That’s from DeLillo’s White Noise via the filter of my memory.

I like the sound of those lines as much as anything, but some other things too, though I should mention that speaking these lines do not exactly solve the narrator’s problems.  He has a wee bit of trouble taking his own advice, and does in fact advance the action in his life according to a plan, and shall we say it’s a bit of a bad plan and goes disastrously, but not unamusingly.

But the thought–

I don’t suppose it would be practical to abandon all plans and be aimless, but I’m thinking that a little of this lightness and non-attachment could help sometimes.  Especially because non-aimlessness planified actions do not always seem to be entirely optimal in my case, not least because I sometimes have bad plans, or a combination of bad and good plans, or just a general crazed drivenness or obsessiveness.  These, of course, are not particularly productive even if they are well-meaning.

What works is me doing things toward goals but not always too narrowly defined–sometimes just directions–and not crazed plottingplanning.  And then once I’ve done some of each those things it would be better to let go and quite fussing with things or over things.

And aimless days–what a thought–like a dream.  May they be.

Because then I think there’s space for things to happen.

But I do see the value of recuperating every now and then.  Really the trouble (other than the moremoremore issue that pervades all parts of my life) is that I’ve been attemping to cope with things as they are through yoga and running instead of other ways, and things as they are haven’t been so optimal–job ending, holidays, those sorts of things.

But the article.  It talks about some rather disturbing injuries (neck related, for instance) that I’d rather not have.  And there are ways to get hurt doing yoga, as with many things.  There are also, I think, ways of doing yoga safely.  Probably it would involve being reasonable and not getting carried away.  Not my area of expertise, though I am trying a bit.  So how it seems to me is that it’s not really yoga’s fault if I stubbornly/foolishly do things that are too much.  It might be someone else’s fault, just maybe, the person who gets going on the moremoremore kicks.  Seems to me.  Of course I do also think it matters how the instructor is skill-wise and attentiveness-wise, and we have to learn what our own bodies can do and need and we need to keep track because it changes.  But in my case, the little twingey things I get seem more to do with my non-stopping tendencies than anything else.  And yes, I can overdo yoga, just like I can overdo anything, and often do.

There’s a response to the debate about yoga safety/harmfulness without all the reflective wisdom and placid reasonableness that you find everywhere.  We don’t want to be too sensible or too evolved, after all, do we?

I tried speaking up about it and it went okay, except i think people give advice out of reasons that are often their own rather than knowing what I should actually do.  I don’t think that the things that apply to lots of emotional issues fit exactly with certain kinds of trauma–like the really early sexual kind by parents.  People say to sit with the feelings, and while I normally throw tantrums about that but begrudgingly admit it’s the right thing, it’s not exactly the same with this stuff.  Going through the feelings can mean reliving things, and reliving things with a different result and an Alice Miller style enlightened witness and safety and such is one thing; reexperiencing them just as they were the first time just deepens the trauma.  The line is fine, or fine-ish.  Not everyone seems to know this, even therapists sometimes don’t totally seem to get it.

The fact that I’m even trying to figure this out and taking a time out to let myself settle down from getting all triggered and overwhelmed is something in itself–not my usual approach.  So that in itself seems like a step.

As per the going to extremes, I am planning to do a thing at a local yoga place tomorrow where they’re doing the primary series followed by the second series and some bits of the third series, as it’s meant to be done and wiry Ashtanga types do, but which is to take three hours. I should also mention that I am not wiry or guru-y. But this sort of thing does, more or less, keep me out of trouble, or at least just on the outskirts of trouble. I could do better, but also worse.

I’m coming off a series of nights of fits of fear over various imaginary dangers and threats (I am saying that I’m coming off it because that is what I hope but I don’t know–this sort of thing comes in chunks/episodes it seems). But utterly exhausting myself through a long exercisey thing often helps, like a sort of rebooting–we shall see.

A lovely friend pointed me to this Pema Chodron thing:

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/shenpa3a.php

about the phenomenon of shenpa–a way we all have of getting hooked by something in an interaction–it seems like it’s a way of getting all reactive, or maybe we could say triggered, or getting into some old script and acting automatically; maybe it’s a lot like what they call acting out.

and then she talks about how we all tend to reach for some habitual way of distracting ourselves from the discomfort of getting hooked, a button pushed.

so i was in a group that seemed a bit jumble of shenpa, others’ and mine.  i’m trying to write about it instead of just doing the whole reactive/escape/acting out/triggered approach that i usually run to. maybe this is just another way to escape the discomfort of a difficult social interaction but hey–it’s a lot better than my usual selection of ways to evade the discomfort.  nobody has to go to the psych ward or rehab, for instance (since my favorite evasion strategy was for a time alcohol, and those are the places it took me).

what happened was that i was speaking my mind/speaking up for myself in a situation where it felt hard.  i did it though and somewhat effectively but also with a smidgen of clumsiness in one aspect (got to have a smidgen) which i could improve upon, or maybe it’s not even that is was actually clumsy much–more than i said something that hit a sore spot, which i did expect might happen and i tried to minimize but may have done that part clumsily, or not, maybe the spot was just that sore.

so as i have now demonstrated, when somebody says things that hook me, that hit my sore spot, one of my reactions is to obsess/replay and second guess myself.  this at first didn’t sound like Pema’s list of shenpa escape strategies but of course it is the same sort of thing.  plus she explicitly mentions how turning the hookiness against oneself can be a way we react/act out:

“In the West, it is very, very common at that point to turn it against yourself: something is wrong with me.”

Yes, well that is one of my favorite hobbies.  And you know it is a way of escaping the discomfort, or sort of, or maybe not that great of a way because it is pretty uncomfortable in itself.  But it is familiar and so easy to slide into that in a way it is sort of perversely comfortable.  It’s certainly one of my top ways of reacting to that icky hooked triggered trancey scripty feeling (I guess shenpa is a bit more concise a term than that little amalgamation).  And right now I’m really seeing my preferred ways of reacting.  I suppose it is needless to say that i do not naturally tend toward what she recommends–”refraining” from whatever habitual escape comforter thing we tend to favor.  But maybe it would be freeing.  More than maybe.  It’s just that it’s so hard not to get pulling into those nice deep habitual grooves!  I like to slip into those grooves. . .but maybe not so much. . .maybe it’s just scary not to.  I think it is more the fear of not reaching for those habits that’s the trouble as opposed to any actual discomfort that refraining from them might bring.  This seems especially likely given that my current top habitual escape reactive thingamos are not particularly pleasurable.  Not like a nice drug.

I would prefer to say I respond placidly to shenpa and gracefully, but really what I do is more like this:

1.  Feel guilty about whatever I might have done to provoke the response that has hooked me.

2.  Feel even more guilty about that and perhaps also just my general existence.

3. Become outraged at the unfairness of whatever was said to me.

4.  Think about how they just aren’t being very nice/wise/self-aware and that’s why they said this thing that is bothering me, while failing to realize that has very little to do with anything.

5.  Feel guilty about #4, and shame about every aspect of the entire interaction.

6.  Obsess/replay what happened, with some further occasional outrage sprinkled in and lots of guilt/shame.

7.  Want to use drugs or any other addictive behavior that happens to appeal at the time.

8.  Possibly use a little of a non-drug addictive behavior to attempt to distract myself or feel better.

9.  Not feel better.  Also possibly feel bad about whatever I just did.

10.  Decide I just can’t handle interpersonal anything.  Feel shame about that.

11.  Try to figure out how to fix the situation, to make it right, often by apologizing, often excessively and without really knowing why or fully meaning it because i’m not even thinking about anything, just trying to fix whatever happened.

12.  Try to get other people to reassure me that i didn’t actually do anything that bad.

So while I am talking about it here, I did refrain from trying to do #12 despite EXTREME URGE to do so right now.  I’m writing this but leaving it alone it all the other ways.  I think it’s not quite refraining but it’s not bad for me.  And I can report that it has been really hard to refrain even to the degree that i did, and uncomfortable, but i think it’s passing now.  When I do all those other things listed above it doesn’t really pass until a lot longer time has gone by.  So that’s pretty exciting.  Maybe this sitting with your feelings/tolerating discomfort advice isn’t as hideous as it sounds.  Maybe a little hideous, but if it works it works.  And it’s not like my little array of methods was working.

But I also wish to complain about two other things, one being that I”m going back to work for another year at the place that has rejected me–academia has its cruel side.  I could quit of course but I’d prefer to be able to pay the mortgage etc.  and keep health insurance.  So I’m doing it but with a lot of complaining.

I wish also to complain about incest.  It really does suck.  I guess I’d extend that to any sexual abuse of children (or anyone for that matter), but I’m especially unhappy about the incest.  I do realize it may have occurred to others that this is in fact not a good thing, but it’s striking me deeper and I feel the need to object–it somehow feels better that way–probably because objecting to and complaining about are different than blaming myself for things.  So maybe tiresome to hear, but needing to be voiced.

But I also wish to complain about two other things, one being that I”m going back to work for another year at the place that has rejected me–academia has its cruel side.  I could quit of course but I’d prefer to be able to pay the mortgage etc.  and keep health insurance.  So I’m doing it but with a lot of complaining.

I wish also to complain about incest.  It really does suck.  I guess I’d extend that to any sexual abuse of children (or anyone for that matter), but I’m especially unhappy about the incest.  I do realize it may have occurred to others that this is in fact not a good thing, but it’s striking me deeper and I feel the need to object–it somehow feels better that way–probably because objecting to and complaining about are different than blaming myself for things.  So maybe tiresome to hear, but needing to be voiced.

but specifically, i was in group therapy tonight listening to one person talking about her alcoholic partner and the problems involved, and that was all fine and really I was dazzled by how she was handling it. and she can complain about him if she wants. but then (and this has happened before) a bunch of people (not everyone but too many) jumped in saying how awful he’d been and using an unkind and even snide tone about him. And I’m not saying that his conduct sounded above reproach. One thing they were talking about is his lying about drinking. And this of course is pretty much most of what I did when asked about my drinking (my conduct also not being beyond reproach and I’m not happy about many of the things I did or how it was when I was doing all that). And this is pretty much required basic standard being-an-alcoholic, which, last I heard, does not make a person a bad sort so much as a sick one. Of course we can be both. But the thing is is that I really don’t care for coming to group therapy and hearing snide comments about things someone not in the group that nobody else but the person involved knows a damn thing about, and when these are things I have most definitely done. If everyone had to hear things they weren’t proud of but had quit doing being snidely discussed, nobody would stand for that. So I guess I shouldn’t stand for this either.

I know people do suffer because of the actions of alcoholics they’re involved with, and of course their children really can’t get away. So I’m not defending the awful things we do. But could you all at least wait ’til I’m not there if you want to spend your time being nasty about things that are a pretty standard part of addiction which I believe is more of an illness than just simply badness. Or even if the person is just being dreadful, maybe don’t take snidely about the things that are textbook symptoms of a condition that one of your group has (not had, has, it’s just held in abeyance by recovery), or if it’s that important to you, have the simple courtesy not to do it to my face?

And really, people just have no idea how much suffering there is in the alcoholism for the alcoholic. It’s hell on earth when we get deeply into it. I think it’s a lot worse that what was being snidely complained about, in fact. And really, I have seen what amazing wonderful people are stricken with this condition (easier to see once they’re sober, I admit) and some of them are dead from it.

But I do keep thinking about a podcast I heard about someone wrongfully imprisoned for decades, and it reminds me I’m not the only/most-unfairly-treated person in the world, to say the least.  That I’m feeling any of that is really a sort of progress-that I’m not only seeing my being let go as a reflection of my worth (some days).

Still.  Not a happy thing.