putting the gold in golden

be nice; treat others how you want to be treated. don't say something you wouldn't want to hear yourself. don't TEXT something you wouldn't want to read yourself.

blah blah blah

where's the real gold in the golden rule?

i think it's recognizing how we should be treated; how we deserve to be treated; how we should treat ourselves.

i read this blog today about those messages we say to ourselves every day. my favorite part is where she says that we are never going to criticize ourselves into something. it's true: we know that if we want someone else to do something, we are nice to them; we compliment them and work to motivate them. but if we want to do something for ourselves, we often berate ourselves and minimize any steps we've taken toward our goal.

today a friend messaged me: "I'm in need of one of your blog postings to a) motivate me to make the changes I need to and b) tell me I am good enough the way I am." i was honored to receive that message. but she didn't really need me. she needed herself.

but, even in saying that, i know how she feels. when you aren't happy with something in your life, external motivation feels stronger than the internal voice that is often the opposite of motivating. my internal voice beats me up for not running one day out of the week... but it never compliments me for the other six days. it never tells me what a great job i'm doing at, well, most things in my life.

i have this new cat. cat stevens (cat for short) is a very sweet and loving one-year-old that likes cuddling and is fantastic at not jumping and scratching. when i brought him home on tuesday, i was shaking. i've cared for other people's pets. i've cared for other people's children. but i've never been solely responsible for a living thing. (well, other than plants. and those have all died rather quickly.) i called my sister (who has a six month old new baby) and commiserated. "MY LIFE IS JUST LIKE YOUR LIFE NOW!!!"

...or something like that.

i noticed this new side of me emerging: i was wanting to rush home to check on cat; i was looking forward to nesting and cuddling with him; i wanted all my friends to meet him and bond with him. in other words, i was treating him like gold. like i wanted to be treated. like i wanted to treat myself.

why don't i run home to pamper myself regularly? to spend time with myself? to spend quality time with my friends as a priority?

my advice to my friend that messaged me? look to the things you are grateful for. list them. acknowledge them. move forward from that place of acknowledgment.

i'm grateful for the run i completed today; the friends i get to spend time with tonight; the plane that i'm currently blogging from; and the motivation to treat myself well--the motivation that blooms both internally and externally.

keep moving forward; keep motivating yourself and those you care about, whether or not they're human. (enter halloween zombie/vampire references.)

love.

fatherly advice

i had an amazing weekend with friends: my housewarming, a birthday for sam, an early birthday outing with anthony... but i also was feeling sad this weekend. sad about a situation not going the way i wanted it to, sad about not being able to see my family this weekend, and sad about texts with lydia who was going through her first father's day after her dad died.

best cure for feeling sad? more best friend time, obviously.

and listening to their advice.

we can receive valuable lessons from many places: parents, siblings, friends, and of course our own intuition. in all cases, we have to be willing to hear it, though.

this post is for lydia: you're never alone.
this post is for adi and martina: thank you.
this post is for all my friends going through rough times (xo erin).
this post is for me. for all of us.

i am notoriously bad at taking advice: for some reason i seem to prefer to learn things the hard way. i buck up against being told what to do. i'll come up with all of the responses for why i shouldn't listen to what someone else tells me. and, after struggling through the situation on my own for a while, i'll finally be ready to hear it.

my dad seemed to always know this about me; he is highly adept at offering soft words to me over and over until i can hear them. just like his gentle replacement of three sets of bicycle training wheels (because i leaned so heavily on the right wheel that it would bend and be rendered useless) until i could learn to ride on my own, i am grateful for that repeated support as i push my way through the world.

but what would it be like to take advice, to learn lessons, to grow... without so much struggle? what would it be like to lean on others just a little more? to ask for things when needed, to listen to what is offered?

i suppose i don't really know. except that when i started to let adi's words sink in yesterday, when i started to let them wash over me a little more, when i started to really be in them instead of fighting them, i felt safe. i felt loved. i felt a little more ready to take on the world.

advice in.

love out.

listening: tuned to on.

emotional fly traps

when I was little, maybe 8 years old, I was sitting in the car with my mom. it was biloxi, mississippi. it was summer. it was HOT. so we had on shorts. I looked over at my mom and noticed aloud to her "my thighs are like less than half the size of your thighs!"

I don't remember what she said back. I don't think she was upset at all. she probably said something like "that's because I'm an adult." but I know that on some level I must have felt some hurt from her. because I still feel bad about that comment.

I am a sensitive girl; I hold things close to my heart; I feel bad for unintentionally hurting others. and i get hurt easily: by others and by my own doing.

there is someone in my recent life who has continually hurt me. I kept resisting cutting him out of my life, despite the pleading of many other friends. "all my friends don't have to like each other," I thought; "I'll be friends with him even though he isn't treating me well; at least he acknowledges he wants to do better."

yes: I now hear it. that sounds like someone in a domestic abuse situation. and emotionally, it kind of was. you know how it's always easier to comment on someone else's situation; how it's always easier to find the flaws that are a little more distal? seeing (or hearing) the harshness of this situation took me a long time, but finally figuring it out is good for me in more than one way.

what's he do that's so hurtful? he jokes about my attempts at romantic relationships. it got worse over the past few weeks as I started to stop joking back with him when he called me a slut. I began to notice how bad I felt after each snapchat that insinuated I'd have sex with anyone; after each uncomfortable call where he joked that I must be out on a date.

so I decided to put myself first: I'm removing myself from this "friendship." I feel sad about this. but also proud.

why have I constantly defended someone who treats me badly? why did I immediately respond to the negative way he spoke to me? I didn't grow up with critical messages from family or teachers. I've never been in an abusive relationship.

well. except the one with myself. and that's the emotionally abusive relationship that is hardest for me to see and/or admit to.

the way he spoke to me is how I often talk to myself. I'm quite judgemental and critical when it comes to, well, anything I do. so I guess it felt pretty natural and almost comfortable for me to receive those types of messages from him.

the reason I need to limit contact with him is because I internalize what he says to me. even though i don't agree with his judgemental view of my life, I find myself starting to believe him. it's almost impossible not to believe something you hear over and over.

the same thing happens in my own head: when I say something negative in my head often enough, my subconscious starts to really buy into it. and sometimes I'm shocked when my subconscious says something like "I am not doing enough." I think "who said that? why would you think that? where did that idea come from?" and then I realise I put that idea there. I'm the one who silently judges myself hundreds of times a day.

so hearing the messages from my friend didn't dissuade me from being friends with him. but when I found myself internalizing the judgements of my friend, I was finally able to recognise that i needed to limit contact. he wasn't changing; he wasn't apologising. but I could take control.

and loving myself enough to change that is the first step in limiting contact with my judgemental self.

i listened to a podcast interviewing ellen burstyn today about survival. and it ended with this: "I’ve learned a lot from my plants. I learn that if a plant’s not growing, it’s dying, and that growth is a state of health."

I choose to keep growing. and, to my mommy: sorry for what I said when I was 8. xo

work work work work workin' on my sh!t

(i seriously have that song stuck in my head right now.)

every relationship is hard work. not just romantic ones. not just the emotional friends. not just the crazy second cousin. every relationship. each friend, each family member, each co-worker. every person we interact with is a whole complex person that deserves a whole complex understanding.

in the past week i've noticed this theme over and over: one of my bff and i got in a disagreement over a miscommunication and didn't really talk for a few days. another bff received an embarrassing text from me that we had to work through (hell no i'm not sharing what it said). another bff (yes i have this many best friends) felt left out when i didn't get an invite out. another friend called me and worked through a misunderstanding we had. two different friends got back in touch after a several month hiatus. a co-worker broke down and shared something personal after feeling under-appreciated. ...this is just off the top of my head, but there are so many examples of how important it is to put time into each communication and each interaction we have.

the theme also popped up this weekend when i went to a few festival of dangerous ideas talks at the opera house. in a talk about loneliness and depression, someone said (my interpretation): we spend so much time being busy. busy-ness is a stand-in for fullness in our lives: if we're busy, we're full, complete. but busy-ness doesn't allow time for connection. in fact, quite the opposite. we end up rushing through our interactions to get to the next one, not allowing space for fully connecting with the people in our lives.

to fully connect with someone is hard work. it takes more than a few minutes. and it takes empathy as well. it needs time, space, compassion, and understanding.

friday afternoon i spent time with my favorite four-year-old: adi is brand new big sister; her little sister is under two weeks old. adi has been feeling a little left-out since her little sister was born, so she and i had a special "big sisters club" afternoon on friday. she and i put on shiny tattoos, went trampolining, and then spent a couple of hours working on a dinosaur activity book and coloring. adi soaked up every second of time that was fully focused on her: she didn't want the time to end and made sure we scheduled the next meeting of big sisters club before i left. "umm, how's friday?" she asked as i was walking out the door. i don't think she even knew which day it was, but she knew she wanted to get her special time scheduled in.

after i left i thought about how adi might be feeling, and i thought about my own sister and how i might have felt when she entered my life. and i thought about how much she drove me nuts for several years. and how she copied everything i did and wanted to steal everything that was mine (like when she ripped the arm off of my favorite doll trying to pull it from the crib so she could play with something dear to me).

and i thought about how my sister and i are best friends now.

i'm super grateful for where we are. but it wasn't easy; it was work. and it still is. just like every other relationship. so part of this blog is a promise to myself and the relationships in my life. part of this blog is a reminder to keep working. part of this blog is an apology for the places i haven't put in as much effort. and part of this blog is dedicated to all of those siblings; all of those co-workers; all of those ex-partners... just all of the people: all of the people who have ever felt like they didn't get the time they deserved from somebody.

relationships are hard work. but they're worth it. and they're probably the only things in this world that are worth that much hard work.

my lifecoach is a bossypants

but apparently that's what i need. not eating protein with breakfast? "how about a fucking hard-boiled egg?!" elena says. ok. i admit it. sometimes i need someone to tell me "shut up, sit down, and respond to your work emails. RIGHT NOW."

last week i got in trouble for not responding to student and admin emails in a timely manner. because i've been avoiding things. i focused on my research, my phd students: the stuff i like doing. which meant i had over 400 unread emails in my inbox. UNREAD AND UNDEALT with (and this doesn't include the ones i read, starred, and meant to get back to later). so i spent three days last week doing that.

this whole story is related to me realizing more things about who i am and how i deal with things. a few weeks ago, i spent several hours writing out the positive and negative traits my parents have and how i express these same traits. and when i recently saw my mother, i talked to her about some of these things. it was the first time i had seen her in person since i had told her about bulimia a few months ago (i had hidden my struggle from her for 8 years).

when we talked face to face, she was asking me why i felt the need to avoid strong feelings and binge and purge instead. part of it is that i learned the avoidance from my parents. so i tell her, "well, you know how dad never shows anger toward us because he doesn't want to upset us? well i think that i learned some of these emotion-avoidance techniques from seeing them modeled."

my mom does this too, but i didn't mention it to her. i focused on dad. then, after a few minutes, my mom quietly said, "i think i do that too." and i crumpled inside. it was emotionally beautiful. i softly and slowly replied, "yeah, a little bit. but that's because that's how you've learned to manage your feelings. i just need to learn a new way now." and it was probably the most real and most amazing conversation we've had in a while.

i've been trying to "name" my most overwhelming traits that voice themselves in my head, so i can talk back to them and tell them how ridiculous they are:

miss smartypants can do it herself: i have a fucking phd. i know what i'm talking about. don't try to give me advice or fix me. i know what i'm doing and why i do it. don't even try to help me in any way.

miss disrespect: my time is more important than your time is. i need to get on this fucking train right now, and i need you to get the fuck out of my way. i'm quite sure you don't need to do as much as i do today. i'm busy being super amazing and i don't have time for your needs.

and, of course, annie avoidance: this feels too hard to deal with now; i'll do it later. if i avoid it now, it might just go away. if it doesn't go away, at least i don't have to feel it now. isn't it better to protect myself from feeling these intense things?

god those are embarrassing to read. the reasons i keep these voices around in my head are pathetic. sad. terrible to think about. and i hate listening to them. so i'm putting them out there. because that helps me be more accountable.

this week i commit to more routinely recognize and respond to others' needs more fully. i will give of myself at work as i do to my friends. promise: i will spend one full hour each morning or afternoon completely engaging with and responding to emails. consequence: if i don't meet this goal each weekday, i have to skip sunday afternoon yoga and set aside an additional two hours to catch up on the backlog. (richard--when you see me sunday afternoons, ask me if i've been emailing!)

and i also commit to still taking the time for myself that i need. evidenced: fullness training with elena on the mat this morning before leaving the house; facetiming with sister at the office earlier today and having a creepy face contest (umm i totes won that shit). and, to sister: #iloveyoumorethanyouloveme

a, thanks for the cover-ups before i could deal. k, thanks for the promise brainstorming. and o, thanks heaps for the fake lifecoach bossypants-ing.

teaching love

this weekend i was away at an annual event for a social running club i'm in. we were in a beautiful location; and i had some beautiful souls there with me. the campground/resort we stayed at had limited mobile phone reception (i.e. i had none; some people had a bar or two). the resort provided wifi, but the coverage wasn't great, and i wasn't able to receive or send the crazy amount of messages, texts, snaps, and comments (etc!) that i normally do.

saturday morning, in a moment of connectivity, several messages came through from my mother. not "hi, darling!" messages, but "call me now; i have something to tell you" messages. the wifi wouldn't handle me facetiming or skyping her, and i began to get really upset. i felt like i knew what she was going to tell me, but i needed to talk to her. the anxiety of trying to get a way to talk to her was visible. one of my lovely friends there with me this weekend walked by and saw; she allowed me to borrow her mobile and straight up call my mom's US mobile phone.

my mom told me that her mother (my grandmother) had died. it wasn't necessarily expected, but she was 96 1/2 years old (yeah, we start counting half years again in old age!), so it wasn't necessarily unexpected either. as soon as she told me, i was in tears.

the rest of the morning was spent in an adventure to get to reception-land (which included taking a ferry), messaging and calling my mother and sister, and then borrowing another friend's mobile when my battery died while far from my charger (in reception-land) so that i could finish the skyping. we decided i wouldn't go back to the US, but that i'd write something for my mother to read at the funeral in a few days.

back at the ranch that afternoon, most of the runners i'm closest to already had been told. i had so many caring people around me asking me about my grandmother, hugging and holding me, even crying a little with me. even though it was hard being away from my home hearing the news, i'm grateful that i was surrounded by such supports.

as people began asking me about my grandmother, memories swelled inside. i spent today sitting with these memories, and thinking about what my grandmother taught us. one of my friends recently said that he wanted to leave a legacy in this world. i suggested that he was doing that through his children. which really got me thinking: what is my grandmother's legacy in my life?

what i've come to is this: she taught me to love. (she was a teacher, so it makes sense that she would've taught me something important!)

my grandmother taught me to love directly: she loved us without judgement, without criticism, and with her whole self.

my grandmother taught me to love indirectly: last week my mom sent me a newspaper clipping of an article that she had written about teaching good eating habits. the story featured an anecdote about me as a two-year-old copying everything my mother was doing in the grocery store. i was toddling along behind my mother, copying her face, her stance, even her squinting at the vegetables. i have copied behavior modelled by my mother in many facets of my life, including the loving and caring actions that she learned from her mother.

my grandmother taught me to love through the way she lived her life: my grandmother had three life loves. her first husband died of a heart attack when my mother was only 18. my grandmother loved again: her second husband died when i was three. and then my grandmother had an international love affair that lasted the rest of her life (neither wanted to move permanently across the ocean). she wasn't fearful when she lost love, she didn't get stuck; she just loved more.

and my grandmother taught me how to love with love: when i was about 8, and my sister 5, my grandmother visited. she was upset with how aggravated shayna and i got with each other. she told us we should never call each other mean names; we needed to love each other. but then, because she also taught her lessons with humor and love, she gave us alternative names that we could call each other. (she suggested that i call shayna an "idiotic imbecile." the phrase was phrase unknown to me, but i ran with it!)

i'm grateful to my grandmother for her legacy. and i promise her memory that i will keep practicing and sharing lessons in love.

and to all the others who have also taught me about love: i love you.