Luke's been dealing with some horrid anxiety as of late. He's been having full on panic attacks about school work. He keeps saying that he knows it's only going to get harder, and he freaks about stuff way in the future.
I've been trying to help him by telling him to focus on the moment. We've been youtubing meditations for anxiety, and practicing our yoga breathing all in an effort to help him find peace.
Mostly though, I've just been telling him to change his mind. To get in control of it and make the switch when he's feeling anxious.
Grace told me what a crock of shit that was in her usual kind, gentle and wise beyond her years way.
She said, "I don't know, mom. When I'm having an anxiety attack, I can't just tell myself. 'Grace, take some deep breaths.'"
Did I listen to her? No. Well, that's not entirely accurate. I did listen to her, and I did hear what she was saying, but I thought she was mostly wrong. Not entirely wrong because I asked him if it would help if his teacher reminded him to breathe, but mostly wrong.
Then today, I felt blue. Blue for lots of good reasons, but really, really blue. I also felt a little anxious. The last thing I wanted to do was meditate, or deep breathe, and I sure as hell couldn't just think on the bright side.
What I did do was eat a cold piece of fried chicken, drink a cup of hot cocoa followed by three mini candy bars, stay in my jammies while I worked, and wallow in the sad, anxious feelings. And I think that was ok.
I obviously don't have the answers. Normally I think I do, but I don't.
One of the things I told Luke when he was in the middle of this feeling was that he was allowed to feel whatever he was feeling, but I don't think I really thought he was.
I do now. I'm going to let him feel whatever he's feeling, and I'm going to feel whatever I'm feeling, and if we find some answers after that, great. If not we'll keep feeling it.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Choice
Divorce is happening all around us. I don't mean in general, I mean that literally all around us, our inner circle, people are getting divorced. I know this happens everyday, I know everyone will get through it, and lives will get better, but it's strangely upsetting for me.
Josh and I were talking about one of these divorces, and I started to cry. I was crying for the wife. I was crying because I identified with her, and it has been painful for me to see how this has all just "happened" to her. I think it scared me, I started thinking about how I had no control over whether Josh stayed or left, and not having control is a really hard thing for me to accept.
As we talked and the tears continued to fall, Josh reached over and took my hand, looked at me with great compassion and said, slowly and carefully, "Angie. I will never leave you. Never." This statement, as comforting as it should have been at the time, just wasn't. I said to him, "You don't know that." His reply, "Yes, I do. I will never leave you." I didn't react the way he wanted me to, I condescendingly dismissed him, and he said, "It's true. I will never leave you." Uncomfortable with the intensity of his stare, I said, "Ok. ok. Let's just not talk about it." He dropped the subject and we unpaused the Netflix show we'd been watching before all this big talk started.
I know Josh. I have loved him for 23 years now. He proposed to me when he was but a wee lad of eighteen, and could have been having what most other guys his age would have seen as a lot more fun. He has chosen me. I know that marriage is a choice. I know enough to know, that when Josh makes a choice, he sticks to it. He's resolved. Why then, do I question his clearly heartfelt and truthful profession that he will never leave? Maybe, my fear is more about whether I will choose it, maybe I have to trust myself. Maybe, I'm afraid I can't say, "I will never leave you." Or maybe I don't trust myself enough to know I could handle my shit if he did leave. I don't know if I could handle him making another choice.
After a few minutes we started up the stairs for bed, and as I peeked in on my babies, Josh's words were echoing in my head. "I will never leave you." And it hit me, there was another guy who said that. No, not some lost lover, some liar. God. All of a sudden, I understood, that it didn't matter if Josh held true to his word, (although, I really believe he will), because He will never leave me. I have no control, it's true, but I know that no matter what ends up happening in my life, I will be ok. My children will be ok, because He will never leave me.
I know not everyone believes. And for those of you who don't this probably won't make you feel any better, but there's something, something bigger for everyone to hold on to. Somewhere inside you know that there is peace even when something scary or awful comes at you without you having any control. I guess that's my secular point. Storms can be weathered, and even when big scary things happen, if you seek it out, you will find normalcy and peace.
Josh and I were talking about one of these divorces, and I started to cry. I was crying for the wife. I was crying because I identified with her, and it has been painful for me to see how this has all just "happened" to her. I think it scared me, I started thinking about how I had no control over whether Josh stayed or left, and not having control is a really hard thing for me to accept.
As we talked and the tears continued to fall, Josh reached over and took my hand, looked at me with great compassion and said, slowly and carefully, "Angie. I will never leave you. Never." This statement, as comforting as it should have been at the time, just wasn't. I said to him, "You don't know that." His reply, "Yes, I do. I will never leave you." I didn't react the way he wanted me to, I condescendingly dismissed him, and he said, "It's true. I will never leave you." Uncomfortable with the intensity of his stare, I said, "Ok. ok. Let's just not talk about it." He dropped the subject and we unpaused the Netflix show we'd been watching before all this big talk started.
I know Josh. I have loved him for 23 years now. He proposed to me when he was but a wee lad of eighteen, and could have been having what most other guys his age would have seen as a lot more fun. He has chosen me. I know that marriage is a choice. I know enough to know, that when Josh makes a choice, he sticks to it. He's resolved. Why then, do I question his clearly heartfelt and truthful profession that he will never leave? Maybe, my fear is more about whether I will choose it, maybe I have to trust myself. Maybe, I'm afraid I can't say, "I will never leave you." Or maybe I don't trust myself enough to know I could handle my shit if he did leave. I don't know if I could handle him making another choice.
After a few minutes we started up the stairs for bed, and as I peeked in on my babies, Josh's words were echoing in my head. "I will never leave you." And it hit me, there was another guy who said that. No, not some lost lover, some liar. God. All of a sudden, I understood, that it didn't matter if Josh held true to his word, (although, I really believe he will), because He will never leave me. I have no control, it's true, but I know that no matter what ends up happening in my life, I will be ok. My children will be ok, because He will never leave me.
I know not everyone believes. And for those of you who don't this probably won't make you feel any better, but there's something, something bigger for everyone to hold on to. Somewhere inside you know that there is peace even when something scary or awful comes at you without you having any control. I guess that's my secular point. Storms can be weathered, and even when big scary things happen, if you seek it out, you will find normalcy and peace.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
The Life Changing Magic of 25
I haven't written here in a while because I've been working on some other things:
> an article on the rhetoric of the ecomodernists, which I presented at a conference in San Diego a few weeks ago and and am working on with a student. We have a very shitty first draft and he's found me a bunch of literature to read. So I'm pretty excited to get back to it.
> an article on how nonprofit conservation organizations in the Boise area use science to make claims about what we should do with/how we should manage our gorgeous but highly polluted Boise River. I worked with some students last year to interview a bunch of people from these organizations and we're finally to the writing stage.
I'm just kind of advising on the piece, actually, because a super talented PhD student is driving the boat. I took the research group down the wrong rabbit hole with a concept I thought would work, and didn't, but we reconvened this week and I think we're back on the right track. Realizing you went down the wrong rabbit hole is sort of terrifying, but it also makes getting back on track really satisfying. I'll be excited to see what she does with this work, and to contribute as a co-author. Much easier to work on something that's already in place that sit down and write from scratch.
> and today, I finally got going on a piece that I think is going to be a chapter in my next book, if I'm lucky, and that I was able to really make some headway on today. This one is about how universities use the rhetoric of innovation to bring in a lot of money from private industry, which can be really positive, but then also use that rhetoric to mask problems that arise when industries try to suppress research they don't like.
Anyway, when I was in San Diego at that conference I mentioned, I participated on a panel with some friends of mine that was about writing groups and writing practices. It was so fun to nerd out about writing and writing strategies. My writing group and I have been pretty productive, so we were excited to share our process with other people.
But I also heard about this idea that I really liked and was excited to try when I got back. One woman on the panel talked about the pomodoro method, which I hadn't heard of before. As I look it up now, I see there are lots of ways to make it more complicated if you want, but she basically just described it as tackling tasks in 25-minute chunks and then moving on to something else, or taking a break before tackling another 25-minute chunk of time.
I love, love, love this idea. It reminds me of Gretchen Rubin's power hour, but even more achievable. The reason I love it is because, while I love writing, 1) I often don't have huge chunks of time to devote to it, and so I sometimes figure why bother and don't even start, 2) it is sometimes super hard to start writing, even though I love it once I do start, and 3) 25 minutes seems like a long enough time to get something meaningful done without feeling overwhelming. Plus, it jives with my favorite method of working, which is to pair a work task with something pleasant (e.g., grade 3 papers, read a chapter of a good book).
So I got home from San Diego, and while I don't have a pomodoro app on my phone, I do have a timer. And I've been using it for everything.
I particularly like using it for email. I'm a big fan of trying to hit inbox zero--if something is in my inbox, it requires action. But I also can't spend all my time on email or else I won't get other things done. So I set the timer for 25 minutes, work on email until it goes off, and then I check my to do list and see if there's something else I can work on for a while. Awesome.
It also works great for tasks I don't really want to do but need to do. Writing letters of recommendation, reading articles, assigning journal articles for review. Anything where I'd rather procrastinate or it feels like I could get sucked in for a really long time so I'm putting it off.
I think you could probably use this for chores or other blah tasks, too.
Most importantly, though, it is awesome for writing. I did, in fact, have this entire day blocked out for working on the rhetoric of innovation chapter. But I was also feeling really freaked out and nervous about it. I need to have a draft done by next week for another conference I'm going to, and while I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about it, all I had written on it was a very half-assed piece from a year ago. So I needed to figure out whether I was going to use anything from that old material, what to do with some feedback friends had given me on it, what to do with all my new sources, and how to bite off a reasonable chunk that I could finish by next week.
Cue panic.
But I just set my timer and decided that all I would try to accomplish for the first 25 minute chunk would be to read my friends' feedback. Weirdly enough, that's all it took to get started. I wrote for 7 25-minute chunks over the course of the day, stopping to put laundry in, shower, go for a run, eat lunch, whatever. But I have half a draft to show for it, and it's not bad.
I will say the one trick for writing that makes this possible is to stop when the timer goes off and then decide precisely where you will pick back up next time you sit down for another 25-minute sprint. If you stop at a good place and don't make that decision, you run the risk of reading everything you've already written and nit-picking it to death while not creating any new text. This is its own form of procrastination. So stop mid-sentence, if you have to, because it will force you to pick up where you left off.
That's it. 25 minutes of magic, my friends. Try it out.
> an article on the rhetoric of the ecomodernists, which I presented at a conference in San Diego a few weeks ago and and am working on with a student. We have a very shitty first draft and he's found me a bunch of literature to read. So I'm pretty excited to get back to it.
> an article on how nonprofit conservation organizations in the Boise area use science to make claims about what we should do with/how we should manage our gorgeous but highly polluted Boise River. I worked with some students last year to interview a bunch of people from these organizations and we're finally to the writing stage.
 |
| Yep, it really is this beautiful. I bike across it everyday on my way to work. |
I'm just kind of advising on the piece, actually, because a super talented PhD student is driving the boat. I took the research group down the wrong rabbit hole with a concept I thought would work, and didn't, but we reconvened this week and I think we're back on the right track. Realizing you went down the wrong rabbit hole is sort of terrifying, but it also makes getting back on track really satisfying. I'll be excited to see what she does with this work, and to contribute as a co-author. Much easier to work on something that's already in place that sit down and write from scratch.
> and today, I finally got going on a piece that I think is going to be a chapter in my next book, if I'm lucky, and that I was able to really make some headway on today. This one is about how universities use the rhetoric of innovation to bring in a lot of money from private industry, which can be really positive, but then also use that rhetoric to mask problems that arise when industries try to suppress research they don't like.
Anyway, when I was in San Diego at that conference I mentioned, I participated on a panel with some friends of mine that was about writing groups and writing practices. It was so fun to nerd out about writing and writing strategies. My writing group and I have been pretty productive, so we were excited to share our process with other people.
 |
| My crew. |
But I also heard about this idea that I really liked and was excited to try when I got back. One woman on the panel talked about the pomodoro method, which I hadn't heard of before. As I look it up now, I see there are lots of ways to make it more complicated if you want, but she basically just described it as tackling tasks in 25-minute chunks and then moving on to something else, or taking a break before tackling another 25-minute chunk of time.
I love, love, love this idea. It reminds me of Gretchen Rubin's power hour, but even more achievable. The reason I love it is because, while I love writing, 1) I often don't have huge chunks of time to devote to it, and so I sometimes figure why bother and don't even start, 2) it is sometimes super hard to start writing, even though I love it once I do start, and 3) 25 minutes seems like a long enough time to get something meaningful done without feeling overwhelming. Plus, it jives with my favorite method of working, which is to pair a work task with something pleasant (e.g., grade 3 papers, read a chapter of a good book).
So I got home from San Diego, and while I don't have a pomodoro app on my phone, I do have a timer. And I've been using it for everything.
I particularly like using it for email. I'm a big fan of trying to hit inbox zero--if something is in my inbox, it requires action. But I also can't spend all my time on email or else I won't get other things done. So I set the timer for 25 minutes, work on email until it goes off, and then I check my to do list and see if there's something else I can work on for a while. Awesome.
It also works great for tasks I don't really want to do but need to do. Writing letters of recommendation, reading articles, assigning journal articles for review. Anything where I'd rather procrastinate or it feels like I could get sucked in for a really long time so I'm putting it off.
I think you could probably use this for chores or other blah tasks, too.
Most importantly, though, it is awesome for writing. I did, in fact, have this entire day blocked out for working on the rhetoric of innovation chapter. But I was also feeling really freaked out and nervous about it. I need to have a draft done by next week for another conference I'm going to, and while I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about it, all I had written on it was a very half-assed piece from a year ago. So I needed to figure out whether I was going to use anything from that old material, what to do with some feedback friends had given me on it, what to do with all my new sources, and how to bite off a reasonable chunk that I could finish by next week.
Cue panic.
But I just set my timer and decided that all I would try to accomplish for the first 25 minute chunk would be to read my friends' feedback. Weirdly enough, that's all it took to get started. I wrote for 7 25-minute chunks over the course of the day, stopping to put laundry in, shower, go for a run, eat lunch, whatever. But I have half a draft to show for it, and it's not bad.
I will say the one trick for writing that makes this possible is to stop when the timer goes off and then decide precisely where you will pick back up next time you sit down for another 25-minute sprint. If you stop at a good place and don't make that decision, you run the risk of reading everything you've already written and nit-picking it to death while not creating any new text. This is its own form of procrastination. So stop mid-sentence, if you have to, because it will force you to pick up where you left off.
That's it. 25 minutes of magic, my friends. Try it out.
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