On Dancing and Personalities (Blog #1066)

Currently it’s six in the evening and I’m in Springfield, Missouri, above the Savoy Ballroom. In an hour–I don’t know–a hundred people will be downstairs, dressed in rolled-up jeans and poodle skirts, ready for tonight’s sock hop. In two hours, after a swing dance lesson, the hop will officially begin. At some point, my friend Matt and I will perform a routine to “Good Golly Miss Molly” with our friends Anne and Andy, the studio owners, and six other couples. Matt and I just learned the routine last night. Just before I sat down to blog, we practiced again. Thankfully, everything is starting to make sense.

Late last night and earlier today I went down the rabbit hole of learning about different personalities, according to a system (Human Design) I was introduced to a few days ago thanks to what I believe was fate. You know, that happy little thing that’s beyond our control and places us in the right place at the right time. And whereas I’m a total newbie about all this, the system makes sense to me. The main thing I like about it being that it doesn’t try to squeeze everyone into the same box. Rather, in very clear terms, it espouses the idea that we’re all made beautifully and uniquely different, and for good reasons. What I bring to the table isn’t what you bring to the table.

And we need both things.

Now, I’m not going to try to take my extremely limited understanding of Human Design and explain the whole system. But perhaps by sharing a few things that have resonated with me, I can offer to you what’s been offered to me, the peace of mind that comes through self-acceptance. Like, here’s something. For decades I’ve told people that I’m not spontaneous, that my idea of being spontaneous is to write on my calendar, “Do something unplanned this Saturday at three o’clock.” Well, I’ve given myself a lot of crap for this. I’ve looked at people who fly by the seat of their pants and been jealous. I’ve thought, I wish I could do that. God, Marcus, why can’t you lighten the fuck up and STOP planning? But according my specific Human Design profile, I haven’t been created to function that way. Indeed, the affirmation it offers to my type is, “I am not here to be spontaneous. I am here to be deliberate.”

Deliberate. It’s amazing what freedom you can find in a single word. YES, I am NOT here to be spontaneous. That’s for someone else. Go, live by your fancy. As for me, I’m a planner, an on-purpose-er.

I am here to be deliberate.

I can’t tell you how much I identify with this word. Likewise, I identify with the concept of “just doing it,” of having a thought and making something happen. But apparently only nine percent of the world’s population are like me. The others, the majority, prefer to be invited to do something, rather than initiating it (a conversation, a business, a lifestyle change). I don’t know their official profile, but I’ve always said that one of my friends will NEVER mow their lawn on their own, certainly never PLAN to mow their lawn on their own. But if you (spontaneously) say, “Hey, wanna mow your lawn today?” they’ll be right there WITH YOU. Anyway, that’s what I’m seeing. That I’m a loner, but some people absolutely are not. I’m a planner, but some people are anything but.

And we need both things.

Along these lines, apparently I have my willpower center defined, meaning that I have willpower that’s self-generated and self-sustaining (just do it). For years I’ve looked at people I love and even total strangers in judgment. Like, why can’t you get motivated? And yet anywhere from two-thirds to seven-eights(!) of the population have willpower centers that are undefined. They REQUIRE the motivation of others to get them going. And not that they can’t get things done (in fact, they can get things done REALLY WELL); their actions just aren’t self-initiated. And whereas this may sound like, Oh crap, I don’t have much willpower (you know, it’s all the rage right now), that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Everything has its ups and downs. For example, the trade-off I make for being able to initiate things and having a lot of willpower is that it’s easy for me to burn out. Because I don’t come with an endless supply of energy, the way many people who don’t have as much willpower do.

What I’m seeing more and more clearly is that, well, both things are needed. All personality types are good and necessary. For balance. For harmony. For clarity. It’s not just my way or the highway. It’s our way or no way at all. We need each other to survive. No one can dance alone.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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There is a force, a momentum that dances with all of us, sometimes lifting us up in the air, sometimes bringing us back down in a great mystery of starts and stops.

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On Attention (Blog #706)

This afternoon I ran errands with my friend Bonnie. We picked out some yarn for my upcoming knitting project, a beanie. The next step will be to find a pattern, then I’ll be off and knitting. Out of my way, Grandma. The last thing Bonnie and I did was eat at Village Inn. I made a mistake and looked at the calories in my favorite meal there–the California Skillet. (It was a lot.) Oh well, I was already committed; I ordered and ate it anyway. I did, however, manage to keep myself from eating the entire stack of pancakes that came as a side. Way to make good choices, Marcus. But then (because it was free slice Wednesday), I ordered and ate an entire piece of pie. Out of my way, willpower.

At some point today I got a headache. It started this morning but was low-level, nothing too threatening. However, as Bonnie and I went here and there, the tension in the back of my head grew and grew. Alas, by the time I got home it was ugly, so I took a nap in hopes that it would go away. And whereas the nap was lovely, the headache remained. I hate it when that happens. So when I woke up, I took some pills. Now I’m sipping hot tea, and I think it’s backing off–a little. Ugh, it’s really difficult to think or pay attention to anything else when your head is pounding. However, I’m learning that this is important to do.

I’ll explain.

Lately I’ve been reading about attention. One of the ideas that fascinates me is that most of us, most the time, are focused on one thing–a headache, a writing project, a television program we’re watching. However, despite the fact that we’re essentially tuned to one channel, our minds and bodies are receiving signals from countless sources. For example, yes, I have a headache now. I’m aware of that fact. But if I slow down for a minute, I’m also aware of the temperature of my skin, the coolness of the air as I breathe in through my nostrils, and a number of different sounds–the music in my earbuds, the clack-clack-clack of the keys on my keyboard, and the talent show competition on the television in my parents’ living room.

One of the points of the material I’m reading is that when we focus on one thing to the exclusion of others, it makes that thing seem bigger than it really is. I do this with health problems (well, most problems) a lot. Consequently, they get blown out of proportion. Not that a headache is fun when it’s going on, but even then, it’s not the only thing happening. In terms of perspective, I could say, “Today sucked. I had a headache.” Or I could widen my viewpoint and realize, “Today was super. I spent time with a friend. I ate a piece of apple pie. I took a nap.” And not that this makes my headache magically disappear, but it does help restore a certain amount of balance to my reality.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It's never a small thing to open your home or heart to another person.

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Boys, Frosting, Food, and Clothing (Blog #705)

Today has been fabulous and makes me glad to be alive. I can’t say why it’s been fabulous exactly, but I’ll try. This morning I woke up early, like eight-thirty, and began the day in quiet and solitude. This suites my personality, a slow, hushed start and a healthy breakfast. The menu today: scrambled eggs with turkey, spinach, and green onions; a side of pineapple; and hot lungwort tea. Lungwort’s supposed to be good for your lungs and decreasing mucus. Personally, I just like the way it sounds–lungwort. It’s so–medieval. I feel like a wizard every time I say it.

The reason I got up early was to see my therapists. Yes, I have more than one. It takes a village. First I saw my mental health therapist, the one this blog is named in honor of, my shrink. A few months ago I had a dream about a giant snake in a swamp, and recently I had another dream about a giant snake on land. The second snake tried to bite me, and I was terrified but ended up controlling it. When I told my therapist about these dreams, she said, “What do you think of snakes?” I said, “I think they’re strong and powerful.” Then she said, “Then that’s you. You’re the snake–you’re strong and powerful,” which made me want to cry. Weird how we don’t want to recognize our own best qualities, how we’re afraid of ourselves.

My therapist and I also talked about my future. I’ve been thinking lately I should get into an additional writing routine, force myself into a chair and bang my head against the table until a book falls out. My therapist, however, suggested that I don’t do anything until we talk again. “Reduce yourself,” she said. “Give yourself a break.” Then she added, “In the meantime, think about boys, frosting, food, and clothing.” So that’s what I did the rest of the day. First I ate a cream cheese bagel, then (after physical therapy) went shopping for clothes. And whereas I didn’t buy anything, I had a wonderful time looking. Well wait, I bought a new tape measure at the hardware store because my old tape measure broke recently. Anyway, the point is that I did NOT think about my future, even while I was eating a brownie tonight.

I’d like to emphasize I only ate the brownie because, well, doctor’s order’s, and I try to be a good patient.

At physical therapy, I got to jog (on a treadmill) for the first time since my knee injury and subsequent surgery. Well, okay, it was more like a fast walk (3.3 miles per hour), but it mimicked a jog. My physical therapist said this was the point, to simply get the motion. “It feels awkward,” I said. “That’s normal,” he said. Likewise, when I said that the hardest exercise I do is lowering myself down onto a step, he said, “That’s the last thing to come back. It just takes time.” Still, despite this fact, I see a lot of progress. Today I broke a sweat balancing on a Bosu ball, but the balancing was easier than two weeks ago; I didn’t have to use the bar in front of me to keep from falling over.

And did I mention I’m jogging!

While driving around today, I listened to a podcast about willpower. The speaker, Kate Galliett, said that willpower is depleted 1) by our feeling overwhelmed and 2) by our making a lot of decisions. That is, if you have to make a hundred choices at work during the day, in the evening you’re probably not going to have the mental reserves required for eating broccoli instead of cake, unless broccoli is already a habit for you. If it’s not, you’ll say, “Fuck it, I’m too tired” and reach for the red velvet. What I found most interesting, however, was that Kate said ANY decision you make depletes your willpower–including what statuses to like or not like on social media. Or what clothes you’re going to wear every day. This is why Steve Jobs had a uniform (or why you might want to set out your clothes the night before). Think about it–if you can only make so many decisions each day, why not save them for what’s important–your job, your health, your relationships.

Not necessarily in that order.

Honestly, I’m not sure why my therapist wanted me to “reduce myself” for a bit in terms of my writing routine and rather think about boys, frosting, food, and clothing. But my guess is that she knows I tend to wear myself out and thinks it would be wise to first sit down and get clear about what’s really important and what I want to accomplish. Because I do use my willpower a lot–to write this blog every day, to rehab my knee, to read a hundred books, to do half a dozen things I don’t always talk about here. And the podcast I listened to was right–willpower is a limited resource. Granted, it can replenish itself, but not if you keep pushing, pushing, pushing. At some point, you’ve got to chill out. You’ve got to give yourself a break.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We are all connected in a great mystery and made of the same strong stuff.

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The Bottleneck (Blog #508)

Last night I dreamed that I was running in Dallas–of all places–and couldn’t quite pick up my feet. I’ve had dreams like this before, like, I’m not moving as fast as I want to. But this time I was lost. I couldn’t quite find where I was supposed to be going (my hotel, I think). I checked my GPS, and it provided the correct route–a straight shot up the interstate. HOWEVER there was a huge traffic jam–a bottleneck–six lanes of traffic trying to squeeze into one. Finally it cleared up. Just like that, all the cars and me (on foot!) were flowing through. No longer lost or jammed up like we were before. On our way as if nothing had happened.

Currently it’s four in the afternoon, and I’ve only been up for a couple of hours, since–again–I worked late last night helping some friends pack for an upcoming move. We’re getting SO close to done. As we’re working again this evening and I have a myriad of other things to do before then, I seriously need to keep this short. I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot lately–I’m in a rush–I don’t have to write–I don’t have time to read–I don’t have time to wipe my ass. Ugh. It’s so frustrating. No wonder my stomach has been upset.

“It’s stress,” my friend, who’s a pharmacist, said last night. “Everything is stress.”

No kidding. If I had to describe last night’s dream in one word, that would be it–stress. It’s just the worst sensation to feel like you’re not moving fast enough or like you’re all jammed up. That’s what it feels like lately–the bottleneck–like I have so much going on, and I’m not sure any of it’s getting me anywhere. Plus, my body still isn’t back to normal. I’m dragging, forcing myself at times. Last night one of my friends said, “How are you functioning?” and I said, “Willpower. It’s just willpower.”

In last night’s dream there was a brief pause, something that happened between the huge traffic jam and everything clearing up. I don’t know, it was like a rest, a break in the bottleneck, when everyone collectively realized how crazy it was to force-force-force the situation rather than letting it flow. And that’s when it worked, when we stopped trying to push every little damn thing. That’s when we were on our way again. So maybe I can stop pushing too. Maybe I can stop trying to run so fast and simply walk instead. Or maybe I can stop completely, watch other people go first, and think, I’ll be on my way soon enough–yes, it will be just like that–as if nothing had happened.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Boundaries are about starting small, enjoying initial successes, and practicing until you get your relationships like you want them. 

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