Resistance

I’ve been working on another post about how life was “supposed” to be. It felt kinda dark, so for now it’s tabled. And that’s okay. Maybe it just wasn’t time for that particular train of thought to go out into the universe just yet.

I’m working on being positive. It’s funny though, when people describe me the word ‘bubbly’ usually comes in at some point. I always thought I was a really positive person. And maybe that’s the image I project out into the world. Or maybe I’m just deluding myself. *shrugs*

One problem at a time, right?

So, resistance. It’s this thing that has come up for me quite a bit lately. It’s the thing that you can feel in your body when you don’t want to do something. When resistance hits I want to try and crawl out of myself, literally. I want to itch and claw at my skin so I can escape this feeling. For a long, long time I let myself ignore it, step away from the thing causing it, or try to numb it with anything that let me not feel the resistance.

During this time of not working (aka unemployment) I have learned a lot (and I mean a LOT) about the brain. It’s your brain’s job to tell your body to either stay and defend yourself, run away as far and as fast as you can, or to curl into a ball and hope it all goes away. Technically the 3 F’s: Fight, Flight or Freeze. The most important thing I’ve learned from all my reading about the brain (which comes up a lot in self-help books) is that your brain is NOT your friend. It’s there to protect your body so you can live to see another day.

In essence, your brain wants to protect your body from all the big, bad, scary things. The thing is, the big, bad, scary things of today are super different than the ones from hundreds of thousands of years ago. Today, the things that make you feel that resistance are still big, bad, and scary just usually in a different context.

That trick about just getting started for a few minutes is a very viable and valuable tool. The more you resist the harder it can be, but if you let yourself lean into that resistance a bit it can help with that whole pesky procrastination problem. Ha! say that 3 times fast for a good tongue twister: pesky procrastination problem.

So, as much as it sucks (because, come one, we all know that it does) that resistance is usually what we need to know that we are on the right path. Gosh, I hope this makes sense. I’ve been pushing myself to not avoid or to lean into that resistance when I feel it. For each time I lean into the resistance I’m working some ‘muscle’ in my brain that eventually will help me not to resist, or not to feel so much resistance.

It feels counterintuitive to do this, I know. However, I have seen it in action. I’ve seen it start working for myself. Definitely, not calling it a miracle cure or anything along those lines, but certain things that were giving me those ‘resistance feels’ on a very intense level have…calmed a little bit with each attempt.

What do you think? Do you experience resistance too? How does it feel in your body?

Gideon being an excellent (yarn) model of NOT resisting.

This Almost Didn’t Happen

When I say that this almost didn’t happen, I refer (of course) to this blog post.

I recently started tracking my habits again. And I like listening to self-development books. One of the recent audio books I listened to was Atomic Habits by James Clear. In the book he says you can take your habits and try to not “break the chain”. There is something so compulsive about this. You want, I mean want to not see there is no break in the x’s you’ve written down in your habit tracker.

It’s been a long day and I had just gotten home around 8, then spoke to ny brother for an hour. Now, you might think that 9pm is not that late, but I am usually an early riser, sometimes as early as 4am, I refuse to get up ANY earlier than that. There’s something about getting up earlier than that that’s just wrong. And I had made a promise to myself that I would stick to my deadlines. And today (Wed) is the deadline for the next blog post. So, I had to.

Right?!

Of course I did!!!

I’ve broken so many promises to myself that it’s almost embarassing, well is embarassing. I go crazy about keeping promises to anyone else. Why am I treating myself differently?

And the thing is today was a good day with a ton of positive things and doors opening to really try and do what I want with my life (which is writing btw ;)). I should be shouting it from the rooftops. I have, of coursed, shared with my knitting ladies M & N, my brother, and (shockingly) my mom. Sadly she is not as supportive as I need most of the time, it’s sort of an on-going theme in our relationship. I have a writing opportunity and a potential future work for a passion of mine and I received my certification to substitute teacher,

This makes me feel a lot better about my current unemployed situation. I’m sure that it’s control (being in control of something) issue at work here. Lol.

Doesn’t matter.

Back to the important thing…this blog. This feels a bit metta here, but I think I’m okay with that. I made this thing (aka le blog) and I’m SUPER proud of that. I’m also holding myself accountable to well, myself. It’s important to keep promises to one’s self. You are your most important asset, right? And if you can’t treat yourself like you would treat others I think that can eventually be detrimental to you.

I can attest to that.

I’m NOT doing that again.

I’m important and I deserve to treat myself that way.

Right?

The original metta pic I took with an entirely different angle I had in mind.

Trying to Get Grounded

Today I walked over 13,000 steps. My daily goal is currently at 7,000. There’s a nice park near my house that has a walking path around a lake. It’s close enough that I can walk my dog (Gideon, you remember him from the first post, right?!) there, around the lake and back home in about 4,000 steps. Typically, we do this each morning and most evenings as well. This park has become a sanctuary of sorts for me. There are benches and picnic tables everywhere. I could go on, but that’s not what this post is about.

I’ve been going through some struggles lately, more so than usual. Before anyone gets up in arms about how we are ALL going through stuff I kinda feel like I’ve been hit pretty hard. Here’s a quick rundown since the beginning of 2019 for some context, these are the “highlights”:

Jan 2019 – my purse gets stolen out of the front seat of my car while I’m loading groceries at Aldi (biggest losses here were my cell phone and night guard for my TMJ)
Oct 2019 – I get into a multi-car collision where my car ends up being totaled right after purchasing a ton of groceries and the guy who hit me (then I hit the person in front of me and so on) comes up to my car yelling at me that it was all my fault because my dog was in the car (huh?, still haven’t figured that one out). And this was while I was on the phone with 911 because I was hurt (got to have my first ambulance ride – yay?)
November 2020 – officially diagnosed as Type 2 Diabetic (my A1C was 12.75 – that’s almost the highest it goes- uh…face palm)
Jan 2020 – had a nervous breakdown while picking up lunch for our newest employee and couldn’t go back into the office to enjoy it with my whole team (I was the office manager for my cousin’s basement waterproofing company and was severely burnt out at this point…hence the nervous breakdown. Still no idea what triggered it, not that it really matters.
March 2020 – watched my best friend have a stroke (did NOT know that what was happening at the time) in the ER (fun fact: met his mom for the first time right before it happened). Next day went to the hospital expecting everything to be fine as the ER doc was saying at first it was a seizure, he was not okay and had not been conscious since being in the ER. Got to be there with his mom (just me and her) as she had to decide to remove part of his skull so he could keep breathing. Less than a week later IL was put under a stay-at-home order for Covid.
May 2020 – had some ridiculous amount of rain (9 inches I think over a 4 day period). The business exploded with activity and we intook over 3,000 calls in a weekend filling up 4 VM boxes (fun fact: ours held 600 minutes which is about 10 hours of info to listen to). This does not include the plethora of other ways people could get a hold of us; Yelp, Facebook, Instagram, email, website form, and referrals to name a few.
June 2020 – my bestie passed away
February 2021 – my cousin let me go from the company saying he wanted me to focus on getting and staying healthy because he could see how everything I was doing for him was killing me (this sounds nice, but it’s not – just trust me. One day when I’m up to telling that tale I’ll share all the gory details). He made me promises to help and has since reneged and we are no longer in touch.

Let’s just say that it’s been a lot including all the Covid related stuff. When I say all this to someone in person I would normally shrug my shoulders and act like it’s no big deal. But it is.

It’s a HUGE deal.

Problem (one of them anyway) is I’ve been removing myself from the emotion of these stories. I tell them like they are and know that they are kinda crazy and intense things to happen to someone. I think that so much of this happened in the span of just over 2 years is INSANE. Seriously, insane when you really think about it.

I have spent the last year or so trying to process my emotions and move forward. Yet, every time I feel like I have my footing something else will happen. It might be a small thing, but with all the trauma my trigger is quite sensitive.

I started doing Yoga again on a regular basis and I walk a lot. Both of these things really help me. They help me get rid of some of the excess energy and attempt to process all the things. Don’t worry, I’m in therapy too which is all due to my brother, A. I messaged him one day saying that I just didn’t know what to do anymore and I was considering checking myself into the hospital. He texted me a number and said call them. I had no idea what that number he had sent to me was but feeling desperate I called. Turns out it was the suicide prevention hotline. At that moment I was not specifically suicidal, however it was extraordinarily helpful. And he explained to me later it was the only thing he could think of for someone who might know how to help.

For my 40th birthday I gifted myself a visit to a psychic. I had seen the same one when I was getting close to turning 30 and it was fun. Plus, what did I have to lose at this point? Did I mention I’m also single and have been trying to date during this whole pandemic thing because I made a promise to myself to start trying again by March of 2020? I was so proud of myself for starting in February, thinking I had finally followed through on a promise to myself and I even managed to get it done early (yay me!). Anyway, back to the psychic. One of the things that she told me was I was coming out of a period of being stuck and that what was happening was I would make some forward progress, but then feel stuck again. The way she explained it was that I had been stuck for so long that as I tried to take steps forward my feet were still tacky and so what felt like being stuck again was just the left over residue from that long period of stuckness. One thing she recommended was to go and stand in the grass barefoot and feel my energy going into the Earth, then to step over a little and allow the Earth to feed its energy to me.

So, I tried this. And at first it felt weird. Then it felt good. The more I did it the better I felt. The affects were not super long lasting, but they would help take the edge off. And as I’ve gone deeper into my Yoga journey I came across The Yoga Institute on YouTube. One of the videos they have posted talked about getting grounded in a very similar way, but by walking barefoot in the grass and allowing the Earth to absorb your energy and assist you with being more grounded. I don’t do this every day, but on days where I just feel like more things are not going my way than are or I feel especially scattered it’s something I can do. I’m by no means an expert on this, I just know how I feel when I do this. I’ve definitely done weirder things and with no results.

But this, walking in the grass and not only feeling the Earth beneath my feet, the blades of grass tickle my toes and how some spots are soft and bouncy, and others are rock hard are all so representative of life. The ups and downs and how things are similar in some aspects and so very different in others.

Tonight, we walked, we rested and then we walked again. There are a lot of geese at this park of mine, so I try to be aware of where I’m attempting to walk. Tonight, tonight I walked about half of the lake in the grass. Then we took the long way home.

Diving Into the Deep End

Hello world! Welcome to my little corner of the internet. I hope this becomes a place where you can connect with myself and other peeps from across the globe.

I’m Erica.

Me and Gideon, my red, minature poodle at our favorite place. My hair is a little crazy, but my eyes are at least looking in the right direction. Real life.

Over time you’ll hear all about my life and the crazy, wonderous ride of my life experiences. I’ll probably over-share at some point and piss off a few people. I’ve always wanted to be a writer and have started many different writing projects, blogs, social media sites and even a Tumblr. Remember Tumblr?!!? – okay, I know it’s still around, but I haven’t really heard much about it in the past several (plus some) years and it’s possible I’m just out of the loop…nope, we should definitely safely assume I’m out of the loop.

For the past 7 years I was working with (maybe for is a more accurate representation?) a family member to help build up their buisness. I worked that buisness like it was my own and put my own dreams, wants, and desires to the side. A few things changed in the past year (I’ll get into more details in future posts, I promise) and I’ve been re-learning or feeling the need to try and figure out who I am again after I stopped working at that job.

What you can expect from me and this site (as of now and so far):

raw honesty (mostly for myself so that I can face my fears and build a life that I am proud of every day)
sharing my messy, but beautifully imperfect self (see pic above…aw jeez, that hair and there was probably a spill or stain on that shirt that you just can’t see…every damn day lately  . What’s frustrating is that I was doing so, so good about not spilling on myself (for what felt like forever, but was probably just a year or less…oh well!))
humor (if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?)
pictures of the cutest dog on the planet – this is not me being funny or modest, see first bullet point
reflections on my journey to this point and anything going forward
(lots of asides, I can’t help myself I just love them and they sort of go with the way I tell stories in person, I think you’ll come to love them as well  )
topics I’m planning to touch on are: my life all encompassing, dating, friendships, books I’m reading and what I get out of them, knitting or crafting projects I’m working on, maybe some recipes (I went to culinary school, but am no longer active in that industry), and trying to navigate life into the future that I’ve always dreamt of and haven’t had the gumption to seriously go after
some of my old posts from previous attempts at this whole writing thing

We all have the shared experience of 2020 that binds us together as people who’ve suffered trauma (hello pandemic). Everyone’s expereinces are theirs and not the same as anyone else’s. At the same time some experiences evoke feelings that others have also gone through and, for myself, I have felt very alone and isolated well before this pandemic. By sharing my journey it’s my hope that I can reach even one person so that they feel less alone and isolated. I recently came across a speach given by Neil Gaiman where he said two things that really resonated with me:

“Good stories should change you.”

“If stories don’t change, they die.”