Self-Care Through Beard Care

Posted on May 29, 2024 by admin

Although I’ve had a full beard since late 2016 and sported a few full beards before then, it’s only recently that I’ve gotten interested in proper beard care. What I didn’t expect to find here was a connection between beard care and self-care. Here’s what I’ve experienced thus far.

This has been a gradual process. It started when I felt sufficiently unsatisfied with how my beard looked that I knew some changes were in order. I thought back to how my beard used to look, what made it look that way, and what I could change to bring that look back. After searching YouTube for advice, I also started brushing my beard differently (including brushing it while still in the shower), letting it grow more by trimming it less often, using scissors instead of an electric trimmer to trim my mustache, and switching to a beard wash instead of using normal body wash. Those simple changes have made my beard look and feel much better than it has in a long time. It’s still early, so I’m certain that with continued care, my beard will get even healthier.

It helps that several things I was already doing (at least some of the time) for my own health also improved my beard health. The most helpful ones were eating good food, improving my sleep, and getting good at eliminating lots of stress while effectively managing that which remains. It took time to figure out what to do in those areas, especially with my emotions. Since I’ve healed so much of the pain around my dog Sawyer’s death, I now have much more time and energy to take good care of myself in other areas, including caring for my beard.

Anytime I’ve made huge changes in my life, I only did so when things got bad enough to make the pain of change smaller than the pain of staying the same. That seems to be how I make all major changes in my life, and it appears to be the case for most other humans as well. Why make huge changes if everything is going well? In addition to that being unnecessary, there are also the risks that such changes will make things worse and that returning to the previous position won’t be possible. In contrast, when enough things are going badly, it’s worth experimenting to see what can be improved. Such situations almost always have at least a few areas that are clearly in need of improvement, and starting there tends to make things dramatically better.

There is also the issue of being comfortable with the way things are. As long as they aren’t excessively painful, there’s a tendency to keep things the same. I can overcome that to some extent by making small changes, as I’ve done for many years. However, sometimes that only works to temporarily relieve some uncomfortable symptoms of a deeper problem. The dietary changes I made a few months ago only came after about a week of gastrointestinal discomfort that my usual methods of treating failed to fix. Once I made some major changes, the symptoms went away, and, I hope, the underlying issues also did. Since my health has gotten much better over the last few months while sticking to healthy eating more often than not, I believe I’m in the clear here. I hope I can learn to make important changes before things go way off the rails.

As my beard continues to look and feel better, so do I. I’m enjoying the scents, rituals, experimentation, and improvements in the health of my beard. Beyond all of that, this is another form of self-care, which always makes me feel good. It’s nice to take care of myself and feel even a small amount of self-love. I first realized the connection to self-care when I noticed myself looking forward to caring for my beard each day and feeling happier afterward. That was a welcome observation. Additionally, since I never paid much attention to beard care until recently, I’ve never seen the full potential of my beard. It’ll still take a while for me to learn how to properly care for it and for it to settle into the form I prefer. I look forward to seeing what it looks like when that happens. Until then, I’ll keep enjoying this journey and the benefits that come from taking good care of myself.

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My Take on Punishment

Posted on May 22, 2024 by admin

I’ve thought a lot about punishment over the last few years. There are a lot of different perspectives on this subject, and discussions around it often become heated in a hurry. Here is my take on punishment.

To start, what I mean by “punishment” is causing someone pain because they’ve done something one dislikes. I see punishment as being about revenge, not about instilling good behavior, good virtues, or any other similar justification for punishing someone. All of those can be brought about without punishment. Cases where punishment seems to work inevitably involve the person who is being punished either being shown a better way to do something or figuring out one on their own. Anyone who’s taught enough things to enough people knows that when somebody is doing something counterproductive, it’s often because they simply don’t know a better way to do it. Without knowing a better way, they will either continue trying one or more bad ways of doing that thing or they’ll give up entirely. When shown a better way, they embrace it and give up their previous approach. That is positive behavioral change without punishment, and it’s something I do whenever I assist someone with juggling, unicycling, or anything else I know a great deal about. Instead of punishing them for making mistakes, I compliment them on what they’re doing well, gently point out something that will improve what they’re doing, and celebrate with them when they succeed. This keeps everyone involved feeling good and wanting to continue instead of feeling upset and wanting to quit.

Many people fear making mistakes because they’ve been punished for doing so. If the punishments were especially severe and frequent, this can result in such a huge fear of failure that they worry excessively even in simple situations, do almost nothing without permission where no permission is actually needed, and intentionally aim so low that they get hardly anything accomplished. Also, one of the biggest problems with punishing someone for making mistakes is the fact that mistakes are an inevitable part of the learning process. Thus, punishing someone for making mistakes discourages them from learning and improving at whatever they’re working on.

Along with being punished for making mistakes, almost everyone has gotten punished at some point in their lives for breaking rules despite never being told what the rules were. This applies to adults and kids alike. In fact, there are so many rules in the adult world that nobody can name them all or even know how many there are, and yet adults are still routinely given harsh punishments for breaking those rules that almost nobody knows exist. Of all the reasons given for punishing someone, doing so because they broke a rule that they were never told about has to be one of the cruelest.

Additionally, punishment sometimes results in more unwanted behavior. Many folks have lied out of fear of being punished for admitting when they’ve messed up, saying that they need help, crying, or even simply telling someone that they feel upset. Others become violent and run roughshod over everyone else. Some individuals resort to abuse in certain situations and people pleasing in others. In many cases, it also makes those at risk of being punished for particular kinds of behavior think up increasingly clever ways to avoid getting caught instead of avoiding that behavior. It would be much better for both them and the person wanting to punish them if they instead sat down together, found out why one of them did something troublesome, and worked together to solve the underlying problems. Then their relationship would improve, and they would see any negative behavior automatically go from unhealthy to healthy in a lasting way without the constant threat of punishment hanging overhead.

Some might say that some humans can’t be reasoned with. I agree. Humans are fundamentally driven by emotion, so nobody is inherently reasonable or capable of being reasoned with when their emotions are driving them in the opposite direction. That’s why anybody who works as a hostage negotiator or in any other field that requires bringing peace to stressful and dangerous situations has to use empathic listening, a calming voice, and other techniques that work on the emotional level. An objection to this might be that those techniques don’t always work. That’s true. They do sometimes fail, as do all other human endeavors. Even the best hostage negotiators don’t always succeed in getting the hostages released safely. The fact that even the best methods aren’t foolproof is a poor excuse for using the worst methods (yelling, violence, punishment, etc.), which are even more likely to fail. Any hostage negotiator who tried a hostile approach with a kidnapper would guarantee that any and all hostages would never again see the light of day. How many goals and relationships are similarly being held hostage in everyday life through hostility and punishment?

Here’s an example of one of the few things I disliked in the book Boundaries: a girl doesn’t want to go to the dentist, her father says she’s then “choosing” to not go to a party she was looking forward to attending, and she reluctantly agrees to go to the dentist after all. While this is presented as an example of boundaries, it’s actually a threat of punishment. A boundary is what you will say or do for yourself, not an attempt to control or hurt somebody else. Further, the father makes no attempt to understand why she doesn’t want to go to the dentist (which could include a fear of the dentist that the girl and her father can work through together, concern if the appointment conflicts with something else she wanted to do during that time, discomfort if the dentist acted inappropriately toward her last time, etc.). For both the girl’s own health as well as the relationship between her and her father, the best course of action is to eschew punishment in favor of identifying her concerns and working through them together.

This brings up another point worth mentioning: kids often have issues that they cannot effectively communicate, whether because of their age, disabilities, or something else beyond their control, and yet they’ll still get punished when they struggle. For example, some parents either punish their kids if they don’t want to eat a certain food or force them to eat that food only to later learn that their kids are actually allergic to it! Their kids may not be old enough to understand what allergies are, may not realize that there’s an allergic reaction going on regardless of age, or lack the words to describe their experience, but they do know that they feel bad when they eat that food. Parents who force that food on their kids and punish them for resisting or expressing discomfort only make matters worse. In contrast, parents who listen to their kids, notice when things are going badly, and take them to the doctor to find out what’s wrong are doing a much better job of taking care of their kids. This is one of many areas in which punishment falls short while alternative approaches shine, and it can be used equally well with adults who are having a hard time expressing their concerns and needs.

At best, I see punishment as an unsuccessful attempt to make things better. At worst, I see it as intentional acts of cruelty inflicted on others out of anger, hatred, and a desire to bring them pain. This is based on countless examples of alternative approaches being discussed in great detail and then getting immediately dismissed by those who defend punishment. For example, A might say that they have a special situation that makes punishment necessary. If B describes a similar situation and explains how they navigate it without resorting to punishment, A will again dismiss what has been said and continue asserting that they need to use punishment (often while levying personal attacks against B instead of considering what B is saying or at least acting in a civil manner). That swift dismissal without showing why anything brought up was incorrect or impractical and without thinking about how it could apply to their situation suggests that they have no desire to even consider any alternatives to punishing others who do things they dislike.

I see this a lot from those who received harsh, violent punishments as kid. They often say they turned out fine, yet they almost always react with hostility to the idea that those punishments left them with lasting pain or that they shouldn’t be punishing their own kids. They’re demonstrating the trauma response of fight, which they also default to when they administer punishment while yelling, cursing, hitting someone, etc. (not to mention that punishment itself is just another form of fighting). In this state, it is almost impossible to think clearly, see other options, and take any path other than the one currently being followed (even if one or more other paths are better). When they can’t decide to try something new in the heat of the moment, they can only fall back onto old patterns of behavior, whether they developed those patterns themselves or inherited them from older family members.

I believe that being punished early in life is the primary reason that punishment continues to be used in many areas of life and gets passed down to each new generation. I also suspect that guilt on the part of those who use punishment is a big part of the hostility and defensiveness they exhibit when confronted. If that’s correct, then instead of suppressing their guilt and attacking whoever criticizes them, they could find peace by releasing the guilt and finding peaceful ways to interact with others. That would also, I hope, stop the punishment from getting handed down to future humans.

This would be a monumental shift since punishment has been one of several constants throughout human history. Some seem to think that “civilized” societies are far more advanced than “primitive” societies, particularly in how disputes and violence are handled. However, this is just an illusion. All societies that are built on violence and punishment feature both as regular parts of life. Attempted justifications and those tasked with doling out the punishment have varied, but it’s still been used widely across cultures, countries, and time periods either as a threat to make humans of all ages follow orders or as a way to hurt them for disobeying. Whether it’s one individual punishing another, a local group doing so, or members of one or more society-wide institutions carrying it out makes no real difference. The only true difference is that the punishment present in many modern societies is harder to see or recognize as punishment compared to the much more open punishment of many past societies.

The many punishments I received growing up have given me a lot of fear in social interactions, especially with those in positions of power over me. I still can resort at times to people-pleasing, ignoring my own needs and wants in favor of pleasing others, and feeling afraid of standing up for myself against mistreatment. I especially fear talking about my ideas when they are in stark contrast to someone else’s, particularly when that person is quick to anger. That’s why I feel much more comfortable sharing what’s on my mind and heart through writing, such as in this blog.

The emotional work I’ve done has reduced a lot of my above issues, in addition to reducing my tendency to keep in negative emotions until I explode on someone. I still have a long way to go, however, to rid myself of the belief that I’m a horrible human who doesn’t deserve good treatment or the option to request a situation change in ways that would make me feel more comfortable. I envy those who have never had to face anything like that, and I dearly hope I can eliminate that while I’m still young.

For full disclosure, the desire to punish others still exists within me. I often want to punish those who hurt me so much growing up, anyone who hurts innocent humans or animals, and everyone who makes general life worse for everyone. That said, I want to live in a world without punishment. A world in which mistakes are met with grace, gentle guidance takes the place of actions meant to cause pain, and everyone feels safe to interact with others in a variety of ways without fear of negative repercussions. I know that punishing others will just add to the pain in the world and keep things going as they are, so I do my best to do better. While I can do little to convince others to help build a peaceful world, I can do my part to help it along by refraining from punishing others and choosing options based on peace instead. The more I heal, and the more I heal old pain from early in my life, the weaker that desire to punish others becomes. On my best days, I have lots of patience, grace, and forgiveness for myself and everyone around me. That gives me hope that I can continue doing better here.

Fortunately, some have also chosen to do better. I saw this firsthand during one of my trips to the local zoo. A family was watching some gorillas when the son fell down. He started crying right away after the dad helped him up. The dad then set his son on his knee, softly patted his back while giving him a lengthy hug and gave him comforting words as he cried (“Take a minute, buddy” and “It’s been a long day, I know”). The boy cried for a minute or two while still getting those pats and comforting words. The dad then asked his son in a gentle voice if he wanted to go home or see the alligators. He started to walk away, son still in his arms, when the boy asked to see the baby gorillas. He still sounded a bit upset but was no longer crying and had mostly returned to how he was before (talking calmly and asking questions about the animals).

I teared up a bit after seeing that. The dad showed more concern for his son than whatever anyone nearby might have thought about his son crying in public. He said nothing along the lines of “Stop crying” or “That wasn’t that bad a fall” or anything else. It was also nice that the dad gave his son the option to go home and rest or keep exploring the zoo for a while longer. That sort of present, emotionally intelligent response can’t come out of nowhere, so I figure that’s the dad’s go-to response whenever his son feels upset and needs some comfort. I can imagine his son taking away the lesson that his dad will be there for him even when he feels hurt, scared, and upset; that crying is ok; and that they can sit together through the hard, painful times. I didn’t say anything to the dad, although I did consider thanking him for handling that so well. I’m glad I got to witness that gentle parenting in action and it gave me hope that things are moving in a good direction in at least certain areas. I hope that becomes the go-to response of anyone whose kids need comfort, love, and support during a painful, scary time.

Jason Wilson has done an incredible job of overcoming his abusive upbringing to mentor young men and boys who are trying to navigate similar struggles. Here, he demonstrates noticing some pain in one of his students, making it safe for the student to share his painful feelings, and even to cry in front of everyone without being mocked or shamed. This allows the student to overcome his limitation and succeed where he once thought he’d fail. A powerful lesson.

Marshall Rosenberg was an expert at hearing and meeting the needs of everyone who called on him for help. He spoke and wrote a lot about resolving conflicts through this exact method. Although it can be difficult to have enough presence and emotional intelligence to focus more on someone’s emotions and needs than the harsh things they might be saying, it can be learned and used to bring about solutions that focus on Win/Win instead of Win/Lose.

Mister Rogers spent his entire adult life modeling peaceful ways of living. Generations of kids and adults alike learned how to better relate to themselves and those close to them, whether in good times or hard times. He even shared how he apologized to his grandson after taking out some anger on him. In addition to showing that even someone as kind, patient, and loving as Mister Rogers could still make mistakes at times, he was still willing to own up to them and make things right again.

There are even entire countries in which alternatives to punishment are being utilized with great success. While I haven’t heard of any thus far that have completely eliminated punishment, some have greatly scaled it back. Unlike most other prisons in which punishment is a huge part of the process, the extent of the punishment in Norwegian prisons is the inmates’ lack of freedom to leave the prisons until their sentences are over. The primary focus is on rehabilitation, even for those who commit incredibly violent acts. As a result of extensive training for guards in (among other subjects) psychology, communication, law, and de-escalation, in addition to prisons that are designed to as closely as possible mimic normal Norwegian society, Norwegian prisoners are far less likely to commit acts of violence after being released than US prisoners. If this works with incredibly violent humans, think about how well it can work for everyone else.

My dog Sawyer responded much better to gentle guidance than punishment. Since I was the least likely of his human family to punish him, I think it’s no coincidence that, over time, he grew closer to me than anyone else. I’m so thankful that our friendship was such that we could let each other know what we needed and help meet those needs without punishing each other.

Without punishment or the threat thereof, it becomes much easier to work through issues with others, clean up messes together, and share deep feelings. Everyone I’ve seen speak favorably about punishing others has never shown that same enthusiasm when it comes to accepting punishment when they do something someone else dislikes. It’s easy to be in favor of punishment when it’s someone else who gets hurt; it’s a whole different ballgame when one’s own safety and wellbeing are at risk. That may be the way in: showing those who support punishment that, just as they feel better and learn better when given gentle guidance rather than punishment, so do others. Only time will tell if this or anything else will bring about a more peaceful world. If it does, I hope I’ll be around to see it and enjoy it, at least for a little while.

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A Better Way to Work

Posted on May 15, 2024 by admin

I remember reading a short story many years ago. In the story, a kid decides to make some money by mowing lawns. His neighbor tells him that there are three different types of lawn jobs: $3, $4, and $5. She also tells him that nobody can do a $5 job. This inspires him to prove her wrong. He spends all day mowing, weeding, trimming, and doing other types of work in her lawn, even stopping to take naps and breaks as needed. All his effort pays off as he gets $5 and his neighbor’s respect.

The story seems intended to show the value of hard work. At this point in my life, however, with everything I’ve experienced since reading that story, I can’t help but think about it differently. What stands out to me the most is the opportunity cost of that kid working all day to get $5 from one lawn. If he had been able to do three $3 jobs in the time it took him to do one $5 job, he’d have almost double the money for the same amount of work, and almost triple if he could have done three $4 jobs during that time. That’s a large difference that grows even larger over time.

As for any possible concerns about doing lower quality work in order to get more jobs, there has to be a balance between effectiveness and efficiency. Lots of companies do just fine with poor quality products and services (especially huge companies with big name recognition, many locations, and long track records), so anyone who offers good products and services has an advantage. Nobody has to shoot for perfection in order to succeed. Sometimes it’s better to do a good enough job than to try to get everything perfect.

Additionally, some things can only be learned by trial and error. Lots of folks in business start out slowly and simply, learn as they go, and steadily improve the quality of what they offer as they accumulate more knowledge about running a business. Their business might eventually end up in a very different place than it was when it started, and they will almost certainly be more knowledgeable, efficient, and effective than they were at the outset. If they didn’t start where they were and with the level of knowledge and skill they had at the time, they’d have never improved their business or even started it at all.

With the food delivery gig I started earlier this year, it took me a long time to figure out how much to look for with the orders. Specifically, the amount of driving that comes with any given offer compared to the amount of money in that offer. In the spirit of what I said above about the story of the kid doing yard work, I’d much rather make a few higher-paying deliveries that don’t involve too much driving than make a lot of deliveries that pay way less money each. However, I’ll accept slightly lower-paying offers if they come with far less driving than slightly higher-paying offers. In any event, I always strive to avoid offers whose mileage is higher than the pay (for example, an offer that requires ten miles of driving and pays $5).

Sometimes I’ll even forgo delivery driving altogether if a better deal arises. There was one week in which I made hardly any deliveries because I was busy with another project. Since that project made me much more money over three days than I’d have made doing deliveries during that time period, I knew that it was worth sacrificing several small opportunities in order to accept the one big opportunity. I’ve done similarly at past jobs by taking time off to perform at juggling gigs that paid me much more money than I’d have made working my regular shift (the gigs also were more fun and took less time).

The changes I’ve made in these different projects have all come about gradually through trial and error. Small changes are always easier to make and sustain than huge changes. Easing into delivery driving was much easier than other jobs in which I suddenly went from unemployment straight into working nearly full-time, or in which I went directly from one kind of job into another very different job. The two biggest changes I’ve had with regard to my dog Sawyer were the day he came home and the day he died. In the former, I went from never having had a dog to having a new best friend. In the latter, our friendship of eleven years ended in a matter of minutes. While it was fairly quick and easy to adjust to life with Sawyer, adjusting to life without him has been the longest, hardest, and most painful process of my life. I’m certain it would have been easier if I’d had more notice or if there had been some way to gradually reduce our time together until we had none left.

Finding the balance between efficiency and effectiveness is something that comes with time. I’ve gotten pretty good at doing this with my hobbies, various jobs, and even this blog. On the days in which it’s difficult to do anything, doing just a little bit is enough to keep the ball rolling in a good direction while still giving me time to rest so I can do more another day. That has kept up my skills with juggling, unicycling, swing dancing, writing, and so on. All without making me feel extraordinarily frustrated and wanting to give up on the hard days. This approach still seems to be the exception in general. Whether or not it becomes the norm on a widespread basis, I hope that I can keep developing it in my own life and interact primarily with others who do the same.

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Let the Good Times Roll

Posted on May 8, 2024 by admin

For most of my adult life, I’ve spent much of my waking days reminiscing over good times. This has gotten to the point over the last few years that I often wish I could relive the best moments of my life on an endless loop. If I could only pick one year to relive in that way, it would be 2018, my best year ever. On my worst days when I feel the most depressed, I become convinced that my best days are all behind me, and that my future either has nothing for me to look forward to or will be a pale imitation of my past.

This negative programming has become even more deeply etched within me since my dog Sawyer’s death. Losing him after the unexpected ending of a bad job a few months earlier and the many issues that have arisen in the two years since he died have made it much harder for me to imagine great times ahead. While I’ve healed a lot of the pain around losing him, there is still much work to be done, and life without him still hurts. Sawyer got me through a lot of hard times and was always there for me even when nobody else was, so his absence makes the hard times even harder. I miss his quiet, supportive presence and the gentle comfort he brought me when I needed it the most.

I recently got an idea about how to heal by reflecting fondly on the good times. When I look back on my best days, I usually do so with a huge sense of sadness that they’re gone and aren’t coming back. One day, I decided to focus on enjoying them without dwelling on the painful stuff that happened before and after. I found it to be a wonderfully relaxing experience that made me feel happier and lighter afterward. That’s one of the powerful lessons in Letting Go by David Hawkins: avoiding resisting the positive emotions. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to allow myself to feel happy, peaceful, joyful, and the like, so taking time to welcome those feelings as they arise is wonderful.

I’ve also worked more on releasing fear, especially fear connected to wonderful past occasions that took a huge negative downturn after the other shoe dropped. That happened throughout my upbringing. It usually took the form of me having fun while minding my own business until an adult snapped at me, yelled at me, or even hit me because I wasn’t doing something they wanted me to do or had done something they disliked. Although the violence has long gone away, others have still repeatedly snapped at, yelled at, and punished me in other ways over the past decade, which has programmed me to expect it whenever things go well for more than a little while. This is especially an issue with anyone who has power over me in a large system, whether it’s an employment situation or something that encompasses all of society. Additional ways that I’ve been hurt by things going badly (car trouble, unexpected financial issues, health problems, and other painful experiences that have happened many times this year already) prevent me from ever enjoying the good times for long as I’m always wondering how long they’ll last before the bad times return once again. I hope that continuing to heal past pain will allow me to fully enjoy the good stuff that is here now and whatever other good comes my way later without expecting it to end right away.

My life has contained long stretches in which I felt bad during the hard times and didn’t really enjoy much of the good times due to fear that they’d soon end. On some rare occasions, I’d feel bad during the hard times and fully enjoy the good times without fear of them ending. The highest level, which I haven’t permanently made my home but have stayed there briefly a couple of times, consisted of me feeling at peace regardless of what was happening around me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to stay permanently at that highest level. If the furthest I ever reach is the level of feeling bad when bad things happen and good when good things happen, and I can stay at that level consistently without falling back down to feeling bad almost all the time, I’ll take it. Since I’ve repeatedly surprised myself by doing things I once thought couldn’t be done, I won’t set a limit on how far I can go. Instead, I’ll keep doing what’s worked wonders for me and see how far it takes me.

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Slow Down, Please!

Posted on May 1, 2024 by admin

During one of Mister Rogers’ interviews with Charlie Rose, he expressed concern over how noisy the world had become, saying, “I’m very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder. In noise rather than silence.” That struck a chord with me. Generally, I prefer calm, quiet, and slow to rambunctious, loud, and fast. This is even more important to me when I have to make a big, important decision. In that case, I need to take it slow and let ideas come to me in quiet stillness. If not, I’ll forget important things and regret them later through rushing.

Unfortunately, what Mister Rogers said back in 1994 has only gotten worse since then. Every major decision I’ve regretted has been one I’ve made in a rush, yet the world seems to be moving faster every day and giving me less time to make important decisions. So much of modern life seems like a high-pressure sales situation or an interrogation: a fast, loud, confusing, intimidating, and scary situation meant to overwhelm the other person and make them do what those creating that situation want them to do. Whenever I can, I seek out calm, quiet, stillness, and peace as the antidote to such sensory overload. It’s sadly getting harder and harder to find any or all of those in regular life.

From what I’ve seen, my approach to conversations is vastly different than normal. I prefer to speak slowly in conversation, pause between the end of what someone says and the start of what I say (as well as between my own sentences), take time to formulate a response before speaking, and keep a relaxed pace throughout the whole exchange. I wish others would do the same, largely because that’s where I feel most comfortable, I need more time to understand what is being said and how someone feels about it, and the slower interactions I’ve had seem to have also been beneficial for the others involved, even if they generally operate faster in conversation. Instead, most humans I meet seem to race through everything they say, leave almost no pause between the end of my speech and the start of theirs, say the first thing that pops into their head (even when it’s cruel, irrelevant, or otherwise makes the interaction worse), and act anxiously the entire time. Unless I’m really in the zone, I tend to get dragged along with them into talking and interacting faster than is comfortable for me, which almost always makes me feel anxious and results in worse interactions. I hope to get better at talking and moving at my own pace regardless of what anyone else around me is doing.

I also have a great deal of trouble responding when someone asks me a question and then repeats the same question many times while I’m trying to think of an answer. When this happens, the person often immediately repeats the question less than a second after asking it. Sometimes they ask it a few times in a few different ways and then stop until I say something. Other times they ask it endlessly, only stopping if I finally interrupt. The endless repetition cases are the worst as they prevent me from having the inner stillness and silence that brings answers to mind. Some things make no sense to me until I get enough quiet space inside for what has been said to sort itself out. That can take anywhere from a few seconds to far, far longer, and it sometimes requires lots of clarification. By repeatedly asking the same question, and usually also pressuring me to answer right away, anyone who does this is actually preventing themselves from getting an answer from me.

This has created many issues for me across multiple areas of life. Outside of normal social interactions with others, being slow to understand made things hard at each of my past jobs. Whether it was taking a long time to learn the systems in place, having trouble understanding what someone was asking of me, carrying out a request outside of the norm, and more, all of those would have been much easier if I could have picked things up much faster. It’s also made misunderstandings much harder to clear up. So many folks, especially those I don’t know, are quick to make negative assumptions and speak about them in unclear ways. By the time I’ve understood that there is an issue and what that issue is, they’ve usually already cemented in their mind the negative assumption and started acting with hostility toward me.

All of this seems to have gotten harder after my head injury in November of 2021. It’s hard to tell for sure what lasting effects, if any, it has had. That was certainly a stressful situation at the time, although I was able to return to my normal life fairly quickly. The fact that it happened in the second of three highly stressful years in a row, not long before I left a job that had become more trouble than it was worth, and just under six months before my dog Sawyer’s death makes it tough to know how much of my current troubles are from the injury and how much are from the other issues. I suspect it’s a combination of all of those.

The most painful examples of this all involve Sawyer toward the end of his life. I strongly wish I had been given more time and space to talk about whether or not Sawyer was truly ready to die and the emotions I felt before the decision was made. Instead, I was rushed, guilted, pressured, and otherwise manipulated into going along with a decision that had already been made. My feelings, wants, and needs weren’t considered for a moment. As if that weren’t bad enough, in the rush of that decision and what followed, I assumed that when the vet talked about getting paw and nose prints from Sawyer, that at least the paw prints would be done with clay. To my dismay, they were only done in ink on cardstock. It didn’t occur to me until it was too late that clay prints might have required special arrangements at the vet or could have to have been done elsewhere entirely. While I love having the ink paw prints, I deeply regret not arranging to have clay paw prints made. To top it off, I wish I had been given more time with Sawyer’s body after he left it. Unfortunately, as I often do in extremely stressful situations, I followed the lead of others. This meant that Sawyer’s body was taken away only a few minutes after his death, and I didn’t think to ask what was happening next or to say I wanted more time with his body. When his body was taken away, I didn’t know that I wouldn’t get to see, pet, or visit with it again. If I had known that at the time, I would have made sure to get more than a few minutes, even if I were the only one in the room (which would have been my preference, actually). The unpleasant cherry on top was how Sawyer’s beds, towels, food/water bowls, and most of his other items were packed up and put away by nightfall that day. As if they, and, by extension, he, were never here in the first place. Nobody asked me if I was ok with that, if I’d like to have kept them out longer, or anything else about how I felt or what I wanted. I had to make a specific request to keep his pillow by the front window, and that only happened begrudgingly. The guilt, shame, anger, sadness, and regret around all of these have been incredibly heavy and hard to heal.

How I feel about any of this varies greatly from moment to moment. Sometimes I feel angry and depressed about how things are and seem to be going. Other times I feel calm and hopeful, especially when I see steps in the right direction anywhere in the world. Since I’ve worked through a ton of pain around Sawyer’s death over the last two years, it seems that older, deeper pains are now free to come up for healing. These are proving quite difficult to work through, given how many of them occurred during the first few years of my life and all of them before I became an adult. This “original pain,” as John Bradshaw described it in Homecoming, seems to be the most difficult to heal and to also bring the most freedom when finally put to rest. I hope that I can focus enough on those early emotional wounds to finally heal them and then be able to consistently stick to a slower speaking style and calmer conversational approach. The limited experiences I’ve had in emotional states with little to no fear, guilt, shame, or other negativity have been incredible, and I look forward to seeing how much better it gets when all the old pain is gone.

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Two Years Without Sawyer

Posted on April 24, 2024 by admin

This past Friday, April 19th, was the two-year anniversary of my dog Sawyer’s death. In both good and bad ways, that day was quite different than I imagined it would be. Here are some observations about it.

I wasn’t sure how painful that date would be this year. There was still a great deal of pain one year after Sawyer’s death. The fact that I spent much of that day searching for a rehab facility for seven orphaned baby possums and then transporting them once a good place had been found added to the pain and stress. Even without that experience, I’m certain that that day still would have been painful. That was the first day that I could no longer say I had Sawyer less than one year ago.

Just as last year, this year’s anniversary was also painful, especially since it marked the beginning of having to say that I’ve been without Sawyer for multiple years. However, the pain was smaller than last year and the day itself was overall ok. I attribute that to all the healing work I’ve done, regarding both Sawyer’s death and other issues. I spent lots of time by myself on Friday letting go and doing things in memory of Sawyer. Several of them made me cry healing tears. I reread Mister Rogers’s book When A Pet Dies and watched the episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in which he talks about death. Both gave me comfort and the episode freed up more tears.

Although I would have strongly preferred to have stayed home all day, I had an important commitment that evening. While the event itself went fine, I felt a lot of anger on the drive down there due to heavy delays and getting stuck at a lot of red lights on an alternative route. All that stress made me not even want to do the event at all since it took a lot just to get there through all that anger and wasted time. I felt so relieved to be back home after a smooth return drive. The anger and sadness took a lot out of me that day and left me feeling extra tired by the end.

The week leading up to the big day was almost a disaster. On Sunday, April 14th, something extremely scary, infuriating, and deeply painful happened that completely ruined that day for me. I cried a lot and yelled a lot after that happened; the next day featured some more crying and possibly more yelling. I spent the next two days at home doing four hours of letting go per day. That helped me feel immensely better. I kept doing as many extra letting go sessions throughout the week as my schedule allowed. I’m certain that allowed me to welcome all emotions on the anniversary much better than I otherwise could have in addition to preventing the massive pain from that Sunday from making me feel even worse than I did.

Car trouble added some additional stress to this already painful time of year. Fortunately, I was able to have reliable transportation every day it was needed. That was especially important over this past weekend when two close friends of mine got married in St. Augustine. I had the honor of being in the wedding party, which is the first time I’ve been asked to do so. I’m so glad I was able to be part of it despite the car issues and increased emotional pain.

Something many don’t seem to understand, and which took me a long time to realize, is that Sawyer’s death and life without him have both been painful for other reasons than my love for him. Since Sawyer first came home toward the end of my junior year in high school, we experienced a lot in our eleven years together. My high school graduation, first job, entering adulthood, first romantic relationship, start of my career as a professional juggler, and beginning of my self-improvement journey are a few of the things Sawyer was there to witness. He also got me through a lot of painful times, such as the end of that romantic relationship, several deaths of those close to me, scary confrontations, and tons of my own emotional struggles. The fact that he’s not here anymore not only means that we won’t get to make any new Earthly memories together but also that his role as a living link to many major milestones and wonderful times in my life is now broken. That is painful enough on my good days and even more painful on my bad days when I miss him, the comfort he gave me, and the connection he provided to the good times of the past.

I’m glad the day went as well as it did. Each day without Sawyer is difficult, and, thus far, each anniversary since his death has been more painful than the average day. Despite several humans telling me “The pain never goes away,” I have noticed a gradual decrease in the pain since I started working through it right after Sawyer’s death. While I don’t know how long it will take for all of the pain to go away, I feel confident that that will happen at some point with continued healing work. In addition to feeling curious as to how the third anniversary of Sawyer’s death affects me next year, I look forward to feeling increasing peace about what happened, what will happen, and what is happening around me.

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The Healing Power of Presence and Listening

Posted on April 17, 2024 by admin

I usually prefer to be by myself when I feel upset. On the rare occasions in which I’d like some company, I prefer that company keep the focus on me and my pain, just as I strive to keep the focus on those close to me and their pain when they turn to me for support during their painful times. I don’t want to feel lonely, and I feel most lonely when others use my pain as an opportunity to talk about themselves. (regardless of their intentions in doing so). In fact, I feel lonelier when surrounded by folks doing that than I ever do when I’m focusing on healing with nobody else around.

Ultimately, I want those close to me to simply be present with me and where I’m at instead of directing me or rejecting me if I feel anything other than happy, peaceful, joyful, etc. That is the central lesson in Cori Doerrfeld’s beautiful book The Rabbit Listened. When someone else listens to and is present with me, or when I do it for myself, the feeling of relief is incredible. It makes the pain smaller, easier to understand, and possible to work through without feeling so overwhelmed. Additionally, if enough humans did this, I believe it would solve most of the problems regarding gossip, interruptions, misunderstandings, fighting, strained relationships, etc. More peace and more solid relationships. Sounds wonderful.

Although I had known of it for quite some time, I finally took some time last week to watch the sweet video Steve Burns (the original host of Blue’s Clues) uploaded earlier this year. In case the link won’t work, Steve asked viewers how they were doing and then gave almost a minute of silence for them to answer while appearing to genuinely listen. Instead of staying quiet, I started talking about recent experiences. I cried a bit as I got more personal about the pain I’m still dealing with, especially around loneliness and fear of my future. I felt better after that. It’d be so nice to have even one human regularly listen to and be present with me like this. Only a handful of folks I know have ever done this for me, and none of them live nearby or are easy to reach. Although I’ve gotten pretty good at doing this for myself, it’s still hard at times. That’s when the struggles are strongest.

My dog Sawyer was wonderful at this. I felt safe enough around him to show all kinds of emotion and tell him about anything that was bothering me. No matter how good or bad I felt, he wanted to be by my side and show me love. When I felt bad, he often would get more still and quiet than usual while lying down near, against, or on top of me similarly to this. He always made me feel comfortable, loved, and valued, and I’m so thankful to have received that from him for so many years.

I want my friends to keep being my friends even when I feel mad, sad, afraid, or bad. Despite all the healing and self-improvement I’ve experienced for nearly 7 years now, I still fear that those close to me will leave me if I say I feel angry, frustrated, or otherwise upset at something they’ve done. As such, when I feel bad, I rarely say much about how I’m feeling, set strong boundaries, or ask for a change in an interaction. All of that becomes even harder to do when I feel deeply upset; that’s when I fear even more than usual how someone might react to my requests and revelations, so I say as little as possible and usually end up either going totally silent or getting dragged around by whoever is talking to me while they are seemingly totally oblivious to how I feel. A possible remedy for this is working on boundaries and expressions of feelings with close friends who have shown that they will stick with me even when I feel upset and don’t always know how to put it into words effectively. I’ve considered this before but have never done much of anything with it outside of a few instances during some life coaching back in 2021. I’d like to try more of it.

Until then, I’ll keep doing what I can on my own to release pain and feel more at peace. I’m thankful for having more opportunities than usual to do that this week. They have been crucial for overcoming a hugely painful experience on Sunday and preparing me for the two-year anniversary of Sawyer’s death on Friday. Even if it’s still painful, I hope it’s at least less painful than the day of his death and the one-year anniversary. If the progress I’ve made since April of 2022 is any indication, I’m sure it will be.

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Responsibility in Emotional Regulation

Posted on April 10, 2024 by admin

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which I first talked about in this past post. It’s hard to tell whether more humans are living through their parasympathetic nervous systems or if that’s just what appears to be happening as I’m getting deeply in touch with mine once more. Here are some of my recent thoughts on this.

From my own experience, I can organize this into different levels. The lowest levels involve almost constant activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which results in feeling bad all the time or most of the time, regardless how many good things are happening. Significantly higher up is feeling good unless things happen that one dislikes. Still higher is feeling good unless majorly bad things happen. The highest level is feeling good all the time. That is when the parasympathetic nervous system is nearly always active. During my best times, I’ve been able to stay feeling good even when those around me were being loud, expressing anger, or even turning to violence. Unfortunately, thus far, I’ve only been able to stay at that highest level for about a month at the longest before slipping back to a level that remains fairly high up yet still has the possibility of feeling bad at times.

I often see this framed in terms of “masculine” and “feminine.” I think this is a big mistake, especially when it’s used alongside an implication or direct statement that it’s solely a man’s responsibility to hold space and help regulate the emotions of his girlfriend, fiancĂ©, or wife, and that it’s either hardly ever or even never her responsibility to do that for him. One reason this confuses me is because the traits commonly ascribed to a man “in his masculine” or a woman “in her feminine” include peace, being grounded, present moment focus, lightness, and a sense of ease for what is and what will be. All of those are signs that the parasympathetic nervous system is active. Signs that the sympathetic nervous system is active include shallow breathing, rapid heartbeat, being lost in thought, jumpiness, and a short temper. Since everyone has both a sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, anyone can learn how to engage either one. That’s why I don’t see this in terms of “masculinity” or “femininity.” It’s about whether the sympathetic or parasympathetic is in control.

If someone is going to hold space for another who is having a hard time, it’s important that this not become that person’s full-time responsibility. This applies equally for romantic relationships, friendships, families, etc. Sometimes one particular person is in a good enough place to support another who is struggling. In other cases, that person may be struggling and need support from somebody else. Taking turns as needed keeps everyone on the same team and prevents any one person from getting burned out by always being the one who attempts to hold space for everyone else’s emotions. If everyone is dependent on one person to always be calm and keep things together, then who helps that person when he feels overwhelmed and can barely hang on for himself, let alone for everyone else? Further, if the one person who always keeps it together is struggling or unavailable, does everyone in that situation just fall apart? There must be a better way.

I much prefer taking turns supporting each other over the above approach, which is the way it was throughout my upbringing and even well into adulthood. At home, at various jobs, and in many close human relationships, I was expected to be the one who’d keep it together for the sake of everyone around me. The worst part was interacting with all kinds of adults who would go crazy if anything they even remotely disliked happened, especially if I as a little kid said or did something they hated. I’m sure that’s where the seed of responsibility for everyone else’s feelings was planted within me, the same seed that eventually grew into a huge, tangled mess that I’m still working every day to remove. That responsibility is exhausting and I’m so glad to finally be making real progress in releasing it.

My dog Sawyer helped ground me and engage my parasympathetic nervous system when I felt upset. Over time, I learned how to do the same for him when he needed it. This could involve giving him more attention when he appeared to feel sad, petting him and speaking in a calm voice to settle him down, and giving him space, especially when he felt tired enough to need extra naps. I loved how much we were there for each other, and my favorite human relationships have similar reciprocity. I wish that reciprocity were more common among humans.

The more I heal and release pain, the easier it is to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, and the less I depend on anyone else speaking or doing anything in particular to make me feel good. Although I’m not yet back to where I was during that wonderful month in which nothing bothered me, I still find myself feeling better in general than I have for much of my life. It takes more to really upset me and, when I do feel super upset, I can release it and feel better again much faster than I thought possible until the past few years when I really started working on this. While this is much easier for those who’ve never been traumatized, those who have been traumatized can still heal enough that they can regularly engage the parasympathetic nervous system themselves instead of being dependent on anyone else to attempt it for them. I’m sure I will feel even more relieved as I continue to heal and become increasingly freer from others being able to influence my emotional state. I hope the same occurs for all the humans I know as well as the ones I don’t know.

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The Value of Kids’ Books

Posted on April 3, 2024 by admin

Emotional work can be difficult at times. Sometimes it’s even exhausting. What makes it more challenging are works that are hard to understand and even harder to practice. Some writers on these subjects seem to think that including lots of challenging concepts and long words that are tough to pronounce (and which require constant looking up in the dictionary) makes their work more meaningful, effective, or valuable. It doesn’t. It makes it ineffective, confusing, and impractical.

There’s an idea about being able to explain something in such a way that a little kid can understand it. As much value as I’ve gotten out of practicing the central technique in David Hawkins’s Letting Go, the book has a lot in there that can be confusing at times. Some other books are much easier to follow. That’s where kids’ books come in. Kids’ books rarely have the problem of being difficult to understand. While many adults have trouble grasping metaphor, subtlety, and lessons hidden within a story, even more kids struggle with this, which is why so much content made for kids uses clear lessons that are spelled out so that almost everyone can understand them. They also almost always include practical steps to help anyone start moving toward where they want to be from wherever they are at the moment. That simplicity is valuable for anyone, whether kid or adult.

When I’m feeling incredibly upset and overwhelmed, I have even more trouble than usual understanding things. I need to keep things simple during those times. I’ve found a few kids’ books to be wonderful in those situations. The one I’ve used the longest is When A Pet Dies by Mister Rogers. I love all of Mister Rogers’s work and this is one of my favorites. It helped me so much with the pain of my dog Sawyer’s death when that pain was still incredibly fresh and it still helps me when I need it at times, such as this morning when it brought out some tears and made me feel a little more peaceful. The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld beautifully illustrates how much listening to someone can do to help them feel better. It’s right in line with my own approach to helping others, how I prefer others to comfort me when I feel upset, and what I’ve gotten good at doing for myself. The most recent finding I’ve used is a box set one of my best friends sent me from Diane Alber called A Little SPOT of Emotion. It contains a book, poster, mirror, and set of eight plus figures representing different emotions. The box set is all about helping kids identify and handle their emotions in healthy ways.

Even though I’ve only had that box set for a few days at this point, it’s already helping me recover a level of emotional acceptance that has been missing for years. It reminds me of the huge breakthrough I had in early 2021. That was around the time I was going through some powerful life coaching, doing a lot of work from John Bradshaw’s book Homecoming, and still benefiting from all the pain I released in the second half of 2020. I was feeling pretty good at the time and realized while listening to this song on YouTube that it was peace and friendship with myself that I had been missing for so long. The combination of all those things gave me this incredible sense of peace and oneness with myself. That has been a rare sensation over the past several years. Seeing those little emotion plush figures as my friends and loving all of them (including anger, sadness, and the other ones typically thought of as negative) has given me back that sensation. I feel a lot more at peace with myself now and a lot more hopeful. I’m so thankful to have that back.

The easier something is to do, the more likely I am to do it, especially when I feel overwhelmed. Many kids’ books and shows contain powerful lessons despite their simple appearances, and that makes those lessons far easier to put into practice than most works aimed at adults. There’s only so much that can be gained from learning and endlessly intellectualizing about certain concepts. The healing and growth come from finding what works and using it. I’m so thankful for all the great resources I’ve found, whether they guided me during my formative years as a kid or are currently helping me heal my inner little kid. I hope they help you as well.

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Boundaries vs Nonviolent Communication

Posted on March 27, 2024 by admin

I’ve thought a lot about boundaries lately. My interest in this started in 2019 after I read the book Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. Despite seeming to understand it at the time, I struggled to apply what I’d learned, and later realized that I had misunderstood some key aspects. Mainly, I didn’t understand that setting and maintaining boundaries is about deciding what I will do, not trying to control what others do. This appears to be a common misunderstanding around boundaries. For example, if someone often gossips to me about others and I don’t want to be around gossip, I could either try to make them stop or I could leave whenever they start gossiping. The latter option is a boundary. Now that I finally understand this, I’ve been able to apply it successfully in a variety of situations.

However, as I’ve written about before, I wonder if I’m setting too many boundaries and depriving myself of meaningful interactions. In general, it takes much less than it used to for me to stop interacting with someone, whether temporarily or permanently. On my most difficult days, even the slightest bit of negativity from somebody else can make me disengage. Despite the fact that the more I heal, the easier it gets to avoid taking things personally, I still find it extremely difficult at times. It’s almost impossible for me to do this when I’m feeling exhausted, sad, afraid, angry, or otherwise overwhelmed.

This has got me thinking a lot about Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. I first read it years ago and have listened to many hours of Marshall talking about it this year. That renewed interest has made it easier for me to listen empathically and connect with the concerns, feelings, needs, and pains of others. It still amazes me how well Marshall could do this, even in some of the most intense confrontations around extremely painful issues.

When I hear audio of people saying things I disagree with, it’s fairly easy to listen for the emotions and pain underneath the words, which increases my understanding of their needs and reduces my chances of feeling upset over what they are saying. I still find it enormously difficult to do this in my interactions with others, though. Fear of how they’ll respond, the time it can take me to figure out how they’re feeling, pressure to respond quickly, and the fact that this isn’t yet a habit for me all prevent me from doing this more often than not.

I especially hate the lack of reciprocity that continues to plague most of my interactions. While there are some folks who will show interest in what I’m feeling, wanting, and needing after I’ve done that for them, many others never do. That makes me feel frustrated and sad and results in me severely limiting my exposure to anyone who takes but never gives. It’s incredibly hard, frustrating, and draining being one of the few humans I know who strives for effective communication. Since almost everyone else I know reacts instantly instead of pausing before responding mindfully, makes negative assumptions rather than asking for clarification, uses snark and sarcasm instead of civility, and focuses more on the words than the emotions, it’s hard for me to avoid feeling disappointed and lonely.

Having seen since 2020 how cruel humans can be toward each other, and having seen since my dog Sawyer’s death how bad even caring humans tend to be at comforting those who are hurting, I’ve quadrupled my boundaries efforts. All the negativity that’s happened over the last four years and all the humans who have hurt me, misled me, or used me for their own purposes without showing any concern for me have got me feeling scared of humans in general. I won’t let any of that happen again, and boundaries are my primary defense against it. This applies to those close to me, complete strangers, and everyone in between. Most of the pain I’ve experienced has come from former friends and close acquaintances, so I don’t feel fully comfortable around those presently close to me since I never know who is going to turn on me and when. There has been enough pain from strangers to make me distrust those I don’t know, which makes it take longer for me to fully warm up to new folks. As such, I find the most peace when I’m alone or around friendly animals, especially dogs and cats.

Much of my life has alternated between being a doormat and a bulldozer. Even now, I still wonder at times if I feel bad after certain interactions because I went too far or if that’s just lingering guilt and shame that haven’t yet been released. Sometimes it helps to remember that even Marshall Rosenberg had limits. When he felt sufficiently overwhelmed, he would use a “nonviolent scream” to let those around him know he couldn’t interact anymore until he settled down and felt better. It’s comforting to know that those I admire and who have had a profoundly positive impact on my life are still human and sometimes need time to themselves.

All this has got me thinking that the ideas behind nonviolent communication comprise the highest level of communication and boundaries are the second-highest level. Much as I’d like to be able to use the nonviolent communication ideas more often, I take some comfort in the notion that consistently setting and maintaining proper boundaries in a loving way is still pretty high on the list and a far better approach than the most common approaches to difficult human interactions. If I’m in too much pain to hear the wants, feelings, and needs beneath someone’s cruel words, I’d rather remove myself from the situation than respond with cruelty. I hope that continuing to heal old emotional wounds and practicing both nonviolent communication and boundaries (ideally with my more patient friends) will dramatically reduce all these issues and make life better for everyone.

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