Relationship Epiphany

I didn't used to be a lying-in-bed-in-the-morning-and-musing kind of person. I'm an extreme morning person and I pride myself on my ability to go from zero to sixty the moment I wake up. However, Wholehearted House is a great place for early morning contemplation. Because I don't have electricity, if I wake up before the sun is up, it is simplest to lie in bed until there is some light. And that lends itself to either going back to sleep or to lying awake and thinking. I have been doing more of both of these things lately.

Thinking in the quiet and the dark can be very productive. The other morning I had a real epiphany about my past relationships.

I'd say that I've had four serious romantic relationships in my life. One of them lasted for 12 years and after it broke up (more than seven years ago, now–wow!), a good friend gave me a beautiful book called Love Listography. I looked at it, thought about what it would take to figure out what I actually wanted in a relationship, and put the book up on a shelf. Something about defining what I wanted scared and repelled me.

I fell into my next few (brief) relationships by default, not by design. And then I fell in love. And that was a total disaster (for more details, you can listen to this song, which is one of many I wrote about that particular relationship attempt: 11 kinds of itchy). And then I fell in love again. And that was awesome for a while, but it didn't work out very well in the end. It's been an often frustrating few years, and I'm not sure I even understood why until the other morning.

Here is my epiphany: I saw that all of my relationships (including the brief ones and the ones way back in the distant past) unravelled in a similar way: communication failed. Things were going along okay and then my partner and/or I would start behaving differently. Gaps started appearing between what I wanted and what I was getting and/or what my partner wanted and what they were getting.

I can't speak to how my lovers may have felt, but I felt like I was expected to know and understand things that I did not know or understand. As a result, I acted with a lack of empathy toward the unknown and/or misunderstood issue(s). This was interpreted as a lack of kindness and understanding and was met with withdrawal, frustration and/or anger. I met this response with my own withdrawal, frustration and anger and POOF! Each relationship spiralled from love, kindness and mutual respect into discontent, frustration, terror and/or rage – and then each was (not surprisingly) over.

Although this is a sad pattern, I'm pretty excited about being able to see it clearly for the first time. I think there are a number of things at play here.

1. I'm generally smart and empathic and I think I "get" things when sometimes I really don't. I need to be a better listener.
2. I'm a fairly "judgy" person and sometimes people are afraid to tell me things because they aren't sure how I'm going to react. And sometimes people do tell me things and then feel judged, vulnerable and unsafe.
3. I can have knee-jerk reactions to things that stir up my own vulnerability and I don't always know when (or have the ability) to keep my mouth shut about it or take a few deep breaths before responding. Also, I can flippant at exactly the wrong moments.
4. I tend to be a "problem-solver" so people don't always tell me things because they know I'm going to tell them what I think they should do and they don't want to hear it (just as I don't want to hear advice when I'm doing the best I can and someone else has a better idea for how I should live my life). I need to learn how to mind my own business and concentrate on solving my own problems.
5. Sometimes, other people are really bad at communicating what the hell is going on for them, often out of shame, fear or confusion. There is nothing I can do about this because it is outside of my control. The most I can do is stay aware of when I don't understand what's going on and adopt a stance of open-hearted, kind and curious inquiry. I can ask questions and work to accept the situation if people don't have answers, or don't have ways of sharing their answers.
6. I am not very good at identifying or communicating what I need. I am a big-time coper. I can get by on very little (at least for a pretty long time), but that doesn't mean I should have to. And it doesn't mean that I don't get resentful if I am in a relationship where I feel like I am continually giving more than I am receiving.

The good news is that many of these things are things that I can do something about. And everyone of them that I can improve will make a big difference in my relationship with myself.

Getting back to the Love Listography, what I think I need is to be in a relationship with someone who has some extra energy to invest; a little extra patience to grant me while I improve my relationship skills. I need to be in a relationship with someone who is a communication and tenderness ninja.

Hey, wait a minute. What I really need is to become my own communication and tenderness ninja. I can be so hard on myself for the mistakes I make. I need to adopt a stance of curious inquiry toward my own heart and heal some of the old habits I've listed in this post. They may make themselves obvious in my relationships, but they are also at play inside of me all of the rest of time. And the place they need to be healed is inside of me. And the only person who can do that work is me. Maybe looking for too much understanding and healing from a partner has been one of my biggest problems all along. It is easy to become frustrated and dissatisfied when one has unrealistic expectations.

So here's to putting my new dedication to tender communication to work in my own life. I'll let you know how it goes.

2014-2015 Wood Pile News

I was thinking that because it was (finally) approaching summer, I wouldn't have any wood pile posts for a while. How foolish of me.

It's easy to forget that heating with wood is a year-round commitment. The best time to get next year's wood is in the winter or early spring, when it's still cool enough to work at cutting and splitting it up and when it will have many months (especially sunny summer months) to dry out and get ready to be burned.

When I saw many friends on Facebook post pictures of the process of cutting up next year's wood over Easter weekend, I knew I should get on it. A friend tipped me off to a wood seller who had some Firewood ends for sale, pieces too short to be included in a load of cut-and-split firewood. That's perfect to me, because my stove is tiny! I need wood that's 10 inches long (or less) instead of the usual 14 inches. As an added bonus, Firewood ends are cheaper than regular cut-and-split firewood, basically two cords for the price of one.

So, I called up and ordered 4 cords of firewood ends. They were delivered a couple of weeks ago.

They are cut into varying lengths (mostly short enough for my stove), but they are not split.

This has meant learning a new skill – wood splitting.

My stepdad loaned me his splitting maul. (He has a gas-powered woodsplitter now, so the maul is a redundant tool for him). I got started splitting wood. I had done a little splitting with an axe or hatchet as you may have read on this blog. But the splitting maul is a heavier tool and it took me a few days to build the upper body strength to use it with much precision.

Also, 4 cords feels a little more daunting than the few feed bags worth of wood I split earlier in the spring.

Fortunately, it turns out that I LOVE splitting wood. I love:

• the satisfying thwack of the maul
• the feeling of accomplishment as the pile of split wood grows and grows (I'm almost half-way through my four cords)
• the emotionally purging aspect (I think a woodpile and a splitting maul should be prescribed over hormone therapy to every able-bodied woman experiencing peri-menopausal symptoms)

Splitting wood feels like eating candy to me: "Just one more piece, just one more piece..."

Then I hit a little snag. I broke the handle of my maul the other day. It just came off in my hand with a little tug:

My landmates have taken to calling me Paul Bunyan.

The new maul handle soaking to fit.

Fortunately, one of my landmates has helped me by repairing it.

With my maul back in my hands, there is no stopping me. In a couple more weeks, I should have all my wood split. 

Summer Cat Door

I want to install a cat door in my Tiny Home for Salinger, so he can come and go as he likes.

This feels like a complicated process which will involve making a hole, or enlarging an existing hole in the shell of my home and installing a cat flap (which I understand can be purchased, making that part easier, thankfully). Also, because my home is rather high off the ground, I will probably have to construct some kind of ramp for Salinger to use to get to the door.

As I believe I have mentioned before on this blog, I am not particularly handy.

Fortunately, I know lots of people who are handy and I'm sure one of them will be willing to help me. One of these days. It's not exactly a high priority for anyone at the moment.

So, with the warmer weather, I've made a "summer cat door". On a few occasions when I've left Salinger shut inside for an hour or two, he got busy clawing at the screen door at the bottom corner. So, yesterday, I cut the screen, freeing the already-torn corner from the edges of the door. Now, in fair weather, when I can leave the outer door open, Salinger can go in and out of his own accord. After showing him a couple of time how it works, he totally has the hang of it.

He is a smart kitty. 

Dream Interlude

I had the oddest dream last night and it has recalled itself to me several times today (including right now). 

I was in a library, but no ordinary library. It was a tidal library. The library was a cove and the tide came in to the shelves of books like it would to a rocky beach.

In this library, they were having a sale to raise funds, and I was going through a shelf of DVDs with another person (whom I shall not identify because I don't think it will make any difference to you, dear reader, and I don't want to invade anyone's privacy by publicly announcing that I dream about them).

Among these DVDs were several of old Warner Brothers cartoons. On the covers, the characters were presented in recognizable silhouettes. Remember Daffy Duck as The Scarlet Pumpernickel? He was there. As was good old Bugs.

And then, there was a silhouette of Sweetums. Plain as day. My mind boggled. But, Sweetums was a muppet! Did Jim Henson steal him from the Warner Brothers? I gasped. And then I woke up. 

Interpretations?

Body Wisdom Part 2: Food and Eating

A couple of months ago, I posted about overworking and the challenges I have listening to my body's wisdom.

In that post, I mentioned that I was planning to write a blog about my challenges with food and eating. This is that post.

My early experiences with food and eating

I've spent a lot of my life feeling really screwed up about food and eating. I was a latch-key kid in a divorced family in the 70s and I learned early that a lot of things I wanted to be able to change were outside of my control. I couldn't get my family back together. Or escape my feelings about my family's collapse: they were so much bigger than my little 7-year-old self.

What I could do was take my allowance and buy something to eat that would make me feel temporarily better: a chocolate bar, ice cream cone, popsicle, or, the most cost-effective sugar high available at the Korean corner store near my house: rice candy.

Eating became my main way of coping with pretty much everything: disconnection, shame, intimacy, humiliation, loss, fatigue – with anything really, that reminded me of how it felt to live in a world where I don't have much control, but for some reason am supposed to be able to pretend to be in control – at least of myself and my emotions. A world in which I am not supposed to be a crybaby or a sook, even if that's how I sometimes feel like reacting to life.

 

Getting in to psychotherapy

Because I was an unhappy kid who repressed her feelings, I grew into a very unhappy (and pretty mean-spirited) young adult.

When I fell madly in love for the first time at 21, and then couldn't stop that relationship from repeatedly spiralling down into conflict and misery, I realized that I had some serious work to do. As a result, I spent a lot of time in my twenties and thirties involved in an in-depth psychotherapeutic process. Therapy helped me immensely. I worked out many things – I became calmer and kinder and more relaxed.

But interestingly, my issues around food and eating didn't budge. I remained addicted to sugar, especially soda pop, and I remained an out-of-control eater. I felt hungry almost all of the time. When I was particularly stressed, I would go unconscious and eat until the feelings stopped. Over and over again. I couldn't make peace with food and eating.

And every year, I gained another five or ten pounds.

 

I'll try (almost) anything!

So, I tried a bunch of other things.

I read myriad self-help books: Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach, lots of things by Geneen Roth, Potatoes, not Prozac, by Kathleen DesMaisons. I related to many things in many of those books. They helped me feel less alone. If there were diet recommendations, I tried to follow them. For a little while.

Once, I had a lover talk me in to going to the most common North American weight loss program™. I enrolled and then he sabotaged my attempts to follow the program. That program helped me lose weight for sure. It also helped me realize that that lover was gaslighting me. But it didn't help me make peace with my eating. I could control my eating, for a little while, but I felt FAR from peaceful.

After leaving that relationship (and that weight loss program), I did an excellent in-person conscious eating course – all the rules of how to be a more conscious eater were presented, practiced and processed. It was a great class. I related. I released feelings. And it didn't change a damn thing for me.

In my next attempt to grapple with the issue, I tried to do some eating and fitness coaching with a friend. It was hopeless and she fired me as a client (I count myself lucky that we are still friends).

I thought about going to OverEaters Anonymous. But I just wasn't ready to 12-step anything. (I've crossed that line now, on another issue, and am currently pretty in love with the many awesome things about 12-step programs – but that's for another post).

I was frustrated and let the whole thing go. "To hell with it," I thought. "Let me just eat whatever I want and be as big as a house. I don't care."

But my knees cared. And my right hip. And my feet. And also my pride and vanity. Ours can be a hard world in which to be a fat woman.

 

Finally, something works!

So, I kept looking around. And then I saw a course on the Internet called "Transform Your Relationship with Food™."

That sounded like what I needed to do. 

I thought and deliberated and then decided. I ponied up the dough and got ready to take the course. 

It was at the worst-possible time of year for me, when I knew I'd be super-busy with graphic design work, but I didn't want to wait until the next time it was offered. That could have been in the fall or the following year even and I felt ready to tackle the issue right away.

You never know what you're going to get with an e-course. Most of the courses I've taken on line have been excellent, but a couple have been duds. 

This one was beyond excellent. It's delivered as a series of video and audio presentations over eight weeks with journaling exercises and practices for each week. 

The audio presentations were the most powerful thing for me. They are long, most over an hour and a half and I found it very therapeutic to listen to Marc David, the founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating (IPE), talk kindly (and expertly) to me about food, nutrition and eating.

I think the biggest breakthrough for me was the moment when I heard him say that OF COURSE we sometimes manage our emotions with food. OF COURSE we do, because it works. And sometimes that's what we need and it's okay. But we have choices and we're allowed to have deliberateness and joy in our decisions. We don't have to feel out-of-control and loaded down by shame.

What a contrast this is from the usual: You should eat this. You should eat that. It's all about portion control. You know how to lose weight, don't you? EAT LESS. Use a smaller plate to make your portions look bigger. Aren't you sick of buying new clothes every year? (These are all actual unhelpful things various GPs have said to me over the years).

The program has had its challenges for me. I got a little lost in week four, when some nutritional suggestions started to feel like the kind of food prescriptions I was used to rebelling against and ignoring. But by week 6, I was back on board, having made peace with the fact that I have no longing to be a "clean" eater. There are no plans in my future to go macrobiotic, all-raw, vegan, gluten-free or even vegetarian. No, I don't aspire to any dietary regime. My only aspiration is to become a peaceful eater.

And I'm well on my way.

The Transform Your Relationship with Food program encourages participants to become curious experimenters to figure out what foods and eating practices work for them, and how to explore feelings and ideas to create a new story around food and eating.

I still have many steps to take on this journey. There are a lot of practices I have yet to try, a lot of feelings and beliefs that I have yet to explore. Fortunately, the whole program is sitting on my hard drive, available for me to use on an ongoing basis.

Already, this seemingly immovable patch of disturbance in my life has shifted. I'm not hungry all the time anymore. When I eat consciously, I'm nowhere near as overwhelmed by fear and shame and rage as I used to be. And I've dropped three notches on my belt without doing anything in particular - well, nothing outside of beginning to transform my relationship with food and eating. 

I feel deeply grateful for this newfound peace and hope. When an issue remains stuck for over 30 years, it's tempting to think that it's impossible to change. But I believe there is always a way to do the work. Sometimes it's a matter of finding the right kind of help.

Observations on The Great De-Stuffing

In my original plan, I was going to be moving into Wholehearted House yesterday, May 31. In reality, I moved in at the end of April to make way for a new tenant who wanted to move into to my rental house.

As a result, instead of sorting and THEN moving, I moved first and THEN sorted (or at least was faced with the task of sorting). In my fantasy world, I was going to do all of that sorting during the month of May, just as I fantasized I would have done before my originally planned moving date changed. In reality, I have been living in a tiny home filled with boxes for the last month and the most I have managed to do is to sort some boxes back into a "not urgent, sort later" pile at the back of the house.

Here is a look at the progression of the sorting/organizing process so far. 

Immediately after moving in.
There were still many things in my car.

A couple of weeks later. Getting there...
(There were still some things in my car.)

Today. Damn, it looks worse than it did a couple of weeks ago. I assure you, it is NOT worse.
I have taken several carloads to be donated. There are, however, still a few things in my car. Sigh.

At 232 square feet, Wholehearted House fills up quickly. Before I fully moved in, I had some "stuff rehearsals" – I brought some things up, like household linens, filled the available shelf space and then took the excess back to my rental house to put in piles for the sale I had at the end of April.

Many other things have gone into the burn pile to be used to get my fires started over the next few months.

I have a long way yet to go to acheive the right fit, the right possessions to space ratio.

I'm sure there will be further posts about the process of decumulation, but already I have found and noticed some weird and wonderful things. Here are some highlights:

 

Odd and inexplicable finds:

#1: several loose pages torn from an encyclopedia running from Smyth through Social Anthropology to Soap. Weird. ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how they came into my possession. VERDICT: burn.
#2: All of the records from the pension plan I left (and converted into an LRIF) in 2002. VERDICT: burn.
#3: The triple A battery converters for my battery recharger – in a completely different place in my loft. Now that I have found them, I have no idea which box the battery charger is in. VERDICT: be patient and eventually, the battery charger will resurface.

 

Lovely finds:

#1: the photo I purchased from my friend Michelle as a fundraiser for That's Womens Work Art Network (now Women's Art Network or WANT) the week before I left Toronto three years ago. Having never fully settled in to my rented house, it remained packed in a box until this move. VERDICT: Looking forward to putting it in my tiny home!!!
 
#2: my awesome swing-away can opener. I searched and searched for it when my housemate's can opener broke about a year ago but couldn't find it. Apparently, it is still at the bottom of a box because once again, I can't find it.
#3: Many photos and pieces of original art that I had forgotten I owned. It's going to look like Sardy's in here when I get them all hung up. (That will be another post, for sure).

 

Most surprising thing:

I really don't mind living in 232 square feet crammed full of boxes. I am super-comfortable in my teeny tiny house.

 

Least surprising thing:

I refused to bring new tea into my life for over 6 months before moving (apart from a couple of small gifts of tea). I consumed as much tea as possible on a daily basis (I usually average 4-6  big cups a day). And I had to move four grocery bags FULL of tea up to my Tiny House. 

 

Things I absolutely couldn't part with, even though I have no room for them and don't need/use them:

1. My avocado-coloured Sunbeam MixMaster – I LOVE that thing
2. Three boxes of cookie cutters
3. My uncle's hockey bag in which I moved all of my things to university 25 years ago (this is still full of miscellaneous stuff, so I guess it's not fair to say that I'm not using it, but I don't see a future use for it. I'm simply attached).

What are the things you think you could get rid of? What are the things you know are indespensible to you? I'd love to hear in the comments below.