Bits that work for me today

[Beany Boo]

Thank you guys,

11. I purchased a meditation stool. Apparently your legs need to be below the level of your hips to breath properly and sit in alignment during (Zazen) meditation.

[oak]

Beany is something special.

So true.

[Beany Boo]

Thanks Oak,

12. Dopamine (satisfaction neurotransmitter) production decreases 10% every decade affecting mood and physical movement. Pilates has helped me discover that maintaining my balance as I get older reduces anxiety, like significantly. Lowering and broadening the bar for what will satisfy me every day is vital. Also, there’s less in the tank so I need to choose more carefully. And sleep to let it refill.

And when I feel dissatisfied I don’t lean into it. I let it coast.

[Beany Boo]

13. I automatically assume I’m going to fail. In that event, I might as well relax and enjoy myself, do things I want. Ironically, I start failing at failing. I end up being kind to anyone who fears failure, which is most. Then it all just unravels (in a good way).

[rivergirl]

Hi Beany,

Thank you for sharing these bits.

12. resonates very much with me as an area where I struggle to maintain consistency.

I'm wondering what you mean by this sentence: And when I feel dissatisfied I don’t lean into it. I let it coast.

And now I'm craving black plums and thinking of William Carlos Williams.

rg

[Beany Boo]

My theory is, when you feel dissatisfied rather than stay there, it feels safer to escalate it and try and reach some form of I guess ‘negative’ satisfaction. Catastrophizing, self-blaming, attention seeking or getting a fix; anything that brings it to a head.

I think perhaps a child’s dissatisfaction is unbearable to a neglectful or emotionally distant parent. Unbearable, or that must be denied; for the parent’s safety. The child becomes an adult who finds their own dissatisfaction intolerable or shamefully needy or radioactive.

Coasting I suppose is letting dissatisfaction be, like an undeniable stink, that only needs to be aired. I’m almost certain, what is aired is something others would care deeply about.

It’s much easier to experience your own substance if you’re responding to your real urges, in the amount and form in which they present. Coasting would also mean letting others in on the experience, in a way they determine, not you.

Let them make sense of it on their own.

[rivergirl]

Thank you for the explanation, Beany. I had to read it twice but I think I understand.

I think sometimes I may escalate my dissatisfaction because I want it to get so bad that I have to take a drastic action, or that someone else will take action to save me (I don't think anyone will actually save me, but I sometimes have a childlike wish that someone can and will.)

[Beany Boo]

Thank you for reading it twice.

I think you definitely understood.

I also think you’ve said something momentous about being saved.

You’ve got to arrive at (or keep returning to) the place where saving is available and be ready for someone to save you in their own way; many times.

I may not have made sense. It happens.

[Beany Boo]

14. Feeling less than complete shame. The habit is to react with overwhelming shame. The shift is saying, “Yeah... I don’t have to do that.”

Sometimes that’s leaning out when I feel shame. Sometimes it’s feeling half as much as I “should”. The effect there is that shame creates worst case scenarios. If you’re only at half speed, the scenarios aren’t as intense.

Less drama, more vitality.

Also nobody is punishing you for feeling a reasonable, right-sized amount.

The secret is knowing you can dial it down yourself; even in the face of triggers.

You still have a worst fear, but you’re not paralyzed.

[Beany Boo]

15. Not that it helps particularly but from my own experience I suspect indecision and risk aversion are symptoms of anxiety/depression. On top of that posing only choices that are out of reach is symptomatic.

The following is not a prescription. I’m just painting a picture;

My own response to those symptoms is to give myself say, 30 opportunities to take manageable, littler risks. I don’t set the risks; its just a case of I’ll know them when I see them. Then I list the risk in hindsight. The idea is to build awareness and a tolerance to risk. That creates the conditions for those bigger choices; hopefully on my own terms.

So far the littler risks are things like, standing up for myself slightly more, not reacting to questions I can’t answer, allowing moments where I accept what I want to be possible, walking around without my ‘good guy’ mask on and letting people behave messily and flawed.

The most notable benefit so far, is a greater tolerance to that paranoid tension that seems to permeate the air.