Pain

“It may look like shifting sand. Some people see colors,” she said.

I lay facedown on a table in the back room of a book store. I didn’t expect much as I looked at the back of my eyelids. She began to blow across my body again.

Nothing for awhile. Then I saw it. It was sand. I couldn’t help but question whether the comment had primed the image but I chose to keep a partially open mind. The sand wasn’t just shifting though. They were dunes exchanging shapes. Was it a sandstorm or was it a dance? I couldn’t decide.

Something peeked out of the sand. It had the texture of a fossil with it’s matching dull white color. It had the smooth curve of a long, flat stone. It was a half-dome shape peering out of a sand curtain. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in a long time. Maybe long forgotten, maybe buried hoping to never exist. I stared at it with my mind’s eye. What was that?

Bleary-eyed, I asked the lady about it.

“You wanted to open up your creative channels, right?”

I nodded. Perhaps it was an extra stubborn blockage. I don’t recall her giving me an answer.

I thought I would feel clear afterwards. I imagined I would just explode with creative output. But I didn’t. I felt an insurmountable pain I had never felt before. It crowded and flooded my torso. It held considerable weight. It was, without a doubt, emotional pain manifesting itself in my body. Why was this happening?

I felt miserable. For two days, I dragged this relentless pain around. None of my usual distractions worked. I couldn’t drink enough coffee. Nor exercise enough. Nor snack it away. I couldn’t sleep it off. Or numb it out with Netflix. It refused to be ignored. It felt like a giant raw nerve and simply breathing made me feel agitated. I’ve felt pain before but it never felt so close to me like unbearable heat.

I pulled the card the lady gave from me out of my wallet. I wanted to call her and say “What the fuck did you do to me?!” Was this pain related to my creativity?

This was a few years ago. I think of it now because this brand of pain is cropping up again.

I am choosing to not compulsively block my emotions for the next 30 days. My specific intention is to not use the large array of socially acceptable numbing mechanisms readily available for my consumption. Or at least I’m trying to catch myself in the act and to observe what I’m thinking and feeling before, during, and after. These mechanisms include anything you can imagine but the activity doesn’t matter. It’s the intention behind them that determines whether it is numbing or not. Or so my research reveals.

I’m on Day 20. And I think I figured out what that fossil is now. It’d be easier to explain in pictures.

See, I imagine my internal world is an array of circles. Like this:

I imagine that the “core me” sits at the center, the very smallest circle. The circles represent how close I let people get to me. Perhaps they are layers of vulnerability. Another way to look at it is layers of intimacy or relationship. Or maybe it’s layers from the surface me to my subconscious self. It’s all the same. For instance, let’s see it as levels of relationship. If you’re on the very margins, you’re in the “acquaintance” category. As we develop a deeper relationship, you might move up ranks and into smaller circles closer to the center. I’m sure there are more layers but for simplicity’s sake I drew only a few. Like this:



But here’s the thing. I don’t let people into the second to the smallest category, the light grey category. I just don’t. It’s impenetrable.

It’s not like I don’t try! I’ve done all sorts of things to get that layer to let someone into it. I try to blurt out random facts no one knows about me. I try to spill my guts all over the Internets. I try to lawyer with myself that I’ve known this person for 20 years and they are absolutely trustworthy. It. won’t. budge.

I think this layer is the fossil I saw in the sand.

My theory is that I have sealed it tightly shut like a clenched fist. Because if I let anyone see me past that layer they won’t like what they see. They won’t love me. They’ll leave me. They’ll know the truth and the true me isn’t good enough. Not for me. Not for anyone else. It’s the subconscious strategy I have enforced for a long time. It’s done it’s job. I’m rarely ever hurt.

I think the Reiki session exposed it. Underneath it is the raw nerve. It’s insecurity and pain with no nowhere to hide, no protection.

Whenever anyone has ever insulted me or embarrassed me, I could feel this buffer insert itself between me and my feelings like a shock absorber. I birthed both my kids naturally and even then I felt that buffer there. I’ve viewed it as having a high pain tolerance. There was physical pain then, yes, but I could ward it to stay at a distance. My doctor asked me where I would go when the contractions would get intense, my eyes would stare off. I’d go to the place where I was fenced safely away from the pain. I could see it but it felt like being in a VR world. It was within touching distance but there was the comfort of knowing it would never get too close. Not really.

My whole emotional world has felt insulated. Sheltered. Even I (the conscious self) can’t get past all the layers to see the core me (my deepest self, completely stripped). But I’ve slowly chipped away at layers of shell. The problem with living an emotionally insulated life is that you run out of space to put feelings. They get stuck in different places in your body. When they get stuck too long, they condense and then metastasize into emotional disease. It’s no secret that emotional disease then shows up in physical symptoms. It may even further develop into disorders or physical illness as we continue to ignore it, suppress it, or deny it.

I’ve gotten to that impenetrable layer now and trying to bring down that barrier is causing all sorts of emotions to spill out. But what I noticed most is that the emotion I have suppressed the most, at the very bottom of everything, is hurt.

During this 30 day challenge, I had two conversations that meant a lot to me. They were almost echoes of each other. Cascading mirrors. After each one, I noticed this pain rise again. It wasn’t as intense as the Reiki session but it lingered around for a day or two. Nothing could dampen it. I was confused because the conversations commented on events long past and had actually gone well. I was happy with their outcomes. But I realized I had never allowed myself to own the hurt that came out of those retrospective situations. The emotions I felt instead, the protective ones, were first anger. Then after that, sadness. But never hurt. Not ever. Or if I did, it was a diluted hurt that I could easily tune out like some pesky white noise with the volume turned down to lowest setting.

This is a new feeling. One I am only beginning to learn to fully allow and process.

When I looked at this image again of the circles, I realized something. This is also the crude biological schematic for when a sperm fertilizes an egg. It has the same mechanism of filtering. Only a chosen few get deeper. What happens when the sperm gets to the center of the egg? What happens when we let even one person in?

Life.

And what feeling do we experience that brings life to us? Pain.

What if the sperm is one half of me? And the egg is the other half of me? What happens when they come together? Wholeness.

What if the very act of me finding myself isn’t the path to creativity, but is the very act of Creation in and of itself? Holy shit.

I get now when songwriters or story characters say, “I feel alive”. I think it means they’ve uncovered that nerve again. Both the life in it. And the pain in it.

I think that’s what I’m doing too. Becoming painfully alive.

Covid-19 Behavior Isn’t New for Marginalized Communities

I don’t know why I didn’t feature it here but it’s never too late to include it!

Last month, I published an article addressing how all the destructive self-preservation behaviors we are seeing run amuck in the pandemic aren’t surprising to someone who is marginalized. The only difference is that the pandemic magnifies it 10,000 fold so we can see it a lot clearer. As such, we bypass the dispute about whether these inequities exist and instead can zero in on talking directly about where these behaviors come from and why it happens.

I originally penned it with the title, “Colonization of Fear” as colonization works as a great working metaphor for both the behavior of viruses AND the behavior of Colonizers.

You can read it here. It’s also paired with the beautiful artwork of Vlad Verano.

See you next week!

Featured Image by Melanie Wasser

Whose Suffering Matters?

Social media exacerbates my comparison inferiority complex.

What do we do when our own suffering during a global traumatic event feels like nothing in comparison to others? Stuff it down? Ignore it? Dismiss it?

Does it even matter?

I answer that question for you and more over at The South Seattle Emerald in my latest piece, “Whose Suffering Matters?” This was one of the hardest pieces for me to write so far. It is difficult to capture the nuanced space of privilege, suffering, and healing. I try to take a stab at it because I believe many of us are caught in that intersection.

Happy Tuesday!

Spiritual Anorexia, Part 2

***This is a continuation from last week’s post: Spirital Anorexia***

The other two forms of spiritual anorexia: time and joy.

Despite having a vast amount of unemployed time, I neglect to carve out any time where I do something for fun above my basic self-care needs. Let me tell you, it’s taken me a long time to give myself permission to satisfy basic self-care needs like eating in a nourishing way, sleeping enough, meaningful movement, and meditation. Going beyond that feels incredibly indulgent, a maximum effort in self-love.

I can find something to fill that time that feels difficult, productive, or purely to serve others like planning the shit out of my girls’ “independent study” schedule, cleaning with the meticulous nature of a psychopath, or constantly checking my email inbox but never answering anything. Giving myself TWO nights a week to participate in something I know I will love feels beyond the time I have to give. This isn’t true though. I’m merely making up time restrictions in a void where no time restrictions actually exist.

The other form of spiritual restriction is joy.

Joy isn’t necessary here. It’s a non-essential and shut down until further notice. I can enjoy things again when things are back to normal, when I have a full income coming in or when I have less to worry about. But those perfect circumstances never come, pandemic or no. Once I have a full income and things are back to normal, I’ll tell myself that the time my job takes up leaves no room for joy. I can find excuses to deprive myself in either circumstance. It doesn’t really matter what the circumstance is.

Spiritual anorexia like body anorexia is just as unhealthy. The pay-off is that I get to feel morally good. The result though is I burn myself out if I go far enough or I get dangerously close to it. That’s not healthy. And how does self-imposing suffering onto myself help anyone else that is suffering more right now?

It doesn’t.

I’m merely manufacturing misery to match the company. That’s not a judgment on the company, but merely a natural consequence of current circumstances.

But what if I manufacture joy instead? Would it mean I would change the mood-states of those in my company? Or would it naturally shift me to find company in those that also value self-love? Am I allowed to manufacture joy purely for myself without thinking of the company just yet? How does that work exactly?

But when I pause to think from a place of my New Values, I remind myself that joy is needed now more than ever. We are living in a black hole of despair now. Joy isn’t indulgent. Joy is a lifeline when we are thrashing around in dark waters, a lifesaver we throw to ourselves to steady the turbulence. I don’t need to cancel out joy altogether but double-down on it to counteract the intensity of change and turmoil present.

Joy can multiply and spread. If I give myself joy, I ignite a spark of hope and with that I can heal others. I start with the energy I give myself, then my family, and moving outwards from there. I mourn first so I can make space for joy later.

I won’t use joy to hide from the pain or to buffer it. I’ll have it alongside me now to remind me of the other dimensions of life. I don’t need to deny access to one to be present and virtuous in another. I can have joy for just me. It doesn’t have to be in a one-time large purchase every few months. It can be tiny and at little to no cost, every few days like reading a poem or listening to my favorite song. I need to be kind to myself now and to remember that this is the only way I learn to be truly kind to others too.

Rejecting Domestic Mastery

The way we function is unconventional.

But no matter how ideal it looks on the outside, I struggle to drop the  guilt I carry about it’s relatively more egalitarian approach.

What I’m talking about is the gender division of labor in our household. It’s even more glaringly apparent now that we are literally home all the time with the pandemic.

For example, consider this statement:

I can go an entire week without cleaning. Even two.

Instead of thinking that perhaps I have finally nailed the communication piece around housework with my husband, or considering the idea that I’ve efficiently delegated housework to my next of kin, I mostly think I’m a lazy asshole who obviously doesn’t care enough about her family. Or, at best, I believe all these statements are true at once. It becomes a derogatory “Yes, and…” situation.

Perhaps others might think my husband is just an amazing dad for picking up the brunt of the housework while still working a full-time job. Or that he is completely stellar because he also cooks dinner every night on top of it. Or that my kids are angels for actually listening to me and cleaning consistently when asked. But why wouldn’t we think these same things if I took over those same duties? I’d simply be a regular mom meeting mundane expectations.

Maybe people might ask in reply, “Well, what is it that you do all day then?” But isn’t that like saying, “Wait, you mean, you are allowed to have a life outside domestic work even though you’re a mom?! How is that possible?!”

It’s these double-sided standards that I know exist that cause me guilt. If I told people how our house currently functioned, I preemptively assume there would be judgment and jealousy. As such, I rarely ever talk about our more feminist domestic arrangement or my internal struggle that abides despite it. I listen a lot to other moms who struggle with not having the option to drop these duties, either because their partner is unaware or unwilling to take over a fair portion of the invisible labor. My struggle is a lot more privileged than most around me so I keep my own unique guilt quite private.

Yesterday, Cheryl Strayed said in her new podcast, “Sugar Calling” that she never wanted to be a great domestic worker. What she wanted was to be a great American writer. I had to admire her outright rejection of her domestic role while still holding true to her identity as both a mom and writer. Is it possible I could be a mom in my own liking, outside the expectations of the societal norms, because I picked a husband who listens and understands how sexism enters our relationship without him knowing? Is it possible I could suck at domesticity on purpose, give myself full permission to do so, and pursue something I enjoy instead?

Could I still call myself a “good mom” if I did so?

I’m not saying I would even be working all the time towards a peak career state. Part of that time would ideally just be me engaging with activities that bring me joy. Not to be good at it, not to produce something for accolades, but simply enjoying life as is. This is what I want to do yet I find in me a voice that chastises it. It says that this is an incredibly selfish desire that no one else is doing.

But haven’t I sacrificed enough of my time, energy, blood, sweat, and tears up until now taking care of others? Is the only time I’m allowed to do it when I’m old and retired? What kind of life is that?! Is it spoiled to want to take a break from domestic work for weeks at a time without hiring probably-another-brown woman to do the duties instead? Would I feel less guilty about my husband picking it up instead if I did so?

For the record, now that we’ve switched up our division of labor, Ryan consistently tells me that his responsibility of housework isn’t a problem for him. He actually tells me he feels weird if he doesn’t do the dishes, for instance. He thrives in routine whereas I am highly attracted to novelty. I love doing the big house projects and the spring cleaning.  He would like more daily help, sure, but I am much harder on myself about it than he ever has been. I’m the only one who brings this up in conversation.
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I read through the kid’s book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and it was nice to read about a family where the dad was the primary domestic partner. One of the pictures portrays her coming home from a hard day at work and her husband holding a huge turkey(?) with oven mitts in the doorway. I find this to be an incredible counter-narrative and yet I tell myself that this is allowed because she is doing ground-breaking work.

Did I even qualify to have this type of arrangement?

The girls noticed this too from a young age. When Penny was in 2nd grade and Abbey in Kindergarten, they pointed out to me that when they stayed over at friends’ houses that their moms did most of the cooking. How  come I didn’t do the cooking? This is an astute observation but at the time it was proof to me that they were already internalizing sexism and projecting that onto me as well. Or maybe it could qualify a bit as both. I felt that my life was slowly becoming like Stepford Wives but now my kids were in on it too. “No one is too young to be indoctrinated into sexism”, I thought.

A sobering thought, indeed.

The other way I see sexism come out in my kids is the way my kids will constantly point out what I’m not doing. “Why haven’t we done this yet? When will you do that? How come you didn’t…? ” I actually started to stand back and imagine my girls in their classroom. Is it possible that the kids did this sort of nagging more with their female teachers and not their male ones? After thinking about this imagined scenario, one day I point-blank asked my 7-year old, “How come you will constantly notice what I’m not doing but you don’t seem to ask your dad these same questions?” She didn’t know and hadn’t noticed until I pointed it out. I pretty honestly told her that I didn’t like these questions. I told her they made me frustrated and like she didn’t seem to appreciate what I was doing for her. All the time I was constantly doing things for her. But even in my 7-year old’s eyes this didn’t seem like it was enough. Are moms ever doing enough in the eyes of anyone?

[Side note: I also think there’s some entitlement there. A quality I believe she is picking up from existing mainly in a pre-dominantly white setting. But that’s a different story.]

The other point I fail to mention here is even though I rarely ever do laundry, dishes, or cooking anymore, there are still an entire slew of activities I am doing in lieu of this recovered time that even I discount for myself. For instance, I am the main touch-point with their teachers. I am designing, teaching, and executing their current home school arrangement. I am cooking their lunches and monitoring their screentime. I am the main authority from morning until dinner, I am the project manager of all our schedules including any social activities, appointments, or learning opportunities. I design and executed their bedtime routines. I am the person who does the bulk of the emotional labor when the girls have a meltdown, a social conflict, or any internal discomfort. I’m the one up at night if they have trouble sleeping or become sick. On top of my own business, I’m in charge of reading through all their emails. I’m automatically the school volunteer and the field trip person. I’m the one who vets their toys, their shows, and their music. I sign them up for afterschool activities, music lessons, and cover payments. The list goes on and on…

Another last point that I consider is how good I feel when I think I might be living up to “good mom” status for a moment. I could do a successful Pinterest project or I could sew something from scratch or I could be the mom who plans everything perfectly in advance and not miss a beat or I could be the mom who community organizes an event for their class. I’ve done all of these things at some point and it makes me feel conflicted. Do I actually like doing these things? Or do I like the approval that society gives me for fitting into what we think a “super mom” looks like?

I suppose my point is that even when women DO get to the point that their husbands/kids will take on a more equitable portion of housework, it still only solves part of the problem.

The other part of the problem is giving myself permission to let it go despite seeing little example of others doing the same. It comes from my back-of-mind belief that housework is a woman’s labor of love. If I outright reject mastering my domestic role and pursue something I find more fulfilling in it’s place… am I refusing to love my family in some way? Am I a failure as a parent?

I’m sure the answer from the outside observer are more obvious from a logical perspective. But from an emotional perspective, the whispers inside me beg to differ.

30 Days of Pandemic Journal

Tuesday, February 29th
I was at a writing workshop all day today. At lunch, our facilitator ends up mentioning that there was the first death in our state from Coronavirus over lunch. She says it with hesitation, not wanting to bring down the mood. We all have a somber, quiet moment chewing.

Tuesday, March 3rd
Parents at the girls’ school are wondering if their kids will get docked for tardies for taking extra time to wash their hands. Of course there are those parents that immediately start figuring out ways to blame admin ASAP to unload their anxiety. I bet admin is working on typing up the typical carefully-worded email now, figuring out how to share information carefully to prevent panic. I have the girls read a kid’s pamphlet about Coronavirus. The pamphlet says we are probably not at risk but highlight who is at risk. They seem pretty chill about it.

Wednesday, March 4th
Coronavirus is starting to take over more of my FB feed along with election stuff. It’s a little much. I talk to a friend today about everything on my mind. I haven’t really been talking about it. I start getting really emotional driving home and call R and K to talk some sense into me. Uncertainty is such a bitch.

Friday, March 6th
The small chat with clients is about the virus too. Today my client mentions she worries it may cause our generation’s Great Depression. I mull over it a little while I groom her dog.  R texted me today that most of his gigs for March are cancelled, income gone. He calls me later and I help ground him because he’s spinning out with anxiety.

Saturday, March 7th
We got news today that the girls’ play is canceled. The girls’ drama department is using after-school time to record the play instead in segments. Smart idea!

Sunday, March 8th
I got my haircut today super short on one side. I tend to cut my hair super different when I feel like there isn’t much else I can control. Ryan and I go out on a date and I ask for us to go specifically to an Asian restaurant to help support. Our poetry workshop got cancelled but Ryan and I go to a coffee shop anyway and write poems.  Most of the coffee shops are completely PACKED which is weird. We finally get to one only a quarter full. It’s a nice reprieve.

Monday, March 9th
We went to the climbing gym tonight. I’m starting to wonder if this is a bad idea. We are touching the exact same holds as everyone else and they can’t get washed until end of day. (Do they wash them even?) We’ve been asked to practice social distancing but I forget and stand next to someone at the bathroom sink. She smiles and starts to talk to me, asks how I’m doing. I realize I haven’t talked to any strangers lately nor made eye contact. I think I’m just absorbed in thought about all this. We chat a little about how it’s nice to come later at night when it’s more empty. Ryan and I did that on purpose so we aren’t around so many people. The talking distracts me and I’m not sure if I washed my hands for 20 seconds or not.

Tuesday, March 10th
Penny is home sick again. I can’t tell if she just doesn’t want to go to school or if she’s actually sick. A little bit of sniffles is okay, right? I need to go back to work soon.

I made Ryan change my Facebook password so I can stop scrolling so much. I can’t log in from my phone anymore.

Wednesday, March 11th
Whoa. We got sudden warning that today is the last day of school. School is canceled for at least 2 weeks. This means Penny won’t go to school at all this week. Now that her cold is mostly gone her stomach is hurting. This has happened a few times. Could it be anxiety? diet? A combo? She’s not sleeping well either so I’ve been up most the night. I really need to go back to work soon.

I have directing workshop tonight. I decide not to go forward with taking on a piece to direct because my mental capacity is just shot. They moved the showcase online.

Friday, March 13th
Ryan was able to work from home the rest of the week since the girls aren’t in school. Phew! I went out to dinner tonight with a new writer friend in Beacon Hill. I want to support Asian restaurants right now but I wonder if we are being irresponsible. We have a drink and share a meal. I really feel like I need the drink because this week has really frayed my nerves. There are A LOT of people at the restaurant. An auntie walks in carrying Lysol. Having the company helps lift my mood. We decide not to hug, bumping elbows instead like how the “cool kids are doing these days”. I text my friend in the neighborhood who is immuno-compromised to see if she’d like me to bring her take-out before I head home. I wonder though… if you can have it for days without knowing it then what if the chef preparing the food has it? Maybe I shouldn’t do take-out either. Anywhere.

Saturday, March 14th
In the webinar today, Kara mentions our brain will worry about the same things we usually worry about but through the lens of the Coronavirus. It will seem more urgent but it is essentially the same worries. I scan my brain and find this is true: My worries are essentially focusing on time & money scarcity. My worries are around if I’m doing enough for the community and for my family. Lots of threads in my thought work group are around relationships: having someone or not having someone during pandemic. What I’m seeing is everyone is suffering in some way through this, no matter what situation they are in. I make a list of people to check in on.

Sunday, March 15th
Governor orders all restaurants, bars, and non-essential services must close up. No gatherings more than 50. WTF.

***Self-Quarantine Starts***
QDay 1: March 16
I canceled work for the next 14 days because my throat is a little scratchy and my nose is runny. I’m pretty sure it’s just a cold but I definitely don’t want compromise anyone’s immune system. I thought about getting tested but Ryan tells me they don’t have enough and are prioritizing health care workers and severe cases.  I’m going to try to fully quarantine just to be super safe.

We can be carriers and show no symptoms at all. The girls’ neighbor looks really sad that we won’t make an exception to let them bike together 6 feet apart. I know they  visit grandparents and I’d feel incredibly guilty if they got sick because I let the girls play together.

QDay 2: March 17
I was able to get a video session online with my therapist. It’s sort of wonky and she cuts out. Her computer view makes it seems like she’s hovering over me which is a little intimidating. I seem fine for the most part but I find that once I’m with my therapist, I just fall apart and cry the whole session. I haven’t done that in a long time. I guess this is still my one really safe space.

The entire session I talk about how  I’m feeling like a shitty parent. Penny is having a lot anxiety and I’m having trouble calming her down. I get frustrated. I’m trying to wrap my head around having them home all day. It gives me Postpartum Depression flashbacks where I felt like I wasn’t ever doing enough. Ryan says to not put so much pressure on myself and do some easy half-days. I’ll try that. Things are changing so fast and I feel paralyzed by the speed of trying to adapt each day.

QDay 3: Wednesday, March 18th
I decide to get the girls on a Zoom chat with some friends over lunch. It’s a little awkward because they can’t play with each other, just talk. They got used to it after 15 minutes though. L called me today with news of a new girlfriend and he’s totally smitten. This news is the best piece of info I’ve gotten in what seems like forever. I’m so happy to hear how his voice lights up talking about it. It makes me realize how I really haven’t felt very happy in awhile. I bought like $70 worth of aromatherapy products for Penny. I’m trying every strategy possible for her to get more sleep. She gets so anxious at night.

QDay 4: Thursday, March 19th
I am exhausted after teaching even a half day of home school. I’m making them call me “Mrs. J” and wearing a headband/heavy eyeliner when we are in school hours. The persona feels like improv and keeps the girls on task and me too. Plus, they don’t try to negotiate with me on activities like they would  their mom. I nap for 3 hours after each day. Drinking tons of coffee. I’m just exhausted. I’m scared  I might be going back into that black hole of Depression. CA is now officially in shelter-in-place. I’m surprised we still aren’t doing that too considering we are an epicenter.

QDay 5: Friday, March 20th
The weather is sunny! Thank goodness. I really need it. I go for a walk at Discovery Park and people still don’t seem to be social distancing. Friends are still gathering. I wouldn’t know there was a pandemic looking at everyone. It’s kind of weirding me out. Do people not get it?

QDay 6: Saturday, March 21st
I took the girls down to a secluded section of the beach today. We keep acceptable distance but still everyone seems like they aren’t super careful about it. We need some fresh air. I want to be by the water and in the sun.

My writing piece is performed and streamed online tonight. We do a cast/crew after party on a group Zoom call with drinks. We talk about getting together and doing it on stage live when this is all over.

QDay 7: Sunday, March 22nd
I attend an online session with Seattle Somatic Healing. In breakout session, I get paired with a girl that looks like a friend I used to have. We answer the questions “what 3 things will we do to take care of ourselves?” and “How did the exercise make us feel?” We both comment that we have disconnected from our bodies and all up in our heads. I feel better talking 1:1 not about what’s happening around us but only what’s inside us. It feels a bit healing.

QDay 8: Monday, March 23rd
I feel like I need a Zoom sabbatical. It’s like I can’t do anything unless it’s on Zoom. I tell the girls that we should make this week unofficial “Spring Break”. They’re super excited about it.  I just need a brain break.

I called my credit card today to tell them I couldn’t pay. They haven’t come up with a program yet but I’d rather just refuse to pay and have cash for the rest of the month. Certainly a global crisis warrants such an action, right?

I painted a waterfall today since I have so many unused paint supplies. It turned out pretty good. So that’s something.

QDay 9: Tuesday, March 24th
Another online therapy session today. I’m trying them a week apart right now because I feel like a lot is coming up for me with all this free time. I cry the whole session again. Penny had a Zoom session with some classmates and their counselor who is checking in on them.

We play ‘Drawful’ online with sister and her bf on Playstation. We all laugh so hard with how ridiculous some of them are which feels like old times. I miss belly-laughing like that. I almost forget everything. Need to play this game more often.

QDay 10: Wednesday, March 25th
Okay, I think I’ve officially checked in with all my people. I think I am actually socializing like WAY MORE than usual despite being in quarantine. Everyone is worried but healthy and safe so far. Most conversations I’m having are 1-2 hours long with 1-2 people a day. I might just go into full solitude now that I’ve checked in with everyone.

I run 3 miles today to our closed climbing gym and back. Then I do a HIIT workout when I get home. And 5 pull-ups with an assisted band. I’m so sore but I can’t get to that space where my mind blanks out. Blah.

QDay 11: Thursday, March 26th
Ryan’s sister called today driving home from a particularly hard shift at the ER. She says that people there are dying that are our age now with no medical history. She tells us this is real and we need to take quarantine seriously. I hear Ryan’s recalling of it and I feel a little more grave about everything. I run 3 more miles.

QDay 12: Friday, March 27th
They moved the BIPOC caucus for Lama Rod (Buddhist) online tonight. They talk about impermanence, trusting the practice, and letting the earth hold you. I feel so peaceful and loving.

An infant died from the virus today. It’s probably mutating and it’s seeming more possible any of us could die if we catch it. It makes me think about if I would regret anything if someone I knew died. So I text-apologize my ex-friend for the way I ended things 7 weeks ago. He is accepting. I feel really good for a few hours because the exchange goes as ideal as I could imagine, feels like closure. Then, I feel really sad again because… just everything.

I hurt my hip the other day but I walk three miles anyway.

QDay 13: Saturday, March 28th
I spent the day rewriting my article called, “The Colonization of Fear”. I want to talk about how fear colonizes us first before viruses do. I’m trying to tie it into how marginalized communities are affected by this disproportionately. I sit in on some of Lama Rod’s second day teachings. I write down notes like “liberation in relationships” and “Alone vs. Lonely”.

QDay 14: Sunday, March 29th
I point out to Ryan that he’s doing that thing he does when he’s avoiding his feelings. He stays over-stimulated at all times by either cleaning, working, or having something in his ears from morning until night.  He’s home all day and I feel like I see him less somehow. I have no idea how he’s feeling and neither does he, apparently.

A friend on Zoom does my tarot reading. The card “Ice-olation” comes up with a ice guy crying rainbow tears. It says I need to cry more over stuff. I don’t really want to.

QDay 15: Monday, March 30th
I had a hard time getting out of bed today. On my phone trying to distract myself for an hour. Uh oh, that’s a bad sign.

I tell my therapist about it. I let myself cry so hard that I’m blowing my nose an embarrassing amount of times. Some deep shit coming up for processing around my childhood, safety, and unmet needs. Damn.

I ask Ryan again how he’s feeling with some probing questions. Penny suggests he do a thought model. We do it and what tumbles out for him is he fears for both his own safety and his sister and brother-in-law who are working the ER despite having 3 small kids and a pre-teen. When he says, “I can’t keep anyone safe” I start to cry. Because it makes me feel helpless too. We come up with new thoughts to replace his anxious/fearful ones, “At this moment, I am safe and healthy” and “When I stay home, I protect people”. He comments that he hasn’t felt anxiety like this before.

I basically cry on and off all day.  I’m tired. But I promised myself I would try my experimental idea of staying up 11pm-1am in my Zoom Room in case anyone can’t sleep and needs company. I’m calling it, “Late Night Listeners”. So I grab the large beer I was going to use for beer bread and drink all of it easily. Three friends come online with me (and a fourth one tries to join) and it’s really good company. We talk until almost 1am. I’m loud and happy and laugh a lot. I find that the idea actually helped me more than the other way around.

QDay 16: Tuesday, March 21st:
Three different people also communicated they were having a hard time getting out of bed or sleeping. Damn. Definitely not just me. I think I’m getting a little delirious from all the home time. Last night I took Abbey’s hand and started punching myself in the face and saying jokingly, “What are you doing to me, Abbey?!” We laugh hysterically but seriously I might be losing my mind a little already.

I emailed my clients finally today to tell them I cancelled all appointments for the rest of the month. Some offered to pay me partially anyway to help me get by. I also offered Zoom coaching for anyone who might need help grooming their dogs themselves. Hopefully, that’ll fill my income for now? We’ll see.

Losing Quietly, Part 2

This is where the ugly cry begins.

I feel like I have no control. Scared. Uncertain. Scared of the Looming Uncertain.

What do you do when you observe someone you love descending into heavy mental illness? What do you do when you see it hinting at the margins of their life, moving closer and closer to it’s center, threatening to eclipse the person you once knew? What do you do when you know YOU are the one trusted confidante of the symptoms they hide? If you know that, you and only you, can be the sole agent in intervention? What do you do when you are pretending to be calm and understanding when underneath you are screaming and afraid at the core of your body?

I’ll tell you what you do. YOU FREAK THE FUCK OUT.

Your brain fogs up. You cut out anything uncertain, anything potentially frustrating. You cut out any extra, unrelated emotional labor. You text people and they ever really see for minutes if they’re watching is “…” You stare off into the distance in the corner of a coffee shop, frozen. Almost catatonic. You cry silently while you research symptoms, while you skim article after article of what you can do as a loved one. Your mind goes to all the Bad Places.

You feel helpless.

But then you start making calls. Finding resources. You say completely inappropriate, overly personal statements over the phone to the person who merely is trying to transfer your call to the right department.

It could sound something like this:

“How can I help you?”

“Yes, I need someone who can tell me what to do when you are cycling into a Depression Abyss because your friend is about to kill themselves?” [This isn’t what I actually said. But it was about the same amount of inappropriate-starting-statement.]

“Ummm….”

“It’s not me. Asking for a friend.” [This is pretty much what I actually said.]

It’s kind of a hilarious juxtaposition if only I had room to laugh.

It’s really my defense mechanism: I tend to cut morbid tension with completely inappropriate humor or smiling. I once laughed hysterically, almost to tears, for a straight 2 minutes when I told my a group of my closest friends a recently discovered hidden family secret. Because, you know, we all have them. It’s merely a matter of whether we find them out or not.

They were like, “I don’t understand. Why are you laughing?!”
“I don’t know. Because it’s kind of ridiculous, right?!”

The grief here is the illusion of the future you imagined. I suppose I see people around me as somewhat static like characters in a TV show. Sure, they go through shit and evolve along the way. But at the core, they’re always going to say that “catch phrase” that reminds you that they are still them. The familiarity of the people you have grown to love is going to stay definitive and present, unchanging in some way. Always.

But what if that gets ripped away? What if Joey from Full House doesn’t say, “Cut it out” anymore with his scissor mime? What if he replaces it in later seasons with an apathetic shrug and a dead look in his eyes. It’s not a very feel-good show anymore, that’s for sure.

And that’s not all. No.

What if another loved one a few weeks later then tells you they are sick? And the possibilities heavily suggest the dreaded C-word? What if it suggests not just the C-word but an aggressive one? A 95% mortality rate one?

Well, first you feel numb. And wonder why you are numb.

Then, YOU FREAK THE FUCK OUT. Part 2.

And then you wipe up the tears from your ugly cry, kiss your husband both at the nape of his neck and into that familiar crook of his shoulder, the spot that miraculously continues to dry somehow despite it’s constant barrage of waterfalls, and then you go to your all-day writing workshop.

Let’s not forget the unfolding uncertainty that is the Larger Picture. For one: I’m living in the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. (Hooray.) Also, it’s an election year. (Double Hooray.) These parentheses are also sarcastic, Friends.

Humor makes things bearable. I prefer it.

I got it together though. At least for the moment. All there is is each moment. That sobering thought makes me feel insane. Or sane. Depending on the quality of the moment.

When I feel unhinged, descending into a howling Panic Tornado, I call my people or I write. Or I go for walks near water. Or I take a bubble bath. Or I play Dr. Mario. Or I climb until I’m sore. Or I type out thought models. Or I binge-watch Parks and Rec reruns again. Or I research. Or I get a drastically different haircut. Or I furiously clean my living space…

Essentially, I look for things that are within my control or I look for moments that bring relief. Or that at least bring me to neutral.  I’m throwing everything including the kitchen sink into my deceivingly-large Mary Poppins bag, my emergency coping toolkit. They’re not all the best tools but I have many choices out of my plethora of different options. The thought of having some choice when things feel uncertain gives me some peace of mind.

Nothing has yet definitively changed but it overshadows like storm clouds that may or may not form. I’m watching that moment those shadows start to ally together, coalesce and crawl up from the valley and over the mountains, slowly veiling the world I used to know. I’m packing supplies in advance in case it decides to storm. I’ve already started grieving.

Grieving in advance.

Losing Quietly

I ugly cried Saturday morning.

I can’t take another loss, the mere threat of it. Or so I am tempted to think.

I cycle through stages of grief: angry, sad, bargaining, bargaining, bargaining, depression, denial, more bargaining, acceptance. Bargaining again. Acceptance. Anger.

(I bargain quite a lot. It’s exhausting.)

I pulled out a paper I remember looking over when learning about “Grief Counseling” when I was on the Pastoral Care Team. It details all the different ways we grieve that are never acknowledged.

We can grieve losses of parts of ourselves. Psychological losses of self (like hopes, illusions of safety, mental processes, or body integrity), physical losses of self (like sensory or surgical or thought/mood regulation), and social losses of self (like roles or status or community). We can grieve losses that are characteristically “disenfranchised” like the loss of pets, miscarriage, secret love affairs, suicide, drug overdoses, or losses by the elderly. We can grieve losses of significant people in our lives through death, divorce, separation, desertion, illness, disability, aging, or geographic moves. We can grieve developmental losses across our lifespan. We can grieve the old and familiar because growing involves letting go.

To think that we rarely know how to address the death of loved ones, such an obvious and clear one, and then there are all these other losses we harbor with no acknowledgement, is just beyond me.

Reading it again reminded me that my emotions make sense. I keep trying to make space to grieve and listen to myself. It keeps changing, pops up suddenly or in waves. Compounding and intersecting. I keep trying to feel, accept, and then move on. Because living means I’ll need to get used to grieving. Because growing means having to continually say goodbye.

I fucking hate goodbyes.

This paper here says that identifying my losses are “important”, so that “we can understand and grieve them”. (These are sarcastic quotes, Dear Reader, although you can’t see my gesticulation of it.) So I’ll attempt to detail them here. Even though I don’t fucking want to, I’m going to do it. Rip off the proverbial band-aid, as they say.

Pet Loss
Animals are extremely important to me. I crossed oceans for the first time by myself to understand them better. I spent a decade learning to build compassion with them professionally. I have spent a lifetime adoring them.

Last year I lost so many important family members. Both our dogs, Addy and Luv, died. Luv’s death was incredibly emotional for our entire family. We all put a hand on her and said a prayer before we walked into the vet and Penny, our typically more stoic daughter, burst into tears. I volunteered to be with her by myself while Ryan stayed outside with the girls. She was in my arms in her last moments. I felt the moment she left, an upward whooshing feeling.

Luv, our Westie, is the most trusting and chill dog you’d ever meet up until the moment of her last breath. When we left the vet, there was a double rainbow in the sky that wasn’t there before. Now every time we see a rainbow, the girls and I say that Luv is saying hi. We saw so many those next few weeks and it felt oddly comforting, even if it wasn’t true

Luv says hi with another double rainbow a few weeks later in Alderbrook.

I had a particularly hard time with Addy dying, our Border Collie mix. She was the first dog I ever adopted as an adult. I trained her from the moment we got her. Once we did agility training and the trainer watching us together said, “She has all her heart strings attached to you. I can see it.” Those strings ran both ways. I can’t talk about her being gone in person, not too deeply. This one hurts too much.

I miss her so fucking much.

My family’s dog in San Diego, Sally, our Mini Aussie, died quietly middle of last year. She was the dog from my childhood. I think I was still in high school when we first got her. She ran with me when I trained for my first marathon. Super fast and flighty. She used to do high jumps on the fence when she saw me at the door. I used to call her pet names like Cookie or Sweetie. She’s the only living being I have ever given corny pet names. The way she died was devastatingly sad. I wish I had been there to help her move on.

Sally, my childhood dog

My sister’s dog on the East Coast, Evie, a Corgie mix, died too. She was sweet and obedient, even if she wasn’t super into cuddling. You had to earn her affection which made me feel special when she looked forward to seeing me. She was my sister’s first dog too I think. The last time I saw her I was fetching her old lady medication, a labor of love I didn’t mind at all doing.

They were all of old age and lived good lives. I know, as a pet professional myself, that it’s not silly to talk about how much they meant to me. But I just can’t.

Except I just did a little here. And that helps a bit.

Friendship Loss
I broke up with a friend recently. It’s hard. And I hate it.

I thought about every possible scenario that could potentially make it work. But it just didn’t. I still keep trying to bargain over and over in my head anyway. Or even with other people who think more logically than me in my emotional state. I feel so emotionally attached. More than usual. Even though I know the reason that is, it doesn’t make it any easier for me.

They feel like break-ups.

I think they feel like that because there’s a point I decide to really let people into my heart. I love them hard, more than I ever let on. In some ways, I think of my relationship with my friends as “emotional polyamory”.  I don’t see friends as life accessories, I see them as life partners. I choose my friends with extreme intention, based on our ability to emotionally and intimately connect. On my vision board is a quote that says, “If I’ve got a group of people whom I know I love, I don’t want to risk time lost from them and given to someone else.” I make time for my people and I don’t have much time for anyone else.

I almost picked a fight over something tiny with Ryan in my need to redirect my turmoil. Instead, I caught what I was doing before I did it and took a conscious pause. Then, I let my guard down and asked him to hug me, cried while wrapped in his arms. I murmured into his shoulder, “I hate the moment when I know it’s not going to work out.”

This isn’t the first time he’s consoled me at the end of a connection fizzled dark. Ugh, I hate that relationships are 50/50 (or at least that’s my requirement for them now). I’D LIKE TO BE IN CONTROL OF ALL OF IT, PLEASE AND THANK YOU. How about I just tell them what to do and they just do it? Stupid boundaries I have to make for myself now. Stupid. (That’s my anger-grief speaking.)

I’ve had to break up with friends before and, because of the intimate nature of my brand of friendship, it’s usually for the same reason. They’re not ready to meet me where I’m at and I just can’t meet them where they are at. A compromise can’t be made because it would compromise who we are as people or where we are on our journey. We can’t go back to being acquaintances or lower-tier friends anymore because we’ve already gone too far. We can’t go back to previously professional relationships, if that applies. It’s doomed to fail.

Not all friends are meant to be life-long, even if I wanted them to be.

It still hurts sometimes though. But this is what loving without guarantees looks like. It’s still always worth it. So when a wave of grief hits, I listen to songs to help me sit through it. My favorites right now are The Used’s “Noise and Kisses” and Finneas’ “I Lost a Friend”. (That whole Finneas album is good anyway, FYI.) For this lost friendship in particular, I love Finneas’ line, “How the hell did I lose a friend I never had?”

You get me, Finneas. You get me.

****To Be Continued****

The Journey To Wise Mind

This is a continuation of “Difficult Emotions, Under the Microscope”. Read that first if you’d like the full meal deal.

***

Rational is not the answer.

I used to think it was. But it’s not.

I used to think that if I felt really angry, for instance, I could just release it somewhere safe– onto a page, in a dream, or venting with a friend. I’d let it drain like water down the sink. Once I had emptied my body of that emotion, I’d be clear-headed and completely rational. Then, with a rational mind, I would finally talk about the subject devoid of emotion with the person I needed to discuss it with. Or I’d just let it go without discussion. I’d be so bomb-proof emotionally that whatever reaction they had wouldn’t affect me. Because I was already over it.

I thought the “proper” emotional trajectory was the following:
Emotional Mind> Rational Mind > Talk to Person or Let Go > The End

Or, when I had even less coping skills, I’d try to attempt the following:
SUPPRESSED EMOTION > Supposedly Get Back To Rational Mind > Don’t Bother Anyone With This or Let it Build Up > Never Tell Them or Explode One Day Over Something Minor Or When Reminded Of It Again > The End

Nope.

These both fail for different reasons.

In the first trajectory, the person I talk to never gets the real emotional feedback that we are built to read from each other. If I say I was angry but they never see a trace of it on my face, they might get it intellectually but the truth doesn’t sink in. This is just me attempting to be a robot talking about the past.

In the second trajectory, well…. this is what we call “bottling it up” or “sweeping it under the rug”. Or plugging our ears and saying, “La la la I don’t hear you, Emotion!” Who has ever had that work out in their favor? And how much extra energy does that suck up manipulating our own emotional drama.

There’s a piece missing here: Wise Mind.

Wise Mind is the true ending to my emotional process. It’s highly productive in conversations where I plan to resolve a conflict with another person. It looks like this:

Now that I actually let myself feel my feelings (that’s called emotional maturity, Friends), I’ve found that I can get to Wise Mind with relatively little bruising along the way. I’m not bumping into my own resistance quite as much. Well… depends on the situation and how deep it hits. But for the most part, I’ve really made huge strides on how much internal drama I put myself through.

Sometimes I get to Wise Mind and there’s no reason to talk to the other person at all. My logic and emotions mix together and they tell me it’s not worth it or it’s not what I want. Or maybe it wasn’t ever about the other person at all, doesn’t involve their input for resolution. It’s an interesting new space to exist in.

But talking to people from a place of Wise Mind, when I do, is super interesting. I have worked so hard to never show a negative emotion around others thanks to, yet again, woman conditioning. Letting it bleed through as feedback (but have it processed enough that I’m not flying off the rails) feels like breaking a silent code. But I do it and still stay rational. I still keep my tone within range but with some sharp notes. I also don’t direct anger at anyone as much as I do at a situation.

I have to muster up a lot of courage to do it. Wearing negative feelings on your sleeve in a way that’s both productive and vulnerable isn’t easy stuff. I do “emotional labor” assessments now. I ask myself questions like:

“Is it worth it?”
“Is this an emotionally high leverage situation?”
“Am I willing to do the work here and not have it available in this other area of my life?”

It’s surprising. My optimistic self wants to vehemently say yes. Always.

But many times the Wise Mind answer is actually no.

Even when the answer is no, I’ve walked into plenty of situations willing to do it anyway. The results of my forced courage in these cases haven’t been pretty. It’s me just banging my head against the wall. Unheard and Disappointed. Typically, the other person never really comprehends how draining it is to make that choice. And how much faith I put in them to walk in with this intention to work it out. I have done it enough times to see that it’s mostly me witnessing emotional reactivity while I’m trying to strategize, articulate, empathize, and manage their safety all at once. It’s me drained long afterwards.

I have learned my lesson from one emotional concussion too many.

It is this: I only have a finite amount of energy.

Use it mindfully. Use it wisely…. with a Wise Mind.

Difficult Emotions, Under the Microscope

Photo Credit: Sydney Sims

I am processing difficult emotions this week.

When I say my emotions are “difficult” what I mean is that I have a lot of resistance to that particular emotion. As a 2-year old would scream “I DON’T WANNA!!!!!!”, and then throws themselves down and cry over something rando, such is my own inner child in the face of difficult emotions. Difficult emotions make me want to kick and scream in resistance, suppress it or deny it or judge it. Anything but process it. Anything but see it simply and clearly for what it was without adding any additional baggage to it.

My most difficult emotion to process is anger.

My mindless inward reaction is to shame it. In my mental space, anger is not welcome. It is evil. It leads to bad things. It doesn’t make me a “good woman”. It makes me a difficult woman. It makes me a nuisance. It makes me dangerous. It makes me irrational. You aren’t welcome here, Anger, you make me a terrible person.

My mindless outward reaction is to be loudly silent, but with its ferocity shooting out a piercing, concentrated bullet-gaze in double. Not quiet, but deathly silent. If I have to respond to a question, it is short and largely punctuated because I don’t want to say something I will regret. I know what I’m thinking will come out as a verbal barrage of punches that won’t stop until the person pinned underneath my vocal-assault is helplessly flesh and blood. I’ve never lost my shit this way, never said anything purely to hurt another person without restraint. Not verbally, not physically. But I know I’m capable of it. So either I’m bomb-ticking silent, I exit stage left with a quickness, or both. Whatever option is available.

Other difficult emotions: sadness, hurt, love. I am also processing these emotions this week too alongside anger. These are the list of emotions I have a conflicted relationship with. We have sort of a make up-break up cycle going on. We are working on our trust and communication issues with each other.

A way to look at it is to say that some emotions I feel have another layer of emotion piled on top of them. They aren’t singular emotions, they are compounded 2-ply emotions. The 2nd layer of emotion is usually shame. Sometimes, they can even be 3-ply—like shame and guilt, that’s a fun one to navigate — and that can be difficult to see because it all just looks like one big pile of shit at first glance.

This makes them more complicated to navigate especially if I get too immersed in them, if I don’t sit as The Observer as I experience them. The stronger the emotion, the harder it is to take the seat as Observer. It’s something you just learn to accept and roll with as you practice it though. Just get back on the throne when you find you’ve slipped and fell on the floor. It’s as simple as that. Simple isn’t always easy though. I know that from experience.

The goal for me when I process any difficult emotion is to get from “emotional mind” to “wise mind” with as little resistance and self-flagellation as possible. Ideally, I’d like to move through this trajectory quickly and easily, smooth and practiced. But I’m still working out the kinks of old habits. So mostly it looks like pronounced squiggly lines, then a smoothing out, then maybe a few more squiggly lines, and then I reach it.

Emotional mind is my inner 2-year old, my most emotionally reactive state. When in emotional mind, my brain responds by going into “black-and-white” thinking, seeing  everything in stark binary, as a means of energy-efficiency and survival. For me, this usually looks like writing a personal, uncensored journal entry where I throw an inordinate amount of expletives, maybe whole sentences completely in CAPS, and yelling about how such-and-such person is bad and I am justified in my complete and pure goodness. In my emotional mind, if I were to direct it at anyone, I would go straight for the throat. This is why I exit the scene when I feel emotional mind starting to take over the stage. In some cases, I push it down so hard, to protect the other person(s) involved or take care of their feelings first, that it doesn’t surface until 2-3 days after the inciting event. I call this “delayed processing”.

Because some emotions are 2-ply, sometimes it can be hard to let myself go uncensored in any space, even if its completely private. What I’ve learned is that I used to make every thought I birth into existence mean something about myself. But this is the very definition of constant self-judgment and a guaranteed recipe for mental illness. My old way to deal with this was to just try and keep those “mean thoughts” hidden in the subconscious. If it remains unsaid in my mind then it doesn’t exist, right? Wrong. It’s actually how I end up doing actions I don’t understand, by responding to subconsciously-stored feelings. It leads to a scavenger hunt in my brain to track down what emotion is running the show and digging up what thought is pushing the emotion into bloom. It takes up way more energy than just letting myself have a “tantrum room” where I get to lose my shit internally for awhile.

Isn’t the mind super interesting?

It used to scare me when I didn’t know where I was going. Now that I’ve learned to navigate it with more clarity, I find my own “inner research” super fascinating. Thank goodness for “mind guides”, those people who hold your hand and help answer your questions, those people who keep you centered while you try to make sense of it all, aka therapists.

Now that I recognize how intense my self-judgment can be, how normalized it has become from a lifetime of habit formation, I know better. Now I get to choose whether or not I want a thought to have weight. Or I think more neutrally about it in general. For instance, if I wrote something like, “Fuck this person.” Instead of responding to myself with, “Oh shit, that’s a really bad thought. I’m a terrible person.” I say something like, “Oh shit, I’m really angry. This is just something brains do when we’re angry. It doesn’t mean anything about me as a person.” Then I let my 2-year old go off on the page for awhile, swoop in when she starts to yawn from exhaustion. That’s when wise mind gets a chance to take over, cuddle the 2-year old back to her angelic self. I do this for pretty much any “negative” emotion I have to give myself an internal safe space to just be.

And that’s just the beginning.

****
Hm. This seems more like a research paper on my mind and mindful emotions than anything. This is already a lot of information so I’ll stop here now for Reader-Processing.

::::Cue in swirling pastel circles here::::

To be continued…