Zen and the Slow Leak

My New Year’s Resolution sprung a slow leak that morphed into a gaping hole.

Ok, so in Australia it is Friday…but not last Friday. Nor is it Tuesday. Blog Fail warning horns are blaring everywhere here. Each day I have written BLOG in my bullet journal in increasingly larger letters. Today the word is about an inch high. And fancy.

Even now, I am forcing myself to write—mostly because the alternative is “grade history midterms”. Procrastination priorities are in order, at least…

One of the things I have come to realize is that I have a very limited emotional/mental gas tank. I work really hard to try and keep it full, or at least full-ish. For me, that refilling is a work, it doesn’t just happen. But there are things that put a slow leak to gaping hole kind of kibosh on my tank.

Last week was hospital week. Reports were good. Things are stable. I am grateful.

And yet those days take every bit of mental/emotional energy reserve I have.

I figured Wednesday/Thursday appointments, I’ll be golden to write Friday, heck, I can use my time at the hospital to write!

Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids. There is no concentrating at the hospital when you are holding a TGI Friday’s style beeper thing waiting for your child to come out of sedation. There is CERTAINLY no concentration when the time gets long, and then the hospital CALLS YOU ON YOUR CELL PHONE while your child is in the scanner, because your TGI Friday’s beeper didn’t work. Yikes. There is no concentration when you wait several hours past your appointment time to view the scans with a pediatric neuro-oncologist. I pulled out my school papers, looked at them, and put them back in my bag. I just had nothing left to use to think about that. 8+ hours total driving time over two days…car time left no mental room for metacognition. I just can’t concentrate on anything beyond National Geographic or looking out the window/praying for the WaWa coffee cart people to come.

Hospital stuff is just a keep on going kind of moment. I wish that this many years into it I could be less frozen by these days. I am less psycho about them than I used to be, but they still freeze me solid.  In the days after these hospital visits I had to set up the SAME series of appointments for another kid…more chillin’ in the quagmire…but it’s done.

Now that I understand how my brain works, I can plan for it, at least somewhat—but I can’t seem to find a way around that resource suck of hospital days/appointment making/planning/processing—and tackling things I dread. I made some appointments for myself in the last week—gave myself a gold star…and then went and sorted papers kind of mindlessly while listening to Daily Show clips on YouTube. That kind of task is a mental resource suck, too. I just can’t find a way around it.

I just have to make peace with it, and try to keep moving.

So in Australia it’s Friday already—I should be continuing to write about the Happiness Project, and I will get back to that. One of the valuable lessons of that book is to let yourself BE YOURSELF. It’s ok to be who you are, you will find more happiness in NOT trying to force yourself to be something you are not. Being Kristin means acknowledging that I have to regroup after challenging days.  I can’t just breeze through things. And that’s ok. Even when it doesn’t feel ok—that IS ok.  Being Kristin means I hate making phone calls and I have to bribe myself to do it. That’s ok. Being Kristin means even if we are running low on data, I might need to stream some Sia in the car to remind myself I’m unstoppable. That even on these days where I seem stopped, I really am only “like, totally paused”. ;) 

Just keep movin’ right along. If I miss a day, the internet won’t break.

But now, I really do have to go grade those midterms. Or eat lunch.  Hm….wonder which option will win?

Zen and Writing Down the New Year

So did you write down any resolutions this year?

New Year’s resolutions are SO last week, I know—but I love writing down goals, even if they are belatedly shared. I actually love writing down EVERYTHING.  Writing is the only way I can sort out my brain, which is why my few years of mostly silent was kind of alarming for me. The physical act of putting words on a page is very therapeutic.

One of the great gifts of using a bullet journal is that most of my random writing ends up in the journal and not all over my house…although full disclosure, the base of my laptop keyboard is currently set on top of 4 post it notes covered with flight information and hospital notes for this week’s appointments.  But I have far fewer scraps of paper now.

This year, led by the example of my sisters-- not some kind of cosmic sisters, I mean my actual sisters, at least the 4 who happened to be home when I stumbled into their goal setting session-- I wrote “18 for ‘18”—a list of 18 goals for the year.  The “18 for ‘18” caught my imagination. I still have a few slots open in case I get inspired (and I do have one big goal that I don’t want to announce, but I think I am going to write it down when I’m done writing here—when I achieve it I will share. I am determined to beat my brain at its own game)…but most of my goals are set.

Some are big. Some are creative. Some are professional. Some are improbable (will I master an inversion in yoga, like a legit head stand? Going to try!).  Some are scary. But just the act of writing things down helps my zen.  Setting goals helps my zen.  The feeling of getting a fresh start helps my zen. Writing all of these things in colorful felt tip pens brings my zen a whole new level of hooray.

I am trying to encourage my family to try to embrace the zen of writing things down, but right now I am still a voice crying out in the wilderness on that front, even though I got them nice colorful felt tip pens, too.

One of the things I have gained by writing things down is a dual sense of progress (hey, I have been exercising/praying/doing yoga/practicing gratitude  regularly for months!) and a sense of where I am still paralyzed (I am now 4 months past needing to set up certain annual appointments. One of my January goals is “make the darn appointments already”).  Putting the mayhem of my brain into some kind of order, even if that order reveals that I put off scheduling a haircut for 3 months, that order helps my sense of peace. Giving myself gold stars for the things I get done (a Happiness Project insight) gives me a sense of accomplishment. A “W” is a “W”, no matter how small ...from one of Dr. Seuss’s lesser known projects, Horton Keeps On Moving.

I also realize, in writing down calendars and notes about my day, where outside circumstances feed my anxiety. Schedule chaos at work creates a particular set of challenges for my brain.  Unexpected small annoyances get in my head—like how can ShopRite be out of bananas? Literally ONE SAD SOFT BUNCH LEFT??  Sick kids, needing to reschedule very stressful hospital appointments, car problems—all of these normal life things can throw me off my A-game pretty fast, a paradigm I am working hard to shift this year.  Jotting down notes about my day helps me see where my goals are challenged by my sometimes lack of skill in dealing with small adversities. I see how far I still have to go.

 I know that some of this is a product of the Tsunami of Adversity we rode out for years. But I know in 2018 I do not need to be a prisoner to past ways of dealing with things. And writing down goals, habits, resolutions, gratitude, and ongoing progress/paralysis points creates a path towards freedom.

Writing everything down, even in extremely abbreviated form (no long form journal entries—teeny bullet points at best) helps me be more aware of everything, really, instead of being overwhelmed by a sea of swirling stresses. Anxiety thrives in that particular figurative oceanic habitat, and I want to create a different environment for my brain where possible—and work through the moments where anxiety fed by circumstance or otherwise rears its ugly head. 

Starting to keep a bullet journal for my schedule and to-do lists was a goal I made in September, and one that is now a habit. I hope to use this in the New Year to keep track of my progress on my “18 for ‘18”, and to understand why sometimes my progress is at best negligible, or even a weird backflop.

How do you keep track of goals/resolutions? Does any kind of tracking system work for you? If you live with anxiety or generalized ugh, have you found any particular writing strategies helpful?

Next Tuesday I will explain the bullet journal a bit more—this Friday I will continue the Happiness Project conversation. 

Now I have to go put a gold star in my journal because I blogged. J Yay!

Movin' Right Along...again

I would like to say I have blogged reams in the last months and that some mysterious blogosaurus simply consumed the posts, leaving nothing for anyone to read.

I would like to say that I have filled screen after screen with witty commentary and reflections on my fascinating existence.

To quote Groucho Marx, I would like a trip to Europe.

If I had ruby slippers I could tip tap tap them together and voila! these wishes would become reality. I do have a pair of exceptionally cute red shoes (ok, maybe more than one pair. Maybe more than 2…ahem), but none of them seem to possess the key wish-fulfilling properties of ruby slippers.

Alas. But I am resolved, as much as I ever make New Year’s Resolutions—which is never—to actually try to put some words in this blog on a regular basis, even if a roaming blogosaurus threatens to devour them, and even if I have nothing witty or fascinating to say. Red shoes optional.

My one true resolution for this year is to work on being happy so I can be a real support to my children, the ones who have something to truly put happiness in peril. My spouse asked me the other day, in response to me stating a need to avoid an annoying conversation (oh, the holidays!) by going to my “happy place”, “Do you even have a happy place?”

He was kidding, but I, of course, was utterly crushed. (I haven’t made any resolutions about melodrama, so I figure that was an appropriate response.) He’s right. I have to re-locate my missing happy place. As part of that, I need to keep writing. Writing keeps me from hiding under a rock, or the bed, or anything I can manage to fit under. Writing gives me the path to FIND the happy place, because if the words get all glommed up inside me, I can’t navigate a path out of myself. Does that make sense? Silence becomes the rock for me to hide under.

I’m not sure if that’s deep or cheesy, but hey, that’s the vaguely self indulgent perk of a blog, walking the deep/cheese line.

Seriously, I may be brief, or silly, or just meh in this blog, but I am determined to not let 2011 roll over me until at least February. “Movin’ Right Along” was NOT supposed to represent the Steam Roller of Life working its inexorable progress over my formerly 3 dimensional neurotically creative self. I need to reclaim progress, live my life (instead of letting life live me), and WORK at happy.

As inspiration, I am using Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project as a handy reference…I highly recommend this book, it’s a really entertaining and insightful read, and at least for me, I felt like GR was talking out of my head sometimes, which was both unnerving and endearing at the same time. Check out her facebook page for a great community of people who are thinking Happy is a good thing. : )

Carpe 2011!
Peace,
Kristin