I hold on too long
What a lucky bird you are
I wish my wings would spread that far
Music Monday – spreading my wings
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Category Archives: change
On the subject of potholes
Autobiography in Five Chapters
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost… I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
I walk down another street.
‘Autobiography in Five Chapters’ was written by Portia Nelson (1920 – 2001) and quoted in “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”
7 things I’m giving up on
As a perfectionist, giving up on anything is near impossible for me. That’s like … quitting!!!
Give me dead horse and I’ll beat that thing til it gets up and walks. Which is kind of a horrific expression for which I don’t even want to know the origin. So, maybe it’s more like beating my head against a wall. Yeah, much better.
In the spirit of THAT much nicer image, I figure it’s gotta feel a whole heck of a lot better once I stop.
A friend recently sent me this great article in the Huffington Post called 7 Things I Refuse to Stress About. I think that part of refusing to stress about something is giving up on the expectation of that thing. Or, giving up the expectation of me being something I’m just not!
So, in an attempt to save whatever is left of my forehead and my sanity, here is my list of the 7 things I am okay with giving up on –
1. Getting to work early
I am not a morning person. Well, to be exact, I am not a “jump out of bed and hit the day running” kind of person. I need time to ease into the day. A cup of coffee, lying in bed for a bit, browsing social media for news, tidbits and a check in on the world I’m about to head out into. I figure being asleep is the equivalent of dispersing my entity into the Unconscious for awhile. In the morning, I need some time to piece myself back together. To assemble my parts into a recognizable whole again and set my intent for the day. I used to carpool with a morning person and it was always the gentle tug-of-war. How about 6:30am? How about 6:45am? How about 6:35am and a stop for coffee along the way? When my carpool ended, I just decided to give up on the “early to work” industrious person that I kept expecting myself to be. Now, I sleep longer, wake with the sun and get to work by 9am. No one cares as long as my work gets done. I stay longer in the afternoon ’cause I don’t need to be home for kids or a family dinner. The rest of the office is gone by 4pm. And then it’s quiet and I have as much time as I need for all the productivity that my day requires.
2. Fitting in
Dr. Seuss said, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” I know we all need that sense of tribe and a connectedness to other people. But, for years I always felt like I just didn’t quite fit in. I didn’t dress right, eat right, listen to the right music, watch the right TV shows, want to buy the right things. Once I gave up on trying to figure all that out, it’s amazing how much less stressful things got. I still probably don’t do all those things right, I just don’t really care any more.
3. Dressing in corporate clothing
I have kind of a corporate career. But I’ve never been comfortable in corporate women’s clothing. The pantsuits and pinstripe tops. Pencil skirts that end just below the knee. The blouses with that weird kind-of-bow, kind-of-tie thing that drags in your food. I look at women CEOs and I think, “I could probably pull off that job but I’d never be able pull off the wardrobe!”. In an effort to figure out what I was doing wrong, I hired an image consultant who immediately started extolling my curves and encouraged me to dress for the “abundant” shape I have. Once I got over the trauma of that experience and followed her guidelines, I actually found that dressing for work isn’t as much of an ordeal as it used to be. Turns out curvy bodies turn stripes into, well, curves! I’m a lot more comfortable with my clothes now. And, hopefully there is room at the top for an abundantly curvy CEO with fun shoes.
4. Eating dinner foods at dinner
I grew up in a household where dinner was a meat portion, a vegetable portion and a potato portion. Occasionally, there was lasagna or spaghetti but there were always dinner foods at dinner. As a single person, I cook dinner for one. Well, okay, when I don’t eat out, I cook dinner for one. And a meat portion, a vegetable portion and a potato portion is a lot of effort for one person. And before I get inundated with “30 minute recipes for the single person” I’ll just tell you right now that I hate cooking. And everything to do with planning to cook. But, I do love breakfast foods. So I’ve given up on dinner food at dinner. I have eggs and bacon or a bagel with pb+j. When I do have veggies I don’t cook them cause I prefer them raw and it’s less work. Who defined breakfast food as breakfast and dinner food as dinner anyway! I’m recategorizing.
5. Washing my hair every day
I have curly hair. Those of you who also have curly hair will understand that curly hair has a personality of its very own. An unpredictable personality that changes with the weather. Literally. It has good days and bad days. It has fun days full of bounce and grumpy days where it pouts into a limp mess. But mostly, it needs a little oil to grease the wheels. I’m sure it was the clever shampoo advertisers who convinced us that we had to wash our hair every day (lather, rinse, repeat). Not true for my curly hair. My hair looks best on about day 3. Before you get too grossed out, be assured that I wash my body almost every day. Just not my hair. I’ve given in to the ringlet-leader.
6. Understanding nutrition
I think I kind of understood the food pyramid when I was a kid. Since then, it’s been all downhill. Good fats, bad fats, leafy veggies, starchy veggies, whole grains, low fat, high protein, no gluten, protein shakes with flax oil, Atkins, South Beach, paleo, blood type, wheat belly … I officially throw in the tea towel. Trying to follow these conversations, let alone figure out what is all means is stressing me out. And as someone with food issues, the very last thing I need is for my food to take up any more space or energy in my day. So, here’s my nutrition plan. Eat when I’m hungry. Don’t eat when I’m not hungry. Make sure what I’m feeling is hunger and not some emotion like fear, loneliness, joy or boredom. Eat food that is closest to it’s natural state and that doesn’t have too many ingredients I don’t understand. Buy local and organic, if I can. Try to drink lots of water. And, when I screw up any of the above (which I do), don’t freak out and find inventive ways to punish myself. Be gentle and just keep trying. That’s it.
7. Olives
I have tried to like olives. I really have. A few years ago, I went on a vacation to Greece and I was determined to learn to like olives so I could enjoy them in their native land. I followed that saying, “you have to eat seven olives before you like them”. Nope. I tried different kinds. Nope. Stuffed with feta. Nope. In a martini. Nope. In seven martinis! Nope. I do not like olives. I do not like them in my bread, I do not like them as a spread. I do not like them on a slice, I do not like them in my life.
So, if you’re looking for someone who gets up early, washes her hair and has a nutritious breakfast that includes olives, I am clearly not your girl. But, if you’re looking for an imperfect curly haired quitter who has pancakes for dinner, I’m here. Giving up one day at a time.
Out of the pothole and into the firing squad
After Saturday’s post, I have a whole new level of understanding around why it is hard to talk publicly about depression.
Not that I regret sharing. The comments on what people do to self-care were so enlightening. The number of “me, toos” that came in made me feel so much less alone and more normal. And, the check-ins from my friends by phone, text and e-mail filled me with gratitude for the love and support that I have.
So, not for a moment am I complaining. Quite the opposite.
But the thing about depression is that it thrives in the dark and in the isolation. When I took that away, and when I shone the light right into it’s scaly little eyes, wow was it uncomfortable!
In fact, the vulnerability was excruciating. Squirmy, skin crawling, bolt for the door, in the firing line excruciating. Every fibre in my being was saying Run! Hide! Don’t let them see you! Don’t talk to me or acknowledge me!
And as much as I hate it when people worry about me – who me? I’m fine – I think what I really fear is that people will pity me. Or that people will think I am pitying myself. After all, who am I to complain! Snap out of it!!!
Things are much better today.
The self-care helped. The writing helped. The sunshine helped. Talking helped. Friends helped. Hugs helped.
Growth happens at the edge of our comfort zone. Dammit.
The gaping pothole in my heart
I don’t have cable but I understand that Dexter is a pretty good show.
My sister recently commented that Dexter calls his psychosis his Dark Passenger and that she was going to start calling her depression her Dark Cloak because it envelopes her yet it can be comforting in a warped way. I commented that a Dark Cloak can also make you invisible, which is sometimes exactly how I want to be.
This week has been a tough struggle against the depression. For me, depression feels like a reoccurring but always unexpected pothole along my road. I can be traveling along my path – the uphills, the downhills, the flat boring sections, the curves and the vistas – and suddenly there is this gaping hole that opens in my heart..
Sometimes, I fall inwards before I realize it and I am left at the bottom staring upwards and outwards at a far away world. Sometimes I see and feel the hole appearing, like a landslide in the road and I slip and slide desperately trying to regain my footing as the ground becomes unstable under my feet.
Sometimes, at the bottom there in the dark I am too tired to contemplate the scrabble and hard work of pulling myself back up or even calling for help. I just want to lie down and disappear into the darkness.
They say that one key piece to battling the depression is good self-care. For years I never really understood what that meant because people’s examples of self-care including things like going shopping and buying some new clothes, taking a long hot bath, treating yourself with food or calling a friend.
In my struggle with food issues and body image, the first three were out of the question. Staring at myself in a mirror, with bad lighting, wearing ill-fitting garments, aka clothes shopping, is a just plain awful. Treating myself with food was just numbing out, something I was trying to stop doing. And, lying naked in a bath staring at my body was so far from relaxing that I might as well have just grabbed a shovel and started digging the hole a little deeper.
Calling a friend was just perilously close to asking for help. The phone might have weighed a thousand pounds it seemed so heavy to pick up. And, what would be the point of worrying my friends when there was nothing they could do to help?
In frustration, one day I asked a friend (okay, my therapist) what exactly self-care was supposed to mean? He said that self-care was anytime I did anything to act upon what was important to me. Huh.
So, self-care is anytime I get some exercise because being healthy is important to me. Self-care is calling a friend; not because I expect them to do anything but because I care about them and how they are doing. Self-care is taking the time to write and journal so I can be honest with my feelings and actions. Self-care is healthy eating behaviours which separate food and emotions. Self-care is saying no when I need to set boundaries and saying yes when I’m scared to tread the edge of my comfort zone. And self-care is giving myself time each day to be creative so that I grow and learn.
Turns out, self-care means taking care of myself!! That is what allows that pothole in my heart to fill up again (with self-love?), carrying me back to the surface.
In my struggle this week, I was reminded of this when I read this list of 55 gentle ways to take care yourself when you’re busy busy busy. Some great ideas in there.
All except taking a long hot bath. That one is never making my list, even if Dexter comes out in favour of it.
Thank you for breaking my heart
Thank you for breaking my heart
For the depth of the pain ...
which showed me how much I could feel
For sending me into the dark ...
where I found my light
For the broken pieces ...
which allowed more space for love
For the ocean of tears ...
which washed away the unimportant
For the hot rage of anger ...
which helped me to set my boundaries
For the fear that took my breath away ...
and forced me to inhale my courage
For shattering my foundation ...
and giving me the chance to rebuild
For bringing me to my knees ...
where I could see the helping hands of friends
For the vulnerability of my weakness ...
which is intertwined with my strength
For taking away the certainty of what I knew ...
which let me do what I never imagined I could
For plunging me into the unknown ...
and for all I learned there
For the wrenching change in my path ...
and the unexpectedly places it's taken me
Thank you for breaking my heart ...
for I prayed for love
and I was given the opportunity to love
Wordless Wednesday – Turning my world upside down
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A Fish and a Bicycle 