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?