Moment to Moment

Living moment to moment is part of my lifestyle.  I drift along.  In some ways, I'm not in the present moment at all because I am so focused within my thoughts and only partially attending to the present moment.  But this post is about the tendency to be, while in the present, constantly wistfully wishing to either be at another moment, or not fully acclimated to the changes between the present moment and the past moment.

Here's an example of what went on through my head today at various times.  The point is that, at the time, that thought was the only thing going on.  How could I possibly make these mood and thinking pattern transitions on a daily basis?  They swing around, approaching such great highs and lows, and are encumbered by being a constantly pleasure seeking being.

Wake up: Uggghhh I don't want to be awake, I'm in so much pain...  I will stay in bed.  Much conflict about waking and not wanting to.  5 minutes later, less bleary, in pain, but less intense.  10 minutes later - up out of bed, and stressing about missing the meetup.   12 minutes later - in the car, stressing about the windshield being frosted over and being unable to see.  14 minutes later - being mad at myself for misunderstanding the freeway entrance sign.  15 minutes later - happily on the freeway without traffic.  16 minutes later - at meetup REI destination, smiling to meet new people, and making a sorry lame 'sorry I'm late'.  20 minutes later - 2 hours later - thought wandering through a long car ride over therapy, Susie, being neurotic, why I have perfectionist tendencies, Debbie saying 'if you close off one end of the spectrum (the lows) you don't get to feel the highs, and Dr. Soulier saying 'sometimes therapy has to drag you through the mire" and a zillion other thoughts, mindless introspection.  Spend the car ride being sad my car ride mates aren't talkative, wistful for something more out of the present moment.  Then introductions when we arrive and its nicer.  Then the hike and I'm cold.  Then I'm hot.  Then I'm talking a little, then not.  Then at lunch wondering who to sit with and not being talked to / with, and wanting food.  Then after lunch realizing food would've made me tired.  Then worrying about who to ask for a ride back and if that would be rude. 

Okay this is only a tiny amount of my thoughts.

I just wanted to explain how I'm always stuck in the present moment.  And it just changes all the time. 

I just had such a cute moment with Sammie, my roomates son.  Just now. We typed this onto the keyboard - I pointed to the key to type, he hit the keys:

drew is 3 years old.

!!!!sammie is  5 years old!!!



 Now its over and another moment has begun.  Its like they say in Buddhism, just a constant shift and change of thoughts, feelings, emotions, as fickle as a breeze.  They also say that enlightenment is (like heaven) permanent, lasting. 

I think there is something vicious about the way the moments change from second to second.  You are always subject to and at the whim of the present moment, be you hot/cold/angry/irritated/joyous/worried/neutral.  Its definitely something I realize while I read back on my journals - how totally variable my moods are.  So, is anything real?  Do any of my emotions and feelings, as intense as they are, have any sense of long term value?  Doesn't this dehumanize them, deintensify, deconstruct, weaken, what I believe to be true?  Isn't it all a fleeting moment?  I'm so bothered by this, and powerless to change it.

Here's what I cannot change, unless I get a seriously different viewpoint from someone.  Time is unidirectional.  Its linear, it only expands out in one direction (to the right).  You are always moving forward into it.  You can't see it or feel it, but its there.  You know because every moment is different than the one before.  I truly can't explain this concept.  Time extends and you are always falling face forward into it, tilting into something that can't hold you up.  And as scary as that sounds, there is literally no evidence for me, at all, on a daily basis, that time exists.  My face will forever look back at me just as I remembered it a second before.  Yes, different from my face 10 years ago.  But between yesterday, today and tomorrow, what has changed?  Has time really gone by.  Or have I just been living in a timeless universe?  I'm fundamentally confused.

As I wrote this post, a slight contradiction to this is that I can see that things change - if I cut myself, the wound will heal, soon enough.  That is a much smaller timescale than what I was thinking about with seeing your face change from a young to old person.  I guess my acne changes too, on a daily basis.  But, these changes still occur in what me feel like some void, it just feels like drifting.

Yet again, drifting comes up as a word.  Drifting through my life making no connections or attachment, and without responsibilities.  And now, drifting through life without feeling that time is really happening.  What would be the opposite of drifting?  Being anchored.  Being anchored is being attached, and being connected to what I'm attached to, to being within an ocean of life, having people on a ship I am anchored to.  And, that being stable, no matter what the ocean weather throws out at me, a storm or squall, etc.  Look, I made a metaphor. 

Its in pursuit of connection that I follow the phrase: At some point it becomes more fearful to be stuck as a bud than to emerge as a flower. 

And in wanting to part of others lives, I have to learn to share of myself: To learn is to be education, but to become wise it to share what you have learned.

When I start explaining things to people, I really start learning.  I look forward to that.

josh  is 1 year (how big is Josh?)

 

Self Awareness: I Look at You, I See Myself

This post is about the concept of self awareness.  In some ways I think it defines me even more than anxiety.  Self awareness can feel awkward, brutally awkward when your self awareness involves self judgement.

I think it hit me as an epiphany one day that all this time I spent looking out at the world, scanning, what I was seeing was other people, versus what they were seeing was me.  So, I had the self-as-object looking out view, in addition to the self-awareness-of-self-object-looking-out view. 

It was a wierd thing to become aware of.  It made me hyper aware of myself, knowing that I was being looked at as an object of attention.  I started being aware of my facial expressions alot more. 

Twice Removed From Society - a post on the sheer anonymity of life

    I'm writing this post to reflect on partly why I have such fears in my life and my experience of being human.  This post reflects a staple of my existence - drifting, terribly throughout my life as I interact with the world in a state of anonymity and loneliness.  I'm forever trapped because the world confounds me in how vastly large it is, it supersedes everything that I as one person can contain.  Life is by nature teeming and overwhelming.
 
     I hate traveling, because I get lost and fearful in feeling such vastness.  Unfortunately, when I travel, I become intimately and fearfully aware of the magnitude of persons living.  Its an intricate web of life, and between societies, states, professions, and personal freedoms, it is dizzying.  Due to my lack of belonging, I feel a void, a chasm, between me and the next thing.  Its false because everywhere I go, people could have moved from or to, come as kids or transplanted as adults, be on vacation, etc.  And to each person there I accept them, unquestionable, as being a part of it.  Versus I don't apply the same logic to myself; they have every right to be there, so why shouldn't I?

     Lack of connection is so painful, and there are so many scales it operates on.    First to my family - or to (lack thereof) friends and close relationships.  Then there is lack of connection to a social or spiritual group or employment.  Then there is a lack of connection to my place- to where I live.  It feels as if I'm just drifting here among so many others, and that since I have no reason to be here versus elsewhere, I don't have any claim to be here.  And that makes me feel anonymous, and that anonymity contributes to loneliness and despair.  It is odd because I do pay for my rent and so do have a right to be here, in this house.  But then I get stymied - why not live anywhere else? At any other house?  Just because I have chosen this one spot, randomly really, ...

    I'm convinced that my life is completely anonymous. Why do I feel this way? This is a byproduct of society being far too large and complicated of a web from the point of view of me, a solitary individual. There are simply so many facets of my life that spills over into and onto and through society. I can't very well see where the borders are all blurred.  Its obvious that I'm interacting with society on so many scales, but, I just don't feel as though there's a place cut out for me, specifically, a niche that I can feed on and live on, and thrive in.  Without that little cutout for Marissa, a little spot spooned out for me to inhabit, and me alone, it feels anonymous as though I just chose a little veined area on the surface of a cantaloupe to call ' this is my life'.  I don't want to decide these things.

    Some examples of anonymity that get me flustered: the anonymity of traffic, traffic lights and roads that you cross but don't leave your mark on, everyone does this, use but not personalize, the anonymity of being a consumer in modern culture, or buying goods by money without having to work to make the goods.  Money enters and exits your wallet.  When you go into a store, you have a purpose and right to be there.  But what if you don't have money?  If you're just window shopping?  The store is simply a vehicle for you to choose and then take home your various wants and needs.  Nowhere in that supply chain exists belonging and caring. 

   Commercialism and modern culture sets us up for anonymity, too - there's no one behind  a screen, no one who you have to contact with to send signals and communicate that you are in fact responsive to what is being broadcasted.  Rather, commercials go out to everyone - with equality, the same commercial to everyone, but without respect to individualism.  All consumers are treated the same, and same with in stores.  This conformity, such as all products in a Target chain store being the same, leads to the individual feeling at a loss for personal connection.  I know this isn't the case for local and independent stores however, where the employees are in it for the long haul along with the customers.

   But there is definite anonymity in public spaces - designed to be seen and enjoyed by the masses, then left as is.  They are always clean and yet unattended by cleaning staff; often you don't see the caretakers (janitors, etc) and don't acknowledge them if you do.  You are expected to pass through as do dozens, hundreds, thousands, etc of people a year do too.  Same with public transit - get on, get off, don't cause a ruckus, and that is acceptable and desirable to society.  Transportation networks and public transit are to me a hugely anonymous creation although I admit they have massive benefit. 

Where do these rules and laws come with that I should expect anything different from society?  The angst, the pain, the anguish, I can imagine it different, can't I?

A Common Therapist Lie - They'll Give You Time to Open Up

In writing this post, I simply want to expose a lie that I've seen a multitude of times in therapy, that doesn't make very much sense, really.  Therapists tell you on their webpages that therapy goes at your own pace - that you open up if and when you want to.  They say that therapy takes time, and they give respect to the time it takes to form a relationship that you feel comfortable and confident in, enabling you to open up.

Well, if that is that case, then why does every therapy session begin with an intensive assessment of your problems or issues, where you will be asked everything?  Your first session will typically be an overview of - issues in your family, your life, your outlook, how you behave with your family, etc.  No, you won't delve into these problems, because its only an hour long.  But, yes you most definitely will touch upon and bring up things that are of immense psychological value to you.  And you will do all this in the company of someone you just met, who has barely shown you their personality?  For myself, in the first session I've had to talk about anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and how I behave with my family, which I don't tell anyone about!  And again I'm saying on the very first session, which you rarely will strike up anything close to a confident relationship with someone.

I think that first assessment is completely bizarre in respect to the raw volume of emotional, deep, dark data that is asked of the client to tell. 

I've had to do this multiple times because I've gone to a lot of therapists.  They almost all do this - they ask these structured intake assessments.  On the first session, they do not really show their personality or belief of the world, and as a client you are left without change.   And, you are at a loss for what just went on, which is total disclosure and frequently, shame at having to divulge so much, perhaps with someone you don't even like or feel neutral toward; someone you certainly don't feel like telling your life story to.

And on top of that, you are paying for this first session, going out on a limb talking to this person you have never met about all these scary things; and you are left with little idea of what therapy is like with this person.  They just asked you so many questions to get things out of the way, that they did not begin the therapy itself - the change of outlook that will enable you to enrich your life.  So after that first session, you have volunteered and been asked of so much, and you get so little in return.  You can only guess what this person may have in store for you!  Will they be an incredible benefactor?  Or will they be run of the mill?  You don't know.  


Also, I'm getting pretty sick of the therapist contributing empathy to the equation, it is starting to feel insincere to me.

Attachment Relationships

A burgeoning concept in psychology is looking into early childhood relationships by way of attachment.  Attachment is the non-physical, metaphorical, but stronger-than-steel bonding between people.  I think for the purposes of this we will stick to attachment to a specific person. 

The most basic attachment for humans to have, is mother-to-baby.  The mother rocks the baby, cares for this tiny creature day and night, and in time a bond of attachment forms.  And it persists; connection is lifelong. 

The psychology of attachment is meant to explain how many of us go about in our relationships.  What it comes down to is being comfortable as yourself, and this allows you to mingle with others and form deep attachments to them.  But the reason that people can form deep attachments in the first place, is growing up with a sense of that deep mother-child connection.  Being part of that relationship is the most basic attachment.   That feeling of inherent worthiness as the object of love allows for self worth and self esteem to form. 

Because of the attachment, a person is not alone in their world.  This enables them to have the self confidence to reach out and be further enveloped into relationships.  One who belongs, is not alone.  I say this from the other side, knowing that lack of attachment furiously contributes to my utter pain and desolation.  Without attachment, I am suffering 'privation'- the unknowing deprivation of not having a basic need met.  I who lives without attachment barely knows how to contend with my life, being it is furiously large and potently complex and distanced from myself.   Whereas attachment creates positivity, optimism, belonging, allowing one to move further up the rungs of self development, lack of attachment creates insecurity, low self esteem, loneliness. 

Is the human condition one of loneliness?
Without attachment, surely. 

There are multiple questions I want to bring up:

1) Is life easier for people who are religious?  Do they know from being raised that the love of God is in them?  Does that mean that love of God is in fact a type of attachment?

I ask this because I have always been jealous of religious people who say things like 'Jesus loves me', or 'I have faith/trust is God's love'.  To me, this sounds like they have an attachment to a God figure.  Perhaps this is another form of attachment that allows someone to be kept in a web and prevented from loneliness. 

How are people better off with the love of God?  How worse? or does this add conflict from having to always be right, because someone is watching?


2) The second question is about attachment being a two way street, and where does it work and when does it fall out of sync.  We talk about attachment as a concrete thing - its there.  We talk of it like you have it, or you don't.  Once you are attached is there a line crossed that can't be returned into unnattached territory?  Is it permanent?

In reality I think that attachment has to be a gradient, since everything in the world works on a gradient.  There are people who are more deeply and utterly attached than others.  Some people's attachment could be more related to commonality, some to personality, some to gratitude to the other person, some to being held and comforted, with a more physical aspect. 

My main question is, is attachment on a gradient, and if so, how does one get more of it?  How does someone know if they are attached, and if their attachment is as strong as it could be?  Will we be left always wanting more attachment because it feels good?  Is their a point where some degree of attachment is enough, and does that vary person to person?

My other main question is, given that some people are lacking an attachment, what of their past and future?  If attachment is a two way street from mother to child, why do we talk about it in terms of the child/baby.  Really, we need to think about the mom's style of attachment and the ease to which she attaches to the offspring.  What if its not the offspring's 'fault' for having a poor attachment style, what if the mom isn't forming a bridge, due to her own past experiences and attachment styles?  Or is the bridge always open, and its the baby who takes or does not take to it?  Can something be done to help mothers who haven't experienced strong attachment before, and how much should this be taken into account?

I'll end with a couple quotes I've heard recently:

Brene Brown - You are wired for struggle (to a baby), but you are worthy of love and belonging.

Jennie my therapist to me:  You seem okay.

Louis Sachar- Wayside Stories - Love creates more love, the more you have, the more you can give away.