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Get moving. New Year’s thoughts.

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I recently met a lady who said that she had to drop her books in the bookdrop just inside the door at the library rather than bring them up to the desk. She said they were too heavy for her. She uses a cane to get around.

I know another lady who needs large print but can’t hold it. Just one book is too heavy for her. She now is no longer able to get herself in and out of bed, or to the bathroom.

I’ve heard stories of women who have had breast cancer surgery who can’t use their arms to get up because of the surgery. They have to let the area heal and can’t use those muscles. So they have to use their leg muscles to get out of a chair, or off the toilet. But they are in such bad shape that they have to get friends to stay with them to pull them up.

It has to be terrible to be trapped in your own body. It has to be sad to get to the point that everything is difficult. It has to be embarrassing.

This is in part why I exercise. I don’t want to become this feeble.

I know a lady in my yoga class who is 72. I am sure the reason she is doing so well is because she goes to the Y. She works really hard to stay flexible and strong.

It takes a lot of effort to stay in shape. I’m not talking about losing weight. I’m talking about having the strength and energy to be self sufficient. I’m talking about muscles in good enough shape to live well. What does it matter if you are 60 years old but you are in a wheelchair because of something totally preventable?

Exercise is no fun. The first 15 minutes I want to be anywhere but
there. I’d love to have my week nights back too. All that time at the Y takes up a lot of my free time. But even without the Y, I walk at work. Even twenty minutes at lunch is good. And even though I’m not excited about exercise, I feel better after I do it. Some of the benefits are mental. I’ve come to see exercise as the same as dialysis. It gets the icky bits out, and it isn’t optional.

I think the key is movement, and understanding that these bodies have to be maintained. They degrade in slow motion. One day, you’ll realize that hunching over your computer all day and not moving has caught up on you.

Don’t let time slip away from you. Get going. Sure it is cold outside. Walk in your building. Can’t afford a gym membership? Rent an exercise video from the library. Just move. The life you save will be your own.

“I’m sorry” – on forgiveness.

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There is a difference in saying

“I’m sorry.”
or

“I’d like to apologize for…”
or

“I’m sorry that you felt hurt when I….”

They reflect different degrees of admitting responsibility. They reflect different degrees of accepting how the other person has been hurt by your actions.

There is the true sincere apology statement, and then there is the one where the person understands the social obligation of at least acting sorry. One is real, the other is fake. Don’t be mislead. Even saying “I’d like to apologize for” doesn’t mean anything. The person would like to apologize, but isn’t actually doing so.

And worse, saying sorry doesn’t really even mean anything. If you hammer nails into a tree, and then pull them out, there are still holes there.

Expecting the victim to forgive can actually revictimize her. It puts the burden on her, instead of the abuser. It minimizes her feelings. It glosses over the reality of her pain and loss.

If there has been no apology, no restitution, then there is no closure or healing. Even if there has been an apology or restitution, then is no guarantee that closure or healing has taken place. Once a person has been harmed by another person, sometimes saying “sorry” won’t fix it, and the damage is permanent, especially if the offender has a habit of repeatedly hurting people.

It isn’t fair to the victim to expect her to forgive at all.

Sure, Buddha says that holding on to anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. Sometimes you have to forgive so you can go on with your life. But forgiveness comes when it comes, and no sooner.

Saying “Aren’t you over that by now?” isn’t kind, or helpful.

Saying “But have you forgiven him in your heart?” makes no sense. What about the liver? Is it OK to still hold some resentment there?

It is the same as getting frustrated with someone who is grieving. Grief takes time, and there isn’t a fixed amount. It takes as long as it takes.

I think people are nervous around grief, or unforgiveness, or anger, because it frightens them. They want to rush right ahead to the happy bit, where all is good and everybody is loving and kind. That Hollywood ending isn’t real. That’s why it is in the movies.

Movies don’t show reality. Sadly, a lot of us have used movies as our role models. This is why a lot of us are in pain. A lot. Our reality never matches up to that reality, and we feel like we are doing something wrong.

Working through feelings is a long process, and our society doesn’t give a lot of help along the way. You have to process your pain, just like how a cow chews its cud. You have to work on it, and wait, and work on it a little more, and wait. You have to transform it into something else. Cows transform grass into energy for their muscles, and then milk.

There is a sort of alchemy here.

Trying to take shortcuts on the process only results in it not really being processed. It will come out half way, unfinished, lumpy. It will come out sideways, if it comes out at all. Sometimes it will get stuck inside, with little jagged bits poking into your soft parts, just causing more pain.

Take as long as you need.

You don’t have to forgive to the extent that you let the abuser hurt you again. You don’t have to forget.

It helps if you can move on, where this rock of grief and pain doesn’t define you, doesn’t limit you, doesn’t keep you stuck in one place.

Work on it. Chew on it. Draw. Paint. Write. Go for a walk. Take your anger with you.

You aren’t running away from your anger and pain and loss, you’re using it as fuel. You’re transforming it into something useful and necessary. It takes a while. It takes as long as it needs to take.

It isn’t about the money.

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I got my Christmas bonus last week. Of course, it isn’t called a Christmas bonus. This is a government job. It is a “longevity” check. But we get it around Christmas, and not on the anniversary of our hire date.

Every employee who has worked for Metro for at least five years gets this check. It is a tiny thing at the beginning, and a little more each year. There were years where the budget was tight and we didn’t get it at all. Things are better now, and it is a nice thing to have back.

I noticed my reaction to it this year. I have this reaction every year, but this time I noticed. I’m trying to observe myself from the outside. I’m trying to see what I do out of habit and instinct and ask myself why. I want to see if that reaction or course of action is still useful. Sometimes we outgrow our actions, but we still do them because we haven’t thought about them.

I saw this money and wanted to spend it right away. I didn’t even think about buying presents for others. I didn’t think about sending some of it to a charity. I wanted to spend all of it on myself.

I wanted a treat, or a toy. I didn’t want to buy anything I needed. I wanted to buy something I wanted. I don’t even have anything in mind. I just wanted to spend this money, and spend it fast.

This is why for many years I didn’t have much of anything in my savings account.

I’ve gotten over that feeling for the most part. For the most part I’m sane. For the most part I save money and pay extra towards the principal for the house and car notes. But right now the desire to burn through that money shone like a torch.

I didn’t. I thought about it. I saw that feeling as the outsider it is. I saw it as a symptom. I saw it as being not really from me, not the real me.

I started to think about what that feeling meant. At first I thought that I was going on survival mode. If I convert that money into something physical, I can see it. I can keep it with me. Just like wandering tribal people who move their camps with their flocks, I wanted to convert that wealth into portable currency. Money is better if you can wear it as baubles on your coat, you know.

But where does that feeling come from? I’m not planning on escaping. I’m not foreseeing any need to bug out any time soon. Even if the zombie apocalypse does happen, I don’t see that bartering with beads is going to be the mode of commerce. But who knows? It worked for the Dutch when they bought Manhattan.

So I dug deeper. There had to be more to this feeling.

It is all about comfort and self soothing. This past month has been hard. Financially, materially, it has been fine. Emotionally, not so much. There’s been a lot of upheaval in my family recently. Too much drama and not enough sense.

When bad things happened I used to soothe myself with eating sugar and carbs, or smoking, either pot or clove cigarettes. I used to soothe myself in the same way that many people soothe themselves – to do everything possible to not actually address the situation itself. Sadly, a lot of our soothing methods result in even more problems.

I’ve gotten past a lot of those soothing methods, but apparently I’ve not purged myself from the “need” to spend money to cheer myself up. I’m glad I saw it as the craving it is, and didn’t succumb to it.

We can all learn from our cravings. They teach us what we really are searching for. I didn’t really want to spend all that money. I wanted what the money could buy. And really, I didn’t even want that. I wanted what it represents.

In this case I was searching for security and stability. I was trying to retreat into primitive ways of coping, rather than dealing with the problem at hand. Part of the solution is to stick with the feeling. I’ve spent so long trying to run away from my feelings that I’m not sure how to have them sometimes.

If you use crutches all the time, then you never develop the strength in your legs to stand on your own. Losing the crutches doesn’t mean that you suddenly have the ability to run, much less stand up straight. And it hurts, these first few unassisted steps. You want to grab the crutches back, or find something else to hold on to.

This is why a lot of people at AA meetings are chain smokers. They just traded one addiction for another. The problem hasn’t been addressed. It has just been transformed into something a little more socially acceptable, and a little less likely to result in legal problems.

I’m stripping away my crutches and my props, one by one, and it is hard. But it is essential. Sometimes I’m tired of all this growth I’ve done and I want to sit back and take a break. I don’t, well, not often, and not for long. I’ve learned that if I take a break, the break morphs into a full stop, and then I have to get started all over again.

Resolutions

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It just doesn’t seem fair to start a New Year’s resolution in the cold dark winter. Going to the gym is hard enough. I’ve been going for three years and even I don’t want to go right now. It will be even colder in January.

It will also be packed. It isn’t fun to work out in a small place with a lot of people. In the beginning of the year the pool is full of new people. A lot of them drop out early, even though there is no refund of the sign-up fee. $100 is a lot to blow. How many of them quit because it is too crowded inside and too cold outside? When you are in your warm house, getting out to go to the gym is the last thing you want to do. Getting there, when it is full of people isn’t that fun either.

If you have a desire to make a change in your life, just do it. Don’t wait unto the New Year. Adopt one from another culture. There are some that have their New Year’s Day in the spring, and some in the fall. Pick one. Or make your own. Every day is a new day. You can have that fresh-faced, new chance, clean-slate feeling anytime.

Strip away all that doesn’t serve. In fact, strip away all that does serve you well, beside the more you do the same old thing, the less you’ll discover. When you keep doing the same thing over and over, even if it works for you, even if you think it is the best way to do things, it prevents you from discovering new options and new opportunities.

If you eat the same food at a restaurant, you’ll never find your new favorite. If you respond the same way to someone, you’ll never learn new ways of thinking. Challenge and change are great opportunities.

Make every moment new. Pretend as if each moment is your first.

Welcome to your new life.

Lifeguard

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Lifeguards have to know how to rescue you and not get drowned themselves. Not only do they have to be good swimmers, they have to watch out for the drowning person who is thrashing about.

Drowning people don’t do anything right to stop themselves drowning. They will hit the person who is trying to save them. They will grab at them, pulling them under the water. The more they thrash and grab, the worse things get.

Lifeguards are trained to approach the victim from behind to rescue them, and to look out for sudden movements. If drowning people relaxed they’d be a lot easier to rescue. In fact, if they relaxed in the first place they probably wouldn’t need to be rescued.

Try it the next time you are in a pool. Tense up, pretending you are anxious. Feel like you aren’t going to make it to the wall. You’ll start to sink. Relax and you’ll start to float. Let go, and you are fine.

How much of this is like everything in life? Just tensing up makes an already bad situation worse. Freak out and you’ll need to be rescued. Then, when someone comes to help, you fight them. The smart helper knows how to approach you so they too don’t get dragged down.

Drowning, finances, drugs, dependency- whatever. It is all the same.

People have to get certified to be lifeguards. There are manuals to study and a test to pass. Kids in high school can do this.

Too bad that helping people not drown in other ways requires more advanced training. Maybe if it could be simplified and destigmatized it would be easier for everyone. If we can help people before they are really going under we will be doing very well.

Aware

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Everything is a reminder. Everything is a tool.

I once read about a lady who has the word “aware” tattooed on her hand to remind her to be awake and conscious.

There is more to being awake than having your eyes open. Just like there is a difference between hearing and listening.

What do you do to remind yourself that time is fleeting, life is short, and it is time to get cracking? I’ve heard of Thai Buddhists who will meditate for days beside a corpse. Alone.

Sometimes you have to go inside yourself to find yourself.

Some people go a bit crazy when they realize they are going to die. Some get bossy. Some get grumpy. If only they could have realized that death is the great equalizer. Nobody escapes it. Rich, poor, ugly, beautiful, kind, mean. We are all worm food. Our last home will be the smallest efficiency apartment ever, and that is just the way it is.

There is practice in this. Nothing really matters.

There is chaos in this. Every moment counts.

Aware. Aware. Aware.

The alarm clock is going off. Do you hit the snooze button and turn over?

Scale message

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If you have a membership at a gym, please print this message out and tape it to the scale. I’d seen this message somewhere else (online), and I’ve taken it and added a little to it. We all need a little encouragement. Feel free to tweak the font and play with the underlining and bold options. You can also tape it to your own scale.

(Post just this part below)

This scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity.

That’s it.

It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, possibility, strength, character, or love.

You are an awesome person, and that has nothing to do with what you weigh.

Jesus as a BFF.

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Last week I went to my spiritual director and she asked me to choose one of the times that we had been discussing. I talk with her about all sorts of events that have occurred in the past month. I talk about troubles with family as well as good times when I took time to take care of myself. She asked me to pick one time and “see” Jesus there with me.

This is still a foreign concept to me. I wasn’t raised with the idea of Jesus being right here with me, or being “crazy” about me, as my spiritual director insists that he is. But I’m playing along, and it seems to be helping. I often feel like I’m doing it wrong, but she seems to think differently.

I chose a time when I was sitting up in my “star stones” area, where I go to talk to God at the top of the back of my yard. It was one of the times where I did it not because I was mad but because I wanted to just visit. I’m trying to get in the habit of inviting God into each moment, not just the hard ones. I’m trying to be mindful of God’s presence all the time.

I visualized Jesus sitting right next to me on my right. She asked me what direction he was looking. I said he was looking forward, in the same direction I was looking. She asked me if he was saying anything to me. I said he wasn’t saying anything, but it was as if I could feel colors from him. She had me describe the colors.

This is the best picture I can provide to illustrate. I’d taken it the week before, on an especially “God” kind of walk.
winter4

It isn’t about the color, or what is in the picture, it is about what it makes me feel. These colors make me feel safe. They are calm and earthy and soothing.

She asked me to stay with that feeling and to think about it.

I started to cry. Nobody has ever made me feel like that. Nobody has ever made me feel that safe or loved or wanted. Nobody has ever just wanted to be with me and not wanted something from me. I feel like I’m constantly on my guard with people. I keep waiting for them to let me down or beat me up. With guys I’m always something to try to have sex with. I’m an object, not a person.

It was refreshing to feel that oasis of calm, where I’m not wanted for what I can give, but who I am. Everything that I am, my beauty and my bruises, my wisdom and my weakness, is loved and cherished and celebrated. Everything.

Later I started thinking that this isn’t fair, this feeling. This perfect feeling of peace just can’t be matched. Nobody else will ever live up to it. I’m going to get hurt. My feelings are going to be ignored and overlooked. I’m going to be treated like a thing, an object. Nobody is going to measure up to this feeling I get from Jesus. Why go to the effort of knowing Jesus more closely, when it is so beautiful? It is so fragile and strong at the same time. It is so heartbreakingly kind. Nothing compares. Nothing.

It reminds me of when I stopped smoking pot. Everything started to seem vanilla in comparison. Life was dull. Movies were boring and predicable. Food was tasteless. Friends were annoying. Family was impossible. I remembered why I started smoking in the first place. It added seasoning to my life and smoothed off the rough bits. Pot was the rainbow, real life was the black and white. Who wants three channels on the TV when you can have 187? Real life doesn’t compare well to altered life.

Jesus is always present and real and holy and pure and safe. He’s never thoughtless. Never pushy. Never aggressive, needy, groping. He always knows what I need. Nobody is ever going to measure up to that. So why even go there. It hurts.

And then I got a feeling back. I knew the answer in that moment.

Because He heals the brokenness.
He fills in the cracks.
Jesus makes up the difference in their lack.

Jesus is like this –
He pays the bar tab. He orders the cab. He holds your hair when you have had too much to drink and you have to barf. He wipes your face afterwards with a warm wet washcloth.

Jesus is in the face of all kindness
and is in all kinds of people
you’d never expect.

Focus on the light, not the cracks.

trinity tree

Invisible walls.

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Have you ever come across a wall that you didn’t even know was a wall?

There is a wall at the library. We have an open part of the counter. The counter is very long, and one of the ways behind it is to the left. People see it as a wall. If their children run behind the counter, they stand, helplessly, calling to their children. Come back, they say. The children ignore them. They will never cross that line to come behind the counter to get their children unless we tell them to. It is programmed into them.

Now it is more interesting. Now we have the DVDs that are on hold behind the counter. They started getting taken by people who didn’t have them on hold, so we had to move them here. The shelf for these holds is right next to the end of the counter. We’ve told the regulars to just go ahead and get their DVDs if we are busy. They still see the wall. They still don’t want to. Sometimes they will stop, just at the color change on the carpet, and lean in as far as they can to get their movies.

And it got me to thinking. What other walls are there? What else is there in my head that I’ve been programmed into thinking is something that can’t be done, some rule that I’m breaking?

The view from the patron’s side.
wall4

The “wall”.
wall3

The view from our side. Notice that the carpet is different on our side versus their side.
wall2

That dark blue line is used throughout the building, wherever there is a post or a counter. It probably makes it easier to blend carpets when they come together around a difficult corner. I don’t know if the blue part is the bit that stops people, or that it is the end of the counter.

What “walls” do you have? What prevents you from doing something? What has been programmed into you, that you needed to know then but don’t need to know now? What have you generalized as a “rule” that really is a “suggestion”?

My first mini-triathlon.

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I participated in a mini triathlon in spring of 2011. It was at the Y and the entrance fee went for a program so disadvantaged people could go to the Y. I’m not really sure about entrance fees for exercise events. You have to pay to work really hard. This seems backwards.

But there were a lot of perks. Not only was there a t-shirt, they had snacks and drinks and giveaways. There was a huge travel bag filled with stuff from companies they had gotten to sponsor the event. I gave some of it away as gifts. We more than got our money back.

The event was not as long as a regular triathlon, but it was plenty long enough for me. I had just started to work out maybe 6 months previously, so it was daunting to even think about it. The event consisted of 50 minutes of water aerobics, 50 minutes of spin class, and then a three mile walk afterwards. There was only 15 minutes in between each event.

My goal was to at least do all three things in the day. I didn’t know if I’d be able to complete the event in the allotted time. I wasn’t sure about my energy level. I wasn’t sure about much of anything, but I knew that I wanted to try.

I’m one of those people that will create a goal so that I will get there. I’ve signed myself up to teach classes on stuff that I wanted to learn about. I didn’t have a class ready. I used the fact that I was going to have to teach the class as a reason to learn.

I knew I could do the water aerobics part – The class I was already taking was 75 minutes long. I knew I could walk. Three miles seemed like a lot at the time but I thought I could do it. Spin class was another thing entirely. I had never taken a spin class and I hadn’t ridden a bicycle much in twenty years. I figured my legs could handle it if I went slowly, but I knew deep down that my butt wasn’t going to be happy.

I trained for spin class on a trainer in the basement. My husband got me a device where I could turn my own bike into a stationary bike. He’d gotten me a bike a few months earlier hoping that I’d go riding with him. This wasn’t the best idea. Gravity and I are such good friends that we have to get really close to each other. A lot. My fear of falling off the bike keeps me from riding the bike. Yeah, I know, it is all in my head. If I stop worrying about it, it will all be fine. That is easy to say, but hard to do, especially when you are hurtling down a hill and you forget where the brakes are. But I digress.

So I trained on the bike in the basement. I sat on it, pedaling with different resistances. I pedaled, reading a book because I was bored, for 50 minutes at a time. I built up my legs. My butt got used to the idea.

I didn’t really train for the walking part. I walked as usual at lunch, and a little around the neighborhood, but I didn’t go for three miles. I’m not sure where I thought that extra bit of energy was going to come from on the day of the triathlon after doing two other events. Again, my idea was that I’d pace myself. It wasn’t about winning anything. It wasn’t about getting a good time. It was about trying, and hopefully finishing.

When the day came I was a little nervous. Strangely, I wasn’t nervous about doing the event. I was nervous about the fact that I hadn’t pooped yet. There is something about staying regular that really helps the day go well. I didn’t want any surprises. I certainly didn’t want to have to stop what I was doing and go to the bathroom at the Y. I don’t like sitting on public toilets, and the ones at the Y are the very definition of public. They aren’t that awesome. They aren’t anywhere near as bad as the toilet in “Trainspotting”, but they aren’t pristine either. And pooping is something that shouldn’t be rushed. Strangely, it just didn’t matter as the day went on.

When I got there I saw that they had a spread of food for us. Bananas, apples, bagels, cream cheese, nuts – good things to help us refuel. There was lots of water too – and no sports drinks. I’m glad for that. It is better to eat real food. They also had all of our “swag.” Lots of stuff, just for participating. We also got our t-shirts then. I took all of this too my car, and briefly thought that I could leave right now – I’ve got the proof that I did it. Nobody would be any the wiser.

But I would be. I would know that I hadn’t earned it. I could never wear that shirt, not really.

They gave us a choice of water aerobics or spin class first. We all were going to go on the walk together. I chose water aerobics based on the suggestion of the staff member who signed me up. It seems best now – I didn’t have to go from dry to wet to dry.

I paced myself in water aerobics. I didn’t do anything at full speed. I did all the moves, but I didn’t do them very hard. I wasn’t sure how much energy I needed. I still had the idea that I was going to have to just take the day to do the event. When that part was over I had just enough time to shower the chorine off of me, change quickly, and get a bite to eat from the spread set out for us. I think they had a guard set up to keep the regular Y members from our table. I was really grateful they had that for us. I’d brought some “gorp” but this was much better. I left my “gorp” in my bag.

Spin class wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great either. I don’t think I’ll ever do it for real. The teacher was very enthusiastic and encouraging. She was the only fun part of it. The bikes were stiff – much harder to use than my 21 speed at home. The seat was too high. There was a very nice seat cushion they provided me. Early on I figured out that I should just pedal along. I wasn’t standing up on the pedals to “go up the hill”. I wasn’t “racing past the person just ahead of me.” I was there for a simple country backroads ride.

Once that was over I had a little more time than before because I didn’t have to change. I took the time to rest a little, but I found I still had energy. I guess those bagels and bananas were doing the trick. So I went on the walk along with everybody else.

It was there I realized that I needed to be wearing some other shoes. They were kind of like Keds. They weren’t broken in. I didn’t have any inserts in them. My feet started to hurt. Then they started to blister. By then I’m already through half of the walk and the only way back was to walk. By then I wanted to pee. I was looking at the trees and thinking quite a bit about holding back from the group and just taking care of business right there. I’d already peed while I was inside, waiting, but something about being on a walk, far away from a readily accessible bathroom, makes me want to go.

I decided I could hold it. I’ve held it before. I decided it was my body trying to get me to quit. It does that sometimes. I’ll commit to some healthy course of action – no fried foods, and then I’ll see some fried fish and then I can think of nothing else. Half the job of getting healthy is ignoring your body when it is trying to distract you.

Then I got bored. I didn’t have anybody to talk to. Talking to other people helps to pass the time and take your mind off of unpleasant things. I wasn’t a very fast walker at the time, and I certainly wasn’t very fast with those darn shoes. I was drifting more and more towards the end.

The group was walking on the greenway. There were several different paths on it, and I’d never walked on it before. I was starting to get a little worried. What if I got left behind? How would I know how to get back? What if I took the wrong turn? All his worrying made the path seem even longer.

There were some cheery people along the way. That helped a lot. A patron from the library was a regular walker of the greenway and she was with some other people that day. She wasn’t doing the triathlon, but she was cheering us on anyway. They had made signs to encourage us. That was very nice. She gave me an extra big smile because she recognized me. She didn’t know that I exercised. I certainly didn’t look like it at the time. I was glad to see her, and heartened by her enthusiasm.

By the end I was alone. Everybody else had gone ahead. To entertain myself I started reciting the Nicene Creed …”We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth…” It is pretty long. I was meditating on each part, each word, each section. What do all these words mean? I’d memorized it years ago when I got confirmed, but by now I wanted to really study it. No better time than the present, and it kept me company, and kept me sane.

I was the last person off the course. But I made it. I made it through the whole thing, in the time allotted. I’m glad that mental experiment worked, because it has helped me with other things. Now I know it is better to try, even if I don’t think I can do it. Just try. Just get started. I might surprise myself.

That t-shirt is one of my prize possessions now.