Posts Tagged ‘mental health’
Manic Mix
Real or imagined, my mind is a manic mix of mayhem, most recently triggered by an ill-timed –as if there was ever a good time– high ankle sprain that occurred on Friday morning during my regular indoor soccer workout. We had been surprised with a forced relocation to the children’s gym due to some basketball special event requiring both wood courts. I didn’t adapt well to the plastic tile sport-court surface and turned my left ankle while desperately trying to maintain a defensive position between our goal and the attacking player, Ranses, who was expertly keeping ball possession and gaining ground, despite my efforts.
I was barely able to drive back home afterward and then decided I needed to take the day off work. However, later that day, we were headed to Mille Lacs Lake for the Hays family reunion weekend. That turned out to be a whirlwind of fun, food, laughter, and silliness. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up maximizing the focus of my treatment of the ankle and neglected to bring my cold packs or my bottle of ibuprofen, and even neglected to appropriately rest it. Getting out for some bocce ball, catch with a Foxtail and then football, and even going for a little walk, were all a little premature activity so soon after the sprain.
I don’t think the bowling on the Wii was all that harmful, but watching some of the X-game performances sure made me tense it up more that I wanted to. I think I hurt myself just watching others risk their limbs to the degree those athletes do. 
I did take advantage of the hydro-therapy available in the big lake when a small number of us walked over to play along the shore. While others were off exploring the Kathio State Park, I got in a little rock balancing while soaking my sprain in the cool waters of Mille Lacs.
The weekend seems to fly by before we even get around to spending quality time with everyone present, but I did get some good attention from Drew as he helped me take apart and rebuild the spherical jigsaw puzzle I brought along.
Yesterday, when we finally landed back home again, I worked on getting into a rhythm of regularly icing of my ankle, taking ibuprofen, and elevating my foot while resting. It gave me a chance to catch up a bit on the ‘virtual’ friends I’ve made in my online community, where I was sad to read of the difficulties one person was having with his recently diagnosed depression.
It has been on my mind since I first read about it last week and I have been struck by the level of influence it has had on my attention. The struggle this person describes in posts to our ‘walled’ community is incredibly familiar to me and I feel very sympathetic to their plight. I’m starting to notice that while they are struggling with things, it feels as if I am impacted as well, and I anxiously await news of a break in the suffering.
I think I’m ready to return to the routine of a work day. Unfortunately, it will not be entirely routine until I am able to return to my morning soccer matches with a fully healed ankle to get my head-clearing exercise. And what can you say to that but, “and how!”
Truth and Fear
Have you ever tried to actually figure out what is true? Truth is not quite as cut and dried as it is made out to be. I feel differently about a lie. Lies aren’t likely to occur without intent, and as a result are much easier to define. Truth just happens. Truth just is. Ah, but truth is more often referenced against falsity. Falsehood can probably be argued just as much truthfulness. When a person is intending to cover up something, the action is rarely referred to as creating falsity and much more likely to be identified as an act of lying.
Which situation gives rise to the greater fear: telling the truth, or telling a lie? Why do either one produce fear? Look at some of the things we are afraid of… appearing uninformed, drawing undesired attention to ourselves, revealing a deficiency of character, being hypocritical. Lies might be employed in avoidance of such fears, but isn’t it possible that summoning truth could serve one equally well here?
I’d be lying if I said I knew.
I keep coming across another snippet from Gary Zukav’s meditations from Seat of the Soul (because the little flip book in the bathroom doesn’t get flipped very often) that refers to fear in a way that resonates with me…
From page 70:
All souls are tempted, but an individual with limitation of consciousness will find it more attractive to walk into the magnetic field of fear because it would not recognize fear for what it is. It would accept it as something else, as something that is normal to Life.
I often hear people discuss things that to my ears appear related to their fears, but their conversation isn’t framed with any recognition of it being a fear. It comes across as more of a frustration, or anger, or even indignation over details of a given subject (often fueled by news reports which so deftly propagate and then harvest the attention). They don’t even realize where it is they are dwelling, within their field of fear. It is, indeed, accepted as normal to life. It is a drama to which they are attracted. It becomes an addiction of sorts.
Turn off the news. Practice recognizing where it is that you allow your thoughts to dwell. Whether or not it ends up being a place of utter truth, it can certainly be a place other than one of fear.
If Wishes Were…
I’ve said it before. Be careful what you wish for. All sorts of spontaneity came my way yesterday at work. Why doesn’t it ever work this well when I decide I am going to visualize being on an all expense paid luxury vacation? The hardest thing about practicing being unattached to outcomes, when it comes to work, is that outcomes are the principle objective. 
The day-job is consuming a bulk of my available resources lately. I’m always impressed by the simple and pretty much by-the-book obvious presentation of stress when it plays out in the way my mind slows down under the extra load. That response is quickly joined by a wave of fatigue that longs to be treated with sleep. If I’m payin’ just a bit of attention to the obvious, and aware enough to cut myself some slack, the stress is manageable. The fatigue is no big deal. My liver needed the sleep, anyway. I went to bed at a decent hour last night. So, bring on the day, I say!
I’m going to spend it secretly visualizing a tropical island while I’m working.
Significance of a Day
Imagine if you had been waiting for this day for a long, long time. It is finally here. At the same time, for many more people of the world, it is just another day, a Wednesday in October. We have the freedom to make any day become a day of incredible significance, simply by our ability to choose to make a conscious decision. Think about how many days we act as subjects of whatever circumstances arise. There are a lot more days like that in our lives, than days when we choose to make significant proactive decisions. This could be a day when you decide to quit smoking. This could be a day when you make a call that you have been avoiding. Today, we can choose to exchange an unhealthy habit for a healthy one. Just don’t forget, to experience the benefits, we need to follow up the decision with appropriate action.
To some people, today is all about a baseball game, yet many others will be unaware that baseball is even being played this late in October. Or maybe it is an issue of importance relating to a local school board. It amazes me to consider the number of things that occur every day in the world, of which I find myself entirely unaware. Of course, from where I perceive it, everything appears to revolve around me.
It is entirely possible that the person who so coolly rebuffed my attempts to collaborate, by denying my desire for interaction under the guise of more important activity, had genuine concerns of a personal nature completely unrelated to me or my business. Imagine how it would feel to learn they were dealing with a family member being ill or some other grave concern. I might actually feel honored to be the brunt of such offense, taking one for the team, if I am able to interpret that it’s not always about me.
I have the opportunity to choose my response. Maybe not right away, my powers aren’t that strong yet, but after my fight-or-flight response subsides, I do have the option to create a response that aligns with the optimal health I aspire to see and manifest. I have the ability, at any time, to decide it will be a day of significance.
Writing Outloud
Sometimes it is hard to write about the vacancy that happens during times the mind and body and soul fall out of sync with the place I refer to as optimal health. I picture it as something similar to when a heart goes into fibrillation or when I start typing really fast and then look up to see my hands weren’t in position on the home keys. It’s not that nothing is happening; actually a lot is happening, it just isn’t very productive, and as a result comes across as a vacancy.
For hearts, intervention can involve an intentional and measured shock. Maybe there is a proper dose of some kind of measured shock that would help to reset the rest of me. When my energy reserves are being stressed, the simple mental steps that help to avoid getting out of sync must show up a little slow and then I find myself behind the curve and it gets too inviting to let everything slide. That sets up the self-feeding downward spiral, so an enlightened mind is wise to disallow that process.
For me, sometimes hearing and feeling a strong dose of my favorite music works well to interrupt the dysfunctional pattern. Another successful interrupter is when someone needs my help and requires me to take immediate action to assist them. Left to my own devices, I generally prefer to succumb for a while and lay low, accomplishing little towards productive outcomes beyond entertaining myself with low level, mind numbing pastimes, or even sleep, which comes easy at times like this.
Last night, I chose the opposite of sleep. I let Cyndie talk me into driving up to our lake place in the middle of the night. It does me a large dose of therapy to wake up and look out at the sun rising over the glassy lake at my most sacred place. The drive up was pretty therapeutic, too. Even though it was a bit cool, we kept the top down and the moon was on display, accented with a few clouds as we got farther north. 
We threw in a bit of music therapy, as well, playing live recordings of some of my favorite artists from my youth. We turned the amp up to 11 and rocked out to Derek & the Dominos (In Concert) and The Band (Rock of Ages) for the entire 3-hour, non-stop dash and arrived at 1:15 this morning.
Even given the lack of a full night’s liver-healing sleep, I feel better already. I plan to do a little additional sleeping in the hammock that swings just outside the door, looking out at the lake. That’s just the kind of measured shock I’m hoping for right now.
Little Things
Happy July!
I wonder if all the little things that go right for me add up and have a positive influence equal to the power that all the little things going wrong seem to wield. Even though I have learned a lot of significant lessons about my mental health in the last 16 years or so, I still am not free of needing to address things over again as if it was a brand new class. I’m in the same school, but this is a different hour, and I guess it’s no surprise that I have a brand new teacher.
No one gets to be exuberantly happy all the time, but it surprises me when I get doused with an all-encompassing gloominess even though I have an overwhelming number of blessings showering me and just a few little nuisance hassles like losing track of a cell phone charger and needing to go back to the house again to look for it, but not finding it, and then learning the car leaks coolant… There just isn’t enough there to justify the long term impact that seems to result. And so then I begin searching for other things that are wrong, or could be wrong, to make sense of how I feel and there you have it: I begin developing a self-fulfilling prophecy. Wasn’t I just being delivered this lesson even though I felt I already had a decent grasp of it?
Which comes first? I start feeling bad, so then my thinking gets off track and prolongs gloominess, or my thinking starts to get off track and triggers the bad feelings? Doesn’t matter in the end; I can adjust my thinking and change my feeling. I know how to do that. I have enjoyed success doing that.
Little things deserve to get attention commensurate with their level of influence. My little mind has a power of influence that can more than equal the floods and sludge of gloominess. Sometimes, a silly little photo can trigger my mind to remember happier times and initiate a new chemical direction for the rest of me. This one causes me to smile:
Self-portrait on the way home from the lake last Sunday.
Relative Something 