Presence

There is such a significant difference between being in a place, and being present in a place. Sometimes I think that I'm present but I'm completely in my head, missing everything around me. I might be walking through the woods thinking, "I'm walking through woods, and they are really beautiful", but the act of thinking about the woods actually undermines my experience of the beauty of the woods.

Lately I've become more aware of how frequently I'm present - which is to say, not so much. My lack of focus is a blatant clue. I'm asking to have breakthroughs and to be more expressive, but I'm holding onto the things that keep me unexpressed and unfocused. It feels like laziness, in response to fear. Fear of what, I can't quite articulate. And when I justify being stuck and unable to activate, I've created a self-fulfilling cycle.

Self-fulfilling prophecies are a huge pain. I'd love to reframe my thoughts and accept that the things I have been convincing myself I couldn't unstick and had to figure out how to live with can be fixed. But instead of accepting it as a possibility and letting it unfold, I continue to justify my current state of being because I 'don't know what it looks like' to be any other way. I'm starting to literally see the words, as they come out of my mouth, sliding down to my feet and piling up onto one another, building the very wall that I am speaking about not being able to break through.

I get these headaches when I start trying to explain why I'm upset. The words that come out of my mouth don't accurately express what needs to come out, and the frustration and anger lounge around in my head. Anyone have any good exercises to more effectively release anger? I've been willing to admit that it's there and that I want to express it, but I still haven't been successful in making it flow.

On the positive end of things, moments that I have been experiencing when I am present feel more...just more than they used to. So the depth of my presence is increasing, but the consistency with which I am present in the world is still leaving something to be desired.

Presence, kick Fear's ass, please.

Patience

I think I've found one of those wonderful hints that explains how I got here (here meaning my current state of being). It relates to patience.

I used to be pretty impatient. I was a little fireball in a lot of ways as a kid, feeling free to emotionally explode about any number of meaningless situations. People who can get really angry, and do so frequently (or used to), understand that there's a satisfying element to 'freaking out'. In the short term. And when I was younger, little things were more dramatic and it was the perfect canvas to improve my freaking out.

Somewhere along the line, I started to get a lot of negative response to my abrasive behavior, and I did a U-turn. I flipped inwards and became Switzerland (neutral - or at least, it used to be). Instead of getting angry about things, I either stayed completely opinon-less, or I ignored the situation/allowed myself to be distracted. This is the source of my lack of focus, I'd wager.

Speaking of distraction:

 This is what I came up with when I searched for 'neutral'

Awesome.

Recently I've had a bit of butting heads with someone in my life, and although it added a bit of stress, it was beneficial because it helped illuminate this U-turn that I made Way-Back-When.

What I've extrapolated is that now, not only do I try to avoid angry outbursts, but I work hard to keep a situation completely placid - I'm a peacekeeper of sorts. But what it really does is allow anger to bubble up inside of me and not get released when another of my previous ilk tries to aggress themselves all over the situation (probably not a real word). It also usually doesn't solve the problem.

Worst of all, I seem opinion-less when in fact I have a lot to say.

I wrote a blog entry a little bit ago about my bubbling anger and how I was learning to control it. That was about controlling my anger when its presence was unnecessary in my body. In this instance, it was acceptable to feel anger, and it needed to be released in some fashion or another.

In speaking about my concern with said person the other day, I realized that I was stumbling over my explanation of how I was feeling because I was so infuriated inside. I was trying to be completely fair and rational, but also trying to express the frustration I was feeling. This caused an internal battle, since my anger was too irrational and my approach was too neutral.

Remember the Mr. Men?!
Nostalgia.... 

Ultimately, I got my point across and the situation was resolved. Pat on the back, release of stress, and we're back on the low-stress, happiness road. So how does patience play into this? Though it didn't stand in full confidence this time around, I'm ready for next time. 

Patience can act as an objective filter, allowing anger to emerge in a timely way so as to allow a semi-coherent request to be spoken. Anger, unchecked, can lead to accusation, but allowing it to formulate into a request for the anger-inducing situation to change is preferred. 

A person speaking with this 'checked' anger will speak in a truly powerful voice.

Some of the things I write are shocking to me. I read them and I think, "Really? No kidding. I think most other people learned this when they learned how to first engage in a conversation - when they were 3. People reading this must see it as a flowery way of stating the obvious."

"Twice the amount of a singular digit, combined with twice the amount of an additional singular digit has a sum equal to the amount of four singular digits."

Or...

2+2=4.

See the predicament? Ah, well. Perhaps I am a little late in the game and perhaps I'm working on words coming out of me more than having really intellectual thoughts to write about. Who can say. I'm sure everyone questions what emerges from them on a daily basis, though, and I won't let that deter me.

Persistence and determination - gotta make better acquaintances with those chaps. I've thought we were friends, but it was actually stubbornness in disguise.

Little Miss Stubborn

Apathy

Apathy bothers me more than anger . When I'm angry, I understand the cause, see it coming on, and see it dissipate. Apathy is more elusive. Sometimes I get stuck in an apathetic mindset and I don't know how I got there and worse - how to get out. 

Apathy ties in with desensitization - and we are desensitized in so many ways. Video games desensitize us to rampant violence. Comedy on TV desensitizes us to racist, vulgar humor and makes us critical of others. Lack of healthy outlets to release frustration and anger desensitize us to screaming at one another to get a point across. Impersonal communications such as text or social media desensitize us to how we really connect with others. 

And a personally poignant one - school desensitizes us to learning. 

I was navigating through 'apathy' in Wikipedia and I came across Robert Maynard Hutchins, who I hadn't been previously familiar with. Aside from become the Dean of Yale Law School when he was 30 years old, he has a laundry list of impressive life achievements. As an educational philosopher, he spoke about apathy and the disintegration of our generation. 

His book, The University of Utopia, speaks about a world where students learn about the intellectual concepts behind their majors rather than just the skills to simply 'get it done' - where children are first taught how to communicate with one another and then given the ability to choose for themselves what their school of thought will contain. He talks about having a full range of educational classes which focus on comprehension, rather than just 'getting through the class'. He talks about giving degrees to students who prove masterful comprehension, not just show their 120 credits. 

Utopian, indeed.

There is no question that while going through school my main focus was on getting good grades and getting through it. Not to say that I didn't learn anything, but I was more interested in the simple achievement of crossing the finish line than I was with gathering a deep understanding of the topic which so fascinated me - philosophy. I love philosophy and I loved it then - but it's only now that I'm devoting myself to getting to know it better. 

I'm sure those reading this can remember taking a class because it was pre-requisite credits you needed and you heard it was easy. Did it matter what the subject was? Minimally. And it never becomes as full of an experience as it could have been, and you never learn as much as you could have. 

There are so many distractions outside of class - video games, drinking, social scenes, social media, TV, movies - it's hard enough in this generation to keep focused on school. If the emphasis to really cherish the ability to learn isn't there in the professors, how will it be in the students?

Our culture needs to re-sensitize. Not that we have to become blubbering babies or anything, but we need readjust our grip on reality. If we keep pulling ourselves farther and farther away from reality, there's only so much we can handle before we shut off and ignore it all. 

I think the digital culture is a major culprit, but it doesn't have to be. Technology can aid in our evolution and connection to one another - but people struggle to see the reality that surrounds them when a device is in their midst. It seems more important to type what they are doing, in Facebook, than to actually live it. And the motto for the media and corporations, who keep making more and more and more, seems to be, "if it makes money, who cares what it does to our human culture?" 

Ah, I get apathetic just thinking about it. 

Slov

Bubbling Stress

I have often experienced anger bubbling up and through me. I've often allowed that to create and sustain stress. As I've been settling in and becoming more relaxed, I have less tension in my back and shoulders than I used to, I get emotional less often, and I have consistent energy.

What's most striking is my newfound ability to fend off stress or anger as it approaches boiling, threatening to shoot up my neck and right into a headache-inducing exclamation of its presence. It used to be that once it made it's ascent, exponentially gaining speed, I was helpless against it. I would get stressed, defensive, and/or emotional. I would feel offended, guilty, or bitter. And the whole time I would hate that I was feeling that way, which would only prolong the cycle.

There have been a few incidents recently where I previously would have unleashed my stress monster, but I evaded it. Driving is always rife with stressful potential, but I find myself less and less with the urge to succumb to road rage like I used to. Of course, being in a place where people give each other the finger less helps as well - it's useful to not fuel the fire - but it's mainly my ability to better control my stress.

The most recent incident was today at work. My landlord came in, angry that we had called the heating company to clean our air filters. The labor costs were higher than what he wanted to pay ($0) and he said that he could have done it just as easily. I explained to him, calmly, that I had spoken with the heating company and they said they were going to talk to him before they came out, since the account was in his name.

He didn't affirm or deny whether they called. Instead, my landlord asked me why we had needed to clean the air filters. Still calmly, I told him I had been having sneezing attacks every time the heater turned on because dust was coming out of the vents. His suggestion was that we should, instead of turning on the heat to get warm from the chilly air outside, open the windows to air out the office.

I took a breath. The monster was brewing in my gut, but I told him to sit back for a minute.

I reminded our landlord that outside was cold and the reason for the heat was to mitigate the effects of said weather. Our patients couldn't be expected to be freezing during a treatment where they need to sit still for 30 minutes. Flustered, he asked if I felt better, now that this expensive air filter service was completed. I told him that yes, I was sneezing noticeably less whenever we turned on the heat.

His response was that it was all in our heads, and the air filter being really dusty and dirty didn't acutally make a difference. He told me that the next time we needed to clean our air filters, he would come do it, not tell us when, and he was sure that we would never even notice that he changed it.

I looked at him without responding. My monster was anxious for a fight, but my head wasn't even interested. It was a surprising difference from what I had come to expect from myself. I focused on this fact, rather than the illogical man in front of me. My other head would have welcomed the monster as he knocked over everything on the shelves to make room for his fat little body. But this time, I just didn't feel like getting frustrated or emotional about something that wasn't worth my stress.

So, I just stared at him.

He pulled back and explained that he wasn't mocking me, but was simply frustrated that it cost so much when he could have done it for us for cheaper even though he didn't feel it needed to be done. I repeated that the heating company was supposed to call him first but they seemed to not have listened. I apologized for the confusion.

He finally realized I wasn't going to succumb to his anger and left.

Then, my monster, though disappointed it didn't get to play, simply abated and settled back into the recesses of wherever he dwells in my core. He still exists and is able to put up a fight, but I have a better relationship with him now that we've had this reality check.

It's a good feeling, to not feel out of control and sucked into an emotional whirlwind; to not feel put-upon by the external world. Even saying this evokes excitement that I really am taking control of myself and choosing how my world unfolds. So long, it's felt as though I've been saying the way I wanted things to be, but that reality wasn't actually happening in the world and I couldn't understand why.

The irony is that I don't understand what I've been doing wrong until I've come around the bend and start doing it right. I rarely know how to do it correctly beforehand, I just have to take the risk and follow my instincts, when they show.

Self Pity

Self pity is a real irritation. Those of you who will admit to having fallen prey to this monster many times over will be laughing at that understatement. Although everyone experiences self pity at different times, this wouldn’t be an intriguing blog entry if I simply explained how I have been struggling with it in my recent move. So I have a better approach.

 Alan, a dear friend and Art Director for the non-profit mask dance/theater company, ArcheDream for HUMANKIND (www.adhk.org), wrote an essay on the disadvantages of self pity awhile back. You can find it on his website, here. In it, he thoroughly analyzes this self-inflicted burden, and every time I read it I am able to reflect on self pity’s constant resurgence in my life. Everyone could benefit from reading about themselves from this sort of universal perspective. So often the objective, understanding voices are what guide us to end our painful cycles once and for all. 

What he explains is that self pity’s presence emerges when a person faces a contradiction to their sense of well being. As human beings we dream, hope, and set goals, making commitments to ourselves. But a dilemma arises when we take those dreams and attempt to manifest those goals in the world. "All of us have wished that what is significant for ourselves is also necessary for others" - and when this does not seem to be happening, we begin to fear what might be true of us - namely, that we will not succeed or that we are not good enough. "...against doubt we visualize our goal, and wanting it to happen becomes an expectation designed to negate doubt." Our intention has now gone from natural expression to a panicked insistence that we must succeed to prove our doubts wrong. We are submerged in personal doubt and then fall into guilt as we are too panicked to fulfill on our commitments.

This opens the doorway to see the world as an aggressor on our lives. No longer are we in control of our world, but we are fighting against a world that is causing us suffering. We are now undertaking a ‘noble’ cause to demand recognition for all of the suffering we are being put through. We “take it out on others...those who are not with us are our enemy and we act as though we have suffered a great loss when we have in fact given up [on ourselves]”. 

Mired in our panic and suffering, "fear has a knack of looking like our reality". We are no longer able to see clearly or rationally. The farther we slide into self pity, the farther we are getting from actually taking control of ourselves and our lives - and we go deeper into our self-directed anger. 

What is the result of such self-directed anger and loss of control? A loss of confidence and self worth. "The suicide of self worth ensures a bitter independence, in perfect isolation, dead but not yet buried" and we begin fighting with the persona we have now created which is “cynical self-defense blended with sarcasm”. We are ashamed of ourselves and feel grief because we have not achieved the goals we set out for. Our externally directed anger continues, and we prosecute others to counteract our vulnerability. 

This prosecution of others doesn’t necessarily mean we actually tell them we are placing blame on them. It can mean that we make loved ones feel we resent their support, turning down all possibilities and denying the light at the end of our frightening tunnel. "Fear of Death is popular, but fear of Freedom is a greater terror by far."

Ultimately, our consciousness will continue working to find the gatekeeper of our freedom -  disillusionment. What our disillusionment requires is that we become willing to “accept the unacceptable” about ourselves. To stop feeling shame for those things we don’t understand about ourselves; to admit that all we need to succeed, move forward, and be free, is already within us. We are the only ones stopping ourselves, and as soon as we allow, with all our faults and passions, our true selves to be seen internally and externally, we have found the key to releasing our cycles of self-pity. 

I see myself in his letter, and it's helped a great deal. I hope it will benefit all who read it.