Category: Sickness & Health

Mindfulness, Sickness & Health

Never surrender?

Diana

Earlier this week I had my 5th follow-up diagnostic mammogram and breast ultrasound in under 3 years. The first time I found out I needed these scans was a few weeks into starting chemo for ovarian cancer. I had tested negative from the BRCA mutation, so I was very much in a What, are you fucking kidding me? place.

The scans were negative then, as they are now, but the thing that is different has been my admitting fear beforehand. My brand, for as long as I can remember, has been “quietly brave, strong, and independent”. I don’t know if that’s how others would describe me, but inwardly, a part has regularly incanted, It’s not a big deal. Don’t cry over nothing. You’re not going to cry until we know there’s something to cry about.

But this time, on the day before the imaging, I told my mom, “I’m nervous about this.”

And that “quietly brave” part of me was like, Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! Never admit weakness! Under any circumstances!

It’s okay, Sweetie, I told it. We’ve tried stoicism for a while now, let’s give honesty a go, just for a bit.

As I lay on the cot, my arm above my head, warm goo being chased around my breast by an insistent probe, I breathed and thought about how, in the past, I had focused on looking calm, breathing deeply, smiling and joking to put the technician at ease—all to show how “quietly brave, strong, and independent” I am.

The truth is, I am all those things. Sometimes. AND, at that moment, I was also scared of how “bad news” might impact my life. AND, I was tired of having these scans done. AND, whether I liked it or not, I was dependent on both the health professionals conducting the appointment and my family at home wishing me well.

Abandoning my former actions, I melted into one word: surrender—to the mattress beneath my body, to the breath that has never once abandoned me, to the kind woman pressing deep into my flesh to get the best picture possible.

I allowed the fearful thoughts, the what-ifs, to trot around my brain, unbridled. I caressed each one with tenderness, and before too long, the hoofbeats quieted.

Funnily enough, I didn’t feel less brave or strong. If anything, I felt a deeper sense of trust in myself and in the willingness of Life to hold me—no matter the circumstances. It seems that in softening, I am starting to realize how durable I truly am.

Mindfulness, Sickness & Health

Let yourself be

Diana

Mindfulness was not the first form of meditation I tried. Starting before the age of 10, I experimented with visualizations, self-hypnosis, breathing practices, and more.

I pictured myself walking through forests. I imagined orbs of light permeating my being. I repeated “I am still,” over and over again, all in the hopes of being able to heal, to change myself into something I liked better. Most of the practices left me feeling incompetent and more tired than I had been before I’d started. I thought of myself as a spiritual person, but I was not getting this meditation thing—at all.

I had just about written it off entirely, when a few of my friends recommended Jack Kornfield’s teaching on mindfulness. I put on the CD, aware of equal parts hope and fatalism thrumming in my chest—maybe it could help? But it probably won’t.

The beginning was what I’d expected—about adopting the appropriate posture and taking some deep breaths. Grudgingly, I complied.

I don’t remember exactly what words came next, but at some point, he told me to just let things be as they are, without judging them and without trying to change them.

A wash of relief flooded my body. You mean I don’t have to make myself somehow feel better than I do? You mean I can just sit here and let my body and heart hurt, and not try to do a damn thing about it? I don’t know if I cried, but I was achingly grateful. I hadn’t realized that the reason I wasn’t “getting” meditation was that I had always been attempting to make something happen. I had been all effort and no flow.

I can just imagine whatever angels that may have been looking out for me wrinkling their foreheads in compassion. “Honey, could you just loosen your grip . . . like just the teeniest, little bit? No? Well, that’s okay, too.”

It may sound counterintuitive, but allowing my body, my mind, my heart to all be okay—even though they decidedly didn’t feel okay was lifechanging for me.

Even so, after more than a decade of practicing mindfulness and two years of studying (in a program co-led by Jack Kornfield, as it happens) to become a meditation teacher, it’s easy to forget that I am not meditating to make myself better, more successful, or more acceptable to the world.

I am meditating to remember—that though I may not be healthy, I am whole. Though I’m not super-productive, I am enough. And though I might not fit in with my culture, I am absolutely loveable.

All I need to do, is let myself be.

Mindfulness, Sickness & Health

Making peace with reality

Diana

I am in the middle of what I have just decided to call “the October grunts”. It’s that time when the weather changing from summer to autumn wreaks havoc on my body. The fibromyalgia pain activates, allergies intensify, fatigue wraps around like a suffocating blanket, and I often just feel like lying around moaning.

I am wrestling with reality. A part of me insists that “this shouldn’t be happening.” Another chastises me for being lazy. And another devises ingenious plans for how to surmount my obstacles—often through the meticulous employment of a planner, countless colored pens, and a compassionless iron will to keep soldiering on no matter what.

The wisest part of me knows that this is just the way it is right now. It invites me to inquiry. “How can these limitations serve me?”

They can instruct me in the wisdom of kindness—which is always a good idea, even when I’m not struggling.

They can remind me to, as Thich Nhat Hanh’s said, “Go slowly, breathe, and smile.”

They can help me implement the advice of Martha Beck (from whom I learned life coaching) to take turtle steps toward my goals because, right now, I don’t have the ability to take any other sized steps.

They can bring me back to the moment, back into my body to discover the places where the pain is caused by the way I’m holding my body rather than by something over which I have no control.

They can encourage me to not overthink things and, for heaven’s sake, stop pretending that perfection actually exists!

I would much rather not have them, but these “limitations” can serve me in any number of ways . . . if I let them.

How, if at all, are limitations serving you?

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health, Writing & Reading

The Last Week of March

Diana

2017-03-31 Embrace the magic that lives within you dianaklein.com

I am thinking that I will change my posting style on this blog a bit—to write smaller pieces, largely thoughts and vignettes from my daily life, share peaks into my art journal like the one above, and, perhaps, to post more frequently. This week, I’d like to share with you a collection of these.

On Monday, my mother and I were at Hobby Lobby and saw a sign that read:2017-03-31 Wild and Free dianaklein.com

I said, “That’s what I want to be right now.”                                                                                         She replied, “I was just thinking the same thing.”

On Tuesday, I was going through a journal I wrote when I was in Ireland and Scotland for two weeks back in 2010. I love the funny little things it reminded me of, like the Irish tour guide saying to us in regard to seatbelt wearing “It’s compulsory, but it’s your choice.”  Also, that the Australians on the tour started to call me DD, short for Deadly Diana (which, if you know how mild mannered I usually am, is pretty funny).

It got me thinking about the different nicknames I have acquired over the years.  In my childhood, Dizzy Diana (all too true, I experienced a lot of vertigo) and Doctor Diana (you had to be there), compliments of my sisters.  Sneaky Pete from a teacher in the fourth grade (I think because she thought I was cute?  Still curious about that one).  Princess D from my friends in college (they had fun imploring me to “let down my hair”).  Other than my given name, I am now most often called Nana (a mash-up of Aunt Diana)—this by my nieces and nephew and to the utter confusion of people who think of Nana as another term for Grandma.

I recently started the free daily yoga challenge on doyogawithme.com and am really enjoying the beginners’ practices even though I’ve been doing yoga on and off for some 15 years. They are slow and gentle classes that don’t cause me any muscle ache from exertion the next day, so they are perfect for me right now as I am on a self-nurturing-take-things-slow kick right now.  During one of the classes, the teacher encouraged us to feel a sense of ahimsa (a Sanskrit-derived word meaning non-violence) toward ourselves, to demur from self-criticism and negative self-talk.

I was amazed to discover that, after years of attempting to practice self-compassion, in that moment, I still felt an aversion to such a thing.  I felt, on some level, I didn’t really deserve my kindness.  I was astounded, though I probably shouldn’t have been.  But, I will keep trying.  It seems to be the only way forward.  I have recommitted myself to quelling the battles beneath this skin, amid the walls of this skull.  No doubt, I will fall off the wagon yet again and find reason to take up arms against myself, but I will keep trying, keep doing, because it is the only way to heal myself and the only way to help save the world.

So that was some of my week. What are you thinking about?  Do you want to be wild and free, too?  What nicknames have you had?  How is your struggle with self-violence going?  I’d also love to hear what you think about my new format.  Have a lovely day and thanks for reading! 🙂

 

Sickness & Health, Writing & Reading

Saying Yes with Shonda Rhimes

Diana

Year of Yes Saying Yes with Shonda Rhimes | dianaklein.com

I am ridiculously late getting on the Shonda Rhimes bandwagon—about 11 years late.  I blame the TV promos for shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal.  What I saw when I watched those promos is how much I was going to have to swoon over Dr. McDreamy and how often I was going to gasp at the actions of a gorgeous woman in gorgeous clothes having an affair with the president.  Those promos told me nothing of the girl power, the total badassery (it’s a word, just ask Shonda’s spell check) I would get to experience by watching those shows.  They did not tell me that I would get to see stories about people who are, like me, “dark and twisty” and loveable.  Those promos didn’t say a word about a short African-American super hero named Dr. Bailey.  They did not mention that the shows would explore the many double standards women and girls face in the workplace and at home.  Or that those shows would talk about the fact that some women don’t want children—not because they have shriveled up prune hearts, but because they want to give everything to their careers—and that’s okay. 

 

In spite of all this misinformation, one day last year, Netflix recommended Scandal to my mom, and I happened to wander in during the third episode.  The rest is . . . well, A LOT of binge watching and a lot of feeling proud and gratified that a woman is standing up in television and telling stories, in particular women’s stories, in a way they never have been told before. 

 

Suffice it to say, I enjoy her work and I had already taken to “dancing things out” (in my underwear, when necessary) when I picked up her 2015 book Year of Yes.  I got about 50 pages in before I realized that I could not keep this fabulous writing, this humor, this wisdom to myself.  I needed to read this book aloud.  I needed to hear Shonda’s personal, conversational style floating on the air, dancing like dust motes in the sunshine.  As in so many cases, my mother became my audience for this.  We laughed and cheered our way through the book.  We nodded and said, “Amen”.  We had a great time. 

 

            Much as the title states, Shonda (I use her first name in this piece not out of any kind of disrespect, but out of the sense of camaraderie I feel.  Read the book, and I think you’ll agree that Shonda would be okay with it.) finds herself committing to saying yes to everything that scares her for a year.  She’s not happy about it.  She’s not the least bit excited about it.  But she recognizes that she’s not enjoying her life and things aren’t going to get better if she does not take action.  She tells funny, touching stories about her life, her career, her family.  She talks about saying yes, and she encourages the reader—me—to say yes, too. 

 

She reminds me that the best way to handle confrontations is not to back down and crawl into a hole, but ALSO not to become aggressive.  It’s to calmly, neutrally ask what a person means by what they are saying.

 

She tells me to stop brushing off compliments as though I did nothing to merit them and instead, simply smile and say, ”Thank you”.

 

She informs me that no one is doing it all perfectly.  No one can do it all, not her, not me, not anyone.  That is not how life works.  That is an impossibility.  There is always a tradeoff.

 

She reveals to me that she has realized she had been saying yes to a detrimental nutritional lifestyle for years and that she now she is saying yes to a healthy body.

 

Suffice it to say (again), I recommend this book.  I particularly recommend enjoying it with someone else—either reading it aloud or reading it concurrently with someone with whom you can say, “Amen”.  And with whom you can laugh (I’ll never hear anyone talk about meeting their client without an inner giggle ever again). 

 

Since I started reading Year of Yes, I’ve been trying to see where in my life I need to say yes more.  In a way, it’s much more basic than that though.  It’s not really about saying yes to one particular thing or other.  It’s about saying yes to me—to all of me.  To stop thinking that I am better or worse than I am.  To be honest about what I want, what I can do, and what I am living for—to say yes to all of that.  And to follow through on being who I already am.

 

 

 

Mindfulness, Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health

Taking a Nice and Easy Day

Diana

2017-02-10-taking-a-nice-and-easy-day-dianaklein-com

Yesterday was a busy day.

So was the day before.

And the day before that.

Life has been piling up. Mostly it’s been good things.  It’s been me taking steps in the direction of my goals.  It’s been me investing in my family and my community.  It’s also taking care of my ailing cat (who is completely recovered now, by the way!).  And unexpectedly having to take my car to the garage.  It’s been a lot.  And, somehow, there always seems to be more.  One more thing I must do today, this week, this lifetime—just so that everything will turn out the way I want it to.  Do you hear God laughing at me right now?  Yeah, me too.

I still have several things on my to-do list for this week, but I know I’m not going to get to all of them, so I am making accommodations. For one thing, this was not the blog post I had planned for this week.  I was going to make a video and write about making art every day.  I was excited about it, but it’s too much.  A part of me says, Hey, just push through. It’s just one more thing.  Pour another cup of coffee.  You can do it!  And that part of me is right.  I probably could do it, but at the cost of becoming more energy indebted and less, well, me.  Does that make sense?  Have you  noticed that when you overextend yourself for too long that you turn into an ugly, ungrateful, wretched, slobbering monster?

Or is that just me?

Anyway, the biggest problem with my monster is that she invariably makes things worse. Every little molehill becomes Mt. Everest.  Every tiny slight becomes a gaping wound.  Every mistake becomes life-threatening.  This attitude perpetuates a cycle of unhappiness and, ultimately, under-productiveness.

A few months ago I read a blog post on Kris Carr’s website titled The Myth of Finding Your Purpose. She says it’s her most popular post of all time and I can understand why.  In it, she begs the question, “What if finding your purpose is about . . . nurturing yourself?”  At first, I felt a little perplexed by this.  How can that be a purpose? Isn’t that just something that happens when you pursue and achieve your true calling(s)?  But when I thought about it, I realized that my callings—literally, the things that call to me—are simply things I do in service to my purpose.  And my purpose is to be the best—the healthiest and happiest and kindest—version possible of this particular conglomeration of cells and spirit that my parents happened to name Diana.  My purpose is to spend as little time in the monster skin as possible.

So today, I am taking a nice and easy day. Not a vacation day.  Not a sick day.  I thought about both of these options.  I thought about not blogging, but I realized this is one of the things I do that feeds my spirit, and I didn’t want to rob myself of that.  A nice and easy day means being honest with myself about what I can and cannot accomplish.  It means not expecting too much.  It means reminding myself that even though all those things on my list seem imperative, probably none of them are actually life and death  It means going slowly, taking the most important thing first, and letting it take however long it takes.  It means remembering to breathe, to release my shoulders from their defensive stance next to my ears, and to enjoy the sunshine flowing through the window.

 

Mindfulness, Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health, Writing & Reading

How and Why I Give Myself a Little Credit

Diana

bear-witness-to-your-own-goodness-learni-to-give-myself-credit-dianaklein-com

Where am I losing energy? I ask myself this question a lot.  I want to know what is draining me, what is pulling me down.  I want to minimize those influences.  Sometimes these things are, partially or completely, beyond my control—doctor’s appointments, conflicts with loved ones, stores with disturbing fumes.  In these cases, I can take deep breaths.  I can take it slowly.  I can limit my exposure to necessary, but distressing situations.  But, in the end, I really just have to shrug my shoulders and go through them (Squelch! Squerch!  See last week’s post about this.)

I’ve been realizing recently though, that there is at least one way in which I am losing energy that is completely within my control. It’s the way that I talk to myself.  I know, this is not news.  Some 2500 years ago, the Buddha was warning folks that “what we think, we become”.  But I’m speaking very specifically here about my attitude toward how I am approaching any given task.  I have noticed that very often I am telling myself that I am not doing a good enough job.  The song goes a little something like this: It’s taking me too long to shop. I am paying too much for this box of granola bars.  Why can’t I write faster?  Why can’t I always make the perfect egg?  I’m not learning fast enough.  I should be making better progress.  I can’t believe I spent so much time playing games on my iPad today.  I should have been nicer to that stranger.  I should be getting more done.  I should have gone to bed earlier . . .

You get the idea. If I let it, my dissatisfaction with myself becomes a constant drone behind all my other thoughts.  It’s not fun.  And it’s been kicking my ass.  It’s been me, kicking my own ass, draining my energy, allowing my power to squirt out every which way.  Not cool.

So what’s the antidote? Well, of course, there is the wonderful practice of mindfulness in which I catch myself having these destructive thoughts and counteract them by expressing self-compassion—maybe with a hand on my heart and an internal assurance of, “It’s okay, Sweetie.”  If there are any casual observers of my behavior out there in my town, they can vouch for the fact that I have my hand on my heart, a lot.  It works. But, what if I forget?  What if my mindfulness is not working very well, and I get to the end of the day, and find that not only have I been disapproving of myself all day, but I didn’t even notice I was doing it?  Well, that’s when I get out my gold stars.  You think I’m joking.  I’m not.  gold-stars-learning-to-give-myself-credit-dianaklein-comI now have several exciting sheets of congratulatory stickers (like the ones used by kindergarten teachers) and, as I record the events of the day in my journal, I think of at least one thing I accomplished, write it down, and I plop one of those stickers down next to it.  Sometimes it’s for doing something I was scared to do—like expressing myself honestly even though I feared retribution.  But the bar is not always that high.  Sometimes I give myself a gold star for vacuuming.  Sometimes it’s for self-care, like say, napping.  You’re laughing right now.  I get it, but the truth is that if you’re like me, you do a whole bunch of things during any given day for which you give yourself no credit, whatsoever.  Why?  Because “You’re supposed to have done that.  You don’t get a gold star for brushing your teeth, or feeding your family, or hugging your kids when you’re an adult.  That’s ridiculous.” finished-productivity-stuff-learning-to-give-myself-credit-dianaklein-com I agree, one hundred percent—but ONLY, if you are asking for that gold star from someone else.  I can’t expect other people to get excited about my taking good care of myself.  I can’t expect them to reward me.  But when I acknowledge to myself the things that I am doing—even the stuff that I “should” be doing as a matter of course—I shift my self-attitude from a person who’s failing all the time, to someone who could maybe do some things better, but who is also doing a heck of a lot of things absolutely right.  And that chick, definitely has more energy than Perpetually Failing Woman.  Plus, she’s a lot more fun to be around.

P.S. If you like the opening image, you may want to follow me on Instagram or Facebook. I post new art images daily.

Nature & Spirituality, Sickness & Health, Writing & Reading

Coping Advice from a Children’s Book

Diana

2017-01-27-coping-advice-from-a-childrens-book

One of my favorite picture books of all time is We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.  I was introduced to it one summer, almost twenty years ago, when I worked with a class of autistic children as a teaching assistant.  This book was a particular favorite among the kids, and I read it aloud over and over and over.  It’s a good thing for me that I fell in love with it.

It drew me in with its repetitive and rhythmic nature. And I enjoyed playfully acting out the story.  Each section begins with the same chorus: We’re going on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one.  What a beautiful day! We’re not scared.

It then goes on as the bear-hunting family is confronted with one or another natural element—grass, a river, a snowstorm—that they must conquer in order to continue their hunt. And as they face each obstacle the family declares: We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it.  Oh, no!  We’ve got to go through it!

And so they proceed, relating the sounds they make going through each experience. Amid the grass it is: Swishy swashy! Swish swashy! Swishy swashy! In the river, it’s: Splash splosh! Splash splosh! Splash splosh!

My favorite though, is the mud the Thick, oozy mud. I like to think about it as I determine to tackle complications and struggles in my life—the small things, like going to the dentist; the big things, like submitting my novel; and the heartrending things, like my cat acting like she’s on death’s door (though, thankfully, she seems to be improving.)

I could wring my hands and rend my clothing at any of these things, but instead, I try to think about the mud. We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it.  Oh, no!  We’ve got to go through it!  Reciting these words to myself helps me smile—however slightly.  It makes me feel that things are a little less wrought with difficulty than they may immediately seem.  Unpleasant though the situation may be, in some way or another, it’s a beautiful day! and the rest is all just mud to be gotten through.  One step at a time.

Squelch, squerch! Squelch, squerch!  Squelch, squerch!