Tag Archives: mental-health

HEART OF WINTER

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We are in the heart of winter.  It is dark, dark outside.  My little Buddha is shivering in the snow.  Sunrise is not till 8:59, another hour yet.  Yesterday, the sun did not come out at all.

It would be so easy to hibernate like the bears, but duty and nature calls.  Sheba is quite insistent.  She KNOWS she is hungry and she’s not letting anyone sleep in.  You try to quiet your bladder, but after awhile you know you have to get up.  So you throw those covers back and step onto the cold floor.  And another day starts.

I’m not feeling up to snuff.  My eyes are gummed up and my mouth feels grainy and dry, like the Sahara Desert.  I am achy, throaty and tired.  Welcome back, SINUSITIS, my old friend.  Your ways are familiar to me now.  I can function quite well with you on my back even though you try your hardest to drag me down.

So, I’m not so speedy or quite as organized as usual.  Is there a race on and are we in a hurry?  Or is there an emergency?  It is good that there are seasons and times for everything….times to work and times to rest, times to speed and times to slow.  We all know how that song goes, but do we listen and hear it?

I’m feeling like hell now.  So I sit back, take my glasses off and rub my eyes.  I breathe and sip my tea.  Sheba is on her mat besides me.  Animals do absorb and ease our distress and discomfort by being with you and being just themselves.  Often we take them for granted  but they are always so happy to see us when we come back, even if we’ve gone for a few minutes.They accept us as we are.  There is no judgement.

I would do well if I could learn from Sheba’s ways….let people know I appreciate them, live in the moment, letting go of minutes, hours, days, years past, of things of little consequence.  Perhaps that’s her purpose…to keep reminding me of the excitement of life, to keep wagging my tail.  The sun will come again.   Ahh, there it is now, shining over my shoulder, lighting my world!   And I have done well in this heart of the winter.

Sometimes when there is no feeling good in your body or mind, you have to go back in your memories for those feelings and live as if.  That is what I did this morning, remembering the pleasure of the cup of hot chocolate, making soup, baking bread.  I remember my body opened up, seeing  Sheba running out to greet me when I came home from work Monday evening, tired and stressed.  Her wagging tail, smile and nuzzling work miracles in easing the tension in my being.

Everything does turn, turn, turn.  Nothing stays the same.  This, too, shall pass.  And for everything, there is a purpose under heaven.  Breakfast is done, dishes cleared and the dishwasher is turning and turning.

 

DARK, DARK NIGHTS

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The nights are so long now, the sun setting early and rising late.

I was having a dream when I was waken with a very wet nose and tongue in my face.  SHEBA!  It was still pitch black.  I rolled away from her and covered my face, not getting up since I have to work tonight.  I thought about my dream.  It was about mending a coat.

Funny how things get on your mind and come in your dreams, as reminders to take care of your life.  Sure, the winter can be difficult….dark and heavy sometimes.  You feel this inertia, the slowness of limbs and mind.  It is tough sometimes even to break out of a wet paper bag.  So you need these dreams of mending coats and Sheba’s wet nose and tongue to wake you from the dark, even if it is only 5:40 am.   Apparently the dark is messing up her internal clock, too.  Maybe she needs a bedtime snack to tide her over.

I do have two coats in need of mending.  So they are on my mental list of things to do.  It is good to make lists, to have plans, to move, to do…instead of dwelling on my mind.  It  is cold and grey, that I cannot feel joy.  The only feeling I have is like cold, grey dishwater.  Ugh!

So this morning I have had my hearty breakfast of eggs and toast and pedaled for 25 minutes on my exercise bike.  I read for pleasure those 25 minutes while pedaling in the glow of my SAD lamp.  I haven’t mended my coats yet, but I did change my furnace filter and it needed changing!  I vacuumed and tidied a little.   When I was done, the sun was out!

And here I am again bathed in sunlight and happiness.  Another victory!

SHEDDING MY TEN POUNDS

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My days of hanging on to all my stuff and all my poundage are over!  Am I too confident and glib?  No.  I am not.  Gone are the days of careless feasting, buying and hanging on to EVERYTHING by the fingernails, afraid of losing and making mistakes.

I’m doing pretty good so far, omitting my usual bacon, eggs and toast breakfast, choosing congee soup in its place.  I must admit that breakfast is my worse vice, loving bacon and eggs every day.  It will be difficult to give them up totally.  So that is not what I will do, setting myself up for failure.  Instead, I will cut back gradually and maybe enjoy them once or twice a week.

Another thing that I need to do is expend more energy.  I like to poke along at such a leisurely pace that I do not burn any calories or getting anything done.  I’ve already implemented a plan of action… moving and doing routine stuff faster…..killing two birds with the same stone, sort of speak.  I am progressing at an acceptable, leisurely pace. 🙂  New habits are hard to establish.  It takes continuous effort.  But regular, periodic success is better than no success.  By ten this morning, I have already done my meditation, breakfast, dishes and kitchen cleanup, and swept the upstairs floors.

I am working on de-cluttering some some tangible things this morning….. unsubscribing to emails that are no longer of interest to me, sorting out flyers and other objects for recycling, and called my Church to remove myself from the parish.  EEEEEK!  I am a bad Catholic, right?

I was surprised that I had a pleasant conversation with the woman who answered the phone.  When she heard me out, she said that I have to do what works for me in life.  That is the kind of attitude that will keep the people in the church…respect, acceptance and flexibility.  I’ve been told before that if you don’t attend Mass, you are not a good Catholic.  But that was from another parishioner.  During one homily, our priest talked about God’s work is also done outside the physical building of the Church.

And for now, that is where it works for me.  Shedding pounds, shoulds, and musts  is healthy and liberating.  Life is a river that flows, but there are obstacles along the way.  We need to be fluid like the river to deal with the things that show up in our lives.

Writing this post did not feel like a flowing river.  But that is how life is.  Sometimes you flow, sometimes you don’t.  But writing helps cements change to rewire my brain…towards

healthier habits.

LIFE WITHOUT STRESS

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I have now come to the conclusion that life without stress is like asking for jello without gelatin.  It is not possible!  It is now day one post three 12-hour shifts of work on your not so typical hospital ward.  I am not complaining that the work is not satisfying.  I am just saying that it is very challenging to be in a caring profession where you are immersed in peoples.  You are in a cesspool of human interactions as well as being up to your elbows in human feces sometimes.  It is very well to start the day with good intentions and noble goals, but soon those fall with the patients or your first confrontations with your coworkers.  I’ve been told that I have high standards and though I try not to hold others to them, I do.  But…here I am, intact after three days of headache and gut burning angst.

I felt quite badly about myself during those three days.  I’m thinking I am such a terrible person to have all these negative feelings burning and churning inside.  But then this 92 year old patient told me that I’m very pleasant and so happy.  She enjoyed me very much.  She told me that every day of those three days.  I did thank her but I will have to learn not to discount myself by telling her that it was a facade.

Then her nephew came to visit her.  He recognized me as soon as I walked into the room.  He greeted me exuberantly.  I was very puzzled as I did not recognize him at all.  I told him he must have me mixed up with someone else.  No, he knew me.  He held up his finger and ask me how many do I see.  He was quite enjoying himself.  It didn’t work.  I still did not know him.  So he pointed straight ahead and ask me which is better, this or that.  Well, that failed too and I was starting to feel that one of us must be crazy!

He told me his name.  I said: No!  You don’t look like you.  You don’t sound like you!  We had such a good laugh and a good visit.  It was as if God knew that I needed something to lighten my day and sent him.  The nephew was my first ever optometrist when I came to live in the city.  I was his patient from age 19 to 42! And I left him because he could not fit me with contact lens anymore.  I had to show my appreciation by telling him that he always had good bedside manners.  That produced some good laughs from his relatives.  Well, he did!  He was very patient.  When he moved to a new office, I had a hard time finding it.  He gave me directions and told me he would wait outside so I could see where he was.  Well, I took too long and he had to go inside, but I did eventually find his new office.

I did not remind him of my last appointments when nothing went right!  I became frustrated and found tears trickling down my face after many fittings for my contact lenses. I have a high prescription and Asian eyes so my lids are tight making it difficult.  He was very kind, saying that we cannot continue our session with tears.  He would cancel his other appointments the next day and give me the whole afternoon.  How many optometrists would do that?

I did have to part company eventually but I could obviously see that I had left a good impression with him.  And I’m thinking that I am not a bad person…..not as bad as I have been thinking and feeling about myself anyways.  I am all talked out now.  The burning in my stomach is gone.  I am rested and at ease.  Sometimes you need a little stress so you can appreciate the jello.  Raindrops are falling gently on the roof of  this special private space.  Life is good.