Supply list for 18th grade: Scissors, Duct Tape, and a Nalgene Waterbottle

Tomorrow I meet my advisees at orientation.
Thursday I begin class.
Next Monday I begin my internship at Boston Medical Center.

Abundant with gratitude, I breathe calmly because my final year of graduate school gets rolling with a gradual start. I can only imagine the number of four letter words and emotionally charged texts I'd be giving out if it all happened on one day!

In honor of the first week of school, it seems fitting to tell you about the items required for a successful encounter with the 18th grade--or so I think, perhaps there will be a sequel to this post after graduation next May.

Scissors:
When I lived with my best friend during our senior year at SLU, we got to know each other's quirks in a whole new way. She realized I have my own style of watching television--it involves turning on the device then turning my back and cooking dinner or opening my compute to catch up on emails. I learned that she has tons of nifty tricks to help one live frugally. When it got to the point that a squeeze provided no progress, Annie would use scissors to cut open her toothpaste tube or face wash or lotion container--she knew there was more inside to be used.

My school scissors are for opening myself up so I can dig deeper and find the good stuff still inside me. This is going to be a tough year--physically, emotionally, and mentally. I'm in a 4-day a week internship as well as a full load of classes. This internship gives me the opportunity to do therapy with my first clients...but I have to be ready to see my first client at 8am, which means I have to leave the house around 6:50 to get not he subway, which means I have to wake up at 5 to run. I'm out of practice with the early-wake up call because I've been injured since December. And after I leave the clinic, I head straight to swim practice where I get to coach 13&unders for 2-3 hours, ending just in time for me to get home to go to bed. I'm going to need every last ounce of will power, desire, confidence, compassion, and dedication I can squeeze out...and then some.

Duct tape:
In middle school I learned of the reinforcing power of duct tape. You can get the sparkly or neon kind and make borders on your notebooks and folders from the dollar store when they begin to get tattered and torn--usually by Thursday of the first week. Even if you get the more expensive laminated notebooks, they're still going to fall apart, it's just a matter of time.

If you're just hearing about fun duct tape now, go get some here!

Things fall apart. That's just how life it. It's messy and mostly unpredictable. When this year whips me around too fast or tries to squeeze me into a space where I don't really fit, I'll bounce back, of course, but I'm also going to need some duct tape to hold the pieces of me together. There's no shame in needing some help to keep it together.

Nalgene Waterbottle:
The nalgene water bottle came on the market when I was in middle school or that's when it became popular. I'm not going to look it up. These honkers were big and colorful and virtually indestructible. For a swimmer who has her water bottle kicked around the pool deck and thrown a bit too hard to her in the pool where it smashes on the gutter, these babies were magic! Enough water to last through practice and the ride home AND we didn't have to worry about them cracking or leaking. GODBLESSAMERICA.

Nalgene's made me feel prepared and safe. I need one this year to hold my confidence and compassion. It's gotta be a nalgene because it's gotta be refillable while also being unbreakable. Last year, as an intern with the Dept of Children and Families, the softness of my skin became a concern rather for the first time. I took things home with me and thought about them often. Though I wasn't traumatized by what I heard and saw, it affected me deeply. And that's okay. I'm supposed to feel, but feel with an tough skin and a fluid center. Every time I sit down with a client, I will be pouring myself into our conversation. I need to keep my lid off when I leave so I can remember to be refilled. It's that self-care stuff my professors tell us about at least once each class period.

There are still lots of Labor Day sales going on--go buy your stuff! Happy learning!

Week 3: know thyself

Yes, week 3 ended last Tuesday while I was enraptured by the marvels of Michigan and simply computer-less. My apologies, again. Instead of getting pissy about how clearly tardy this reflection comes, you could, perhaps, find some space for gratitude that my thoughts have had a few extra days to simmer richness into their meaning...perhaps.

Ladies, what's the single most challenging article of clothing to shop for? ...and they all responded: JEANS!

It was "cold" and I needed to wear pants that were not running leggings or yoga pants because eI was going out to lunch with my grandparents. And, in my brilliance, the only pair of jeans I had brought home was well-worn, slightly-baggy, and slightly torn--not lunch with the grandparents appropriate. So off to the store I scooted. And was soon as I walked in, I realized I was embarking in a feel-only based investment--I was going shopping without the ability to deem my appearance satisfactory based on the image in the mirror. Brilliant, just brilliant. 

Clothes shopping is not on the list of top 100 things I enjoy. I love clothes but hate the shopping part, the trying-on part, the staring at oneself in the mirror part. Shopping while banned from mirror gazing requires a different skill set involving a lot of trust. 

Trust the sales people: "You can always ask what we think," she said, and smiled. "It's what we're here for."

But ultimately trust yourself: Doing lunges in the fitting room helps discern mobility, but how can I know how my boot looks or if the pockets cut too low? Trust what feels right. Luckily, I'm not actually that picky about jeans. Still, I felt a wave of panic strike me as I handed over my credit card. 

Without the opportunity to use the mirror as my truth-teller, I've begun listening to my body and my heart. If my clothes feel good, I feel good, and when I feel good, I look good because I sparkle as I smile. When I show up at a formal awards dinner without looking at myself once in the mirror, I have to believe that even if my makeup isn't perfect, it's good enough. My makeup skills aren't what got me there anyway. 

In general however, I haven't been wearing makeup--freedom--not that I wear much regularly anyway. When you really don't know what you look like other than what your facebook profile picture shows, you've got no barometer with which to understand how people look at and treat you. Is there a big pimple on my chin? Do I have jelly smeared on my cheek? How unruly are my eyebrows? It's not that I no longer care, I most certainly do. Rather, I have crawled into a space of patience and peace with myself. Good enough really exists. 

What lies within me sparkles and creates and discovers and questions and loves and heals.

Considering that, why would I choose to give attention to the doubting, criticizing, perfection-seeking outside world of mine?

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.

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.

Everything is as it should be

Everything is as it is.
Therefore everything is as it should be.
Because everything should be exactly as it is.
That is not to say, perfection.
But, rather, compassion.

Everything it as it is right now.
And nothing can be anything else right now.
That which was, is.
And that which is, is.

Change is possible in the future.
Your right now determines your later.
And everything that is then will be as it should be.
That is not to say, happy, joyful, or unhurt.
But, rather, a culmination of life.

Stop wishing right now was different.
Because everything is how it should be.
That is not to say everything happens for a reason
Or that you deserve the sad, lonely, painful, hurt.
But, rather, it is part of life, your life.
Accept it.
Grow with it.
Go forward with it.

If it could have been different, it would have been different.