Curious and Real

“So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn’t sit for even one, that’s the journey of the warrior.” — Pema Chodron

Last night I had a dream that something stressful was happening. Within the dream, I fell asleep and saw a Shakespearean scene unfolding that echoed the dramatic themes I felt in the original dream (no, I had not watched Inception before bed). I of course thought the dream was real and became completely enveloped within the scenes. I then “woke up”, and saw that the situation was of no importance. Some silly everyday encounter. I heard a voice say: “Are you ready to let go of the drama?” And then I really woke up.

The drama unfolding in my life today feels extremely real. The uncertainty of the world amidst a pandemic, my nerves as to what being a doctor will be like in a few months, especially during this time. The stresses of selling a house, moving into an apartment, and setting up life in a new city.

But amidst all of this, I think of those dying, of losing family members due to COVID-19. I think of those losing their livelihood, businesses, food, and homes due to the economic depression. I wake up a little. I hear about a black man named Ahmaud Arbery who was murdered by white men in Georgia while going for a jog. I wake up a heck of a lot more.

I see flashes in my mind of all of the horrors and trauma that are happening, have happened, and will happen around the world. It feels almost like a zooming out, little by little, causing me to see my own dramas as insignificant and instead feel broken in half by the immense pain of the world. At the same time I take comfort in the perspective of the Dalai Lama, words I read in a book once but have had trouble finding since. To paraphrase (from the way I remember reading it), he was looking out a window while an interviewer asked him about the suffering of the Tibetan people. While acknowledging the immense pain brought upon his people, he did not currently feel sad, because he was looking out a window at beautiful scenery.

Perhaps life is a constant flux between zooming in and out. We do not turn a blind eye to the pain and suffering of the world, and we work very hard to change it. When confronted with something horrible, we allow the pain/anger to move within and through us. However, we do not hold these feelings prisoner inside of us by building bars around them with our minds. We allow the feelings to do the job they are meant to—prompt us into action. But we do not forget the lesson from the Dalai Lama. We remember to zoom in on our exact present moment. Here, there is likely something beautiful, something peaceful calling to us. The present moment has no anxiety about the future or regret of the past. It may hold pain, which we allow to reside within us for only as long as it would like to take up residence. We sit in the hot loneliness. We do not fight it, and we do not cling to it when a moment of joy or peace calls to us.

Most of the time when I feel moments of joy, timelessness, utter peace, my body responds reflexively with a shot of adrenaline and cortisol. If I feel at peace, it must be because I have forgotten about some “threat” that needs my immediate attention. That, or I feel guilty for being happy when there is so much pain in the world. Hence, I write the above words mostly for myself, with the hope that they ring true for someone else as well.

This morning, I woke up stressed because of our current life situation. Heartbroken for Ahmaud Arbery. Restless, uneasy. After attempting to meditate (to no avail), I made a decision to cook myself a nourishing breakfast. My first instinct was to reach for the TV, or my current audiobook. All of a sudden, I heard Pema Chodron’s words in my head. It took immense effort for me to be in the silence this morning and do nothing but cook, and then eat. I tuned in. I sat in the hot loneliness. In the unrest. It did not feel good. After finishing breakfast, I felt an urge to run to my computer, sit down, and write. This is what came out. Thank you, hot loneliness, for allowing me the opportunity to look the unrest in the eye, and find it to be nothing more than a dream. Now, time to call Gov. Kemp’s office and demand justice for Ahmaud.

Spring dies for summer.

Winter awakens for spring.

Death or rebirth?

Never can tell.

I woke up this morning after too many days of too many hours long shifts to a world that had started to change. The usual mugginess that is present 24/7 had abated, and the foreshadowing of fall had begun. My husband had placed my favorite fall candle (Leaves, by White Barn) on the coffee table the day before. Even the maple tree across the street had decided it was time to starting changing colors, a decision that may be slightly premature, since it is still August in North Carolina. 

Premature or not, the change of seasons, especially summer to fall, never fails to bring back my favorite set of feelings. They can best be described as simultaneously nostalgic, painful, overwhelming, and perfect. But together, the experience somehow combines to create what I can only explain as a deep remembering. My being seems to resonate with the environment, recognizing it as itself, and responding with an emphatic: “YES. THIS.” 

As the world changes around me, something deep within knows again that life is perfectly what it is. There is no need to muscle through days, resisting what I don’t like and clinging to what I do. What we do simultaneously matters immensely, and not at all. Every choice we make has a ripple effect that accumulates to a greater impact than we could ever imagine. And at the same time, summer will always become fall, and fall will always become winter. The only way I can reconcile the great paradox of our life on Earth is to decide to treat every moment, every interaction, as if that was all there was. And then let it go. The feelings that arise in me as fall unfurls are my soul knowing on a deep level the paradox that it means to be human, and fully embracing the perfection of it all for just a moment. So what happens after the moment? The world laughs and says better get going girl, you’re gonna be late to work.  

The stress, hardships, and traumas,

The blockages that prevent spirit from flowing.

The rocks that well up and inhibit the river from trickling by, 

Until it finally bursts forth, wreaking destruction where it would have once brought peace,

If allowed to flow.

So, let energy churn where it will,

Because regardless, it will be felt,

In one way or another. 

I feel that this next post of mine deserves a prelude, since it has been about two years since I wrote anything. This piece (as evidenced by the title), is about my tendency towards perfectionism, which runs deep and manifests itself in whatever ways it can, including these blog posts. In starting this blog, I did not set out to be the most elegant writer, or to construct some outward persona for myself. I set out instead with the sole intention of writing authentically, in whatever style felt comfortable in the moment. I knew sometimes things would come out well, and other times my writing may fall flat. My goal was simply to keep writing, because I have found through the years that this practice keeps me feeling whole. Nevertheless, each time I sat down at my computer in the past two years, I found some excuse either not to begin writing or to refrain from posting the piece once it was written. Usually, a voice in my head came up with a reason why what I had written wasn’t good enough. This time, though, I’ve decided to push past that voice, if for the very least because it would feel pretty darn hypocritical to construct an entire post about perfectionism and then trash the thing at the last minute because it isn’t …. well, perfect. So, here is my imperfect piece on perfectionism. 

If you had stumbled across me 5 years ago, you would have never guessed that I struggled with perfectionism. In fact, I felt I had mastered the art of balance. I didn’t kill myself studying for medical school exams but also never slacked, and I took a lot of pride in my ability to juggle multiple demands without obsessing about each one. I was amazingly adept at catching myself before I stumbled into the zone of workaholic, relax-aholic, or hobbie-aholic. It would seem that I had become preoccupied with the concept of balance. It wasn’t until recently, when my closeted perfectionistic tendencies began showcasing themselves in a more classic arena, that I realized my previous pursuit of balance was, in fact, simply a guilt-free outlet for my perfectionism to run rampant. 

Last month, while studying for one of the medical licensing exams, I found myself becoming more and more frustrated that I could not get every single practice question right. Even though my scores on practice exams were improving steadily, I wasn’t able to see my progress. Here I was, faced with an exam that is effectively impossible to ace, but consumed with a need to be perfect. During that month of studying, it struck me how much I had changed in the past few years. I realized that I had transformed into someone who would sacrifice food, exercise, time with loved ones, and hobbies for my career. It didn’t take too long to realize that the origins of this switch in behavior were my recent PhD experience. 

During the years working on my PhD, perfection became the name of the game. I spent exorbitant amounts of time writing, rewriting, trashing altogether, and then completely reworking numerous manuscripts. I would name them a-z, then start over with aa-zz, and so on. I didn’t just have drafts of papers… I had editions. When looking back at this behavior, I at first thought this was strange and signified a marked shift from my previous perspective. Slowly, however, I have started to realize that certain character traits are tricksters. For me, perfectionism will wear any disguise I allow it to (including the pursuit of balance, ironically). While I may be more mindful of this tendency than I was 5 years ago, learning to change my behaviors is a daily struggle. However, I’ve decided that I will call today a win… that is, if I am ultimately able to press the “publish” button.

Most mornings recently I’ve woken up with a jolt of uneasiness. When combined with coffee, as it always is, I end up racing through my morning while thinking vaguely of hummingbirds. I’ve always found that stress that is within my control feels largely manageable. I simply morph myself into a stress-busting machine and annihilate the circumstance that has presented itself as a threat to my peace. If I’m concerned about an exam, I stay up late a few nights until I feel like I have a handle on the material. Dirty house, I clean it. Argument with husband, I sit down and sort it out ASAP. I trained myself to approach stress this way from a young age. I wouldn’t let myself rest or enjoy much of anything until that nagging feeling in my psyche had been quelled by quick, decisive action. These behaviors work well when you’re very young or your problems rest mainly within your control. Usually, since I was lucky enough to live in a privileged and loving household, there wasn’t much that obsessive studying or a thoughtful conversation couldn’t fix.

Obviously stress that is outside of our control cannot be excised from our lives quite as efficiently. For me, attempting to finish graduate school has felt as out of my control and unpredictable as something like predicting the surf. In order to know which beach I should go to on what weekend, I’d need knowledge concerning the sea floor topography, rainfall, tides, currents, winds, and many other, unknowable variables. Finishing graduate school feels as if it involves an equally complex combination of events that is similarly enigmatic and outside of my control. As a consequence, I’m left feeling saturated with a sub-threshold level of stress that is always in danger of meeting another semi-challenging event (messy kitchen, anyone??) and becoming SO NOT SUB-THRESHOLD anymore.

Simultaneously, in the words of Glennon Doyle Melton, I know that every challenge we encounter is an AFGO [another freaking growth opportunity]. I also know that we are made by what could break us. I believe that learning to find peace in the face of discomfort is one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves and those around us. Knowing these things definitely doesn’t make the process any easier, but it does sometimes provide a little comfort and direction. Writing is undoubtedly my self-prescribed form of therapy, so thank you for taking the time to read about my experiences. I’d love to hear how you all stay sane in the face of stress!

–A

Disclaimer/Side note: Looking back, I fully recognize how fortunate I was that my biggest problem growing up was a bad grade. I was never hungry, unloved, or neglected. As I work through and explore my experiences with my own daily struggles, I do so with a baseline gratitude for my life and an understanding that true hardship is nothing I have ever experienced. Sometimes it’s hard for me to write about my own struggles when there is such pain in the world. However, compassion begins within, and what we don’t have we can’t give away. I choose to love and honor my own path in hope that it will make me more empathetic and compassionate towards the difficulties of others.

I read a quote recently by Flannery O’Connor saying “I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” That has been my exact experience. I start writing with a general idea in mind, but I have yet to accurately predict where that idea will lead. Whatever topic I’m exploring usually takes on its own form, and I end up tagging along for the ride. The more I write, the more I learn about myself. This has become my primary reason for writing—I love finding out something new about myself, and writing is the best way I’ve figured out thus far to do so.

One topic I’ve been meaning to explore is the concept of “losing oneself in one’s work.” I think every human being has had the experience of being so immersed in a task that everything else in the world seems to slip away, including our own concept of ourselves. For me, I often experienced this while dancing. If I return to ballet again and again throughout these posts, bear with me. I apologize for the monotony, but it’s often the best analogy I have for things. During rehearsals, I was able to forget about the bad grade, or the stress of homework, or the argument I just had. On stage, I often felt more alive than I ever had before. My daily routines, shuffling from school to home and back again, felt like I was watching life happen instead of existing inside each experience. The moments on stage felt rich and textured, like I was finally immersed within my own life instead of peering in from the outside. I often noticed during these experiences that I seemed to lose myself in the experience. Quite literally, it was almost as if “me” as a separate entity became lost, and I merged with the scene of dancers, moving together through the choreography as separate parts of one whole. This was probably quite helpful, since conformity is definitely the name of the game when you’re one of 20 identically dressed snowflakes.

When we actually think about the words “losing oneself,” they imply that we are relieved of the responsibility of thinking about our own person for a period of time. In doing so, we become unburdened by our individuality. We are able to wriggle out from under our fears and leave them in a pile along with the roles and responsibilities we normally carry. We become lighter and can more easily shift into alignment with whatever task we are performing. Relieved of our personal hang-ups, we are free to merge with our current experience, almost as if our bodies and minds are simply the vehicles through which our work is becoming actualized. Maybe we crave these experiences because human beings are not actually billions of little isolated entities wandering around the planet. Our bodies create the illusion that we are separate, but maybe our true, soul-level state is one of connection. By engaging so wholly in an experience that we momentarily forget our individual identities, we are able to sense that subtle, elusive feeling of knowing we are in the right place at the right time.

Unfortunately, we will lose ourselves in almost anything in order to gain temporarily relief from the often burdensome experience of being a human being. We forget ourselves in other people, TV, drugs, alcohol, thrill seeking, and eating. The maddening problem with throwing ourselves into these behaviors is that we miss out on what we are actually craving– interconnection. The distance from worries and insecurities may feel liberating for a moment, but mindless distractions place us further from, not closer to, the authentic experiences that we desire. These behaviors, while seemingly analogous to “losing oneself” in work/play, are actually the opposite. Yes, we are able escape out of our minds, but instead of reconnecting with our environment, we disconnect from the world altogether. Performed too many times, these behaviors leave us like a hungry ghost: always eating, never full.

Whether our vice is more serious (alcohol) or benign (binge watching Netflix), I believe that recognizing the emotional struggle at the root of the behavior is the best path towards healing. For me, creating a story that honors the natural human nature beneath the behavior is the surest way towards experiencing lasting change while maintaining a nonjudgmental, empathetic approach towards myself and others. I choose to believe that all of humanity is hardwired for connection and creativity. However, because we are imperfect beings in an imperfect world, these needs are very frequently not met. What arises is an uncomfortable, queasy gut feeling and a sense that something is just not right. Our instant gratification world has taught us that these feelings are not normal and are to be squashed immediately by the newest video game, or wine, or shopping spree. I see us as having two options. We either find innovative ways to re-establish a feeling of interconnection and purpose, or we press the easy button and disconnect altogether. The story I’ve chosen to believe is that these unpleasant emotions arise as openings to a different way of living, hinting to us that we are meant for something greater than our current situation. If we replace our fear with curiosity, we will notice that life’s hard moments often come with personalized invitations to a much richer way of living. Maybe that sensation of losing ourselves within creative pursuits can be viewed as signposts along this new life, keeping us engaged in the activities through which we can simultaneously fulfill our own needs while providing maximum benefit to those around us.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve noticed recently that life has taken on the thankless and often unwelcome task of reminding me of the lessons I love to espouse but haven’t quite mastered yet. I sometimes imagine that if I die and am able to view my life’s happenings in mega fast-forward, I’ll spend eternity laughing at how many times I’ve learned, failed at, forgotten, and then re-learned the same lesson. This week, the comedy show entailed remembering two things:

• My mind lies. It spins 1,000 different stories about who I am/what I like/how I should live, none of which may be true and all of which may be dependent on something external and transitory.
• My body never lies.

The thing is, my body always knows the daily rhythms, people, food, and activities it enjoys. It’s very clear about this and leaves no room for interpretation by myself or those around me. For instance, sometimes by brain tells me to go to yoga, because yoga is good for me and it turns us all into calm, angelic beings. Immediately afterwards, I may come home and see that my husband has yet again purchased overly ripe bananas, the kind that will be bruised and brown the next day. All of a sudden some sort of pent-up anger comes bubbling out and pours all over my poor husband, less than fifteen minutes after I have exited savasana. Clearly, yoga does not equal immediate sainthood. These two juxtaposed events usually leave me reeling in confusion, asking myself questions like “Am I one of those hypocritical ‘yogis’ who fancies herself some enlightened being while her whole family shudders at home awaiting her next act of volatility?” I’ve found that these temper tantrums occur when I have put too much stock in my mind and not enough in my body. Oftentimes my brain is telling me I need yoga, but my body is telling me to curl back up in bed with TV and tea. Other times it’s telling me to get my butt back to work because I have a lot to do, I’m stressed out, and self-care can wait.

I always find it eye-opening when my body appears to love something I have told myself I hate. Last Thursday, I woke up completely rejuvenated, calm, and motivated. This is odd because Wednesday had consisted of a 16-hour day, full of exercise, work-related writing, and volunteering at two separate locations in very different capacities. Early on Wednesday, I had found myself telling a friend all about how I just am not cut out for multi-tasking. I went on and on about how I was dreading breaking up my thesis-related work activities and felt like I would end the day exhausted and depleted. Thursday morning, I felt better than I had in weeks. When I reflected on the previous day, I realized I had thoroughly enjoyed hopping from one activity to the next. I had felt engaged with those around me, as if all of the energy in my body had focused itself with laser-like precision on the task at hand.

What I’ve taken from some of these experiences is two-fold. First, our society is all too inclined to sacrifice the body’s wisdom on the alter of the mind’s intelligence. We have been taught to distrust our bodies our whole lives. We’ve been told:

“Not enough sleep? Drink some coffee. Don’t nap, that’s lazy. Maybe a run will help. Yeah, that sounds good. Use up some more energy. See how you feel. What you don’t feel better? Weird.”

Or maybe:

“Feeling hungry? Don’t eat too much, and definitely don’t eat fat. Wait oops make that carbs. Wait, we mean sugar.”

… I’m sorry, say what?

We are taught how to think, rationalize, and internalize other people’s thoughts and rationalizations, but we are not taught how to sit with ourselves and listen to our own wisdom. Our wisdom tells us when and how to sleep, eat, and basically exist on this planet with some semblance of emotional and physical stability. The secret is staying still long enough to hear it.

My second take away from these musings is that I think we should tread a little more carefully around the concept of our own identity. We tend to partake in activities and endeavors that fit into the model of who we have told ourselves we are. These ideas may have very little do to with what we actually would enjoy, given we granted ourselves the opportunity. Take for instance my sixteen-hour day full of multi-tasking, an activity that I supposedly hate and am very, very bad at. Well apparently I actually love it, given what my body was telling me during the experience and afterwards. Additionally, I grew up as an avid indoor girl, with absolutely zero interest in spending a night without a roof over my head. Any mention of camping, no shower, or in any way roughing it (a definition I left open to my own loose interpretation), and I was out. Well again, I’ve now been camping, and I LOVE it. It’s the best thing ever. Sleeping outside equals happiness. Hmm. Suffice it to say, I am not someone who hates the outdoors or multi-tasking, regardless of whatever “identity” my sweet little mind has conjured up for me. From all of this, I’ve decided that life is fluid, and we should try to refrain from cramming our lives into whatever tidy box we have designed for ourselves. Maintaining openness in our lives, self-identity, and ideologies is undoubtedly a very vulnerable feeling. However, without a little bit of air and space, we will never be able to grow past our current state and into the yet unimagined people that the world is begging for us to become.

The Velveteen Rabbit

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse.

“It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

–Margery Williams

 

I’ve noticed that I often have a problem making certain goals and dreams become realities. I’ve thought a lot about why this is. What I am doing wrong, what is blocking me, and what could snap me out of this cycle. I’ve come to the conclusion that my fear makes me hide many of my interests, talents, and passions. My dreams seem much safer tucked away inside my mind where no one and nothing can hurt them. They’re preserved there for me to visit anytime I like. There they are, perfect little untouched toys. Never touched, never harmed, never real. And there I am next to them, the same.

I do, however, feel safe in certain pursuits. Goals of mine that are clear-cut and follow a certain pre-paved trajectory have always seemed attainable to me. I like benchmarks and objective measures that let me evaluate my own achievements by external standards. I don’t want to have to rely on my own internal judgment too much for these things. For me, school was one of these places. I was lucky enough to go to a great school, with teachers who encouraged and believed in me. I was able to take tests well without ever feeling too vulnerable or exposed. However, the main place I thrived was in the ballet studio. Again, ballet provided me with a defined way to achieve my goals. Take ballet class 5 times per week. Work on your own after class. Attend rehearsals. Always, always, wear your pointe shoes. Even if your feet hurt, and you have blisters, and your stress fractures are throbbing. Always. Wear. The. Pointe shoes. The measures of success and failure in this environment were always apparent to me. You fall out of a pirouette, there’s no wondering whether it went well or not. You get into prestigious summer dance programs, you know you’re on the right track. I loved ballet, and it felt as if everything else in the world fell away during those years. I was pushed in the studio beyond any limits I thought I had. I discovered that limitations are just an idea– they’re a fake concept we make up about ourselves and are something to be discarded as soon as possible. I am forever grateful for these lessons.

It seems that since my dancing years (which ended 10 years ago), I have become gripped by many dreams that do not follow such a clear trajectory with defined rules and benchmarks for success. I want to do well in graduate school, which means doing “good science.” Where are my exact rules for that? Unfortunately, I must read, synthesize and evaluate for myself what that means. There’s no one to tell me what my own particular brand of good science will be. This concept leaves me feeling like I’ve been dropped in a giant black box, forced to feel my way around while worrying that everyone else was given night vision goggles. In short, it’s terrifying.

I also want to write. I want to write papers, books, and blog posts. But again, there will always be people who dislike what I write. What then? I’ve chosen to believe that this means I will be REAL. I will be roughed up, but stronger. My endeavors will be weathered, maybe have lost some fur and look a little shabby at times, but they will be manifested. I have decided that the imperfect book that impacts just one soul is better than the perfect book that may impact hundreds but only lives in my mind. It all comes down, in essence, to vulnerability. Authenticity requires vulnerability and courage. It also requires the confidence to re-enter the stage after being struck, even if we have are nursing a black eye and aren’t feeling entirely “presentable.” I’d like to thank my years of ballet, for gifting me flexibility. May it help me to bend, not break, in this process of becoming real.