These words represent my truth at the time of writing. They are meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive.
I’m going to be stopping my regular blog posts for a while.
I miss doing more long-form writing, and writing where I spend more time thinking, so I’m going to focus on that for a while.
I’ve also been reflecting on why I’ve been blogging, and trying to navigate that space as well.
In any case, I’ll definitely be posting pieces again in the future. It just won’t be as regular as it has been.
You might notice yourself checking things, picking at things, thinking obsessive thoughts, or fiddling with your own body in a routinized kind of way. These are signs that the stress has overwhelmed your brain’s ability to cope rationally with the stressor.
“Burnout” by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
Not much has been happening besides work.
It’s funny how bad my sense of time is right now.
By Monday afternoon, I could barely believe it was only Monday. Today, I’m surprised it’s Thursday, but not because the week feels short.
My sleep hasn’t been great with all this overtime either. Sometimes I’m working and then I realize it’s almost midnight, so I go to bed. But then because my body doesn’t like to sleep in, I’m usually up again early regardless.
Usually I use physical activity to regain energy, but this week I passed out in the middle of a workout. Initially on my run today, I was worried I was gonna need to sit down and nap along the way (fortunately, the run eventually woke me up).
Anyhow, already this week is one extra week of overtime I wasn’t expecting. I’m really hoping it doesn’t get extended to next week as well.
Today I’m grateful for:
On our last day, a few hours before we were to leave Munnar, I hurried up the hill on the left. It strikes me now as a typically Christian scene. Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven days. Even on a symbolic level, that’s creation in a frenzy. To one born in a religion where the battle for a single soul can be a relay race run over many centuries, with innumerable generations passing along the baton, the quick resolution of Christianity has a dizzying effect. If Hinduism flows placidly like the Ganges, then Christianity bustles like Toronto at rush hour. It is a religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expresses itself in the instant. In a moment you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.
“Life of Pi” by Yann Martel
Right now, I’m super present to how I’m pulling myself in two directions.
On the one hand, I seem to push myself to always be doing something.
Work right now is a bit crazy. For a couple weeks, my team has been doing a lot of overtime as we draw close to a project deadline. I was really hoping today was going to be the last day of overtime, but it looks like it’s going to carry on at least throughout the week.
I have my bouncy ball jars as an indicator of some of my goals sitting in my living room. Whenever I take a break from work, I’ve been trying to get those jars under control. I say under control because progress stopped for a while when I had my migraine. Fortunately my running jar is completely under control again–I somehow managed to pull off almost 60km last week. But now my workout jar is getting out of control. There’s always something more to do.
Then I just have my to-do list in general that I always try to keep my eye on. It’s not everyday I’m making good progress on that, either. Like, right now looking at my kitchen, I’ve got a bunch of boxes sitting on the counters, clean dishes that need to be put away, and dirty dishes that need to be loaded into the dishwasher. It’s very visible that there’s always something else to be done.
And on the other hand, I want to allow myself to slow down and be with things as they are.
Something I’ve noticed recently is that during meditation, my mind has been darting all over the place recently. It’s not even related to the things I have to do that I mentioned above. I’m just catching myself day-dreaming more often right now. I suspect it’s just a symptom of my mind having too much going on right now.
Sleep has been a struggle for me for as long as I can remember. Usually in the early afternoon, I start to get really sleepy. When I’m at work, I try to take a gym break around that time because doing something physical keeps me awake. Now that I’m working from home, I’m still keeping the same pattern. I try to work towards my goals–whether it be going for a run or working out–instead of taking a break to catch up on sleep. Though, I’m really torn on whether it would be better to just sleep.
Recharging has been difficult without sports. I suspect it’s because with sports, I don’t have the freedom for my mind to wander on so many things. So I wonder if continuing meditation will help (if my mind doesn’t continue racing as it does)? Or I wonder if I just need some do nothing time? Or reading time? In any case, I really should experiment to figure out recharging. I think it’s gonna be a while before I can use my old tactics.
Today I’m grateful for:
Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling
I’ve been meditating every day with Jenny, Fabian, and Angela for the past little while. I’ve also started seeing a new therapist for about a month now. And our book club for The Places That Scare You by Pema Chödrön has recently wrapped up.
It’s definitely not a new topic for me, but it’s been interesting having all of these different avenues pointing to my lack of self-awareness.
It’s been something I’ve been working on since at least the latter half of university.
I have definitely made some progress. I’m getting better at identifying body sensations, differentiating thoughts and judgements, and recognizing some emotions.
The self can be quite puzzling. I mean, intuitively, I can’t be separate from my self, so I should be well aware of my self.
But at the same time, I can see that doesn’t seem to be true.
Furthermore, in practicing meditation and reflecting on ideas from several authors, it makes me wonder if the self is really the thinker of thoughts and feeler of feelings. Perhaps instead the self is simply the one observing/experiencing those things.
I mean, I guess that makes sense given these ideas I’ve heard before (I don’t know who to attribute them to of the top of my head) :
But then, what is the self?
Another odd thing I’ve noticed about my thoughts and feelings is that am best at noticing them once they’ve already passed. (Meta thought: I was going to initially talk about how I usually relate to my self in the past. Managed to catch my self, at least.)
It’s almost like my self doesn’t really exist in the present, and I’m just carried by the momentum of my thoughts and emotions. Except my self does exist in the present, it just happens to be reflecting on thoughts and emotions in the past. (Maybe it’s time I read me some Descartes.)
But maybe I’m slowing getting closer to knowing my experience in the present. A couple of times in recent days/weeks (I can’t remember exactly when I had these thoughts, or in what context, just that I had them), I’ve mid-thought asked myself if I was doing something to prove that I was worthy of attention, or to prove that I was right about something. I mean, I didn’t change my behaviour, but I think the fact that I was able to question my self in the moment is forward progress, right?
Anyhow, this will be an on-going thing for me–getting better acquainted with my self. Bundled with the self-compassion idea I wrote about recently, I think this will be an adventure. For one, I hate contradictions, but I’m sure that I’m full of them. This came to mind because I’m about to workout, but I hate working out and watching what I eat, but I want to stay healthy, I want to look good, and I don’t want to be fat. And just like that, I’m already rolling my eyes at my self.
It’s a practice.
Anywho, something else I’m planning on trying is ending each of these blog posts with a short gratitude practice inspired by Kenn, who has been posting daily uplifting gratitude posts for what seems to be at least a year now.
I am grateful for:
When a nun asked how he was doing, Seuse replied that things were going quite badly because it had been a month since he’d known pain and he was afraid that God had forgotten him.
“The Gargoyle” by Andrew Davidson
My migraine still hasn’t completely disappeared. It’s not bad at all, but it is constantly lingering there in the back of my head. I’ve been trying not to think about it too much. I’m happy it hasn’t gotten worse again.
My jar of bouncy balls has been overflowing for my running jar because of my break back when I migraine was really bad. Last week I managed to pull off 40km which was pretty good.
I think I jumped back into running too quickly, though.
I’m breaking in a new pair of shoes (sort of–I’ve started using the shoes I’ve been walking in to run in because I’ve worn through my old runners), and the arch support isn’t as good as I hoped. My arches have been sore, especially when going up hill.
Additionally, my blisters are back (no surprise there). The biggest one under the pad of my foot popped on its own. When the skin started to peel, I made the mistake of thinking it would be helpful if I removed the rest of the dead skin. Well, as it turned out, this just led to the surrounding skin getting really hard. So now that hurts even more when I go running now, and there’s already another blister that’s formed and popped under where the old one was.
I’m also taking care of some skin chafing. It fortunately hasn’t been getting worse, but it’s annoying that I didn’t notice it until after it became a problem.
Right now, my strategy has been to allow myself to walk more often on my runs. I still want to get the kilometers in, especially because I’ve already fallen so far behind on my goal. I hope that doing so is sufficient to prevent further injury.
Part of me really wishes I was better at moderation. I mean, I’ve clearly been getting away without it, but it would be nice if I had another option.
The most straightforward advice on awakening bodhichitta is this: practice not causing harm to anyone–yourself or others–and every day, do what you can to be helpful.
“The Places That Scare You” by Pema Chödrön
I recognize that I recently posted a quote from this book already, but I have since finished the book and this quote has been on my mind today.
Emily, Jenny, and I discussed this idea yesterday in book club. And Jenny and I talked about it earlier this week when we tried a loving-kindness meditation as part of our daily meditation practice.
Not causing harm seems like a very simple idea, but it’s amazing how often I caught myself failing to do so this week.
I’ve talked a bit recently about how I’ve noticed my lack of self-compassion when my attention wanders during meditation. I quickly jump into judgements about myself and what good meditation practice looks like. (This would be causing harm to myself.)
At work today, a coworker challenged a choice I made in a code review. I caught myself getting defensive and frustrated at them. (This would be causing harm to others.) I managed to stop myself and look at what was going on, and I saw the fear that I was being seen as incompetent in my job. Fortunately, I was able to let go of that anger fairly quickly.
But at the same time, another coworker dismissed something I said, citing it as irrelevant. I caught myself shutting down, and thinking of them as being dismissive and hypocritical. (This would be causing harm to myself and others.) I was not able to take action on this, but at least the conversation changed direction so I stopped thinking about it at the time.
Then this evening, I took an epsom salt bath after going for a run. I was reading Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino and something triggered some memories for me.
I recalled three stories I’d heard from people who had hooked up with their professor, with a nurse during a medical examination, and with a massage therapist during a massage. I don’t think I hate these people (the professor, nurse, and massage therapist), but the emotion may be the closest I currently feel in that direction. Every time I recall these stories, my anger gets stirred very quickly (like, I feel it fresh again now just writing this).
This is causing harm to others, and it’s not something I feel like I’m currently capable of accepting.
But today was the first time I saw it in the light of causing harm to others. I now know what I can bring to the later portions of the loving-kindness meditation where you reflect on people whom you don’t like. And maybe this is an opportunity for me to soften and practice compassion; perhaps I can reflect on alternative possibilities rather than assuming that these people are simply irresponsible and immoral.
Attachment theory teaches us that our loved one is our shelter in life. When that person is emotionally unavailable or unresponsive, we face being out in the cold, alone and helpless. We are assailed by emotions — anger, sadness, hurt, and above all, fear. This is not so surprising when we remember that fear is our built-in alarm system; it turns on when our survival is threatened. Losing connection with our loved one jeopardizes our sense of security.
“Hold Me Tight” by Sue Johnson
My migraine is pretty much gone–finally. I was able to go on a slow jog today without making things worse.
I made the mistake of starting Meteor Garden on Netflix recently. It’s a 50 episode romance/drama, and each episode runs for about 45 minutes. And I’m somehow already almost half-way through the series.
This is why I really shouldn’t have Netflix. Especially while we’re at home full time for social distancing. Stopping to remind myself to practice self-compassion and balance.
In any case, I’ve been totally fan-girling over this series the past couple of days. It’s been a while since I’ve watched a romantic drama. It’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but it’s a good escape.
