Expectation

Suffering is the result of attachment.

This is something my therapist reminds me of a lot, and he freely attributes it to the writings of Buddhism. He's an equal opportunity user of religious tenants in our session and has mentioned, among other things: Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism. (It's kind of nice to sit on a couch that welcomes science and logic, feelings and things that are less than rational, and world religion in equal measure.)

What he's really saying though is, when you get attached to something, you place expectation on it. You make plans based on the idea of counting on something that will hold those plans up. And since each thing you build on top of this foundation is contingent upon the thing before it, and since the foundation may or may not live up to the expectation, if any of this goes against the grain of the wood you're laying on this foundation or if the foundation itself wobbles . . .  the expectations come crashing down. Unmet. And then what you have on your hands is a mess to clean up, and something akin to a bruise on your ego with a healthy dose of disappointment. Frustration, kicking yourself, sadness for what could have been but wasn't. Suffering.

Expectation leads to suffering.

And I am the queen of expectation. Mostly, I hold myself to painfully high standards, which is another way of saying I create expectation and the accompanying suffering for myself. I owe a lot of what I've accomplished to setting the bar high, and then going above and beyond to get there, but along the way I also have signed up for more than my fair share of being hard on myself. In fact, just today I was telling a story that I often tell when I'm remembering how hard work-life balance was for me in my old job (or alternatively if I'm looking to make fun of myself) about a time when I was trying to support an entire branch's worth of centers by my lonesome and working well over 80 hours a week. It meant eating a lot of Subway and being on the road from 7 am until often well past 8 or 9pm. It meant that this chic, the one who hates speaking out loud (to anyone if I can help it) before 8 or 9am, and has low blood sugar (especially in the mornings) was trying to work out at 5am and then on the road for 10-14 hours a day. I was saying how I came home on a Wednesday at 10pm and realized my choices were to stay up until past 1am doing laundry or get up at 4am to do laundry.  Orrrrrr secret door number three: iron and re-wear my pants and drive 4 blocks to Walgreens and buy new underwear. I took secret door number three but as I was driving the 4 blocks there and back I was mentally consumed by the feeling I was (and I quote) failing life.

That's right: not working too much, or sacrificing for my team and my job, or going above and beyond for the clients and centers I supported. But failing basic life 101. It's funny, but it isn't. 20/20 hindsight took so long to sink in that it was literally more than a year before I looked back on that night (which I have vivid memories of) and realized that if there was any failure it was in the planning that left me as the only consultant in a territory covering three states, or on the part of the expectations set by my employer.

This is related to, but not the same as my musings on failure. Abstractly, I understand the uses of failure. The importance of failure. Even the necessity of failure. But I see it in terms of how successful people (Ali, Steve Jobs, JK Rowling, and Einstein come to mind) carved a path, picked themselves up, and learned what not to do. Even my own failures are best viewed from a safe distance. The time I didn't get cast in a show, but discovered my passion for stage managing as a result, the time I failed a class at a college that didn't have grades (oh, yeah. It takes someone really spesh like me to fail even in the absence of grades), the time I moved across the country for my fiance only to find myself alone knowing no one at the worst, most emotionally raw moment I've ever experienced. Sitting where I sit now, 20 years, 14 years, 4 years after those hard, weak, disappointing moments and outcomes I see how those hardships, those mistakes, those speed bumps opened my eyes, made me grow, bent me in a new or even better direction. From this safe perspective, I can be grateful for my expectations not being met, for those failures, and I can even see how they lead to successes.

From here. But never ever from the moment. Really. Never.

A lot of people SAY they're their own worst critic. But for me in the moment of defeat, I become a poor, abused child. I don't just beat myself up, I beat myself up, followed by kicking myself while I'm down (from the beating), then, while I'm lower than low (from the beating followed by kicking) I bring on the flogging and torture, and then I ask my wounded, limping, inner self to write "I am a terrible, miserable failure. I am not worthy" on the proverbial blackboard 100 times. Then I ask that poor child to write an essay about what she's learned from all of this  ( . . . hence this blog).

It's ironic, because I'm told I'm a good person to have on hand when things aren't working out as planned. I'm compassionate and I often even say things that aren't just supportive, but are smart and understanding. I get it, I let people feel their feelings, but then I also help them see the road ahead. this is what I'm told. So . . . why can't I tell myself these things?

Well, hey, this is what therapy is for, and so we've come full circle to where I started - my therapist says attachment leads to suffering. There's a multifaceted idea he and I are working on . . . ways to notice how much I judge myself, ways to work on it without setting the expectation of banishing it too high . . . leading to more judgement and suffering. Ways to pick myself up when I do find myself rolling on the ground taking kicks.

But, I've had a lot of speed bumps this year. If I'm honest, my expectation was that I would have a job long before now. That my feet would be back on the road of figuring out how I want things to align in my life, and what I'm going to be putting my passion and energy and drive and killer work-ethic towards. I truly never expected to be just a few days away from turning 35 still wondering what opportunities I might have, and how the pieces would fit together.

I've realized lately that standards are one thing, and judgement, expectation, and self-flogging are completely another. I was in the process of discussing a job that, frankly, had more liabilities than assets. It very likely would have held me in place, for not enough money or challenge, while making it nigh to impossible to job hunt for anything else. We mutually reached the conclusion that when she moves her business forward, she will be ready for my higher skill set, but until then, she needs to hire to fill the need she has now. It was perfectly reasonable, and more than that, self-preservational (even, gasp, hopeful and optimistic of me) for me to reach the conclusions that this job didn't meet my standards and might create as many issues as it solved if there wasn't a clear path for me to move onto greater things (and there wasn't). The problem that I avoided was getting attached to this interview as the solution to my rapidly scary problem.

I've learned this lesson the hard way a few times over this year. I've worked so hard to apply only for jobs I really want, so this means that when I get an interview, or worse, a second interview, I feel, well, attached. And what follows is expectation. And over and over, that has lead to disappointment and suffering.

My therapist is of the opinion that when I figure out how to let go, when I stop white-knuckling, when I can be truly and authentically OK without slotting everything into a plan, a design, a structure (all disguises for expectation, by the way) that is when I will find and land the right opportunity.

I have some significant reservations about attaching my job search results to something mystical. Of the jobs I've been most excited about and not gotten, one of them was really hiring from within. Another changed the details of the job as well as the salary after I had already interviewed several times. A third turned out not to have the budget for another full time employee. A fourth re-wrote the position significantly around another candidate, and that wasn't the job I had applied for so I was just not in the running anymore. I'm not sure that not getting any of those jobs had to do with the cloud of judgement and expectation I let mushroom around me.

But I can't deny the fact that I have this desire for all of the struggle and emotional work and mis-steps to lead to something amazing. Some job that is better, less commute, better for my life outside of work, contributing to the greater good, thrilling, worthy of my passion and skills. You know, all around SHINY. And If I can't deny that desire, I also can't ignore that that is expectation setting me up for pain again.

That is the truth, though. I want things. I want to know if I am going to be able to swing it to go to my dear friend's long overdue wedding celebration in August.  I want to have the ability to feel secure enough on my own path that I have some sense of how I would walk that way with my person . . . if it turned out we both wanted that. I want to fly to New Jersey and meet the beautiful happy baby some of my best friends' had. I want to work out with my trainer again. I want to not have to tell people, "I'm not sure I can do that. We'll see what I can afford." I want to go hiking without worrying what would happen if my knees blew out again and I had no insurance. I want to not have my answer to almost everything be, "I have NOOOOOOOOOO idea what my life will look like in three months so . . ."

I want things. I want them two months ago. and I think what I really want is a smidge of stability and some predictability. I think I want some safety and I want some relief from doubt. It's like my favorite Toad the Wet Sprocket song,"I spend too much time seeking shelter. World without end couldn't hold her."

I don't know if getting better at free-falling will help me get a job, but as long as I'm out here, falling fast without a chute, it probably pays to get better at it anyways. Lord knows I'm not working, soooooo, if not now, when?! (A little unemployment humor goes a long way.)

Three minutes - Day one, take two

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about meditation.

Meditation is really, really hard for me. I know you all heard this all before but it is harder than making myself work out, harder than passing up cake, harder than pull-ups. and pull-ups are really hard.

The thing for me, about meditation, is that I can sit. And I can breathe . . . usually. Maybe not for long, and I may or may not actually fully empty myself out. And all of that is fine. I agree with my therapist that it's a practice, and that's it's called practice for a reason. It is whatever it can be on any given day - some days it's a constant process of hearing the voices and judgements in my head, and other days it's a chance to slow my brain down and feel something like approaching peace, some days it's a chance to process. Most days, whatever has happened "on the mat" so to speak, I feel good about having done it at all. Most days, when I open my eyes up after sitting and breathing, colors look brighter and my vision seems to be sharper. Life seems a little more in focus from how it was.

This is funny, because I've been sitting for three minutes at a time. No more, no less.

You may remember that when I wrote about ADD I talked about following a plan of 2 minutes a day, then ramping up to 5 minutes a day. But the truth is, it took two tries to get 2 minutes a day consistent for a week at a time. Two minutes seems like so little, but just as I discovered when I was taking pictures of myself every day for a year, and posting them, the list of things we do EVERY DAY without fail, never missing them, for any reason, is really, really finitely small. For me, now that I am not longer doing a 365 days photo project the list is this long:

1. Breathe
2. Drink Water
3. Brush my teeth ( I never don't do this. Because I am very, very into clean teeth)

That's the entire list, plus now, trying to sit and breathe every day. I don't eat every day. Almost every day, of course, but since doing a 365 I am very aware that thinking you do something every day is not the same as doing things every day. So, I know, for instance, that three times in the last 3 years I've been sick enough to skip eating for a day. I may, if I can succeed at sitting and breathing every day, add writing every day, or even do another 365, but for now, four things is enough to try for because I have a tendency to over-commit and even to over-commit plus then beating myself up for not being able to maintain everything.

So, here is the story of me trying to meditate every day, for just a few minutes.

Week 1. Objective: sit for two minutes every day. After a week of doing this, advance to 5 minutes a day.

The first three days were great. I got up each morning, sat for two minutes, and then had these peaceful and very contented breakfasts. I sat on my porch and noticed things. I had visions of photos I wanted to take and things I wanted to write. I felt good. Then, I started feeling . . . dragged around by unexpected feelings. Stress, judgment, expectation. I was so, so tired and found myself sleeping in. I had interviews. I felt . . . too full. So, I missed day 4 and 5. On day 6, I really needed my processing time and did my breathing on the couch, staring at my "processing ceiling." On day 7, I knew I needed another week of two minutes before "advancing."

Week 2. Objective: Sit for 2 minutes a day. Set no other goals regarding the practice of sitting and breathing.

Day 1 - I should read that book that Susan gave me. Actually, she loaned you two books. Maybe you should swim this week. And, Gabrielle loaned you a book too. Does she still have a copy of "All Families are psychotic?" Is this helping you with your family? Maybe, maybe not. If nothing else, then at least it makes you feel better at dealing with you. Shut up, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!
Day 2 - Breathe in. Breath out. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all.

Day 3 - One in; one out. One, two, in; One, two, out. One, two, three, in; one, two, three, out. So, on and so forth.

Day 4 - I should make coffee this morning. Shut up brain. Breathe. Seriously, you breathe without thinking. why can't you JUST do this?

Day 5 - I wonder if there's any research about how asthmatics benefit from meditation and breathing practice? I need to blow my nose. This allergy season blows. 

Day 6 - crap. I almost forgot to do this! And then . . . emptiness. And relief.

Day 7 - I don't want to. But I refuse to mess this up. Try not to fall asleep!
Week 3. Objective: Sit for 3 minutes a day. Set no other goals regarding the practice of sitting and breathing.
Day 1: Let's try sitting in the afternoon = epic fail. My mind was EVERYWHERE at once, and nowhere fully, and importantly, nowhere near settled on sitting peacefully.

Day 2: Sitting in my car before an interview. Set a timer and used this technique from the article (which I used to use in high school and college):

If (following the breath) seems hard at first, you can substitute the method of counting your breath. As you breathe in, count 1 in your mind, and as you breathe out, count 1. Breathe in, count 2. Breathe out, count 2. Continue through 10, then return to 1 again. This counting is like a string which attaches your mindfulness to your breath. This exercise is the beginning point in the process of becoming continuously conscious of your breath. Without mindfulness, however, you will quickly lose count. When the count is lost, simply return to 1 and keep trying until you can keep the count correctly.
The timer went off before I realized it. It went wayyyyyy fast.

Day 3: whoooooooooooops! Totally forgot.

Day 4: see above

Day 5: Breathe in. Breath out. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all.

Day 6: What if I don't get this job? What should I make for dinner? Did I eat enough protein today? It's hard to breathe through my nose right now. My knee hurts. Beer sounds good. I should substitute a carb at dinner for a beer. Should I start getting serious about part time jobs for the summer? How much time will that take away from my job hunt? Does that just prolong this issue rather than solving it? 
Day 7: whooooops! Totally forgot.

Thus, today is 3 minutes, day 1.2 - insert here me laughing at myself.

But gently.

As the article says, "If you're anything like me, meditation will help you realize just how far, and how fast, your mind can wander from what you're supposed to be doing at the moment. In an age of multitasking, hyper-scheduling, and instant internet distraction, that alone can be a huge help."The problem for me, is clearly that my mind wants to run right up against the glass separating me from the the big giant beastly things we look at safely, when they are in cages. And then it wants to run back as quickly as it came. And on the path back, it encounters other things. Things that are conveniently distracting like what to eat, drink, and read.

So, when I picked up "When things Fall Apart" by Pema Chodron, I knew I was onto something when she said,"Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade into the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of the sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold onto. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when we have nowhere to escape."

It's hard to pass by a mirror and not notice that it's you in there.

I am afraid. And fear is something I don't face very often because there is little I fear. I often proceed to do things that others think are hard without fear. It's not that I don't feel normal anxiety, it's that I don't have a lot of fears. I'm not afraid of elevators, heights, jumping from them, sparring big men, tunnels, moving to new places, or  meeting new people. Other people ask me to deal with their rodent and bug issues. I have not a second thought about blood or needles, and I have watched my own surgeries. I'm allergic to pain meds, so when I do have surgeries I deal with pain on my own. The list of things I'm afraid of is almost as short as the list of things I do daily without fail:

1. I am afraid of the dark. It's silly.
2. I am not exactly afraid of  but have some strong irrational reactions to anyone pushing on or pinning my neck.
3. I have some weird and not always logical concerns about meat and diseases. This is most often seen in how I shudder and wash my hands eight times after handling chicken. Bllleeeechhhh.
4. I secretly worry that all of this time I've spent thinking about raising kids won't translate into me actually being a good parent.

I've had this list for some time. I've operated under the idea that I walk through the world, mostly unafraid so long as I don't have to deal with chicken in the dark while someone is pointing out all of the flaws in my fictitious-as-of-yet parenting.

But, as it turns out, our friend Pema has me thinking. I recently told someone that we can't every know what someone thinks, how their mind actually computes something, or what we feel. As a psychologist I was trained deeply to understand that all we can see, all we can measure, is behavior. And my behavior suggest I am attracted to other unnamed things that frighten me, but that I am, in fact, scared.

And so my natural instinct is to "forget" to meditate, forget to sit with that discomfort, or to sit, and then instantly turn the spot light on other things (like beer, and books, and peanut butter).

My therapist said "don't you think it's about time that you stopped carrying all of that judgment around with you?"

And my person said, "maybe you need to get comfortable with being able to make decision without knowing all of the variables."

These are all ways of saying, what Pema says which is, "What we're talking about is getting to know fear,  becoming familiar with fear, looking it right in the eye - no, not as a way to solve problems, but as a complete undoing of old ways of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and thinking." 

I notice that I am changing. I sleep differently. I approach things differently. And though I can often be hear lamenting, "I have no way to plan what three months from now looks like, " I can also be heard saying that with reverence and wonder. I eat differently. I sometimes rationalize what I have done, accepted, or asked for help on; but I am also doing it without nearly as much pain as I previously experienced.

So, I will keep sitting. And seeing how up-close-and-personal I can get with my fears. you know, the ones I'm still getting acquainted with. when I know what they are, an update on that list will be forthcoming. (Duhn duhn duhhhnnnn) It may take me forever and a day to sit for 5 minutes a day, but I'm quite sure that however and whenever I get there I will know my insides better, and see the outside not just more sharply, as I do now after just 2 or 3 minutes, but with much less fear and judgment and much more vividness.