Things have been mostly good around these parts.  My negative moods really do seem to be concentrated now into pervasive sweeping unhappiness on certain days.  I’m trying to discern some sort of pattern.  There’s been huge progress in my overall state of being, which is fantastic (there are far more good days than bad now).  But I do feel occasionally a little like I’ve made it almost to the end of some unbearably long video game, and am sure that I’m just about to save the princess/world/marmot, except that I’ve talked to everyone I’m supposed to talk to, and collected everything I’m supposed to collect, and explored every scrap of terrain I can get to, and cannot f$@$ing figure out what I’m supposed to do next.  And everyone else seems to have completed it so easily they can’t remember how.  And there are no walkthroughs.  And my computer is really a hammer-head shark.

Currently my top bets are on some combination of blood sugar levels, general fatigue, social contact, and alcohol consumption.  Except that aside from the blood sugar (which generally balances out my mood as soon as it’s corrected anyway), these things seem to connect to my state of being indirectly as best.  Sometimes I’m tired on the days that are bad.  Sometimes I’m more tired, but I’m fine.  I feel perfectly normal (okay…maybe a little more flashy than normal) when I have a glass of wine with friends.  Sometimes the next day I’m a train wreck.  Sometimes not?  I’ll have to continue my research.  It sounds like getting smashed and staying up all night eating cupcakes would be a good start.

I’ll inform my husband.

Speaking of the husband, my Sappy Syrupy Warm Fuzziness Quotient requires that I mention that we apparently blew my therapist’s mind a little at my last session.  She had asked me as homework to have my husband and I come up with some 1 year and 5 year goals, separate of one another, and then compare, and discuss, and create some joint goals we could both work towards.  We’re already pretty good communicators and pretty aware of what we want from our lives and the changes we want to make to get there, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to get some things down on paper, and was curious to see where we might diverge.  So I made up my list during the day.  He did his at work and e-mailed it to me to print off so we could talk about it later.  We each came up with around 10-15 items.

…The same freaking 10-15 items.

Seriously.

We’re both very willful, independent people in our ways, so in joint ventures we will compromise with each other of course, but neither of us would bend our own individual goals just to be more like the other.  We just also happen to be willful people who are pretty perfectly matched.

His List – “lose more weight”

My List – “lose some weight”

His List – “exercise more”

My List – “more regular exercise”

His List – “continue to meditate”

My List – “continue with regular meditation”

His List – “reduce overall workload”

My List – “obtain a better balance of work and home life”

His List – “launch my own business / work independently”

My List – “start own business if I decide I’d like to try that”

His List – “don’t waste time”

My List – “find a way to keep our natural inclinations from interfering with our ability to do things that are fun, rich, and rewarding”  (which, upon discussion, means exactly the same thing)

Some of them (like paying off the debts) were even more identical, but also more obvious choices.  The only exceptions were that he placed exercise at the one year mark while I put it in the five (though he already exercises very regularly, so that’s probably an easier goal for him to get to), and that I also included getting myself back into some form of employment (which would be irrelevant to him) and deciding whether or not we want kids.

So my therapist reads over our lists, and looks at me with the most obscure expression on her face.

“Do you know how often this happens??” she asks me.  I am not 100% sure what she is referring to, and so am hesitant to comment.

“Never.  That’s how often.”

Apparently couples often have very contradictory goals (spend more time with my husband, spend more time out with the guys, etc.).  I think we broke her a little.  Really.  She sputtered for a while before collecting herself.   Perhaps she didn’t entirely believe what I had told her in the weeks before?  Are so many couples so different in what they want to accomplish in life?

There are many areas of my life in which I feel like I could have made better choices along the way.  My relationship is not one of them.  We have our challenges like everyone else does, but we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.

Plus, it’s a rare guy who will recognize one of the Bad Days and encouragingly walk his wife back and forth between two restaurants with no trace of impatience until she comes to a comfortable decision about what she wants to eat.  Because he knows that’s exactly what I needed right then.

stepped between our heads, filled our field of view, and promptly sat down for a while, just hanging out.  We wait.  She wanders away.

Our reaction:

“Hang on – there seems to be a communication barrier…”

“Everything seemed grey for a minute there.”

“There were a few hairy moments.”

The fact that our primary concern was getting in another pun is probably a good indicator of why our relationship is so strong.

1)  We have a few sod farms along one of the main roads in our area, and every time I pass them I can’t help feeling that they look like regular houses with acres and acres and acres of lawn.  The yards from their homes sort of flow uninterrupted into these MegaLawns.  Nice lawns too.  Very well maintained.  …This amuses me probably more (and more regularly) than it should.

2)  One of those prove-you’re-a-human captcha things asked me to type in “elf rot” today.  …And it wasn’t the kind that does words.  Just random collections of symbols and letters.  I think I’m going to start claiming elf rot every time I can’t come in to work.  Sounds nasty.  I bet nobody would even ask for details.

3)  As mentioned in the comments to the previous post, my list of forbidden words for comments to this site are quickly becoming hysterical.  For your reference, pretty much any sexual term or slang is a-okay.  Just don’t talk about your keys, or say anything intelligent.  Nasty gems like “research” and “written” are taboo here (It will still let you post them, you just have to prove you’re human first.  And that you don’t have elf rot).

4)  Every now and then I feel compulsively tempted to spend a lot of money on geeky shirts that I am probably getting too old to wear.  I also have the burning desire to own some kind of apparel subtly featuring pi.  This probably explains the torrid nature of my love life as a teen.

5)  Robin Williams.  Robin Williams is definitely random.

The laptop we own is a few years out of date and was the absolute cheapest possible option at that time, though (it was really just for word processing and playing videos at our wedding.  …Separately, that is.  There was no word processing at our wedding that I know of), so I don’t think I’m likely to be able to sever ties from the E-Mail and Storage Machine anytime soon.  Also, any video games I indulge in must be really, really old.

The downside to trying to make do without Outlook for a while is that I have a billion different e-mail addresses for different things (give or take 999,999,990).  I like different stuff to have a different address.  Makes me feel all organized, or compartmentalized, or something else that’s good and ends in ized.  Stuff from this website, stuff from my tutoring business, stuff from my real life, stuff that’s sketchy or likely to generate spam… I have a lot more addresses to check regularly than patience to do it one at a time.  I think I have successfully set up things to forward to one address for a while.  Probably took longer to do than it would have to just find out what needs to be done with my computer and fix it, but ah well.  And yes, of course, I created a new e-mail address just for forwarding things to.

The hyper SAM-e energy continues.  I’m starting to really love this stuff.  The thoughts about my future continue also, as a result of the increased energy.  In talking it through a couple more times, I think I made the decision to give the side businesses a go, though.  Well…I did make the decision to give them a go.  And I think I may actually keep it.

I saw the new therapist again (who I suppose will soon need a reference that doesn’t involve the word “new.”  She could be the Hugging Therapist, maybe.  She seems fond of hugging me).  I have the issue that receiving positive feedback and the feeling that I’m doing a good job makes me super crazy happy, but any indication (however small) that there’s more that I could be doing makes me feel terrible.  So this was a great session.  A deliriously happy session.   I’m not sure it was for entirely healthy reasons, but I’m happy this week.  In line with my distortedly high expectations for myself, I am also going to do the BEST JOB AT GETTING BETTER EVER.  I’m torn on whether or not this is a problem.

I have also realized yet again that I need to have a little more faith in myself.  In considering first steps for ramping up the businesses, I sent an e-mail to the mother of my most recent tutoring client asking if she would fill out some survey questions regarding her experience and what she liked or what could be improved.  I also asked at the bottom whether I could use her feedback for promotional purposes and whether she would be willing to be contacted as a reference.  I’ve tutored off and on, but not much recently, and a relatively recent reference could be important.  Plus, I have a lot of great feedback from students and parents of students from my classroom teaching, but nothing that specifically relates to tutoring.  And quotes look shiny on a website.  And I like shiny things.

Anyway, I was half worried that she just wouldn’t bother to answer.  The other half was concerned that I might get back just a lot of negative feedback.  She was tough to read on some things, and I know that initially she was a little uncertain about the price (I’m sure you could find a “math tutor” for $1/hr if you looked hard enough, but not a decent one).  I just got a reply back, though, saying not only that she would be “more than willing” to fill out the survey for me, but also asking if I had a time slot for her daughter for the upcoming semester.  So I guess it went okay.

I think it’s the same with the rest of the self-employment stuff.  Some of my biggest worries are that I won’t be able to do a good job, or that people will be dissatisfied, or that I won’t measure up to my competitors.  …But if I look at them objectively, there’s no reason at all to believe that.  I’m good at work stuff.  That’s one of my strengths.  It comes from my insanely high expectations of myself.  Realistically, I imagine that any service I provide will end up being extremely high quality compared to the rest of what’s out there.  Because I’m like that.  And as much as I would ideally like to tone that down a little, the likelihood of my doing a crappy job with this stuff is slim.  If I was taking on a carpentry business or something else I’m not at all trained for, maybe.  …Though even then, I imagine with the amount of preparation it’s in my nature to do, I might even be okay.   I think truly the biggest danger to my success with this is self-doubt and getting in my own way.

Like usual, then.

Sometimes I wonder what I would be capable of if I was a completely confident person. And not just because I’d be the only one on the planet who could claim that.  ….Well, maybe one of a few.  But I bet the other couple are douchebags.

Case in point, yesterday I tackled a whole pile of phone calls and paperwork items that have been sitting around forever.  …And may have sent an e-mail to my sister asking for her new mailing address and loosely implying that I would be sending her a mariachi band (she said she already has one, so there’s no point really in sending them if they’d just be extra).  Most of the things I took care of related in some way to future career plans (the mariachi band was an anomaly).  I think all my psychiatrist’s talk about going back to work got me a little fixated on it (I don’t like not having at least a basic idea of what I’m doing when it comes to important life stuff).  Plus, now that I’m getting back some energy some days, there are things I could be doing towards that goal provided I knew what that goal was.  I think my former work situation is WAY too much stress than it was worth for me unless I manage to make some pretty major life/personality changes.  I don’t do well with open-ended.  Or, more accurately, I do TOO well with open-ended.  Way too well.  Especially in combination with creativity.  And helping people.  I tend to just not stop, really.  Combine that with huge difficulties dealing with rejection or criticism, and a lot of people naturally prone to rejecting and criticizing when they’ve had a bad day, and it’s not hard to see where things began to get unbalanced for me.  It’s been a tough thing to recognize, because I dearly LOVE the other aspects of my job.  Love them.  But I don’t think that it’s good for my health right now.

I’m currently on the fence over whether it would be better for me to try working as a high school guidance counselor, or make a go of starting my own business.  …Er…businesses.  I’m the kind of person who likes variety.  If I cook dinner, guaranteed half of it will be seasoned completely differently than the other half.  Just to see.  Last Sunday to tell me he loved me, my husband cooked our dinner with four different variations.  I was smitten.  So if I’m going to make a go of something on my own, it will probably be more than one something.  But that could be fun.  Probably some mix of tutoring, music classes for kids, and music lessons, and/or therapy, and/or wedding services, and/or whatever else sounds interesting if I could get those going too.

I am a perplexing combination of very ambitious and eager to be original, with insecure and uncomfortable with change.  This goes about as well as one would expect most of the time.  But if ever there was an opportunity to try branching out independently, this would be a good one.  I could do some of the legwork beforehand, as I was able to.  I can build up to it gradually.  I don’t want a huge workload all at once anyway once I’m able to handle working so I could be patient as the business grew.  I could keep working my more secure job part time so that I’d have it to go back to if things didn’t work out.  And having already taken the horrible scary leap of stepping away from work in the first place, I wouldn’t have to get over that hurdle like I would at any point in the future.  I honestly can’t see me ever deciding to leave my stable job to run a business.  I like a nice safety net.

But, on the other side, becoming a guidance counselor is quite stable.  And doesn’t pay poorly in Canada like it seems to in the States.  And it comes with a pretty kick-ass pension if I stick it out.  And I don’t think I would hate it.  I think would really like working with the kids, it’s just the other crud and accompanying politics that are questionable.  And whether there is still enough demand involved that I’ll be at risk of burning myself out.  But all in all, I may actually end up liking it more than what I could do working for myself and likely make money at.

So of course, being me, I’ve spent the last few weeks pouring over spreadsheets with every financial scenario I can think of.  My husband is undecided in his career in a very similar fashion right now, trying to decide whether he should accept an opportunity to do something much more lucrative but less enjoyable, or stay with his current job, or start his own company, so we’ve both been thinking and talking about this quite a bit lately.  It looks like in the end, he really would probably be better off taking the more lucrative road and trying to start a business on the side.  I came out with a less clear answer.  If I strike out on my own and it goes crazy, it’s a clear winner.  If I strike out on my own and it goes as reasonably well as I think it’s likely to, I would make more money in the short term, but it would be less sustainable over time since we won’t have the same pension income when I retire.  And being the very careful people that we are when it comes to things like that, we’d both feel better if we knew that we could live off the minimal interest of whatever we had in the bank at that time if we needed to.  Nice, warm, cushiony safety net.

So…work longer but work for myself (and have the chance at a truly cushy life if things went unexpectedly well), or work much shorter but have to deal with the demands and expectations of other people.  Ugh.  I have no freaking clue.

But it’s nice to see hard evidence that either way we can likely make it work and have the life we want (or at least an approximation of it), and even still a pretty good one if we decide we want kids.  That was reassuring.  My mom struggled with money worries my whole life, and we’ve started off with a lot of debt, so I’ve gotten used to thinking we’d be worried about money the whole way.  Watching out friends lives progress to houses and kids and frequent travel while we’re still making debt payments made it feel like we’d always be behind like that, I guess.  This makes no sense given how hard my husband and I work, the kind of education we have, and the expenses we do and don’t value, but it still hasn’t ever really clicked for me.  When we bought our house I was a little shocked on some level.  My mom has never owned a house in her life.  If all goes well, by the time we’re older we’ll be able to have everything that’s important to us and then some.

The spreadsheets have also told me that if we really do manage to retire just on the yearly interest from our savings, and we happen to live until 130 years old, and don’t end up having kids, some lucky friend’s child or relative is getting one heck of a windfall when we die.

Also that colour-coding is fun.

I jest.  Kind of.  Sort of.  Okay, not really.  But we are near the water, and the air smells amazing, so I think I can suffer through the luxury somehow.  I know.  I’m terribly selfless.

On the plus and down side, Friend-Who-May-Or-May-Not-Like-Me wasn’t able to come up.  Which if he really is okay with me now is a shame, because he’s a nice guy and fun to be around.  But if he isn’t quite okay with me is a relief.  I’m calling it a victory.

And yes, there are four of us currently sitting in the living room, three one laptops and one playing video games on the big screen tv.  In the middle of the afternoon.  At a cottage.  With a gorgeous day outside.  We’ll be outside lots too, and there’s a fantastic lake-scented breeze coming in, but yes, I acknowledge some of the irony of travelling hours to do this.  I never claimed not to have rather geeky tendencies at times.  We should probably just go ahead and learn Klingon.  We’re not fooling anybody.

A quick conversation with a friend of mine who has also struggled with depression also confirmed my already-huge resolve to make a change in psychiatrist.  His guy, like, does therapy and stuff.  And discusses lifestyle changes.  And is willing to fill out paperwork.  And chooses medications based on specific symptoms and reactions to other drugs rather than chronologically.  And, you know, takes notes, and records what he’s prescribed him from time to time.  I’m tempted to see if I could get in to see him even just for a one-type consultation so that I’d have a plan of which medications might be a good fit for me if I ever decided to go that route again.  If I actually thought there was some reason to hope for a better result, I might even be willing to consider it.  …Eventually.  …Once I’m starting to go senile and my memory of the last year and a half has failed.

I should probably comment eventually on the SAM-e (aka SAMe, aka A-Adenosyl methionine) as well, as it actually seems to be doing what it claimed to, and though there were a few side effects to start, they seem to have faded down now.  I know that some people do have significant side effects from the SAM-e, but it seems that I, whose body seems to generally roll over in close proximity to any medication, am not one of those people.  Score!  I’m just now getting up to the suggested minimum starting dose of 200mg/day (which is still only half of the suggested minimum therapeutic dose), and it should take another week or two to know what this dose is doing, but so far so good.  Of course, as with everything else, it’s tough to tell sometimes whether changes are the result of the pills or of other natural life changes, but I am finding that I’ve got WAY more energy than I did.  And energy means motivation, and capability, and other good things.  Still have the occasional meltdown, but I’m hopeful.

Of course, I’m one of those people who gets quasi-euphoric from a cup of coffee, so I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that feeling slightly hyper all the time has improved my mood.  But it’s pretty great.

In addition, we on the way up here, we passed a vending machine that sold bait.  With a great big, very fecal-looking worm on the front.  Now who’s mood wouldn’t be improved by that?

It should be a good week.  I’m never 100% certain with this particular grouping of people.  They were good friends of my husband’s before we met, and have gradually become better friends of mine, but we’re not quite all the way there yet.  Sometimes I feel liked, and included, and have a lot of fun.  Sometimes I feel a little left out.  They all share some common interests and activities that I share, and some that I can’t really relate to or participate in (online games, etc. that I don’t play).  So it generally depends on what the current topics of discussion are.  It probably doesn’t help that when I was first getting to know them I inadvertently rubbed one of them the wrong way by reminding him of somebody he didn’t like.  And I get totally awkward when I pick up that somebody’s not liking me.  Awk-ward.  I’m not the type of person who can just let that roll off them yet.

But we’re okay now.  …Probably.  I think.

Saw the new therapist again the other day.  She seems quite good.  In addition to the daily walking, and other activities, and goal-setting, and journaling, and independence-building, this week she’s assigned me the task of going into as many different stores or other establishments as I can and asking as many obvious questions as I can, building up to the stupidest questions I can think of.  I’m not a big fan of appearing incompetent, or of asking other people for help, so the combination is probably a good one.  …Even if it does mean that yesterday I had to ask the Starbucks people what I should order if I want a steamed milk (turns out it’s “steamed milk”).  Actually, I believe what I wanted was a tall, no-whip, hazelnut crème, one pump.  But who am I to tell her that.

I think I’m going to have some fun with this while we’re away.  Too much blatant stupidity is rough in a smallish area where people know who I am, but out in the middle of cottage country…  Heh heh heh.  “So…Do you know who drains the lake in the winter?”  The trick is that I’ll have to make them realistic enough that they think that I’m serious.  I know that there’s at least a grocery store.  Suggestions for grocery-themed dumb questions welcome.

Also, do any of you know where they keep the internet when I’m not using it?

Anyway, new products good.  But I have reached the stage where in addition to reaching for the “healthier option” products, I then turn them over and take a glance at the label.  And holy crap do I want to strangle merchandizing executives sometimes.  The number of things out there that are clearly designed to appeal to the health conscious but are completely devoid of any redeeming qualities is disgusting.  I feel so sad for all of the people who are buying this stuff, clearly because they care about their health, and are getting taken.  Bah.

The first thing to really steam me up was lip balm.  I am a chapstick addict.  I will admit this.  I have been through twelve step programs, in which I spend the first six steps breaking free of my dependency, and the following six running right back.  I have a tube within reach of pretty much everywhere I figure I will ever be.  There is one in the living room, one in the kitchen drawer, one in our entry way, one in the office, one in the bedroom, several in the bathroom, two at work, and at least one tube in every purse or handbag I own.  And if I’m leaving the house without a purse, the one thing I check whether my husband has with him is lip balm.  I have varied through different brands in my time.  Sometimes my lips will start to build up a resistance to my current favourite, and I will have to change in order to get the same effect.  You know.  Like crack.

Anyway, unfortunately for me, a while back I happened to catch part of a TV show on the negative health consequences of beauty products.  And in addition to avoiding face powder like the plague except on special occasions… Well, okay, in addition to now cringing a little on the rare times that I would bother with face powder anyway (the newer minerally ones have got the same tiny particles in there as the stuff miners wear masks to keep out. …Because otherwise they’ll develop severe lung damage. …Like the kind they’re starting to find on women who’ve been using this stuff for a while.  Ack!), I had my stomach turned a little at the image of exactly how much petroleum the average lip balm or lip gloss wearer is swallowing every year.  Picture a giant tub of petroleum jelly.  Like that.  Ick.  That can’t be good.

So I immediately went to the store to replace my stuff with the natural, non-chemically versions that are supposed to be okay to eat. …If one wanted to do that.  And I was totally disgusted.  I flipped over package after package that was boldly labeled “NATURAL!” or “ALL ORGANIC!” or “MADE FROM REAL BEESWAX” or had pictures of leaves or hemp or recycled products, or something eco-friendly on the label.  And the first or second ingredient in all of them was petroleum.  Often the ingredients list looked exactly like the other stuff, except the very last ingredient would be token amounts of beeswax, or rosemary, or some plant oil, or whatever it was they were claiming the product was based around.  Even “Bert’s Bees” was actually made of petroleum.  WTF??  In the end, I found only two products that seemed to actually be as natural as they appeared to be from the outside, one of which was manufactured by a major company (which surprised me), and the other that was on clearance because it had already been discontinued.

The other thing that really gets me is some of the “vitamin waters” out there.   …Which seem like a really good idea until you flip over the label.  Some of them seem to be moving towards more transparancy (in information, not colour. …which I don’t have nearly so many strong feelings about), which is great, but others not so much.  First off, they apparently don’t actually have to list the calories like every other beverage because they’re calling themselves a “natural supplement.”  Which is shifty because they’re super sweet and probably more calories than the cola beside them.  What really gets me, though, is that some vitamins just don’t taste good.  They don’t.  In fact, some of them taste downright nasty.  And the manufacturers have discovered this.  But rather than leaving those vitamins out, they’re putting in completely negligible amounts of them and brandishing the contents across the label.  On the last road trip I took with my husband, we stopped at a gas station to pick up drinks, and I flipped over a bottle designed as a supplement of B6, B12, and potassium.  I’m kind of low in both B12 and potassium, so I figured I might as well get a little extra where I can.  I take a B12 supplement every day.  It has 1000 mcg of B12.  This bottle listed something like 20.  Alrighty then.  The B6 was even more pathetic.  Which makes sense, because B6 tastes like shit.  But just leave it out then.  Don’t put in the tiniest amount possible and then proudly say it’s in there.  The only thing it had in it in high quantities was potassium.  In fact, it had seven times the maximum amount of potassium that a multivitamin is allowed to contain.  Because too much potassium can kill you.  But it tastes okay.  Great.

Which brings me to this morning, when in a moment of kitchen-related boredom, I flip over the box of green tea bags I bought and read the ingredients.  The box is plastered with its flavonoid content and stuff.  Clearly they’re trying to appeal to the health-conscious.  First ingredient green tea (I hope so).  Second ingredient corn maltodextrin (…the fuck??), followed by….sugar… (there is sugar in my teabags??), followed by maltitol (which I have never heard of, but sounded shifty. …A quick Google search tells me both that it’s a sugar substitute, and that there are some issues with it), and then the flavourings and fruit-related stuff.  Seriously?!??  In a TEA BAG???  I checked the other flavour I purchased, and it seems just fine.  So do my other teas.  But seriously, I never would have guessed that I needed to check the label on a teabag.  I will apparently be doing this from now on.

In the mean time, at least I know what I’m getting into with this Lipton Superfruit green tea.

Yeah.  Malodextrin in my teabag.  Super.

Some of the recordings are from the course that I took last summer, and some are basically the same thing except made by the original guy rather than my personal instructor.  A couple are odds and ends that I picked up before I really knew anything about meditation other than that

1) I should.

and

2)  It makes people’s bodily secretions smell like patchouli.

I do not yet smell like patchouli.  I think this means I am not trying hard enough.

At any rate, as I was typing in track information, I realized that the creator of one of my CD’s is  Mr. Bright-Fey.  John Bright…Fey.  If that isn’t a last name destined for a meditation teacher, I don’t know what is.  I Googled him on the chance that I could find out whether that was indeed his birth name before reporting it here, but I couldn’t find mention.  Presumably if he had changed it himself his first name might have been Moonbeam rather than John.  Still, very appropriate.  On the disturbing side, I also came across a photo of him.  I do not like getting a visual image of the owners of the smooth audio voices that are giving me my meditation instructions.  Never seems to line up.  I don’t know what I would expect a smooth meditation voice owner to look like, but it isn’t this.

(That’s my actual posse, folks)

As traumatic (though slightly less fascinating) as the time I got a peek at the movie preview voice guys, I assure you.

I guess it could be worse.  When I did that search for my lady-teacher, I also came up with these:

I think I’m going to imagine that cat narrating all of my meditation CD’s from now on.

I’m proud of myself for sticking with the meditation again so far.  There are some days that it hasn’t been easy (and truth be told, I’ve missed some sessions this time around, but I’m doing much more than I’m not doing so I’m trying not to beat myself up too much about it).  It will be worth it in the end, though, if it can do what it seemed to do last time.  The tough part is that the big benefits didn’t really kick in for me last time until almost the end of two months of consistent meditation.  …Which is pretty much what you’re supposed to expect, but still.  Makes it tough to keep doing it day in and day out in the moment.  The payoff was huge for getting there, though.

Mindfulness meditation sort of fascinates me now.  I’ve read a lot on the brain since starting this journey, and so it makes a certain amount of sense how you would have to practice very consistently over an extended period of time at the start, and how there would be actual physical changes to the brain as a result (I find that whole concept totally cool.  Recent research says you can actually learn to do almost ANYTHING with enough practice.  …Like Rain Man type stuff, and getting rid of learning disabilities, and rewiring your brain to use more sections for particular skills or movements, or using the bits meant for one thing to do something entirely different if it needs to and everything.  Neat!  You can even wire it so that you are incapable of moving certain fingers except as a unit.  Like they were glued together.  But they’re not.  …Why one would do that last one on purpose I don’t know, but it’s still pretty cool).  What’s really weird is the type of changes that were most dramatic.   I expected it would help me relax.  Which it did sort of, maybe, I guess?  What it really did was prevent me from reacting in the first place to things that would once have been stressful, and help me not give a flying tiger what other people thought of me.  And I am someone who is normally PAINFULLY aware of what other people might be thinking of me.  It was very cool.  Liberating.  And it makes me wonder what other beneficial brain changes I could make if I only knew how and was actually willing to invest that much time in it.

I had a lot of  impressions going in about meditation that were totally wrong.  I sometimes still have to fight the feeling that I’m not always “good” at it.  You’re not supposed to hang onto judgments like “good” and “bad” but just observe what happens.  And any outcome or happenings during the process are supposed to be fine as long as you notice what they are.  And I acknowledge that you’re not actually supposed to try to stop thinking (because that’s pretty much impossible no matter how zen you are), but just note the thoughts that come up and try to let them go freely rather than clinging on and following them.  And they do say that the more thoughts come up, the more chance you have to practice bringing your mind back to whatever it is you’re trying to focus on.  Which is really the important part.  It’s counter-intuitive, though.  We’re so conditioned to want Success.  And we want Success to be measurable, and require significant effort, and come paired with the potential for Failure.

Interestingly, from what I’ve read about the brain changing stuff, the most change happens when you’re paying close attention, and when you’re trying.  Not succeeding, but trying.  If you’ve already mastered something, then you’re probably not paying close enough attention to it anymore to make changes.  So actually mastering the task is irrelevant to the goal.

Which is kind of cool all on its own.

Okay.  Finished rambling now.  But BRAIN CHANGES, people!  I could learn to play piano with my face.

(As a note, if anyone out there is interested in brain plasticity or mindfulness meditation, my favourite resources of what I’ve encountered so far are linked to there.  Neat stuff)

And, she happens to think this is…

I will admit to feeling somewhat inclined to fill this post with photos of various unidentified substances.  …But I imagine that would somewhat detract from my worthiness to keep the badge.

So my badge comes with rules:

1) Thank the blogger who awarded it to you.

Really?  Are there truly people out there who wouldn’t already have done that by this point?  Clearly the substance in that blog is rather dense.  Anyway, IfByYes, I extend to you a formal thank you, in compliance with rule number one of subsection two of the substance-related-badges act.  Thank you, IfByYes.  Thank you.

2) Sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience using five words.

Um… “Try not to misspell stuff?”

This seems to be asking an awful lot out of five words.  It’s kind of like “sum up your existence with one haiku.”  I will try, though.  I suppose a more comprehensive answer might be:

Transparency

Reflection

Connection

Perseverance

Holy Crap People are Commenting on This Stuff Sometimes

3) Pass it on to 10 other blogs which you feel have real substance.

I freely acknowledge that the whole point of these things is to give a shout-out to people you think are worthy.  Part of me hates having to do this kind of thing, though, because I’m always afraid of having a brain slip and leaving somebody out, or that person number eleven will be secretly crushed they didn’t make it.  Plus, “real substance”?  Rough.  Okay, here goes…

Blogs with Substance:

1.  http://www.spokeit.com/spoke/

Spokeit is often reflecting on and refining her goals, moods, and approach to life, which gives her substance in my book.  And her dog is just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  I’m going to call that substance too.  He is substantially cute.

2.  http://annenahm.com/

This is mostly a very humourous mommy blog.  …But every now and then she gets a little bit serious and shares something more personal too.  Substance!

3.   http://itwaddle.blogspot.com/

In amongst the amusing bits, Susan is introspective and reflective, and has a habit of sharing insights into her life that are disturbingly familiar.  She’s also a mom, and has been recently faced with a newly-labeled case of depression.  In addition, she left the second-ever comment here, and it involved coffee in her nasal passages.  Girl’s got style.

4.  http://sonyasworld.com/

This was definitely a blog with substance.  A very candid look at a journey through one woman’s mental illness from her husband’s point of view.  He was always very open about things.  Fortunately, at last account, his wife was doing better and he was spending his time with her rather than blogging for others.

5.http://www.findingoptimism.com/blog/reviews/is-depression-the-new-black/

Do blogs that aren’t really personal-type blogs count for this kind of thing?  There are a lot of observations here about what’s going on when it comes to depression, and resources for people fighting their way through it.  And stuff like this that I found amusing.  …I mean, substantial!

6.www.apparentlyIreadmuchmoreforhumourthanIdoforseriouscontent.com

Um…By “Substance” You Meant “Humorous Stick People” Right?

7.http://steammeupkid.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-i-will-only-draw-your-portrait-if.html

8.  http://www.lefthandedtoons.com/34/

9.  http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

10.  http://xkcd.com/773/

I thought so.

Okay, so this damned list took me hours of agonizing because I like all of you so much but didn’t feel that “substantial” was quite the right word to sum some of you up, and then in the end I just ended up listing people so famous they have no need for my quaint little website badge.  Because they have larger website badges, I presume.  Badges so large they do not even fit on their site.

Also, for all of you that I’ve apparently arbitrarily decided are completely ethereal, I offer the following badges, which I feel apply to many people likely to read these words.  Let me know if you would like to be considered for one, and I will engage in a long deliberation process and then gift it to you.