National Mental Health Day
Oct. 10th, 2020 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Today is National Mental Health Day! Headspace reminded me of it with a specialized meditation. It was a good reminder of paying attention to the things you can control in life -- mostly your perspective and response. It also recognized that your perspective can change and that's perfectly natural. One day, you're happy to be stuck in a line at the grocery store because the people-watching is good. The next, you could be really impatient about having to wait to get the one thing you need.
Attaching this to mental health, it's important to realize how MUCH your perspective can change when you're dealing with a sour brain. That's ALSO perfectly natural. Sometimes I will feel depressed and need to withdraw. Sometimes, I'll feel overwhelmed and I won't be able to muster the energy for things that I want to do. Sometimes, my mind will race and I'll be incredibly distracted. All of these feelings are my feelings, and an expression of my Buddha nature. Learning how to accept these states and being kinder to my brain can really help smooth the rough edges there.
That reminds me of something that happened last week, during the Puckles emergency. I had just gotten off the phone with the emergency vet and told it would cost $1600 for him to stay overnight. The vet said it was the best chance for him to pull through, but there was no way I could afford it. When I made the decision, it really did feel like making the decision to end his life. I broke down right there in the parking lot, and Ryan held me.
My reaction surprised me. I had thought I'd be OK when it was Puckles' time -- we both did a lot of our grieving with the first emergency, and when he pulled through it felt like we had gotten some extra time with him. I was grateful, but I thought the experience had prepared me for the real thing.
It hadn't. At home that evening, I realized just how much I loved this rabbit. I was petting him, and he was bruxing, and this...wave of love just washed over me. I love him. It had been a long time since I felt love that deeply, even though I know it's there for R and my best friend H and so many others. But just...allowing myself to feel that love, that deep connection with another being...somehow I had forgotten how that felt.
And I think that's down to fear. So much of my life has been dominated by fear that as stressful as it is, it's surprisingly easy to default to that with so many interactions. I'm afraid of the strangers that I meet on the street and in the store; maybe they're looking at my clothes or my shuffling walk and judging me. Does it look like I'm giving up? I'm afraid of talking to the people I'm close to. What if I say something weird, that makes them want to pull away from me? What if I do something that makes them think they were wrong about me and just don't want anything to do with me anymore?
But I'm not sure you can really feel love deeply if there's an element of fear accompanying it. To me, love is...fearless, but not in this Hallmark way. You really do have to be open to the things you love in order to feel that bond, trust that being vulnerable and wholeheartedly yourself won't result in rejection. I really want to feel what I felt for Puckles more often -- first, for the people I'm closest to, and eventually for everyone I meet.
Doing that requires me to...not purge fear, but to make friends with it somehow. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get rid of my fear at this point -- I mean, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. But learning how to breathe through the fear, get to the other side of it, let myself form these attachments...that's what I want. I want to love deeply again.
Part of that, I think, is just learning how to focus on that feeling when it arises. I'm sure it does, but I'm too busy paying attention to the fear to notice. :) But changing my perspective of the situation to lend more weight to the positive might just be the way to go.
Attaching this to mental health, it's important to realize how MUCH your perspective can change when you're dealing with a sour brain. That's ALSO perfectly natural. Sometimes I will feel depressed and need to withdraw. Sometimes, I'll feel overwhelmed and I won't be able to muster the energy for things that I want to do. Sometimes, my mind will race and I'll be incredibly distracted. All of these feelings are my feelings, and an expression of my Buddha nature. Learning how to accept these states and being kinder to my brain can really help smooth the rough edges there.
That reminds me of something that happened last week, during the Puckles emergency. I had just gotten off the phone with the emergency vet and told it would cost $1600 for him to stay overnight. The vet said it was the best chance for him to pull through, but there was no way I could afford it. When I made the decision, it really did feel like making the decision to end his life. I broke down right there in the parking lot, and Ryan held me.
My reaction surprised me. I had thought I'd be OK when it was Puckles' time -- we both did a lot of our grieving with the first emergency, and when he pulled through it felt like we had gotten some extra time with him. I was grateful, but I thought the experience had prepared me for the real thing.
It hadn't. At home that evening, I realized just how much I loved this rabbit. I was petting him, and he was bruxing, and this...wave of love just washed over me. I love him. It had been a long time since I felt love that deeply, even though I know it's there for R and my best friend H and so many others. But just...allowing myself to feel that love, that deep connection with another being...somehow I had forgotten how that felt.
And I think that's down to fear. So much of my life has been dominated by fear that as stressful as it is, it's surprisingly easy to default to that with so many interactions. I'm afraid of the strangers that I meet on the street and in the store; maybe they're looking at my clothes or my shuffling walk and judging me. Does it look like I'm giving up? I'm afraid of talking to the people I'm close to. What if I say something weird, that makes them want to pull away from me? What if I do something that makes them think they were wrong about me and just don't want anything to do with me anymore?
But I'm not sure you can really feel love deeply if there's an element of fear accompanying it. To me, love is...fearless, but not in this Hallmark way. You really do have to be open to the things you love in order to feel that bond, trust that being vulnerable and wholeheartedly yourself won't result in rejection. I really want to feel what I felt for Puckles more often -- first, for the people I'm closest to, and eventually for everyone I meet.
Doing that requires me to...not purge fear, but to make friends with it somehow. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get rid of my fear at this point -- I mean, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. But learning how to breathe through the fear, get to the other side of it, let myself form these attachments...that's what I want. I want to love deeply again.
Part of that, I think, is just learning how to focus on that feeling when it arises. I'm sure it does, but I'm too busy paying attention to the fear to notice. :) But changing my perspective of the situation to lend more weight to the positive might just be the way to go.
