Choosing Shoes

A couple of nights ago, my person and I were discussing my blog. I was mentioning that one of my friends had reported she reads my blogs when she can, but sometimes finds certain posts to be more philosophical than she's up for. I remarked, "It's not like I'm writing about the meaning of life or something. My thoughts are pretty commonplace."

He smiled a little smile, shook his head, and said, "Wellllllllll, you come close to some pretty significant deepness sometimes. Even when your posts are about everyday things like, I don't know, choosing shoes, by laying out your thoughts, arguments, process, analysis, things verge on philosophy sometimes."

Well, I don't write about the meaning of life - why would I? It's already been covered adequately by Douglas Adams. I do write about the search for meaning, sometimes very much in the footsteps of writers I love such as Douglas Copeland and Barbara Kingsolver. Maybe even more importantly, I write about the things that make me the best version of myself, what's meaningful to me, and ways to hold myself to that. (It's not that I think my life is more important than the bigger meaning of life in general, just that the only system I can really contribute to or influence on a regular basis is ME so understanding myself well is, in my opinion, one of the better things I can do for the greater good).

But I can write about decision making, and choosing shoes. And since my person teased with the "choosing shoes" example, I laughingly pledged to write an entry about shoes.

Today, I was barefoot for most of the day. That's because it's 101 degrees out and my basement is far lovlier than that so I chose to apply for jobs, cook, do laundry, clean my house, and catch up with a good friend before getting showered and dressed and leaving the house. But when I did put shoes on, surprisingly, I did actually have to think about it - all joking aside. I put on a denim skirt, bright green tank top, and black t-shirt to go out for groceries in. I have great sandals that have green in them but, they are brown - not great with a black shirt. I also have a beaded necklace that is dear to my heart because my girl K-bomb made it for my 5th 29th birthday (I turned 29 for the 5th time last year on my birthday), and it has green and BLACK beads. I have a pair of gorgeous black flowered Alegria shoes that I could get away with. Magically, they are not only cute and distinctive, but orthotically correct without looking like old lady shoes. This is important for someone like me who has hyper-extending joints, bad knees, and feet that like to cramp but who also loves to look stylish. Ultimately, though, if I wore those shoes, it felt like it would be over the top to wear the necklace too. So, I went with the plain black flip flops and rationalized it by deciding: plain, black, soft, open air on my feet, and easy to slip off when I come home, which is good since I just cleaned the floors.

So, there you are, sweetie, some writing about choosing my shoes.

But, there's another way to look at this, which is to look at decision making. We all make decisions all day, all the time, every day. what to bring for lunch, what to watch, how to say something difficult to a loved one, Tylenol or Advil?

I'm unemployed, so I don't make workplace decisions like I used to, but my work days used to be filled with selecting priorities, choosing which things to pass onto other departments and which to solve myself, thinking about and implementing action plans, communicating and setting goals with others, and decision after decision of who, what, when, where, and how. But, even not working, I'm still engaged in decision making every day. Here's a quick example of things I've decided, just today:

• Get up now or sleep a little longer? (I slept because I've had some intermittent insomnia lately and need to catch up where I can)
• Yogurt, banana, hard boiled egg for breakfast or protein smoothie with bananas? (I had a smoothie and a cereal bar because it was fast and used up bananas that were a little over-ripe)
• Shower right after breakfast? (I decided to clean my house first and then shower during the hot part of the day as a way of cooling off)
• What salads should I make? (Kale salad and corn salad)
• Take stuff out to the trash or compost? (Compost because it's experimental at my place right now, and I want to encourage others to do it even if it's a little extra effort for me.)
• Mean note or conciliatory note to the person encroaching on my space. (Neither. Something in between, asserting that I think it's reasonable for me to ask him not to use my space, but also mentioning that I'm checking with the HOA on how they treat that space. I don't want to be harsh unless I know I'm right, and even then, I'd prefer to be on good terms with my neighbors if that can be achieved without being a doormat.)
• How specific should I be about my current relationship while talking with an old friend who once wished he could date me? (Neither vague nor specific since it didn't come up in conversation too much and I didn't feel the need to force it as he told me where he was at with dating, his ex and his ex-wife.)
• Should I buy a cookie while I'm out. (No! I don't need it, and this heat makes me less than hungry)
• Should I stop at the liquor store (No! I recently expressed a plan to drink less beer in order to reduce carbs, don't need the calories, wanted to get home, and I'm broke)
• Bulk almonds or packaged (Easy, same price per pound. Take the packaged ones as a matter of efficiency.)
• Should I get gas today or tomorrow? (Today because I could go by the station where I can use reward points and get gas for less than $3.50 a gallon without going out of my way.)
• What should I listen to? (The Nylons, because I'm in the mood for some music that is upbeat, and has interesting harmonies)
• What song should I post today? (For the Longest Time, The Nylons. Because I love Billy Joel, harmony, and acapella)
• Apply for more jobs this week? (No, I've done 10 apps, and since I have to contact a minimum number of employers/job postings every week, it's actually better for me to save some for next week. Especially since I won't do my best work on customizing resumes and letters right now.)
• In playing Dice with Buddies against my brother, I rolled three 2's, a 1 and a 4. I kept the 2's and rolled again, and got a fourth 2, and rolled my third turn, and did not get a fifth 2. So, play as 4 of a kind (11 points with my 2x4 plus a 3) or in the 2's category (total of all 2's = 8)? (I played in the 2's category since the highest I could have gotten in the 2's was a 10 but the highest I could get in  4 of a kind with 4 2's is 14. The highest possible in that category is 6x5 = 30, though you'd be a fool not to play THAT in 6's or 5 of a kind for 50 points. I reasoned, this way, playing in 2's I'm only 2 points below the best I COULD have done.)

What makes a decision good or bad? Is it getting compliments on the shoes I wore? Getting the best price on almonds? Whether or not I end up beating my brother in Dice with Buddies? Is it the outcome of that decision?

Maybe not, especially not if you think about how even small choices can affect other things. I also think . . . it's hard to consider the weight of any decision in isolation. It may have been a mistake to give up the things I gave up on the East Coast to come here for a fiance who didn't put as much effort into the relationship as I did, but it didn't end up being wrong for me to be here. My job with my former employer was the right thing for me as I was leaving grad school, but ended up not being the right thing for me by somewhere around late 2010. My bestest friend everest regrets not taking me to my prom when I asked, but I ended up with the most amazing, sweet, entertaining, funny, charming, solicitous friend-of-a-prom-date EVER. I may lose my Dice with Buddies game, but winning or losing isn't why I play - I play because it keeps me in communication with my favorite family member.

Outcomes are hard to measure when they keep unfolding in new ways. If you had asked me during Labor Day of 2008 if I was ok being here, the answer would've been, "get me the frak outta here ASAP." But, being here has left me stronger, healthier, more reconciled with myself, knowing my limits and how NOT to push past them, and with a much deeper connection with my loved ones, despite being farther away from them. A year from now, though, I'll have even more information and may look at this completely differently, for better or worse.

For my part, what allows me to judge a decision I make as being "good" or "bad" is more about the process I use to arrive at it. Have I considered the important facts? Have I done the math correctly? Have I not only collected the right data and analyzed it, but made sure to collect enough of it? Have I spent the time needed to feel like, whatever happens as a result of this, I won't wonder if I should have asked different questions, or looked for supporting evidence differently? Have I thought about how the necklace and the shoes work together?

What this looks like for me is spending a lot of time writing, journaling, researching, talking, asking questions, reading, and then trying to see the bigger picture (in fine detail . . . I don't want to lose the trees for the forest, nor the forest for the trees) as I stare at a ceiling or chop vegetables into very small pieces. And, as a result, there are really only half a dozen or so things I genuinely regret in my life. (I don't say that to brag, but only to say that I think if you stop looking at ONLY outcomes, it becomes much harder to regret because what's left to notice is process and ongoing repercussions, that are always unfolding, positive and negative, since nothing is a closed system. ) One of them involves some rope, a closet, and my little brother. The other does involve my career. A third involves a dear friend from college and a vacation house in upstate NY. A fourth, a friendship I didn't keep . . and a couple of others are too complicated (not too private, just too twisty and detailed) to write here.

When I look at those moments in my life . . . there were good and less than good outcomes of each of those decisions in all cases. Maybe, the good and the bad are intertwined, or maybe how things work out or don't work out have more to do with how we react and what outlook we take as things unfurl. It's so hard to say at this point in my life, sitting where I'm sitting, wondering what will happen next and trying SO HARD to be ok with whatever that is. Knowing that I won't know what that looks like until my nose bangs right onto a sliding glass door looking out on that scene.

I say this as a reminder to myself, not a guideline for anyone else. Because I'm in the midst of making some big decisions about my life. Where to live, who to live with, how to make that work, what jobs to look for, how to aim towards them . . . going back to school or not? Whole new career or slight shift in tasks, roles and title but similar function? If the universe is anywhere near as hilarious as it has been in the past, I'll walk part way down the road towards settling these things, and then, simultaneously, after stumbling through a desert, a dearth of options, I'll find myself showered with choices, fruit-basket like, wondering if I should eat bananas or apricots or melon or grapefruits, or or or. I am certain that if I decide to go back to school, that will be the moment I get a job. I am certain that by deciding to re-sign my lease, I'll now find myself considering job options or school options more than an hour south of here.

And when that happens, I'll stamp my flip-flopped feet and gnash my terrible teeth but I'll also laugh and laugh and laugh. None of these decisions are irrevocable, and I have more than a small number of friends who are making bigger decisions, decisions with longer-lasting consequences. Decisions about who should parent their children, or when life begins, or how to be at peace with choosing jail for a lesser sentence over fighting the good fight and losing in the court of public opinion anyways, or bankruptcy, or infertility.

My problems and choices are mine, so of course, they are magnified in my brain. This isn't a bad thing. It means I take ownership of them, and do my best to make sure the things I'm doing add up and don't hurt others if I can avoid it. But, I need to remember that in the larger scheme of things, school vs. job hunting, staying here vs. moving is closer to a "what shoes should I wear" decision than an earth-moving one.

In this vein, the very best I can do is to make decisions in a way that I can look back on and feel good about, even if they don't work out the way I planned. Decisions I can take responsibility for proudly, choices that reflect my convictions and beliefs, and things that are as consistent with the information I have and goals I'm aiming for as possible. I'm learning that my plans aren't always THE PLAN and that the way to feel good about my choices isn't to measure my success in traditional metrics, but to look back and say, "was my process sound? Was the data set robust? Was the analysis one I would arrive at again?" Because we never really know if the choices we make will be what we hoped they were - marriage, shoes, haircuts, dinner menus, jobs, colleges, cookies. None of it.

Wear the shoes that feel comfortable today, and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Make the kind of decisions that you can live with even if they don't work out as planned because not much does. I stubbed my toe in those black sandals, but, I never thought, "I shouldn't have worn those . . . "

Yes, all, this is me, 6 months into unemployment learning that we can't nail everything down in the order and arrangement we would most like, and if we could, it might not be for the best since we can't ever see the whole scene from where we're standing . . . even if we're wearing heels.

Secret Introvert?

I have some friends and family who are closet introverts. I know them for what they are, but much like people used to use all kinds of not-very-clever euphemisms for being gay and would only say the word "gaayyy" in the "cancer voice" (Margaret Cho's mother comes to mind. "Mommy knows all about the gay! So many! So many Gay, allll over, all over the world. Wahhhh!") I have never much called them out of their safe closets of introversion where they recharge their batteries in peace. This is because our societal norms are pretty judgy about introversion.

Yesterday, I was telling the story of my New Year's Eve 2011(henceforth on this blog, NYE 2011) to a friend who is new to my life, but has taken up space in my heart and life very rapidly. I was describing how, for years, I've helped my besties, my boys who are my family, cook and plan and clean and host and then met their friends (who are fun and amazing people and who have become my friends) at the resultant celebration. I said how awesome it was when MY friend came wanting to see me and meet them but how I had to be a bit of an intermediary. My friend wanted to party, but not stay at the house; while my Robby wanted everyone to stay at the house because in his mind post-NYE breakfast is lazy people in PJs in his living room (yes, that's right - we cook for days and make not only a stunning set of appetizers, dinner, cocktails, and dessert, but breakfast for the next day. A moment of silence for our awesomeness, please). I intervened and said, "I know you want to be an awesome host so make the offer, but if he says 'no' that's not the I'm-being-polite-but-you-can-push-harder signal, that's him saying 'I want to party and then go have some space to recharge as an introvert.' And in that case you need to accept that being a good host means respecting that need."

The new friend I was telling this NYE story to has been married for 3 years, and with her husband for 6 years before. Her husband is very much an introvert so she said, "It's so rare that non-introverts know that. It took me years to learn it and not take it personally."

We're an extrovert-centric culture. My more-than-friend, Rob(by), and I joked for a long time that the last frontier of prejudice was a world that assumed everyone is right-handed, and expects him, a lefty, to adjust everything without complaint. True, desks, scissors, tools, and spiral notebooks all assume use by a righty, and lefties just have to suck it up and learn ambidexterity or other ways to compensate. But it's also true that there are now stores that specialize in making lefties more comfortable as lefties. There are no stores for introverts . . . unless you count Best Buy and Elliot Bay Books as havens for the introvert who just wants to be left the heck alone with their media and their internal process.

The message in our culture regarding introversion is both unsubtle and incorrect, in my not very expert opinion because there is an assumption that being outgoing is preferable in all scenarios and that introverts are the opposite of this: shy. As it turns out, introversion isn't about being shy, or anxious about other humans, it's about where resources and energy go, and where they come from. (As someone who used to be a multi-focal trainer . . . and hopes to be again someday . . I often think about this as the difference between internal training and customer-facing training in an organization. With many of my clients' small businesses I would recommend and even provide training as a means of developing their operations, sales, and other business needs. But internal training was about developing resources on hand, and processing what was happening inside the four walls of that business, and drawing energy and participation from within the group/organization. Customer-facing training is all about putting energy into people outside of "yourself"  - where yourself equals the business/staff/organization in this example -  with the expectation of getting that investment back in increased customers, loyalty, etc. In parallel, introverts do their best work and understand the world best by facing inwards and drawing their energy and motivation from that, and extroverts shine most when they can invest in and be energized by others. )

From, Revenge of the Introvert "While extraverts spend more time overall in social activities than introverts do, the two groups do not differ significantly on time spent with family members, romantic partners, or coworkers. Moreover, extraverts and introverts both report a mood boost from the company of others. For introverts, however, the boost may come at a cost. Researchers have found that introverts who act extraverted show slower reaction times on subsequent cognitive tests than those allowed to act introverted. Their cognitive fatigue testifies to the fact that "acting counter-dispositionally is depleting."

A culture that prizes extroversion and gregariousness often conflates anxiety and introversion, placing not only positive bias on being extroverted, but negative assumptions on not being extroverted. It's nice that experts agree that introversion isn't the same as being shy. It's even more important that we consider what being introverted DOES mean and trying to understand, as this Ted talk says so eloquently, the power of the introverts around us.

Let's be clear, in America we are loud, rowdy, boisterous, and love the person who can party or make everyone feel good. We expect to be entertained at all that we do so we interview people for jobs seeking extroverted characteristics. In my recent interviews I've been asked the following questions:

• Tell me about a time where you had to make a connection with someone quickly
• Tell me about your team work experiences
• What can you say about your strategy for convincing groups of people to ________
• What are your strengths in facilitating groups?

This would make sense, of course, if all of the positions I've looked at were customer-facing training positions, or sales support. But in fact, none of my last three interviews were even TRAINING positions. We assume that our bosses, teachers, co-workers, and leaders should be the life of the party, and moreover, excited to walk in those shoes. We elect a disproportionate number of extroverts and we assume, somehow, that the person who seeks to work alone, be alone, process alone does so because they are too shy to operate as the social butterfly would.


Because we love the extrovert here, and we misunderstand the introvert as being awkward, shy, hard to draw out, unable to connect with people, and thus, somehow socially disabled. In reality, introverts may eschew small talk because they'd rather dig for deeper meanings and connections, they may choose not to go to every party, they may not only crave but need time alone to process and recharge, but they like people just fine, if possibly in shorter doses or via more careful selection.

As one of my closest friends is an introvert, I've actually done quite a bit of reading and considering on the topic of how extroverts and introverts can live together in peace, how to be supportive of introverts around me, and even, how shall we say . . . well, I'll just quote this article, Caring for my introvert(s). My own experience suggests that by respecting boundaries, learning to enjoy quiet, seemingly solitary activities with them (watching TV, studying in the same room, reading), and being very open to real conversation that goes beyond weather and gossip, an introvert will show that they have paid deep attention to what has been said and, sometimes importantly, what has not been said, will share things that reflect deep emotional connection and awareness, and will ultimately let you inside their introspective, quiet place. Introverts aren't about what's on the surface, and part of the bias of an extroverted world is not only judging introverts for not playing the surface-niceties game, but to also judge introverts only by what they show on the surface . . . and there's so much more beneath that layer. My friend from college and I had our deepest talks when alone in a dark lab at 2am or when I was massaging him. (That sounds dirtier than it was. Giving massages was just part of my friendship with him) I know things because I stopped asking-asking-asking and started shutting up and listening.

I did all of this with the idea that I was on the outside of this circle (or to be more accurate, the individual circles the introverts I know have for themselves, and expand oh-so-very selectively, letting others in very carefully).

I knew my college friend as introverted long before it ever came up in conversation, and since the inception of that friendship, I've had a few other important connections with introverts, including the relationship I'm in now. I have two other close friends here in Boulder that are introverts. One of these makes no bones about it - she prefers to spend time with me one-on-one whenever possible so we can deep-talk, and she feels most connected with people in this way and sometimes overwhelmed (not shy, just too stimulated to process) when in bigger groups. The other puts on a great show, and truly is one of the most entertaining people I know, but often reports to me being tired by that. When we were first hanging out, because she is so energetic and hilarious, I worried she wouldn't want to spend time with me . . . that I wouldn't be cool enough. But as I thought of fun things for us to do, time and again she would choose to just come over to my house, eat dinner, talk, and watch TV. Secret Introvert.

One of my brothers is a secret introvert. He often claims, "I hate people." He'll make me come for certain holidays so that I can "buffer." The truth is, he talks about people more than he talks about anything else (including working out, beer, and sex, so that's saying a lot): our sister, our other brother, my mom, his best friend, his best friend's new baby, going out for drinks with my besties which happened, like, 3 years ago. He doesn't hate people - he hates small talk. He hates being "nice" because he isn't (not by most people's limited standards, anyways), and because he has a slow-to-warm-up personality that makes him often pressured or misunderstood. And, after a big family event, he craves retreating to run, read, sleep, watch TV on his own the way my knocked-up friends crave chocolate. Secret introvert.

I have shared a lot with introverts in my life . . . but always thought of myself as an extrovert. But recently, my person sighed and said, "Ohhhh, Christie. You can say you're an extrovert, but you are telling me things that make me think you're an introvert."

This was almost as stunning as when he referred to me as a writer, weeks ago. I've just never considered myself as anything other than extroverted. How much of this is about extrovert-bias and how much is true? It's hard to say since most tests of this personality spectrum from the introvertedy-introvert all the way to the most extroverted there can be are based on either self-assessment or self-reporting or both. So, even if I look at the fact that I always test as an ENFJ (or, in the past, very occasionally as an ENFP) I may be responding to misperceptions of myself, and those perceptions, in turn, may be shaped by extrovert bias. So hard to say since all of the questions on such instruments are open to so much interpretation, which requires comparison, which of course, again, are shaped by biases and bad information.

So logically, let's look at my family: I grew up with two siblings. One is the most extroverted anyone could be; the proverbial social butterfly who places himself in the center of activity at any party, gathering, or family event and can talk and entertain for hours. Alone time seems a punishment to him and so he seeks out shared living (while my other sibling and I have admitted that living alone is our greatest luxury) and careers that require constant contact with others. The other sib is described above - secret introvert. I have one parent who is genuinely miserable when by herself (the textbook extrovert who wants to be out, with others, all the time and when alone picks up the phone ASAP) and had another parent who very much fit the mold of the introverted engineer that he was. It would make sense for me to be either a moderately expressed extrovert or a moderately expressed introvert, not heavily weighted on either side, given this set up. And while early personality-type research suggested that firstborn children were more "dominant" newer research suggests that firstborns are less likely to be extroverted.

Ok, so, not crazy given my family. The next natural thing would be to observe myself . . . except that there are arguments both for and against the present circumstances I find myself in. On the one hand, not working is pretty exceptional for me. I've been working for more than 20 years. And the toll of not working has been difficult, to say the least. On the other hand, there's an argument to be made for looking at NOW as the Christie-in-her-natural-habitat; not responding to others' needs, not running myself ragged for a paycheck, but just being me. Viewed by the former lens, it's easy to discount where I'm at as situation-specific and to say that my tendency for more solitary reflection is about the natural disappointment at being in this position. Viewed from the later perspective, these five months are more telling than the 5 years that came before them.

And the truth is, for the last 5 months, it has made the most sense to me to sit still, to think hard, and to be very, very open about who and what I am. This speaks very deeply of some previously unnoticed introverted tendencies that are nonetheless core to who I am. I like to talk things over with people, but I don't run over to the phone as soon as I am alone, and in fact, I'm quite choosy (some would argue, too choosy) about who I let in . . . and have written about that many, many times on this blog. I also do some of my best reconciling life with myself by staring at a ceiling, or processing solo. I am a multi-tasker so sometimes this means laying on my couch and staring up quietly, but more often it's me being a whirrling dervish of laundry, cooking, cleaning, while turning things over in my head and letting them set down and find a soft landing site. I have never been one for small talk, and right now, it just seems to have no place in the life of meaning and understanding I'm trying to envision and then build . . . from scratch. I just had my birthday and for me the best thing about it was having just a few awesome folks who all liked each other . . . read: no real work for me to facilitate it. I felt tired at the idea of a big party, and excited at the idea of the right group of people and getting to catch up with them and drink beer.

For my person, the argument here is that if I am at my healthiest right now by giving myself the time, and the space, and the reflective alone-ness to understand and make friends with myself, then it is an indication that it might not have been healthy for me to peg myself as an extrovert and then invest myself in passing as one. For me, the image in my head is of the little girl I was in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade (importantly, old enough to have a recognizable personality, but young enough to not yet have been fully tainted by the expectations of others and the social machine young girls wed themselves to so painfully early) who would clamor to get off the school bus in order to run up the hill, grab an apple, and throw her legs over the arm chair with a book . . . alone. This was the same little girl who had one or two close friends and didn't much care to surround herself with more. It's inconvenient that recalling this also means remembering the bad dresses she wore, and that her mom favored the pig-tails hairstyle but . . . I do this in the name of some unpolluted data.

Even this blog is a mixed case - I am opening the door, at least in theory, for anyone to know the things I write here. But the act of writing it involves a lot of reflection, a lot of collecting data, connecting the dots, navel-gazing about meaning and theory and deeper connections. And I almost never experience more of the person I am or could be than when I'm writing it on this level.

So, pure data isn't so pure. I shouldn't be shocked after my four semesters of graduate level statistics, during one of which the grads all heard the best quote ever, "you can torture your data all you want. sooner or later it will confess to something." I retook the Myers-Briggs personality test again in preparation for this post and found that if I reinterpreted a couple of the questions to fit my current lifestyle (and by a couple, I mean exactly three questions) I tested as an INFJ with moderately expressed I-ness. When I read the ENFJ type that I've so often been reported as, so much of it reads true . . . I am prone to placing the needs of others above my own, I am chameleon-like sometimes, I do have a talent for bringing out the best in others and I am loyal and straightforward, sometimes to a fault. And I read the INFJ description and see pieces of myself there too: I am overly sensitive to conflict, and don't handle it well, I am prone to creative, independent pursuits (ahem! This blog, my 365, and even my previous job which had me running a remote region solo), I do tend to be overly orderly and I do, indeed, hold fast to values and find myself prioritizing and re-prioritizing in order to make sense of my world. (Again, Ahem! This blog).


It is also true that I love my friends and positively light up around them and that after processing on my own, or taking my long walk, or reading and writing, or immersing myself in ideas, I want to share with them. I want to affect others, I want to influence and be influenced, and importantly, I am energized by others . . . if it is the right others. Maybe I'm just a miserably picky bastard with trust issues. Or . . . maybe I'm a secret introvert. Like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, the the world may never know . . . and it may never be important. But, if it's a secret I've kept from myself, I'll be watching to see how thinking outside of the "extroverts are excellent" box  changes how I see myself.

Meditation and giving myself a grade

As is often the case when I have several half finished posts, it seems completely reasonable to me to start a brand new one. Ha!

So, about 6 months ago, my therapist suggested I start a daily breathing practice for myself. He was very careful not to refer to it as meditation (smile) but was about the 5th person to recommend it to me including my endocrinologist, my trainer, a dear friend who I wish I had realized was a dear friend when we were in high school together, and several others. I suspect I appear a little . . . anxious, or that the signs of how thoroughly I work myself over show more than I pretend they do, and so people think, "it could help a LOT if she would just sit and appreciate what's good right now."

When I first tried to do this, a couple of years ago, it was on advice from my trainer and a friend, and it was so hard that I barely managed a few minutes each day. I would pull up a cushion, sit, and after a few breaths think, "Uggggggghhhh. That's good enough, right?" My blood pressure and sleep habits said otherwise, and then with two injured knees, that became my excuse to stop - sitting was a little complex then. I felt relieved, because, man had I not done well at implementing that, but still uneasy thinking, "Why can't I just breathe?"

Fast-forward to late 2011 when I found myself mired in dishonesty from a lot of corners of my life. Nothing sets my blood on fire like dishonesty, and ultimately, I wasn't coming clean with myself about what I could and couldn't do. It actually got to the point where I was sleeping only 2-3 hours at a stretch because my thoughts were so restless. My therapist not-so-gently pointed out that I take everything I come in contact with as my responsibility to right, and then judge myself harshly when it doesn't work. A terrible Midas touch that paints me, constantly, as a failure in my own eyes. He suggested that someday it might be possible to stop seeing the world as win-loss, success-failure, good-bad but that for now, the best thing I could do was gently acknowledge those moments that I was steeped in judgement (almost all the time, as it turns out) and then just breathe through them instead of letting them mount and gain momentum.

So, now, I try to sit every day. Here's the truth - it sounds so simple, but it's the hardest thing in the world for me. Given the choice of singing, naked, in front of strangers, and sitting on a cushion for an hour trying to empty myself out and just notice the moment I'm in, it would be a toss up. It's ironic, right? That I might rather be vulnerable to others, than be still and see if I can be vulnerable to myself? Of course, there is no requirement that I sit for an hour (and I don't) but I am very aware that when I am sitting, time goes by very slowly, painfully even. And I am always trying to get better at this.

Yesterday, I had to walk for 90 minutes before I could bring myself to sit. I was always within a mile of Boulder's amazing Shambhala Center but kept walking to get out some of the raw anxiety before trying. Then, of course, instead of heading to the big, beautiful rooms with air and light, I headed for the "practice" room. Translation: small, dark basement room. I don't even light any of the candles, I just sit there glad that it's everyone else's last choice and that I can wrestle with the idea of just. right. now. by myself.

On Tuesday, we talked about my practice (such as it is) in therapy. My therapist (who is still being careful not to talk about meditating or sitting, but instead about a daily practice, by the way) remarked that if I am constantly giving myself a grade on everything, then I am choosing always to judge myself, and worse, often not giving myself the grade I deserve. I told him that sitting felt like work, and that I really can't manage it for more than 10 - 20 minutes. Somewhere in the middle, if I've metered my breath and let go of some of what I carried in with me, there's a quiet moment where all I feel is my hands on my knees and my chest rising and falling, but very quickly, everything comes rushing back. He used the word "loud" in that all of my stuff gets very noisy in my head, as a pendulum swing off of things having gotten quiet.

He reminded me that it's a practice, and that that word is deliberate. That like a runner who practices every day, sometimes times will be longer, and sometimes shorter, but what matters is how they accumulate. Sitting isn't meant to get judged and graded each time - there is no good or bad. It just is whatever it is on that day. He also said that if I'm only sitting when I feel bad, it will take a long, long time for me to feel anything other than tired by it. Finally, he said, trying to get me to ease up and be a little less hard on myself, I suspect, "If you practice today, you can't expect it to solve everything! Just sit and breathe and let it be only that."

Grasping for control, trying to fix everything, and then (of course) not being able to succeed under that weight and thus kicking myself until I bleed is the lather, rinse, repeat I've set myself up on. And it's got to go. I have to evict it, even if I can't give it the boot all at once, because it's that treadmill that kept me in bad patterns and bad relationships. And when I say relationships, I mean all relationships, not just romantic ones. Friends, family, boyfriends, girlfriends, my relationship with my work, myself, my former employer, all of it.

So, I sit. I read this book and and this one. I listen to the beginning of "Joking" by Indigo Girls over and over and over trying to understand how it would feel to "Forget about your ego. Forget about your Pride. And you will never have to compromise." this is what I want - to live more out loud, and not compromise my happiness. I talk a good talk here, in this blog, but I admitted "on the couch" this week that right now, while everything is going so well (minus, you know, the obvious absence of a new job) for me, I find I have all this anxiety that I will mis-step and mess it all up in one swell foop.

So I sit. and I breathe in and out. And I try to grok the idea that the only thing I can do is nurture this moment. and in the next moment, and only when it arrives, then that one. But I can't plan, control, fix, heal, solve, berate, pre-ordain, judge, plot, arrange, engineer, project, steer, contrive or chart what happens in the next moment, the next day, the next month, the next year and expect to get it right, get what I want, get that A.

In the vein of Indigo Girls philosophy, I want to not just forget about my ego, and not compromise, but to sidle up on "Closer to fine" in that I understand the smart thing I said to someone yesterday. He said, "I don't always see the full scope of what needs to happen right away." I sounded, I'm sure, like I was assured of the high horse I was sitting on when I answered, "No one does. That's why we use the verb 'process' to describe thinking and coping - it's a process. It's not an event."

It's all fine and well for me to tell those things to other people, but I do a laughable job of reminding myself of them in the day to day. I can say this - I've done much better than I had predicted at keeping myself happy, grateful, calm, and productive in unemployment. This is why I'm doing well enough to fret about messing it all up. But, the choices I made before this frighteningly delicious free-fall of creating a new life for myself tell a less flattering story. It's hilarious to me, actually, how I sometimes lean into danger - I will move more than 2000 miles across the country knowing no one, I will spar men twice my size - but play things so safe and close to the vest when it comes to asking for and admitting what I really, really want and doing the work to arrive there.

"Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear. I wrap my fear around me like a blanket. I sail my ship of safety 'til I sank it. And I'm crawling on your shore."

So, this girl, this one who had to hold one of her best friend's hands when plunged into 20 seconds of pitch black on the Cave of the Winds tour because she is so deeply afraid of the dark, sits in a small, quiet very dark room daily, knowing that everything scary in there is something I brought with me. And knowing, even more, that that means it's with me whether or not I go into that room and sit on that cushion. And I listen. Very hard. To the noisiness in my neurons, but also to that call that's hard to hear. Because I'm pretty sure I'm done signing up to crash ships of safety.