NKOTB, or But I Digress

‘Member that acronym, children of the 80’s? Feel the burn of shame creeping up your cheeks? Do you remember any New Kids on the Block songs? You know you do.

I have my very own new kid on the block at work, and he is – at the moment – a sometimes-charming thorn in my side. R started work at the office three weeks ago. He was hired to take my position. Or I should say, to take the position I’ve been filling since I was hired in June 2009, but was not hired to do. Supposedly, once R is trained, I will be able to actually move into the job I was hired to do at job offer, although that job now looks radically different than it did when I started. ComPLETEly different job description. Getting the fluidity picture? Word one at this workplace is: flexibility. As in, are you the mental equivalent of a balloon animal, and do you like having hot air blown up your ass and being twisted into a variety of shapes? But I digress.

R and I have been sharing an office since he arrived March 1. He will eventually have his own office, but that office is currently desk-less and chair-less. The office manager told us “three weeks” when he arrived (which already seems a bit lengthy in terms of waiting-for-office-furniture limbo), but now – at day 23 – she’s reduced that hopeful statement to: “Don’t hold your breath.” Note to curious readers: said office manager got her own office furniture delivered within 48 hours. But I digress.

R talks all the time. ALL the time. Alllllll the time. And he’s not an efficient talker – he can’t talk and work at the same time, for example. So guess who’s been handed the leash to keep this puppy heeling? How many times a day can I reasonably be expected to smile and chuckle politely, and then say, “Heh, heh. Now getting back to Patient So-and-so?” Apparently a lot. I had a nasty surprise last week when my boss sent out a detailed itinerary for another new employee, spelling out where he was to be spending his time – hour by hour – for, oh, his first 6 weeks. What did I get when R arrived? A verbal prompt from my boss the Friday before his Monday start date: “Oh, Stacey, R will be here Monday. I’ll be off next week. Just show him around and stuff.” Also, I am not getting paid extra for being his sole, exclusive, one-on-one trainer for TWENTY-THREE DAYS AND COUNTING. But I digress.

The NKOTB reference was intentional, as R is both a literal new kid and also a fan of some terrible, terrible music. He is an iPod mixmaster, with a weakness (mortal, I would say) for music from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, apt to start office-chair dancing to Tears For Fears at any moment. (I have to say, he also appreciates some excellent music, but he is an indiscriminate music lover, as demonstrated by his pairing John Mayer and Nick Drake on the same mix. May you never experience such a jarring musical juxtaposition.) I actually heard him say, “This John Mayer song just means so much to me, right now. It brings tears to my eyes.” I’m not digressing here, this just flat out drives me crazy.

FOOTNOTE: R has “graduated,” now. We’re no longer sharing an office (though his office furniture still hasn’t arrived), so I no longer have to laugh politely all day long or listen to terrible music or watch him dance or hear about his divorce-in-progress. I’m in a small cubicle w/ four other people nearby, so it’s not silent and I’m not alone, but it’s better. Soon I’ll get my office back, my window, my privacy.

From a calmer state of mind, it’s not just R who was driving me crazy. It was having to teach R how to do a job I hate: a job full of exceptions and discrepancies and double- and triple-work and “I don’t have a better reason than that’s just what you have to do” explanations. All those things PLUS a non-stop funnyman, midst-of-divorce traumatized, glommed to my side co-worker – that’s what made the last three weeks so insane.

What Mindy Missed...

I tried to entice Mindy Anne to yoga Sunday with the promise of a Joe Versus the Volcano reference. (Joe is one of Mindy’s and my favorites – we like to sit down with Joe and a Jr. Mint shake and whoever else we can cajole or bully into watching it with us.) But not even that tempting prospect could tear her away from the project she was finishing up for work. Ah well. The retelling won’t be quite so profound, but here goes…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the compressed, panicky feeling I get whenever I feel I don’t have enough time. (This happens, oh, all the time.) Trying to flip the coin, I based last week’s yoga class on the idea of creating spaciousness; specifically, lengthening and lifting the sides of the torso to create more space for the lungs. More space for the lungs means more room to breathe, which can do a lot to counter that panicky hyperventilating feeling of there’s-not-enough-time. In the course of thinking about spaciousness in the body, I was reminded of how yoga (or any other meditation practice) can also create spaciousness in the mind. By focusing for an hour on subtle movements in the body, by working and stretching muscles I barely remember once being friendly with, I often find my mind so caught up in the process that it loosens its white-knuckled grip on time and relaxes. I’m not rushing from pose to pose, and I’m not anxiously checking the clock to see how much longer? Not every yoga practice is this way, but the best ones are.

It struck me last week that I am often rushing from one thing to the next, even from one pleasurable pastime to another. It’s like going on a road trip out in the hill country. You expect it to be scenic, and it is, but inevitably someone (usually me) has to pee, and then you stop at a truck stop where the bathrooms stink and the food sucks and you can’t wait to get out of there and back to the scenery ASAP. In yoga, there are no truck stops. Every pose, every pause between poses, has the potential to be scenic. And maybe that’s the mindset that creates that spacious feeling that I crave. But how do you carry that mindset off the mat? It’s easier to find mind-space in a class for two reasons: first, in yoga, you’re only focusing on the body, and despite its complexity, the body is still just one thing; second, there’s a teacher guiding you through the focus points, telling you, “Notice this, now move this.” Off the mat, you’re faced with a barrage of images and media and traffic and co-workers and damn, if your cell phone isn’t ringing again! When there’s no teacher telling you to turn off the phone and slow down, it’s easier for the scenery to get lost in the truck stops. That’s one reason why yoga’s such great practice: start with something basic and familiar – the body – and slowly you learn how to bring the applications home with you.

How in god’s name is she going to tie this in with that ridiculous 1980’s Joe V. Volcano movie, you ask? Don’t mind if I do…

There’s a scene in Joe Versus the Volcano where Joe is stranded in the middle of the ocean. He’s dehydrated; he’s starting to hallucinate; he has no idea if he will be rescued. It’s the middle of the night, and the full moon is rising. It’s a gorgeous moon, huge, as big as the world. Joe stands up on the raft. He’s shaking. He’s looking at the moon with a look of rapt wonder on his face. All he says is, “I forgot how big…” That line gets me every time – I am always forgetting, always slipping into panic mode, always feeling almost-strangled by time constraints. And yoga is my reminder that my life, my mind, my body – all so much more spacious than I feel in the bad moments. I ended class with this suggestion – I’ll give it to you here, too: This week, when you feel that creeping never-enough-time feeling, come back to the last time your body felt spacious and open (maybe your last yoga class!), remind yourself that you create spaciousness in your life each time you make time for an activity you love (like yoga, or running on the trail, or agility w/ Izze, or playing music), then consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you forgot how big.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

DISCLAIMER: This is not in any way intended as a criticism of yoga workshops, or of teachers leading or hosting workshops. It’s simply my own, singular experience of being overwhelmed by them.

You know what I’m talking about: workshops. I’m gearing up for 3 days of yoga with senior Iyengar teacher, Joan White. Am I thrilled? Absolutely. Am I also filled with dread? You betcha. I understand that when a senior teacher is in town, you want to maximize the time students have w/ them. At the same time…let’s be reasonable. Take a look at my schedule: tonight, yoga 6-8:30pm, tomorrow, 8:30-11am and 1-3pm, Sunday 9:30-12:30. That’s 10 hours of yoga in 42.5 hours of life. Granted, most teachers, this one included, build in at least 3 hours of restorative and pranayama (breathwork) practice, but inevitably, my muscles and mind are battered by workshop’s end. I guarantee it will be Thursday of next week before I can get out of bed without groaning in pain.

So why do I do it? Because I’m in a teacher training program and it’s a requirement that I attend 3 workshops per year. Honestly, I don’t think I’d put myself through it, otherwise. I simply don’t think it’s healthy to push the body that hard in such a short period of time – it’s an invitation to overwork and injury. Between Friday at 6pm and Saturday at 3pm, I will have done 7 hours of active asana. Maybe some bodies can take it, but mine protests. In the past, I’ve had to get special permission from the visiting teacher to sit out a session and simply observe. I had an injury, so that made it OK, but I got the distinct impression it wouldn’t have been so OK to just say, "I need to sit this one out." There’s a push-through-it-iveness that I’m picking up on; almost like it’s a competition to see who can hold out the longest w/o fatiguing. I am strong and flexible and I do love a challenge, but I’m also trying to learn (and respect!) my body’s limits, and these workshops are not built around that idea.

I don’t know what the answer is – of course you want a great teacher to offer as many classes as possible! The restorative and pranayama practices are key, of course. I wonder about offering a lecture component in place of an asana session? But really, when a fabulous teacher is in town, most people want to see her or him teach, not lecture. I know that my answer – once my teacher training course is completed – will be to only attend partial workshops. Maybe one 2-3 hour asana session and the restorative practice. That’s plenty for me.

And as for this weekend, I will make my personal challenge less physical, and more mental: instead of pushing myself to do it all, I will ask myself to notice when I’ve had enough, and then respectfully say – both to teacher and body, "Enough is enough" and rest.

This Feels Like the Right Direction

Being full of self-doubt, I am ever in search of evidence that I’m making the Right decision. (See previous posts about my hang-up with capital letter certainty.) I become compulsive about this, wondering if now is the Right time to go to the grocery store, or if perhaps tomorrow would be Right-er? Imagine, if you will, the deep-seated anxiety of finding-my-life’s-path when simple tasks like a trip for groceries can reduce me to such second-guessing!

I went into nursing six years ago thinking I was making a practical decision. Practical and Right, of course. I had been waiting tables for six months, and I enjoyed the busy pace, the use of memory in taking and placing orders, bringing people what they wanted. I thought, “Well, I’ve always liked science and I’m interested in health, so doesn’t nursing seem like a good fit?” Busy, memory-intensive, helping people. Bing! bing! bing! I hated nursing school (I once had to pull off the freeway and anxiety-vomit on my way to clinicals.) – really hated it. But I didn’t trust that feeling because I’ve always hated school. Really hated it. So, of course, I hated nursing school. Then, for six years, I’ve hated every job I’ve held in the field, but instead of getting out, I just keep second-guessing: “Maybe if I try a different type of nursing…” (geriatric, pediatric, psychiatric, hospital, office, education, administrator – that’s more types than years!); or “Maybe there’s something wrong with me…” (as in, I’m lazy and hate work, in general); or “Maybe if I changed work environments…” (astonishingly, health facilities across the board consistently employ unhealthy and unhappy people). Fortunately, I’ve recently come to a few conclusions (bear with me, as these are hair-pullingly obvious):

• Nursing is not a castle gate, and I am not a battering ram. I don’t have to keep throwing myself against this wall – I don’t have to be a nurse!
• I am not lazy. Not wanting to go to a nursing job has more to do with NURSING, than with JOB. (That said, who doesn’t want to win the lottery!?)
• I do need to change work environments, yes, but I also need to leave nursing. (See # 1.)

So my most recent experiences with decision-making in the life’s-path arena have been, to say the least, punishing.

Perhaps you can understand, then, why deciding to teach yoga is such a terrifying leap. My brain, accustomed as it is to the ruts we travel in, expects more soul-crushing defeat and mind-numbing disappointment. It is, after all, what having a job means, right? Simply reprogramming that lovely untruth out of my mind took about a year! Here are the reasons why this feels like the right direction (I’m also trying to reprogram the capital letter thinking):
1. Unsolicited smiles: Just starting this list in my head the other night as I was drifting off to sleep, I found myself smiling.
2. Healthy obsessive thinking: I can’t stop thinking about teaching. Since starting my first class in mid-January (I’ve taught all of 4 classes, now), I am a woman possessed. I simply can’t stop thinking about the series for the next class, and the next! I love sitting down with a blank Excel spreadsheet and starting to fill in the empty cells w/ poses. I love thinking through a series – what pose should come next? Which poses would logically connect pose A with pose D? What links these poses together? What links the actions of the body together within a pose? I love filling up that spreadsheet with poses and then practicing them on my own to see what does and doesn’t work. I love thinking about this stuff!
3. Dispersion of foul moods: Teaching helps dispel the Sunday gloom. One of my least adorable traits is that on Sundays, I mutate into the worst dread-and-doom version of myself. Monday is a cloud that hangs over me from the moment I open my eyes Sunday mornings, and it darkens and threatens severe storms all day long. I am a charmer on Sundays, believe me. Last Sunday, I felt that doom-and-gloom feeling all morning, then taught class, and although Monday was still a’comin’, I was impervious to her threats.
4. Pre-class anxiety worthwhile: When I have taught as a nurse over the last few years, I get incredibly anxious before-hand. After teaching, I feel relief that the class was successfully completed, but I’d be just as happy to never teach it again, thank you very much. It’s done, period, and thank gawd. I do get anxious before teaching yoga, but afterwards, I feel both relief AND something akin to a kid leaving a candy store – I can’t wait to come back for more! It’s like the work week is my allowance, and Sundays-teaching-yoga is my Everlasting Gobstopper.
5. Post-class reflection: Again, teaching in nursing is something I do to be done with; I certainly don’t spend time thinking about what I can improve for next time. Secretly, I’m always hoping there won’t be a next time (as in, I’ll quit or be fired or the building will burn down overnight). Teaching yoga, I love reflecting on the class. If I’m not careful, I’ll find myself calling everyone on the class list and asking them, “So how did you feel after X pose? And are you sore now? Where? How would you rate that on a scale of 1 to 10? What was your favorite pose? Least favorite? What can I do better next time? Can I call you again tomorrow and ask you some more questions?” Dork that I am, I actually made up an evaluation form that I asked people to fill out after the first class. No one did, which is fine. I’m learning plenty.

So there’s the evidence. I’m content that this feels like the right direction, and I will keep heading this way, accumulating proof of my sanity and my adequate decision-making ability. Accruing evidence in favor of my perfectly-functioning mind so that maybe one day, I can release my self-doubts and just be.

Who Can Stop Us?

“The darkest night is nothing new.” -Wilco

Leave it to Jeff Tweedy – he who has had such success singing about darkest nights – to remind us of this. None of us are strangers to the dark hours, and depression has always been shrouded in a bit of mystique – myth of the Depressed Artist, and all that. But when you really think about it, isn’t the greatest work of art that of creating and sustaining a joyful life? Thanks, Wilco, for the reminder that our doom and gloom isn’t what makes us unique, or special, or interesting, or even artistic.

For our wedding, we chose a quote from a 12th century Chinese philosopher, Lu Yu: “Who can stop us from celebrating?” In the mad happiness of the wedding, the answer was decidedly, “No one!” (Ra! Ra! Pompons in hand!) But then life resumes and all the ordinary duties that come along with it and the answer morphs to: “Me, after a bad day.” “The bills sitting on the workbench.” “My fear of change.” “My fear of not-change.” So many celebration-stoppers come flooding to mind.

Here’s a list of what I do celebrate:
- Our garden. Specifically today, the potential garden I’m imagining for spring. First planting of the year coming up later this month.
- Music – Arcade Fire, Wilco, Yo La Tengo are all top of my list this week. Chris’s brother, John, bought us The Beatles box set for Christmas. The Beatles, oh, The Beatles. Better every year.
- Watching Chris play drums. First, the sheer coordination and skill and practice it takes to move all four limbs in different orbits. He’s like a whole universe revolving around a sunny set of drums! Second, the art of moving those limbs to make a coherent sound. Third, the high art of integrating (1) and (2) into the improvisational flow of live music.
- Reading. Particularly John Irving. John Irving is comfort food, a kind of anti-chicken-soup-for-the-soul comfort.
- My love of naps is positively feline.
- The use of my body – it takes what I mete out, whether that’s a weekend of yoga or an hour sprinting up fake stairs on a machine at the gym. There are many things that could go wrong and don’t.
- Cold! Bring back the cold! I will take it personally if there's no snow day this year!!
- My mind, when it’s not actively thwarting my every effort to change it. I’m trying to cultivate compassion for the fear I feel instead of disgust at my reluctance to change.
- My friends. I know - and am related to - the most amazing people.

- My husband. This week, after a particularly bad day, he fixed me a candle-lit dinner. Who else would I ever, ever want to spend my life with?

Who can stop us from celebrating? We can. Who can kick start that party right back up again? Why, we can!

This is overly simplified, to be sure. Sometimes life deals out plenty 'o shit, and all the ra!ra!s in the world can't lift the spirits. But two people this week reminded me of the yogic principle of santosa, or contentment, not as a state or a feeling, but as a practice. I want to reintroduce the practice of being grateful for what I have into my daily routine.

The EAP Experience

NOTE: I found this recently. This was from the darkest days of working at the City (spring 2009). In desperation, I turned to free counseling offered through the Employee Assistance Program, or EAP.

Audrey: "So why're you here?"

Walking in the door to meet Audrey, the EAP counselor, all I was really hoping for was a kind listener who could offer some perspective on my lousy job situation, and possibly - best-case scenario - help me think through some fresh coping strategies. I am completely burned out on my job, but also feel stuck - I've been applying for jobs for 6 months (1 interview, so far) and I'm not comfortable - in this economy - leaving this job for the unknown.

My body is gathering up tension like it's a commodity. My stomach hurts after every meal until I reach the point when I'm starving again. Once I eat, my stomach hurts. I cry at the drop of a pin - yesterday, in the wine store, all I wanted was a bottle of red for a wedding gift. When the guy's wedding recommendation didn't floor me, I called Chris and wailed (quietly, remember I'm still in the store at this point), "This was a fucking mistake. Why did I even come here?" My sweet husband calmly said, "It's OK. Just come home. You don't have to do this now." THAT'S what helps right now - logical calmness. I am fully aware that I am often irrational recently, but that awareness does not translate to a cessation of irrational-ity. (One could argue that my word choice also borders on irrational.) And my body hurts all the time. I exercise for stress relief and sanity - in good times and bad, I always exercise. But for the last year, whenever I exercise, I hurt. The exercise hasn't changed, but something in my body has. This is particularly (and unfortunately) noticeable in yoga. I love yoga, but I keep getting hurt. Two weeks ago in a class, doing headstand (which I've done a thousand times before), I tweaked something in the right side of my neck and couldn't look side to side or up for a week. The day my neck started loosening up, I was lying on the floor in a relaxation pose, I moved wrong, and I tweaked the other side of my neck! Stomach pain, sobbing, sore muscles - my trinity of stress indicators.

At any rate, what finally pushed me to call the Employee Assistance Program for help was the muscle pain. When your coping mechanism of last resort fails, who do you turn to? Well, if you want free help, then the EAP!

Me: (post-wordy explanation) "So in a nutshell, I'm here because I'm in physical pain. Heh, heh."

Audrey: (In all seriousness) "No, you're in emotional pain, actually. So what are you doing to take care of yourself?"

Me: "Daily exercise. Talking w/ friends and family. Yoga teacher training program. Applying for jobs on a regular basis. Eating well."

Audrey: (slight sneer) "And how's that workin' out for you?"

Me: "What?"

Audrey: "How's. That. Workin'. Out. For. You. How are you feeling?"

Me: "Well, terrible. That's why I'm here."

Audrey: "Then you're not doing enough! You've been depressed before. You know where this is heading. You've got to get out of bed and DO something about this!"

Chris later informed me that this is the "Dr. Phil Technique." Yell at people and treat them like idiots to shock them out of the rut they're mired in. In the moment - not being familiar with this tried 'n true technique, I guess - I was simply baffled and somewhat defensive. I thought, "But I AM doing things. Lots of things. I'm never IN bed, what are you talking about???" Audrey's suggestions for DOING SOMETHING were first anti-depressants, and when I said I wasn't interested, acupuncture and St. John's Wort.

Later, Audrey said again: "What can you DO about how stuck you're feeling?"

Me: "I agree that trying St. John's Wort and acupuncture are a good idea, but, well, again, something I'm feeling very proud of right now is the fact that I'm in this yoga teacher training program. I'm excited to be moving towards that."

Audrey: "Nope. You can't count on that. Your body won't let you."

Me: "Well, there's all different kinds of yoga. For example, I'm doing a lot of restor-"

Audrey (interrupting): "Oh, I am all about yoga. You don't have to tell me."

Later, after describing the one job I've truly loved - leading backpacking trips in the Rocky Mountains for high-school kids - I said: "I could do that again, too. I know I'd love that."

Audrey: "No - remember, your body won't let you."

Me (finally getting tired of this refrain): "Actually I'm not ready to accept that. That's not true."

Audrey: (Smirk) "OK..."

At the end of the session, Audrey said: "So, do you think you want to come back?"

Me (confused and attempting to be polite): "Well, I'm kind of a slow processor, so-"

Audrey (interrupting): "I don't care if you're slow - Do. You. Think. You. Want. To. Come. Back? Because if you can handle my directness, then I might be able to help you. But I'm not going to sit here and ask you about your feelings." [Sneer.]

Me: "I don't have my calendar with me, so I'll have to call."
*******************************************************************************************************************************************

I called Chris right after, upset, but feeling like I should schedule another appt - I remember thinking, "Maybe this IS what I need. Maybe my not wanting to go back is just an indicator of how much I NEED to go back." I told Chris how it went and he immediately said, "Oh no. You don't need that bullshit. She's a bitter, burned out old social worker who thinks everyone who crosses her therapy-path is a spoiled brat who's just feeling sorry for herself. That's not you. Forget her." It bothers me that I need someone to tell me that it's OK to not go back, and that I don't trust that gut reaction of THIS IS NOT RIGHT.

P.S. I never went back. Whew!

Yoga & Cake

Last Sunday, I taught my first-ever yoga class. It’s a class for friends who are new to yoga, and it’s free because they’ve basically volunteered to be my guinea pigs. It went well, I think. I left feeling like people had a pretty good time, and no one got hurt, and my nerves didn’t trip me up too much. It was exhilarating to give an instruction and see people following; it was discouraging when I couldn’t get the instruction right and I just got blank stares. It was also a little scary to be up there in charge. All of a sudden, I have the power to tell people what to do with their bodies – what if I say something wrong!?! In fact, I did – setting up for savasana, or relaxation pose, I thought I was instructing the class to take their hands and draw the skin of the neck up towards the base of the skull. I repeated this instruction several times before someone stopped me and pointed out that I was saying to pull the skin up “towards the base of the spine!” So, I gave a wrong instruction and it didn’t make sense and someone asked and we clarified and we moved on. It wasn’t the end of the world.

The thing I’m most afraid of is failing, and unfortunately, I have a very broad definition of what that means. It could mean going blank and not remembering what I’m supposed to teach next, or giggling hysterically for 5 minutes, or someone getting hurt, or someone saying “I hate yoga, I’m never coming back!,” or seeing blank stares, or…the list goes on. In my mind, failure means: not getting it perfect every single time. I come by this honestly. When mom and dad were first married, mom was a perfectionist about cooking and baking. She tells this story: one day, she was attempting to make a Black Forest Cake, a delicious, light-and-crunchy meringue affair that requires about 10 eggs per cake. It also requires the perfect environmental humidity level for it to rise. Her meringues kept falling, and – even though they were still perfectly light-and-crunchy, just short instead of tall – she threw them all away because they didn’t look right. She didn’t stop until she finally got one to stay tall, light, and crunchy: cake-worthy. These days, mom handles this differently: first, she is a ridiculously good cook/baker, so this doesn’t happen very often; second, she has learned when to say enough. Now, when her Black Forest Cake doesn’t rise to the occasion, she serves Black Forest Crumble, and – whaddya know? – we all love it!

What I’m trying to get to is this: don’t throw away the cake if it doesn’t look like the magazine picture. Of course, you may have to toss one now and then if you get the ingredients completely wrong, but mistakes are part of the process and making mistakes is no reason to throw in the towel. If I give up teaching yoga because I get blank stares or because someone decides they don’t like yoga, I’m selling myself short. That person might not have liked yoga no matter who was teaching (or maybe it was personal, but – unless entire classes are walking out on me, I can probably chalk it up to an isolated episode); those blank stares are just feedback letting me know that particular instruction isn’t doing the trick. Here’s how it’s gonna go: I will teach yoga; I will make mistakes; I will teach yoga; I will learn from old mistakes and make new ones; I will teach yoga; I will learn from many old mistakes and make new ones…and so on. As long as I’m learning and moving forward, I will call that – new definition! – success.

Daily Vignettes: # 1 Meds & Alcohol

I wish I could find the perfect story to illustrate why this job is such a trial. I guess it’s not so much any one, single thing as the accumulation of episodes like the following. I’ll give you three vignettes, each increasing in length, and ending – thank god – with a life lesson. Ha! (Since I’m posting all three at once, I’m also posting backwards so you can more easily read them in order. Hope that doesn’t blow your mind!)

# 1 Meds & Alcohol - Do Not Mix!
Walked into the clinic this morning and the office manager’s office – which patients must walk by on their way into and out of the clinic – is stacked hip-high on two walls with cases of beer and wine. I understand she’s planning the Grand Opening party for the new location tomorrow, yet I’m hesitant to deem this appropriate alcohol storage at a medical clinic.

# 2 Red Tape, or I’m A Rebel Like That

Talking on the phone with a patient who was frustrated because he’s been jumping through insurance-related hoops for the last two weeks, I was empathizing and brain-storming ways I could help him.

Then he says: “I’m just not used to all this red tape.”
Me: “I understand it can be very frustrating.”
Patient: “That’s not it at all. It’s just that I’ve spent my entire career cutting through red tape – I’m a rebel like that! – and it just blows my mind these processes you people have. I could’ve made this happen so much faster, but that’s just me – Mr. Joe Blow – cutting through red tape. You do what you gotta do. I’ll just sit here and wait on you.”

Pet Peeve # 1: “You people.” May I have the grace to never lump people into groups just because I’m frustrated.
Pet Peeve # 2: Implying you could do my job better than me. Take it already. I’ll give it to you. It sucks, believe me, and you’re not helping.
Pet Peeve # 3: Make me feel guilty. “I’ll just sit here and wait.” Yeah, you will.

# 3 The Life Lesson, or Why I Will Not Yell at Old Ladies

Another phone call, same day. I had a 9 am appointment scheduled with a diabetic patient to teach her how to use insulin vials. She’s been using fancy-new-technology insulin pens (easier to administer than vials), but her insurance won’t cover those frills any longer. The patient did not show up for her appointment, and when I called her to reschedule, this was our conversation:

Patient: “I’m not coming in. I’m not switching insulins.”
Me: “But your insurance won’t cover these pens anymore so this could get expensive for you.”
Patient, voice rising: “You tell that doctor that I’m not switching.”
Me: “Ms. Doe, the doctor is the one who asked me to call you and teach you about the new insulin administration method.”
Patient: “I’m. Not. Switching.”
Me: “Would you be willing to come in and just talk? I can show you how it works – it’s really not hard, I promise. We’ll try it together.”
Patient, forcefully: “Why aren’t you telling the doctor what I told you to tell him? You need to go tell the doctor that I won’t switch. I’m not talking to you anymore.”

At this point, I actually lost it. I lost control of the tone of my voice. I said – and I was dripping sarcasm:
“Oh, OK, Ms. Doe, yes ma’am. I will go tell the doctor, right away.”
Patient, barking: “Then you call me right back.”
Me, with a sudden-onset Southern drawl: “You bet I will. Buh-bye.”

And I hung up. That last goodbye was the most sing-song, saccharin farewell I have ever in my life said, and I did not mean her well. I have never lost control like that before. I’m lucky she’s hard-of-hearing and thick-of-accent because I doubt she caught my scathing intent. I’ve always prided myself on being able to meet sour with sweet, kill with kindness, and all that. Lately, I just want to get in a yelling match and be done with it: “OH, YEA, OLD LADY? IF YOU SPENT HALF AS MUCH ENERGY EATING RIGHT AND EXERCISING AS YOU’VE SPENT BEING A BITCH TO ME, YOU WOULDN’T NEED INSULIN!!! Lazy bitch.” Am I a terrible person that I find that rant to be so satisfying?

I do realize that this woman is scared and overwhelmed. She’s poor, she’s isolated, she can’t drive; even something so simple as stopping by the doctor’s office is a daunting task. All these things added together probably mean she feels attacked by this change. She has this one thing that she’s comfortable with, and though it seems small to me – it’s maybe two extra steps to change to this new form of insulin – it’s huge to her. It disrupts her entire sense of order and control. And maybe she’s so exhausted from her life and from her illness that she can’t distinguish between feeling angry at her life situation and feeling angry with me. I’m just the life situation that pushed her over the edge today. I know all this, but in the middle of that phone call, I also felt attacked and overwhelmed, and I reacted just as aggressively as she did. This tells me something that you could’ve probably already told me years ago: I should no longer pride myself on my control over my emotions. Maybe that wasn’t such a great thing to feed my ego on, anyway. Maybe it’s time to admit that I am not a bot, that I have feelings that come in all shapes and sizes, and that they all – good and bad – need an outlet.

I promise I won’t take up yelling at old ladies as my outlet.

Oh, Brave New World That Has Such (Young) People In It

I went to a gym today to find out about membership. I knew, walking in, that I was about to get my socks enthused off - you know how cheery and confident those places are. And it's sort of like buying a car: they hate for you to walk out the door without a purchase. Fortunately, I had the I'm-on-my-lunchbreak excuse, so I kept rushing my enthusiastic salesperson along.

Karyna! (the exclamation point was not on her nametag, but it might as well have been) took all my info ("This is so cool! I'm really glad you're here today!"). Karyna! enthused about my body age - "Because of your great health, your body age is only 3o!!" (Really?? I take such good care of myself that this came as a bit of a disappointment - surely my body is still in its 20's??!) Karyna! walked - or more appropriately, jogged - me through the different fitness plan options.

Best of all, Karyna! was also a high-fiver. As in, "High five! Your BMI rocks!" And also, "High five for getting a great start to the new year!" And finally, when I tried to shake her hand and thank her on my way out, "High five! I don't do handshakes - too formal!"

My body age may be 30, but that experience sure made me feel like a spry granny.

Bitch Confessions

Sometimes I can be - as in I am allowed to be - a bitch.

I work with a very self-centered doctor. Self-centered to the extent that he sees no problem running 1 1/2 or 2 hours late to see patients. Self-centered to the point that he demanded the office manager take down all the clocks in the lobby and in patient rooms so they wouldn't know how late he's running. He is a short man, with disconcertingly small hands, and - appropriately - he throws tantrums on a Napoleanic scale. In his social interactions, he functions at approximately toddler-level: cute and cuddly just up to the point where he doesn't get what he wants, then melting into a screeching, spitting puddle for his nearest caretaker to clean up. Because that's what his staff do - caretake. They pad his world to insulate him from whatever might push him tantrum-ward (it works maybe 50% of the time); they run interference with patients ("Of course, the doctor is here by now."); they agree to take down all the clocks!

Right around the first of December, I decided that I didn't need to pander to this guy any longer. My tail will not wag to please him; my tongue will not loll as I pant my obeisance. I don't like the job anyway. What's the worst that could happen? I might get fired? Oh no.

This non-pandering is not an easy task for two reasons:

• First, I am a people-pleaser, so this is an unnatural response from me. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt; I go out of my way to put others at ease; I never ever have clever, cutting comebacks because that would be mean. (Or, more truthfully, I only think of them after hours of agonizing.)
• Second, for whatever reason, the good doctor does not subject me to his fits of infantility. Daily, I overhear him treating his staff like so much chattel and my jaw clenches, but then he's on his best behavior around me.

Despite the struggle against my true nature, finally, an opportunity: two days before Christmas, he came into my office to tell me what education points to revisit with the next patient. As he's looking out my window, he suddenly says, "I just had a weird vision of myself hanging from one of those trees." "Oh," I sputtered. "Well," I faltered. And the rally: "I guess that's one sort of Christmas decoration." His jaw dropped. He laughed sharply, only once. He walked out of my office.

Sweet, snarky triumph #1.

Adventures in Meditation

I have long flirted with the idea of meditation. The more I read about the brain and about meditation and meditative states, the more I believe that meditation can affect profound change in body and mind. And I love to read about meditating because it’s so much easier than actually doing it! But reading about meditation is often discouraging because authors say things like, “Close your eyes and clear your mind. Visualize breathing in love and compassion…” Screeching tires, smell of burning rubber – you lost me at “clear your mind.”

I had a hesitant conversation about this with my fellow teachers-in-training at a weekend yoga workshop last spring. We were talking about meditation and breathwork, which is a specific form of meditation emphasized in yogic practice. Me: “So when you’re focusing on your breath, how do you clean out some of the clutter?” Them: “You clear your mind.” Me, trying a slightly different angle: “But how do you do that? My mind is so full of words that clearing one thought just makes room for another which reminds me of the first word, and so on.” Them: Silence. Me, one last hurrah: “So when you focus on your breath, your mind stays there?” Them: “Yes.” Either they are blank freaks of nature, very advanced meditation practitioners, or liars. I simply cannot believe that I was the only person in that room dealing with a mind mess. (This is obviously an oversimplification. I’m sure if I had been braver and kept digging at this topic with my classmates, we would have discovered common ground. I do not truly believe they are blank freaks or liars, I promise.)

Over the summer, Chris and I went to an Intro to Meditation session at a center that practices vipassana meditation. Vipassana meditation uses the breath as a way to get past the breath, if that makes any sense. You start off “noticing” the breath, and then you just find that you stop noticing it and voila! you’re meditating! If this description sounds unsatisfactory, believe me, I agree. Here were the instructions from our instructor: “If thoughts arise, label them thoughts and let them go. Think, ‘Thought,’ and release.” (I envisioned a sort of humane, spiritual fishing expedition with thoughts caught like fish and set free.) After 10 minutes, we stopped to check in with each other. Chris reported, “I found myself thinking and labeled it ‘thought.’ Then I wanted to label that act of thinking ‘thought’ as another ‘thought,’ and so I was repeating ‘thought’ ‘thought’ ‘thought.’” He asked, “Is it like a mantra?” Instructor: “Oh. Well. Now, I’m not judging you, but that’s really not how it’s done.” Chris: “OK, but how?” Instructor: Silence.

This overactive mind is referred to in many traditions as “the monkey mind,” a grasping, hooting beast of a brain. Before I learned about monkey mind, I thought of my mind as a puppy – eager and full of energy, but still peeing on the carpet. “Sniff, sniff. That smells great! I wonder what it is? Hey! Who’s that? What are they doing? There’s my dad! I’d better go see – What? That smells great!...” Unfortunately, my first reaction to my puppy mind was training of the choke collar variety: yank and yelp. If my mind wandered once, zing!, “What is wrong with me? Focus on the exhale, dammit, the exhale!” If it wandered twice, ZING!, I was in tears: “I can’t do this. Why even try? What’s the point?” Third time, kick the dog and walk away. It’s no wonder I never progressed further than the yanking and yelping. All I learned was to avoid the stimulus.

What a relief – reading about monkey mind – to find I wasn’t crazy! Ancient yogis and Buddhist monks, far along in their meditation practices (much farther than me or my puzzled yoga classmates), knew exactly what I was going through. But still, after the initial relief of learning I was not alone with my monkey-puppy mind, I had trouble finding a satisfactory answer as to how best to restrain or re-train it. There is a very good reason for this: there is not a satisfactory answer out there, if by satisfactory you mean – as I do – clearly defined. There are no directions to Destination Mind-At-Rest. There is no map to tell you, “Turn right where your sadness dead-ends into depression and then keep going until you see the sun rising over your new thought patterns.” All of this reading and all of this putting-off-meditating-until-I-know-what-I’m-supposed-to-be-doing, and on comes the lightbulb: I have to stop thinking about this and just do it. Nothing can happen until then.

So here is my advice – not as an accomplished meditator or as someone who has lived in a cave and found the meaning of life, but as a novice, clumsy and often discouraged – on one way to begin a meditation practice.

• Find something – anything! – to help you focus your mind. Maybe the catch-and-release model works for you: think “thought” and release. Maybe you can focus on the sensation of breathing in and out. Maybe you can stare at a blank wall or piece of paper. Maybe a mantra would be helpful in replacing some of the mind chatter. Some practices believe you should just sit without using the “props” of mantra or breath to focus on. Again, I’m no expert, but in my brief experience, you’re more likely to stick with it if you’re not maddeningly frustrated the whole time. Ultimately, yes, you want to meditate “prop-free” and experience a quiet space without mantra or external focus, but whatever it takes to get you there is OK, in my oh-so-humble opinion.
• Be comfortable. You don’t have to sit in lotus, or even sit at all, to meditate. Ancient yogic texts advise that you should be comfortable enough that you can (someday!) forget about your body, but not so comfortable that you fall asleep. I sometimes practice lying down if the prospect of sitting up straight seems overwhelming. Or I’ll sit in a chair if I don’t want to creak down to the floor on a stiff day. Whether you’re sitting up or lying down, take care that your spine is straight and your head balanced atop your spine. Sitting, reclining, it doesn’t matter so much how you do it as that you do it.
• Do it, already. Tell yourself that you will sit for x minutes daily, and then sit for x minutes daily. If you miss a day, don’t throw in the towel or label yourself a failure, just come back the next day. Choose a small amount of time for starters. Believe me, 5 minutes seems an eternity when you’re used to always doing. So if it’s 5 minutes a day, great! If it’s 2 minutes, fantastic! Just pick something you know you can stick with for awhile. (21 days to a new habit, as Ashley swears.)
• Keep doing it!! This is the hard part. For the last month, I have committed to 10 minutes of meditation every day. I’ve refused to expect myself to clear my mind or label thoughts “thoughts” or transcend anything. I call this “My 10 Minutes,” as in, “Chris, I’m doing my 10 minutes, so don’t call me for a bit.” And I sit, or I lie down, whatever my body wants. Some days the 10 minutes fly by and I wish I had 10 more. More often, I find myself waiting for the 10 minutes to be over. That’s OK. My mind isn’t used to this rigorous practice of quiet, and it will take awhile to relax into a period of time when nothing is expected. This week I noticed that, even on the days when I’m waiting to be released from my “sit/stay,” I’m a little sad when the alarm goes off. “Good girl!,” I tell myself, "What a good puppy! Let’s do this again tomorrow!”
  

One last word of encouragement from the Bhagavad Gita: “On this path, effort never goes to waste and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear” (Ch.2, v.40). Whatever you have to give, give it. Whatever there is to invest, invest it. There is no failure, here.

Feeding Skelton

Tom Skelton is my favorite character in one of my favorite books, Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree (read it!). Tom Skelton is also our youngest cat, our sweetest boy, our gentlest boy, our ‘fraidy cat. Our Tom Skelton was diagnosed with severe liver disease this summer, and we have been see-sawing with him ever since. His prognosis is “precarious,” according to the Internal Medicine vet. (I never thought I’d be a specialist vet consumer, but when it’s one of your babies, there’s not a second thought.) He will never be completely well; his liver enzymes will always need to be monitored, and he will be on medication – of one sort or another – for the rest of his life, which Dr. Theissen says will probably be shorter than we hope. He turned eight years old this year.

All of this since June. Before June, Skelton was the Easy Cat, the Healthy Cat, the Low-Maintenance Cat; unlike his brother, Gans (aka Hell Cat), who has urinary tract issues and eats a special diet and has never been too shy to assert his desires and dissatisfactions on the world. Gans swaggers down the dividing stripe on the highway of life believing he’s entitled to the most, the best (and he is!), while Skelton tiptoes along the shoulder and sneaks in his love and affection from the periphery (despite his self-effacing nature, he is also entitled to the most! the best!). It’s a personality thing, you know; we adore them both.

One of the struggles of having a cat with liver disease is making sure he continues to eat. Cats – unlike people or dogs – can’t go for long without eating; it damages the liver. And cats with liver disease are often nauseated and have decreased appetites.

I am not a morning person. Used to be, my mornings looked like this: curse the alarm, stumble to the kitchen, dump food in the cat bowls, walk away, wash face, get dressed, etc. But that one small piece of routine – dump food in the cat bowls, walk away – has stretched into a lengthy, sometimes frustrating 30-45 minutes of coaxing-Tom-to-eat. Skelton’s liquid medication – an anti-inflammatory – must be mixed with just the right proportion of his preferred wet food (we serve flavors in weekly rotation), a smidge of dry food, and a small spoonful of tuna juice to make a tasty sludge. Skelton used to be an indiscriminate eater (Gans still is!); this pickiness is new for him, and for us. Usually, after offering Skelton the medicated sludge, I can bustle around the kitchen, making tea and putting my lunch together, paying only half a mind to Tom. But once he finishes the appetizer, I work (and work hard!) to see he eats as much more as he’s willing.

Skelton is an anxious and distractible cat. Rush him and he walks away. Get frustrated with him, start moving too quickly or loudly, and Tom hunkers down in hide-me mode and shuts his eyes – “I can’t see you, you can’t see me!” In order to get him to eat, I once again prepare the perfect concoction of wet-dry-tuna delight sans medication, and I sit on the floor next to him, sometimes petting him, sometimes talking to him. I watch him eat and every bite, I feel nourished somehow, somehow stronger. I feel joy sometimes, watching Tom eat, even when he mouths a bite and spits it back out, even when he crunches over the floor and leaves crumbs. I love his careful, thoughtful process: pick up a piece and hold it on the tongue, spit it out, try another, find the perfect bite to actually chew, swallow, study the bowl, re-approach the bowl from a different angle, begin again. I don’t know why he does this, why he doesn’t just scarf the meal like he used to. I don’t know how much he would eat if I weren’t there – is he eating to please me? Does food taste different than it used to? Why does the food taste better after I’ve touched it and offered it to him between my fingers? Is he not hungry? Is it nausea? I don’t know, but I’m growing to love my early mornings with Tom, sitting by his little (9 lbs and holding) black self, stroking his coat – which is not as luxuriant as it used to be, running my hands along his bony back, and coaching him, “Eat, papa, eat! No one wants a skinny Skelton!” Reminding him how he used to love to sprawl on his back and flaunt his fat belly. I am not a morning person, but mornings with Tom are lovely; every bite a moment to love him longer.

One Thing at a Time

Thursday night, I was outside and saw Gans (aka Hell Cat, to some of you) studying something by the house, so I went to investigate. A snake. My first thought, “Rattler!” My second, “Get Gans in the house!” Reasonable thought process up to this point. What I did next, though, was not reasonable. I reached down and picked Gans up. Notice I did not say, “picked Gans up by his scruff,” as any good cat owner will be thinking. No, no, just picked him up. He was halfway up when he made it clear that: 1) he had been very, very focused on what he was doing and probably didn’t know I was anywhere close, and 2) he felt strongly that my action was most likely putting him in more danger, not less. So now I have two fairly deep puncture wounds on the back of my right hand, and a one-inch laceration just below my right knuckle, also fairly deep. (All you motherly-minded out there, be reassured, I went to the doctor Friday and started on antibiotics.)

So now I have a very puffy, very tender right hand. I am, of course, right-handed. Fine finger movements (like typing) are OK, but more gross movements (making a fist, say, or spreading my fingers to type a capital Y) are quite painful. Since Thursday night, I have been doing most everything left-handed. Some observations:

• Small actions take great skill. You try left- (or opposite-) handed tooth-brushing, and promise me you’ll let someone watch (or at least watch yourself in the mirror), because it’s a hoot. I keep jabbing myself in the gums.
• I often don’t think about moving, I just move, as in: I need something in the fridge, I’m opening the fridge, I probably should not have opened the fridge using my right hand.
• I now have a different perspective on dressing – how much do I want to be unbuttoning/rebuttoning pants when I use the bathroom today? Not much, thanks, how about that slip-on dress?
• Eating left-handed is another small action/great skill scenario. If you have a tendency to eat too quickly (I do), try switching hands.

I’m sure that – if this situation were permanent – I would gain left-handed efficiency. But for now, I’m actually enjoying the opportunity to slow down.

Multi-tasking may not be all it’s cracked up to be. There’s some relief in being forced to do one thing at a time: pick up water pitcher with left hand, transfer to counter next to fridge, set down, open fridge with left hand, prop open with right elbow, pick up water pitcher with left hand, transfer to fridge. I simply can’t rush like this. I have to think about each and every movement. I’m being forced to integrate a very yogic concept into my daily life: make every movement with thoughtful deliberation. There’s a Zen concept of walking meditation, kinhin, where every slow step is separated by a complete inhalation and exhalation. A chance to break up something we normally don’t think twice about – walking – into its component parts; a chance to reflect instead of rush.

I will, of course, be glad when my hand heals. But I will also try to continue to move a little slower and reflect a little more.

I Digress, but Happily

Watch this first: http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/wherethewildthingsare/.

Usually, I resist a movie made from a book – particularly a children’s book – because by god, don’t people believe in reading anymore?! (Particularly a children’s book that – judging by preview alone – takes such grand liberties with the original written material. All 10 sentences of it.) That said, I have watched the trailer for Where The Wild Things Are no less than 10 times (once for each sentence!), and every time I cry.

WHY? Because this is a movie made by grown-ups about being a child, and these grown-ups capture that child-like-ness in ways that adults ordinarily leave far, far behind.

First, watching this, I feel – finally! again! – that life can as easily bring terror as joy. And I also feel an endless capacity to keep coming back for more – for the terror and the joy. These images, this music, brings me back to that moment of promise when I believed there was as much chance for hope as hurt in the world. As we grow older, I think we – in self-defense – trick ourselves into believing that hurt trumps hope “in the real world,” when really, we’re just less willing to risk the hurt for the hope. They go hand-in-hand these two experiences, and they are both still here in abundance – an endless cycle of feathered hope and wingless disappointment.

Second, as children, we know that what we want our life to be exists – with equal validity – side-by-side with what our life actually is. There is no disconnect between dreams and reality. What’s wrong with all the grown-ups? As an adult, I am endlessly wounded by what I perceive as the gaping distance between what is and what should be. To be a child is to exist in those two worlds at once, without feeling tortured by the fact that the seams don’t always line up. Is that naiveté? Or is it a sophisticated ability to inhabit a world of dueling dualities?

I come back to this trailer over and over and over again, right now. Why is this so powerful? Why am I so moved?

I need (don’t we all need?) to be reminded that the world is still full of promise. That we are still full of promise. We are young and full of wonder. Believe in monsters.

Step Two

The blog. Why is this necessary? This is really more like a public journal, and that feels rather self-indulgent. So why am I insisting on sharing? I touched on this briefly under Step 1, but I’ll expound … I’m afraid if I don’t out myself – and by that I mean, my anxiety, my hopes, my fears, my plans – then all that stuff, good and bad, will just stay inside my head and fester.

For example (and stay with me here, this is a rambler), I have an overly active imagination, to put it mildly, and that imagination is usually applied to things-I-need-to-be-afraid-of. To counter that fear (and this may not make sense to everyone out there, but it works for me), I have cultivated a love of horror movies. Not slashers, not psycho-killers – nothing that actually happens in real life; but zombies, vampires, ghosts, and ghoulies. For me, that takes the fear out of my head and puts it on the screen – it makes it something I can be afraid of for two hours, and then laugh about later. “Remember when I threw my popcorn over my shoulder during that one scene?” “You mean you don’t watch scary movies through the holes in the afghan?” The other night, I was coming home from yoga after dark (our driveway is a mile-long gravel road that we are at the absolute end of), and I convinced myself that a once-beautiful-but-now-clearly-ravaged-by-death-and-out-to-do-me-harm woman was going to step in front of my car, in a billowing white dress, and I would slam on the brakes (“Drive through her, dammit, Stacey! You know she’s a ghost!”), and we all know how that ends. But then I started laughing at myself, because I don’t really believe that could happen, yet I’m afraid of it.

And I realized that I walk around everyday being afraid of things like– “What if we lose the house?” “What if one of us gets really sick and we wind up broke and on the streets?” “What if I die in a car accident tomorrow and I’ve spent the last day of my life in this job I hate?” – and these things are really just as unlikely as that beautiful-but-ravaged-and-definitely-evil ghost. They’re my ghost fears. And OK, so I acknowledge that they’re there, but I don’t have to let those fears rule my every waking/sleeping minute. And I think I should probably learn how to laugh at them.

Part of the reason for the blog, then, is a need to verbalize these things. And I also need to know that – because it’s not just in my head anymore – other people are looking for me to take action. Again, if I don’t put this out there, I’m afraid I’ll just sit here with it and continue in my pattern of job/desperation/different job/different desperation, etc. This is my accountability. Even if you never read this, I know you might be reading it, and that’s enough to keep me writing and researching, etc. Or at least that’s the theory.

Step One

The study. A metaphor for where I want to be spending my time, as contrasted with how I’m currently spending my time. I want to be in the study, working on my work – writing, researching, planning yoga classes, studying. So, as Step One of The Plan, Chris helped me pick out colors for repainting the room – green and green, pistachio and stem. (Yes, yes, that is a quasi-Steel Magnolias reference.) I’m also going to put up a 6 foot square section of cork tiles on the wall. Perfect for posting up my planning, research, budgeting, and dreaming progress. If I keep it all in my head, I’m afraid it will stay there, stuck, and never get back out. So I’m externalizing! I’m painting, I’m cork-tiling, I’m posting things right up there in plain view on the wall for all to see!

Let’s contrast this with my last two workspaces…

• Workspace, the Former: In a beautiful building in the Clarksville neighborhood downtown, my office was high-ceilinged, lovely of view, moss green in color. But ah, what horrors that lovely space held – such dysfunction, such petty grievances, so many bang-my-head-on-the-desk moments. When I took the job, I think I believed that good things would happen simply based on how durn purty it was. For a brief time – and along a similar line of thinking - I also believed that I would enjoy working with my boss: he was funny and compassionate and what more could I need? Oh, I dunno, maybe competency? One of the personality quizzes Kathy put me through asks, “Do you prefer a boss who is more sympathetic, or one who is more efficient?” Before that job, I would’ve gone with sympathy; after, efficiency all the way.
• Workspace, the Current: Gray, gray, gray. The walls are gray, the carpet’s gray, the lighting is highly, brain-suckingly fluorescent and turns us all shades of gray to match the rest of the interior. Most days I have an office, though I get booted a couple times per week if someone more important needs the space. This makes seeing patients interesting – I have to beg around for an empty room and hope I don’t get booted again in the middle of the visit. I think when I took this job, I believed that it had to be better than the last one, since the office looked so ugly. What logic! Also showcasing my analytical prowess, I believed that since I didn’t like my new boss from the get-go, she must be efficient. Sympathy/Efficiency? – answer, efficiency. Unfortunately, I grow ever more convinced she is both unsympathetic and incompetent. Siggghhh.

You can see the need for my very own, very pistachio-and-stem study. It’s lovely. There’s a ficus tree in the corner, and I can look out the window over our front deck. Sometimes, there are cows in the adjoining pasture. Always, there are cats in my lap.

The Plan

The Plan, as in the 12-month-(or less, cross your fingers!)-escape-plan, is a plan to research, budget, and dream my way out of nursing and into a job that brings me at least some joy. I realize that many people dislike their jobs, and I also realize that no job can be 100% great 100% of the time. However, I am shooting for a more modest estimate of 80-90% great 50-60% of the time. Doesn’t that sound like the wish of a reasonable woman?

Topics for research: purchasing non-employer-sponsored health insurance; different options for teaching yoga; ways I can teach yoga to kids; the oh-so-subtle-and-controversial differences between Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio-Emilia schools; freelance writing; journals I would be interested in writing for; graduate studies in nutrition; graduate studies in writing; graduate studies in early childhood education; graduate studies in library science; how Chris and I can travel on the cheap; good places to raise kids, preferably near mountains; more reading on neuroplasticity; meditation techniques; incorporating a meditation technique into our daily life; canning and preserving fruits and vegetables; how to eat fresh, organic food without going broke; and many more.

Topics for writing: “pre-diabetes – what is it?,” what do those cholesterol numbers really mean?, eating well on a budget, different types of yoga, humor in yoga, beekeeping – why is it do damn fascinating?, honey and health, meditation and the brain…Feel free to post any other ideas you’d like to read about here.

As you can see from the lists, my biggest goal is to think outside the cell that I’ve boxed myself into. I can be a practical, reasonable, responsible person without letting all the shoulds in my head lead me straight past go do-not-collect-$200 to the Woe Hole. What are the shoulds of the hour? Healthcare, mortgage, financial solvency. Welcome to the trifecta of adulthood. Of course, I don’t completely discount any single member of that awesome trinity, I just want to loosen their deathgrip on my conscience. Yes, we need healthcare, but can’t we figure out a way to get that healthcare without immediately needing said healthcare to heal the ulcers it gave us? Yes, the mortgage needs to be paid, but isn’t there another route to that payment? One with fewer tortuous, hairpin curves? And of course, we want to be financially responsible (maybe even financially responsible enough to paste kids into the picture sometime soon), but is our mental health really worth what we’re saving, right now?

I simply want to remember how to dream without despairing. I want what I want to not bring me such anxiety.

The Woe Hole

The Woe Hole is a hole I partially dug behind our house. It was supposed to be for a tree that needed transplanting. That day, last spring, I faced several problems: 1) I hate digging, 2) I was already tired, 3) it was hot, 4) I’d had a bad week, and 5) I really hate digging. About a half hour after starting the project, Chris found me sitting slumped on the edge of a 3 foot square, 6 inch deep hole, weeping inconsolably, while simultaneously trying to hide the fact that I was weeping inconsolably. My husband – the picture of practicality – gently reminded me that I didn’t have to dig that hole, that there were plenty of other projects I could be working on, and why didn’t I go inside for awhile and maybe eat a snack? That hole was there for months, and we fondly started referring to it as the Woe Hole, a symbol of all that can (rarely/occasionally/frequently, choose your best answer) be despairing in our natures. Despite the fact that we were able to laugh about this, I still felt immense relief when we later planted a plum tree there.

So how did I get here? How did that fresh-faced dreamer of 18 wind up with pie on her face? I know life happens and there’s an expected increase in cynicism relative to life experience, but how did I come to find myself teetering so precariously on the edge of the Woe Hole?

There are several things at play. First, I am mesmerized by my own pattern (bad job, desperation, another bad job, etc.). I may hate the pattern, I may hate myself for remaining in the pattern, but dammit if it doesn’t hypnotize me. It’s familiar, and comfortable in the way that bad habits can be. I suppose if you lay on a bed of nails your whole life, a pillowtop might look pretty scary. This groove in my brain is physiological; I’ve been reading a lot about this lately. There’s a new(ish) concept out there called neuroplasticity, which is basically the idea that specific areas of our brain aren’t really hardwired to specific functions the way we are used to thinking of them. In other words, if you lose a function that one part of your brain used to take care of, it’s possible to learn how to do that same thing from a completely different part of the brain. This has incredible implications for stroke victims, people with learning disabilities, and – tada! – people with habits that feel impossible to break. Of course, it’s hard to pop out of the rut you’re in – there isn’t really some giant cosmic hand to come lift your needle out of the groove.

Which brings me to the second reason I think I got so stuck: my un-conversion. If Saul got stopped on the way to Damascus, saw the light, became Paul, and went on to spread the word of God, I guess I walked that same road backwards, or on my hands, or some variation that turns the story topsy-turvy. (I do still go by Stacey.)

DISCLAIMER: This outlines my experience, and my beliefs. If you’re included on this reader list, that means I also respect your experience and your beliefs. So please understand that I’m not trying to make anyone uncomfortable or unwelcome – I’m just talking myself through the whys of my road to the Woe Hole.

At age 20, for various reasons, I found my way away from the Church and Christianity (that’s another Way Out story). (When I told Chris, during our getting-to-know-you days, that I was raised “in the Church,” he was completely puzzled. “Like in a pew?” he asked. I forget what a different language I was raised speaking.) Although I will never, ever regret my choice, it had a major effect on my feeling of centeredness. I lost true north, I guess. I lost my certainty that it-will-all-be-OK, that someOne bigger than me was in control. I lost my belief that if I made a careful, “guided” decision, that the decision would be the Right One. I lost my Capital Letter belief system.

About six months ago, at a team building event at work, we played a game where everyone stood on one side of the room until the facilitator called out a group by name. Then, everyone self-identifying as a member of that group walked to the other side of the room and got to tell the “other half” how it felt to be in that group. For example, single parents. Black people. Or – in my case – “those not claiming any religious affiliation.” When the facilitator asked me what I’d like to tell my co-workers, I found myself saying, simply, “I’m not lost.” And it’s true, now. But for a long time, I was. Not that capital-L Lost, like I-Once-Was-Lost-But-Now-Am-Found, but lost, like – how do I orient my life now that I’ve chosen a different center? And even, how do I find a center after a lifetime of having a Center? So that major shift caused me to doubt every thought I had and every decision I made there for awhile, and I got into the habit of not trusting my self and not following my heart. And then my nifty, efficient brain figured out that it could save itself some energy by just keepin’ on keepin’ on, and now it’s 6 years later and I’m ready to retire.

If you want to read more about neuroplasticity - and I suggest that you do - start with Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight and proceed immediately to Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself.