The Door Is Shut Now (Blog #992)

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This afternoon I saw The Brainstem Wizard, my upper cervical care doctor who’s helping me “get my head on straight.” The idea being that when your atlas vertebrae, which supports your head, sits right, good health is most likely to follow. Conversely, when it doesn’t sit right, it can put pressure on your brainstem and cause all sorts of problems (because your brainstem and nervous system directly affect or influence almost everything in your body). All this to say that today my doctor determined (through the use of a handy dandy device that looks like Batman’s ray gun) that my nervous system was working fine on its own and, therefore, I didn’t need an adjustment this week.

Honestly, this was a little disappointing because I’ve had such good results with the last few adjustments. Plus, the last few days my head has hurt, my back has ached. But my doctor said, “That’s normal. Healing isn’t a straight line. It’s more like a wiggly line, full of ups and downs. Be patient. People normally hit the sweet spot around the two to four month mark. People think the adjustment is what heals them, but that’s not it–it’s your body. Give it time.”

“So just tough out the pain until my body decides to fix the problem?” I said.

“Yep,” he smiled. “That’s what you’ve been doing all this time anyway, right?”

I laughed. “Right.”

“Don’t be discouraged,” he said. “We’re fighting a long history of problems.”

Boy, did he say a mouthful or what? So often along the path of healing, in all its many forms, I’ve wanted instant results. Then, upon not getting them, I’ve gotten depressed, convinced that the universe in all its wonder doesn’t have an answer to my problem. Or worse, it doesn’t care. But the truth is the universe does care (a lot) and does have an answer. However, sometimes the answer we’re looking for doesn’t come fast precisely because of our long history of problems and, in many cases, because of our self-neglect. Think of it this way. The longer you go without cleaning your house, the longer it’s going to take to clean it. The more baggage you have, the longer it’s going to take to move somewhere.

This truth applies to your house, your body, your mind and emotions, and your relationships. At times I get frustrated with people in my life (who doesn’t?), but usually by the time my lid’s about to pop over something “big,” it’s only because I’ve let so many small things go without addressing them. Without addressing the relationship. Whenever this occurs, I remind myself to slow down, to breathe. I remind myself we’re ALL fighting a long history of problems. The last two days I’ve mentioned a YouTube commenter who read me the riot act for counting Rumba incorrectly (according to them), and this idea applies to people like him too. Like, I want him to straighten up and fly right, but–let’s get real–that’s probably not going to happen because he’s had an entire lifetime to become who he is.

Not that people can’t change. They can. But it takes time. And they don’t do it just because I (or you) want them to.

My therapist would add, “They have to really desire it. And they have to work their ass off.”

Which reminds me of a joke my aunt told me once. How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Only one, but the lightbulb has to really WANT to change.

I keep going back to this YouTube commenter not because it’s really a big deal to me, but because it represents things that are big deals. You know how we all have things we can’t get over. Like, I live with my parents, and they do things that drive me absolutely crazy. Things I can’t stand. Things I’ll probably miss when they’re gone (but not a minute sooner). And yes, I’m sure I do things that make them go bananas too. And then we all have THE BIG THINGS. The real dramas and traumas in our lives that really are difficult to let go of–a long history of problems–but that really NEED to be let go of. Because you can’t live your life collecting problems and baggage and expect to be happy.

What can you expect, Marcus?

Misery.

So I’ll say it again and again. It’s worth your time to clean things up.

In yesterday’s selfie I apparently left my bedroom door slightly open. Well, the damndest thing, earlier when I looked at the photo (I always look at yesterday’s post before I start today’s so I know what number I’m on), I thought, Crap, my door’s open, and immediately started out of my chair to close it. Even now when I look at the photo above (I’ve included it again for your convenience), I glance up at my actual door and am amazed that it’s shut. I think, Phew, it’s closed. But then I look at the picture again and think, Wait, it’s open. This is the power of an image, whether it’s a actual photo or a memory in your head. It’s seems real but it’s not.

What is real then?

Whatever’s right here, right now. For me, it’s a chair, a laptop, and a closed door. For you, maybe it’s an open door.

The problem with images, including memories, appearing real is that we get hung up on them. We tell our friends, “Some guy on YouTube said this shitty thing to me. My parents did this. My lover did that. The door is open.” A wise person will point out that everything is in the past and there’s no use wasting your present, vital life force keeping your past–your long history of problems–alive by holding on and looking backwards instead of forwards. “Look,” they’ll say, “the door is shut.”

“But it WAS open,” you’ll insist. “And this guy really did say something shitty. And these terrible things really did happen.”

“I know, sweetheart,” they’ll reply, “and the door is shut now.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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As the ocean of life changes, we must too.

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On Memories and Imagination (Blog #757)

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This morning I woke up at six-thirty (six-thirty!) to walk my friend’s dog and pick up its poop from the neighbor’s yard. Talk about my glorious life. (Don’t be jealous.) But really, it’s not like it was oh-my-gosh awful or anything. I mean, yeah, it was a little chilly, and I forgot to take a jacket. But the sun was up, the birds were chirping (as the dog was crapping), and spring was in full-bloom. Hell, I even saw a lady out running (running!). Apparently people do this–move, on purpose, with purpose, before seven.

Wonders never cease.

After a short walk with my friend’s dog (maybe twenty minutes?), I went back to bed. Passed out hard for four more hours. Well, not that hard. The dog woke me up several times. You know, they get excited and start barking about any ordinary old thing–passing cars, jumping bunny rabbits, the urge to urinate. My parents’ dog does this, goes absolutely bat-shit crazy every time someone walks by the front window. You think she’d never seen a Girl Scout before. Animals–it’s like everything is new to them.

Since waking back up, I’ve spent the day doing some odd-job work on my computer, as well as watching Netflix–Brene Brown (The Call to Courage) and John Mulaney (Kid Gorgeous at Radio City). John Mulaney was funnier. That being said, he IS a stand-up comedian. Brene Brown is a shame researcher and author. So it’s not really fair to compare them. But then again, life’s not fair.

Or so they say.

Last night and this afternoon I started reading and got through the bulk of Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Three Questions. (Ruiz wrote The Four Agreements. He has a thing with numbers.) And whereas I’m still processing the book as a whole, I’d like to briefly mention a couple things. One, Ruiz says that our memories are a tool we can use, that they should “teach, not torture us.” To me this means that memory can remind me that the stove can burn me and that certain people can too. It tells me, We’ve been down this road before, and it doesn’t end well. In this way, memory can be my teacher and serve its proper function. But when I’m using my memory to go over-and-over a horrific event, or replay something nasty someone said to me, or beat myself up for something I did twenty years ago, I’m misusing it.

Ruiz says we can likewise use our imaginations to help or harm us. That is, we can imagine how we’d like to decorate a room or where we’d like to take our lover to dinner, or we can just as easily imagine that we’re going to get sick and die or that someone (a friend or even a total stranger) hates us. Imagining something good is just as easy as imagining something bad. Well, maybe imagining something good is more difficult if you’ve had a lot of practice at imaging something bad, but, at least in theory, imagination, like memory, is simply a neutral tool, and we each get to decide how we want to use it.

I repeat–we each get to DECIDE how we want to use it.

Recently I read Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson, and Rick suggests the following exercise. First, center yourself. (He suggests closing your eyes, focusing on your breath, and simply noticing any sounds, thoughts, emotions, etc.) Then open your eyes and tell yourself, “I just arrived on the planet with a head full of ideas and memories to which I can give whatever importance I choose.”

I love this idea of just arriving on the planet five minutes ago. I “imagine” it’s what dogs and children must feel like–everything is new, bright, beautiful, and exciting. Honestly, I think it’s how we’d all see the world if we weren’t caught up in our heads, obsessing, worrying. But I also like the second part of the exercise, that we can CHOOSE (decide) what the ideas and memories in our heads mean. Recently I told my therapist about losing my cool with a camper at summer camp when I was seventeen and how I’ve felt bad about it ever since. “It sounds like you acted like a seventeen year old,” she said. “I’d let that go.” So I am. I’m moving the event from the “big deal” category in my head to the “that used to be a big deal, but it’s no longer a big deal, and I learned something from it” category. Because there’s no need to continue to punish myself in this present moment over something that’s, well, a figment of my imagination.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"It's never a minor thing to take better care of yourself."