I don't like kissing

I don't know ... would I be the first girl to say this?  But experience has proven that I just don't like kissing.

How Yoga Works - Benefits of Yoga

Yoga is a great practice for the connection of so many important things - body, mind, and soul.  See some of the benefits of taking part in a yoga practice.

Yoga is great exercise.  The poses will test your body strength and engage your core muscles.  Yoga makes you strong from the inside out.  Active yoga -hatha yoga- provides a continuous flow of movement.  Cardio exercise will benefit your heart and give you a well earned sense of pride in your body.  In addition to strengthening, the lengthening and stretching in the poses increases flexibility and balance.   Yoga includes many forms and levels of exercise that are accessible and beneficial, regardless of fitness level.

Yoga encourages embodiment.  Having a connected body and mind is an important goal for personal wellness.  So many of our mental struggles from life not going our way keep us living in our heads.  Yoga reminds you to focus and become aware of your body.  Reach out your heart as you expand the possibilities of your body.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Focus on that and feel it.  The breathwork lets you connect to your body during the poses. 

Yoga leads you away from mental dullness.  The practice of focusing your mind to the poses, engaging your body, steadying yourself in a pose when you are off balance, is excellent practice for life.  Yoga helps you reground, and find your center.  With clarity and intention, you can find more ways to be present and available to experiences. 

You can find a community through yoga.  Yoga studios offer community benefits and events in addition to ongoing classes.  You can gain the support of a community through meeting friends.  Opportunities to socialize as well as self develop go hand in hand.  Reaching out is a great way to benefit yourself and others.  

Yoga lays the groundwork to connect with yourself from the mat up.

If a picture is worth a thousand words ... Eye Contact

Then why not make the effort to make eye contact?  You could say so much in that picture you take between you and another person.  When your eyes meet, and you get a surge of humanity that is voluminous, magnificent, in its innate closeness.  When you make eye contact, you do speak, and your inner voice has alot to say.  That picture is worth a thousand words, and its worth a memory.  And eye contact feels beneficial in most circumstances.  Its the story you want to listen to, the story that isn't made up of conversational words and wants and white lies.  Its more guttural, genuine, brilliant.  Take a secure look at someone's eyes and you have told them: I'm listening to you, I'm paying attention, I have the time for you, I am interested in you.  Eye contact has the capacity to comfort, to lead, to reconcile differences.  It begins with you believing that the other person is worthy of respect.  Its magnificent, and it can be very intense, that is something I love about it.  When you think of the thousand words that are exchanged in eye contact, you might even be at a loss for words.  When presenters make speeches, the good one's make eye contact with their audience.  By looking back, you are giving faith - you have my attention - you have my eyes.  My eyes are attuned to you, and my body is listening.  Its one thing to be facing in the direction of someone, and sometimes you are present, and sometimes the words are falling off as soon as they've left the mouth of the other person.  Eye contact helps keep you there, present, necessary to the process of exchanging ideas.  I find eye contact amazing, a mark of life between two people - real and alive, intimate.  Depending how you feel towards the other person, it might make you melt with love - the giver and object of love.

How Yoga Works - Who Can Do Yoga?

Who can do yoga, and what can yoga do for you?

When I practice yoga at studios, I meet people who are positively happy and grateful to have their yoga practice.  I don't know what it is about yoga - the poses and balancing acts, the exotic names, the structure of the class with a beginning, middle, and end.  But I find myself wanting to involve others and so does the Yoga Seed.

A single pose can be reworked into multiple strategic positions. Likewise, yoga can be practiced in a number of different ways to benefit each individual.  There is yoga to fit every shape and style of person who has the interest in placing their feet on the mat and learning the practice.

I have been amazed at the number of different outreach activities that occur through the Yoga Seed's efforts to expand yoga to the communities.  At the studio, there are classes in hatha yoga, vinyasa, stretching, yin, and an all-bodies class tailored to persons with physical limitations.  With an outward push to reach out to disadvantaged communities, the Yoga Seed is bringing yoga teachers to teach at schools for kids with developmental traits, jails or inmates, hospitals and the workplace for high stress employees, and classes for veterans.  The wide range of demographics in and around Sacramento encouraged to take up the practice shows the great accessibility that the Yoga Seed presents.

All of these people are practicing yoga. 

Yoga doesn't have prerequisites, so beginners can come just as they are.  There is no one type of person who benefits from yoga, and yoga encompasses a range of skill sets and abilities.  Most studios will have varying levels of classes for beginners, intermediates, and advanced practitioners to develop.  The first time you come, is a perfect time to come - there is always a class to meet you for where you're at in your body.  The Yoga Seed has many beginner oriented classes as well.  Even better, the donation based structure makes it affordable so dealing with financial situations can practice and be taken care of.

Yoga can be practiced by anyone, and everyone is a student.  Even the teacher is learning as a student in their own practice.  As long as you can learn, you can do yoga. 

See the next article to learn some of the many benefits of engaging in yoga.

I don't blame myself for making mistakes. I love myself for offering lessons.

There's some family troubles in my family, like in all families.

I have a hard time dealing with my dad, since I get really uncomfortable with him.  I generally find him to be unsupportive and uncaring, and it frightens me how fast he can go from zero to angry and irritable.

My dad typically says nothing to me but, 'have a nice day' when he leaves for work.  He doesn't take the time to say 'have a nice day', and he doesn't look at me when he says it or seem caring.  Instead, he usually says it just as he is leaving out the door in a rush - the door shutting as he finishes his hello and goodbye sentence to me for the day.

 I react in a thousandfold negative ways to this: 'He just speaks in generalizations', 'have a nice day' isn't even an authentic thought, its just something he says without meaning, 'he really doesn't care about me at all in fact',' he is so bothersome and irritating how he's always in a rush', 'he doesn't ever act like he hears my 'you too / thanks' - he doesn't respond to it and he's already out the door.

I have a lot of negativity towards my dad and can be overly touchy.  I have a buildup on grievances.

Our most recent 'situation': my dad told me multiple times that he would 'show me how to turn on the bike light' that he just attached to my bike, 'because its not working correctly and I should just show you how to turn it on'.

My reaction is: I feel demeaned that he thinks I can't figure out how to turn on a bike light and on top of it, bothered that he isn't even allowing me the chance to try it myself.  He has already tried to show how to fix things multiple times, with the assumption that I can't figure it out myself.  Also, I am incredibly sensitive to him and want to avoid any contact with him.  That includes avoiding giving him a few minutes with me to show me whatever isn't working on the bike light.

 To make it worse, he is always 'just trying to help', so in his point of view he is always in the right.  If I so much as comment on his tone of voice, I get an immediate blaming 'Marissa you are wrong; Marissa I am trying to help you and you're not letting me'.  He can't understand that I Do Not want help to learn something if I am going to feel this amount of tension over the manner of the help itself.  I also try extra hard not to let him help me because I know that he wants to help me, which would make him feel good about himself, and my resentment is pretty high to allow for that. 

When my dad tries to show me things, he has this incredibly authoritative, over-acting stuck-upness in his teaching role that I find incredibly displeasing.  He speaks with too much diction, and he gets really frustrated at not having words come out smoothly.   His words spit out sharply and with excess pressure of quality and tone, and I feel so irritated in that presence.

Instead of being casual, he acts with an authoritative role and I feel below him, student to teacher.  He overexaggerates all of his movements as he shows me how to do things.  For example, instead of just saying 'move this counter clockwise' and trusting that I understand that, he says 'move this cOUNter-clockwise' with this pressured angry movement in his face as he emphasizes 'counter' versus clockwise.  In his hand motions, he over-emphasizes his arms making a left circular motion by doing it multiple times. 

 I'm so bothered as to create alot of weasling around effort to avoid those three minutes with my dad where he wants to help me.  I find his body language and speech to be ugly.  Everything in me wants to look away, flee, forget about the task he is showing me and bury it in its now worthlessness- just not worth it -below mountains of tension that I hate. I tighten up, wishing he would stop 'teaching me' and that we didn't have such a poor relationship.  What goes from something small leads to my being angry.

In my most recent situation - my dad kept bringing up this wish to help me with the bike light.  I hadn't ridden my bike in a week and didn't have plans to, so the bike light wasn't important to me and I didn't particularly care.  Also, I assumed I could figure it out myself, and didn't want my dad's help.  Some day, some day, I will tell my dad of the Buddhist notion of 'joyful effort', and how utterly lacking he is in joyful effort in his efforts to help. 

But, my dad really harps on things.  In fact, I've stopped ever mentioning things I want, like say a car squeegee, because he goes out of his way to do things that people mention offhandedly.  So, my dad was harping on the bike light, and it was fairly high on his priorities.  He'd mentioned it a few times so I knew it was pretty stuck on his radar.  On the phone, he brought it up again, that he would show me how to turn it on.  My immediate reaction is to be all sensitive about how he doesn't have the faith in me to trust that I can figure this out for myself. 

I am not about to pick an argument since I will be blamed, and I dislike the tension of arguing.   I hold it in like usual that I don't like his help because he makes me so uncomfortable, the tone, the body language, and I don't refuse his help but I don't give in to him either; this is how I am weasly passive-aggressive.  I say 'yes well, I think I got it' .  He repeats that he should show me.  I say 'yes well I'll try it and call you if it doesn't work'.  I am still withholding the real problem of, 'Come on! I can do this! YOU AREN'T SUPPORTING ME, and never have to a good enough degree for me to learn self confidence'.  He replies 'look its easier if I just show you'.  I know at this point that his perspective is - he is trying to help me and sees me as being resisting, immature, hard to work with, that I am at fault, and that he is FRUSTRATED with me.  I reply a taut 'try me', and he huffs back an angry 'Fine. Suit Yourself. Bye'.  Click.

As always, I am relieved as soon as I get off the phone with him.  I am under some conflict stress of blaming myself, 'why can't I just let things slide, I could just give him the few minutes that he wants with me?  And yet I make such a big deal about it, but still withhold the real issue I have - why can't I be better at voicing my grievances?

I'm frustrated with my dad and with myself.  I'm blaming myself for essentially, not being perfect, for having unvirtuous, not right thoughts and actions (overly resentful instead of helpful, passive-aggressive instead of active).  I'm essentially blaming myself for being imperfect and taking on my dad's blame too.

Why should I perfect? Why should I even strive towards that?  I'm sick of blaming myself.

I came to the most delicious thought ever during introspection on this and other arguments.  Firstly, I don't have to take responsibility for my dad's anger.  He can learn how to deal with his own problems and stop being so angry at me for refusing his help.  This anger is his own karma that is working against him, and I am not the sole cause of blame.  In a more compassionate state of mind, he just as easily could have not been frustrated by me, not sweat the small stuff, not been attached to needing to help me or to his role as the knower and my role as the 'don't know how to do it', and could have said 'okay, try it, talk to you later'.  Unfortunately, he is not yet at that state of mind.  In the meantime, I do not have to absorb his negative Karma and be at fault for that, too; I don't need to take it personally.   My relationship with my dad is not all about me and my faults, that's me being overly critical of myself.

Not only that, but I can be proud of myself: I was giving my dad the chance to recognize his faults and learn from them.  If I just kept my frustration completely held in and didn't try this passive refusal response, and if I let him 'show me how to work the bike light', he wouldn't have had the chance to learn about his anger.  I am offering him the opportunity to learn from.  He could bow to me for helping him, for teaching him in the kindest way of letting people reach their own conclusions.

I giggled a lot when I came to this conclusion.  Suddenly, everything was so lighthearted.  I don't make mistakes and they aren't my faults - I just give people and myself the chance to learn lessons from.  Opportunities to learn from.  No blame, no judgements in an opportunity.

I can do no wrong! I just go around helping people out, letting them learn about themselves.  Mira told me that its very Buddhist to pretend, that pretending 'I'm going to act like things are okay, that I am okay' is a very high principled effort.  My dad can deal with his own Karma.  I can go about pretending that I am just bungling around, being ridiculous, whatever I do, and in doing so, let the pressure I put on myself recede.

Another example: my dad gets all ugly and mad at me when I don't put my dishes away.  His body gets rigid, and his voice comes out chokingly tight. I am sensitive and get frightened by my dad easily. 

Not putting dishes away is practically the only thing I do wrong at home right now.  At first, I was blaming myself for leaving dishes out since its bad manners, and disrespectful even. I don't know why I have so much resistance against putting my dishes away, but I do.  In all other respects, I have cleaned up extraordinarily - picking up clothes, and shoes, keeping my room neat and clean, having an offerings place on my desk.

Then I had the thought - my dad can deal with his own karma; better yet, my not picking up my dishes is offering him the chance!

My dad is smart and has every ability to see, acknowledge, and drop his anger and irritability.  He could choose a kinder response - he could help me out and pick up my dishes in loving kindness for me.  That shouldn't even be so much to ask, in my opinion.  But given where we are at, its a big proposition.  You think big in Buddhism, and you make your Karma grow bountiful.  Seriously, this was the most positive and hopeful, growth-oriented thought for someone else I've ever had.  So, I am offering him the chance in my wrongdoing to improve himself and generate good Karma!  Its great - I don't have to be perfect, judge or blame myself, and I still am creating an offering.

I am being facetious and not trying to avoid all responsibility; I am just trying to decrease self-criticism.  I am neat and clean in a million ways of kind speech and actions, and I have always washed everyone's dishes everywhere I have lived, not just washed my own (out of this strict conscientiousness I have).  I deserve some credit for that.  My dad doesn't know I have done that, but why is he getting so mad at me about this little thing?  I don't know, but its really not my problem.  I currently have too much resistance against him to try to help him, so rather than blame myself and add to the negativity, I will offer him my faults and mistakes.  I will offer him my plate left on the table and my cup left on the desk- I am offering my real, imperfect self.   He can respond kindly or he can add fuel to his own Karma fire, if he so makes the choice to do.  His happiness and inner peace isn't dependent on my rightful actions; they are dependent on his own. He might not realize this now, but maybe he will come around in the future.  

Pretending is fun.

I already feel my resistance lifting and more willingness to pick up the dishes out of kindness and respect, instead of being resentfully and unwillingly submissive. 

What if I had overcome my prideful and resentful faults and let him show me how to turn on the bike light?  What if I hadn't offered my faults and hadn't gotten him riled up at me yet again?

Well, I wouldn't have had the chance to learn for myself and see that nothing was wrong with the bike light at all.  I turned it on, and on it went. Simple.  The conflict around it, not so much.  But the act itself in this instance - effortless.

I want to be a child - raw wonderment

I want to be a shrieking child.

As my body gets better, I want the years to fall off and to revert back to a more incredible age.  I want to be 5.  I want to run around and be delighted in my senses. I want to be a happy maniac kid, like all kids seem to be. 

Everything seems to bring me back to wanting to be a child.  I want their lack of self consciousness, which would be so pleasantly liberating, and their ability to intermingle seamlessly with peers and kids they've never met.  I want their not needing to try or make efforts at things.  I want the excitement, I want the body lightness compared to my heaviness.  I want the constant learning and  the amazement.  I want the bouncing step, the love of body movements - running, hopping, jumping. I want the crazy imagination and ability to create games without a moments hesitation, and play for hours.  I want the fun, the delight.  The stopping eating when full and looking around at stuff.  The laughing and shrieking and jumping for joy when happy.   I want the temperamental crying at anger and frustration without any self complex.   I want the limitless curiosity.  When I put curiosity together with my smart mind, there is no doubt that magic can be created.

I want to be a cat.  Cats delight in body sensations.  They lean up into things, testing weight, solidity.  They nuzzle up to people and treat everyone equally, just as an object to rub on.  I would love to just lean up into a wall and just inhale its wall-ness, and feel my body rub up and exchange contact.  I love their pushiness and their softness.  The sleekness in the body movements - cat essence is pure smoothed down tactile control. 

Dogs are always so pleasant and happy.  I guess that's just because they are taken care of.  Every time I see a dog, I pet it, I feel absolutely no wall of unfamiliarity with dogs like I do with people.  Its so much easier. 

Inward versus Outward: Conscientiousness

The main point of this post is probably to work through my thoughts on my own excessive introspection and self thinking.  Its about love and caring, and about relevancy.

While I'm not actively doing harm by thinking about myself, I am unhappy with it.  I am passively interacting with my world, that I am only such a small part of, and my thoughts about myself are completely disproportionate to all the things going on around me.  If I want to fit in, I'm going to have to start being aware of things going on that I can fit into.  Or, develop my awareness, increase my physical presence over my mental presence, and let my mentality drift beyond my current sphere of self.

I already think that I am a good person, and in simple terms of principles, I wish the best for everybody.  But things that I want in my life haven't come together, with a job and career success and respect being the main one.  I think that the main reason is that I haven't made significant efforts towards enabling other people to reach their goals, and so I haven't been reached out to in a workable manner, either.

There's a number of reasons for me to not reach out to others, including social anxiety and excessive inner conflict, and in much of this I feel a victim (again, of people not reaching out to me).  But the plain facts are that I think about myself constantly, and its obviously not working for me. 

I don't think I have to come to any large scale changes to develop the habit of thinking about others.  I believe it will simply take a shift in my perspective.  Here's why: I consider myself extremely conscientious.  I am careful to do the right thing, I am concerned how my actions affect others, I value peace and quiet over noise and conflict.  I felt terrible last night when I kicked a pebble that was actually a living snail in a small shell (I kicked it right as I saw it was a snail). 

 But I think that my conscientiousness is again profoundly self concerned, like I watch every step I make, and every noise I make or thing that I say.  So, its over the top self involved and its pretty excruciating to live up to standards of being highly conscientious, or shall I say perfect.

And, or, there is the chance of me turning my conscientiousness away from myself, and thinking about the world.  Not in my passive or inhibited way, but in a broad, expansive, engaging way.  My conscientiousness, if redirected into awareness and compassion, could do great things.  I would start seeing suffering around me and make attempts to stop it.  I would be able to think about issues, and with that same introspection, looking in, I could like in at an issue and really work it out.  

That's something I could do.  Or, I could just be, and incorporate my senses into everything I do to ease the stronghold my mind has on me.  I could just be sensual and alive.  As my presence develops, I will feel less invisible, and less wary of creating noise or disturbance.  I will be fuller of life and awareness of sounds, smells, tastes, touch.  So I will grow into my own body and naturally my mind will stop wandering because it will be so attentive to whats going on around me.  I will be anchored by present sensations rather than drifting in thoughts of the past.

Conscientious means with a conscience, so I already have that strongly developed - my conscience is ready to be used, its just under many mental barriers.  The book, the Power of Now, will probably help me with this to decrease my mind wander.  My mind wander isn't really very conscientious since its so random and irrelevant to the present.  I want relevant, and I want to matter, and I want to make a difference.  I just would hope to shift my perspective around and focus on things that I care about.  I do care about myself but I am not even showing myself that much caring while I am mind wandering, so its better that I think about others.  Its better Karma to think about others; it gets you more connected and plants better seeds to help others and have things come your way.

Since I'm very word/verbal focused, I need to think of some way to step out of the spiral of self involved conscientiousness.  I had already come up with selfless development.  What I'm going for here is to retain the conscientiousness (but lower the degree since its too stiflingly perfectionist), and dissociate from myself.  I'm not going for development, I'm just going for a shift.  Just easy, relaxed, smooth, nothing to make efforts on or judge myself over.  I'll pick smooth, since it reminds me of my sense of touch.  Instead of conscientiousness, I'm trying to feel outward for smoothness, and my body can tell me what to do.

Why I don't want to be a therapist and issues over the growth process

I love therapy and talking about people's feelings, but I don't think I should be a therapist.

How are you supposed to know whats the right thing to say to someone?

For example:  Client 'I did this wrong, I can't do anything'. 

Therapist response options:
Therapist 1: How does that make you feel to say that?
Therapist 2: What kinds of feelings does that bring up for you?
Therapist 3: What would you tell your friend who said that?
Therapist 4: Nods in understanding of client's pain
Therapist 5: Holds clients pain and empathizes with them
Therapist 6: "normalizing" says- It is normal to do things wrong.  Everyone does.
Therapist 7: "shifting perspectives to more positivity"says- What else did you do, or have done, right?
Therapist 8: How can you learn from this mistake?
Therapist 9: Does this relate to something you have done in the past?
Therapist 10: Would you like to start feeling better? Have some compassion for yourself.

And the clients possible responses:
Client 1: Therapist just asks more questions, frustration.
Client 2: Yeah, I don't do everything wrong - feels better.
Client 3:  I do everything wrong and the whole world hates me --feels worse.
Client 4: feels understood by the Therapist - feels better.
Client 5: I feel angry at myself, I feel inadequate, I feel stupid, I feel like a loser.
Client 6: jeez, couldn't the Therapist say something comforting like, its okay, people make mistakes
Client 7: 'everyone makes mistakes', the Therapist doesn't realize how big my problems are
Client 8: I could learn to just stop trying - feels worse.
Client 9: My mom told me I do everything wrong, so did him, and her.
Client 10: Yes but I'm angry so I can't - feels trapped.

etc

And in another vein, I am also bothered by the idea of self help, where you pick up and discard helpful things along the way of your never ending personal growth process..  I used to go to Shambhala for a general discussion on whatever, which always turned out to be a general discussion on self-help tips, tools, practices, and wisdom. 

And the problem is that everybody is always searching for wisdom that will make things better.  But better just isn't feasible to me because its too ambiguous.  There's no limit to betterment, and you will always want to get better, even if you are at a better state than your current state.  There's no way to know that its helping 'enough' and there is no enough!  For example, since I went to that string of yoga classes, I'm better - I worked my body, and made myself go out, so something nice happened.  But how much better?  If I didn't go, I am not worse off, but to some degree I am not better-off, right?  And if I learn and try techniques for wisdom like getting in touch with yourself, helping others, exercise, positivity, do I ever get ahead of the game?  Or do I simply always straggle onwards, looking for the next thing to make things somewhat but not substantially better?

I just don't think I could handle doing therapy as a therapist.  I want to see someone all better, and as soon as possible.  I don't want to see them a little better, or worse!  People could go to therapy forever since there is always something wrong, and I don't want to see that.  I want to help them, but not just help a little.  I don't want to have conflict over accepting someone for who they are now, and simultaneously helping them to get to their goals, to a higher/better state.  Its just too ambiguous!  I don't understand or accept the fact that there is an ongoing process of maturing growth and development.  I am all over the place with this.  If on a given day, I have a bit of wisdom that helps me out, and then another day a different piece of wisdom that helps me in a different way, how can it all fit together?

For example: 'No pain, no gain' (work hard!), 'joyful effort'(if you are joyous doing something, it won't feel like effort!), meditate (cool your thoughts), love (let your heart expand!), don't isolate, be connected (be social), rejoice, plant seeds, help others (get the focus off yourself) and on and on and on.

I truly don't understand the point of self improvement sometimes, its just seems endless, and why be so bothered as to live with an endless task?  People are so wanting to feel better, but why follow and grasp at all these little tidbits that don't fully seem to help.

I guess I am learning from this post that I need to see things more long term, and accept that there will be multiple parts included in a whole process.  But, I want to simplify! A process, change over time, and all these parts just sounds complicated.  Be here, be now, Marissa, it may yet work out.

I have the time for you

This could even be a mantra, its that good ...

Here's how it came about: I've noticed that I am only able to feel body sensations when I make significant effort to still my thoughts.  They need to slow down in order to recede out of my awareness. And when they do, I don't feel so restless.  My too-fast thinking makes me feel too restless.  And then when my thinking is slower, suddenly I have the time to feel caring towards others - people, creatures, things, and not be so focused on myself.

I've been telling myself in a variety of situations, 'I have the time for you'.  Petting my dog - I have the time for you.  I have the time for your wagging and your jumping and leaning.  I have the time for you.

This week I did a meetup event that only one person showed up to.  I didn't have a particularly good time or connect well with the guy.  But I remembered that I was there to help, that my goal is to help others, so I tried with more effort to lend him my company while we were together.  I tried harder to laugh at things I didn't like, etc, to make him feel better.  Normally, I would have been almost angry at having to spend time with someone I dislike, and fall into mute bothered conversation or thoughts in silence.  So, it helped me out a little - not fully, but somewhat.

The Meetup group is called 'Social Anxiety Busters'; its a group for shy people / people with social anxiety.  Its almost a definite that people in this group are lonely to a large extent.  The link between depression and loneliness, and social anxiety disorder is so strong its really spelled out for you; the acronym for Social Anxiety Disorder is SAD.

I have the time for you.  That's all it takes.  I'm here, now, and I have the time for you.  With that in mind, its just so easy to be caring and pay attention to others needs.

The amazing part is that, while I didn't have a great time of the get together, it was all worth it to me because at the end I got feedback from the guy -'I'm glad I came out, I had a good time.  Lets do it again'. 

I felt so proud of myself for helping him.  I had succeeded in my goal.  Through kindness, and taking the attention off my needs, and simply allowing him a decent chance that he deserved, he had improved.  All I needed to do was allow him my time and keep my mind on task, and the kindness and caring wafted out naturally.  I think that's beautiful how it worked out.  I'm always so highly wanting of feedback, and I received positive feedback without even trying for it.

And when you have so much time for someone, you just become more fully devoted to them.  I swear, there is all the difference between ignoring my dog as I came home, 'fine' to see her but a little bothered by her since I feel preoccupied, versus petting her in adoration and feeling her tail hit me in her doggie joy.

Don't believe yourself for feeling preoccupied.  Don't believe everything you think.  I think I am preoccupied and don't have the time - don't have the time to sit down and eat well or even cook food, don't have the time to watch videos people put on facebook. Its so untrue, inaccurate.  When I think about it, I am unemployed, and have all the time in the world.  But my mind preoccupations convinces me otherwise.  Instead of feeling peaceful and connected as I should, I really do feel a restless and heightened sense of isolation in my preoccupied state.

So for you, and for myself too: I have the time for you.  I have the time to care for you, and to care for you well.  I'm not in a hurry and don't need to believe my mind that something is wrong or lacking.  Its not, so long as I am making contact with something that I can support or help.  All I need is a distraction, and its up to me to choose distractions that I value (learning, helping) or distractions that I don't value (mind wander, disengagement from life).

I've gotten much better at using facebook to support my goals of helping others.  Initially I just wanted to see who had liked my posts.  But now, everytime I log on, I scroll through all the new posts and try to watch everyone's posts and video shares equally so that they know they are being viewed and heard.  I'm even trying to comment more out of the karma principle of giving what you want to get (more feedback).  I find that scary because I don't know if people think its weird that I comment on their posts if we aren't good friends, but its something I'm trying and I think its going great.

To extend 'I will have time for you' to an even greater degree: in the future, I will have time for you, and then I will grow more generous with my time.  I will have so much time for you, as the time dominated by my mind recedes and I start really caring for the world.  I will have all the time that you need - all the time for company, and cries, and laugher.  I will have the money for you - I will get better at sharing.  I will have the strength for you.  I will have the love for you, the passion for you, the support  I will have the time for you, whether or not I like you, you still deserve it; you deserve to know that you matter, and I can show you this by having the time to be attentive to you.
        It would help me out, too.

I have the time to let you discover your true goodness, and mine.

Oodles of Regrets

I literally function constantly on this stupid wavelength where I am always judging my minute to minute, and increased scale, activity and activity doings.  I go back and forth in judgment of whether or not it was worth it, what I should have done differently, what I learnt from it.  My introspection is top notch, but its also really annoying and feels compulsive.

For example, I got to the Korean grocery store, Zion, that's walking distance from my house.  I get a little lost in my head whenever I go to buy groceries.  I literally wander the floor, looking at every item, and without much intention of buying anything, but open to it looking at things.  I compare prices everywhere I look.  I look at everything with a coupon sign and nothing that's not a discounted item.  I look at different types of milk, which I rarely drink, comparing their prices to Albertsons.  I get tired of the lights inside, but I keep wandering the store.

I finally decide on what to buy - I get a small processed sweet, usually, like a red bean bun.  As I'm leaving I get strung with a million regrets. Why did I stay in the store that long?  I don't even like being in the store, everyone is Asian but me.  But its cheap.  But I didn't buy vegetables, and I am always supposed to buy vegetables when I got to a grocery store.  But they were expensive. But I could've bought a vegetable and it would have cost less than this red bean thing, and now I see on the ingredient list that the first thing was sugar, not red bean, so it was a stupid purchase anyways.  I spent an entire 40 minutes in the store and the one thing I bought wasn't up to my standards.  How stupid, what a waste.

Then I think all about how its nicer being outside - fresh air, why did I stay inside so long?  But then again, I have nothing to do today, so it doesn't really matter how long.  But wasn't it still worthless to spend that long inside, instead of outdoors, and especially when I ended up spending money on this red bean thing?  Then since it cost $2.03, I had to get $0.93 back in change, and I hate coins.

You get the point. I go through these excessive regret and judgment cycles with literally everything I do.  Judgements, should-of's, and regret at not doing what I should have done, and then false wisdom as I see how that was what I needed.  Usually, I think I somehow should have been doing something else more worthwhile, and it only makes sense to me to judge myself for not having done that.

Anyways, point being, that I want to stop the regrets and judgments surrounding everything.  The obvious way to do that is to just be present, since if you're present, those regrets and judgements aren't happening and are thus of no concern.  Things that you think about are never really happening.  They are hardly ever fixed to the present moment, even though they may be triggered by something present.  They aren't the real thing.  And they suck!  I hate going through these regret spirals where I always learn something from, like 'I should get better at knowing what I want when I go grocery shopping', and at that moment I understand a little bit more of my world.

But they never make me feel any better.  I can understand and introspect all I want, and it never seems to make things any better.  I don't want to learn and grow an introspect.  I don't want to be in my head.  I'm never trying to make things better, and there's no intention at all, its just mind wander.     Since mind wander hasn't been working for me in the past, its necessary that I learn to try to be present, since I do believe that will give me feelings that I value of curiosity and wonder, and hopefully connection.  When in contrast, my introspection is very isolating, because its all about me, and doesn't serve to open me paths to other people or things, for the most part.

I've been thinking of absolutely the funniest things recently in my mind wander.  Like, 'Marissa, you are cold all the time, think warming thoughts!  Curiosity is bright'.  I'm not sure how these fit it in because right now, my mind is at times delighting me.  But its a small amount of time, compared to the plain mind wander over past events.

I know to be true, by reading, and a little by personal experience, that being present is really a good thing and is a positive goal to move towards.  You can literally choose to be in the present at absolutely any point at any time, its not something that needs to be put off.  As in, its not something hard or that you have to learn the theoretics of, before doing.  So why would I endlessly put it off? I find it scary.  Currently, I find it scary.  That's something that can change.

If I'm Not Paying for it, Its Free

I'm having a lot of guilty conflict over this viewpoint that I seem to have some attachment to: If I'm Not Paying For it, Its Free. 

Its a little bizarre how sensitive I am about paying for things, and then how completely blaise I am about the sheer costs of things that I don't pay for.  For example, my parents paid for my college tuition.  I never once thought to myself, this individual class at UCD cost $1000, Marissa, you should really appreciate this and study hard.  I didn't have any sense of gratitude over it and I reacted to the known costs of the program with this sort of override entitlement on 'well its just free'.  I even just just recently went out with a guy and let him pay for dinner and the comedy show we went to, and sort of felt bad on an ambiguous level and didn't really consider the costs.  I was just thinking of myself, that I'm unemployed.  But how do I have any idea of what his costs are, for rent or school loans, and why would I think its fine that he should pay while I still have money in the bank?

Same with insurance, which completely covers my blood draws, but covers minimally if I see someone out of network.  I've never thought of the cost of the blood draws knowing that its free.  If it wasn't covered, I would feel so stingy, trying to ask the doctor to order fewer tests, and feeling bad about tests ordered that came out negative that would need to be paid for, it would feel useless.  But for me currently, my healthcare is free, since my parents pay the premiums and I just pay copays, and I barely think about it.  I feel like I should be both guilty and grateful for things that are free.  Guilty because, I am getting something and didn't pay for it, and grateful, that I am getting something and didn't pay for it.  But if either, I only feel guilty.

Its just infinite: my parents covered my car payments, so they are free. My parents will cover my mental health costs, so they are free.  My parents buy groceries, so they are free.  My parents pay for my car insurance so my car is free, and they pay for my cell phone too.  It would be really problematic and conflicting for me to get a cell phone on my own plan, considering how little I use it, but, I never think about that.  You have no idea how much food I eat at home, just because 'its free'.  I simply have no sense of the fact of financial burden.  And if it feels free, I feel like I can take whatever I want, so long as I'm not paying.  I even let my second doctor reorder tests that my first doctor had sent for. 

 I think it would be okay if I developed gratitude and trust in the system, that sometimes things are free because no one can do everything by themselves.  So, first there is trust that this is okay, and then gratitude that I have been helped. 

When I did the get results back from my blood tests that were positive that I have a number of severe and chronic food allergies, I took the news well, and that was great.  I used a number of positive thoughts to be contrary to getting down, such as 'well I don't really taste my food anyways, so it truly doesn't matter; if I didn't enjoy my last sandwich on bread that much then I can't make a big deal of not being able to eat it', and over feeling regret at not having found out sooner by a past doctor, 'I already would have been in a lot of pain and it would have felt too late, whenever it was found out in the past'. 

So, I felt like I dealt with it quite well and if you saw my facebook posts you know that I took the brunt of the news with a zany excitement, focusing on future body health improvement.   What was interesting was that my Buddhist teacher, Mira, said 'so great that you have been offered this practical solution'; the key word being offered.  I was a little struck.  Aren't I entitled to get proper results?  I thought I was entitled to the doctors ordering the right tests, as they should know what to do.  The thousands of dollars of blood tests that were ordered, the majority negative, didn't I deserve all that so that I could get a correct diagnosis to help myself - isn't that what medicine is all about?   But in fact, I hadn't even considered the financial cost of the blood tests which just seemed free to me, since I was paying.  Someone somewhere is paying for it! Insurance, my parents, I don't know who, the lab technicians, I don't even know how many people are involved.  And I just totally ignored it in my entitled thinking.

I'm not sure whether or not the entitlement is okay or not.  But when Mira said 'what you were offered' made me feel more grateful about it, about people having taken the time to draw labs and scan them through a computer, and the doctor and office staff for getting them back to me.  It made me feel as though I were receiving good karma from past actions; that my past efforts had made me worthy, as if I wasn't worthy of this news earlier.  I'm not sure I agree with this, and am having conflict between the scientific side of 'a test is a test'.  But wow, did the word 'offered' make for a different conception of my doctors experience.  I felt less entitled to the truth, and more spun into a million factors of existence.

Its Mira who asked me simply to trust in the world.  So I want to trust that I got all these blood tests for free, and not feel guilty about it, and not feel entitled to it, or not feel pressure that I necessarily need to help others because I was helped.  I wish to feel as though my value as a human being enabled me to have access to much needed results.  But that's not how it works - and I am hung up on why I was helped and why it was free to me.  I didn't get those results before and by no means has everything been given me that I need just because I am a worthy human, that simply doesn't exist.  You perhaps are given your basics of food, water, shelter as a result of being human, but some people don't even get that.  Maybe you aren't even necessarily granted respect. 

I want to feel grateful for all these things that I have been given - free car, free housing, free education, free/very cheap access to medical care.  I can't though, its hard, I end up thinking of all the things I lack and feeling pitiful.  I feel distrustful over these free things, that something is wrong or bad that I'm getting them for free.  But if its as Mira said, I was offered them, maybe I can disregard some of the conflict over it being free, and be thankful.  If anyone gave me a gift, I would say thank you, I wouldn't normally question it this much and get all knotted up in guilt.  I wouldn't get caught under mountains of shame at how much I was given and how little I used or shared with others.  I would be excited to open it, I would be delighted at being an object of appreciation, I would cherish it, and I would be generous with it.  I wish to be generous with my gifts I have been offered.

Buddhism Isn't About Blaming Yourself

I think that taking things too personally is a cause of a lot of inner suffering.  You've probably done it before: you say something of not a lot of consequence to someone to tease them and they blow up in your face with something they don't like about you.

And then you later learn that their family member was given a bad diagnosis that day.  After your ego has been bruised from the tiff.

When you are in the academic realm of Buddhism, you are given many opportunities to gain awareness of your mental afflictions.  One way out of ignorance is to learn that your world is governed by the rules of karma - that what goes around comes around, that your life is a mirror of your actions.  If someone is angry at you, you were angry at someone before.  If someone is nice to you, you were nice to someone before.  The implication is empowering, that you can create your destiny because your life directly builds on your actions, even starting today.  Since what you do will come back at you, if you give out positivity and share what you want, you in return get positivity and your wishes come true.

That is a beautiful notion, but I feel that the same Buddhist thought of karma unfairly creates an enormous overwhelm.  Its because people take things personally.  When people hear about Karma, and are in fact directly told that their lives are a result of their personal actions in the past, it is incredibly personal and blameworthy. 

Remember that I started out with saying that taking things too personally is a cause of personal suffering?

Here you get some poor person who is just so unhappy, they are told that their lives mirror what they have done in the past, and what do they think to themselves?  They think of their lack, of their unhappiness, of unmet needs, of mean people in their lives, of their pain.  And they come to the conclusion, its an unfortunately easy argument to make, that all of their pain is all their fault. 

Now its just fuel added to the fire.  If you didn't used to hate yourself before, you're going to have to try not to a lot harder, now.  The self blame game is in full throttle.  Now that they've begun, they could just keep going and going: the time they took something they wanted and didn't give it back is why someone broke into the apartment and stole their laptop, the time they yelled at someone is why they have a mean stepmom.  Isn't the blame endless?  It goes as far as far as their unmet needs span.

Do they feel empowered now?  Enthusiastic to create and share happiness?

No, they've beat themselves up, and they feel bad.   They can only blame themselves, since they can't blame others (since they were told its all about themselves), and someone must be to blame, or else they would just be perfectly happy beings, right?  That someone must be themselves.  Then they exist in a perpetual wariness of all that is happening that is bad because it means they have been bad.  Maybe they don't even have a right to complain about pain anymore, since its all their fault anyway, from a past action. 

The laws of karma are so personal. 

In writing this post, I am thinking about a Buddhist classmate who said something along the lines of 'I'm going to keep suffering so much in the future given all my past karma'.  It just made me gape and it made me sad (and questioning), since I really like this girl and I don't want her to feel so overwhelmed by her karmic baggage, and I think she's great.  Below is my attempt to explain why all the above is bullshit, and ways to make Karma less personal.  I want to write this post as an offering to her since she deserves it. 

The first issue that comes up is right up there in the beginning.  Someone is explained Karma, and they start thinking in the negative, this is - either things they lack, or pain they have.  They were just told that what they experience is a result of their actions.  Well, we are human, and negativity sticks with us.  A totally neutral drive except for the one car who annoyed you, becomes about the one car who annoyed you.

So, if your life is the result of your past actions, what is your life?  Are you currently thirsty?  If no - you have access to water, its because you gave someone what they needed in the past.  Did someone chat with you today?  If yes - its because you gave company to someone earlier.  Did the sun shine on you and feel nice?  Perhaps you deserve it since you like sun and you've done so many good things in the past.  Isn't it endless?  You babysat, you cooked dinner, you cleaned dinner, you bought a birthday present for someone, you showed someone a video or book they also liked.

Its just as endless as the lists of things you could have done wrong.  And I don't want to be preachy, but its a lot to be thankful for, too.

Is someone currently doing something mean to you, now?  Are they yelling at you, judging you, right now?  If no, that's because of all the times that you just were just being your good self, just checking some email (or whatever) and not hurting anyone.

You're probably a pretty good person.  You probably have a lot of neutral, or positive things happen to you that you aren't giving yourself credit for.

Its just about your perspective. 

So, stop blaming yourself and start thanking yourself.

Its good that you learn about Karma and gain awareness, and ponder on your past actions and how they connect to your past.  Just please, don't fall into the trap of letting yourself solely focus on the negative, and blame yourself.  If you notice some trends in your poor behavior, please try to let yourself notice some trends in your good behavior.  And please be gentle with yourself and try to minimize blame or self hatred about the negative.  Whats done is done, and you don't have to keep beating the whip on yourself.  That's not what Buddhism is about.  I don't even know if its a stipulation of Karma that there has to be a reason, that someone or something must be to blame.

If you assume that's you, stop because you're taking it too personally.

In fact, I have heard many a time about a healthy sense of detachment from your thoughts and issues.  It can be called detachment in Buddhism, defusion in ACT (Acceptance and Commitment therapy).  From ACT principles, people become too fused to their thoughts or labels, and are taught ways to effectively reduce the power/intensity of their unhelpful thoughts through 'cognitive defusion' exercises. 

For example, what if, since always it seems, you have been compared to your older sibling who does better at you in school, and you've come to believe 'I'm stupid'.  You are fused to that thought, you believe it strongly, it is you, you forget that there are other parts of you that are stupid.  So you go in to take a test, which is a trigger for you to have that 'I'm stupid' judgment pass through you, and you start 'I'm stupid'-ing yourself and run into trouble. 

A cognitive defusion would be to take that thought and soften it or lighten it, such as 'oh, I'm in that chapter of my story called 'I'm stupid', I should stop reading that since other chapters have been better.  Or, take the words and change them somehow, seem them written tiny, or in pink in your mind.  These are ways to take the thoughts, or the words in the thoughts and create a little space so they can't occupy your being at the moment of stress and cause undue pain.

Its true that, you do things and you affect others by your actions and even thoughts, its a ripple effect.  To some extent you do have responsibility.  But I want to create a way to lessen the responsibility so it doesn't result in complete overwhelm.  I want to lighten the perspective.

Realize that everything is vast and interconnected, and your life is in a web with everyone else.  So, you don't have to go ahead and make it so personal, when you know logically that you are a small part of such a big thing going on.  You know that even yourself, much less the world, is made up of so many parts, and so your actions are just a little fish in a sea. 

Your actions create ripples and they affect others.  Sometimes, you are going to be hit by the ripple, and maybe its an offshoot of your original ripple, since Karma tells you that what you did comes back to you.   But maybe the ripples all mixed together in the ocean.  Maybe you're just getting tossed around a bit in the mix of things.  Its seriously not solely about what you did or didn't do. 

You are affected by everyone else, because it just goes to say that if you're actions affect others, their actions affect you.  And as you practice, you don't have to meet the expectation of perfection.
You're in a world with billions of other imperfect beings.  If you start comparing your entire life history against the ideal of perfection, you know that you are going to come up short.  Your karma isn't jutting out there as an impossible ideal that you are never going to reach and yet are massively responsible for. Your karma is just a law of the universe that what goes around comes around - good and bad. 

Generalizations Part 2: The problem with Name Calling

Name calling is a generalization.

If you're called amazing, then you are all kinds of amazing.  You are an amazing person, through and through.  And you shine because of hearing it.

Its a generalization, but that's okay.  You can nice- generalize just as much as you want.  As Amie said once, it doesn't hurt to imagine your lama as absolutely perfect, we spend too much time focusing on something being wrong.  It was just an example so that I can segue now into the all or nothing of negative name calling.

There is a big problem with real name calling, it really hurts.  You suck, you're stupid, you're annoying, or what I got two days ago - 'you're nasty'. 

It was horrible.  The generalization seeped into my skin and all of a sudden, that's what I was.  It was all or nothing.  I was all bad - a nasty person.  There weren't parts of me that weren't nasty.  It was so up in my face that it was all I could see.

I was so hurt and angry from being called this, and I kept saying that I don't deserve that.  I didn't.  I absolutely did not ever deserve such a name called on me, a generalization that forgot everything else and labeled me as all bad.  I said aloud to me grandmother, ''You had no right to call me nasty, I didn't deserve that'.  'Well, you were acting nasty', she said. 

Which is when I got it a little more clearly.  I was acting nasty.  I was also tired and fed up from continually being yelled at and not responded to, and it was at 5:45 AM when I was woken from my bed.  Being told, 'You were acting nasty' - that was something I could at least listen to without putting up an angry embittered defensive wall.  It was still hurtful, of course, as it was meant to be.  Nasty is just an ugly word to say.  But 'you were acting nasty' is at least more truthful because its specific, its not a generalization.

I had gotten into a pretty bad fight with my grandmother - raised voices and high tension.  We probably both deserved it.  We each have misunderstood each other.  I've been hating my attitude, too.

I'm largely okay with the argument though, between either the argument happening or it just getting held in.  I was extremely fed up, and the argument made me realize it because I really lashed out and seriously was a call to action.  As a result, my grandmother's roommate took on more responsibility to give me the night off, instead of me martyring trying to do it all day.  It told me 'Marissa, you are experiencing so much anger directed at you because you are angry that you've been working too much, and your needs got left behind'.

I wasn't meeting my needs - I didn't go for a run for three weeks because I didn't have two hours that I was able to leave for, during the entire day.  So, my body wasn't getting exercised and I really wanted to, but was just putting it off for the job.  I also wasn't able to go out and do some social stuff at night.  I was wanting to go do a doctor for a physical, just to talk to someone else, and I couldn't again because I didn't have the time to leave.  Leaving for two hours out of a weeks time should not be a lot to ask for.

And things just kept getting worse because I didn't speak out for myself for my needs to be met.  The further my attitude worsened, and we progressed with ill will, the worse it got.  I lost the ability to say that something was wrong, thinking that a) there wasn't something that could change, because my dad works full time and can't take care of her and b) it was all my fault anyways, I should just be able to do this job since its not hard.  Together these lead to very obvious mental distress ( I was just so up in my head with discursive thoughts aimed at myself mainly all day), and bad consequences (we are going to have to hire somebody else since she's not okay with my attitude). 

It wasn't until I brought it up that I got to hear Iris's suggestion that we should hire a second person to help out, to give me time off.  I was very focused on earning money and this didn't occur to me that I could do my job, but earn a little less, but still have the chance to work and earn money.  I could not have thought of it myself at the time since that's not where my perspective was at.  I needed to reach out and get another perspective.  It might turn out that I get a job anyways, and won't have to worry financially.   I won't have to do this job at all, since I'll be earning a lot in the future.  Maybe.  Cross your fingers.  So, why all the suffering?  For $100 a day, it wasn't worth it.

Musings on Facebook: Life is What You Give To It

By the way, thank you to everyone - mostly ACI people - who posted happy birthday on my wall this year in March.  I had just gotten facebook and didn't know how to use it to message back.  I didn't realize till later they were actually wall posts and not messages.  I haven't gotten into the habit of posting happy birthday on people's walls, but I did appreciate it and was really surprised!  This post is dedicated to you.


In somewhat of a microcosm, facebook is a parable for my life.  If life is mainly about social communication, then facebook is an excellent example. 

What I'm talking about is the give/take, give/take stream that facebook as a vehicle elaborately provides.  Your level of online social participation is dependent on what you give and get.  How involved you are changes, as does how much people involve you in their facebook accounts.

For me, sharing is highly mood dependent.  Good mood, good will, I want to share.  Bad mood, depression, and I close up.  My posting on facebook is a reflection of my mood.

 Of course, my facebook life is just my real life since I'm just reporting to you whats been going on, but with some more entertainment focus.  Its not just a persona since its online - I definitely see people's personality in their posts - the guy who's into his car posts about his car, the girl who's into deeper things about life posts little images saying 'life is what you make it' with a picture of a person with outstretched arms on a beach, or whatever. 

So I noticed the very real trend of my cycling mood getting better and then worsening, occur in my facebook life.

For some background, initially I was uncomfortable with facebook because I was just really self aware, as if someone would zero in on my posts and judge me.  So, I felt stiff in writing posts and sharing to the world and I believed I shouldn't view people's pictures unless I knew them well.  So, my facebook social life was somewhat limited.  But, I was trying to expand my social life and for homework had to post a few comments and then a status.  I spent a little time on facebook, and it was kind of cool, the mostly passive observing people's posts or entertainment features. 

But I wasn't really involved in it and mostly didn't go on it.

Then my facebook activity changed  alot this month, when I moved home/to my grandmothers, and all of a sudden was totally lifted of that self consciousness around my posts.   I could just browse without my self judgements around viewing peoples' posts online versus the ideal that we'd actually just get to know each other by hanging out in person.  My ideals seriously get me down, and that is talked about in another post.  I felt more anonymous since I wasn't literally in the social sphere in Sacramento, and that kind of eased me. Anyways, I had a lot of time to spend on the computer, and facebook felt a lot more available to me since some of my judgements disappeared.


I started spending more time on facebook, and got comfortable on it, and starting here, September 2013, I can corollate my mood with my facebook posts.  I started posting more and then in no time, I was all over facebook in my large amount of open time with caregiving, and it was really fun for me.  I was newly getting to appreciate the fun of so much easy entertainment and learning what people were up to that they posted online.  I was also excitedly viewing my page because I was getting updates - people had 'liked' my posts!   So I felt even more comfortable and shared more.  Then I was getting comments and then was thinking about all these things I could say that people would see, and then I'd get more comments. 

My facebook life was upwards spiraling.  My social life was increasing because all these people I know were getting to learn about me, and me about them, and I was conversing online.  It was really great to learn from the visible proof of people liking my comments that people were reading my posts and paying attention to me, and that helped me, too.  I was spending more time on other sites too, like Pinterest and was further being amused and sharing.

Then I was going into a funk since tension with my grandmother was stressing me out and I lacked an outlet.  Just as easily as I was enjoying facebook and feeling more connected, my mood cycled back down.  What happened on facebook?   I got more withdrawn and had more of a struggle utilizing the site, feeling less free to write up status updates.  I don't want to post about problems between me and my grandmother, like her saying 'Marissa, why is the water [in the pitcher] out?' and my response of 'well I drank some, that's probably how it happened', instead of me either owning up to forgetting to refill it or being asked nicely by my grandmother to refill it since its low, which would be so much better.  But that's exactly what was on my mind; I was getting more stressed with this interpersonal conflict, and I wasn't sharing. 

When I was all excitable I was sending links out of humorous things.  Versus then when I was doing worse I closed up.  Who knows if anyone noticed, that I'd been posting a lot and then didn't post for a few days?  I don't know if you could tell, but I can see it in retrospect. 

So instead of finding an outlet, I got more bottled up and some comment like the one above just kept gnawing at me.  I felt more reclusive in my online presence, not wanting to share what was going on, and certainly not with everybody, so judgements were coming into play, too.  Posting less, I got less messages, less updates, and I saw less reason to log on so often to view others' posts or to post myself.  When I went on I was less involved and less excited, and more passively looking rather than commenting. 

Then since my mood was dropping, I felt forgotten and facebook started to have an annoying quality.  I didn't care to view people's updates since they were just doing their own thing, it didn't have anything to do with me.   The disconnect was growing, and I was spending less time online and more time in my distressing thoughts.  And since I need other people, my needs were going unmet.  So I was spiraling downward, and its hard to help yourself when you don't feel worthy.  I didn't even get a nice distraction from my mood from facebook, so my issues were constantly all fully present and accounted for, and my mood kept sinking.

When I gave (posted), I got so much back, like tenfold.  And then when I stopped reaching out to others, others stopped reaching out or responding to me, too.  You could even put numbers to it, my social interaction gauged by the little red boxed number of updates icon on the top of my facebook page.  My happiness.  The numbers go up and down and my status - my mood, changes with it.

The Things You Need to Dye / Ink Stains

There was some dry grass on the ground next to the pavement.  Where there was dry grass, there was also light colored dirt.  I was in the city and walking along the flat streets past rows of stately houses. 

I wasn't in a hurry, but I had a place I meant to be.  As I walked, I passed a woman in her front yard on wet knees, digging in the grass with a little dandelion picker.  She lifted her head with a friendly gesture as I walked by.

My body felt heavy as I walked along, with a notorious ache that I can't seem to medicate away with a muscle band heat strip.  When I walk, it feels like my muscles are struggling against a large amount of resistance from gravity.  I have a lot of sadness weighing me down.

I slip my phone back out of my pocket, as I had been doing occasionally in my walk.  But, it makes me feel more rushed, as though I am enacting a persona of multitasking walking and texting because I have so much going on, to do and to go to.  Uncomfortable, I finger the phone a little bit and scroll through a past text message.  The phone's screen has poor contrast in the bright sunlight of midday, and little beads of sweat from my fingers are dripping from my thumb. 

I swallow and feel my throat juice a little with saliva, but I'm thirsty.  I'm walking over to the railroad tracks.  I have with me a small purse with my wallet and some business cards that were handed to me in networking parties.  I don't have a business card, but if I had one, perhaps it should just be brown if it'll be drifting around in my satchel with the other ones. 

I wish the walk there wasn't so long, my clothing is feeling more troublesome in the heat.  The simple discomfort of sticky socks around hot feet is brandishing some misery today.   As I'm walking down the street from the city to the railroad tracks, its mostly quiet.  A few cars head by, probably excited to be heading out of town.

I think again about distracting myself with my self phone, or saving myself.  Neither fits the bill too well between my mood and my motivations.  I don't want to be encumbered in my task, thinking about who will have what judgements over me.  The worst is thinking about the people who don't really know me, and hear the news.

 At least the people who know me will have enough of a pained reaction to stifle their curiosity.  'Why did she do it?' they will wonder, but it will be alongside pain or fury or fear for my soul.  Or none of those things, I haven't known someone directly who's killed themselves.  But I do know how the others would react - those who don't know me and have only heard of me through others, from a smatter in a conversation.  These I have seen in family conversations, these are the ones I don't want involved in my life.  They will think about it with curiosity, their eyebrows will go up high with their mouths hung open, and it will be their news to gossip about for the day.


So I touch my pocket but don't pull out my phone.  I could tell Jennie, she wouldn't be too judgemental of me.  She might not be able to help me out soon though.  Does she have others she would discuss with?  Call her mom, or her friend, while she tells me to hang tight?  I sigh, silently thanking her for being sweet but deciding not to involve her, that we aren't close enough for such a call. 

I nearing the railroad tracks and looking to how far up in the vegetation I'll be heading.  Here the railroad tracks are dusty iron.  There are a few roadside bushes, a tobacco tree, and they look parched in the surrounding dry landscape.  On the ground is a crushed aluminum soda bottle glinting in the sun.

There's a lot of weeds in this part of the city and its where one comes to walk down to the river.  On past trips, I couldn't help but notice and solder into memory that of a shrub that seems a little welcoming to me.  Its a roadside weed, a nightshade tomato plant, with leaves that dry up in summer poisonous black seeds. 

I find my bush I remember up ahead, a few feet from the quiet tracks.  With little else to do now, I take out my plastic baggie and begin picking the seedpods out from their little niches around the plant.  I take more than I might need, figuring it doesn't matter.  I'm feeling fairly involved in my task, inspecting the pods so I don't take the shriveled ones that might have lost their potency earlier in the season.  I feel better than I've been feeling and might actually like to hear a little noise like a radio.

I'm shaking my plastic baggie so the seeds don't stick into the corners; I have just a small line of the seeds resting at the bottom of the plastic baggie's walls.  The sun is hot behind me on my back.  I hear some noise behind me as two people are walking up from the direction of the river.  I turn around to see a male and female walking towards me with a casual manner.  They look content.  The girl has a sweep of brown hair that rests loosely in a mass of large curls.  She has long arms and is dressed in a breezy sundress.  The man has long hair and a skinny frame, and he's got leather sandals on his feet under fishermans pants.

The couple comes up the road and with sudden excruciating self awareness, I look at them distantly, with my mind wary.  They appear unaware and greet me with a strong 'Hey hows it going' from the girl.  'Yeah, fine how are you?' I ask back.  'oh we're hot coming back from the river, we needed a break!' she says, smiling at her man with the smile of happy adventurers.

'What are you picking?', she asks,

 She's bending over in interest, eyeing the plant's wobbly exterior and imaging what it might be used for.  'We love foraging', says the man, talking to me, 'there's all sorts of cool stuff around here by the river'.  I'm stiffly holding the plastic bag of dry berries in the one hand, the other cocked across my chest.  Our group attention turns together to the plant.  'But I didn't know about this one ...' he says.  They are expectant.  They want a neat story about how the berries can be eaten raw or added to a dish or made into jam.  I try to imagine something about how only tiny amounts of it are used in cooking, any more than that and it will ruin the flavor.  Or how its something for a personal issue, but what if they ask what it is.  But any small amount of seed could be enough to poison them and whoever they share with.  I'm stuck without a solution to get them safely on their way, interest flattened.

Anyways, its too late and the girl is already reaching out to touch a cluster of the small black berries, maybe she wants to try one.  A thought comes to mind and with a cough I speak, and pull her hand down.  'No- they aren't edible.'  'I just use them in drawing - to dye with'.  I nervously look at my plastic baggie held tight in my clenched hand.

Perhaps they sense my unease because they say 'cool' and leave me with my berries.  These goddam hippies, I think to myself.  They'll rest in peace.




I was bent over and my back was hot with the sun shining down. 
 

I was moving towards the railraod tracks where I'd last viewed

The Revolving Glass Door

I take in a quick breath.  I was thinking about stepping out.  I'm in a revolving door in New York.  Its at the front of the bottom floor of a large building.  I was thinking about the time I was supposed to buy flowers for a teacher.  Before I've tentatively reached the tips of my toes out a little farther, I have to duck.  The door is coming now and carried on, I pick up my wintry grey skirt to avoid the doors impact. 

My breath is quickened and my neck hot under my scarf.  The anxiety fades and I am again walking in the round glass contraption.  It welcomes people in from the elements and spits them back out. Or perhaps the reverse is true - it backward spit pulls them inside with nary a welcome, and welcomes them leave on their way.

Either way, it only goes one direction around and it never stops, and a million people will pass through every day.  Everyone who goes by is trained in the ways of the door.  Everyone enters it in the same way - to the right.  The exit or the entrance is the opening and they are the same thing because, whats the point of calling it an entrance or an exit?  Some people will walk into and others will step off.  The doorway is not a place for a normal person to stay at.  There is no warmth, no one who does anything of consequence in the doorway.  It is not a place for protests or passion.  People who pass by don't rest and they don't recover in the doorway and they don't stay.

I keep thinking that I will step out of the revolving door.  Its a tremendous decision.  I would have to lift my skirts and balance my umbrella under my right arm and hold my heavy coat.  I would have to decide if when I step out, will it be left foot first or right foot first?  I am not sure that my shoes are tied tightly and the laces might get stuck in the door just as soon as I'm leaving the passageway.  
And then what?  Well, I'd have to put down my coat and the umbrella and tug my shoelace loose, perhaps with the same arm and hand, it would be an awkward motion.  I would have to retie my shoelace before I step out past the revolving door.

My body tenses because in the time I've been thinking, the door is continuing its mindless, onward path and I am in the way of it.  My body hunches instinctively and I duck and head on in the glass revolving door.  Its dusk and I am alone, no one sees me struggling with myself in the revolving glass door.  Even though I am on the streets of New York, there is no one who walks with me in the revolving glass door.  Someone else could hold onto my coat, then I could tie my shoelaces!  I could step out from the door, not having to hold onto all the things I own which are only falling out of my shaky grasp.

I am again at the point of the revolving door where most people step out and without another thought resume going about their lives.  They enter and they exit and they don't look back.  I've spent much time in the revolving door and I see the view over and over, the front and the back and the sides.  None of it looks very appealing to me.  What's the point, I wonder, of the building and of the safety from the elements and of the constantly revolving round glass door.  What if the revolving door was going clockwise rather than counterclockwise?  Would it switch direction in the southern hemisphere by the Coriolis effect?  I would still be there, dragging myself around in the revolving glass door.  Whats the point?  It would make no difference while I am in the doorway


I could leave the revolving door into the building, in the same way that people enter in the revolving door when they leave the building to go home.   Its dusk fading into night on the one opening, what's the point of calling it the entrance or the exit?  In the other view, the building has a large finished desk, and a large walkway and a small seating area. 

I could leave and I could sit down at the seating area.  What would I do, then?  Sit there longer?  What a stretch of time it would turn out to be, sitting, if I left the revolving door to sit in the building.  Maybe after all that sitting I would decide to go and walk.  What would be the point, though?  I would still have the revolving door to battle once I got up to leave.  I would have to carry my umbrella and my coat with me walking, they are heavy items to walk with.  Especially when one isn't going anywhere and one's mind is still distracted by the revolving door just exited and caught up in its ever revolving whoosh.  I'd likely as not just pass another glass revolving door on the way.

It would be best to duck it, the glass revolving door.  But it has a strong backwards-spit pull on me, bringing me in and keeping me hitting the walls, round and round. 

Still in the revolving glass door, I look out into the grey sky turning to night and in the building across the way, a light turns off.  I start to look out past the revolving glass door and wonder if someone is done with their work day, if will they now exit the building.  Perhaps I'll see them - a Black man carrying a briefcase with a large slow step, or no, perhaps it is an Asian woman who scurries. 

I have to duck as it comes again at me, obliterating my thoughts.  What's the point anyway?  I wouldn't be able to talk to that person, in the dark in the night.  That person who will just walk out of that building and, not getting stuck in a glass revolving door, proceed on with their daily motions.

The familiar glass revolving door comes in to take me around.  I almost welcome it; I don't want to be out there on that street in all that dark life that is uproarious laughter of people in New York out for entertainment. 

Walking in my circles, my desperation grows.  I look around a bit more, for the person that left from that building across the way.  I don't see them walk out from the building.  I missed it and it was my only chance and I didn't yell out, What's the Point? as I struggle to dodge the revolving glass door.  I can't understand the people who walk back and forth rather than round and round in a door. 

The back and forthers have careers, families, homes.  Those in the glass revolving door only have their glass revolving door, and their shadowed stuttering step.  Their every move is weakened by the constantly revolving door.

What's the point?  The glass door is swinging faster, more imminently involving me in its path.  It used to be a little slower and I could keep up with it and step out definitively into the elements a few times.  But now what's the point?  The glass revolving door is going faster now and its hits me more and more often.  There's really no chance now that someone would hold my belongings and help me from my doorway. So then, what's the point?  My distraught mind looks again at the same view out between the building and the elements as I circle round.

I am really engulfed in this doorway and What's the Point, What's the Point, What's the Point is insistent.  I decide to finally enact the bidding of the revolving glass door, and stop.  I stop moving and I stop trying to keep my legs going.  I never get to drop my belongings, they are keeping me in this doorway.  I stop but I can't rest and in no time, I'm facing the forward moving glass door and on its centripetal path it hits me headlong. 

What's the point, the doorway, the opening?  But it doesn't knock me out.  It just slows down because my body weight is resistance and it keeps moving around, pulling my jacket under it.  I'm terrified and my body is aching from the hit and the sadness. In my fear I am in a rush to leave.  The door is moving slowly dragging my coat, but no matter, I pull it free and I shoot out from the revolving glass door.  I exit into the building from the opening where the people leaving from their day of work enter. 

I'm not trapped in the revolving glass door but in my faint exhilaration I am overwhelmed, alone in this building and I do not know what to do with myself, so I remain still.  I don't look backwards.  But balefully I realize I am still carrying my beaten coat and umbrella and am away from the elements.  I can't seem to figure it out.  My heart is beating, but from near I hear the meaningless rhythm of the revolving glass door.

Problems with Generalizations and Ideals in Self Help

         I am noticing an issue from many of the teachings that I've gone to.  Its actually made me pretty disinterested in self help in the forms of teachings or writings like that of Pema Chodron.

It seems like there's this almost constant reference to 'the way all people act' and its added to by using the term 'we' and by talking generally about universal human issues or ways of being. 

Its very ingrained in the self help talking style, for example: 'You know when you just hold onto your anger, just because?' 'We are so focused on consumerism, on buying the next thing', 'We always have to be the best', 'We suffer because we have deluded thinking'.

But its odd, because I would think that everyone reacts to these things differently.  Maybe some people do want to buy, buy, buy.  But is it that simple?  Most people I know who do self help don't shop all the time, and they shop at thrift or consignment stores anyway.  We suffer because we have deluded thinking?  Well, actually, everyone is at a different stage of their thinking maturity.  Some suffer because their physical pain hurts.  Some suffer because they act out and receive consequences, some suffer because they are in abusive situations.  True, this is all suffering.

I would rather be given examples.  Concrete examples - a person who is suffering in some way, what specific thoughts were delusional, what could have been done differently.  If the situation is very specific and not of immediate applicability to me, then I can expand it to encompass what I have been through.  But I can't really take something that's such a generalization and act like it makes so much sense in my life. 

The problem is, you can't wrap your head around a generalization in a meaningful way.  You hear it, but it doesn't sink in.  Its around you but you can't really pick it up and wear it.  It might be nice to hear a generalization once in a while to remember that you are normal.  But for teachings to be so off in generalizations is a pity.

And this is how I came around to deciding that my ideals were in fact just a generalization, and were in fact causing me to suffer.

Here's how: My ideals are so high that they resemble perfection.  Since its an ideal, its supposed to be enacted all the time. 
I want to be perfectly kind (always), giving (always), think kindly of others (always), speak kindly of others (always), be creative (always), eat healthy (always), exercise (always), speak out against whats wrong (always), be inclusive (always), be excitable and fun (always), be curious and eager to learn and do (always).

And so I disappoint myself because I can't live up to my ideals.  I get irritated and therefore am not enacting my ideal of being genial, always.  I get fed up and so I eat, so I fall short of my ideal of staying thin and eating well. 

My ideals have resulted in my disappointment in falling short of them.  And again, the anger at myself - that I can't hold myself to my ideals because of my lacking, my issues.  I would have acted differently nicer if I felt included, etc, but I didn't because its my fault that I don't fit in with them, etc.  Its always my fault.

I'm not kidding, I need to lower my standards.

This month I attended services of Yom Kippur - the Jewish day of Atonement and remembrance.  This holiday is very serious - the chanting is slow, the words are heartbreaking. 

I dread the day of Yom Kippur services because I get so sad during it.

Its a day of ideals.  Its a full day of thinking about what you have done wrong this past year, and needing to forgive those who have hurt you, and vowing to do better next year.  To be a better person in the upcoming new year. 

Everything about me depresses from the weight of such seriousness, of my misdoings, and of my future need to act better.

Have you guessed the problem?  Acting better, being better, is an ideal.  Its a generalization, its untouchable and it dwarfs me.  Its not something I can live up to.  You can always be an even better person even while you are being better person.

Yom Kippur was different for me this year.  I didn't get myself so down.  I didn't pay attention strongly to what was said, and as I result I didn't hurt myself by focusing on what I've done wrong.  I didn't sink under the ideal of trying to do better.  I didn't get caught in the circular argument that is really a downward spiral of 'I need to be better - make more friends, but I can't because I lack friends to make other friends with, but I lack because I'm inadequate which is why I don't have friends, I suck, I need things to be better, I need more friends, but I can't help myself'.

That's what my therapist termed, 'the bind'.  And it makes you feel stuck, and stuck is the opposite of moving forward.  And somewhere in there, ideals and high expectations are maintaining the bind, and generalizations aren't helping any.

Being better is not attainable.  Perfection is not attainable.  But it puts so much pressure on you to reach an ideal, of behaving perfectly.  The pressure is undue.  Unless you are expertly compassionate with yourself for not reaching high expectations, you are going to keep feeling the pressure to keep jumping to reach ideals, you are going to keep ending up on the ground, and you are going to get tired and worn down. 

I just sat through the service.  I wasn't particularly interested in self help that day.

My Love and Religion Misconceptions

Did God create life?  Or by doing so did he just share love?

I have a dad who is atheist and so understandably, I have some trepidation around religion.  I received a Jewish upbringing that was both highly non-religious, from my dad's Humanistic Judaism group and also modern, from my mom's Reconstructionist group.

Religion was not pushed on me too much.  I was assigned to Hebrew School up until 7th grade.  It was a commitment to Judaism, but not a huge one, and I learned the culture and have some pride in it.  I also hated it because I felt I didn't fit in with the kids in my classes and my mom's chavurah (social) group.  If I went to a synagogue now, its a similar social anxiety to being at a crowded theater for a family movie, except people are dressed less casual.

I had my Bat Mitzvah when I was 13, and didn't develop any stronger interest in developing ties to the synagogue.  While both parents would be happy if I had a Jewish boyfriend rather than Christian, being a practicing Jew, or even having a spiritual life was not mentioned much.

What my dad did continue to mention, is his anti-religious views.  Such as: There is no God, Religion is just people believing in something fake, its stupid, There is no Afterlife and believing in that is stupid, I'm not going to pray to something that isn't real. etc

It wasn't until pretty recently that I started realizing a trend:  It appears that other religions (Christianity mainly, Buddhism) talk a fair amount about love.

Yes, love.  Love isn't something I used to associate with religion.  To me, religion is about community, hope, ethics, summer camps, customs. meaning, confession, chanting, praying.  Its not about love.

But it seemed to keep cropping up for me in references.  What first set me to noticing this trend was Amie's Buddhist teaching of 'make love your primary reason for all the good you do, do it out of this massive love towards all beings'. 

Then I started to requestion my view on some things I equate with religion: 'God is love', and 'Jesus loves you', from Christianity.  I haven't gone to a Christian service but I have seen or heard these before plenty of times.

 From my point of view with my atheist dad's take on it bending me with skepticism, this love stuff was just sort of wishy washy, fake, unbelievable.  It was just something that religious people believed, irrational(how could there be a God? how could Jesus still be alive and just be so loving?), almost embarrassing to believe.

Since I don't believe in God, I never had to worry about being disconnected from God in my sins, or that God would be there to choose my afterlife of heaven or hell, based on my deeds in this life, and so that I should act morally because someone above is paying attention.

But in not believing in God, here's what I miss out on continually: all the God is Love, and Jesus Loves you stuff - not a shred of it ever entered my perspective.  The being loved, feeling God's love.  Being loved unconditionally, being loved enormously, being loved in any and all states of mind, being loved always, feeling love and goodness in and around you.

In my upbringing, I never before saw the value of religion, of believing in a God.

 But I fully can see a value in believing that you are loved.  And I can see how religious belief in a God, in God's love is beneficial.  And I think that religion is a celebration of life, too, an honest-to-God commendation for all that we go through.




Who wouldn't want to be loved?  Everybody wants to be loved.

Who doesn't deserve to be loved?   Everyone deserves love.



If religion is about love, that is very down to earth.

Goodness, This realization seems to call into question my established attitude that religion is just so inapplicable or false, in its belief in God and its focus on the bible.

Rather, the focus on love seems kindly.  It doesn't seem so far off and wrong in its God talk.  It seems like of right.

Plus as I know from psychological therapy arguments, being loved gives one a sense of value, and hope, and security.  And a desire to love in return.  Which makes it even more right.

So athiests, how about you just chill out.  If someone says, that Jesus loves you, you don't have to get yourself in a knot.  Just let yourself feel it if you believe it, and ignore it if you don't.  Its not going to hurt you.

I am writing this of course, because I'm unhappy with my unreligious upbringing.  I wish I could just let the love wash all over me, without all this resistance against religion.

I know that other people believe in a meaning in life, that isn't God and isn't religion.  A belief in connection of all living beings since the beginning of time, but that is even larger than life, that transcends our world.  That probably is a life view in itself, or pairs well with religion, too.

Its not what I'm looking for though.  I want down to Earth, I want here and now and I want love and unfortunately I'm going to resist any attempts for people to say that God loves me with the only perspective I have, that disbelief in God trumps the attempts at goodwill that could occur by Gd loving people.

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