My Body Knows..and Apparently the Cops Do, Too

If the very phrase "today is the first day of the rest of your life" didn't want to make me seriously yak, I'd be able to use it for this very occasion.

My two-job life ends today.  I teach my last evening yoga class tonight and likely to a very small number due to the fact that it is Hallowe'en and some of my students will have plans involving costumes and a higher sugar content, I'm guessing.

My body has been sensing that I am intentionally trying to break the pattern of overwork and it is reacting accordingly.   My neck resembles a massive steel rod and if my shoulders were any closer to my ears, they'd look like they were hanging off my ears like a pair of boulder earrings.  My stomach, usually tight with the sensitivity of hypervigilance, is going above and beyond the call of duty to stay clenched 24/7, enough to significantly restrict deep breathing.

With my shoulders up over my ears, my vision  has also been clouded in a couple of other areas.  In the past two days, I have locked my keys in my car and got my first speeding ticket ever.  Except for the sliver of Scottish genes in me that was trying to calculate how much my daring brush with the law was going to cost me, the rest of me felt like a little excited, as if I was in a movie complete with the flashing lights in my rear view and the tall, dark and armed walking toward the car in my side view mirror.

When the cop asked if I knew how fast I was going, I looked him right in the eye and say "no".  I didn't have a clue.  Clearly driving under the influence of non-attention, I was somewhere else while my body was driving.  How's that for a life metaphor?

Wake up, Danette!  Your life is right here, right now.  And you're not going to believe the incredible things coming your way if you just keep your eyes wide open and resist the old pattern of overwhelming yourself to avoid being present.  And whether you like it or not, today IS the first day of the rest of your life.  Yak away!

Turn Left for Freedom

I had a liberating thought about the phrase "may I be free from preferences".

What if the key is not focusing on the word 'preferences' but instead on the the word 'free'?   There may be no harm in preferring right over left but I don't need to be manacled to all things right or come undone if left is my only option.  And what if the left is an invitation to explore the path less travelled?  

Clearly, focusing on my preferences makes life seem more manageable since I know my preferences like the back of my right hand.  But, who am I kidding?   My life is not controlled or controllable by me or anyone else.  Plan, prepare and produce but pretending it's all up to me is like being on a rather famous yellow brick road.  If I only had a brain!

I still have a huge list of planning, preparing and producing that is on my agenda for today but if it didn't all get done, the true identity of my authentic self would still be in tact.  I would live another day when I could choose to handcuff my preferences to me or just be grateful for their delicious presence while holding them lightly.

No Preferences

In my quest to be more aware of my entrenched and unhelpful life patterns, I've been sitting with the phrase "may I be free from preference" from The Four Immeasurables.

On a purely intellectual level, it makes sense to not hold too tightly to expectations or to become overly attached outcomes.   We can't control most outcomes anyway so less immediate reaction equals more acceptance and balance.  More acceptance equals less stress.

But preferences are a whole other ball of wax.  My preferences are what make me who I am, aren't they?  Why would I want to give those up?  Or not have any?

I prefer order over chaos, cats over dogs, high heels over flats, red wine over white, turning right over left, raking leaves over shovelling snow, dark chocolate over white, coffee over tea and knowing over not knowing.  Without those particularities, what makes me any different from anyone else?

I guess this leads to wondering why I need to be different?  What benefit do I get from being different?  Does it make me valuable, more useful, more anything than anyone else?   And if I had no preferences, what would that look like?

Perhaps it would mean seeing each moment, each situation just as it is.  Each moment would have its own essence, its own purpose and challenge even if it didn't fall in the category of one of my preferences.  There would also be no reason to react (or over-react) because everything would be, in a sense, acceptable.  

Hmmm.   Still not sure.  I like my preferences, they seem to have developed organically and they've become part of me, intuitively.  And, I guess, they've also become part of my patterns.   More sitting with this is necessary because I'm not ready yet to be free from them.

I'll consider it more as I head off to warm up my coffee.

It's a Small-ish World

It may not seem like it to you,  but after some 40-odd trips around the sun, my world is getting smaller and smaller all the time.   It's understandable that you hadn't noticed because you don't know anything about me yet.  And I wish I could say it was my debt or my body fat percentage that was getting smaller but no such luck.

And realistically, how much smaller can my little planet get?  

I live alone. (Well, alone with my old cat and a couple of  tenants who live downstairs).  I rent myself out to a small independent high school as a guidance counsellor and teacher.  I don't have cable for my television,  I don't read newspapers or magazines and I've just reduced my work world from two jobs to one.  I have a few close, warm-hearted friends and an extended family that gathers on cue for the socially acceptable family holiday meals. Within walking distance from my little self-made sanctuary, there are many simple pleasures that nourish me; second-hand book stores, coffee shops, my yoga studio, a farmer's market, a city park and community meeting place for outdoor musical festivals.  And I meditate almost daily to build my capacity for attention and stillness.

With the simplicity of my seemingly charmed, charmed life, why is that I still get overwhelmed?   Is it that I'm primarily an introvert and I rely on my daily extroverted outbursts to propel me through my day?   Or do I simply have a lower tolerance for the grinding of the daily grind?  And, if this is so, what else could I possibly take away to simplify my already small world?  What other distractions or stimulants could I remove?

For this past two years, I have been working full-time at the school while training for my yoga instructor's certification and then teaching yoga classes two nights a week. Occasionally at school, there are evening or weekend events I have been required to attend as well as the regular lesson planning, marking and reporting duties.  So when I added training, preparing for and teaching yoga two nights a week, my life became all about the work.

For awhile, it was all so exciting and energizing.  I felt alive, full of purpose and in complete command of my future.  Gradually, my days became more about productivity and less about people.   More about efficiency and less about relating.

The benefit of the ensuing exhaustion for me was clear.  It meant that I didn't have time to do anything but work and sleep.  There was no in-between world.  No time to build and risk intimacy in any relationships.  No time to listen to my body.   No time to admit fears.   No time to notice whether or not what I was doing was out of passion, compulsion or default.  No time to risk failure or success.  No time to grow in knowledge of myself and my unhelpful patterns of living.  No time to breath deeply from my belly.  No time to be present.

This blog is the first step to taking the risk of doing nothing.  Okay so yes, I'm writing and that is doing something but writing is the one thing I've been saying that I have not had time to do because of work.   This is as close to doing nothing as I get, for now.

One small step, one deep breath.

Saying "No" to Life

If the masculine, old nun with the multiple chins and the warbling vibrato from Sound of Music was here, she likely tell me that a closed door leads to an open window somewhere.  Over the crunching of the fallen autumn leaves, it's getting too damn cold out now to have any doors or windows open but what if I was the one who closed the door?  Intentionally.  And with the kick-ass intensity that bordered on slamming it shut.

I've discovered that I have the door-closing ability to say "No".  Ending unhealthy relationships.  Leaving second jobs.  Turning down offers to socialize, collaborate or take on extra responsibilities when it would be less-than-nourishing for me to do so.   Where did this new skill come from?

Oh yes, out of necessity.   Now I recall the utter exhaustion, the resentment and how my shoulders were constantly, rigidly crawling up toward my ears causing me to resemble a stone turtle, stubbornly not recognizing the reality of my overwhelming over-commitment to overworking.  All over that.

So I've said "No".  Now what?