Review of my 2011

There's a lot of reviews of 2011 going around on my Dashboard today, and I realized that it's the last day of the year (I tend to not be too aware of the date or day it is--even though I'm really good at remembering things like birthdays and anniversaries).

My 2011 was unique in that it has been the first year during which I've spent most of my time in Brazil--11 months in all. I moved here in 2009, but I've spent a lot of time in the US since then. It's been rather lonely here this year, but there have been tradeoffs that have made up for that somewhat.

It has been the first year I've felt myself emerging from the cocoon of motherhood identity. The last six years, most of the time I was either pregnant or dealing with a baby. With no plans to have another, this past year I've felt like I'm starting to vaguely redefine who this person, this "I" is, when I'm not defined by motherhood. It's pretty nebulous at this point, but it feels refreshing making the exploration--like coming home, or waking up. For me, knowing who I am isn't that important, but the search for it is everything.

It is also the first year I finally committed myself to writing, and putting hours in every day on it. My breakthrough came in large part to joining two flash fiction groups online, which gave me something to be accountable to, and which helped exercise those brain muscles that have to do with visualizing a complete story from beginning to end and actually manifesting it. I think writing many pieces under 1000 words helped me see that I could actually finish this never-ending novel I've been working on for literally years. Going through the submission-rejection-occasional acceptance process has also helped me release fear about that whole other side of what happens when you finish a piece.

The rockiest aspect of 2011 has had to do with my marriage. My husband and I have never fought so much as we have this year, and I don't think I've ever fantasized about divorce more. But I take it as a good sign that things are being brought to the surface--as well as us coming upon our Saturn marriage square, the "seven year itch"--and I can either let it fall apart, or I can make my intentions and see the problems as opportunities for growth in self and my ability to relate to others.

The best thing about 2011 has been watching my older son be 4 and my younger son be 1.

Happy New Year!!!!!!

Mini-rant about blogger

What the #**$& is going on with blogger?! I can't even tell what blogs I'm following any longer because any new ones from the past two months don't show up no matter how many times I add, and old ones that I unfollowed months ago still appear on my list. I guess at least it makes me not take anything personally when it appears that someone has un-followed my blog, since I see a different number every day and sometimes I see a person counted multiple times.

Anyhow, from me to you, blogger, it's hard to get too angry since you're a free platform, but geez. It's been months--get it together please!

44-hour water fast results

I've just completed my first bucket list item: #16, a 36-hour water fast. Actually I fasted for 44 hours, simply because I went to sleep at around 35 hours and got up at 43.

I did add probably about a teaspoon of Himalayan sea salt to warm water throughout the day yesterday, I added a drop of tea tree oil to my water, and I brushed my teeth with toothpaste. Because those add taste to water, some people might say it wasn't a strict water fast. But enough perfectionism.

I'd wanted to fast for longer than 24 hours this time (I've only done 24-hour fasts before) because according to conventional fasting wisdom, it's only after 24 hours that the body begins to detox. Prior to that, the body's enzymes are still involved with digestion. At 24 hours (sooner if you've been active/exercising--I did 45 min cardio the 1st day, 30 min slow yoga the 2nd when I was frickin tired) the energy reserved for digestion is freed to work on whatever problems your body deems most important. This is the theory behind fasting as a cure for chronic disease--you slowly retrace and then expunge the toxins built up over time.

So what toxins did I expunge? Well, when I started, I had the beginnings of a sore throat, and that's gone now. My main reason why I went on this fast was because I've had a yeast infection for three weeks, extended probably because of a couple of diet slips (it started after pity sex followed by two broas and then in the following weeks, banana bread (made with this recipe, substituting wheat flour with gluten-free cassava flour)--the banana was too much for my system, though. And then I discovered that cashews were also a no-no.)

I still feel slightly yeast-y, but it's subsided. I'm crossing my fingers for it not to flare up again now that I've started eating. I can tell I still have some psychological issues that might be related to the yeast and my husband, and I'll keep working on that in my meditation space in days to come.

While I was fasting, I got so tired and fuzzy-headed that I didn't much want to sit at the computer and work on the novel. So I printed out the whole thing and am beginning to read it, trying to pretend I didn't write it. It's amazing how much resistance I get in to actually facing my own work. Anyhow, I'm psyched because it's almost finished, aside from some major edits and needing to fill in scenes from two chapters that are only sketched out. That'll be done in draft #2. It's good also to get to do something that doesn't involve extensive sitting, which also might be responsible for extending the yeast infection.

I've stopped writing flash fiction for the two groups I was in--FlashXer on Yahoo groups, and Pam Casto's Flashfiction-W--in order to focus on my novel for the next couple months.

How we get what we want

This is our rooster Galileo, who has been hypnotized by putting his beak against a line I drew on the floor. He'll lie there and stare at the line supposedly up to 30 minutes, although we got him to get up before we could test that.

So this is a post about goal-setting--drawing a line for ourselves to follow.

After writing yesterday's TMI post, I thought a follow-up would be good so that isn't the first post any newcomers might read on my blog. It actually helped me writing that stuff down--both analyzing what was going on with me and suggesting a couple of intentions of where I wanted to go with it--towards forgiveness and healing.

So today I woke up without my anger, without itching, and most of my neck pain gone. Unfortunately, I also woke up with an incredibly painful sore throat. This is odd considering the amount of antifungals I've been taking, but I take it as a sign that things are moving--after all, the pelvis and the throat are related energetically as well as anatomically, so removing a blockage from one will often create more blockage on the other side. Both of them are related to creativity, so removing these blocks are important for maximizing one's artistic potential.

We get what we want through visualizing an intention, but that's not the only component--we also have to get out of resistance to having that thing we want. Because every external goal will require an internal change in order to be the person who can have that thing we're asking for. And if we aren't ready to make that change, we can't achieve the goal.

This is why analyzing how I feel, along with expressing an intention, is so effective. Identifying a pattern in oneself is the first step to change--perhaps more than halfway even, because innate body and spirit wisdom will take care of the rest.

For a long time I've been visualizing completing my novel. That's what coaches will tell you to do--see the cover, the bookstores, etc. But I forgot to add the part that in order to finish it, I also have to visualize changing the parts of me that are scared of finishing, scared of hard work, prone to escapism. There's pleasure and comfort in all of those factors, otherwise I wouldn't be wallowing in them all the time. But I added to my visualization that I would like to change internally by being courageous, allowing imperfection, loving being in the present. I would like to become the person that can have this finished novel--and the first draft done by the end of December. :)

one step at a time

Pity sex is not good for writing

My libido tanked upon having my first child, and it's never been the same. My husband gets upset when we don't have sex, so I had "pity sex" last week and afterwards, developed both a stiff, sore neck that can barely move and a yeast infection from hell. Both of which have made me very angry and unable to get into my WIP, particularly the romantic plot line.

So I want to talk about how the physical body reflects our relationship to the world...

There are two main ways the lungs breathe: 

1. into the chest: the central tendon is the fixed point, the lumbars are stabilized, and the diaphragm’s crura pull down. The sympathetic nervous system is activated—the part of us that handles stress, the fight or flight, where we become alert enough to be ready for action. 
2. into the belly: the ribs lift free from the belly, with the crura as the fixed point, and the central tendon descends.  This kind of breath stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system—where we rest and relax. 

Ideally, a balance can be found between the two so the lungs are fully engaged and we can reap the psychological empowerment that comes with optimal use of our physical forms.  Another way to think about why it’s good to have range of motion for both kinds of breath is that the abdominal breath creates space for oneself, and the chest breath protects it and gives consciousness of limits.  

At around the location of the diaphragm is the solar plexus power center, or third chakra, of the subtle body; this energy center carries information about how we relate to the material world, how we have our power, or not.  Many of our defense mechanisms are located here—how we resist and compete.  When the sympathetic nervous system activates, so does the third chakra; the diaphragm closes down as the body acts to protect its core; energy is pulled in and breath becomes shallow and sharp. When in a more restful, parasympathetic mode, the third chakra allows energy to flow through it and above to higher chakras; its information about power is still used, but not in battle—breath is full and spacious, the aura grows larger, the core expands up and out. 

I've been mainly a chest-breather my whole life, stuck in shallow-breathed fight-or-flight mode long enough that it's almost like I felt I had no right to the air around me. Did the breath or the self-esteem issues arise first? Who knows? But in relation to the world, I did not own my own space.

It's now been 17 days that I've done my "inner conflict resolver reflex" meditation. I can tell my lungs can expand more easily, and my diaphragm feels less tight. More importantly, I can tell that having more breath capacity is affecting me in the ways I mention above--with fuller breath, I'm feeling less like a pariah--less invalidated and needy.

However, I've encountered a problem--I realized that my shallow breath was protecting the placement of my cervical spine and neck muscles, which are slightly twisted in a scoliosis that goes all the way down my spine. Fuller breath is unwinding the central twist, but when it wants to continue unwinding up to my neck, it can't. There is something impeding my neck's ability to be flexible, and accept the changes that come with added breath and space.

According to Louise Hay, neck problems usually mean we're being stubborn about our own concept of a situation and are refusing to see other sides. Yeast infections show stress in the sexual space--that there's something not quite comfortable about a woman's sexual experience. Often the issue is lack of emotional boundaries, and unexpressed anger and frustration.

So I've been completely pissed off that my husband doesn't have any idea or sympathy about how horrible this yeast infection is that my emotional side tells me is 95% his fault. I've also been furious with the porn industry which created this view among men that intercourse should take hours and hours and one needs to engage in every position every time. When actually, research shows that couples find sex that's between 3-13 minutes the most satisfying. Not only does having sex for 2+ hours every time waste precious nighttime hours for me to do my writing, but it starts to hurt, meaning there are numerous tiny stress tears in the sensitive vaginal tissues--creating a breeding ground for yeast.

I've been so angry that I have this horrible itchy cootch all f*cking day for days on end that I really don't want to forgive anyone. Even though the person it's punishing most is myself, and that's what my neck is telling me. Taking space back from the world is a great thing to do, but with it comes responsibility--so now I have to take that responsibility and forgive the people who I see impinging on my space, and myself for allowing it to be impinged upon. Either that, or prepare to spend a lot of time like this:

Thank you for reading my treatise/rant.

Dream as story resource

This morning I had a nightmare that I was taking classes somewhere and had to walk there every day from my apartment. One day leaving class I ran into Mr. Beansprout, an ex-boyfriend, who was teaching at that school. He started stalking me and planning to kill me.

He was so certain that he would succeed, and was such a master of creating fear and intimidation, that he even told me exactly the day that I had better watch out. In the dream, he was a serial killer and had already murdered several other women. Then a group of my friends were hanging out with me and telling me how I could prevent anything bad from happening to me--all I would need to do was stay away from class on the day he told me to watch out. Somehow, though, I knew he was going to trick me into leaving the apartment, and then he would come and find me...

Not a nice dream. Mr. Beansprout remains at the top of my list of people I really regret dating. I've often thought about Jean-Paul Sartre's play, Huis Clos, or in English, No Exit--a story about three people in a love-hate triangle in hell, who will torture each other with their f-ed up relationships for all eternity--and I've wondered what two other people would I least want to be stuck in a room with for all eternity? The third person always changes for me, but #2 is always Mr. Beansprout.

But the interesting things I can take from this dream with regard to story-writing:

1) Mr. Beansprout makes an excellent archetype for a character. Because he's not just a one-dimensional bad guy; he's someone I actually did love, as disgusting as the thought is. The way he sticks in my astral craw shows the unplumbed depths to his character that could add all sorts of shades of personality to not only the bad guy in a story, but anyone else the protagonist relates to and has strong feelings about.

2) The way one is stalked by a dream-monster is a good way to think about how it's good to always make things worse for your character, to build that energy of being perpetually hounded by a problem that doesn't disappear until the final resolution. In my dream, I came up with surefire ways to avoid my fate. But like in the story of Oedipus, the subconscious mind can outwit the conscious one, and it will certainly come up with ways to ensure that the confrontation does happen. I hear that recurring dreams only end when one truly does confront the thing one fears; in the same way, all you need to do is pile problems in front of your protagonist and the story will resolve itself when the inevitable confrontation takes place.

Finding the formula that works

For many years, I've only been able to produce anything with external pressure of some sort--a class, a deadline, some imaginary terrible thing that might happen to me if I don't finish something on time. When I finally realized that I didn't actually have to get good grades or produce things to please people, it was such a relief--but then I found that I hadn't the internal pressure, the sense of motivation for my own creations, to make anything happen either. 

I condemned myself for that, my inability to create solely from internal pressure. 

I think now that some combination of the two is most effective for me. Taking a class once in a while, having a few people who I've told I'm going to do something to maintain accountability, I think helps. And then the internal pressure I think is actually there when we remove the inertia--all the blocks to doing what makes us passionate. Then a natural movement spirals out of the soul, responding and mirroring the external pressures, and stuff is born.

I went into competition and invalidation last week when I read about the author who writes 10,000 words a day. I'm trying to see how everything that triggers me negatively is an opportunity, and the best way to make it feel like an opportunity and not some kind of egregious punishment is to feel grateful to that trigger. It was good...someday I might be able to reach 10,000 words, but for now I've made a goal of doing 2,000 a day, and I actually like that number much better than the 1667 I was working with before (which would produce 50,000 words in a one month--it was my Nanowrimo formula). Somehow, when it's 1667, I'll write 1700 or so and then stop. But when it's 2000, I focus less on those last 33 words and it's easy to do a few hundred more. It also seems to be that more I write on any given day, the faster it gets as the word count gets higher, because I can see more of the story at one time and thus can go much deeper.

I've also been thinking of taking a break from both my flash fiction groups. I love writing flash fiction because finishing pieces makes me happy, and with 1000 words only it's easy to see an entire concept and execute it very quickly. But it has been distracting from the novel, and I am suddenly seeing the possibility that with a concerted push I could get the first draft done fairly quickly. I am hoping that I've learned enough from my half-year of writing flash fiction that I can apply some of the lessons to my novel--being able to see large chunks and execute, I mean. 

I have a tendency to be too focused on what I don't have, to the detriment of appreciating what I do have. So in my daily meditations, I pared down my goals visualizations to two things: finishing the novel, and validating my support system/relationships. There is no need for me to put energy into forming new relationships and community, and there's no need for me to focus on writing and publishing short stories; those have been scattering my energy and putting much of it in a future-time longing state. There is plenty of love for me at home, and everything to gain if I put all the fire into my one truly important project.

Chiasma and story

I first heard the term “chiasma” in a movement class taught by Hubert Godard, a French Rolfer who has revolutionized the Structural Integration modality by emphasizing function over form.  He described chiasma as the state of being fully in the five integrated senses, without the separation language creates between an experience and its interpretation.  It’s rare to experience this state—although all of us have, as babies.

It’s the lack of integration of the senses, someone being “out of the body,” that creates behavior patterns, in physical movement as well as emotional response.  Healing usually occurs only when subcortical levels of the brain are reached so a person can re-experience something that happened to them, but this time with sensory integration. 

I believe this is why, when we read things we identify with, and more than that--when we write--that we heal at subcortical levels. It's the same concept behind why confession works in Catholicism, or Scientology's auditing--their form of therapy where you tell a story over and over to a witness until the story no longer has emotional charge, and thus the belief system it was attached to ("engram") no longer subconsciously controls the person's behavior. Tell a story, use it as a mirror to see old places in yourself frozen by trauma, and emotions are freed so we can experience more fully what we are feeling NOW rather than recycled versions of past feelings.  

Writing is to the soul like touch is to the body--its linearity gives us a context in our personal abyss and allows us to find where we are, and who we are. There are many people whose inner artistic template mean they heal more through expression in other mediums--art, dance, song--but there is something very special in the act of telling a story in words.

The most imperfect post I've ever writen

Okay, so after my Insecure Addendum I have re-realized that my perfectionism is getting in the way of my productivity. My inner critic has gotten out of control and needs to be kicked in the ass. After a quick google about perfectionism and writing, I found that many, many writers have this same problem. And one of the solutions is to practice bieng imperfect. I have to stop thinking about how people might hate my posts and stuff and just post something so shitty it doesn't even make sense.

My things to try to deal with perfecitonism and writing:

1. do not edit this blog post and do not care
2. write the ending of my novel-in-progress first
3. write in five0minute increments
4. smile to get endorphins going
5. ????

TO MY INNER cRITIC:

Insecure addendum

I already did my post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, but here's another insecure moment.

I have to admit, I am totally a control freak. I've been on a restrictive diet (no grains or sugar) for two years, and I love the feeling of successful deprivation. I just started fasting once a week, and I revel in the tiredness that comes when the low blood sugar hits, as I feel like something good is happening. I stopped wearing glasses and contact lens a year and a half ago to improve my eyesight. I stopped using shampoo on my hair and soap on my body (except hands and privates) a year ago and went to water-only in September, even though I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies which make me hate the feeling of being dirty. Now I've started a breathing exercise with the aim of making my breaths less quantity and better quality, on top of near-daily exercise, yoga, and meditation.

My insecure question is, why can't I make myself write more???? Someone said that there's no such thing as writer's block, only laziness. I think I must be mentally lazy. It's supposed to balance out through doing purification practices and pranayama, but somewhere in there I suppose willpower has got to kick in. Or something. I am just so sick of fighting with myself about this!!!!!!!

I just read this blog post from an author who writes 10,000 words a day. I am embarrassed now, completely embarrassed to share how many words I write per day. So I'm not going to share. I'm going to try some of the things she suggests, but right now I'm feeling so eaten up with mixed admiration and jealousy, I think I have to go meditate.

December Insecure Writer

This is my December post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

If I were to post about my insecurities for the past month, it would probably turn into a novel. A very long, whiny, boring novel that I would immediately consign to the flames of oblivion, even though it would probably be blown back into my face, since oblivion doesn't have flames, to my knowledge. To sum up: after doing a story-a-day challenge in October with my flash fiction group, I've been so burned out that it seems miraculous that I ever wrote a single story my entire life. So November was unproductive on that front. I eked out pages for my novel at about the speed of carving stone with a plastic fork. And I felt really, really bad for the most part; lonely, isolated, resentful of my lack of support system (meaning: I was mad at my husband), and basically, like a cyber-pariah. 

I had a dream a few days ago in which I was a frog in a play (this was after watching Alice Upside Down, a movie that actually deals with a lot of insecurity, and has a disastrous scene with Alice as a frog in her school play), but I'd completely forgotten to memorize the lines for one of the acts, and I had a small dance to perform that I also hadn't practiced for. As my co-actor and I stuttered through our lines, I wanted to sink into the stage floor and never emerge. It seemed an appropriate dream for my November.

Fortunately, I seem to have snapped out of it, mainly due to this breathing exercise I've started doing daily. As it retrains my posture and breathing patterns to be less shallow and protective, I feel better. I feel relieved of my petty, trivial burdens for the time being, although the insecurities I'm left with aren't actually any more comfortable than feeling like a pariah or like a crappy, inefficient writer. They are more the insecurity of not being sure the ground is actually solid underneath me. Since I am on just this tiny speck of a ball in space. I start wondering about world changes, the tension leading up to next December and the end of the Mayan calendar, and I also think about this Earth-like planet that's been discovered and I wonder, if humans really f-ed up the world and I was given an opportunity to go into cryogenic freeze for 600 years while a spaceship brought me to this Keppler 22-b for a chance at a new life, would I go? 

Would you go here? 

How about if it didn't take 600 years? How about if we found a stargate that opened up to this world? I believe we manifest our internal issues, our shadows, into external experiences. It seems frightening to think of such an enormous and utterly blank canvas for a new group of people to start manifesting upon.

I simply remember my favorite things

Writing is one of those things in which less time spent may mean more productivity.

A few days ago I started my bucket list of things I want to do before I die. Some of them are easily achievable; some of them seem impossible. But I decided to work on something from my list every day, and right now I'm doing #50--I'm on the third day of doing an 11+ minute daily meditation called the "inner conflict resolver reflex." It involves five second inhale, five second exhale, and fifteen seconds remaining with the breath out. What I've noticed so far from doing this is that 1) it gets easier the more I do it; and 2) I feel REALLY GOOD afterwards. Like, I feel completely high. All the anxiety and invalidation that tends to collect around my mentally overactive head just disappears.

Then, I sit down at my computer again and don't leave for hours, and my brain gets fuzzy and invalidated again, and I get urges to completely throw out my novel-in-progress, or I despair of ever being able to think of a story idea again.

So it seems pretty obvious how much my sitting posture, which creates hunched shoulders and shallow breath--the posture of a person protecting themselves against attack--can create a mood of invalidation, an expectation of being attacked, or the feeling that there is no space in the world for my work and me.

I've tried using one of these to sit on:

It's a balance disc. But when I sit on it, even though my posture is better, I feel like my butt can't breathe.

My options for seating are pretty limited here in Brazil; ergonomic consumerism hasn't yet arrived here, it seems. So basically I just need to make sure I sit with as relaxed a diaphragm as possible, feeling the box of my core balanced over the bowl of my pelvis, feeling an invisible string pulling my crown up towards the sky and an invisible cord grounding my tailbone down into the earth. And, even more importantly, I need to get up more often and move.

The other thing that compounds the anxiety/depression/invalidation mix from bad posture and shallow breath is that when I feel bad and am sitting at the computer, is that when I feel fuzzy-brained, I tend to start surfing the Internet. This research linking the use of Internet to social isolation is seven years old, but I feel is more relevant than ever; the social isolation and the anxiety feed off of each other, and on top of that, I get less of the readily available human connection that would alleviate the isolation. Those who use the Internet frequently spend an average of 70 minutes less with family, 30 minutes less watching television, and 25 minutes less sleeping. Basically, every minute you spend on the Internet has to come out of some other activity.

So my current solution for writer's block and feeling bad:
1) turn off Internet
2) get up
3) breathe, ground, sense core
4) hang out with fam
5) then back to work!