arguchik | self care + RWP

i got this interesting little book the other day. i mean seriously, it's little, weighing in at only 76 pages of text (i.e. excluding textual apparatus stuff like the table of contents and the foreword and acknowledgments page). it's called transforming burnout: a simple guide to self-renewal, by alan shelton, m.d. i think i posted about this before, but when i saw a doctor for my heart arhythmia last winter, and subsequently started seeing a talk-talk therapist, i was diagnosed as having severe anxiety, burnout, and a mild-moderately depressive mood. i took a very low dose of alprazolam for a little while (about 2 months, all told), and tried to focus on calming the fuck down.

it has been a long road. i had to make some hard decisions--i.e. decisions that were hard in different ways (some were hard in terms of actually coming to a decision; and others were hard in terms of executing an otherwise obvious decision). obviously i'm not done making decisions, but i feel like i have made and executed all of the really difficult ones; the rest are the kind that "simply" need to be renewed on a daily basis, like running regularly or cutting out sugar. i've been doing pretty well with those, too, but for some reason i have still felt kind of stalled out. like i'm still just coasting along, not fully open to and accepting of the vicissitudes of life on this planet. i haven't always been this way. i used to live for vicissitudes, to welcome them and marvel in them, not simply accept them and try to weather them. i loved the randomness and the radical contingency of life--on both experiential/existential and intellectual planes (which aren't separable in any case).

true, i've had a lot to accept and adjust to over the last year. it has been enough to make anyone want to seize the reins of life with iron fists. my parents are dying, and in the process forgetting who i am, and even who they are. my body might have a time bomb ticking in its core. i need to finish school and move on, stop accruing student loan debt and start paying it down. i have turned 40, and have come face to face with the reality that i am highly unlikely ever to have biological children (still a choice, i know, but the window is closed far enough that i don't really want to attempt to jump through it, at this point). it's a lot.

over the last week or month i have kind of withdrawn from some parts of my life...not in a bad way, i don't think, but rather as an attempt to carve out some space where i can regroup a little bit, re-stoke my engine. i don't know how i saw this book at the bookstore...i just stopped in there to kill some time before my therapy appointment, and happened to be browsing the alternative medicine aisle looking for a completely different book. and there it was. it's not that stellar of a book, really; it's short, a bit sentimentally religious for my tastes, and even a little bit simplistic in its approach. i think i kind of needed that just now, though. it's a very small shot in the arm, a reminder that i need to make more room for spirituality in my life, for connection to the world around me. understand...i'm not the least bit religious or new-agey, and i'm not likely to develop those proclivities anytime soon; if anything, my life experiences continually renew my convictions to the contrary. but that doesn't make me any less spiritual. i recognize that there's an extra-biological dimension to life (and i don't just mean human life), a synergy and a holism that exceeds objective summation and analysis. it's neither static nor predictable. it brings growth, evolution, opportunity, comedy, love, tragedy, and death--in short, narrative. it compels an appreciation for the moment, whatever that moment might bring, even if it is the last moment. it is something to surrender to and to ride; not to fight or to resist.

i don't know how else to describe it. i just know when i'm in touch with it, and when i'm not. anxiety leads me away from it. breathing deeply leads me toward it, as do writing, using my muscles, looking at trees, conversing with people, taking care of plants, interacting with animals, walking around the city or in the woods, and just appreciating where i am, who i'm with, and what i can do (among other things). i guess the key word, the common denominator to all of these things is activity. anxiety leads me away because it paralyzes me; i get overwhelmed by everything i have to accomplish, and i lose faith in the process of slowly and steadily applying effort toward a long-term goal. anxiety also sends me into spirals of self-recrimination and defensiveness...and solipsism. it makes me miss things that are going on around me, because it focuses my attention relentlessly selfward, but in a mode of self-criticism rather than self-care.

anyway, all this is a long way of saying that i'm trying to take a few consious steps toward making time for various kinds of spirituality in my life. i don't know which things are going to work and which aren't; the specific form can be fluid. running has always been a spiritual mainstay for me, and i hope it will continue to be so, but i also don't think it's sufficient. i'm also going to try to do more writing in my analog journal, and i've decided to take up yoga as well. there's a yoga school around the corner from where i live. it's kind of expensive, but i'm going to take their beginner series and then take advantage of their "new student special," which will get me 2-1/2 months' worth of yoga instruction for not very much money. the beginner series starts in september...so i have to wait until i get back from visiting my family in michigan (which will be 9/5-9/16). i know i'm not breaking any new ground here. i'm joining the stampede toward yoga, journal writing, etc. it's all cliche'd stuff, but i don't care. it feels right, and i want to see where doing what feels right leads me.

READING: hybridity and its discontents, which is a collection of essays on the subject of--you guessed it--hybridity. someone has recalled this book from me (it's a UW library book), so i have to skim through it, decide what i want, and perhaps photocopy a few essays from it before i have to return it on the 22nd. i'm still working on blue mars, too.

WEARING: at the moment i'm wearing running clothes. i ran this morning, then ate breakfast and drank coffee, then started reading and writing, and i haven't gotten around to showering yet. i'll be doing that momentarily.

PLANNING: tonight i'm going out for dinner with my friend L, which will be cool. we're going to a new (to us) place: cafe presse, which is across the street from lark (another favorite, though waaaaaay too pricey to visit very often), at 12th ave and spring st in south capitol hill. tomorrow morning i'll be part of a crew helping

twocrows and

bcstillman move to friday harbor. we're planning to stay overnight at their new house, and come back to seattle sometime on sunday. this will be my first time ever visiting the san juan islands, so i'm really looking forward to it, and i'm hoping

glaucon and i, along with others from the moving crew, can spend some time looking around on sunday before we have to come home. sometime next week i'm also hoping to take a bus or a train down to portland, so i can see the bodyworlds exhibit that's showing down there. i have to talk to my friend who lives down there first, though, because i think he's interested in seeing the exhibit with me, and i am hoping he'll let me crash at his house for a night. this exhibit, along with bodies...the exhibition, which i saw (twice) in seattle several months ago, will figure as the objects of analysis in my dissertation's first chapter. i'm working on that chapter now, so i really need to go see it soon (also it's scheduled to close in september, so the sooner the better).