had occurred—and knew the cloak carried within it acceptable ones.  Here, wear this, she said. In case of suicide, feelings of sadness, anger, guilt and despair are allowed. I was tempted.

The thing is, I didn’t want to feel those things. I looked outside my window and the sun was shining; flowers were blooming.

Donning the cloak-of-past-emotions would not change the past.

It would, however, overshadow a beautiful present with emotions completely unrelated to the now.

I didn’t want to relive those old emotions.

I had a choice. I said no to the character and her cloak.

 

Photo source: Hans on Pixabay

 

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A Friend’s Suicide Remembered

On Memorial Day weekend in 1998, an ex-boyfriend committed suicide. We had lived together for three years and had broken up less than a year earlier. Three weeks after his death, churned by emotions, I struggled to find ways to express the turmoil I felt.  I came across a poem I wrote back then; an attempt to describe the indescribable.

Reading it, I have memories of those days, of multiple characters in my head navigating their conflicting feelings triggered by his suicide: sadness, anger, guilt, despair. They were all part of the chaos.  At the time, I fully submerged myself in those feelings; their presence defined me. I didn’t see my emotions as the response of characters, but as me. I was the pain. I was the anger. I was the guilt.  There felt like no me beyond the emotions.

And yet, there was.  There always is, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

My New Swear Word

I have a new swear word.

Actually, it’s less a swear word and more a cheery way to acknowledge a minor mishap.

The word was born in the kitchen, while scooping quinoa out of a bag and into a pan. No matter how careful Bubba and I were, grains of quinoa always leapt from the measuring cup onto the counter.

Have you ever found yourself muttering under your breath about being clumsy, careless, stupid over something minor? Over something you’d never criticize a child for?

Well, when the quinoa fell, our voices muttered.

Some things are habitual; tracks laid down years ago and reaffirmed so often they’re solidly etched into being automatic.  Bubba and I have a few of those tracks; we work at counterbalancing their automaticity with more intentional responses. Sometimes we find something that works and is fun.

It was in the kitchen, with quinoa falling and voices muttering, that we found our counterbalancing tool: the quinoa itself.

Quinoa, when spoken, sounds like keen-wa. Which is quite fun to say, especially if you elongate the vowels.

Now when the quinoa falls, we call out keeeen-waaaa! with a cheery voice; it’s so much easier to feel upbeat when the music is soaring. It’s become our way of simply recognizing what is—the quinoa is going to leap—rather than responding as if it shouldn’t be doing what it’s doing.

It’s been so effective at quieting our spilled-quinoa-muttering-minds, we now use it regularly, in all sorts of situations. Because, at least in our house, life serves up plenty of spills, drops, tumbles and minor mishaps.

Spilled milk?

 Keeeen-waaaa!!!!!!!

 

Photo source: ponce_photography on Pixabay

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Meditating with Headspace

In my last post, I wrote about a decision I made years ago that helped me navigate the self-critical voices in my head and challenge their disapproving chatter. As a result, my inner-landscape-thoughts turned in a new direction. The directional change was slow, but that decision led me to experience myself and the world as kinder and gentler. The outside world hasn’t gotten any kinder; but my inside world has.

A few years ago, I made another good decision: I started meditating on a regular basis. Meditation takes the learning from that earlier decision and deepens it. It helps me tap into greater equanimity and contentment. I feel more balanced, less tilted toward finding things wrong and getting upset.

Andy Puddicombe is my meditation guide, his lessons delivered via the Headspace app.

Bubba discovered Headspace after coming across a talk Andy did at Google in 2014. Andy is the voice and experience of Headspace, having spent ten-years studying meditation before being ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk.

Tug-of-Wars Within

Have you ever felt a tug-of-war taking place inside you?

Not just a tug-of-war between two teams, but between multiple teams. Two teams tug on the smart/stupid assessment rope, each at opposite ends. The stupid team pulls furiously, dragging you slowly to their side.

Two other teams tug on the attractive/ugly rope; the ugly team manages to find enough “evidence” to give them the win.

Other teams tug on more self-images: kind/unkind; generous/stingy; strong/weak; on-and-on, dragging your esteem through the mud. The teams that pull on the dark traits seem to win more battles. Their voices are loud; insistent; convincing. The Judge stands over the games, hears the critical voices, and declares the winners. The Judge’s scales tilt in favor of the demons; somehow those voices are easier to believe.

Those battles went on in my head for years. They were torturous and painful and left me feeling at times as if a dark, wet blanket were draped over me.  Battles still occur—they always will—but I have more tools available when they arise; light exists to counterbalance the dark.

Dating and Baggage

When I was single and dating—a divorced adult with a child and more than one serially monogamous relationship in my backpack—the word baggage was often used.

Baggage: past experiences or long-held ideas regarded as burdens and impediments.

Burdens and impediments.

Not exactly a super-hero word in the world of adult dating. The sentence used to illustrate the word—the emotional baggage I’m hauling around—conjures up Pig-Pen from the Peanuts comic strip; the dirt and dust trailing behind him his emotional baggage.

Tilting at Windmills

I love moments when I see my perspective shift on something.  I tilt my psychological head and, bam! things are suddenly different.

I was driving to the hospital to see mom. The Vermont hills, peppered with farms and cows, rolled before me, small towns and communities rising up and fading away.  The green scenery swaddled me in its splendor; an occasional tree hinted at autumn.

I rounded a turn. There on the hill before me was a display of a half-dozen windmills.

Ice Cream, Safeway and Letting Go

Ice cream is the secret to a long and happy life. My dad, an almost daily eater of ice cream is, at 94, my evidentiary proof.  If red wine drinkers have convinced the world of the medicinal argument for their lust, I’ll go with the longevity argument for mine.

So, I eat ice cream, leaning toward anything with salted caramel in it.

Good Things in Unexpected Packages

I know people who seem perpetually positive and upbeat.  I’ve known them for years. They’ve been dealt some rough hands in life, so it isn’t that they’re simply Pollyanna’s.

Despite dark events casting shadows their way, they continue to show up with an attitude that fearlessly affirms the “rightness” of life; of their life, just as it is.  When they face bad shit and say things will be ok, I’m convinced they believe things will be ok. If they’re feeling any doubt or uncertainty, I don’t feel it.

Which has me wondering: do they get “down”? Do they feel doubt?

My New Apology

I posted my Habit of Apologizing blog post to Facebook.

A friend suggested I say “f*ck” instead of “sorry,” to help me break my habit of non-apology apologies.

“Why not,” I thought.

I’m trying to practice using this replacement word.

Leaving an Easter brunch today with Bubba, I realized I had forgotten our casserole dishes inside when leaving. It was just Bubba and me at the car. He spun around to go back and get them.

“Sorry,” I blurted out.

“F*ck,” I quickly said.

Followed instantaneously by…

“Sorry.”

I laughed. This could take a while.

3 Day, 3 Quote Challenge Day 3

 

Crazy Lady In My Head nominated me to do the 3 Day, 3 Quote challenge. Today is Day 3.

Rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you.

2. Post a quote for three consecutive days (1 quote for each day).

3. Nominate three bloggers each day.

Quote #3: 

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
~ Anaïs Nin

I like to think that starting this blog–and exploring the characters running around in my head–is a form of risk. Lovely to imagine a bud opening up to its full potential.

Three bloggers I nominate to participate:

1. White Privilege Syllabus
2. Inmate Blogger: A site that is a collection of blogs written by inmates. I just learned about the site so this links to the platform, not to an individual blogger. Yet.
3. One Day at a Time: “To stop a whirlwind”

Feel free to participate if it’s your thing. If not, I hope a few new people find you through this.

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