Tag Archives: hope

Struggling, the Pandemic, and an Omen of Hope

Personal Musings, , ,

I haven’t written anything since pre-pandemic times. I haven’t wanted to. My creativity, my spirituality, my vibrancy, have all felt on the edge of dying for a while now. On the edge because I still have moments. I have a relationship in my life that is a pool from which I draw love for myself in the day-to-day. I treasure the presence and immediacy of times with my nieces and nephew. The classroom brings me moments of community and inspiration that my dried-up soul keeps trying to turn into hope. That I have those things, is the reason I survived the past year.

I looked upon quarantine with a lot of hope. I took to teaching online easily and with enjoyment having done my Masters in Educational Technology. I imagined it would be a time where I would write and create, where I would connect with the solitude that used to fuel my relationship with God and myself, and where I would spend good, quality time with those that I loved in our small pod of family.

Looking back, it feels as if I wasted opportunity. It feels as if I sat on my ass and made no progress towards being a better human being. Because I think that might hold truth, I struggle with showing compassion to myself. I hear and read what others say. It’s OK to not feel normal. It’s OK if you’re feeling sad, or lonely, or angry – but I felt none of those things while this pandemic has been happening. It’s only now as I have been fully vaccinated, our positivity rate is dropping, and they are bringing students back into my classroom that I am feeling this onslaught of whirling negativity and feeling the lack of my experiences of the previous year.

I don’t want to be angry with myself, but I am, because I feel lost. I struggle with the purpose of it all, my why to getting up every day. I struggle with recognizing we can only change ourselves and that what I offer to others may never be accepted. I struggle with knowing that my relationship with God and my spirituality is still there and I only need to call upon it, and still, I feel too tired to dial that number. I struggle with making the effort to connect with others who seem so excited about getting back out there and things opening up. I struggle with the self-pity for which judge myself harshly, knowing that people I love have situations happening that are truly scary and life altering. I struggle – I struggle – I struggle.

This morning my struggle finally eased a bit. With the light coming back to our world earlier these days, I have turned off the music on my way to work. It is a small step towards allowing a space for connecting with myself and with God. I think I have been hesitant to allow for any real space in my head or heart this past year. No journaling, no creative writing, no sitting with my thoughts. Every moment filled with the distractions of streaming, social media, board games, even sleep. On my way to work this morning I encountered three young deer playing together by the creek, under a tree at Seneca golf course. I slowed the car and whispered “hello”. All I could think was, “How beautiful.” Driving up Briar Hill to get to Lexington Rd., I said hello to my favorite tree that has seen me through the seasons of the past 11 years. Its small sprouts of green glowed in the morning sun and it seemed as happy to see me as I was to see it.

Thinking back after writing this, that the trio of fawns frolicking by the stream as I drove towards a day of work constituted some kind of omen seems obvious, but how many mornigns in the past year have I missed that because I wasn’t looking? The Easter egg colored trees and vibrant green grasses of April in Kentucky, along with its spring sunrises teased my dormant hope and dreams. I felt lured towards summer and something I couldn’t put my finger on. After a year of this pandemic life, I almost couldn’t let myself feel those emotions, I wanted to turn off the feelings, and yet they began to seep through anyway. Pulling into my spot at work, I wondered to myself, “Am I happy?” and in that moment I was – and in the following moments, I wrote.

***While I recognize that some of these descriptions of struggle may coincide with signs of depression, I want anyone reading this to know that I don’t feel like I need help in that area right now and I do have people to talk with. However, I do realize that people reading this might feel like they do. If you feel like you can’t get out of the hole of this past year, there are places and people to talk to! Many counselors and therapists in Louisville work on sliding scales and do whatever they can to make help affordable. You can do your own searching – or a good place to start is with https://sevencounties.org

A New Way of Loving Myself!

Personal Musings, , , , , , , ,

I’ve had some hard days recently. I think we all at times over-commit or add new things to our lives without removing the old. When this happens it can lead to depression, anxiety, or in my case a little of both.

Now – I confess that even in good times I have a penchant for self-help books which I really enjoy, but from which I rarely find new insight. When I bought the short and sweet, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depended on It, by Kamal Ravikant (I bought it on Amazon Kindle), I didn’t have high hopes – and in a way I was right. The book’s whole message is you have to love your self. Duh! Heard that all before, but Ravikant has a way with words – a way of explaining the concept so that it’s like hearing it for the first time. The question he posed led me to some very real decisions and very new revelations.

Whenever we think of loving ourselves, it’s presented like a chore. It will be hard, but you must come to “accept” your flaws and love yourself anyway. The focus is usually on finding a way to see ourselves as “worthy” even though we may feel we are not.
But what if we instead focused on the loving?

When I think about the people I have loved over the years, I see them clearly, flaws and all. I also see that I never focused on choosing to love them despite their flaws, I just loved them, and in most cases, did everything in my power to help them get what they needed, desired or deserved. I put them first even though I could clearly see their faults. I put them first because their faults didn’t matter. If we stop spending all this time trying to get over our flaws and just focus on the act of loving, maybe we can go further than we have before.

Ravikant asked what we would do if we truly loved ourselves?

What would I do if I loved myself the way I loved all those people in my past – the people I went to bat for even when I knew I shouldn’t because I loved them, the people who I told to take time for themselves without feeling guilty, the people I found jobs for, and helped get through beauty school and citizenship tests? How would I “love” myself if they were me?

Looking from that perspective was like a lightning bolt to my soul. If I were someone I loved I would be giving myself quite different advice. If I were someone I loved, I’d say “Quit that right now!”, “Take care of yourself!”, “Market your book like you’re the fabulous writer you are!”, “Make that call!”, “Say no and mean it!” If I loved myself like I loved them I would spend hours trying to help and listen and understand instead of saying get over it, move on, you really messed that up, etc…

Instead, I tell myself to put other’s needs first. I tell myself to do what’s necessary to avoid conflict and awkward feelings. But that’s advice I would never give my God-children, my best friend, or one of my students. It’s advice that sacrifices the very things that would bring me happiness and probably success.

I have heard, “Love yourself!” over and over and over! Heck, I’ve even taught it to young women for years…but love isn’t a feeling – it’s an action. I’ve always understood that when it comes to loving others. Why was it so hard to see it about myself?

What about you? Is this revelation just new to me? Have you thought about loving yourself is an active way before – the way you love others? What difference would it make in your life?

Are You Faking Your Life?

Personal Musings, , , , , , , ,

I’m always surprised by the height of drama that surrounds me.  People pledging revenge, crying like the world is ending, stressed out to the point that they make themselves sick.  I wonder sometimes what makes each human so different in their response to the trials and tribulations of daily life.  Why does one person lose the love of their life, pick themselves up and love again, when someone else sinks into a depression never to recover.  Did one person truly love more than the other? Is one person’s hell really that much hotter or painful than mine? Is it really individual differences that make us react like night and day or do cultural expectations brainwash some into thinking they’re entitled to be selfish, stage hogging, attention grabbers?

I guess I wonder if everyone around me is overly influenced by the visual entertainment of our time? I’m sure generations before ours dealt with revenge, depression, anxiety and fear…great literature proves this to be true, but was it as acceptable then as it is today to throw a fit? It almost feels to me like people think they’re starring in their own movies and the people that surround them are just extras put there to revolve around their story. If we couldn’t watch the sordid, crazy, unreal situations in the cathartic presence of others, would we be so easily influenced towards the melodramatic?  Does the fact that we’re having a communal experience that seems so real make us believe that it is reality?

I remember when a friend who suspected her fiancé of cheating told me before her wedding, “If I find out he’s cheating on me I will call his boss and he will lose his job.  His life will be over.”  There was more…it was a tirade but I don’t recall it all.  They’re now divorced, but I remember thinking, “Why are you marrying someone you obviously don’t love?” If she loved him, how could she so easily have ruined his life – even if he did hurt her? It became obvious watching their marriage that in the saga that she saw as her life, truly loving that person didn’t matter.  She was living out her own soap opera – and still is.

I wonder if people were left to truly gauge their own level of emotion without reference to media, would we have the level of violence, craziness, and drama that exists in our society? I’m sure there would still be women like my friend who would take their revenge to excess, but would there be as many?

Sometimes I feel like I’m walking around watching people fake their lives and I can’t help but think that’s really dangerous to the authentic human experience. What would I expect of a relationship if I hadn’t watched a zillion romantic comedies? Would I be so quick to diagnose myself and others with depression or as needing therapy if I hadn’t watched so many people in therapy on the silver screen? How do we know what we are really feeling when we follow a script?

I’m not just judging others, I’ve been there.  I’ve caught myself listening to words come out that I I didn’t think up.  I’ll catch phrases or moments that came from conversations I’ve observed in shows that I like or movies I’ve seen.  People always tell me I’d be a great counselor, but is that because they really feel like I can connect to them, or am I just good at sounding like the movie script they want their life to be?

When I went off script with my friend who wanted revenge on her fiancé it was totally ineffective.  There was no way she was going to see reason.  Was that because love and hate are so closely related or because she was experiencing pain and it was easier to handle it in a way that she’d observed and found fascinating than in the way her authentic self would have processed it?

I don’t have any answers.  I’m just truly hoping that by raising the questions I can up my own level of awareness and maybe that of some people around me.  Maybe the next time I catch myself about to go ballistic, I’ll put myself in check and examine my genuine feelings instead. I hope that I can.  I fear the day we can’t tell the difference anymore.