Sometimes it all piles up...
I’ve been thinking back on the past few weeks, and all the upheaval that’s been going on. There have been a lot of money problems in my house, and it’s a real problem that’s been spiraling out of control – way past where I’m comfortable. I can’t keep on like this – something has got to give.
I feel like I’ve been making some good progress, lately, figuring things out, cutting myself a break, and so forth. But then the flashpoints come, and I feel like I’m back at Square One all over again. And just when I think I’m doing so well… It’s demoralizing, and I don’t care for the experience at all. I know I can do better. I need to do better.
So, I sat myself down last night and had a good think, and I pulled together a lot of the things I have learned (and a number of things I already knew) and renewed my resolve to use them all together to get myself of the funk I have fallen into.
What I came up with is an even stronger belief in a realization I had some time back it’s that a lot (and I mean A LOT) of my state of mind is related to how I’m feeling physically. And the times when I am feeling most “down” on myself, mentally and emotionally, are often when I am feeling bad physically and in my head, I interpret those feelings as mental or emotional. And I get into thinking that there’s something wrong with me, with my spirit, with my essential self.
Here’s an example, to help clarify I sometimes have panic attacks. I didn’t realize it till within the past couple of years, but it’s been going on for a long time. I get “jammed up” … I get wired … and more and more adrenaline rushes through me, until I eventually melt down and feel like I’m falling into a black pit of helpless despair. It feels awful, and when it starts, it doesn’t feel like there’s anything I can do to stop my fall. After the “fall,” I feel sick on my stomach, exhausted, foggy – just wiped out. I need to sleep, but I’m so turned around and turned upside-down that I can’t relax, and I fall even farther into what feels like an emotional crevasse a yawning, endless crack in the icefield of my life that I have slipped into… again.
In the aftermath of my panic attacks, I feel so sick and wiped out emotionally and mentally it taxes me and wipes me out. And I often fall into a terrible depression after the fact. But then it passes. Sometimes all of a sudden. Sometimes it just lifts, for no reason that I can tell.
That’s puzzled me for some time and it’s also made me think that I’m not “depressed” in the clinical sense. Something else must be going on. So, over the past year or so, whenever I’ve had a panic attack, I’ve tried to pay close attention to what happens to me afterwards how I feel, on every level, after the “fall”. What I’ve realized is that I feel physically sick. And that physical sickness translates into a mental and emotional foggy drain. And when I rebound, I find that it tends to coincide with me getting more sleep, or eating a good meal, or exercising, or taking care of myself physically in general. When I push myself after a panic attack, though, I stay stuck in that funk until I can get my body back in order.
I’ve also noticed that when I am physically ill, I tend to feel depressed. When I am tired, I get down on myself. When I am not eating right and not taking care of myself, mentally and emotionally I become less stable.
So, that’s one piece of the puzzle.
The other piece is my autonomic nervous system the fight-flight and rest-digest parts of my biochemical “wiring” that keep me in a steady state, when they are in balance. When they are both getting their fair share of use, they keep me going. But when I get out of whack and end up with more fighting and flighting, or I overdo it on the resting and digesting, it starts to play havoc with me. I look around at other people I know, and it seems like I need to spend more time than most people, keeping things balanced. I go off the deep end a lot quicker, and I react much more extremely. So, I need to pay closer attention, and I need to be more pro-active in how I manage myself and my reactions.
That means I need to find ways to keep my autonomic nervous system in balance, so I don’t end up overdosing on adrenaline and then crash and burn. I also need to make sure I don’t swing to the opposite extreme and turn (quite willingly) into a vegetable. I swing to extremes quite easily, so I need to keep that in mind.
What to do? At the most basic level, I have found something that helps me more than I would expect basic breathing. A while back, I was making a habit of sitting and focusing on my breath before I got up in the morning, regulating my heartbeat, and chilling out my whole system before I launched into the day. That helped me a lot, when I think back. But for some reason I got away from it.
I was actually a victim of my own “success”. Things got busy at work – in part because I was able to be so productive in my chilled-out state. I ended up overdoing a lot of my activities, pushing myself beyond common-sense limits, not getting enough sleep, getting pulled deeper and deeper into a schedule that wasn’t particularly sustainable. I also got all excited about the experiences I was having, I felt this rush of zeal, and I started reading a lot about mindful breathing and zen and zazen and mindfulness in general, and it just churned up my head and sent me spinning in all sorts of directions.
And then I just stopped taking the time for the breathing.
Lesson learned. Thinking back, I know – I know – I know – that doing that daily breathing helped me a lot. Just sitting and counting my breaths for as many years as I’ve been alive, gave my brain a much-needed break, if only for 10 minutes a day. And it helped me “reboot” before I got into my day. It helped me keep things in perspective and not get so bent out of shape. Also, steady breathing counting to six on the in-breath and counting to six on the out-breath has been clinically and scientifically shown to regulate the heartbeat and brain-heart coherence, which is a prime indicator of health. So, even without the psycho-spiritual element, there’s “hard evidence” for its benefits. That, in addition to the fact that I just felt so damned GOOD when I was done with my breathing in the mornings.
So, when I got my head around that yesterday, and I thought back on how good I had felt before, when I was doing my regular breathing, I took some time at the end of the day to sit for a while… just sit. I focused a bit on my breathing, but I didn’t make a huge deal out of doing it “right”. I just sat for a few minutes. And amazingly enough, it made me feel 300% better than I had, just ten minutes before.
Huh. How ’bout that… Again, this morning, before I got up, I took some time to breathe. I lay in bed for a while, trying to relax my wired body I tend to wake up in a jolt of adrenaline, which is a hell of a way to start the day. I did pretty well, then I figured I’d sit up and straighten my back and let my whole body “talk to itself.” After all, our spine is the highway all those impulses travel through. It’s the central trunk of communication, and if it’s all twisted and turned around, the messages may get through, but they’re going to have to work harder to get there.
It was a little chilly this morning, so I wrapped myself in my blankets, and I sat for 46 breaths, keeping my back straight and my gaze on the wall in front of me. I have a painting on the wall, and I focused on one corner of it to keep my eyes “busy” and not wandering around. I didn’t get into all kinds of rules and regulations about how I should be doing this. I just sat straight and still… and breathed.
And yeah, by the time I was done, I was in that great place where I wasn’t in a hurry to get done (like I usually am in the first 15 breaths or so), and I wasn’t in a place where I was wanting to just stay there forever (like I usually am around 30 breaths or so). I was fine with finishing up and getting on with my day. All balanced and whatnot. Feeling fine and chill and ready for whatever happened.
I had a good breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen a little bit, thought about how I had gotten so wrapped up in ME lately meeting MY needs, MY wishes, MY worries, MY responsibilities that I had become blind to the rest of the world and in all the rushing to get myself to a place where I felt like I could allow myself to relax, I was running in the exact opposite direction. In my hurry to feel better, I was making myself feel worse, all the while chafing about how much was left undone.
So much for all that. I had my breakfast, washed the dishes, swept the floor, threw out some trash, and I realized I felt perfectly fine. The world is far from perfect, and who can say if or when all these wars will be over, people will find jobs, or this country will get its act together and be what it truly can be. But for now, for this moment, for this morning, I’m fine with whatever may come. I’m just fine.
Yeah, I’m in pain from the changing weather and changes in my amount of exercise. Yeah, I’m really low on money right now, and I have to choose between putting gas in the car and eating lunch. Yeah, things have been tough at home, and my spouse is just not a happy camper. But life goes on. And in the midst of it all, I have this sense of okay-ness that goes way beyond something that can be explained. It just is.
I just am.
And that’s exactly where I want to be.
Sometimes it all piles up...
I’ve been thinking back on the past few weeks, and all the upheaval that’s been going on. There have been a lot of money problems in my house, and it’s a real problem that’s been spiraling out of control – way past where I’m comfortable. I can’t keep on like this – something has got to give.
I feel like I’ve been making some good progress, lately, figuring things out, cutting myself a break, and so forth. But then the flashpoints come, and I feel like I’m back at Square One all over again. And just when I think I’m doing so well… It’s demoralizing, and I don’t care for the experience at all. I know I can do better. I need to do better.
So, I sat myself down last night and had a good think, and I pulled together a lot of the things I have learned (and a number of things I already knew) and renewed my resolve to use them all together to get myself of the funk I have fallen into.
What I came up with is an even stronger belief in a realization I had some time back it’s that a lot (and I mean A LOT) of my state of mind is related to how I’m feeling physically. And the times when I am feeling most “down” on myself, mentally and emotionally, are often when I am feeling bad physically and in my head, I interpret those feelings as mental or emotional. And I get into thinking that there’s something wrong with me, with my spirit, with my essential self.
Here’s an example, to help clarify I sometimes have panic attacks. I didn’t realize it till within the past couple of years, but it’s been going on for a long time. I get “jammed up” … I get wired … and more and more adrenaline rushes through me, until I eventually melt down and feel like I’m falling into a black pit of helpless despair. It feels awful, and when it starts, it doesn’t feel like there’s anything I can do to stop my fall. After the “fall,” I feel sick on my stomach, exhausted, foggy – just wiped out. I need to sleep, but I’m so turned around and turned upside-down that I can’t relax, and I fall even farther into what feels like an emotional crevasse a yawning, endless crack in the icefield of my life that I have slipped into… again.
In the aftermath of my panic attacks, I feel so sick and wiped out emotionally and mentally it taxes me and wipes me out. And I often fall into a terrible depression after the fact. But then it passes. Sometimes all of a sudden. Sometimes it just lifts, for no reason that I can tell.
That’s puzzled me for some time and it’s also made me think that I’m not “depressed” in the clinical sense. Something else must be going on. So, over the past year or so, whenever I’ve had a panic attack, I’ve tried to pay close attention to what happens to me afterwards how I feel, on every level, after the “fall”. What I’ve realized is that I feel physically sick. And that physical sickness translates into a mental and emotional foggy drain. And when I rebound, I find that it tends to coincide with me getting more sleep, or eating a good meal, or exercising, or taking care of myself physically in general. When I push myself after a panic attack, though, I stay stuck in that funk until I can get my body back in order.
I’ve also noticed that when I am physically ill, I tend to feel depressed. When I am tired, I get down on myself. When I am not eating right and not taking care of myself, mentally and emotionally I become less stable.
So, that’s one piece of the puzzle.
The other piece is my autonomic nervous system the fight-flight and rest-digest parts of my biochemical “wiring” that keep me in a steady state, when they are in balance. When they are both getting their fair share of use, they keep me going. But when I get out of whack and end up with more fighting and flighting, or I overdo it on the resting and digesting, it starts to play havoc with me. I look around at other people I know, and it seems like I need to spend more time than most people, keeping things balanced. I go off the deep end a lot quicker, and I react much more extremely. So, I need to pay closer attention, and I need to be more pro-active in how I manage myself and my reactions.
That means I need to find ways to keep my autonomic nervous system in balance, so I don’t end up overdosing on adrenaline and then crash and burn. I also need to make sure I don’t swing to the opposite extreme and turn (quite willingly) into a vegetable. I swing to extremes quite easily, so I need to keep that in mind.
What to do? At the most basic level, I have found something that helps me more than I would expect basic breathing. A while back, I was making a habit of sitting and focusing on my breath before I got up in the morning, regulating my heartbeat, and chilling out my whole system before I launched into the day. That helped me a lot, when I think back. But for some reason I got away from it.
I was actually a victim of my own “success”. Things got busy at work – in part because I was able to be so productive in my chilled-out state. I ended up overdoing a lot of my activities, pushing myself beyond common-sense limits, not getting enough sleep, getting pulled deeper and deeper into a schedule that wasn’t particularly sustainable. I also got all excited about the experiences I was having, I felt this rush of zeal, and I started reading a lot about mindful breathing and zen and zazen and mindfulness in general, and it just churned up my head and sent me spinning in all sorts of directions.
And then I just stopped taking the time for the breathing.
Lesson learned. Thinking back, I know – I know – I know – that doing that daily breathing helped me a lot. Just sitting and counting my breaths for as many years as I’ve been alive, gave my brain a much-needed break, if only for 10 minutes a day. And it helped me “reboot” before I got into my day. It helped me keep things in perspective and not get so bent out of shape. Also, steady breathing counting to six on the in-breath and counting to six on the out-breath has been clinically and scientifically shown to regulate the heartbeat and brain-heart coherence, which is a prime indicator of health. So, even without the psycho-spiritual element, there’s “hard evidence” for its benefits. That, in addition to the fact that I just felt so damned GOOD when I was done with my breathing in the mornings.
So, when I got my head around that yesterday, and I thought back on how good I had felt before, when I was doing my regular breathing, I took some time at the end of the day to sit for a while… just sit. I focused a bit on my breathing, but I didn’t make a huge deal out of doing it “right”. I just sat for a few minutes. And amazingly enough, it made me feel 300% better than I had, just ten minutes before.
Huh. How ’bout that… Again, this morning, before I got up, I took some time to breathe. I lay in bed for a while, trying to relax my wired body I tend to wake up in a jolt of adrenaline, which is a hell of a way to start the day. I did pretty well, then I figured I’d sit up and straighten my back and let my whole body “talk to itself.” After all, our spine is the highway all those impulses travel through. It’s the central trunk of communication, and if it’s all twisted and turned around, the messages may get through, but they’re going to have to work harder to get there.
It was a little chilly this morning, so I wrapped myself in my blankets, and I sat for 46 breaths, keeping my back straight and my gaze on the wall in front of me. I have a painting on the wall, and I focused on one corner of it to keep my eyes “busy” and not wandering around. I didn’t get into all kinds of rules and regulations about how I should be doing this. I just sat straight and still… and breathed.
And yeah, by the time I was done, I was in that great place where I wasn’t in a hurry to get done (like I usually am in the first 15 breaths or so), and I wasn’t in a place where I was wanting to just stay there forever (like I usually am around 30 breaths or so). I was fine with finishing up and getting on with my day. All balanced and whatnot. Feeling fine and chill and ready for whatever happened.
I had a good breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen a little bit, thought about how I had gotten so wrapped up in ME lately meeting MY needs, MY wishes, MY worries, MY responsibilities that I had become blind to the rest of the world and in all the rushing to get myself to a place where I felt like I could allow myself to relax, I was running in the exact opposite direction. In my hurry to feel better, I was making myself feel worse, all the while chafing about how much was left undone.
So much for all that. I had my breakfast, washed the dishes, swept the floor, threw out some trash, and I realized I felt perfectly fine. The world is far from perfect, and who can say if or when all these wars will be over, people will find jobs, or this country will get its act together and be what it truly can be. But for now, for this moment, for this morning, I’m fine with whatever may come. I’m just fine.
Yeah, I’m in pain from the changing weather and changes in my amount of exercise. Yeah, I’m really low on money right now, and I have to choose between putting gas in the car and eating lunch. Yeah, things have been tough at home, and my spouse is just not a happy camper. But life goes on. And in the midst of it all, I have this sense of okay-ness that goes way beyond something that can be explained. It just is.
I just am.
And that’s exactly where I want to be.