Constant=Change

The only constant in life is change.

This saying is everywhere and I hear it over and over again.

And every time change is about to happen in my life my tummy gets all wobbly and I can’t ever feel fully grounded.

My initial reaction is to push back, to stay stagnant. I try and find any excuse to keep things from changing.

However looking back on my past there are things I know that NEEDED to change and yet I refused to admit that and kept the same path for far too long. Relationships, living situations, bad habits and I’m sure there are a range of other things that I refused to change for a long time.

And then I did something and started creating change in my life. I started speaking up when I felt complacent; I started pushing for self-betterment and personal growth.

And honestly it has made me feel like a spiraling tornado that is creating chaos everywhere I go. Nothing in my life is settled and I feel like my unsettled nature can be detrimental for those around me. I never want my journey of self-discovery to hurt anyone or anything.

Since September I started a new job at Vernon opening a behavior classroom then proceeded to quit that job, got a job working for Portland Roasting Coffee stayed employed with them through the end of December and am now working at Lincoln Elementary. I also moved into a new place in December and oh yeah, started my Masters program.

I give myself a headache just thinking about the changes I have been going through and then I think about all the people who have helped and supported me. Phew. I am beyond grateful for what everyone has done and the support I have received. I wake up wondering how I have been so blessed.

But I also wake up with that question “at what cost am I willing to pay to find myself”? Is there ever a time where I should just slow down and accept life as it is? Is accepting life the same as giving up? Or is there a grace in finding pleasure in what is?

I feel like any wise teacher would tell me it is a balance.

And maybe in time I will find that balance.

But for now I have no answers.

I question if I should keep working on discovering myself and making changes or if I should accept life as it is and let the universe make the necessary changes for me.

Since I know I cannot get away from change because as I have been told:

The only constant in life is change.

RE: Def: To do again FRAME: Def: A particular state; as of the mind

There is this quote I stumbled on the other day and fell in love with, it says:

In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that have shaped you. – Andrea Dykstra

Now I feel like this is a pretty simple idea and some people may love all their experiences and life choices they have had or made throughout their life.

I however am not one of those people. 

I have taken the path less traveled, especially compared to my other siblings. I have gone rogue on my decision making and learning from trial and many errors rather than listening to the wise advice from others.

There are decisions and life choices that I am not particularly proud of; there are segments in my life where I seriously wonder how I made it through intact. And yet here I am making (what I like to think of as) wiser decisions.

But that doesn’t mitigate my past or make how I view my self any more favorable. I still have glaring cognitions that constantly remind me to do more, be more, to push harder and make up for the bumpy past.

So in therapy today (Yup, more therapy talk, this lady is a saint! I am telling you!) We talked about cognitive distortions.  My three glaring cognitive distortions that I thought I had under control are:

1. I am a failure
2. I am a dumb girl
3. I am irresponsible

Now these three distortions are most glaring when I talk about getting lost but apparently with trauma, well trauma does a great job at pulling up all the shit you thought you fixed or at least buried deep enough to not have to worry about for another decade or so.

So here I am feeling like a dumb, irresponsible girl that is failing at life.

WEEEEE!!!! Who doesn’t love feeling that way?

Well me, actually and I think most people.

Negative cognitions are vicious and most every person has them.  The funny thing about negative cognitions is they can sneak attack and kidnap all the positive cognitions. For every ten positive cognitive thoughts, one, just one negative cognitive thought can take hostage of all the good yumminess that was once present.

So I can either throw up my hands and say fuck it and let my negative cognitions hijack my brain (which is easy to do) or I can be a ninja and fight back.

I am practicing my ninja moves as I type; these ninja moves are actually called reframing.

I am assuming most everyone has heard the cliché term “reframe”, change the perspective and it will change the situation.

Simple, right?

WRONG

For every negative cognition, you must reframe it three times.

One simple example I will use is my negative cognition that haunts me daily:

I am fat.  (thanks irrational brain for making feel like fattie)

Now the three reframing phrases: 

1. I workout every day
2. I eat healthy
3. My BMI is no where near the unhealthy range

This is the rational brain and rational thinking. It seems REALLY simple but even as I write my reframing sentences my irrational brain says BUT you ate chips today or had a cookie.

Essentially it is like Jekyll and Hyde in the brain, the good and the bad fighting for the show. BUT the more you practice rational thinking it will become easier and you will start to believe it…(or at least that is what my therapist promised)

So here I am, reframing my life, my experiences. My awkward, jumbled past that I have created negative cognitions for are no longer negative. I am learning to accept my past, that I am human, that all my mistakes and my less than traditional path has helped create me to be me.

And I may not ne perfect, but I am good.

I can do it myself....or can I?

The last two times I wrote was about being lost and the affect being lost had on me, or what I thought the affect was.

Since then every time I have sat down to write I have stared blankly into space, at times I have scribbled words down but nothing felt right. In all honesty the last 5 months since being lost, nothing has felt right. And within those five months I continually refused to believe that one day could turn my life upside down, could shake me to my core so greatly that I lost sight of who I was and how to function in a way where I lived for joy and not just to make it through the next day.

About two months ago I started going to therapy because I just wasn’t happy but I didn’t want to believe it was because of what happened in Canyonlands. I went to therapy because I recognizing things in myself I did not want to see. I had this need for total control, I was constantly on edge, happiness was a far away I thought, the things I once loved doing became a struggle for me. (Yes I realize this sounds like a commercial for depression) Luckily for me I had people who stood by my side and helped me as I struggled (you know who you are) and through this constant floundering I have realized something:

I cannot always do it myself.

My significant other, Dwayne, and I have a running joke that I am always saying “I can do it myself”.  For the past 4 months he has stood patiently as I have struggled with priding myself with my fierce independence and learning that sometimes it is OK to need others.

That is the part that is the hardest since being lost. I so fiercely wanted to be independent before I was lost, I did not want to need anyone. I could do it myself. I didn’t want anyone to have control over me. I wanted to be me in all my glory. Well the desert had a different story for me.

My therapist is having me retell my story through emotions, she is having me identify what I felt through each stage and the sights, the sounds, everything that affected me and then after she asks me my present emotions, how I feel about it currently.

Through this process I am able to work through my anger that no one understands, my anger towards myself, my fear of hiking and rock cairns, the presumption that the desert took away my identity.  

I am learning to accept my emotions and through accepting my emotions tiny miracles have happened. I finally got to see my brother over the holidays and I talked about working through my trauma, he gave me sound advice as tears tumbled onto his cheeks, he was the first person I saw show emotion for my journey. His tears, his emotion, his love, validated me in my story.  For once I didn’t feel like a glorified story of a dumb girl who got lost in the desert. And through this, I am learning to accept my story and the trauma I have to work through.

I still have anger in the pit of my stomach, I have a this yearning for people to understand what I am going through but realistically I know that will not happen.

However I am now beginning to understand it is ok to not always having to do it myself.

There is a love and glory in this world I am finally being able to see again and the joy of living day to day is finally returning.

Here, here to 2017 and 30 days of blogging.

The True Size of The Universe

I ran Hood to Coast this weekend. I wasn’t planning on running Hood to Coast, I had important plans on Friday night and had actually turned Hood to Coast teams down because I couldn’t cancel my plans. However my teammate from TNT called me on Friday night at 10:30pm telling me one of the runners on his Hood to Coast team got injured and they needed someone to fill in. (I am not always one to fully think things through, so I jumped at the chance to run) Once I finished my Friday obligations, I rushed home, packed a bag and met Kevin and my now Hood to Coast team at 1am. I was the first one running in the van and started running at 3am.

I was hyped up on adrenaline and took off racing. My team had an incredible ability to run freakishly fast so I felt the pressure to also run freakishly fast. I cannot remember the last time I pushed my legs so hard but I did and started passing runners and pretty soon I was alone, on a back road running at 3am. That’s when it hit me.

My mind started racing, “Shit, I am alone, am I lost? What if I am lost? What happens if I am all alone?” Even though vans passed me intermittently and I passed runners, I couldn’t calm my fear of becoming lost. This is the moment I came to accept, being lost in the desert wasn’t something that I could just overcome with time; that I am potentially permanently changed from the experience.

Fast forward to Sunday (the rest of Hood to Coast was amazing and my team kicked some serious ass) and I was listening to a the Ted Radio Hour podcast and on it was John Hodgman and he said this quote “You don’t understand the true size of the world until someone you care about is out there in it and you don’t know where. That is when the universe really feels big… and when they come back it feels good.”

And I heard that and I lost it. Completely lost it. Sit on the floor, crying, lost it. That moment, in the desert, I truly understood the size of the world. No one knew I was out there, no one knows and will never know what it was like to be out there lost. I am back to work, school started, running, seemingly thriving in my life and yet there are these moments of complete utter disconnect.

I have prided myself on being very independent, on being able to go out and do anything on my own. Yet now I have this chip on me, I have this fear of being lost. I am scared to go back out on my own and adventure and yet I have aligned my personality on being able to being solely independent.

So now what?

I feel stuck. I have this fear of being alone and lost and yet I have this feeling of lack of connection with anyone I am come in contact with, like I am floating on a different planet.

When I slow down I feel hollow.

I still feel lost in the universe and I want to come back and I want it to feel good, just as John Hodgman describes it.   

And as painful as it is to work through these emotions, I know in the end, there will be something beautiful that comes from it. Thich Nhat Hanh has this quote “Without fear, we are able to see more clearly our connections to others. Without fear, we have more room for understanding and compassion. Without fear, we are truly free".

I am working to move past my fear and connect with the world the surrounds me, maybe running off into the wilderness doesn’t always need to be my escape. Maybe, just maybe, being surrounded by others can heal me and teach me to grow in ways different than the wilderness.  

It is all in the glorious journey.

Roadtrip Bonanza: Part 1, Starting With The End: Search and Rescue

I am not actually sure if I am ready to talk/write about my experience on my road trip, especially how it ended, but I feel the first step in the healing process is to scrutinize my experience through writing, so here we go.

I wrote a blog before I left about how I was nervous for my trip for a reason I couldn't put my finger on. It was almost like I had a premonition that this trip held something big for me, however, I did not know this trip would hold for me what I consider, my first encounter with the idea of dying. 

I had five days left in my trip when I left Bryce Canyon to stop in Capitol Reef and then head to Canyonlands and Arches National Park.

I didn’t stay in Capitol Reef; I just drove through and stopped a few places to hike. It isn’t a very well known national park but I am still glad I took the time to explore its nooks and crannies. It was a long day after driving 5 hours and hiking 15 miles so once I got to Canyonlands I just found a campsite and called it a night. By this point in my trip I was exhausted and losing motivation to keep exploring.

However when I woke up the next morning the sun had not yet risen and I decided the best way to start my last few days on my exploration was a sunrise hike. I do sunrise hikes at home and they feed my soul, so I thought what could be better then a sunrise hike in a national park! Many of the hikes in Canyonlands have warnings not to hike alone and only for experienced hikers. I wisely chose not to partake in any of those hikes! I chose a 10-mile hike with a quick decline start of 1600 feet into a canyon that followed riverbeds to the famous Zeus and Moses rock formations.

Wishing Stones

When I started the hike I felt trepidations because the 1600 foot decline had no trail due to rock slides but the trail that once had been there was marked by stacked stones or as my friend Ari told me were called wishing stones. I stopped about half way down to see if the trail became any easier to navigate once I arrived down into the canyon. I could make out light traces of a trail so I kept going assuming following the trail would become simpler.

Zeus and Moses 

As I proceeded down the rocks I kept thinking “should I turn around?” and then I debated if this was my common sense talking or just fear. I chalked it up to just fear and kept marching along. (For those who know me I can be very head strong once I get my mind set on an idea.) I made it down into the canyon and the trail was a little easier to follow, but the wishing stones still marked the way. For the next 4 miles I hiked in utter silence. I was just the desert and me. It was a surreal feeling. I stopped to eat a snack and just stared out and relished how alone I felt and free. It was like no other experience I have ever had.  I kept hiking and finally saw the famous rock formations I was hunting for. After being in the desert with the same landscape surrounding you it is pretty exciting to see huge rock formations! I quickly hiked through the brush to go explore these huge rock formations. I climbed and scampered around and just loved being out there exploring! After a while I made the decision to start heading back before it got too hot out. I had packed 2.5 liters of water, an apple, carrots, and a Cliff bar so I felt I could stay out a while but knew I couldn’t handle mid-afternoon desert heat.

As I started back I went on the one river route I saw that went in the similar direction I came from. I started hiking and after about a mile I realized I didn’t recognize a lot of the scenery. There were more boulders, plants and standing water. I was thinking quiet a bit while I hiked in to the rock formations so I figured I was just oblivious to my surroundings as I hiked in. After 2 miles I started worrying, but I saw tracks that kind of resembled footprints and reassured myself I was going the right way.  At 3 miles I still couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. I am not a religious person but I asked God for a sign if I was going the right or wrong way, I started talking to the universe for guidance. By mile 4 I came into a boulder field, which I knew I would of remembered. I sat down and tried to think logically of what I should do. I first checked my food and water supplies. I had eaten my apple and carrots but I still had my Cliff bar, I had about 20 mL left of my water. I figured I could hike back to the rock formations and look for my tracks and wishing stones.  By the time I was hiking back the sun was already high in the sky and I was feeling tired but determined and hopeful. I hiked back the four miles I had came and kept reassuring myself I was fine. I kept imagining being back at my car drinking deeply from my water bottles and celebrating.

Once back at the rock formations I searched for my footprints, after about an hour I found one. I rejoiced and allowed myself to eat half my Cliff bar and drink a little water. I knew I only had 5 miles back to the trailhead. I knew I could do it. Trying to follow my path was tough but I did it for about a mile, the going was slow but I was making my way. I had followed the riverbed most of the way in to the rock formations so when I couldn’t find a footprint I trusted my gut. I made it quiet a ways, about 3 miles of following my footprints and wishing stones until I came to another large boulder that blocked my path. I searched and searched to find another footprint or wishing stone to follow but couldn’t find one. By this time the sun was high and the heat was at its peak. I had been out since 5am and it was already 3pm.  I sat down to let my legs rest and finished my Cliff bar and drank a little more water. I told myself with the little strength I had left I could make it out of the canyon. I was actually surprised at my own self-talk at how uplifting and positive it was. For the next hour I kept searching and found my way out of the riverbed and into the rocks. The sun was blazing and my water eventually ran out.  I started thinking about my family and my nieces. I started really getting worried. By 4pm I started getting dizzy and seeing purple spots. I told myself if I didn’t find my way by 5pm I would call for help. I kept searching and walking but my body was giving up, I kept having to sit down after losing my balance. Around 5 I thought I had found the area I had come from and gained a little hope I started trekking to where I thought the trail might be. I kept seeing wishing stones and hiking towards them but when I got to where I thought the wishing stones were, they weren’t actually there. I finally sat down and tried licking out my water bottles and sucking my apple core because I was so thirsty. This just started a reaction of forceful dry heaving. I curled up around a rock that was in semi-shade and cried. I felt defeated.

I finally accepted I had to call for help. My dad got me a tracker earlier this summer, which I told him I didn’t need. As I pushed the SOS button on my tracker my heart burst with love for my family who always watches out for me and knows what I need better then I do.

It took about an hour before I heard the helicopter. I stayed curled around that rock. My whole body hurt, it felt like my stomach was stabbing itself and I couldn’t stop dry heaving. I tried to figure out what I would do if I had to be here overnight. I looked out over the desert to find a safe place to put myself. As soon as I heard the helicopter I peeled myself off the rock and stood up and started waving my arms wildly, like you see in the movies. The helicopter flew around for about 20 minutes; it kept leaving and coming back. I jumped and flapped my arms like a wild woman and screamed. It finally landed near me and I grabbed my bag and stumbled towards the helicopter. The paramedics came out to me and grabbed me. All I could do was shake and cry. They were the most wonderful people I have ever met. The stabilized me in the canyon and then flew me out around 7pm.  The rest of the evening is a blur of talking to police, rangers, and paramedics. Once I was finally released from their care I stayed in Moab but couldn’t sleep. I just wanted to be home. I ended up curling up in the back of my car and sleeping, it felt the safest.

I am now home. The first two days back were filled with tumultuous emotions that ranged from heart warming feelings of happiness that I was home with my family and yet this awful feeling of questioning life and sever sadness. I was sick to my stomach and on any given moment I would burst into tears. Slowly my physical and emotional health is getting better but I still sit here and struggle.

I will blog later on the trip and the process of recovery but for now this is where I am at. All I can say is I am thankful for all the love and support I have been shown since being home. I am truly blessed.