Back on the Road Again, Part 1

       About two months ago, I began running, again, for I can't tell you the how many hundredth time.  For the past five years I have had one false start after another. After a few weeks I always began to get twinges (or worse) in my feet, ankles or knees.  It was so frustrating!  I'm way too young to stop moving. So I'd give it some time off and begin again. Today's post is about sharing one of the things that made my current 7 week running streak possible.

       I have very tight muscles (and no, a fifteen year yoga practice has not yet completely overcome my uptight personality).  Now, my theory was that these muscles were causing imbalances and hence my aching ankles.  The worst moment was when, less than a half a mile from our house,  I had to flag down my neighbor for a ride home.  Daily massages were not an option and no stretching regime had worked.  At left find the Sunpentown Healthy Swing Machine with Swivel Disc, my personal live-in masseuse.
      I must admit, I thought it was absolutely ridiculous when I first saw it. Really, swinging the legs such a short distance, how could it help?  What I did not understand was what a persistent little bugger this is.  It just keeps swinging for as long as programmed.  At first it just moved my feet, but as the session progressed it moved up the body.  As each lower region relaxed, more and more movement happened, until at the end, I can usually feel the gentle rocking all the way up to my neck.  If you figure $60 an hour for a massage, this has paid for itself six times over in the three months I've owned it.
         One day I forgot to use the machine before I took off for my jog.  I had to go even more slowly than usual to warm up and never really felt very good.  Let's just say I've not forgotten again.

In No Particular Order...

     In the past few months I have read so many books, it was hard to decide which to write about.  One book, however, has really made an impact.  It is not so much the deep research or useful metaphors, though the book has them aplenty.  Rather, it is the material is so simple to grasp and utilize it makes me wonder how I could have ever not known it.  The book is called Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence by Rick Hanson.
       The core idea is stated simply in the introduction "HEAL: Have a positive experience. Enrich it. Absorb it. Link positive and negative so that positive soothes and even replaces negative. (The fourth step is optional.)"  How easy, right?  The key is to notice being happy and roll around in it like a dog in the grass. Like the old song, I think the book could be renamed "If you're happy and you know it."
          So you could just read the introduction and be done with it, but then you would miss all of the interesting metaphors and unique ways to remember things gleaned from years of practice as a neuropsychologist and teacher.  Here are a few that I really liked:
 -    "Imagine that your mind is like a garden.  You could simply be with it, looking at its weeds and flowers without judging or changing anything.  Second, you could pull weeds by decreasing what's negative in your mind.  Third, you could grow flowers by increasing the positive in your mind."
-      "Since neurons that fire together wire together, staying with a negative experience pat the point that's useful is like running laps in Hell:  You dig the track a little deeper in your brain each time you go around it."
-       "(Since the parts of the brain have developed over time), it helps me to think of my own mind as containing a kind of lizard, mouse, and monkey related to the avoiding, approaching and attaching systems.  We meet our core needs for safety, satisfaction, and connection when we -metaphorically- pet the lizard, feed the mouse, and hug the monkey."
            There are many exercises and practices later in the book to teach the reader to enrich and absorb the positive experiences we all have.  I think the most important gift to us all from this book is  the knowledge that we are in the driver's seat of our happiness bus.  "On average, about a third of a person's strengths are innate, built into his or her genetically based temperament, talents, mood, and personality.  The other two-thirds are developed over time.  You get them by growing them.  To me this is wonderful news, since it means that we can develop the happiness and other inner strengths that foster fulfillment, love, effectiveness, wisdom, and inner peace.  Finding out how to grow these strengths inside you could be the most important thing you ever learn."

Lessons from frustration

It begins...

  Each year we hide a pickle ornament on the tree and the child who finds it first gets to open the first gift.  It was something that our eldest son heard about in school years ago.  We started by hiding a real pickle in a plastic bag.  Later I found a blown glass pickle ornament and the game was on.

Dad looks on and laughs

I'll shake it out of you!

    What the boys did not know when they started the tradition, was how good their father is about hiding things in plain sight.  At first, when they were small, we made it easy.  Let's just say last year took 25 minutes and they still could not find it...

    The search brings out such intense frustration, Christmas Eve they tried to find where I had hidden the ornament through the rest of the year so that Dad could not hide it on the tree.  What makes this even funnier is our tree in only four feet tall.  There are not that many hiding places.

found at last!

      Even with teamwork Christmas morning (and a major hint) it took 15 minutes.  He looks like he is making fun of finding it, but let me tell you, there was a lot of relief...  In watching them struggle, it reminded me of so many things in life.  We start something not knowing how it will turn out.  Most of the time we know life's risks, but we really depend on things going how we hope they will, rather than weighing the statistical probabilities (for a good explanation of this I recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, the law of small numbers chapter and more...).
    As reality rears it's ugly head and our hopes become tempered with reality (or with past memories) our reactions are out of proportion to the situation.  We get frustrated faster and internally give up.  May this be the year of releasing frustration and finding that which we are looking for (and many presents under the tree!)

Judge Not: or... Careful of that New Year's Resolution

I've been working on a post but have had too much going on to finish, so my first New Year's gift to you is from Cyanide and Happiness, 2012.  The best part about this comic strip is I have been on both sides of this joke, both the judgee and the judged.  Maybe this year we'll stop worrying about how other's choices make us uncomfortable enough to judge them... Enjoy the New Year!

Life in Your Years

      Last night I had the most amazing realization.  This December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, my father in law turns 93.  I never really thought about it much, it was just a number, right?
      I am 47, this means that my father in law is almost twice as old as I... So everything that I have done, being born, going to school, serving in the Navy, marriage for 24 years, raising two children who are now off to college, that's only half of his life!  Seriously, who knew?

From National Geographic, May 2013

       I have been doing lots of research into longevity and happiness this past year.  It's not so much that I want to live forever, but I do want to be vigorous and happy.  What I'm looking for is captured in the picture at left.  It is of Rae Kline at age 83.  The caption in the magazine says "'A perpetual motion machine' is how Kline, of Solana Beach, California, describes herself.  An early advocate of yoga in the U.S., she demonstrates knees-to-ears pose.  Her daily exercise includes a mile swim, and hour of biking, and a four mile beach walk."
      That's what we are talking about.
       Okay, so far I still can't do this pose, but I am ready keep trying and embrace the exuberance that I see in her life.  Want to join me?

Don't Carry the World in Your Shoulder

     I had the most interesting experience attending yoga class Friday.  It was a great class, but as is usually the case, the student (yes, me) didn't just learn the lesson that the teacher taught, but rather what she was ready to hear (finally).
     Today was a rainy foggy day.  It took a full hour to drive the 22 miles to class.  On the way there I kept thinking how nice it would be to do a class full of heart opening poses and meditations.  November has been a full month with both highs and lows, and my heart could use some help.
     I was late, so had to wait outside until the chanting and meditation were over.  Fortunately, I go to class with my Mom, so she had saved a space for me.  I unrolled my mat and began class.  One of the students who had been on time must have asked for heart openers, because she began the class I desired.
     Our instructor, Wendy, is a great teacher.  She carefully sequences classes and adds thoughtful observations.  I began to notice that as my heart grew more open, my chest and shoulders expanded and my neck began to complain.  Not only did it hurt, but it said 'if you don't stop now I am going to have my revenge soon.'  Let's just say my neck has quite a personality.

    Fallen caryatid carrying an urn

             Auguste Rodin

     I felt like Rodin's Caryatid, crushed under the weight of the building she was trying to hold up. I finally gave up on class and laid down on the floor for seriously early savasana.  Now I always tell my students to stop when they need to, but in my heart I was wishing to finally get to do all things. Here I am, however in the body I have it it just can't, yet.  So everyone else around me continued with the class and I lay down.
     Laying down in savasana, as a teacher, I always talk about how it puts together the class, settles it in the body.  In moving, I had felt this deep resistance inside my shoulder to letting go.  I've done a lot of traveling to and from my in laws and seeing my father in law who has dementia.  I have lots of issues inside that shoulder and it didn't seem to want to let go.
      I just laid down on the floor in a receptive posture.  It took a long time for everything to relax down into the floor.  When it did, I intellectually poked around into this resistance in my shoulder and in my heart.  Usually I feel that resistance because there are things that I haven't really admitted that I am thinking.   As I spent time with it feelings arose.
      Part of it was this deep sorrow for my father in law, who is in no way living the life he wanted for himself, although now he's actually pretty content.  Dementia seems to be a pretty happy place for him because he has let go of his worries.  My inner concern is a bit selfish, but I couldn't help feeling that if he were my age (which he was at one time) this is not where he would want to be.
       When I looked deeper into my heart I realized that I also felt lost, like a child running around a huge department store who cannot find her parents.  This is his path and it is not my job to fix it, though I do so love fixing things.
        In this case the 'a ha!' moment did not lead to resolution, just awareness.  Now, what to do?  I imagined that I was a child and sat on God's lap and leaned my head in and let myself feel sad and lost. When I felt His love come towards me, that good feeling was too big a leap. I wasn't ready to feel good. I thought maybe I'll just rest, rather than receive all that love.  When you are down, the step up to content is leap enough.
      Then I just... rested.

       What's funny is my shoulder hurts more now, because it has more mobility and the muscles have been so tightly clenched they don't want to deal with the freedom.  In the last two days I have spent time meditating and relaxing to solidify the gains.  Nothing makes the situation better, but at least now I am not making it worse.
     It was a very, very interesting savasana.

Fallen caryatid carrying an urn
Auguste Rodin

What I learned from a dog in a guitar case...

     My next missive from the road came from October's National Geographic. There was a wonderful photographic story to promote animal rescue.  Theron Humphrey rescued a coonhound named Maddie to travel with.  He discovered she had a talent for perching, on practically anything. Here is his website with all of the Maddie photos.
  Of course, I swooned over the pictures of the cute dog doing anything to please her master.  As I looked more I realized that Maddie is the outward representation of what we all do.  We take  what life brings us, conform to the shape of it while doing our best to remain authentic to who we are deep inside.
     I have been child, student, teen, midshipman, naval officer, mother, teacher, quilter, healer and more, all the while remaining Pam.  When I no longer fit and the parts start to spill outside the case, it's time to try a different instrument.  There are so many to try.