Category Archives: gratitude

November 26:  Practicing Peace Makes Me Better

Posted on by
3

 

IMG_2014

NaBloPoMo 2019

What helps you find peace these days?

With so much tumult in the country/world and Thanksgiving gatherings fast approaching, what will get you through this season and the coming year with minimal suffering and relationships intact?

Lately my inner peace feels tested on multiple fronts.  Anxiety, guilt, fear, regret, and insecurity accelerate their rotations through my limbic brain.  Thankfully, with age, therapy, and loving, compassionate friends, I have let go of self-judgment for experiencing stress and distress.  I don’t resist negative feelings as much as I used to.  I wish I could say this makes them less unpleasant, easier to tolerate.  Sadly, no.  But I am better able to let them pass through me, to ease into peace.

The more I observe, the more I notice that rather than allow and release our emotions, we tend to either deny/repress or fixate on them.  The consequent suffering can be disabling.  I started wondering how peace comes so much more easily to me now than before.  Below is a partial list.  What would you add to it?

***

Breathe

Rose may have saved my career.  One day early in practice, running around exasperated and cranky yet again, I returned to my spot at the counter to find “TAKE A DEEP BREATH” posted in large font on the wall in front of me.  It was one of those immediate and profound, perspective-shifting, life-changing moments.  One. Deep. Breath.  Everything goes smoother and happier since that day.  Later I learned about tactical breathing, which trains inner peace both mentally and physically.  I’m not facing mortal combat (primitive stress reflex responses notwithstanding), but it helps me find peace all the same.

Smile (especially when I see my kids)

I was a dormitory resident assistant my senior year in college.  Though it was my job to serve as counselor and guide to college life for my fellow residents, it was a wise freshman who taught me about exercising agency in the face of adversity.  I can still see her joyful, welcoming face and posture, feel her free and loving spirit.  I wish I had gotten to know her better.  She wrote on my message board, “Smile, Cathy, you’ll feel ten times better!”  Of course she was right.  Over the past 25 years I’m proud to say that I’m much better at finding my smile now.  Thank you, sweet girl.

Quote Michael J. Fox

MJ Fox worry

Focus on the Now

My daughter had an anaphylactic reaction while I was at work.  The sitter called and I could hear my preschooler stridoring in the background.  My son called 911 as I raced out of the office to meet them at the emergency department.  I was shaking and could barely see straight—how was I going to drive?  What if she died?  I still had to keep it together for my other kid.  That was a morbid turn, I remember thinking.  How quickly we catastrophize.  Thank God for the mindfulness training I had recently started.  Right now, everybody’s still alive.  Paramedics are on their way.  They already did the EpiPen.  Things are okay right now.  This mantra occurred to me as I pulled out of my parking space.  It carried me through that crisis and has held me up through numerous others since.  Mindfulness works, my friends.

Let Go Outcome

See quote by Michael J. Fox.  No matter how much we plan, what we expect, or how prepared we are, we just don’t know what will happen.  This practice is also an extension of mindfulness.  I can only control my own attitude and action right now.  I can cultivate relationships that influence others, attempt to enroll them in my ideas, and recruit them on my mission.  But I cannot control their reactions, their behavior, or the myriad circumstantial dynamics that facilitate or stymie our activities.  If we work steadily for our highest goals, stay on the path of honesty, integrity, and authenticity, and commit to ethical process, then we can deal with any outcome.

Stop Chasing Confirmation

Early in marriage and parenting, I used to fight.  I would flood my family with more and louder words, convinced I could prove my point and win.  The more I spoke (yelled), the more blank and silent my loved ones became, and the louder and larger I got in their faces, demanding understanding, agreement, acquiescence.  [Please feel free to laugh out loud while cringing here.]  These encounters inevitably ended in frustration for all of us.  Somewhere along the way I noticed people demonstrating the behaviors I demanded, even though they had never agreed to them.  Maybe there’s a better way?  Perhaps if I state my case calmly and lovingly, and let go of the immediate outcome, the doors in their minds might stay more open and I can still get what I want, without all the hurt feelings and wasted energy.  *sigh*

***

Four more days, friends.  Almost there!  Thank you for your views, likes, and comments!

November 24:  Alone Time Makes Me Better

Posted on by
1

IMG_2520

NaBloPoMo 2019

How many hours do you get to yourself at a time?  I mean not just in the shower or commuting, or to work out. I mean how much time do you get to really, only take care of yourself?  When there are no kids to pick up or drop off, no meals to plan or prepare, no immediate work deadlines, no call, no commitments?

I had 36 hours this weekend—there are about 25 minutes left.

I realized at the end of Wednesday that my irritation at fellow drivers was probably a projection of anxiety and agitation about my kids being away this weekend, each to a different place, a first experience for both of them and me.  Anxiety often manifests as anger and irritability for me.  I called forth many of my cognitive behavioral and mind body practices to manage the fear and worry, so that I could actually enjoy this amazing alone time—the first such stretch since the elder kid’s birth.

And holy cow, I’ gotta do this more often.

I will spare you the list of restorative activities!  But suffice it to say that I managed to balance sleep, music, food, productivity, creativity, solitude, and connection.  It really was a perfect rhythm.  Deep breath.  And now I’m ready for the family’s return and re-entry into life as usual, a little more relaxed and peaceful.

This year has been intense, fast-paced, and dense with learning, both personal and professional.  I think we all appreciate the idea of alone time, and we understand its importance intellectually.  But like so many things, to actually experience it first hand, for real, is completely different and profound.  I finished listening to Range this morning.  In it David Epstein describes how teams do best when members have a balance between solitary and interactive, collaborative work, as opposed to all one or the other.  Coaches know that training for any skill, be it athletic, musical, or otherwise, requires alternation between periods of sustained, focused practice and rest, time away.  New neural pathways require downtime to fully integrate.  This weekend, I was able to synthesize ideas from Epstein’s book on diversity of experience, and assimilate them with what I’m reading in Ozan’s book, Think Like a Rocket Scientist, on combinatory play.  In the quiet of an empty house, freed from rushing off to the next activity, insights arose more freely, and I connected dots to previous experiences and learning much more easily.  Today I started The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek.  More transformative ideas (simple and profound) to start incorporating into my world view and leadership practice, and to write about later—Yahoo!

I wondered if I’d be lonely this weekend… Nope, not at all.  This time alone was exactly what I needed.  Loving thanks to the family for gifting it to me.

November 22:  Listening to People’s Stories Makes Me Better

Posted on by
Reply

IMG_2615

NaBloPoMo 2019

What a long, strange week.  I almost forgot to write a post, just wanted to relax and do nothing.

Looking back, overall it was good. And it was people who held me up, as always.  I had some pretty moving and meaningful conversations with patients, and I really helped some people, I think.  But it was a new acquaintance who really made my day today.

I finally had time to bring my car to the body shop this afternoon.  After an unfortunate encounter with a fire hydrant while backing out of a very poorly planned driveway, my front bumper has been partially detached for about 7 weeks.  Every single person at this shop was remarkably nice—from the lady on the phone, to the young man who so politely offered to move my car when I parked it in totally the wrong place.  The waiting area was clean, neat, and well lit, with comfy, non-holey chairs.  After a short wait, a petite and pleasant woman, maybe 40, introduced herself.  She would provide the estimate on my repairs.  We headed outside.  She pointed to the ledge at the doorway on which I had tripped walking in, so I would not do it again.

After I brought her to the car she said I could go back inside and wait, but I asked to hang out with her, because I like to see what other people do.  I know less than nothing about cars, and I loved that here was a youngish, friendly woman who clearly knew her way around them.  I admired her right away.  She was thorough and conscientious, looking inside and out.  She was also extremely knowledgeable and patient, showing me everything, talking me through the parts and functions, and answering my ignorant questions, down to how the VIN includes the paint mix of the make, model and year.  She stayed with me through the whole process, including walking me out to show me the key drop box, because they can’t fix my car for another two weeks.

Before we said goodbye I could not help myself.  I told her how happy it makes me to see a woman doing a job that I have only seen men do.  She seemed genuinely proud and thankful for the compliment, and I’m glad I said something.  I didn’t mean to make her stand outside in the cold any longer, but she started reflecting and telling me her story.  Turns out this was her first day on her own at this job—I thought she had done it for years already.  Nope.  She had done inventory for a railroad company, and programmed machines that cut industrial dies.  She had worked in shops and factories of various kinds, it sounded like, always surrounded by and holding her own among men.

I asked her if it feels different (and hopefully better?) being a woman in these male-dominated fields now, after all these years.  She thought for a moment (looking completely comfortable, while I had started shivering already).  It almost seemed like she had never considered the question before?  She concluded that her peers and coworkers have never been the problem.  It’s the customers.

She kept talking, as if the subsequent story had been waiting days for a sympathetic ear.  In her last days of training, a man brought in a car with severe rear body damage, clearly from a collision.  He gave her a history, she made her appraisal, and he was suspicious and dismissive toward her the whole time.  To assuage him, she brought her trainer to review the case, whose assessment and recommendations were the same as hers.  This time the customer told a different story—admitted to lying to her, basically—and accepted the trainer’s evaluation.  No apology, no remorse, no respect.  She was still affected by it today, and upset with herself that she had let him get under her skin.  Whatever, she said in the end, she’s here to do a job, and there will always be people who underestimate her because of her sex.  Thankfully her trainer was an ally, which made me proud of the good men in our midst.

This woman’s life experience, though clearly different from mine, felt relatable and real to me.  In those few minutes, in the waning daylight of a brisk fall evening in Chicago, surrounded by broken cars, I felt solidarity with and pride for her.  It made me better for reminding me once again of our shared humanity:  Hers, mine, my patients’, those crazy drivers on Wednesday, even her lying customer.

We’re all here doing our best with what we’ got.  I firmly believe this, but sometimes I forget.  Hearing folks’ stories always brings me back.  So I’m thankful for them.