Tag: Emotions

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 357 and Festivities

I’ve had a bit of a comically disastrous holiday season. Early in December I tore two ligaments in my ankle. I was immobile stuck on the top floor of the house for about two weeks. Just as I was getting back my ability to bear weight on my feet my husband Alex got really sick. At first we thought it was a cold. But surprise we both had Covid! Cue quarantine.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we’ve done nothing remotely festive all month. When I was off my feet it didn’t seem achievable to go get a Christmas tree. We had this idea we’d get it once I was walking because well picking out the tree is part of the fun right? Turns out this was a tactical error as now neither one of us can go anywhere as we are isolated at home so we don’t spread Omicron. No pine scents and twinkling lights for us!

The funny think is Christmas I went all out on making our home as cozy as I could. With the pandemic isolating us I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to enjoy a season of light at home.

And I went all out. I spent like $200 on shipping IKEA ornaments & candles. I bought out the entire seasonal line up at Trade Joe’s. I bought a fucking stand mixer and made five types of Christmas cookies. I stuffed boots for St Nick’s Day. I baked rolls and light candles for St. Lucia. I made an elaborate 3D advent calendar. I sent hand written Christmas cards. And lest you think I ignored Chanukah we made latkes from scratch. We lit the menorah and said prayers each night. We did the traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes for Christmas Eve. We did stockings. We made a roast. We watched Die Hard. We got Chinese delivered.

But this year we’ve done nothing. Absolutely nothing. I haven’t even do much as done a boxed cookie recipe. No candles have been light. No advent doors opened. We haven’t eaten anything I’d qualify as even remotely seasonal. I’m not even sure what we’d do at this point we are both too exhausted to cook.

But I don’t feel bad about it. Maybe I’ll get a pie from Whole Foods. Maybe it’s because I did so much last year that I don’t feel like I’ve got to celebrate in any particular way. For me Christmas has always been about receiving the quiet optimism of a better future. The end of the year and the transition to a new one is a reflective space. I don’t need it to look any particular way to feel the spirit of the season. I’ve been so incredibly lucky this year. And even in the last month, bad as some of it was, I’ve achieved more then I could have imagined. I’m going to be alright no matter what.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 344 and That Was Easy

I’ve been off my feet all week because of my ankle injury. That means no weightlifting, no long walks, no breaks to raise my heart rate once an hour. I’ve been in a state of rest and recovery. And my mind has never felt sharper.

My quantified self data suggests I’m more recovered than I’ve been the entire year. My resting heart rate is a full 40% better than average. I’ve added in a few new routines to facilitate healing including infrared sauna, applied hot and cold therapy, percussive massage and electro-stimulation. But I really think it’s all the extra rest I’ve been getting.

I can feel it in my desire to do frivolous things just for the joy of it. But I can also feel it in my skyrocketing motivation. Some long term projects are coming into fruition in ways that not only meet my goals but wildly exceed them. Like all of the power I’ve ever imagined having is completely reasonable. I don’t even feel like I need to suffer for it. It’s there because I have joyfully brought myself it it.

It’s quite possible the lesson I should take away from this is that constantly pushing myself for improvements through hard work and pain is completely the wrong approach to getting what I want. That real power comes from letting yourself live within the rhythms of your own life. Letting what you want flow through you means sometimes it will be easy. And that’s ok too. Let yourself succeed with the power of your own unique approach. It’s the most differentiated thing. And difference is always an edge.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 340 and Unconscious

I have reached the stage of my recovery process over my ankle injury that I am wondering what unconscious desire did I have to put myself in a position where I’d be reliant on others again. I’d only recently felt fully independent and healthy within the last few months. I had come to consider myself recovered. And yet here I was laid up back in bed.

A lot of folks don’t appreciate the therapeutic process of plumbing one’s unconscious desires. It has an uncomfortable hint of victim blaming to it. If something happened to you, well you must have wanted it somewhere deep inside. That sort of misses the point though. The freedom to become responsible for ourselves is hard work. It is actually much easier to allow ourselves to be a victim of our past patterns and behaviors.

We have to regularly inspect our deeply held emotions and their origins in order to live up to being an adult. Sure we all have wild inner children with deeply felt but entirely irrational reactions. Sometimes those unconscious pieces of ourselves runs the entire show. We might even fear it is the source of our unique genius. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can appreciate the benefits of our joyful creative wild sides while still being a responsible adult that manages our inner child’s emotions.

Categories
Medical

Day 337 and Good News

On Wednesday afternoon I had an accident. My husband heard a snap and I was on the ground. I fucked up my ankle. X-rays and urgent care visits ensued and we begged our way into an orthopedist to assess the damage and get an MRI and ultrasound. The initial shock was wearing off.

The mobility aids dropped off by my concierge doctor had me feeling much more optimistic that whatever the diagnosis I could manage. A walker could easily get me to the bathroom on my own power. A shower chair was arriving from Amazon so I could finally wash up with something other than wet wipes. We’d also acquired an infrared sauna, a number of supplements to supplements to support ligament recovery, and some cold compression devices. I’m hoping it get an electro-stim device as well.

The orthopedist we’d begged our way into first thing this morning had good news for us. I’d torn two ligaments but it was pretty run of the mill. For once I didn’t have an exciting diagnosis. It was boring and simple. It wouldn’t require any surgery. It would be two weeks of keeping all weight off my ankle and then a slow introduction to physical therapy. If all goes well I’ll regain mobility in a month.

I’ll be wearing a boot and using a walker for a while but we can slowly introduce weight bearing activities at physical therapy within a few weeks. Maybe by Christmas I’ll be able to get myself up and down stairs. Since I don’t want to miss our Christmas tree being upstairs for the entire season.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 335 and Ankle

I was going for a walk and misjudged coming down a stair. We’ve got tiny stairs of rock and wood and hand poured concrete in the courtyard of our complex. They aren’t the most even. I don’t know how I came down so hard but Alex said he heard something as I came down. I tried to get back up and put weight on my foot and immediately collapsed. I must have screened loudly as everyone came running.

I couldn’t make it up the stairs to get back into the house. I had to scoot myself up the stairs using my arms to lift me and shimmying my ass. I kept trying to test if could manage any pressure on it. I had tears running down my face and my iPhone giving me tachycardia warnings.

I initially crawled myself upstairs to get in bed so I could elevate and ice. We weren’t sure if it was a sprain or an actual broken bone or ligament. We called around to see if anyone had doctors who made house calls. The last thing I wanted was a four hour emergency room visit while I was in excruciating pain. But eventually the feedback from a virtual visit was I needed X-rays as it’s not a good sign that I can’t apply any pressure to it.

The urgent care center got me a boot and crutches and I’m waiting on the X-ray results. I am so angry as I don’t want a random health thing requiring surgery and physical therapy and months off my feet. I feel like I just got to a great place with my health recently. To have a set back with my existing issues would have been more of the same. To have something new feels profoundly unfair.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 334 and Antsy

I felt unfocused and moody all day. I have had several pieces of good news this week and rather than enjoy the success I let myself unravel a little bit over the things I want but don’t yet have. In particular I am feeling cooped up by the prospect of another winter without travel or family.

I know full well that learning to appreciate and enjoy the moment is the route to happiness, but knowing it in your conscience mind isn’t the same as knowing it unconsciously in your core emotions. And I am feeling sadness and frustration deeply which is getting in the way of appreciating the happiness I do have.

The particularly maddening thing is that rather than focus on what I can do now to further my goals I procrastinated today. For me it’s not always easy to delineate between what is me talking care of my health and what is me simply putting off unpleasant tasks. I have willpower (an over abundance of it if my 334 straight days of writing say much) so I’m not prone to procrastination. Which means when it does sneak up on me I lack the skills an average 7 year old has. Note to self, practice procrastination and overcoming it.

I’m glad I have this space to write out my feelings and thoughts as it does help to notice them. Without observing and honoring your emotions it is very hard to get out of reactive cycles. So I’m antsy because I’m sad about being unable to travel freely without fear to see my loved ones. Of course that kind of emotion makes one unfocused and moody. Recognizing this is the first step in letting go of it.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 333 and Calm Passion

I was listening to someone discuss an emotional moment in his life. In his description of the moment, he slowly enunciated out three syllables. In his stillness I didn’t quite catch it. Calm passion. What actually said was compassion. But my mind fell in love with the idea of calm passion. I heard what I needed.

In learning to be more loving to myself I would like not just compassion but calm passion. That the intimacy of being present for one’s own life need not be a struggle feels ambitious. But that’s why I like the idea that passions can be calm.

I associate the word calm with a lack of attachment. I mean that positively. Not necessarily in the strictly Buddhist sense. Though certainly in the same spirit. That one can experience life calmly with peaceful detachment while still having the passion of being intimately present has whiff of nirvana to it. Passionate without the energy of any other emotion high or low to see-saw or whiplash you. Calm passion.

Categories
Chronic Disease Emotional Work

Day 330 and Vitamin Not Pill

I was reading a fellow investor’s thesis page and noticed one lens they use for investing is whether a product is a “vitamin or a pill” with the insinuation that pills are inherently better investments than vitamins, as one is a nice to have for a business and the other is a must have. Now I can’t speak to this as an investment thesis, though I largely agree, but I do disagree on a wellness basis.

Preventative medicine is just as necessary as interventional medicine. In some cases more so, as getting ahead of a disease’s inflection point should be the humane way we handle our medical needs. We are just often too focused on short term impacts to see the value of solutions that build over time. Think of it as the quarterly reports of healthcare. Why build for the future when the market judges by each 10K?

The nature of panic may make us inclined to spend heavily on something that has become acute. But that does not make it inherently more effective or worthwhile. It’s just the immediately necessary. It just means we need higher minimum effective doses to see a result.

What we often ignore is compounding effects of wellness interventions are far superior to the mitigation of a pharmaceutical over time. Most of us would prefer to not require the costly (both biologically and financially) medicines that keep us together. This is not to say that I am not deeply grateful for all the drugs I take. But rather that I have seen incredible value in what we deem “lifestyle interventions” and other “nice to have” vitamin style supplements and protocols.

And while it takes much longer to see their effects, the compounding positive effects often wildly outperform anything that might be dubbed a pill. The trouble probably boils down to switching costs and time to pay off. Which is why an investor would prefer a pill to a vitamin. But just because something has a longer lifecycle doesn’t make it inherently less sticky. Or less effective. Or crucially any less profitable. The only way we ever see the deeply positive effects of habitual practice and dedication is to do the work. That work is boring, repetitive and low payoff. Until, most times years in the making, you see how putting your future self over your present self is what is giving you the future you always dreamed would be yours.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 329 and Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for this year. I don’t have a lot of poetic thoughts on it, though I have written extensively about my feelings on some of the bigger moments of the year. So click those if you want essays as this is going to be mostly a list.

I’m grateful to have recovered my health in 2021. I’m equally grateful I had the money, support and willpower to achieve it.

I’m grateful I have a husband who understands me and gives me the love, support and freedom to be me.

I’m grateful for having a space to share my thoughts daily, and rather than be punished for speaking my mind, I am rewarded for it. That includes WordPress, Twitter and all the people who made the internet possible.

I’m grateful I can live in Colorado and still do the same work I previously thought I would only do in New York or San Francisco.

I’m grateful my mother sent me to Waldorf school. I’m grateful I have a father who supported my development as a full human being.

I’m grateful I can afford to buy whatever dumb shit I like for my hobbies which range from expensive skincare to preparedness.

I’m grateful I can consider buying a home that will have the capacity to provide safety even as the world around me has risks.

I’m grateful to have business partners who share my vision for investing and founders and entrepreneurs who allow me to help them.

I’m grateful I never have to worry if there is enough money in the bank to buy a book.

I’m grateful that the supply chains have held so that I have an apple pie that I ordered online the day before the biggest holiday of the year which I picked up in my car that I was able to buy even as global trade was strained and our currency was inflated.

I’m grateful for the time to pursue emotional capacity and the money to pay for it.

I’m grateful for chemistry and the wide variety of pharmaceuticals and supplements that I take every day.

I’m grateful for my iPhone, it’s applications and games I use daily on it that have connected me to a world of people virtually that I love as truly as the people I interact with physically.

I’m grateful for shitposting.

I’m grateful William Gibson still writes. And I’m grateful that Twitter has let me interact with my favorite writers.

I’m grateful for West End BBQ and Spruce Confections.

I’m grateful for my raw milk dairy cooperative and it’s farmer Daphne.

I’m grateful for sunscreen and for apple cider vinegar.

I’m grateful for Costco.

I’m grateful for my parents making good decisions when I was younger that have compounded into incredible luck and prosperity for me.

I’m grateful to be American and I’d like that to remain a thing for which I am grateful.

I’m grateful for democracy, the enlightenment, free elections, a free press and liberalism.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 328 and Cultural Pause

I love America’s big holidays. Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Year’s are my favorite. But not because I am particularly attached to any festivities. Though I do love everything about Christmas. I love holidays because I feel like it’s finally ok to pause.

Having an moment where it feels culturally acceptable to be at rest is deeply comforting to me. I feel it slightly on the weekends. It’s like the ambient environment around me lifts the expectation of being “on” and everything I do is a bonus. I finally let myself relax. And more crucially I don’t beat myself up for feeling relaxed.

It’s a fairly profound feeling for me. Normally I have something in my gut that says I must be productive if other people are working. It’s hard for me to shake honestly. I struggled with vacations and I initially hated sick leave (even though I needed it badly) because I felt I should be accomplishing things along with everyone else.

I’m working on it and it is getting better as I do more emotional work on myself. But I still relish the feeling of rest that comes with a holiday.