So what if it’s awful? That will change. No doubt.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty rough for me. Oh, hell, the past few months have been intense. Family issues, relationship issues, work issues. The whole gamut. And I’ve been feeling like crap, for the most part.

Pretty awful.

So what? It will change. I will change it. And that change starts with me actively amping up my responses to the events of my life in ways that I choose, and that suit me best.

One of the life-changing developments of my life, in the past while, has been using my 90-second clearing to take the edge off my anxiety, anger, fear, adrenaline rush. I learned about how stopping and breathing slowly will stop the downward slide and it gives me a chance to let the stress biochemicals in my system clear out – replaced by ones that are better suited to thinking things through in a rational and adult manner, instead of like the crazy person I can quickly become when I’m pushed too far.

I’ve been doing this 90-second activity for a couple of weeks, now, and it’s pretty amazing. And it shows me — up close and personal — how even in my most frantic state, I can get myself back to some balance. I don’t have to teeter on the brink of madness. I can take a bunch of slow breaths, step back, and turn around and head in a completely different direction.

Which is good.

It puts things in a whole new light. Because now, not only do I know that I can get myself back to feeling human again, but that generalizes to other parts of my life, and I can see how things can change so quickly. For the better. Or, even if they don’t get better, at least I can feel better, and when I feel better, I think better, and things can be improved.

Maybe not overnight, but I can at least make a start…. or, to be more accurate, make another start.

Some days it feels like I’m starting from scratch every single day. It’s weird — and a little wonderful at the same time. I believe it has to do with my working memory issues. I just don’t retain things really close to the surface of my memory — I have to revisit over an extended period of time, preferably with someone in the room. That’s where my neuropsych has come in, for the past four years or so — they’re someone I have checked in with regularly, once a week, to review my progress and keep me on track.

Well, money is short these days, and my copay went up, so I can no longer afford to see them every single week. I’ve switched to every other week. This is — again — weird and wonderful. On the one hand, I feel like an important support for my life has been removed; on the other, I feel like this is an important step for me, to be able to be more independent and draw on my own resources. I cleared out a bunch of old papers from my bookshelves this morning, and I found a lot of notes from my past sessions, and it’s remarkable how much progress I have made. Seriously, I have come a very long way, and I need to give myself credit for that.

Reading those notes is a little disconcerting — I can see how diminished I was, how limited I was letting myself be. But it’s also encouraging, because I’m not that person anymore. Not by a long shot. I think about how hard things were for me, once upon a time, and how awful they were, and I can see how much things have changed. So that is good. And it is encouraging.

The tough times I’m having right now are partly “withdrawal” from my weekly sessions, which have been safety valve for me. I’m adjusting and adapting and coming up with my own ways of releasing pressure and getting my bearings. It’s not easy. It’s very painful and confusing and fear-inducing. But so what? This will change. With practice and concerted effort, it will change. The tough times are also due to some real difficulties I’m having with my environment — and I know it’s not just me. I know it’s not just my attitude. The situations I’m in really do suck — by design by forces driving towards short-term maximum profitability, with long-term detriment to everyone involved. I have been stuck in this short-term frantic hell-hole of a workplace for almost three years, now, and it’s time to go. It just sucks so awfully, and I am simply accepting that as how things are — with a view towards changing it in just a few months.

These are all adjustments. Difficult adjustments. Problems with integration and assimilation — which should be problems, because when sh*t is f*cked up, well… sh*t truly is f*cked up. And there is no logical reason a person should stay in that situation, try to adapt to it, make it feel better, etc. I’m invoking Kasimierz Dabrowski now, who was a Polish psychiatrist who survived the Nazi and Stalinist eras and developed his Theory of Positive Dis-Integration (the “-” is mine in “Dis-Integration” because without it, the word to me means “dissolution” or “falling apart” in an internal sense, which doesn’t mean anything good to me). This theory states that people with high personal development potential, who are able to develop their own identities independent of the crowd, will necessarily go through some dark nights of the soul, as they develop and realize that they really don’t fit in with the crowd, and indeed they should not.

This dark night that people experience is often diagnoses as a form of depression which should be treated – or it’s seen as a disease that has to be cured. Our standard-issue popular response to people who don’t fit in and don’t cotton to the pressures of the “normal” world, is to pathologize and/or medicate and/or institutionalize this state of mind, rather than working through it and seeing it as a sign that there is something more this person can — and should — be experiencing in their life.

That’s kind of where I’ve been for the past while — being keenly aware of how effed up things are around me, seeing the part that I’ve played in making all that possible — how I’ve enabled people to screw me over… how I’ve undercut myself with poor habits and lack of discipline… and most of all how I’ve numbed myself to the raw facts of things not being as they could be, simply by “changing my perspective” and looking at things from an angle that allowed me to make them all right, while ignoring the angles that showed that things were anything but right… and of course seeing how not managing my TBI symptoms and after-effects has made me a lot less effective and with-it than I could have been all along.

Probably the hardest thing to stomach has been realizing how I’ve made things harder for myself, by zoning out in a state of bliss that blocks out any pain or discomfort. I’ve been able to put myself in a state of bliss — total physical, mental, spiritual ecstasy — for many years, now, and I’ve been using that to dull the pain that comes from my everyday life. I also know how to direct my focus to one thing — and one thing only — effectively blinding myself to the troubles at hand. Because I’ve been able to do this — total focus and ecstasy without drugs — I’ve been able to keep myself from falling apart. But I’ve also been keeping myself from coming in full contact with my life and seeing clearly what needs to change.

I’ve been in a lot of pain for a long time, and I’ve managed to find a way to get my own relief. At the same time, that ability to cut the pain and block it all out has held me back from making the kind of progress I really need to make.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do think that things have been so intense and potentially overwhelming that I have HAD to block them out and dull them. I fall apart over little things way to easily, and I have to stay functional. It’s been useful. And I do think that after the years of teetering on the brink of collapse, post-TBI, I needed to normalize and get to stable footing, which is where I am now.

So, in a way, this pain and discomfort is a good thing. It’s a sign that I’m ready to head to the next level and do some more great work, refashion my life, and do away with the things that keep me from living the life of my design. When I can sense the pain, I can take action and move away from it, thus living up to my potential. But when I cannot sense pain, well, I’m destined to be stuck with it for as long as I can tolerate it. Intolerance is a good thing, no matter how awful it feels.

Yeah, I’m intensely discontent and I’m in pain. Good on me. It’s a positive sign that I’m alive and ready to do something different with my life. Do doubt.

Onward.

No, stress is NOT all about our interpretation of TBI…

There’s more going on here…

So, I have some time to catch up on some reading, and I just came across a stress management consultant with many years’ experience coaching and counseling, who says “the source of all stress is the subjective meaning we attach to events”. I won’t say who it is, to protect the not-so-innocent.

Okay, that’s fine. I get that to a certain extent. Stress can be a killer — and it is, for many, many people. And the subjective meanings we attach to events can indeed add to the stress of our lives.

Here’s the thing, though — when you look at stress from a broader point of view that includes the physical part of life as an integral part, things start to be a whole lot less clear-cut. Or maybe they become even more clear. Because over time, you can build up a lot of physiological stressors which contribute to your overall stress levels… to the point where it doesn’t really matter how bright and shiny and positive your psychological outlook is — you feel like crap, and that stresses your system… and it also impacts your frame of mind (which is now inclined to look on the dark side, for reasons it cannot cognitively identify).

Even if you can get your mental, spiritual, and emotional stresses down, if you don’t have a handle on your physical stresses, there’s only such much progress you can expect to make.

Take for example, this scenario, which shows the relative stress levels of the four different areas over a time span that has a lot of the usual stresses we experience on a daily basis: trouble with the boss, re-org at work, $$$ worries, health problems, marriage troubles, promotions, raises, recovery, family problems.

Even if you do manage to cut down on the mental and emotional and spiritual stresses of your eventful life, you can still have a buildup of stress in your body that, if not dissipated or reduced in some way, will still keep your overall stress levels high.

Even when everything is going great.

Now, with a situation like TBI, where all of a sudden, sh*t is all effed up for no reason that you can explain, something as simple as making breakfast or getting ready for work can be a huge physiological stressor, because things that used to be so simple for you — like buttoning your shirt or combing your hair or getting milk and cereal to end up in the bowl instead of on the counter — aren’t going so well, and it’s just one surprise after another… one little “micro-trauma” after another, getting those fight-flight juices flowing like never before.

On a daily basis — and this is what a lot of folks fail to understand about TBI — you can experience hundreds of these little surprises, which pump up your adrenaline and alternately make you high as a kite and downright depressed. It makes you seem/feel bipolar to those who are fond of that label, and it keeps you on high alert, just trying to make it through the day trying to do all the things that used to come so easily to you, but now require a different sort of attention.

And those stresses add up. The biochemicals keep collecting in your system, by default. Because you have to stay ON, to keep from falling off. And you end up on constant alert, a perpetual first responder to your own personal mini-disasters… which may not be that big, objectively, but seem bigger and bigger and bigger because, well, you’re really pretty tired from all the adjusting, and that adrenaline and ephinephrine and norepinephrine is actually making it harder for your brain to learn the new things it needs to learn.

Which is yet another source of stress… which has next to nothing to do with how you look at things.

Now, I’ve talked with neuro-rehab folks who were of that same philosophy — that the thing that gets us into trouble with our stress levels is the way we interpret what’s happening to us. And I agree, to some extent, that interpreting everything along catastrophic lines raises our stress levels and is a big culprit in frying our systems. At the same time, people seem to be overlooking or discounting the role that the body plays in all this — in the role that physiological stressors play in our lives. It’s NOT all about how we look at things and the meaning we ascribe to what happens. It can be just as much — sometimes even moreso — about the physiological burdens that we have to deal with.

Does our mindset affect our physiological stress levels? Absolutely? We can flood our systems in an instant with a reaction of our choosing. Can our mind reverse physiological stressors on its own? I’m not so sure. I think the body needs to be directly involved to do that to the fullest.

All this being said (and I wish I could say everything that’s in my head, but I’m still a bit foggy from the past week), I think that any stress management program needs to incorporate the body. Actively. On purpose. As a full partner in the whole process. We need to use our bodies to move all that biochemical sludge along. Can you say lymph?

And I also want to say that I don’t think that stress is necessarily a bad thing. It’s the long-term effects of stress that do the job on us. I personally believe that when we develop ways to discharge the effects of stress and use the energy for good instead of evil, we can build up a sort of immunity to the downsides, and stress can actually become a vital and productive part of our lives. Rather than being something to dread and try to control and “overcome”, stress can be our friend. One of our best friends, in fact.

I have friends who would cringe to hear me say how much I love stress. But I can’t help it – I do. I really thrive on it. The thing that gets me in trouble is when I don’t allow myself enough recovery time from tough stints. I also work in a stupid job that is constantly stressful and doesn’t let you stop moving for a minute, so that’s another effing culprit. I work at a very high, fast pace, and I can get pretty intense. I get a ton of stuff done on a regular basis, and I enjoy it. I’ve figured out how to be ultra-productive after years of experimentation and trial-and-error, and it works for me. I just know how to get sh*t done. And Stress (capital “S”) is a big part of that. So removing stress from my life — rising above it, overcoming it, keeping it within “liveable levels” — is the kiss of death for the parts of my life that I love the most. Hey, I’m a jock, okay. I want to run faster and lift more and be stronger… It’s in my nature, so if you take that away or diminish it or talk it down, then you’re hacking away at my innermost core and you’re pulling the rug right out from underneath me.

The thing is, I know what a toll all this can take on me. It gets me hurt. It ruins my life. I burn out  in a very big way. So, I need to find a middle ground that lets me keep going, without heading right off the cliff.

Nowadays, what I’m working with — especially with my 90-second clearing — is letting my energy spike, then bringing it back down, consciously, to restful levels. I push myself hard for a period of time, then I stop, slow it down, get myself out of that frantic mindset that drives me forward, and put myself in a calm, relaxed state that actually feels really good.  For me, it’s not the pushing hard that does the number on me — it’s not having a rest/recovery period to let it all sink in and integrate. I’ve been recovery-deprived for a long, long time. Only in the past few years have I actually learned how to relax and feel good. And only since I learned how to feel good while relaxing, has it truly become clear to me that my continued growth and improvement depends on recovery as much as it does on testing my limits.

It might even depend more on it.

For my money, one of the most important things anyone recovering from TBI can do, is figure out how to get to that sweet spot of emotional/spiritual/mental balance, where it’s possible to feel physically good. If you don’t know how to get there, and you don’t get there on a semi-regular basis, your recovery is going to be hampered. You’re going to stay amped up on fight-flight biochemicals, and you’re not going to learn as well as you can, when you’re able to relax and just enjoy yourself. Feeling good doesn’t have to even be a huge deal — if you can just manage it for a few minutes a day, and remember what it feels like to take the edge off, that can help. Absolutely positively. But if you never figure out how to get there, and you find yourself unable to relax and settle into a sense of being OKAY, I predict you’re going to have a tough row to hoe.

And we don’t want that.

Anyway, it seems I found the words I was looking for.

Bottom line is, as much as some folks would have us think that it’s our interpretation of events that does a number on us, rather than the events themselves, I have to respectfully disagree. The stresses and physical reality of dealing with one surprise after another, having to pump yourself up to keep going, and having to constantly be aware of ways you need to shift and change, can be physiologically stressing in ways no change of mindset will reverse.

We need to recognize the role the body plays in stress, and find ways to address our physiological stressors, so that our minds can relax and we can learn the lessons we need to learn.

It’s all a process, of course, and an imperfect one at that. But if we pay attention and keep an open mind and realize that 9 times out of 10 we are unconsciously deluding ourselves — and then take corrective action, we just might get somewhere.

Onward

Do I stay or do I go?

Just what I’ve been waiting for…

The post office is open for another 45 minutes. I have a package I have been waiting for, for about a week, which has finally arrived. Great!

Now, do I pick myself up and go get it, using about 20 minutes of time I can be blogging and reading and catching up with myself? Or do I stay here, finish what I’m doing, and just go get it in the morning?

The pros of staying here are that I can keep doing what I’m doing without interruption, while I’m still fresh from my 2-hour afternoon nap (which I desperately needed)… I can finish my thoughts… I can do some writing… and I can plan my next three days, which are mine-all-mine!

The cons of staying here are that I won’t have my package right now, accompanied by the big energy boost of having it in hand… I’ll have to remember to go pick it up in the morning, and I might actually run late… and it will be one more thing that I have to do, versus just doing whatever I like in the morning.

I’m staying put.

First of all, I covet the time I have by myself at home — my spouse is out running errands, and the house is quiet and I can hear myself think. I also have uninterrupted time, so very rare and precious to me, compared to how things are at work, which are marked by constant interruption to the point of never being able to complete anything — tasks, projects, thoughts — in a steady, measured manner. If I leave now, I am giving up my quiet, uninterrupted time for a drive to the post office, which is not far, but is through rush hour traffic.

Second of all, I have my list for the weekend, and I’m being really good about following what I’m writing down. I don’t need to fear not getting the package, because I’m going to — at a more steady pace, not rushed and frantic. I can work it into my list of things I’m going to be doing tomorrow — and on top of it, having that package pickup on my list is going to get me out of the house before noon (which I tend to have trouble with) because it’s something I want to do. It’s something I want very much. So, no fears about not doing that.

As long as I follow the list, I’m good.

Thirdly, I have fallen so far behind on my emails and my reading this week (as well as responding to everyone who writes), that I need this time to just center in and remember why I do what I do. I’ve had some pretty great mental shifts and revelations this week, and I really need to write about them. It’s exciting. It’s good news. It’s been tough learning these lessons over the past week or so, but I am doing good things with what I’m learning. And I really do believe it’s going to pay off, in small ways and large, in the short- and long-term.

It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess, and despite being dog tired and out of it for days and days, my perspective is good, and I have a focus and direction that I know I want to go in.

So, that’s good.

And it’s good that I’m staying put. It is so tempting to want to jump up, throw on some sandals, hop in the car and scoot down to the post office where my long-awaited package is, but I’m going to hold off. Because there are other things I need to be doing right here and right now, and I need the practice at keeping my focus and concentration.

God, but my job has done a number on my distractability. Then again, maybe it hasn’t. I’ll be writing more on that later.

Much more.

I’m supposed to start working in 20 minutes…

1-2-3 Puuull..!

The good part is, I am working from home today. Sweet silence. No distractions. I can actually focus on one thing at a time without being constantly interrupted by people who do not want to actually do their own work, but expect me to do it for them.

My spouse is a late riser, so there will be no sign of them till noontime, which leaves me almost 4 hours of quiet productivity.

I’m actively rethinking my job search approach for the future. I have been thinking that I need to find a job with an established company that gives me a place to go each day. But in fact, what I really need is a remote job, where I can work for a set amount of hours, and then lie down and take a nap when I need to. Or I can travel and work remotely from wherever I am. The whole commuting to work – working 9 hours – commuting home thing, to and from a place where I’m chained to the galley bench with all the other worker bees just isn’t working for me. I am exhausted. Depleted. And I miss those hours I spend in the car each day.

So, either I find a job that’s remote, so I can come and go as I please and get things done on my own time in my own way, or I find something that is close to home, so I don’t have to waste all that time each day. I think the former makes much more sense to me — especially because of the fatigue thing, not being able to rest when I need to, and gradually becoming more and more exhausted.

My neuropsych tells me I should not be taking naps during the day. But if I don’t, I am so depleted that I can’t get to sleep in a good way. I get so tired, I am too tired to get to sleep.

So, it’s time to start looking around online for remote work. There are plenty of telecommute jobs out there. I just need to find them.

Onward.

Weekend break : Food and travel and doing

This was like my weekend break – more fun than it looks like

I took a break this past weekend. Actually, I worked my ass off around the house, and I didn’t have my nap, either day, and I didn’t get a couple of of important things done that I *had* to do (oh, well…)

But I still took a break. I took a break from the crazy confusion, the frantic ad-libbing, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants improvisation that wipes me out and depletes me and makes me feel worse than ever by the end of the day.

To be honest, I am pretty fried. I’ve been fried since Saturday morning, actually… I was in really rough shape — Woozy and out of it and really confused and off balance. Forgetting things left and right. Having to double back and do things over and over and over, till I actually do them correctly. Literally not knowing where I was or what I was supposed to be doing… till I stopped and took a breath and looked around, and then — oh, yeah — then I remembered. But in slow motion. Everything in    v e r y   s l o w   m o t i o n… Crazy.

Feeling all weekend like I was being dragged behind a horse with my foot jammed in the stirrup, and there’s no end in sight to the gallop. I woke up feeling sick and tired, Saturday  morning, and I’m still feeling sick and tired. The main difference is that this sick and tired is a whole lot less stressed than I was on Saturday morning, 48 hours ago.

Because I took care of business. I made my lists. I mean, I was brutal to myself this weekend. No Mercy. NO DISTRACTIONS. NONE.  ZIP. NADA. ZILCH. Not Even Going There. I had a lot to do, and the whole lot was a confusing mass of must-do’s, to-do’s, better-do’s, and what-not, some of the things more mandatory than others, but all of them feeling mission-critical.

Yeah, mission-critical. Whatever. I got my notebook out with my to-do list in it, and I sat down each morning, yesterday and today, with my special pen that I always use when I am writing Something Important, and I waded through my lists, culling the things that could wait, and making damn’ sure that I did the things that Couldn’t Wait. I felt like a blithering idiot, needing to write down each step:

• Go to the post office
• Check whether mail has come
• Pay box fee
• Go to the bank
• Deposit one check in one account
• Deposit the other check in the other account
• Go food shopping and buy [insert items here, grouped by the section of the store where they are located]
• Eat lunch
• Take the trash to the dump

… and so on, but I did it. Because if I didn’t write it down exactly the way I needed to do it, it wasn’t going to get done. I was going to get pulled in a million little directions by a million little distractions. And I needed to get things done.

I took that to-do-list notebook with me everywhere, and I checked in with it every few hours, to make sure I was still on track and not wandering off into never-never land.

And you know what? It worked. As fried as I was, as sick, as confused, as turned around and impulsive as I was, I soldiered through. And by the close of Saturday night I had completed the last of the Ultra Critical items that Must Be Done, and I could finally wind down the evening with some hot tea and a glass of cold water. And some Advil, of course.

Not that the weekend wasn’t without mishaps. I jumped the gun and ordered a $30 replacement battery for my cordless drill before I thought to check the Home Depot website, where they actually had the exact same battery for $9.97. That’s an expensive mistake. I can’t afford to just spend $30 at the drop of a hat. But I can’t cancel the first order. Screw it. I’ll justify it because I’m supporting a local business instead of a massive big-box chain store, so I’m fine with spending that $30 (almost). I went ahead and ordered a second battery at the great price, and now I’ll have two batteries that hold a charge, instead of one little weak one that peters out after I drill a couple of holes in some plywood.

It took me forever to get going in the mornings. I couldn’t settle down and get myself in the right direction for hours. I was incredibly distractable, both mornings, going in circles at top speed. Crazy. But when I reined myself in and got myself back on track, it was okay going.

Get that list together. Check that list.

Right now, it probably doesn’t sound much like a weekend break. But it was — with my lists. Sitting down and figuring out what I was going to do – and when – and then just going through the steps of doing it all, one piece at a time, really took the pressure off. It let me stop thinking about what I was going to do, and let me focus on the things I was doing, when I was doing them.

Trying to figure out what to do next is a big problem for me, and it’s a huge time and energy suck. I can literally run in circles, trying to get things done — and getting nothing done at all. It’s also a big source of stress for me, because I can get caught up in the logistics and trying to figure things out and trying to think through what’s next – what’s next – what’s going to be next after that.  Caught up and confused. Crazy. And then I end the day feeling like crap because I got nothing done that I intended to.

Fortunately – and thanks to my lists – I managed to get a bunch of stuff done around the house that I’ve been meaning to do for years. I did a bunch of work in the yard, clearing out a ton of weeds and invasive plants that have been wreaking havoc with my grass for years,  but I never got around to addressing. I also cleaned out my garage and gave it a good sweeping-out, which it has also been needing for years, but hasn’t happened. Till yesterday. I worked in my basement, rearranged things that needed rearranging, managed to hook up my web cam on my computer, fiddled a little bit with video, moved some files around on computers, did some research, and got just about everything important checked off my list.

Amazing. Pretty fantastic.

So, what’s with the food and travel? Well, this weekend I was flying solo. My spouse was traveling for work, and I had the house to myself. I also had the kitchen to myself, and I was able to experiment a little with the meals I made. Friday night’s experiment was pretty much a disaster. It didn’t taste bad, but the house smelled terrible all night, and I was concerned it might still smell bad by Monday. I aired the place out on Saturday, so that helped. I also decided to try my hand at making barbecue pork in a slow cooker. On our recent trip to see family, my sister-in-law made pork and onions in her crock pot, and it was amazing. I couldn’t remember what all she’d put in it, other than pork and onions, so I looked up some slow cooker recipes, combined some of the simpler ones that sounded good, and by 8 o’clock Saturday night, I had a killer batch of pork BBQ that was out of this world. I mean, it was good. Very sweet and mellow with just a hint of tang. I bought the cheapest ingredients I could find — it was an experiment after all — and I kept it super simple. But the end result was nothing short of phenomenal, and I dined on that all weekend.

And the travel? Well, both Saturday and Sunday nights, Anthony Bourdain was on CNN (in between the tornado alerts from the network), exploring regions to the north and mid-east. So, two nights in a row, I got to see parts of the world I may never get to see in person. And I got to see the food. The chances of me ever going to any of those places is slim-to-none, so I’m happy to let him go there with a camera crew and bring back his impressions. He seems to be one of those guys who just goes to soak it all in, enjoy it, and let the experiences affect him – be that positive or negative. He just is, in the midst of all that crazy doing and happening and activity. Sure, he does along with folks, but what strikes me the most about him is that he just IS.

And when I watch him just BE in the places where he is, talking to folks, exploring, taking it all in — and eating — I get to do that, too. I get into the spirit of his adventures and get to watch how he does it. It’s a good model for me, because that’s the kind of spirit I want to bring to my own work and life, and watching someone just be open to what happens, and then talk about how it is for them, reminds me that it’s possible to be that way — even when I am dog-tired and in pain and am running out of ideas about how to be in the world.

Not that I want to make myself into Anthony Bourdain. I’ve got my own ways, my own personality, my own take on things. It’s the spirit of his work that speaks to me, and that’s what I look for.

… Not to mention, learning about amazing new foods… most of which I may ever make, but some of which are giving me ideas.

Anyway, after a very full and productive weekend, I am feeling a little better, but I’m still feeling sick and woozy. So what — I’ve got to get on with my day. The thing with me, these days, is to not let feeling bad hold me back. I might be dizzy, confused, disoriented, distractable, forgetful, and have almost no impulse control, but I have my ways of dealing with it:

• dizzy : take it slow, keep one hand on a stable surface at all times, don’t make any sudden moves, and think about what I’m going to do before I do it
• confused : make notes about what I need to do, keep refining my list, striking off the unnecessary things, and using post-it notes to remind me of what I’m doing
• disoriented : again, use the notes, and don’t get too bent out of shape about being so disoriented
• distractable : keep things simple, keep one task in mind at all times, repeat to myself — out loud and silently — what I’m doing and why I’m doing it
• forgetful : see disoriented and distractable above
• almost no impulse control : take it easy, and when I screw up (which I often do), just take a deep breath, think about what I should really be doing, and do that, if I can.

It’s not fun and pleasant, and if I think too much about it, it’s pretty depressing, but in the face of all of the above, I can still get on with my life and be productive and effective. It might take me twice as long as I’d like, and it might make me nuts at times, but it can be done. And in the end, I’ve got something amazing to show for it.

I now have a clean garage and a mowed yard, and a lot more hope and peace of mind. Not bad for a weekend’s work.

Calling it a day

It’s been a full day, with its share of unexpected “wrinkles”.

It’s been a good day – beautiful weather, and some increasing clarity on the direction I am taking with my life.

It’s been a long day, even though it “only” started at 6 a.m., and it’s not even 12 hours later.

One of the really good things about it, is how good I am feeling right now – how good I have been feeling all day. The mud is clearing from my perspectives, and I have more resolve than ever.

Also, all my stretching and 90-second breaks are really helping a great day. In fact, they are helping so much that I can actually tell that I am tired.

Way tired.

Bone tired.

Dog tired.

In the past, I would always push through – have some coffee, eat a candy bar, get bent out of shape over something – until I was too wired to feel anything.

Today, I am relaxed enough to know that I need to lie down for a nap for about an hour, before I’m going to be good for anything.

I didn’t get everything done today that I was intending to, but I can spend some time later working on things. The nice part about having a definite timeframe to move on, and a definite idea of where I’m going, is that I suddenly have a ton of energy for figuring things out and finishing up projects that have been in the wings for a long, long time, that I haven’t been able to get done.

So, with this final 2-month push, I’ll kick it and make some tracks. Make some progress. And really shape my future the way I am hoping to.

With plenty of breaks in between. To breathe. To settle. To balance. To regain my composure and head back into the fray.

On-ward.

Guerilla job changes on a shoestring

The preparation for my job change continues, with some much-needed adaptations. I spent a fair amount of time over the past month or so, studying up on new material I felt I needed to learn and know, in order to move into my next position. I am highly motivated, and I know I need to move on to something more challenging in an environment that’s more high-performance. Right now, the company I’m with is pretty invested in chronic under-achievement — not because they can’t do better, but because they’d rather run around like chickens with their heads cut off and *feel* productive, than actually *be* productive.

Those of us who have years and years of skills and experience are on the outside — the folks on the inside who get to make the big decisions and influence people — are relative newcomers to the industry they’re trying to take over, and it’s just embarrassing, watching them make the decisions and do the things they do. When we speak up and try to help steer them away from the cliff, we are summarily dismissed. And I’m being paid about 20% less than I could (and should) be, which is just ridiculous. I have recruiters contacting me constantly for jobs that look great, so there’s really no reason to for me to stay.

What’s the point?

So yeah, I’m looking for a new job. That’s a no-brainer. But the timing has to be done right, because there’s a big project I’m working on that is affecting a bunch of people I’ve worked with for years, whom I really care about. I’m not going to ditch them before we finish up in September. Then, I am gone, baby, gone.

And in anticipation of that, I am “re-tooling” my skillset — brushing up on technologies and topics that are in demand, these days, so I can be more useful in the job market.

The only thing is, over the past couple of months, I have not hit the goals I had for myself — to study and practice x-amount of material each week. I have had the best of intentions, and I have really tried, but it just didn’t happen. And it’s been getting me down.

See, the thing is, I get tired. Fatigue is a huge factor in all of this, and when I’m tired, I don’t manage my time well, I don’t read or comprehend well, I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing, and it just pulls the rug out from underneath me. It’s been very dispiriting, seeing myself fall behind in my own personal goals, feeling my future slipping from my grasp. There is no way I can put myself out there as an expert in these areas and hope to compete with folks who are younger and fresher and more experienced than myself. It’s a real concern, and a very real issue. I can’t afford to have my reputation smeared, and I can’t afford to get into a work arrangement where I am out-matched by my workload and I end up melting down. It’s happened before, and it’s not fun.

So, rather than feeling badly about myself and undercut my future, I’ve stepped back (during my most recent vacation) and taken a closer look at what I need to do to make a move.

I need to:

• Present myself as an expert in my field — I’ve been doing technical work since 1992, and it should show,
• Have a skillset that is fresh and current,
• Show that I have been doing this skilled work on a daily basis in my current and past positions,
• Be up-to-date on the minutiae of my particular specialty,
• Have a portfolio of real world results to show for my work, and
• Have all of this in place within the next two months, when I will start my formal job search.

I figure it can take me up to three months to find another position that suits me, and I won’t be ready to move till late September. So, I need to have things in place to send out to recruiters — and I need to have a portfolio of results I’ve produced — around mid-July timeframe. That leaves me with about eight weeks to put things together, while I’m also keeping my current job going, keeping up on my rest, and going about my everyday life.

I do not have a lot of resources, energy-wise.

I do not have a lot of extra discretionary time, because my work is pretty consuming and I have a LOT going on.

So, I need to do this on a shoestring.

That being said, I’ve taken a closer look at my job history, and I’ve realized that there are a lot of things I do (or could be doing) on a daily basis in my current job that actually support my future job change. I have a lot of different aspects to my job, and it can be very confusing, figuring out which is which and what I am actually doing with myself. It probably sounds a bit dense, but I am so overwhelmed on a daily basis by all the details and “trees” that I lose sight of the forest. And I also get so caught up in putting out fires, that I don’t actually do the work that’s strategically aligned with my future. I am so busy chasing down missing pieces of puzzles and fixing things that are broken (by other people who don’t do their friggin’ jobs) that I lose sight of the big-picture work I am doing. I lose sight of the big picture, period.

As an aside, I have to say that this job has been about the WORST thing for my distractability issues. It’s tiring, it’s distracting by nature, it’s chaotic, it’s loud, it’s bright, and there is no real direction anymore. I know, I know — that’s how it is pretty much everywhere. But I have never ever worked in a place that didn’t actually allow you to block the line of sight to distracting movements with a wall of some kind, and that had absolutely NO barriers to sound and light. This god-awful place makes cube farms look like nirvana.

Anyway, I’m re-adjusting my re-tooling approach, and I’ve identified a bunch of ways I can not only add to my skillset with new abilities, but also make the most of my past and present experience. I’ve identified some core themes to my work history, which eluded me before — areas where I have worked a lot and had considerable responsibility, influence, and success. I’ve done some market research relating to salaries, and I see a new direction I should go in.

It’s actually not a “new” direction for me — I’ve been doing this for years. It’s a new direction for my mindset and philosophy and approach to this job search.

You know, it’s funny — I never had this much trouble with the job search thing before. I always just moved, and there was someone ready to take me on. The thing is, my past screw-ups and mistakes and mis-steps from the years right after my TBI have caught up with me. People look very closely at your resume, these days, because there are so many posers out there, and there are so many people who’ve gotten burned by them. I had a period where I was moving from job to job every 3 months or so, and during that period, my TBI was catching up with me and making it harder and harder for me to focus, concentrate, interact with others, keep my cool, and be the best I could be. And it’s been increasingly difficult for me to just pick things up and retain them the way I used to. My memory is not what it could be, which really sucks, when it comes to learning new things.

Apparently, that’s a common theme with TBI — learning new stuff can be a challenge.

On the bright side, my past abilities with certain types of work still seems very much intact, and I need to remember that. I’m pretty skilled in certain ways, and I need to identify those ways and make the most of them.

It’s all a work in progress… but now I’m a lot closer to my goal than I was just a few weeks ago, and that feels pretty good.

Onward.

Figuring out how to relax… and get on with things

The flood doesn’t have to last forever

I’m running a little late this morning. I was supposed to have an early phone call with a colleague on the other side of the world, this morning, but that was cancelled — partly because they told me they would be traveling at the end of this week, but I didn’t put it together that I should reschedule our meeting till when they got back.

No worries, though. They reminded me of it, and I’m rescheduling, so that’s fine.

In the past, I would have really given myself a hard time for not putting that together. I would have been unsparing and relentless in my self-criticism, and by the end of my internal tirade against myself, I would have reached the conclusion that I am good for nothing and I can’t do much of anything at all. It’s happened before, lots of times – especially at times when I’ve forgotten to reschedule meetings.

Today that didn’t happen.

If anything, I was relieved that I didn’t have to get on the call right after I woke up. I have had a couple of late-evening calls with colleagues, for the past couple of days, and I haven’t been able to get in bed before 11:00, or sleep past 7, which means I’m getting 6-7 hours of sleep, when I should be getting 8+. Oh, well. At least I’m not getting 4-5 hours, like I was last week.

I felt a bit foolish for a little bit, having spaced out on the schedule thing, then I just got on with my morning. I’ve had some time to check my personal email and make a list of things I need to get done today — and wonder of wonders, I don’t have anything scheduled for this evening, so I can take care of some things for one of the projects I’m working on.

There’s been an interesting change with me, lately. It happened around the time when I went to see my family and got out of my daily routine rut. There was a LOT of driving involved, I did NOT sleep very well, and the whole time was pretty uncomfortable for me in a lot of ways. But I handled myself extremely well, and as a result, no relationships were trashed or threatened, and there was no left-over biochemical sludge that I needed to clear out of my system.

Also, all during the trip, I was practicing the “90-second clearing” that helped me to regain my balance after upsetting or unsettling or anxiety-producing discussions or situations.

Basically this “90-second clearing” works this way:

1. I pay attention to my stress level, my physical situation — am I stressed? Am I relaxed? Am I getting tense and uptight? When I think about a picture of how I’m feeling, do I see a crazy line chart that looks like a craggy mountain range, with the line going wildly up and down to extremes?
2. If I am getting tense and uptight, I stop what I am doing and thinking, and I take a break for a minute and a half.  I stop the reaction to what’s happening. I stop the racing thoughts. I stop the escalation. I stop the fast breathing.
3. Then I breathe slowly for about a minute and a half — sometimes I need less time — until I feel “level” again.  I think about what my state of mind and body looks like, and if I see a line that looks like a nice little wave, or gently rolling hills, I know I’m good.
4. Then I can get back to doing what I was thinking and saying and doing before.
5. Then I can relax.

By stopping the crazy escalation and bringing myself back to a point of biochemical equilibrium (many times during my vacation), I was able to keep my head from going nuts over passing things. It wasn’t about tamping down my experience and suppressing my feelings and reactions — it was about just letting it all come… and then letting it all go… and moving on.

I’ve continued to do it, too — with good results. In fact, I just did it this morning, when my spouse and I were having a heated discussion about something that wasn’t going right, and we were both getting pretty uptight and tweaked over the situation. It wasn’t something that either of us had done “wrong”, just something that was wrong that I needed to fix — and we were starting to get pretty bent out of shape about it.

I managed to stop and just breathe for a minute or so, and the calming effect on me also had a calming effect on my spouse. I could relax. So could both of us. Good stuff. And now I can get on with my day.

This is a big change with me. I mean, just the fact that I even know what it feels like to relax, is a change. Up until about 5-6 years ago, that never happened. I had no idea what relaxation really felt like, and I wasn’t interested in finding out. I just needed to be ON. I just needed to be UP. I just needed to be GO-GO-GO, all the live-long day. And frankly it was tearing the sh*t out of me and my life and my relationships. Especially after my TBI in 2004, when suddenly I was unable to keep it together and manage the GO-GO-GO in a sensible way.

Then I started doing “stress hardiness optimization” which is guided meditation for first responders and other people in high-stress conditions. I figured that applied to me pretty well — especially since I felt like I was always responding to emergencies in my life on a personal level. That trained me to physically relax, with progressive relaxation.

Mentally relaxing and being able to just let things go, however, still eluded me.

But over time, the more I’ve relaxed physically and the more capable I’ve become at understanding and managing my own “internal state”, the better I’ve become at being able to relax my mind as well as my body.

Ironically, one of the things that’s helped me to relax my mind, is coming to realize that no matter what the circumstances, I’ll be able to figure something out. It may not be perfect, it may not be what I want, but I’ll be able to deal. I’ll be able to manage myself and my situation. I’ll be able to handle things. The 90-second clearing is a huge piece of the puzzle that helps me incredibly.

First, it defines my internal state of anxiety and upset as a biochemical thing. It’s not that something is wrong with me, and I cannot handle things. It’s my body reacting to what’s going on, trying to help me rise to the occasion with a flood of biochemical stress hormones that are specifically designed to kick me into action. It’s a purely physical reaction.

Second, it’s all about recognizing that my body can be a little “behind the times” — and my mind / awareness can jump in to help it calm down. My fight-flight system (like everyone’s) is quick to react, but slow to back off — once engaged, my fight-flight system doesn’t want to let go. It wants to keep me safe. It keeps escalating, until the “danger” has passed, but it doesn’t always realize that a “danger” is not actually dangerous. So I have to help it do that. It’s not doing it by itself. It needs my awareness to help. Which I can do.

Third, it’s about exercising my mind in very basic ways — just paying attention to how I’m feeling, and doing very simple things to adjust. It’s not about some elaborate plan that will require tons of practice and has to be done just right. It’s about just noticing what’s going on with me, and doing something with it. Taking action. Working with my situation to turn it in a different direction — adding important ingredients — elements of balance and just plain feeling good, which is a new experience for me. Just plain feeling good… what a concept.

Last of all, it just works. Slow breathing for a minute and a half puts a halt to my downward slide and stops the escalation in its tracks. I’ve used it a number of times in a number of different situations, with excellent results. I can’t even begin to explain how great it feels to have the waves of anxiety and dread and fight-flight sludge back off — to feel them subside, leaving calm in their place. It’s like the flood waters of the Nile are receding, leaving fertile fields awaiting a new season of crops. And it leaves me feeling awake and confident and better than I did before.

Feeling tight and cramped and anxious and nervous and antagonistic feels like crap, I have to say.

Feeling loosened up and relaxed and strong and flexible and friendly feels pretty awesome.

90 seconds is all it takes, too (well, sometimes it takes longer, but not more than a few minutes). It “resets” me, “reboots” my brain. And it lets me get on with my life. Relaxed, confident, and with a lot more better ideas than I had just a few minutes before.

 

 

The magical learning loop

Look – learn – act – look – and learn again

Speaking of re-adjusting and recalibrating, I had an epiphany in the grocery store the other evening, when I was picking up supper after a long day of yard work. I was dog-tired from working, I was a bit banged-up from moving and lifting and hauling, but I felt great. As I was walking through the store, I was getting sort of confused, not being sure where I was or where I was going. No biggie. It happens. I get disoriented for a few seconds — usually because I’m overwhelmed with the bright lights and the activity around me and fatigue — so I stop what I’m doing, I take a few breaths, I look at my list, and I continue on. This happened several times, and after the 2nd or 3rd time, I realized that it really wasn’t bothering me. I was so friggin’ tired (I worked my ass off on Saturday and never got the nap I needed), and I was out of it and spaced out and disoriented and feeling like a zonked out zombie. But it didn’t bother me. I just dealt with it.

This is a huge change from how things used to be — I used to get so worked up and bent out of shape about this kind of stuff. I would get anxious and nervous, my heart would start to pound, my head would start to race, and I’d have all these crazy thoughts running wild in my brain. It would practically incapacitate me, and it just freaked me out. And in the process, things would get even worse than they already were. And I’d be even more disoriented, confused, and forgetful.

But yesterday it didn’t. It just sort of was what it was… I knew I was tired — and for a very good reason. I knew that when I get tired I get forgetful and spaced out. I also noticed that there were a lot of people around me who were in really crappy shape — the father who couldn’t keep his kids in line without yelling at them… the guy who was all over the produce section with his cart… the ladies who were so engrossed in the displays that they blocked the aisle with their carts and wouldn’t let anyone pass… everybody was sort of at their wits’ end — probably for the same reason I was — we’d all been working our asses off for the past two days, maybe longer.

At the same time, the folks who worked in the store were very cool. They greeted me like they knew me, even though I didn’t recognize them. Maybe I should have recognized them – I don’t know. All I know is that they were very pleasant and personable, and it’s always nice to have someone greet you and treat you like a decent human being.

I also noticed that I was really relaxed. I mean, really relaxed. I was tired, yes. I was out of my head, yes. But I was relaxed and chilled out and putting out a vibe of real confidence and calm. I was dropping stuff left and right, bumping into things, forgetting things, not knowing where I was or what I was doing, here and there. But it wasn’t bothering me. I just kept going. I just kept on keeping on.

And it worked.

Not only did I pick up all the supper items on my list, but I also remembered a bunch of other things we needed, and I came home with two full bags of groceries that we needed for the coming week. Score.

And then I went out and seeded my lawn — at least, that’s what I thought I was doing… until I realized that I’d bought fertilizer earlier that day, not seed. And I was going to miss the opportunity to seed my messed up lawn before the rain comes later this week. That really threw me for a loop – I had it carefully planned, how I’d rake up all the dead grass, then seed, and water, and then I would be done for a few days.

Except that I didn’t buy grass seed.

After getting a little tweaked over it, I let that go and just decided to fertilize my lawn instead. God knows, it needs it. So, I got out my spreader, gave my lawn a nice dose of fertilizer, and watered afterwards. It wasn’t a total waste, and in fact, it’s probably an even better idea than seeding right off the bat. I just picked up seed the next day, when I was less tired and could read and comprehend the labels on the bags — which was giving me a LOT of trouble at the hardware store the day I bought the fertilizer — I could hardly comprehend anything I was reading, and the words weren’t making any sense to me. But I got in and out without too much drama.

Anyway, this is something new for me — not only taking steps to avoid issues, but learning how to gracefully handle the times when issues are in my face and unavoidable. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been pretty focused on keeping bad things from happening. A huge amount of anxiety has followed me everywhere in life because of that. But now I’m getting the hang of not having the screw-ups really screw me up — just learning my lesson, dealing with what comes up, and getting on with the next thing.

Just keeping moving. Learning. Living. Using what I learn in that “learning loop” and taking things to the next step without missing a beat. Paying attention to the feedback that comes from the world around me and finding the pieces that will help me get to the next level — or just to the next step.

And trusting that I will be able to apply what I’ve learned in a way that makes things better the next time.

Working my plan(s)

Got a ton of stuff done over the weekend. Sore as hell, but it’s a good sore — the kind that tells me I was productive.

Spring is definitely here, and with it comes a sudden surge in energy. The trip to see family did me good, in that it broke me out of my rut and got me thinking again about how I want my life to be, and how I need to shape it. Seeing my family members — both sides — all pretty much stuck in their status quo lives, with their resignation to “how things are” and their petty in-fighting and their self-satisfaction over “accomplishments” which are from just doing what they’ve been told to do, year after year… that was so depressing.

But it woke me up. Status quo… they can keep it. I’m much more interested in living my life, living it as an adventure rather than a task list, and really experiencing things around me — not just slogging through with “just a job” till retirement shows up.

Because to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I’m going to be retiring anytime soon — probably not at all.

See, here’s the thing. I have no retirement savings. Zip – nada – zilch. I am barely keeping afloat with my everyday expenses, let alone building up some savings. Adding any money to a 401(k) or an IRA is a joke to me – I cannot afford to contribute even 1% of my earnings. Truly. So, even though much of the working world has rearranged itself to have people my age retire around age 55  (which gives me about 7 years), the simple fact is, I’m going to be working well into my 80s, maybe beyond — if I live that long.

So, the pressure is off, in terms of retirement timeline. And there’s really no reason for me to freak out over things like saving enough for retirement, paying for medication and all those other expenses that aging people accrue. Because I’m not going to stop working anytime soon. I will always have an income, doing something. And I’m fine with it.

My family members are a little horrified by the idea, but who the hell cares? They can have their retirements. They can fade into the background. They can drift away into a life of leisurely “rewards” for all the crap they’ve had to put up with, all those years.

Me? I’d rather not have to put up with the crap… be happy while I’m working (not after)… have a life I can enjoy, right here and right now… and continue to be active and engaged long into the future.

That means getting up and going. Doing. Being active. Keeping things going. And constantly re-adjusting and recalibrating as time goes on.  Not getting stuck with one set idea about How Things Should Be. It’s pointless for me to latch onto that, because it just doesn’t happen for me the way it does for others. This is not a criticism of myself, nor is it a reason for despair. This is just how things are with me – no reason to be upset or be down on myself. Just to acknowledge and adapt accordingly and really live to the max.

See, that’s the thing — everything in the world doesn’t need to be established and “perfect” and according to plan. All around me, people are so invested in the status quo, in being part of the establishment, in “playing their part” in the Big, Big World. That’s fine, but there are other things to do, and there are other ways to be, and sometimes it’s perfectly fine to be on the margins, to live the alternatives, and to walk to the edge and see what is there.

It’s like we’re all in this big boat, and most people I know are trying to stay near the center line of the boat, so it keeps its balance and it doesn’t tip over. When I am most anxious and tired and beside myself with worry, this is how I become. But there are some of us who would rather sit (or stand or climb) to the far edges of the boat, so we can have a better view. And we worry less about falling in, because we know we can swim.

I can swim. That’s for sure. And I don’t mind the edges of the boat. I don’t mind the wind in my hair, I don’t mind the mess, the spray, the salty residue that cakes on my face and hands. In fact, I rather enjoy it. Because it’s life. It’s just life. Sailing is dangerous stuff, to be sure, but I’m no good at the center of the boat. And everyone who is trying to put (and keep) me there — as much as they may mean well — is holding me back from living my life.

My family means well. Most of the people around me at work and in the community mean well. My healthcare providers mean well. They want me to be safe.

But safe is a terrible place for me to be. It’s dull and drab and it doesn’t keep me awake — literally. I’ve been hit in the head too many times — my tonic arousal (how awake my brain is) tends to be for shit, especially when I’m tired and overworked. My brain gets sleepy and it gets slow, when things are too safe and secure.

I need to be out on the edge, seeing what else is out there. I don’t need dysfunction, and I don’t need artificial drama. I need authentic, daring life that has something to offer me besides safety and security.

I need something more. Something real. Something untamed. Something leading-edge and vibrant. It’s not that I don’t want to plan my life and follow through. I don’t want some loosey-goosey flit-flitting around from one thing to the next. That’s fun, but it leads me nowhere. I need to move forward into areas that far exceed what others think or believe is possible for them — and me. I need to test waters and see what else can be done, what else can be achieved. The plans of the status quo are not for me. I need my own plans — and I’ve got them. I’m working on them. And things are coming along — not the way others envision, but the way I envision.

And with that, I’m off to start my day. We’ll see what happens. For real.