A breath for these tough times
Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.
Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques
I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.
Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.
I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️
Recovery just is
Deficit
This week I napped a lot. It was less of a situation of me taking naps, and more like, the naps took me!
If that makes sense. I was kidnapped by some long naps.
It was surprising and unexpected. This past year my sleep has been hot buttered garbage, but after I tried one time to take a nap in January, and the nap turned into a massive panic episode, my body refused to even consider napping as an option.
So the sleep deficit just grew and grew.
These past two months, I have been blessed with getting longer shifts at the sleep factory, and so maybe now my body feels better about trying to play catch-up? Or maybe napping just feels safer.
Or maybe it’s the heat and humidity, the exhaustion of being in evacuation mode from a fire, the cumulative everything, who can say. Wiped out.
Better shifts at the sleep factory
I went through a trauma last fall and, after it happened, my body refused to experience sleep for more than about thirty to forty five minutes at a time.
Eventually these blocks of sleep became longer, but not long enough to provide real rest. I began to refer to my attempts at sleep as my work at the sleep factory, piling up blocks of sleep.
Each time I was able to get in an impressive-to-me shift of three hours or more, I celebrated.
By May, I was occasionally getting the coveted five hour consecutive shift. It’s still inconsistent, but progress is trending upwards. I sleep more than I don’t during my hours at the sleep factory lately, and that is huge.
Context matters
The vibes are not great! You might have noticed!
There’s the compound trauma of the news cycles, geopolitical and local, the climate-collapse tragedies, the general stress of existing in fundamentally shaky times.
Sometimes doing something (anything) within all that seems to take all the strength and courage in the known universe, even something seemingly mundane, like doing laundry or solving for groceries.
Maybe even especially the mundane things feel more fraught, or maybe I just notice my resistance to these more.
Effortful
Everything feels extra effortful these days to me. It’s like revisiting concussion-summer. It’s also reminding me of the first year of Long Covid when it would take me all day to wash a few dishes.
So when we say that Recovery Just Is, we also mean that there are so many reasons we might feel wiped out, so many reasons we might not even remember them all.
Recovery just is.
I might not remember all the context for the fear or the exhaustion, and: my body still needs more rest, more comfort, more acceptance, more experiences of Safety First.
The Decompression Conundrum
A phenomenon my friends and I talk about:
You do something brave or something you have resistance to doing, like going out into the world or getting something off your list, or cleaning the bathroom, and it takes all your energy, and then you need to decompress.
And while there might be dozens of possible ways to decompress, the one you go with is SCREENS, and then SCREENS are not as relaxing or replenishing as you needed them to be, and you spend more time on SCREENS, and then regret.
So a question I have been asking myself is how to make other forms of decompressing feel more appealing and luscious and crave-able.
Maybe a dance party, maybe a gentle yoga hour, maybe reading a book (???????????), listening to music with eyes closed, journaling, flipping through a cookbook…
Monsters gonna monster
Even though it is a good thing that I have been finally catching up on sleep after a grueling year of not sleeping nearly enough, do I feel good about this? Hahahahahaha, of course not. Monsters are monstering!
All of my monsters, aka internal self-criticism mechanisms, are getting on my case about how I am wasting time, and how I will never be productive ever again and also my life is a messsssss, and so on.
But that’s what they do, and I don’t have to be impressed by them or take them too seriously.
I can notice what they have to say, and notice that it feels true and accurate to me, and then I can gather some evidence to prove that they are wrong, or ask my friends to help with perspective.
Recovery just is
Recovery Just Is = something my incoming selves say when I ask for advice, guidance or perspective.
What I think it means is that you can’t rush the healing process, which we all know is messy, non-linear, and goes how it goes.
With luck, one day things get a little easier, or: they don’t but we can be a little more easy with ourselves and the non-ease. Imagine that.
Eventually there are more days like this. And so on.
The hard days are hard
This week was the anniversary of something very painful, and there are two more days like that this month. I didn’t handle it very well.
Or maybe that’s not true. Maybe I handled it exactly the way it should be handled, by falling apart into grief and despair, a natural and understandable reaction to something so painful.
Yet again, recovery just is
Recovery just is. In other words, there’s no utility in blaming myself for still being in pain over painful situations of the past, or painful memories of past joy, or whatever is going on.
This isn’t taking me away from the path, it’s part of the path. I don’t have to like it. It’s not fun. That’s super fair. And also, this is jus what we are going through right now.
Permission and spaciousness for the hard days to be hard, for the process to be bewildering. I can invite ease and also make room for what is right now.
Some perspective about time
Whenever I have the thought that the bad feelings are going to be FOREVER, I know that’s a monster-thought.
Yesterday was hard, hard, hard, hard, and last night was really not great, though I did have a dream about Paul Rudd telling me I have a great ass…
So: blessings upon my subconscious and also blessings upon dream-life Paul Rudd and his flawless opinions.
Anyway, today was nothing like yesterday, so I’m glad I did not fall for the monster trap of YOU WILL FEEL THIS BAD FOREVER, because that was a lie.
Panther time
This morning, much to my surprise, I enjoyed a blissful, creative, playful and fun morning movement practice in my friend’s tiny hallway, between the stairs and the bathroom.
I felt strong and of the earth, like a panther again. I felt my curiosity return, and my ability to find pleasure in play and motion.
Yesterday I would not have thought this was possible, because I was in monster-mode of everything is going to be this devastating forever, but luckily time is not everything-is-frozen-forever, time is malleable.
What else can be playful and malleable?
Can I apply this to the mysteries of Decompression Time?
What else do I know about Recovery Just Is?
Let’s talk to a version of me who is ahead of me on the recovery timeline, who is sleeping more and better, who doesn’t turn a nap into a story about how I am screwing up my life…
Havi: Hey, self of Recovery Just Is, what do I need to know? What am I missing here?
Slightly Future Self who knows more about Recovery: Nothing is taking you off the path. This is the path. Sometimes we move slowly, sometimes we fill up on rest, sometimes we doubt ourselves. It’s all part of getting better and regaining our strength and sense of self…
Havi: What else?
Slightly Future Self: When you catch yourself fighting the recovery process, add some compassion and patience if you can. Like seasonings to a recipe. Sprinkle them in and taste again.
Tell me more
Havi: Tell me more please.
Slightly Future Self: It’s understandable to feel frustration with yourself when there is so much pressure to do and achieve, when there is so much to be done, when the stakes feel so high. And also, Recovery Just Is.
Havi: Okay, so, be less hard on myself? What if I do that and just stop getting anything done at all????
Slightly Future Self: That isn’t what’s going to happen. Making space for recovery is also making space for clarity, motivation and the ability to feel into the next indicated steps. Your passion might make a comeback as well, you never know…
Aren’t you bored of that yet?
Havi: So try being less hard on myself and trust the process? That sounds very hard.
Slightly Future Self who knows more about Recovery: Sure, it could be hard. It doesn’t have to be though. You would be able to channel a lot of grace for someone you loved who had been evacuated from their home, in a year of hard things.
Havi: Yes, okay, maybe?
Slightly Future Self: Channeling grace is channeling grace. Why do you hold yourself to impossible expectations? Aren’t you bored of that yet?
Havi: Oh damn.
Slightly Future Self: Just saying, maybe it’s time to get bored of that pattern. No one is being served by boring perfectionist bullshit.
Where do we go from here
A lot of food for thought, as they say. A buffet of things to think about.
I think I want to channel the beautiful stubbornness of my future self, and just keep repeating RECOVERY JUST IS, until the penny drops and that concept lives in my consciousness…
Recovery just is. Add kindness and compassion and patience. Make room for the hard things being hard, and also for them to get easier faster than I think is possible. Make room for both and get out of the way.
What if we start there and feel our way into it? Channel some courage and keep making space for this moment of right here right now, taking a breath for that and for what might be possible from there…
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.
Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.
You are invited to share any related situations or musings of your own if you like, or name any wishes that are in process.
And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, clues received, or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Thank you for this post. Last week I had one crazy day of work and errands and traffic and stress, then needed three whole days of doing almost nothing to get functional again, and next time that happens, I am going to try to use this mantra of recovery just is. I’m on Day 2 of an all-out effort to can 50 lbs. of peaches, so I am sure I will need it sooner than I think!