That feeling I got when I first saw Lindy Hop? I got another feeling just like it a few weeks ago, meditating. I hadn’t started actually dancing at the African dance class; I’d just watched the dancing two days before. In my meditation, I saw the studio where class was held. I stood at the door in terror. A raven flew in. The Morrigan was at my left shoulder. A taller version of myself, indistinct, seemingly molded out of light stood behind my right shoulder. An enormous bear trundled into the center of the room and stood up to his full height. He roared a bellow at every corner of the room. It was like light driving away shadow. But what he drove from the room was fear. Then a foot was planted in the small of my back and I was kicked into the room onto my face. I got up and the Morrigan was over me. Her face was contorted and her eyes were burning with ardor. She seized me by the shoulders and shook me stupid. She yanked me so I was an inch from her face and bellowed at me as loud as I’ve ever heard anyone scream, “Dance! Dance, damn you! DANCE!!”
I got tired of being bitter. I learned how keep myself from sliding back down that hole. I learned to trust fate’s rough guiding hand and consigned myself to the swift, ungentle current of life sweeping past me. And 15 years later, I got shown what to do again. I have no idea how long that will last. But I intend to dive into it and strive in that joy and hardship for as long as this new direction works for me. And when it no longer does, the next time life knocks me on my face, or pulls this or any other great joy out from under me, I intend to say thank you with every fiber of my being.
Thank you. And bring it.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Getting Back Up, X: Fire, and the Regreening of the Heart
So now, my heart is aflame, my mind is incandescent, my body is vibrating. I mean, I feel like anyone does—I’m just a person being human in the way we all are. But the difference between that feeling of baseline humanity and the feeling of the depth of severe, chronic depression is a drop that beggars perception. And being back nearer to baseline feels like some form of magic. And if the difference between Hell and Earth is perceptual, how much more so the difference between Earth and Heaven. So here I am, aflame. Why? The only answer I can give is, “Because I’m tired of running and I’m angry.” Why am I angry? Because my entire psychological and emotional reframing finally matured enough in my gut and my power was ready to shoot up out of my head. What finally caused that to happen? Luck. Or call it Fate. Or Providence. Or say rather that it was time for it to happen, so it had to. That’s the anchor. Thank you, Universe. I look forward to you knocking me on my face tomorrow.
Of course, the process isn’t over. I have so much left to do. Of course I do, right? We all do. You can tell if you have more to do by putting two fingers along the inside of your wrist. You have a pulse; you have more to do. Thank the powers that be for that, eh?
Of course, the process isn’t over. I have so much left to do. Of course I do, right? We all do. You can tell if you have more to do by putting two fingers along the inside of your wrist. You have a pulse; you have more to do. Thank the powers that be for that, eh?
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Getting Back Up, IX: Fire, and the Controlled Burn
Separating ardor and rage is challenging. But crucial. I am an aggressive, passionate person. Not really a violent person—I’ve never really been in a fight, I don’t hit the people I love, and I have no desire to. But I’m contentious and self-willed, and that fire in me won’t go out. I’ve tried a long time to make it do so, but that mostly just made me the second kind of angry: outraged, brooding, nursing hurt.
When the car was cut from me, I stood up. Tall. And the blood began to throb and thrum inside me. I needed the hardship. I needed the difficult solutions. I needed to use my own body to establish my own will, to get what I needed as an exercise in resolve and drive. I needed the hardship that life threw in my face, desperately.
That fire’s been in me, but I’d been turning at the Universe, choosing the second aspect, brooding on the wrongs done me. And I’d been willful before, but it was a bitter will to establish, without success, my desire for how things should be. But finally I got to it: screw the wrongs done me, screw how things should be. The wrongs done me are my greatest strength, the way things are, are the way things should be--even if they're not the way I intend to let things stay. The way things are is purposeful; I set will to deciding what I wish to do in this time. And the bumps and bruises of life are when I know I’m most alive. Because they force me to adapt, force me to redefine what success and happiness are, force me to prevail using my own faculties, force me to be alert, mindful, and they force me to do so with compassion—because having to shift balance and awareness shifts outlook. So much compassion is generated in that struggle.
When the car was cut from me, I stood up. Tall. And the blood began to throb and thrum inside me. I needed the hardship. I needed the difficult solutions. I needed to use my own body to establish my own will, to get what I needed as an exercise in resolve and drive. I needed the hardship that life threw in my face, desperately.
That fire’s been in me, but I’d been turning at the Universe, choosing the second aspect, brooding on the wrongs done me. And I’d been willful before, but it was a bitter will to establish, without success, my desire for how things should be. But finally I got to it: screw the wrongs done me, screw how things should be. The wrongs done me are my greatest strength, the way things are, are the way things should be--even if they're not the way I intend to let things stay. The way things are is purposeful; I set will to deciding what I wish to do in this time. And the bumps and bruises of life are when I know I’m most alive. Because they force me to adapt, force me to redefine what success and happiness are, force me to prevail using my own faculties, force me to be alert, mindful, and they force me to do so with compassion—because having to shift balance and awareness shifts outlook. So much compassion is generated in that struggle.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Resentment and His Nemesis, Work
A couple of weeks ago I started going to the local Clubhouse, which is an international support organization for people with depression and other mental illness. The first time I went, we talked about food and watched Supersize Me. I’ve avoided the movie for years. I mean, it’s not telling me anything I didn’t already know. And it’s a triggering movie for me. All that information, and plenty more than was even covered in that film were playing through my head all last year, as I daily ate about two meals worth of “food” in one sitting, usually at McDonalds, always at a fast food joint. And I’d follow it up by going out to the store, buying a small pizza and a pint of ice cream.
I’d been eating really well for a couple of months up to the point I sat down to watch the film. But honestly, watching it, all I felt was hunger. I mean, the guy’s eating FRIES. All that info was nothing new, but it’s two hours of him eating fries. I was at the crest of about the world’s biggest Jones coming out after we finished watching. The whole world smelled like grease and salt.
There’s a pupuseria a block from the clinic. It’s not as bad as McDonalds by a long shot, but it’s a far cry from how healthy I’d intended to eat that day. And I was planning a trip to the place the next day—a small once a week sort of indulgence. So I was wrestling with the desire to go there. I said I shouldn’t. But then a voice I am well familiar with from this last year chimed in.
“I just know my bus is going to pull up and pull away before I can get it. Fucking stupid world. If that happens, I’m going to take it as a sign I should get pupusas.”
As I got near, the bus pulled up across the street and pulled away.
That voice had been my poisonous inner-adversarialist and the bus leaving set him OFF, “Fuck this, I’m getting food now. If I was supposed to do otherwise, the world should have thought twice before it fucked me and thumbed its nose at me with the bus. Fuck this shit, I’m going to order a mountain of pupuas and ski down them.”
I haven’t heard from him much in the last three months. Unprepared for his re-emergence, I started to autopilot there, guided inexorably to fried cheese. But I found my footing about halfway there.
“No. Frankly, I don’t like this ‘fuck the world if it upsets me’ routine. I lived it for years and I’m done with it. The only person I hurt in that feedback loop was myself. And it left me angry all the time. So no matter the conclusion, the relational stance to the world is toxic and will lead to me being unhappy for the rest of today. Maybe the rest of the week. So, no. Beyond that, I said no. I already outlined what I would eat. I’m not interested in bargaining with myself. No hiccup will change that. Trusting and consigning myself to fate when I have two equal choices that are both healthy and hard and beneficial, that’s wise non-attachment. Blaming an upset on fate in order to rationalize a bad habit is just cowardice and self-destructive nihilism. I said no, and I meant it. The universe didn’t force me to eat pupusas, it forced me to choose without the crutch of the bus. The bus is gone and I *still* say no.”
At the end of the block, the pupusas were to the left and the next bus stop was to the right. I turned right and waved over my shoulder to the pupuseria. I walked on to the bus stop, but as I walked my steps and breath took on a brisk but not rushed regular rhythm, like the beat of a drum, driving. The drum that was my legs and lungs began to beat out a message to me, a chant or mantra: “Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal”
I got to the bus stop and walked past it. And I walked past the next one. And the next. The bus came up as I passed perhaps the 6th one along. I waved it on. Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal!
I know an hour and a half walk home isn’t really an “ordeal” in the strictest sense, but it occurred to me that toil was healthy and work was joyous and however little an ordeal my walk was, it was more of an ordeal than sitting down to wait for the bus. And the thought of no longer moving, no longer walking on, sitting, seemed odious right then.
At that point, it recalled two very moving things to me. One was a quote from Pema Chödrön’s The Wisdom of No Escape: “A much more interesting, kind, adventurous and joyful approach to life [than trying to avoid all pain and just get comfortable] is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet. To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is…how the whole thing just is. If we’re committed to comfort at any cost, as soon as we come up against the least edge of pain, we’re going to run; we’ll never know what’s beyond that particular barrier or wall or fearful thing.” And that reminded me of my realization that hedonism and asceticism are related, that the richest celebration of life can be the stripping most of the window dressing from it and just relishing the simple process of existing.
The second was three days of ceremony I spent with an old Picuris shaman, Beautiful Painted Arrow, before my 21th birthday. He only talked in metaphors. He never made a narrative out of them, or explained what they meant, but afterwards, you understood. It was one of the most profoundly moving three days of my life. But he was also kind of nuts. He sought visions through ordeal. The stuff he did was terrifying. Starved himself, buried himself alive, hung himself upside down from a tree, walked hundreds of miles without rest. Ordeal was rebirth, to him. He remade himself countless times. His 200 mile walk without rest is what came to mind as I burned past the bus stop and walked home.
The hunger passed, the voice was addressed, the rage at the universe dissipated again, the barrier was passed by, the long walk without rest that is the rest of my life was resumed. And I was filled with joy that the walk promised to be hard.
I’d been eating really well for a couple of months up to the point I sat down to watch the film. But honestly, watching it, all I felt was hunger. I mean, the guy’s eating FRIES. All that info was nothing new, but it’s two hours of him eating fries. I was at the crest of about the world’s biggest Jones coming out after we finished watching. The whole world smelled like grease and salt.
There’s a pupuseria a block from the clinic. It’s not as bad as McDonalds by a long shot, but it’s a far cry from how healthy I’d intended to eat that day. And I was planning a trip to the place the next day—a small once a week sort of indulgence. So I was wrestling with the desire to go there. I said I shouldn’t. But then a voice I am well familiar with from this last year chimed in.
“I just know my bus is going to pull up and pull away before I can get it. Fucking stupid world. If that happens, I’m going to take it as a sign I should get pupusas.”
As I got near, the bus pulled up across the street and pulled away.
That voice had been my poisonous inner-adversarialist and the bus leaving set him OFF, “Fuck this, I’m getting food now. If I was supposed to do otherwise, the world should have thought twice before it fucked me and thumbed its nose at me with the bus. Fuck this shit, I’m going to order a mountain of pupuas and ski down them.”
I haven’t heard from him much in the last three months. Unprepared for his re-emergence, I started to autopilot there, guided inexorably to fried cheese. But I found my footing about halfway there.
“No. Frankly, I don’t like this ‘fuck the world if it upsets me’ routine. I lived it for years and I’m done with it. The only person I hurt in that feedback loop was myself. And it left me angry all the time. So no matter the conclusion, the relational stance to the world is toxic and will lead to me being unhappy for the rest of today. Maybe the rest of the week. So, no. Beyond that, I said no. I already outlined what I would eat. I’m not interested in bargaining with myself. No hiccup will change that. Trusting and consigning myself to fate when I have two equal choices that are both healthy and hard and beneficial, that’s wise non-attachment. Blaming an upset on fate in order to rationalize a bad habit is just cowardice and self-destructive nihilism. I said no, and I meant it. The universe didn’t force me to eat pupusas, it forced me to choose without the crutch of the bus. The bus is gone and I *still* say no.”
At the end of the block, the pupusas were to the left and the next bus stop was to the right. I turned right and waved over my shoulder to the pupuseria. I walked on to the bus stop, but as I walked my steps and breath took on a brisk but not rushed regular rhythm, like the beat of a drum, driving. The drum that was my legs and lungs began to beat out a message to me, a chant or mantra: “Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal”
I got to the bus stop and walked past it. And I walked past the next one. And the next. The bus came up as I passed perhaps the 6th one along. I waved it on. Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal!
I know an hour and a half walk home isn’t really an “ordeal” in the strictest sense, but it occurred to me that toil was healthy and work was joyous and however little an ordeal my walk was, it was more of an ordeal than sitting down to wait for the bus. And the thought of no longer moving, no longer walking on, sitting, seemed odious right then.
At that point, it recalled two very moving things to me. One was a quote from Pema Chödrön’s The Wisdom of No Escape: “A much more interesting, kind, adventurous and joyful approach to life [than trying to avoid all pain and just get comfortable] is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet. To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is…how the whole thing just is. If we’re committed to comfort at any cost, as soon as we come up against the least edge of pain, we’re going to run; we’ll never know what’s beyond that particular barrier or wall or fearful thing.” And that reminded me of my realization that hedonism and asceticism are related, that the richest celebration of life can be the stripping most of the window dressing from it and just relishing the simple process of existing.
The second was three days of ceremony I spent with an old Picuris shaman, Beautiful Painted Arrow, before my 21th birthday. He only talked in metaphors. He never made a narrative out of them, or explained what they meant, but afterwards, you understood. It was one of the most profoundly moving three days of my life. But he was also kind of nuts. He sought visions through ordeal. The stuff he did was terrifying. Starved himself, buried himself alive, hung himself upside down from a tree, walked hundreds of miles without rest. Ordeal was rebirth, to him. He remade himself countless times. His 200 mile walk without rest is what came to mind as I burned past the bus stop and walked home.
The hunger passed, the voice was addressed, the rage at the universe dissipated again, the barrier was passed by, the long walk without rest that is the rest of my life was resumed. And I was filled with joy that the walk promised to be hard.
Getting Back Up, VIII: Fire, the Differing Flames
After the car, I finally was ready to get back up. Of all the horrible things to lose, the Universe granted me the easiest thing I could cope with. I was lucky. All the work I’d done which had done no good was finally ready to fall into place. It happened when I was most ready to address it. I was lucky. That my terrible diet and lack of exercise, my explosive high blood pressure didn’t kill me while I waited for my opening to start moving again—that too was me being very lucky.
Onto my face I went, and I stayed down for about six hours. It took that time for the reframing and tools to click into the places in me they were designed to fit. And it took that time for my fire to flare up.
That’s really the third component of my recovery. Anger. Or something akin to it. I think there’s two aspects to anger. One is a vigorous, aggressive affirmation of life. It’s the desire to yell, “BRING IT!” at the top of your lungs when something challenging needs doing. It’s the desire to leap into an icy pool, or jump into something new. There’s terror, there’s exhilaration and there’s a terrible desire to LIVE through it all and take part. It drives you out into the storm to face the wind and rain. For me, it’s the Morrigan present in the pounding blood in my temples. It’s the creeping tingle up my spine, along my arms and up around the back of my head. It’s the sharp intake of breath, eyes widening, nostrils flaring, back straightening as I’m preparing to spring into the fray.
A second aspect to anger is the affronted, outraged desire for violence. But both spring up when the blood begins to pound. For me one aspect is anger turned on concepts, the other upon people and things. The one points me up and out into the world with vigor and joy, the other points me down and directedly, rigidly inward with malice. If not inward to my center, into the center of another person. The one is like a hunting animal, alert, alive. The other is a brooding, revenge-obsessed thug. Separating the two is challenging. But I can't think of another way to describe the first fire, other than to say, it too, is anger. And I'm harnessing it.
Onto my face I went, and I stayed down for about six hours. It took that time for the reframing and tools to click into the places in me they were designed to fit. And it took that time for my fire to flare up.
That’s really the third component of my recovery. Anger. Or something akin to it. I think there’s two aspects to anger. One is a vigorous, aggressive affirmation of life. It’s the desire to yell, “BRING IT!” at the top of your lungs when something challenging needs doing. It’s the desire to leap into an icy pool, or jump into something new. There’s terror, there’s exhilaration and there’s a terrible desire to LIVE through it all and take part. It drives you out into the storm to face the wind and rain. For me, it’s the Morrigan present in the pounding blood in my temples. It’s the creeping tingle up my spine, along my arms and up around the back of my head. It’s the sharp intake of breath, eyes widening, nostrils flaring, back straightening as I’m preparing to spring into the fray.
A second aspect to anger is the affronted, outraged desire for violence. But both spring up when the blood begins to pound. For me one aspect is anger turned on concepts, the other upon people and things. The one points me up and out into the world with vigor and joy, the other points me down and directedly, rigidly inward with malice. If not inward to my center, into the center of another person. The one is like a hunting animal, alert, alive. The other is a brooding, revenge-obsessed thug. Separating the two is challenging. But I can't think of another way to describe the first fire, other than to say, it too, is anger. And I'm harnessing it.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Getting Back Up, VII: Hard Work, the Tools of Change
I took about five years of classes in a technique known as DBT. It’s a cognitive therapy system designed for people Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD. I don’t have the former but I have a complex case of the latter. I learned about Mindfulness. I worked on Distress Tolerance. I hammered away at Emotion Regulation. I picked at Interpersonal Effectiveness, which is still my Achilles heel in DBT.
It’s a great set of skills to boost you that 12% I mentioned before. They’re probably the easiest answer for me to give when I get asked how I’m doing it. I just rattle off my DBT skills, and how I implement them. So my 12% is at least an hour of walking a day, cycling an hour 4-5 times a week, rigorously enforced regular sleep, vitamins, self-cooked meals using minimally-processed foods, very little meat, no high fructose corn syrup ever, daily meditation, an ever more challenging and full schedule of socially, emotionally demanding activities, cleaning, constant regulation and restructuring of my inner dialogue, a deliberate facing-off against panic and taking opposite action to negative emotions: approaching when the desire is to flee in fear, gently addressing or gently avoiding when the desire is to rigidly verbally and mentally lash out in anger, deliberate visibility and healthy volume when the the desire is to hide in unwarranted shame, activity when the desire is to collapse in grief. And as they never did me any good, I got off the psychoactive medications. Getting off your meds is not something I recommend for everyone, or even for most people. But it continues to feel like the right choice for me.
But again, this litany of skills didn't actually affect much, until the Universe knocked me down and waited to see if I was finally going to shake it off and get back up.
It’s a great set of skills to boost you that 12% I mentioned before. They’re probably the easiest answer for me to give when I get asked how I’m doing it. I just rattle off my DBT skills, and how I implement them. So my 12% is at least an hour of walking a day, cycling an hour 4-5 times a week, rigorously enforced regular sleep, vitamins, self-cooked meals using minimally-processed foods, very little meat, no high fructose corn syrup ever, daily meditation, an ever more challenging and full schedule of socially, emotionally demanding activities, cleaning, constant regulation and restructuring of my inner dialogue, a deliberate facing-off against panic and taking opposite action to negative emotions: approaching when the desire is to flee in fear, gently addressing or gently avoiding when the desire is to rigidly verbally and mentally lash out in anger, deliberate visibility and healthy volume when the the desire is to hide in unwarranted shame, activity when the desire is to collapse in grief. And as they never did me any good, I got off the psychoactive medications. Getting off your meds is not something I recommend for everyone, or even for most people. But it continues to feel like the right choice for me.
But again, this litany of skills didn't actually affect much, until the Universe knocked me down and waited to see if I was finally going to shake it off and get back up.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Getting Back Up, VI: Hard Work, Changing Nothing
I’ve taken a MOUNTAIN of therapy. I’ve made a stack of amazing, earth shattering realizations about how I live my life. And they did nothing. At first. Seven years ago, I learned I self-sabotage. Not “I’m afraid of my own success so I can’t cope with it” self-sabotage. “I want to fail at life, destroy everything good in my life, and lay down to wait to die, to assert even the merest illusion of self-determination and will in a life where I feel out of control and in over my head” is more how it goes. A tiny, poisonous, but insanely influential part of me is done. Wants everything to fall away so I can lay down and let time sweep all memory of me away and let it sweep me from the Universe and the Universe from me. That realization left me in shock for three weeks. But it changed nothing. And there've been a steady stream of other equally momentous realizations along the way. They changed nothing either.
I’m a smart guy. Very. No, really. Very. And I’m beyond introspective. I’ve figured out a lot about how I function. For much of my life, it's what I've done most of with my time. But that information is conceptual. An intellectual eureka is not a revelation. It won’t change your life. I’ve had more than I can remember anymore. And they change nothing. They need years to percolate down into the subconscious and take actual HOLD someplace other than just in an intellectualization. They need to seep down and marinate your guts in the new truth they offer. Until you reek of it, and one day you have a whole body Eureka. That rumbles up from the gut, scours the heart clean in the pressure and shoots out the top of your head. And the only thing that will set off the final explosion is the Universe kicking you on your face, which you have no ability to dictate the timing of.
I’m a smart guy. Very. No, really. Very. And I’m beyond introspective. I’ve figured out a lot about how I function. For much of my life, it's what I've done most of with my time. But that information is conceptual. An intellectual eureka is not a revelation. It won’t change your life. I’ve had more than I can remember anymore. And they change nothing. They need years to percolate down into the subconscious and take actual HOLD someplace other than just in an intellectualization. They need to seep down and marinate your guts in the new truth they offer. Until you reek of it, and one day you have a whole body Eureka. That rumbles up from the gut, scours the heart clean in the pressure and shoots out the top of your head. And the only thing that will set off the final explosion is the Universe kicking you on your face, which you have no ability to dictate the timing of.
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