Posts Tagged ‘mental influence’
New Insight
I awoke with a song in my head. It was a Roches song, but I didn’t know which one. I let the short snippet play round and round, over and over, enjoying it thoroughly, but that still left me wanting.
It took only a few tries to locate the right song, “The Scorpion Lament,” from their album, Keep On Doing. Ahhh. It’s like scratching an itch.
While processing all that, something else was revealed to me this morning. It is probably obvious that we would have a list of things demanding attention here on our new property. – I wonder how long I get to refer to this place as ‘new’ to us. I will probably use that term through the first year, since every day is still new to us, because we have not experienced spring or summer here before.
Anyway, regarding that list, …there are a couple of things that seem to me as though Cyndie should take the lead. When I don’t hear of any results on those, I toss out a few hints, occasional reminders and eventually realize I’m simply nagging.
“Yeah, I could do that.” she accommodates me.
With regard to one particular issue, last night I finally asked her if she needed something else to happen first, as if there was some step in a sequence that hadn’t yet occurred. That is a loaded question, in a way, because she is so classically random, …like the way she mows the lawn.
I was becoming confused with her choosing not to act in cases where it seemed to me it would be something that could be quickly knocked off our to-do list, or at least trigger action that can bring subsequent progress. What was holding her up from taking this step? If she was truly random, things should be able to happen at any time.
That’s it! This morning I realized that her not doing things isn’t the result of waiting on a sequence, it is the very manifestation of her randomness. That is why it doesn’t appear to bother her that a particular step gets done by a certain time. Meanwhile, I grow uncomfortable. I want it to happen in sequence, meaning, do this now, and then other things can follow.
It is why I am bugged by the fact that we suddenly find ourselves working on one thing, when I feel like we haven’t yet finished another. I also realized that after we accomplish some of the random tasks, I don’t get the same sense of satisfaction from having done so, as Cyndie does, because I’m still framing it as having been out of sequence.
Eventually, things work out for both of us, one way or another. We are invested in learning from our styles, and in achieving more together than would be possible, each on our own. I know that I have benefited greatly, over and over, as a result of her randomness through the years.
Our success is the reward that comes from the attraction of opposites, which is accomplished by overcoming the difficulties inherent in being so different from one another!
Some Days
Some days, you eat the bear, some days, the bear eats you. I am growing weary of the wetness that has ground our projects to a halt, and have noticed a sense of dread settling in. That bugs me, that sense of dread, because it is so familiar that it carries with it a feeling of being “right,” even though, now I know better. I don’t like how comfortable I am with that feeling of doom and gloom. That is where I spent a good part of my life, so it is not a surprise that my simply deciding to think and act differently, hasn’t immediately erased the years of memory.
There has been some added stress at the day-job, which is pressuring me to the extreme, and looks like it may continue for an unknown duration. The ‘not knowing’ feeds into my stress, partly because it is putting other plans at risk. I was supposed to leave for a week of biking this coming Friday. I have no idea how that is going to work.
Yesterday, after having driven to the city to work on a Saturday, I got home and found Cyndie had accomplished a lot of mowing. That eases my mind a bit. She wasn’t able to get to it all, but at least the place doesn’t look entirely neglected. We can’t make it look as good as we’d like because there are so many obstacles hindering the job. She has to navigate areas of standing water, huge divots from heavy equipment driven on the property, lumber piles, dirt piles, ditches, posts and ropes holding trees up, and the little flags marking where utilities are buried. We’ve lived with those dang flags for almost as long as we’ve been here, back in October. That’s how long our projects have been underway.
This long duration of things being in disarray is one of the stresses that drives me batty. I just want to turn the corner where we can start putting the things we have made a mess of, back in order again.
I found Cyndie working on the back hill when I pulled up to the house. She was working on the dirt scar left by the geothermal boring project. I changed clothes and headed out to help. It struck me that this was just one of a variety of things we have in mind to work on. Last weekend, it was the labyrinth that was on her mind. We didn’t make great progress on that, and the weather was lousy, so we switched to the landscape pond. Now, instead of returning to the labyrinth, we are on the back hill. We just chip away on whatever wins our attention at any given moment.
It all needs to be done, but my concrete-sequential mindset drives me to want to work in order. Cyndie’s tendency toward random, like the way she mows the lawn, allows her to be comfortable working on anything at any time. It is a good exercise for me to just go along with her.
The work on the dirt of the back hill turned out to be grueling. It is far from dry, and we were getting sprinkled on as we worked, eventually turning into a steady rain. The majority of what has been exposed is clay. The first goal was to just break up and rake out the ruts of the tire tracks left by their equipment. Then she wants to plant grass again. I think we are going to want to bring in some black dirt. The clay was just brutal, and stuck to our tools, turning them into useless heavy clubs every few minutes.
I gave up, when it turned from sprinkles to rain, but Cyndie kept at it, and finished the last section before coming in to wash off the mud and get dry.
What a long way we have come from the extreme drought conditions that prevailed when we arrived here last fall.
Forget It
Yesterday was a day to forget. It would be nice if I could, but I have a tendency to hang on to the angst of things when they go awry. I like to bring order from chaos. It is one of the most rewarding aspects of my day-job. I can’t solve everything, but, if by the end of a day, I have achieved putting some things in order, I have a feeling of satisfaction for my contributions.
I didn’t have much luck doing that yesterday. I am wondering if it was somehow a carry-over of my not being able to bring order to the many projects going on at home, just at a time when I was leaving town. For sure, I was rattled by that discovery of a problem with the septic system.
In the morning, I woke over an hour before my alarm, and couldn’t get back to sleep. Of course, my mind was abuzz with preparations for my travel, needing to get ready for work, and get the house ready to be vacant for a couple of days, and to make sure to bring everything I would need for my trip. Also, there was a lot of work waiting for me on my desk at the day-job, so I went in early. I was thinking that I could use that early time to tackle one of the piles and get it processed before events of the day take over.
I never had that chance. Things unraveled early, and everything I seemed to try to get in order just became more chaotic. I had problems with my problems. Really, it was a total disaster. Maybe one of the most difficult days I’ve had, in terms of trying to bring order to chaos.
What can you do? I gave in. I let the chaos lay. I had somewhere to be. I had a deadline to be at the airport. It didn’t help that I stumbled upon a middle-of-the-afternoon traffic backup due to a stalled car. Really? Was this some kind of stress test I was being given over the last few days?
I sure hope it ends soon.
The good news for now is that I have arrived, safe and sound, at my destination, with Cyndie, in Arizona. I really have no idea what is in store for me today, at the introductory Epona workshop that Cyndie’s cadre of apprentices is giving. Maybe it will be a continuation of the stress test for me, but I don’t plan to frame it as such.
I am going to forget the day-job stress, and focus on the new adventure before me. Maybe the difficulties I have faced in the previous two days were just to put me in a place where I will get more from this weekend than I could possibly imagine. I’m going to aim to be open to whatever the lesson is for me here.
Everything Serves
We were out for our half-hour therapeutic exercise walk yesterday afternoon, when a car went past that we didn’t recognize. We could see the driver wave, and then heard a toot of the horn, expressing a friendly hello. It was pretty convincing that this was a neighbor to whom we had probably introduced ourselves in the last couple of months.
It provided a pleasant feeling of belonging. That’s valuable to us, because we still feel a bit unsettled into our life here.
Other than the walk, we weren’t outside for anything more than filling one bird feeder, and the day disappeared into a couple of computing projects we each found ourselves buried under. The reward for each of our efforts was frustratingly lacking. I accept that there will be days like this. We are each doing our best to frame it in a positive mindset, and recognize that even the struggles of the day serve a greater good of informing us. What we choose to do with the information is essential to the success of achieving our ongoing goals.
Here’s to continuing progress of health, happiness, and Wintervale projects, even after a day of not so much!
Contemplating Memory
A wonderful person I supervise at the day-job was addressing the roomful of us, describing an alarming incident that happened on his drive to work. The latch on the hood of his car released while driving full-speed on the interstate highway. He looked at me and made reference to the time my car had the same problem.
My blank stare gave me away.
“Don’t you remember?” he asked.
I didn’t want to completely deny his assertion of the occasion, so, admitted I wasn’t sure. In actuality, I would have comfortably stated that I had never had that experience before in my entire life. Any hint of a memory about such a thing had long ago gone missing.
Minutes later, while visiting the restroom –after he had described how he had gone out to my car with me to look into it (because he and I have the same model car)– I found myself with time to think about it. I exhumed a faint recognition of our both being out at my car, in front of our building, with the hood open. That’s it. That is all I can muster. And, only with the help of his series of descriptions of the event.
I will admit that my immediate reaction, standing at the sink, was to think of how my mother’s memory fractured and faded before our eyes in her later years. Was this my first hint of a pending similar fate for me?
More significant to me was the realization of how wrong I was in my confidence that I had never had that experience before in my life.
In my years of self-analysis since being diagnosed for depression, receiving treatment in the form of talk therapy, and subsequently contemplating my acquired dysfunctional perspectives, I discovered far too many instances where I staunchly defended something in which I held an unreasonable confidence.
I expect that my past depression has robbed me of a lot of memories. At the time, I wasn’t in a healthy enough mindset to record experiences like a mind otherwise would. Historically, I felt that if I had no memory whatsoever about something, then it never could have happened to me. It wasn’t so much a logical deduction, it didn’t feel possible to me that I would have no memory of something.
I no longer possess that same confidence. At the same time, I still need to practice the art of being conscious of the fragility of my perspective of the here and now. It’s something that a few horses will be more than happy to assist me with, I’m sure. Everything fits together rather nicely, don’t you think?
I wonder if I will retain a memory of having had this specific experience and following insight. I’d say that having written about it should be a help, except I tend to forget most of the things I’ve written in the past, so that doesn’t provide much of a confidence boost.
Routine Search
We are into the second week of our new routine, if you can call this a routine, and I feel like I am chasing my tail in search of a routine. I want to get over the hump of initiating accounts, registering for licenses, figuring out hours that places are open for business, plotting my travel routes and times, getting things ready in a timely manner, and finding the damn course-ground pepper.
We lost our pepper shaker. It was here a couple of days ago. We were using it at meals for several days, then it disappeared. I think it happened when Cyndie rearranged the kitchen cupboards the second time.
She had stowed most items and we were operating in a semi-functional mode. When she was eventually ready to really tackle the kitchen, she needed to pull EVERYTHING out and then begin placing the new accessory shelves she purchased, and putting things back in a new order. Somewhere in that process, the pepper disappeared. It may be easiest to just buy another bottle of pepper.
I still find myself reaching to the left wall for the light switch when I enter our bathroom. The switch is on the right side, past the open door. Harrumph. I was told that 10 days is all it takes for something to become habit. Each day I’m hoping it will be the one I quit flailing away at the left side, in search of a switch, when I enter.
I did notice, on my drive home yesterday, how easy it was for me to make an incredibly dramatic shift in how I frame my long drives in traffic since we moved. I’ve historically felt very strong disdain for traffic jams. I abhorred being caught in stopped traffic. It was very important for me to have a short and convenient commute.
The move we just made was the absolute wrong choice, in terms of my feelings about traffic. However, this move was right in every other way. Now that we have lived here a couple weeks, I can say, it is better than right in every other way. It is a dream come true. It is a thrilling paradise that tugs at, and energizes, every ounce of my being. And just that quick, my feelings about driving a long way to work, and dealing with traffic, have completely transformed.
Granted, it has only been 2-weeks. Feel free to ask me what I think after the weather creates days of poor driving conditions. I am open to the possibility that I will grow weary of the long drive. That is okay. I don’t plan to need to make the long commute forever. During this phase, I have plenty of options available from which to choose, in dealing with traffic issues that arise.
I am just happy to discover the new level of acceptance that has occurred for me. It is the first step in establishing the new routine I long to achieve.
Wild Ride
Twenty-two of the twenty-seven most-recent emails in my inbox are labeled with the name that Cyndie and I have chosen for the farm we are dreaming of acquiring. I have chosen to keep that name confidential, until we are able to close on the property, but I have been using it to categorize the email traffic related to the process that started back in February of this year.
There are 283 messages in that folder. The first one is from the person we chose as our realtor. Then there are messages with the drywall company and painter that fixed up our house while we were preparing to put it on the market.
In hind sight, it would be accurate to relabel email exchanges with our precious friend, Ian Rowcliffe, to be marked with that same identifier. Traveling to Portugal to meet Ian and his family, and spend time with their horses at the paradise that is their Forest Garden Estate, definitely deserves credit for inspiring this dream.
The current batch of 22 messages received in the last two days reveals a boost of activity that has come from our finally taking the step of visiting farms we have been marking as “favorites” on the list our realtor has been providing weekly. That step follows the milestone of having received an offer on our home.
The fact that our first offer was received only 3-days after Cyndie returned home brings a smile to my face.
Three days after that, we drove a lot of miles to visit 4 different properties. Yesterday, we finally had an opportunity to walk through the property that has been on the top of our favorites since we first received a list from our realtor.
There are a fair number of issues, all with contingencies, that are yet to be determined, but this flurry of messages coincides with our having signed our names on a lot of documents in an act of hope toward realizing a precious dream.
Will all the pending uncertainties resolve in our favor? Regular readers here should know how Cyndie is willing the universe to direct the outcome. I am doing everything I can to keep my feet and hands inside the cart at all times during this wild ride.
This Moment
Is it apparent that I don’t write as much about living alone? I am definitely noticing how the situation is feeling less significant for me. Part of me thinks that might not be all good. There have already been moments of frustration when a certain someone returns for a visit and my latest routine suddenly gets disrupted. What if I find that living alone becomes more appealing to me than living with my wife?
It that happened, I think Cyndie would gladly find space for me in the barn.
I don’t remember if I mentioned that Cyndie is coming home today for the weekend. It is supposed to be our final push to prepare our home for showing. I hope that goal is accomplished. However, I am detecting moments of feelings of insecurity as we get closer and closer to the reality of having our home of 25+ years sold.
Part of that is a result of not yet having actually seen any properties that inspire me as being potentials to meet the vision of our dream. If we don’t find a suitable place, after we sell this house, the teasing I have done about becoming homeless would turn into reality. My stoic front projects a readiness to deal with the inconveniences, but the little boy inside me feels more apprehension about the realities and the potential for extended duration.
They are just feelings. Feelings can be ameliorated.
I have less success managing my unconscious behaviors. I think I am clenching my jaw more lately. In the past, I have experienced bruising of my teeth from the pressure I exert. It can feel just like a cavity or other tooth problem. The tooth even becomes sensitive to hot and cold. When I am doing that, I’m obviously not relaxed.
I might be taking a calm walk on a beautiful morning, stopping to capture images that strike me, and at the same time, I am firmly clamping my jaw, without knowing it.
The day-job is in the midst of an extended period of amped-up stress, my chores at home exceed the capacity of my time and energy, and life as I have known it for a long time, is slowly being pulled out from under me, a little at a time. I clench my jaw.
I am also cognizant of the loss of my thrice daily endorphin fix from exercising, in the form of play amongst good friends that make me laugh. I am in need of some serious cycling time, both for the exercise and for the conditioning to prepare me for the annual week-long trip in June. The heavy load of the day-job responsibilities and the house renovations are conspiring to preclude access to pedal time.
One solution there, is to get organized enough to bike to work. Maximizes efficiency by providing exercise while getting me to the day-job. I just need to be sure I don’t need vehicular transportation during the day. Currently, that’s not something I am able to be sure about.
One simple solution: Live in the moment. This moment, right now. It’s all good. I smile, jaw relaxed.
Altered Perspective
Nothing is ever really as hard as we make it out to be. It is remarkable, the mental power we have to influence how realities play out. If I think that some task is difficult, and I keep repeating that message to myself, it seems only logical that the perception I develop is bound to make the task more onerous than it would otherwise be. Especially as compared the choosing to entirely refrain from telling myself anything negative, and forging ahead without hesitation to tend to the task at hand, regardless the challenge it presents.
I spent the majority of my life under the duress of a negative perspective. It is a complex collaboration of insecurity and dysfunctional thinking that conjures up a belief that this is a sound and logical manner of reasoning. Yet it is the kind of thing that one defends with stubborn resolve. It is such a misguided effort.
Nothing is as bad as it seems. The pains we cling to, the wrongs that we have experienced, are ours to release at any time. It is absolutely possible to give them up in an instant. Both Cyndie and I have learned to do this. In time, it is possible to become aware enough to avoid even taking on certain mental burdens in the first place. It is something that I wish I had learned to do much earlier in my life.
It was never as hard as I perceived it to be.
Mental Revelations
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Life, so they say, is but a game and they let it slip away. (lyrics by James Seals)
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Are we letting February slip away? It’s not like we can stop it. In two days, it will be March. The game of life is marching on whether we think it is us who are doing the playing, or are the ones being played. If you don’t feel you have the ability to make choices about your own life, you just may feel you are being played.
We always have the option of choosing to alter our thinking. Regardless how sure we are about our take on the world, there remains mystery and complexity that deserves acknowledgment. Imagine if technology were able to produce a mirror that would reveal our suppressed anger and sorrow in its reflection. It could be particularly valuable to those who proclaim themselves as having nothing to gain from professional therapy.
Could we make healthier decisions if we became better aware of underlying issues that frame our perspective? Maybe.
I am inclined to believe that our mental health is not well served by our failure to recognize what it is that has hurt or angered us. It would be a shame to let life slip away without taking a chance of bettering our health by simply altering our thinking.
Relative Something 