The Power of Yet

 Hey there, everyone!

Recently, I listened to the podcast, ADHD ReWired, and it was the episode 357 “Accept the Brain You Have with Terry Huff.” In that episode, Terry mentioned something about goals not getting done, and the host, Eric Tivers, made the distinction that a goal hadn’t been done yet. And, that small, three-letter word got stuck in my head. Yet.

We folks who have ADHD, or a sub-type, have lots of goals that haven’t been accomplished. Yet.

I am empowered by that little word. Yet gives me the hope that it will happen someday. Yet means I still have time to get the work done. Yet makes it possible for “done” to happen. 

So, how do you feel about the power of the word Yet? Is it a new thought, or, something that you’ve heard before? 

Let me know in the comments, and we can keep the conversation going.

And, with that, have a good day/night as the case may be!

Stay safe out there,

Jen

Thoughts on Non Attachment

 A while ago, I learned of the idea of non attachment to physical pain. I ignored that idea for a while. Then, I got ill with bacterial meningitis in 2011, and as an after effect experienced tremendously strong migraines and tension headaches, such that I thought my skull breaking open would be a blessing. 

During the midst of the bad headaches, I was trying to read Jon Kabat-Zinn's book, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. I still haven't made my way through the whole thing, yet. But, I got to the part about his program for mindfulness-based stress reduction to help those with bad health outcomes reduce the badness of those outcomes through mindfulness meditation taught to them in specific ways. A big part of the program, from what I was able to understand, was accepting the pain as just a process your body is going through, that you are observing. It's about not identifying with the physical pain as a part of you.

I figured, what the heck, I have nothing to lose from trying this myself, and if it works... then I won't hurt as much. So, I started trying to meditate while going through a migraine. I didn't see immediate results, but it didn't make things worse. I tried some more. 

I remembered the studies I had read, and presented to the class about, where folks who were meditators of various times from less than a year to longer than a few decades were prodded with something like a mild heat stimuli. The ones who had been meditating for just a bit were easily distracted from the meditation by the heat thing. Those who had the most practice meditating never seemed to notice the heat thing, even when turned up a bit more. And, when asked about it, were unaware it had happened. 

I knew meditation could work, empirically, and, yet, could it work for me to modulate the pain? 

A week into my process, I decided to stop curling myself into a ball whenever the migraines struck. Instead, I would lie quietly on the bed, and not make a fuss over going through the process of the migraine. It helped a little bit more.

Eventually, I found I was able to go to my room, lie down, and be quiet for the duration of a short migraine. Taking the struggle and frustration at the situation out of the situation lessened my distress in the migraine overall. Now, I only get frustrated with the long migraines. The multiple day ones that tend to last for longer than half a month. I'm going through that now.

The stresses of the past week doesn't help. My theory as to why a lot of others and myself have migraines that last a while in January is because December is usually a stressful month. This past December was different than in years prior, which is a different kind of stress, so even though there were fewer folks to deal with, loved though they are, there was still a different set of stressors. So, January came in with it's usual migraine storm. And, now, with the stressor of the rioters in the nation's capitol, and the fear that induces, it's no wonder the migraine is continuing despite the medication that increases fears and yet breaks up migraines. 

So, now, I'm trying to recognize that even the fears are thoughts that deserve to not be attached to and so then I won't suffer because of the frustration between how things are and how things appear in my mind's eye. My mantra when going through the non-attachment to physical pain was, and still is, "Pain is just a mental event." My mantra for this non-attachment to mental pain will be, "Not going to get attached." If it needs adjusting, then tweaks will happen. The physical pain mantra without the word, "just," wasn't as effective for me. Some folks swear by the mantra, "Jesus heals all." If that works for you, so be it. It's not what works for all, and that's okay too.

Church, My Way

 Growing up, I lived on Army bases in the United States of America. My dad was an enlisted soldier, now he is a retired veteran. The Army had us living in homes around the country from North Carolina, to Alaska, to Virginia, to Colorado. I liked it so much, I even signed up for an enlistment, but I didn't make it very far in the attrition process. Anyways, recent events in our nation's capitol have me feeling jumbled up inside.

Recently, Joe Biden has called the Capitol Building the Citadel of Democracy, and Nancy Pelosi called it the Temple of our Democracy as well. I got to thinking about how seeing churches broken up in the past has made me deeply saddened, and yet, not felt like it was my church that got attacked. This does.

Growing up, we heard Reveille played by bugles at 7 in the morning as the flag was raised over the base headquarters every single day. Then, we heard Taps every single day at 6 in the evening as the flag was lowered. These songs bookended our days. They were the songs that opened our services and closed our services. Life on the posts for a school child started with Reveille and ended with Taps. One woke you. One told you to go inside for the end of the day.

Then, when the Mayor of the District of Columbia announced a curfew at 6 in the evening on the day white supremacists tried to dismantle the big church of my churches? That reminded me of the curfews that were enacted on the Army bases during the fighting in Kuwait and folks being angry at the military and soldiers and we had to be on base every single night during that time by 6 in the evening. It was just how it was. 

So, folks being mean to those fighting for liberty and the American way in the Capitol Building, and a 6 pm curfew enacted? It was a bit much to be reminded of tough times. 

Then, today, when Joe Biden was announcing his nominees to head the Justice Department, and Nancy Pelosi when responding to questions of what next because our incumbent president had instigated the domestic rioters and white supremacists that attacked the Capitol Building referred to the Capitol Building as the Church of Democracy, essentially. And, it came together for me.

We didn't go to any churches on post, or off post in the surrounding communities, when I was growing up. I like to say that my folks are hippies who raised us, their four children, on military communes. It confuses folks, but once they get to know my history a bit, it makes sense too. The post was everything for us. It was extended family, friends were made hard and fast, you never knew when someone might move (either them or you), and it was where you got your food, medicine, clothes, just everything on the post. 

This was how it was designed to be. The military brass wanted the soldiers to be dependent on the post for everything from necessities to fun, so that the soldiers could be a more cohesive unit. And, if the soldiers were cohesive, then the families could be too. 

That's why yesterday's attack is visceral and felt like an attack on my church. Even though we didn't do church. I only went to church as a social experiment with friends and later other family. But, my family of origin, nature is our church, and nature is always on the post. Of course, it's always everywhere. 

I'm still broken up by the feelings in my chest and my eyes. I am trying to be comfortable with these feelings, as all feelings are valid. It's what you do with them that matters. What the white supremacists did yesterday is not moral and not awesome and not a cool way to treat other people. I am upset, but I'm not going to go be physically stringent with any incumbent residents of any addresses on Pennsylvania Avenue. That's not my way, that's not what my church taught me.

My church values Loyalty to the Constitution and the Nation (meaning all the others here), Duty to do what we say we will, Respect for others by treating them as they should be treated, Selfless Service putting the needs of the nation above your own (which those white supremacists didn't do, and their instigator hasn't ever seemed to do in his public persona), Honor to live your values daily no matter whether you're being watched or not, Integrity to do what's right legally and morally, and, Personal Courage to face fear, danger, or adversity and still do the right things.  

A while ago, I was asked why I didn't like the incumbent president. I couldn't put into words at the time why because I was upset at the time. It's because he's disrespectful of those that are lower in station than himself, he's not loyal to our nation and prefers the company of our international adversaries, he's never shown a bit of selfless service and only seems to be selfish, he doesn't show much integrity in his dealings with the law of man or in relation to women, and, he doesn't have personal courage to led others in dangerous situations, but has to have peaceful protestors cleared for photo ops with symbols of religious power that he doesn't even pretend to care enough about to hold the right way up. He doesn't fulfill the values of my church.

I hope he gets what he doesn't deserve. By that I mean, more love, and I mean honest, soul deep love, than he's given most people. I can't do that right now for him, but surely someone, somewhere can give him the love he needs. I can at least, wish him to not hurt himself, and not hurt the rest of us in the process.

Edited on 13 January to change the language from "terrorists" to "white supremacists" as I've learned from Black folx on various social media that calling the ones that defiled the Capitol of the United States on 6 January 2021 terrorists only increases attacks and racial profiling on those who are Black, Brown, or Indigenous Peoples of Color, and that they will bear the burden of a word choice that can be made more clear in this post. Words matter. Clarity matters. Black lives matter because life matters. 

Word of the Year, Personal Review, 2020 ~ Manage

 My Word of the Year for 2020 was Manage. This came from a larger quote, by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, “One who can learn to flow with the current as well as manage the current is the successful one.”

I think I focused on the wrong part of the quote, but the season before last year had been one of floating a lot, and I wanted a little more direction. By the end of the year, I had come to dislike the word Manage for my word, but not enough to change it.

The year began simply enough. January, was it's usual beast with 100% of the days being full of migraines. (I have a new theory about this for a future blog post, so watch for that! It's not earth shattering, just mind expanding for me with implications for future changes.) The migraines continued into February with some other things going on in the personal world to Manage. March, what can I say that hasn't already been said before? 

We in the US, not sure about the rest of the world, began the month of March much the same as any other month in the rest of the 21st century. Then the weekend around the Ides of March in the middle of the month came (for those that don't know their Julius Caesar history, the Ides of March are the 15th of March, the date to settle debts, which Caesar did with his life, as did a great many people in this century from that date forward, but I'm getting ahead of myself). And, my household went into a holding pattern, as many in the world did. Would we go to work on Monday? Would we be able to go to the grocery stores? The hospitals? What exactly was closing and when? So many questions. So much misinformation. So much confusion that looking back could have been avoided. But it wasn't and so we are still digging out from the mess that was started first by those in leadership saying it was a "flu" and then because of that not providing adequate care and information for the masses needing an unprecedented amount of both.

April passed in a blur of Managing expectations and wearing masks when out of the house. Because whether or not they did anything, what if they did do something. And, they showed as a sign of respect that I respect your health, so I'm wearing my mask to protect you in case I'm asymptomatic and don't know it. That's the simple thing that showed up a lot in the Spring and Summer months was the sheer entitlement of folks not respecting each other. Folks deciding that their anger at the situation was more important in grocery store videos that went viral than the government and store rules that we wore masks. 

May came and went with more time outside. My pup and I took some time in our neighborhood to take socially distanced walks around. Our neighborhood is semi-rural and so we walk on the roads. I carry a mask in my pocket, to pop on my face if I happened to come across a person who wanted to come closer than 7-8 feet even though the distance for masks at the time was 6 feet. I have had some weird health things in the past, so was and still am acting from a very cautious place with this. 

June the world learned the name George Floyd. Managing my own internal biases and learning which family members were being ignorant on purpose and so were trying to pull me into discussions about whether it was possible for black people to have the same prejudices with white people, which for the record, it's not, was an interesting exercise in patience, which I don't have a lot of. There's not a 400 year history of black oppression of white people by black people with the rules of one drop of whiteness in your blood making you white so there's more white people, so there's more enslaved people to work the plantations and homes of the black oppressors for free. Sounds kind of ridiculous when you change the positions of the races. To paraphrase Dr. Jaiya John from a podcast I heard in October, through the Good Ancestor podcast by Layla F. Saad, white supremacy is a virus that we have lived with and don't know what it would be like to live without. I want to live in that world. 

July was more Managing. This time internal as well, as I had asked for an assessment for distractibility and memory issues. I had been noticing that I couldn't settle my mind to much of anything. I had been putting it down to the pandemic for the last few months, but thinking on my life, I noticed that this was how I just was. Always mentally curious and able to do deep dives into subjects that are interesting, but hardly able to do anything that wasn't at all somehow motivating to me. I had to know why it was important, agree it was important, and like doing it, to maybe even want to do it. Or, I'd find an excuse not to do it. Doing it because of making other people happy doesn't work because that's manipulating them, if I don't want to do the thing. So, at the end of the month I was evaluated for adhd. 

August was more Managing. Still internal, but with others too. In early August, I got the diagnosis of a type of adhd. Then, I did deep dives into what that was. I took a dedicated break from a crafting group I'm part of to figure out my place in the world with this new information. Also, my pup was beginning to do poorly, and I didn't want to deal with a lot of questions, so a break would give some space for whatever happened in the next few months.

September came with some hard conversations to Manage. We talked with the vet about the process for euthanizing our dog because he was doing so poorly. As a last option, we took him to a specialist vet on the off chance that something might be easier for him in the last days of life. The first appointment was in October, so we Managed to wait for a while, did I mention I don't have a lot of patience? The new school year brought a new pattern to the schedule of the weeks. Since March through June the weeks had been fully remote through the computer. Then the summer was it's usual break. Summer school had been thought about, but dismissed in this time. So, the county had been in the yellow for most of the summer with occasional bursts into the other two colors. (out of a red, yellow, and green system, with red being fully remote, yellow being hybrid, and green being fully in person allowed.) The school district chose to do a yellow hybrid system for the school year, until and unless they had to go red - fully remote, even if the county went into a green zone to better protect the students and staff. That means our days have had a different pattern than ever before with two days in person, a remote day, and then two days in person. Getting used to the pattern of days has taken a bit of effort, but it's happened and now feels normal.

October came with more chances to Manage. Early in the month my pup met the specialist vet. I have only ever heard her voice over the phone as the visits have been curbside the whole time of knowing her. She did some tests, used her vast knowledge and care, and developed a plan to try to turn around the bad bacterial infection he had had for a long time that was resisting other antibiotics he had tried. She started him on an antibiotic that required wearing gloves, washing hands before and after administering the medicine, and making sure not to touch it to anything we would ever use for human consumption. While he was using that medicine, we couldn't let him lick us or touch his nose or face to us at all. He did sleep on the bed, but that was too much of a battle to fight at the time. In October, I also went to the orthopedic to see what was going on with my shoulder that was really sore and weaker than it should be, and had been since the summer. He took some xrays, gave me a shot of steroids and lidocaine, and sent me to regular pt. I started pt and loved going there, as the people were great and it felt good.

November, I also Managed expectations. I was still going to pt and wasn't progressing like I felt I should be. At the end of about 2 months, I was still at what felt like the beginning of the process. I requested another appointment with the doctor to see why. Until then, pt was the only time the shoulder felt good naturally, so I continued appointments until the day before the doctor's appointment in mid December. I also Managed handling the scary medicine for my pup. The medicine could cause a weird kind of anemia in those that touch it and ingest it. I also Managed writing about 37,000 words for the month in NaNoWriMo, an international writing competition to write a novel in a month. It was the first time I tracked my words written in a month.

December was a month to Mange lots of things. Near the beginning of the month I said good bye to a new friend as they left their internship at the pt clinic. I Managed to show my love in tangible ways thanks to the beneficence of the year. I Managed to write 8,000 words without the help of the daily check ins and sprints of the writing community. which is still pretty good. I have a simple bank book system that has columns for date, document name, starting word count, total word count, running balance (resets monthly, manually), and then time in minutes and a words per minute column where the word count for document is divided by the minutes. Oh, and there might be a comments column, I usually have one of those in most spreadsheets. The math columns are formulas, so I don't have to do the math mentally, and I have them filled in for about 20 rows at a time until I get to the bottom of the filled in rows and then pull down the formulas another 20 or so rows. (All this in case you want to duplicate your own spreadsheet.)

So, towards the end of December I participated in Susannah Conway's process to find your Word of the Year. I had the idea before beginning that I wanted something funner than Managing, and I wanted something more active and external as well. Dancing was running through my mind, but I had heard that this process would help solidify the Word of the Year for folks that were a bit vague on it at the moment. 

I went through the process of the first two days about a week after receiving all the emails. Then, I set it aside for about a week. Found it again and finished the day's work that I had been doing. Then, continued on through the process, just not always giving it the time that the process had intended. By the end of the process, I had solidified that Dancing was a good word for me in 2021. To support Dancing, I selected Energy, flexibility, Vibrant, and Ease as these are the feelings that Dancing creates in me. 

In hard times, our attitudes can make or break our spirits. May yours make your spirit sing, and if it isn't change it.