Two coping strategies that don’t work (and one that does!)

Posted: May 11th, 2012 | Filed under: Magic, Philosophical | 3 Comments »

Cop­ing is a skill that I hap­pen to be well-versed in. Hell, I’m a self-employed sin­gle mother. Every day is a new les­son in cop­ing. I’m con­stantly try­ing new strate­gies to just. get. through. the. day. Because it really sucks. It’s hard. I’m fraz­zled, stressed and totally over­whelmed. The key to avoid­ing train­wreck­i­fi­ca­tion1 though is effec­tive cop­ing. And mov­ing, 600 miles away from my tribe, my happy places, my fam­ily, friends and home­land (yes, I’m look­ing at you, Indi­ana), has been a crash refresher in these kinds of skills. To that end I’d like to share with you two cop­ing strate­gies that DON’T work — and one that does (for me — aside from drink­ing heav­ily2.)

Talk to Pollyanna

I was talk­ing to a friend about how it had been a week since my last shower. And when I finally got my kid­dos set­tled to the point where I thought I could safely jump in and lather up my hair, my daugh­ter decided to sit out­side the tub and scream like she was dying because she was out of juice. So look, I was frus­trated, fraz­zled and over­whelmed and I started cry­ing. In the shower. With soapy hair.

My friend lis­tened to all of this, smiled and said, “Look on the bright­side! Your kids love you and need you SO MUCH ALL THE TIME you’re SO LUCKY!” worse yet is when Pollyanna says some­thing like “Well soon your kids will be all grown up and they won’t need you any­more! So think about that!”

(Next time I’m sob­bing in the shower?)

Why it’s not helpful

When some­one tells you to look on the bright side it’s usu­ally because of two reasons:

1. It’s easy to respond this way AND
2. They’re uncom­fort­able with your pain

When you talk to some­one about being fraz­zled, over­whelmed or stressed — need­ing to find some way of cop­ing, what you’re really talk­ing about is your pain.

I wasn’t just telling my friend about how I needed a shower — obvi­ously the story ran much deeper. I was try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate that I hurt because I have to do every­thing myself and it sucks.

And when Pollyanna sug­gests you look on the bright side, it usu­ally indi­cates an unwill­ing­ness on their part to be present with that hurt. Talk­ing to peo­ple about unpleas­ant things is awk­ward. It’s weird and uncom­fort­able to see other people’s pain. Per­haps your friend is wor­ried about the pos­si­bil­ity of expe­ri­enc­ing empa­thy — of feel­ing any of that yucky stuff for them­selves — and will say any­thing to escape it as quickly and effi­ciently as possible.

And yet –

Talk­ing to some­one about the ways and the hows of my hurt is SO help­ful to me. But I’ve learned that it’s impor­tant to chose those peo­ple who will really lis­ten and allow me feel my pain rather than try­ing to sweep it under the cur­tains.

And if you’re a Pollyanna who reg­u­larly dis­penses this advice, stop it. It doesn’t help and it’s just so uncre­ative. You can do bet­ter. Start by giv­ing your friend a hug and hold­ing their hand while they wring out all those tears.

Make a grat­i­tude list

I’m a grate­ful lady. I’m well fed, have a beau­ti­ful lit­tle (pink) house in the coun­try. I have two chil­dren who are good look­ing, intel­li­gent and healthy. I have so much to be grate­ful for, it’s sick really. It’s unfair to most of the world just how won­der­ful my life is.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck some­times. So when I’m hav­ing a bad week — when I get behind with the house­work, with sleep; when I am frus­trated by a project, by a per­son, by my own short­com­ings — and some­one tells me to make a grat­i­tude list, I seri­ously just want to fly into fits of rage and throw a lamp across the room at a wall, for example.

 

Why it’s not helpful

Grat­i­tude is a prac­tice that’s best insti­tuted before you get to the actual cop­ing bits of life. Grat­i­tude is some­thing that, if it’s already in your box of tricks, will help you deal with the blows before you’re in the pre-lamp-throwing train­wreck­i­fi­ca­tion phase. So in that sense, I do rec­om­mend that you keep it in mind — like when things are going good.

I’m also a fan of notic­ing. It’s like grat­i­tude but with­out all the touchy-feely-woo that’s going around these days. I notice what things bring me great joy (and yes, I even make lists about it some­times) — so that when I begin to feel a lit­tle edge-worn I can call upon those ener­gies, those spir­its, those choco­lates and dou­ble Amer­i­canos, for exam­ple — and that is a good cop­ing skill.

Notic­ing works in the oppo­site direc­tion too — with equal effec­tive­ness! If you notice what makes you psy­cho crazy and just keep it in mind, you can avoid it like a blis­ter­ing com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­ease next time you notice it creep­ing up on your radar.

Grat­i­tude lists don’t work for me for (again) two reasons:

1. I can’t fool myself into this way of think­ing. The grat­i­tude list works as a way to remind you of what you have going for you. I am either too jaded or this is just too obvi­ous for my brain. I know my prob­lems are first-world prob­lems. If you’re read­ing this, chances are your prob­lems are first world prob­lems too. Be grate­ful you have the inter­net right? Is it really help­ful to remem­ber that you have clean water to drink and don’t live in a war-ravaged third-world nation? I mean, yes? But still…

2. Even­tu­ally, if things got really really bad, all your list would be good for is to remind you that all that all that shit hasn’t killed you… yet. And hey, maybe that makes you feel bet­ter. It doesn’t, me.

I tried to do grat­i­tude lists once. It didn’t make me feel bet­ter. It made me feel petty in addi­tion to the shitty I already felt. Maybe I wasn’t being grate­ful enough? Maybe I’m ungrate­ful. Maybe I’m a hor­ri­ble per­son. Maybe if I could be more grate­ful I wouldn’t be so stressed out all the time! Why can’t I be MORE GRATEFUL WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME OMG.

What does work

Roller derby.

Kid­ding! Okay not really. Actu­ally I found roller derby to be an incred­i­bly stress-relieving, perspective-inducing, edge-smoothing cop­ing mech­a­nism. There’s just some­thing about get­ting your ass smeared all over a gym floor to really put your prob­lems into per­spec­tive (please note: I only con­done vio­lence when all par­ties are wear­ing mouth­guards and wheels).

Honor your pain

A few things -

Look­ing on the bright side and being grate­ful for what you have are both good ideas. I sup­port both plans whole­heart­edly. But the pos­i­tive thinking/manifesting your desires/believe-in-yourself and all your wildest dreams will come true move­ment seems to miss the mark on the fact that feel­ing shitty is just part of life. There’s a ten­dency to just gloss over that unpleas­ant detail — in self-help books, blogs, etc. Life can be dis­ap­point­ing. Life can suck. Every­thing that makes you very very very happy also has the power to make you really really really mis­er­able. That’s the toss of the die, people.

When I say ‘honor your pain’ — I don’t mean wal­low in it.

Hav­ing a good cry is dif­fer­ent than not being able to get out of bed for a week. Punch­ing a pil­low is dif­fer­ent than punch­ing your obnox­ious neigh­bor. If your pain is so deep that you’re unable to see the dif­fer­ence, please seek the help of a qual­i­fied pro­fes­sional who can meet you where you’re at and offer you the sup­port you need. You’ll feel better.

How to honor your pain:

1. Allow your­self to feel it — Cry. I used to cry all the time. I find I have a harder time with this now. This is, of course, me avoid­ing those unpleas­ant feel­ings. I always feel bet­ter when I cry though. Always.
2. Release it into the wild — I like a bit of rit­ual in this step. Ever hear of a bit­ter bon­fire? Maybe host one with you friends and fam­ily. Where I’m at right now — not so appro­pri­ate to have giant bon­fires. Take a can­dle out­side. Write that shit­ty­ness down on a lit­tle slip of paper and set it on fire. If you like a bit more woo with your rit­ual, try it while the moon is wan­ing, in the late evening right before you indulge in a hot bath (hand­ful of salt in the water).
3. Make it for some­thing — one of the ways we can honor a spirit is to give it a pur­pose. Make your pain good for some­thing — even if that some­thing is just the promise to your­self to enlist that awk­ward teenager down the street to watch your babies while you bathe. If you’re frus­trated by work, you don’t have to release your pain and then do some­thing dras­tic, like quit your job, for exam­ple. But think of some­thing small, some­thing use­ful and good that the pain can be for. Maybe it’s for tak­ing a walk while your cowork­ers smoke. Maybe it’s for find­ing a book about writ­ing your own busi­ness plan. Make it for some­thing. Our brains like it when energy, even the hurt­ful kind, has purpose.

And finally, a spell by Valerie Worth (from Crone’s Book of Mag­i­cal Words)

To Dis­pel Sorrow

When world and fate
Con­spire to mark
Your life with lines
And char­ac­ters dark,
Mold a tablet
Of earth or clay,
Write on it all
You would cast away –
All you regret,
All that you bear,
All that afflicts you,
All that you fear –
Break it and bury it
In the ground,
Say­ing this charm
To heal the wound:

Sor­row be dust
And dust dis­solve:
Let all my grief
Go into this grave.

***

  1. I think I just coined that term, mean­ing: the process of becom­ing a train wreck. ↩
  2. Just kid­ding. About the ‘heav­ily’ part any­way. Kid­ding again. Don’t drink away your pain. Duh. ↩

How to Do It All : pt. 1

Posted: January 15th, 2012 | Filed under: Magic, Pareidolia | No Comments »

The Moon is a lady. Her face, slip­ping through veils of wisp-tailed clouds. It was as it was meant to be. Her, in her full­ness. Me, arched back in bed. The cool swell of her light, right where I might best spy, lying there com­fort­ably in my tan­gle of blankets.

I always, when I plan magic like this, assume that the right rit­ual will some­how spill from head. I trust The Uni­verse. We have this thing, you know. What I need will come to me. So that night, under Her full round­ness, I found myself lying in bed, whis­per­ing a love spell… can you believe it?! I hardly can myself.

***

I am a handy lady, let’s just say. So when the sheetrock bath­room ceil­ing began to crum­ble and fall down, I did not take the advice of friends (“Here’s the num­ber of a guy I know...”), but instead went to the home improve­ment store. I always, when I plan magic like this, assume the solu­tion will just fall into my lap. So I milled about the aisles for a bit when I came upon the 1’x1’ ceil­ing tiles. Ah ha! This has got to be a bil­lion times eas­ier than hang­ing dry­wall over­head! I have installed tongue and groove floor­ing before, so the con­cept was sim­i­lar. I was sassy with sat­is­fac­tion of my bril­liance. Who needs a guy!? I can do it all. 

Fast for­ward to Sat­ur­day. I’ve got a few of those babies hang­ing on the ceil­ing. It looks… like it’s all com­ing together. I take a break and drink cof­fee. I think, why does any­one need any­one? I snap a pic­ture of my progress, so I can file it away in my scrap­book for later. I am a god­dess. After this, I’m plan­ning to bake a loaf of bread, change the oil in my car and cro­chet a fuck­ing doily.

Halfway through my project the ceil­ing gets… wonky, let’s just say. I real­ize I should have made sure I was work­ing on a level sur­face. I was unpre­pared for how crooked the cor­ners of the room were. I start to won­der if it’s actu­ally a two-person job, hold­ing the end pieces up, which seem hell-bent on pulling all my work down. Every­thing, sud­denly, is get­ting really metaphorical.

And that’s of course when it hits me. A mes­sage from The Uni­verse. A peek into my future. And it’s super incon­ve­nient because I can’t leave to go write it down, I have to hold these damn tiles up till the glue cures. So I’m stand­ing on this lad­der. In my bath­room. Hold­ing up the ceil­ing. My kids are fight­ing over Gold­fish crack­ers in the other room. And I’m hav­ing a stroke of brilliance.

Along with this, though, a grow­ing aware­ness that my ceil­ing project is going to fail. For what­ever rea­son, the cor­ners are now start­ing to sag. I hear the glue creak­ing and moan­ing. I don’t have enough arms to save the work. I whis­per a lit­tle prayer, release my grip, step down off the lad­der and cover my neck as the ceil­ing falls down on me.

Some­times all you can do is all you can do.

***

After I cleaned up the mess in the bath­room and show­ered, I told the kids we were going to a restau­rant for din­ner. This is a treat, if only because it can be har­row­ing to take both my wee babes to din­ner by myself. Mama needs a mar­garita was encoded in “How about Mex­i­can?” They were thrilled by the idea, so we went.

After a lovely din­ner, which they both ate like peo­ple even, the wait­ress stopped at my table to com­pli­ment me on how beau­ti­ful and well behaved my kids were (they really were inor­di­nately good). “You’re so blessed. SO BLESSED.” She repeated as if I needed the emphasis.

We all walked hand in hand to the car. The Uni­verse was prod­ding me again. A pur­pose tucked away in mind, the bless­ings of two small hands in my hands. I ori­ented myself, search­ing for the Moon in the night. Give me the love I need, I implored her full face a week ago. There she was, a wan­ing grin in the sky.

Tomor­row I’ll call a guy about the ceiling.