Tag Archives: overcoming

Title IX – Lessons learned from a book on knitting

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My roommate bought me a book on knitting for Christmas.  I finally got around to reading it last weekend as I was ensconced in a beautiful cabin next to a lake looking out at the snow falling on the cedar trees. The perfect place to not only read a book on knitting but to actually knit.

If you know me then you know I am the most unlikely knitter.  I majored in math, I like sports, and although I come from a family of creative talented craftspeople, I have never gravitated toward making crafts.  I can do a minimal amount of woodworking and in another life, I used to sew.  I do love to cook but my time and energy has been devoted to what are typically seen as “men’s” pursuits… sports, outdoor activities, fixing things, etc. I have spent most of my lifetime in a world where men held power.  Thus for me, activities traditionally thought of as “men’s” were seen as having more value. That is, until the knitting book…

The author of the book talks about her own resistance to knitting, which is seen as a very female gendered activity. She is a woman about my age, having grown up in the era where we watched our older sisters and mothers burn their bras in protest of unequal rights, where we have watched women struggle to get hired or compensated equally to men, and where we watched men get ostracized because they chose professions or clothing that typically belongs to “women”.  So she, like me, resisted what we saw as “women’s” hobbies, or as my brothers would describe as “skirt work”.  But what I realized is that to devalue certain tasks because they are typically thought of as a female activity is the very epitome of anti-feminism and smacks of the idea that only activities that traditionally belong to men have value.  Hence, I started knitting.

Since I started thinking of this, I have had a couple of discussions with people that have really stuck in my psyche.  Both discussions were regarding female athletes “not being as good as men” or women’s sports (for example snowboarding at the Olympics) being perceived as “boring”.  It made me reflect on Title IX, which as first written, didn’t have anything to do with sports at all but that is what it became known for.

Some history (source Wikipedia):  The first person to introduce Title IX in Congress was its author and chief Senate sponsor, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana.  Bayh was working on the Equal Rights Amendment and abolishing discriminatory treatment based on gender however was having difficulty getting the bill out of committee.  Since the Higher Education Act was on the floor of the Senate already, Bayh introduced an amendment, Title IX which said:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance…

In his remarks on the Senate floor, Bayh said, “We are all familiar with the stereotype of women as pretty things who go to college to find a husband, go on to graduate school because they want a more interesting husband, and finally marry, have children, and never work again. The desire of many schools not to waste a ‘man’s place’ on a woman stems from such stereotyped notions. But the facts absolutely contradict these myths about the ‘weaker sex’ and it is time to change our operating assumptions….an equal chance to attend the schools of their choice, to develop the skills they want, and to apply those skills with the knowledge that they will have a fair chance to secure the jobs of their choice with equal pay for equal work”. 

Title IX became law on June 23, 1972.  At that time, less than 2% of women participated in athletics. There were several subsequent attempts to exempt revenue sports from the impact of Title IX (Tower Amendment) and it wasn’t until 1988 when the Civil Rights Restoration Act was passed that it was fully implemented. 1988… By then I was 25 years old and had two children.  1988…this isn’t ancient history, in fact, it is barely history at all.

People still don’t get it.   It isn’t about sports.  When I hear the conversation that women aren’t as “athletic” or that women’s sports don’t have the same excitement, it makes my blood boil. I have actually heard someone recently say that “women have their place” and that it isn’t in sports known as “men’s sports”.  When the Seattle Seahawks won the Superbowl and the press reported that it was the first national championship Seattle had won since the Sonics won the national championship for basketball, they totally disregarded the two National Championships the Seattle Storm has won.  And I repeat…this isn’t about sports… it is about respect.  As much as I love my Seahawks, it makes me want to never give my money or time attending or watching another Hawks game without first giving equal time and respect to the Storm.

Regardless whether you are a man or a woman, whether you stay at home or work a job, if you like or hate sports, if you are conservative or liberal, that isn’t what Title IX is about.  It is about choice.  It is about having the choice and freedom to participate in the activity you want to participate in, go to the school you want to attend, have the same chance to get hired for a job you are qualified for, or to stay home and take care of your family regardless of your gender.  Title IX is about equal rights for all people regardless of gender.  It isn’t about wanting to stay home with your family, there is nothing wrong with that and equal rights doesn’t mean losing that. It is about having a choice.

When I was in high school, women made less than 50 cents for every dollar a man did. Now, that is at 72 cents.  Progress right?  Wrong.  That means for a man who is making $20 a hour that is $800 a week, a little over $40,000 a year… for a woman in that same job, it would be $14.40 an hour or $576 a week which is less than $30,000.  That is a big difference.

It would be really easy to get complacent and say “we have come a long way” or “I am happy with my life now”.  I look at my granddaughters and I want better for them. I don’t want to stop fighting until they have the opportunity to make the same pay for the same job, until they can be a NASCAR driver if they want to without being seen as a “pretty token who actually can’t drive”, until they can get Red Bull to build them their own snowboarding park and sponsor them at the same level they sponsor a male snowboarder.  I want them to know a world where people give credence to their accomplishments, not because they are beautiful or because they wear the right clothes, but because of who they ARE.

So today, if you have a choice in your life to marry the person you want to marry, to go to the school you want to attend if you are qualified, or to participate fully in a sport, then take a moment to thank those of us who are in our 50-70’s who fought for you to have that freedom.  Thank those of us that played sports in skirts because we weren’t allowed to wear shorts but we did it anyway. Ask us about what it was like, our generation won’t be around much longer to fight the battle for you. Take time to thank the men and women who believe the world would be better if we didn’t belittle half of our population. And by the way…you are welcome.

And then do us a favor…don’t stop fighting.  Whether you are a man, woman, a career person or a stay-at-home caregiver… don’t stop fighting until we all have the right to live our best life, unrestricted by gender constraints, unbound, free and equal.  That goes for the man who wants to stay home with his kids while his wife works as well as the woman who doesn’t want kids but wants to be an engineer, or a NASCAR driver, or a snowboarder… and for equity’s sake, stop disparaging women in sports or objectifying them.  Treat them as equal human beings. Please. And go to a women’s sporting event, even if you are bored, just to show your support.  Do it to support all those of us who came before… who have sacrificed and fought so that women can earn $0.72 for every dollar a man does.  And don’t stop fighting even after we are gone.

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.

Resolutions…

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I have never been a big fan of New Year’s celebrations.  I love the idea of spending the night with people you love, but I don’t have to get dressed up, blow noisemakers, and be out with thousands of other people to do that.  I prefer intimate gatherings of friends, soft comfy warm clothes, good music, a fireplace, and some nice hot beverages.

New Year’s is just a day, like all the other days in the year.  Our calendar date for the new year is arbitrary and there are other cultures that have a different date for the new year.  I do, however, like the symbolism of new years as a time of transition.  It is out with the old, in with the new.  It is a time of renewal.

This idea of transition from one year to the next is why people make resolutions.  I am not a big fan of resolutions either although in the past, I have always made them.  This year, I am going to try something different.  Thanks for the suggestion Deloa!

One problem I see with resolutions, at least for me, is that the resolution adds something I want to do onto my life, but my life is already full. Instead of out with the old, in with the new, my resolutions are add-ons and I have left out the part that I have to take something out. That is, I want to: lose weight, get in shape, spend more time with family, strengthen my relationships, etc. but in order to add something in, what I don’t consider is that I have to first let something go to make space for that new thing. I made resolutions and then six weeks later when I don’t have time for them or they are stressing me out, I drop them.  Yet I still keep walking around with the baggage I was carrying in the past year.

So this year, instead of making resolutions, I made two lists.  I made a list of things that aren’t working for me anymore and titled it Releasing.  Then I made another list of Intentions for the new year of changes I wanted to make in my life.  The releasing list has some relationships that aren’t working for me as well as organizations I belonged to that weren’t adding any value to my life, activities that I no longer do but still have gear for, etc. The intention list has the new relationships I want to cultivate, behaviors that I want to adopt, and activities I want to explore.  Beside each item on each list I am finding a symbol or a photo that represents each thing.  At midnight I am going to take my Releasing list and throw it into the fire, symbolically releasing the things that aren’t working for me, then I am going to throw my Intentions list into the fire and offer it up to the universe.

This might sound a little “out there” but really, is it any worse than making a resolution that I give up six weeks later?  In the past, I have found that by putting my intentions, dreams, hopes and desires out to the universe that it opens up the space for it to happen. It doesn’t always happen in the way I had envisioned, but nonetheless, I can create the life I want.

Here is the key…whatever you do, whether it is make a resolution or throw intentions into a fire, you have to believe, really believe, that you are worthy.  The energy you give off will come back to you. If you believe that you are worthy of happiness, love, success, abundance, joy…then that is what you will create.  But if deep down, you believe something else, then that is the energy that you are giving off and that is the energy that is going to gravitate back to you.  So whatever your intentions are, put them out to the universe with your whole heart.  In a few weeks, if you aren’t keeping your goals or working toward them, ask yourself if you truly believe you are worthy.  And if not, what is it that is holding you back?

“We can either watch life from the sidelines, or actively participate… Either we let self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy prevent us from realizing our potential, or embrace the fact that when we turn our attention away from ourselves, our potential is limitless.” ~Christopher Reeve

Happy New Year!

The life cycle of traditions

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Some people, when given a sign, know exactly how to read that sign and what they should do about it.  For me, the universe pretty much has to hit me over the head with a sign before I listen and change my course of action or beliefs.

When I was a teenager, I was pretty troubled.  An old native American told me that I wouldn’t find my true spirit until I walked with the Raven. I didn’t know what he meant and I spent much of my life trying to decipher those words through the situations and the people around me.  What I have realized is that even as a teenager, those words gave me hope.  He didn’t tell me that I would never find my spirit, but that it would happen in the future.  Hope is what most people need to get through life’s difficulties.

DCIM100GOPROLast summer, I had the opportunity to travel around the country.  Everywhere I went, when something transformative happened, there was a Raven there.  I couldn’t help but remember the old man’s words.  And at the time, it felt like chains were being released, emotional chains.  Later in the year, I had the opportunity to go to Nepal and paraglide with Egyptian vultures.  When I got back, one of my friends joked with me that my new name was Soars with Eagles.  I laughed and made a joke back to him in the manner of friends teasing each other and then forgot about his comment until yesterday.

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Photo by Richard A.

I have known I was a different person since I was in Nepal.  Traveling changed me a lot. When I got back to Seattle, I was walking through a wooded area to the gym and the Raven story was on my mind. I looked up at one point in my walk and there, about 30 feet from me, was a gorgeous American bald eagle looking at me.  He was just sitting in a dead tree and he was staring at me.  It was one of those times where the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up and that odd feeling that something special was happening, where my gut was churning with emotion.  Finally, after what felt like hours, he spread his wings and flew off.

I have a friend who is a shaman and when I told her about it she said “I think you are entering a new time in your life and the eagle is your guide”. Again, being the scientific linear thinking person that I am, I put it out of my mind.  Then yesterday, when my roommate and I were trying to figure out what movie to watch for our solstice celebration (read more below), she said “the only appropriate movie I can think of is Dances with Wolves”.  At that moment, all of the signs I just wrote about above converged in my head.

I realized the tradition of the raven was over. As a story, the last chapter of is written, now all I needed to find was a way to close it out.  About an hour later, my friends Nick and Sarah called and asked if I wanted to meet for lunch at Black Raven Brewery.  Yeah, okay universe, I get it. Nick, Sarah and I shared food and beer and toasted to lots of upcoming adventures we are planning.  It was a great symbolic way to put an end to the Raven.  But just because a story ends, doesn’t mean the characters in the story stop living, it just means they need to find another story to begin. Our stories, like all the traditions of our lives, have a life cycle.

Everyone has traditions.  They are a fundamental part of the structure of the lives of human beings. We have traditions surrounding all of the big events in life: marriage, birth, death, etc.  We also have everyday traditions or routines like brushing our teeth or going out for an Americano.  And then there are traditions surrounding holidays and special days like birthdays or anniversaries.  And then there are faith-based traditions.  All of them are important parts of who we are.

Since my divorce, the holidays have been very difficult because those traditions, those foundational structures of my life, were just instantaneously dissolved, there was no closure or slow letting go. Getting older has also ended certain traditions, although through a slower process.  My children have their own families now and are spending holidays and creating new traditions with those families just as they should be.

For me, I think that is one of the hardest parts of entering the autumn of my life.  I guess like most people, I struggle with things changing.  The empty nest syndrome when combined with the loss of your life partner is definitely a time of radical change. And just like any loss, traditions can’t just easily be replaced by something else.  It takes closure and time to grieve for their loss before you can start a new tradition and that process has to be respected.

When my kids were younger and I was married, holidays were filled with time spent with my children, extended family, passing around a blessing cup for giving thanks, Christmas lights, caroling, great food, lots of love, homemade pizza, decorating the Christmas tree, stocking stuffer shopping followed by lunch with my ex-husband, and many other wonderful memories. I have missed those traditions, but just like I am finding with many parts of my life, I am ready to move on.

So yesterday, it hit me.  I have been trying hard to recreate traditions to replace what has been lost. But just like with a lost pet or loved one, what is lost is gone forever.  I have beautiful memories of that time in my life and by trying to totally eradicate them and replace those memories, I am not honoring all the love that is inherent in them.  So instead of forgetting, I should try to find a way to honor those memories (skiing on holidays seems to work well for me) and then start wholly new traditions like celebrating the Solstice. I like this idea.

So yesterday, the day of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, my new roommate and I had a solstice celebration with tasty food, wassail, a fire and lots of candles to welcome the sun and long days back into the northern hemisphere. And we watched Dances with Wolves. I also took time to honor the planet and to give thanks for all that I have.

I am an incredibly fortunate person.  I am thankful for my health, a great job, a loving family, two compassionate and thoughtful children who are in loving long-term relationships, and the most spectacular grandchildren ever.  I have a warm home, plenty to eat, a fantastic roommate, caring and supportive friendships, and opportunities to have amazing adventures in my life. I have the best life ever and from now on, I am going to use the solstice to celebrate and give thanks for that life.

The Solstice seemed like an appropriate time to remember the cycles and rhythms of the planet as well as the cycles and rhythms of my life.  It seems like a great new tradition has been born, a new life cycle has started.  Happy Solstice and welcome winter!

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.

Adventure of the day…

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Sorry for being so absent about writing this blog.  I have been distracted by having adventures with a beautiful set of two-and-a half-year-old twins.

I have mentioned that for a long time I was stuck in longing for my old life back.  Even though I kept plodding along seemingly moving forward with my life, my heart was still wrapped in memories of the past. To those looking from the outside, it might seem like that time of longing was wasted, but it wasn’t.  Everything is a process. For me, letting go of my life took a period of grieving and mourning.  It took me a while to go through that process but it was absolutely necessary to be able to actually move on.  Even when I was mired in that process and it seemed like I was stuck, I have come to realize that I didn’t keep standing still and I am proud of that. I made some mistakes, had some successes, and even though my heart was caught up in another time, I kept moving forward regardless. Or maybe, it was just that my friends kept shoving me forward but either way the result has been the same.  Here I am.

P1080687Today, I am packing to leave my son’s house after a lovely visit with my son and his beautiful wife and the two most amazing grandchildren in the whole world (I might have mentioned that before). Although I am sad to be leaving, this time it isn’t the soul-sucking sadness that it has been in the past where I was pining for my life back. This time, it is different. I know that I will wrap these memories up from this visit and all the love they contain and I will keep them close to my heart while I am living the life I am in right now at this moment, confident that I always have the love of my family. And I know that someday soon, Patrick, Heather, Brooklyn, and Charlotte are going to come to visit me in Seattle and we will make a whole host of new memories.

So I am heading to Boston to visit some friends and play tourist in a city that I have loved since I was a teenager in New England.  Then I am heading to Maine to see my family and to do something that I never ever thought I would do.  I am going to go to a party where I will see all my friends from high school that I haven’t seen in 33 years. I have had a few pangs of trepidation, wondering what to heck I am doing that for, but then I realize it is a great story collecting opportunity. And that is what life is, a collection of stories.

You see, high school isn’t for everyone and it certainly wasn’t a great time for me. Having been the victim of an early sexual assault as a pre-teen, I turned to drugs and alcohol at a very young age because I didn’t know how to handle the emotions of what had happened to me.  My parents went through a difficult divorce, my dad remarried, and I just spiraled out of control. So my memories of high school and my friends memories of me aren’t the greatest. I wasn’t a very nice person.  But here is the thing…I am not that girl anymore.

So I get to go back and meet these people again.  I am a new person and so are they.  We get to laugh and enjoy each other’s company.  I will get to hear their stories of how their lives have evolved; stories of love and loss, joy and heartbreak. I want to listen and understand who they are as people. I want to know what touches their soul.  It is an opportunity to make new friends all over again.  So even with my moments of trepidation, I find that I am really looking forward to the opportunity.  I want to see them with new eyes and an open heart and hopefully, they will be able to look at me the same way.

Then, after spending some time with my extraordinary brothers and their families, I am heading back to Seattle to see my beautiful daughter and her amazing partner Ethan and their new puppy.  I am going to visit with my friends and do some skiing and spend Christmas at Tony and Ken’s beautiful home.  I get to ride my bike and talk math education with Keri. I have to say, I am looking forward to being back in Seattle.

Everything is different.  It is like my life is brand new. Every day is an adventure.

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.

Eat, Pray, Love

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I have never read the book Eat, Pray, Love.  I understand basically how it goes: girl gets divorced and travels around for a year (paid for by her publisher) and “finds herself” by going to Italy and nurturing her physical self, then to India to discover her spiritual self, and then to Indonesia where she meets the man of her dreams. It was immortalized in a film by Julia Roberts. I have never seen the film either. I just want to go on the record to say that I am not trying to recreate a novel that I haven’t read or a movie that I haven’t seen.  But I have changed my plans and am going to Nepal.

In what has been a series of events from when I first started planning my sabbatical to now, life has just unfolded and happened the way it has happened. I have no regrets in anything I have done. Life is an adventure and best savored fresh and hot in the moment. Whether I enjoyed the taste of it or not, it all was meant to be experienced and learning happened.  And with that said, it is time to stop traveling and take a break for a little while.

So I am going to meet my friend Matt in Kathmandu on Sunday morning and head to Pokhara.  I am not sure what he has planned for me and I am sure that whatever it is, it will make a good story and probably end up with me jumping off something while screaming my fool head off or ending up in a Nepalese jail somewhere. Whatever the challenge is, when Matt asks me if I want to do it, my answer is going to be yes, with no fanfare, I am just going to jump.  What I hope to gain from this change of plans is a chance to see what my friend loves about Nepal and its people.  I hope to blog about it and take wonderful pictures to capture a world that, for one of the people I respect most in life, gives him tremendous personal joy and meaning.

Another hidden agenda item for me that has made me give up my original goal of heading to Andalucía is that I want to go to a yoga/meditation workshop in Nepal. Not because of any Eat, Pray, Love ideas. I am searching for inner peace and the ability to let go of resentments. I have had some success at that in the past, mediation and yoga have kept me centered throughout my divorce and the subsequent abuse and manipulation by my therapist.  But for some reason, since this spring when I gave up my apartment, I have struggled to maintain any kind of consistent practice.  Maybe because of the inconsistency in living arrangements or the moving around from place to place.  But that, along with all the other life upheavals in the past few months, has been effecting my physical and emotional well-being. It has been too much all at once.  I am ready to change that.  I am hoping to increase my knowledge of meditation and yoga practice so that I can manage more effectively on my own regardless of where I am or what life brings me.

So, this is my last full day in my beautiful sunny apartment in central Madrid.  What a beautiful, fascinating and lovely place. I highly recommend it as a place to spend a lovely, relaxing vacation.  I debated what to do today and finally I decided… nothing.  I am going to get the big camera out walk around and take photographs.  This afternoon, I am going to find some lovely tapas bar and have my last gorge on amazing ham, seafood, and Spanish wine. Then tomorrow I am going to move to a hotel near the airport for my early morning flight on Friday to Nepal.

When I get back from Nepal, I will spend 4 lovely days in Barcelona before flying back to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with my son and daughter-in-law and the two most amazingly intelligent and beautiful granddaughters ever. Then a trip to Maine to visit with some friends from high school who I haven’t seen in 30 years (yikes!) and a visit with my wonderful Maine family before flying back to Seattle for a travel time-out.  I need to spend some time skiing with my friends, enjoying happy hours with Tony and Marisa, supervising Keri’s dissertation, laughing with Maurea, and just refilling my soul with some continuity and familiarity.

The traveling has given me clarity on where my greatest needs are.  I need to be exercising daily, meditating, doing yoga, spending time on my bike and skis which bring me joy, spending time with my friends who make me feel loved and supported, writing and reading for my research, and going back to therapy.  Yes, I said it.  I, the person who distrusts the mental health care profession more than anyone on the planet, am going back to therapy.  I realize there are some things in my life that I am ready to make peace with and that can’t happen without some help. Finding a therapist will be an interesting challenge.

Then, maybe this spring, I will be ready to travel some more.  But right now, I need a break.