Category: Oxygen Mask Moments

It’s a Dog’s Life: Lessons from My Dog VII (Find Place and CHILL)

It’s a Dog’s Life: Lessons from My Dog VII (Find Place and CHILL)

Meg

Hi, again, Tucker here.

I’ll be honest, I have been one wound up schnoodle recently. I am still as fluffy and lovable as ever, but my main hooman (the mom one) has been using – ahem – inappropriate language in my company (in fact, directed at ME, I dare say) way more than normal these days.

In my defense, the weather is getting warm and there are SO. MANY. GOOD. SMELLS. Grass growing, bugs flying, flowers blossoming, other animals out and about. A veritable cacophony for the senses. Plus the bunnies taunt me all day long, sitting just outside my window chewing on MY grass. And then the hoomans keep putting meat on the firey thing on the back porch causing these incredible aromas to waft through the air (who am I kidding? Raw or cooked, that meat smells damn fine to me!).

What is a dog to do? I am not a guy to be vague about what I want. Some may say I have a stubborn streak. Perhaps that I am a bit needy. I believe in speaking my truth. And, the truth is, I want their dinner, not mine. Needless to say, whining (on my part) is involved and then cursing (on my main hooman’s part) follows. So undignified.

These episodes always end with me being sent to my Place cot. At first I act like I’ve never heard that word before and I have no idea where I am supposed to go, but then I have a “light dawns on Stonehenge moment” and I leap over there with an expression like, “Here? Is this what you meant?” I do enjoy a bit of improv theatre. Then I am told – quite emphatically, I might add – to SIT. And then to Stay. There are treats involved so I am all in on this game.

What’s really amazing is that within seconds of sitting on Place (aka a forced time out), I feel so much better. Almost like the whining and fussing is some sort of out-of-body experience and Place gives me a moment to pause and reset that puts me back in touch with my inner schnoodle. One minute I am pacing and whining and begging for hooman food and the next I am lying down on my cot and this big, deep sign spills out of me. Ahhh, what a relief. All that frenetic energy just floats away.

It occurs to me in my moments of Zen – is it me that needs Place, or is it my hooman?

Because, if we are being honest, she seems a little wound up, too. It’s, like, way too easy to push her buttons.

My main hooman says I am driving her to drink, but if she would just pay attention she would see that I am showing her the path to inner peace: find a peaceful place, sit still, and breathe. Anxiety melts away and you emerge from this pause with more clarity and more mastery of being instead of constantly doing doing doing.

If nothing else, I am here to teach.

My advice: send yourself to Place and take a deep breath. It takes practice to learn how to do it for yourself, so have someone send you until you figure it out. I highly recommend extorting them for treats as part of your healing process.

Photo by Samson Katt on Pexels.com
The Directive of “Should”

The Directive of “Should”

Meg

Sometimes known as “shoulding all over yourself.”

I say “should” all day long. As in: “I should eat better.” “I should cook more healthy, homemade meals” – or the corollary – “I should get less takeout.” “I should write a book.” “I should be studying Spanish.” “I should be more disciplined (if I were I’d have written the book AND be fluent in Spanish.” “I should get some exercise.” “I should work full-time.” BUT ALSO “I should spend more time with my kids.” “I should be more present.” “I should write a new blog post.” “I should finish the stack of books by my bedside table.” “I should clean out the basement.” “I should be – fill in the blank – better, smarter, faster, more…” Except when “I should be quieter, more thoughtful, slow down.”

In sum, “I should definitely not sit still or pause to take a deep breath. ” Relax? Hahahahaha. PRODUCTIVITY is next to godliness. Or is it?

While none of the above cause obvious harm (except the part where I forget to breath in my pirouetting around) and all are fine aspirations (feeding my family healthy meals, for example, leans more toward the worthy obligation side of adult shoulding), the use of the word “should” results in a sentence that means something very different from the same sentence using the verb “want.” Not to mention that some of my shoulds are downright contradictory.

Look. Being busy and productive isn’t a bad thing. I like to be busy. It’s the tone of the busyness directive, and who is setting the agenda, that can be problematic. 

Should is an incredibly strong little word. Google tells me that it is a modal auxiliary verb, which I don’t remember ever having learned in my 8 years of Catholic school grammar (though, obviously, I SHOULD remember it and probably did learn it, if nothing else through example since Catholic teaching is based on should). Though should can be the past tense of “shall,” it is used primarily “to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions.” Trust me, should can be a powerful and judgy dictator. It implies that what you are doing really isn’t sufficient, and that there is more or better or different to be done. Like, get it together, you disappointment. Which is basically the shortest synthesis of Catholic school education there ever was.

When should is in charge, you cannot win.

Should brings even more heat when you move into the past. When you are shoulding yourself at least there is still hope that you could do or be better in one of the many ways you cajole and judge yourself.  The advanced phase of shoulding results in complete admonishment for the lost cause that is you with “I should have done X!” – ahhh, it’s all so obvious now, but it’s in the past and I really should have known better in the present. This tense of the verb is sometimes called the “modal of lost opportunities.” That sounds about right.

Like I said, some shoulds are necessary. And productivity is great. But it’s really important to bring awareness to what you are running around in service to and who is in charge of that action and directive that is key. Be the master of your own destiny! Also, saying no with no regrets is totally a thing. Or so I have heard.

Listening to oneself – really listening – is a rebellious act as well as an act of love. That’s my kind of rebellion (hashtag #shouldrebellion).

Oh, the Wrinkles

Oh, the Wrinkles

Meg

Lately, when I take a good look in the mirror, the phrase that comes to mind more often than not is, “Dude, what happened?” Since I think I am still 25, that is, in fact, the exact expression. Sometimes it’s just “dude,” sometimes it’s a simpler, more inquisitive “huh” sound. But the confusion and questioning as I inventory my gray hairs and wrinkles is the same.

Where – and when -, exactly, did all these pinch points around my eyes and mouth develop? I barely noticed. Somewhere along the line time started running away from me…and just kept going! I remember when I was a kid and time stood still for days on end – long, aimless, completely boring days, especially during the sweltering summers of my childhood. I’d complain to my mom that I was bored and she’d tell me she could find me work to do around the house and, voila, I would instantly be cured of boredom and find myself somewhere else to be and something else to do. In hindsight, that was a pretty predictable outcome (my mom knew what she was doing!). These days I can’t remember the last time I had the occasion to be bored.

Needless to say, a fair bit of time has passed since I was a little girl and even since I was 25 (ho hum). I mean, literally, that was more than two decades ago. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around that.

What I do know, with absolute certainty, is that I have earned every one of these wrinkles. Sure, some probably came from poor sunscreen choices when I was a kid. But a lot came from standing on the precipice of a new adventure or from facing into the difficult stuff that inevitably comes up in a life and not turning away because it was too hard or painful or might cause me to break (or wrinkle). I have broken down and gotten myself back up enough times now that I guess I should know I have some serious years under my belt.

Though I may have the odd Botox dream (ha ha), in fact each wrinkle is a hard-earned badge of a memorable life. It’s the sign of time spent leaning in to all of the adventure, opportunity, and challenge that come with living fully. Not to mention the laughter. As Lori McKenna so pithily says in People Get Old, “Every line on your face tells a story somebody knows.” What a wonderful sentiment.

From heartache to adventure, hard work to achievement, sunny skies to skinned knees, those wrinkles are the story of your life written across the canvas of you. Live and lean into those lines.

Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

Gratitude Jar

Gratitude Jar

Meg

Last year the holidays were tough. Omicron began picking up the pace somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the idea of being together with friends and family, which had so recently seemed possible, was suddenly as far off as ever. Again. I was so sad to have to cancel all of our plans and to be returned to this place of fear and isolation. And, worse, once I got to that place, I couldn’t remember anything good at all that had happened in all of 2021. Surely it wasn’t all bad? Right?

I have written about the negativity bias (Utterly Imperfect and Always Seek the Sweet) before, and it’s truly fascinating how hard it is to find positive memories or thoughts when times are tough. Our family started a gratitude jar last Christmas as an antidote to the negativity that has really swallowed us whole for the last several years. The gratitude jar (I called it our Glad Tidings jar) partially forced us to make a conscious effort to be aware of our blessings, no matter how minute, and also created a steady supply of all the good things the year brought us, no matter the conditions or circumstances of the end of 2022. The glad tidings jar sat on our kitchen counter with a notepad and pen next to it all year. Anytime any family member was so moved they could add a little note.

In the end, this year was mostly, kinda, normal. We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with family in a way that was very reminiscent of pre-pandemic years (no masks, no distance, much laughter and noise and good food). The year also brought its fair share of hardship and health issues and loss. Life showed up in all its fragile beauty in 2022, as it always does.

I am happy to see that we have a full jar of notes about the blessings in our life. I am excited to look back and remember both the amazing things as well as the mundane that brought us joy and gratitude this year, from reprising international travel to finishing an entire school year uninterrupted to our first big snow storm to, simply, it’s June :-).

Here are a few random selections from the jar:

January – “Reading the Adventures of Tintin!”

February – “Sponge Bob the Musical”

June – “I am feeling thankful for having such a loving and supportive family.”

August/September – “COVID came…and left”

This is one new year’s tradition I can get behind and bring forward into 2023.

Happy New Year! Wishing glad tidings to all.

Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com
OMM – Perseverance

OMM – Perseverance

Meg

Oh my gosh, it’s been a long, long time since I have sat down to write. Even sitting here now, putting pen to paper, all I feel is resistance. I changed the order of the widgets shown on the website’s pages before I finally opened a blank document to start writing.

What happened? Nothing really. Or nothing specifically. A huge wave of inertia crashed over me and I could not write anymore. It’s been a dose of living outside the 4 walls of my home again and being legit busy (and oddly out-of-shape with the calendar juggle – or am I busier than I remember being before?). Added to that I started to feel like I have nothing to say that’s worth sharing. I took all these writing classes, started to overthink it, got frustrated (and distracted), and promptly stopped writing. And that’s kind of the story of my average Joe-ness. I get just so far with something, get bored or frustrated, and move onto something else (currently I have decided I will learn Spanish).

Ah! But here is the unexpected part that I’d like to think shows some growth – I am onto those old habits and I have decided to not, in fact, give up on writing (or Spanish!). This old dog can learn new tricks – and perseverance is the name of this long haul game called life.

I can’t say how often I will write or when I will next grab the time needed to wade through all the resistance and put pen to paper, but I wanted to say hi and I’m still out here and that I hope getting caught up in the messy confusion of life – and finding one’s way back! – resonates.

OMM – Thoughts on Adversity

OMM – Thoughts on Adversity

Meg

Adversity is like a strong wind. I don’t mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are and not merely as we might like to be.

Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha, pg. 348

Everyone faces adversity. Lean into it.

OMM – It’s Okay

OMM – It’s Okay

Meg

I am borrowing from Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book for today’s Oxygen Mask Moment, as the end-of-school-year madness (and weeding my garden) absorb all of my “discretionary” time. Plus, it’s so, so good.

To the below I would add, it’s not only okay, it’s better. So much more genuine and real.

It’s okay to be broken.

It’s okay to wear the scars of experience.

It’s okay to be a mess.

It’s okay to be the teacup with the chip in it. That’s the one with a story.

It’s okay to be sentimental and whimsical and cry bittersweet tears at songs and movies you aren’t supposed to love.

It’s okay to like what you like.

It’s okay to like things for literally no other reason than because you like them and not because they are cool or clever or popular.

It’s okay to let people find you. You don’t have to spread yourself so thin you become invisible. You don’t have to always be the person reaching out. You can sometimes allow yourself to be reached. As the great writer Anne Lamott puts it: “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

It’s okay not to make the most of every chunk of time.

It’s okay to be who you are.

It’s okay.

Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

Let your light shine!

Be well, deep breath, you got this.

We will be alright.

OMM – Your Soul and Money

OMM – Your Soul and Money

Meg

I mentioned the book The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist in my last post, Sometimes Asking is Giving. As Ms. Twist explains, “What’s poor is [people’s] circumstances, not them, and the unlocking of a vehicle to change circumstances is a gift; the radical truth about money and life is sufficiency. If you clear away the mindset of scarcity, you will find the surprising truth of enough. When we recognize enough, when we have more than enough, that excess, that’s for others.”

I shared a quote about one’s attitude two weeks ago, and this is related. It’s a mindset shift, from scarcity to abundance. It changes everything in how we approach life, ourselves, and others. When you realize you have enough, that you are enough, you can give of yourself more. Does anyone else remember Sark? This particular quote about Enough is from her book Inspiration Sandwich, which was also the genesis of much hilarity about the complete and utter dump in the deep woods of Maine that my friend Jen and I lived in one summer, which we affectionately called the Magic Cottage thanks to Sark. It was magical all right, hornets and mice living in the walls and all. But that’s a story for another time.

“There is a distinction between sufficiency and true abundance; if you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t need, it frees up oceans of energy that’s all tied up in that chase to pay attention to what you already have. When you nourish and share it, you make a difference with what you have and it expands. What you appreciate, appreciates.”

Lynne Twist

Deep breath.

You will be alright.

This has been another Oxygen Mask Moment.

OMM – It’s All About Attitude

OMM – It’s All About Attitude

Meg

I used to keep a journal, many, many journals, in fact, where I would write my deepest, darkest, (dumbest) thoughts and also my favorite quotes. This one from 1996 by Anonymous still rings true and is a good reminder:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude to me is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.

It is more important than appearances, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way….we cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one strength we have, and that is our attitude…

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you…

We are in charge of our attitude.

Anonymous

For those of us who somehow navigated a pre-emoji world, a memory (that only works on a mobile or tablet and is remarkably challenging to accomplish thanks to auto-correct):

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Deep breath.

You got this.

This has been another Oxygen Mask Moment.

OMM – Running, with a Side of Poetry

OMM – Running, with a Side of Poetry

Meg

Combining poetry with a road race? Unusual. Also: genius.

Can you actually hear the poems as you run by? No, not really. Is it a total hoot to see costumed people spouting poetry from their tomes – some perched atop large boulders on the edge of the woods, emerging like sophisticated woodland nymphs or Tom Sawyer with a poetry book instead of a fishing rod, others refusing to acknowledge you as you pass, so engrossed are they in their recitation – as you amble along your sometimes-not-merry way (depending what mile it is)? 100%!

A dose of exercise with a side of culture does the body (and the psyche) good. The genesis of the James Joyce Ramble, which features poetry along a 10K race course, was a runner in the 1980s who decided that getting through James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake was as difficult as training for a road race. I can’t speak to that, but it was definitely a good idea.

I temporarily dropped my 5K or bust mantra to give it a try. It was another example of beauty in the unexpected, combining two unlikely partners and creating something brand new that is much more than 1+1 = 2. It also proved, once again, the personal growth and joy that stem from challenging yourself beyond what you think you are capable of, and the power of friends cheering you along, or running right beside you.

As they say at the James Joyce Ramble: Read. Run. Refresh. Repeat.

I’d add BREATHE.

You will be alright.

This has been another Oxygen Mask Moment.