Tag: Life

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Chronic Disease Emotional Work

Day 147 and Over My Skis

For a Colorado native (let’s ignore that I was born in Silicon Valley) a number of our most cherished pastimes are kinda “meh” for me. Skiing is a sport that I can take or leave. That apres ski life is much more appealing than cutting it up on the slopes. But one key metaphor from ski culture gets used lot. “I’m over my skis.”

To be over one’s skis is to risk crashing. Being over ones skis happens out of enthusiasm. An inexperienced or unfocused skier lets their center of gravity tilt forward over their knees. Best case scenario, you are simply going too fast and you better “pizza” your skis to slow down. It’s a endearing but slightly awkward experience which is what makes the metaphor so appealing. It’s never a bad faith metaphor merely a goofy oops.

I got over my skis this week. I’ve been so excited for my workload (new investments, new startups to advise) and some new structures forming in my life (chaotic.capital is coming into focus) that I’m leaning in and finding myself going too fast. A friend of mine, who is my favorite person to “over do it” with, was on the phone with me a lot. I was excited to talk to her. But all this added up.

I realized oh shit I need to slow down. I haven’t crashed yet but I’m french frying. There is still time for me to “pizza” or in the immortal words of South Park’s ski instructor Thumper

If you french fry when you should pizza, you’re gonna have a bad time

I love french frying, the food, the ski position and the metaphor for speed. I want get over my skis. But if I don’t pizza “I’m going to have a bad time.” So with true Colorado wisdom it is time to kick back, get some THC and pizza. May this edition of Rocky Mountain wisdom aid you in finding balance on the slopes and off.

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Emotional Work

Day 137 and Feeling Invaded

The line between feeling abandonment and invaded is thin for me. Being a child that often felt abandoned by my successful but distant father ingrained in me a fascinating pattern as an adult. I fear that I won’t be chosen, but when someone does choose me I easily tip right over into feeling invaded. I suspect this is a pattern many others will recognize.

There is a deep yearning to be the priority. My desire to be the one that gets picked is so strong. Such is the lingering fear of abandonment on the inner child. But because I have more comfort and recognition in the feeling of abandonment, when someone shows up for me it’s a swift inversion to the feeling of being invaded.

How dare this person who I so desperately wished would choose me then actually choose me! I will then become shy, distant, evasive and cold as the feeling that someone has overstepped their boundaries (which they haven’t) makes me retreat. For anyone who has ever been so sure that someone gave them all the signals of desire only to have it feel as if it was yanked away, this is the pattern your desired may be reenacting.

Because the consequence of being wanted is, well, being wanted. They desire something of me. I don’t even just mean this of friends or sexual partners. I can be thrilled that someone has chosen to work or collaborate with me and then when they approach me as if I have committed to them I will seize up with anxiety. The agony I feel at someone wanting something from me even when I gave them every indication that I want to give that thing to them is intense. My chronic fear of calendars is a deeply comical manifestation of this fear. I’ll spend an entire day agonizing over one short phone call in an otherwise empty day.

I doubt I’m special in this pattern of yearning and retreat. One of the most quoted lines from Star Trek is Spock noting “After a time, you may find that ‘having’ is not so pleasing a thing after all as ‘wanting. ‘ It is not logical, but it is often true.” For me it is often true and it is a pattern I wish to break. For when I reach out and offer my time and emotions to others I do mean it. The fear of invasion and patterns of retreat are simply a reactive pattern from my childhood. It is protective, and even in the mind of a child, logical. But children’s logic can only take you so far in life. As an adult I take responsibility for my emotions and through mindfulness can move beyond it.

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Emotional Work

Day 133 and Emotional Shibboleths

When I was a kid I was terrified of drinking. A family member went to daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and my reaction to it was “I hope I never become an addict because this seems like a huge time commitment.” Little did I know that it’s one of the best possible uses of one’s time! As a kid I had not yet been initiated into the secret code words of emotional work.

AA and Al-Anon are filled with shibboleths. So many phrases (don’t “should” on yourself) or or even a single word (triggered) that I heard in daily life turned out to be passwords for the initiates into emotional work.

It’s not just AA that uses a these types of passwords to show that you too have committed to to either program work or some other system of working on yourself. Inner child shows that you’ve done family systems or trauma work. Speaking of mindfulness generally means you have committed to a meditation practice.

Once you commit to therapy, performance coaching or program work (which isn’t just for alcoholics Al-Anon is for anyone) you will find yourself noticing the little hints that someone else is also on a path to working though their self limiting beliefs. Wait that was another shibboleth! Entire television shows like Bojack Horsemen and Ted Lasso light up the minds of folks on this path. My favorite quote from Ted Lasso is a classic framing of self love work

Coach, I’m me. Why would I want to be anything else?” Jaime

“I’m not sure you know how psychologically healthy that actually is”. Ted Lasso

If you ever find me using phrasing you don’t recognize it’s quite likely it’s because much to the chagrin of my teenage self I now know that this is the best possible use of an hour a day to work on oneself.

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Chronicle

Day 131 and Doing Less with More

I’m a lot busier recently. Maybe it’s a function of the ebullience that is gripping a vaccinated America but I’m finding more obligations in my calendar than I can recall in years. It’s still not quite to the place I was when I was a full time founder but I’m noticing fewer long blocks of time to myself.

I benefit from unstructured unencumbered time at rest. It’s not that I need it to be alone time or quiet time as much I need full on rest. I thrive when I have no reason to get out of bed. I do best reading and synthesizing when my mind is free to wander without any obligation to anything but that space.

Even otherwise pleasurable but not explicitly rest activities like going for a hike or painting my toenails doesn’t register as rest to me I’ll feel a kind of indignation when I’ve had an otherwise amazing day (filled with leisure activities) but didn’t get enough rest. I’ll think “sure it was fun” but also “now I’m tired and that wasn’t restful at all” goes through my head. For me the most restorative thing is not to do anything at all.

In fact the further away my activity is from boundaries like being constructive the more constructive I am afterwards. I try not to set myself up with the expectation that I am rewarded by productivity when I am at rest. That would set in motion the same circle of doing activities and not feeling rested because it wasn’t explicitly rest. That would become a kind of self limiting belief that leads to workaholism which I’ve pledged to avoid.

I hope that as the enthusiasm of exciting work and better help take more of my time I don’t feel tempted to indulge in activities that don’t feel restorative to me. None of this year would have been worth it if I went back to old unfulfilling ways of living.

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Chronicle

Day 130 and Smiling When Sad

If you asked me my dominant emotion when I was younger I probably should have said anger. I was a fired up young woman. But as the years have gone by and the social benefits of seeming happy have piled up I’m finding it easier to spend more energy on smiling. This isn’t the same thing as being happy.

We like when people are friendly (even if we actually prefer they be kind) and I seem to have bought into it as a moral virtue over the years. I thought it was a gender thing but now I’m much more convinced it’s part of a family trauma cycle set in motion by my father who is exceptionally good at being liked. Cue Bojack Horseman joke.

You inherit your parents’ trauma but will ever fully understand it. Haha the cop is a cat.

Naturally I rebelled against perception of happiness and likability thing with a lot of anger as teenager. Cue lots of screaming stuff like “why do you care more if other people like you more than family” and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what I repeat to my therapist now as an adult.

And because intergenerational trauma and family systems work actually isn’t bullshit I’m starting to realize I stopped being angry and started smiling at some point not because I’m happy but because it’s a learned behavior from my childhood. And the smiling is papering over a lot.

What used to be passion, intensity and anger is fermenting into sadness over the years. Not because I’m actually sad inherently but because it makes me sad to lie about how I feel all the time. But I’m not entirely comfortable expressing any emotion. So now I smile when I’m sad. I’ve absolutely smiled when crying from sadness and grief.

Thankfully I hasn’t yet started laughing and smiling when I’m angry, but I fear if I don’t resolve this pattern and move on it might not be far off. I’ve still got significant work to actually feel my emotions in any given moment. Anger feels like it’s too reactive. Sadness like it’s a sublimation of something else. And if I actually am happy then I need to feel that. But I can’t force it with a smile.

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Chronic Disease Chronicle

Day 129 and Worried About Wellness

Last week I felt like I was struggling to hold together level emotions and coherent thought. I had a lot of “feels” posts where I spent more time inspecting my interior world than I did analyzing exterior events.

When I feel energetic I can take in more information and engage in synthesis but when I’m feeling tired or otherwise am flaring from autoimmune condition I requires more mindfulness. This mindfulness lends itself to more of an inner focus. Often this brings me a sense of peace and emotional well being. Lately my case has been well controlled to the point of recovery, yet I haven’t felt as emotionally joyful about the development as I thought I would.

Then around Thursday or Friday of this week I found myself turning a bend. I was excited to think about very abstract ideas like the aesthetics of finance and how critical theory and how great works culture is colliding with Gen Z vibes.

I struggle with wanting to lean into enthusiasm though. Too many days in a row of exertion or excitement and I fear I’ll set myself back. That’s a kind of self limiting behavior that I hope I can let go. I want to feel confident in my energy but I do not want to turn myself back into workaholic habits either. This is a fear so persistent I’ve tagged eight posts in the last five months with the topic. So great is the fear that I felt some relief that I felt physically unwell today as I could blame my body instead of making the choice for myself if I wanted to be driven by energy and not recovery.

I can’t put off the mixed emotions on wellness and how I feel about working in the world. My capacity is nearly there. I’m taking on more and more. I have even plotted some of my next moves. But I’m feeling Augustine about the whole affair. Oh make well God but not quite yet!

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Chronicle

Day 124 and Taking a Pass

Most days I have at least some idea of a topic or an idea that grabs my attention. Even when I click open the WordPress app to write and don’t have something I want to explore I can generally find my way into something. Today I had a number of appointments for medical stuff that has just drained the life out of me. So I’m threading together sentences but a topic isn’t coming to me.

I mostly just want to sleep. My head hurts, my spine is throbbing, and I feel like the day just kicked my ass. But I swore everyday I would write something so here I am with nothing to say trying to fill a page.

It’s hard to know when a bad day will strike which is part of the challenge of a daily writing obligation. It’s somehow easier and harder all at once. It’s easier because with a daily exercise you know it will have some duds. But it’s also harder because you can’t just put it off. Still I think I’d rather know some days will have poor content. That’s easier than only ever publishing writing I’m proud to have made public. I’ll take the “pass” grade and move on. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll have something great.

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Chronicle Internet Culture

Day 123 and Being Liked

I asked if folks cared if other people liked them today on Twitter. The results are surprisingly mixed on the issue.

A Twitter poll asking if folks care if others like them with 4 options: yes, no, yes but I like about it and no but I lie about it.

The four options were Yes, No, Yes But I Lie About It and No But I Lie About It. It is fascinating to see the breakdown in responses even a few hours into the poll. I don’t know what I thought the response would be but I don’t think it was an even split.

Now, of course, I didn’t ask if being likeable is good, or bad, or even helpful. I just asked if people cared. It’s likely people who do care don’t think it’s good that they care. And there are people who don’t care that maybe which wish did as caring about being liked may have benefits. I don’t actually believe that a third of folks don’t care as frankly society would look pretty different if 35% of us just didn’t care about perception. And sure you can argue that you don’t care but you hide the fact, but then your answer would have been the least popular option “no and I lie about it” which is lagging in the results. My guess is that a number of folks are aspirational “no” votes which I can respect. I’m confident I would have voted no in my twenties. I used to be an aspirational no vote

Currently my vote would be “Yes But I Lie About It” but I’m not sure if I’m lying to myself or others with that answer. I don’t generally care what people think of me but I think I lie to myself about needing to care. I think being liked is important and I want to act like I care more. I’ve got some hang ups about not having been a more palatable person when I was younger. Maybe if I had been nicer or better behaved or well…just more likable I’d be richer, more loved, have a better relationship with my family and other fantasies. I’m also not convinced that changing myself for others has the benefits I think. That’s just some 4 year old inner child trauma emotions. How others feel about me has little to do with me and a lot to do with them. That’s true for how I feel about others. My reaction to you says a lot about my emotions, trauma and hang ups than it does about if you are likable.

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Aesthetics Chronic Disease Chronicle

Day 122 and Soul Delay

There is a line in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition that has stuck with me for years. The context isn’t all that crucial except to know the hero has just taken a long flight.

She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien’s theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can’t move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.

Sadly I am not jet lagged, as that would imply international travel which is a context I doubt I’ll have for at least a few more months. But I’m finding soul delay can happen even without jet lag. The separation between one’s body and one’s soul is a rich emotional issue. For the past week or two I feel like I’ve been reeling from a gap between my soul and my body. It came on suddenly, despite all the disparate causes been easy to see coming and not remotely surprising.

The dawning realization that I may not be stuck forever with a chronic illness hasn’t been the unmitigated joy I anticipated. In fact, it’s been fairly miserable realizing that the convenient excuse to keep me from workaholism won’t be an available crutch forever. I’m assessing all the things I take for granted in my life and their myriad benefits and it’s not pretty. It turns out even the most joyful possible goal attainments come with a host of introspection.

And that generally means you can’t lie to yourself. It actually feels a little bit like attaining wealth overnight. All those excuses you used to have about how you’d just pursue the life of your dreams if not for financial limitations? Some of them turn out to be lies you’ve been telling yourself for years. And then how do you feel? It turns out much of your circumstances were self imposed.

Which isn’t to say that I’m finding out I need to make drastic life changes and that I’ve been living a lie. That would actually be easy! It’s more that the sum of dozens of self limiting beliefs need to be assessed, turned over for utility, and discarded or repurposed. Why was I a founder? Why am I married? Why do I pursue attention? All of these are little bits of honesty that are giving me soul delay. Because finding out what I actually want, without the benefit of a circumstance preventing me from achieving my desires, is going to require reconciliation between my soul and my reality.

So right now I feel a kind of emotional jet lag. After intensive work and a significant amount of willpower I am getting what I wanted. I’m getting my health back. But I’m still reeling in my soul from the journey. The cortisol spiked adrenaline of the effort is wearing off. I need to recover from my recovery. My soul needs to reel itself in. But I don’t know when it’s arriving at baggage claim. And I’m so very tired from the effort. So even if I have arrived it doesn’t feel like I thought it would. I hope I can be patient with myself while I wait. It’s been two years so I figure what is another few months?

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Chronic Disease Chronicle

Day 117 and Drained

I feel like my mind hasn’t caught up to my body this week. Usually it’s my body that isn’t caught up to my mind. But I’ve been fighting so hard to get physically healthy that I don’t think I fully considered what it would mean to achieve it.

I’m exhausted as the reality of a change is hitting me all at once. I’ve been having a roller coaster of emotions trying to figure out how I feel. Some of it is a resistance to change. But I think some of it is simply that even positive changes require emotional adjustments. Adjusting to a new self requires a lot of energy.

A part of me feels like I’m fighting some boss that if I can just defeat will let me get to the next level in the game of my life. And I’ve used up all lives trying to get through it. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out how to make it happen but I’ve been at it for so long I can barely see straight. But who wants to take a break when you are so close to leveling up?

I really don’t have it in me to say much more today. But I’m pretty sure I’ll have more once I can just get through it.