Mindfulness

Just Sit With It…Or What If I Just Shut Up?!

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

 

So I decided to try just sitting with it this weekend when B and I had 24 hours together. It is hard for me to do because I want answers now, but that said, for the most part I just sat with what is. Sure we had a small talk in which I told him he was damn lucky he had me and that he had better make sure that whatever was looking good on the other side of the fence better be because there were no second chance come backs. Once over it is over forever. His response, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.” So I didn’t, stopped talking, just sat with things and just had a wonderful 24 hours where we had sizzling sex, hiked in the mountains and visited an ancient Native American site along a creek.

I guess this picture looks like I am peeing a river but it really just me laying by it!

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Just sitting with something is difficult. It means not trying to force the issue. Not trying to make things the way you want at all costs. It means you just watch, wait and listen and see what comes to you without anyone involved in the equation while you are sitting. You take time to ponder, weigh all evidence and then don’t act. You just sit with it. For someone like me who takes the bull by the horns and goes into IEP’s and gets what my kids need, well, “inaction” is the opposite of everything I am.

One thing we have decided to do after this weekend is to try to find a different marriage counselor. B will stick with our present couples counselor and will start seeing her alone and I will continue with mine. And while I am pleased that he will be getting individual counseling sometimes I just think that things seem worse with all this counseling going on. Maybe we should just quit. But I don’t think that is an option at this point. I just wish it wasn’t all so hard and try to imagine a day when it isn’t.

Another thing we have done is signed up for a Marriage Encounter weekend in May. This is a Catholic retreat for couples whose relationships are challenged. I am not Catholic so this will be somewhat of a challenge to me. B was raised Catholic for the first 10 years of his life and when he parents were divorced they were forced to leave the church. He is still carrying some of the Catholic guilt with him today.

So all in all, I think sitting with it this weekend was a success. Of course, this means NOT talking about the nitty-gritty or getting into serious discussions. And it felt good not to do that as it feels like that is all we have been doing lately which is making things worse thanks to hurt feelings, sad conversations and misunderstandings. Just shutting up for a while and not saying what was on my mind seemed to help both of us have a lovely time with one another but does this mean I need to go get my jaw wired shut for us to be happy?

JUST SIT WITH IT…another ink perhaps..I think I will just sit with that one for a little while.

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On Making A Decision

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 7 Comments

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Recently I was reading about the effects on our body when we make a decision.  Besides solving problems decision making also has the added benefit of decreasing anxiety and worry. Because making a decision involves setting goals and creating intentional effects it engages the prefrontal cortex which reduces that anxiety you have been carrying around. And because decision making involves a shift in how you perceive the world when this shift happens in calms your limbic system creating a sense of tranquility.

Yet, what about all those times when making a decision feels like it involved two equally difficult or disastrous end points? Well, neuroscientists say to go ahead and “make a good enough” decision. Instead of trying to make the perfect decision “the good enough” decision will decrease stress and make you feel like you are more in control. In fact, just the act of making that decision will give your brain a pleasure boost so that skipping your way through the day seems like a real possibility instead of just dragging your butt somewhere.

So there you go. Make a “good enough” decision…stick with it…and you will find yourself under less stress and feeling good about yourself and your place in the world!

Gone Missing Two

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

One of the most beautiful cities in America has got to be San Diego, California. We spent the weekend here because Gracie had a swim meet. The city is warm, clean, and has a wonderful mass transportation system. Architecture here is widely held in esteem and The Gaslight District teems with great places to eat and shops that beckon you in to spend those hard-earned greenbacks.

The aqua blue water sparkles and when you head out onto the open seas often you will find yourself surrounded by super pods of dolphins who love to leap up as if in a synchronized ballet as they chase your boat. Big yachts and little dinghies all line the piers and make me sea sick just watching them as they bob up and down. Yes, unfortunately, I am one of the Dramamine girls.

I had picked up B at LAX airport and we headed down to San Diego together. He had flown in from Florida where he had been on business. The next morning we had the car brought up from the valet so we could put our luggage in it and head off to the event which was a ten minute walk away. When we returned five hours later the car was still sitting there…strange.

B goes up to the valet stand.

“Can I have the keys to my car?” he asks handing them his ticket.

“Is that your car?”

“Yes it is”

“Well, sir, you have the keys. That is why we did not move it.”

“No, I don’t have the keys. You do. You brought my car around so we could put our luggage in it. I never had the keys. Your valet kept them. They were never in my possession.”

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And so it went. No one had the keys to the car. Not a soul. All 200 sets on the board were checked. All 200 sets were pushed so lights would come on. No keys for 30 minutes. ANYWHERE. I emptied my purse just in case. That was a major ordeal but I did find a pair of missing eyeglasses, a coupon for a free car wash, and $7.38 cents in change; so it was not all in vain. But still no keys. Just as the discussion turned to hiring  a locksmith the trunk suddenly popped open…seems the keys had fallen on the floor and had been kicked under the desk. Keys found…crisis solved.

We headed back to LAX where B had left the car. The day he left Los Angeles he was almost late after being in standstill traffic for close to an hour. He raced into the airport,found a rooftop parking space and ran inside but now five days later there was no car to be found. ANYWHERE.

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You have to understand there are a total of seven parking garages at LAX.  Each garage consists of approximately five floors. We started at Garage 4 the one he swore he parked at. He turned white as a sheet when it was obvious that his car was not there and started muttering under his breath. I remained calm.We went through each and every floor hitting the horn button on the key fob. Nothing. Okay, well maybe it was Garage 6. He was in a hurry after all and it was also a garage that served American Airlines. I began to silently meditate.

We drove to the top open air parking where he swore he had been. Nothing. Same procedure…hitting the horn button as we went up and down floor after floor. Again nothing. B is more distressed while I remained calm and murmuring words of love and support. We have now been searching for 45 minutes and racking up fees as we go through each gigantic garage.

Garage Number 5 was our next place to explore. It didn’t have a rooftop but we went through it anyway. No car. B insisted that it was in the area but we had begun to wonder if perhaps it had been stolen by this time. We went to the attendant and inquired if they had anyway of checking what cars were parked where. Seems they did…only you had to know the license plate number and B did not since it was a company car.

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Enough was enough. By this time we all needed to pee. Badly. So we got out of the car, found our way to the bathroom and then joined B as he re-traced his steps. He swore he had come in through a walk-way over the street and when we took the escalator up there it was. We walked back through it and came to an open air parking garage and after searching a minute or so we located the car in a space that seemed to be inaccessible from Garages 4,5, or 6. There wasn’t even a proper marking of the space. WTH?

I have to say I was proud of myself. Whereas in the past I might have gotten frustrated and upset matching B’s angst as it rose. Instead, I made a point to be supportive and calm. While in the past I may have said something I may have later regretted like, “This is why you always take a picture of your parking space so you can find it again,” I remained mute of the helpful advice. So while pieces of me have gone missing (read the post prior to this) perhaps this is a good thing. And when trying to find and put the pieces of ME back together I think some empty spaces may be prudent so they can be filled with some kinder and gentler fragments to complete the puzzle that is the new and improved ME. The ME I CHOOSE to be.

 

Jigsaw Puzzle of Life

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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We never enjoyed doing jigsaw puzzles until this summer when my 90 yo aunt introduced us to them while we sat on the summer porch looking over the lake. After that, Gracie and I were hooked.

There is nothing quite like time spent doing a jigsaw. Life slows down, your senses are heightened and magic begins to happen as an image slowly begins to form. All that hard work and in the end you see the results unlike so many things we do in life in which we never “see” what we actually do. But the best thing about the jigsaw that happens is the time that Gracie and I spend together. We sit in near silence except for the “eureka” that is voiced triumphantly when we find an elusive piece.And sometimes in this quiet time a different type of magic occurs and little bits of conversation emerge that never would otherwise.

“Mom,” she says with a sense of pain and frustration that catches the words in her soft little voice, “Celeste (her nemesis) asked me in front of my friends, “Can you see out of your eyes?”

I give a snort of indignation.

“So what did you say?”

“I told her, what, do you see me with a white cane or something? How can you ask such a stupid question?”

“Well done. I hate when people try to get our goat and I am proud that you didn’t let her.”

These are the types of conversations that my tween and I have as we stare at 1,000 little pieces scattered over one small card table. Brief, sweet, insightful…I hear things I normally wouldn’t have as we sit in the silence together. It’s perfect amount for a 12 yo who is not sure she needs her mother anymore and enough for me not to put my foot in my mouth and say something unnecessary or unneeded. And in that, I realize our words together are a lot like those jigsaw pieces…small, misshapen, but often fitting together until a picture is created. And that is enough for both of us right now.

A No Negativity Day

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

urlPema Chodron

One of the things that Pema Chodron talks about on her Udemy lecture is exceedingly difficult but excitingly profound.

Chodron says that once a week we should strive to not talk or act out of a place of negativity and that by refusing to act out of negativity it creates a sense of heightened awareness. This is especially true to observe in regards to ourselves. None of that negative self-talk (I should have know, I should have done better, I am so stupid…or whatever it is you say to yourself that is done in a negative state of mind) is helpful; its only destructive. Chodron states that when we engage in negative self talk we are just throwing kerosine on the fire of our soul.

When you are going through an “almost divorce” it is difficult to not engage in self-talk that is defeating and detrimental. The “what-if’s” and accusations of all that is wrong with the relationship and YOU are difficult to not take on when a monsoon of sadness and negativity is swirling around you. But in order to see things with a new perspective and to gain our grounding we must.

So let’s challenge each other to each live tomorrow (Friday) within the positive instead of the negative. Then on Saturday we can go back to being as negative as we desire LOL!

Getting Back To Life

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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When I started this blog I made a promise to myself that I would write everyday and have pretty much stuck to that come hell or high water. I made this commitment out of a primal need to express myself after B had talked about a “maybe” divorce. This was/is my safe place to vent those things weighing heavily on my mind. It was/is a place I could use to say the words I needed to say but not always to B because they were too painful and raw. Blogging was my escape from life in the sense I could look at my life as if I was an outsider and consider it as such. I thank everyone who has read what I have written and given me a nudge, a kind word, or pointed things out that I needed to consider. So many people have helped me on this journey.

Recently however, I have decided I must get back in the game of my life. In my “real” life I write magazine articles and since the “maybe divorce” I put those assignments on hold. I also stopped working on the three novels and a child’s picture book that are all in various forms of disarray. While the blog has been helpful in that it helped ensure that I didn’t check out all together, it has also taken up time that I probably need to use to complete what I started and finish SOMETHING… ANYTHING. So while I will continue writing, maybe still on a almost daily basis, I have decided to allow myself a little flexibility. We shall see what happens!

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Of course, now that I have written this I will probably blog more than ever…go figure!

 

 

Losing It

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 4 Comments

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As you know I am desperately trying to curb my yelling habit and for the most part I am succeeding. I had only yelled once in over eight weeks which in itself is amazing but this weekend I lost it.

It isn’t easy raising teenagers especially those with autism. Andre does everything he can to push my buttons. While incredibly smart he also uses that keen intelligence of his to manipulate those around him and it is draining. This weekend after repeatedly asking him to hang up his clothes he told me, “I don’t have hangers.” I responded by going to his closet and started throwing every hanger he had out saying repeatedly “Here’s a hanger, here’s a hanger” until I had thrown at least 30 into the middle of his room. Then I decided that he could go through all the shirts and get rid of those that no longer fit him and took all those shirts off their hangers and threw them in the middle of his room until his closet was bare. During this time he was intentionally saying “push your button” things that just fueled the fire; the embers rising swift and hot like my temper.

I hate when I lose it with my kids. It makes me feel so small. It makes me beat myself up about not being a parent that my children deserve and certainly not one whose behavior I want them to emulate to their own brood when they become adults. Losing it with my children feels like it diminishes my capacity to be a fully functional human being and that in losing it I also sacrifice part of my own humanity in the process; something I can ill afford. I hate it.

Mindfulness has helped change many of my reactions to situations but what do you do when mindfulness dissipates in the heat of the moment?

I am learning to apologize and pray that the others involved grant me grace. Then I sit in the moment of shame, observe it, then let it go. For they tell me that the only way we can feel diminished is through self-talk in which we berate ourselves for our numerous failures. Frankly, that kind of talk doesn’t get you very far in life and I’ve done enough of it to know. Dispassionate observation of what occurred and pausing to recognize what happened and then letting it go is my only option.  Then I just forge ahead with the belief that I can and will try to do better.Truly it is the only thing I can do.