I notice that "awareness" keeps tugging at me. I will have little snippets throughout the day when I recall MBSR. I will then stop for a moment and notice my breathing, try to note the sensations in my body, and how I am feeling. Then I try to sit with it for a few seconds or a minute, until it becomes too painful. When I am still and quiet and move inward to awareness, the pain of my thoughts becomes to great and I have to stop. It's like Godzilla is thrashing through my mind. I find it immensely difficult to be present because of the Negative-thought Godzilla rampaging a whirlwind through my mind. I spent years creating a city within my mind composed of resilience, meditation, emotional openness, open-heartedness, yoga, psychological healing, exercise, ancient wisdom. The grid was filled with exit strategies and coping skills: massage shops, TCM clinics, psychologists' offices, a plethora of ice cream shops and sugar mills that were camouflaged and perfect for hiding out, and gyms to keep me strong and undo the "hiding out" times. With running and cycling paths all over the city (in fact, my city is completely car-free and 100% green with solar and wind power), I always had an outlet for stress and a way to maintain physical well-being. In fact there was an ocean right in the city center so I could lie on the beach with a Bushwhacker or SCUBA dive. Instead of gas stations or convenience stores, there were libraries on every corner with windows stacked full of self-help, spirituality, and yoga books (the stores were slightly dark because of this, but rather cozy because they were lit by candles and other warm ambient light). I had everything covered, or so I thought. Unfortunately, NTGodzilla has been running free for the past few years, I can't seem to catch him or stop him or trap him, and so my city has gradually become crushed ruins, not to mention the heaping piles of negative-thought-shit he has dumped on the streets. They stink! And so it follows that my health, optimism, resilience, ability to stay present, energy-level, communication skills, ad nauseum, are likewise in ruins. Now, blizzards of sugar blow through the streets, creating a temporary calm and quiet withdrawal. These inundations are only broken by tsunamis of wine that wash away any feeling that the blizzards have not numbed. But as with all of life, the numbness is only temporary, just like the joy. But slowly, I will rebuild and come back to what I know. I will continue to try; I haven't given up yet. I hope and pray that the MBSR course will bring me back toward my center and my Self, reigning in NTGodzilla and transforming him to a harmless beast that is observed with compassion, like a Dalmatian pup. Yeah, that would be a much easier companion to watch and control. Then I could have OTSpots (Observed-thoughts Spots) bouncing around my brain, causing less damage and pain. Just have to worry about a little puddle now and then, rather than all-out sacking. As I wrote this post, I was thinking about neuroplasticity and how my coping mechanisms have changed over the years; how ongoing trauma and bouts of depression have changed those abilities -- simply decreasing my resilience to stress and making the falls into darkness quicker and harder. I was wondering if the pathways in my brain had been damaged to an irreversible degree, when the thought of Godzilla rampaging through a city popped up ... what a perfect allegory ... and brilliant, thank you very much!
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Video courtesy Giphy and the Conan O'Brien show
The official GIPHY channel for Team Coco. Watch CONAN weeknights @ 11/10c on TBS Network. #CONAN
Trauma reduces your resilience to stress and hardship.
Previous bouts of depression increase the chances that a person will more easily and quickly fall into depression again. In trauma, anxiety, and depression, your brain gets rewired into a holding pattern in negative experiences and reactions; AKA, neuroplasticity. With all these cards stacked against me, it is no wonder that the daily challenges of living as an expat in China, combined with stress of being a teacher in a dysfunctional school, topped with working with a toxic, bully co-teacher ... leads to me feeling like Conan looks above, starting at 6am and going full throttle 5 days a week. When the weekends come, I just want to curl up on the couch, drink wine, eat ice cream, write, and stay in my apartment. Oh, actually, that desire happens every day at the end of the workday, too! Oh yay! Oh, I forgot to add that I've been living across from a condo construction site since September, and there are no noise-pollution regulations here (and in general, no or poor any-type-of-pollution regulations in China), which means I have been awakened by pole-driving and drilling at 5:45am every morning -- 7 days each week, 365 days per year because they do not halt construction for any holiday or on weekends. And yeah, the noise continues until or after 9pm each night. And yes, I have $300 Bose noise-cancelling headphones, sound-dampening blackout curtains, sleep with earplugs.... blah blah blah and I still am awakened on weekends to the nerve-wracking cacophony of construction. This does not help the noise-sensitivity I developed with PTSD. China is a very difficult couuntry to live in as a foreigner and they keep tightening the noose of restrictions on expats (banking, visas, etc.) each year. That said, the many small benefits outweigh the gross drawbacks, and I'd rather be here than in the US, where one worries about being shot every day and it's hard to make a living. All the challenges are described in my other posts related to living in China: https://www.gallivantinggoddess.com/moving-to-china https://www.gallivantinggoddess.com/aqi-health-safety-etc Why do I stay? Well, I've written twice the amount of posts about why I love it here, in contrast to the amount of posts about why it's extremely difficult! https://www.gallivantinggoddess.com/travel-tibet-and-china Beyond all that, I loved the stressed-out-Conan meme, as it perfectly exemplifies my state of mind a lot of the time. And shows the reason I need the MBSR course! Some of the worksheets and reading referred to during the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction course. The course is offered free through Palouse Mindfulness. Access videos by clicking "Read More", bottom right. https://palousemindfulness.com/meditations/bodyscan.html https://palousemindfulness.com/docs/seven-myths.pdf Written by Roberta F Lewis for Spirit of Change magazine
© Spirit of Change Magazine source: http://www.ofspirit.com/robertalewis1.htm I am at the point where I recognize the damage I am causing myself by not managing my stress in a healthy way-- or rather reacting to the stress in such a way that I am believing my thoughts about situations and plummetting downward along The Deadly Spiral of Negative Thinking. I seem to have no control over my thoughts or reactions or emotions. I swing between antipodes of fury and depression. I cannot accept situations that bother me, especially at work. Things are going on with my body that I refuse to accept. Simply, I am once again at war with reality and the world; all the fighting and disclaiming and inward screams of "No!" are causing massive suffering in my mind, heart, and body -- especially my body! I haven't been able to re-establish a daily routine of yoga practice. I can't find my inner disclipline to exercise regularly. I can't dig into my strength reserves to follow through on the commitments I make to myself on a daily basis (I no longer have strength left), which results in a feeling of failure and the first step toward The Downward Spiral (no, this is not the NIN album). I can't depend on my resilience because it is lost somewhere in the same place as my inner strength. I have lost the map inward that leads to both. My resilience, strength, dedication, power, discipline, are all so diminished they barely exist. I started this MBSR course a few years ago, as one way of trying to work through the multiple traumas I experienced while living in ATX from Oct. 2014 - February 2018. The combination of PTSD, extreme anxiety, and a nearly life-ending bout of depression, makes it impossible to stay present and be mindful; the pain is too extreme, the present is too awful, and the mind is too muddled to focus (neuroplasticity at play here). Unless you have experienced these first hand, you really have no clue what a person suffers, so it is also rare to receive much needed empathy and understanding. But returning to the present of 2019, I have started the course again, because everything else I am doing is not working, because I can't find my follow-through, and I can't find an accountability partner to hold me to my self-care commitments. Plus, I am at the end of my rope! I can't stand how I feel nor how I act. I am truly miserable at work and at home and the suffering is a direct result of thought-patterns I cannot end and negative coping mechanisms which are killing me. Without going into too much detail, Mindfulness-based Stress Relief (MBSR) is an 8-week mindfulness meditation course that will lead me back to being able to cope in the present moment and bring awareness back into my life, so that I don't follow my thoughts down the rabbit hole and I can build resilience and strength. I want to uncover the part of me that recalls my connection to others; the inner self that gives me the self-compassion to relate to others with compassion; the mind that remembers not to take anything personally and does not make assumptions, but rather, asks for clarity; the one who does not react from her lizard brain, but who is able to pause, breathe, and remember with love that we are all just doing the best we can... and of course, so much more... There are meditations, readings, videos to watch, and journaling to complete. I've already set up a realistic schedule for each of the daily practices. It seems that now is the time to accept that I am not going to do a long morning yoga practice. I need to accept that I will sit down and write in the morning, and not stop writing until I am about to be late to work. I need to accept this as part of my current lifestyle and a habit, rather than fighting it on a daily basis and feeling guilty, lazy, and awful because I am not carrying out my morning practice. I can continue fighting myself and feeling like a failure, or I can accept that this is where I am now: I want to focus on writing -- and I enjoy it damnit! -- so where can I place the yoga practice in my daily routine so that it actually gets done without struggle or guilt? It's easier to change my current nightly routine (AKA: Detrimental Coping Strategy) of tuning out with a film and wine or sugar, so I will complete the requisite reading in the morning or during the day, then watch the videos and perform the mindufulness practices in the evening prior to bedtime. The video is courtesy of University of Massachusetts Medical School http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/
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