An Exercise in Grounding

Wassssup (entering old school today- tongue out and all).

I think we are all aware that the world is, well, to put it gently, “off”. Now, I could spend the next hour writing about how I am feeling and all the scary ideas that are running through my head. Most typically, this is exactly what I would do. I would want you to know your aren’t alone in this and we are all going through it together. However, I don’t think that’s helpful right now. I think we are all feeling the unknown and we all have a better understanding of just how intense anxiety can feel. So, I thought it might be best to switch it up on the interwebz for a moment. You know, share something that isn’t all about a pandemic, or anxiety, or toilet paper.

I’ve been racking my brain over the last few hours trying to figure out exactly what that would be. What I could write about when my mind seems to be consumed with all of these things and more. What would help me to slow down and for a moment forget I’m alone in my apartment, unsure about the state of the world?

Gratitude.

It’s so simple, I am surprised it took me a few hours to come up with it. Just hear me out, I know that sometimes it is annoying when you are feeling one way and people are like “just think of all that you have”. Sometimes it makes me want to puke in my mouth. Sometimes I want to be angry and scared and petty and vent and not think about all the good. Sometimes things just suck and I want to sit in that suckiness for a bit. We have every right to do so. There are other times though that thinking about all I have can alter my mood in ways I never thought it could. When a brain is on fire and is able to say I am thankful that I have water to put it out- that, my friends, is power. A power that is free of cost and fills up time and is totally doable in, let’s say, a quarantine situation.

Today I will be making a list of 25 things that I am so incredibly grateful for today.

1. The sun is shining, baby. Gettin’ that Vitamin D under my skylights as I am writing this.
2. I have a place to live.
3. There is food in my fridge, freezer, and cabinets.
4. My friends are amazing. They check-in on me. They call me. They send me texts. They remind me that I am loved. I may be physically alone in this apartment, but I am definitely not alone.
5. I have hobbies. I write and I dance and I run and all of these things keep me grounded.
6. I am working. People still need our care and I am going to help provide that care for as long as I am able to.
7. Netflix.
8. Hulu.
9. Disney+. (Yes, they all get their own separate numbers because that’s how grateful I am for each one.)
10. My family group chat right now is straight fire. We even got a water challenge going so we all stay hydrated.
11. Memers are on the top of their game. They say laughter is the best medicine and damn, Instagram has been saving lives with its pure comedic medicine.
12. I have a washer and dryer in my apartment. Thankful for this on a daily basis.
13. I am healthy.
14. I have running water.
15. Electricity.
16. My awesome book collection is, well, awesome.
17. Coloring books are a gift.
18. Fat activists/diet school dropouts reminding me that it’s okay to eat. That I don’t need to prioritize weight loss in this moment or any other moment. And that sometimes food is comfort.
19. Healthcare workers.
20. Grocery store workers.
21. Therapy. Talk about your feelings- get support.
22. Soap. and subsequently-
23. Lotion.
24. Candles aka therapy of the aroma variety.
25. I’m alive. And while life can seem so fragile, it’s that fragility that reminds us just how important it is to live it.

If you’re still feeling overwhelmed right now, just check-in with your body. You are here and that is enough right now. Maybe you could make your own list. If 25 seems like too much, think of 1. Maybe you’ll start and not be able to stop. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll remember all you have right in front of you. Or maybe you’ll just want to sit it in the suckiness for a bit. That’s cool too.

If you are struggling with any of the things on this list, like lack of food or TP or essentials in any way please reach out to me. I may not be able to help out a lot, but I will do what I can.

Also, if you’re just looking for an ear, I am pretty good at listening, or so I’ve been told.

A[wo]men

i

love

you

-simplicity

 

 

Cheers to the ordinary and mundane

Hello, my loves. Hope this post finds you dreaming glorious dreams after last weeks post and if not, I hope good dreams are just on the horizon for you.

This past week has been a week of some of the most lovely, mundane moments. While mundane is often thought of as synonymous with boring, for me I live for the mundane moments. Part of this stems from my trauma history. When living in trauma, we are often operating at a high level of survival mode at all times. Healing from trauma means that not every moment in my world do I need to feel like death and/or pain is lurking by. I can sit with friends, family, strangers and just sit. Before, when I was running on survival mode, sitting and just being with others was near impossible.

The lingering questions were always: Do they hate me? Am I safe with this person? If I make a mistake how will they respond? Can I be myself? Is it safe to be myself? Am I being too loud? Too opinionated? Too timid? Too awkward? Will they hurt me? Even just writing those questions I am exhausted. These questions though, were trying to keep me safe. However, in exchange for safety, I was willing to live without peace. What is safety without peace? It is a shell. It was a shell that I am grateful for. Regardless of how I was doing it, I was living. Without that shell, I wouldn’t be here today and I know that. However, now I am living in a different way. I now understand that peace can coexist with safety. Healing the injured inner parts of myself has allowed me to revel in the mundane because I equate mundane to peace.

One of those mundane moments was a recent conversation with a Lyft driver. He was a kind man who was late picking me up because he had stopped to help someone that had fallen. This person, who was still in the car, was clearly drunk. They became irate that he wouldn’t take them to their stop first. He was trying to explain it to them, but they got out of the car spewing something based on their assumption of his race. His cheeks became flushed as he tried to explain the situation to me, sharing he was fearful that I would report him. “I just wanted to help” he kept repeating. I could tell, he really did just want to help. I assured him that I had no intention of reporting him.

After he realized I would not be reporting him he appeared to be more at ease. He changed the conversation to more small talk. A fun fact about me is that I love talking to my Lyft drivers, some of the greatest conversations I have had have been with my drivers. Where are you from/what do you do type questions is how it started. Then, he became very intrigued when I said I do crisis counseling.  This driver, we’ll call him Frank since I don’t have permission to use his real name, said “what does a crisis counselor do? Can you give me an example?” “Well” I said, “for example if someone feels suicidal, I help assess them. Perhaps help them work through the feeling or try and get them more support if they need it.”

He paused for a moment. I could see him thinking a lot of thoughts all at once. His face was full of curiosity. He continued “Can I ask you about that more? I have a lot of questions, but you can stop me at any time.” “Of course” I responded. “Why do people get this way? Why do they want to die? Is it something in their head? Are they sick? Is there medicine they can take? How do I help people that feel this way?” His questions went on and on. He was not kidding when he said he had a lot.

In the name of honesty my first thought before allowing him to ask his questions was ‘Frank, please don’t make me work today. I am tired and don’t want to social work’. Then I took a deep breath and thought ‘what else am I going to talk about for the next 20 minutes, might as well talk about something I know’… and I was so glad I did. We talked about stigma and sitting with hard feelings and all the things I am passionate about. As I left the car, Frank said that he was glad to learn something new today and happy that he has more ways in which he can help others. I thanked him for the conversation and for wanting to help others. I also thanked him for the ride and tipped him graciously and made sure to give him 5 stars and a good review. Frank was a good dude.

I smiled as I exited the car thinking about those simple moments in life. Those moments where we can connect, human to human, and those walls that I used to so fiercely put up now closely resemble foam pits that I sometimes dive into or sometimes gently walk over.

This, my friends, is the power of healing. Unwarranted fear becomes the mundane. Simple conversations no longer produce anxiety. Mistakes are no longer the worst part of living, but rather a simple fact of life. The question of ‘am I safe’ often answered with an affirmative answer- yes.

It’s wild because this time last year, I was at rock bottom. I didn’t feel safe anywhere. I was hurting and years and years of untreated trauma, depression, and anxiety came to a head with the ending of my relationship. I didn’t know how to trust people. I felt safest under my covers and even then my thoughts were so dark that I would need to put my headphones in to drown them out. My roommate would come home to find me on the couch, unable to move, trying to coax me out, in any way she could think of. A year later, with some really significant changes and hard work on my end, writing about those days when there was no such thing as the mundane sounds like a horror movie I once watched. Did Alfred Hitchcock take over my life script for a moment there? Who knows.

What I do know is that today, one year later, I feel ordinary and I wouldn’t want it any other way. This post is an ode to the ordinary and mundane, where life happens- when we are paying attention.

A[wo]men

wake up.

you are safe-

in the dark,

in the light.

in the water

in the forrest,

in the city,

and the country side.

with their thoughts,

with your thoughts

-you are safe.

go to sleep.

wake up.

you are safe-

-finding peace in the day to day

 

Complicating the Simple

STRESS

noun.

1. pressure or tension exerted on a material object.

2. a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.

verb.

1. give particular emphasis or importance to (a point, statement, or idea) made in speech or writing.

2. subject to pressure or tension.

Aka, me this week.

I have felt stress in the past, but I have not felt it like I did this week in a very long time. As a teen I would often get stomach aches from stress. I learned how to manage that stress… by moving out of my house (sorry mom)… and have not had somatic symptoms from stress since that time. Until now, that is. This week I had the heartburn from hell, I felt tired, and ill. I picked at my skin which is my little nasty habit when the stress is really bad. I ate junk food… A lot of junk food. I stayed up late because I couldn’t sleep and even when I did sleep my nightmares from the stress woke me up. This week was not my week.

There were many reasons I was stressed this week, but what caused the stress is irrelevant. The piece I would like to focus on is how I allowed the stress to takeover. Writing this blog about being stressed is stressful. Help me, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. I somehow entered a nightmare loop. The one where you scream, but no sound comes out. As it has been mentioned in my previous posts, I am a big fan of self-care. It is important to take time for ourselves to just sit with everything.

I did not do that this week. It isn’t because I didn’t have the time to. I had plenty of free time to take deep breathes, to meditate, to literally do anything other than stress. Instead though, I perpetuated the stress. I drank too much coffee. I didn’t go for a walk or a run, even though we had some of the nicest weather to date since me being on the island. I Insta stalked models to ensure self-loathing. The only form of self-care I have participated in is this blog and right now it feels more like a chore than something helpful.

I guess my point is that we burnout as humans when we let certain emotions overtake us. We are creatures of balance and when I get out of balance, I forget that I can level the playing field. I think one of my biggest faults is that I have the tendency to let life guide me instead of me guiding my own life. I perpetuate my own stress. I was going to go into work this weekend to catch up on notes. I’ve been stressed out at work all week and I was going to go into the place that was stressing me out… on my day off, so that maybe next week when I am at work all week I won’t feel so stressed about work? That logic is ridiculous.

I don’t want to be the person that says ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ So, I am making a promise to myself and to my readers: I will not go into work because it is my day off. I  will be present and lead my life the way I want it to go. In fact, in this exact moment I am going to take 5 minutes to breathe. Feel free to participate with me.

That felt fantastic. How beautiful it is that I can change the way I feel just by simply breathing. We humans, aren’t as complicated as we sometimes believe. If you are feeling stressed right now, remember that you are more important than any stress that comes along. Say it with me: “I am more important than stress. I am more important. I am important. I am. I am. I am.”

PS I know I said this blog feels like a chore, but by the end it always makes me feel better about where I am in life. Which is really like doing the dishes, if you think about it.