Preparing to Cleanse

I’m having a difficult time trying to figure out how to start a blog after not posting anything for months, so I’ll just begin by admitting that and moving on from there. It has been a crazy year. Actually, scratch that, it has been crazy since we moved away from Mississippi in August 2009, so crazy that we have all but forgotten our blog that we used to enjoy updating regularly. I have decided it is time to change that. In fact, I have decided it is time to change many things about the way I have been living my life, especially since we moved to Virginia and life got really confusing.

To explain the confusing part, let me give an overview of the last 2+ years. Here goes: Decide we want to move to VA. Start looking for jobs. State adamantly that I WILL NOT work in community mental health. Cannot find any jobs in higher education due to hiring freeze at all state schools (it’s early 2009 and the economy isn’t doing great…) Shadow a therapist doing equine therapy. Get excited about using horses therapeutically as I reflect on how therapeutic my own relationships with Joey and Oliver (my ponies) were when I was growing up. Decide that perhaps community mental health is the best way to get hours to get licensed so I can do equine therapy. Talk to Brian, my former RTS Admissions Office boss, who encourages me at least to try therapy so I don’t spend the rest of my life regretting my decision not to pursue it since I am still waffling at this point.

Interview for intensive in home job with Charles in June 2009. Charles get hired. I do not. We move anyway with the hope that I will get a job doing in home at another branch of the agency. My cat, whom we’ve had since I was 11, dies three days after we move here (not the best week of my life). I interview for the in home job at the other location. I am told that intakes are down and there’s actually no position open. Try again. Work for Kaplan for several months. Finally get offered in home job and begin in December 2009. Get a cat who adds joy, vet bills, and many dismembered rodents to our life.

Agency gets audited and fined $3.6 million. All hell breaks loose. Medicaid cuts reimbursement rate by $10/hour. Agency takes away our mileage reimbursement and Charles and I each take an additional 18% pay cut, about $1500 less per month than we thought we would make. Life is looking really good. Mild panic ensues. Why the heck did we move here for these jobs?! Continue working for agency anyway. Apply and interview for other positions in the area, none of which will be a good fit. Go visit Jackson by myself to get away for a week. Get explosive food poisoning but otherwise enjoy the trip. Feel very sad about coming back to VA. Pick up more work through Kaplan because I am so miserable doing in home. Go to horse therapy training. Get more excited and goal-oriented. Complete half-ironman with Charles. Things are looking up.

Strain my hamstring and cannot run for 3+ months. Bummer. Recover and begin Ironman Louisville training in February 2011. Finally decide that perhaps I like doing in home and may not actually be messing up my families as much as I originally feared.

Go to Jackson again, this time with Charles. Cry a lot. Remember all the reasons why I loved Mississippi. Have a really hard time transitioning back to VA. Start to suspect something is going on with our agency. Get news end of June 2011 that the agency will file bankruptcy and close on July 31. Awesome. We will both be without jobs in about a month. Good thing we signed up for an individual health insurance policy last December. Really good thing that we just put $2000+ on the credit card to pay for the class we’re about to start. Really, really good thing we just signed another year lease.

Full blown panic. I spend a frantic week applying for whatever I can find. We start getting crazy ideas like “let’s just leave the country and live overseas for awhile.” Less than a week after the “you’re losing your job” email, we find out another agency wants to buy us. So we still have jobs? Maybe. Skepticism is high. New agency seems pretty cool. Get offered job. Accept job. Accept new responsibilities including being a supervisor and intake coordinator. Go from working about 10 hours a week to 12 hour days. Whew. Thankfully we begin our taper to prepare for Ironman Louisville. Complete the Ironman and have a perfect weekend in Louisville (perhaps more on this in another post). Life is really good. Fly around on Ironman high for a few weeks. Get so excited that we sign up for Ironman Wisconsin for September 2012.

Go to 10 year high school reunion. Backpack and hike with Charles. Start horseback riding again. Enjoy the lovely fall weather. Get iPhone!! (More on why that’s relevant in a second.) Continue at frantic pace but at least feel more settled and secure in some ways.

That about brings us up to the present. Life is good, mostly. I am still lonely. I still miss Jackson. I think it may be getting better. Or maybe I’m just too busy to think about it anymore.

Back to the iPhone and why that’s relevant to all this. I went with my supervisor, Gretchen, to get the new phone a few weeks ago. While waiting at the store, I was telling her about a 21-day cleanse and Charles and I are planning to start November 1st, and Gretchen, never one to miss an opportunity for supervision, asked, “Do you ever have a time where you’re not working toward some goal?” To which I replied, “No.” Without missing a beat, she responded, “That can be your new theme then: Slow Down and Be With What Is.”

(Note: For supervision, all of our families have themes that describe how we’re working to overcome their dysfunctional patterns. This brings focus to our work. As clinician we also have themes that describe how we’re working to overcome our own dysfunctional patterns in order to grow as therapists.)

I thought this a funny conversation to be having at the Verizon store, but I knew she was on to something. I don’t slow down. Therefore, I am rarely fully present. I always have a to-do list running through my head. I have to-do lists written all over my planner. I add things to my to-do list even after I’ve completed them just so I can cross them off and feel more productive. I am reliable, efficient, and attentive to every detail, and constantly reinforced for these qualities, but I drive myself and others crazy. I am always anticipating the next thing, planning for it, worrying about it, sometimes just hoping it will hurry up and get here or be over depending on what kind of thing it is. I often have a “life will be so much better when…” mentality rather than opening my eyes to see what is going on right now. I know this impacts not only my therapeutic relationships but also my friendships and my marriage. I know one day it will impact my relationship with my children. I would like to learn how to slow down and be present with what is.

That brings me back to the 21-day cleanse I mentioned earlier which is taken from the book Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr for those of you who are wondering. Despite the fact that this is, in fact, another goal, I am going to do it and use it as a way to focus on my theme: slow down and be with what is. Usually when I set goals, I focus so much on getting to the end result that I miss the process of getting there. This cleanse is all about the process—the process of slowing down and paying attention, of checking in with my body again, of being mindful about what and how I am doing so that I can be more present with myself and also with others. I am not doing it to be “healthy” or to become vegan. I fully intend to add dairy and meat and alcohol and other “bad-for-me-foods” back into my diet. I truly am just interested in the process of doing something different intentionally.

From November 1-21, I am going to be mindful of what I eat, and in forcing myself to slow down in this area, I hope to be more mindful of what is going on in the rest of my life. I’m going to be nice to my body physically by feeding it nutritious meals rather than grabbing whatever I can find while on the run and eating it while standing, walking, talking on the phone, or driving between clients. And I want to learn to be nicer to myself emotionally because I am discovering that I am just downright mean to myself. I live in fear and try to motivate myself through shame. I do not treat myself with much respect. It is not very nice.

I’m posting all this because I want to write more during this cleanse as a way to make me stop and process what is going on. I’m going to try to post several times a week even if it is just about new recipes or sugar withdrawal or the distress the diet of so many raw vegetables is causing to my digestive system. I used to journal all the time, to the point that I would complete at least a journal a year. I opened my journal the other day and realized that I started writing in it in September 2006 and still haven’t run out of pages! This feels like a problem. Apparently, I have not slowed down in awhile. It is time for a change.