Double-take Reality Check

I've changed. I'm not at all the person I was two years ago. 

I say it all the time but don't often taken the time to recognize the profundity of change that has occurred. Maybe it's because I'm in it, not watching it. 

When I reevaluated my desire to blog and dusted off my keyboard, a few of the folks in my graduate program were beaming with excitement to stalk the blog history and read form the beginning. Oh, just watch this wave of thought and emotion--first, I was excited: readers! I write with the intent of people reading, so that's great. Then, nervousness took the driver's seat: The questions began. Do I write well enough? What if they don't like what I have to say? What if people think this is dumb? How will I know if I'm good enough? How do I become better? This led to self-consciousness: I read a few of the early posts and realized that I'm truly not that person anymore...how do I explain that? What if people like the old me better? What if they chastise the old me? What if they see the change as instability or inauthenticity? 

Oh, goshhhhhhhhhhhhh...

I don't have answers to all those burning questions, except that no one has said anything negative and people are still reading both current posts and old ones. In all honesty, I am trying not to think about it, to let people think what they will and to let myself write what I will. This way I calmly sit with my hands wide open to the world.

And at the same time, I've become mesmerized by the enormity of change that has a occurred in the past 2-3 years. Wow. I keep it no secret that this change happened in a street-fight sort of brawl during many many many therapy sessions and life. Shitty life circumstances would punch me in the gut while I swung back as my therapist screamed from the sidelines about the things I was doing to sabotage my game. I ignored her. I yelled back at her. I told her she was wrong. I ignored her some more. And then I began to listen. 

Anyway, my current therapist wants to know some of the background story of my life surrounding an event that occurred 3 1/2 years ago. I have a lot of memories but it's difficult for me to remember from the center of Self I was in 2011. In a lot of ways, it feels like third person. This week, I've charged myself with reading the blog posts and my journal from that time to better understand who 2011 Emily was, what she wanted, how she walked through the world. Is it weird that I don't know? Does change keep happening like this throughout adulthood? 

I wonder what I've missed as I've been so busy in the present and future that I've forgotten to honor my past. We hear all the time about how meaningful it is to live in the moment and live for today, and I wholeheartedly appreciate that. To do one thing mindfully takes practice and patience. I don't think this practice, however, asks us to forget our stories and just live in the now. My story has brought me to my now. 

Week 2: The First Law of Motion

Two weeks without checking myself out in the mirror and, guess what, I'm not going crazy, not at all. It was tough for the first week when I wanted to put on eyeliner and check to make sure my unlatching clothes weren't too out of control. And then my racing heart calmed as I realized nothing bad had happened in the past week because I hadn't meticulously put on my eyeliner and mascara or spent 20 minutes changing into different workout tanks and shorts because the first outfit "didn't fall quite right today." Nothing bad had happened. No one had treated me any differently....

No one treated me any differently. That includes me. I didn't treat myself any differently. Even though I wasn't spending the time looking in the mirror, I was still experiencing the self-criticism I do regularly. Just instead of statements, the criticism took the form of questions, questions that I couldn't answer without looking in the mirror--do these shorts make my legs look fat? how sunburnt is my nose? is my sunglasses tan still obvious? is my hair cooperating today?--there's only so much your sense of touch can alert you about. The rest...its up to the gods (for the rest of the month, at least). 

Well, that's dumb. 

The whole point of this exercise is to change the way I treat myself! So, what am I doing wrong??!

Newton's first law of motion states the following:
an object in a form of uniform motion will stay in motion unless acted on by an external force.

Ah, ha! The "object" whose motion I'm aiming to alter is not vanity in the form of self-absorbed mirror staring, it's the self-criticism, the need to constantly check and recheck that I appear the right way whatever the heck that is. In fact, the mirror has less to do with making this change than I had originally thought. It starts from within. I must summon the courage and compassion to be completely as I am--no excuses, no apologies, no wishing it were different. It's not going to just happen. I have to do something, to make a choice, to try something different.  Sure, not looking in a mirror for a month is trying something different, but not if the work stops there. Growing and using courage and compassion isn't a mathematical formula or a law of physics, it's heart work.

Newton's third law of motion states the following:

for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

Beautiful. Possible. The trick is to figure out how to set this "equal and opposite reaction" in motion. 

If self-criticism exists intensely, self-compassion and self-acceptance also exist profoundly. Therefore work here requires me to uncover the compassion and acceptance that already exist, not go hunting for it in foreign territories. 

As always, easier said than done. 

As always, its a practice. 

I breathe out criticism.

I breathe in compassion.

I breathe out criticism.

I breathe in acceptance.
And my heart is full.

Be the STRONGEST You You Can Be

A few weeks ago, my best friend sent me an article about J.Crew adding the '000' size to their inventory, and asked for my thoughts. I didn't know what to say...however, now I have some thoughts...

___________________________

Initially, my reaction spun with horror and outrage. Then, I read the article in which J. Crew reps were quoted saying the sizing was aimed at meeting the needs of smaller framed women in the Asian countries and, for a moment, I bought into this justification. Honestly, though it's an entire truckload of horse poop. It's not that simple, it's never that simple. 

In a world riddled by female body-hatred (yes, men suffer too, I know, but that's not on my mind at the moment), the last thing we need is for skinny to get even skinnier. The average height and weight of women varies around the world, but in the United States in 2010 the average adult female has a height of 63.8 inches--approximately 5'4"--waist size of 32 and weighed 166.2 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This average woman would be considered overweight by the ever-so-popular BMI calculator which I scorn. This is the average woman--meaning there are many heavier, taller, bigger as well as lighter, shorter, and smaller. Also be aware that average does not equate with ideal or healthy.

However, the triple-zero fits a woman with a 23-inch waist. For adult women, however, “it is incredibly rare to have that waist size naturally,” said Jackie Grandy, outreach and education coordinator from the Toronto-based National Eating Disorder Information Centre. Think about this: a little girls' size 8 fits a 23-inch waist. The girl who wears a size 8 is typically less than 75 pounds. Do you still want to try to tell me an adult woman can be healthy at that size? Sure, you can say that a woman who is considerably shorter than average could be healthy at this size--but if they were short enough for that to be the case, J. Crew's clothing would still not fit since it is cut only for the average sized (or Tall) woman. So, there.

Even more concerning than the glaring lack of logic behind J. Crew’s recent decision is the message shouted into the ears of every woman. When companies begin making sizes smaller, some women understand this to say they must become smaller, that the ideal size, the "beautiful" size is smaller. Ladies, we are shrinking! Zero is not a size. If you’ve ever taken a math class, you know that zero equals nothing. For women vulnerable to preoccupation with weight loss and body size, zero is absence…a way of disappearing. Women have fought for the more than 100 years to be seen and heard. How is it that now, as we are now beginning to find a seat at the table, we simultaneously seek to shrink, to disappear? I could write a book on the phenomenon here. 

For some time now, I’ve wondered what it would be like if numerical sizes were replaced with words like “classy,” or maybe “creative,” or even “strong.”

I can’t stand by and let more and more generations become riddled by the body-image catastrophe infused in current culture. J. Crew birthed a solid third of my wardrobe but that store will never swipe my credit card again.

Friends, both men and ladies alike, let's be strong, courageously independent, fiercely compassionate, and confident. Never sell yourself short. Never let a clothing store or a celebrity or an advertisement or even your friend tell you your hips are too wide or your butt is too big or your boobs are too small or that you weigh too much. Be the strongest you that you can be. 

Month without Mirrors: WEEK 1

This world. This dang world.

I vow myself into a month of mirror-less living and am immediately confronted with all sorts of emotions and temptations and crazy. These things can make a good day feel bad. And then I remember that there is no way to lose, no way to fail and so I buck up and walk forward.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to navigate the gym without looking in the mirror? Mirrors in the locker room and the weight room and the cardio room...they're everywhere. Why are there mirrors all over the gym? In the weight room, sure, I can get that--you need to watch your form. But why in the cardio room? And why is the locker room lined with mirrors? Why?????? Here's my hypothesis: a large percentage of those who frequent the gym, do so for vanity reasons. They are concerned about what they look like (especially in comparison to others) and therefore, the mirrors are meeting that need. No judgement, just a hypothesis.

The Practice of Practice

I've written before about how I'm spectacularly aware that what I do actually know seems unsubstantial in the vast face of the knowledge, existence. If you're still reading after I've told you that I don't know anything, one of three things may be true--

1. You and I are in the same boat: You don't know anything either and feel linked with my soul. Therefore, you keep coming back for more simply because we have a connection unbound by words.

2. You think there's something groovy about my boat: You believe, in at least some minuscule way, that there is merit in acknowledging our weaknesses. And, perhaps, some of this merit is built on the idea that admitting weakness somehow speaks truth.

3. You're thinking of trading in your scooter for a boat: You're not quite sure why I say I don't know anything yet keep coming back to the keyboard day-after-day to write. You just don't get me but you want to, you're intrigued.

Solid.
I really like metaphor.

I've been thinking about this all day and still don't quite have the right combination of words to clearly and eloquently express my musing. There's no reason it couldn't wait for another time when I might be able to paint a more perfect picture. Before sitting down tonight, I realized something. If I was to wait, I would be lying on my back watching the clouds pass and feeling frustrated that I wanted one to look like a lobster and none of them did. I really like metaphor. I'm saying that I'd be waiting for what I deem as perfection to come into my sight and feeling frustrated when that moment never comes.

I'm the first to add impatience to my list of flaws. It comes a few words before perfectionism (because, naturally, the list would be alphabetized). When thrown into the blender that is my personality, these two qualities express themselves as anxiety, big, prickly, cardiovascularly-out-of-shape, anxiety. Nearly every moment of every day, I have to make choices that starve the anxiety. I have to practice stillness and cardiovascular normalcy (aka breathing) and all sorts of other things to distract myself or improve the moment (hey, hey DBT fans :D). Some times I'm a pro and others it's like I'm a newborn who can't even hold her own head up. Anyway, I practice.

The anxiety is what got me worrying back in March about how on earth I was going to be able to do therapy in the fall. Despite my experience as the client, I don't know a whole lot about being the therapist. Sure, we've taken classes but I've never actually had to do it. It's like an adult learning to swim--she might read all about the physics of floating and proper stroke technique, yet when she gets to the pool, she's afraid to come out of the locker room because this is different, it's real. I was reminded today that these things take practice. No one is great right away.

And, I was reminded that practice takes practice. You have to practice giving yourself a second chance. You have to choose to show up even after you've made a mistake. You have to practice compassion with yourself as you practice. Replace all the 'you' with 'I' and this shall be my mantra from here on out.

This life is a practice. I wake up each day and try again. Practice, practice, practice.

Can you hear me whisper?

For weeks, I've woken up irritated, frustrated...almost angry. Believe me, it's awful and only kind of irrational. I open my eyes and already know what's going to happen when I take out my earplugs. 

NOISE!

I know, I live in the city and cities make noise. It's just part of the gig. Well, I hate it. I love living in the city, I love everything the city has to offer, but WHY DID I GET AN APARTMENT ON A MAIN ROAD?! And please tell me WHY DID I GET AN APARTMENT ON A MAIN ROAD THAT RUNS THE T (the Boston subway)? Sweet God, what was I thinking?!! 

It's not like I've spent my last 22 years in a cornfield where all you found hear was the buzzing of the bees and your own breath. I lives in St. Louis--directly adjacent to a main highway (as in, you could toss a beer can from my apartment window onto a car--no, this never happened) and a mile from one trauma hospital and two miles from another. I've lived in the middle of noise before, but there was always some calm...and I never had to live with my windows open (because I don't have AC). 

So, it's loud. And I've been complaining--only to those closest to me who won't pass harsh judgement about my cynicism and pessimism. Clearly, that filtering just ended.

This past week, I've been dog(Riley)/house sitting for a family in Needham, Mass. Needham is about 9 miles from my apartment but it seems like a different world. There are driveways and small yards and a distinct difference between the areas where people live and where they do everything else (eat, work, shop, play). 

I lived at this family's house for my first week and a half in Boston last August so this isn't a foreign place to me. Still, it was a bit different this time. Or maybe I was different.

After my first night, despite the fact that I was waking up at 4:45am to get to a swim meet, I was not cranky...it was quiet. I heard the bed creak and Riley's paws on the hardwood floor. I didn't hear cars zooming or the T screeching. I certainly didn't hear people talking loudly. 

For a moment, peace.

I continued having these moments throughout the week. Every time I went outside when Riley had to pee, I just stood there, in silence. This morning, I sat on the front porch to drink my coffee and call my best friend. perfection. 

For the first time in a long time, I could hear myself think. 

This week, I am grateful for silence. I am grateful for the peace brought by the sound of raindrops crashing to the ground and bunnies hopping through the back yard and for sleeping with the windows open without needing earplugs.

What are you grateful for this week?

Choose Only Those Who Deserve

Nearly weekly from February 22, 2011 until August 5, 2013, I had the pleasure of getting my butt kicked by a brilliant and creative woman named Lauren. There were arguments and agreements, both avoiding and making eye contact, hours of silence and lots of talking. She was that person three yards past you who tells you to take a deep breath and try again each time you slip while climbing your mountain. She was that person who tells you when you've got spinach stuck in your teeth. She was that person who starts to dance whenever she sees you truly smile. She was exactly the therapist I needed. 

Sometimes she would talk and I would listen. One time, it was about buckets. BUCKETS.

We all have a bunch of buckets that we need filled. Sometimes we can fill our buckets, but more often, we let people into our lives to help fill our buckets. 

We need to be listened to.

We need to feel useful.

We need to be deeply, passionately cared about.

We need to feel special, important.

We need advice.

We need to be distracted.

We need to be sassed around.

We need to be reminded what we care about.

We need to be pushed.

We need compassion.

We need each other.

Butttttt, here's the kicker...two kickers really. (1) One person, no matter how special, cannot fill all out buckets. That's just how life is. We are complicated, complex beings with many complicated, complex needs. That means we need intimacy with more than one person. Your parent's might have advised you against putting all your eggs in one basket...this is the same thing. Don't expect each person you love to fill all your buckets. They can't. (2) Not every person we encounter gets a try at filling our buckets. And not every person we love gets a try at filling each bucket. This doesn't need to be trail and error. That just plain hurts. To put your needs, your heart on the line with every person and hope they don't let you down. You get to choose who deserves to try. You get to choose who deserves to come in contact with each piece of your heart. There are some people you love dearly who will never get to know the deepest hurts of your heart. Not because they aren't wonderful people but because however you need them to respond, they can't. And that's perfectly okay. Just promise me you won't go through your life spilling your heart out or hoping one person to meet all your needs, no matter how perfect they seem. It just won't work. It's not cynical. It's sane and it's fair.

Love yourself fairly.

Love each other fairly.

Now You See Me...Now You Don't

When I brush my teeth before bed tonight, 

I will be looking in the mirror for the last time for a month. 

I'm beginning a month without mirrors.

completely

It's not because I'm so vain that I need to take a break from loving myself. It's not that I'm so full of self-hate that I need space from my ugliness. Some of both, sure, but it's way bigger than that. 

People fast from food and technology and bad habits and all sorts of things as a way to cleanse themselves physically and spiritually. This month without mirrors (I'm hoping) will serve the same sort of purpose. When I look in the mirror, yes, I see myself. More often than not, however, that image staring back at me seems distant, imperfect, and wrong because I'm busy comparing what I see to what I think I "should" see...who I "should" be. And I'm sick of it. 

Brene Brown says, "COMPARISON is the THIEF OF JOY."

I don't know what it's going to be like. I don't know what to expect--other than that it will be challenging. I don't know how it will affect me. I don't know if I'm ready to do this. The way to figure it all out, though, is to try. 

Ready? Go!

I'll keep you updated each week!

Create a Life Worth Living

This summer, I took two classes: Narrative Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). It started off great. The summer semester is just classes, no internship--so I was able to focus on academic learning the way I love to. Not only did I read everything assigned on the syllabus, I took notes and really dove into the material. It was AAMAZINGGG!

Around week 6, I realized I wasn't especially gifted in the Narrative perspective. After about 7 minutes of being crushed, I stabilized...and gave up. I pretty much stopped reading and participating in class--both painfully obvious to everyone.

However, around week 6, I fell in love with DBT. Around week 6, I felt incredible rapture as I read and understood and accepted and became whatever you become when you marry DBT. For those of you outside the therapy world, DBT is an intense, skill-based treatment for clients with the most risky and challenging behaviors--suicidality, self-mutilation, eating disorders, addictions, impulsivity--usually a combination of many of these behaviors. DBT therapists teach skills to these clients in order to help them create a life worth living.

I love it.
It makes sense.
I'm good at it!

In a world where I often feel like I'm not good at anything, DBT fills those spaces of inadequacy. I didn't know it was going to be that big. Before the class began, I knew some about DBT skills but didn't know the theory behind it all. I didn't know the reasons behind the procedures.

We plan our lives. We think we know what things are the big things, what days are the important days--or supposed to be that way. That's what we think. That's how we move through the world; how we have to move through the world. We have to think we know what is big and important or else it's all uncertain and scary. But that's really how it is. It's the normal days that often become important days...because we aren't expecting anything from the normal days.

So what's that mean?

It means that every day is an important day, that we have to wake up every day ready to create a life worth living. It also means that the creativity behind "a life worth living" may not be as overwhelming as it would be if we only did this on the important days. Not fireworks and birthday cakes and the 7 wonders of the world. Rather, Vitamin B12 and dew on the grass and turning water into ice and clean laundry. It means making good choices, even when they are the hard choices.

Ready? Go!

I need a Dr. Seuss for body-image

The world was given a gift with Dr. Seuss sharing the brilliance of:

Dr. Seuss wrote these words and changed how many people approach their real courage. They are able to grasp life in an embrace of freedom. 

However, it's killing me that the sentence ends there. I want Dr. Seuss to enlighten all the ways I sense myself and my world. 

Because of the secret-code-of-femininity into which I was born because of the pairing of my chromosomes, I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to actually wonder about this out loud. Here's the thing, though, I've been wondering about it silently, internally for months now and am just stirring with curiosity about other's thoughts.

I can't keep it in any longer or I'll burst!

The thought comes in the inquisitive form: what would it be like if each of us could actually be 114% content looking however we look without slaving over constant "adjustments" or "improvements"? Specifically, what would life be like if each of us could simply be the weight our bodies want to be at any given time?

This would be a life without worrying about calories  or exercise as a means of 'transformation' or the number printed on your clothes tag or BMI's. I'm not advocating for obesity to take over the world in some binge-eating free-for-all, but, rather, for a culture in which size truly doesn't matter.

Sadly, I don't think this is possible any time soon. I can't imagine how we would function, how we would compare each other. I'm sure some of you may be thinking "You're too self-conscious. I'm totally fine being the size I am and don't feel like I need to change it." Okay, great, I'm really happy for you. My question, however, runs deeper--would you feel the same way if you were, say, four clothing sizes larger? My guess is no. And the root of my question is, why not?

Whale Watching

In my "free time" I coach a club swim team. This is a competitive team of kids ages 8-18. Imagine the travel baseball or volleyball clubs high shcoolers belong to--this is the swimming equivalent. I work primarily with our two intermediate groups (ages 9-11 "voyagers" and 11/12-14 "challengers"). The two groups are distinctly different because of their different focus and different coaching staff.

The Voyagers work their butts off as do the Challengers. The Voyagers also have an indescribable, uninhibited joy, not necessarily about swimming, but about LIFE. They welcome me to the pool with literally open arms and smiles. They splash in the pool until we yell at them to stop. They want to play skill-related games. They want to race each other. They laugh. 

During yesterday morning's practice, while were doing a kick set with snorkels and fins, they asked "can we make whale sounds?" Who asks that? Who has those sorts of ideas? These kids do. 

My answer: be the best orca you can be.

The result:

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about one spunky, joyful girl while on a bike ride. She's the kind that can get sort of annoying because she's loud and excited and repeats herself when she's not listened to. For example, after she finishes to the wall, she will repeat "move so they can finish" in a sort of funny voice to all her lane-mates until they all move out of the way. I found myself getting a bit emotional hoping that no one ever squashes that joy for her. We've all seen it happen, someone joyful is called annoying a few times and the joy dissipates. This is how bitter, cynical humans are made. 

I believe in joy 

not annoying

I believe smiles are special 

and shouldn't be taken for granted

I believe kids have the secrets to authenticity 

and so I learn from them every day

Dance through your life

Pain. You just have to ride it out. Let it go away on its own. Let the wound that caused it heal. There are no real solutions. No easy answers. You just breathe deep and wait for it to subside. Even if it takes longer than anticipated, longer than you think you can handle. 

Most of the time, pain can be managed. But sometimes, the pain gets you when you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn’t let up. Pain is a bitch.

Pain. You just have to fight through. 

Because the truth is, you can’t outrun it. And life always makes more.

Pain hurts. That's the nature of it and it's bad. There's always a lot of bad to focus on. there's hope too. And that matters. Hope matters. 

According to Glennon Menton Doyle. life is 'brutiful' (a hefty dose of both brutal and beautiful simultaneously) 

You can choose what you want to believe in--the bad or the hope or some combination.

You choose.

Now.

Every moment.

Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass

it's about learning to dance in the rain.

-Vivian Greene

What is you decided to embrace Pain and Uncertainty and Confusion and all that? What if you decided that there is something to be gained from your current situation? What if you understood the awesome responsibility you have of choosing how you view your life? You get to choose if you wait and get angry about the cold, wet droplets pounding your skin or if you dance to the sound of the water sparkling around you.

What if you could appreciate where you are right now? who you are right now? Have you ever wondered what you would be like if the only person you compared yourself to was you? 

Don't get me wrong. I'm super cynical and sarcastic and find it disgustingly difficult to live in a state of home and positivity. Buttttttttt I LOOVVVEEEEE gratitude. Before I visited my best friend for just a few short days back in February, someone asked if I get the post-visit blues. My response? Surprisingly no, I wrap myself in post-visit gratitude. 

Now is the time to dance, because the longer you just wait, the easier it is to keep waiting...and waiting. The perfect time to dance will never come. Dance while things are imperfect and things just may get better pretty darn fast.

And here's a trick, don't dance alone. You can if there's no one around, but we belong to each other. We all live in this brutiful world. We are all trying to make it through. 

Your Body is NOT Your Masterpiece

Wow.

This just happened.

I just finished pitter-pattering away on my keyboard in the dark of my living room (don't worry, it's not depressing--Grey's Anatomy is keeping me company)...and I came across something I needed. This is something that did not just speak to my soul but wrapped its motherly arms around me and whispered in my ear "it's alright, you can rest. You're okay."

And so tomorrow you can see what I was going to say today. However, today, I share:

YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR MASTERPIECE

Jul 06 2014

Your body is not your masterpiece – your life is.

It is suggested to us a million times a day that our BODIES are PROJECTS. They aren’t. Our lives are. Our spirituality is. Our relationships are. Our work is.

Stop spending all day obsessing, cursing, perfecting your body like it’s all you’ve got to offer the world. Your body is not your art, it’s your paintbrush. Whether your paintbrush is a tall paintbrush or a thin paintbrush or a stocky paintbrush or a scratched up paintbrush is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that YOU HAVE A PAINTBRUSH which can be used to transfer your insides onto the canvas of your life- where others can see it and be inspired and comforted by it.

Your body is not your offering. It’s just a really amazing instrument which you can use to create your offering each day. Don’t curse your paintbrush. Don’t sit in a corner wishing you had a different paintbrush. You’re wasting time. You’ve got the one you got. Be grateful, because without it you’d have nothing with which to paint your life’s work. Your life’s work is the love you give and receive- and your body is the instrument you use to accept and offer love on your soul’s behalf. It’s a system.

We are encouraged to obsess over our instrument’s SHAPE  - but our body’s shape has no effect on it’s ability to accept and offer love for us. Just none.  Maybe we continue to obsess because  as long we keep wringing our hands about our paintbrush shape, we don’t have to get to work painting our lives. Stop fretting. The truth is that all paintbrush shapes work just fine -and anybody who tells you different is trying to sell you something. Don’t buy. Just paint.

No wait- first, stop what you are doing and say THANK YOU to your body – right now. Say THANK YOU to your eyes for taking in the beauty of sunsets and storms and children blowing out birthday candles and say THANK YOU to your hands for writing love letters and opening doors and stirring soup and waving to strangers and say THANK YOU to your legs for walking you from danger to safety and climbing so many mountains for you.

Then pick  up your instrument and start painting this day beautiful and bold and wild and free and YOU.

Love,

G

-from Momastery.com/blog

Useless fact of the week

As I lay on a bench taking a break during my 35 mile bike ride today, I began thinking about the brownies I made last night...

Those weren't as good as I had hoped.
I followed all the instructions.
I even used eggs. I don't typically buy eggs but I wanted them to turn out right so I used eggs.
Eggs are gross.
Eggs are chickens that never became chickens. Gross.
If one thing was different, the egg I'm expected to eat, would've been a fully alive, furry chicken.
Gross.
How does that happen? Like, how does an egg we eat not become a chick?
I remember science teachers saying our eggs are "unfertilized." Gross.
What's that even mean?
How does a rooster fertilize an egg? Does he sit on top of it for 3 days or something?
Why do I now know how this happens?!!! 
I've been in school for how many years and paid how many thousands of dollars in tuition????

My parents are pretty sure I've got a first-class education and I'm pretty dang smart, so if I don't recall an teachers mentioning this, I bet you don't know how it happens either (unless you're my cousin Brent who is in agriculture school or my friend Cara who lives near Amish-land-Pennsylvania).

 Let me take you through the process...

It is a known fact that hens lay eggs. However, what is not very well known is that hens can lay eggs with or without the presence of a rooster. For the eggs to be fertilized, the hen and rooster must mate first, and this process must occur prior to the formation of the egg. Thus, if the hen has mated and she lays an egg, then that egg is fertilized. If the hen has not mated and she lays an egg, then that egg is unfertilized. Note, however, that the embryo of a fertilized egg does not undergo any change or development once it is placed inside the fridge. It has also been said that a hen lays fertilized eggs for a week if it has mated even once.

Hen (left) and Rooster (right), get your knowledge here

seriously?

You can tell fertilized chicken eggs apart from unfertilized ones by candling eggs. This is a process traditionally used by farmers. In this process, hold the egg up to the candlelight so you can point out the blood spots and embryo. You will notice some eggs may appear opaque. These opaque eggs are the fertilized ones. Nowadays, you can find lights made specifically for candling eggs, but you may use the candlelight if you wish to do so.

If you crack the egg open, you can also see some differences between fertilized and unfertilized eggs. You can see the white circle present in the egg yolk is more defined in fertilized chicken eggs than in their unfertilized counterparts. You can also see small red lines running along the surface of the egg yolk. People commonly mistake the chalazae, a white stringy material found inside the egg, to be the embryo, but this is not so. The chalazae functions as a sort of barrier to prevent eggs from breaking. It is also found in all eggs.

One question floating among avid egg-eaters is if fertilized eggs are safe for consumption. The answer is yes. It is perfectly okay to eat fertilized eggs. Also, as mentioned in the previous paragraphs, once the fertilized egg is stored inside the fridge, the embryo no longer undergoes any change or development. Rest assured that you can eat your fertilized chicken eggs just fine like the unfertilized ones. 

Thank you localharvest.org for answering my question.

Right now, you may judge this as useless information, but just log it away for a moment when you don't know what to say then dazzle audiences with your knowledge. I put a new useless fact on my fridge each week so I'm always learning these tidbits. Note: be aware of your audience. You may not wish to engage as an expert on this topic with farmers at your local farmer's market or any Amish.

Chemical reactions

Chemistry class was not a good time for me. Toni can attest to this. It was during my sophomore year of high school when I was medically compromised and unexplainably (and uncorrectably) legally blind. I didn't learn a lot because I existed in a frazzled state of just-trying-to-make-it-through. What I do remember, though is that chemistry is pretty darn exact. You've gotta measure perfectly or else it won't work, you might actually create something entirely different than what you had tried. And in chemistry class, they wrote off that unanticipated creation as a mistake. And I'm not okay with that.

I'm imperfect.

While I've done a good job making mistakes and looking like a slob in the last few years, I've also spent a lot of time claiming I'm "fine" and looking like one of those women who is so perfectly put together there can't possibly be anything challenging in her life. I'm pretty stellar at looking perfect and acting perfect and getting perfect grades and whatever else goes into the formula of life. More and more, however, I'm experiencing the strain this brings me and so... 

Dressed in spandex shorts and a tank top with partially dried hair, coffee, water, and an apple in hand, I not-so-gracefully hustle to my car because I'm already running late even though I swore this would not happen today. 

This is how I feel about it. 

And simultaneously I'm loving it.

On my list of imperfections is a bit of forgetfulness that leads to difficulty keeping things alive. Annie and I bought a basil plant seed from Target 2 years ago for $1 and christened it our love fern. Annie took care of it--even when she left me alone with it, she would leave multiple notes reminding me to water it. When we were both away from the apartment, we would have someone basil-sit. In my head, it was symbolic. Annie moved, she entrusted me with its care. 

Mr. Basil survived the summer with me in St. Louis, traveled with me to Michigan for 3 weeks before venturing to Boston and has since sat atop my windowsill. And there he sat...and struggled. Our dear love fern missed Annie just as much as I did--our love was not nearly as rich when spread over 320 miles, instead of a few feet between our bedrooms.

Today, I decided Mr. Basil needed some support. I decided he needed some relations of his own to help him bear fruit. I purchased a healthy basil plant and added it to my withering love fern. 

Now there is so much love reacting in my bedroom, it's unbelievable...love sorta smells like Basil. 

Anyway, Annie, this is my very public way of acknowledging that Mr. Basil needed help and I was a good mother and offered him assistance. Sure, he needed help because I'm imperfect and struggle with the 'just add water' directions, but it wasn't a mistake, just an unanticipated new relationship. 

Just show up

In her book, Carry on Warrior, Glennon tried telling me that showing up is enough.

Ha! So funny. She's talking to the girl who intended to write her senior thesis on Post-modern Catholic Social Ethics and ended up discovering a social-ill, a struggle with "enoughness." She's talking to the girl who has grown up in a world where "enough" is about as real as pixie-dust yet something that must still be strived for...because that makes soooo much sense. Let's just say, her words did not meet willing eyes.

Well, time went on, as it always does, and some people and some situations pounded my heart with a tenderizer--yeah, that shit hurts just like it sounds--and compassion has skillfully climbed its way to the top of my value list. It happened through a lot of scowling through therapy and softening sarcasm and conversations with myself about being a friend to myself. 

The process has just begun. A journey of self-reflection leading to self-actualization. Yum. It's so good. I'm dreaming of going off the high dive someday and also being content with splashing my feet with wild abandon for now.

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These days, it feels like almost every day is like starting over.

It feels like I need a whole new toolbox of knowledge and skills to get through my life.

Perhaps it is because I'm in "therapist-training-school" and go to class where we use our real-life problems as case examples and do homework assignments that dig up all sorts of raw gunk, but it feels like my life is a series of identity-crises that do not get resolved before another pops up. 
Sometimes, I leave class thinking "what the heck just happened?!" and I've learned not to think about the future because the uncertainty will only create an unrelenting pathological crisis.

During one of these class conversations about real-life problems this week, a classmate mentioned that she was wondering though the conversation about asking me what it is about competence that is important to me. That's how she stated it. She didn't ask but my mind immediately jolted to "oh, my God! that's too personal!" 

The answer? Competence is important because I've learned it has a connection to integrity and independence and purpose and usefulness--all things that are also important to me. I struggle to have patience in the learning stage when I feel as though I should already be fully competent (even when this is not the case). For example, the thought that I will be doing therapy in just two months is terrifying to me because I don't know what I am doing! 

The antidote here, is compassion. Compassion involves determining that your best is enough and accepting that it is unreasonable to ask for anything more than that. In this case, compassion is telling myself 'just show up.' Every day I have to lie in my bed for a moment and remind myself to just show up that day.  

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To balance my life, I coach a swim team. I work primarily with kids 9-13. These kids are learning long division and what the state capitols are and reading their first novels. These kids are in a stressful life stage. For many of them, swim practice is their "happy place" where the only expectation is that they do what we (their coaches) say.

Whenever I think about compassion, my mind pulls me to think of my swimmers, specifically how I talk to them--instilling motivation and confidence, requiring accountability and responsibility, etc. One of the coaches is known for his lack of compassion. According to him, you don't miss practice unless you are dying or unable to breathe. When a girl missed practice for her 8th grade graduation, he told her that walking across a stage wasn't going to make her a better swimmer and she needed to get her priorities straight. According to him, if you're late, it's always your fault--even if you're 11 and have no control over your parents leaving the house on time. According to him, if you don't swim well at a meet, you failed.

I want to be different.

I want these kids to grow up knowing there is something that is enough, that their best is enough.

One girl was freaking out in February right after she turned 13--that's the age when your events get dramatically longer distances. Hyperventilating, in tears over an hour before her first race, she told me she couldn't do it. She swims over 5000 yards in a practice so I know she is capable. I've witnessed this scene with other swimmers and other coaches before. It's a conversation about "man up! stop being a baby! stop crying and get your crap together!"

I wasn't interested in creating a hardened heart from such invalidation. I know what that's like.

We sat on a bench and I told her to just show up and get wet. She immediately stopped crying and looked at me blankly. Apparently, she had never been coached to just do her best and not strive for something higher than her grasp.

She didn't do awesome. This was no miracle. But she swam. She showed up behind the block for every race and she got wet.

Sometimes showing up is most of the battle.

Even now, as I write, I notice myself feeling some strain in communicating exactly what I want to say...and I tell myself it's okay, just show up. Just write. Words written a little awkwardly are better than words unwritten.

JUST SHOW UP.