After a three-week bout with illness, I'm back in the land of the living. This has been a time of relearning how to give control over to a higher power. I am once again committed to my own personal practices of meditation and of the 12 twelve steps. Thank goodness for sponsors and divine intervention.
My anxiety has been so high lately that I cannot help but see the cracks in my recovery... especially in my ability to release control. Trusting is difficult, but nothing helps me understand how to trust like a period of time when my body--something I am particularly close to--behaves in ways I don't understand and can't seem to control. My body is miraculous. Its healing power is phenomenal. I am repeatedly amazed. My body's resilience reminds me to trust it more, rest it more, and not to push it in order to distract myself from emotional turmoil.
I am now forced to face the tough anxiety and emotions I've been having this year. I cannot force-feed my body or over-exercise it to make feelings of physical discomfort replace the deeper emotional and mental discomforts. It has been a difficult time, but it has consequently put me back on track. I am trusting every minute--for healing and for joy.
And it's a great thing, because I have an important event this weekend. Storyville, the jazz group I sing in, will be at The French Corner on Sunday at 8pm. Read more about it on my Upcoming Gigs page. This is a major concert we've been working toward for a while. I'm excited to share the interesting things we do vocally with an audience. If you are in Houston, come out! I'll be happy to talk with you about all the craziness that has been happening lately.
"When it rains, it pours," they say. For me, when it pours, it's never all bad or all good. It's always a mix of a bunch of everything. And I'm proud to say, I can take it... and give it back over to a higher power ;)
Sometimes, circumstances thwart us from doing what we want or hope to do. This happens on large and small scales, but no matter what is at stake, those situations can be incredibly frustrating.
Right now, I’m a bit under the weather, and as a result, many things I would like to do are out of my reach. I get bursts of energy during which I can do a load of laundry or clean the kitchen, but after about thirty minutes, I’m dragging again. I could take this as an irritation and inconvenience, but instead, I’m choosing to see it as an opportunity to think beyond my usual schedule.
Incapacitations lead to creativity. When a human can’t do something one way, that person usually finds another way to do it or is led to another interest. Sicknesses and inconveniences are essential for me because I tend to get so bound up in routine; only something at least moderately severe can break the chains of my own tightly-controlled regime.
Illness works for me because it slows me down. I get in much better touch with my body and my emotions during illness. Eating disorder thoughts lessen because my notions of food start to center around what will get me better (or what will help me survive, if I feel that terrible). Sickness is a good thing (at least under my usual, non-terminal conditions). Funny that I spend so many borderline obsessive/compulsive moments scrubbing things and washing my hands to avoid it ;)
I can even extrapolate this perspective when looking back on my entire history with eating disorders and recovery. I would not be who I am without that struggle. My inability to “fit” in certain ways has led me toward new ways of living.
In this moment, however, my aching body needs to rest, and I’m doing to jump on the opportunity to adhere to that early bedtime I’ve been trying to move myself toward for months! My to-do list is no match for this kind of exhaustion.
As I watch myself back on the video I am including in this entry, I am reminded of just how awkward watching myself perform is. I started to try to extract the audio so that I could avoid posting the visuals but ultimately decided that it wouldn't be worth the effort. Other people watch me perform all the time; I figure you can take it. But it's odd to see myself from another the other side of the stage.
Anyway, this song, "Falling," was written over a span of a few years. First, I only completed a chorus, until I forced myself to finish out a couple of verses and a bridge about a year and a half ago. I always disliked those verses. Parts of them were enjoyable, but as a whole, they were rather disappointing and, ultimately, annoying. I threw the song in the closet, never to be revisited. It was too painful to play the fun little chorus and then have to endure the awkward stanzas in between.
Nonetheless, the chorus stayed in my head, despite what I think is a soundly unpoetic hook. "Falling into a hole"? Really? But it turns out that that phrase describes exactly what I want it to describe. And this week, I revisited those verses and cleaned them up. Now, the song expresses something special, with pieces written over two years ago combined with what I feel today.
At first, I thought the song was about those moments in life when I feel like giving over to the eating disorder, when I want to let all of my neuroses, depression, and anything else "diseased" take over. I want to sink into bingeing or starving or reclusiveness during those times. The song seemed to center around those periods and the fear, sadness, and anxiety that accompanies them.
Over the years, however, I have observed that many times when I have the feelings I just described, I am not surrendering into the eating disorder. I am surrendering to my feelings. The song is about giving over to something entirely different. It's about a release that leads to something positive and healthy if I allow it to happen.
Participating in eating disorder behaviors is actually not anxiety-provoking at all. It's the feelings that surround it that send me into a tailspin, the feelings that make me turn to the behaviors, the feelings of guilt after I let my eating disorder run wild. All of those emotions cause fear. Disordered behaviors mask emotion and authentic truth.
The most potent feelings of helplessness I've ever experienced have been related to the moments when I allow myself to feel instead of participate in my eating disorder. It's overwhelming to feel incredibly sad, confused, or lonely. The intensity of my need for alone time frightens me at times and feels dangerous, even though it may ultimately be healthy.
Now, I've learned that it's okay to sink now and then into despair. I always reemerge. It's okay to spend introspective time alone for long stretches. Likewise, it's perfectly fine to dismiss all of my obsessive thoughts and do FUN things, even when there are certain tasks I feel I HAVE to accomplish. It's okay to go out and waste time alone or with others, even when laundry or other obligations loom. It's okay to come home from work and relax instead of pay my bills immediately.
Nonetheless, all of the "necessary" tasks generally need to be completed, and knowing this can result in incredible anxiety and indecisiveness. It's hard to let myself be. But it's necessary. It's essential to let go of everything sometimes and allow life to flow through me. I may cry, I may laugh, I may shut the blinds for a while and revel in solitude. The more I can associate these activities with things other than the eating disorder, the easier it is to do them without guilt. I can enjoy myself without food (even though I can also enjoy myself with it). I can feel sad and not try to shove it away with a binge or an eight mile run.
I can surrender to my intuition and do what I feel instead of what I think I should do. The release is scary sometimes and feels like falling without a net.
Those are the thoughts for today, accompanied by "Falling," the little song I'd like to share with you today. All my best ~
Since I was young, speed always attracted me more than other “risky” endeavors. I wanted to fly down the alley on my bicycle, not pop wheelies or jump ramps. Just give me the wind in my hair and the road passing too quickly under me. For some reason, riding fast makes me feel more in control than navigating tricky obstacles. I always preferred running to more overtly technical sports like basketball or soccer. Granted, my affinity for more race-like activities probably owed itself in part to a general lack of coordination (required in most team-centered athletics), but there is something more to it.
In life, I want to retain some sense of control. I will make sure that the road ahead doesn’t contain any unexpectedly large potholes. I tune up my bike. I pick roads I’ve traversed before. And then, I go fast. I speed through it with the highest efficiency, nimble but safe. Once I know where I want to go and clear an acceptable trajectory, I take off, judging success by the swiftness of the journey to my anticipated goal.
Of course, in life, the ending location never quite matches my initial picture, and I often end up having to veer off my intended route. I am resistant to diverting from my original, carefully planned course. I sometimes don’t trust life to turn out okay if I don’t map it out and rush through it, even though I have accumulated years of evidence that things do work out. It’s like I think that that way to live life is to smooth out the path I desire and then hurry down it before the storms come and erode the terrain. How’s that for leaving no room for miracles?
Speed can be great. It’s fulfilling for me to drive my car as fast as possible down roads where one would be wiser to exert extra caution. But on the other hand, I don’t want to pass by the people who need help on the side of the road or never notice the interesting sights that abound in this world of ours. But if my velocity demands my total attention, I’ll never catch the beauty in the periphery.
Instead of flying down the alley, I’d like to take the occasional, random trip down an unknown path, where I can’t pedal quickly but might meet terrain that holds infinitely more treasure than the path I leveled for myself. It’s time to let life move around me and go with the flow instead of trying to direct every move. It’s time to work a bit at navigating challenging courses instead of improving on my latest time trial. Conquering technicalities can give the same rush as blazing speeds. Let it go.
What is a perfect day? What would it take to create that kind of day? Could I recreate it over and over?
Naturally, the answers to these questions depend on a multitude of variables. Every day, the requirements change. Our goals change. Our circumstances change. There is no one perfect day. The potential "perfect" component combinations are infinite.
However, my most perfect days seem to be days when I start out wondering how I will make it through the day at all. Perhaps this is because, on those days, I consciously give over control to a higher power and recognize that I cannot determine the ultimate outcome of that day. I ask myself what would constitute a failed day and usually come up empty. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what happens. It's never the end of the world. I'm not out detonating nuclear bombs or anything.
I think one of my main problems is the over-importance I place on my life in general. I give it so much weight that it frightens me, as if my every move determined the course of the universe. And while my actions may have some effect on the universe, they more likely work within the context of a whole realm of other actions taking place everywhere else and as a result of the billions upon billions of things that occurred long before I ever existed on this planet. Things are moving along in the world, and it's rather arrogant to believe that I could have the power to throw the whole thing completely off-balance.
But wait! Can't I throw at least MY part of the world off-balance? And wouldn't that be scary?
Would it? Would it be so scary? Maybe things need to be thrown off every now and then.
Needless to say, the ingredients to a "perfect" day remain consistent: giving up control, relaxing, and doing WHAT I CAN (not things I WISH I could do). The best days are the ones that I let just be. And this is so hard for me to do...
Judgment has to be left by the wayside to create a perfect day. I have to stop second-guessing everything and allow my decisions to be my decisions. Things will get done. I can indulge. I can set schedules and plans. I can do whatever will be best in my life at the moment. I can try things. If it doesn't workout today, I can take notes so that I can make better choices in the future. It's okay to make mistakes. I am an aware person. I can learn from these things. No need to be afraid!
Holidays are the ideal times to test these ideas. I can create schedules if I want them or discard every routine, just to see what happens. I can set new standards or do things in different ways. There's usually a lot of time for reflection, so I can consider what I'm doing as I'm doing it. There may also be ample opportunities to celebrate and do new, interesting things. I can see how I react in situations with people I may have difficulty relating to and also get information from perspectives I do not typically access.
So, in conclusion, I am trying new things. I'm releasing some of my exercise and germ/health obsessions, or at the very least, I'm trying. I'm giving myself a chance to alter my patterns and ignore what others think about it while being open to unexpected wisdom. I can try to exist in a challenging location, away from home. Basically, I am encouraging myself to find home, wherever I am, maintaining openness to a concept of home that looks different than I initially imagined.
I am safe. I am at home...anywhere. A good mantra.