Zen and the Inner Tube

Each step forward or sideways or whicheverways brings new questions, or new realizations. After days of working through ideas and drafts about Do vs. Be and zentasticness,  I found myself dragged unexpectedly back into an area of old resentments. Dagnabit. I can write about zen progress and do yoga and feel good and then a conversation or a facebook post leaves me chewing my pencil and growling about situations gone by. I become a walking dark cloud of interior ugh—which inevitably spills over into my exterior interactions with my family and friends.

Womp womp.

This week also marks seven years since my daughter started an ultimately disastrous clinical trial to try and stop her brain tumor progression. Due to a disturbing phenomenon called paradoxical activation, the trial drug actually made the tumors catastrophically GROW. I have made some peace with the outcome of the trial, after years of wrestling with really difficult emotions about the darkness of that time. Seeing the early days, the days when we so hoped this trial would be a magic bullet, the days when we had to start treatment after 5 years off with a teen and not a first grader (and all the new challenges created by a greater understanding of what was at stake)…seeing these reminders on social media of those early days hurts my heart.

And just like that I realize my wrestling match is not just in the ring of Do vs. Be, but in Get Over It vs. Be With It. 
Somehow I can be with the feelings about the trial fail and no longer be paralyzed with rememberings. Maybe this is just grace at work? I am not sure what it is, or really how I got here. Somehow I have to work/surrender to get to the point where I can be with those difficult unresolved situations from my daughter’s high school years and NOT be instantly dragged back into a cesspool of OH YEAH LET ME TELL YOU HOW THINGS REALLY WERE.  Or where I can see the images of my daughter bravely taking the trial drugs for the first time and not be tsunamied by the emotions of that time filtered through the emotions of 3 months later, when all hell broke loose.

I suppose there is some grace in being able to even write about it?

I am continually astounded by the constant work of mental, emotional, and spiritual health. How progress in self-care and healthy striving continually comes up against resistance and ugly stuff that seems to lie ever just below the surface, dredged up unexpectedly by an image or a word, then dispersing until the uglies settle once again to the bottom of the lake. 

Or road, if one forgets one used lake as a metaphor

 and then is too lazy to redraw and re-upload picture. 

Or imagine I am walking on water, ala Jesus. Uphill.
yergh.

As much as I try to build bridges over this lake, (er, road) I realized this week that I have to learn to be ok with the bottom, and to know that even when the uglies are swirling, they don’t need to drag me under.

It’s kind of like Lake George. Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains of New York is a pristine mountain lake, clear from the surface all the way to the bottom, even to a depth of 15 feet or so. 

Clear water at Lake George ...our happy place.

 We have vacationed there every year since Dave and I married; he has been going there since he was 7 years old. We love this place.  In the rare summer when the weather upstate gets really hot, I will actually float around on the lake (which is always cold. Don’t believe my spouse and third born who will swim in it no matter what. IT IS COLD). I will lie on a big black inner tube that soaks in the heat of the sun while my toes dangle in the cold water. Zen exists in its purest form in that moment. 

Rare photographic evidence of me

 in my inner tube, in the  lake.

Lesson number 1 of Lake Swimming (after COLD!!!): don’t touch the bottom. The bottom is soft and squishy and leaf covered and gross to feel—purely organic matter, just so squishy, and if you walk in it to get into the water the muck gets all stirred up and gross. I have perfected balancing on the tube and pushing off from the edge so I can float without stirring up muck. And if other folks stir it up, I just float in another direction…as long as I am not squidging my toes in yuck, it’s all good.  

Inevitably some little kid gets stuck each year…not literally, but they take a few steps past the sandy bottom and realize EW THIS IS GROSS and holler for mom or dad.  Lesson learned.

Anyway, THIS is what I have to figure out how to do in life. Keep on paddling my inner tube. Soak in the sun and let the feelings settle. I can’t deny their reality. Just like those soggy leaves and twigs and lake soil, the feelings and situations from the past are real and unpleasant—but the bigger picture is so much bigger. There are miles and miles of lake beyond that one roiled area. Just keep floating!

As I pondered this in the past few days, I brainstormed what helps (in an effort to get myself out of the visceral SO’S YOUR MOM! Feelings clawing at me).  Being outside helps. Grounding yoga practices help (YouTube has so many great resources, especially the Yoga With Adrienne series).   Praying helps (I pray all the time, sort of a running commentary with God—so sometimes I’ll go walk the dog, and thus have a little walk/outside/God talk when I am feeling ugh about the lake bottom stuff in my life).  Doing something for someone else helps. 

I have so many tools to work with, really, so many inner tubes to choose from.

                                                                              Rainbow Pegacorn, anyone?

At the same time, being frenetically busy to avoid those feelings can anesthetize the moment, but I know now that busy-ness does not address the underlying pain. I have to learn to Be With Feelings, just like I have to learn to Be OK with Myself and not just what I Get Done.

Get Over It invalidates experiences, squelches healthy understanding of self and pain and life. Get Over It closes down communication (even with our self).  Be With It acknowledges pain, but also acknowledges that we have as much power as the pain—it does not need to rule. I can float with it, and then keep floating on.

In a different context, as soon as I started to write the first draft of my wrestly moment  I felt an overwhelming surge of GOYA (Get Over Yourself Already!).  Like, who am I to even talk about any of this? I AM A MESS. A mess with cute shoes, but a mess.

But—maybe my mess can help someone. If I succumb to GOYA syndrome or Impostor Syndrome or any of the other things that make me want to be quiet and shut down, the match is over. I can’t be fake.  My authentic is kind of messy (um, totally messy. Hoarders episode messy).  My constant commentary with God has a lot of "Lord, what the heck am I supposed to be doing? I want to do what you want me to do…"

And while no giant hand has appeared writing on my wall (phew, that would be terrifying), ideas and thoughts holler WRITE US. So…yeah.

I am going to be with my discomfort and not let fear of vulnerability win. I am not going to Get Over It (whatever it is) and write sunshine without acknowledging the rain. I am blessed with a lot of sun, but I only know it because of all the years of intermittent cloudfest.  I am not going to let my GOYA force me into silence. If nothing else, I know that is NOT what I am supposed to do.

In my next moment of figurative lake muck, I am going to try to use the tools I have to acknowledge the moment and keep moving. I will let you know how it goes. Until then—let’s keep movin’ right along, through the questions, with the questions, and hopefully into a sunny place of zen. 

                                   and until then--I will dream of coffee, morning prayer, 

                                  and yoga by the side of Lake George in summer. Happiness. 

                                                      

Zen and the Present Moment

Shoes on? Shoes off?

In the moment of tackling my fear of flying and my fear of flying alone (no offense, other 149 people on the plane), the security line shoe thing plagued my brain. I kept trying to see what other people around me were doing…the line wasn’t moving, so nobody was really doing anything except listening to incoming passengers talk about how they would need to leave time for this security line when they went back to the airport for their return flight.

My anxiety rose, and I figured ok, let me text somebody or something.

My phone wasn’t in the outside pocket of my bag.

It wasn’t in the pouch with my bullet journal.

It wasn’t in the bag with the extra charger and cords.

I searched my bag about 8 times (while scooching ahead a few inches every few minutes). I could feel my pulse in my head, my panic rising, my mind racing.

In a moment of revelation, I remembered. Right before I walked out the door, I put my bag down on the futon to check to make sure I had my boarding pass for the 87^th time—my phone had been in my hand, and I placed it on the seat of the stationary bike (2 feet from my back door) so I could check my paperwork.

And there it stayed.

Now, admittedly, the first 2/3 of my life, I did not have a cell phone. Until 2.5 years ago I did not have a smart phone. I know that civilizations have risen and fallen without such technology.

But the phone was meant to be my lifeline on this trip. I had carefully chosen soothing music and uplifting podcasts to get me through my crazy brain on the flight.  YoYoMa and Oprah were going to fly with me! I had Candy Crush. I had the directions to the hotel in my phone (I had gone to print them out and then decided not to).

Panic.

And worst of all, I could not call anyone to say help!

Side note, there are no payphones ANYWHERE any more. Even at gigantic international airports.

I knew Dave was flying down on a later flight, and that he would see my bright pink phone as soon as he walked in the door. I knew that another cheer mom would be on my flight, I could at least call Dave before we left. But all of my plans of zen were sitting on a bike seat at my house.

The best laid plans…

But weirdly, my massive panic/anxiety about forgetting my phone helped me. Stay with me here—in not having my phone, I had to regroup, focus my energy on getting through the present moment without a panic attack, and Do The Thing. I knew this was going to be work, but I was all in now.

By the time we got on the plane, I focused on breathing. I watched the flight attendants (who are so together) and all the relaxed people. I got my gum—I never chew gum, so the novelty factor of that was distracting. And then I took my bullet journal and started to draw. As we sat, I drew. As we taxied, I drew.  As we sped up I thought of the cheer mom who told me that at the moment of acceleration (when I tend to see my life flash before my eyes) she wants to say BEEP BEEP!! In celebration.  I wrote motivational words and drew clouds and the dragon that I was going to befriend. I had to be in the moment.

And it was ok.

I am still a little shocked, but it was ok.

Like, really ok. Not the 3 hour panic attack of my last flight.

The clouds were beautiful. The flight did not feel as loud or crazy as my last flight 8 years ago. JetBlue has Dunkin Donuts coffee. And I kept drawing. For about the first 90 minutes of the flight I doodled and drew and focused on befriending the dragon. It was ok. It was all ok. Planes are safe. I am brave. It is all ok.

And in the words of the Little Red Hen, cluck cluck, so it was.

I was relaxed. Not asleep or anything (SUPER AWAKE), but relaxed. And you know what? People at the airport helped me. The rental car guy wrote directions for me on the back of the receipt—old school!, and I got safely to my hotel driving a car that looked like a shiny red box of candy (Dave was not amused when he saw the car I was willing to take, but it actually drove pretty well , and we never ever could lose it in a parking lot).  It was ok.

In the last few weeks (especially as I’ve gotten into the season of Lent), a lot of my reading/listening has referenced the importance of present moment awareness, of authentically and fully being in the moment you are in. For me, the lost phone forced me to be in the present moment in a way that was ultimately helpful for me. I had to work through my fears in a way that was NOT the way I planned…but I did it.

So much of my life in the last many, many years has been spent in a struggle over fear of the future, fear of the present, fear of the past coming back.  This is the reality of life with a chronic catastrophic illness.  I make lists and calendars to help me feel in control of life, but at the same time these distract me from being in the moment I am in. Over the years, the present moment has sometimes been really dark, and clinging to future hope is challenging.

Escaping the current version of me by looking ahead/back/around is not a recipe for becoming the best version of me today. I have to be present in each moment to do that. I have to be in the moments, uncomfortable, challenging, and great, to really figure out how to live most authentically.

So while I do not plan to become a jet-setter anytime soon, I can see myself getting on a plane again. At the end of the day (literally, late that night) Dave brought me my phone, and I had it for the ride home—but I did not really use any of the stuff I had planned. I didn’t need it (and I had used up all my nervousness on my flight getting cancelled and then having to spend 10 hours in the airport, but that is another story for another time). While I am on the ground now, I am trying to find more ways to be in each moment—something I thought about months ago, noticing the little things, fits into this—and I will write about that more another time.

Increasingly, I know that zen and being in the present moment is something I have to work towards—there are a lot more dragons I need to befriend.