When Nothing Feels Right
Dora has eaten a little today. A few tablespoons of boiled chicken breast and white rice mixed together. She went poop too, she's just been going out on our deck which is honestly easier on both of us than my carrying her up and down the stairs.
She's still really out of it, but the little bit of change is an improvement. She's sleeping in front of me at the moment I began this, in one of the dog beds in the living room. She stayed there much of the day, I'll lift her onto the bed when I go to bed soon.
I had a moment of grief overload this morning kicked off by a moment's reflection on the lousy way my first ex-husband behaved. It's something I'm really over, but just the reminder of it as Dora wasn't eating on top of the COVID fatigue and Igal's death anniversary soon upon us. It was all just too much for a moment.
I've also felt really down on myself today, like I can do nothing right. Earlier, after lunch, CK told me an idea for an easy dinner. I totally missed it and kept on trying to make something that took considerably longer and by the time it was done I then realized it wasn't sounding very good to her at all.
I'd made fried rice, but we've both been trying to get Dora to eat rice and chicken all day. Having had sticky rice on her hands all day, trying to have rice for dinner just wasn't working for her.
I'm feeling exhausted and dejected, but that wakes up a ferocious round of "the Whinnie" in me and I feel like I can do nothing right.
Trying to honor my desire to do my 30-Poems-in-30-Days by once again writing haiku. In the past I've tried to write them about nature, the seasons, the moon; more traditional topics. This year, inspired by a sympathy card a dear friend sent after the death of one of our cats, which contained a haiku from Massahide, I am trying to write them about the inner landscape.
Anger boils over,
Seething volcano fury,
Inside I am ash.
Laziness Lie at Work
I was trying to figure out what I did today. Again. I was thinking to myself, "Did I only do 2 loads of laundry all day? I was sitting with my laptop, what did I DO?!"
I also take care of two meals, fed all the creatures multiple meals, cleaned the kitchen up before getting ready for bed, and took out the compost. I wrote emails that were important, including one to what I'm going to call my Yoga Family about my oversharing shame, and I shared good news.
I thought a lot about what types of "community" mean and I realize I'm making peace with the word "family"; recognizing it as something I have, not something I'm excluded from.
In a study this year I'll be one of the people teaching online yoga therapy interventions for fall prevention in older adults. The study is looking at how to use online tools to expand the reach to rural folks who don't have community centers and senior centers. It's funded, so I'll get a little money for my work. Most importantly, I'll be a part of the study! I'm enormously excited about it and really like the colleague I'll be working with.
At lunchtime I helped coordinate a visit to the doctor's office for CK. Her lab results came in and we need more labs to pinpoint the findings. Our doctor wants her to come in tomorrow, a day when she usually is just writing reports. There is something showing up that indicates something autoimmune related.
It all happens to be at the time I have physical therapy, which I'm really needing between therapy and re-injuring my neck falling asleep in the chair in the living room (which makes me feel all my 51.5ish years). This means we need to finally expand our two-person bubble where I occasionally see a small handful of responsible friends, while masked, to have one of those friends take CK.
Oh, and I finished the book about the Laziness Lie.
Reflecting on this tonight is really helpful. Yes, I'm up late, but walking through the mental work I did today helped me balance the feeling like I didn't do much physical work.
Post-Sharing Hangover
I shared emotional stuff today with my close yoga community and ever since I've been awash in remorse in the form of a barrage of self-judgement coming from Whinnie, my Inner Asshole.
You shared TOO MUCH! What were you thinking? No one wants to know terrible details about your life? Even your therapist doesn't really want to hear it, they have to. You derailed the whole conversation and made it all about YOU! You talk too much, you monopolize everyone's time. You're so selfish!
et certera, et cetera, et cetera.
I'm getting better and figuring out what she's saying to me, discerning the exaggerations and outright lies more quickly now. For years it was just the somatic overload of crushing, physical shame, now at least I get the rest of the message. It makes it easier to tell Whinnie to fuck off.
I also cleaned the kitchen floor, which helped physically burn off some of the energy of the shame of sharing.
Ironically, we were talking about friendship and community. How we do it as adults. I burst in with how I'm really getting hit hard by Richard Miller and iRest's revelations. How I've been trying to become a part of this community and grow into working on studies for yoga interventions around aging and hospice care, but now this and it hurts. Particularly because it's the same kind of disappointment.
My life has been shaped tragically by white men behaving horribly. If you just took the instances of sexual assault and harassment I've experienced over my lifetime alone, without taking into account all the stuff from my Mother and family, it is terrible and traumatic. From my very conception onward.
When you add that to my family, my Mother's ever evolving abuse, including moving constantly, it's no wonder I feel like I never fit in comfortably and feel sometimes at a loss as to how to have relationships with people.
The conversation got steered back to community and friendship. It made me think a lot about how community can be so multilayered, it starts from mere shared interests, but that can only create a really superficial connection. In order to have supportive connection, we need to have values alignment in addition to common interests. When there is an overlap in values, it creates the structure needed to grow trust and love.
When I think about the "Yoga Therapy Community", it's really pretty big. It's easy to assume we're all aligned on some values, because there's ethical standards and guidelines we all agree we adhere to. We're all practicing with the same yamas and niyamas, but we end up on all different sides.
I wasn't feeling very creative today, but I did enjoy the emphera gifts from RS today.
Friday Night Blues
I am not teaching a workshop tomorrow so I'll have to find some other way to mark my pandemiversary. I suspect it will involve yard stuff and moving boxes of books into the van.
My friend was sent to the ER early this morning because she was so exhausted and having problems controlling her breath. After 3 hours she was seen and told she was still stick with COVID, not sick enough to need any other care.
I spent part of the day writing up notes asked making them accessible to her online. She said they were better post-visit notes than from her doctor. This is true because I could dedicate a couple of hours to just doing this work.
I also found out that I'm in the running to be one of the teachers for a yoga intervention study that's been funded! It's on fall prevention through yoga, targeted to rural older adults using technology to reach folks who don't have access to local resources. I'm so excited to be part of this and so anxious I won't be chosen.
I just feel so heavy tonight and continue to struggle with feeling like I get nothing done.
That Asshole
My brain, the Whinnie aspect, moved on from Inner Critic decades ago. Now all it has left is shame and I am full up.
I'm trying to catch myself those times where I'm utterly failing to follow my own advice. This is such a big area; I look up and realize I've been beating myself up all day because I haven't done all the things.
CK had a telemedicine appointment today with doctor and they talked about the weird numbness she's had for a few weeks now. Tomorrow I'm taking her over to get a blood draw; our ND said to be well hydrated because there's several years she's running.
She's concerne. We have been too. We're helping each other to not obsess or catastrophisize.
Did You Do Anything
I'm having a night where I'm trying to recall what I did all day. It feels like dishes, meals, and a small amount of cleaning in addition to a few emails. It feels like I got nothing done. It also feels like I missed something.
I had this idea that is start to do a little something move related every day. Use the habit tracking pages to help me focus. I didn't make it happen.
It's not lost on me that earlier today I reminded a friend that we're still living through National pandemic trauma and it's not in unreasonable to be unmotivated and unproductive. And still, with "Whinnie" sitting at my side asking what the hell I did all day.
Finishing artwork doesn't count for Whinne's definition of productive, but I completed a cool collage today!
Fuck Off, Whinnie!
Realizing last night that my Inner Jerk, "Whinnie" as I dubbed her, was driving my anxiety helped some. When I realize that energy is getting big I can then invite it to settle down or just fuck off.
I still slept poorly and had some nightmare. I also thought I felt pee down by my feet and was convinced our elder dog had an accident at around 4:50am, thus sleeping even more fitfully until my alarm went off. When I got all the bedding pulled away there was nothing!
Thanks, brain!
It's not likely to be an easy week. I can't decide if adding two visits that will result in hours of wearing a mask and trigger shame feelings during the same week as my Mother's birthday is a good distraction or a terrible plan. I'm hoping distraction, plus the energy to get quotes for work that's necessary regardless of what happens but the end of the year.
March Comes in With Anxiety
I am having a bad "Whinnie" night. That's the name I gave to my inner jerk after working on an art therapy project to make a portrait of her.
It's the usual soup of feeling like I don't get anything done. I don't prioritize getting the "right" tasks done. I need to much rest and I waste to much time.
All I can think of is what isn't done.
It's triggered by the upcoming pandemic anniversary, "Pandemiversary", my Mother's birthday, making progress on the taxes (great of owing) and, the match on the fuse, scheduling time to have our realtor look over the property to help us prioritize some work.
Hoping a hot shower helps.
Wisdom on Wednesday
Moved ever closer to sending taxes! We're being sure to get a Certificate of Mailing to prove it was sent, this can only be obtained in a post office.
I checked with the local UPS Store and they confirmed this, with apologies! I was then given advice to not go at the time I was calling, around 2:30pm, because the neighborhood post office is busy in the afternoon.
Pre COVID I'd have gone and listened to something while waiting out the line. It's just a queue.
Now I'm taking the advice to go when they open at 8:30 tomorrow. Not my favorite thing to do, but it will reduce exposure and I'll be home to teach in time.
I was grumpy today because my sinuses hurt which makes me slow. This means I didn't get to make happy checkmarks of accomplishment in the calendar journal. Which means my head hurts and I feel like I'm not doing my share of the work.
I am grateful today for the arrival of a new electric kettle! It should be more impervious to ants and looks snazzy!
Kitten Hijinks
Having a night where no title occurs to me so I'm noting something that's bringing joy to the darkening days as we get closer to winter. He's sitting in my lap purring loudly.
It was a day full of chores, video creation, and newsletter production. Plus making dinner and cleaning up the kitchen. It's always nice you start the week cleaned up.
I say that while in my head my Inner Jerk, "Whinnie", is telling me what a failure I am as a housekeeper. Yep, she's still around.