New Website Alert!

I just launched a new website called a blissful interlude.  In addition to some personal musings on finding those blissful moments in life, the site features stories and profiles on folks who are making a difference in the world, however big or small.

The first story is a feature of Andrew Taylor, co-chef and co-owner of the renowned Portland, Maine restaurant, Eventide Oyster Co.

Stay up to date on new posts by subscribing to the website here, like on Facebook, and follow on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.  New features will be posted at least once a week!

Happy reading and stay blissful!

Sarah Woehler

The New Normal

The new normal is city living.  It is ambulances screaming by at odd hours of the day, food fumes wafting through my apartment window, walking down the street for my favorite ramen.  The new normal is ocean drives and city views.  The new normal is slightly unconventional and unpredictable (therefore simultaneously scary and exciting).  The new normal is facing my fears.

The new normal didn’t happen overnight.  Instead, it crept up unexpectedly, and later than I thought it would arrive.  But I knew it had arrived when I woke up one Wednesday three weeks ago and realized the sadness had finally almost disappeared.  At first I thought it was a fluke – a day with no tears, gut-wrenching guilt, and an urge to numb my emotions with sugar-laden carbs.  But I coasted through one day, and then a second day, and then a third day without any tears, and I realized that the dawn of a new life that I had intentionally pursued and crafted – even having lived the framework of my new life for several months - had finally arrived.  

It didn't hit me like a flood or even like a wave, like the high of new love; rather, it was a sense of elevated evenness that might not have otherwise felt so remarkable if it hadn't been contrasted against months of mourning and grief.  It felt like the old (new) me was back.  

Falmouth from causeway to Mackworth Island, Maine.

It was only upon the arrival of the new normal that I  realized how much my life had changed in less than a year, the result of huge life changes that I had made in merely six months.  I had not only made the decision to get divorced, but consequently had moved to a new city and changed office locations (albeit at the same company).  Throw in a family life crisis, and frankly, it was a lot.  

And though, minus the family crisis, it was not without careful consideration that I made these decisions voluntarily.  Just the same I could have never anticipated how altogether these changes would initially wreak such havoc on my emotional (and physical) well being.  One life change can be hugely stressful, but three is triply stressful, even if they are changes intended to improve your life in some way.  But that is life, and it is these kinds of experiences that ironically make our lives feel so rich.

So, when I woke up that morning, experiencing joy and gratitude simply from the sun that was filtering through my bedroom windows, things suddenly felt new, and simultaneously normal. The new normal had finally arrived. 

It goes without saying that life is different than it was a year ago. Having once lived in a house in the country, I now live in an apartment in a city.  Having been a country club member, I am now a card-carrying Planet Fitness member.  Having had established friendships and a life in a community in which I lived for nearly 10 years, I am now in a new community making new friends.  

At the same time, my essence is still the same: I still enjoy my same morning routine of working out and eating oat bran; I still relish in me time; my heart still beats for the same kinds of passions and pleasures.  And though there are aspects that I miss from the old normal, it is the possibilities - those intangibles - in the new normal that I could never attain while remaining in the old normal, that which ultimately guided my decision-making in the end. As hard as it is (and hell, it really was so hard), sometimes you have to say goodbye to the old to usher in the new.  

"Being alive is a paradox."

“Being alive is a paradox, an ongoing mix of things that on the surface don’t always seem to make sense.  But voicing what doesn’t seem to make sense helps. It’s like an orchestra tuning up to play together. We have no chance of discovering the fullness of our inner music, if we don’t let the players in our hearts and minds and spirits tune.” 

– Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

In having lived in Portland now for just over three months, I have to pinch myself  every day because I love it so much – the energy, the people, the food(!), the architecture, everything.  Lately, I've been waking up at dawn to take my daily constitution (i.e., power walk) down Congress Street, to the water, back up Commercial Street, and through the West End and back to my apartment.  The sights, the sounds, the smells of the city – it’s a completely sensorial experience that makes me feel so fucking happy to be alive. 

Conversely, there are moments at the end of the day, when I'm reclined on my sofa, reading and/or listening to music, that I'll reflect on a foregone memory or experience and tears will suddenly well in my eyes.  Typically, it'll be over in a few minutes and the brush with sadness will be washed away with the tears.  This, quite ironically, makes me feel fucking alive too. And there is no shame, no guilt, because for me, it's a fleeting emotion that I clearly needed to deal with.  A big part of life is experiencing and feeling it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The spontaneous tears are less frequent than they used to be, especially 6-9 months ago when all I seemed to do was cry, but they’re still there on occasion.  And it would be wrong to ignore them, to dull them somehow by distraction, or to otherwise feel guilty about feeling fleeting moments or sadness, because they’re a byproduct of an emotion that is very much alive in me. If I sanitized myself of that, I would be denying a big part of who I am and where I’m at.  

The other day I came across a Brene Brown quote that says, “We can’t selectively numb emotion. Numb the dark and you numb the light.”  I thought that was so poignant because many of us feel that in order to feel happy (the pinnacle of all emotions) we need to scrub away all sadness or all remnants of it, and that if allowing sadness to creep into our lives, there will be no room for joy or pleasure.  In actuality, it is the full range of emotions that are essential to the fabric of living an authentic life.  Diluted joy and self-convincing pleasures are not nearly as rich as the kind of joy/happiness that is felt when contrasted with sadness/anger/hurt, and all are inevitable and natural human emotions that should not be dulled or diluted. 

Sometimes crying at odd times doesn't "make sense," especially if you feel like your life is otherwise rich and full.  But it is the accepting of the paradoxes, the shades of gray, the complexities within us that provide us with the platform for growing and evolving.  By not accepting these paradoxes - these moments of unexpected tears or brushes with sudden joy and love - we are rejecting an authentic, genuine, sometimes messy life.  

Call me crazy, but a self-imposed sterile and safe life with no risk, no curiosity, no complications is inevitably a boring one.  I'll take a slightly flawed orchestra in development over an auto-tuned produced electro beat any day (though I do like my electro on occasion - but in my ears not as a metaphor to life).

Learning How to Self-Soothe

“Block out the noise and refocus on what's inside of you.” 

– Russell Simmons

Lately, I’ve been thinking about self-soothing and how it functions in times of strife.  In clinical terms, self-soothing is a term generally applied to infants, such as when they learn to self-soothe rather than relying on other means to alleviate self-perceived discomfort.  But the term is applicable in adulthood too, and likewise a necessary means of working through a difficult time.

When going through a breakup, death, move (or aftermath of any of the aforementioned), we seek ways to avoid the discomfort.  After all, it is only human.  This is when the inclination to rely on things that provide instant gratification is especially tempting, and it is often because we’re looking for a distraction or, in the case of a failed relationship, a replacement, to avoid confronting and feeling the hurt and pain.  But continually searching for distraction rather than facing the pain head-on winds up being counterproductive in the end. 

The problem with the avoiding or shunning discomfort by seeking replacements or distractions is that the grief, and the residual side effects of it, may sink to the bottom but will always be there. 

Pema Chödrön says that “[t]he central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.”  This may seem counterproductive in our LifeHacker, “4-Hour Workweek”, quick-fix culture, but by fully embracing discomfort as the natural valley of our life experience we will only then be able to fully enjoy the subsequent peaks in our life. 

I am learning that there is no way to addressing difficulty than by facing it head-on, and frankly that’s effing hard to do, because no one wants to hurt longer than they have to.  But, if we don’t walk through the rocky path of discomfort can we get to the daffodils, and lilacs, and my favorite – the peonies. Another way to look at these difficult times is to consider them to be beautiful messes and great agents of personal change and growth.  To think that a personal struggle has the potential to make us better people in the end is actually very exciting, I think.

Through these hard times, however, it is okay, and necessary to find ways to self-soothe, so long as they’re not detrimental to our being in the end.  In fact, there is no better time to learn how to self-soothe than during strife when we’re faced with the temptation of affixing a flimsy Band-Aid (Cheetos or cheap beer) to our pain and hurt. 

I’ve found the following self-soothing tactics to be great sources for personal growth during my own difficult time: 

• Giving yourself permission to be sad.  When you let go of guilt or "feeling bad" about being sad or mad, you realize how much better that makes you feel.  Self-acceptance has been an instrumental means of self-soothing for me.
• Yoga - Trite, I know, but true.
• Acupuncture (community acupuncture is incredibly affordable and if you're in Maine, Maine Center for Acupuncture is fantastic); as a side note, the needles are tiny and painless.
• Reading – I love a good self-help, but fiction has also been a great way to calm the mind.  I had admittedly not been in the right mindset for fiction these past few months but just yesterday I picked up a book I had previously started and surprised myself in getting whisked away by the pleasure of story.
• Mad Men – Like my best friend says, sometimes you need something to take your mind away, and a well-written TV show does amazing wonders for that.
• Working out, and lately weight-lifting, which releases a different kind of endorphin rush than cardio, which I’m finding myself surprised that I like so much.
• Silence – Previously undervalued for me since I love music so much, but lately I’ve realized how necessary silence is in “blocking out the noise.”
• Tedeschi Trucks Band - There is nothing more appropriate than blues rock when you're going through a beautiful mess. 

Dessert Before Dinner

During the workweek, whenever I come home after work, I promptly remove my shoes, hang my purse on the closet handle and drop down my work bag, and then scurry around my apartment with my jacket on  (an important little detail) in a rush to relax.  The relaxing part often doesn’t come until two to three hours later, after I’ve worked out, darted back out to run to the grocery store, or triaged my vitamins for the next day, in other words, after I've checked a series of to-dos off my list. 

I know I’m not the only one, with obligations, responsibilities, chores and things that get in the way of that sweet spot at the end of the day when we bask in the glow of full-bellied peace and quiet.  The culmination of our days – when we finally get to that point – is not only the dessert but our sustenance too, though, so why don’t we grant ourselves a taste of that – a prelude or a snippet of this well-fed, happy-place feeling – during the day?  Why do we feel only deserve a dose of it right before drifting off to sleep or during that small sliver of time on a Sunday morning (one of my favorite sweet spots) when all the obligations of the world fall away for a quick minute? 

Rushing to relax is counter-intuitive, but it's something I do on the regular.  Why?  Because though life gets busy sometimes, I live for those moments of pure, unadulterated bliss, that cozy feeling, like a hot cup of tea in your hands but all over your body, and I want to get there as soon as I can.

Last Sunday, after a fun but bustling weekend, I found myself sprawled on my couch at noon, in my “loungewear” (who am I kidding? They’re PJs), book in hand, hot tea on coaster.  My apartment was quiet, my feet were reclined, and all of a sudden I felt my heartbeat soften to that slow thump when you’re about to drift off to sleep.  I could’ve eaten it up, that moment was so freaking delicious.  And I just sat there, fully aware, and basking in the calm emanating throughout my body and mind.  It felt incredible.

Afterward, I felt more recharged than I had been in what felt like weeks, at which point I realized how essential these isolated moments of relaxation are to our happiness and productivity too.  Why do we only grant ourselves these moments at the end of the day or end of the week?  By putting it off until every single obligation is met, all our to-dos are checked off our lists, how can we feel balanced and focused and accept and appreciate life's nuances?

Further, how can we be prepared for life's natural ebbs and flows if we're rushing through it, never taking the time to stop and take short time-outs midway through it?  And really, why must we cleanse our palates only at dusk when we’re often too tired to really taste it?

From here on, I am going to try and taste my dessert during the day, even if it’s just a bite or a nibble.  Because let’s be honest - life is too short not to eat dessert before dinner sometimes.

What is Happiness?

 “…It’s not what you’ve accomplished in a day,

but how the day felt.”

After reading this piece on the predictions of happiness and well-being based on Harvard’s Grant Study, I have been thinking a lot about my own happiness and life.  What makes me happy?  What makes me sad?  What’s my life purpose and am I living it? 

The Grant Study tracked hundreds of men through their life, measuring various indicators of their physical and emotional health, resulting in trends indicating certain predictors of happiness, but also provided illuminations such as that “happiness is love” and also that “what is true in one stage of a man’s life is not true in another.”  In essence, there are universal indicators of happiness and wellness across a broad spectrum, but at the same time one man’s happiness is not necessarily another man’s happiness.   

Inspired by the study, I made a list of things that make me happy and unhappy.  In doing this, I learned that what makes me happy ranges from the superficial like trying new restaurants, cooking, listening to and discovering new music, and cleaning and organizing my house, to deeper pursuits like embarking on new experiences, traveling, writing/being creative, nature, being inspired, and cultivating meaningful relationships with people.  My list of things that make me unhappy was remarkably shorter but broader, and consisted of things like being misunderstood, being fearful, not living life to the fullest or pursuing my purpose, and "wasting time."  All things that are intrinsically linked, I think. 

We all want to be happy and we all deserve to be happy, but happiness all the time cannot be a life goal, necessarily.   And since the two emotions are opposite, happiness can only be fully understood and appreciated when one has endured the pain and suffering of sadness.   It is realizing your best intended purpose – which is directly correlated with a happier more meaningful life, with some moments of sadness sprinkled in – that is perhaps where the ultimate state of bliss can be found. 

The alternative to happiness or sadness is that place of numbness in between, which is in some ways the worst place to be since it implies that we’re living in a state of fear of pursuing our best life or because we feel we don’t deserve to pursue our best life, or maybe because we've made someone else’s version of a best life to be more important than our own.

Call me crazy, but I’d rather be sad than numb.  My own personal struggles have taught me that only until we open ourselves to sadness and allow it to wash over us can we see that something needs to be fixed, adjusted, or changed.  It is in this state that a more meaningful life can be born, leading to the cultivation of a deeper state of happiness. 

And that's what I have to say about that, for now anyway.

Frisk Friday Thoughts

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Frisky Friday roundup of thoughts, so here I go. 

• Solitude is necessary for working through difficult times.  As important, though, are the company of good friends and family.  And, finally, the power of a good therapist can never be undervalued. 
• For some reason, a Frisky Friday roundup is never complete without a nod to Katy Perry, because what can I say?  I effing love that girl.  Her new album, Prism, is a chronicle of the unraveling of her marriage to Russell Brand, which is somehow simultaneously shimmery, melancholy, and heartfelt. 
• I recently finished Creative Visualization, a wonderful book by self-help guru Shakti Gawain.  It’s so much more than the title suggests, but one line that sums up the book’s premise is: “You must first be who you really who you are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.” 
• Something that continues to remind me is how resilient we all are and how much we are capable of taking on, dealing with, and managing in life.  And, if we’re lucky and open to it, there is so much possibility in plunging into the unknown or being thrown unanticipated curveballs.  It can be a really beautiful thing if you open your heart to it all. 
• To end this on a lighter note, have you tried Wendy’s Pretzel Pub Chicken sandwich?  Well, you should.  It’s the perfect little processed, sodium-enriched Friday night splurge.  Customize it with the grilled chicken instead of the breaded, and it’s only 410 calories and I daresay equally as delish.

Embracing Discomfort

In the journey of life, we all experience hard times, difficult challenges, random curveballs.  Sometimes, we try to push these hard times off, shove them aside, tuck them away, but usually, when we take this kind of approach, they inevitably reappear, the second time with a strong vengeance that is impossible to ignore.  In this case, confronting these curveballs head-on is the only way to resolve them.  The only problem with this is that this kind of confrontation requires feelings of discomfort. 

Being uncomfortable is no fun.  It hurts, it stings, it stabs.  There is a weight of dread in your tummy, an ache in your heart.  You may cry, yell, or complain, or possibly all three.  In my journey of self-discovery, I’m learning that the only way to address life’s curveball is to accept and embrace the accompanying discomfort, to walk right through it, to let it slap me in the face.

As human beings, discomfort is the complete opposite state of what we are always seeking.  After all, comfort is king.  We want to be happy and relaxed; we deserve to be happy and relaxed.  But the fact is, sometimes the only way to that ultimate state of happy and relaxed is to let discomfort whip you over and over like the biting January wind, until you’ve tackled the issue once and for all. 

 

In some cases, this kind of embracing of discomfort is the only way we’re going to fully awaken and blossom, developing a renewed acceptance and understanding for what we want and need out of life.   At least that's what I think. 

Thoughts Before Paris

1. The one thing that has been stressing me out since booking my flights for Paris was the tight connection at Newark.  Upon checking in last night, United gave me an option to switch flights at $75 per ticket, allowing me to get an earlier flight from PWM to EWR, therefore extending my connection time to do a liberal three hours.  So, I said heck with it: $150 is a small price to pay for peace of mind and to avoid potentially being stranded in Newark (rather than the City of Lights) for a day.  You only live once, right?
2. The great thing about long flights is that I have an excuse to buy books at random.  (I will admit, I was a tiny bit tempted to pick up 50 Shades of Grey, but I decided to hold off on that bandwagon for a bit.)   Instead, I bought AM Homes’s (one of my all-time favorite authors) May We Be Forgiven and Domenica Ruta’s addiction memoir, With or Without You.  Both have received wide critical acclaim, in addition to being touted as Huffington Post’s Best Book Club Books of the fall.  I prefer solo book clubs anyway.
3. The other day my good friend Liz told me that something happened to her in yoga – she cried. “Luckily,” she said, “I was in the back row, but crying and yoga is SO cathartic.  It’s like peanut butter and jelly."  How awesome is that?  Now I want to try it.  (Maybe after Paris.)
4. I love fall. I love pumpkin. I love spice.  But this year it seems like the pumpkin-spiced-themed everything has kind of gotten outta control: candles, perfume, coffee drinks, car fresheners.  But hey, maybe that’s just me.  (It’s probably just me.)
5. My friend Brandon sent me an email last Wednesday morning that said, “Stop whatever you’re doing and get the new Janelle Monáe album.”  As a fan of hers since the 2010 release of The ArchAndroid (also amazing), I listened to him.  The Electric Lady is beautifully varied, featuring other genre-bending artists like Esperanza Spalding, Solange, Miguel, and Prince.  If you only listen to one track, I suggest “What An Experience.”  Wow.

A Side Dish of Inspiration

In my continued journey of learning to be, here is a little side dish of quotes that have resonated with me this week.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

• "Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance, and of innumerably many intervals, during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us. Love, springtime, every beautiful melody, mountains, the moon, the sea – all these speak completely to the heart but once, if in fact they ever do get a chance to speak completely. For many men do not have those moments at all, and are themselves intervals and intermissions in the symphony of real life." - Friedrich Nietzsche

• "You can participate in the dance of creation and be active without attachment to outcome and without placing unreasonable demands upon the world:  Fulfill me, make me happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am.  The world cannot give you those things, and when you no longer have such expectations, all self-created suffering comes to an end. - A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle

• "When we identify with a small self, we are perceiving ourselves as a cluster of ocean waves, not recognizing that we are made of ocean. When we realize our true self is ocean, the familiar pattern of waves—our fears and defensiveness, our wants and busyness—remains a part of us, but it does not define us." - Tara Brach

• "The next moment is always fresh and open. You don’t have to get frozen in an identity of any kind." - Pema Chodron

• “One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.” - A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle

• "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

The Vulnerability Party

Several months ago, I scribbled Brené Brown’s name on a Post-It when a friend recommended watching her Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) talk on vulnerability, but then set it aside.  About a month afterward, an interview of her appeared in O Magazine, and didn’t think much of it.  Just the other day, I was scrolling through my Pinterest feed the other day I stumbled upon a Pin of “15 TED Talks That Will Change Your Life”, clicked on it, and saw Brené Brown listed, which triggered my memory of the now crumpled-up Post-It note that is probably lost somewhere in the inner depths of my purse.

One of my new favorite evening rituals is doing the Viparita Karaniyoga pose, which is really just an exotic-sounding Indian name for lying down and elevating your legs up against the wall for 5-10 minutes.  So, the other night while I "hung out" with my legs against the wall I played Brown’s 2010 TED talk on The Power of Vulnerability from my iPad, fighting every urge to take notes as I listened and practiced my pose.  Tonight, I just finished her follow-up 2012 TED talk on Listening to Shame.  In addition to trying this yoga pose, you should listen do two more things and listen to these great talks.

 

Brown’s 2010 talk on vulnerability was particularly illuminating because for many of us vulnerability is such a pervasively felt yet feared and suppressed emotion.  Though we all have our different personalities and perspectives, we are all afraid to be vulnerable, which by many of our accounts is to appear weak, to be rejected, to be forgotten.  Brown argues that vulnerability is just the opposite, that it actually is “our most accurate measurement of courage” and that it is “the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”  Food for thought, right?

When I think about it, I find people most endearing when they let their guard down, when they stop putting on heirs, when they reveal the side of themselves that perhaps they don’t feel brave enough to share with everyone.  When I am privy to this side of someone who is struggling with exposing this vulnerability, particularly if it’s someone I really like and admire, a part of me just wants to hug them and to tell them it’s okay, that this is a good thing.  Vulnerability is such an endearing thing on so many levels.

But perhaps why I find vulnerability so captivating in others is because though I am pretty in tune with my emotions, my sometimes reserved and shy nature can hold me back in certain situations, making it difficult for me to express my own vulnerable side too, even if I really want to reveal it.  Typically, and I think this is true of many of us, I am only capable of exposing that part of me once I’ve developed trust with a person or situation, which sometimes takes a little while (typical of the INFJ personality type). 

Looking at vulnerability as a “measurement of courage”, as Brown refers to it, shattered my preconceived notion that vulnerability is perhaps the less tender flower of the emotion family and ironically more of the iron-fisted one.  Vulnerability is actually quite strong and sexy; confident and powerful.  And, as I think about it more, Brown's argument is actually quite consistent with how I perceive the emotion expressed by other people.  For example, a man who exposes vulnerability by saying to a woman, “I really like you,” is actually a symbol of great, modern alpha strength rather than beta-male weakness, in my opinion.  Brown’s way of putting it is direct: “Vulnerability is not weakness.  And that myth is profoundly dangerous.” 

Needless to say, the Power of Vulnerability talk was powerful, especially when paired with a little bit of light yoga.  My homework going forward is to work more on accepting and becoming more comfortable with my vulnerability, and I urge you to do the same.  After all, “that’s what life is about: about daring greatly, about being in the arena.” 

Putting the Present to Practice

Now that the dust has settled after reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now, I thought I’d do a little follow-up post.  It is only natural for inspiration to wane after time, for us to forget the lessons we learned and to revert to old habits, but for whatever reason, this book has continued to improve my approach and my perspective on life.  Here are a few of the big takeaways that continue to have moved me:

             Time

 “Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now.” – Eckhart Tolle

I used to worry about time a lot, especially with things like life and mortality, the past and future, by anticipating and worrying about imagined future events that were completely beyond my control.  This was exhausting.  I thought that I needed to worry about the future, as if that would help prevent the things I worried about (death, catastrophic events, awkward social interactions) from happening.  It was only until I read this book that I realized that this kind of incessant worrying is completely counterproductive and unnecessary. 

Now I try not to focus on mind time, to worry less about things that are out of my control, and to not think too much about the future.  This is not to say that I don’t consider chronological time, which involves putting events on my calendar and requires some modicum of planning, but the obsession, the worry, the anxiety about the kinds of things that are completely beyond my control has been reduced drastically.  And I have to say, I feel a huge weight lifted off me.  Life really is so much more enjoyable this way, the way that it should be. 

 

 Overthinking

 “Worry pretends to be useful but serves no actual purpose.” – Eckhart Tolle

Overthinking is another issue I've always grappled with.  I am an INFJ, a Pisces, and an English major, meaning that I have all the personality traits of an overthinker.  All I did in college and grad school was read books, analyze them, and then write about them.  I used to think that being an overthinker was a good thing.  It was only when I realized that it’s actually being that is the key to enlightenment -- the opposite of thinking -- a light bulb went off.  Just the other day I was reading an interview with Singer Janelle Monae who said that “[R&B singer] Erykah Badu once told me, ‘Stay out of your mind.’  Whenever I’m anxious about something, I remember those words to anchor myself and not overthink the moment.”  It's comforting to know that some of my favorite artists struggle with this too.

 

Thinking too much zaps our energy stores (leaving less for things like creativity!), when all we have is the now, this very moment.  If we’re in our heads the whole time we’re missing out on experiencing the richness of our lives right in front of us.  Though I might be inherently prone to overthinking, I’ve learned that when I step outside my head and actually think less I’m a much happier and more content person.

 

Acceptance and Surrender

 

         “Sometimes surrender means giving up trying.” – Eckhart Tolle

So much of my life has been focused on striving, improving, and becoming that I often fail to realize that it’s okay to just accept where I’m at and be for a bit.  The cliché really is true: you have to just stop and smell those roses from time to time.  While lots of things can be achieved by being so future focused, it's easy to lose sight of basking in the glow of life as it is now.  Accepting and surrendering, that is, just letting go to whatever state you're in and not resisting where your world is at the moment, is a completely new concept for me, but it is incredibly freeing and invigorating.

Friday night I came home after work and dinner with a friend and was exhausted from a long week, so instead of resisting the urge to do nothing, I accepted it and surrendered to where I was.  I stripped out of my work clothes in the kitchen (don't judge:  you know how hot it's been!) and laid down on the floor and watched the sunset.  It sounds strange, but it was my own way of accepting and surrendering in the moment, and it was perfect.

 

Painbody

"If you are present, the painbody cannot feed anymore on your personal thoughts, or on other people's reactions." - Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle writes about this thing called the “Painbody,” which he describes as the “emotional aspect of egoic consciousness.”  (This article explains it really well.)   Painbody can be likened to an addiction to unhappiness.  While I am not fundamentally a negative person, the concept has made me more aware of how easy it is to grasp onto the negative, to latch onto thoughts that fuel negativity and dysfunction in relationships.  While we don’t like feeling pain, we are also somehow drawn to it, kind of like masochism.  By realizing the kind of actions that fuel the painbody, I have been working on my awareness of it within me, which has made me conscious of when it tries to rear its ugly head. 

Just a Tuesday Tickle.

A random list of thoughts brought to you on a Tuesday by yours truly.

1. It occurred to my on my ride home from work today that Enrique Iglesias's "Bailamos" might be one of the great long-lost pop hits of the '90s.  Just don't watch the video because let's just say it hasn't aged well, the styling of which has reduced the song to a corny choreographed mess.  But the song really is a sexy little number.  Listen to it, and you'll hear what I mean.
2. This article made me feel a little less guilty about consuming a half-watermelon every time I crack one open. 
3. The writing in Dexter continues to blow my mind.  Dr. Vogel offered up this gem (Episode 2 of Season 8), which really resonated with me: "I developed a framework for your survival.  That's what mothers do."
4. Another beautiful quote from the ever-inspiring and enlightening site, Brain Pickings, has stayed with me ever since I came upon it the other day: "Always be more than you appear, and never appear to be more than you are." - Angela Merkel 
5. It's amazing what things do to your ego (and after reading The Power of Now I've become that much more aware of how ego is involved in everything we do, think or say), but alas.  So, one of the Entertainment Weekly's editors followed me on Twitter the other day and then "favorited" one of my tweets today.  Is it bad that it kind of made my ego's day? 
6. I'm pumped that Sara Bareilles's new album comes out on July 16.  Her songwriting's so pop-rock delicious.  I also happen to be a pretty big fan of the beautiful/talented/good girly/nerdy combo.  (And as an FYI, she's pretty fun to follow on Twitter.)
7. I'm always walking that fine line of whether it's inappropriate or appropriate to tell someone I've dreamt about them.  The honest part of me feels a strange ethical obligation to let them in on it, as if it's something they need to know, to be privy to; the other part of me realizes this might come off a little creepy.  I wonder if this is some kind of strange compulsion or whether it's normal-ish.  (Thoughts welcome.)

Why I Like the Big K (Where Image Isn't Everything)

Despite the narrow aisles and low ceilings, constructed for a time of skinnier people and skinnier carts, Kmart feels simultaneously spacious and airy and at the same time, from a different era.  You go there not because the prices are lower (like Walmart) or for its snazzy, trendy wares (like Target); you go there because there will be no lines, no people to run into from work, but also likely no pocket-sized Pizza Hut/Dunkin’ Donuts/Starbucks (which is neither unfortunate nor fortunate, I suppose).

At Kmart, there happen to be fewer shoppers sporting SpongeBob PJ pants and slippers, screaming kids, and the current common cold du jour than the Walmarts and Dollar Trees of yore, though it is not to say that the store doesn't cater to a humble group of folk.  At my local Kmart, for example, there happens to be a high percentage of Franco-American senior citizen shoppers with their polyester pants and carts stocked with whatever cleaning products that happen to be on sale, which provide a certain familiarity because they happen to remind me of my own late Franco-American grandmother.  
 

Nevertheless, while I am never particularly jazzed by the stock of goods that Kmart has to offer (things like storage bins and shampoo always seem to be just a little inflated in price and there is no particular flashy gimmick, such as the promise of a nice stash of new Essie nail polish or trendy, one-season-only apparel freshly hung on the clearance rack), there is something warm and fuzzy about the Big K, and what can I say? I am a real sucker for the warm and fuzzy.

Typically, the soundtrack at Kmart brings me straight to the late 1980s or 1990s, playing ballads from Heart or Celine Dion or even Amy Grant (I believe "Baby Baby" happened to be playing the last time I was there), and it makes me want to head straight to the coloring book aisle and pick out a little something for my former 6-year-old self. 
 

 

In its glory days, the Kmart I used to go to was a bustling destination complete with a well-stocked music department, not to mention Walkmans galore.  But the especially exciting feature at the Kmart from way back when was its in-house cafeteria, which, if you could get past the cloud of cigarette smoke, lent a delightful little reprieve to the end or middle of the Big K shopping experience.  They had every fatty, processed, nutrient-devoid dreamboat snack you could want: hot dogs, chicken fingers, French fries, various cream pies, your standard stash of handy-sized chips, and a nice selection of fountain sodas (including, I believe, Mello Yellow).  The cafeteria abutted the hair product section, which was next to the cosmetics section, which meant that the Caboodles (remember those?) were somewhere mixed in between.  How I remember this is no matter, but I loved my Caboodles almost as much as I loved my perm. 

But back to 2013.  I found myself wandering the aisles this past Saturday, well, because I needed some laundry detergent stat and because Kmart happened to be next to the record store where I picked up some Seals & Crofts (summer is when I crave the smooth '70s tunes).  And while I was there it occurred to me how grateful I was to be able to have the freedom to aimlessly wander the aisles of Kmart on a Saturday, but also how grateful I am that there is such a place in 2013 that is neither flashy, nor hipster, nor bottom-barrel cheap, nor particularly relevant, which is, quite honestly, really refreshing.  

 

With its underwhelming aesthetic and lack of identity, Kmart is a kind of unassuming and safe haven, much like Empty Nest (that everyone used to watch but everyone apparently forgot about besides me, it seems), or maybe it’s just where I like to spend a random hour on a random Saturday afternoon, simultaneously out in the world while also away from it.  We all need a little of that in our lives, I think.

Image credit: Pinterest

From Impure Thoughts to Thoughts of Self-Acceptance

Growing up Catholic, going to confession was a regular ritual in my family.  Once a month, my mom would drag my siblings and me to a church three towns away so we could tell a priest our sins.  Truth be told, it was equal parts humiliating, cathartic, and simply a task that was part of my Catholic upbringing.  Nevertheless, I always felt better afterward, because (a) I felt that for the 15 seconds while I did my penance in the church pew I was devoid of all human sin; and/or (b) the whole thing was over until the next month; and/or (c) we typically went out to eat afterward.

The problem with confession as I saw it was that I typically wound up confessing the same slew of sins each month, particularly the personal biggie: "impure thoughts."  When I was old enough to realize that having such impure thoughts was even a sin, I asked my mother how to confess such a thing.  My mother, being the cradle Catholic/enlightened woman that she was, had the apropos response for her precocious child:  "In that case, you say that you've had 'impure thoughts.'"  I was thankful to her for giving me the perfect catch-all for such a complex-to-me-at-the-time-kind-of-sin.

Now that I'm all grown up, I know that these "impure thoughts" are simply a fact of life that can't be erased from my mind no matter how much I try.  After all, I'm a human being with a fully functioning brain and body that are intended for making babies but which serve so many other purposes.   Now I'm not ashamed for such impure thoughts that enter my mind because it reminds me that I'm alive and thriving, and that my body is as engaged as my mind, which is a beautiful, biological thing.  

Furthermore, trying to erase thoughts of any kind only increases the potential for such thoughts to squirm back in, because that's just how the mind works.  We have an uncanny way of rebelling against ourselves, don't we?  (Well, at least I do.)  While I've evolved to know that impure thoughts are natural and acceptable, there are always other things I'm working on or striving to improve, different spiritual philosophies have taught me that self-judgment does not an enlightened mind make (a Buddhist philosphy instead of a Catholic one), which in my adulthood seem so much more logical and practicable. 

Only until we accept ourselves for our various shortcomings, weaknesses, and transgressions, et al. are we more likely to find success in changing and overcoming them, because it is upon self-acceptance that achievement in overcoming shortcomings suddenly becomes wholly and truly attainable. 

Feeling guilty about our weaknesses or failings only consumes energy that could be applied to more positive areas of our life that could by default reshape our focus away from our weak areas.  Since our bodies and minds only have so much energy, as it releases from the negative to the positive these thoughts/actions happen less often or, if you're truly a saint, not at all.  (Though who wants to have no "impure thoughts" at all?  Isn't that what makes us perhaps a little more interesting and endearing? I like to think so.)

Finding Home

Why I've only gotten into the Dexter series now that it is in its final season is beyond me, but in picking Season 7 up (via Netflix) midstream I have belatedly realized all that I've been missing out on for the past seven years.  Oh, well.  Better late than never, right? 

What distinguishes the show from others is that it is both plot AND character driven, revealing a complicated protagonist, Dexter, who happens to be a symphathetic killer, since he "only" kills the bad guys.  One of my favorite aspects of the show is that we get to hear Dexter's inner monologue, at times wry and sadistic, and other times tender and thought-provoking.  According to those in the know, Dexter's emotional capacity has evolved throughout the seasons, with him revealing in Season 7 the ability to experience the depth of love in a way that he never has before.

In "Argentina," the show's aptly titled Episode 8 of Season 7, Dexter makes a poignant declaration at the end of the show about the idea of finding your own version of home in the world, where he says:

          No matter where we go, we take ourselves and our damage with us. So is
          home the place we run to or is it the place we run from? Only to hide out
          in places where we are accepted unconditionally, places that feel more like
          home to us. Because we can finally be who we are.

The statement struck a chord in me because it was not only beautifully stated, but because it rings so true.  Whether we have it, had it, or are continually searching for it, we are all always longing for that place -- whether physically or mentally -- that we can call home, that place where we can just be. 

It's a place where we are not always understood, perhaps, but where we are completely accepted, where we are free to be our sometimes silly, oddball selves, so much so that our quirks -- those so-called issues/isms/little things that we may be ashamed to share with some people -- are not only openly received, but are cherished, nurtured, and loved.  Sadly, for some, that place may never be found, but for those who've stumbled upon it, it is truly the ultimate of all places to find and to be, if you are so lucky.

And that's all for tonight. 

The Power of Now: Who knew being present could feel so good?

I’m reticent to say a particular book has changed my life to avoid sounding overly dramatic and impressionable, but let’s just be honest here: The Power of Now blew my effing mind away. 

I have read other books that have transformed my thinking:  The War of Art, The Power of Habit, The Secret, and The Four Agreements.  And while I don’t want to discount their value, particularly since they all likewise had lasting impressions on me, The Power of Now took things to the next level for me.

With a Buddhist bent, though with no particular religious affiliation, the book deals with such themes as time (past, present, future), the true self, peace vs. pleasure, and consciousness vs. unconsciousness.  As someone who often grapples with worrying and sometimes anxiety, particularly about the unknown future, Eckhart Tolle’s words spoke to me in an extremely profound way, in a way that I’ve never heard them before – or perhaps have been open to hearing them before.  “You can always cope with the Now, but you can never cope with the future – nor do you have to.  The answer, the strength, the right action or the resource will be there when you need it, before, not after,” Tolle writes. 

While I pride myself on being a pretty good communicator (I thank my Moms for that one), I find myself in my head a lot – thinking, processing, analyzing.  (Maybe it's my INFJ/Piscean combination, who knows.)  Only until reading Pema Chodron’s teachings and then reading this book, did I realize how counterproductive that is, how unnecessary that constant thinking, processing, and analyzing actually IS to making good decisions and attaining the best, most meaningful life possible, which is what we're all striving toward, right?  While Pema Chodron’s words in her beautiful simplicity made complete sense to me, I wasn’t quite sure how to DO it, how to even begin stepping outside my mind.  Tolle put it this way:   

You are cut off from Being as long as your mind takes up all your attention.  When this happens – and it happens continuously for most people – you are not in your body. . . .  To become conscious of Being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the mind. . . . It will free vast amounts of consciousness that previously have been trapped in useless and compulsive thinking.  A very effective way of doing this is simply to take the focus of your attention away from thinking and direct it into the body, where Being can be felt in the first instance as the invisible energy field that gives life to what you perceive as the physical body. 

Since reading this one little paragraph have I been able to reduce my overthinking, by focusing what is going on at the given moment.  Here I am typing on this keyboard/sipping my tea/my legs are extended and crossed at my ankles/a cold draft is hitting my calves.  In other words, I am in the complete present – not feeling bad about some stupid comment I made to a coworker the other day, not regretting the ice cream I had last night, not worrying about making sure I work out today.  I am completely and utterly in the present, because that’s all there is – not the past, not the future, but the present. 

Even in our present lives, though, there are circumstances or situations that make us unhappy or dissatisfied.  These may be where we live, our jobs, friendships or relationships, certain addictive behaviors, and even our daily routines.  Tolle suggests that “[w]herever you are, be there totally”, but “[i]f you find you’re here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally.”  Being in the present is the knowing you have the power to change the situation and that the situation does not have power over you.   That is such a freeing concept to me:  the idea that we are as much in control of our life situation as we are our life destiny.

There’s so much more, but as with everything it's much better experienced firsthand.  Just read the book, and if you're as taken by it as I was, they even have The Power of Now Inspiration Cards!  (Totally worth it, in my humble opinion.)  I may not have it all figured out, but so long as I have the tools I’m at least partway there, right?  That's what I tell myself anyway.

"What You Won't Do For Love"

I am utterly obsessed with Jessie Ware these days. 

Her voice, her style, her essence and soul -- to me, she represents everything that I love about music.  Needless to say, if you haven't heard about her, you're missing out.  Tonight I discovered a cover she did of one of my very favorite songs of the 1970s, Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do For Love", and it's so disgustingly beautiful I can't stop listening to it. 

Even though the original is one of my favorite songs of all time, I am honestly not sure whether the original or Jessie's remake is better.  (As a sidenote, 2Pac and Gwen McCrae also have some pretty fine renditions of the tune as well.)  Alas, without any further adieu, here's a side by side of Jessie's version and Bobby's version.

 

Overwhelmed by TMI

I have been feeling overwhelmed by too much information lately. Not in the “I’m-all-offended-because you’re-telling-me-too-much-information” kind of way, but more in the “I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-all-this-information-overload-in-the-world” kind of way. 

And the Internet is in large part to blame.

It has become so fundamental to us for so many things – for researching, for communicating, for creating, which is why I freaking love it. Practically everything you need to or want to know is on there, at your fingertips at any given time. But because of this kind of access, the Internet has produced a kind of live information feed of EVERYTHING that you either WANT or DON'T WANT to hear or read about.  And it all has become incredibly overwhelming.

I am admittedly a full participant in what the web has to offer: I’ve got my various social networking accounts and profiles (Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, you name it); I keep most of my favorite websites on Google Reader, except for the stragglers that I have bookmarked on various computers, the lack of organization of which is, quite honestly, driving me bananas these days; and I have my various favorite go-to news sites (in particular, the Daily Beast and Huffington Post). 

While I like to feel connected and informed on current matters, there is an undesirable byproduct of this all, which is as true and as cliched as it sounds: information overload.  For this reason, I admire my good friend Elizabeth who up and quit Facebook cold turkey several months ago. She finds herself more content and at peace, not to mention the fact that she doesn't even miss it.  She has also found herself making more of an effort to initiate contact with her friends and family the old-fashioned way:  via telephone or email. While I admire that, I know that quitting Facebook is not the answer.

Because for me, it’s a bigger issue.  This was revealed to me as I was driving home last night clicking through all my SiriusXM presets and feeling overwhelmed by that too. I love the liberty of being able to choose, but what good is choice when it becomes so limitless that we continually feel unsettled in our decision(s)?

Technology is supposed to streamline things – and it does in many ways – but if the side effects are stress, dissatisfaction, and feelings of being overwhelmed, something ain’t right, right? While I want to find a way to scale back my reliance and the pressure I feel from it, I know that giving it up completely is not realistic or something that would be beneficial to me, since it is very much a fabric of our/my contemporary existence.  And, besides, I like a lot of what technology has to offer.

I am a believer in self-awareness, especially as it relates to being the first step toward addressing anything.  So, for now I'm going to sit tight and think about it for a bit, but my hunch is that I might need to simplify my life or tweak my perspective.  But if you have any tips or pearls of wisdom in the meantime, I’m all ears, and eyes, AND fingertips. (Oh, you know it's true.) 

Learning how to "do what you love."

When I was little I was obsessed with swimming, and every opportunity I got I wanted to be in the water.  Because of this, every body of water that I saw – be it a stream, pond, lake, or someone else’s pool – I did whatever I could to find a way to swim in it.  One time, when I was barely six years old, my parents rented a cabin on a lake, and I swam as far out as I could and almost drowned.  Despite this, I still wanted to swim every chance I got.  Swimming was the thing that I loved to do as a kid, no matter how inconvenient it was, or no matter how yucky it made my hair.

As an adult, as I’m sure you can probably agree, the things I SHOULD do often overshadows the things I LOVE to do.  This is in part because there is often guilt associated with partaking in what's indulgently pleasurable because “time is money” and there is always money to be made.  And the reality is that at the end of a long day we are often too tired to devote to the things, these pursuits, that we love. 

 

 

But why do we save our most cherished hobbies and pursuits – those things that give us the ultimate enjoyment and happiness – as something that can be partaken only AFTER we’ve accomplished everything that needs to be done, when we are often so depleted that we no longer have the energy to truly enjoy them?  Why do we always feel we need to earn it, to “save the best for last”? 

Instead, we seek instant gratification by distracting ourselves from what we should be doing, by scanning through our Facebook newsfeeds, clicking for inspiration in Google Reader, getting excited for 10 a.m. because that means we can have a snack!   It is not to say that these distractions are bad.  In some ways these little distractions force us to find the simple pleasures in a day consumed with obligations, complex business matters, serious adult stuff.  It’s our way of seeking mini escapes through it all, even if the escapes we’re seeking wind up not being that gratifying, because what we’d rather be doing, or looking forward to doing, are the things we truly love – the grown-up version of finding a swimming hole to jump into.  And the sad thing is that so often do we forget to realize that the things we truly love are actually GOOD for us in the end.

This past week I spontaneously booked a massage, something I so enjoy but do so infrequently (like once or twice a year infrequently).  It felt indulgent and special and oddly naughty to be getting something that I hadn’t planned out in advance, but the payoff was great – I felt more relaxed than I had felt in months and the almost daily headaches I had been getting for the previous few weeks suddenly disappeared. 

 

We’re always telling ourselves that life is short, because it is, no doubt, and therefore understandably consumed with necessary obligations to achieve the life we want, but why don’t we adjust to life’s brevity by placing equal importance on carving out time to do what we love as we do with those practical obligations?  I can't say I have the answer to that, but I do know I'm going to work on learning to include more of what I love in my daily life.