A Bump in the Road (or at least on my belly)

“Having spent my life avoiding commitment and running away from jobs and relationships when the going got tough, I wondered how on earth I would ever cope with the enormity of the life-long task ahead of me.”

~Lucy Taylor (Pregnant and Terrified)

Not wanting to admit it to myself or anyone else for that matter. Not wanting to be anything but what you’re supposed to be when pregnant – glowing and blissful. Excited about the endless possibilities this new life will bring to the world. But at close to twenty-five weeks pregnant, it would be silly for me to not accept responsibility for what I am feeling…feelings that are anything but blissful. Feelings that are complex and contradictory. I’m scared. I’m questioning if I’m doing the right thing. What makes me think I am going to be capable of this? And where the hell is my pregnancy glow?

I don’t know if I fully understood what was going on inside until about a month ago and have since been trying to figure out how to work with whatever it is. It was triggered by a little road trip we took to visit my husband’s family in Eastern Colorado.

To get to where his family lives, we had to drive past the airport. The airport is already far enough east of the city that there is rarely a need to go past it. In my very biased opinion, the state line ends just beyond the airport. Sorry Eastern Colorado. Park the car and get on a plane if you want to go any further to the east.

But we kept going this time.

As I watched the planes take off, I couldn’t help but feel as though I wanted to jump from the moving car and grab hold of their wings. I don’t think I could have spoken, feeling so choked up inside. But I wanted to yell, “take me with you! Don’t leave me behind. I’m not ready to let go.”

But what am I not ready to let go of? Not able to accept that everything is constantly changing and that change is neither good nor bad? Not being able to be in the present moment, this present place with people I love and care about, and be perfectly ok with it?

I thought about it a lot during that car ride and for weeks after. I’m still thinking about it. The best way I can put it is that I’m grieving a previous life – a pre-pregnancy, carefree one. Was I the happiest I could possibly be? No. But it was different.

How could it not be? In that life I could wake up, having rolled onto my back somewhere in the middle of the night, and not be concerned that I’ve just spent minutes or maybe hours cutting off blood supply to my unborn baby. Worried that this child might have some deformity all because I couldn’t stay in one position all night.

I’m already feeling like a bad mom and he’s not born yet. But maybe that’s what I get for reading all the blogs, sites and books that tell you how what you’re doing (or not doing) simply isn’t good enough.

And so I think back to the planes. I very selfishly wonder when I might fly again. When I might get to see somewhere other than the Denver skyline.

After that last flight with the child who screamed for the full two hours we were in the air, I decided I wouldn’t subject anyone, including myself, to that until I felt confident I could either calm them, or they’d be able to calm themselves. How long that will be, I’m not sure.

And then I felt incredibly shameful and guilty for even asking these questions. Millions of people never travel. Never been on an airplane. Are content being right where they’re at. No, not just content, but happy. Here I am feeling this incredible sense of loss having not lost, well, anything. All because I don’t have an impending plane trip planned and I’ve imposed a travel restriction on myself.

Ok, then just stop the grieving already. You haven’t lost anything and you’re about to gain a whole heck of a lot. Should be easy, right? But what about the ambivalence I feel?

While I was hoping that once I decided I was ready to have children I’d be able to with no problem, there was also this part of me that thought ‘what if I can’t?’ Maybe not being able to wouldn’t really be such a bad thing.

And so, at the same time as trying to have a child, I was planning for not being able to have one. Maybe we’d pick up and move across the globe. Do something spontaneous and adventurous. Pursue other passions. Life without a child would be just as ok as life with one. It would be just as rich and fulfilling. Wouldn’t it?

There was relief in seeing my monthly visitor come, knowing I could go out on Friday and indulge in a glass or two of wine with no concern. Yet, that relief shared the same space of sadness in thinking my body was rejecting being able to procreate. It wasn’t ready. When would it be ready? Would it ever be ready? What if I really do want this to happen and it’s not meant to?

Maybe I’m experiencing a little of what psychologists call antenatal or prenatal depression. Not given as much attention, or even acceptance, as post partum depression, I’m betting there’s a lot more women out there who feel this than are willing to step forward and admit it.

And while it would be easy to use this label as a scapegoat, just another condition in a long line of many and that maybe I should go see someone about it, I’m not convinced that’s the best approach.

I recognize these feelings as happening, but I also know I’m creating the stories that keep them circulating around and around in my head. No one is forcing me to stay in this space. Those planes aren’t leaving me behind. This isn’t personal. No part of me has died.

I don’t have nine lives. It’s not like one has been taken away and now I’m living another. It’s the same life, and I feel foolish in not appreciating its impermanence with every single moment changing.

I’m scared. Of course I am. I’m terrified of being a bad mom, responsible for someone else, not loving every minute of it. Can I handle giving birth, breastfeeding, sleepless nights, and eventually having to discipline (something that is not my strong suit)?

But maybe by being honest with myself and with the lovely little boy inside who will be making an appearance in three months or so, we will both have a richer, more fulfilling experience. A mommy who is far from perfect but wants to give him a happy and peaceful life in the face of anything thrown his way by doing my best to teach him that he doesn’t have to choose suffering.

I’m hopeful that being conflicted is normal, during each stage of this pregnancy and motherhood, and the more I try to deny that any of those negative, scared feelings exist, the more depressed I am thinking I’ll feel through blaming and shaming.

The lesson I am still learning is in not reacting to the negative risings. They will come. I have to choose to let them go.

I recently read about something called the sky mind in the book Mindful Motherhood by Cassandra Vieten. Thoughts, feelings and sensations are a lot like the weather. Sometimes the weather is awesome. Sometimes it just plain sucks. Like how this year’s May felt as though the incessant string of bad weather days would never end? But then they do. And the sky is blue again.

That’s because weather takes place in the larger sky; the sky that is always there. The sky that contains a bunch of different weather patterns, but remains inherently clear. We tend to attach to the weather patterns asking when is the next day of bad (or good) weather coming? How long will it stick around? When will it finally go away? Kind of like how I’m attached to the weather app on my phone. Maybe it’s time to delete it.

Putting a ton of energy into trying to change or control what I’m experiencing while pregnant, or any other time in the life I have left, is as futile as trying to change or control the weather.

The ultimate goal then is getting myself to realize that either the experience (this pregnancy, motherhood, my next flight with baby in tow, and on and on) will have me or maybe I can just have an experience and simply be aware of it.

“The lightning is what you’ll never get back. Watching these storms is like spending the night in life and death. A strike of lightning is a moment in time. We get thousands of moments, but the lightning reminds us that they’re all temporary.” ~ From  Phenomenal by Leigh Ann Henion.

5 Signs my relationship with Facebook might be toxic

After the drag-me-down-in-the-dumps-but-still-a-glimmer-of-hope last writing I posted, thought I’d do something a little lighter. A little more sarcastic. So, I decided to try understanding the love/hate relationship I have with Facebook. I still don’t get it.

Oh come on, we’ve all done it. The bad relationship we just can’t get enough of. Sure, being with him or her has all the appeal of watching a movie in which Madonna is the lead actress. But wait, they have moved on before you? I don’t think so. Please take me back. Please, please. Then we can do this all over again. Ok?

I’m discovering Facebook might just be one of these relationships. Let me give you a few reasons why.

1. I’m always wondering what you’re up to when I’m not around.

You carry on without me. It’s like I don’t even matter to you. But you know I can’t be away for long regardless of how many times I’ve tried to deactivate my account.

I try not to look, but the thought of not being able to roll over in bed in the morning, grab the iPhone and start picking through the very important status updates having occurred in the last eight hours, makes me ever so slightly lonely. How could I miss out on my favorite feed cloggers and enablers?

Facebook knows who I’m talking about. The feed cloggers who headline at least every other post with most thoughts, speech, and actions of their day. It’s comforting, really, to know that no matter how long it’s been since I’ve logged on – even if just ten minutes – they’ll always be there.

I can’t help but wonder what having a real, in-person conversation with them might be like. “Um hold on. I know you just said hello to me, but I’ve got to document that on Facebook…What did you ask? How am I doing? Oooo, that’s a good one. I’ll go ahead and document that too!”

And who can forget the enablers? Without them, the feed cloggers wouldn’t exist. They’re ones who ‘like’ everything the feed clogger is saying. Need I say more?

I often find myself feeling a little bad for the person who makes the random post and no one ‘likes’ it. Throw them a bone. Where is their enabler? So what if they came up with a fantastically witty status update but misspell a word?

2. I’m uncomfortable being myself around you.

Facebook, I try to be selective in what I communicate wondering if I’ll land myself in the dreaded “TMI” category. But I’m starting to think I may be one of the few who share this belief.

No, wait. I take that back. There are some Facebookers even more uncomfortable with being themselves around you than I. They are known as The Unnecessary Name Changers. Did I miss the memo stating it’s now cool to go by your first and middle name only? If it’s so important to you to hide your true identity, maybe you shouldn’t be on Facebook?

Oh, and you may want to stop tagging your parents and siblings by their full name. Unless they’ve also converted to the first/middle name fad, it’s not that hard to figure out what your last name actually is. Just a suggestion.

But, I digress. Facebook, let’s discuss the following:

• The TMI Parents. I’m glad your child went poop, but I’d also be ok not knowing about it. Thanks.

• The Vaguebookers. It exists in the Urban Dictionary as Vaguebooking and is defined as “an intentionally vague Facebook status update that prompts friends to ask what’s going on, or possibly a cry for help.” You know a vaguebooker in your life? Go ahead, help them out, and leave them something to this effect: “John, are you vaguebooking again?” Don’t worry they won’t be offended because they won’t respond. If they responded to any of the comments asking what’s going on, they wouldn’t be a true vague booker. Ten dollars to the person who can give me an example of when a vaguebooker has actually told its onlookers what’s really going on behind their cryptic update.
  • A helpful hint for those trying to figure it out? Get over it and move on with your life. There will always be another vaguebooker to wonder about.

• Super Obvious Status Updaters (to include the Weather Updaters). Yes, Captain Obvious, it’s sunny, it’s raining, there’s snow on the ground and it’s only September! Here’s the thing. If you’ve got a decent amount of “Friends” on Facebook, there’s a real possibility many live in your city. While I can appreciate the need to post the picture from your iPhone of the weather forecast, I’m hoping most of your friends have a window and aren’t shocked by your “OMG, it’s snowing!” status update.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad people are comfortable enough on Facebook to be whoever it is they want to portray themselves to be. And here’s a bonus, there’s likely an enabler in your fan club helping you do so.

3. You control who I see and what I do.

I get that you like to make sure I’m kept as informed as possible by displaying on my newsfeed the stories that have the most likes (or whatever algorithmic formula you use that helps determine what I see). But, I don’t exactly share your appeal in updating me on the intimate details of, let’s say, people’s pregnancies.

Take, for example, the picture we’ve all seen of the just peed on pregnancy test. They might as well have said, “hey, 464 friends of mine, I just went into the bathroom, pulled down my pants and peed on this here stick. I may or may not have gotten it on my hands, but don’t worry, they were washed before I pulled out my phone to take this picture. At least I think I washed them…”

Wait. So you’re telling me that if I stop clicking on those posts, well those and the seven paragraph ones that make my life feel so un-drama-filled-but-can’t-possibly-block-because-they’re-so-entertaining, I might not see them in my newsfeed as much?

Never mind. I’ll let you keep control. If I didn’t see that stuff, what would I have to talk about?

4. I make drastic changes in my appearance hoping you’ll find me more attractive.

Someone coined it the “Arm Triangle of Insecurity.” I can do it, really I can. All I have to do is stand with my best side turned a slight diagonal from the camera, hand on hip, elbow pulled slightly back, chin up revealing a slimmer version of myself while, at the same time, creating the illusion that my chest is faintly larger than it actually is. Voila. I’ve just changed my appearance. So why am I not getting any likes? Come on, Facebook. Where are my enablers?

Fine. I’m changing my profile picture to a donkey.

5. I find myself wondering if I’m in the wrong relationship.

Alas, you know I’ll never leave you.

But maybe, just maybe, you could check in with those folks over at MySpace and figure out how to let me have a theme song and those adorable falling snowflakes I used to be able to put on my page every holiday season. Mmmkay?

I love you too. Xoxo.

A letter for a friend

Dear friend,

You don’t understand. I know you don’t.

You wish you were pretty, you wish you were brave.

You think, “how did you come to this?” After all, you dream yourself a thousand times around the world, but cannot get out of this place. There’s an emptiness inside you and you’d do anything to fill it in.

You feel like kicking out all the windows and setting fire to this life. You would change everything about you using colors bold and bright.

But changing everything? Unattainable. Why would you change everything anyway?

Still, I know you’ve felt lonely times when you could not find a friend.

At night, you find it kind of funny; you find it kind of sad. The dreams in which you’re dying are, sometimes, the best you’ve ever had.

The morning comes. The day brings together the mixing of colors. But it breaks your heart when all the colors mix together to grey. Will that ever change?

Trying to understand, you sing along: It seemed to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind. Never knowing who to cling to when the rain set in. I would have liked to know you, but I was just a kid. Your candle burned out long before, your legend ever did.

You think about his song. It plays over and over in your mind. Though you see yourself a ‘nobody’ in comparison to his muse, something makes you think. It isn’t how you want to go. You don’t want to be snuffed out. Maybe there is still time to be a – somebody.

You are sitting outside. It’s the smell that stops your thoughts. It may be the last whiff of fresh cut grass this year. The days are getting shorter. The nights colder. The grass will no longer need cutting.

You feel an urge to give yourself a chance, an opportunity. To see another summer.

You fold your legs under your heavy body and push up toward the sky. It is not over.

You think about now. You’ve got the sun up there to clear away the clouds. So, why look back when there’s a stunning, blazing, so amazing…now?

You are potential. You are loved.

Signed,

Your friend,

who cares.

 

*Thank you to Sara Bareilles, Dave Matthews, James Taylor, Gary Jules, Elton John, and SheDaisy for helping me put her words to lyrics.

 

It’s remarkable really.

Write about a less-than-remarkable aspect of your life.

David Sedaris remarked during an interview with January Magazine that “My students were middle-class kids who were ashamed of their background. They felt like unless they grew up in poverty, they had nothing to write about…I felt sorry for these kids, that they thought their whole past was absolutely worthless because it was less than remarkable.”

Easy to do when feeling shameful and meaninglessness.

Easy to do when grappling with the reality of impermanence and death while I watch my last living grandparent slip further into the holds of dementia, losing her abilities to do anything for herself.

Easy to do when trying to explain to myself, and anyone else who wants to know, where I fit between not having a paying job and not yet being a mom.

And really easy to do when comparing myself to Chuck Norris knowing I will never be able to build a snowman from rain or delete the recycle bin from my computer.

Alright, maybe I don’t feel totally shameful about the last one, but, let’s face it, I’ll never be able to count to infinity. Twice.

So, yes, if I want to go down that road thinking that nothing in my life is really all that remarkable, I can do it. Just may not be productive, is all.

Remarkable realization # 1? I was born a human. Not a chicken. Not an ant. And, it may just be a supposition, but most reading this post were probably also born humans.

We have about a one in 400 trillion chance of being born human. To put that into perspective, I like the version I’ve heard in my mindfulness classes.

Think about one life preserver that has been thrown somewhere in some ocean and there is just one turtle in all the oceans, swimming underwater…somewhere. The probability of you, me, us existing today is the same as that turtle sticking its head out of the water straight through the life preserver…on the first try.

That’s kind of remarkable, huh?

What about breathing? Everyone reading this is breathing, right? How often do we really focus on the fact that we breathe? Probably not all that often. Something so simple, yet needed to live.

And eating? Everyone has to do that too.

I sat and ate breakfast with no distractions. Call it uni-tasking…not something that is really valued much in this culture. I didn’t have my phone out, Facebook open, music on. Silence. I just focused on what I was eating.

When I went on my 10-day meditation retreat this year, I ate in silence for every meal. It was difficult at first. I not only wanted to be entertained, but I was concerned I might be chewing too loud.

But then it became somewhat liberating not feeling like I had to be doing something else simultaneously or I was wasting time. It was nice to not be concerned about having someone ask you a question and then worrying about talking with your mouth full.

I highly recommend eating in silence sometime.

Ok, so I know these are very basic, but sometimes it’s good to start there as opposed to starting with a comparison of you versus, well, Chuck Norris.

It’s not too hard to find something remarkable even if, at times, I just plain and simply don’t feel like trying to.

It was a song that prompted me to write today. Feeling dumpy, I’m not sure any of the above would have been written had I not had a little inspiration. Hearing music, comprehending lyrics, letting it inspire you. I guess I could call that kind of remarkable.

Thanks to Michael Franti for his music today. Hard not to move a little to this one. Smile a little.

 

Flight ~ The good, the bad and the neutral

A former colleague of mine from Continental Airlines (now United) posted a picture on Facebook of our entire flight attendant training class from 2005. Talk about taking me back.

It set off a trip down memory lane for not just me, but there was an outpouring of comments from people who I’d lost contact with and would probably never have talked to again had it not been for Facebook.

It was really nice to see despite spending a little too much time in memories thinking about the what ifs. What if I went back? What if I’d never left?

I bounced back to the present quicker than I thought I would. I guess the work I’ve been doing in trying to stay in the present, not attaching to the fond memories of the past in an attempt to recreate them might actually be working after all.

Either that or it was the realization of what it is actually like at 40,000 feet: Asking passengers to not change their baby’s diaper on the tray table and then hand it to me to throw away, finding little brown droppings on the floor of the back lavatory, watching the gentleman in 1A, dressed in his dapper business suit, dig into his nose and then wipe it under the seat, requesting that the woman sitting in coach not remove her nail polish with acetone polish remover because the smell is making the whole plane sick, or having to explain to an irritated couple that the captain does not have us sitting on the tarmac with liquid washing over the windows because he has decided this is a good time to wash the plane – but that it’s actually de-icing fluid due to the blizzard I want to believe, hope, they saw from both the airport and now airplane windows.

Being a flight attendant is certainly not all about glamor. In fact, I’m not so sure how much glamor, if any, is left in the industry.

It did, however, help shift my attention from the aviation tragedies that occurred one after another in the last couple of weeks.

Flying, in its 111 years of existence, has had its fair share of the good and the bad. But, for the most part, it continues to be a very safe form of transportation. We’ve all heard the statistic that you are more likely to be killed in an automobile accident on the way to the airport, right?

So, most days are neutral. And when I think of neutral, I can’t help but turn to Switzerland. The infamous country of cheese, chocolate, breathtaking scenery, the bernese mountain dog, the always handy Swiss Army Knife, Heidi, and neutrality.

That’s where this little gem of a story ties into this discussion of flight.

Ethiopian Airlines flight 702, a Boeing 767 en route to Milan Malpensa International Airport in Italy, was hijacked by an unarmed co-pilot on February 17 of this year. 193 passengers and 9 crew members on board. All survived. Which, is probably why most never heard about it.

The 767 leaves Addis Ababa International Airport in the wee hours of the morning. Apparently, as the captain steps out to use the bathroom, the co-pilot locks the door behind him and takes control. As it is flying over Sudan, the airplane transmitter sends out a squawk 7500…or the international code for aircraft hijacking.

The co-pilot flies the plane past Milan and circles the Geneva airport multiple times (mostly because the airport doesn’t actually open until 6am with no room for negotiation – hijacking or not) while communicating with air traffic control that he would like to broker political asylum for himself and assurance he will not be extradited back to Ethiopia. Well, I suppose that’s one way to do it. But one could argue, maybe not the best.

The plane lands shortly after one of its engines flames out with only 10 minutes of fuel remaining. The co-pilot then exits the plane via a rope ladder he throws out the cockpit window. He walks over to police and turns himself in.

I certainly don’t mean to make light of what was a very real, very scary situation for all those on board, but I cannot finish this story without telling the best part.

As the plane crosses the Mediterranean and over the European continent, it is met by Italian Eurofighter and French Mirage fighter jets while flying through their respective airspaces.

Thankful for the assistance of the French and Italians, but Geneva is in Switzerland. Which might lead one to ask this question: And where is the Swiss Air Force?

At home. Fast asleep.

According to a Swiss Air Force spokesman, Laurent Savary, “Switzerland cannot intervene because its airbases are closed at night and on the weekend.” Ahha. That solves that mystery.

Had the hijacking occurred between the hours of 8:00am and 5:00pm (minus the hour and a half lunch break from 12-1:30 – no joke), AND it wasn’t a weekend (or a holiday), then yes, they would have helped out.

Read more on this story here.

 

Attaching.

My mom asks me “so, what are you up to today?” I freeze. Ugh. What am I up to today? What do I say? Do I say what I’m really up to or do I say what I think she wants to hear?

Anyone who knows me in the very least would probably guess I pick option B. I tell her exactly what I think she wants to hear. Busy, busy, busy. I have all these things in the works and I’m going somewhere. I promise, you’ll be proud of me.

But then, after a while, it’s hard to keep up the façade.

See, I figure if you tell someone that you’re doing nothing when they ask you what it is you are doing, it might make things a little…uncomfortable.

Why should my mom have to be the one who is working, and working hard at that, while I hang out at home playing around with a book I may or may not ever publish, watching video teachings on mindfulness and researching random topics like sinking cities? That’s not fair. I should feel guilt for that…hence, make it up so that it sounds like I’m doing something, right?

Enter the biggest source of my suffering right now. Attachment. Mainly, attachment to my own striving. What is it, in this moment, that I am so attached to I cannot move beyond the guilt and shame I am so very good at feeling?

It is all the things I should be aspiring for. Money, career, kids, travel, a better body and better hair. Need I forget I should have been able to run 15 miles today instead of only making it to 13. Loser.

For heaven’s sake, I should, at the very least, be aspiring to find what my true passions are. Isn’t that what this whole hiatus from the working world was supposed to be for me anyway? Well, you get the idea. I should be doing a lot of things.

But, for the sake of argument, suppose I let go of the attachment to that stuff and actually do spend the next week researching sinking cities – Venice, New Orleans, most of Holland – because I’m not so caught up in all the things I should be striving for. Could be freeing I suppose.

It’s not about not having any pleasurable experiences that come out of money, career, kids, travel, a better body and better hair. It’s about not attaching to them as a source of ultimate satisfaction. Because really, I’m sure you’ve heard this before, you aren’t your money, your career, your kids, the places you travel, the body or hair you have. But, knowing from my own experiences, I hear this stuff but don’t actually listen. Blah, blah, blah.

For example, I’d like to think I am my body right now. I have successfully convinced myself I am gaining weight.

I was obsessively weighing myself each day. Sometimes, multiple times a day. My lovely husband decided I’d had enough fun in my own misery and hid the scale.

Good for him for taking some action. And good for me because I went almost two weeks without the need for weighing. But, like all good things that come to an end, The obsession with thinking about gaining weight came back with a vengeance.

So, like any good person who enjoys making themselves suffer would do, I started brainstorming. If I were him, where could the scale go that she, me, would not think to look? Well, duh, it’s not going to be anywhere in the house (trust me, I searched). Unless he buried it in the backyard, it has to be in the garage.

He went off to work and I went off on my quest for the scale. It was a beacon of plastic silver light shining down at me from a shelf in the garage. Honestly, he could have done a better job at hiding it.

I proudly set it on the concrete floor and hopped on the scale just so I could verify my paranoia. Eek. A little higher than I’d like. I’ll take my shorts off because that should knock off a few ounces.

And why did I do it? Because I like to suffer! Makes me feel like a real human and now I have another excuse to feel bad about myself. Congratulations Jen!

Honestly, though, I’m not naïve enough to say I enjoy suffering. I just don’t know I’m doing it. It’s an innate part of the human condition that I accept as normal.

I suffer because of my own narcissism. I am attached to my body. It makes me who I am as Jen.

I suffer because of the clothes I have in my closet. Hardest thing for me to let go of even if I haven’t worn the thing in 2 years. There is that chance, however improbable it might be, that I will wear that shirt 2 years from now. I get rid of that shirt, and I can guarantee within a few days I will go looking for it. I’ll be wishing I had that one specific shirt, the one I never wanted before it was gone, to wear. What do I do? Let it go? Heavens no. I go buy another one just like it.

Seriously, I know I’m not the only one who does this.

I also suffer because I’m attached to my likes and dislikes. Take pickles. I loathe pickles. I hate when I don’t know they’re coming and they end up on the plate of food without my knowledge contaminating everything else that could have been edible around it with their slimy yellowish green pickle juice. This world would be a better place without pickles.

Right? We all can relate to this. Not pickles specifically, but something. This is all so silly, but it’s so easy to do.

Homework for the week then is to relinquish my attachment to the need to sound intelligent when asked the question of what I’m doing today. Easy enough? We’ll see.

I’ll spend this week instead learning a little more about sinking cities maybe. Maybe I’ll even share some of the knowledge I learn in my next entry.

Truth is, I am doing things today. Why would I want to tell myself what I’m doing is not good enough?

I’m a bad person because I don’t have a job.

Yes, the title of this sounds absolutely terrible, because it is. But worry not, I don’t actually think I’m a bad person or lazy for that matter.

Before explaining how important it is to back up from going down that road, here’s a story.

The story is not mine, but I like it. It’s one I heard a teacher at my 10-day mindfulness meditation retreat recount. This story occurs before his 3-year retreat in the Himalayas (and I thought 10 days was tough!).

He decided he’d go over to India few months early to experience the country. When he reached this particular city (the name escapes me), he asked his teacher, or Lama, for a recommendation of somewhere inexpensive to live. His teacher told him there were many vacancies and introduced him to a friend of his to locate an apartment.

Turned out there weren’t many vacancies. He did, however, find him an apartment above a tire shop in the center of town. Inexpensive? Yes. Might it be a bit noisy? Sure, but he figured he’d be gone most days exploring anyway. He unpacked his things, settling into this place that should promise a peaceful place for meditating in the evenings and set out to explore the city.

He returned that night to begin his peaceful sit when he heard the loud noises filtering up through the shop below. He tried to sit through, but they kept getting louder and louder with no reprieve. He wondered why they were open so late. Asking around, he found out that tire shops in India tend to stay open through the night to change truck tires as they are passing through larger cities.

And so he tried to live there a bit longer before going to his teacher and asking him what to do about the situation. He assumed his teacher would tell him that he needed to power through and should be able to sit with any distraction. A good meditator could. When he asked him what he should do, his teacher said with no hesitation, “move.”

There’s no way to do this story justice especially because most who hear it don’t know the background of the man who told it, but take from it what you will. Let it give some inspiration.

Had I heard this before I quit my job, it may have inspired me to do so. Or going further back, it may have given me the motivation to move…as many times as I did.

The meaning I take from listening to this story today is quite different. Something more along the lines of a change in the direction I want my life to go without trying to have a job or make a physical move in this present moment.

Ever read the children’s story We’re Going on a Bear Hunt? My nephews had this book and liked it when we would read the story to them. In my opinion, it’s actually quite terrible. Wasn’t a fan when they would pick this one to read.

The premise is this group of children, a baby and a dog go out on an adventure to look for a bear. The first page they leave the house. The next page, over a hill. The next page, through the water. Then through a snowstorm. And on and on. You get the idea. Or maybe you don’t. It drags until they get to the cave, wake up the bear, and run as he chases them. They run all the way back through all the places they’d just been until they get home and decide they’re not going on a bear hunt again. As my brother-in-law would say, you only have yourself to blame for going on a bear hunt in the first place.

What the hell is the point of this story? Seems like it hasn’t got one, right? But if I told my nephews when they wanted to read it, “Um, no. This story is total crap,” It might not have gone over all too well.

To be fair to the authors who took the time to write it, I did a little research to see if I could find any meaning. The illustrator said that she drew the bear with slumped shoulders modeled after a friend of hers who has depression and walked around hunched over all the time. She says he was likely depressed because he wanted to maybe play with the children and not eat them.

In the end, it’s just a book. It has repetitive verses and stuff that rhymes. Kids enjoy its sing-songiness.

The story has no meaning. And unless you want to try and explain the idea that maybe the bear has depression to a two-year-old, let it just be a book kids can enjoy even if it is annoying.

Why did I go off on a tangent of telling this story? Because I’m good at both going off on tangents and at telling myself stories that have no real meaning. Not to mention, they’re not even true. Stories about why I can’t possibly do something or why someone may not like me or why it’s my fault the world isn’t at peace.

I like to get caught up in my head telling tales of woe and drama. I’ve done it my whole life. Somehow it makes things more interesting. Somehow I think that it makes me more interesting to others. Somehow it justifies the times I want to feel depressed, angry or anxious. And in some sick way, it’s more fun!

But what I’m finally starting to understand is that most of them are made-up very much like a depressed bear chasing me through the woods. It’s all fantasy…and not a very good one at that. I’m completely responsible for everything that is going on up in that head of mine. All. The. Time.

Telling myself that I’m lazy because I don’t have a job or assuming that others think I’m lazy because I don’t have a job isn’t useful for anyone involved.

The silver lining? None of it is true.

Here’s the thing. We’re unique as human beings. We can reason our way out of our own suffering (side note: we cannot reduce the suffering of others. Believe me, I’ve tried). No other living creature can. Animals, for example, live their lives with instinct. They eat each other or get eaten and then do it all over again the next day. Can they be happy? I suppose. But they cannot choose to reduce their own suffering.

It doesn’t mean just because we can choose to reduce suffering that we will. In fact, maybe it can be argued that most of the human race makes the choice to live by instinct instead. “It’s a dog eat dog world.” If you don’t make yourself the “leader of the pack” you’re bound to get trampled. We live in one giant marketing campaign telling us to go, go, go all the time. If you’re not multi-tasking in your life, you’re wasting it.

Here’s the other thing. Our death is certain, but our time of death is not. Just because aunt Flo lived until 103 does not mean you will. It’s just the story we like to tell ourselves to make us feel better. And it does! It sounds morbid and terrible, but the mere acceptance of this truth is actually life affirming. In the end, none of those material possessions you gathered over your lifetime are going to go with you.

Understanding life’s impermanence might be the best way to live in the moment. To be present. To pay attention to thoughts and feelings without judging them. To be responsible for your own actions. Trust me, there are people who’ve been practicing this for years and are no where near perfect. I, myself, have a long way to go!

I know I’m not a bad person because I don’t have a job. I’m simply learning to sit with this really uncomfortable feeling trying to make myself believe I’m not wasting my time, my skills, my qualifications. I’ve just been given the fortunate opportunity to take the time to figure it out. I better be thankful for that at the very least.

If you have 10 minutes, please watch. It might give a little better context on mindfulness.

https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes#t-540079

 

How I learned that Google can’t tell me how to be happy…but it can give me some good links!

In a little over a week, I’m doing something I thought I’d never do again…unless I went back to the airlines where I could once again relish in the joy of shuttling New Yorkers down the coastline to the Sunshine State where they would inevitably try to set me up with their son David, the doctor in West Palm, be annoyed I didn’t get them their pill water soon enough or continuously question why the airline didn’t have access to more wheelchairs because who on this flight doesn’t want to pre-board?

Yes, it is true. On my own accord, I will visit Florida for the 3rd time in 4 months. I’ll be taking a, more or less, vow of silence to sit on my bum, legs crossed, for hours each day to find something called peace and happiness. I plan to have killer posture by the end of this. I’ll turn off my phone and discontinue use of most technology – aside from the air conditioner, which I’m told is in fantastic working order. So much so that I’ve also been told to bring a blanket. I suppose sitting in meditation doesn’t exactly get the blood pumping. I’ll eat no meat and drink no alcohol. And I won’t be going for any runs. Then, after 10 days, I’ll come home.

Why am I doing this? Because I want to. Because I asked Google to tell me how I could be happy and this is the story of what happened.

Honestly, I’ve tried asking Google this exact same question in many different ways. I am part of, probably a pretty big sub-section of the world who wants to believe Google knows all. I don’t have to learn it for myself anymore because it’s all right there at the tip of my fingers. Google will surely tell me how to be happy.

Dear Google,

How do I be happy?

When will I be happy?

Who and what will make me happy?

How do I find my calling?

Why haven’t I found my calling?

How do I find peace?

How do I increase my self-worth and assertiveness?

Why hasn’t teleportation been invented yet?

I was just curious about the last one. I particularly liked some of the links that came up. Remember when you were able to ask Google maps how to get from New York to Paris and it would tell you to swim across the Atlantic? Now it actually gives you flights – as if it’s lost all sense of humor…but, I digress.

As for the rest of the questions, Google always spits back the same answer. Well, the same answer in a varied amount of steps. ‘Be Happy in These Ten Easy Steps.’ ‘If You Do These Five Things, You Will Be Happy. Guaranteed.’ ‘How to be More Assertive in Seven Steps.’ I should know better than to keep doing these searches. My Facebook banner is full of every self-help event and book that exists. If I really wanted to use Google for help, I probably could have filled multiple bookcases by now with a myriad of Ph.Ds. telling me what I must do to ensure the most pleasurable life.

Bottom line is that none of the searches I’ve done have given me the option to become happy in one easy step. Isn’t there really only one? I mean, really? Do what you want to do that makes you happy. Duh.

So that’s it. Google will not make you happy, help you find your calling, peace or increase your self-worth and assertiveness. They won’t even invent teleportation for you. That’s it. Profound. You can stop reading now because it’s really all I’ve got. Something that probably most people figured out long, long, long before me.

But if you want to keep going, and still wondering why I’m choosing to visit Florida knowing that the temperatures and humidity levels are often of the exact same numerical value (and by that I mean high), there’s a little more behind it.

My happiness seeking started pretty young. It started with a Barbie.

– If I got a certain (ehhmm) Peaches and Cream Barbie, I’d be happy. But, instead, I got in trouble and my mom and sister went shopping. And what did she pick out? The Peaches and Cream Barbie. I’m not still bitter…I think I either cut off her hair or colored it with a marker a few years later. I win.

– If I had my hair cut a certain way, I’d be happy. A miscommunication between the German and English language landed me with a boy cut in 3^rd grade. Needless to say, as the new kid in school, I wasn’t too happy.

– If I wore the right clothes to school, both the girls and the boys would like me. Instead, I got sick from losing too much weight. That didn’t make me happy, it made me sickeningly skinny.

– If I made the poms dance team, I’d be happy. Alright, so it was a lot of fun, but was certainly not the only thing that made me happy in high school. Glad I didn’t let it be the only thing to make me happy about high school.

– If I joined a sorority, I’d be happy. A lot of fun…and served its purpose. Eventually, it didn’t make me all that happy and I deactivated my senior year.

– If I switched jobs or moved states when I started to get unhappy, I’d certainly find happiness again. I tried this a few times. Well, more than a few times. Ultimately, it didn’t quite work out as planned…

– If I found the right boyfriend, he’d be responsible for making me happy and I wouldn’t have to worry about doing it for myself anymore. Oops. That’s what most people would call a dysfunctional relationship.

– If I took a job to show family and friends I was capable of having a job (even if I didn’t like the job), I’d be happy because they’d be happy. Crying because I didn’t want to go to work doesn’t exactly count as happiness. And I’m pretty sure my unhappiness led to their unhappiness. Ugh. That was a big mess.

– If I went back to get a graduate degree in something that interested me but didn’t necessarily provide me the exact job I was looking for, I’m sure I’d still be happy…plus I’d look pretty smart! Plus I thought it’d look cool to tell people I worked for one of the 3-letter agencies (FBI, CIA, ATF…) Unfortunately, for now, the degree isn’t being used.

I can’t recall the exact moment when I decided to look to my Internet friend (aka Google) for these answers, but I know I’ve asked many, many, many times.

Back when I was flying for the airlines and living in New Jersey, I made a commitment to try a couple new things. I had a lot of random free time on my hands that rarely coincided with anyone else’s schedules. I was alone a lot. One I stuck with; the other I struggled with. I started to run. I hated every single mile I ran, but I did it. Gradually it got easier. Gradually it became more fun. Gradually I realized it might actually be something I was good at. Gradually I understood the runner’s high.

Number two? I decided I might give meditating a shot. I don’t really know where the idea came from. It might have been another flight attendant. I figured, though, people who could actually sit in silence for extended periods of time probably lived pretty peaceful lives in the midst of chaos. So, I tried on and off for a few years believing that one day it would just happen. But, I couldn’t pass the 2-minute mark. I wanted chaos, noise and drama. I hated the silence.

About a year ago, I thought about it again. And again, I tried on my own. I tried and tried, but it wasn’t happening. I wasn’t ready to give up, especially having traveled to Nepal and having been fortunate enough to see some of those Himalayan views in which I could visualize myself sitting and breathing in the beauty and peacefulness of the moment. I just needed to take a new approach. Find people who were in search of the same objective I was. Naturally, yes, I asked Google to give me the names of meditation groups in Denver. I think Google was just relieved I wasn’t asking it how to meditate. I’d already done that. More than once.

I picked a weekend and showed up. No clue what to expect. Would I be walking into some weird cult? Would they let me walk back out the doors? Given it was in a children’s music center, they’d have to, right? Would people look down on me for not having read every word the Dali Lama had ever spoken? Would they try to convert me to Buddhism?

Nope. None of that happened.

What I did find was a group of people looking for the same thing I was. Peace in their lives…because nothing else was working. The facilitator that day spent the next hour and a half talking about something called mindfulness and how we let our destructive emotions – anxiety, anger, sadness and guilt – take a hold of us leaving no room for happiness, peace and love. And then she told us we were going to meditate.

Crap. I believe my record before this day had been 4 minutes. I know because I would set my timer for 5 but never actually make it that far. We sat there for 25. She guided us through while asking us to breathe and to visualize. The only thing I could think about during at least the first 15 minutes was my shopping list for Target. What a great opportunity to multi-task! I could say I’d meditated, but also knew what I needed at Target and wouldn’t have to waste time when I got there. Oh, and visualization! I visualized myself walking up and down the aisles picking up the things I needed. I was good at this visualization stuff. I even smelled the Target popcorn.

Who am I kidding? This wasn’t going to work. No way would my mind ever be able to focus in silence. No one’s can.

But, after almost 20 minutes, my mind did get quiet. Eerily quiet. My body lost its tension as if it had been holding onto it for the last 32 years. When it was time to finish, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stop. I had tears in my eyes.

I left all gung ho to meditate every day. If it could make me feel this peaceful and relaxed, why would I not make time for it?

Don’t worry, it didn’t last. I fell back into old patterns. I didn’t make the class a priority and only went a few times over the course of the next 6 months. It was like I cherished my destructive emotions. I wasn’t ready to let them go. Anxiety, guilt and sadness are a way of life. They’re my way of my life. So what? Just let me keep living the way I know best.

And…not surprisingly for all those happiness seekers out there, this was the wrong attitude. Something had to change.

I called up the instructor I’d met the very first day of the class and asked for help. And boy did she help. I spent the next 90-days in something called Mindfulness Based Rational Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This isn’t your typical therapy. Go sit with the psychologist once a week, spill your life story again and again focusing on how messed up your childhood was, and keep going because it keeps them employed and you’ll get the chance to talk about the exact same thing next week! Instead, I spent every one of those 90-days journaling, tracking emotions, meditating and submitting my progress. I was held accountable – vacations, holidays and weekends included- and wasn’t going to give up.

If you’re curious to know what the program consists of, this is a quick overview:

Mindfulness means to focus on being aware of all incoming thoughts and feelings and accepting them, but not attaching or reacting to them. This is not as easy as it sounds!

We tend to react to our belief systems that are not connected to reality. For instance, Let’s say you’re meeting with a friend for lunch and they are late. This is the activating event that causes the emotion of irritation. Why are you irritated? Because you’re on time and your time is precious. They should be more courteous. You then have a physical reaction like rapid heartbeat, short breath, thoughts that aren’t all too pleasant towards them. BUT, if your feeling of irritation toward this activating event of the friend being late were to be true, it would have to be universal. ALL people who were waiting for a friend who was late to lunch would have to also become irritated. If you think this to be true, to each your own, but instead let’s chalk it up to your belief system and figure out a way to turn it around and let it go. Is it worth getting irritated over? Nope.

Meditate. Learn to sit in peace every day. Accept thoughts as they come in, but don’t let them linger. Let your emotions rise and fall. See you have old patterns, but you are changing to be more mindful, more at peace, more compassionate toward yourself.

End of program overview:)

I can truly say I feel differently. Life changing? I don’t know, maybe. Am I cured of destructive emotions? No. There’s not supposed to be a cure. The tools learned are supposed to guide you in how to handle and react to emotion.

I now catch myself when I think I’m starting down that path. I can work through it, even in the moment and in my head, until it turns into a more pleasant thought. Compassion to you and you and you and you. Oh, and compassion to me.

And here’s the big ah-ha (at least for me – someone who assumed happiness would come from somewhere on the outside, falling into my lap by chance)…I see how I can actually create my own happiness, something Google wasn’t all that willing to share with me without the help of some prestigious psychologist who’d been in the profession for the last 20 years. I can tell my thoughts they are not true and I have made them up based on a reaction I can choose not to have.

In no way am I even close to being enlightened here. Just an ordinary person going through an ordinary journey that’s working for me. It’s tough, but it’s a choice that I kind of feel like I have some control over (I know…I’ve always been in control of my own destiny (we all are), but I did sort of let that go and am finally figuring out how to get it back).

I was told, even though I’ve never done anything like this in my life and will probably have a bit of shell shock for the first few days of this retreat, this could be one of the most powerful things I do for myself. Myself. Tough word for me to say knowing that I am choosing to cut off and unplug from family and friends while I do something I made the decision to do without consideration for others thoughts, feelings or perceptions. But…in the end, I’d like to think this will benefit them too. Happy Jen = Happy everybody else!!

OK, to bring it full circle, Google didn’t actually tell me what to do, but it gave me the name of the group. So, in a roundabout sort of way, I can say that Google helped in my search for happiness. Thanks buddy.

“A great deal of chaos in the world occurs because people don’t appreciate themselves.”

~ Chogyam Trungpa