Tag: health

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Struggles With Inertia – 500/1

I’m a little late to this round of 500 words a day for 30 days. I want to lie and say I’ve been writing, that I’ve been keeping up and I just haven’t been posting. And while I did write once in my journal (it may even have been 500 words) I certainly haven’t been “keeping up.” My writing has been waning for a while now, both personally and what I post. I’ve been having a block and that block is starting my new website. I have tons of things I want to add to it, but I just keep on piling up ideas and never fleshing them out, and certainly not starting the website. At least I bought the domain and month ago or so, so that’s started. RevelLivingTherapy.com coming soon.

I try not to get down on myself, but that’s part of the problem. Years ago I would get down on myself so much I hated myself. I thought about killing myself most days for 15 years. I’m way past that now, but one way I did was to give myself a “break” and trying to “accept myself as I am.” These are good and worthy things. The issues comes when that is the default. See, I’ve allowed myself to become lazy. Shoot, who am I kidding, I’ve always been lazy. I guess that’s one of the things I need to accept about myself. So knowing that, what do I do?

Put a schedule, of sorts in place. Focus on what I want and where I want to be, on what I love. Focus on being loving to myself. That last part was huge for me in learning to get over self hate. The question I started asking myself was, “Is this loving to myself”? That really helped whenever that internal struggle to do something unhealthy came up. And so now I’ll use it to add healthy behaviors into my life, rather than just remove unhealthy ones. So I guess this is my commitment 500 Words a day for the next 30 days.

I’m going to add to that 30 days of working out. As I said, I’ve gotten lazy, and my body doesn’t like it. I woke up at 5:15 am this morning. In pain. There’s always some level of pain in my body these days. I have back issues from hyperlordosis and neck issues from a flattened out cervical spine. Then there’s my right shoulder pain from swimming and wrist pain from lack of flexibility. I also have a heel spur on my right foot, knee pain in my left knee and, my most recent acquisition, right hip pain from a partial dislocation. These are all issue stemming from not caring for myself. And it’s not that I don’t exercise, although I don’t do it as often as I used to. I believe most of it is from not warming up properly and not doing enough to balance out my body when the activities I do tend to focus on one side of the muscle groups (hello, acroyoga).

So here I am, recommitting. The 500 words a day is a good reminder to me to get out and do something. It’s 6:30 this morning and I’ve already done a quick stretch and written this. Here’s to a productive rest of the day, too.

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Taint Ache

So I’m getting older. That’s a fact of life. But what really snuck up on me in the past few years is how lazy I’ve gotten. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been lazy. It’s the curse of my life, but I’ve always been fairly physically fit. What I haven’t been keeping up with is my cardio. I noticed this the other day while doing standing acro with a friend. We went through a series of poses starting with High Bird (think Dirty Dancing lift) and then transitioning through several others where I’m supporting her over my head with one arm. When I set her down, I noticed that my heart was racing and that I was short of breath. It seemed weird to me because, while those lifts do take strength, I wouldn’t have thought it would affect my heart that way. Both my blood pressure and cholesterol have been borderline for a few years now and I’m not OK with that. Yes, diet can change those things, but I also believe that exercise is helpful. That said, I decided to take a spin class.

And Away We Go

I’ve been to spinning classes before, but it’s been a while. Like, not this decade. Or the one before that. So it was with some apprehension that I went. I’ve read stories about middle-aged men who tried to exercise like they did when they were younger and they ended up having a heart attack. To avoid being carried out on a stretcher, I decided not to go all out my first time back. It seemed appropriate, but also amusing to me, that I was more worried about the embarrassment of being carried out on a stretcher than the actual proposed heart attack. Someday I’m going to have to reassess my priorities.

I check in to the health club and said good-bye to my sweetie, ’cause, you know, I may never see her again. I remembered that the class is supposed to be popular and that I needed to reserve a spot at the front desk. I turn around and head back. As I go to sign in, I see several people have already done so, but it looked awkward. Instead of signing up one, two, three and so on, they signed up for 18, 32, 11 and other random numbers. I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t know what that meant, so I signed up for 16. Why not.

I get in the classroom and as I’m setting up my chosen bike I realize that all the bikes are numbered and it’s possible people signed up the way they did because that was the bike number they wanted to use. Now I’m uncomfortable. I look for bike 16 and I don’t like where it is in the room, so I decide to stay where I am. “No big deal”, I tell myself. If someone says something to me I can plead ignorance, smile nicely and offer to move. Meanwhile, I eye everyone who comes in and wait to see if they are going to say something to me. As if impending death weren’t bad enough, now I have added awkward social anxiety to deal with.

The Instructor

Since I’m already watching everyone come in, I give them all the once over to see if I can actually do this or if I am well and truly screwed. I think I’m good. Aside from the very fit people, there are some older folks, some heavier folks, and some heavier and older folks. Then I see the instructor, Vlad, come in and he appears to be in his mid-to-late-50’s or so. I’m feeling better until I look at his legs. I’m fairly sure Vlad did some steroids, just from the waist down. I’m not sure how he worked that out, but I’m fairly certain that’s what happened. Once again, I see myself being carried out the door.

The class is about to start and a woman walks near me. She doesn’t say anything, but silently stalks around me, eyeing me the whole time. She fidgeted with the bike on my right a bit, then decided she doesn’t like it. She goes to the bike on my left, fidgets with that one for a minute and finally sets up there. I’m fairly certain this was the person whose bike I stole. I feel a little bad, but honestly, the room is set up with almost 50 bikes. There’s about 15-20 of us in the room. If she can’t vocalize anything to me, she can deal.

In The Beginning

Vlad starts the class. He gives this spiel about “not holding back” and that “you’re only cheating yourself.” I know better. By being in this class at all I am already cheating death, so I decide I can take some liberty with his instructions. Half turns, full turns, whatever. I’m just going to play it by ear and if I have to pretend I turned the damn dial, I will. Music starts thumping, spin cycling’s greatest hits, I think. Whatever. The beat is pretty good and judging the music takes my mind off what I’m doing. Yes, all my mindful techniques did get shot to hell today. So sue me.

We’re ten minutes in and I feel good. I remember sweating more when I took these classes. I remind myself I’m not out of the water yet. We start doing hills. It starts to get to me, but I wasn’t stupid enough to put a lot of tension on the bike. The singer starts saying something like, “Yeah, I’m gonna do you hard!” The fuck are we listening to, Vlad?? That astonishment got me through the rest of the hills.

The “Taint Bounce”

Then we did what I’m going to fondly call the “taint bounce.” In case you’re wondering, the “taint” is technically called the “perineum.” If you don’t know what the perineum is a) you’re probably a guy and 2) you’re on your own to look it up. I’m not sure if this move was developed by Vlad or some other evilly inspired spin instructor, but we were spinning at about half speed, maybe a little faster when Vlad instructed, “Stand!” I got through about two rotations and he shouted, “Sit!” On and on it went, stand, sit, stand, sit, stand. Basically, we’re just bouncing up and down on our (hard as rock) seats and trying to pedal at the same time. God knows for how long this went on. All I’m sure of is that I’m feeling rubbed fucking raw and I’m not happy about it.

The Trooper

We get some blessed relief and just spin easily for a while. My butt is sore but if I get it in a good spot I can’t feel the pain. I consider that I’m probably not going to be comfortable sitting for the next two days. Screw it. It’s good for my health, right? Vlad says we’re going to start spinning faster and gets off his bike to change the music. Seemed weird, but he puts on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I’m cool with that and, to be honest, I was shocked at how well it went with trying to get my legs to move so quickly in little tiny circles. It really was fucking great. I felt like I was flying. I take a moment and wonder at the fact that I still have fast-twitch fibers in my legs. Who knew? They haven’t been used in decades. While I was marveling to see those puppies back in action, I suddenly realized I knew the song that was being covered. Iron Maiden. The Trooper. Sweet! Even though it’s an instrumental, the lyrics immediately pop into my head. “You’ll take my life, but I’ll take yours, too!” The woman whose bike I stole glares at me. I think I may have said that out loud. Now I’ve been upgraded from asshole to psycho. Oh well, she already hates me, I’m just going to enjoy the music.

It Was Short Lived

MORE taint bounces?!? Are you fucking kidding me, Vlad? Different singers are now doing each other over the speakers. What the fuck? Some small, dim part of me realizes that I decided yesterday to be less judgmental of people and things. The therapist in me pokes his head up and I start ruminating on my childhood. I made some great progress, therapeutically speaking, until I realized I was dripping in sweat. Literally dripping. I don’t think there was a dry spot on my shirt. When the hell did that happen? All life changing revelations have been forgotten in sweaty wonder.

The End

The class comes to a close. We stretch for about 30 seconds. I follow the group of people to the towel station so we can clean the puddles of sweat off our bikes. The person in front of me grabs hers and turns around. It’s my bike neighbor who hates me. She glares at me, but I’m used to it by now. To get around each other we each cut to my right, then my left. Finally, I go left and, with a parting glare, she goes right.

My legs are feeling unsteady as I walk towards the lockers. I notice a pretty girl looking at me from a treadmill. I know she’s either amazed/appalled at how sweaty I am or staring at my tattoos, but I smile to myself anyway. As I’m enjoying the look, I dimly realize that my unsteady legs have walked me directly into the path of another treadmill. I somehow manage to avoid both the treadmill and falling on my face, which I’m sure would have resulted in my being carried out on a stretcher…

I know my ass is going to be sore for the next few days, but I made it through class. More importantly, I didn’t die. Yay me.

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Sick – 500 Words a Day – Day 29

Wow, is it really day 29? Only one more day to go. I wanted to skip today because I’ve been at home sick. On the other hand, I slept all day and find myself somewhat awake, so after spending 20 minutes on FB, I decided that I had to write today. It’s a weird feeling because I really don’t want to be doing this, but it seems more like habit than anything else at this point. Not that it’s a bad thing, just unusual. I really do feel like crap. Time for more EmergenC and zinc. Those are my go to’s when I feel bad. It usually gets me pst any feelings of sick in a day or so but right now, after a day in bed, I feel worse. I don’t get sick that often, my feeling is that in general I take care of myself, eating fairly well, with some slips, and working out regularly. I’ve noticed in the past that my depression creeps up when I get sick, or at least the feelings of sadness can creep up. I don’t feel that this time, but it’s happened enough in the past that I’ve wondered if some of my “sicknesses” have had a spiritual aspect to them. When I say that I mean if I’m depressed, am I more prone to being sick? Or do I simply not have the will to fight through being sick? I don’t really know about that, just thoughts that have crossed my mind. And I’ve noticed the pattern in others, too. Friends who seem to struggle with depression and isolating seem to get sick more frequently than those who don’t. Or maybe they just don’t want to be around me and tell me they are sick to get out of hanging out? Could be lol.

I do know that today I’m sick. And I can tell because I really wanted to do some acro at the beach tonight, followed by listening in on the Mumford and Sons concert at Montrose Beach. Instead, I’m laying in bed, sometimes freezing, sometimes sweating and typing this out. I’m definitely sick. And thirsty. I’ll be right back…

OK, one problem solved. But now I have not one, but two 65+ lb dogs on my bed vying for attention. It’s hard enough to type when one dog keeps dropping a rope in your lap to throw for them, but it’s almost impossible when another one has their head in your lap, too. I happen to love dogs, and it’s rare that Sarah, the other dog, comes up to visit. 417 words.

I’ve considered doing the prompt that was suggested back on day 13 or something. It was what would someone see if they looked through your window for 24 hours, but I’m still not sure. My rebel side says hell no, but it would be kind of fun, too. One more day to chime in, so I guess we’ll see if I’m up to it tomorrow. Hoping I won’t be sick, but right now laying in bed and sleeping sounds great. And I want to get over this sick thing ASAP, it’s my birthday Saturday 🙂

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Mish Mash – 500 Words a Day – Day 28

I’ve been looking for a supervisor so I can start in private practice for the past few months. It’s felt kinda slow going but I know that’s mainly me. I feel with all that’s going on in my life that I’ll have to forgive myself for it taking a little while longer than I’d like. I know it’s OK, and to not forgive myself will only lead to shaming myself, which I do not need. I also believe that things work out in their own time. We set things up and move in the direction we want, but if something is going to happen, then waiting for it to be right is better than jumping in and trying to force it.

Crap, I seem to be getting cold or virus or something. I literally haven’t finished a sentence without sneezing. Ugh. And I’m taking this side track to just jump around in my writing. I kinda felt I’d gone as far as I’d wanted to with that last bit and I’m not really feeling very philosophical at the moment.

Only two posts to go after this one. Seems weird. When you do something new, the first 30 days are always the hardest, and that 30 days seems to take forever. Then, if you keep up with it, it just gets easier. That’s not to say that I’m going to keep this up. I really have no idea if that’s true or not, we’ll just have to see how things play out.

God, why is it that every time I check how many words I’ve written it’s always 240-ish? It seems like it’d be so much more but never is. Then I keep on writing, hit my stride and blast past 500.

I bought a couple lottery tickets today. I keep on thinking to myself that I never win anything, and I rarely do. Then there are other people out there who think, “I always win stuff.” And they do. So I decided to change how I think. I’m going to start to think, say act, believe that I am lucky and that I do win things. We’ll see how that goes, cause soon I’m going to win the damn lottery, pay off all my debt and have a nice sum left over to buy a timber loft here in Chicago. There, it’s been said and will soon be published.

So, if I am sick tomorrow, the question is do I go into work? I want to say “yes” but that’s really hard to answer. One reason is that I do work with a lot of other people. Another is that a part of my job is to sit and talk to people. I wouldn’t want either group to come in and get me sick, and I don’t like the idea of being the person who gets them sick either. Already used the Zicam, love that stuff, and guess I’ll see how I am in the morning. Right now would just love a day to sit inside, rest and recover. So, I think I’ll either get better after sleeping or worse. Let’s go with better, positive thinking, right?

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Practicing Handstands

I did my first handstand press up the other day. It’s something that I’ve been working on for the past 9 months, so I am estatic that it finally happened. Of course, with the way my mind works, there’s a lesson in there. But first things first. For those of you who don’t know, a handstand press is when you start from standing, place your hands on the floor in front of you and, without jumping, simply lift your legs over your head. “Simply,” right? Hah! It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to do and for months my feet wouldn’t even leave the ground. And I consider myself to be in fairly good shape. I’d also like to say my feet went right up over my head into the perfect handstand. Hahahahaha, nope. The truth is, the moment my feet went over my head I freaked out, fell out of the handstand and almost landed on my face. It scared the hell out of me, mostly because I didn’t truly think it would happen. I’m still learning how to do a solid handstand, and yet I can now, apparently, press my feet over my head. Who knew? 

So, back to the lessons. The easy thing to talk about would be about perseverance, and it’s true you have to keep trying things in order to get better. And learning can be a slow process. I’ve been trying to do a handstand press since the first time I saw someone do one. It was so cool to see them just lift their feet over their head, and I wanted to do that, too. And I’ll admit it, there’s a bit of my ego involved with this. But I couldn’t do it. I tried and tried and tried. For months. I took and a handstand clinic to improve my handstand. Maybe two. Or three. But the best I could do was to lift my feet an inch or two off the ground. Even that was sooooo freaking hard. I gave up for a while. Stopped doing handstands every chance I got and what little gains I had made, I lost. Then a couple months ago I started trying again. My handstand improved. Still no press, but I’ve been been able to hold a handstand for about 8 seconds.

Then, last week, I was hanging out with one of my friends, who is an excellent yoga teacher, and the woman I’ve been seeing, who is also an incredible yoga teacher. The two of them both start playing with their handstand presses (because they both can) and they start talking about doing this one simple thing that I’ve never even heard about. Bending your knees. I’m amazed. I go off into a corner (because obviously I don’t want to be out in the open if I fail) and I try it. I do it! It wasn’t pretty, I didn’t hold it at all and I almost fell on my face. But I did it! I was amazed and happy! I turn to the woman I’ve been seeing and asked if she saw it. She said “yes.” I said, “I had no idea that bending your knees could help you do a press.” Her response?? “Well, yeah. It makes it so much easier. But why didn’t you tell me you wanted to do a press? I would have told you that months ago.” Oh…

I now realize that doing a handstand press seemed so far away from me that I never really tried it around the people who could help, let alone ask them for help. Even though it was something I REALLY wanted to do. It was always a far off “some day” goal. And I guess I felt a little silly for wanting to try it. I got in my own way because I didn’t believe enough in myself. And because of that, I stayed on the edge of being able to do something I really wanted to do. For months.

But that’s ok. I know how to do it now. Now there’s just more practice and getting better. And being ok with where I am in life, even when I get in my own way, is simply another practice I am incorporating in my life.

So, lessons learned 1) the things we want are often closer than we think 2) even if we think it’s a ridiculous goal, ask others for help. For that matter, surround yourself with people willing to help, not those who say it can’t be done. 3) this goes with #2, but always tell people what you’re doing. Bring it into the light.

As I’m writing these down, I realize that I’ve heard them many times before. So it’s clear I needed a reminder. That’s ok, too. I’m good with reminders. I’m just gonna keep on practicing. Practicing my handstand, practicing my handstand press, practicing life. Because that’s what life really is, practice.

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Revel Life – 10 Steps to…What?

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of things about how to live your life in three easy steps and, to be honest, I’m getting sick of it. There’s no denying that at one time I thought lists were the greatest. All sorts of wisdom in one spot. Then I, too, could be rich if I followed these 10 easy steps. Or find my passion in five steps. Or find myself. Or get over someone.

This stuff is starting to bother me. Not because I intrinsically think they’re wrong, there’s some really good stuff there. But it bothers me because I feel they set people up to fail, or feel bad about themselves, if they don’t succeed in following the steps. Also, I don’t think life can be classified into easy steps. Life isn’t easy, and it isn’t neat. It’s messy, passionate…and beautiful.

First off, I’ve tried to follow steps before…three steps, five steps, 12 steps. You name it, I’ve tried it. I’ve searched for answers my entire life. I feel I’ve come close to so many things. I guess I’m a bit of a seeker that way. I’d try hard, so hard. And then, wait…what was step eight, again? Fuck. Gotta start over.

I suppose it’s not people’s fault for making lists. Many of us like to contain things, to classify them and put them in order. It gives us a sense of control and peace. But it’s an illusion. We don’t control anything, except ourselves, and many of us are so hindered by past hurts that we have trouble doing that. We react to life and flail wildly about trying to get things back under control again, back into order.

Maybe it’s me, or maybe it’s my life. As I write this, I’m going through a divorce, my son is 2000 miles away from me and has been for over two years since my ex and I separated. During those two years I worked full-time, finished my masters degree, met someone, fell in love, and then broke up because, well, some things can’t be overcome.

So, there is a lot of sadness in my life right now. And a lot of stress. So what are the five steps to fix it? What’s the easy, straight forward fix? I don’t think there is one, and that’s ok. Like I said, life is messy.

What keeps me going, what keeps me from killing myself, is beauty in the world, the love of my friends, yoga, meditation and some therapy. Almost sounds like