I’m fine.

Posted on July 9, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Why do people even ask “How are you doing?” They don’t really want to know. They want you to say “I’m fine”. They want to then go on to the rest of the conversation.

They don’t really want you to say “Things are terrible” or “My foot hurts” or “My husband is driving me crazy.” They don’t want the truth.

So why ask?

It is a bit of a transition phrase. It is a demarcation point. It is a way of saying, “Hey, I need to have a conversation with you, and this is how we start.” It is seen as polite.

But is it really polite, when nobody cares what the answer really is? To not really care about someone you are talking with is not polite. Now, sure, you may not have the desire to know what is really going on with your waitress or the guy who changes the oil in your truck. So why ask?

We ask because that is what we do.

And every time we do it and don’t really want the truth, we become more and more un-human, and more and more like zombies. We aren’t being conscious or intentional about our lives or our speech.

Alone again

Posted on April 20, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Until very recently I used to make sure that I had plans for a day or a weekend off. I always had to be doing something outside of the house. Errands to run, people to meet – something needed to occupy my time. I just realized yesterday how excited I was to not have any plans to go anywhere for today. I thought this was a good sign.

But then I realized that I still had plans. Make hummus and pesto. Work on the condensed Gospel (still an active project). Make jewelry. Paint my toenails. Write. Cook supper. Organize the fridge.

I realized that I was still packing my day full of stuff. The only difference was that I wasn’t going anywhere.

I know some of my need to stay busy has to do with my awareness of time, and how little of it there is available to us in our lives. I know some of it is my realization that if I don’t keep up some level of activity then depression will sneak in and set up camp. But this need to stay busy busy busy is in itself a symptom of a deeper problem.

Being still is, at the heart of it all, being alone. Deep down, I don’t like to be alone. Thus, deep down, I’m not comfortable with myself.

This is hard to admit, and hard to live with.

It, in itself, isn’t a bad thing. Different ways of living are just as valid as having different hair colors or textures. Different isn’t bad or good. It is just different.

What matters is that I am conscious of it, and aware. Do I let this way of being rule my actions? Do I let it decide for me what I am going to do? Do I live my life by reflex, on autopilot? To unconsciously act, whether directed by a crowd or an unnoticed impulse, is the same. It is, at the heart, to not be fully alive but to have your actions taken out of your control.

My need to stay busy is a need to fill up my time and my head with stuff. It is a need to get away from myself, even if I am the only person in the room.

There is strength in being independent. I’ve gained a real sense of power from preparing food for myself and my husband. I’ve also learned valuable lessons about myself and about life from doing this.

But still, even in this lesson, I’ve not really been awake. It is still a method to stay busy, and thus ultimately stay distracted.

I’ve heard “Hell is other people.” Perhaps for me, right now, hell is myself.

I don’t hate myself, not at all. That isn’t it. I have a good life and I’m grateful for my many blessings. But if I still feel empty in the midst of busyness, then something is wrong. My plan for this past year or so has been to uncover, and recover. It has been to dig up and dig out. Simultaneously I have been reforming and recreating myself by becoming more aware and awake.

Some of this is teaching me to be more conscious, while some of this is teaching me to let go. Some of it is about living in the moment as completely as possible. Some of it is about seeing the path ahead and planning wisely. And some of it is just simply about learning to be me.

You’d think I’d know how to do this by now. I’ve had 45 years to practice. But not really. For many of those years I wasn’t really awake, and that isn’t even including the years I spent in a pot-cloud. Or grieving. Or both. I’ve spent a long time running away from myself. Now that I’m conscious, I feel I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

And that is part of it too. Being patient with myself, in the middle, in the mess. Being patient, and knowing that this is where I need to be, and who I need to be right now.

Weather Bell

Posted on February 27, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

People talk about the weather all the time. I’ve decided to see it as alarm bell signaling me to wake up.

It is mindless talk, really. “Boy, is it cold out there!” or “That wind is fierce!”

I used to say something like “Yeah, you’d think it was February or something!” Because it is February. Cold and windy weather are what define February in America. It isn’t a surprise. Freaking out over it makes no sense. It is normal.

If it going to be especially cold or windy, like more than normal for winter, then it is forecasted. Every day before I leave the house I know what the weather is expected to be like. I know whether to wear a thick coat or a thin one. I know to bring my umbrella or not. I know if I can wear my regular hat or I have to wear the one with a lanyard so it won’t blow away in a gust.

All these people who are surprised by the weather seem to be the same people who are surprised by life in general. They wonder how they got old and infirm. They wonder why they have no money saved up for retirement. They wonder where their health went.

If they can’t be awake enough to pay attention to something as simple and everyday as the weather, then how can they be expected to plan any further ahead? Just that day is enough of a challenge.

Sometimes the weather is a surprise. My grandfather said that a weatherman was the only person who could be wrong fifty percent of the time and still keep his job. But in general, what people are talking and/or complaining about with surprise and consternation isn’t a fluke weather pattern. It is something that is expected and was predicted, sometimes as much as a week earlier.

So I’m seeing it as a bell. I’m seeing any statement about not-out-of-the-ordinary weather as the same kind of bell in a church that calls people to services. It is the call of the muezzin. It is the tornado siren.

It is a bell that says – Wake up. Notice what is happening. Time is slipping by. Notice it.

Yoga in the morning.

Posted on February 23, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m rethinking my idea of yoga. I think it is better to do it every day, rather than just once a week at a class. I also think it is better for me to do it first thing in my morning routine rather than at the end.

I hear it is best to do yoga before having breakfast. This would certainly take care of my need to get my morning started but not be in the way of my husband. Our day overlaps by about thirty minutes and if I go into the kitchen where he is it is a little chaotic. I’ve discovered that it is best for both of us if I don’t try to start my morning in the same place where he is trying to finish his.

As an alternative, I’ve been bringing my Kindle into the bedroom to write during that time, and while I may still do some of that, I think that doing yoga then would be good too.

I’d been leaving yoga for the end, just after my shower. Somehow I was running out of time and I was either rushing through the poses or just skipping them entirely. So that isn’t working. When I had been making time to do it I’d also been doing an example of “Praying in Color” and that was good too. In the past several months if I’d done either they were done as a sort of afterthought.

If I do them first, they are done. No excuses.

I like how I feel during the day if I’ve done a little yoga. Things seem to go better. I’ve actually found myself sort of checking in with myself. Did I write? Yes. Did I do yoga? Yes. It is like taking a multivitamin for my soul. If I’ve done it, I feel better.

Now, do I feel better because I’ve done yoga, or because I’ve done something I feel is good for me? I don’t know. This has long been something I’ve wondered about. Is it the activity that matters or the commitment and discipline that matters? Sometimes I think what helps me the most is intentionally living my life, rather than just drifting aimlessly through it.

This is part of why I write. Writing keeps me awake. Writing means I face things, rather than running away from them. Writing means I don’t hide behind the unknowing, behind the questions. When I write, I dig, and when I dig, I learn. I start to uncover, and recover, the truth, and with it, myself.

Writing is yoga too, like that. Yoga isn’t just poses. Yoga is a way of thinking. Yoga is sticking with it and working through it. Yoga is leaning in and being patient. Yoga is trying. Yoga is sometimes just showing up, bored and tired, but there anyway. Yoga is finding the center calm. Yoga is better lived off the mat. Yoga is being awake in the moment.

So why wouldn’t I do this every day? Why wouldn’t everybody?

Poem – How to get sober.

Posted on February 23, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

One moment at a time, not one day.
At the beginning, a day is too long
too stretched out,
too scary.

At the beginning an hour feels like an eternity
packed with uncertainty
and dread.

At the beginning of our coming
to consciousness,
of our coming
back to ourselves,
even an hour is too long.

That is why we got high, got stoned, got drunk.
The day stretched out before us with
more questions than answers,
more problems than solutions.

We are adults in name only.
We were shortchanged
on the skills
to be human.

We have to relearn
and unlearn
a lot.

It is hard, this being human.

It is why we ran away
for so long.

Just like a person who was born with legs
but never used them,
We have to be patient with the process.

We have to relearn how to walk
when we never learned in the first place.
We have to relearn how to live
when we never learned in the first place.

We have to be patient with ourselves.

Patience isn’t one of our strengths though.

We were raised by a world that taught
“Get rich quick”
“You deserve it”
And instant enlightenment,
no waiting.

So now what?

Breathe.
Go for a walk
outside.
Soak up the sun
or the cold
or the rain.

Be open to what is
right now,
not what you want it to be
not what you think
it should be.

This is a time of relearning
what it is to be

Alive.
Awake.
Aware.

Just like a person who has spent
her life in a cave,
going outside is painful.
The light is too bright.
The sounds are too loud.
Nothing is familiar.
Nothing is comforting.

Don’t go back
to the cave.
Don’t go back
to being asleep.

Take a small step.
Acclimate.

Take another
when you are ready.

No hurry.

You can sit outside that cave mouth for a long time.

You don’t have to go running
because if you go too far too fast
you’ll fall
and retreat
back to that cave.

Slow and steady does it.

A lot of getting sober
is unlearning.

You aren’t alone
in this process.

We are all unlearning
and relearning
what it means to be ourselves.

You are beautiful. You are needed. You are loved.
And you can do this.

Doing WordPress

Posted on January 22, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure I’m doing WordPress wrong.

I’ve read that I’m supposed to put pictures in all my posts. I’ve read that I’m supposed to “follow” a lot of other similar blogs, and comment on them. I’ve read that I should post several times a day.

Well, I do that part, sometimes. And then I think that I’m overwhelming people.

But how am I supposed to follow other blogs when I barely have time to work on mine? How am I supposed to comment on them if I don’t read them? And how would that get me more followers?

I’m pretty sure that a lot of my followers don’t even follow my blog. I have nearly 200 followers and really only about 20 people manage to saunter over and look at what I’ve written every day. Are the rest those people who do blogging for money? They “followed” my blog with the hope that I’d “follow” theirs, and they’d get a percentage of a penny just because I clicked on their blog? Maybe.

As for pictures, I have pictures sometimes. But they are my own. I’m not going to take stock photos and paste them on my blog. That’s stealing. Well, it’s stealing unless you give proper credit. But then if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much more are worth actual words? A picture doesn’t mean anything without a context, and the viewer can make up whatever she wants. I’d rather write about what I see than show it, most of the time. I feel that it means more, and that the meaning is better expressed this way.

Mostly I write because I need to write. Setting up a goal of posting at least once a day makes it something I have to do. It makes me accountable to myself. It makes me take the time to put down my thoughts. I don’t need to post, but it seems to force me to think more clearly about what I say. And, if someone gets something useful out of it, all the better. But first and foremost, I write for myself.

I’ve learned things through writing that I never would have learned otherwise. Writing forces me to slow down and see the situation from many perspectives. Writing is an intentional, focused act. Writing keeps me conscious and alert.

I’ve got lots of things I want to write about, but not a lot of time. Plus, I think my recent sprained wrist is in part because I’ve been writing so much. So, I have to choose carefully what I write. Sometimes it may not seem like it. Sometimes I just need to “doodle” to get started. Sometimes I write about a fluffy thing in order to warm up to something bigger. Sometimes I avoid writing about something big and real and controversial and new because I’m afraid.

Sometimes I write because I want to confront my fears, and drag them out kicking and screaming into the light.

So I may not do WordPress the way I’m supposed to do it. But I do it the way I need to do it, and I think that is really the point of everything. It certainly is the point of my blog. Don’t do things the way everyone else does it if it doesn’t serve you.

Frame

Posted on January 21, 2014 by betsybeadhead | 2 Comments

If you want to miss the big picture, put a frame around it.

I’m learning that the more I decide what things are going to be, or how I should deal with them before I get to them, the less that I learn. The more I plan ahead, the less I’m able to experience what is really happening.

Instead of saying to God “This is what I want out of this experience”, it is me saying “God, what do You want me to get out of this”?

I want it all. I don’t want to miss anything.

I want to be open, like a child, to whatever is really there. I want to see with new eyes and hear with new ears.

I want to stop defining and start delighting.

I want to stop deciding what is “bad” or “good” and see things for what they really –are-, right then, and know that God is working through them to make them something else as well.

Nothing is constant. Everything is in the hands of God.

The more I expect to see things or people a certain way, the more I’ll see just that, and the less I’ll see what God has put right in front of me.

Writing has saved me.

Posted on January 1, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Writing has saved me. It is my way out of a hard situation. It helps me find words when I have none. It helps me understand and unravel problems.

I feel like I’ve always written. Anybody who says that they are jealous of how I write doesn’t understand how much work is involved. Writing is just like any skill. You have to do it to get better at it. The more you do it, the better you will get. If you want to be better at writing, then you write. A lot.

There are certainly times where I think that what I’ve written is kind of boring, and other times where I think I’ve written something essential. There are times where I think that a piece isn’t quite finished or doesn’t quite say what I want it to, but I post it anyway. There are themes that I will revisit over and over because I still don’t think I have cracked that nut.

I think the point is to keep writing, and keep posting. If I keep a piece until it is perfect, I’ll never post anything. Perfect is relative. What makes sense to me is ignored by others. What is confusing to me is totally understood by others.

I write to stay sane. I write because to not write means that I’m not thinking about what is happening in my life and what has happened to me to get me here. I think writing keeps me conscious and mindful.

Sometimes I think that writing is a way to get into a problem, and sometimes I think it is a way to get away from a problem. The more I write, the more I’m not experiencing life, right? Or, the more I write, the more I’m paying attention. It is hard to tell. I write anyway.

I’m trying to establish a balance, so that I don’t write about everything and all the time. I need to soak up some experiences and let them marinate and ferment a bit before I put them down on paper. But then, writing is also about fully digesting an experience. It forces me to slow down and look at it from all angles. In that, writing is a lot like drawing. When I draw something, I have to slow down and really see it.

When I’m not writing I’m thinking about writing.

I’m grateful I’ve figured out a way to write at work, because it takes the edge off the amount of time that I spend here. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to have a job. I’d just like it if it was more like 30 hours instead of 40. Then I would have more time to live my life.

Every now and then I get really resentful of all the time my job takes from me. If my life span is anything like my parents then I’ll not have any time to myself all. They died before they retired.

I write about things I’m happy about and things I’m afraid of. I write to let other people know landmarks and milestones to look out for. I write to stay alive.

It isn’t the product that really matters sometimes. It is the production. It is the fact that I’m making time to think in this way. Writing is a meditation. It is a retreat in the truest sense. It is getting away from things just long enough to get a good perspective on them. It is making time to really see things like they are. It is digging up the roots.

I think that learning to dig up the roots of feelings has really been the most useful thing I’ve learned this year. Instead of just experiencing my feelings and reactions, I’m tracing them backwards and figuring out where they come from. Who taught me to feel that way? Is that feeling helpful now? Is it even an appropriate reaction? Does it still serve me? Does it prevent me from fully appreciating the situation as it is? Does it mean that I’m missing part of the full picture?

I think that writing has most taught me to see everything new, and now.

Is writing the best way to do that? No. The best way is whatever works for you. You can get there a lot of ways. The important thing is that you get there, to that space in your head where every moment is lived fully and appreciated.

Dream of Fields

Posted on December 30, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I had a dream the other night that didn’t mean anything at the time but now feels relevant.

I was driving on a freeway and got off. I parked in a field, newly sown with seeds. There were hundreds of thousands of seeds. The land soupy, even bog-like, with them. I laboriously slogged through the field. The excess of seeds kept slowing me down.

After I had gone far enough from my car that I couldn’t see it because of the trees in the field and a bend in the land, I noticed that the field had an end. I saw a guardrail and the freeway again. It wasn’t an endless field.

I turned around to get back to my car. When I came back to it I saw that there were other people who had followed my un-beaten path and had also parked in the field. They had followed me, but they weren’t doing what I was doing. They weren’t walking in the furrows or studying the unusual amounts of seeds. They were taking pictures of the field, like it was a tourist attraction or a historical landmark.

I was a bit disgusted with them. They didn’t get anything about the field.

And how is this not different from my path?

I’ve left the road of church as usual. I’ve gotten off the path and found a field of green seeds. There is so much life and growth and vibrancy here that I am getting bogged down by it all. There are so many ideas for posts to write that I get overwhelmed at times with where to start.

I hope that my posts are helpful. I hope that they have spoken to fellow travelers. I hope that they have provided encouragement or enlightenment. I hope that they have shown a way out or a way in.

The last thing I would want is for anybody to follow me off the road and then treat it like it is a game or a show. It isn’t. It is hard work. It is like growing your own food or building your own house. There are some books offering suggestions but they can’t really show you exactly what to do.

By definition, they can’t.

Nobody can give you a blueprint for your life. It is your life and yours alone and they can’t really know what you need to make it work. They can offer advice from the sidelines, but they can’t play the game for you. They have a different perspective from seeing things from the side, but they can’t see it the way you are seeing it.

So I want people to read my words and get them, sure. I feel that I have useful things to say. I feel that they can help people get out of ruts or avoid falling into them in the first place. But I don’t want to be followed or iconized.

I want people to pull off their own roads and find their own fields and wander around them for a while. I want them to be inspired by my journey to take their own. I want them to question everything. I want them to be awake and conscious and intentional about life.

It all goes to fast to spend it in someone else’s field.