It’s the morning after the night before…New Year’s Day, 2013, to be exact.  The skies are varying degrees of grey, as they have been on and off for weeks, all the news is about the US (sort of) averting this “fiscal cliff”, a new phrase we’ve learned in the last month or two, and how both sides in the NHL hockey lockout are coming together for more talks today.  Technology is still an obsession and somewhere on this blue planet, people are still alternately rejoicing or suffering in one way or another.  The world goes on.

I’ve long ago stopped making New Year’s resolutions for the same reason most do…they are usually forgotten or broken by about week two.  Good intentions lose their lustre when reality hits.  The ten pounds you were determined to lose, the bad habit you were going to give up, the new path you were going to forge;        none of these can last without a sudden abundance of self-discipline, which is what should be the real focus.  But self-discipline doesn’t sound quite as sexy as “lose 10 pounds!” or “stop smoking!”  Which is what I’ve noticed in my spam email box lately;  lots of stop smoking, lose weight and find a new relationship ads.  I guess there are still plenty of New Year’s resolution believers out there and spammers who want to take advantage of them.

I read an article a few days ago that suggested that instead of creating resolutions, we should focus on picking three words that we aspire to in the next year.  It’s less specific and more achievable.  So for the last few days I’ve been thinking about my three words.  And last night I watched “Eat, Pray, Love” on Netflix;  I read the book and it was better, but the movie was still worth watching on a New Year’s Eve because it was all about change and finding yourself, and it kept referring over and over to finding a word to represent something, which reminded me of my task at hand.

Sometimes in order to look forward, you first need to look back to decide what needs work.  I know my faults and bad habits pretty well by now, but rather than trying to get rid of them, I work on emphasizing them less, be aware of them as they come up, and forgiving myself for them.  That’s easier than simply trying to stop them dead in their tracks, an almost impossible feat.  So my words are going to be in a positive vein, a forward and optimistic motion.  And I don’t have to pick three, I can pick just one if that’s what suits me.

It’s is now the afternoon and I have just come back from a wonderful walk around Cedar Hill Golf Course.  It’s about a 50 minute walk, with a few good grades to huff and puff through, along with a couple of glorious views of the course and the city.  On a clearer day, you can see all the way to the Olympic mountains across the strait.  Today wasn’t totally clear, but it did get a little sunnier as the morning wore on.

I told myself it was time for a talk with myself, but I was too busy focusing on the people I was meeting on my walk.  Some, most, actually, were friendly and smiled or said hello as I did in return.  Some were too preoccupied with conversation or the dog, or they were running with one of those three-wheeled strollers that annoy the heck out of me.  Okay, Irene, this is not about that…

But those stupid strollers take over the whole aisle…why do they make them so HUGE??  And obnoxious…

Stop it, Irene.

The mind is like that, isn’t it?  Always jumping from topic to topic, or getting distracted by stupid things.  So I never did get to having that conversation with myself.  But through the course of the morning, I did manage to decide on my three words.

Let Go.  I know, that’s two words, but who needs rules?  I seriously need to learn to let go even more than I have in the past couple of years…it’s a constant effort.  Let go of inane thoughts about stupid strollers, let go of everything that creates suffering.  You don’t even realize you’re doing it half the time, that’s the real effort.  Which leads me to my second word.

Mindful.  I know I’ve meditated on and contemplated that word many times before.  But again, it is one that I have to remind myself of constantly.  When I am mindful, I am present.  When I am present, I am alive.  When thoughts go berserk, I’m caught in a miserable quagmire that I almost forget I am actually able to remove myself from.  How silly is it to sit there and make yourself miserable?  On purpose?  Or at least, without being aware.  So mindfulness is very important and I shall remind myself of that word every day.  The choices of let go and mindful, will lead me to my third word.

Creative.  I’m actually on the precipice of writing songs again.  By that I mean that I haven’t finished one yet, but I’ve started two, and that’s what counts.  I laughed at myself the other day when I came to the conclusion “I’m too miserable to write.”  Actually, most people write a lot more when they are miserable!  Usually, it’s happiness that mutes one’s creativity.  So I have no excuses!  I have gone back to my old way of writing…longhand, on lined paper, keeping every version as I am re-writing.  No technology around except the mp3 recorder to keep a record of the music part of it.  Technology has, I think, hampered my stream of creative consciousness.  So it’s out with the new and in with the old!

And with that, I wish you all a Happy New Year ahead.  May you find success in everything you set your mind to doing this year.

IJ

v. wor·ried (wûrd, wr-), wor·ry·ing, wor·ries (wûrz, wr-)
v.intr.
1. To feel uneasy or concerned about something; be troubled.
2. To pull or tear at something with or as if with the teeth.
3. To proceed doggedly in the face of difficulty or hardship; struggle: worried along at the problem.

This morning I had a conversation with my husband where he was sharing his worry about the difficult coming week at his workplace. What if this happens? Or that? What if…it’s a conversation I have in my head all the time. Worry is becoming epidemic in my life and in his. Why is it that at our age, mid-50’s, we are seemingly so much more burdened with it?

It’s not as if I haven’t worried all my life;  of course I have.  I remember worrying on my first day of school, how would I know what to do and where to go?  I spent sleepless nights worrying about surviving on my own when I moved away from home at the age of 18.  And when I first had my babies, I worried if I could manage to keep them alive, not to mention what would happen to them when they went out into the world.


Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.  ~Leo Buscaglia

When you think of it, worry is the most useless of feelings.  It accomplishes nothing other than stress and panic, horrid physical feelings and sleeplessness.  And yet, we seem to believe in some subliminal way that if we could only anticipate anything that might happen, somehow it will be less of a surprise or we will be able to handle it better.  Isn’t that what we think?  Isn’t that one reason why we worry?

So far to date, I can’t remember one time where my worrying made a positive difference to an outcome.  Many times I realized after the fact that I had “nothing to worry about”.  Then again, apparently we connect having solved a problem to the fact that we worried about it in the first place…so it felt “useful” to worry.  It becomes a habit.  And a vicious cycle.

For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe.  ~Author Unknown

Another reason we worry is because we feel we aren’t “allowed” to be happy.  That until we solve all problems, everything and all things, we don’t deserve joy.  Even that trip to Maui, sitting on the beach, feeling that you deserve this vacation because you’ve worked and worried so hard, can be interrupted.  “Wait, did I remember to…?”

So what do we do about this nasty habit of worrying?

I did some research on the web to get some ideas.  One, very simple trick that I read about was creating a “worrying period”;  a time of day that you set aside to worry.  During the day, when something worrying pops into your mind, you write it down and tell yourself that you will worry about it during this “worrying period”.  I am going to try that one out right away!

That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.  ~Chinese Proverb

Another thing that I have already begun the practise of doing, is to become very aware of the moment I begin to worry, and then ask myself “Is there anything you can do about this at this very moment, Irene?”  Usually, there isn’t because it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and I’m just lying there, wide awake and worrying.  A similar thing I’ve begun to do is to bring myself into the present…kind of a “be here now” reminder.  I ask myself “Where are you, Irene?” and answer “I’m right here.”  Sounds silly, but that small conversation with myself just re-focuses my attention into the present enough to let go of my worry for awhile.  Being in the present, or “mindful”, is something often discussed in Buddhist studies.

One of my guitar students, in a recent conversation, pointed out that he notices the things he worried about terribly or became very upset over in past, often meant nothing to him a short time later.   Another question you can ask yourself is, can you remember what you were worrying about exactly one year ago today?  Probably not.

You can never worry your way to enlightenment.  ~Terri Guillemets

Life can be hard.  Bad things happen.  As human beings, we spend a lot of time trying to predict the future although it is actually impossible to do.  This is why we love Tarot Card Readers and public polls predicting who is going to win a presidential election.  We figure there must be some way to anticipate everything that’s going to happen.  One thing that separates us from our friends in the animal world is our ability to know we are mortal, that one day we will die.  Which, to many, is their biggest fear of all.  Death is imminent.

Being able to accept that things will happen without attaching our thoughts and fears to those future events is the ultimate goal.  One minute spent not worrying about anything at all is Nirvana.  My goal is to spend a lot more time in that place!

If you have any other tips and tricks to overcoming worry, please share 🙂

Useful online resources:
How To Stop Worrying:  Self-Help for Anxiety Relief
Quotes On Worrying

I was out for my daily walk one day last week when I suddenly heard the squeal of car tires.  The street I was walking along has parking on both sides…it’s not a main thorough fair so when you’re driving along it, you have to yield to cars coming in the other direction because parking on both sides of the street make it too narrow for two vehicles.  Most of the time, one or the other driver stops to allow oncoming traffic through.  On this occasion, however, I realized right away that two cars had barrelled toward one another and neither vehicle had wanted to yield.

They were at my back, but I glanced around to see them both stopped.  I continued on, figuring that they would work it out but only took a couple of steps when I suddenly heard someone yelling.  It was a woman’s voice and she was beside herself with rage.  “What the **** do you think you’re doing?  Are you ****ing crazy?  Don’t you know who I am?”  Well, the first two sentences  surprised me a little, but third one REALLY surprised me.  Don’t you know who I am?  I wondered who she could possibly be but I was almost a block away by this time and when I turned to look again I could see neither driver, only their cars, one red Jeep and one gold mini van, still stopped.

I turned back and continued on my way.  She yelled again a couple of times and then I heard tires squealing as one of the vehicles took off.  I turned around to see that it was the red Jeep, but the mini van was still sitting in the same spot, as if frozen.  I half expected it to finally drive off in its respective direction, but to my surprise, it didn’t. The mini van backed up into a driveway, and began to go off in the direction of the Jeep.   I looked past it to the intersection a few blocks away just in time to see the red Jeep signal and turn right.  Now I don’t know what the person in the mini van was thinking, but my guess was that he or she was off to tail the Jeep.  Sure enough, when it got to the intersection, it quickly turned right, in the same direction of the Jeep.

I would have loved to know the end of that story!  Did the mini van catch up to the Jeep?  Was it just to get a license plate number or maybe to cause another confrontation?  Was the irate woman in the Jeep or the mini van?  And just WHO WAS this woman anyway, expecting a stranger to somehow recognize her?

As I walked along further, I realized that this woman’s raging voice and words were still in my head.  I must have gone a half a mile before the voice was finally silenced.   It’s not the first time I’ve been witness to some sort of confrontation on that street;  on another occasion I witnessed a car nearly hit a cyclist.  The driver of the car immediately stopped and got out and apologized;  a rare thing indeed!  But the cyclist, who, by the way, wasn’t wearing a helmet, decided to lambaste the driver, yelling profanities as he stood there.  No matter what the driver said, the cyclist couldn’t be placated.  Finally, the driver had had enough of the cyclists rudeness and yelled “Why aren’t you wearing a helmet?”, got in his car and drove off.

I couldn’t blame him.  On that occasion too, the cyclists’ yelling didn’t leave my ears until I had walked quite a bit further.  Not even with the birds happily chirping and the sun shining through the trees could I let go of what I had heard.  Which leads me to wonder how devastating it must be to a human being who has to endure the rage of another over days or months or even years.  If it took so long to leave me on both of those occasions, I can imagine it never leaves one who is continuously bombarded with it.  Anger, especially self-righteous anger, is poison.  It can even affect a person who is simply within ear shot.

The sign you see in the picture above is one I see every day on my walk.  The first time I noticed it, I knew why the home owner had put it there.  For some reason, people would always throw their garbage on the other side of that chain link fence, into their yard;  things like candy wrappers or empty Starbucks cups.  I’d be mad too if I lived there and constantly had to pick up people’s garbage from my own yard.  The sign has become somewhat of a metaphor for me.

ALMOST enough to want to make a t-shirt with that line on it to wear on my daily walks!

IJ