On Letting Go (or not)

A few months ago, I was introduced to a concept that stuck with me. Wait, I'm not sure that "introduced" is the correct word - it is something that I was aware of, but had never given a name to. It is the idea of sitting with pain.

I'm talking about emotional pain here, which yes, can surface in physical ways, but that's an entirely different conversation. Maybe next time. Anyway, when we are in [emotional] pain, whether it be loss, grief, sadness, anxiety, or anything that places discomfort in our hearts, our first instinct is to move. Move out of the space of pain. Go shopping (retail therapy), go for a run (fire up those endorphines), self-medicate with drugs/alcohol, fill your calendar so you have no time to slow down.. whatever your vice(s) of choice may be. Everyone is different, but most people I know can agree that it is easy to cover up the emotional pain but trying to bury it underneath a lot of things that seem good at the time. 

I have learned, however, over my years and through recent experiences, that you can not just leave this pain behind by getting up and moving. You can not abandon something that has manifested itself in your heart. You carry your heart with you day in and day out and through everything you do, and this heart, no matter how sad, hurt, betrayed, confused, happy, excited it may feel is going to follow you through your day without asking if you would like it to join you. This is called being alive, and life is messy and beautiful and sometimes painful. 

When we cannot abandon our feelings, we have to learn to sit with them. I have been practicing this through meditation, and I am so grateful that I started this months ago because I need it now more than ever. When I feel emotional pain, I sit. I roll out my yoga mat or sit on the floor or wherever I feel the most grounded, sit up nice and tall folding my legs crossed in front of me, take in a big deep breath and as I let it out, I recognize how I feel in that moment with as little judgement as possible (ex: "I feel sad." but not "I feel sad; that's not good."). This also applies to when I feel angry, anxious, confused, or any sort of emotional stress. And quite truthfully, I do this practice when I feel incredible and happy and excited, but meditation is a lot easier at those times and again, that's an entirely different conversation for another day. Anyway, after that initial breath of acknowledgement comes more breathing. With my next breath, I create space for my heart to feel without being restricted. Then, I ask myself why I feel how I do. And I breathe with every question and with very answer I create more space for my heart and mind to align. And when all is done, I sit. And I allow myself to feel every feeling and remove all barriers of my mind and my heart that might doubt why I feel how I do. I don't ask myself for doubt, or for excuses, or for a way out. I ask myself to take 5-10 minutes and give permission for myself to feel with complete surrender. 

We can be our own worst critics: "You shouldn't do this" "You shouldn't do that" "You could have done better" "What if you had done that one thing differently that one time" ... No. Enough with all of that bullshit. This is what has happened, and this is how you feel about it, and you have every right to feel how you do in any given moment, so do not let your mind try to talk you out of emotions. I'm not saying start making irrational decisions or portraying your emotions onto someone else, or saying words today which you may regret tomorrow, but take a few minutes to sit with that pain, identify the true feeling, acknowledge it, and breathe. 

Because when we can not let it go, we must let it be.

Making Mutual Decisions

I have been feeling like I'm on one of those awful amusement park rides lately, that spin and also feel like a roller coaster all at once and it LOOKS fun and it's supposed to be fun, but it's rather terrifying and slightly nauseating instead. I've been thinking of ideas for blog posts and came back here and found a draft from almost exactly a year ago: March 2016. Its relevant, and I can update it, but first let me post the original draft, unedited, and then I'll add what I have

March 2016:

I used to be one of the most indecisive people on the planet*. Until one summer, someone asked me what I wanted for lunch. I replied, "I don't know, whatever everyone else wants." and she looked at me and said, "Fine. But if you don't like it, you don't get to complain about it and you'll eat whatever I get you." By not making decisions, and actively choosing to follow what "everyone else" wanted, I was actively choosing to face disappointment and willing to allow myself to be unhappy to make sure everyone else got what they wanted. I had the opportunity to use my own voice and say that I wanted a sandwich, and even what kind of sandwich I wanted! And I wasn't going to do it? What if I had been handed roast beef (ew) and mayo (double ew) and provolone cheese (please, don't!). I would have had to eat it, without complaint, because by choosing not to make a decision, I chose my own fate. I ordered a plain turkey and american cheese, on white. Emphasis on plain, please. 

Since that day, I have worked endlessly to make decisions. I still need to collect all possible information before doing so, and carefully weigh my options, but I try to make decisions in a timely manner. After all, I only need to worry about myself, my life, and making sure I'm safe, happy, and comfortable. Or so I thought.

I'm now at a point where other people need to be involved in my bigger life decisions, and they ask me to be involved in theirs. Relationships do that, and when faced with life-altering possibilities, the waters can get muddy. 

How do you ask someone, "I want to change my life. I want you involved in every aspect of my life, and I need to make this life-altering decision and I want you in it, but that means I need you to make a similar life-altering decision." Thankfully for me, I'm pretty confident in the options presented to me, and for me it's really not a decision at all. It just needs to be. 

*Not scientifically proven.

March 2017:

Dear Year-Ago Me,

You've gotten pretty great at mutual decision-making and fearlessly entering conversations that you would never have thought to entertain 365 days ago. Part of this is being with a partner who you trust endlessly, who encourages you to chase your dreams (and may give a solid nudge in that direction) and wants you to feel comfortable standing on your own two feet beside him, and not feeling like you're being held back or forced to lead the way. I cannot, for the life of me, remember whatever "life altering decision" I was faced with a year ago but I can 100% tell you that you never needed to question how to ask this person to help you make a decision. 

Fast forward (or rewind) to December 2016/January 2017.

I lost something those two months, or a mix of things. My drive, my motivation, my ability to reason, my happiness, my smile, my ability to focus, and a thousand other things -  ultimately it felt like I lost myself. When I was down some terrifying rabbit hole, I relied on the aforementioned person to help me make some life-altering decisions and find my way to the surface. They all had a common theme: what is going to reduce my stress, give me something to look forward to, ease my mind, and make me happy? The answer wasn't easy.

In fact, the first answer, quitting school, gave me so much anxiety that I cried so hard I threw up. I couldn't just quit. I knew I needed a break but what would I tell people when they asked and what would I say when they asked what I wanted to do? Spoiler alert: It turns out that those things don't matter, only my happiness does.

Second, I needed to go against all of my morals and values and everything I have ever decided for myself. No one instilled these in me, they are just things I placed in my head as expectations and I had to dissolve them. I always said I wouldn't move in with a boyfriend. I would only move in with a fiancé or husband - and if it was a fiancé then it would only be when the wedding was right around the corner. Guess what? I didn't do this. And I also don't really care about those things anymore because again, I'm doing what makes me happy and I trust 100% in my decision. Since graduating high school, I have had two homes: college and home. AmeriCorps and home. Splitting my tome 50-50 between Wolfeboro and Hooksett for the past year. And truthfully, I want one place, with my dog and my boyfriend, that I can call HOME. No more splitting my time, energy, and belongings between two places. I officially changed my address this week and I move in tomorrow. 

Third: the hardest move. I love where I work, and I love the people, but I realized as I was going through a process for a promotion that I actually didn't want that promotion. I didn't (don't?) want to grow into this role and I don't want the positions above it, and I don't want a leadership position in this role either. Some people stay and wait for opportunities in other departments but I felt like in my situation, what was best for me and the students I serve would be to make a decision to leave and have students work with an advisor that truly wanted to put their heart into the school. I didn't have that spark anymore and I knew it wasn't coming back. I looked at what I love about this role and what I do, and what I have loved about past jobs, and decided to find one that had everything on my wishlist. I was expecting the process to take much longer but it was only a few short weeks and I got lucky enough to be offered exactly what I wanted. 

In the midst of all of this, I have been on that awful roller coaster ride making decisions left and right and this is the first time I've let myself think about each one carefully. If you've read this far, thanks for walking through my thought process with me! Tomorrow is my last day at my current job and I start the next chapter on Monday. I'm excited and terrified and I have so much to do (like move this weekend!) but I finally feel like I have a grip on everything and I can find my bearings. This is not at all what I intended for this blog but uncovering the fact that I went through something big around the same time last year changed my direction. 

If you take anything away from this, let it be the following:
-Find someone you trust to be your sounding board for big decisions
-If your heart isn't in it, ask your heart what it IS into. Follow that.
-Do what makes you happy
-It's okay to admit you're in the wrong place
-It's okay to ask for help
-Your idea of how things should be and how they are really won't always match. 

How Do I... ?

I'm writing because I truthfully want to know where to begin. And I have no idea how to start.

We all know that the shooting that happened in Orlando over the weekend was devastating, and the circumstances around the events open a new conversation about love, acceptance, inclusiveness, diversity, and community. 

I was asked to weigh in on this and share some of my opinions by someone. I didn't immediately welcome the conversation. Before you tell me I am wrong for taking my time to reply, I need your advice. 

I am 25 years old. I am white. I am female. I am heterosexual. I am cisgender. While I don't consider myself to identify strongly with religion, I have roots in Christianity. How in the world am I supposed to have a productive conversation about diversity? 

I know that I want to accept people for who they are and want nothing less than to judge a person based on the things I listed above about myself. But I also have not faced the same trials and fears and stressors that some of my friends have. I don't know what it is like to be categorized and stereotyped beyond a little White Girl that gets way too excited about Pumpkin Spice Lattes and designer jeans.

Have you ever done a privilege walk? I've done a few. You get asked a bunch of questions as a group and you half to walk forward or backward (individually) depending on your answer. "If you grew up with books in your house, take a step forward." "If you ever had to skip a meal because you didn't have food in the house, take a step backward." ... I don't even have words for how that felt. There is nothing that hurts more than a visual divide between you and your friends. I cried so hard I wanted to throw up. I'm not saying this to be an asshole. It's actually the opposite. I want to have these conversations. But what stops me, is the fact that I don't have that firsthand understanding of being discriminated against for my race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or other surface-level identifier. I don't know if I feel qualified to say, "I understand." because I probably don't. 

I can have a conversation about acceptance. I can talk about focusing on who people are as humans, and that every person is entitled to equal human rights and I can tell you that I do not care what gender identity or sexual orientation the person peeing in the bathroom stall next to me has. I can tell you that my friends have different religious, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. My friends have different levels of education. My friends are not all heterosexual or cisgendered individuals. And I can also tell you that every single one of them is deserving of love and life, and a safe place to work, live, use the restroom, dance at a club, walk down the street, sit at a table, ride a bus, visit a convenience store, go to school and live their lives without anyone rubbing their noses in their business or pointing a weapon at them. I can tell you that kindness wins hearts, smiles go a long way, manners are worth using, and being nice matters. I want is to be able to stop seeing people feel like they have to hide who they are for fear of violence against them.

I want to positively contribute to that conversation and help others feel safe, and while I can not speak on behalf of others, and in this conversation that would be those individuals who don't feel that it's okay to be who they are in public, I can proudly voice that my goals align with theirs, and that I want everyone to be able to feel safe in a club, at work, in their neighborhood, and anywhere they go - regardless of any of the surface-level factors that people often [wrongly] use to separate others. I don't know a thing about what it feels like to be on the receiving end of many types of discrimination, but this is not something that should be limited to a certain community - it should be open to every community. I am able to voice what I've witnessed, whether I felt if it were right or wrong (and why), and if I admit that I don't know everything, and am willing to learn and research, I am opening myself up to more possibilities. I am going out on a limb and hoping this is a good place to start. 

Where Are We Now?

Oh, where are we? Last time I wrote, I was somewhere in a year of service and haven't been there in... well, over a year now. I'm somewhere in the Capital, in my apartment, on a break between grad school classes, with a full-time/sometimes-more-than-full-time job, trying to enjoy what I have of Summer.

If you haven't caught on by now: So. Much. Has. Changed.

But a lot hasn't. I'm still me. I'm a collaboration of my experiences, I have quirks I've picked up along the way (thanks to AmeriCorps, I fold my shirts differently than I did before. Weird, right?) but at the core, I'm still the same. How would I describe me? I don't think I know that, but I do know that these are some of the things I've figured out since my year of service. It's like different time periods of my life, Pre-AmeriCorps (PAC), Middle AmeriCorps (MAC) and after AmeriCorps (AAC). Not my best acronym-I got, but I'll go with it. Anyway, these are my 10 realizations about myself AAC.

-When I don't feel a particular emotion, I default to "happy." And I don't think that's new.
-My biggest fascination is that I live on a planet. Don't even get me started on how cool that is, unless you want me to continue on for an hour about one topic.
-When I set my mind to something, I'll probably get it done, but when I set my heart to something, I definitely will get it done.
-I care more about my fish than I do anything else in my apartment. Except my roommate. I would save her first, in a fire or something. Chomp has water, he's probably safe unless his tank melts.
-I'm still somewhere between being an independent adult and a recent college grad who is still figuring it out. It's that gray area/awkward phase that I hope I grow out of but not before I'm 100% ready. I don't know what that means.
-I am whatever the opposite of musically inclined or musically talented is. I want to say hopeless but I haven't given up yet, I've just accepted the fact that I can't read music or recognize notes. I learned this when I tried to play the violin when I was young, but I re-learned it when I felt inspired to play the Ukulele. I mastered one song: London Bridge.
-I haven't lost my ability to write a research paper, but I'm far from mastering APA format. Contrary to what my undergraduate self believed, I'll take Chicago Style back any day.
-I have had to trust my instincts a lot in the past year and I've found out that they're pretty good. I'm quite impressed by how much I've let myself trust myself. Does that make sense? I hope so.
-I'm still terrible at packing, and I'm quite certain that I won't ever be good at it. And I don't think I will ever enjoy it, either.
-I love people. And feelings. And my pre-AmeriCorps self would have told you that emotions and feelings weren't important and that being objective should be a priority and that I didn't much care for meeting new people or mingling in groups. And I can tell you right now that I am the polar opposite of that because I adore humans and understanding feelings and connecting with people and learning about their stories and experiences. I'm still introverted, but it takes a lot less effort to socialize now.

So that's basically what we've got here. Same Allie, new living situation/first apartment, first big job, grad school, and navigating this "adult" thing. Its harder than parents make it look.