praise gratitude love

I apologize for the long blogging hiatus. Moving cross country and getting my other blogging projects up and running distracted rather severely from my more esoteric writing. But I’m back!

When my mom was my age, she moved to Colorado on a whim. She often revels in this parallel in our lives, so we talk about the similarities and differences of our experiences with some frequency. Aside from the major differences of my ability to use the internet to network, look for jobs and apartments, and even make friends months before I moved, I have the benefit of Ascension.

I don’t think that anyone will debate whether moving is stressful – particularly when it’s a major relocation like this one. Whenever I get nervous or sad or worried, I have the Ascension Attitudes to help me through those moments.  For this I am grateful every day. When I’m lost in a part of town I don’t know, it’s invaluable to be able to drop an attitude and re-center, rather than getting increasingly anxious. That kind of re-centering helps me to turn the situation around, rather than becoming more agitated and potentially making the situation worse.

Has that ever happened to you? You get lost and it flusters you, so instead of stopping to figure out where you’re going you keep driving and making more wrong turns, which just further upsets you? When we focus on those negative emotions, they tend to grow. So stopping and re-focusing on what we need to do in those moments can be invaluable – even when time is short or we are running late. Finding the right route will always be more efficient than continuing down the lost path. Whatever your means of re-centering, next time you’re flustered and stressed out, try shifting the feeling, rather than buying into it.

When I was a child, I had a bunch of teeth pulled. It was not a good experience. I know that sounds obvious – who would enjoy having their teeth pulled? But even by the standards of oral surgery, it didn’t go well. The dentist had NO finesse with the needle. The biggest pain I can recall suffering IN MY LIFE was getting those Novocain shots.

So I have been terrified of ever needing shots in my mouth ever since. So terrified, in fact, that I go to the most expensive dentist in the city even though I have no dental insurance, just because he does needle-free, laser dentistry. At least, when he can. If your cavities are small enough, shallow enough, they can do the drilling with a laser. It just feels cold. And then they do the filling. No needles. No pain.

When I went in on Friday to get a couple of cavities filled, this was the plan. You can only imagine my devastation when he got part way into one of them and it started hurting. He told me they weren’t even half done, and he didn’t see any way he could finish drilling without numbing me.

It took everything I had not to burst into tears then and there. Inside, I was shaking. My fingers gripped the arms of the chair until they turned white. Luckily, now I have a tool for calming myself that I didn’t have when I was 8: Ascension. So I started taking deep breaths and dropping attitudes. This helped to calm me some, and as I allowed myself to sink into the meditation, I had a revelation:

I have been afraid for TWENTY YEARS.

One bad experience as a kid, and I have spent TWENTY YEARS avoiding Novocain shots. Thirty seconds of pain led to two full decades of doing everything in my power to avoid needles in my mouth. It occurred to me that perhaps this fear was at least somewhat unwarranted.

I thought “the technology has to have improved by now… or maybe that one guy was just REALLY BAD at giving shots. This guy has to be better…” and he was. Much to my surprise, I barely felt it. (The technology, however, has not improved AT ALL. I asked.)

Then I felt kind of stupid for making such a big deal about the shots. I continued to Ascend as we waited for the Novocain to kick in. By the time he started drilling, I was almost asleep in the chair. The rest of the procedure went off without a nerve or a hitch.

It’s amazing what we can hold on to, and how we can build up so much resistance and anxiety around something. As I Ascended in that dentist’s chair, it became obvious to me that I had given this fear far too much power. I’m grateful that I had this experience; it made me realize that I may have other fears that have been built up over time, and once I face them, they may prove to be founded on almost nothing at all.

This weekend I took a trip up to Minneapolis, to visit my brother and some friends from college. I’ve made this trip 5-10 times a year for the last nine years; I could probably drive it with my eyes closed. I can tell you where the nicest rest stops and gas stations are, what kind of trail mix they sell at the Kwik Trip in Tomah, and which billboards have changed since my last trip up.

Needless to say, I am usually bored out of my mind, staying awake only by constantly scanning the radio for songs I can sing along with and drinking coffee. All I can think about is getting there, and what we’re going to do when I arrive. I’m totally focused on what is happening later, and that makes the current moments pass So. Much. Slower.

But my experience this time was different. This is in part due to the fact that I finally discovered the wonder that is NPR. Every hour they have a different topic that is (usually) interesting and stimulating. I found myself surprised that a whole hour had gone by when the program I was listening to (“I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti”) suddenly ended.

I got to Minneapolis in what felt like no time at all. If it weren’t for the stiffness in my legs, I’d swear I’d only driven an hour or so instead of the 4.5 it takes to get to St. Paul from Madison.

I thought it was just the discovery of good radio, but the rest of my weekend was a totally different experience than usual, too. As always, the weekend was crammed full of people to see and meals out during which to see them all. It was, in fact, busier than my usual visit weekends, because my reason for visiting was to attend a wedding shower for friends from Madison, so there were extra events thrown in.

In the past, this has always meant feeling like I barely got to spend any time with anyone. I’m a mixture of elated to see them and sad that I don’t get to do so more often, and by the end of the weekend I’m exhausted. But this time was just different.

I was fully present in almost every moment. Whoever I was with, whatever we were doing, I just enjoyed it. I had occasional moments of awareness when I would realize I’d just spent the whole conversation focused on the friends I was with, rather than thinking about who I was off to see next, or worse, flashing back on things that had happened with this friend or in this place in the past. Minneapolis is a great city, but I had some rough times in college, emotionally. And being there sometimes stirs up those old feelings of anxiety. This time it just didn’t.

So my trip was wonderful. Not only did I see more people than I usually do, but I felt like the quality of the time we spent together was better. I felt like I really connected and enjoyed and was present with them.

I think the change in my experience can be attributed to Ascension.

The difference, at the heart of it, was that I was not being pulled around by emotions from the past, present, or future. I wasn’t thinking back on old anxieties, I wasn’t feeling sad that I don’t live there anymore and can’t see these friends all the time, and I wasn’t worrying about what I’d be doing next. I was just experiencing what was happening right in that moment.

This kind of disconnection from uncontrollable thoughts and emotions is one of the many effects that Ascension can have. By Ascending, I’ve cleared a lot of the old stresses out, so they don’t come up as often or as easily. I feel like I can trust myself more, so making plans and getting places wasn’t a concern. But most importantly, I can focus on where I am, and quiet the other thoughts so I can be fully present.

I would hazard to say these things are probably true in my day-to-day life, though I don’t notice it as much because the changes are so subtle. But being pulled out of my normal routine and going into an event that only happens a few times a year really highlighted how different our experiences can be when we change our inner landscape.

This morning when I sat down to Ascend, I had an experience that most people can probably relate to: I COULDN’T STOP THINKING. It was as if the thoughts were afraid that I would forget them or that they would be forever lost if I didn’t go through them RIGHT NOW. I almost forgot that I had sat down to meditate altogether, the current was so strong.

When this happens, I have to remind myself that the thoughts will, indeed, be there when I come out of my meditation. If it’s really necessary, I will grab a pen and paper and jot down things to deal with later.

Sometimes a little voice says “but what if you forget? You better think this through before you do anything else,” but in my experience, if it’s important, it comes back to me later.

Meditation can be really a useful tool for clarifying the thought process. It’s almost as if it weeds out the random or distracting thoughts that endlessly come up, at least for a while. If I just sat there and let everything cycle through, I’d probably think of two or three important things and thousands of unimportant ones. Or I might get sidetracked and miss the important ones altogether. But if I sit and meditate for half an hour, the thoughts that recur when I am done are the useful ones. The big ones. The ones that I need to actually do something with. And, often, they’re the inspiring ones.

So this is how I sift through my thousands of thoughts to find the ones that I need to do more with. When I get distracted or unfocused, rather than trying to push my brain to figure things out or flagellate it with attempts at self discipline, the best thing I can do is give it a time-out. Sit down, be quiet, and let the chatter die away, revealing the useful, inspirational, and important thoughts that were buried in their clutter.

This can be helpful in not just dealing with personal things, but in our work lives as well. Think about the last time you had to solve a big problem, or come up with an idea on a deadline. I bet the thought process felt like your brain bouncing around the room, picking up whatever lint and litter happened to be lying around. Eventually you get so frazzled or fried that you can hardly think straight, even though you’re pouring all of your energy into trying to do just that.

Sometimes, it’s more useful to stop and let our brains clear out and rejuvenate than to try to push through thinking out a problem. It can be hard to convince ourselves that sitting down and calming our thoughts is the best idea when we’re under pressure or deadlines, but it can lead to much more productive creativity. If you’re going to invite inspiration in, you have to give it a space to move into. And inspiration likes to fill whatever space it is given, so the more you can calm and still the mind, the more inspiration you will find.

Disclaimer: this post has nothing to do with health or meditation. But I have no where else to put it, and I thought you all might like to know that:

I’m moving to Colorado.

Anyone who has known me at any point over the last 12 years has heard me say this about a bajillion times. But this time, I mean it. For reals.

I’m moving to Colorado in August.

The first question everyone I tell about my move asks me is: “what are you going to do in Colorado?” It is, after all, the most sensible and polite question to ask.

I usually respond with a blank look while my internal monologue does the following: “I have no idea. I have no idea what I am going to do in Colorado. What am I going to do? What am I going to say to this person? Quick brain, come up with SOMETHING!” Unfortunately, I think my blank look comes across as “why are you asking me such a stupid question?” Which I feel bad about, because I don’t want to make people feel bad for asking me questions, even if they are stupid. Really it’s more that because I don’t have a good answer for the question, I hate it when people ask that. Which they do. Every time.

So now my response, accompanied by said blank stare, is “um, live there.”

Which, of course, gets followed up by more questions I don’t really have answers to:

“Well do you have a job lined up or anything?”

Most sensible people do not pick up and move across the country if it’s not for a job or a great love or family. I am leaving my family and my great love (more about that in a minute) and I don’t have a job lined up; I don’t even know what kind of job I want.

Part of me is really hoping to find a full-time job with an innovative company where I can make a decent paycheck and have health insurance and work with people and occasionally do interesting, creative things. The other part of me wants to “wing it” as a freelancer or start my own business as an event planner, so that I can still travel all the time, because now I will have 3 cities I want to visit all of the time instead of one. But that’s a terrible idea, because Boulder is way more expensive than Madison and I’m not making my living as a freelancer now.

So I’ve settled on setting an intention for whatever would be best for me to show up. I’m going to go out there and just see what happens. I can always serve coffee or do massages if I need to stretch my savings until Mr. Right in job form comes along.

Now befuddled at my apparently random decision making process, the person asks “so why are you going to Colorado?”

I grew up in Colorado, and I decided the day I left that someday I’d go back. So it’s just this ingrained psychological thing about returning home, even though Madison feels way more like home at this point. In some ways, I need to go just so I can cross it off my “life list” and get on to whatever I want to do next.

But the important part isn’t that I’m going to Colorado, it’s that I’m going. The best reasons I can give are that I am moving because I am 27 and not married and have no real reason not to.

I will concede that I have plenty of reasons to stay. My family’s here. Ian’s here. Madison is a fabulous place to live. I have a lot of friends I really care about, and my local professional network is pretty solid. I often wish I could just be happy to stay here and get married and start my own business. It would be great.

But as Ian said once, staying would slowly kill me from the inside. I need to go do this just because I’ve always wanted to, and I would always wonder what would’ve happened if I’d done it. And I do not want to be one of those senior citizens who says “oh I wish I’d done that when I was your age, but then I got married…”

Speaking of marriage, the last question they ask is “So is Ian going with you?”

I am always caught off-guard by this one, just because I’m surprised at how many people know that I’m in a relationship, that it’s a serious relationship, and that they care about my business that much. And I know that they care, because they are usually devastated when I say “no.”

This is followed up by a lengthy explanation about how Ian’s not coming with me because I have always wanted to just go and strike it out on my own and he loves me enough not to deprive me of that. More to the point, he and I have been together for two years and we’re really happy and we’ve talked about getting married and while everyone else in the world thinks this is exactly why I should plant myself here and marry him, I think that means it’s the perfect time for us to be apart for a bit. I don’t want to get married because I happened to be in a good relationship around the time that most people get married. I want to get married because I go to Colorado and I date other people and I realize I can’t possibly live without him.

Or its possible that I get out there and realize I can live without him and then I will have avoided marrying someone I’m later going to leave because I’m still wondering what would’ve happened if I’d gone to Colorado and if I was supposed to meet someone there instead.

You know, pretending there’s “the one” and that romance is fated and all that stuff that I don’t really belive in but romanticize anyway.

But back to the point:  I’m moving to Colorado. In August. To live there. No, I don’t have a job lined up, and I don’t know what kind of job I’m looking for, if any. Ian is not coming with me. Yes, I will miss you all. I promise to visit. And yes, you better come visit me because I will be living in the land of awesome.