January 6th Challenge: Listen Up

Hope you're well rested from your Sunday Sabbath challenge.  I enjoyed a lazy morning in bed with tea and paper and meditation and stretches, then a leisurely hike into the Wild Blue that is our freakish January weather.  I made a decent, well rounded Slow Food dinner.  At at 10 p.m. I watched the moon cap a quiet day with a luminous belly-flop into the western sky.

And it was good.

 I may be a little TOO relaxed to get back into a five day work week after all these holidays.  So I've picked a challenge that I do on work days anyway.  I'll aim to be particularly mindful this Monday.

Today's quest:  let's LISTEN DEEPLY.

As a general rule we don't seem to do this so well anymore.  Maybe it's because we are all so busy.  Maybe it's the competition conversation gets from devices and other pulls at our attention.  We seem to be talking as much as ever, but true dialogue seems to be an endangered activity. This sad observation is the keystone of MIT professor Sherry Turkle's upcoming book, tentatively titled Reclaiming Conversation.  In her 2011 tome Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, Turkle posited (with the research one would expect for an MIT psychologist)  that the digital revolution was hacking the flow of deep human connection.  In a recent Atlantic article about her latest findings, she observes we are communicating more than ever.

alone together

The conclusion she’s arrived at while researching her new book is not, technically, that we’re not talking to each other. We’re talking all the time, in person as well as in texts, in e-mails, over the phone, on Facebook and Twitter. The world is more talkative now, in many ways, than it’s ever been. The problem, Turkle argues, is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re talking at each other rather than with each other.
Conversations, as they tend to play out in person, are messy—full of pauses and interruptions and topic changes and assorted awkwardness. But the messiness is what allows for true exchange. It gives participants the time—and, just as important, the permission—to think and react and glean insights. “You can’t always tell, in a conversation, when the interesting bit is going to come,” Turkle says. “It’s like dancing: slow, slow, quick-quick, slow. You know? It seems boring, but all of a sudden there’s something, and whoa.”

Today I want you to be spies and revolutionaries in the fight for good conversation.  Even if you don't have a chance, for whatever reason, to get into deep dialogue, pay attention to others' dialogues. Spend a little time listening in or watching others converse.  Notice if they are taking turns, where their eyes are, what their body language is communicating about their engagement.  If you are close enough, notice if they are picking up the conversational balls being thrown out by the other.

Here's a few tips on improving the chances you'll have a good conversation:

poor listening body language

Pay attention to body language.  The keys are open posture (no closed arms, hands on hips, heads turned away, back up), decent eye contact (neither staring nor looking askance, and of course that means not texting while talking), and being aligned to and close enough to be able to read the other's body language.

Be a good receiver.  It's great you think you are listening, but could an observer tell?  Here's how they might:  you are looking at the speaker.  You aren't doing something else, like walking away, watching television, checking your email.  (If you're truly busy and it's a bad time, let them know when would be better).  You are nodding, leaning in, making short interjections such as uh-huh, wow, really?, etc at reasonable intervals.  You are asking questions that relate to the topic or "tagging" the information to show you received it.  Simple example:  speaker says "I just saw a UFO."  Listener:  "Whoa!  A UFO?" 

i have on my listening ears (or antlers.)

Check for meaning and intent.  "You really think you saw a UFO?"  Don't assume, or if you do, at least take ownership:  "I assume you were drunk?"  It's great to relate, but be sure the person has finished their thought before you start launching into your own story.  Which reminds me:

Try to interrupt less. 

Get more information.  Especially if you don't agree with or understand the listener.  In my observations, when people are in disagreement with a speaker, they (yes, me too) interrupt or are so busy thinking of their response they stop listening.  They then answer with their differing viewpoint before they've checked intention or accuracy.  This leads to debate, not conversation.

In March I'll be doing a free workshop on conversational arts. We'll do some fun games and have some great talks.  If you're interested in joining, send me an email and I'll let you know the when and where.

Quotes of the day:
“The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.”  ― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters 
"It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much."  -- Yogi Berra

Song of the day:  

January 5th Challenge: Consider A Sabbath

Probably lost some of you at the title, but even if you're not religious, hang in a minute.
Because we all need a day of rest.  And I'd like you to spend just a little bit of Sunday thinking about how you could commit to--and benefit from-- a Sabbath practice in the new year.

you've done enough.  you can rest now.

The word was first mentioned in the narrative of Genesis as the day God set aside for rest.  In Judaism, it was set apart for both rest and reflection, and to keep it was both a mitzvah (blessing) and a spiritual obligation.  All cooking and chores were completed before it began.   The word itself derives from the Hebrew "Shin-Beit-Tav", which means to cease or end and rest.  I noticed when visiting a friend at Mt. Sinei hospital in NY that on Shabbat the elevators stopped at each floor, so observers would not have the work of pushing a button.

As a nation, Americans are more overworked than nearly any industrialized  country.  In 2000 we worked 199 more hours per year than we did in 1975.  That's of course for those of us lucky enough to still be employed-- which is part of the reason we're overworked.  It's typical for companies to cut jobs and simply shift the responsiblities to remaining employees.  And we don't take vacation.  On average, we're now getting 12 days of paid holiday per year compared to the 30-40 of European counterparts.  And we tend to only use 10, because who has the energy to do the double time on either end at work?

 day is done

It's time to take back some time.  At least a little.  And to do it consciously, intentionally, repeatedly.

Your challenge for tomorrow (even if it is your work day) is to figure out some space you will take at least once a week to hold yourself and your time sacred.  And decide what that means. How can you dedicate a bit of time to nurturing and honoring your own soul?  Is it an hour (or day) where you turn off all outside communication links to enjoy some uninterrupted pursuits?  Is it a time period every day where you dedicate yourself to listening to that small still voice?

How can you offer yourself some sacred time for rest and reflection this coming week?

As always I would love to hear your thoughts.

gone the sun

I also want to tell you about my work on the challenges so far.  But rather than clutter up this post, I'll put it in the comment sections of previous posts.  I really do want to hear what you are doing as well.  Please comment.   It can be anonymous, but keep in mind it may take a bit to show up because I do moderate comments to decrease the viagra ads. 

Some related readings:
Oldie but a good un with the great Andrei Codrescu on why non-believers need a Sabbath too
Last year's Sabbath challenge here

Quotes of the day:
“Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship. It is about work stoppage. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.”--Walter Bruggemann

"Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.” --Mark Buchanan

Song of the day: (thanks to my world-friend Sebastiano for this one)

January 4th Challenge: Widen your world

Since most of us have a M-F work week, I've reserved the big tasks for the weekend.  Today, your challenge is to widen your world.  

There are lots of ways to broaden your horizons.  Your job is to search for some experience today that will send you outside of your zip code, literally or otherwise, in a manner that will connect you to another part of the earth.  It's a big planet, but today you are going to make it smaller. 

Here's a dozen possibilities.  Have more ideas?  Leave them in the comment section. 
Connect with someone from another country.  Adopt a sister through Women for Women International, tutor a learner (or become one) on a language exchange website, participate in a world dairy page, find a pen pal.  Want to be an armchair traveler?  Go to the library and pick up a piece of immersion-style prose or a travel guide.  Make a night of it:  choose a country then find a recipe or visit a restaurant specializing in the cuisine of that country.   Learn a few key phrases from another language.  Sign up to be a conversation partner for a visiting foreigner.  Throw a dart at a globe and read a few web articles about the area.  Read poems in translation.  Watch a foreign film. Think about your ancestry and engage in a cultural activity related to it.

What's the point? 
Well, it may be a big world, but we all have to share it.  The more we know about each other, the more we see our common humanity, and the more likely we will be to protect our planet and each other.  That's good for everyone.

I'm reminded of a tale I heard from Oregon story-teller Alton Chung about Pony Express riders way back in the day.  It wasn't easy making deliveries in the Wild West, and there were bandits on the trail. Delivery wagons were staffed with not just a driver but a security guard, who served to protect the cargo along the way.  The shooters were trained not to over-react-- they didn't want to harm folks who were living along the trails or just checking them out of curiosity.  In the story I heard, a driver and guard were hightailing it along the lonesome stretches of the Lewis and Clark trails when the driver spotted what he figured might be a bandit way off in the distance, so far off it (he?) wasn't more than a speck on the horizon.  He told the guard to ready his gun, but the guard insisted he wouldn't raise it until he knew if it were friend or foe.  They continued their approach until it was clear the speck was a human being, hiding in the bush of a foothill.  Still, the guard would not ready his rifle.  "I can't shoot until I see the whites of his eyes", he said.  They got closer.  It was a man, still a half mile off, but clearly a man.  "Shoot!", said the driver.  "No, I can't see his eyes", said the guard.  Closer, closer they drove, til it was clear that not only was it a man, but a masked man, glaring at them from behind the bush.  By now his eyes, though slitted, were clearly visible, and not without malice.  "Shoot him! cried the driver.  "I can't", said the guard.  "Why the hell not?  Don't you see the whites of his eyes now?"
 
"Yes", said the driver.  "But I cain't shoot him now.  I known him since he was little."

don't be a stranger, here?

OK, let's go get to know one another a little better.

Today's blog is dedicated to German artist Wolf Nkole Helze, who has made my world (and that of some 300 other participants in his world photo diary) a smaller, safer and friendlier place.

Today's quote:   “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”   --Roald Dahl

Today's song:  

January 3 Challenge: Be Patient

waiting for the fog to lift

Yesterday's challenge was to think about, then act on the phrase "Don't Wait". After a week of concrete colored days, I seized the moment of a spectacular sunset and stared as it coursed from purple to gold to orange and back to purple.    I finished a procrastinated book review to support a brilliant poet (BUY THIS BOOK).  I did that massive load of laundry, got my blog done, reached out some, explored a little town I've been wanting to see.  That meant lots of other stuff got pushed into the WAIT pile.

Which brings up to Friday's lesson:  WAIT.  Usual rules.  Here's some suggestions; take one or many or make your own.  Sometime's it's spot-on to wait. Your job today is to practice with patience, with not-knowing.  Wait a second longer to inhale that breath.  To interject your opinion.  To serve yourself seconds.  See what starts to happen if you interrupt your impatience brigade.  Remember this is an active experiment.  Look for opportunities to try it all day.

I know some of you, and you're a smart bunch.  You aren't likely to mix up the Don't Wait opportunities with the Wait choices.  Don't wait to put out the fire.  Wait to start one.  Don't wait to encourage, show compassion, take responsibility when you need to do so.  But do wait to act out your anger-- sit with it and see if it transforms.  Wait to interject your defenses and opinions until you are sure you have heard the other side, deeply.

fog rose up, and sun spots rained down

Be slow to anger, to criticize, to judge, to get to the front of the line, to shut down that elderly person nattering in your ear at the shop.  Notice what opportunities pop up from waiting. 

Some tricks to help you wait:
calming breaths
4 regular breaths EXCEPT after you breath out, hold your breath a couple counts longer-- not til you are gasping, but until it's clearly important to get the next one in NOW.

If talking, wait for the person to finish (and that means more than they are inhaling).  Feed back what they said before you start your reply, and check for understanding.

Measure costs/benefits:  will this likely harm me/decrease my health and power/etc?  WAIT.

Say you're at the market.  You're in no hurry and the person in front of you at the express check-out has four items over the limit.  You could gripe at them, the clerk, yourself for having the bad luck to pick the line.  Or wait.  Use that time to think about what else you want to get out of your day, or to count your blessings, or practice that mountain pose, or breathe.

Life is as busy as we encourage it to be.  Reset the pace today.  Take a little time.  What can we notice when we wait a little?

Let me know:
Jana
"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."
Joseph Campbell

January 2 Challenge: Don't Wait

Glad to have you all enthusiastically on board for 31 days of tiny resolutions. Sure, you could quit wheat, get out of debt, clear out your attic and lose 20 lbs. But anybody can fail in their resolve for those big deals. Here, it's all about the details, and itsy bitsy ways to shake things up for the better.
It's a good thing these don't take much time, consider how late this post is going out. From henceforth I will post the day's challenge no later than noon, and often the night before. And of course you can do these any day, and take what it brings you into the whole year.

Today's challenge can take a couple of minute or the rest of the evening-- it's your call.  

Start here:  Settle into your space.  Whether it's your chair or you are standing, take in a decent breath and feel yourself grounded a little.  I like to use the image of yoga's mountain pose, in which energy begins in a point above my head and channels firmly out both my legs into the ground.  Mountains are strong, calm power.  Big storms come and the mountains stays settled.  Really, take just a 60 seconds here to settle in.

Now think about those words:  Don't Wait.  What is something you can do tonight?  It's not necessary it be a Grand Gesture.  Maybe you will sit and do that blog post.  Maybe you'll do what I did and pull over to the side of the road to look at some almost-lenticular clouds that won't be there in five minutes, or that sunset that will spoil you for sunsets for the rest of the year.  Maybe you'll write a thank you letter, or throw that sweater you never wear into the Goodwill bin.  Maybe you will tell that person you love them.

Here's the deal.  Today is the absolutely only January 2nd 2014 we are going to have in this particular stream of reality.  These things you do, some can wait.  Some won't be there if you do.  It's late-- seize the carping diem already.  Seize it small and gentle, but do something you've been waiting to do, or experience something that won't wait for you.

Then write me and let me know what it was and how it was.


Quote of the day:
"How wonderful it is that no one need wait even a single moment before starting to improve the world."  --Anne Frank

Song of the day (well, of course): '
Photos of the day:  Excuse for not getting the blog done earlier.  
Poem rip-off of the day:
Because I could not wait for time
She did not wait for me
And kill'd from up inside my Bonnet
the Promising Could-Bee
Join us on Facebook!
January Challenge Here

It's Time: 31 days of New Year Challenges

Hey you!
It's a brand new year.
There's nothing like a clean slate.
I haven't blogged for so long I couldn't remember the password, but after a little diligence and last week's sweet encouragement from Marilyn, I'm ready for 31 days of posts full of Tiny Resolutions That Could Change Your Life.   They'll at least structure mine for a while.  I hope you'll play along.  Most of these challenges will require only a bit of time or energy.  If you don't have the opportunity to complete them the day they are posted, try them any time this year.  And let me know what they bring you.  I encourage you to get yourself a nice little notebook to keep track of the list and your efforts.

Let's get started with a little polishing of the slate.

Write down ten things you appreciated from the last year.
Write down a few things you'd like to leave in 2013.
Now write a few things you'd like to see more of in 2014.

Bonus points:  Do a little ritual cleanse.  This can range from a polar plunge or candlelight bath to a clearing of a meditation space or a symbolic washing of your hands or face.  As you do so, see if you can really feel the intention of bringing freshness and blessings to your new year and leaving behind some of the disappointments of the last. 

Watch this space for new challenges each day.

I hope you had a good start to your new year.  I got in a walk in the woods though like the blog, it was a later start than I'd imagined.  But every moment offers a new beginning.  

May your house be blessed.
Jana

Quote of the day:   
"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning." 
                 TS Eliot 

Song of the day:  Let it go, says Harry Manx


Shout out of thanks to Marie L for today's quote and Marilyn for the cheerleading. 

Love letter to a gone beyond friend

 

art retreat with ms annie

Today marks the Earth's first spin around the sun since my friend Annie died. It's hard to write those words: "Annie died."  I wanted to write left her body, transitioned, released her earthly bonds.  All possibly true.  Also true, painfully at times, that she died.  She did it in a beautiful way.  She was at peace with life and her death, surrounded by some of those who knew and loved her.  Tonight I miss her in a sharp-intake-of-breath way, knowing I won't see her again in this life.  I don't like and I fully accept the reality that she is gone.

just over a year ago

Annie died on the heels of the Dia de los Muertos, that brilliant Mexican holiday where death is openly acknowledged and the lives of those who passed celebrated and mourned.  America doesn't offer such an opportunity.  As a culture, we've been historically lousy at grieving, combining a stoic stiff upper lip with a plethora of canned sentimentality.  Far better to rend garments and keen, or to laugh and drink whiskey--both good and honest forms of raging, raging against the dying of the light.

Tonight I miss her.  So I'm writing her a letter.  Since I can't give it to her directly, I give it to you.  Maybe you'll write your own grief love letter, or make a remembrance altar.  Let us acknowledge our loves and our losses.

---
Dearest Sweet Annie:

eating?  again?

For as long as I can remember, you've been Annie to me-- since we first met, and you emphatically told me your name, "Anne, with an E".  My memories of you are perhaps more vivid now that I have no now with which to replace them.  In many, your mouth is either full of food, or open with deep-throated laughter.  I've never seen anyone eat with so much pleasure, certainly no one with the body of a 17 year old baton-twirler.

on the river

Tonight marks a year since you left.  Despite video evidence proving that you are a complete goof-ball, you've gained a certain Saint-like status now. When I want to punch someone in the nose, when I feel my heart get pinched and pinch-y, when I am low on patience and big on ego-- if I am lucky, I think of you.  I think of how you full on loved your kids and Eric and life.  How you balanced the possibilities of vulnerability and lightheartedness.  How your optimism was tempered with a directedness and sensibility that in others would just be bitchy.  That was never, ever a word I would associate with you.  You were authentic, honest and compassionate.

I try most of all to remember how you kept your heart open.  You died way too young, but you stayed young in the most remarkable way throughout your life.  You were playful, active, curious.  You stayed in that space even as you were dying.  I know you way outlived your disease, and I know from our conversation that some of this was in service to others.  Dis-ease doesn't even seem a word to associate with you, because you were graceful in life and in dying.  Not just graceful-- lively.  How to reconcile that life-force you showed those weeks before dying with an actual death?

circus annie, art retreat

Annie, when I think of you, I think of your poetry, your dancing, your always-at-the-ready laughter.  And I think of the way you could make room in your life for all sorts of experience and love.  What I want to take with me after your death is that-- a willingness to engage, even while in trouble.  An energy for more love, more music, more appetite for experience even when or especially when it would be more understandable to collapse and withdraw.

goof-ball

November is a mixy month for me.  My birthday occurs less than one week after and one week before your death and that of my father.  I've always seen birthdays as an invitation to reflect on life.  Your death and his added a new layer to that.  I remember we are mortal, and that days count.  I now try to add your eyes and his to my way of seeing the world.  Like Ansel, who you knew only from my tales of him, I remember I don't have time for novels anymore.  I try to pay attention to the stories.
From a poem he wrote:
He used a tool
and dug in deep
trying
trying
to leave a mark
that would last longer than
he would.

---

post-bath annie

annie, smiling and centered

Annie, my sweet friend, you dug in deep.  Your mark is with me, and I know with others.  I hope to honor it by the borrowing of your eyes and the resting in your heart, so huge and open like your eyes and your laugh.

Wherever you are now, thank you for stopping here, and for changing many of us for the better along the way.  

With platesful of Big Love for you, and for your boys S, E, M.
Jana

For Annie, who always wore green
 --------
 I may never see green again
 without thinking of you
 and the full-on way you greeted the world.
 Your laugh, that strut, the
 baton twirl of your smile.
 
 I may never think of death again
 without thinking of you.
 The full on way you greeted
 your fate; maybe not at first,
 but when the going got real,
 how you grabbed that train,

 saw it as some grand adventure.
 pretty much the way you'd see anything 
 as seemingly small as a walk on the beach.
 
 I may never walk on the beach 

 without thinking of you,
 and that day when you were six weeks 
 on the other side,  when  you weren't so sure
 of it, stuck between your curiosity
 and acceptance and your sense of responsibility
 to those you loved you were leaving behind.   
 deciding it was ok for you to full on go,
 to go full on, to that other side.
 
 I may never think of you, and the full on way
 you loved the world that loved you back, 

 without thinking of the full on way 
 you held life in your hands
 like a most curious child, a child with a 
 treasure intriguing, and frightening and wondrous.

 all we could do was step back

 in wonder in your full-on grace.

Seeing Red Over Pink

October sure is a busy month for awareness pushers. Depression, domestic violence, brain injury, ADHD, bullying, AIDS, breast cancer. Not fun stuff. The focus is meant to help educate, encourage early diagnosis, reduce stigma, connect to treatment. All well and good.  Maybe.

There's been some backlash on the huge swamp-us-in-pink Breast Cancer Awareness.  Psychotherapist and author Harriet Lerner addressed it in her Psychology Today column,  "Don't Think Pink."   I disagreed with part of the post-- I frankly don't mind public events like the "bras over the river" that create community along with awareness-- but like Dr. Lerner, I'm put off by the commercialization of this disease. I don't need pink M&Ms to remind me that breast cancer matters.  I don't like processed food makers pushing raspberry flavored energy drinks under the guise of fighting cancer.  And I absolutely agree that we need to increase focus on environmental risk factors and how to decrease them.  There's no doubt pharmaceutical  research saves lives.  But it would be far more efficient to put some money into preventing disease. 

The whole pink-ribbon deal is sketchy, at best.  Christopher Zara, International Business Times:  "Breast Cancer Awareness Month was originally cooked up as a corporate marketing blitz by Imperial Chemical Industries, now part of the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.  The company, at the time, had an obvious interest in reaching the marketplace: It sold both carcinogenic pesticides as well as numerous cancer-treating drugs. 'It was the perfect profit cycle,' said Karuna Jaggar, executive director of the nonprofit Breast Cancer Action. 'They sold chemicals that cause the disease and then the treatments for the disease.' ”

Then there's the forced cheeriness of the month, which seems to insist that cancer is an exciting self-awareness journey.  Well, sure it is.  But it also is horrible, and hard.  And to have to plaster a smile on your face and endure endless chipper cliches lest you be accused of causing your own illness due to your poor attitude-- well, that is an extra circle of hell.  

Writer Barbara Ehrenreich challenged this perky weirdness in her Guardian article, "Smile, You've Got Cancer".   "In the mainstream of breast cancer culture, there is very little anger, no mention of possible environmental causes, and few comments about the fact that, in all but the more advanced, metastasized cases, it is the "treatments", not the disease, that cause the immediate illness and pain. In fact, the overall tone is almost universally upbeat. The Breast Friends website, for example, features a series of inspirational quotes: "Don't cry over anything that can't cry over you"; "When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile"; "Don't wait for your ship to come in… swim out to meet it," and much more of that ilk."  Now, in addition to having cancer, you can feel guilty that you aren't embracing it.

But cancer isn't a grand adventure.  Sometimes, true, it brings unexpected positive side effects:  deeper relationships, a sense of what's important, a call to grace.  My friend Annie exemplified these attributes in amazing, beautiful ways.  And in the end, a year ago, she was willing and ready to die, and did so unafraid and at peace.

But just a few weeks before, we'd walked on a beach while she admitted to me she'd been unable to discuss planning for her death at all. Even though her doctors had told her that "at best, you'll see your son into 4th grade, and maybe if you're lucky, to the Spring." She'd not made a will, discussed her hopes for her family's life without her, or in anyway allowed herself to think-- except in brief, guilty moments-- that her stage four cancer was a serious problem.   To do so, she worried, would be akin to asking for death, for being ok with leaving her sons, her husband.  Annie was atypical.  She was one of the most evolved, loving and positive persons I've had a chance to meet.  But she was also human.  And she needed, at least that day we walked, a chance to tell another part of her story-- that she was scared and sad.  "But I know I need to stay positive to remove whatever block I must be having to being healthy".  I asked her if she thought a two year old with leukemia was "blocked".  "What negative thoughts cause a five year old's brain tumor? Things happen, Annie," I told her.  "We can't control everything. "

Annie's death occurred when she was in a place of peace, surrounded by family and friends.  But if she had struggled against it, I would have loved her all the same, and I wouldn't feel she wasn't brave for it.  The reality of cancer is not cheery.  Photographer Angelo Meredino captured this in a heart-wrenching series of photographs of his girlfriend during her illness. 

If cancer has touched your life, or that of someone you love, it's not enough to buy a packet of pink Swiffer refills.  Throw some of that money and energy into programs that assist persons affected directly.  Volunteer for hospice.  Learn more about environmental causes of cancer and agitate for research and change.  And if you want to donate to a breast cancer organization, consider the Breast Cancer Fund, which is actively working toward prevention.  You won't get a pink plastic water bottle, but you might make a real difference.

October is Depression Awareness Month

Feeling the bite of the black dog?

It's probably no coincidence that October is national Depression Awareness Month.  The days of decreasing light are paralleled with increases of calls to my office of people seeking support for anxiety and depression.

Depression is a life-threatening disruption that takes on a life of its own.  This graphic shows some of the connections.  It's not perfect, but shows some of the self-feeding flow of stress (psychological or physiological).  Wish I could cite the source.  It's been reprinted a lot and the few citations I find lead to dead ends.  

I've been in practice a long time.  In a town with a population of 50,000 and over 40 therapists, you'd think I'd run out of clients.  But I get 5-10 requests a week even with a phone recording saying my practice is full.  Most of my colleagues also are full.  And every year,  demand seems to increase.
What's up? 

I have a few ideas.  I have lots to say on each of them, but we'll start with the bullet points, and I'll talk in more detail in future posts.

1)  Complexity of life has increased geometrically, and with it, stress.
 a)  Work patterns have changed.  We work more, have fewer vacations, and work leaks into domestic life in ways unprecedented in history.
 b)  We are interrupted more:  by auditory and visual stimulation, by devices and demands.  There are constant challenges to our attention and rest.
 c)  Increased information leads to anxiety
      1)  We are fed ceaseless bad news about isolated events to the point we feel in constant threat.
      2)  We are exposed to countless choices that drown out intuition and lead us to second-guess if we
            are good enough or have made the ultimate best decision.

2)  Eating, sleeping and light exposure patterns of humans have changed dramatically.  Each of these affects our circadian and hormonal rhythms in ways our evolution has yet to accommodate.
  a)   24 hour food availability changes long-term human patterns of seeing food as sustenance into              sources of comfort or entertainment, leading to obesity and hormonal challenges.
  b)   Availability of cheap, heavily marketed and nutritionally thin foods appeals to instant
        dopamine rewards; robs us of vitamins and minerals that protect our physical and mental health.
  c)  Constant artificial light, night shifts, 24 hour stores, etc profoundly disrupt sleep cycles.

3)  Social connection and support are decreased.
   a)  Communities have lost their centers.  People go out less, and when they do, they engage less with each other and more with their devices.  Natural support communities such as   churches are weaker (see 1-- no one has time).
    b)  This generation reports having fewer friends and spending less face-time with those they have.
    c)  Multi-generational family connections are less valued.  More people live away from where they were born, and they move more often and more widely than in previous generations. 

In a nutshell:  lots of us are stressed out, overstimulated and overworked, underconnected, and not sleeping, exercising or relaxing as much as our body needs to come even close to the demands of modern day life.  We are anorexic not of food, entertainment or choice, but we are vastly underfed of love, support, rest and community.

It's no wonder we get depressed and anxious.

You know who fares well in times like these?  Sociopaths.  Through a quirk in their genetic evolution, they lack empathy and don't rise high on many other emotional scales either.  They don't get angsty about much that doesn't effect their personal and immediate bottom line.  We're getting good case presentations on this genotype with the current Middle School Machinations of the country's political parties.  They don't seem to be losing a lot of sleep over the jobs that folded overnight because they are in a pissing war with the president. 

But those of us who through religious or humanitarian ethos feel it is our job to be kind, to be just, to help those who cannot help themselves, to protect the earth for future generations, who put people before profit... we're feeling the pain big time.  As William Blake said:  "Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too?"  Yes, apparently some can.  Watch out for them.  They are dangerous.

The more oyxtocin-dipped among us tend to be in sorrow.  Throw some complex stress, lousy sleep and poor support, and sorrow morphs into full-fledged depression.  The predisposition may have always been there, but the cultural nudges are throwing it right off the cliff.

There are interventions for depression.   Like cancer, it's a serious disease and the treatments aren't comfortable or easy, whether we're talking about talk therapy, CBT, mindfulness training or medicine.
Flawed as the approaches are, they beat the disease.  I'll be listing resources in each post.  Some you can do easily on your own.  Some that seem easy, aren't at all if you are really gone into the cycle.  Then it helps to have a coach, counselor, best friend, doctor, religious leader--somebody you trust-- hold you up when your backbone's slipping. 

But:  Don't give in.  Fight the cycle.  Choose one of the three areas mentioned and come up with a plan to intervene.  Improve your sleep, reach out for support or connection, simplify your obligations and reduce as much complexity as you can.  More details to follow.

For catch up reading, here's a few past blogs about depression.  Feel free to comment or to email me with questions.  We'll be talking more soon.
Jana


http://www.janasvoboda.org/2011/02/delving-into-blues.html

http://www.janasvoboda.org/2011/03/fading-blue-gene-cognitive-behavioral.html

http://www.janasvoboda.org/2012/04/rip-mike-wallace-newsman-and-depression.html

http://www.janasvoboda.org/2011/03/fading-blues-ii-understanding-and.html

http://www.janasvoboda.org/2012/04/marked-for-depression-maybe-implant.html

http://www.janasvoboda.org/2011/03/more-bytes-on-black-dog.html

Moving Through Shadowlands, Take One

It's been four months since I last wrote here, leading Door Number Two to feel like an overdue library book I'm too embarrassed to return.  But there's been a number of topics brewing, and a few dozen blogs written in my head, so let's dip in again and see how the water feels.

Sunday, if you're in the valley, I'm doing my annual sermon at the Unitarian.  This summer's theme is transition, as the congregation prepares to (quite happily) welcome a new/old minister. Jill McAllister cut her teeth preaching here way back in the early 90's and is coming home after years in Kalamazoo.  She's a yogi, runner, new cello player, great storyteller and harbinger of love.  But change, even good and welcome change, can be scary.  Some wise committee thought to prep the Corvallis UUs by asking all the summer sermonizers to talk about transition.

When I was given the topic, I thought I'd use the birth metaphor as the frame for my talk.  I use it a lot with clients going through big changes.  If you've had a baby you know what transition means.  It's the point in labor that is often referred to as "intense", a mild way of saying it would not be surprising if during it one's head turned completely around ala "The Exorcist".  It's bloody hard.  And part of what's hard about it is that things are neither here nor there, especially for the baby, which is at that point slamming against the cervix.  Baby is not in the comfort of the womb, or in the comfort of the mama's arms.  Baby is in a tight, dark space that is really, really uncomfortable.  And Baby (I'm guessing here) doesn't have a clue of the goodness awaiting. Or the new unknown discomforts.

We've all been in that place of discomfort.  Neither here nor there, like before a wedding, a move, a new job.   We've left the familiar behind, or want to.  And even if the familiar is, pardon the vernacular, shit-- well, it's known, predictable shit.  Sometimes we stay in the before place for that very reason, way too long.  But even when we ready ourselves to make the Big Move to what we hope we want, we get scared.  And sometimes paralyzed.

My good friend Lisa is a very wise and experienced midwife.  We've talked (non-specifically, of course) about clients both of us have had who get stuck at that point of transition.  Clinging to what's known and afraid of what's to come, they just--- stop.  I've seen kids in my practice do it at cusps of big developmental changes.  If they are late teens or young adults, we have a term for it:  failure to launch.  The visual I get when I hear that is of a rocket with flames and force beneath but just not quite enough to get going.  I think that term applies across the life span. We get a fire in us, an uncomfortable pressure for change.   It freaks us out.  And we cling to what is known even harder.  But the discomfort builds and builds.

Then we have a choice.  We can numb the discomfort when it gets to an intolerable level.  We go unconscious in some way so we don't feel the burn anymore.  It's there, but it's like a spinal block in a labor.  With no discomfort, many women lose the urge to push.  The birthing process can come to a standstill.  Often, outside intervention (say, pitocin-- a contraction stimulant) is needed to get things moving along.

If the paralysis is more self-directed, that outside intervention can be a long time coming.  If we do a good enough job of numbing, we don't feel our pain directly, so we are slow to respond to the need for something new to emerge.  We get stuck.  And then we get new sorts of pain, some of which seem more manageable or direct-able or at least more predictable than the uncertainty and discomfort that was leading us to change.

The other choice is to give birth.  Give birth to a new way of being in the world, of seeing ourselves, of being in relationship or in some instances being alone.  We don't yet know how this new way will be, and that's frightening.  We are good at telling ourselves scary stories about how things will turn out, and about our lack of ability to cope.

Robert Frost said, "The best way out is always through".  He's right; it's the ONLY way out.  I think I have told this story here before, but it's worth repeating.  Many years ago a quite Christian co-worker was facing enormous personal suffering in her life.  I wanted to comfort her and was stymied by the immenseness of the situation, and awkwardly said some Hallmark card cliche' about God giving opening a new door when an old door closes.  She sighed, and said, "Sure.  But it's hell in the hallways."

Yes, it's hell in the hallways.  So we keep going.  To do that effectively, we don't deny our fear, and we don't cling to it. We ask for support when needed and we are gracious in accepting it.And especially, we need to find compassion for ourselves in the journey.  We need to support ourselves like we would a child or an animal in suffering-- giving comfort, and acknowledging that we cannot fully explain or even expect that everything will turn out in a certain way, but knowing that transition doesn't last forever.  

Louis Adamic wrote: "My grandfather always said living is like licking honey from a thorn".
Reminds me of an old TV show I liked, Hill Street Blues.  After briefing the cops on the day's horrorshow, the police sergeant would say, "Let's be careful out there".  And it was clear what he meant was "I love you people.  Life's hard.  You have good work to do. Watch out for each other.  Be safe on the way."

You, too, have good work to do.  And there are people who will help you through the scary parts if you need it, midwives if you will.  But even if you don't have them, or don't access them, there's more than a good chance you're going to do fine once you stop resisting and let the process move in the way nature and psyche intends.  You have thousands of years of wisdom deep in your DNA that knows exactly what to do.  Your job is to open up to the change.

Jana
P.S.  This may or may not be the sermon Sunday.  Things change.

this life of mud and miracles

It's been a horrific week on the planet, hasn't it?
A woman asked me tonight how I was "processing the events in Boston."  An honest question-- the quotes aren't meant to imply less.  And my answer, like my process, was not very articulate.  I was in horror that day.  I had been sucked for a time into a familiar narrative about inhumanity.  And later in the day, I felt collapsed to read about the dozens killed in bombings in Iraq, and then worried about friends on the Iran/Pakistan border who'd suffered through a major earthquake, and the dozen or more my own government had killed via video-game-like drone strikes.  Such suffering exists!  And ours no less real than those of our brethren in a dozen other countries.

I look at the faces of the young men, one younger than my own son, who apparently caused this great suffering.  I feel such sorrow, and yes, compassion.  What could drive someone to see life as so meaningless, to be able to make another human-- someone's sister, daughter, father, son?-- so anonymous?

 It's easy to hate.  And lazy.  We want to see ourselves as different, above-- and this arrogance leads us to cheapen the lives of others.

A long story led me to a more worldly understanding.  After losing one of my senses, I worked hard to develop another that was lagging.  I joined a world photo diary coordinated by artist Wolf Nkolze Helzle of Germany.  Through it, I "met" friends from far away-- from Pakistan, Finland, Iraq, Indonesia.  The world became smaller, and foreigners-- less foreign.   An earthquake in Karachi, terrorism in Iraq, relentless winter in Germany became as unsettling as random violence in the US.  Good, or bad, this extra kinship?  Well, both, of course.  More love equals more responsibility.  We all are in this (little planet) together.  And through these friendships it's even clearer that we are all so much more alike than different.  We love, we suffer, we get defended and weary.  We try to simplify the complications that mark each human journey by applying false formulas of "us" and "them", and then, if we can bear being open and suffering with (com-passion),  we see that we are just-- we. 

It's easier to shut down.  To not care, to not look or see, to pretend that somehow our pain or longings or love is more real than someone who lives far away, and thanks a different or no God.  Can we sit with that desire without succumbing to it?  Forgive ourselves for our smallness and still find the energy to enlarge? 

Chekhov said " Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I don't buy it.  If we feel, we feel it all, suffering and happiness.  Pretending a divide lessens us all.

As a closing note:  I am thinking so much about the terrible losses and deaths in West, TX this week, many of whom were first responders to an industrial fire that became an explosion.  Their story was lost in the wake of the Boston bombings and aftermath.  If you know a first responder-- a firefighter, EMT, police officer etc--  let them know you appreciate their service.

Now go out there and drown hate with your love.
Jana

PS:  The title is taken from a beautiful song by Richard Buckner.  "How this life from mud to miracles/It's the prettiest little burden isn't it?"

Your Brain on Grins

Went to the library for the first time in a while, and binged at the new release section.  It's fun to judge a book by its cover and its first few paragraphs, and I pick up things I'd never hear of, let alone consider, otherwise.

Take this one:  The Face of Emotion:  How Botox Affects Our Moods and Relationships, by Eric Finzi, MD.  I thought it might be a condemnation on the use of botulism toxins to freeze our faces into wrinkle-less masks.  But nope, that's what this guy does for a living-- or rather, he's a dermatological surgeon, and Botox is a big chunk of his practice.  Now I'm judgy as can be, but I read the back cover, and a couple authors I like neuroscientist, an evolutionary biologist) like it, and their comments are focusing on the face and emotion part, not the botox.

Home, an hour later, I've read the first 150 pages, and put in 20 or so paper scraps to mark passages and studies.   His premise is not ridiculous:  facial expressions form a strong feedback loop to the brain.  Maybe you've heard of the pencil study.  He gets to that around page 105.  Experimenters in the early 70s found that when subjects clutched a pen between their lips, effectively forcing the same muscles used in a smile, they rated cartoons as funnier than if they held same pen with lips.  To remove bias, the subjects were doing various tasks while mouthing their pens, under the guise that the study was actually looking at how persons with limited use of limbs could adaptively use mouths to control tools or complete tasks.  Holding the pen in the lips inhibits the muscle used primarily for smiling, and it "sort of bummed them out".  No, not quite their language-- it "inhibited the experience of positive emotion" or something.  At best, it seems our thinking about why we are making the face ("I'm happy" vs "this pen shoves my mouth up") doesn't change how our brain interprets the muscle motion-- Brain is heartened to see us smile.

The book is chock full of interesting anecdotes, most of which you probably have heard elsewhere.  Dr. Finzi touches on the universality of facial expressions over cultures.  A a true smile is a smile wherever you are. and disgust looks the same in remote villages in Ecuador as in Brooklyn. He talks about micro-expressions, those very fleeting millisecond facial changes that modify or discount conscious facial changes.  You know that fake smile people give?  It's in the eyes.  It's hard to fake an eye smile.  They are using their zygomaticus muscle but inhibiting their eyes, a big give away.  (Caution:  sociopaths can fake it pretty good, and that's because they aren't fakiong it-- they are delighted with glee they are getting ready to eff you up.)

You can elicit that same true smile in some weird ways with the same sunny-after-glow.  Scientist Duchenne did it with electrodes, and his subjects full on grinned peepers to teeth  (see pic on page 64). Where there are cultural differences, it is more about circumstances in which one might be allowed to display these expression, but not their existence or meaning.  For example, Japanese youth often hide smiles behind hands and engage in more social (not Duchenne full-on) smiles.

The read is full of interesting nuggets to illustrate that much of what think is conscious about expression is not, and either way, it changes or brain, and then often or perceptions/moods and way of thinking of the situation;.  Case study of one:  I consciously practiced the Mona Lisa Half Smile (eyes slightly lifted, forehead smooth, peaceful secretive smile) through Chapter 1-5.  I feel calm and good and benevolent.  I revved up to the open mouth crinkly-eyed Duchenne smile for the next half hour and was energized-- it was cold bacon hitting a hot griddle. 

The point-- there is a point here-- is the expression makes the face, and the face makes the wo/man. and the wo/man makes a life out of that face.

We smile all alone, so it's not just a social reaction.  But we smile 6 times more in social settings.  Blind people too, so it's not just a social feedback loop.  The more we smile, the happier we'll be.  We are throwing little dopamine biscuits into our reward center, which is wired by time and experience to know a good smile at you usually benefits you at least indirectly, and a spontaneous smile is proof of happiness.  And at this point Le Sophisticate Brain gets a little mushy, because hey, why you so happy holding that pen with your teeth?  But look, you are.  OK, let's reinforce it with a speck of dopamine.  REWARD!Brain correlates both the events that bring smiles and the smiles that bring rewards as desireable; it's not so picky.  And the person, they get happier.

 In my single case study I improved my scattered anxious monkey mind's mantra (too much to do too much to do /repeat) into a state of darn nice happy contentment.  and a little giddy  excitement.  just by consciously relaxing the part of my forehead associated with distress (read: worry, sadness, frustration etc) into a friendly open field.  And I found my lips twinkly upward, and then my eyes, and they by golly I was reading and grinning like a goof and happy.

I have to say this works better for me than a meditation sit, where i endure for 20-30 minutes and come out either slightly comatose, or full of self-criticism for getting bored, chasing my thoughts, and not Getting There.  Laughing yoga and smile practices seem to achieve very good results without all the painful positions for those of us who can't sit still for more than fifteen seconds.  It's not the same as all of the benefits you'd get from years of meditation practice, but I'm sold on incorporating MORE JOY, or at least practicing its expression.  Monks and laughers are both activating similar parts of the brain.  There's many ways to skin a cat.

The Big Kabowski of the article is his noticing that as he botoxed away those worry creases from his lady patients, they reported feelings happier, for the 1-3 months after the shots wore off.  Here things get a little mushy.  The effects held true whether they were receiving botox for migraines (another indication), bell's palsy, whatever.  "When three is not tension in the frown muscles, when those muscles have been temporarily frozen with Botax, there is no negative feedback to report to the brain."  In other words, his inelegant hypothesis is that when we smile, brain says "I'm happy, things are good"  We are changing our thinking and emotions without real consciousness,  But effectively.  When we frown, same thing happens.  When we can't frown, we feel as if we aer in less distress.  To simplify it even more, Finzi believes this feedback loop is being calculated all day long on a brain score sheet.  "I'm frowning this much, fear this much, worried this much, happy this much:  total:  PA'NIC with occasional sun bursts."And we can choose to consciously manipulate that.  If we literally cannot frown, the thoughts and feelings triggered by this facial reaction aren't formed..  Studies on persons with facial paralysis echo this finding:  the sufferers say they can articulate the emotion but can't really inhabit it. 

Finzi did an interesting study.  He took people with depression and migraine and treated their migraines.  They were less depressed.  Who wouldn't be?  They had migraines before.  So he narrowed the field.  He treated people with depression.  If you know what someone looks like with true depression, you know what I mean.  Crumpled faces, worry crease, downward jowls.  Behold, they improved-- til the shot wore off 1-3 months later.

A couple of things might be happening with our subjects.  They look less depressed, so people are complimenting them, interacting with them, smiling at them more.  They are smiling back, more effectively because they can't pull that ha;f-assed smile with wrinkled forehead off anymore.  We're social smilers-- you give more, you get more.  Now they smiles look less pained, ore genuine.  It's reinforced by other's reactions, by what they see in the mirror.  Hey, maybe this botox isn't so evil after all.  It's so local, so specific-- probably less risky that a lifetime of pills that have to metabolized through your liver.  I'll be going back to the stacks to see what hard science has been publisher about this theory.

In the interim, I'm just going to do my own experiment: 20 minutes conscious smiling every day.  Maybe broken up into 5 minutes an hour.  See what happens.  Can't hurt, unless I swallow the pen :)

This practice is especially useful for those of us with TOO DARN MANY MIRROR neurons.  How do you guess we show empathy for all those stories we hear?  We lean in, get the dog eyes, wrinkle our foreheads in concern.  We are deeply intereswted in analyzing all those microexpressions and we form little movies of them on our face and brain.  And then, like actors repeating a highly emotional and dramatic role, that faucet don't turn off when the show is over.  Our brain score card has registered that we wore the unhappy/anxious/sad  face much of the day. Guess how we may feel?   For therapist, this is a real challenge.  It's also way I like to PLAY SO HARD when I am not being a therapist,, which you may have noticed if you follow this blog.  Antitoxin!  Because when I am wearing the expression of deep concern, my brain is on alert that life is difficult, sad, nasty, brutish and short.  I throw in as much lighthearted humor as is appropriate to my client's situation, for balance, but it takes a toll.  As a result, don't ask me to join you see the latest expose on Something Horrible That is Happening Right Now.  I just don't want to work after work.  But if you want to take the dress-up box to Browsville for a photoshoot  and picnic in the park, I'm in.

Homework:  try it!  Do a quick facial scan.  Check for the usual suspects:  tight jaw, set mouth, wrinkled forehead.  Imagine Mon Lisa's forehead, a vast plain of relaxed skin.  Life the corners of your mouth and eyes.  Use props if you like, but you don't need to for effects.  Hold that expression best you can for you next 5-15 of whatever you are doing--dishes, talking to a friend, shopping at the store, weeding in your garden.  What do you notice?  Let me know. 


Read this book, or hear Finzi's interview on NPR.  Witching hour has struck and I must shut up now so you are left to your own devices on that one.  And make sure to practice the eye/mouth smile at least 5 minutes a few times a day and report out here.

Feelin' Breezy--
Jana