Some Help is Needed When It's Needed Until It's Not

Beach one, May 11th

(Note: this is about me. It’s not about you. It’s about ME unless you also need it to be about you. If you don’t need it, then it’s not about you. Got it? We are each an experiment of one. PERIOD.)

Yesterday when I visited the lake, she was so changeable. From minute to minute, her color and the light across her surface was different. It was hard to stop taking photos, trying to capture each iteration.

We’re so much more like that lake than we like to admit.

We want things to be steady and constant. It feels good to imagine that we’ve arrived somewhere and that’s that.

But, of course, life is change. We are change. Our very identity is not a consistent thing but ever-evolving.

So, for example, when I found an anti-depressant that helped me, I assumed that was it… forever. But…

I’ve spent a long time in this life trying to heal myself with no help. It’s part stubborn and part stupid and just wholly unnecessary. We’re not meant to be 100% individuated. We’re part of a large ecosystem that includes all other humans and all other life.

There’s got to be a reason for that. Pure and simple. And that reason is that we aren’t as strong as we could be until we tap into the larger, vaster, deeper wisdom, until we partake of the infinite tools that are at our disposal.

We can only know so much. The larger ecosystem knows it all and we can plug in any time. We should plug in all the time, actually.

So when my depression got extra bad about a year and a half ago, I finally listened to the people who love me and I got help. I went on medication and I got into therapy.

That medication felt like a fucking miracle…. no. It WAS a fucking miracle.

The dark and often veering toward suicidal thinking was just GONE. POOF! Like that!

It was CHEMICAL all ALONG, I kept yelling at people. I walked around in amazement at this new found fact.

I needed that medicine like we all need oxygen. I was in trouble and that medicine saved me.

I walked around for months feeling brand new and then I started to notice, well, that it didn’t feel as miraculous any more. I didn’t feel the dark brain coming back to life but the light that had entered was definitely dimming.

I got put on a helper med. It didn’t really. I started to think that the helper med was all I needed, and the first med was something I didn’t want to be on long term, so I stopped. That worked out fine.

Until I noticed that nothing good was really coming of the second med either. I can’t tell you HOW I knew this. I just did. I knew I didn’t need anything any more.

I accidentally missed an evening dose and nothing horrible happened so I continued missing evening doses and then every other day morning doses and then I was off.

And dark brain was still nowhere to be felt. (Of course, I am still prone to despairing but LOOK AT THE WORLD. This is normal right now and it doesn’t come with suicidal thinking.)

Dark brain was nowhere to be felt and other stuff started to happen…

I heard the laughter that comes out of me when I’m actually happy and relaxed. I know it because it reminds instantly of my toddler laugh. I just KNOW this laugh. It’s my core laugh.

I noticed that I was getting REALLY SILLY with my husband again. Like silly enough that he would give me these funny little looks that said, “who is this?” It’s been a while since this me has been around and I know it felt foreign (yet delightful) to him.

THEN…

We watched this movie (WATCH IT!!!!!!!), and a few minutes in, there is a scene at a local TV station with Chris O’Dowd in a very brief cameo. I started laughing and then I was LAUGHING and then I was just LOSING MY SHIT.

Every time I looked at Craig, I just laughed even harder. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t peeing our couch! My face felt like it might crack!

I thought Craig was laughing so hard because the movie was funny — and he was — but he was laughing THAT hard because he couldn’t get over my utter JOY.

Which stopped me in my tracks, right? I was feeling the deepest joy… I can’t remember when I last felt like that and I KNOW I haven’t laughed like that in probably 3 years. THREE. YEARS.

Which could make me sad but I don’t have time for that shit.

Along with my happy and silly brain, being off those meds means my creative and ACTIVE brain are on OVERDRIVE.

My point… sometimes you need meds… and then sometimes you stop needing them.

If you don’t stop needing them, so what? You need them and we are grateful you have them. As I was grateful when I thought nothing could possibly help.

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff

During the filming of the grief piece which I’ve still not edited even though my schedule is, well, lighter than ever. (see post below)

What time is it? What day is it? What month are we in? How long have we been in this lockdown thing? When will things go back to “normal?” What is “normal?”

Time has become, for sure, something very wibbly wobbly.

I’ve been pretty much in charge of my own schedule for many years. But I had a SCHEDULE. I even used a planner (what the hell is that?!).

I had places to go, people to meet with, things that had to be done by certain times. I had to GO SOMEWHERE to teach my classes. I would form my day around that and then squeeze in the gym or boxing, walking, coffee and writing, errands.

Now all those markers are gone.

It feels like suddenly being plunged into the middle of the ocean when you’re used to living on the shore and diving in and out when you need or want to.

It’s uncomfortable. It can even be scary.

“WHERE THE HELL DID MY DAY GO? WHAT DID I DO?”

I say that a lot. I don’t like the feeling. It all makes me angry and sad and then lethargic. Then I bounce back and start over, still wondering what day it is.

And you?

Another question: is this feeling temporary (of course it is) and are we actually settling back into more body wisdom based understandings of time and our lives?

MELTDOWN!

I'm quite certain I'm not alone...

Thursday was rough. I had a pretty big panic/anxiety meltdown, and I felt paralyzed by it. I have a great helper, who knows how to talk to me, but I am still the one who has to figure out how to rise up out of that quicksand and Thursday...I felt pretty damn stuck in it.

During such a meltdown, of course, everything gets exaggerated and nothing feels like it could possibly help.

All the tools in your toolbox suddenly seem like GIANT JOKES existing only to prove how awful you are or how little hope there is in the world.

Eventually I dragged myself off the bed.

During times like this, even *I* CANNOT bring myself to dance. It's THE tool, but even I just cannot.

BUT I can do other smaller things. If I can get myself to start with the idea of just 5 minutes of pilates -- something concrete and directed -- that can turn into so much more as the healthy brain chemistry starts to reassert itself.

Thursday, that was exactly what happened. I started with a video of 25 minutes of pilates (with no promise that I would finish).

Why a video? I need someone else guiding me; I can't possibly do this myself when I am feeling that badly.

From there, I moved onto a 10 minute core video.

THEN, only then, after 35 minutes of soaking my brain in some endorphins, was I able to approach some free movement, and even for that, I stayed on the floor.

I stayed on the floor and focused on my breathing and waiting and allowing and noticing.

The very basic principles of what I teach.

And as always, quite suddenly, I was fascinated by the workings of this body.

And as always, quite suddenly, I was out of the asshole brain and completely in the whole of myself.

Because here's the thing: your brain is just ONE ORGAN.

When we rely on it exclusively, we easily become rather dumb.

When we dive into the entirety of ourselves and tap into the wisdom of the full body ecosystem... that is the pathway out.

A Positive Practice for Difficult Times

I feel like, if we took this quote seriously, if we really dug into what this quote is asking of us… I know this will sound like hyperbole but it’s not… I believe this could heal the whole damn world.

We need a change in perspective, or when this virus crisis is over, we will simply fall back to the way things were. And the way things were was not working.

But we can’t make external, societal changes without changing how we work on the inside.

We need a change in perspective.

Changing the way we work on the inside is the only way we’ll have a clue as to how we can change the outside.

Otherwise we are lost.

For now, let’s focus on what we love about ourselves and let’s follow that trail of bread crumbs.

The main thing I love about myself is my ability to be totally and completely FASCINATED by and in awe of life and learning.

So for right now, I’m going to deep dive back into my tantra studies that I lost track of in all the world-level anxiety. I’m also going to deep dive even more into my movement work which is somehow the one thing that has been really GOOD right now… at a time when it feels difficult to do much of anything.

How about you?

This Time is What You Practice For

Now we cannot distract ourselves and it might be proving difficult. But this is an opportunity to notice your pain, your grief, your challenges... all the things that have been asking for your attention but have been easier to ignore until this.

This is the practice. This is what we do every time we stand vulnerable to a piece of music or to the silence and we breathe and we wait. We wait for the body to speak; we wait for a truthful expression; we wait for the uncomfortable impulse and then we follow it, with fascination, to see where it might lead us.

It will always be to somewhere more interesting than where comfort takes us. Always.

Life is Change (said the control freak)

“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you’re doing the impossible.”

— St. Francis

My view while I’m teaching via Skype and Facebook Live.

I’ve been offering things online — even live streaming — probably for almost 8 years, so that part of what’s happening was pretty easy for me to adjust to. And I don’t mind teaching online. I get to stay home in my little space and the overhead is, well, nothing.

It’s not been as easy for my local students who were used to being in the same room with each other. But they have learned/noticed rather quickly that community is community whether it’s 3D or not. The energy of our work is not dependent on proximity. It’s dependent upon trust and vulnerability.

But this is not to say I have not been challenged. I have been… BIG TIME.

This change has sent me (as I’m sure it has many) into a time of profound questioning.

What do I want to do in this world and why and how do I want to do it?

Am I spending my time well?

What if every moment of our time here really really matters (it does) and what it we treated it that way (we don’t)?

Recently, I had made some decisions about the “branding” of my work. (Branding is the word that works but it’s not my favorite.)

I’ve come to realize that those decisions were based in a fear about my own vulnerability.

I freaking TEACH people to allow vulnerability, to feel it, to know that it’s the only path to our truest expressions.

And I have discovered that I myself was still shying away from it.

I don’t think I would have noticed this so quickly if it hadn’t been for what we are going through collectively. I think I could have continued to fool myself about myself for quite some time.

But here we are…

Having our protective layers forcibly removed by circumstances.

Every generation has defining moments like this, and if we are lucky and if we are already a bit awake (though groggy), we will notice and we will evolve.

I’m trying to focus on the truth of that.

Anger

The lake was crazy today when we took a walk to see her. LOUD and VIOLENT in her waves and churning. The kind of water action that changes whole coastlines in amazingly short lengths of time.

She was mesmerizing.

And I kept thinking she was reminding me of Kali, the Hindu goddess that brings about death to make room for rebirth.

She’s a goddess that I have spent a lot of time with over the last six years.

I feel her rage inside of me, but unlike our lake or mother nature in general, I don’t feel like I have anywhere to put that sort of rage. I don’t have a coastline that I can recut.

Another title for Kali, though, is liberator of souls.

We can only be liberated once what is keeping us imprisoned is destroyed.

Right now, we’re in this strange, extremely uncomfortable (to put it mildly), frustrating, STUCK place, but it’s in these sorts of liminal spaces where it seems nothing is happening that everything is happening.

More people than ever are, for example, waking up to the fact that the way our current culture is structured is not working. People are dying from lack of healthcare and food. What about that is in any way civilized?

But we have, for too long, walked beside that fact, averting our eyes because it wasn’t touching us. Now it is or the possibility is more present than ever and that is enough to stir more than usual critical thinking.

People are waking up to the fact that a few people owning most of the world’s resources is maybe not only unfair but just, well, not longterm functional.

Raging, churning, screaming…

It’s a right and good rage. It’s a necessary churning. It’s a relief to be screaming and to finally be heard, even just a bit.

I have no answers. I have no idea where we’re headed or how to get there. It’s the nature of this space we’re in. All I have is feeling and observation, and for now, that has to be enough no matter how much I don’t like it.

Happy Healthy Feet

As I say in the video, everything is about the feet because that’s where it all starts.

This is just a simple, quick, few moves practice that, if done every day for a month, will change not just your feet but your sense of ease in your body overall.

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