Month: June 2012

I fell in love with two people today… and a third, well that one’s been brewing for a while.

Let’s get straight to it, shall we?

Person #1: Beverly McLellan

I have never watched The Voice, but I saw her tonight at the Purple Party at LA Pride and…  the voice, the smile, the shaved head, the tattoos… (swoon).  Finally I have a crush on someone besides in addition to Rachel Maddow.

Person #2: Caroline Casey

I heard Caroline for the first time today on another episode of Teaching What We Need to Learn.  Brilliant.  I don’t know if I have the words to describe how excited I am to know that a person like her exists on this planet.  Her willingness to play with language and shape reality in profoundly beautiful ways is just…  wow.

Here’s some of the stuff she says in the interview:

Person #3: me.

It’s true… me.  I am in love with me!  It’s been in the works for some time, but something happened this week that really confirmed it.

I had to do a presentation at work on Monday called “who i am and why i’m here” and I thought it would be funny (and it was) to do a presentation called “Who I Am.  a hairstory.”  And tell my story through my ever evolving hairstyles over the years.  To do so I needed old photos and I just so happen to have BUCKETS of them in the garage from a moment where I foolishly volunteered to be responsible for the family photos.  So after a few days of going through photos of myself and selecting a few for the presentation I started to realize something…

I am beautiful.

even this version of me: beautiful.

…and I always have been.

And not just the pretty kind (although that too), but funny, playful, creative, authentic, loving…  and any other qualities you can see about a person through a photo.

…and again… I always have been.  This is not a new development.

Maybe this isn’t a shock to you, but it was to me.  I was not very fond of myself as a child, and a recent past version of me wasn’t very fond of the child versions either.  Only in the last couple of years have I decided to “forgive” myself for who I was before I became what I am now… and only in the last week have I realized that there was nothing to “forgive!”  I have no idea how I developed such a negative impression of myself, but damn…

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.  This divorce and subsequent lifestyle has brought out the best in me.  Little did I know, however, that I would find out that I’ve been my best self all along and I’m just growing more and more every day.

and you know what… you too.  You are beautiful too.  You are your best self too.  You are doing the absolute best you can in the moment, and you will continue to do so.

love this.

(p.s. 38: I don’t know if you’re still reading… but if you are, I haven’t forgotten about you.  The only reason you’re not on this list is because my love for you is older than this week.  xxxooo)

I had a GREAT therapy session yesterday.  My therapist had just returned from two weeks of intense training… and it showed!  She had all sorts of new tricks!

You may recall that I see someone who practices Brainspotting, which is a technique that uses eye movements to target a place in the brain where a trauma is stored to release and heal it… and then she just uses good old fashioned therapy to replace the irrational belief that a trauma caused with a much more loving belief for the road forward.

Before I tell you about the major vistory… a celebration: I, Kate E. McCracken, felt my feelings. 

Seriously.

 100%. 

They took over me… and I surrendered to them. 

It went a little something like this (we’d been doing a lot of work in a few younger parts of my self for most of the hour and then…):

Therapist: What’s present right now?
Kate: I’m really angry
T: Can you go with that?  Just feel it.
K: (apprehensive) Okay
T: What does it feel like?
K: flames, coming from my chest and lapping at my neck.  But they don’t last
T: What would happen if you let them last?
K: I’d be engulfed in flames… I’d burn up… I’d cease to exist!
T: I promise that’s not going to happen…  let them flare up, and then when they do breathe like this (and she demonstrates the breath a person would use when trying to fog up their glasses)
K: (foggy breath)  and more (foggy breath) until… (tears… sobbing choking crying tears)
T: You did it!
K: I did what?! (sobbing still)
T: You felt your anger!  And then it left your body!  And underneath the anger is sadness and you’re feeling that too!  You’re doing it!
K: (sob, choke, cry, wail, etc…) for several more minutes

…and then it was all out.  And I felt so much lighter and brighter!  Yay for feeling feelings!

So, of course when she asks me if I would be willing to try and do that more often (in life) my question is… “How the F am I supposed to feel my feelings and still be a functioning adult?!”  Her answer was all sorts of loving and specific to me and my gifts and after she gave it she asked “do you get overwhelmed a lot?”

duh.

Then she encouraged me to try something next time I feel overwhelmed.

and I’ve been doing it… and it’s been “working.”  When I observe that I’m starting to drift from the present moment I say to myself (aloud or in my head depending on the surroundings) “do what is in front of you.”

And then I’m back in the present moment.  I’m back in my car.  I’m back at my desk.  I’m back on the toilet.  I’m back at the bowling alley.

he wanted to take me bowling for my birthday.  he let me win.  isn’t he sweet?

No matter where I am, it just takes one line, “do what is in front of you,” and I’m back and I’m doing just that. 

And you know what?  Doing what is in front of me is a heck of a lot easier than trying to do everything, all at once, and be perfect at it.  Sure, I can… but now I don’t have to.

Awesome.

tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock (I’m swaying back and forth as I’m typing this… it feels nice.  I must be very tired.)

The pendulum is back into a comfortable rhythm–thank goodness!  I always look forward to this part.  Knowing/remembering that it’s coming is a new skill and even newer than that is using that idea to calm myself when things are still stormy inside.

What the heck is she talking about?!  (tired. She said she is tired remember?)  Oh yes, that’s right. Carry on!

I think I have a pretty great (as in large) capacity for change.  I am willing to do it, and I like it, and… yeah… that’s enough.  But my change process can be pretty dramatic and often represents a pendulum swing into the opposite direction of its previous inhabitance.

I was focusing on my body and doing things to lose weight and my body wasn’t changing… and I got clear with my intentions with myself and here on the blog and was going to learn to love myself (and my body) exactly how I am right this moment… and then the pendulum swung.  So, it was over there in “health nut land” and then it swung to “drive-thru land” and I knew that “drive-thru land” wasn’t right, but the only thing I could think to do if I wasn’t going to focus on changing my body was to “not care” anymore.  So, I cut even more of my hair off, barely put on any makeup most days, and started wearing a rotation of my most boring clothes.  And I didn’t care how I looked, and that was somewhat liberating… but along with not caring how I looked, I wasn’t caring FOR myself either.  …and that wasn’t quite working.

FINALLY… yesterday… driving home from a very intense physical experience that left my body battered but my soul soaring (Camp Pendleton Mud Run.  woot!) I remembered how good it feels to be active.  After a week or so of lousy eating and very little activity I was feeling it (lousy) and when I felt like myself again today I realized/remembered that I can care for my body as part of my self care without it being about weight loss (duh).

starting at the top left and going clockwise: 1. shoes (before), 2. the waiver i signed that said i would be okay with dying in the run (i wasn’t actually…), 3. muddy pile of clothes (after) and, 4. shoes (after)

So, now it seems like it’s time to share something I learned at my Bioreprogramming session last week.  To be clear in my intentions, I don’t plan to practice these as a weight loss technique or to change any part of myself.  I plan to practice these as a strategy to put foods in my body that enhance my whole life experience and make being me as pleasant as it can be. 🙂

I practiced the hell out of #1 today… and not just about food either… about lots of stuff (every fear or doubt or worry or consuming, obsessive persevoration).

Here they are, the 5 Steps (I’m going to use) to End Emotional Eating:

1. Acknowledge what I want, then thank the part of me that wants to care for me in that way, and ask for some time.  “I want a pizza.  Thank you to the little one inside who wants me to feel full and satisfied by that experience.  I’m asking not to make a decision right now.  In 15 minutes if I still want it, I can have it.  For now I will have something healthy” (this practice will imprint a new pattern on the brain “i want it and i’m not going to have it right now”)
2. Imagine myself after having had the food/food experience I am craving.  Close my eyes and feel the feeling, make it disgusting… (this practice will train the brain to associate these binge foods/experiences with pain.  the brain will instinctively move away from pain).
3. Doubt it.  Deliberate it.  Discuss it in my head.  “I want it, but I shouldn’t…” say it over and over and over (this practice again plays to the brain’s aversion to pain.  Doubt is painful, it will eventually take over and make the “no” decision just to end the doubt)
4. Define the results of a healthier choice.  See myself as the results of my choices.  Have a clear vision for the future and how I want to feel.  See and feel it in real time.  (this practice will associate pleasure with the healthier choices)
5. Answer “who am i?” question as it relates to these issues.  “I am a woman who makes thoughtful choices about what she puts in her body.  I have high standards for myself and my health.” (this practice lays the foundation for a new program to operate from.  train the brain to believe this as reality and the impulses will fall into line)

We talked about feelings a lot when I was a kid.  I have vivid memories of having “family meetings” after watching “controversial” television programming (we weren’t allowed to watch Married with Children or The Simpsons, so you can guess what I mean by controversial…) to discuss (in excruciating detail) our feeling responses to the shows.  My brother and I often joke that we would have rather been spanked instead of having to talk with mom about whatever it was the resulted in the need for discipline.

As a result, I have a fairly robust feelings vocabulary and can express myself with ease most of the time (thanks, Mom!).  And as a result of that it’s been surprising as an adult to realize how little I am actually willing to experience my feelings.  I know that it’s “okay” to have them, and I know how to talk about them, but I’m just realizing that I carry around a belief that if a feeling is “bad” then I must do something about that immediately to make it go away and that if a feeling is “good” it is a sign that a crash is coming and I should tone it down.

This new awareness has me looking at life through a new lens.  I want to experience my feelings now (until I am experiencing them… and then I don’t want to anymore… but I’m getting that this is a common, human experience), and if I can do so with intention and thoughtful attention I can experience them without letting them create or change my reality.  Crazi-ness.

Last night when Spiderman and I were out front I realized that tomorrow (now today) was the today I had given myself permission to start looking for a new place (we are relocating from Long Beach to Los Angeles).  Which means that in one month, we won’t live here anymore…  and I needed to grieve that.

There are so many reasons I am looking forward to moving (paying less rent, less time in the car, closer to friends, just being where I want to be, I heart change…) and there is so much about this house where we live now that is in contrast to what I want from life, but I would be denying an experience of feelings if I were to choose one feeling (the excitement) over the other (the grief).

This house is my old life.  When we moved here we did so as a family of three: Spiderman, BFO, and myself.  We were starting over and this is where we were going to set our roots.  This house was a major tactic in a  long-term strategic plan.  It’s everything I ever wanted in a house: front porch, old and rambling, tons of light, space for planting… and the family I had when we moved here is everything I ever (thought I) wanted in a family.

goodbye, house.  the boy, he comes with me.

I don’t want those things anymore, and I don’t want this house anymore… and while I’ve grieved my marriage by welcoming my new relationship with myself and grieved the loss of my parent-partner by embracing new freedoms and seeing my strengths as a mother shine and grieved the loss of a two parent home for Spiderman by making his one parent home as loving as I can… I haven’t grieved the part of ME that wanted the traditional family in the old, rambling house with a porch.

So, that’s what I did.  I appreciated and loved and thanked the part of me that wanted this for myself.  I told her that if there were things about this that she missed in her new city life that I would help her find ways to get those needs met.

Just taking pictures, recording this moment as a beautiful one, and romanticizing some of these last moments in a way I can come back to them just by looking was enough.

Looks like I might have learned something new, and I didn’t get it from a book.  I got it from doing what felt right.

In the present moment I am aware of all sorts of feelings.  I feel overwhelmed by the number of things I need to do to prepare to move, celebrate spiderman’s birthday, and still take care of myself and my other responsibilities.  I feel excited about the rush of finding a perfect, new place.  I feel anticipatory about applying for grad school and then getting in (and what that will mean for my life).  I feel sadness and loss from missing 38 and the void that remains from wanting to talk to her about what’s happening in my life and find out the same about hers.  I feel relief that the choices I made to start a new job and take some big leaps are yielding positive results.  I feel gratitude for the loving relationships I have with my closest friends.

I’m having a lot of feelings… and the only way I know how to experience them is to let them be and when I notice that I don’t want them anymore to remind myself that they are only temporary.  They never stay long (unless I invite them to).

Now I have to go prepare for tomorrow… I’m going to go sleep on the ground outside and then run through mud and obstacles the next morning while uniformed military personnel scream at me.  I’m not sure why I’m doing this… but I signed up for it, so I must have thought it was a good idea at one point.

More grieving on that topic next week?

xoxo