Bone to Chew On

Posted on by stilllearning2b

There are days when Tiger needs a bone to chew on. Maybe he’s stressed because of some change in his environment. Maybe he needs to bleed excess energy because the weather hasn’t been conducive to walks or runs. Or, maybe he’s just bored and looking for something to do.

Regardless, he’ll get this certain look in his eye. There’s an intensity to it. A drive. A need. It’s like he’s saying, “Give me the chewy and no one gets hurt. If you chose not to supply the bone…”

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We’re really no different than Tiger.

We all require bones to chew on. Not real ones (I hope), but cerebral ones. Something that we can use to focus our mental energies upon. A passion or a problem that needs to be chewed on and whittled down. Something to turn to when we’re stressed or have excess energy to bleed or simply bored.

It’s best to have a whole box of bones available in case some run out or don’t taste right in the moment.

Because the thing about mental bones, is that if you don’t choose one, one may be chosen for you. And it may not be the one you want.

I have never felt this so acutely than I did in the months after my ex left. Before that point, gardening had been one of my favorite bones. It was relaxing and the mental selection and placement of plants could focus and calm my mind. But that bone was taken away when I had to leave my house and my garden. And because I didn’t have another at the ready, that passion was replaced with my ex and the details of the divorce.

I would worry away the details, chew on the possibilities and fixate on the loss.

It kept me focused and bled the excess energy, but it was not the bone I needed.

My first new bone after the divorce came as a bit of a surprise. I signed up for Match.com as a way to practice dating before commencing my planned move to Seattle. It turns out that online dating works pretty well for something to focus on. I went on countless dates and engaged in many more electronic flirtations. It wasn’t sustainable or healthy for the long run, but it allowed me to bury the bone of the divorce.

My next bone was more deliberate and wholesome. I started writing. This not only gave my mind a positive area on which to focus, it also served as a healing process of its own. As my life began to expand and settle once again, I continued to gather bones: blogging, racing and recently, gardening again.

How is your supply of cerebral chewies? Do you have a supply of positive ones or you gnawing on one that is harmful to your health? If you need one, ask Tiger. Maybe he’ll share:)

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Legacy

Posted on by stilllearning2b

During periods of struggle in my life, my maternal grandmother has been my lighthouse. She has endured many hardships during her 94 years and each one has caused her to embrace life with even more passion and vigor. She showed me from a very young age that although you cannot always change your circumstances, you can always change your attitude.

I’ve always identified with my grandmother; we have similar wiring that causes us to think (and often over think!) through problems, planning every little detail. This means that we’re always prepared, but it also can create needless worry about things that may never occur. We are both driven by a hunger to know more, understand more. And we both have a memory that is both a blessing and a curse, that retains and replays every life scene.

Her lessons make me laugh, as they never come in the expected form of words from a grandmother to a child. Her wisdom is transmitted through quips and actions that reveal the astuteness beneath. Here are a few of her pearls and the gifts beneath.

Tenacity

When I was in second grade, I was assigned a project to collect and identify seeds from several different trees. As an overachiever, I was not content to simply utilize the trees around my home in Texas, so I asked my grandmother to send me some from Wisconsin. A few days later, I opened an envelope with an assortment of seeds and a handwritten piece of paper detailing their origin. I promptly glued those seeds along with their southern relatives on a piece of poster board, labeled each find and turned it in. I was done. But grandma was just getting started. For the next three years, I would periodically receive an envelope filled with more seeds. I don’t think she stopped until she had collected genetic material from every tree in the state.

Play

One of my favorite memories of my grandmother is from a visit when I was a teenager. All of the cousins were present on this visit and the decision was made (probably for sanity’s sake) for the entire family to go to the water park. I assumed my grandmother, who was around 80 at the time, would elect to stay home or, at the very least, stay with the bags and the baby while the rest of us tackled the slides. I could not have been more wrong. There is something about the sight of an 80-year-old woman squealing with joy beneath her flowered swim cap going down a water slide that makes everyone smile.

Openness

I first moved in with my ex husband when we were just 19. I was nervous about my grandmother’s reaction. And shocked when I received it. One day, mere weeks after moving in, I received an envelope with a check for $200 (a fortune to two 19-year-olds just starting out) and a note that read, “This is a gift in stages for a marriage in stages.”

Curiosity

I think my grandmother could probably secure a job as a presidential advisor. No, seriously. She craves knowledge like a retriever follows a tennis ball. When mobility issues started to keep her home more, she found ways to bring the world to her. It’s not unusual for her to know about a weather event or other news story in my area before I do. Even though she has never been able to visit me in my 15 years in Atlanta, give her a map and she could plot every place I’ve ever lived and worked. Let’s just say we should all be appreciative she uses her powers for good, not evil.

Defiance

I have always been a rule follower. My grandmother is a rule breaker. No need to alert the police, she doesn’t speed or jaywalk or anything of that nature. But she also doesn’t let other’s rules box her in. Women aren’t supposed to do that? Hogwash. I’m too old? Watch this. Oh, I’m not supposed to think that way? Tough. At times, she has faced consequences for her actions, but she doesn’t waver.

Acceptance

I made a trek to Wisconsin mere weeks after Brock and I started dating. When I saw his picture on my grandmother’s fridge, I was a bit startled. It seemed too soon; I wasn’t sure this guy deserved a place among the family yet. “Don’t worry,” my grandmother replied to my inquisition with a smile, “It’s not up there with glue.”

Gratitude

My grandmother has nursed enough people to earn an honorary RN. She has survived the death of two husbands. She kept her family going through the depression and other hardships. She faced more obstacles than a participant in a mud run. And the amazing part? She never complains. No matter what life throws at her, she turns it over to see the positives hidden beneath.

Her legacy is in her lessons, now passed on to her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and anyone else who has crossed her path.

 

 

 

Be A Hill Climber

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When I trained for my marathon a couple years ago, I made a big mistake.

Before the official race training began, I would run 20-25 miles per week on the roads and trails around my house. Some days, I would run long and flat whiles others would be shorter yet much hillier. As the training intensified and the required mileage entered into the daily double digits, I slowly changed my patterns. You see, the marathon was being held in Savannah, a city whose only hills come in the form of bridges. So, I reasoned, I don’t need to train on hills for the race. All I needed to be able to do was run 26.2 flat miles.

It was all too easy to forsake those hills. After all, when you’re already facing 3 hours of running, the last thing you want to do is add any additional difficulty.

But it was a big mistake.

I didn’t realize it at first. The runs were progressing well and the injuries were minimal. My speed work was improving my pace and my endurance. But avoiding the hills was beginning to have a negative effect behind the scenes. My hips and glutes became weaker, the level surfaces not enough to challenge them. My stride changed as other muscles compensated for the deficient ones. Tendons became irritated and inflammation set in.

By avoiding the challenges, I had allowed myself to become weak.

Hills serve a purpose, both in running and in life. They teach us how to dig deep, switching into a different gear in order to power through. Hills help us understand that periods of intensity are followed by periods of rest and that no struggle lasts forever. Hills build fortitude and perseverance as we grow stronger to meet their demands. Hills provide perspective, making the level ground of life seem tame by comparison.

So be a hill climber.

Rather than avoid life’s challenges, face them and grow stronger.

And then, who knows, one day you may even be ready to tackle mountains:)

 

 

6 Reasons You’re Struggling to Move On After Divorce

Posted on by stilllearning2b

You say that you want to move on, putting the divorce behind you and getting on with your life. You claim that you want to feel better, to stop crying and start living. Perhaps you even pronounce that you’re over your ex and that you’re ready to start looking for someone new.

Yet that desired progress isn’t happening.

The life you envision isn’t unfolding and instead, you find yourself stuck. Anchored in the muck and mire of the divorce. Not a member of your old life, yet not yet fully living in your new one.

It’s easy to make excuses for why you can’t seem to move on. You’re angry, and rightfully so, that your life plan turned out to written in disappearing ink. Maybe your ex cheated, stealing your ability to trust along with your imagined future. Perhaps your bank account is anemic and all of your energy has to go to replenishing its stores. You might have endured horrible court battles that wounded you and your children. You may be adjusting to life as a single parent or a sole breadwinner.

But those are all excuses, bindings that keep you lashed to the past. After all, it’s easier to say, “I can’t move on because of (insert favorite excuse here)” rather than shouldering the responsibility of moving on by yourself.

So, here is your metaphorical slap across the face. This is the advice you’ve needed to hear, but your friends and family are too nice to say it. But I’m not your friend. I’m someone who has been there, done that and now makes the T-shirts. I am okay with making you a little angry if it helps to make you better.

I’m also not going to tell you to “get over it.” I find that phrase insulting and shortsighted, only uttered by people who have never felt a certain depth of pain or who prefer to bury it rather than address it. But even though there are some things you don’t just “get over,” you don’t have to let them hold you back.

If you’re having trouble moving on, you’re probably doing at least one of these things wrong.

Forgiveness

My response to people encouraging me to forgive was one of indignation. How could I be expected to forgive? He deserved all of the wrath I could send his way and then some. How dare someone tell me I should let that go?

But they were right. By refusing to forgive, I wasn’t hurting him. I was hurting me. I was allowing myself to be a prisoner to his actions and allowing them to dictate my feelings. Forgiving him was a gift of peace to myself.

Forgiveness isn’t a pardon. It acknowledges the wrongs and then wraps them in compassion and acceptance. Forgiveness is an inside job, quietly accepting the apology you never received.

Forgiveness is a difficult road. But you’re worth it.

Grasping

When we lose everything, it is human nature to grasp onto whatever remains. And, often in the case of divorce, what is left is the pain. And so we hold onto that pain, claim it. Own it. Defend it. Even feed it.

That pain can become our identity. I remember how I would receive care and kindness when I was hurting, yet would be comparatively ignored when I was not. It’s tempting to stay in pain, to allow others to continuously nurture our wounded hearts.

But is that really what you want? To be the hurt one? The weak one? To be so determined to lay claim to your pain that you do allow anything or anyone else in? Releasing that pain is strangely scary. It’s willingly loosening your grip on your past and trusting that you’ll land safely.

Let go. It’s worth it.

Associations

Do you have triggers that are like a time warp to the past, pulling you back to moments of agony and anxiety? I do. In fact, I would say this has been my greatest challenge — learning to respond from the present and not from the past.

Even though some healing is passive, slowly softening with the passage of time, triggers are often more resistant. They take repeated attention and deliberate action to remediate. Triggers and associations are not inevitable; you can retrain your brain.

It takes work. But you’re worth it.

Continue to read the rest.

 

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Asphalt

Posted on by stilllearning2b
curious

“Mommy, what’s asshole?”

Or at least that’s what my mom’s friend thought she heard her three-year-old ask. Believing that age-appropropriate honesty is the best policy, she replied with a brief description of the literal meaning followed by  the fact that it’s used in a derogatory way. “You shouldn’t call people that,” she finished up, feeling satisfied with her response.

“Oh,” her son replied, looking puzzled. “Johnny said it was the stuff they put on the road.”

 

We hear what we expect to hear.

We see what we expect to see.

 

We reach conclusions before the end and we compose responses before we listen.

 

But you can change your approach. As with anything, practice makes better.

 

So, today, practice being curious.

See with your eyes rather than your assumptions.

Listen with your ears rather than your judgements.

Practice being comfortable with unfinished stories and responses unsaid.

 

Be inquisitive.

Be attentive.

Be receptive.

And be ready to be surprised.

Things are often not as we perceive them to be.

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