There's a difference between accepting something/someone and agreeing with it/him or her. I'm improving at accepting reality, I think. In Yoga, we remind ourselves to focus on controlling our perception and behavior, but let go of anything out of our control. Last night, I looked forward to watching a documentary about science and healing. The internet acted up, so I could not get Netflix to play, and I found myself feeling angry and stressed. Laura pointed out how ironic that is--to get angry and stressed about not being able to watch something about HEALING! Instead, I took the time to read a bit. I'd like to start doing Yoga again. After I hurt my back, I stopped running and doing yoga. My body is not happy about quitting yoga, and it tells me so regularly.
I watched the documentary about healing this afternoon, and the entire thing was about how science is now discovering and proving what the ancients already knew--that the mind and body are closely connected impacting one another. Things like Yoga are designed to heal both mind and body simultaneously. They also are discovering the healing effects of pleasing sights and smells and how they release positive endorphins into our brain that can be healing.
I am also working to see my loved ones as they really are. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll still have disagreements and disappointments, but I hope to be seeing everyone more entirely. I've been explaining to family members that my book will be about truth. I will write about both my loved ones' and my own flaws at times, or moments that don't make us look as nice as we would like to. That being said, if I do my job as a writer, my reader will still love and respect these people like I do. When Natalie Goldberg was accused of making both her Zen instructor and her father "look bad" in her book, The Great Failure, she was surprised. She talked about how loving the book was and that she hopes someone loves her enough when she dies to look at her as an entire person--instead of building her up to be some saint that she wasn't. Real love requires us to accept each other's faults, hold each other accountable, forgive, practice humility and ask for our own forgiveness, and I think that's part of why it's so powerful when we have those few people in our life who really know and love us deeply.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Moving
I didn't realize it had been over a week since I last blogged. The act of moving is just so draining. I'm still not unpacked here, and I have a ton of laundry and cleaning to do before I am moved in. Moving out went rather smoothly, considering I'd lived in that apartment for three years. I had the help of friends and family along the way, which makes the process so much easier. It was sad to leave the college town where I've spent my last five years. It's certainly the end of an era and goodbyes were tough.
My back is really bothering me lately. I think I'm going to try to get into Ashlee's chiropractor. I've always wanted to go, but heard such mixed things about them. Now that my insurance covers massages if prescribed by a chiropractor, I know I can benefit from going there. My shoulders are always so tense, and now my upper spine is bothering me too. It hurts to bend much, which makes unpacking, doing laundry, and cleaning a bit worse than they already are. I don't think it's anything too serious--just an inconvenience.
Both my dog and cat are sleeping in the living room with me. One of them is snoring gently, which makes me smile. They are so adorable. I can really see how pets are good for people's mental health.
I've been emailing a few profs at different MFA programs I'm interested in. It's such a scary process--to email these writers I admire and completely put myself out there in just one e-mail. It sets me up for the feeling of being rejected on many cases, but is rewarding when it pays off.
My brother, Adam, comes home tomorrow night. I haven't seen him since Christmas, so I am looking forward to his company. There's just something nice about our entire family being together. We don't always get along great or have good conversation, but just the idea that we've all grown over so many years together and make the effort to be in each other's presence is comforting.
Laura's work is getting stressful, which makes it harder to keep in touch and harder to accept I can't do anything to help from afar. I don't like seeing her so stressed, but I keep telling myself that I will go out to visit her and help her move back in August. I miss her terribly, and it's especially hard that I can't be there for her when she is struggling. She's hanging in there like a trooper, though. I know she is capable of working this job, I just don't want her to sacrifice her health in order to do so.
My back is really bothering me lately. I think I'm going to try to get into Ashlee's chiropractor. I've always wanted to go, but heard such mixed things about them. Now that my insurance covers massages if prescribed by a chiropractor, I know I can benefit from going there. My shoulders are always so tense, and now my upper spine is bothering me too. It hurts to bend much, which makes unpacking, doing laundry, and cleaning a bit worse than they already are. I don't think it's anything too serious--just an inconvenience.
Both my dog and cat are sleeping in the living room with me. One of them is snoring gently, which makes me smile. They are so adorable. I can really see how pets are good for people's mental health.
I've been emailing a few profs at different MFA programs I'm interested in. It's such a scary process--to email these writers I admire and completely put myself out there in just one e-mail. It sets me up for the feeling of being rejected on many cases, but is rewarding when it pays off.
My brother, Adam, comes home tomorrow night. I haven't seen him since Christmas, so I am looking forward to his company. There's just something nice about our entire family being together. We don't always get along great or have good conversation, but just the idea that we've all grown over so many years together and make the effort to be in each other's presence is comforting.
Laura's work is getting stressful, which makes it harder to keep in touch and harder to accept I can't do anything to help from afar. I don't like seeing her so stressed, but I keep telling myself that I will go out to visit her and help her move back in August. I miss her terribly, and it's especially hard that I can't be there for her when she is struggling. She's hanging in there like a trooper, though. I know she is capable of working this job, I just don't want her to sacrifice her health in order to do so.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Conversation
Yesterday, I visited the grounds where I will be staying to work on my manuscript. They showed me what my room looks like, helped me tour the grounds, which included a beautiful former mansion turned into a retreat center. There are beautiful places to write, swings overlooking hills with lots of trees and green grass. The best part was meeting everyone I will be seeing daily. I met some wonderfully kind people--most of them sisters, but a few staff members, as well.
I had to speak on a microphone at lunch to explain my project, my goals, my history. It's rather intimidating to have someone hand you a microphone and tell you to just tell the crowd a bit about yourself and your dream. I didn't know how detailed to get in my explanations. Luckily, they allowed for questions after I said a bit about myself. The nun who has graciously helped me make this connection and drove me there raised her hand first, asking me to further explain my experience working with oppressed children, between my summer job and experiences with volunteer work and service learning trips.
One of the sisters came up to me afterwords, telling me she used to live on a Navajo reservation after college. She explained how delighted she was that Native spirituality would be a part of my spiritual reflections. She also then revealed that she worked for many years as a social worker and that she knew the need for reflection on mental health and spirituality that goes beyond an evangelical approach. I've read a few books about how God saved people from depression, but when you are depressed and have trouble with faith and believing, it doesn't make you feel better when people tell you faith will save you. I even resented it a bit, because I was so ill that I wanted to ask how could anyone or anything with power just let this continue to happen.
I had many conversations--a nice combination of mentally stimulating and shallow talk. I don't mind shallow conversation when it is for a purpose, such as meeting people. Yesterday was an appropriate time for small talk. I mentioned to the woman who drove me down how the healthier I get, the more impatient I get with surface level conversation with people I love. She explained that she thinks it is just a way for someone to feel close to us when they don't have anything else to say. I agreed, but it was interesting because she complained about how terrible it is that we text people all the time, asking meaningless questions or giving them meaningless information. I applied what she said about small talk to texting, saying I agreed texting could be a waste of time and foolish, but that it helps me feel close to people, like Laura, who lives too far away for me to be apart of her daily life on ordinary circumstances. With texting, we can at least check in a bit and stay updated on what we are up to. Humans are social creatures, and it's interesting how we show this in a variety of ways.
My grandma came up to spend the day with me on Thursday and bring me home. We had a nice day and a lot of conversations we'd never engaged in before. It was a nice day, and she has even offered to give me a ride back Sunday so we can do it again. I don't want to be an inconvenience, but I might take her up on that offer, because it's my last week up there, and there's a poetry reading Monday that I don't want to miss. I'm off to jog. I've been sticking with jogging pretty well, but it's challenging some days.
I had to speak on a microphone at lunch to explain my project, my goals, my history. It's rather intimidating to have someone hand you a microphone and tell you to just tell the crowd a bit about yourself and your dream. I didn't know how detailed to get in my explanations. Luckily, they allowed for questions after I said a bit about myself. The nun who has graciously helped me make this connection and drove me there raised her hand first, asking me to further explain my experience working with oppressed children, between my summer job and experiences with volunteer work and service learning trips.
One of the sisters came up to me afterwords, telling me she used to live on a Navajo reservation after college. She explained how delighted she was that Native spirituality would be a part of my spiritual reflections. She also then revealed that she worked for many years as a social worker and that she knew the need for reflection on mental health and spirituality that goes beyond an evangelical approach. I've read a few books about how God saved people from depression, but when you are depressed and have trouble with faith and believing, it doesn't make you feel better when people tell you faith will save you. I even resented it a bit, because I was so ill that I wanted to ask how could anyone or anything with power just let this continue to happen.
I had many conversations--a nice combination of mentally stimulating and shallow talk. I don't mind shallow conversation when it is for a purpose, such as meeting people. Yesterday was an appropriate time for small talk. I mentioned to the woman who drove me down how the healthier I get, the more impatient I get with surface level conversation with people I love. She explained that she thinks it is just a way for someone to feel close to us when they don't have anything else to say. I agreed, but it was interesting because she complained about how terrible it is that we text people all the time, asking meaningless questions or giving them meaningless information. I applied what she said about small talk to texting, saying I agreed texting could be a waste of time and foolish, but that it helps me feel close to people, like Laura, who lives too far away for me to be apart of her daily life on ordinary circumstances. With texting, we can at least check in a bit and stay updated on what we are up to. Humans are social creatures, and it's interesting how we show this in a variety of ways.
My grandma came up to spend the day with me on Thursday and bring me home. We had a nice day and a lot of conversations we'd never engaged in before. It was a nice day, and she has even offered to give me a ride back Sunday so we can do it again. I don't want to be an inconvenience, but I might take her up on that offer, because it's my last week up there, and there's a poetry reading Monday that I don't want to miss. I'm off to jog. I've been sticking with jogging pretty well, but it's challenging some days.
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