I've been scratching for...

I've been scratching for solid ground recently.  I think maybe, the toll of moving has resurfaced now that I'm home and immersed back into the world that I used to call home.  I haven't even written a blog post in so long, it feels like I can't even remember how to do that.  My last post was about fitting in and belonging as soon as I got to Oregon.  Happy to report, it wasn't that difficult.  Thanks to school and a healthy dose of putting myself out there, I easily found an amazing support system and a place to look forward to going back to.  It feels strange to me that it happened so quickly since I've always thought of myself as someone who doesn't put themselves out there quickly and easily.  How fast our thoughts about ourselves can be proven wrong under the right circumstances.  That's what this blog post is about.

When I was moving I had a lot of time to think.  Far too much in my opinion, but it allowed me to really spend some time with the thoughts that I have about myself.  It helped me to realize how quickly a prophecy can come true when you are the one with power over it.  Given the opportunity to go meet up with new people for the first time the sneaky gremlin of I'm not the type of person who makes friends easily would appear.  How easy it would be to follow that gremlin back to it's cave and sit at home all night.  The cycle appears!  And I become a person who doesn't make friends easily because, a) I already think that and b) I don't show up to the opportunity for change.  On top of that, my gremlin is happy; soooooo happy.  You see, gremlin's don't like being proven wrong.  It's so uncomfortable for them.  Our brains seek efficiency and old gremlins are very efficient.  A friend of mine and I recently renamed gremlins, blind spots.  And they are everywhere in our minds.  By choosing to follow my gremlins, I'm grabbing their hand and closing my eyes.  Seems like a loss of power and individualism, huh?  Blind spots can come in all shapes and sizes from I'm not the type of person who makes friends easily, to I need the perfect bikini body to find love.  Blind spots can appear from anywhere.  A lot of them show up without us even realizing.  From the brief exposure to developmental psychology that I got last quarter in school, I've come to realize something about people.  Everyone is a product of their environment; think about your life as a pinball machine.  Everyone has taken a different path, we've all hit different sides of the machine and in a different order.  We're really, not even all playing on the same machine.  And because of the pattern of our pinballs, we develop blind spots.  I grew up with a doctor for a father, I had blind spots to alternative means of taking care of the body until those blind spots were illuminated.  It's no one's fault, that was just where my pinball hit a wall.  We even have societal blind spots; creating the man, woman, 2 children and a dog home is the only way to be happy, when someone breaks the law the only way to keep the rest of society safe from them is to put them out of sight.  Think about it this way, anything that you can say or think with only one possible explanation and little evidence behind it, this is the only way I'll find joy, I'm inferior if I make less than my partner, etc.... probably blind spots.  Scary, huh?

Blind spots are scary.  Don't let me tell you otherwise, I'm not trying to.  They freak me out too.  Think of your thoughts and mind as an expansive field, it's sunny and bright, the grass sways in the warm breeze.  But then, there are some places in the field where a vortex black hole lives, it pulls thoughts in swirls them down to their simplest form and a creates binary boxes for them to fit in.  Good/bad, black/white, all/nothing.  And finding your blind spots forces you to challenge your own thinking.  Who wants to do that?  Because if you challenge your own thinking then who do you trust?  Since being home, I've discovered a couple blind spots that I didn't even see coming.  I made a huge mistake moving.  Now, let's work through that one together because I'm not going to just sit here and blab at you about finding your blind spots, I'm interested in shining the light.  This comes with a major warning label though, the feeling of being unsettled, "scratching for solid ground" that I just mentioned, it comes from having blind spots revealed.  Revealing blind spots is exhausting.  Like I said before, gremlins and blind spots are comfortable places in our mind.  When we fulfill our gremlins they sit quietly.  When we challenge them, they throw a fucking tantrum.  When we see someone swerving late at night and call the cops to report a drunk driver, we feel good.  We've fulfilled our duty to society to keep drunk drivers off the road.  Maybe that person was drunk and driving, that's pretty dangerous.  But, maybe it's a young man and his wife in labor trying to get to the hospital.  Maybe he did have a couple drinks that night, and maybe they should've called an ambulance, but maybe they are living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford that.  In this situation, our gremlin was proud, but this man now has a DUI on his record, and how is that going to effect the rest of his life?  With a new baby?  Soooo, the way we battle our blind spots is to allow in possible alternative explanations.  Rise above the vortex and look around.  Some helpful questions to ask to our blind spots can be, how did you get here? Why does that seems like the only answer?  What is my evidence for that?  So back to my blind spot of moving.  What is my evidence?  None.  In some of those fleeting moments of boredom or loneliness that all humans come across, the vortex is tempting.  It's an explanation after all.  And our logical brains love explanations.  But where would that get me? Going around thinking that just because my life on the east coast doesn't feel the same as it used to, and that somehow that feeling is a product of my own flaws... it's destructive.  A possible alternative explanation could be that I'm experiencing those fleeting moments of boredom and loneliness that all human feel, and that soon enough that will pass.  See what I mean?

I've noticed that we do this with other people a lot too.  They are the only person who will make me feel _____.  Wow, blind spot!  And, it happens in both directions.  I was sitting at a meditation class earlier this week and they were talking about how we don't dislike anyone, we dislike the feelings that they bring up in us.  What if it's not even the person or the feeling, but it's the blind spot that they are illuminating that's uncomfortable for us? And what about the other direction?  Do we like other people because of the feelings they bring up in us, or "the person who I am around them"?  Have you ever said, I like them because I trust them to show me my blind spots?  What if you did?

I'm sitting on the floor again...

I'm sitting on the floor again.  I have chairs in my new place.  I found them on the side of the road with a piece of cardboard that had 'free' scribbled across it.  But, I still wanted to sit on the floor.  I wanted to connect with the Lisa that wrote this post.  And I still don't have a bed, so I slept here last night.  I also say it to stress that the adventure that I've put myself through is not always glamorous.

I've gotten to take amazing pictures.  I've seen breath taking landscapes.  Just about everywhere that I drove past Chicago I had to actively remind myself- 'hey, you've never been here or seen this before, how cool is that'.  I've gotten so used to being in a new setting that it has become almost normal.  Almost.  During my stint in San Francisco I was reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and she describes so elegantly 'The Physics of The Quest':

“I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call "The Physics of The Quest" — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: "If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself... then truth will not be withheld from you." Or so I've come to believe.”

Liz and I speak the same language.  'Everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue', 'everyone you meet along the way as a teacher'.  Now, I don't have time to go into details about each one of the lessons that I've learned along the way.  My car breaking down in the middle of the Utah dessert with the tornado sirens going off is a lesson that I'm putting on the shelf under the 'done' category.  The cleaner at the hotel talking to me about the inherent goodness of people has been dog eared for the times that I'm questioning that.  And sleeping outside under the Washington stars served to remind me that we're all just spinning on a big rock.  Just to describe a few.

The first time that I returned to Burlington after moving out of my apartment was to go to a show with my friend Sarah.  I was driving through downtown, knew exactly where I was going, had been there not even 2 days prior, yet still felt like I didn't belong anymore.  As soon as I showed up to her place I was hysterical.  
"Sarah!  I already feel like I don't belong hereee.." I whined.
"Calm down," she replied.  "Of course you belong here, here- drink this and let's go see some funk music." 
[paraphrased] <3
And that was all it took.  Little did I know this was the first clue I was getting in the lesson that has since, ushered me across the entire country.

We have an animal instinct to fit in.  We can't help it.  It served us to be pack animals during critical evolutionary moments.  If we fit in with the tribe, we got fed, a cave to sleep in, and a partner assigned to us.  Life was good.  Our animal instincts still serve us.  Life is challenging, it helps if we have someone on our side and being atypical draws attention.  My therapist once told me that our brains can only do three things: analyze, compute, and compare.  I suspect we max out the compare mechanisms when we reach for an attempt at fitting it.  Wherever I ended up, whatever town I pulled into for the night, I would catch myself scanning the people around me and seeking to morph.  I would even dream up back stories for the person in the campsite next to mine in order to create some common ground and a sense of safety.  *If it's ok for them to be here, then it's safe and ok for me to be here too*, I would convince myself.  But then I noticed something else.  I would play out possible conversations with these people and I could feel the tiniest little part of me wanting to lie.  Not astronomical ones, just little white lies to make it seem like I was a local, or at least like I knew what I was doing.  I couldn't help it... and I'm blaming evolution.  Then, somewhere between Mammoth Lakes and San Francisco, I remembered my trip to Panama in January.  Flipping through my journal I scanned the section on what I'm working on releasing from 2017.  The idea that my story isn't worth telling, I had written.  And from there something changed.

Brene Brown helped me through this section with her quotes on the difference between 'fitting in' and 'belonging':

"The greatest barrier to belonging is fitting in"

"Fitting in is assessing a situation and becoming who are need to be, to be accepted.  Belonging, on the other hand, doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are."

And, where I realized this longing to belong came from was the idea that I wasn't ____ enough.  And for who?  The townspeople of Whatever Town, USA?
Only until we realize where that story comes from, can we start to rewrite that narrative.  And I had gotten pretty over the idea that this narrative; that I wasn't ____ enough for those townsfolk was true.

So how do I start to feel a sense of belonging in a kabin (with a k) in the middle of the dessert, in the middle of a state that I know no one living in?  I turn to my friends of course!  I've made it to the part of this blog where I get to gush about how amazing my friends and family have been.  One thing that I have noticed about the people around me is that we all do an astounding job at letting each other be who we are.  I need to thank everyone for that, because without feeling like I belong whenever I talk to anyone I know, I never would have made it.  Places make you feel like you fit in, people make you feel like you belong.

When I pulled into Eugene there were no fireworks, no group of people on the side of the road with big welcome signs.  But! I did make it back to my apartment without GPS on the first try, on the way home from Whole Foods.  Soooo, I'd say that's a start.  Oregon feels like a place where I will find belonging, and even if it isn't, I've got enough of it.  Because of this trip I was able to visit and reconnect with some people I otherwise wouldn't have seen this summer and each one of them picked up right where we left off in conversation.  Some figuratively, some quite literally will answer the phone with an expansion of the conversation that we were having 4 days ago.  What a way to make a girl feel like she belongs.  And for those who may not drool all over their support systems the same way I do, Mary Oliver has some words for you:

the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is part of everything else

For those who need a translation, Hannah (luv u), it means that when I'm looking for belonging and I know I've exhausted my team, I remember that I get to belong to the collective of all beings as long as I leave my heart open to it.

THANKS FOR HELPING ME MAKE IT OUT TO OREGON, I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Eating the sauerkraut that my aunt gave me...

Eating the sauerkraut that my aunt gave me in a hotel room in Minneapolis, wondering if they'll recycle my plastic cherry tomato container, and trying to coax Kwasi off the hard wood floors and onto the bed.  That's what I've been up.  That, or trying to play tetris with all of the stuff in my car in an attempt to find enough stuff for a bike ride.  Traveling across the country hasn't been glamorous the entire way, but it has at least afforded me the space to think.  A lot.

I don't think you get away with a cross country road trip without a lot to think about.  So naturally, I've been thinking a lot about the experience in front of me.  The empty pages of a new chapter.  Blank and inviting, begging to be filled however I choose.  Wait a second, do I get to choose?  Have I been choosing?  A lot of the people who I talk to about my upcoming adventure have a tendency to assign emotions to what I'm doing.  "You must be so *insert emotion here* about your trip!"  Scared.  Excited.  Those seem to be the top two.  And yes, both of those are present.  Also worried about making it out there without a problem, annoyed about finding an apartment remotely, interested in what I'm going to be learning, grief over leaving behind my family and best friends, the list goes on.  Now, I'm not expecting any one person to sit with me and sort through all of the things that I'm feeling, and I'm not upset with anyone over the fact that they told me that I was supposed to be scared or excited, in fact I do it to.  It's so easy to get swept away by our days, go onto autopilot, and respond from our bank of appropriate conversation responses, but I'm looking for a shift in the way that we ask each other questions and relate to each other.
Brene Brown was telling me today, while I was driving through midwestern traffic and weather, that when we do this; assign each other with the emotions that we felt during a similar experience, it's an attempt at empathy.  Which is great!  I'm ecstatic that I'm surrounded with people who are empathetic.  But, we're going about it in the wrong direction.  We're empathizing with each other's feelings before we even understand them.  If, instead of saying "Oh, you must be so _____ about your trip", we ask "Hey, how are you feeling about your upcoming adventure?" it opens the floor for a more authentic interaction.  I, too, get why we make statements instead of questions.  It protects us.  If we don't ask, we don't run the risk of hearing about the deep sorrow the person in front of us is feeling while they rip themselves away from their support system.  We then don't have to tear open our own wounds from the times that our loved ones have left us, or when we've done it ourselves.  We aren't forced to recall the time that we made a similarly risky move with only a beacon of hope that it'll work out.  Which is what we would be obligated to do if we want to avoid disengagement, and what my girl, Brene calls 'false empathy', which are both ways of diminishing trust, and humans subconsciously understand and avoid that (no trust = no community = no good).  When we state or assign instead of ask, we bypass the risk of getting the 'good' answer, with a shrug of the shoulders.  Which, honestly seems worth it sometimes.  During our day to day interactions, it seems like we'd much rather hear someone talk what excites them about learning new things and traveling new places even with some imposition, than to get the dreaded, conversation stopping 'good'.  But what do we risk when we do that?  An opportunity for authentic interaction.  A chance for your story to hold meaning for someone else.  How many times have we missed out on our story having significance for someone else because of the way we used our language?  When you put it that way, a small change in the way that we interact with each other doesn't seem like so much after all.

I've had a strange relationship with mirrors through this process.  It seems like each time I look in the mirror, in addition to making sure I look presentable.. I check to make sure I'm the same person.  It's so easy to forget who you are when you are surrounded by an environment that you don't know.  I've been waking up every morning and writing down where I am since May when I quit my job and half moved away from Burlington, so that, when I look back and wonder why I've been feeling so uprooted I can point to that and say 'of course'.  On the surface, and intellectually, I understand that I'm the same person.  I have the same genetic make up that I always have.  The same eye color, hair color, voice, scar under my chin, etc. that I always have (putting away the idea of theseus' ship for one second).  I own the same things and I have the same birthday.  What I'm talking about is the visceral understanding of who we are and what we know about ourselves.  The ways that we interact with those around us, the values that we hold close, the things we do and don't enjoy.  These are the things that, when we go through a new experience, may change.  Ray Dalio explains that intelligence, money, and happiness are not correlated.  And that many intelligent and wealthy people are very unhappy.  Breaking news, I know.  But what he goes on to say is that the highest correlation with someone's happiness is community.  Feeling a part of something, and connected to other people.  So you can imagine how difficult it has been to feel happy and confident about my decisions after drawing away from the web of my community...
What I have also discovered about myself is that I have pulled close to me, a community that just won't let me go.  The overwhelming love and support that I have received from my community has been more than enough to make any girl driving through states where she knows no one, feel like she's at home where ever she goes.  It feels like the web of my connections, the people I've woven into my life, and netting with which they hold me up has been stretched over my map and driven into place like railroad spikes.  That's the honest truth.  So when I say that I look at myself in the mirror every morning to tell myself that I'm the same person, I see the eyes of the congregation with which I sit, looking back, reflecting who they've turned me into.  They’ve reminded me everyday since I’ve left that physical location has nothing to do with what you mean, how you talk to, and how much you love each other.

I was trying to describe that feeling...

I was trying to describe that feeling the other day.  The one that you get after a laughing fit and you can still feel the laughter in your body.  A hangover.  A laughter hangover.  It's fleeting, but you can still feel it so strongly.  Whoever or whatever it was that thrust you into this fit has since past, but your stomach is still a little tense, there is still a smile on your face, and maybe a tear still in the corner of your eye.  Everything is ok and you're happy.

This feeling doesn't even last a second but it still feels so important.  It's funny that we strive so boldly, and put so much effort into leaving darkness behind, but we allow joy to have it's own agenda.  I want to reverse that.  I'm sure we can all remember a time that we fought and fought for some sort cobweb to just, leave.  It's impossible to focus on anything and all we can do is scramble around the room trying every light switch in an attempt to turn the lights back on.  But how many times have we done that with the light.  Rarely have I found myself laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, wondering whyyyy is it, that this joy just won't. go. away...
Are we just assuming that it's supposed to be this way?  That we are supposed to figure out exactly why it is that we are feeling one way before we can feel another.  That by remaining loyal to our feelings we are remaining loyal to ourselves.  Just me then?

I was reading about something the other day called 'negativity bias', which refers to the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature (e.g. unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful/traumatic events) have a greater effect on one’s psychological state and process than neutral or positive things.  I’ve heard that it takes up to five positive interactions to overcome one negative one. What a fight, huh?  Is this only because we allow it though?  We allow the negativity to run its course on our bodies, but we’re so quick to accept that positivity and joy are brief and fleeting. We sit with darkness, just to ‘feel something’ but allow the light to pass as if it were obligatory. Just imagine a world where the opposite we’re true.  A world where positivity and negativity switched roles. Instead of mistrust, we feel overwhelmed by permission. Or instead of lost, we feel capable.

It sounds a little hippie dippie, but I'm pretty sure our bodies are just vessels.  We ask a lot of them.  And sometimes put a pretty harsh stimulus on them.  We force them to do things that they 'should' enjoy.  And use our minds to pull them away from things that they are calling out for.  Some of my favorite lines from a Mary Oliver poem:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Let the soft animal of your body..  I think some of us get caught up in negativity because we think it's the only way we can feel.  Laying on the ground wondering why is only one way to feel, true.  But, I think it's time to open our minds and bodies to alternative ways of feeling.  In my opinion, feeling is not an active process.  Listen to Mary Oliver.  Allow her permission to wash over you the way that emotions do.  That. is feeling.

How do permission for feeling and negativity bias relate, you ask?  Slow down and allow yourself to feel, but be conscious of negativity bias and instead choose to attach yourself to the overwhelming positivity that radiates and pulses the same way negativity does. Bank your laughter hangovers and bring them out again on a rainy day. 

The person who I am, has changed...

The person who I am, has changed.  A lot.  My last post was about some of that change, this one will probably will be the same.  What can I say, I'm not a big fan of it, so it's on my mind a lot these days.  I'm sitting on the floor of my room.  I won't have a bed for the next 2 months.  I won't be spending more than a week in one place for the same amount of time.  That's a lot of change.  I changed my mind, this isn't going to be about that.

One thing that has changed about me, is how much I've gotten to know myself.  It is naive of me to say that I know myself well, but I think that I have a solid grasp at the moment.  To ask me how is an impossible question.  Ask me how long it will last and I will have the same answer.  I have no idea.

If you're interested: one of the ways that I try to get to know myself is through learning about new things.  Each new thing that I try is a guess and check effort to see if what I'm doing feels right.  If it does, that's great, I'll keep doing that.  If not, maybe I'll give it a few more go's, but I'm not going feel guilty about putting it aside.

One cool thing about always learning about yourself, is that if you come across something about yourself that could use some improvement, you get to then put some gentle attention into it.  And with that gentle attention, you then get an attempt at making that something, just a little bit better.  I did a webinar a couple months ago about getting 'unstuck' in your life.  Not that I assumed that I was stuck anywhere, I was just curious about what could be said on the topic- after all, just because I'm not stuck now, that doesn't mean I won't ever be.  And, I found out, that when it comes to any situation, someone might find themselves stuck in one of two ways of being.  You can be stuck in the stimulus of something, circulating around how this particular situation makes you feel, and why it makes you feel that way, and what it should feel like instead.  Or you can be stuck in the response, always concerning yourself with what to do next.  And the only way out is to find the middle ground of the two.

I've been stuck in the stimulus of leaving for school.  How am I supposed to be feeling about this?  Have I been feeling that way for too long?  Is it time to start feeling a different way about it?  So, in an effort to place some gentle attention on the response, I'm going to draft a letter to the people who I may come across on this next chapter.

Dear friend,
I'm a taurus (if you're into that kind of thing), and I know myself well.  How well, you ask?  Well enough that I can tell you upfront that everything that I, and everyone else, says has deeper meaning to it.  An added layer, propping up our statement, developed from the pivotal moments that stack up behind it.  Where the meanings of my words come from is a story for another day, but here are some examples of what I really mean when I utter these phrases:
How are you? - Different from 'how was your day?', when I ask how you are, I'm more interested in how things are going for you right now.  And how you feel about it.  Tell me, I'm listening.
I've got a lot going on. - Friendship is an equality thing for me, and I don't open up easily.  If I'm reaching out, it's because I need help with something, and I think that you are just the person for that job.
I miss you. - Thank you, new friend, by the way, for sticking with me long enough for me to notice your absence.  So, when I tell you that 'I miss you' though, what I really mean is- I miss your presence.  And i miss the the way that I feel in that presence.
I miss my friends from home. - Jealously is a difficult emotion.  And I'm not trying to evoke that in you, I just truly miss home.  It was amazing there and I loved it with all of my heart.  And as you have already seen, new friend, I have a deeper meaning for 'missing' something.  So it's been difficult.  But, maybe one day, if you haven't already been lucky enough to visit, I'll be able to show you around the place I called home for so long.
I love you. - When you make it here, you are a part of me.  I wouldn't be my same self without you.
So thank you, new friend, for reading along; and if you still don't think I'm too weird to hang out with, then let's keep doing it until you do.  Hobbies, likes, and dislikes listed separately.  For real though, I'm glad our paths crossed and I'm looking forward to you helping me to call this new place home so if you want to grab a drink or a kombucha sometime, or help me walk my dog, just let me know. xoxo.

I've always seen a birthday as an anniversary...

I've always seen a birthday as an anniversary.  Not necessarily of anyone joining this world, or of our bodies growing older.  I try to not put to much merit into the physical flexibility of my body, 'can I still touch my toes now that I'm 28?' or into the typical checklist of things to have done by a certain age.  House, kids, career.. they'll all come when they will.  I, instead, try to use a birthday as a reference point.  How far have I come since my last one?  Anybody that knows me knows I will usually force people into reflection, and typical birthday questions from me include 'what have you learned in the past year?' and 'what are you hoping to accomplish this year?'.  And anybody that realllllly knows me, knows that I like asking questions way better than I like answering them, so bare with me while I try...

I've gone through a growth spurt this year.  Not a physical one, or an intellectual one, not even a spiritual one, as much as it may seem that way.  What I've gone through is a recognition growth spurt.  This year I've arguably recognized more about myself than any year previous.  I've started recognizing what does and doesn't align with my value system, I've been slapped in the face with the recognition of the unadulterated luck that seems to come my way, and I've even discovered some ineffective personality traits that could use some gentle attention.  What I may have recognized the most about, not only myself, but every single person is that we have choice.  In the revolving door of the conversations with ourselves that fill our heads, we have the opportunity to choose what it is that we are filling our own heads with.  I'm not in charge of what it is that you put into your door; if 'I'm not good enough' or 'everything is boring' are your choices then so be it.  If instead, you choose to constantly remind yourself that 'no one knows what they are doing' and 'everything will happen as it will', then that is your choice too.  French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's favorite subject was choice.  David Foster Wallace explains in his commencement speech, while telling a story about 2 men arguing in a bar about religion that 'it's easy to run this story through a kind of standard liberal arts analysis: [...we] never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from.  Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys.  As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language.  As if, how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice.'

'...how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice,' -I love that.  Everything is a choice for us.  What clothes we put on in the morning, how we present ourselves to the world.  What mood we are in, how we react to the situations we face during the day.  Who we surround ourselves with.  Even how we talk and think about the pivotal moments in our lives, and how we let them shape us.  It's easy for a lot of us to see 2 choices in front of us.  Am I going to be happy or sad today?  Am I going to have eggs or yogurt for breakfast?  But what we sometimes forget is that there is always a secret 3rd door.  Or 4th, or 5th, or we don't have to go through any doors at all... We can choose to be accepting, or pensive, instead of happy or sad.  We can choose to have oatmeal instead of eggs or yogurt.  Or we can even choose to go to the airport, get on a plane to Paris and have a french croissant for breakfast if we'd really like to.  We can choose to react to situations differently than we ever have before, we can choose who we turn to for advice, we can even choose how we take that advice.  But that's difficult for us to imagine, because all of this choice makes us dizzy.  And that dizziness makes us want to stand still, or as Sartre would put it we start to use 'bad faith'.  We give it up to the idea that we don't get to choose or even want to.  I know that astrology is not always everyone's favorite topic, and it might be complete bullshit, but like any other personality tests, I do think we can allow it to give us language.  We can decide that a website will never be able to tell us about our personality, or we can read the language and decide if that aligns with the truth that we feel about ourselves.  My sign is notorious for knowing ourselves very well, as well as being highly resistant to change (which we all know I'll be faced with a lot of in the coming year, by the way).  Either way my horoscope for this month had strong undertones of a shift in perspective.  Now, I can choose to resist that shift, cross my arms, and refuse to allow that in.  And for me, the draw to that is strong.  I like who I've become.  That was a long road for me.  And I like the people around me.  And if I allow my perspective to shift how do I know that those who support me will continue to?  If I continue to change who I am, will I start to fulfill a different role in their lives?  And if that happens, will they continue to fill the same in mine?  But then I have to remind myself of the very thing that I'm talking about, choice.  We can choose to be afraid of who we may turn into and how it may change the things around us, or we can choose to lean into it and remind ourselves that if we keep a close pulse on what we fill our revolving doors with, we have the opportunity to continue to change for the better.

As I enter the 28th year of my life, my goals are to aim to continue to hold a magnifying glass up to my revolving door, trust the people in my life to tell me things that I would not have been able to tell myself, and continue to recognize the choices that I have in front of me, even if they are behind the secret 3rd door.

I need to write about it...

I need to write about it even though words are clunky and ill descriptive.  I still need to write to process.  One of my friends told me that she and I write about the same things- 'we both write about paradigm shifts' she said.  And at that moment I realized... apparently I write about paradigm shifts.

When I started working at my current job, I honestly thought I would be there for less then a year.  I had just gotten back from Africa with a bright and shiny, brand new Registered Dietitian license and I had legitimately no clue what I wanted to do or where I wanted to do it.  Before I left for Africa I had run into an old supervisor of mine downtown and he yelled something about the club looking for a dietitian over the ear splitting music that Burlington bars insist on playing at full blast.  Great, I thought.  I'll work this job long enough to put Registered Dietitian on my resume and see where that can take me.  2 life altering years later, I found myself sitting in the president's office petrified, and staring at my feet while I try to find the courage to tell him that I'm leaving.

I didn't realize how much courage it takes to side swipe someone with news like this.  It felt like I was splitting my soul apart.  As a society, we wrap up so much of who we are into what we do, that when we ultimately decide to change courses, it feels like the part of ourselves that we've devoted to our work has been severed.  Or is that just me?  I kept thinking all day about how this must have been how Voldemort felt when he created his horcruxes.  Although a little less murder for me, I'm just going to graduate school.  I've been questioning everything lately- like more than usual, and I just realized while writing that last sentence that it was because I've assigned so much of myself to my work.  See, this is why I write.  I've intertwined so much of who I am and how I feel accomplishment into showing up at work everyday that when I imagine not doing that, I start to wonder who I am.

When I was 21, my entire family got together in the Berkshires for a family reunion.  Among a weekend of shenanigans, including one of my cousins throwing up in the sink, my grandfather stood up at the end of the very long table, 20 Bunn faces looking back at him, and he said 'To my grandchildren- whatever you do with your life, always help people.'  So I did.  I've devoted the entirety of my work related bandwidth toward helping people improve their health behaviors.  Over my two years I've done 400 assessments.  400.  400 people, I've sat in front of in an attempt to help them improve their health.  With every one of these 400 people, I had a choice.  I could remain clinical and on the surface, I could write meal plans and base them off of numbers and nutrients... or I could move in.  I could hear out their stories, ask them difficult questions, and encourage them to find the intrinsic motivation for behavior change.  I chose the later and because of that choice, I’ve created an environment that feels impossible to leave. Our team at work is perfect. We challenge each other to grow personally and professionally. And only because of my credentials and my ability to bill insurance, I’ve been propped up to have an enormous support system under me.  Touching on reliance seems greedy right now, but the reality is that without the insurance piece, our program isn’t nearly as successful.  So while my coworkers may talk like they are reliant on me, it's actually my license that they're reliant on.
Sounds like the perfect job, right?  My director is brilliant and hard working.  When she dreams big it scares me a little, because I know she will actually accomplish it.  And!  She brings all of us with her.  My coworkers are highly empathetic and deeply caring.  We wrap ourselves up with each other and actively play a role in the development of our program and of each other.  My clients are inspiring and challenge me at times.  But, when they open up and trust the process, the results are life changing.  So why would I leave?  Why would I give it all up?  Why would I go back to school to study a field that I already have a job in?  Because.  Healthy behaviors are just that- behavior.  Which can be influenced, given the right circumstances... and we don't live in a world that has the right circumstances.  And I want to change that.  This might be my millennial showing, but I really think that I can make a difference on a vast scale.

I've discovered a whole new side of myself during this process.
I've never considered myself a risk taker.  Call me a taurus, but I just loveeee security.  Stability, security, and logic have been heavy influencers through most of my life, but now here I am, leaving a job that I could have forever to move across the country and study a field that could be wiped away and underfunded by the national government in the blink of an eye.  Again, why?

My relationship with risk changed when I jumped out of an Alaskan helicopter to ski down an enormous powder field with an avalanche beacon and a harness on 'just in case you fall into a crevasse'.  It was at that point that I realized what was on the other side of risk.  Again, words are clunky, but I recognized that when I move though risk and fear, the other side is overhead blower powder; it's intoxicating.  It was then that my relationship with risk shifted from avoidant to calculated.  Sure skiing in avalanche territory was risky, but I had a beacon, a harness, and most importantly a guide.  Calculated risk is when we can appropriately consider our cons and choose to face them instead of dodge them.  Having someone to guide and mentor us through the process, I've found is imperative.  Giving yourself to them while they guide and mentor you is... essential.

So, as I prepare to leave my work, family, and friends, pack up my car, and take off on this next chapter- I try to keep one word on my mind.  Opportunity.  The opportunity that I have in front of me to further effect change in my career field and the opportunity that I'm leaving behind for my current job to find someone better than me.  West coast, here I come.

Day 8: Quotes from my notes.

Traveling home wasn't nearly as terrible as on the way there.  Other than switching my flight to an earlier one and a second security requirement forcing me to throw away my morning coffee, it was pretty seamless.. It might have been the lack of coffee, or maybe the tequila the night before, but even with the 6 hours I got to spend in Newark airport, I just didn't feel like putting the effort into reflecting on my time in Panama.  Now, with the laundry in the washer, my fridge restocked, and Kwasi snuggling on my lap I can reminisce on the beautiful 8 days that I spent in paradise.
Instead of going through the details of our day by day experience, I'm going to take the structure from one of the posts on a friend's blog (Hey Casey!) and do a little 'quotes from my notes' post.

"What's the journal for?" -Carol
"...it's for you!" -Sarah
-On all of our pre-trip check lists the retreat kept telling us not to forget our notebooks and a pen.  For me, this was a given.  I've had this blog since 2013 in an attempt to write down my thoughts and remember this period of my life, but I also started keeping a journal after Alaska.  It's helped me so incredibly that I sometimes forget that others don't journal all the time.  I use it to doodle in, to write down my intentions for each day, and to try and process.  Things happen so rapidly these days, I feel like I just need to write some of them down in an attempt to understand them.  Like I said, bringing a notebook to Panama was a no brainer for me, I actually spent almost an hour picking out the perfect one for 2018 :)

'United Conformation: MKZW25' -me
-This one is only in there because I had to put that stupid confirmation code into the united app, and punch into the phone so many times during the first 12 hours of traveling.  More on that here if you didn't read my first post.

'Release from 2017: the idea that my story isn't worth telling.
Intention for 2018: Openness ▲ Curiosity' -me
-The first journal exercise that we did as a group was to write down something that we wanted to release from 2017, and an intention for 2018.  These were mine.  Because I had already done plenty of reflecting on the New Year, my intentions for 2018 were wayyy easier then what I had to release.  It took me a while to come up with it, and when I finally realized what had made my 2017 so life changing, was the fact that I started sharing my story with others, the next logical step was for me to leave that behind.

'In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry.  So often men trip by being in a rush.' -John Steinbeck, East of Eden
-In other words; slow down, don't be in so much of a rush all the time. I was reading East of Eden during the trip and jotted this one down one day while sun worshipping by the pool with Sarah.  Any one that has been abroad, especially to Africa, has experienced 'Africa time'.  No one is on time to anything there, no one is in a hurry to get anywhere or do anything.  I've heard the same of the Caribbean islands.  They've realized that it's not going to make you any happier to worry about punctuality, and in our case.. the beach wasn't going anywhere.

'Ultimately, I try hard, just to not be a dick.  And I think however anyone gets there is fine with me' -Laura
-I was talking with a midwestern real estate agent in her 50s/ practicing Buddhist about organized religion and this came out of her.  In context, she was unhappy with the way most organized religions ostracize each other... I couldn't agree more.

'Life is so hard for you' -Sarah
-I was struggling- hard- with my beach chair in this moment.  There were a few times during our trip that we needed to check each other on our circumstantial suffering.  This one was a good reminder.

'I learned that somethings are out of my control.  You think, you know that's true, then you learn how wrong you were about that' -Jenny
-It was Jenny's birthday and I asked her what she learned over the past year.  This is what she said.  In context, she's an amazing mother of 3, and she's had a difficult time over the past year finding the balance between things that she can and cannot control in a world raising 3 toddlers.  Jenny was wiser than she knew, and each one of the girls on the retreat that hoped to someday have children got some take aways from the way she was open and honest about motherhood.

'Hold this intention in the present tense.  And then build a lifestyle that allows for this.' -Alex
- Alex was the other yoga instructor and she said this during our yoga nidra class.  She so elegantly described a way of living that forces you to be better all the time.

'Connection doesn't always have to look the way that I think it does' -me
-I wrote this one down after our final yoga class.  This was a big take away for the whole trip for me.  This, and the fact that's it's not all about me.  I was struggling in the beginning because I felt like I was making connections with some of the people on the retreat, and not with others.  What I realized, though was that while I wasn't the one connecting with them, that didn't mean they weren't connecting with those on the trip, that they were meant to.  It's not all about me, just because I'm not the one helping them through an emotional release, or helping them understanding something about themselves, or helping them reconnect with themselves- that doesn't mean it's not happening.  And ultimately that's all that matters.  I also realized that connection doesn't have to be verbal.  My 11th grade spanish skills only got me so far, but it didn't matter.  I tried hard to erase the language barrier with eye contact, touch, and inflection.  And it worked!  Those that were helping me, understood how grateful I was to them. Those that I helped, seamlessly expressed their appreciation for me.  And this happened more often then not.  Wallets were forgotten on tables, phones were dropped, directions were needed.. and every time someone was leaping to the rescue to help.  And I think that's beautiful.  Again, I'm not completely sure how this trip will change me until it does.  But, what's exciting is how excited I am about that.  It feels like I have a change on my horizon and for the first time in a while, I'm excited about it, instead of terrified.

Day 0: I have the worst luck with traveling.

I have the worst luck with traveling. And it seems like it’s especially terrible if I’m going anywhere near the New York City area.

Before Christmas, I was supposed to go see Hannah, one of my long distance best friends, for a couple of hours while she was visiting the east coast. And try as the universe might, it wasn’t going to keep me from hugging her. There was a sleepless night, a towed car, freezing rain, and a delayed train- but even through all of that, I still got to spend a night drinking whiskey and reading tarot cards with my oldest friend. 

That was just a silly anecdote to show what I mean when I say that traveling near The City isn’t my friend. This time was a little different. The ‘ice bomb cyclone’, as it was so appropriately named, grounded the first leg of the next travel adventure that I signed myself up for.  After a tearful phone call to Maree (another long distance best friend with whom I was supposed to be staying during the first night of my trip), an extra night at home, and convincing a very confused rental car agent to not charge me twice for the same vehicle- I broke land speed records to try to reach Newark on time for my international flight.  Upon arrival, after getting moderately lost returning my rental car, I walked up to the check in kiosk, scanned my passport, and my heart fell through the floor. ‘Check in time to close to departure time. See agent for assistance.’ I admit, I was cutting it close showing up at noon for a 2:50pm international departure but, like I said ‘ice bomb cyclone’ weather and, honestly, I didn’t think it was THAT bad. I dragged my heavy heart over to the ticket counter and texted third best friend, Sarah that I unfortunately wouldn’t be meeting her in paradise until at least a day later.. *inhale*

Sarah and I have been playing the manifest game since I got home from Alaska last April so, bless her heart, as soon as she heard I was having travel problems she started working her manifest magic on me. And guess what... it worked! Sarah’s proven her manifest magic to me multiple times, once in a very helpful and hazy way at a music festival.  But, seriously- good karma follows this girl around and those of us that she chooses to share it with, only have gratitude to repay her with. A very sympathetic, and kind eyed ticket agent for United must’ve felt so bad for me- I was a poor shell of a person at this moment. So she expedited my baggage, put me through quick security and got me to my gate. With over an hour to spare.  Props United. *exhale*

I always get the worst travel anxiety.  I’ve had full blown panic attacks in the Chicago airport more times than I’m comfortable with. It’s almost like an imposter syndrome thing. When I’m traveling, I’m absolutely convinced that I’m like Jim Carey on the Truman Show and that everyone in my world is an actor meant to trick me into thinking that I’m about to go on an incredible adventure only to have me show up and it all be a joke. I check and double check my gate and seat assignments. Then I check and double check my ability to read numbers and letters- just to make sure I’ll be in the right place. So when things like my car getting towed and my flight getting canceled happen, it shackles me to the idea that somethings are out of my hands.  What a way to learn that lesson. 

The most recent inquiry into my soul has brought me to the runway of the Newark, New Jersey airport on a plane to Panama City to meet up with Sarah and a group of 10ish others, for an amazing, off grid, week in paradise doing all of the yoga, stand up paddle boarding, surfing, and adventuring that we can handle.  Because this retreat is happening at the beginning of the year, I can’t help but to use it to reflect on 2017 and to set some things into motion for 2018.  

There are a lot of complaints circling the internet about 2017 and I guess for good reason. I mean, Trump is still horrifying, we lost Tom Petty, and the climate continues to remind us that we have finite resources available to us. But, personally, I have very few complaints about the last year.  Call it lucky, but so far every year has been better than the last for me.

Lucky. We toss that word around to much. And without it’s full meaning. Life changing, too. And my 2017 was both.  When I was standing, teaching, in front of my first college class; when I was climbing out of a helicopter to chase Lynsey down the powder fields of Alaska and when I was sitting in Bernie Sanders office ready to advocate for my profession.. when I was sleeping under the stars and moon with my best friends; when I was prancing around music festivals and tearing down Sugarbush and Killington on my mountain bike.. when I was climbing up the Northeast’s most famous rock climbing pitches and when I was at a past life regression with my now incredible therapist. When I was celebrating as 2 of my friends got engaged and another 2 got married; when I was watching my coworkers and friends raise they’re new-borns into toddlerhood; and when I was watching as my clients were taking control of their health in the most positive and mind altering manner.. even when I was saying goodbye to one of my best friends as she made a career move to a city 10 hours away from me. I could still only stand back and ask myself- how. flipping. lucky. am I to be exactly there. In that moment. With those people. 

That. That, along with less social media and more fiction is what I want out of my 2018. I want to build and cherish more of the moments where my only option, the only thing I can possibly do- is ask myself how the hell I got there and how lucky I am to be.

In the final post about my trip to Alaska I wrote that I wasn’t sure how the trip had changed me, but I knew that it had. I’m still not entirely sure, but here’s 1 thing that I do know about how I’ve changed. I’ve connected with those close to me in remarkably new ways. The connections that I have with my friends, family, coworkers, and clients have been strengthened through mutual openness, honesty, and trust. I’ve seen absolute blind leaps of faith taken- on both sides.  My friends and I have chosen to share our stories and to expose our deeply rooted vulnerabilities, and insecurities to each other with only a shred of hope that it will help with mutual understanding. But, from those leaps, from that vulnerability, and from mutual empathy, we’ve seen exactly how close two people can feel.  I genuinely feel closer now to the people around me then I ever have and I didn’t realize how important that was to me until the other day. Through a simple conversation, I was reminded that life isn’t always this good. Life can, and probably will, get very cruel. Philosopher David Benetar describes the asymmetry of joy and suffering in an episode of the Waking Up podcast with Sam Harris.  Jobs will be lost, break ups will happen, loved ones will be ripped away from us, and the stability that we build will crumble, all in a split second.  And when that happens, who do I want in my corner?  The people that understand me. 

That. That is what has been so life changing about my 2017. And that’s what I want more of from my 2018.

So as my plane lands and I experience a soul freeing week, unplugged, and in paradise, I can only dream of what the rest of this year has in store for me.