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Not a Resolution, Evolution

When progress means regress.

Ten days ago I started a new morning routine. Wim Hof Breathing is still first thing, but taking it outside in below-freezing temperatures feels like a new experience. I may even regret the onset of spring. Maybe I’ll get an ice tub like the crazies I follow on social media.

I make some tea, grab my journal to put down a few words, and come here to write a post, or, at least, start one.

One morning, as I was finishing the routine, my son found and brought me my first journal, from when I was about 15-years-old. I’ve written about how cruel I remember being at that age, how much I had hardened against the world and used my empathy as a weapon. The journal doesn’t betray that narrative, but adds color to my dark picture. I was searching for answers, frustrated at not finding them. I was writing poetry. It started as extra credit and became much of my public and private personas. I was falling in love for the first time. There was plenty of cynicism too. I saw the attention my writing got me and enjoyed it. Just a mixed up kid trying to figure himself out.

It was around that time that I began experimenting with alcohol. I liked the romantic notion of famous alcoholic writers and started to quote them and identify with them. I thought I was too clever to fall into the traps, or I was pessimistic enough to not care.

That pattern solidified through college. I stopped writing. “Everyone gets writer’s block,” is what I told myself. I had self-medicated myself into a stupor because I was still afraid to face the big emotions I feared as a child.

I’m not afraid anymore. My big emotions are my path to healing. It’s a regressive path traveling into my youth and further, into previous generations of programming and trauma. I’m winding back toward that 15-year-old who was falling in love and wondering what this is all about. I still have more questions than answers, but I’m impossibly optimistic about the truth.

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Our Kind of Classroom

Our learning lifestyle changed dramatically in 2020. Almost all of our learning is done socially. As government Lockdowns partnered with fear-driving media, it became impossible to find people to learn from and with. The dozens (hundreds?) of individuals we interacted with per week was whittled down to a couple of families.

Fortunately, the mom of one of those families was sure that there were more of us who recognized the need for social learning. I was a naysayer, but backed her efforts to start a new group of families as the summer of Lockdowns began. On our first “official” get together, there were eight families and most of us didn’t know each other. The group has grown and the core families have become fast friends. I’ve witnessed (and received) material, emotional, and spiritual gifts given everyday through our various chats and group texts. Our weekly gatherings have grown into multiple days of video gaming, analog gaming, Lego building, cooking, and all types of learning meet-ups.

The latest adventure was brought to us by a mom brand new to homeschooling. She may have been considered a Crisis, or Isolation, Schooler when she met us. Lockdown restrictions on schools did not work for her family. I don’t know how she found our group, but she and her children have been a blessing to us in a number of ways.

One way was an invite to participate in Junior Rifle Club, a weekly meet of children to get instruction on gun safety and usage.

It was an early start and my boys struggled a bit with hearing the initial safety speech repeated a few times as new participants arrived. Although unplanned, I believe it was important for them to hear the messages multiple times (which, of course, they would continue to hear throughout the morning).

They took turns shooting and observing for close to three hours without complaint. They got to watch their improvement on the targets and the learning was off the charts, too much to absorb in one morning. I have no doubt that this will become an important part of our week and we will be broadening our skills in significant ways.

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Hope

Live music. A friend lamented at music’s healing power of sound, connection, rhythm, and pure magic. I shared the lament. This is the longest I’ve gone without a proper concert (even counting the miracle yoga and music fest we attended in August).

Then I remembered I had tickets for a Lone Bellow concert at Union Transfer in Philly in March. My date for that show dumped me months ago and I was pessimistic that it was still happening at all. I looked up the venue and the show is still listed as on!

With good news trickling out and an event date right at the beginning of spring, I’m cautiously optimistic that my friend and I will be letting loose like the maniacs we are in a couple months.

Now, to find that magical, four-day, hippie fest my sons and I have been craving…

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

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Some Homeschool Encouragement

I’ve felt a sense of failure many times on our learning lifestyle journey and I’ve been at this for six years.

2020 was a really difficult time to begin homeschooling. More than 90% of our resources were taken away. We are hands on, experiential learners, almost nothing we do is online or “virtual.”

Even with all the resources, the start was rocky for us. We tried so many things and it was “giving up” that showed me how learning will occur without an authority figure demanding it. I’m now a devoted unschooler and concern myself more with their emotional, spiritual, and physical growth than academics.

Each family has to find its own groove. You’ll get there. You’ve got this.

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Wim Hof Method Breathing in the Cold

I expected to play soccer last night, but the game fell through and I decided on a jiu-jitsu class. It smashed me and I had a tough time waking up this morning. I thank God for this practice. It used to be soccer or nothing for me. Now, with yoga and jiu-jitsu, I’m not only a stronger soccer player, but I’ve got options when the Universe wants to change plans on me.

Once I wore out my phone’s snooze function (didn’t know that could happen), I saw the last glow of sunrise fading and ran out to start my daily breathing. It was the coldest (27°F) and windiest day for my practice and I’m not sure why I didn’t put a shirt on. The wind was tame, but it felt like icy electricity crackling over my skin.

I love the different sensations I experience during the 5 rounds of 30 intentional breaths with breath retention on the last exhale of each round. Different shapes appear in my vision behind my closed eyelids. Today, the first couple rounds were accompanied by forks of lightning emanating from the bottom left of my field of vision. They faded and the field became calmer and more even, a soft, five-point star appearing during the last round.

As I hold my lungs empty, I try to focus on parts of my body that need attention. I was pleased that my knees were feeling better and not surprised that a smashed toe was still healing.

Today was the most discomfort I have felt in my fingers, but I directed attention there, and that faded as well. The small, yet distinctly observable, healing moments have been incredible. In the summer I would be bitten by a mosquito or two during early rounds, yet there would be no welts after I was finished. Doing this first thing in the morning, my body is often awkward and stiff. After the breathing, I am always moving more smoothly. The places I target with my mind seem to continually and actively heal throughout the day.

I think it’s about time to get Wim Hof’s book and deepen my journey.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

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On Being Empathic

I’m terrified of this subject. I have a history with empathy that I’m not proud of and now, as I embrace my God-given sensitivities, I feel like an imposter. I know empaths and connect with them quickly. The literature, memes, and stories all speak to my own experiences. It all seems very important to me and I dread the damage that can be done when those skills are employed without care.

It’s not a theoretical fear. I realized I was empathic when I was ten years old. I predicted my parents’ divorce by three years and started to experience the pain of the world. I was a curious kid in a gifted program and started to pay attention to world events. I knew how lucky I was to be in a school district that could afford a program that treated me more like a human than the regular classroom. I was an imposter there too, lower income than most of the kids and an IQ just high enough to grant me access after further testing. We got to discuss world affairs at a higher level and I felt a stink of self preservation in much of the talk. I was overwhelmed by the problems of the world and felt them as I tried to sleep. It was too much for a ten-year-old to manage, why wasn’t everyone crippled by this weight? Why do we operate like crushing suffering isn’t all around and inside us? I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I was shedding friends and turning inward, feeling like a freak. I knew my parents were going through something impossible and didn’t want to turn to them. They encouraged individuality in both me and my sister, but I still felt like I was too far off the spectrum of normal humans.

My emotions were too hot to regulate. I relied on my rational brain to solve what I perceived to be a problem of poor wiring. I made a judgment about reality that I didn’t reconsider for far too long: the world is made up of victims and victimizers. I felt like a victim of reality. I felt tied to all the victims and that we were all drowning under the force of the victimizers. I chose to be a victimizer. It couldn’t be worse than this feeling of slowly dying and I knew I was at least smart enough to put up a good fight.

On the first day of seventh grade, schools had merged and there were new dynamics and cliques forming. A big kid, Steve, was picking on someone in homeroom. I knew I would be next. It wasn’t heroics or any type of compassion that set me on this kid. It was my turn to be a motherfucker that no one would mess with. Mind you, I was the smallest one in the room and Steve was the biggest. I came at him from my desk, smiling and joking and tearing him down. Fuck, it makes me so sad to think of the person I became in that moment. I just knew where to hit. I knew it because I could feel his pain and I went right there. I took my insecurities and weaponized them, acting like I was so fucking smart and this kid was a waste of flesh. I got some laughs, I got that hit of serotonin, I was hooked.

I wasn’t a traditional bully, and maybe folks would remember me differently, but I believed in a dominance hierarchy and would fight to protect my place in it. I would claim it was a fight for independence, but that was only partly true. My independence meant cutting myself off from others unless it served my purpose, then I would use my empathy to get what I wanted. Reality has a way of getting twisted when you deny truth. I went so far as to deny that “empathy” existed. I was denying my Self.

Then I discovered booze. I had been exercising an oppressive control over my Self and found relief in this elixir that loosened my grip. And then, when the pain and guilt got too close, I could use more of the drink to numb it away. Voila!

I had grown and cultivated a monster inside me and I confused my Self with this Shadow. I let myself be the bully when I was drinking, I was terrified that this was the true me. Alcohol was medication for the disease I had become.

I don’t know how much Mary saw the true me. I was clouded from years of practicing being superficial and clever. I think she liked the edge I had honed, she knew I could protect her and our children. What she loved was something I hardly saw, a deep potential for love that would empower her and our children. Our relationship was always about children. Everyone knew Mary was going to be a mother. I’ve never known someone as naturally suited for the role. Something told her that her time was finite and that she would need a husband and mate who could thrive after she was gone. That’s why she gave me boys, I would definitely have screwed up more with girls.

Now one of those boys is eleven years old. He has big feelings and I’m trying to meet him there. To do that I have to let go of my fear and embrace my empathic journey. I didn’t have someone who understood, but he can have that in me.

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Back to Service

God blesses us every day.

I have been sorely missing the service opportunities provided by our church community. I’m a poorly educated Christian, but my experience with the Gospels places love and service over fear of the human frailty of disease. Slowly, we are finding ways to help our neighbors in the spirit of Christ.

For a few hours this MLK, Jr. Day, we felt love and shared it as we were given the chance to help beautify One Village Alliance’s Freedom Center in Wilmington.

When we arrived, someone was already outlining a mural and the grounds looked like this.

We removed a massive amount of ivy and I was allowed to build a makeshift fire pit.

I got lost in the ivy. My late wife, Mary, and I lived in two homes that existed under the constant threat of being overrun. I indulged in a touch of anger at the creeping vines as I smiled at the cleared fence and grounds. The firepit gave more catharsis. My knees hurt from grappling with the ivy embedded in two inches of driveway gravel and dirt, but permission to put the cinder blocks to use was more than enough to overcome the discomfort. Mary loved fires. We never had a pit this big and I envisioned her working alongside me to prep the fire.

My sons faded from the yard work and I couldn’t blame them, there was painting to do. They started inside, helping with the stairs, and ended up contributing to the love-infused mural outside.

Finally, they were rewarded with a videogame paradise provided by Mobile Entertainment Theater.

We were all rewarded with this day of service. I made new connections and saw friends who I’ve missed for nearly a year. We walked away with jobs still to be done, but also real improvement in a necessary community center.

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Good Enough

Two days ago I wrote about not feeling good enough. Then I wrote about a woman who I never felt like I was enough for. I felt shame for not being more than I am.

I’ve been flooded with messages from God that I am enough.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

“What if my gold be wrapped up in ore?”

That’s from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s about discarding the things that don’t serve you and focusing on the truth. I believe that we cover our gold in ores of self doubt and fear of truth.

This morning, during my intentional breathing and meditation, I felt and envisioned that ore falling away, leaving only gold.

Later in the morning, at a Martin Luther King, Jr. service opportunity, the volunteers were graced with performances from Jea Street, Jr. and Nadja Nicole. Nicole sang the Esperanza Spalding song, “Black Gold.” She prefaced it with a message that each of us was good enough.

I spent nearly four hours pulling at ivy and doing my part to beautify the new home of One Village Alliance in Wilmington. It was simple, gratifying work.

After the work and some rest, I got myself to my first jiu-jitsu class in months. A skin infection had side-lined me and I was terrified to restart my nascent journey. That’s the way journeys go, they can be interupted just as they begin.

I survived the class and walked away feeling the accomplishments of showing up and being excited to return.

I am good enough. I feel God in my daily life. He fills me up when I am empty. He sends me these messages and offers me opportunities to share my gifts with the world.

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Freeing Myself

A former lover walked by me on the street. I was sitting, talking with a friend, and being present when this figure from the past strode by, ignoring the weak, “Hi,” and wave I produced. I was taken away from the moment and disquieted.

She was my first love after losing my wife, Mary. It was a fireworks show of an affair and lasted nearly as long. In addition to a passionate romance, it was a convincing game of family. Her daughters and my sons seemed to belong in each other’s lives from the start. Anywhere we went, people assumed we were a traditional family. I got caught up in the play. I missed my role as “Husband and Father” to the degree that I was unintentionally acting it out. We discussed and enacted co-parenting, but we avoided labeling the relationship other than “friends” to subvert questions from the curious (and perhaps ourselves).

The whole arrangement remained under a thin secrecy. It seemed right that we alone should be navigating our new, post-marital existences. We discussed establishing something “long term” and she returned my expressions of love.

Then the connection was broken. We had a day of deep, physical connection. After hours of pleasure, we went to dinner and a concert. We lost a piece of our bond somewhere between that afternoon and the restaurant. Nirvana’s “All Apologies” played during dinner and in the chorus, Cobain sing screamed “Married, Buried.” I always thought it was “Mary, Mary,” and that’s what I heard that night. We knew that things had changed, but didn’t discuss it. This was unusual. Our relationship had been built on exploring uncomfortable emotions, suspicions, and fears. I chalked some of it up to exhaustion and my own desire to return to bed together. We got to the concert during the opening act. We took our seats as one song ended and the artist introduced the next. It was a song about a ghost named Mary. A thick heat swelled inside me as I forced a joke, “It seems we have a chaperone tonight.” My stiffness and discomfort did not abate through the evening and was worse the next day. I again tried to explain the feeling away as exhaustion, but we didn’t talk for a week and when we met next, we were no longer lovers.

There wasn’t anger, I believe we were both confused about what had happened and there was no blame to place. We made an effort at a friendship, but she never seemed comfortable around me again and that soon ended.

I think about her and what we shared more often than I would like to admit. I see her at odd times and remain confused about my feelings toward her. I have great fondness and appreciation for the time we shared. She was there for me in a very difficult time and held my hand as I shifted from a grief mindset to a healing and growth journey. I have changed a lot in the two years hence. In great part, I have her to thank for that. And now that feels like nostalgia for what was. A comforting feeling of a happy time, but not one that needs to be reproduced or re-envisioned. It was right when it was right.

After she walked by and I was shaken by the surprise, my friend asked, “Do you think this is a sign that you should reach out to her?” I didn’t have an answer, the unanswered questions surrounding the end of our relationship seem to call out for asking. I realize now that I must find those answers in myself and come to peace with not knowing what I cannot know.

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Not X Enough

My growth mindset has an inherent contradiction, a paradox that must be applied as a balance. The idea is to go to bed greater than the person who woke up that day, but to do so is to admit that each day I am not waking up to all that I can be.

A couple of my daily affirmations speak to this: “All is right in my world,” and “I am change.” If all is right, why would I change?

Change is involuntary, it is the turbulent flow of life. Engaging that flow and meeting it where it is propels me.

I got back outside for my intentional breathing and meditation this morning. I spent December in a funk and didn’t find a rhythm during our early January road trip.

As I stepped outside with my mat, I thought, “Oh, it’s not cold enough.” Then the thoughts cascaded and I compared myself to the folks on the Wim Hof groups who roll in the snow, break ice to swim in Scandanavian lakes, and retain their breath for minutes at a time. I thought of how slow my growth seems, how I’m not pushing myself enough, and how poor my focus is.

Then I rolled my mat out, lied down, and looked up at this.

I’ve grown fond of this view. It’s been more than a month since I took it in and it brought me back to the peace and hope I received when I started this practice in April.

I remembered that I am enough because there’s no other way to be in the present. I know that it is the path to being greater and more present in the next moment.