Swimming Toward the Shark

me? codependent?

I’ve been struggling to navigate several relationships that are very near and dear to me – relationships that have largely been a constant, forever and always, but are now at a chapter break. The change is necessary for the relationships to grow and adapt to the people who are growing and adapting within them. Yet, regardless of the need, change can be difficult, particularly when others in the circle want it to stay the same, with each person playing the same role they always have and with the unwritten rules in full effect that preserve the perpetual sameness.

And then there’s me, marching forward in the name of growth and progress, determined to convince the rest of the circle to come along with me, and if they won’t, convinced that I must drag them along behind me until they see the error of their ways. Neither approach is working (go figure), as good as my intentions are. No matter how much love I’m pouring onto these people as I push them forward, my efforts are only increasing the distance, devolving the relationship and leaving me exhausted. Fortunately, I learned something important about myself this week. Apparently, my tendency to feel responsible for these people’s choices and outcomes are signs that I may be… okay, that I likely am… okay, okay, that I am highly probably (and maybe most definitely) codependent. There, I said it.

“Codependence”: I always thought this term belonged in the context of romantic relationships, and applied specifically to one or both partners making excuses, or enabling, the bad behavior of the other partner often when chemical dependence was involved. I understood it to mean that the codependent partner’s identity is wrapped up in the other person’s problems. They are no longer two unique individuals in a relationship, but a singular unit stuck in an unhealthy cycle. There is truth in that definition, but as I recently learned, codependence can also be applied to non-romantic relationships within families, friendships, and pretty much all human connections.

I was watching Jen Hatmaker’s Monday video this week from her porch (Mondays with Jen), and she reframed codependence for me in a way that I am absolutely certain I was meant to hear right there and then. She said: “Codependence is more about control, about trying to control somebody else’s behavior, trying to manage somebody else’s outcomes, trying to work your way into somebody else’s choices, decisions and consequences, and believing in some WILD, MAGICAL way that you can control it, that you can solve somebody else’s behavior, or that you’re RESPONSIBLE for somebody else’s health, or wholeness, or responsibilities. It’s a real gauntlet, I’ll tell you that…

“The truth is that codependency ruins lives, and it’s not to say you’re not attached to somebody that’s making absolutely terrible, destructive, harmful decisions that are affecting you and affecting your home and affecting your relationship. It’s real. Our instincts to overcompensate come from a place where we are suffering or we just want the best for somebody, and we just don’t want them to continue to do this harmful stuff, but the bad news about that is it doesn’t work. That’s the bad news, and I’m sorry to tell you: You are not responsible for other people. You are not in control of other people. It is not helpful for any of us to absorb the shock of somebody else’s consequences or choices. It’s an awful system, and I don’t like it, and I don’t prefer it…” Then with major sarcasm but a completely relatable premise, she says: “… What I wish is that I could honestly control everybody. I should be in control of everybody in my life, I know what’s best, but it doesn’t work.”

Amen to ALL of that, sister! Jen goes on to quote from a book called Codependent No More, which I had never heard of, but it’s been around since the late ‘80s and is now in its 4th ed and has sold millions of copies. I guess I just wasn’t ready for it before now. As she quotes from the book, the key is detachment:

“‘…releasing, or detaching if you will, from a person or problem in love. We mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically disengage ourselves from unhealthy and frequently painful entanglements with another person’s life and responsibilities and from problems we cannot solve…’ We allow people to be who they are. We give them the freedom to be responsible and to grow, and we give ourselves that same freedom. We live our own lives to the best of our ability and strive to ascertain what it is we can change and what we cannot change. And then we stop trying to change things we can’t.” (Hello, Serenity Prayer!)

I genuinely felt like Jen was speaking directly to me. Her words were an undeniably on-point truth that I needed to hear, and maybe you do as well. Right after I finished watching the video, my phone lit up with a daily motivational text from Womaze: “Reminder: You can care about people without carrying the weight of their worries.” I felt like God was wanting to make sure I was really paying close attention. I looked up at the sky in that moment and said aloud, I hear you! I’m listening!

While I’m sure it won’t be an easy read, I’m really looking forward to reading Codependent No More (aaaannnnd completing the workbook) and doing the work to dig deeper into this topic. I know it’s not smart (or healthy) to self-diagnose, but I do recognize that I often feel responsible for other people’s decisions and outcomes – and, generally, only with people I care about who are more than capable of caring for themselves. I do vividly remember my therapist saying to me several times when I was in weekly sessions: “… and then you need to detach with love.” So there is that professional inference to my codependent tendencies.

Acknowledging that they exist and working to overcome them doesn’t mean that I don’t, won’t or can’t care about these particular people anymore or that I don’t, won’t or can’t love them just as much as I always have. What it means is that I am learning to pause and recognize when my motives for influencing others are tied up in codependency and when my motives are authentically my own. That’s a distinction that I know I will need time and lots of practice to be able to define consistently, but I am so grateful that I now know what to call it. That’s step one. Now I’ve got to dig in and clean it out. It’s not anyone else’s work to do but my own.

What I know for sure is that I love these people, and I want them in my life, despite our disagreements and the different lenses through which we view the world, religious theology, American democracy, family communication and, sometimes, life in general. But beneath those differences, I trust that there are sufficient commonalities to build a meaningful relationship upon. I just have to learn how to let those differences breathe. Let them free. And let them be. In other words, detach with love so that our shared love for one another can cover the wounds and set the healing in motion.

you’re going to be okay

When children fall down, they instinctively show their vulnerability. Sometimes they show it through tears or verbal cries. Maybe the fall was painful (real tears). Maybe it surprised them or scared them (real tears). Maybe they sense an opportunity for attention (not always real tears). Other times, they just need to show us where on their body they fell so they can hear from someone else that they’re okay. However minor, they rarely just get back up and move on without some sort of external acknowledgment that: 1) hey, something unexpected happened to me over there, and 2) I’m going to be okay.

A mosquito bit the top of my foot last night, and I apparently scratched it in my sleep. This morning, I was putting Neosporin and a Band-Aid on it, and I had the urge to go show my husband. I’m in my late 30s and consider myself a fairly independent woman, yet here I was wanting to show somebody my boo-boo. I had to laugh, but then it made me think.

We know that one of the big reasons cognitive behavioral therapy (also known as “talk therapy”) can be so effective is because when we speak aloud our fears/anxieties/vulnerabilities/pain, it allows us to unpack the Big Bad Scary, and bring it down to size. When we can name it for what it is, we can process it and eventually move through it. At several points in my life, I’ve found myself stuck in one (or more) of the steps and benefited greatly from professional therapy by someone trained and credentialed to help me move forward in a healthy way. Journaling, prayer, even voice memos can be really effective pressure valves, but when it comes to the getting unstuck stuff, it’s not enough to just “get it out”. The real magic happens when that other human being is present with us, bearing witness to our pain. My husband, God love him, is a fixer by nature. Sometimes when I need to talk through something I have to tell him: I don’t need you to analyze the problem or propose solutions. I just need you to see me and hear me… and, if you’re feeling really generous, maybe hold me afterward and kiss my hair.

Am I self-reliant? Ummmm, to an extent. Do I also need to be validated from time to time? You betcha. And you do, too. So the next time you tell yourself that you’re “just being needy” maybe there’s more to it. Anthropologists say that we are naturally drawn to fire because our ancestors relied on it for warmth, protection, and community – in other words, for survival. Maybe the child-like urge to show my husband my Band-Aid was an evolved expression of something more primitive. Maybe we’re actually hardwired to share our pain – physical, emotional, psychological and otherwise. The truth is, no matter how old we are and no matter how lightly we land, there will always be healing power in those five precious words: You’re going to be okay.

sawubona

I recently discovered a new podcast called “Meditative Story”. It launched in 2019, so I decided I would start listening to it from the very first episode and work my way forward. After the first listen, I was hooked. Each episode features a different author who shares a pivotal moment in their life that essentially changed everything. The show’s host, Rohan Gunnatillake (“Guna-till-a-kuh”) gently pauses the stories periodically to share mindfulness prompts that help root you in the present moment and bring the story to life in a whole new way. The stories usually last about 10-15 minutes, and then Rohan closes each episode out with a guided meditation and, what he calls, a “mindfulness micro step” that he encourages you to try and incorporate into your day.

Sidebar: No, this is not a paid promotion… although I admit it’s starting to sound like one. I’m just a sucker for good stories.

Yesterday I was out for a walk with my dog and put on an episode. This particular one was titled “Creating space to stand in truth”, told by Dr. Susan David, a psychologist and author from South Africa. It’s episode 21 from the 2019 season, or in other words, not an episode I picked on purpose. It just happened to be the next one in line. Yet I knew about three minutes in that, while I wanted to stop listening, I simply couldn’t.

It was one of those rare moments in life. I’ll do my best to describe it, and maybe you’ve ever experienced something similar.

Susan’s podcast story begins in her happy, South African childhood. When she turns six years old, something shifts and she starts being preoccupied, basically obsessed, with death. She explained from a psychological perspective that six is around the age kids first realize that everything alive must one day die. She said her obsession would kick in for her every night at bedtime.

I felt my gut tighten, but I kept walking.

She described the most wonderfully, comforting bedtime ritual – drinking hot cocoa with her parents, and then getting carried tenderly to her clean, soft bed. She would nestle in and receive good night wishes and affection from her parents, which left her feeling completely at ease. But as soon as her parents left her room, and she started hearing them talking in the other room, she would be overcome with fear that one of them would die, or that one of them was already dead at that very moment.

Susan would cry out to her parents trying to sound calm, “Goodnight Mum! Goodnight Dad!” And they would both answer back “Goodnight Susan”, and she would relax. Then a few minutes later she would feel the panic begin again, and she would cry out once more. This time her parents would reply somewhat frustrated and remind her that it was time for her to go to sleep.

I felt the sidewalk shift under my feet – not literally, but as a strong sensation. Like I was suddenly walking across the deck of a rocking boat with unsteady sea legs. If this had been the first (or second or tenth or fiftieth) time this had happened, the sensation would have likely sent me into a panic attack overwhelmed by fearful thoughts that something was wrong with my brain or that I was about to pass out. The truth is that I was diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder more than a decade ago and didn’t start taking medication for it until about six months ago. All this time of self-care, years of therapy, reading anything I could get my hands on and generally being obsessed with finding answers – well, it has given me a lot of time to get to know my anxiety really well. I now recognize this shifting sensation as my form of anxiety’s signature symptom. I now know that when it happens, it means I’ve touched on something unresolved in my psyche. I have also learned that I shouldn’t run away from it, but rather lean toward it and see what it’s trying to teach me.

It’s almost like I feel life shift onto a new track in an unexpected direction. Reflexively, I want to get off the train and start walking home. Yet I somehow know that if I can just hang on and not look away, I’m bound to learn something really important.

Susan described being alone in her childhood bedroom overwhelmed by irrational fears of death, and I knew as I listened, exactly why my anxiety kept tapping my shoulder and asking me to pay attention. The thing is, as a kid – probably around six years old, come to think of it – I started having similar troubles at bedtime. With my head laid sideways on my pillow, I could hear my heart beating softly in my ears. I would find myself counting my heartbeats, irrationally believing that if I fell asleep and stopped counting them that my heart would stop and I would die.

Yeah, just a little bit heavy. Up to this point in my life, I had never heard anyone else say they, too, had this preoccupation with mortality, especially at such a young age.

In addition to my compulsive counting of heartbeats, I also dreamed extremely vividly. When I would eventually drift off to asleep, I would often have nightmares so real and severe that my pediatrician diagnosed them as “night terrors”. He told my parents I would eventually grow out of them. Thankfully I didn’t have the nightmares every night, but when I did, I would wake myself up crying, usually sobbing actually. It would take me several minutes to recover and realize that whatever bad thing happened in my dream didn’t actually happen in real life. Sometimes I was running from someone; sometimes someone was trying to kill my family, and I was the only one who knew; sometimes I was being forced to jump out of an airplane; sometimes they were just a series of scary scenarios that made no sense at all.

When the night terrors first started, I would cry out to my parents, and they would come in and comfort me until I got quiet again. After many, many nights of this bedtime hell, we all got tired of it. I had begun crying the moment they left my room, so terrified of the night ahead. My parents eventually put their foot down and stopped coming in at the sound of my cries. I’m not sure if they thought that their attention was feeding the problem, or that they just needed to break the routine. Either way, they eventually thought it best to let me learn to get through the nights on my own.

It was just too hard. So I adapted. I realized that the best thing I could do if I had a night terror was stay quiet and pull myself together. Not so that I could go back to sleep – again, that was just too hard – but rather so I could silently sneak into my parents’ room with my sleeping bag and spend the rest of the night on the floor next to their bed, comforted by the sound of their breathing. I would usually get in trouble, especially if Dad was first to see me in the morning. If Mom woke up first and felt my sleeping bag’s slick rayon under her bare feet, she would usually gently nudge me awake and help me carry my stuff back to my room before my dad woke up. But not always. She wasn’t big on keeping secrets from my father. Regardless, I would always get a pep talk back in my room about knowing that I was a big girl and that I had to learn to sleep in my own bed and that I shouldn’t come into their room without permission.

Honestly, these messages always fell on deaf ears. It was morning, and all was well. I was so grateful to be awake and at the start of a new day. I knew I had many hours ahead before night would be back. I just wanted to get on with it, happy to agree with my parents well-intentioned lectures. Whatever I needed to agree to so I could get outside and play and be a kid, I was willing to do it.

I don’t know what caused me to obsess about my heartbeat or to have night terrors. I used to think maybe it was because my parents let me watch “Pet Cemetery” when I was barely old enough to talk, plopping me down in front of the TV with my cousins at a family Christmas party before going into another room with the adults. Two of my grandparents had died when I was five years old. Perhaps as I watched them slowly die from cancer and then was eventually told they had gone to heaven, maybe I asked for more specifics about their last moments on earth, and maybe I was told their hearts just eventually stopped beating or that they had slipped away peacefully in their sleep. Perhaps I saw something on TV or a mean kid said something upsetting about death. Or perhaps it just happened. I really don’t know. But I was plagued by night terrors for years. I eventually outgrew them by about age 10, but to this day, they still come around once in a blue moon. Thankfully, I can now separate the dreams from reality much more quickly.

According to Susan, it was likely just part of my growing-up experience. As I listened to her all-too-familiar story, I tried to just keep walking and ignore the rising anxiety in my core. Anyone who has battled anxiety knows that this is not a smart move. Pushing through may postpone the anxiety or weaken it temporarily, but it will always comes back stronger and stronger each time until it you finally acknowledge it properly. This is a truth I know all too well, but because I’m human and don’t always do the right thing, I chose to ignore the anxiety and kept walking.

As Susan’s story continued, my anxiety kept tapping harder and harder, until I could feel a full-blown anxiety attack beginning to bloom. I kept walking and smiling at passersby determined to push through it, but it only got worse. I was just about to sit down, pretend to be interested in something on my phone, give in and let it run its course.

Just then, Rohan popped in with a meditative prompt. Honestly, it was like his words were directed at me, meant specifically for me. He said something to the effect of, “This story may be bringing up some difficult things for you, and that’s okay. Take time to breathe and reflect before we move on. Even take a moment to pause the podcast if you like.”

And with Rohan’s permission, I did just that. I paused the podcast and walked for another five minutes with my headphones off and around my neck. I listened to the seagulls, the traffic, the leaves crunching underfoot, Fischer softly panting as we kept moving. When I had regained my calm, I thought to myself, I’m going to finish this episode later, turn around early and start walking back home. It’s all just a little too much for me right now.

I put my headphones back on and held down the Bluetooth button to prompt a Siri request on my iPhone. I wanted to ask her to play a song from my workout playlist, but my phone kept going right back to the podcast. I took my workout sleeve off my arm, unzipped it, pulled out my phone and manually navigated to my music library. This time, the app would not open. I tried the double-click, home-button trick and swiped up to exit out of all my open apps. I again tapped on the music app, but nothing. It just wouldn’t load. All signs were telling me to finish the podcast. Not later, but right then. I could feel the momentum, and I knew it had something important to teach me, whether I was ready or not. I took a deep breath and resumed the story.

Young Susan was now in her parents’ room, snuggled between them, and confessing to them that she was afraid if she went to sleep that one of them would die. I admired how specific and forthcoming she was, confessing such an embarrassing truth to her mom and dad that that would obviously not understand.

Susan said she honestly expected them to respond to her explanation with something along the lines of “it’s okay”, “we’re not going anywhere”, “we’ll be right here when you wake up tomorrow”. But to her surprise, they didn’t. Her father told her that he would die one day. And so would her mom. And so would she. That they weren’t superhuman people who would live forever. That he understood that it was scary to think about. Even for him sometimes. But he said that death was one of the greatest reminders to enjoy life and appreciate those you love.

Listening to this exchange, I found myself thinking that this was a super grownup message for a six-year-old to hear, telling her that her worst fears would eventually happen. I instinctively wanted to shield her young ears from such a difficult truth.

Susan continued in her narration and said that she was so grateful to her father for teaching her at such a young age that everything wasn’t always okay. Life could be scary, and that what was okay was to be honest about that. She said he taught her that it was important to create space for your feelings and acknowledge them. That courage wasn’t living without fear, but rather moving forward with life despite the fear. This moment with her parents and her father sharing his own vulnerabilities changed Susan’s entire perspective.

She then introduced the word, Sawubona – an African word that in Zulu means “I see you, I value you, and you are important to me.” In these fearful moments in her parents’ bed, her father had truly seen her and acknowledged her emotions and validated that what she was feeling was, indeed, okay.

When Susan grew up, she became a psychiatrist and then a parent herself. When it came time to take her infant son for his first vaccines, she wasn’t prepared for the sudden shift in his happy mood to sheer terror as he felt the sting of the shots. She tried to comfort her screaming baby by instinctively telling him “it’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.” She was surprised when the pediatrician touched her arm and said something to the effect of, “Susan, it’s not okay. He’s in pain and he can’t express himself to you and what he’s feeling other than to cry.” The doctor told her there would be days when something that had always made him happy would suddenly make him sad. Her son wouldn’t know why, and neither would she as his mother. Some feelings were unexplainable, but they, too, needed to be acknowledged.

When she got home, Susan bemoaned to her husband that she was a psychiatrist with an advanced degree in understanding human emotion, and here she was trying to invalidate their baby’s feelings the first chance she got. Her husband listened patiently to her emotional rant until she got it all out. He then smiled and told her, simply, “it’s okay.” And they both laughed. And I did, too.

The story was now over, and Rohan came in to do the closing meditation, focusing on the meaning of Sawubona, “I see you”. By this point, I was back in front of my building, standing in the shade of a tree to listen to the end of the episode. Rohan kept repeating “I see you” followed by silence, and then he asked, “What’s coming up for you? What did you see? How did you feel?”

In my mind’s eye, I saw a young girl – and then recognized her to be me at around the age of six, afraid and alone in her bedroom, desperate to be understood and to be okay. Before this moment, I knew that my anxiety needed to be acknowledged and addressed, and that eventually I would understand the source of it in the first place. I had talked with my therapist – make that therapists – about the night terrors and the death of my grandparents, and countless other honest moments, trying desperately to identify the cause. I had learned that all emotions should be acknowledged – even the hard ones – but I was only applying it to my current self. Susan’s story showed me that I needed to dig a little deeper and apply the same truth to my younger self as well, for it was her feelings that had yet to be acknowledged.

See, the difference between Susan’s story and mine is that my well-meaning parents kept telling me there was nothing to be afraid of. As I grew older, my well-meaning spouse kept telling me there was nothing to be afraid of. Well-intentioned as they were, their dismissive message only made me think that something was wrong with me. That my feelings were bad. That I needed to stifle them and carry on.

I could now, in this moment, clearly see that my anxiety had stemmed from normal childhood fears that were dismissed, unacknowledged, stifled, and therefore fed and nourished until they grew into something exceptionally powerful and eventually diagnosable. This realization seemed to instantly untangle a knot in my psyche. This simple truth of creating space for my feelings – all feelings, past and present – had eluded me for so many years, and it had now finally shown up clear as day.

The next time Rohan said “I see you”, it’s like I was suddenly saying to the little girl in my head what I wished someone had said to me all those years ago.

Hi Sweetheart. I understand. Everything is not okay right now because you are very much afraid. But it is okay to be afraid. The unknowns of life are scary, for all of us. You are not alone. Everyone deals with fear from time to time, and we go on living with it. Everyone realizes that one day they will die, and it’s natural for that to sound scary. You’re so young and healthy. You’re a little girl. Dying doesn’t make sense to you. That is what is okay. Death is the greatest of the unknowns and, therefore, is the greatest fear of all for nearly everyone at some point. Think about it this way. If everything that is alive must die, then death is a part of life, right? And why would God make something that all of his children, every plant, every cloud, every animal, and every living thing have to go through a scary, bad thing to be feared? The truth is I don’t think he would. I think what makes it scary is that no one who is dead right now can come back and tell us what it’s like. So it feels unnatural because it’s so unknown and so unexplained. But death is completely natural. It also does something really beautiful if you think about it. It makes us appreciate our lives so much more and enjoy our families, our friends, our beautiful planet, and all the things that make us smile. That makes death a gift. Knowing that all of this wonder and love and happiness during our earthly lives won’t last forever. When we know that, we learn to savor life. And you have many, many years of life ahead to enjoy, experience and savor. While we’re at it, let’s celebrate that powerful imagination of yours that will, no doubt, take you far in life.

Sweetheart, I see you – in all your fear and confusion and in all your beauty and wonder. I value you, and you are important to me.

I now forgive my parents for not having known these words to speak to me. For not having the intellectual capacity and life experiences to formulate this advice at that time in our lives. I forgive them for their limitations.

I am grateful for their love and for parenting me the best they knew how. I am grateful that I have now had – and will continue to have – experiences they haven’t. I am grateful that I am intellectually curious and have access to literature, professors and podcasts they know nothing about.

I am grateful to Dr. Susan David for sharing her story. And I am grateful to her father for showing me the importance of creating space for my feelings. All of them. Then and now.

Sawubona.

the upside of cancer

My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of August. Cancer. That big, scary word. It carries such power… if you let it. Her diagnosis was a tough reality to swallow for many weeks. I would wake up in the morning, and my first thought was, “my sister has breast cancer”. It was the last thought when my head hit the pillow each evening. And it would hit me throughout the day, seemingly out of nowhere, causing tears to well in my eyes for fear of what she was feeling and the what-ifs of the unknown . Thankfully, the edges of this sharp reality are finally beginning to soften as my sister moves along her journey toward healing.

She has been a true warrior woman each step of the way, taking her treatments like a champ, battling through severe nausea and exhaustion, and facing each day with bravery and confidence. It would be easy (and quite understandable) for her to retreat into the dark place where fear blocks the light. But instead, she is running toward health, saying “yes” to whatever her doctors say she needs, not with an absence of fear, but despite it. That is true courage. My sister is the first to tell you that her strength comes from God alone, in no small part due to the outpouring of prayers and encouragement from a network of friends and family that wraps around the globe.

That is the beautiful thing about cancer (which I know sounds like an oxymoron). It’s terrifically scary, but it also has a way of uniting all the good things. It wakes up what needs to be awakened (relationships, gratitude, awareness of the beauty around you in nature and your fellow humanity); it’s a balm for what needs to be soothed (frustrations that pale in comparison, grudges that were never worth it, vices that were long ready to be given up), and it reminds us that change is a necessary part of life so we best appreciate the present moment and the presence of our favorite people, every single day. Cancer has inspired our family to reach across physical and emotional distances to come together in a new realm of love and gratitude.

When my sister was first diagnosed, the mass was 8 cm., rock hard, attached to her chest wall, and registering in her lymph nodes. After four “red devil” chemo treatments, one of the most aggressive treatments available, that mass is now a 2 cm. soft lump, completely unattached and on. its. way. OUT! Her lymph nodes are now all testing normal, and perhaps the best news she has received yet is that her BRACA test was negative, alleviating her fears for her three daughters’ future.

This Thanksgiving as I reflect on what I am most thankful for, my sister’s improving health will certainly be at the top of the list. So will the attentiveness of her doctors, the caring nurses, and my sister’s access to and ability to afford premium care. And so will her doctors’ insistence that I get an early baseline mammogram and ultrasound (both came back clean, praise God). And so will the health of my husband, my parents, my in-laws, my nieces and nephew, as well as FaceTime, plane tickets, laughter, and love.

I will happy dance for years to come the day cancer is officially G-O-N-E from my sister’s body, but in the waiting, I am grateful my gratitude list is significantly longer this Thanksgiving.

To God be the glory, great things he has done. And he’s just getting started.

coming in for a landing…

I have a recurring dream when stress peaks in my life. I am in an unknown building. I look outside the window to find dozens of tornadoes churning silently on the ground, moving wildly in all directions – some far away, some mere blocks from where I am standing, frozen and unable to look away, awed by their number and unpredictable movements. I am with strangers, and I am always the first to see the cyclones. I alert the group with me, and we run. I lead the way, as we wind deeper and deeper into the building, lower and lower.

I am all at once lost, yet somehow know the way.

We run as far as we can go into the darkness of a closet or under the bottom slope of a stairwell. We huddle together tightly and wait. I feel the tremor of impact. And wake up.

A quick Google search of “tornado dream” returns analysis ranging from fear, to lack of control, to destructive behavior. And I would tend to agree. I had a tornado dream last night, but this time, it was different. And I think I know why.

This time, I am in a house. I look outside the window and see a tornado so massive I can’t see its sides. It is less than 100 yards away, gray and gruesome, and packed with debris. I turn to the people inside. There are maybe 10 of us, all told. This time I recognize a few faces among the group. My summer intern and my parents. The others are strangers. I tell them about the tornado, and we begin our journey downward. We descend what must be three or four stories, with smooth, sloping floors and wide circular hallways. It gets darker and darker the lower we get. I find an underground room with a slanted back wall that goes all the way to the floor. We huddle together, me on top with my arms over everyone, and my face looking down on the web of arms.

This time it is silent, except for my mom’s voice as she counts slowly and steadily – a habit she does in real life to get through something she fears. I remember her doing this when I was a child as we drove over tall bridges or when I begged her to ride the freefall with me at Six Flags.

I feel the tornado begin to lift the house. It is surprisingly peaceful. I recall that it felt much like when a plane takes off, but it was silent. When Mom reaches the count of 10, the house sits softly back on the ground. We walk outside. It is now damp and dark. The storm has subsided. I say to my intern that I have always been afraid of tornadoes, but that we survived and I have conquered my fear. She smiles. I wake up.

Yes, there is stress going on in my life, but I am now dealing with it differently. I am learning to stand on the proverbial shore, rather than getting swept up in the current. My parents and my intern represent those that I feel are most vulnerable right now, that I feel most protective of as they navigate current situations. I still have a lot to learn about overcoming my anxiety demons, but I have come a long (long) way, and I believe last night’s dream was confirmation of my hard-won progress.

I am grateful and encouraged to continue this path of healthy growth, and to continue swimming toward those sharks.

further on down the road

What a difference a month makes. I feel so incredibly grateful and humbled by my new job. All the good things that I had hoped would be true about this new chapter are true, indeed. And as for the scary stuff? It’s not nearly so scary.

I am blessed to be writing again full time about subject matter that really gets my motor running. Plus, after working nearly six years in an office without a single window in a beige sea of cubicles, I am so thankful for the unobstructed view I now have to the outside world. It lends me immeasurable creative inspiration every day. Blessings abound, and I am most grateful.

So now that I’m settled in at work, my husband and I are in the midst of a transition at home. We’re both now working further south, so it only makes sense to say goodbye to our condo in the city (our first home purchase) so we can both enjoy a shorter commute. We’re also getting ready to trade in my husband’s beloved Jeep, which has been in our lives since the very beginning. Literally, since the moment we met.

When it comes to stuff, I’ve always been a purger, happy to dump or donate the old to make room for the new. Sure, certain things are here to stay, like my grandmother’s sieve or the various pieces of furniture handmade by my father-in-law. But the dried corsage from my high school prom? Not so much. (Sorry, Mom.)

But now with all this shuffle and change, I’m finding myself amid some serious blurred lines in the “stuff” department. Not so much the stuff inside our home, but the actual space that has been the scene of so much these past three years – from our Thanksgiving picnic on the floor the week we moved in, to warm sunrises breaking over the ocean, to the heartbreaking passing of our first dog, to the floppy puppy stage of our new dog, to our dear friends’ pregnancy announcement, and our own passionate nights of love and war. I sure will miss this place.

And then there’s the dear old Jeep. My husband and I were set up on a blind date, so while we were making plans over the phone on where to meet, I asked him what kind of car he drove so I would know I had the right guy. (Clearly, this was back when blind dates were truly blind, long before Facebook and preemptive pre-date creeping.)

I walked out of my dorm building, and there he was, my future husband, propped against the door of his black Jeep Wrangler. He was wearing linen pants and a maroon button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had a silver chain around his neck and leather slides on his feet, crossed at the ankle. I was instantly smitten.

The Jeep has traveled three times from Alabama to Key West and back, from Whiteman Air Force Base – a long way from the only home I had ever known – all the way to Palm Beach County. It’s seen music tech advancements, from tape deck to CD player to auxiliary cord to Bluetooth. It’s toted many fishing rods, SCUBA gear and 13 years of Christmas trees. Now here we are, 150,000 miles down the road, and it’s time to grant the old Jeep a much-deserved retirement. Thanks for all the memories.

I’m excited at the thought of a new home and that new-car smell, but it really does feel like the end of an era in some ways. It’s a good time for me to pause and remind myself that the stuff is not the sentiment. In giving the stuff away, I am not giving away the memories.

Nope, those precious treasures are mine to keep for as long as I like, and I look forward to all the new ones yet to be made further on down the road.

reinventing ourselves: possible or mythical?

In the journey of life and self-discovery, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of reinvention. Here’s my question: Can we really reinvent ourselves and leave our old baggage behind, or are we destined to keep the unsightly stuff from our past as permanent carry-ons?

In my late 20s and early 30s, I started getting a lot more anxious about things that used to be sources of joy (social situations, traveling, family gatherings, etc.). I would find myself – pardon the heavy term – mourning my younger self and wishing I could summon her spontaneity, free spirit and courage as super powers for wholesome living now. I wanted to break the chain of scheduled routines (control), keeping up appearances (control), staying within my comfort zone (control) and leap into life with that same child-like enthusiasm I once had years ago.

Recently, my best girlfriend from childhood came for a visit. We had a wonderful time reminiscing about high school boyfriends, friendships, trips and the many dramatic moments of adolescence. We were on our school dance team together for all four years of high school and, every summer, we would travel to UDA dance camp to compete against other schools in our state. When you’re a teenager dreaming of being a real Rockette at Radio City, you believe summer UDA camp is the gateway to the big leagues. Here’s how it works …

You bunk in a real dorm room at a real state university (a big deal, especially for pre-pubescent girls … hey, I was a late bloomer). Then you spend your days at the university sports arena learning multiple dance routines with girls from other schools. You may be the only girl from your school in your group, or if you’re lucky, there will be maybe one other girl you know. Then you spend all night (literally) practicing the routines in your dorm room or hallway until your fellow teammates deem you ready for the competition at the end of the week where you will be judged by real judges (Looking back, I’m not sure why I was terrified of the judge panel – they were probably just ex- high school dancers themselves with real day jobs).

At the end of each routine, you stand quietly looking at the ground (no eye contact permitted) with your hands behind your back. The judges then place one of three ribbons in your hand: White if you effed it up royally, red if you were mediocre, or blue if you were the bomb dot com (it was the late ’90s when we used terms like ‘bomb dot com’).

Our dance team sponsor (for me, my Home Ec teacher, Mrs. H), would then collect the team’s ribbons and hang them on a hanger. At the end of the week, the hanger would be filled to the brim of – what you hoped was – all blue ribbons. Then we would travel back to our small town with at least 15 dance routines to perform the rest of the school year at basketball games and pep rallies (no way would booty-shaking make it onto the football field in my town).

So, back to reinvention …

During our walk down memory lane over spiked lemonades pool side, my friend reminded me of our senior trip to UDA camp, when – as only seniors can – I tried out for UDA All Stars (the biggest of big deals). As an All Star tryout, you had to come up with your own 30-second routine and perform solo in front of – get this – the entire camp. Yep, all your teammates, all the girls from all the schools, and all their parents. Oh, and the scary judges. And this was in addition to your other routines you had to learn along with everyone else. AND, only three winners would be chosen and get to go to Paris to compete for international All Star status. Whoah. I’d never been out of the country! I’ll come back to this in a few moments …

So one of my teachers of the normal routines ended up being sick with the flu all week and couldn’t practice with us, so we all bombed it during the competition. With the stress of not having had ample practice time, embarrassing myself during the performance and working my toosh off for my All Star routine, I had a little (not so little) bit of a meltdown.

Standing there with my hands behind my back after performing (or should I say looking dazed and confused while marking time for more than half) the routine that no one knew, I could feel the white ribbon in my hand. Traditionally, once all dancers have their ribbons in their hands, the judges count down from 3, then everyone looks at their ribbons, jumps up and down while shrieking only the way teenage girls can, and then everyone runs to their team’s wire hanger to display their ribbon with pride.

Not this time. No way, Jose. I balled that freaking ribbon in my hand so tightly and refused to look at it. Instead I ran straight to my Mom with a fist full of ribbon and a face full of hysterical tears.

Pause: I remembered none of this. In my memory, it was all unicorns and rainbows, and I had completely forgotten about this less-than-stellar moment in my short-lived dance career. Okay, let’s go back …

My mom told me all the reasons it was okay to get a white ribbon, reminding me that the teacher was sick and that I was under a lot of stress and that my teammates would understand and blah blah blah. I knew she was trying to console me, but I knew my perfect blue-ribbon run was over. Only one other person on our team had ever received a white ribbon, and three years later, people still used her as an example. Snotty and splotchy, I refused to open my hand. White ribbon be damned. Finally, my mother pried my fingers open only to reveal … a blue ribbon.

You can imagine my surprise when I realized the sick instructor had shown pity on all of us and given everyone an honorable blue ribbon. I knew in my heart that I deserved a white ribbon. None of us deserved blue.

And then I snapped out of my momentary goodwill, got myself together and cheerfully hung my most infamous blue ribbon on the wire hanger with pride. Whew!

Then it was time to perform my All Star routine. I stood with the other girls in the back waiting for my name to be called. I remember hearing my heart pounding so loudly in my ears that I actually asked a girl from Spartman HS (my rival) if she could hear it. Way to play it cool.

Several girls decided at the last minute that the pressure was too great and just didn’t go out there when their name was called over the loud speaker. For a moment, I thought about it and came so close to quitting. After all, I had gotten my blue ribbons. Did I really need Paris, too?

And then they called my name, and it was too late to back out. I ran out onto the floor, waited for the music to start, and then began my routine. I remember being in awe that my mind could be completely freaking out while my body flew around the floor, dancing to the rhythm just as I had practiced.

When I hit the last pose, the crowd roared, and I saw my mom and my teammates jumping and cheering. Then I saw smiles on the judges faces. I had won All Stars and gotten one of the coveted three spots. I was over the moon.

Sure, it was fun to relive my overblown reactions to big-deal moments of teenagerdom with my friend, but it also taught me an important lesson. Much like people who struggle with body dysmorphia, I had my own brand of youth dysmorphia.

I had rewritten the truth of my past into a cloud of naïve bliss, forgetting that my brave, spontaneous, free-spirited younger self had her own fears, stresses, challenges and insecurities, and just like my current self, she sometimes wanted to run for the hills.

But she didn’t. And I won’t either. There’s too many great opportunities up for grabs for those who are brave enough to keep going.

So, back to our question: Can we reinvent ourselves? Not in an instantaneous Abbra Cadabra way, no (not if you want it to last any way), but slowly and over time, I believe we can. No matter our location on life’s continuum, I believe the thread of who we are at our core remains the same, but it evolves, grows and expands with every choice, new experience or change in direction we’re brave enough to learn from and embrace.

And, when things get tough, it’s good to know we’ll always have Paris.

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pause. notice. experience.

I’m inside my two-week notice period at my current job that I’ve held for nearly six years. I’m wooohoooo and eeeeeeek all at the same time. Counting down the days, yet savoring each one.

I’m also noticing a lot of internal observation about how I’m handling this transition. While I have one foot in the unknown adventure ahead, the rest of me is hanging back in familiar territory, reminiscing about all the good times and wearing rose-colored glasses, finding every excuse to categorize this new, exciting time as a scary place with just too much incalculable risk.

Lately, I’ve been unfairly comparing how I’m handling the situation to how I believe others would approach this time. Telling myself that it’s no big deal and that others would approach this unknown territory with more grace, more comfort, more confidence, and less anxiety, sleepless nights and what-ifs. I mean, isn’t this what I wanted? Yep. Haven’t I been praying for direction and that just right opportunity to come my way? Yep. And isn’t this the kind of opportunity worth moving my family, saying goodbye to friends and colleagues, and stepping out into a brave, new world where this particular girl has never gone before? Yep. And now … here it is, the opportunity of my life, checking all the boxes I wanted, and I’m greeting it with excitement, sure, but also a big ol’ heaping of fear.

So, I’m taking steps to learn to give myself a break and stop comparing my experience to other people and their response to situations I know nothing about. I am not those people. I’m me, responding the way I am responding, and that is okay. It’s more than okay. It’s exactly as it should be.

And by the way, those mixed emotions I’m feeling? Those are part of the human condition and completely natural. There is a wealth of experience to be had in good times, bad times and these awkward in-between times, and I don’t want to miss any of it sitting over here on the sidelines, awhirl in a flurry of thought.

Whatever “change” looks like now or down the road, I know that recognizing we’re afraid and calling fear by name rather than getting swept up in its powerful flow – well, that’s the first step toward weakening its chokehold on happiness.

So, starting right now, I choose to pause, notice and experience this day, this moment and this time of transition. And when I do look back on it from some future point in time, I hope I’ll see a younger version of myself who made a brave choice that led to fulfillment, growth and, yes, that sweetest emotion of all … happiness. Now that’s a very brave choice, indeed.

what about change gets us so freaked out?

On one hand, we tell ourselves that we’re spontaneous and welcome the unexpected – well, to a certain degree anyway. I mean, let’s not go crazy. Yet, inevitably, when change arrives, beckoning us to step out and grow forward, we retreat into a vicious cycle of fear and failure predictions even before the very first step in our new direction.

We undercut our potential success with negative self-talk and imaginings of worst-case scenarios, somehow believing that they will happen the moment we lay down our fears and step out in confidence.

My internal drama ensemble is quite the cast of characters, and they visit often to do their tired, worn-out play. Yet, no matter how many times I’ve seen their song and dance, I keep buying tickets to the same show expecting a different ending. See if this sounds familiar.

Something good happens. You’re thrilled. Ecstatic even. But then almost immediately, the thought that things are too good to be true, or at least too good to last, knocks on the door and suddenly sucks all the air out of the room, leaving no room for optimism. My version typically goes something like this.

“Hey you with the big goals and dreams of change and adventure… Just so you know, the moment you stop being scared and step out into the unknown, those vivid what-ifs that you just practiced in your mind? Yeah, that’s just the half of it. Do yourself a favor and skip the whole thing. Stay here in the comfortable and familiar. You’re safe. You’re happy. This is as good as it’s going to get. Why do you want to throw it all away now? Easy… That’s it … Keep backing away slowly.”

And then we retreat into a false sense of security, refusing to budge. Somehow believing that we 1) had a choice, and 2) certainly made the right one.

Yet, in truth, change never waits for our permission to do its work. No matter how hard we push back or how cleverly we hide in hopes of stumping change, it yells ready-or-not-here-I-come every time, sniffs us out and propels us forward, regardless of how deeply we dig in our heels.

We all know that, in reality, life is all about change. In effect, life IS change. We’ve experienced it all day, every day since day one. So, after all this time, why can’t don’t we just get on board, feel the wind in our hair, throw up our hands and enjoy the ride … oh, and by the way, save a lot of valuable energy, time, health, money and peace of mind along the way?

I truly believe that every time we make even an inch of progress in overcoming the fear monsters, we weaken them and increase our own strength.

I once asked my SCUBA instructor what I should do if I saw a shark while diving. He told me that the best thing to do is to remain calm because sharks sense fear. Then he said IF a shark should become too curious and verge on aggression, the best thing to do as a diver is to – are you ready for this? – Swim. Toward. The Shark.

That blew me away.

What a powerful analogy for facing our fears. When fear gets too close, too curious, and tries to send us swimming for shore, the best thing we can do is look it in the eye, swim toward it, and watch it scurry into the deep.

I believe that’s how we do it; how we, once and for all, kick fear to the curb. Little by little, one day at a time. And one day soon, the fear monsters will give it up and swim out of sight for good. Then, we will surface the victors, feel the sun on our faces, and welcome the possibilities.

Author: Swimming Toward the Shark