Day 7: Good friends...

Oysters.

They are one of those things I consider a treat.  Tonight I ate an oyster with spicy peppers.  It was one of many tapas that were served along side the cocktails I indulged in at a local restaurant (Lolita - which  has a wonderful night called Tapas Monday which you really should try if you are ever in Portland, Maine on a Monday night). 

I was at this place in the company and recommendation of a friend who very kindly offered to listen to my woes while we sipped and ate.  

There was salted cod, octopus, oysters, fried pork, chorizo sausage and something with egg and mashed potatoes.  All delicious, and filling. 

But the best part was the company.  We all need those friends who when they hear of our pain, dial us up and say, "Hey, do you want to just escape for a little while?  And if you don't want escape, if you'd rather vent,  I'm here to listen."

You know what?  I'm quite lucky to have a few of those folks in my life.  

Day 6: Quiet, gratitude and wishes...

Tonight things are peaceful.  My sick feeling of yesterday is passing; the friends who told me 24 - 48 hours appear to have been right.  I played music with my troupe this morning and after I tackled a household project I'd wanted to do since moving back into this apartment.

I have some wonderful quiet music playing, a few candles lit and some incense burning.  It is warm and my kitty is curled up near me.  And I'm munching some rippled potato chips - a guilty pleasure of mine.

Tonight, I am feeling gratitude for all of these things and for much more.

I am grateful that, for the time being anyway, I live in a place where I am safe.  I am grateful for the supportive friends and family that I have and for the community that I am a part of.  I am grateful that I have people I can turn to when I am sad or in pain.

I am grateful for all of the deep personal work I have done this year.  I am grateful that I can recognize how far I have come.

I am grateful that I have a voice with which I can speak up for those unable to speak for themselves or to help amplify their own words.  I am grateful that I have a body which, when needed, can be counted among the many who stand for peace and justice.

I recognize that there are so many people in this world who do not have these things and I recognize that there have been many times that I did not as well.  I am grateful that my eyes are open to the pain of the world because it is only with opened eyes and hearts that we can see the change that needs to happen.

My wish for the world tonight is that we all find a place where we feel safe, warm and sheltered in both body and heart.  That we all find a day where we feel loved and supported.  That we all find a way in which we can contribute to a world where no one goes hungry, where we are all healthy and we've enough left in us to give to the future.

And finally, I wish that, while the day where all in the world have all that they need, may not come in my lifetime, I will always find time and energy to do the work needed to help that day arrive.

Peace.

Day 5: Rest

Today I am sick.  I have the sniffles and a cough.  My body is tired and asks for rest and I giving it that.

I've spent most of day in bed.  Napping, watching Penny Dreadful on Netflix, drinking tea and eating soup.  Everyone tells me this tends to be a 24 hour bug and that by tomorrow I'll likely feel much improved.

There was a time when I did not do "not doing" well.  When I would have pushed through whatever sickness or hurt I had and press on.  Take this pill and go to work.  But I have learned the value of rest and healing.

My "To Do" list has been set a side for the day.  I will pick it up tomorrow.  I know I may not complete as much as I'd like, but that is okay.  Today though I need quiet.  I need peace.  I need rest.

I need to let my body fight this virus and, with the events of the past couple of days, I need to let my heart rest too.

I am, in this moment, feeling a bit proud of my snifflely self.  I am caring for myself without guilt or a feeling of being selfish.  I am caring for myself because I know this is what my body and my heart need.

Day 4: A name changes everything...

Yesterday, I did something that was very empowering to me. I chose to take a legal name that honored the matrilineal lines of my family.  It is a name that is comprised of a variation on my birth name, my paternal grandmother's name and my mother's maiden name. It is also the name I have been using in nearly every aspect of my life for the past decade, so changing it legally also cleared up a lot of confusion.

Not everyone in my life is accepting of this change and some hurtful things have been said.  It is made worse by the fact that the source of this is a person who's approval I have sought for so much of my life. Approval I never, even as an adult, felt I received.  This is something I have struggled with.

There were so many conscious and deliberate reasons I chose to take my new name.  Yet, as I sit here with knot in my stomach and my heart feeling clenched (after reading their angry words over and over and over - because I am obsessive like that - let's stab that knife in just ooooooone more time...) I wonder if part of me chose to do this because, despite how much this hurts right now, somewhere deep inside I have finally reached a place where their approval is something I no longer need in order to be happy.

I chose this name in great part because I wanted to defy the patriarchal traditions that have defined and confined women for so many years.  I wanted to stand up and claim the heritage of my mother, my grandmothers and all the mothers before them.  But perhaps there was another small act of defiance in there too; one deeper and even more personal.  An act that allowed me to feel ownership of myself fully.

On Day 3 I wrote about my sense of emptiness and the bowl I imagined inside of me that I could fill with whatever I chose.  Yesterday, into that bowl, I put my name.

Day 3: The Bowl

In recent years I have begun to explore what I see as my identity.  I have asked myself over and over again, who am I?  What is it that drives me?  What are the things I love?  What am I passionate about?

I often felt a hesitancy in answering these questions and over time I came to realize that my hesitation came from the fear that I might ask the question and not be able to come up with an answer.   That I might ask, "Who am I?"

And the response might be, "I don't know..."  

Or worse, just silence.  

For a variety of reasons, I have a tendency to be an approval seeker.  And much of my life was spent trying to make one person or another happy. Sometimes this meant making sure their needs were met, sometimes this meant doing things in my own life that I knew might garner the attention or approval of certain people.  Their approval meant I was okay, that I had a right to exist. 

It also meant that I spent very little time or energy trying to figure out what I needed, what I wanted, and who I was.  When I started to do the work of seeking out just what it might be that I needed, wanted and yes, to ask who I was, the fear was that I'd spent so much time trying to be for others that what I had inside was really...nothing.  That I was empty. 

This weekend I attended a two day workshop where I deliberately faced that possibility.  I sat in stillness and silence, and allowed myself to be open to whatever it was I might see inside of myself, even if that something was indeed nothing...

I sat for what felt like ages, though it was probably only a few minutes, focused on my breathing. Anxiety would pop up and I'd tell it to go, that stillness was okay.  Silence was okay.  And even that nothing was okay..,as time passed the thought begin to form in my mind that empty might not be a bad thing.  Empty, could mean that I had a space into which I could place anything I wanted.  

I imagined that I had a vessel, a low wide mouthed bowl, in my center near my heart.  And that I could put things in that bowl and see what it felt like to be that thing.  I could try out things I was not sure of.  I could also take things out of the bowl that I didn't want or like.  I could fill my bowl myself, with things of my choosing...

My choosing.

This is one of those things that is both freeing and crazy uncomfortable at the same time.  

Day 2: To be brave

When I looked at this morning's blog prompt, when was the last time you did something brave? I decided to look up the word in the dictionary.

Webster's defines it as "feeling or showing no fear: not afraid."

This pretty much fits with the image bravery conjures up for me; that of a knight on a horse, wearing polished armor and brandishing a weapon in which they are high skilled at wielding.  In other words, it brings to mind a vision of someone who is hyper prepared and trained to deal with whatever monster they are about to face.

Maybe this is why I tend to squirm a bit when someone calls me brave.  Because most of the time I feel like I'm walking through life ill prepared and quite vulnerable.   From conversations I've had with friends over the years, most of us go through life feeling this way; there is nothing unique about it. Most of us would apply the word brave to anyone other than ourselves.

Which brings me back to the definition (feeling or showing no fear) because in knowing how we are just making our way as best we can, despite our fears and people still call us brave, we are at least giving the appearance of being fearless.  The second part of the definition, showing no fear, seems to apply to most of us.

So, now that I'm done with overthinking what the word means can I answer the question?  When was the last time you did something brave? On a personal level I could say it was allowing myself to sit in stillness during a workshop I attended this weekend.  On the more public level it could be taking a stand for what I believe is right during this election season.  On an everyday level, sometimes just getting out of bed when my anxiety prone brain is racing at 1,000mph is an act of bravery.

In the end I think we are all far more brave than we probably give ourselves credit for.  We all rise out of bed, get through the day in whatever way we can, and start all over again with the next dawn.  And perhaps it is because we do this without armor, without a trained steed carrying us forward and without a mighty sword at our side, that we are truly brave.  Because we are doing all of this from a place of vulnerability...facing the dangers of the day with only our courage and our very frail human skin to shield us.

Day1: Self Care

It's that time of year again:  NaBloPoMo 2016 has begun.  30 days of blogging and for once I'm attempting to do it during the actual NaBloPoMo month of November!   I'm also planning to make use of the prompts as much as possible...mostly so I don't stress over what to write about...

Today's Prompt: When you're having a bad day with your mental health, what do you do to help yourself?

Oh, self care; that beast. Yes, I say beast because when I am on the edge of the wallow and I know (yes, I know) I should be taking steps to make sure I don't fall in (rest, avoid self medicating, write it out in my journal, eat, move...) is precisely the time when my brain toddler starts to whine about how she doesn't want to take a nap, or eat, or rest, or try to clear a few things from her plate so she's not overwhelmed. Plummeting head on into the wallow is just so easy, so familiar and, even though we know it will make us utterly miserable, it feels safe dammit!

Self care however is a risk. It might not work and, ugh, it means having to actually face all of those icky feelings that are rearing their tousled little heads. It means processing. It means, often, forgiving and letting go...which is something I've not always been good or even okay at. However, this year has been the year of facing my shadow and so I've started to do better.

Started. Because there are still times when I get sucked down into the pit and roll around in my deep, dark thoughts like a pig in a wallow - except in this case the pig is miserable. But lately I've started to hear a kinder voice in my brain. One that says whatever I'm feeling does kind of suck, but wouldn't it be easier to deal with if I just took a nap?

Or maybe, instead I could do laundry or bake a pie, just to show myself I am good at something and then later, when I feel safer, I can sit down and face whatever demon is dancing in my brain?

Or perhaps I can have a cup of tea instead of a glass of wine because at the very least crying into your teas is far less cliche than crying into your glass of Cabernet.

Yes, I'm getting smarter about this.  And while I'm far from being an expert in my self care I think I can say that progress is being made. And that's something.