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Sometimes my emotions give me the old out-of-the-blue sucker punch. Seriously. I can just be humming along in Non-Cycling mode, cleaning my bathtub, and all of a sudden I am bawling over some imagined slight or, conversely, overwhelmed with love and nostalgia for some well-loved and ill-treated friend from 20 years ago that I suddenly need to find NOW to make amends.
If you, too, find yourself whacked upside the head by the sledgehammer of crushing emotion, step right up to Sophie's and find your cure for passion right here, right now.*
You have the most amazing tool in your toolbox already, already!, and for the low cost of reading this here free blog and my fragile sanity, I'm going to share it with you. Ready?
Time.
It heals all wounds and wounds all heels, but it is yours. And I'm not talking about eternity, folks, just five minutes. You've heard of Five Minute Abs? Well, this is Five Minute Sanity. Infinitely more valuable, in fact, you can't put a price on it.
Here's how it works:
- Clean bathroom (or perform some other mundane activity, but I'm sticking with the bathroom for this exercise), and while rinsing out tub remember that somebody somewhere didn't do as much for you as you do for them and then start getting teary-eyed.
- Think, "Well, maybe this is just my karma evening out, because I am such a challenging friend to have."
- Start really crying.
- Progress to sobbing.
- Internalized handywoman appears with kick-ass toolkit, in this case a flashcard reading, "Five-Minute Rule".
- Go sit on bed.
- Look at the clock. It reads 1:47 pm.
- Close your eyes and take Five deep, slow, make-your-inner-Buddha-nice-and-fat Breaths.
- Find your inner best friend and have him/her talk to you. This is the friend you are to your other friends. This inner best friend uses the same tone and conversational tactics that you give to your best friend when he/she is having a hard time. Here is an example:
A. I will let this feeling pass. It is just a feeling and if I breathe deeply for 5 minutes, a better feeling will come along to replace it. Really, it will. I can only feel better from here.
B. Just because I am feeling slighted, does not mean that I actually am being slighted. This is emotional reasoning and I need to cut myself some slack.
C. I may be challenging sometimes, but so are other people I love. In fact, some are downright snarky. If I was too challenging, they would choose to not be friends with me and they haven't done that; therefore, they must enjoy my company most of the time, just like I enjoy them - most of the time.
D. I am obviously having a moment here. I have been stressed out lately planning parties, readying the house for guests, and trying to take care of a health matter. This stress has probably weakened my emotional immune system.
OR
WOW! I don't know where that came from. I wonder if I am in a HALT situation. If I can address that need, I will start to feel more myself.
The Five Minute Rule works. Every time. Sometimes, for the really big Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner-sized sledgehammers, five minutes to the second may not be quite enough. However, five minute increments are manageable. So in those cases, I just keep breathing with my eyes closed (keeping the eyes closed is very important, it blocks out other stimuli and keeps me in the here and now), and talking to myself in my Dr. Mean Old Lady, or Bowser, or Cloe, or-if I really need a kick in the pants- Lydia voice, all of whom are inner best friends, until I feel a bit less overwhelmed. I know that if this five minutes isn't enough, the next five minutes might very well be.
Slowly, b r e a t h e.
Be your own best friend.
They are just feelings and they will pass.
Give them time and show those passionate feelings the door.
Breathe.
Close your eyes and breathe.
Now. Open.
It's 1:52. I made it.
*Ok, maybe not a cure exactly, but a really good stop-gap, nonetheless. I have found that all I ever need to do is just give myself the stop-gap and the worst of the emotional reasoning will dissipate, the worst of it. If I can just improve my condition from Worst to Slightly Better, I will have the strength to continue on the path of Wellness.
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9 Musings by Fellow Stargazers:
Now if I could just remember to stop for five minutes. I'm a "I need to have taken my five minutes five minutes ago" kind of gal! I'm getting better, but I still do push too hard and too long.
All stop-gap measures are appreciated.
I did a course a while back, which taught the importance of breathe. When I first came across your blog and you had just written an entry about breath, I thought you must of attended the same course. Then I realized there are probably more people in the world that understand the importance of breath.
What I have experienced is that if I take 10 minutes at lunch time just to sit back and breathe, I find myself a lot calmer and centred.
I'm still learning to trust my inner wisdom. Sometimes thats hard to discern from the addict in the attic. <---- said with a grin
Indistinct, Did you get a new picture? i like it.
I haven't taken a specific course on breath, but I have been studying it on my own, in my own way, for years now. It started with needing an immediate resource for circumventing the largely self-destructive, powerful, action-encouraging, thoughts and feelings that came with a lifetime of zero discipline of undiagnosed bipolar disorder and PTSD. Before I started practicing mindfulness and understanding that breath=Life, I spent a lot of time thinking I was about to die or really wanting to die.
The discovery of breath was intellectual until I had a really bad PTSD attack from a just-then recovered memory flashback. I was out by myself and I had to drive 15 minutes home to safety. I sobbed the whole way, it was a very overwhelming life-changing memory, and for a little while I thought I was going to die from the passion of the moment. Then I heard my breath, ragged and shaky, and I knew I could do something. I could control something in this uncontrollable minute: I could breathe. So I did. I listened to a favorite song playing Loudly to block out thoughts and I concentrated on slowing my breath for 5 minutes. It worked, I didn't die. I kept repeating the song, "Precious Box" by George Michael, and breathing in 5 minute increments, and I made it home, whereupon I entered the house and collapsed on Bowser who held me until I could stand again.
Since then, I have practiced mindful breathing to guide my way through the maze of mental illness and as a way to center my meditation. I just bought a book, "Mindfulness with Breathing: a guide for serious beginners", that I hope will improve my skills. I appreciate the kinship of your journey, there are many similarities in recovering from addiction and bipolar disorder, and that you seem to have learned the lesson I have: we can maintain our health, our perspective, our centered-ness by listening to that which gives us Life, breath, and giving that involuntary reflex our voluntary attention and honoring it by working with it, not against it. In and out.
I'd love to know what course you took. If it is a 'traveling' sort of course, I'd like to take it.
You've got some really good tips here about how to take care of yourself. I've added a link from my website: http://www.creativecounselling.org.uk/selfcare.html
Is there some easy way to find all the useful tips on your blog in one place? I think it could be very helpful.
I have a confession to make. I have no idea how to add labels, thereby providing a system to differentiate the post topics. I feel like an idiot, but there you go.
Any clues?
If, as I think, you're using Blogger, then when you write a post there should be a little space at the bottom of the post window that says: Labels for this post. (It's above and to the left of Publish Post and Save Now, and part of the beige frame around the post text.) You add any words for the labels, e.g. dealing with depression, depressed thoughts, self-help - just like that, each label separated from the next by a comma. And it's as easy as that!
The place I took the course is called the Haven. It's on the west coast of Canada
http://haven.ca/
The course I took was called "Come Alive" An amazing course. Lots of self discovery and growth.
http://haven.ca/db/a.courseDetail/id.3
Breathing is so key. I learned it in yoga class before I got "THE DIAGNOSIS." For me, lying down helps. I focus on my stomach rising as it fills with air on the inhale and falling on the exhale. I focus on how the parts of my body make contact with the floor/bed/couch. And I count how long I inhale and exhale. No holding breaths allowed! It's amazing how you can do this for only 20 breaths and feel so much more relaxed and clearheaded.
The problem is that sometimes self-care is hard to remember when you are cycling! But we are all on a path to self-improvement, aren't we?
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