Today started with a bought of anxiety. I woke up in our space heater-warmed room, and I groggily thought, "Isn't it nice to be able to stick my leg out from under the covers." But a familiar, nebulous anxiety jumped on me like a puppy who sees your eyes opening. Laying there, wondering what to do with it, I sort of fell into the thought of, "Oh, just love." So I dropped into a generalized loving space, and it felt like I, as strong and compassionate parent, was there with myself. And it seemed that the anxiety and compassion couldn't co-exist, so I basked in that as it waxed and waned, and reflected sleepily on what the effects of the Adult Month might turn out to be.
I couldn't say for sure that the anxiety isn't also a result. You change one part of the puzzle, and rest often moves in tandem.
But as it was Adult Month, I got up asking myself what, among the myriad choices available to me at 8am, was the most adult. I chose meditating, and sat for an hour in pretty good concentration. Then I was up and sent off a note to a colleague I'd promised to introduce to an esthetician I'd met recently. Then I walked for my morning coffee at Javaholics, around the corner from our house, and returned to work a bit on the December "Tame Your Mood" newsletter, sketching out a piece on cultivating one's own Nurturing Parent.
Ok, so points for morning Adulthood.
Then Heather and I drove to work together, and perhaps something about the sluggish gray weather, combined with a lingering sickness led to a low-grade bleakness and loneliness, as I drove down to work in Redwood City. I picked up a message from the female part of a couple I see, who continue to struggle with each other in rather profound ways, and something got tweaked inside. I did some EMDR as I drove (probably not the safest way to practice) and came to an image of my parents sitting us down for the announcement of their separation. I've noticed that with couples, I'm often struggling to hold the crisis conflicts. It seems a young part of me gets all stirred up, thinking, just like back then, that if I can't fix their crisis, I'm going to go down with the ship. So I tried working with this Adultly, but it didn't clear easily and lingered on as I got to work.
Then I checked in with Matt, my co-worker at the psychiatric rehab house, who let me know that a recent graduate of the house had killed himself by stepping in front of a train. I felt a slow rush as he told me, but it passed quickly and we were able to discuss our work with the man, and the ways our work put us pretty close to death. With this fellow, it came as little surprise that he offed himself. But there's an odd feeling of non-tragedy to this, not because his life wasn't empty and barren, but because his definitions of himself were not ones I was attached to. The body gets recycled one way or another, and the mind that destroys it, that's about as much compost as the meat. The suffering was real, and I have compassion for that. But thinking I actually know what death is about, and that it's tragic, that I can't buy into. He's off to who knows where, and best wishes on his journey.
A co-worker came to relieve me so I could attend the coordinating meeting for next year's Non-dual Wisdom and Psychotherapy conference, and I arrived at the little Pilates studio in Emeryville a few minutes late. John P., a big non-dual name in the Bay Area, motioned me to put my shoes in the corner, then join him and the five or so other folks. One I recognized from my old internship site, and a couple from the conference.
It was a little stilted at first, but then as we began talking and interacting, the group warmed up and I felt comfortable speaking to several points, and describing why I was there. Adult-wise, not too bad, though the young anxiety kept with me throughout the meeting, not helped by my rising temperature (this seems to be one of those colds that ramps up in the evening). We decided to take all comers for the selection committee, and Kerry, John and I (and the tech guy) will work on the website upgrade. It was a loosely formal organization, and decisions were made organically and without a lot of ego. I'm quite happy I made the effort to go, as it had that kind of scent which I've mostly learned to follow when it tickles my nostrils. It's an ingress into a community which it's time to join, moving in a direction in my work and practice which is very natural right now.
Then I drove back to work in the dark, always an odd experience (since I'm almost always commuting in daylight). Heather and I chatted on the way, but I was still feeling this underlying bleakness until just around the corner from the house, when it just shut off and there was a surge of optimism.
I set to work and avoided the evening movie, for the most part, though there were scenes in "Perfume" which were hard not to be attracted to. But I asked myself what the Adult choice was, and so worked some on the Christmas decorations (per bosses' directive), and then worked on notes and listened to a few Ken Wilber clips. Then wrote this.
All in all, a pretty good Adult day.
