Getting Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

So there is the cliche saying that success is 90% showing up...

I really do not like sayings, especially the ones that are on the wooden boards that get plastered all over shops and houses.

Do we really need reminders how to live a life full of goodness and meaning?

I really hope not.

But the saying: success is 90% showing up is ringing true in my life.

Most of the time I really, really, really, do not want to do anything. It's the joyous sign of depression. My bed seems just fine to me, and all those things on my todo list will be there tomorrow and the days following.

The only thing that has been getting my off my ass is running.

I signed up for Team In Training (TNT) on a Saturday morning when Jordan and I were fighting. I felt really depressed and did't want to do anything but I didn't want to stay home and get the silent treatment anymore. So I showed up for an information session.

On a whim I signed up for the Big Sur marathon and also signed up to raise 3500$ for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

It was the best decision I have made in a long time.

Through my training with TNT I have met amazing people and I have also made running connections outside of the team.

There is a world out there I never knew existed. And as I am learning this, I am also learning to try to new things.

I realize this sounds silly but as we grow older it is easy to get stuck in a rut. We become stagnant where we are at, trying new things becomes to much of a burden.

But the world has so much to offer. There is so much to learn through experiences and people. How can we pass up these opportunities?

I am a socially awkward person so I understand how easy it is to stay home where you don't have to push yourself. I would be completely OK with having my head in my books all damn day, every day but then what?

Have you ever tried having a conversation with a novel? They really never change what they have to say, unlike people.

People are brilliant and are blessed with spectacular minds. We cannot distance ourselves from others just because it is uncomfortable.

We are human, that means we learn more from being uncomfortable and pushing ourselves then through being comfortable and stagnant.

Let us nourish our minds and spirits through new experiences that build new relationships.

It's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we are.
-Joyce Carol Oates

The Consonance of Problems

Problems, we all have them.

Sometimes they are small and other times they feel like their as big as Mount Everest.

When someone else hears about another's problems they might shrug them off and not understand; other times it can put one's own problems into perspective.

Sometimes hearing about other's issues can be enraging. I know I have thought "Why the freak are you talking about your problems, don't you know I am dealing with way more important problems?"

Ha, could I be anymore of an ass?

Actually I think the first question I should be asking myself is:

Why am I comparing my problems to someone else's? Who am I to say my problems trump anyone else's issues.

I swear sometimes I feel like we live in a society that tries to one up each other in problems we have endured. It's like saying "hey, my life has been great" is not acceptable. Almost as if people don't want you to be happy but they also don't want you to have larger problems than their own.

This is when things get really sticky because white lies and exaggerations come forth.

Umm, but does anyone else see the issue at hand? Instead of being supportive for each other through our struggles we are distracted by how our own issues compare.

I was spending time with my sister today. She is going through some major life renovations, like they are HUGE and I couldn't be more proud of her. I love hearing about the changes she is making and the ways she is growing in her life. I am always so proud and amazed by her (she is my hero and role model FYI). But as she was telling me about these changes and the emotions that come along with change she said something along the lines of "you don't want to hear about my problems, you have enough to deal with already".

It made me stop and think because these past few months I have been entangled with my own shit. I have concentrated on me and what I needed to do to survive. I made myself a priority and didn't notice much of anything that was going on around me. I am not proud of it, but sometimes you do that to survive.

Now that I am coming out of that haze I am learning about what has been going on around me. I don't think "hey sister, shut it, I have bigger fish to fry" or "my problems are too important to listen to yours". I love hearing about her journey because it brings me back down to earth and allows me to realize that life is bigger than me. My problems are not going to end the world! (Thank God!)

Unfortunately there have been other times that I have thought and said "You have no idea what I am going through" I implied that no one could wrap their head around my issues, as though I was a supreme being that had fanatical problems.

I am slowly pulling my head out of my ass.

Yeah I have problems, but so does everyone else. How we perceive those problems all depends on perspective. Who are we to belittle anyone's problem?

What makes it so hard to reach out and just let people know we are here for them, though thick and thin?

Why do we live in a society that always has to one up someone, even when it is the last thing they need?

We need to learn to listen, actually listen to what people are saying and empathize with what people endure.

If anything, we can grow and become united through differing problems. Stories can become the teacher instead of having to endure more experiences of hardship and struggles alone.

We need to learn to accept that we all have our own unique issues and through these struggles we have become unique beings that hold a wealth of knowledge that can teach each others about the world's pitfalls and beauty without actually having to live through the same difficult experiences.

Why else would we be forced to struggles through life's challenges if we were not suppose to use them to teach and support others through the journey of life?

It is naive to stand alone and  try to endure life's trials and tribulations without support.

Men's hearts ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another, and all against evil only. -Thomas Carlyle 

Transposing Life

My mother once told me the only constants in life are change and death.

She shared this wisdom with me while my life was being tumultuously turned upside down.

The other day my friend quoted Ann Voskamp who said "life change comes when we receive life with thanks and ask for nothing to change".

It took me a while to comprehend Voskamp's quote, as did the quote by my mother. I could understand what these quotes were saying but I didn't know how to implemented them into my life.

First I had to decide what change really was.

This is what I came up with:

Change, whether in a physical form, an emotional state, a mental processing or spiritual shift, is what keeps human kind maturating. Change is the essence of human kind. To fully live, we must change. 

I believe what Voskamp is trying to imply is: when a person feels comfortable enough in their own skin and can accept, appreciate and give thanks for life as it is, is the only time a person can begin to accept change and grow from the changes.

We cannot stop change from happening, it is a constant. But change cannot be considered a "life change" if a person is not open and receptive to the idea of it.

Over the past few years life has given me many nudges that should have allowed for "life change". On rare occasions I was receptive to the nudges but most of the time I was not in a place where I accepted the idea of change.

I agree with Voskamp, that it does help to be comfortable in our own skin when accepting change but I believe we can accept change without being completely comfortable.

I think a person must be one of two things to be in a place to accept life change:
1) A person must be strong in who they are and what they believe
2) Be completely broken and searching for a way out

I have made one major "life change" when I was 20. This was a time when I had hit rock bottom and was scrambling to get my life together. All I can say is thank God for family, therapy and Narcotics Anonymous.

Now that I am almost 25 I am finding that life has yet again nudged me to create a "life change" but this time I am not going to make it because I have hit rock bottom. I am making it because I believe in myself.

I am not saying it is any easier this time around. I feel it is almost harder trusting myself now that I am becoming confident in who I am. When I was changing my life when I had hit rock bottom I knew I had no where to go but up, but this time my life is not in pieces. It is not perfect but I have many amazing blessings surrounding me and it would be easy to stay stagnent. It literally scares the shit out of me to think about the major life changes coming my way (but seriously, when I get emotional my stomach tells me about it).

But fear cannot hold us back. The opposite of fear is trust. We must trust in ourselves, we must trust in the life that has been given to us and  truly believe that there is a bigger plan set in place.


To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. ~Henri Bergson

Cicatrix

I am having a really hard time writing today. Not because I do not have things to say but because I am in a fog, a freaking life fog. 

I don't feel like myself. I feel exhausted. My body is sore, my mind is tired. It is one of those days when you feel like giving up. I felt this way yesterday but I kept going. 

Yesterday at work was a shit show. There is only so many times a student can hit, kick, bite, yell at you without losing it. Proceeded by finding out someone you deeply care about is falling apart and I can do nothing to save him, topped off by getting hit by a freaking biker as I crossed the street to track practice. 

I held it together all day yesterday and told myself it was a learning experience. 

I woke up today and made myself feel invigorated. 

My final straw was finding out I am missing a class I need to finish my undergrad program. A class I was told I did not need which is now full and only offered while I am at work. 

Like seriously, what the fuck. I swear I have some bad juju going against me. 

I have always been told that when in times like this you just have to keep going, push through the bad  to get to the good, fake it until you make it and all that jazz. 

Oh and I am great at faking it, but I am done. 

I am now realizing that sometimes you have to rest in the idea that it is OK to not be OK. 

We strive to push ourselves, to be the best. It is what I have done my whole life. 

There is a song by Radical Face in which it says:

"Peel the scars off my back, I don't need them anymore, you can throw them out or put them in your mason jar, I have come home"

I was thinking about how true  this line is. 

My body is a canvas. I have scars on my arms and hips from self harm in middle school and high school, I have the word FAT hiding on my right arm underneath my watch, I have tattoos that tell of times that formed me. My feet are calloused from the miles I have ran that have saved my life. 

All of these markings tell stories, stories I could not voice because I was always striving for perfection. I refused to let people know my imperfections so I kept the story on my body. I love my body for that but it is also a reminder to me that I cannot keep hiding within myself. 

I don't need to keep the stories from my scars, tattoos and callouses a secret. I need to vocalize who I am and rest in the idea that life isn't about being perfect. 

Life is about creating an environment that feels safe, safe like a home does. 

It is not healthy for people to always to be pushing themselves to the edge.

If we cannot accept ourselves and our flaws how can we accept others wholly? We must first be able to sit alone with ourselves before we can sit with others. 

I don't actually think I have a bad juju, I believe I am being told to slow down, to feel pain and be OK with it. 

It hurts to hurt, but trying to push through it will only end up causing more harm in the end. 

To heal a broken bone we must rest, so I can only believe the same is true to heal a broken spirit. 

Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge. -Simone Weil 

Consanguinity: People and World

This is Ella, my beautiful niece. She loves cake, parmesan cheese, and vegetables. She can use sign language better than me, and has some seriously amazing dance moves, but even more than that she has shown me what life is all about. She has taught me what unconditional love is. I never knew I could love someone so much.

I joke with my sister that she is my therapy, but in all seriousness Ella does show me that no matter how bad life gets there is always something to smile about. For me, Ella is the thing that always makes me smile.

She has made me change how I look at the world and how I live in the world.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that how we treat the world is symbolic to how we treat each other. I take this seriously (and maybe a little too far!)

This bugger is Alfonzo. He lives in my bathroom, he moved in about a week ago. Normally I just take creatures back to their habitat. I live by the belief that the bugs that come inside just got confused and it is not their fault. So I take them and put them back into their habitat. I mean, think about it, if bugs were human size would we want them to step on us? I don't think so. 

So no, my bathroom is not full of bugs, but Alfonzo lives near my ceiling. He decided to come down tonight to get his picture taken for the blog. If he is still hanging out tomorrow morning, I'll take him outside.

I realize how crazy I may seem, but we live in a symbiotic world. But how human beings are living presently does not represent this symbiotic relationship.

We live in a time where people are anthropocentric. Just because we may process at higher levels then our non-human counterparts does not mean we can dominate over them. 

This idea of domination is venomous to society. I don't want my niece growing up in a culture that teaches the idea that people must dominate the environment, our non-human counterparts, and our peers. 

Human kind was placed on this world to live in this world to nurture and care for it but instead we are exploiting our world and fighting over resources. I could go on a tangent about scarcity, but I will save that for another day. For now I will say the idea of scarcity has created the need to dominate, because for some strange reason we believe there is not enough to go around. 

Sometimes I feel like I am perpetually stuck in work mode and teaching the idea of sharing and caring, If we live in relation with people we do not need to worry about having enough. If people are whole and living for others than we should be able to care for each other when times get rough. Instead of all being potential hoarders we could relax a little and look at the bigger picture. 

We could stop and appreciate nature instead of exploiting it.

We could appreciate the spider's ability to control insect population, instead of feeling the need to kill them because we fear how the spider could negatively affect us, maybe we could see past ourselves and live for the world. 

I realize it seems like a stretch to start this blog entry talking about my amazing niece and ending with spiders but what I am trying to say in a nutshell is this:

There are generations of people that are going to come after this, the damage we do now with our anthropocentric ideologies are going to negatively effect our future kin. There are things bigger than ourselves that we must living for. 

I was lucky enough to have Ella show me that and I hope everyone at sometime can have that awakening moment and realize how important cultivating a relationship to the world and the people in it is.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, no one thinks of changing themselves. - Leo Tolstoy 

Waste

I wrote an ethical construction last term on the idea of waste. I spoke about actual waste and figurative waste.

We live in society where waste is normal. We waste anything that no longer has use to us.

This idea blossomed in my mind after reading Wendell Barry's book, "The Unsettling of American Culture and Agriculture". Barry implies how humankind treats earth is symbolic to how we treat each other. (It is a really amazing book, I recommend everyone should read it)

I haven't really thought about the book or the paper I wrote after the class ended. Until today when I was on a run today. My friend asked me if he was a friend that pushed me to be a better person or if he was a person that dragged me back to my old ways.

At one point I would of have told him he was a friend that dragged me back to my old ways and cut him out of my life.

Except I cannot just cut people out of my life. I just cannot do it. People shape us, when I have a relationship with someone I cannot just dip out.

It goes to my idea of waste. Yes I have friends who are not always good influences on me but I cannot     coin them as waste. People shape us, the good and the bad.

In a weird way I think of people like a banana. The people that help me grow are like the inside of a banana, the yummy part that nourishes me. The peel is the people who seem like they can just be thrown away, but the peel of a banana can be used for so many things.

Banana peels can remove mosquito bites, polish shoes, whiten teeth, heal bruises, polish silver, heal acne and even feed roses!

So people, the people I think drag me back to my old ways, can be beneficial. I just have to think outside of the box and find the good in everything.

Jordan use to get mad at me when I hung out with certain people he didn't approve of, he said they could be a bad influence and my argument was if someone can be a bad influence, I can be the good influence.

This is where it lies, we can either throw out everything we deem bad, or we can be real and honest and work towards finding the good in everything. It takes a lot of work and it takes even more self-control.

I am learning that I have to be strong in myself and be true to me. I can have all types of people in my life as long as I know who I am and am not influenced by people.

As for my friend who I would have once deemed as a bad influence is someone I was harshly honest with. He is understanding of who I am and where I am coming from and it is the most healing experience to not be someone else and be accepted as me.

If we can find the beauty in all people, and in all things, we no longer have to have waste over flowing from our trash or our hearts. We will have community, connection, cultivation.

A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow. -William Shakespeare

Cultivation

I had a friend tell me today by day 31 I will have nothing to say in my blog anymore. I think that is exactly what is wrong with our society, we allow ourselves to plateau, to not push past what seems like a barrier.

Most days I sit down at my computer and have no idea what I will end up typing and that is the most therapeutic thing about this blog. This is not premeditated, there are not multiple rough drafts. It is just my honest thoughts, typed out. I don't sit here long  enough to think about if I want people to actually read what is going on inside my head. (Sorry folks, your stuck with my random ramblings!)

But in all honesty, this blog makes me feel vulnerable, it is a very healing experience to be completely yourself.

I find that is something I have been working on, cultivating relationships where I am completely myself. I have been blessed to have beautiful people placed in my life.

Since Jordan and I parted ways I have found myself reaching out to two different kinds of people. People who push  me to be a better person and people who drag me back to my old ways. I have always been drawn to people who drag me back to my old ways. It is easy, it is comfortable. I do not worry about being judged. I do not have to worry about being pushed.

But when the sun sets and I am alone at night I have to live with myself and my actions and lately that hasn't been a very good feeling.

I am beginning to recognize what it feels like to be actually happy, to go to bed at night smiling and wake up in the morning truly excited to see what the day holds.

I spoke yesterday about Brene Brown's book, The Gift of Imperfection. Last night I read about the difference of happiness and joy.

Happiness is a state of emotion, joy is a way of life.

When a person lives a life that is joyful, they hold gratitude towards life and the things in it. A person can live a life of joy and not always be happy.

I never made this discernment. I always thought my goal in life was to be happy and lately I have not been happy but I am joyful because I hold gratitude for the people in my life that have shaped me and have stood by me through thick and thin.

I am working on waking up every day and thinking about one thing I am grateful for and one thing I love about myself. It sounds silly typing it, but I cannot think of a better way to start the day.

I feel like most days start with "I didn't get enough sleep", or "I didn't get enough done yesterday, today is going to be long", etc.

There is a common theme in society of not having enough, we are always striving for more and to a point I believe that is healthy but I think we first need to start appreciating what we do have and who we have in our life.

If all we do is push forward, we miss what is standing right in front of us.

Sometimes you don't realize your own strength until you come face to face with your greatest weakness. -Susan Gale