My Lesson From the Blue Zone

Posted on by stilllearning2b

This morning, as I was dicing fresh ginger and tumeric for a chickpea curry, I was transported back to a semi-cultivated garden I toured a couple weeks ago in Costa Rica. As we trekked through the plot on our way to a waterfall, the guides would point out interesting plants and invite us to taste the fruits and roots of what we encountered. It seemed that each description included the healing properties of the plants and it was this I was fondly remembering as I compared my small, rinsed tubers this morning with the muddy and generous roots from Costa Rica that seemed to grow with such wild abandon.   Maybe by ingesting these roots I could summon up a little of that pura vida that I feel like I left back in the jungle.

The region of Costa Rica that I visited, the Nicola Peninsula, is one of five so-called Blue Zones in the world, regions that are characterized by widespread well-being and prolonged lifespans. Research has identified the commonalities of these five, very different, zones: plant-based diets, plentiful movement, strong social connections, and moderate alcohol intake are shared traits of these happy and long-lived cultures.

Based on my experience in Costa Rica, I think there is another, less tangible, characteristic.

Acceptance.

A major storm devastated the area mere days before our scheduled arrival. Even after we were assured that the roads were passable and the resort was open for business, I feared the worst.

I need not have worried.

Although the destruction was evident in the flooded yards, potholed roads and washed-away concrete along bridges, the atmosphere was one of lighthearted determination, as people rallied to rebuild the infrastructure before the start of the official high season for tourism.

When asked, the people would speak about the enormity of this flood as compared to the usual deluges of the rainy season. They would describe what was lost and recount some of the more tragic stories. Yet in every retelling, I noticed that something was absent – there was no attachment to the story, no woe-is-me coming through in the tone. The destruction just was. It was a fact, something to be quickly accepted so that the work could begin.

The inhabitants of this peninsula have frequent training in the power of acceptance. Every year, the torrential rains wash away and the dry season scorches. Seismic activity reconfigures waterways and roadways and even reduces concrete to rubble. The wildlife frequently reminds the people that they are merely visitors, as evidenced by a matter-of-fact recounting from a woman about her dog being snatched off its leash by a crocodile.

Our resort had an amazing coffee and juice bar that seemed to be the local equivalent of a Starbucks, where people would bring their laptops and textbooks to work in a communal environment. Only in this coffee shop, the Wi-Fi was anything but a given, as the internet seemed as tempermental as a teenager. And when service was disconnected, the locals seemed to take that as a sign to simply relax for a few minutes or even an entire afternoon.

This attitude of acceptance permeated everything. The country is often described as “laid-back,” but that implies a sense of laziness that is certainly not evident. Instead, the people don’t waste their mental energy on “what ifs” and “why mes.” They reserve their energy and attention for appreciation of what they have and to shape those things they can change.

Pura vida, indeed, and a lesson we can all strive to be better at no matter where in world we reside.

 

The Problem With Always Being “The Strong One”

Posted on by stilllearning2b
strong

On Wednesday, I taught the wrong lesson to my 6th grade classes. And then on Thursday, I somehow lost the lesson I had previously prepared for my 8th grade classes. Friday was blessedly uneventful and then on Saturday, I walked into my yoga studio without any of my yoga gear.

None of this is like me. I’m always the Type A, super-planned and over-prepared type of person. My yoga bag, that I’ve never forgotten before, has two of everything. You know, just in case.  I’m the one that acted as a reminder and an alarm clock for friends and family before phones evolved to provide those services. My brain usually attends to details and dates without a problem. Both professionally and personally, I’m seen as the dependable, responsible and has-her-stuff together one.

But right now, that’s not the case.

Luckily, I’m not having trouble because of anything bad. I’m just struggling to handle too much. Yet in some ways, the results are similar. I’m having a hard time and, because I’m typecast as “the strong one,” I don’t always feel like I’m allowed to have a hard time.

I see this dynamic so often in single parents as they appear to balance it all during the day, only to collapse in tears behind the privacy of the closed bedroom door at night. They have no choice but to be strong – to keep it together for their children, even as they feel like they’re falling apart.

On the one hand, it feels good to be deemed strong, it means you’re independent, determined and resourceful. On the other hand, the moniker often brings with it an additional burden.

Because when you’re always the “strong one,”

You don’t feel like you’re allowed to break down.

When you’re always told that you’re strong or that you have it together, you don’t feel like you’re given permission to be any other way. You may be  told that you put this pressure on yourself, but the labels also promote this pressure. The expectations are there, you can uphold them or dash them.

You help others even when you need help.

When you’re the strong one, others depend upon you. Your own hardships get sublimated or postponed in your efforts to support others. Sometimes, this can be a blessing, because you’re not able to wallow when you’re busy lending a helping hand. Yet other times, you push yourself to exhaustion because you don’t give yourself permission to take a break.

You feel like you have to maintain the image.

When you’re the strong one, others look to you to learn how to push through. And you don’t want to let them down. Once you’ve assumed that role, it’s hard to take a break from its demands. And if you’re modeling fortitude for your children, it’s even harder to admit that sometimes you simply can’t do it.

People minimize your struggles.

“Oh, you’ve got this,” your friend breezily says as you try to confide your growing panic. When others perceive you as indomitable, they have a hard time believing that you are really fighting to keep it together. Your complaints are brushed aside or excused with a pat response, leaving you feeling like you have to do this alone.

You don’t know how to ask for help. 

You’re not accustomed to asking for help, so you ask quietly, or obtusely. Since you’re the one others turn to, you don’t know where to go now that you need support. You know that it’s okay to ask for help, but you still grapple with truly believing it.

 

All of us have time when we are the strong ones and time when we need to rely on the strengths of others. There is no need to be typecast in one role or the other, we can all move fluidly between the two positions.

One of the gifts I received from my divorce was the shattering of my lifelong “strong one” title and the need to learn to accept help. Even in my weakened state, I learned that people didn’t think less of me because I couldn’t do it all. In fact, I think, if anything, my increased vulnerability made me even closer with others.

Because all of us have times of strength and times of need.

It’s okay to embrace your role as the strong one.

And it’s also okay to let it go.

 

 

 

 

 

Turning Back the Clocks

Posted on by stilllearning2b

My social media feeds this morning have been filled with various iterations of the following:

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The meme made me think. If I could turn back the clock to twenty, would I want to?

My immediate (and powerful) reaction was hell, no.

I had a specific image of twenty come to mind. I was in the living room of the apartment that I shared with my now-ex. The generous space was only furnished with a cheap couch from Montgomery Ward and a large, black, hand-me-down trunk that was serving as a television stand. It was shabby and yet I had such pride in the space because it was mine.

It was a Sunday, and so I was home just after 6:00 pm from my job as the manager of a tanning salon. I was grabbing a quick bite to eat before tackling an assignment for one of my classes (which was always frustrating because this professor used an online platform for submission and our dial-up internet often wasn’t up to the task).

While eating, my then-boyfriend came through the door. As always when he returned from his work at Sea World, our pug pressed her nose into every inch of his uniform, inhaling the delicious (to her) smells of sweat, oil and fish. He soon stripped off his uniform and headed to the shower while I headed to the home office to begin my assignment.

We were in limbo that year. His job offered no opportunity for advanced, he found the work un-stimulating and the wages were not sufficient to provide for any real future. He didn’t have much direction, but knew that we would most likely have to leave San Antonio in order for him to secure something better in his field.

Meanwhile, I had already given up on my first degree choice and was weighing options for a second choice while I completed the basic requirements. I hesitated to make any firm decisions, waiting instead to see where his job would take us.

Yes, in some ways life was easier then. Having little in terms of income or possessions meant there was little to lose. I had the certainty only found in the young that my boyfriend would always be by my side. I was drifting, but also not too worried about it because time seemed to stretch out in front of me like an endless Texas highway.

But I still wouldn’t want to go back.

Because I am grateful for every experience I’ve since then, either because I enjoyed it in the moment or because that event imbued me with wisdom and perspective. And even though I would love to have the smooth skin of twenty again or the ability to recover easily from a late night, I would much rather have the more wrinkled and tired version of myself that I am now. Because this is the person that my twenty-year-old self was waiting to find.

How about you? Would you want to turn back the clock? If so, to what age?

Why the Hard Work After a Breakup Is Worth It

Posted on by stilllearning2b

“It’s not fair,” I remember thinking. He’s the one that had the affair, led a secret life and committed crimes and yet I was left having to manage the recovery from his actions. Part of me railed against putting in the emotional work to right myself again. After all, if he made the mess, shouldn’t he have to clean it up?

In the beginning, I did place the responsibility in his lap (and in the hands of the courts). I was convinced that I needed an apology. I was certain that I needed him to hear my victim impact statement. I was determined that I needed for him to return the swindled funds in order for me to move on.

Yet those things never happened. And so I could wait. Or I could try to navigate the road back to “okay” again on my own.

I chose the latter.

At times, I was angry when it seemed as though he was escaping consequence as easily as a cat navigates through a fence. I felt despair when the reality of where I was mentally  crashed rudely into my reality and getting better seemed like more mirage than realistic goal. I became frustrated when certain strategies or passed milestones failed to bring immediate relief, worried that my efforts were being wasted. And throughout, I was exhausted. Emotional work may not break a sweat, but it sure feels harder than any workout at the gym.

But then, as I kept slogging through the emotional wasteland, some strange things started to happen. Because although the work may be hard, the efforts are worth it.

 

Opportunities to Heal Earlier Traumas

While I wrestled with the pain and consequences of abandonment, the early childhood pain of my parent’s divorce and my dad’s subsequent move across the country resurfaced. I had long ago buried this sense of abandonment, convinced that it wasn’t worth the attention. Yet when my ex-husband left, I became acutely aware at how strong of a presence this fear was in my life.

The pros call it “trauma reenactment.” Others refer to it as baggage. No matter its label, the stuff that has happened to us tends to stay with us unless we do the work of processing it – absorbing the lessons and dispelling the waste. We often fail to do this work because it’s not fun and we can usually convince ourselves that it’s not necessary.

A breakup will often trigger earlier trauma that has not been resolved. It’s a spotlight on your past, pointing out areas that need attention. And if you do the work to resolve those early pains, it will help you find and create better relationships going forward.

 

Acceptance of Personal Power

I felt powerless after my marriage ended. I had no say in (or even knowledge of) of its eminent demise. I felt like I had few choices in how I handled the immediate aftermath and my basic needs. And no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t make him talk to me, much less offer an explanation or apology.

I started small. I pledged to finish an entire waffle for dinner. Or to walk twice a week. I accepted the offer of medications to calm the body and allow it to rest.

Then, I began to cook instead of just eat. My walks turned into runs, which led to crossing a finish line of a half marathon. The medications allowed me to experiment with other ways to calm my body, leading me to solid yoga and meditation practices.

Maybe I didn’t have a say in my marriage or my divorce, but I realized just how much of a say I still had in my life.

When you undertake the emotional work of recovering from a breakup, you’re learning to identify those things you can control. And even though your agency is limited to your sphere, it’s amazing how much of a difference just changing your attitude and perspective can make.

 

An Opening to Build Authentic Confidence

Breakups have a way of destroying our self-confidence. We feel rejected. Unloved. Unwanted. Even while smearing our ex’s character, we silently question if we are somehow broken and not worth loving.

Emotional recovery is a long and often arduous process, two steps forward followed by a long slide backward. It can difficult to see the progress along the way, because it is often nonlinear and even nonsensical.

Yet at some point, you’ll encounter a memory, or a bit of writing, or a picture that highlights just how far you’ve come. And you’ll shake your head in wonder even as you feel a little sense of pride blossoming within you – “I made it through that. Damn, I’m a badass!”

That newfound confidence, along with the insight and skills you have learned, will serve you well going forward as you approach subsequent life challenges.

 

An Invitation to Overcome Inertia

Okay, so maybe “invitation” isn’t quite the right word. It’s way more like being shoved out of a plane with a tangled parachute and having only part of the instructions for its use.

It certainly is a wake-up call.

In my former life, I had certain elements that I was discontent with and I had allowed myself to become content with that discontent. I rationalized my reasons for avoiding the efforts of change, but really it came down to being more comfortable with the status quo than uncomfortable with my life.

When my ex left, I no longer had the option to remain as I was. My life had been pulled out from under me and I was either going to have to make some changes or crash spectacularly into the ground. Those options certainly make the efforts required to do the emotional work a lot more compelling.

This is a magical moment. A break in the routine. A chance to try something different. You’re not settled, not anchored, not stuck. You can move, you can shift. You can even dance.

 

A Gift

So the wrapping is ugly. And at first glance, the contents seem rotten. Yet inside that mess are the seeds that you can plant and nurture and grow. And once you see the verdant and magnificent results, you realize that all the efforts were worth it.

 

 

 

Yes, Me Too

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I’ve really been on the fence about writing this post. On the one hand, I don’t feel like I should have a voice in the discussion since I have been fortunate enough to escape sexual assault or significant trauma. However, like probably all women who have experienced puberty, I have certainly faced low-grade sexual harassment on a regular basis.

My decision to write about the topic was confirmed when I realized that part of my inclination to remain silent was to continue to “play nice,” which is exactly the type of response that allows this kind of behavior to continue. So even though my experiences pale in comparison to so many, I am adding my voice. Please remember that my words are only part of the story. One experience. One perspective.

 

It was by no means the first time I felt like I was being sexually harassed, but it’s the one that stands out in my memory because it was the first time that I actually recognized and labeled the fear and repulsion that roiled within me. I was fourteen and walking along the road early one morning to get to school. I had thoroughly embraced the relaxed grunge style and was wearing an oversized plaid shirt, blue jeans and my vegan Doc Marten – style combat boots.

I jumped as a horn suddenly sounded loudly in my ear, emanating from a truck that soon slowed beside me. The three men inside whistled and made some crude statements as they eyed my teenage body. I was stunned, shocked into silence, even as my eyes started to dart around looking for possible escape routes.

“What, you’re not even going to say ‘thank you?'” the driver spewed, his tires spitting up gravel as he pulled away, the sound of “Bitch!” left echoing in my ears.

 

Like everyone, girls want to be liked, to be wanted, to be chosen. And it’s so easy when we’re young (and for some, even as they grow), to confuse being wanted in the physical sense to being wanted as a person. It means that unwanted advances can be confusing when the desire for attention means that basic rights and freedoms may be subjugated in the moment. At the extreme end, we begin to believe that in order to be loved, we have to be willing to sacrifice our rights to our own bodies.

These conflicting needs – the right to have sovereignty over your body and the desire to be accepted by others – often leave girls feeling like they are at fault for the unwanted and aggressive attention. They begin to accept this behavior as simply something that they have to learn to endure and to navigate. Just another part of becoming a woman.

“You’d be so much prettier if you [had less muscle, weren’t so smart, had bigger boobs, wore more makeup, and so on and so on].” I’ve heard it all. And the sick part of it is that the men delivering these pronouncements really seem to believe that they’re doing me a favor by delivering their unwanted opinions about me. Because in that moment, they’re only thinking of themselves.

 

“Smile,” I’ve often been commanded by men I don’t know and encounter only in passing. As though they have right to tell me what to do in order to bring them pleasure. The sad part of this is that I often do smile in return. Not because I want to, but because I have learned through experience that a certain amount of playing along allows the situation to de-escalate while I can work to extricate myself. And that confrontation or calling attention to the inappropriateness of the action only amps up the potential for real harm.

This works with those low-grade events with strangers in passing. But it backfires when attempted with somebody that you have to have regular contact with. It morphs into a dance where you have to be nice enough to avoid triggering additional aggression but not so nice as to be accused of inviting the behavior.

Sometimes, women report the behavior. Yet many of us have lost our faith long ago in anything coming from revealing our accounts. When the boys in my middle school began to use the crowds at lunch to fondle the girls, the administration’s response was along the “boys will be boys” variety. So the girls, no longer feeling safe in the courtyard at lunch, retreated to the indoor tables that had more adult oversight.

And that’s far from the only time that my behavior has been altered by the fear or the reality of sexual harassment. I used to avoid my neighborhood pool when one particular boy was present. I would only attend concerts when surrounded by multiple male friends. I have ducked into gas stations when I’ve been followed by a car when running. And I’ve even dropped out of school.

To be fair, there were a combination of events that led to my need to leave college for a break during my second semester. But the fact that I no longer felt safe in my room in a shared home after an attempted assault was certainly a major factor. And like in my middle school years before, the response by those in power was less than supportive, in this case because, “Nothing actually happened.”

I found that to be little relief every morning when I walked by posters that warned about the high incidence of rape on my campus.

 

Because that is the reality that women have come to accept. We endure harassment in order to avoid upsetting the status quo. We stay silent because we are tired of being ignored or blamed (and secretly we often question if it is our fault). We play nice to keep from escalating the situation and risking further harm. We constantly scan the horizon, looking for those who present as predators. And we alter our paths to avoid crossing theirs.

Most men do not engage in this type of harassment. And of those that do, I truly believe that there are far more that are more clueless than criminal. And if they know better, they’ll do better. Speaking up can help to educate those that want to do better and can help to catch those who find pleasure in abusing their power.