Learning to Stay

Knowing weekends are often hard for me, I made a plan last night to be more proactive. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests I put a reminder in the bedroom that I’ll see on awakening. It could be a branch hung from the ceiling. Whatever. It is to remind me to start the day with a half-smile and be aware of my breath.

I wrote “half-smile” on a sticky note on the bedside table.

This morning I watched my mind and tried to remain aware whenever it wanted to take me down a depressing path. I had dreamed of animals, lots of pets: cats, domestic rats. On waking, my mind wanted to dwell on the suffering of animals who are kept as pets by irresponsible families. Then I was thinking of the day I had to put my rat Stella down after her second stroke, when she kept having more convulsions and couldn’t clean herself or feed herself. Then my mind went to the day my cat Zelus died a very untimely, accidental death.

I called to mind some recent teachings that have found their way to me. I tried to cut loose the storyline and stay with the ball of pain energy resting in my chest and belly.

There is pain in the world.

I tried breathing in this pain energy, breathing it into my heart on behalf of all sentient beings. We all share this pain. It is part of the whole of the experience of being here.

I did my best not to run from the pain body, not to distract myself from it, not to let it generate more depressing, anxiety-creating thinking. I did my best to become aware of it and hold it with loving kindness, sit with it.

I know that I am sad. I am taking good care of my sadness. I know that I am anxious. I am taking good care of my anxiety. I know that I am fearful. I am taking good care of my fear.

I became aware of my breath and began to move about mindfully. Mindfully I drew a bath, moving slowly.

The hardest part for me is remembering to be compassionate toward myself and non-judgmental. All of the resources I’m reading and listening to now keep drilling the same message. Each of the 3 teachers I’m currently reading are telling me that these things for which I judge myself so harshly are completely human, normal things. We ALL do that, they say to me over and over.

This morning I sat with this uncomfortable energy and did my best just to observe it. One teaching that is incredibly helpful to me is to think of moods like weather patterns. You are like a mountain. Storms come and storms go across your landscape. It doesn’t make you a bad mountain. Some days are overcast all day, other days are sunny.

When I think of these moods that settle on me like passing rain clouds, it very much helps me to stop with the judging and feeling like I’m failing at something. It’s just weather. As soon as I remember that, I feel myself shift to the observer. I detach and watch and cradle myself and the pain energy with Love and compassion. Instead of recoiling from it, I try taking a step toward it with curiosity. These are some of the things my teachers are showing me now and they are enormously helpful tools.

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The smallest things can lift me up.

Sylvain and I went into a fabric store to buy velcro for a small sewing job he needed me to do. I was in one hell of a tormented state of mind that morning. There was a brown-skinned woman with black hair whose garb suggested she may have been from India, a tiny girl of about 6 or 7 at her side. The little girl turned around when we approached from behind, looked at Sylvain and announced, “I LIKE YOUR WHEELS.” That lifted my heart for hours.

The image on the box of tissues in our bathroom “speaks” to me as if it were a living angel sending a private message just to me. It’s a single gold goldfish in a field of monochromatic blue goldfish. The gold one has a white aura around it and looks as if it’s saying something and smiling. Yeah, bring on the men in white coats if you want, but all I have to do is look at this little glowing fishie and I immediately feel light, happy and in touch the basic goodness of myself and the Universe.

This post.

I was driving to work one morning and had just pulled up to the stop light. A man was crossing in front of my car on a bicycle that was a tad small for him. Suddenly a violent sneeze came out of me (I’m a loud sneezer), and the man looked over just in time to see my hand cover my mouth and nose. I couldn’t hear him, but I could read his lips as he smiled broadly, bowed briefly and offered me a “bless you.” His face stayed with me for days. He had one of those faces shaped by a lifetime of laughter and deep joy. Ebony skin and white, white teeth.

I’m Blogging This

Holly and her young son were already at Taloola Cafe by the time I arrived. She greeted me with a hug and we sat outside in spite of the drizzle, using our umbrellas as a canopy.

We hadn’t been sitting there talking for very long before a lovely young woman passed by wearing this tee shirt.

“I like your shirt!” I said.  Not only did she confirm that she blogs, but said she was there for the monthly Meet-up of Windsor bloggers.

I kid you not.

We told her we were both bloggers meeting in person for the first time. At that we were invited to join them. Before the night was over, we had met Vicky (My Local Food), Candace of Blog Windsor and Femilicious, Rob (Late Night PC), Paul (W.E. Speak, The Windsor Shadow and others), Andrew (International Metropolis), and Pina and Adriano, authors of the Best Local Canadian Blog 2008: Windsor Eats.

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

Holly thinks she’ll probably sign up for the same yoga class four Sundays in July; we can ride together and have tea after.

Toward Better Self-Care

I recognize that since moving to Windsor and going through the hard period I’ve been travelling through, some areas of self care have slipped a lot, some a little, while in other areas, I’m taking better care of myself than ever.

In the area of exercise, I have not been doing well. I no longer even do morning stretches. I can feel my body has become stiff.

In the area of volunteer work or service to others, it feels I am idling/inactive. I feel isolated and stuck in the cocoon of self-centredness, dwelling too much on my own drama, which causes me to lose perspective AND robs the world of what I could be out there offering.

In the area of diet, I am doing OKAY but not great. I do gravitate toward the fresh fruits and veggies at supper and I have a light, gluten-free, high fibre breakfast. But I would like to get back to eating the way I was eating when I had my own refrigerator and my own stove/oven.

In the area of sleep, I am doing a good job of not staying up late with TV or computer or reading. I tuck myself in at a reasonable hour and I get up on time most work days. Sometimes I sleep too late on weekends and it affects my mood all day, so there’s room for more discipline there. If only I could remember how much better I feel when I DON’T sleep too late.

Socially, I have not been doing at all well since the move. I seem to be in a phase of regression or relapse with regard to some old social anxiety I once thought I had overcome for good in my life. I know once I take a few baby steps, this anxiety will lessen, but the first steps are difficult.

Spiritually, I have no complaints at all. This has been an unexpected benefit of the hard period.

I was talking to Lynn about how sometimes the only way we can tell we are making progress is by looking back. There is a purple bracelet on my left wrist to remind me not to complain, criticize, whine or gossip. Lynn said that in Hebrew they have the term Lashon Hara (evil tongue), which includes gossip and spiteful chatter. When I think back on what my inner and outer worlds were like before I undertook the Complaint-Free challenge, there is simply no comparison. That challenge changed me and changed my life forever. I am deeply grateful to Patti Digh for telling us about it. This is not to say I am perfect and never slip, but it’s nothing like before. And when I do slip, I catch myself. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but I am so much more conscious now of how my words and attitudes can engender love or can be toxic.

This week I have taken a few little steps toward good self-care.

1. Thursday evening before our friends arrived, I took myself to a free conference on Depression and Anxiety I’d seen advertised on a bulletin board in the community. I went as much to be around other humans as for the education. It was good to get out and expose myself to all the ideas presented that evening. After a brief rain, the sun came out and almost all the attendees crowded at the floor-to-ceiling window to view a magnificent rainbow.

2. Today I bought a yoga mat with carrying bag and tonight I signed up for a four-week Yoga course at MacKenzie Hall. It was hard to justify the gasoline I will burn getting there and back on Sunday mornings, but Sylvain and I both agreed I badly need to do this for my sanity and well-being.

3. I bought myself some wakame and fixed a big bowl of it today with sesame oil and rice vinegar. So nutritious! This was an accomplishment for me because I have trouble claiming time and space in “Ma’s” kitchen.

4. I’ve been saying YES more often to Sylvain’s invitations to go for a long walk after supper. That’s one reason you haven’t heard from me for a few nights!

5. A local blogger and I are going to get together before too long for tea or just to chat. We have several things in common and aren’t too far apart in age. I’m pretty excited (and also a bit nervous) about that.

6. I’ve been saying YES more often to Sylvain’s proposals to spend time at Ojibway natural area, which we did yesterday. It was AWESOME. I had on a tank top and sun-block against the sunny day when out of nowhere a storm came up. We ran to get under the big picnic pavilion and were trapped there for hours while it hailed and rained and almost flooded the pavilion. Both of us were ecstatic to have the park to ourselves. One end of the shelter looks out onto an open prairie habitat surrounded by woods. A mother deer and fawn came out to browse during one pause between showers.

DISCLAIMER: as I put this inventory down on electronic paper, I hope you know I am not berating or judging myself. It doesn’t feel that way to me. It just feels like observations, benchmarking so I know where I am and where I am not. I know there is a time for expanding and a time for retracting, a time for activity and a time for fields to be fallow.  But I also know that self care is vitally important, and that not taking care of myself in each of these areas is compounding and prolonging my difficulties. I want to get back to taking better care of me, and it feels good today to be able to cite some concrete things I’ve done this week toward that end.

A Special Visit

I met my third cousin Fred and his wife Lynn (yes, Lynn of my blog roll!) for the first time on Thursday night. They were coming to Minnesota and Michigan to visit friends and family, and decided to make time to come across into Canada to meet us.

It was cool getting to meet them, though I really felt as if I already knew Lynn from all the photos she has shared with me over the past months. Her personality really comes through on her blog and in her emails. It was neat to have her here in the flesh.  Fred I felt I was meeting for the first time, since all I had till Thursday were still shots and no blog to give me peeks into his personality. I somehow had thought of him as a quiet guy, so it surprised me that he did more talking than Lynn! He also plays guitar and has a beautiful, deep singing voice. We were treated to hearing Celtic ballads and Irish sea shanties in our own den. He shared a lot of guitar knowledge with Sylvain.

By the way, a first cousin is someone who has the same grandparents as you. A second cousin shares a pair of  great-grandparents with you. A third cousin has a pair of great-great-grandparents in common with you.

Many people confuse these terms with first cousin once-removed, first cousin twice removed, etc. Those are the children of your first cousins or the first cousins of your parents. Twice removed means they are two generations removed from you.

Ok, enough pedantry.

Lynn and Fred were with us all day Friday (we both took a day off work) and hit the road again Saturday very early so as not to get caught in any long lines at customs. After they left, Sylvain asked me what was the highlight of their visit for me.

A few moments stick in my heart as precious. One was when Lynn took me into the guest room and showed me the 1940s theme quilt she has been working on for an exhibition. After seeing so many of her quilts come to life on her blog, finally seeing one up close and getting to touch the French knots and other stitches and hear what each part meant to her was special.

“What else did you enjoy?” Sylvain asked.  I was glad that I made enough eggs on Friday morning and nothing burned.

And were there any disappointments, Sylvain asked me. Sure there were. I wish I’d been in a better, more upbeat mood and had had more energy. I now know I was premenstrual, which makes sense to me now as I look back on how lethargic I felt and how a slight anxiety hung over me the whole time.

It was also hard for me to know how to take good care of guests when the home they are eating and sleeping in isn’t my castle.  That was a bit awkward for me, especially for the old OCD me that wants everything to be perfect and hasn’t yet quite mastered the art of letting things flow.

Things did flow, though. It was a good time and something I’ll never forget…that two people I’d never met drove many hours out of their way just to meet and be with us for a while.

Not Worm Food Yet

Last night I fell asleep meditating on my corpse.  That’s from The Miracle of Mindfulness. I am not sure what Thich Nhat Hanh means by meditate on it, so I just pictured it and chewed on the whole idea of my eventual death. I imagined how my death might come about, but didn’t spend too much time on that part. I imagined a hospital orderly tossing my glasses into the donation bin for the Optimist’s Club.

There’s my stuff. I don’t need it anymore.

The main part of the fantasy was to focus on my body becoming worm food. Never mind that I want to have my organs donated, body to science or whoever wants it and if anything is left, cremated. I don’t care about markers or graves.  But I humoured Thich Nhat Hanh and imagined worms eating my face.

Pretty revolting. Not easy.

But I did it. I went there.

And it did have an effect.

I awoke in the morning with the thought, “HEY, girlie! You’re not worm food yet!”

I looked down at my living body and it was good.  One breath in. One breath out.

I’m really glad I’m still here…for now…and can breathe in and out.

I was tired, though. I had slept fitfully, so both of us were tired. I started to feel that dread of facing the day. I started to feel tempted to pull the covers over my head and sleep late, not leaving time for morning meditation or Pema CD in the parking lot.

Then I realized… this feeling of wanting to pull my head back inside the turtle shell and this story in my head that is starting to play about workdays being burdensome and something to try to avoid for as long as possible… this is a chance to practice the 4 Rs!

Recognize the Shenpa. I said, “Shenpa!”

Refrain from acting on it. This meant don’t pull the covers over my head or roll over for 5 more minutes. I GOT UP.

Relax into the feeling. And so as I stepped into the shower, I cut the story loose like cutting a kite string and stayed with the feeling. I put my hands over my chest to acknowledge where the icky energy ball was sitting on me. Then I relaxed into it. I said, “Hello, icky dread feeling!”

Resolve. I resolved to continue nipping Shenpa in the bud for the rest of my life.  Or the rest of the day, whichever came first. :) Ahem.

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My next chance to practice the 4 Rs came in the kitchen. I was putting the dishes away as I do every morning. Every morning Ma stays on the sofa in the adjoining family room doing her word search puzzles and she does not bother me or talk to me. I LIKE IT THAT WAY.

But this time she got up and came into the kitchen.  As she passes within inches of my back on her way to open a drawer, I felt my body tense.

Shenpa! I didn’t stop to analyze why her proximity makes me flinch. I reminded myself that she is a nice person, not a tiger in the jungle who is about to bite me.

I recognized, refrained, relaxed into the feeling, resolved.

Then we had a nice short chat about whether I’d seen a missing mixing bowl lately.

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After Pema CD time and meditation in the parked car, I went into work. No dread. I was just feeling happy not to be worm food yet.

I decided I could use this not being worm food yet idea as a tool, a way to gain perspective and release attachment to outcome.  I can pretend that I have come back in time from my own death just to revisit my life. Mind you, the events of my life have already played themselves out; I cannot alter them. I can only observe.

And so I pretend I’m a scientist or tourist just back visiting.  I am curious. I am fascinated. I enjoy touching, smelling, tasting, looking around me.

I got an email from G. It is her job to send paid claims to the government health program, which reimburses us a small portion of each claim we paid out. She sometimes catches mistakes we’ve made on claims. Her email said that she’d found a claim where I had paid out the “Every Day Price” of 113.99 instead of the “YOU PAY ONLY” price of 7.76 for a prescription, so if I would call Mrs. S and tell her about the overpayment, she would send the letter requesting the $106 back.

PHONE CALL? You want me to call this woman and tell her that I screwed up and now she has to write us a cheque for $106?

I had only been panicking for a few seconds before I realized it was a gift. A stack of books and tapes only goes so far if all you do is read them and never APPLY what they are trying to teach you, Kel

This is an opportunity, Kelly! I said to myself. This is a chance to see if you can BEGIN etching a new neural pathway by doing things completely differently.

And so I summoned the spirit of myself returned from worm food and remembered…on some plane or in some dimension, I am are already dead. This phone call already took place and it all worked out fine. Whether the woman berated you or cried or yelled or what…none of it really had any bearing on that day you became worm food.

This worked. I felt light and detached from outcome.

I remembered to be a scientist of my own spiritual experience.  It wasn’t hard to feel a sense of curiosity and wonder because I WAS curious to see how it would feel to do this lightly and without fear for once. It felt like finding out what’s behind door number three.

So instead of spending the next hour fretting over this call, I just dialed really quickly before giving myself time to think about what I was doing.

She answered and after I explained why I was calling, she said, “okay.”  I think she was just relieved I wasn’t addressing the issue of whether she noticed the overpayment before depositing the cheque.

Pema’s talks have done their job on me. She has completely convinced me of the truth in the idea that each time you go down the path of aversion or avoidance or numbing out or indulging in the crazy behaviour, you reinforce that habituation. You make it even harder for yourself down the road.

But if you catch the Shenpa early, it’s easier.

A Lighter Lightness

And then peace finds me.  Lightness finds me.  Not only that, but a lighter lightness than I have known for many, many weeks.  With easy smiling and inward laughing at my monkey mind.

I am reading and/or listening to a few different helpers at the moment.  By the bed I have A Course In Miracles; I do one lesson from the 365 assignments every few days. I’m on page 159 of Wherever You Go There You Are. My reading in that one is slowing considerably but I’m still with it.  When Thich Nhat Hanh’s slender volume The Miracle of Mindfulness came in the mail, I couldn’t wait to peek inside.  That one I have to stop myself from gobbling up too quickly.  In the car I am listening to Pema Chödrön’s Getting Unstuck CDs and at work after lunch I hide in the quieter upstairs lounge to read a chapter or two in The Mindful Way Through Depression. I’ll let you know if that one is helpful.

Of these materials, some appeal more to the intellect and some just transport me to the light place.

Today A Course in Miracles lesson for the day was reminding me that the world as I perceive it is my own creation. When my mind changes, my world will change. I know this to be true, but sometimes I forget and sometimes even though I know it, I still get stuck to my Shenpas like Brer Rabbit stuck to the tar baby. The more you struggle, the more stuck you get!

All the teachings I am reading carry that message: the more you try to figure out how you got stuck (or down or whatever) or try to FIX things, the worse you make it.  Ruminating does not help, it adds to the habituation, further carves the neural pathways that do NOT help get you back out.

The hardest part, especially for westerners, seems to be remembering our basic underlying Buddha nature. First in mindfulness practice we are told not to label thoughts good or bad, just watch them like ripples on water. Let them go. But we catch ourselves labeling urges and thoughts as good and bad and then we label the labeling as bad. Another layer of Shenpa. Ha!

I can’t seem to locate the door to the place I’ve spent all of today so I can come back here at will.  No, there is no magic formula (x hours of meditation plus 11 yoga poses plus 188 chants plus a vegan diet = magic door to enlightenment).  Don’t you wish.

Today I’m here in the light place and I don’t really know how I got here.

But I do know…and this is very encouraging to me…that it does happen from time to time.

And I know that I am learning some things.  The times of joy I am experiencing are not so tied to circumstance as, say, one year ago.  A year ago I might have said it was a good day because I had some time with my best friend drinking tea and talking or took myself to a movie and ended up in a spontaneous, warm conversation with a stranger in the ticket line.

These days it’s more about consciously choosing to find beauty around me in whatever happens, even on a day with no friends and no tea.

I can’t help but think it is good training, this time. And maybe a day like yesterday, as miserable as it felt at the time, was a blessing in disguise. It helped me understand some of the points these authors are trying to drive home. Not understand intellectually but “get” them experientially after tasting both in a 48-hour period: what it feels like to be stuck and what it feels like to be free.

When?

How could I fall asleep feeling so okay and wake up in such a state of anxiety?

Yesterday I wanted to blog but it got late. I had wanted to tell you how much some recently discovered resources are helping me. I am reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness, which is powerful.  I also am devoting about an hour each workday morning to sitting in my parked car on the empty side of the parking lot at work. There I listen to a series of sessions that were taped at a retreat with Pema Chödrön. Hearing her voice is even more amazing than reading one of her books.  I connect with her. She touches a place in me and the tears FLOW. She knows what I am going through. She helps me to understand that this is the human condition and I am not alone.

I am also–for the first time–managing to sit in meditation for short periods. This is a first for me, but far from the first period in my life in which I’ve attempted it.

Last night I noted that the list of things that have the power to irritate me is growing much shorter. This is one way I can measure and tell that the things I am practicing are having an effect. Some growth is occurring.

This morning I remembered upon waking to start being mindful of my breath from the very moment of waking.

And yet! And yet I spent the day in such a state of fear and anxiety.

I saw written on my wrist in blue ink: “pot luck.”  That meant don’t forget to bring something to the going away potluck for my old supervisor. F__k.

I had not cooked anything and another coworker had already said she was bringing a fresh fruit tray and a fresh veggie tray.  So there I was at the 24-hour grocery at 7:30 this morning going around and around in circles trying to find something to bring.  Mind you, I stubbornly refused to purchase anything of which I could not partake.  So no bread, no dairy, no crappy refined desserts.

I imagined Thich Nhat Hanh nodding in approval of my pace up one aisle and down the next. They were short, slow steps.

But with each pass up an aisle, I got more deeply hooked. I knew it, too. I said to myself, “there is my Shenpa.” I started to feel anxious and dark.

I gave up and went back to my car empty-handed. When I got to work, I sat for a long time listening to session three of Getting Unstuck.  Ironically, as Pema talked about how hard it can be to LEARN TO STAY, my attention was divided between her voice and the crazydrama in my head.

A fear gripped my body. I did not want to go to work and face anyone who might ask me, “what did you bring?” I started trying out excuses in my head: see…first sister M needed the kitchen for supper and then Ma was putting up jars and jars of strawberries and I really hate to cook and there was nothing gluten-free at the grocery store and and and  OK I JUST DIDN’T DO IT OKAY???

This fear probably goes back to grade school…when I was the only kid in the class who didn’t realize it was quiz day or the only child without a pencil or the only child who didn’t know what page we were on when called upon to read aloud.

I get angry with myself when I realize this stupidity has been going on for over 40 years and still has the capacity to paralyze me.

“I could still call in sick,” one voice says.

Something Pema said shifted my state of mind just enough that I grabbed the door handle and headed inside.

Nobody asked me “what did you bring?”  And I wasn’t the only one who didn’t bring a dish.  Earth to Kelly, come in Kelly? Do you get the fact that the stuff in your head has little to do with reality???

Nevertheless, the state of anxiety refused to lift.  It transferred itself onto some phone calls I needed to make.  I spent a lot of time ruminating over and dreading those phone calls.

This month is a statistics month, so I have to document how I spend every minute of my day.  The only thing worse than making those calls was figuring out how to account on the spreadsheet for the time I lost fretting over making them. I pawned one phone call off on an admin support person.  Instead of another call, I sent a fax. Instead of the third call, I went back into earlier case notes and erased the part where I said I would make a call on the 16th.

“You suck,” a voice said.

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My mind went back to the things I’ve been reading and hearing from Pema Chodron and others. You know for certain you are going to die. You do not know when you are going to die. What is important?

Do I or do I not want to live out my days prisoner of my mind?

Well?

Nothing is more important to me than evolving as much as possible in this lifetime…in this amazing gift of a lifetime that I’ve been given in which to do so.

Nothing.

So???

Then WHY oh WHY do I sit there letting a TELEPHONE intimidate me? It makes me want to scream.

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Pema tells a story about one retreat where she felt that a woman with whom she was once close hated her. But this woman refused to talk to her about it. Pema spent the entire night sitting with the feelings that triggered in her. She stayed with the feelings until she hit a shift: she suddenly realized that everything about her personality was structured to avoid going to that place…from the way she talked to the way she smiled to how she tried to please others.

I know this is my main demon, too. This demon is the reason I will only apply to jobs I know I can do well, it’s the reason I was 40 before I had experienced being dumped by a boyfriend (and that was huge progress). This is the reason that a cloud of anxiety has the ability to form over my head and follow me around.

In the middle of pondering these kinks in my psyche, a voice said: “you have a right to be here even if you suck.”

Think about that one. Even if you fell off the wagon for the 11th time or ate that bag of cookies when you wre supposed to be on a diet or got impatient with your child or watched TV instead of reading a bedtime story…you still have a right to be here.  To be here walking your journey is your right as much as it is the right of any human.

Even if I don’t save enough for retirement and end up a bag lady.

Even if I am not a good partner.

Or a good daughter.

Or a good sister.

I still have a right to breathe in and out on the planet.

When will I believe that all the way inside my cells?

Breathing Day 222

Thank you for being here. I reach out needing help and you buoy me with your tender words and presence. Do you know what a lifeline you are?

Sometimes I get confused.

I watch this video, for example, and I think I know what he means when he says we are running and we’ve been running our whole lives. I certainly know what he means by smiling at the blue sky.

Sometimes I latch onto meditation practice and it just becomes another vehicle for my martyr complex to grab hold again. Have you ever known someone who was addicted to suffering or thought there was something pure or noble about self-sacrifice? I have to keep a very close eye out for that demon.

When I watched Olivia’s posts and video about her experience at the breathing workshop that she ended up fleeing, it felt so familiar to me. She related feeling a bit silly because you’d think someone who’d already been down the cult path would recognize a cult-like setup a mile away and steer clear. You’d think. But that’s not how my life is playing out. In my life there are certain plays or dramas I keep repeating as if by repeating them I might finally get it right.

What am I talking about?

Oh. Yeah. I am trying to tell you that I can’t tell the difference between following my heart and running away.

Jon Kabat-Zinn said learning to sit and be in the moment is not to be confused with resignation to a particular situation. Tolle, Ram Dass…they all say it. But I have yet to understand when to act and when to wait until my muddy water clears and the right path paths itself. I think I’m sometimes sitting when I should be acting.

Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy.

Sometimes I am depressed because I am enslaved by a chattery ego, because I am falling for all those crazy-making stories. In those cases mindful breathing can transport me once again to a safe a loving place.

I breathe and come to the present moment. I become aware of the things around me, of my breath coming in and my breath going out. I also become aware of my feelings. Oh, there is anxiety. There is worry. Oh, there goes a thought such and such. Kabat-Zinn teaches me to stand back from the waterfall of thoughts and observe them. Thich Nhat Hanh reminds me to hold my ______ (fill in anger or anxiety or self-reproach)__ like a mother holding a baby.

Sometimes depression, though, could be a signal that I need to change something. Maybe there is something I need to say. Maybe there is something I need to do for myself. Don’t you think sometimes depression can be a signal? Like physical pain that can tell us to move our bodies out of harms way, depression can tell us to move our souls out of harm’s way.

That, so far, is the hard part: knowing when the healthier path is going within to trigger an inner shift and when the healthier path is some form of action.

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Today Sylvain and I went to our favourite nature area. I read a few more chapters in a most wonderful novel and he… well… did THIS!

Does Place Matter?

My friend Shailesh once told me that place doesn’t matter. If you have complete mastery over your mind, you can be happy anywhere.  In the country or in the city, in the mountains or by the sea, in the US or in Nepal. In a jail cell, even.

Another friend of mine had endless debates on this subject with her therapist and with many friends.  She suspected she could break her writer’s block and continue with her dissertation if she had different surroundings. Instead of her dark walk-up, she hoped to afford to rent a sunny house. Surely she could write again in such a place.

She asked me what I thought. Does place matter?

I had read a book called The Power of Place, but even before then I believed that yes, place matters.  There was a woman being interviewed on NPR the other day; she runs an inn at the foot of a glacier, I think. She talked about how people come from all over to feel the energy because where she lives is the heart chakra of the earth.  The journalist asked her if she believes in that stuff.  Believe in it? I feel it. I live here, she said.

Since moving from Waterloo to Windsor last summer, I’ve come to understand even better how much place matters to me.  I was happy in Little Rock, Arkansas but certainly happier in some neighbourhoods than in others.  Can there be any doubt that my stay last October at my mum’s cottage on Harris Brake was healing because of the environment?

In Waterloo, I was more blessed than I realized. Because of where I lived, it became easy for me to live more in accordance with my beliefs.  Eating locally grown organic food was easy because Eating Well Organically was blocks from my house. I could bike to work. Everything that gives me joy, in fact, was at my doorstep: community, cafe culture, indie films, winos who like to hug, indie book stores, festivals in summer. Quantum physicists came from all over the world to work and lecture at an institute I rode past weekly on my bike.  For $25 I got to hear one of the world’s best perform Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. I needed six tissues that night.

I didn’t realize until I started trying to settle in here how much difference place could make.

Sylvain and I have looked at a few apartments and condos near his house. Even though I am yearning to have a place of my own again, my heart was only half in the apartment hunting, though it wasn’t easy to pin down why.

This biggest struggle for me has been this: I think I know what kind of flower I am and what type of soil I need to blossom. But when I have thoughts like, “I could never be happy HERE,” I feel a pang of shame. Boy, what a snob I must be.  Or… if only I mastered mindfulness, I could be happy anywhere.

Thursday night–maybe ovulation time was throwing my hormones into a frenzy–I had a little meltdown. I’ve survived almost a year with no therapist, no pharmaceuticals and no social network. No church, even. The pressure was building inside me like steam inside a kettle.

My past is punctuated with radical departures.  First I set myself up in a situation that is going to become unbearable in time. Then when it becomes unbearable, I take off.  I have great adventures…like living in Japan a year, hitching Europe, moving to Canada!

I don’t want Sylvain to be the latest victim of my mental breakdown followed by radical departure. But there I was unable to sleep, my mind POSSESSED with fantasies of packing up the VW and hitting the road.

Then last night we drove way the hell over to Olde Sandwich Towne for folk music night. I hadn’t even slid down from the passenger seat of the van before I felt it. The neighbourhood made me happy. The ancient cemetery with stones from the 1800’s, the weather-worn epitaphs covered in lichen, the murals, the old courthouse and gaol all made me happy. It was like, “ooohh, there’s SOUL here.”

I could live in THOSE apartments, I offered. I’d be RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from the LIBRARY! I’d be RIGHT ACROSS from YOGA classes and BELLY DANCING. I’d be right across from the FEMINIST THEATRE.

You could do those things now, Sylvain said.

Yeah, but I wouldn’t even have to get in my car to do them if I lived here.

It’s so FAR, he moaned. He wants me within walking distance of his house.  I want to be somewhere where my joy can find me again.

It’s not as far as Waterloo, I said.

And on went the tender tug of war between two people with different goals in mind.

Inside MacKenzie Hall, we staked out a table on the far right and were joined by two women older than I am but younger than my mom. We started chatting a bit and that right there made my heart leap up.  I especially liked the one nearest Sylvain; she reminded me of Carol Channing with her sweet, soft voice and habit of finishing every sentence with a trailing, “yeah” as if her own thought were falling on her from the sky like a feather and she was giving it her approval.

When Sylvain went to the washroom, she said to me, “I like it when people are friendly!”

When he came back, my voice lost in the noise of the room, I softly told him what she’d said. He responded in kind, sharing with me that when I’d gotten up to buy water, she had told him, “she’s so gentle. I like gentle people.”

Today I rode my bike to Art in the Park, which is hosted every year in another old neighbourhood, Walkerville. Again, I felt at home surrounded by ivy-covered stone and brick houses taller than they are wide, streets shaded by 100-year-old trees.

I pondered it. Why do I feel more relaxed and more happy here than in Riverside where all the buildings and houses are post-war? How can it matter so much? Does it matter only in my mind? Am I just a snob?

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what these places that nourish me have in common and part of it must be this. I have more spontaneous, genuine encounters and exchanges with other humans in these neighbourhoods.

I’m not saying folks over here on the east side aren’t friendly. Quite the contrary: when Sylvain and I take our evening strolls along the Ganatchio Trail, people say hi and even let us pet their dogs sometimes. But it’s not the same. What keeps me sane is some outside the box, crazy spontaneity. Like the hugs I used to get from Anatole or being able to blow bubbles as I walk down the street with flowers in my hair and NOT feel out of place.  Feel in place. Feel at home.

The hardest hardest hardest part of all of this is trying to explain it to Sylvain or justify it to myself. It’s an energy thing. I don’t know what else to say. Once upon a time I would have said, “I know what I know” and stuck to my guns. But since starting mindfulness practice, I don’t know anything I used to know.

What do you know?

Energy!

Oh, my goodness, I have energy.

And I feel light and without worries.

And crazy thought chatter hasn’t been able to pierce my magic golden bubble for three days straight.

I wonder if it’s the 1500-2000 mg of Omega-3 fish oil I’ve been taking (doubled my original dose after reading more about trials for depression/anxiety).

I wonder if it’s the super duper liquid vitamin mineral stuff Sylvain and I now take daily?

I wonder if it’s the longer days and increased doses of SUNLIGHT?

I wonder if it’s the teachings of Jon Kabat-Zinn sinking in?

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Sylvain and Sister K are getting angel messages. At first I was a little bit jealous, I wanted angel messages, too. But then I realized that I was getting the message as loudly, even if I wasn’t there in person.

Sylvain’s first one was the other morning when he saw the little girl with bright yellow shoes skipping. Then today–a day when extra stresses and pressures at work were pushing his OCD tendencies over the top–he saw something out of the ordinary. A rattling sound was coming from the street when he was returning from his morning coffee date with his buddy. He looked around and saw a “normal looking” man riding a bicycle and pulling a little red wagon behind the bike. Inside the red wagon was a bright and shiny red toy fire truck.

On the deck tonight I asked him, “do you think maybe the angels are trying to tell you something?”

First the little girl skipping in yellow shoes, now the man taking his firetruck for a ride around the block.

Sylvain mentioned how very much he misses his uncle M, who passed away about a year and a half ago.

“Was he a playful person?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“If your uncle M WERE trying to tell you something, what do you think it might be?” I asked.

I sure know what those two encounters say to me loud and clear.