The news and the no-news

Slower than molasses in winter. That’s what I’ve spent the last two months thinking.

What’s moving so slow? The job search process. Or rather, the hiring process.

On Monday when I posted, I believed that I would have news to tell you about a new job. I don’t. So here’s the news about my job search and the way I keep getting—no news.

I applied for a job in early January. I can’t give any details about the job yet. But I can say that I believe I would enjoy the work. Compared to my current job, I would work fewer hours but make significantly more in salary.

That sounds too good to be true. But it is a legit job. It would be a way to be a public servant again, something I’ve missed.

It has been a laborious process. I interviewed. Then I interviewed again. Then I met with two more people as a courtesy. Then I waited while an unexpected crisis hit the employer. I was praised for the patience I had shown.

Then, finally, with only one more step—a step that was more courteous in nature for another group than anything else—I was told that I would receive a formal offer Wednesday.

The courteous step turned into a quagmire. Now I’ve got two more weeks to wait.

Why am I willing to go through all this? Believe me, I’ve asked myself that question. I’ve been very frustrated. I’ve made plans, then had to undo plans. As most hiring processes go, it’s ridiculous.

But I am excited about the job. I want a new challenge. I can use more of my skills. I know the people I would be working for and with. I believe it would be a good fit.

I enjoy my job now. But one side effect of writing news articles for a living is that it’s harder for me to have the right kind of energy for doing the writing I love.

And I’ve been told—and I believe—that the slower-than-molasses-in-winter process isn’t about me. It’s about things out of my control.

And there lies my frustration. I can’t do anything about the process. I can’t hurry it up.

Situations like this raise my anxiety level. I’m tired. I have headaches. I’m restless. My thoughts race.

I haven’t done a good job handling the anxiety. I’ve been putting off dealing with it, telling myself that I would relax and do fun things after things are settled.

That’s not the best way to handle anxiety, and I know that. I am now trying to focus on the present. I remind myself that there will never really be a time when, in every area of my life, “things are settled” because each day brings us problems and frustrations. If I don’t practice my anxiety-reducing measures now, I will miss out on life now.

Meditation. Knitting. Pleasure reading. Lounging with Chase Bird. Laughing with Larry. Going for walks. All things I will be fitting back into my schedule.

And when this part of my life settles down, I will tell you all about the new job.

Have you ever had a strange or particularly stressful experience job hunting?

Getting in the holiday spirit

I'm sharing some shots of nature-based ornaments that were on the tree in the Peaks of Otter Lodge.

The other day, a friend told me he just wasn’t in the Christmas spirit yet. Even though lights and trees and other decorations seem to have spilled out onto the landscape within the last week or so, he’s just not there yet.

I’m not quite there yet, either. I think part of it has to do with the differences in planning and decorating that have occurred since I was a child.

When I was a child, stores didn’t usually put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. When I went with my parents to Lynchburg to shop in December, part of the pleasure was to walk along the sidewalks and look at each store’s window displays.

Each store had something different—angel figures or a Santa Claus or trees. If the display had a moving part—like a Santa that waved his hand—that made it even more fun.

And I would start to get excited.

We always had a live pine tree that my father set up in the living room. It would go up about a week before Christmas. Putting the lights on was the first hurdle. Back then, if one light on a strand went out, they all went out. Someone would have to check each one to find the burned out light.

Then came the ornaments and finally the crowning touch—icicles. I loved the sight of the silver strands hanging from the tree.

Then the time crawled by until Christmas Day.

How things have changed. Whether they’ve changed for the better depends on your perspective.

Christmas decorations show up in the stores after Halloween. Christmas music starts playing on the radio before Thanksgiving. The effect on me is that I start feeling behind before December even gets here.

I haven’t started shopping! Should we put the tree up this weekend? What about outside decorations? Everyone has their decorations up except me!

Once I start participating a little in the season, at my own pace, I begin to feel less panicked. I remind myself that I don’t have to do everything that everyone else does to prepare for the holidays.

I haven’t finished my shopping, but I have done some. And it was all online. Shopping online takes away a lot of my stress about shopping. I just don’t like getting in the crowded stores if I can help it.

We’ll probably put up our tree this weekend. Larry and I put up pre-lit artificial trees. The lights are LED, so they don’t get so hot like the big bulbs would.

No icicles. Little kitties might eat them. And they seem irritating now, with the static electricity that makes them stick to everything.

Christmas movies also get me in the holiday spirit. Larry loves “White Christmas” with Bing Crosby, and we check the listings to make sure we can watch it at least once during the holidays. We also like some of the Hallmark Channel’s movies. I always watch out for “A Dog Named Christmas” and “November Christmas.”

We have our favorite Christmas music, too. Larry likes the older pop songs the best. I like the carols best. We both like listening to the CDs of Susan Boyle, Josh Groban, and James Taylor. I listen to them as I drive, a way I can include celebration in the day.

And then there are the parades. The Altavista Christmas Parade is tonight. I’ll be taking pictures for the paper. The Rustburg Christmas Parade (Rustburg is our county seat) is Dec. 14, and I’ll be there, too. By then, I will be excited.

My Christmas spirit has grown quieter as I’ve gotten older. I listen to the words of the songs more closely. I meditate more on what the meaning behind the celebration is for me. I think about all the holidays people celebrate this month.

 Times have changed. That’s normal and that’s OK. But do you know something that hasn’t changed? I still have a hard time falling asleep on Christmas Eve.

Has the way you feel about the holidays changed as you’ve gotten older? If so, how?

Knitting and getting rid of perfect

I am loving this knitting.

As I told you in a post last week, I just started knitting. I’m really enjoying it.

 

See Chase Bird on the right side of the photo? He's sitting on the treat bag that he knocked off the table.

When I think of my father’s sister, my Aunt Esther, the first picture that comes to mind is of her sitting in her house, holding a conversation while knitting away. I hear the click of her knitting needles. I see the movement of her hands and arms.

She would glance at her work every now and then. Otherwise, her focus was on the person she was talking to.

I still have the lavender sweater and long stocking hat she knitted for me when I was a small child. I have the afghan she knitted my parents. The work is beautiful.

Now I’m knitting, though not nearly as well as Aunt Esther.

I find it challenging, especially the purl stitch. My fingers still feel awkward with that stitch.

It’s also absorbing, holding my attention even when I’m watching TV. It’s meditative. It’s soothing. I like the rhythm.

And I like the freedom of creating something. At first, I ripped out the whole piece when I made a mistake. I don’t yet know how to fix a dropped stitch or other mistake, and I wanted to keep my work “perfect.”

But that wasn’t any fun. And I decided that, by golly, I was going to enjoy this. We need to enjoy what we do as much as possible. Do you agree?

So I stopped starting over and just went on knitting even when I knew I had dropped a stitch or somehow added one.

Chase Bird likes knitting, too. Rather, he likes the yarn. He thinks it’s terrible that I don’t let him play with it.

He makes flying leaps toward my lap, his mouth aiming for the yarn. I tug it away from him. He jumps on my lap, trying to get at the soft thread. Alas, I take it away again.

And to make matters worse, I then takes pictures of him.

Maybe someday I’ll knit as well as Aunt Esther. I’ll click my needles together and not even look down. Then Chase Bird will have a better chance with the yarn.

What activity soothes you? Do you practice any skill that an older relative also practiced?

7 ways to cope in times of overwhelming anxiety

If you’ve read my blog posts this week, you know that it has been a very anxious time of late.

But even during the bad times, we can still learn or be reminded of what we’ve learned in the past.

I decided right away that I was not going to get down. And I took some steps in self-care that I believe helped me navigate new territory.

Before I go into those, though, I want to thank you for your kind words, your understanding, your caring, and your presence. Thank you so much, dear readers, for supporting me during a bad time, for reminding me that I am not alone.

And I can’t say enough about my husband. His quiet presence and his open heart are treasures for which I can never be grateful enough.

Here are some of the ways I’ve coped:

Fun reading

I’ve divided reading into two categories. The first one I call fun reading. It’s reading that you don’t “need” to do. It’s not meant for self-improvement. It’s for entertainment, enjoyment. It’s for fun.

During times when I didn’t want to think about any real-life problems, it was a pleasure to turn to reading mysteries. I read Storm Prey, by John Sandford (one of my favorites).

Now I’m reading a book called The Faithful Spy, by new-to-me author Alex Berenson. It’s wonderful. And I’ve found a new author to follow.

Helpful reading

This kind of reading is for self-improvement, though, of course, enjoyment is also part of the experience.

I got out my copy of Mindfulness for Beginners, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I previously studied part of the book, but never finished. I started over and have gained a lot of insight into the ways our minds work and the relationship between our thoughts and reality.

Mindfulness meditation

I turn to mindfulness meditation when I try to focus my thoughts. I increased my practice in order to deal with the swirl of thoughts and feelings that were negatively affecting my moods and quality of life.

Right now I am using the CD that came with the book by Kabat-Zinn I wrote of above. It’s helpful for me right now to have a voice leading me into the meditation.

Writing

Writing is so natural for me, something I turn to in just about every situation. I wrote down some of the thoughts I had that scared me, that made me feel especially sad and guilty. A lot of what I wrote will probably never see the light of day. But just getting the words down gave them a safe place to rest, out of my constant thoughts.

Music

I’ve had a difficult time falling asleep lately. I’ve found that listening to certain music helps quiet my mind.

For times when I’m trying to relax, it’s better for me to listen to instrumental music with no words.

My favorites are Lifescapes’ “Meditations: Native American Flute” and Yoga Journal’s “Pure Relaxation.”

Visualization

I started doing this almost by accident and found that it helped me relax.

While listening to one song on “Pure Relaxation,” I started visualizing being on a boat in the ocean, right at sunset. It was almost like I was watching a movie that I was adding details to. I imagined Larry and me on the boat, the wind blowing our hair. I could see the lights on shore. The stars were starting to come out. It was a beautiful time.

With the next song, I imagined being in a cabin at night with Larry and Chase Bird. Snow was falling. We sat in chairs by the fire, reading. Then we turned off the lights so we could see the snow falling outside. Chase Bird sat on my lap for a while, then on Larry’s. We were quiet and at peace.

Now when I hear those songs, I am immediately in those places, either on the boat or in the cabin. I have found myself smiling in the dark as I visualize.

Playing with my cat

You knew I would mention Chase Bird, didn’t you? Playing with him takes me out of myself. I laugh at his antics and stay busy chasing the toy that he bats back with amazing strength and agility.

Chase Bird guarding the treat bags that he knocked off the table.

What ways do you cope with overwhelming anxiety? Please share.

Random memories and thoughts

See the two red spots? Those are cardinals. That is about the best I can do with bird photos.

I was sad to learn of the passing of Maya Angelou on Wednesday. I admired her a great deal.

In thinking about her, I got out my copy of her poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she wrote for and read at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in January 1993.

I was teaching English at the time. I videotaped her reading and used it in class to aid in discussing the poem with my students.

Here’s a lovely part of that poem:

"Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am that Tree planted by the River,

Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I, the River, I, the Tree

I am yours--your passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, but if faced

With courage, need not be lived again."

From "On the Pulse of Morning," by Maya Angelou

***

It has been rainy and stormy off and on this week. I hope Larry and I will be able to be out and about a bit today.

I also need to check in more with my garden and see if there’s anything ready to eat!

***

I love my times of sitting quietly, listening to my breath and to the sounds around me. Sometimes I get uncomfortable—physically uncomfortable, bored, distracted. But in the end, I feel better after even a 10-minute meditation. It helps with intrusive thoughts and makes me feel less anxious.

***

I started updating my blog information since I’m gaining a year today (I am turning 51 today). I decided to leave my age off the About Me section. I’m not ashamed of it, but I don’t think that’s the first thing people are interested in knowing.

I found that I needed to update other pages, too, including the page about my cats. It hurt to have to change it to reflect that Larry and I don’t have two cats anymore. The last time I updated that page, Sam was still with us. I miss her, and all my babies, so much.

***

I’ve been thinking about my life (yes, I’m a thinker). I know it is in part due to my birthday. I suppose getting older makes many of us think about the past and wonder about the future.

Some of what I’ve been pondering is what I really want to say with my writing. I love to write and, I say with gratefulness, I can write well enough, though there’s plenty of room for improvement. But what do I want to say? What do I want to say?

***

And where in the world did May go?

Random 5: Building things and meditation

Thank you so much for all of your kind comments on my last post. Your support and kindness mean the world to me!

I’m joining with Nancy of A Rural Journal in her Random 5 Friday, where, as Nancy says, “you can share 5 random facts about you, your day, your pets, your kids, whatever!”

See the haze in the photo? It was so humid, my lens was fogging up.

One

Larry is making great headway on our raised bed garden frame.

I love how he goes about his work. He did a lot of research beforehand and made a few drawings. Then he figures out things as he goes along. He’s very exacting, precise and thorough.

This is the dirt that forms the bed of our yard. You can see the red clay mixed in.

We’re going to get a load of topsoil to put into the frame for the planting. Fencing will go around the tall posts.

I don’t know if we’ll have time for any winter crops. But planning for next spring is fun, too.

Two

I just finished a spy thriller called The Kill Artist, by Daniel Silva. It was well-written and absorbing. I feel the need for a switch to something a bit more peaceful, though, so I think I’ll be reading a nonfiction gardening book I’ve mentioned before, The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening, and Life, by Margaret Roach. I’m also currently reading The Lotus Still Blooms: Sacred Buddhist Teachings for the Western Mind, by Joan Gattuso.

What are you reading?

Three

Speaking of peace, I am feeling the need to get back to the practice of meditation, specifically, mindfulness meditation, which at one time I was becoming pretty regular at. I let the habit slip away.

I have been allowing negative and angry thoughts to creep in and take over, and I can feel the resulting anxiety and discontent. I need some time to slow down my thoughts and focus on the present.

Do you meditate?

Four

I asked Larry about a year ago to build a meditation chair for me. He looked at some samples I showed him and said he couldn’t do it with the tools and machinery he had.

I think he has proven that he can find a way to build what he needs to. So I’ve asked him again about that meditation seat. Maybe when he’s through with the gardening frame?

Five

When I was at the dairy farm last week on assignment with the paper, I captured one of my favorite shots I’ve ever gotten on the job. I can’t put the photo on my blog, but if you’d like to see a photo that includes a Holstein calf, you can find it HERE.

Thank you for visiting, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Meditation lessons



Chase Bird



Soft, slow music, no words. A cat purring his own music. Meditation.

The other evening, I did all the right things. I made myself a mug of tea. I spread out my notebook, pen and mug on the dining room table. I made myself ready to sit, think, record.

I got sidetracked. A cat wanted my attention.

So I sat down on the couch with Chase Bird and turned on the TV, deciding it wouldn’t hurt to watch something mindless until I could get to my real goal of the evening, meditation.

Larry had used the TV last, and I discovered he had left it on one of those music channels that come with the satellite service.

Quiet instrumental music. I liked it and decided to listen for a few minutes.

Chase moved back and forth, first sitting on my lap, then kneading his bed beside me, then back to my lap. Back and forth.

I scratched his ear and neck and talked to him about the pretty music, and he purred loudly. He finally settled down on my lap.

Soft, slow music, no words. A cat purring his own music. Meditation.

The answers are already there.

Like the line in Mary Oliver’s poem “Thirst”:

“I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons.”

What do you discover when you get quiet and still?

Learning: Meditation is a safe space

When my husband and I got married, it didn’t just change our lives. It changed the lives of our cats.

Waddles had lived with just me for three and a half years. My husband had two cats, Thunder Cat and Sam.

It was not love at first sight when Wa met TC and Sam. It usually isn’t with cats.

They hissed, growled and made other sounds I had never heard. Wa was normally very calm. She hissed more in those first few months in our new home than she had in the years we had lived together.

We did everything the experts say to do when introducing cats: allow them to see each other, but not get to each other. Give them treats when they are together without arguing, thereby rewarding calm behavior. Spray pheromones around the room.

What really worked was time. They had to learn to live with each other, and they had to do it on their timetable.

During the hard times, I put one of Wa’s beds underneath one of the windows in the master bedroom. That way we could keep a protective eye on her.

Eventually, I added a covered bed for her. She loved that space and spent a lot of time there even when peace finally settled on the household. She moved around the house, playing and lounging around. But her place in the bedroom seemed to be her home base.

TC and Sam never bothered Wa when she was there, and they never tried to take it over. It was Wa’s safe space.

Now the space is empty. After Wa died, we took up the beds. We picked up her special blanket and her favorite toys, which still sit on the dresser where we can see them.

When I decided that I wanted to commit to meditating on a regular basis, I wondered where I would do it. I wanted a space in the house where it would be quiet and where I knew I could always go to be still.

I decided to use Wa’s space. I sit on the floor looking out over the bedroom like Wa did. I stare at my candle (battery-powered, of course). Then I close my eyes and listen.

It’s difficult for me to use breathing as a way to center myself. I don’t know if it’s because I have asthma or if OCD makes me think too much about breathing. But I feel out of breath when I try.

Chanting or saying words out loud is also a problem. I feel out of breath or I get into a mindless mode instead of a mindful mode.

So I listen. I listen to the sounds around me: the tick of the clocks, the creaks of the house, the soft puff of the ceiling fan, a train passing through town a mile away. I imagine that my ears are stretching out and turning, like a cat’s.

I practice letting my thoughts go, and I picture them swirling into a globe and spinning around there. I try to watch myself. I try to be here right now.

And I share a safe space with my Wa in spirit.

I have written before about mandalas, and how coloring them, and then creating my own, comforted me during a hard time and continue to comfort me.

The mandala pictured with this post is one that I created to illustrate my meditation, my safe space.

Do you have a safe space? Is it an actual place, or is it a place you go to in your mind? What makes a space safe for you?

The imaginary shield of prayer

“Please forgive me for anything I did wrong today. Please forgive me for what I did do that I wasn’t supposed to do and for what I didn’t do that I was supposed to do.”

   I wish I were home. I wish I were alone in my bedroom, with the door closed. I’d be able to close my eyes or bury my face into my pile of stuffed animals, be alone with the whirl of prayers in my head.

“Please forgive me for not being happy where I am. Please forgive me for not focusing on you.”

I’m on the van that is carrying me home from school. I have to keep my eyes open so that the other riders won’t know that I’m praying. Everybody is so noisy. I can’t keep the rhythm of the prayer going.

“Please forgive me, Lord. Please forgive me for everything I’ve done wrong. Please forgive me for the mean thought I just had about the kids in the back of the van. Please bless them. Please bless them. Please forgive me for all my sins.”

Those were my prayers when I was a teenager, when I kept the journals that I wrote about in my last post.

I don’t pray like that anymore. I don’t feel like I’m physically straining to get the prayers right anymore.

I’m not all better. But I have begun to understand.

Late last night, or early this morning, as I got ready for bed, I knew I was too keyed up to fall asleep right away. My husband was still up, in another room. I sat in the dark on top of the bed and meditated.

When I meditate, I concentrate on the sounds around me. Starting out, I hear the larger sounds, the furnace running, perhaps, or the train passing through town.

But as I continue to listen, I hear the smaller sounds. The faint tick of something rolling around in the dryer in the basement, in the load I put in before bed. Or one of the cats munching a midnight snack.

Last night, as thoughts distracted me, I pictured myself apart from my thoughts. I pictured my hand holding a globe, with the thoughts swirling around in it, in pictures. I tried to be that Impartial Spectator that Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz writes about in “Brain Lock.”

My thoughts slowed down. I felt calmer. I felt like my mind was empty enough to go to sleep.

I put my head down on the pillow. But my mind wasn’t empty enough, after all.

I don’t remember now what I was thinking. I don’t even remember what I prayed, but I prayed one of the “spurt prayers,” something like, forgive me, God, or help her, God, or oh, Lord, be with him.

They’re not real prayers. They’re not directed at God. They’re compulsive chants. They make me anxious, restless. They’re meaningless, but necessary to quell . . . what?

I wanted to think. I wanted to answer the question. Why did I feel like I had to pray like this?

I’m beginning to understand that it’s because somehow I don’t believe that I will live a good life, in the care of the grace of God, that my loved ones will be safe and well, unless I think these meaningless chants.

It’s not for my salvation from an eternal hell. It’s to build some kind of shield against all that might hurt my family and me.

Somehow, I don’t believe God can take care of it all, that nature will run its course, that life will happen. Somehow, I believe I can control it all with my compulsive thoughts in the form of prayers.

I’ve been working on that shield for most of my life, and it hasn’t done anyone any good.

I feel like I had a brief moment of insight last night. Perhaps it came because of the stillness and quiet that I experienced during meditation.

It’s time for me to work on refocusing, on letting go of the imaginary shield. Do you have any ideas on how to do this? How do you deal with OCD when it’s all happening in your thoughts?

Mandalas

I have been coloring and creating mandalas for several months, and I’d like to share what I’m doing with you.

A mandala is at its very basic a circle. According to the book “Mandalas in Nature,” by Sonia Waleyla, and other sources, the word mandala is Sanskrit for “circle.”

The circle is used by many religions and traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity.

According to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala, spiritual traditions may use the circles for such practices as focusing attention, teaching spiritual lessons and meditation.

May stained glass windows in churches can be considered to be mandalas.

The many pictures of mandalas that I’ve seen use different shapes, figures and other drawings, some of them symbolic.

I started coloring mandalas when my cat Waddles became very ill last fall. I had trouble sleeping, reading or focusing on much of anything. Full of anxiety, I sat beside her.

I can’t remember why I turned to mandalas, but I found some free ones on the Internet and printed them out, got out my colored pencils and started coloring.

It gave me something constructive to do when I faced the loss of my Wa but couldn’t yet face the emotions it brought up.

I continue to color mandalas. It is relaxing to me. When I am focused on coloring, especially small areas of the mandala where I have to concentrate, I don’t dwell so much on what I’m worried about. If symbols are involved in the drawing, then I think about those. And looking at the finished product soothes me.

I am making a collection of my mandalas to use in my meditation practice.

As I learned more, I started making my own mandalas with symbols that mean something to me.

I have expanded my collection of pre-drawn mandalas. Those and the mandalas that I downloaded and printed from the Internet are much better drawn than the ones I create, but because of copyright concerns, I didn’t want to post those on my blog.

So here are some that I have drawn.

The first is a mandala that includes symbols of the most important things in my life. God and my spiritual life, my husband, my cats and my writing are the most important. Other important aspects of my life are music, animal welfare and animal rights, nature and the spreading of peace.

The second is an illustration of mindfulness. I got the idea for this one from Jon Kabat-Zinn's book "Wherever You Go, There You Are," where he writes, "In every moment, we find ourselves at the crossroad of here and now." (p. 7 in e-edition).

The third is just a collection of pretty things.

If you’d like to learn more about mandalas, one resource is The Mandala Project at http://www.mandalaproject.org/.

CBT session #1

   Today I had my first real session of cognitive behavior therapy. It was my second appointment with the new therapist, a psychologist. The first appointment was taken up with giving him a history and overview of my OCD.

Today we talked a lot about how the brain works, how it works differently in people with OCD and how we can learn to override the obsessive thoughts.

Last night I made a list of my main obsessions and the compulsive actions and avoidances that I practice to try to rid myself of the anxiety caused by the obsessions.

I printed it out and took it with me to the doctor’s office. While I was in the waiting room, I added a few more compulsions that I hadn’t thought of last night.

My main obsessions revolve around my writing, contamination, checking, driving, harming others and talking.

The list I made up helped guide today’s session, but we won’t actually set up a hierarchy or decide what to work on first until our next session.

The therapist described how the brain stem, the amygdala and the prefrontal lobe work together. I won’t go into all the detail that he did, but basically there’s a disconnect between the amygdala and the prefrontal lobe, and the negative thoughts, or obsessions, get stuck in the amygdala.

About thoughts, he said many people believed that all thoughts were volitional, but it wasn’t true. He also said it was impossible to get rid of the negative thoughts, but I could learn to override them.

I’ll do this using three steps: I’ll reattribute the obsessions to OCD, to my brain. I’ll turn my attention elsewhere. And I’ll do some other behavior instead of acting on the compulsions.

There was no need to try to rationalize my way out of obsessions, he said, because it wouldn’t work.

I would learn to be mindfully aware of my thoughts so that I could observe a thought, acknowledge it, reattribute it and move on.

He demonstrated this in an interesting way. He held his hand like he was holding something (a negative thought) and looked at it in his hand. That reminded me of the Impartial Spectator that Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz writes about.

He said I would have to challenge myself with things that ramped up the anxiety. I would gradually update my brain. My brain would learn that even though I didn’t follow up on a compulsive urge to, for example, check the stove, the house didn’t burn down.

I would learn to tolerate the anxiety and, in what he called a paradox, I would eventually learn to accept it.

Our next appointment is in a month, but he said he’d like to see me on a weekly basis at first. So I’m on the cancellation list, and I’m to call the office Monday morning to see if there have been any cancellations.

In the meantime, I will start working on these steps and really consider which of the OCD categories I want to work on with him first.

I asked him about mindful awareness meditation, and he was all for it.

I’m excited. I feel like I’m on the road to real recovery. Not a cure, but recovery.

On a side note, I was off work today, so I went to the bookstore and the craft store after my early-morning appointment.

While I was in the craft store, I started feeling anxious, like something bad was going to happen. It’s like my heart was on high alert. Even after I got home, I still felt like that.

I wasn’t obsessing about anything, and I have no idea where the anxiety came from. Perhaps it was the generalized anxiety making itself known, and maybe I was more nervous about my appointment and the changes ahead than I thought I was.

Mary Oliver: a gift

One of my favorite writers of any genre, and my favorite poet, is Mary Oliver.

She is an American poet who writes about animals, trees, flowers, ponds, God, death, meaning and so many other things.

I have reread her poems many times—not in the OCD way of rereading, but for new insights and inspirations.

Her poetry—any great poetry—is like that. I can return again and again and find another layer, another meaning.

I don’t remember how I first came to read Oliver’s work. I have degrees in English and taught writing and literature many years ago, but I don’t remember my first exposure to her.

I do remember going to a reading that she gave when she was a writer-in –residence at Sweet Briar College.

It was such a wonderful experience. The room was packed, and she looked so small and frail at the front, but her reading was powerful. That’s where I first heard her poem, “Wild Geese.”

I have memorized the poem over the years, and when I’m anxious and my thoughts are racing and there seems no hope in slowing them down, I recite the poem to myself and it helps to calm me.

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.”

-from “Wild Geese,” by Mary Oliver

I’m still trying to figure out the full meaning of that last line, even after all these years.

The words that end that poem are some of the most comforting I know:

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.”

-from “Wild Geese,” by Mary Oliver

I’ve memorized some of her other poems, too. One of my goals is to memorize more of her work so her inspiration is literally just a thought away.

I think what calms me are her ideas, her questions, her deep connections to nature and her beautiful word choices. And I feel like she speaks to me and for me in so many ways.

I finally came to realize that when I read or recite her poetry from memory, I am really praying.

I have found her poetry to be an integral part of my attempts to pray and to meditate, and I expect it always will be.

I do have to be careful not to recite the lines by rote and forget about the meaning. Memorizing a new poem usually helps me with that.

One of the poems I want to memorize is the first one found in her volume of poetry “Thirst.”

“Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.”

-from “Messenger,” by Mary Oliver

   I’ll end this post by writing about “When Death Comes,” an Oliver poem I memorized a long time ago and still recite some nights.

   In the poem, she writes about the inevitability of death and how she wants to face it “full of curiosity.”

“And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular. . . ”

-from “When Death Comes,” by Mary Oliver

There's always something to worry about, but . . .

For the past few months, I’ve been working on “staying in the moment” instead of steeping myself in the past or worrying about the future.

The medications I’m on help, but they are not enough. I have to actively work on it, too, I’ve learned.

My efforts have included different forms of meditation, reciting poetry I love, self-talk and making mandalas.

The results have been mixed.

I have made headway in one area. One of the symptoms of OCD I manifest to different degrees is that I don’t think I should relax until everything is right. As I’ve written before, it’s not perfection I’m after, but feeling right.

I now can sometimes focus on my breath or mantra even when I am in the midst of anxious and racing thoughts. I just keep breathing or focusing on the words or sounds after reminding myself, repeatedly, that I can worry later.

It doesn’t always work, and I have to pull myself from my wandering thoughts time and again. It’s a start, though.

But isn’t it so much easier to deal with the everyday or familiar anxieties than it is with a new one?

We learned today that our 15-year-old cat, Samantha (Sam), has the beginnings of chronic renal insufficiency. That’s what eventually killed our two older cats, Waddles and Thunder Cat.

My husband and I stood in the examining room at the vet’s office, hearing the same things we’ve heard before. Try to get her to eat a renal diet. Watch her for certain signs and symptoms. Bring her back for more blood work.

Sam

We carried Sam back home, both of us quiet.

I started wondering how soon the kidney problems would start to noticeably affect Sam’s quality of life.

I pulled out Waddles’ medical records to find out when she was first diagnosed: Aug. 7, 2007. She lived for a little over four years after that. She was older than Sam when diagnosed.

Thunder Cat was diagnosed in December 2008 and died Feb. 12, 2009. He was also older than Sam is now. His disease seemed to progress quickly, though kidney disease can be silently present for a long time.

I started to worry (to myself, not out loud, because I didn’t want to upset my husband more than he was) about how long Sam would live, how long before she would fade away like her siblings. I was tense and depressed, fearing what was to come.

But some of what I learned from Waddles started to come back.

Enjoy the time we have with Sam. Don’t upset her with my anxiety and tears. Focus on her today and appreciate her.

If I waited to do those things until I felt “right” about her illness, I would never be able to do it, because it will never be right. There is no cure for chronic renal insufficiency. You can try to slow it down, but it’s never going to disappear.

It is so difficult to do the things I’m writing about, to focus on the time we have with Sam right now, while doing the things we can do to hopefully slow down the disease’s progress. I can only manage the “in the moment” attitude for short periods.

There’s always something to worry about, but I can try deal with the worry by being in the moment.

How do you best deal with your anxiety?