little demons down dark alleys

I'm always looking for new resources and tools to deal with myself-- my reactivity, my dark moods, my judgmental nature, my sense of entitlement, and my know-it-all attitude. That's only a partial list of this things I'm working on, by the way. I'm currently reading Pema Chodron's book, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves From Old Habits and Fears. I love Pema Chodron because even though she is a long-time Buddhist nun and has written a bunch of books about Buddhist practice, she freely writes about what a deeply flawed person she is. Even Pema can be at a meditation retreat, yet go into a downward spiral if she feels disrespected or ignored. She gives me hope that even as I fail, I can still improve my outlook. She reminds me that no matter how much I fail on a daily basis, I must still be a friend to myself.

One of the things she keeps reminding me of throughout this book is the importance of pausing  throughout the day to take a few breaths, focus on what is happening in front of me, and connect to how I am feeling in that moment. As an experiment, I turned on my meditation timer, and set it to make a gong sound every 20 minutes throughout the day. When I hear the gong, that's my reminder to take a few breaths, refocus, and also to stop standing on the outside of my feet, which is one of my bad habits. It's been an effective way for me to stay connected to the moment, and not go off chasing my little demons down dark alleys while I'm working.

Then, it all went to shit when I messed up my knee last Friday. Lately, I have been getting really harsh injuries doing things like trying to get up off the couch, crouching down all the way, or reaching for a glass. Yes, I know, as we get older these things happen, but I'm not understanding why someone as young on the inside as I am still receives this treatment.

Right now, I can't straighten out my leg all the way and I can't stand or walk comfortably. Being thrown off balance in this way made me forget all about staying focused and in the moment, and I struggled with rage and depression all weekend at my lack of mobility. I thought about how difficult it's going to be to work, and how I may not be able to go back to yoga class for weeks where I am currently enrolled in a 4-month intensive class. I thought about how much knee surgery is going to cost and then felt momentarily blessed that I am now covered through obamacare before flipping back into fear about long-term recovery. I tried to do some very limited yoga and I forgot to breathe while I was stretching. I was just holding my breath, doing yoga. At some point, I realized I was doing breathless yoga.

Pema reminded me this morning that if I know I'm failing, I'm not failing, because I am aware of myself and what I am doing, and that is the biggest battle of all. And in that moment, I can just let it go.

how to be alone

I'm reading this book right now called "How To Be Alone" by Sarah Maitland. I picked it up on a whim at the bookstore. It has a beautiful bright blue cover with white lettering, and they had it set up right next to the cash register. I loved that they had it right there, because the title is very provocative. How to be alone. Most people don't like to be alone, and I wondered how many interesting questions were raised in people's minds when they looked at that title. I had a feeling many people were put off or annoyed. I felt an immediate kinship with the book, and impulsively bought it.

Even though I have a partner, and we've been together for over 20 years-- which is ridiculous--and married for 13 of those years, I still think of myself as alone on some level. We all are, of course, ultimately alone, so maybe it's just that, or maybe it's something else. In any case,  that's how I view myself, as an lone independent person. I work by myself, all day every day, and I like it like that. When I do have an assistant, I'm grateful for the help but ultimately annoyed by the intrusion of someone else in my work space. I prefer to work in solitude.

Perhaps the biggest problem with spending so much time alone is what can go on inside my head. The usual tear-down shit of undermining questions, unsolicited critiques, current resentments. But I've gotten really bored with all that. Mostly because I've started questioning the veracity of knowledge the voice in my head really has about anything. Like, I've always thought that voice in my head is me, feeding me thoughts and information that I need, but that's wrong. The voice comes from my consciousness, but it is not necessarily concerned with truth. It's most concerned with just keeping my attention, making itself important, and it mostly does that by trying to freak me out.

But I also think that the voice in my head is a way of trying to entertain myself. And even though I like being alone, maybe I'm not comfortable with just being at peace with myself. It's too boring. No drama. So the storyteller starts up, and I get carried away into a different place. Daydreaming. I've been practicing catching myself at it and trying to bring myself back into the present moment, because it's actually not boring to just be at peace, I'm just not used to it.  Daydreaming is just kind of a bad habit, a habit I developed early on to cope with actual boring situations, like school. And since daydreaming is an expected characteristic of being artistic, I've never questioned the idea that daydreaming is maybe not so good. That being alone in a healthy way perhaps requires also being a part of the present moment, and not your own private one.

While writing this, I googled "how to be alone" and there were all kinds of interesting links. Check it out. And what about you? Where are you at when it comes to being alone?