October | 2011 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

I was so busy thinking about work yesterday morning, and then going to work and working, that I forgot to go to a class I had registered for, “Managing Personal Stress.” It was a three hour class intended to “help you develop a personal stress management plan to help you reduce the worry and stress you feel from life changes, challenges, and situations, and find new ways for moving through stressful circumstances.” And I missed it. It’s very telling when the efforts I make to manage my stress fall apart as a direct result of one of the main things that causes me stress.

And by the end of the day yesterday, my head hurt, my stomach was upset, my back was cramping, and I felt dizzy. I was frustrated, irritated, and sad. Tension and yuck was flooding my system. I have dogs and I meditate and I do yoga and I write, every day, and yet I still seem to falter, push myself too hard, don’t get enough rest–I don’t take care of myself.

This week in my Ordinary Courage class, we watched Brene’ Brown’s DVD “The Hustle for Worthiness: Exploring the Power of Love, Belonging, and Being Enough.”

In the DVD, Brene’ talks about the conflict between who we are & what we believe and who “you” want me to be & believe. We end up working so hard to fit in, to be deemed worthy and in that way get the love and belonging we need, we assess each situation and assimilate, we hustle for worthiness (we perform, please, try to be perfect)–which does not work to get us what we need. Instead, we lose our sense of meaning, purpose and joy because we are utterly disconnected from ourselves.

She also talks about how “you better be able to tell the truth about who you are and where you came from and what you are up against, and love yourself in the process.” In the class, our challenge this week was to browse Dr. Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion website and take her Self-Compassion Inventory. Having already read one of Brene’ Brown’s books, I had taken this test this summer. The results were not good. Taking it again three months later, they were worse.

Considering the life-rehab I’m involved in, you might expect that three months later, I’d be better at this. I am more cognizant of the issue, even as I continue to falter and stumble. Most likely I was more honest, more aware of how I really am with myself when I took the inventory this time. The way the scale works, the average is 3.0, with 1-2.5 being low in self-compassion and 2.5-3.5 moderate, and 3.5-5.0 is high. I tested at 2.48 this summer and 1.56 this time. Not good.

But I am working on it. It’s really all I can do. Keep showing up, keep trying, and know that it’s going to take time. Our habitual way of being with ourselves, when it has been with us for so long and we are so good at it, will take a long time to shift. At first, all you can do is see it for what it is, even as you watch yourself behave in those same old ways.

As for today, I napped with the dogs on the couch and cried a little, watched Brene’s DVD, took a walk, made Eric hug me extra. I made casserole for dinner (comfort food) and rented “Bridesmaids.” Tomorrow, I can try again.

“You, yourself, as much as anybody else in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

Today is the 3rd Annual National Day on Writing. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) established it in recognition of “the significance of writing in our national life, to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in, and to help writers from all walks of life recognize how important writing is to their lives.”

Picture by Jonathan Kim

Clearly, I don’t need any reminding that writing is important to my life. I might be able to make the argument that writing is my life.

Although, I was talking to a dear friend just yesterday about how only about 40% of the joy comes from the actual act of writing. The rest is about being curious about something, researching it, reading about it, talking to people about it, trying to figure it out, searching for connections and seeing patterns, and then stringing words together in order to share what I discover with others.

Writing is map making, and song writing, and picture painting, and soothsaying, and remembering, and dreaming, and heavy lifting, and laundry, and hurting, and meditating, and walking away, and letting go, and celebrating, diving in and giving up–see how writing is life?

Andrea Scher, author of the Superhero Journal blog (she’s so much more than that, but for now, this is the relevant detail), wrote a post not too long ago in which she asked her readers:

But I do wonder sometimes what I am missing when I have my camera. It is a balance I am very curious about and try to stay conscious of–how much (and when) does my camera bring me deeper into the moment and when does it pull me farther away?

My response was:

I think about this all the time, because if I don’t have a camera, I am probably thinking about what details to savor and capture so I can write about it later. It’s the dilemma of the artist: life is happening at the same moment we are making art of it, so are we living or making art?

But I suppose that’s what I am saying, what I understand now: maybe I don’t need to distinguish between art and life, as my art is my life, and my life is my art? I don’t need an official, government sanctioned Day of Writing, because I have 365 days of writing.

And joy. And gratitude. And hard work, but good work. And kindness. And wisdom. I know how to spell “love” because I write, and it is written on my tender heart because I live it, breath and bone.

Today, Sam was in the yard, playing in a pile of leaves that Eric had carefully raked the day before. The joy he so clearly felt is how I feel about writing, so I’ll leave you with the image of that, kind and gentle reader.