Tag Archives: fear

Lesson Five: Be who you want to be

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One of the best things about writing this blog has been all the responses I have received from people around the world. Some said “thank you for sharing so openly, it has helped me realize I am not alone”.  Some have told me their stories. Others have asked for advice, questions such as “I am over my head in debt, how do I pay it off” to “I am not happy in my life but I don’t know how to change it, can you help”. I am not qualified to give anyone advice.  I can only tell you how I dealt with similar problems.

10294969_698382016907659_7457378898519029271_oOne of my greatest take-aways from sabbatical is that I don’t just have to be who I think I am.  I can be who I want to be. All my life, I have wanted to be this adventure girl. I wanted to be joyfully spontaneous and just willing to try things on a whim.  I wanted to be athletic and participate in adventure sports such as mountain biking, kayaking, skiing off-piste, paragliding, climbing… you get the idea. I also wanted to be the sophisticated urban dweller and world traveler. I put those dreams aside when I had children and raised my family.  I was responsible, a great high school teacher, a good university professor, a decent mother and wife. I took care of everyone. When I got divorced an moved to Seattle, I was a frumpy, middle class, 44 year old housewife from a small town in North Carolina, and I thought those kind of adventures were behind me.  If you have read this blog, you realize that moving to Seattle was when I met Matt Tony, Ken, Rachel, Shaun, Deloa, Melinda, Rachelle, Keri and so many more great friends.. the list goes on and on here as well as all my friends from the Lounge and my own children, Patrick and Jessica who have cheered me and encouraged me every step of the way.

10569073_10101954846563833_1474996086184191579_nMy friends opened my world and my mind to all the things that were possible, regardless of my age, weight, marital status, debt, … none of that matters.  Those were all excuses to keep me paralyzed to whatever dysfunctional fear I happened to be harboring at the time.  The one single thing I needed to learn was that all I had to do was try.  I didn’t have to be perfect or even successful the first time, or the 27th time, I just had to keep trying.  It didn’t matter if I was laughed at, judged, or taunted. I have learned that those kinds of limiting comments from other people aren’t about me, they are about the shallowness and fears of the person who is uttering them.  I don’t take those kind of comments personally anymore.  I am a different person.  I am the person I have always wanted to be.

I set out on a journey to carve out a new identity.  I thought that meant discovering who I am. It didn’t. I realized that it meant creating who I am.  It is funny, as I have been reflecting on sabbatical and all the years since I moved to Seattle, my train of thought started with “I didn’t”, and “I am not” until about a month ago when trying to write this blog post and I asked myself, “so what HAVE you done?”. It was a perspective altering question.

418994_10101134467475103_715478501_n1397721_10101421659884213_539633773_oI have rolled a kayak, climbed mountains, and jumped off those mountains in both a harness and with a wing on my back.  I have skied through powder, down fall lines, under chairlifts and on glaciers. I have ridden bikes on several continents, in varied conditions with incredible people.  I have ordered great wine and decadent food in restaurants all over the world.  I have met new people everywhere I have gone and listened to their stories, learned about their lives, and shared the fires of the passions that light up their souls.  I gave away all the trappings of my former life, my furniture, clothing, and emotional baggage. I have lived without a home or safety net to return to.  I have fed endangered vultures from my hand both on the ground and while gliding in the air looking out over the Himalayas.  I have traveled alone, with no plan and no itinerary, going where I wanted, seeing what interested me, meeting new people.  I have faced loneliness, fear, isolation, sickness, different cultures, ostracization, and just about every human condition you can imagine.

385537_10100701118874173_1615401034_nWhen I read that list, what is clear to me is that I am not the person that I was anymore.  I am strong, courageous, adventurous, athletic, urban, classy, loving, compassionate, giving, open… in other words, I am the person I have always wanted to be. How did I, a non-athletic, frumpy, boring, small-town, middle-class housewife do it? How did I learn to roll a boat, ski off-piste, order great wine, solo travel, talk to strangers, and give up all my possessions? The answer is simple, I tried.  I set out on a course that was hard and just kept going.  Overcoming obstacles, wanting to quit (many, many times), I learned and grew.  I refused to stay in the dysfunction I was in and did the work necessary to have the life I wanted. Even though that sounds simple, it was the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I have ever done. I have no regrets.

10338864_10203972469536322_8787165062454257996_nBefore I left on sabbatical, I had a chance to change course and stay in Seattle to be able to get the perfect house.  I wanted that house so badly, I almost didn’t go on my journey because of it. The house was just an excuse to hide my fear however. Instead, I listened to my advisors and went on sabbatical anyway knowing that there would be another perfect house when I returned. I have thought of that house many times while I lived my homeless, nomadic life. In the last couple of weeks I started house hunting again.  Guess what?  THE house, the same one, was available and now it is mine.  So for all my worry, I took the chance anyway and walked away from the safe choice. Now I have a house again or at least I will on Sept 15 and not just any house but the house I dreamed of. Until September 15, I am hanging out with my beautiful granddaughters waiting for their brother to come into the world any day now. So at the end of this incredible year, not only am I a new person but I will have a new home, a new job, and a new grandson.

It makes me happy to know that I am setting a great example for my grandchildren that life isn’t about limits, it is about challenging what limits us. Our biggest limitation is believing that we can’t change who we think we are.

Forgiveness

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I have come to realize, in order to be free of the sorrow of the past, I have to truly forgive with all my heart. So I enrolled in a 30 day course with Desmond Tutu, a forgiveness challenge of which I am almost at the end. In the course of doing the daily activities, I have realized how far I have already come down the road of forgiveness both for my ex-husband and the former therapist, the protagonists of two devastating events that have defined 7 of the last 8 years of my life. Most of the activities in the challenge I completed easily which showed me how far I have already come. But there came a point where I hit a wall, one made of crumbling emotional bricks. I realized the best part of this challenge was illuminating for me where I was stuck.

northern cascadesOne day, a week or so ago, the activity was a meditation where I was to envision myself in one of my favorite places, a place where I feel safe and which calls to my spirit. I was also tasked with envisioning myself with someone I trusted without reservation. So I envisioned myself sitting at the top of one of the mountains in the Northern Cascades with my friend Matt. The goal of the activity was to tell him my sorrow, to speak the words and tell him the hurt that I had endured and to let it all out. Since I have no secrets from Matt, he has heard the words from me many times, more than he has cared to hear them. He knows all my sorrow, even my darkest secrets that I share with no one else. So the telling of my story during my meditation and envisioning Matt listening was not difficult at all. But what came next was very difficult.

The second part of the meditation was to envision a box. Since I love boxes this was easy for me. If I was ever going to collect anything it would be boxes. I envisioned one of the shaker boxes that my dad made me before he died. Then the meditation called for me to take that story and to put it in this box and to name it The Box of Sorrows. After closing it up, the story sealed, I had to envision handing it to my trusted friend. That was the part where I was just paralyzed for a few moments. I was paralyzed to hand over what I have held onto for so long. But in order to move on, I have to forgive and in order to forgive, I have to first let go.

Matt getting ready to fly

Matt getting ready to fly

So in my mind, I looked into the eyes that I have looked at so many times in the past, eyes of a man I trust with my life, and I handed him the box in my mind. I did what he has always taught me to do when I am scared, I look into his eyes, trust, tell myself I can totally do this, and take the risk. So I held out the box and I just let go. He took the box from me, nodded, got his wing and harness set up and then he jumped and went paragliding down the mountain with my Box of Sorrows… my history and my fears, in his possession. Amazingly, as a mediation, it was like I was actually there. I felt it, deep in my soul, the moment of letting go.

So how did it feel? It was like the ultimate freedom. It was like everything else I have done the past year, letting go of the possessions, the apartment, traveling, changing jobs, all of it was preparing me for that moment. As tightly as I was hanging on, letting go lifted this huge burden I was carrying.

Part of me felt so strongly about it that I had a pang of fear that I had burdened my friend with my box of sorrows. But what I realized is that I already had been burdening him every time I talked about it without being able to let go and move on. Essentially, he had to help me drag that burden around in our friendship all of these years. So even though he had to carry that box down the mountain, he did it without struggle because he finally gets to be free of it also. And besides, he is also the strongest person I know. If anyone can carry that burden for me down the mountain, it is Matt. Then I got to follow, light of heart, centered in my mind and my spirit. It was very powerful.

And yes, I know I will get criticism for how “woo woo” this is. I don’t care. Every culture and religion in the world knows the value of symbolism and visualization so I won’t make any apologies for anything that makes me feel and great as I feel right now.

Strength In What Remains

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I have mentioned before in this blog that the circumstances that divided my life by zero have affected me in many unexpected ways. Realizing how seemingly unconnected events are connected is always fascinating to me and easy for me to see in other people but much harder to see in my own circumstances.

I used to be a voracious reader, both professional and personally. As an academic, reading is preliminary to writing and writing is the key to publications and advancement. In the past 7 years, since my marriage ended and through the years that I was involved with the abusive therapist, I have struggled to read. Why reading should be affected by those circumstances has been difficult to determine, but the result has been the same. I have struggled to read which means also struggling to write and publish in academic journals. I have however, for whatever reason, increased my grant writing skills so there is that.

I have several friends who know about this problem and they have wonderfully tried to help. My friends Tony and Jonathan have recommended books as well as helped me think through academic papers. Tony has co-authored papers with me. It has been a huge help. And I am finally understanding that I may never again read like I once did. I have changed. I am different and it’s okay.

I recently read a book that was recommended to me and it had a profound affect on me. It should be required reading for anyone who has ever had a traumatic incident that they have struggled to recover from, cares about someone in that situation, and for all mental health care workers. It is called Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder and portrays the story of Deo, a survivor of civil war and genocide in Burundi. Deo manages not only to survive but to make his way to the ghettos of New York and, without knowing English, gets a job as a grocery delivery person while living in Central Park. From there, he gets admitted to Columbia and then medical school at Dartmouth and becomes an American citizen before returning to Burundi to start a clinic to provide medicine, nutrition and clean water to a small village.

Deo’s amazing story of resiliency and courage is very profound, but what touched me wasn’t how he was able to come through things perfectly, seemingly without any difficulties because he didn’t. I was touched by his authenticity and imperfection. What touched me was seeing his changing emotions as he struggled with the memories. In his native language that phenomena of being triggered by memories of a traumatic event is called Gusimbura. To gusimbura someone means “that the individual, upon hearing the name of a dead loved one, is forced to relive the suffering and sorrow of that loved one’s death”. The idea is that it isn’t just a memory, the person who is gusimbura’d is actually reliving the events. I think in western psychology it would be called a flashback. But for Deo, it is culturally not acceptable to talk about the death he witnessed. Yet at the same time, as a survivor, it is profoundly necessary for him to bear witness to what happened by talking about it in order to heal the wounds of his soul.

Deo’s transitions between repressing memories and then having them come out in other inappropriate emotions when he was triggered, to facing the memories and seeing his rage and fear, to trying to move on from them explains a lot about the behavior of someone with PTSD. It shows the delicate balance between psychologically needing to remember yet simultaneously, needing to move on and not be caught forever in memories where you are only half alive.

Typically whenever I have read a book like this, the main character will be a person who survived significant trauma and then rose out of it in an exceptional way, seemingly perfectly “whole” and “normal”. What this book showed me is that, for all of us who have gone through trauma, we are irrevocably changed (although I would argue we are still “whole” and “normal”). We can’t go back. We have to find the strength in what remains. Those memories will always be there, like a disease which lives dormant in the central nervous system which comes out in times of stress. However unlike such diseases when society empathizes with the physical suffering of that person, somehow when it is the darker side of our emotions, society sees it as weakness in people and shuns them rather than empathize with them. Deo’s story which is so brutal makes it easy to empathize with him.

When you love or care about someone with PTSD or even just someone who is struggling to move on in their lives, or if you are suffering yourself, realize that sometimes emotions will come up in ways that you can’t anticipate and can be triggered by things that you don’t even realize until later when you are looking back. It can come out in simple ways like fluctuations in someone’s weight, overreactions to seemingly mundane events, substance abuse or more horrifically, in acts of violence. For PTSD sufferers it is imperative to stay as aware as possible, to realize that when you get that feeling in your gut, that churning that something is wrong or your don’t feel good… it is imperative to listen to what your body is telling you.

If you care about someone with PTSD, if the person is reacting in a strange way, don’t take it personally and don’t let their behavior scare you or push you away. The person close to you might not be reacting to you at all, but to a situation or circumstance from their past. I once remember being in a club at Whistler with some friends. All of a sudden, I had to leave, not in 15 or 30 minutes, but right at that immediate moment. I had to be outside. I had two good friends Kaare and Chris that recognized my panic and paid my tab and got my coat out of the coatroom for me while telling our other friends we were leaving. They didn’t judge, they just helped me. My friend Matt has done the same thing for me on countless occasions. I don’t think I have ever said thank you for that. I remember it took me a long time that night at Whistler, even in a roomful of my friends, to realize I was safe. My advice if you care about someone with PTSD is to be aware, be tolerant, just listen and accept them for what they are. Be patient while they find the strength in what remains.

If you get a chance, read the book “Strength in What Remains” by Tracy Kidder and check out Deo’s organization Village Health Works. http://www.villagehealthworks.org/

Letter to my younger self…

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robin25I read a book a long time ago called “What I Know Now: Letter to My Younger Self”.  I was in my office the other day working on a grant and saw it on a shelf and thought about what a great idea it would be to write a letter to my younger self.  What would I want her to know?  Then I realized it would depend on what age I was so I decided on writing a letter to my 25 year old self.  At 25, I was in my second year of my master’s degree program. I remember wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt that my husband bought me for a birthday present to teach class in that day.  I remember having a huge existential crisis over the fact that I was turning 25 and that seemed so old and grown up.  I was already married with a 7 year old and a 2 year old but for some reason, turning 25 made me feel very old.

graduationAt 25, I had already put myself through undergraduate school and graduated Magna cum Laude and was driven to succeed in graduate school.  Even though I had gone through a teacher education program, my teaching assistant position at a 4 year university felt like an internship where I was able to get more practice at being a teacher before teaching high school. I had the help of a great friend and math teacher Danny Lueck who passed away a few years ago.  I remember those times sitting in my living room grading 120 papers and he would be giving me advice on how to grade them more efficiently so that I wouldn’t go crazy. He was a good friend.  I would go on to teach public high school for over a decade before returning to graduate school again to get my PhD and moving into higher education. Along the way, building my career, I sacrificed a lot of my personal life. I don’t regret my education or my job path.  It has allowed me to make an impact on the world, but it also came with a price.

Going through this letter-writing process was a great one for reminding me of where I was and where I am now.  If you are over 35, I suggest trying this.  Don’t just think of what you would say to your younger self, actually take the time to write it out.  If you are under 35, I suggest writing a letter to your older self.  Add 20 years to your age and tell that older you what you want them never to forget.  Put it away and then read it again in a few years and see how you are doing.  You could even make it a tradition every 5 years to go back and reread and then write a new letter.  Just a thought.

Dear Robin,

I see you standing there, in front of that class of undergraduates who are barely younger than you.  There are so many of them, looking toward you like you have the answers to all their problems in math.  Yet you are standing there shaking in your shoes because you know you are going to screw up.  Yes you will, so stop worrying about it.  You will survive the embarrassment of calling a hypotenuse a hypothesis for a whole class until one of your students points it out.  You will survive your first (and subsequent) altercation with students where you have to confront them on discipline issues.  You will weather the storm on the first (and subsequent) time that someone complains about your teaching.  The thing to remember is this: you are going to be a great teacher but that greatness doesn’t come without making a bunch of mistakes.  Let go of the control and thinking you have all the answers, don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know but I will find out and let you know tomorrow”, and don’t be afraid to ask the kids “I don’t know, what do you think?” and let them come up with their own answers.  They will learn more that way.  Never back a kid into a corner, always give them a way out and a way to save face.  Laugh at yourself, have sense of humor in your classroom, don’t take things so seriously. 1432_596970479433_9919_n

1432_596970474443_9679_nThat goes for your personal life too.  You are far too serious for being 25 years old.  Look at your two beautiful children, they need a mother that laughs and plays with them.  They will grow up to be amazing human beings, your pride in them will know no bounds.  I wish I could say you aren’t going to make any mistakes in raising them, but you are.  They will love you despite the times you screw up.  Play with them more, be unrestrained, show them how to have adventures.  And while you are at it, have some yourself.  It is okay to be concerned with your career, it is going to take you places you never imagined.  But don’t let it get in the way of adventures.  They are what fuels your soul.  They don’t have to be big or cost lots of money, you just have to be willing to let go of control, not be perfect, and get lost in the moment of life. 

Try not to spend all of your life being perfect. Someday that perfect life will shatter into a million pieces and you won’t know how to deal with it.  The key to surviving that is to realize that imperfection is where the good stuff of life happens. Your life will start when you are willing to jump in and do stuff without fearing you’ll make a mistake. Fear is where the fun starts, it isn’t the paralyzing emotion that you think it is.  Face what you are most afraid of head on with no hesitation.  It will set you free.

You did a great job at 25, allowing yourself to trust your husband, have kids, build a great life. Those choices will make you very happy over the next 20 years.  You will have no regrets about raising your family, living in the town that you choose, having the wonderful friends that you have.  Never look back on that time with regrets, it is magic time, filled with wonder.  Someday, after your life falls apart, you will build a new life, very different from that.  It is okay, nothing lasts forever. You will move on.  During that rebuilding time, my advice to you is try to let go faster. It really is the key to being happy.  You have to learn how to recognize when a relationship is at its end and be okay with that.  Cherish the relationship for what it brought you and look with anticipation at the next one that will come into your life.  A relationship ends when it has fulfilled its need in your life and its ending opens up a space to allow you another one that will meet different needs.

A couple of things I really want you to remember:

  • Your hair doesn’t matter as much as you think it does, don’t waste so much time and money on it.
  • Stand closer to the fire.  Don’t stand on the periphery of life, get in where it is warm, where life is happening.
  • Dance more and don’t stop singing. The day might come when you will forget how much joy these things bring to life so capture the joy while you can.
  • Make mistakes.  It is how you learn and grow.
  • Take care of your body.  You will spend money, time, and energy taking care of your house or cars while ignoring the one thing in your life that can’t be replaced, your health.  Put your effort and energy into making sure the one body you have to go through this life with is always running in peak condition.
  • Take the harder road, make the more difficult choice.  Yes, the learning curve is larger, but there is a reason the phrase “no guts, no glory” came about.  The harder road is the greater opportunity. You won’t get where you want to be by playing it safe.
  • Don’t be afraid to embrace the people who come into your life for the gifts they are.  And don’t be afraid to let them go when it is time.
  • Someday, you will meet some sketchy internet people, they are trustworthy.  They will help you find your voice again.
  • Someday, in your darkest hours, you will meet someone who is going to change your life.  He is young and it seems an odd friendship and you will question it many, many times. Don’t.  Risk trusting this person, he will teach you how to play again after a lifetime of responsibility.  He will teach you how to be strong.  He will teach you about the person you want to be. He will help you find your soul. 

You are going to have the best life ever.  Live every day of it.

Robin

You’ve got to dance with the one that brung ya…

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You’ve got to dance with the one that brung ya…I have always liked that phrase.  To me, it is a reminder to do what is right even when others would suggest otherwise and to be loyal to those in my life who have helped me get where I am.

The reality of my life is that I got to where I am…a person having great adventures, happy, centered, feeling, and living every moment… because of all the things that have happened to me.  Take away any part and I wouldn’t be me.  I have spent a lot of time bemoaning things especially when I am at low points like when I am scared or lonely… but bemoaning and regrets are not only futile, they take away from my power to be who I think I am and that I want to be.  And that is my goal, to be the person I think I am.

One of the things that got me here is the loss of my marriage to someone who I loved with all my heart which was the catalyst for change, good change that brought me to where I am at this moment.  That path to change started with marriage therapy, it was the first dance that got me here.

I am not a big fan of the mental health care system even though I have several close friends who are therapists and I respect and appreciate what they do.  One of my major concerns is that there is too much power given to the therapist with the assumption that they will act with ethics but no policing of that system unless a client complains.  However there is little client education of boundaries and appropriate behavior so when the therapist crosses a boundary, the client takes it on trust that the therapist knows what they are doing, even if the situation feels icky and uncomfortable.  The trust required in the therapeutic relationship allows therapists to wield enormous psychological influence which, when handled correctly, produces the magic of positive change in people’s lives.  But when handled incorrectly can produce devastating results.  I know because it is what happened to me.

I trusted my marriage therapist with all my heart, way more than I should have ever trusted a service provider. I told him all of my secrets, things that I had never told any living person.  As a result, therapy was very successful for me, although not so much for my marriage.  I sent him daily journals via email, he said it helped make him a better therapist knowing all my thoughts.  I paid him even though he was still in graduate school and shouldn’t have accepted money.  When therapy “ended” when I moved to Seattle, I continued to communicate with him weekly and send him my journals.  A couple of months later, he moved to Seattle where we started riding mountain bikes, kayaking, skiing, I introduced him to my social group, I watched his dog every weekend, took him to dinner, he stored his stuff in my house and even stayed at my house.  In all of this, I paid for everything.   All the while I was still sending him my journals and telling him my problems. In my mind he was still my therapist.

We first crossed the major boundary the night before Thanksgiving in 2007 when we went out drinking and he got hammered. When I drove him home, we stayed up talking until after 3 am.  That started a three year “friendship”.  Multiple times I told him that it didn’t “feel” right, that I couldn’t separate the therapist from the “friend”.  He would assure me that it was all in my head.  And he was right, it was.  In my head, I knew it was wrong.  So I found another therapist to help me figure that out.  She reported him to the licensing board. The state of Washington found that I was an “isolated incident, unlikely to happen again” so he can keep his practice. End of story. Except that it wasn’t.

For me, the loss of this person who had been so instrumental to me, who I had trusted without question, was psychologically and emotionally one of the most devastating ordeals of my life. I almost didn’t make it.  It was with the help of a bunch of people from an online bike forum that I found my voice and my power again. I can never repay what they gave me, freely, without knowing me or expecting anything from me in return.

Needless to say, there have been some huge violations of trust for me from the mental health community. So what I am about to do scares the absolute daylights out of me.  I have realized that, although I have the best life ever, there are a couple of areas that I could work on to make it even better. And I need some help with that.  So I am leaping…I made an appointment and I am going back to therapy.  This time, I am armed with knowledge of what therapy should and should not be. This time, I am going to therapy from a position of strength, not in a moment of weakness. I won’t allow myself to be preyed upon because I am not the same person anymore (thanks Matt for the reminder). It is time I learn how to trust again.

And so I am dancing… with the one that brung me… not the former exploitative therapist, but with the mental health care profession in general. I am taking the risk to be able to have the life I want.  My goal is to be the person that I believe I am.

The 8 boxes…

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Yesterday, I unpacked my suitcase for the first time since May.  It was bittersweet, I hadn’t expected the mix of emotions it would bring.  As I unpacked and put my stuff away in a new house, new room, I couldn’t help but remember my last apartment and the last time my clothes hung in a closet. I was a little overwhelmed by all the changes.

I think that not having a home to come back to made my time travelling both physically simple yet emotionally challenging at the same time.  Travelling and knowing you have a familiar and comfortable place to come back to is very different from returning home to the unknown of having to find a place to live.  Add on the fact that I gave up all my stuff, an act which was both freeing and yet again, ridiculously challenging emotionally, and it made coming home and unpacking my clothes this surreal experience.  And yes, I found a great house and a super roommate.  Now I just have to adjust to a totally new life.

For those of you that haven’t read the back story, when I gave up my apartment in May and then started traveling in June, rather than put things in storage for a year, I reduced all of my possessions from the last 50 years of my life to 8 boxes, my checked bag of clothes and a carry on, and some gear stored at a friends house (thanks Jason!).  It was the hardest thing I have ever done. At least, it was the hardest thing I have ever done…until now.

heartYesterday, I opened one of the 8 boxes. I had thought that it would be a fun adventure to see what I had saved.  Instead, it felt more like opening Pandora’s Box.  The box I happened to open had pictures of my kids, a wood bowl that my uncle made, a ceramic heart that my daughter made when she was in elementary school, a box my son brought back from Australia when he was a teenager.  Similar to the experience of hanging my clothes in the closet, it was like a blast of memories rising up out of the cardboard.  I took out the big pieces and set them on a shelf in my room and then closed the box without going through the pictures.  I didn’t open the other boxes yet.

Today, my roommate and I are going to put up a Christmas tree.  I took out the two boxes of ornaments that I had saved.  Everyone that knows me, knows how much I used to love the spirit of Christmas.  Those ornaments represent 50 years of family holiday memories.  I have to admit, I am not sure I can open the boxes.

So what is my problem?  I had this amazing experience over the past 6 months.  I am a different person.  I shed the memories of the past and stepped into my present and hopefully my future.  I am happy and moving on. The problem is, I don’t want to go back to revisit the past at all, I want to avoid thinking about it and just continue on with my happy life. It isn’t that I want to erase it or forget it, it is all part of what made me who I am.  I just want to keep moving forward.  But there is one thing I know for certain, when something feels difficult and I don’t want to do it, that is the very thing that I need to do the most.  The hard things show me what I still need to work on.  Hmm it might be time for some brutal honesty here Robin. I hate it when I have to really reach inside for the hard emotional stuff. Okay here goes…

So I am looking at those boxes and part of me wishes I hadn’t saved anything… and that feels like a betrayal to all the people who gave things to me. For example, in one of those packing crates are the Shaker boxes that my dad made me before he died and I should feel excited to open them up.  But instead, I am torn.  On one hand, I have these possessions that have memories of the people I love attached to them, possessions like Shaker boxes and ceramic hearts from people like my dad or my kids.  On the other hand, I have the memories and the love of the people, I don’t need “stuff” to feel that. In fact, somehow the “stuff” diminishes from that love.  I guess what is confusing me is that, in the last 6 months, I have felt the love of the people in my life in a really powerful way and that couldn’t have happened with possessions detracting and getting in the way.

I guess when all the possessions in my life had been stripped away and all I had was the love of my family and friends, my whole life was just clearer and uncluttered.  The love I experienced over the last half year felt like the pure essence of what we are as human beings.  I want to make sure that I don’t lose that feeling in the trappings of “stuff” again. That is really what I am scared of.  Because material things, even handmade Shaker boxes made with love from my dad, can never replace the time spent with the people I love and who love me.  So even though I have those boxes, they aren’t more valuable than all the memories or the time I spent with my dad when he was alive.  The mementos and things I have from my children aren’t anything compared to the time I have spent with them and the love that we share.

I guess I have come to understand how much of a distraction all the stuff we have really is.  Obtaining and caring for possessions, working to pay for them, using them to substitute for emotions, buying things to fill voids in our lives, all those things distract us from what is really important in life which is loving the people in our lives and spending time with them. That is the greatest lesson I have learned and I never want to forget it again.  That is what I don’t want to go back to.  Ever.

So I guess I am scared that opening those boxes and reattaching to things will distract me from putting my emphasis on people. Today, opening those ornaments, is going to be a challenge, but I have to do it. Avoidance is never a solution.  I just need to breathe, stay present, be aware and I can totally do this.

Going home…

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I am returning home indefinitely.  I am not sure where I am going next or even if I am going anywhere for awhile.  I am ready to be in one place for a time.  I want to work on my fitness, getting in shape for spring cycling and doing some skiing, and I want to work on some research and grant writing.  It is hard to do that from the road.  I have been gone from Seattle and basically homeless since May.  After 6 months, I am ready to have a consistent place to lay my head at night and a routine in my life.  So I am going home to a new place to live and a new attitude for how to live my life.

I have learned so much over the past 6 months. I have learned about people and the world around me, but mostly, I have learned about myself. I have learned where my weak spots are and where my strengths lie. I have learned about the person I want to be and the type of people I want to have in my life.

I return home a very different person than when I left. I am stronger, happier, centered, confident, and ready to take on the next third of my life …or at least, I am ready to take on tomorrow.  During my travels I have felt lonely, depressed, joyful, empowered, scared, loved, accepted, energized, amazed, sad, awed, and just about every emotion there is.  I have overcome every obstacle and pushed myself to do things that I never would have thought I was brave enough to do.  I have looked at some of the most wondrous things on the planet. I have had experiences that are so unique that they almost defy my ability to describe them.  I have experienced a complete sense of wonder about people, the planet, and about myself.

I return home proud of myself and happy with who I am.  In a world where we can be anything we want, the best thing we can choose to be is ourselves.

A few take-aways that I was musing about on my ride from Maine to Boston:

  • Traveling can be stressful and scary.  Traveling by yourself even more so.  Yet at the same time, it seems easier somehow.  I only had myself to deal with, make decisions for, and my happiness was my own responsibility.  I could make decisions on the fly, no consultation with fellow travelers necessary. I made choices and shifted gears at a moments notice.  It made me more spontaneous, carefree, and responsible for how I felt.
  • Traveling by yourself makes you feel vulnerable.  For me, someone who has always liked the opportunity to be in control with everything perfectly planned, this was really very hard.  One of the biggest things I learned is how to live in and accept each present moment and the uncontrollable nature of life.  Because I allowed myself to become vulnerable, the world became more dynamic, less static and life just happened.  What was amazing was that I didn’t fight it, I just rolled and flowed with it.  I was alive in a way that was wonderful and compelling and I want to keep that feeling with me always.  I want to remember it when I mired in research, faculty meetings, and personal drama.
  • People are the same all over the world. Their culture, politics, religion, values, etc might be different, but the basics of humanity are the same.  No matter where you go or who you meet, there is common ground in our humanness if we are willing to set aside all our judgments and just listen to each other with acceptance, tolerance, openness and love.
  • Getting pushed out of my comfort zone was scary, necessary, healthy and will become part of my everyday life.  Facing my fears, one-by-one or sometimes in multiples, is the only way to get beyond them and move forward.  I can’t avoid and pretend they don’t exist or I am mired in my troubles indefinitely.  Fear will never rule my life again. If I give in to fear, it owns me.  I want to be free.

I am sure I will have more in the future…but it is time to board a plane.

You just jump…

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I have written about this before but after talking with some wonderful new old friends last night, I figured it was worth another post.  Fear is the great equalizer.

There is a great quote, “the only thing you have to fear is fear itself”.  That is so true, my adventures have helped me to realize that  whatever it is I am scared of in life, the “thing” isn’t the scary part, it is my fear of the thing.  And if I can push myself through whatever I am afraid of then I own it, it doesn’t own me anymore.

So many of my readers of this blog think I am this adventurous, courageous, kick-ass person.  I want to make sure you all realize, I am a chubby, average, plain person. I am scared of the most ridiculous things just like everyone else is.  The one difference is that I have reached a point where I refuse to let the fear of those things rule my life. My friend Tony once described how I face fears. He said, “It is like you are climbing the ladder on the high dive.  You complain and whine the whole way up about how you can’t do it.  Then when you get to the top, with no fanfare, no agonizing… you just jump”.  And that pretty much describes it.  The initial whining and complaining is how I work my way though my fear and then, about the time my friends are ready to strangle me, I say “screw it” and just do it.

My friend Don4 once said “life is a gift, live it”.  You can’t let fear rule your one ride on this planet.  You have to live each day as if it were a gift and honor that gift to its fullest potential. When I was 44 and had just moved to Seattle, newly separated from a marriage that lasted over half my life and struggling to figure out what to do, my brother Rod said something to me that I remind myself of everyday.  He said “Robin, you’ve got 30 more years.  If there is something you want to do, you need to do it now, because when you are 74 you aren’t going to want to be whitewater kayaking or riding a mountain bike.  You can either be like our mother who is constantly complaining about all she didn’t get to do and wishes she had or you can be talking about all the adventures that you did do”.  Those words have stuck with me.  Now at 50, I have 25 more years to get it done.  I don’t have time to waste on fear holding me back.

IMG_3661Last night, I did something that was really scary.  I went to a party with some people I hadn’t seen in 34 years since I left the small town I grew up in.  Let me tell you, high school isn’t for everyone and it definitely wasn’t for me. I think, out of a graduating class of about 120, my class rank was in the 80’s.  I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into being anything but a screw up.  So there wasn’t really any reason that these people should accept me at all. And I was terrified.  If I had allowed that fear to control what I did, then I wouldn’t be in Maine right now looking out at the beautiful sunrise over the river and I wouldn’t have had a chance to see my family.  But even more tragically, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to reconnect with some absolutely amazing people that I got to talk to last night. I would have missed lots of laughter, funny glasses, and amazing stories. My only regret was not having time to have really deep conversations with all of them.

IMG_3659The people I got to spend the most time with were simply amazing.  They are people of passion, they love their jobs, their families, and their communities.  They have so much heart and compassion for the people and the world around them.  They work hard and they play hard.  They live their lives in ways that suck the marrow right out of the bones of life, no holes barred, open, authentic and absolutely wonderful.  I couldn’t help but just be honored to be able to talk to them all. Thanks Kirk for the invite, it was a privilege to be able to see you all once again.

The lesson here for anyone that needs it… just jump.  Do whatever you need to get up the ladder of the “fear” high dive:  whine, cry, get angry, whatever you have to do.  But once you reach the top… just jump.  Don’t let fear ruin your opportunity to live your life on your own terms. What is the worst that could happen?  Last night, if I hadn’t liked the party or if someone had said something untoward, I would have just left.  Simple as that.  But if you don’t try, you will never find those people who are meant to be in your life or who are meant to influence your life.

We have to put ourselves out into the world authentically as who we are. Those who want to be part of our lives will gravitate towards us, interested in us. Those who don’t just aren’t interested and that is okay.  Not everyone is going to be interested, just like not everyone is interested in football or knitting.  We all have different preferences.  Why would we want people in our lives that really aren’t interested in the authentic people that we are?  Why would we want people in our lives that we always have to be someone we aren’t just to get them to stay?  Why would we want to waste so much of our precious gift of life and time on this earth in that kind of unhealthy relationship?  Yet we do it all the time.  I am guilty of it also.  I have wasted years on one-sided, unhealthy friendships.

IMG_3667Just put yourself out there.  Go to a restaurant, bring a book, or just sit at the bar and people watch and talk to the bartender.  Go to a park and sit with the sunshine on your face enjoying nature around you.  Take a class, learn someone new, maybe something you are even a little scared to try.  Talk to your classmates, listen to them.  Find the ones you gravitate toward and establish friendships. If they don’t reciprocate, they just weren’t the right person, let it go and move on to the next.

Last night I asked several people my two questions that I like to ask people when I meet them:  1) What do you want me to know about who you are?  and 2) what don’t you want me to know?  The people that can answer both those questions from their heart, risking the vulnerability for me to see inside their passions and their darkest fears, those are the people I gravitate toward.  And last night, they answered my questions with amazing honesty and forthrightness.  And I was honored and blessed to hear their stories. Thanks everyone!

Take bigger steps…

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I had that excellent falconry lesson and paragliding experience the other day.  Then I wrote a blog post about how great I was doing and the lessons I was learning.  Well just like with most lessons learned, it isn’t a linear process.

When I was in Spain, totally at rock bottom emotionally, Matt asked how I was doing and, in the absolute honesty he and I share between us, I said “It is one step forward, three steps back”.  His response was “take bigger steps forward”.  He always knows how the right thing to say to make me feel better and to make me laugh.  Then he said “come to Nepal”.  And as with most of his suggestions, he was right.  Nepal has been good for my soul.  I not only feel better physically, I feel stronger emotionally.  But it hasn’t been without challenges.  Here it is has been two steps forward one step back, so at least I am going forward.

Have you ever noticed how powerful words are?  I think it was in my last blog post that I talked about the tape that plays in my head (and every other human beings also).  That tape is made up of things that have been said to me over the course of my life.  From the initial words our parents used to show disapproval of something we said or did, from social groups of teenagers when identity is forming, to cruel words by a random stranger on the street. All of those words become the social norms that tell us we aren’t good enough, skinny enough, athletic enough, pretty enough, etc.  And even more damaging is when we get to the place where we say those words to ourselves.

Words are the most powerful force that human beings possess.  Because of that power, we should be careful what we do with them, both with other people and ourselves.  Ever since I left Ethiopia, I have had the “failure” tape cued up in my head. One of the personal “laws” I have always lived by, that was instilled in me as a child, is never quitting.  When I give someone my loyalty, I will stay with it until the bitter end, even at the expense of myself.  Enforcing boundaries is a constant struggle for me.  So Ethiopia felt like a failure.  It threw me into depression.  To snap out of it, I rushed off to Spain where I had one failure after another, from cycling to ordering tapas.  I kept trying to get out of my head but was pretty much in a death spiral.

So I came to Nepal at Matt’s suggestion.  I made it here, negotiated travel between two foreign countries on my own, had a successful falconry lesson and paragliding session, and was feeling pretty confident and better than I had in weeks. Things were looking up. Then, two things happened.  One was a comment someone made and the other was that I went to yoga.  The comment came from someone behind me while hiking in a group down an embankment into a riverbed. The path was very slippery.  The person in the back, speaking to the person in front of her about the slippery path said “I would hate to have to try to get a tourist out of here if they got hurt.  Can you imagine something happening to someone like Robin?” Ouch.  That started the not athletic, uncoordinated, old lady tape playing in my head.  And of course, about 2 minutes later I slipped and fell on my ass, unhurt.

Then, I went to yoga.  I used to be pretty good at yoga but it is amazing how much a year off of regular practice will do to you. And the yoga here is very different.  The teacher was great and I left the class happy, centered and ready to face the day.  But before the day was out my own judgment of my performance was in full swing.  Matt was leaving the next day for Shirkot so messaged me to ask me what time I wanted to eat dinner.  By then, I was all in my own head and couldn’t even imagine he would want to hang out with an athletically challenged, ugly, fat old lady.  *CUE DRAMATIC MUSIC*.  Dear heavens, sometimes I have to wonder about myself.

So I meet my friend for dinner.  If you haven’t realized it yet, Matt is good at everything he does.  His lovely girlfriend Amanda and I were trying to think of something he isn’t good at and we couldn’t.  He is amazingly athletic, ridiculously smart, not ugly, funny, compassionate, and has to be the most non-judgmental person I have ever known in my whole life.  During dinner, he said I seemed sad. Since I refuse to be anything but honest with him, by the time we ate dinner, I was crying and had told him how pathetic I was.  I had even regressed all the way to hating traveling and wanting to go home and wanting my life back.  I mean, all the way back to before I moved to Washington.  Matt didn’t judge, didn’t roll his eyes, didn’t even crack a smile at how dramatic I was being.  He just let me get all the poison out.  Then he made me laugh and reminded me about the last existential crisis I had when we went skiing one day last year.

Later that evening, nice and emotionally cleansed, I started thinking about all the adventures we have had together.  From kayaking, skiing, paragliding, rock climbing, hiking, camping, riding on a motorcycle in Nepal (YIKES), wine tasting, and a hundred other things.  We have had epic discussions on life, love, family, education, and just about everything you can think of.  And then it hit me.  In all that time, he has never judged me on how much I weigh, how slow I am at learning something like rolling a boat or tying a knot, or criticized any of my opinions of things even when they didn’t agree with his. He has never been frustrated at how slowly I hike or when I need to take a break.  He has never been embarrassed by my physical appearance.  There was the time Matt wanted to go out for brunch after kayaking but I didn’t have a ponytail holder so tried to beg off and he wouldn’t hear of it.  When my hair dried in the sunshine, it was crazy medusa hair.  He looked up at me and said “your hair is so awesome”.  I looked like Albert Einstein.  He has never been anything but encouraging. Here is this person, athletic, smart, funny…and he just wants to hang out and encourages me. He only gets sad when I won’t try.  So if he doesn’t have the “Robin’s not good enough” tape playing in his head, why do I?

So while he has been gone the past couple of days, I took a page from his book.  I decided I would treat myself like Matt treats me. Yesterday, I hiked up to the Peace Pagoda.  The path was moderate, but I was definitely sweating by the time I reached the top.  I just went at my own pace, I didn’t beat myself up about how fast or slow I was going.  Guidebook says it should take about an hour, I made it in 45 minutes with no pressure.  Today, I got up at dawn and hiked up Sarangkot which is about twice as steep and twice as far.  Again, I didn’t beat myself up, just kept hiking and enjoying the moment.  Made it before the clouds set in, took some great pictures and sat up at the top meditating and then wrote in my journal.  I had planned to take a cab down, but it was too beautiful a day so I hiked back down too.  It made me feel so good that tomorrow, after yoga, I am going to do it again.

So for two days now, whenever the tape even starts with what I can’t do, I tell myself to try…just try.  Maybe I can’t do it, but I will do a little more tomorrow until I can. It doesn’t matter how fast I do it or how well. I just have to try.  I am going reprogram my brain with powerful words that don’t allow for fear-based thinking. I am trying to develop an identity that has no place for emotionally poisoning and physically limiting words.

Note:  Not sure why, either wordpress or the network here, but I am not having any success at uploading photos.  I will try to add some tomorrow.

Like the layers of an onion…

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I am always amazed when life lets me hear exactly what I need to hear exactly at the moment I need and am ready to hear it. I don’t know why that amazes me because it happens all the time.  For me, it happens when I feel like I have reached the bottom.  Maybe that is the only time in my life that I stop struggling and just let go trying to control everything and just allow myself to BE.  That is when I can hear what I need to hear.

It was funny, I had been stressing about filling up the next two weeks in Andalucía for the last two weeks. Nothing I tried to book worked, from my B&B reservations that got cancelled, to my debit card not working to book my train tickets, etc.  If all those frustrating things hadn’t happened, I would still be miserably stressing over how to fill up my days. Because of my frustration, I lamented that to Matt in a message a few days ago and he said, “come to Nepal” and I said, “if I can work the details out I will”. After all the frustration I had in Spain, I thought there was no way in hell I would be able to organize a trip to Nepal in 3 days, I hadn’t even been able to get a hotel room in Granada. Yet amazingly, all the plans just fell into place, like this was exactly what I was supposed to do at this moment.  Funny how that happens.

Now I sit here, all checked in for tomorrow’s early morning flight.  I have to admit, I am looking forward to seeing my friend even just for a couple of days.

I process things in a cyclical fashion, maybe we all do. It is like a spiral, where I go round and round with an issue, thinking I have got it solved, until it rears its head again. Only when I look at it closely, it isn’t quite the same, it is better than it was, just not finished yet. And it keeps spiraling around and around getting tighter and tighter, kind of like being caught in a whirlpool or a black hole, until all of a sudden, it is actually gone and isn’t an issue anymore.  In this case, my struggle has been with the same old thing that I have been whining about for months, maybe years… my attachment to the past and the way life “should” be.

And then, a couple of days ago, this is what someone told me about my “stuckness”:

Start with what is clogging you up, figure out what isn’t relevant to your life or is harmful to your well-being.  If it is still there, there is a reason.  Find it, learn that reason and then find another way to acquire that need and then get rid of what isn’t relevant. When that thing is out of your life, look again at what is holding you back.  Layer by layer, like the layers of an onion, peel away what is in your life by habit that serves you no purpose, refine what is left so you understand what’s their use. In the end it should get very slim.

Remember you are not letting go of the love or the lessons, only the attachment. Some people need to stay in your life, not because of your need but theirs.  Some people need to go, not because you don’t love them but because they aren’t good for you or you for them. Be gentle but strong, lovingly push them away, send them with good wishes and a prayer but walk away. By giving people their freedom and letting go of things you find your own freedom, even though it is the last thing you planned.

Yeah… that did it.  I felt like I had been shot from a proverbial cannon.  What hit me was that is what I have been doing ever since I started this journey when I started giving up all my stuff.  I have been methodically peeling away all the layers.  With each challenge I have faced, I am more and more exposed to the core of what I am.  There is nothing left to hide behind.  I have finally reached the really, really hard internal attachments that I still cling to.  And basically, I am stuck because I don’t really want to face them. I have been blaming the lack of home and physical possessions, but it isn’t the “stuff”… things like money and furniture… where I am stuck is my story and who I believe I am and the disconnect between that and who I want to be.

I knew this would be the hardest part.  And it is. It makes giving up my physical stuff from my apartment look like it was a walk in the park.  Yikes.  I will say it again, because I personally need the reminder, life is exactly as it should be.