when things fall apart (this time, in real life)

I spend a disgustingly large amount of time being mad at myself for things I've done or for things that I've failed to do. I have to believe I'm not alone in this.

Like now, for example, I'm mad because less than two days after writing my last post and feeling like I had a healthy outlook on things, I became totally unhinged. I did a mental nosedive when my dog had a relapse, obsessively stressed over the details leading up to my brother's wedding in Chicago, fought with my boyfriend about inane things, freaked out about our move, and -- here's the thing I'm most angry about -- I didn't write in this blog even ONCE. 

So much for attempting to live life according to the suggestions in When Things Fall Apart (Pema Chodron). These past few weeks, I was so stressed out that it didn't even occur to use what I learned from Chodron in the hopes it might help when I was struggling.

Annnnnd...I think I just proved why people read self-help books over and over again and there's such a big market for the genre. Although many of these books contain really useful information, it's difficult to train ourselves to follow it. We're so hardwired in how we react to the things that happen to us, that simply reading a book about how to approach life in a different way isn't enough to change our behavior.

Reading self-help is a hopeful and comforting act. But it's what happens after the book is closed and put back on the shelf or moves lower in the Kindle queue that's the most important. And for many people, it's easier to just pick up a new book, then to do the hard work to change ingrained behavior. I don't blame them; in fact, I just did this myself.

At least that's my current working theory...what do you think?

A girl and her sick dog.

Lots of people have dogs as pets. But my dog is more like a roommate. Maybe it's because she's big and we live in a small space. Maybe it's because she's always hogging the bed (see photo where she's in the exact middle of the queen bed) and not cleaning up her messes. Whatever the reason, I always pause when people ask me if I live alone and eventually answer, "Not really..."


The thing is: My dog, Jango, and I have been through a lot together. We have fun and happy adventures and we comfort each other when we're sad or scared of thunder. We're family. Which is why I almost fell apart* when she got really sick last week.


I won't go into the details -- this isn't a medical dog blog. But I will say that Jango got sicker and sicker and at one very bad point, even our vet didn't know how to help her. 


It's surreptitious that I had chosen When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön to read this month, because she has a chapter that came to my aid. A theme throughout her work is that pleasure and pain will always be cyclical. Life isn't about working hard so you can only experience the former; it's about being mindful of your reactions to both and seeing how they relate. 


In this particular chapter, she specifically encourages us to recognize suffering as suffering. Instead of trying to get rid of it or go around it, we should take notice of what we do when confronted with it. The ultimate goal in this exercise is to see how suffering is intertwined with joy.


I am not proud of how I react when my dog gets sick. First, I panic and chide myself for being a bad dog owner who "lets" her dog get sick. (I believe Chödrön would call this "spinning out.")


Then -- I really hate this part -- the total irrationalness continues and I look for someone else to share in the blame. In this case, it's my ex-husband. I concoct some ridiculous fantasy in my head in which he had responsibly offered to take custody of her instead of me, and she's anywhere that's not Manhattan bounding happily on acres of lush, forested land, completely healthy. (This unreality becomes even more absurd when I remember that it was me who demanded I get the dog in the first place.)


Finally, I go to the worst place possible: I think about what I would do if she were to die. This causes even more panic. Often, there's crying. Ugly crying. I start to wish I never had gotten her in the first place.


Ugh. I know I'm supposed to be doing this introspection without judgment, but this "taking notice" of my reactions is about as fun as a when I found a live mouse in the glue trap under the fridge. 


Though I have to say, once I started paying attention to my reactions, my suffering diminished slightly and felt less consuming. I was able to recognize that what I was feeling wasn't reality -- it was only the reaction of a sad, scared girl who loves her dog. Acknowledging that helped me to calm down.


The pets and people we love are going to get sick sometimes; we can't count on many things in life but we can count on that. The fact that their sickness makes us suffer proves how important they are to us. We are lucky to have things in our life we desperately don't want to lose.


This is the realization that brought me comfort and joy and helped me calm down so I could be present for Jango. (The administered IV fluids and antibiotics which finally made her better played a role, too.)


*Did you see what I did there? I subtly referred to the book the blog is currently focusing on, When Things Fall Apart. If there was any doubt, rest assured: You really are reading the work of a wordsmith.

Le freak, c'est chic.

Here's the first thing I noticed while reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön: This is a lady who doesn't mess around. Some self-help authors may ease you into their teachings by spending the first chapter telling the reader to take their time getting comfortable and not to be too hard on themselves if it takes a while to acclimate.

Not Chödrön. 

Right out of the gates she's busting your balls with instructions in the very first chapter about how you should become up close and personal with fear instead of reaching for a numbing distraction or running away. Why? Because "fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth." Did someone say truth? Oh my god I love truth. I'm so doing this.

But seriously, if you're reading self-help books in the first place, then discovering truth, getting clarity, and becoming more aware are likely on your to-do list. So how do you get started? Chödrön doesn't exactly offer an easy way out. She wants us to look fear right in the eye.

To me this meant making a list of all the things that really, truly scare me. In completely random order they are: 

1. The Silence of the Lambs basement in my apartment building. It puts the lotion in the basket...

2. Water that drips down from window air conditioners high above the street into my eye. *Shudder*

3. When my dog gets sick.

4. Crispin Glover.

5. Water skiing.

6. Writing this blog.

7. Getting divorced a second time.

8. Pigeons.

9. When people feed pigeons, and they congregate in really big flocks and peck (the pigeons congregate and peck, not the people).

10. Giant flies.

Well, you get the idea. I think I'll stare down pigeons and divorce another day and zero in on the one fear that I've lately been bumping up against on a fairly daily basis: Water skiing. 

I kid! It's writing this blog.


I've had this blog idea for some time now, but I've been too afraid to get started. I can't tell you how many nights I came home from work with the best intentions of sitting down at my laptop and typing out some riveting, award-winning prose all night long. 


Instead, here's what would happen: I'd sit down and look at my blank screen; panic would immediately set in. Who the hell do I think I am writing a blog? What could I possible write that hasn't already been written by somebody else? What if I put myself out there and readers think I'm totally lame and they don't like my blog header? 


Then, as Chödrön likes to say, I'd find a way to distract myself from my anxiety. Instead of writing, I'd reach for my good friend Red Wine and zone out in front of the TV, telling myself it was totally a worthwhile use of my time because the world might one day need a freelance TV writer specializing in The Bachelorette.


Recently, I've been trying to do the exact opposite of what I usually do. Instead of running away from my fear and hanging out all night on Pinterest, I'm seeing what happens when I look it straight in the eye. For me, this means forcing myself to type words here on the blog almost every day. 


I'm still deathly scared every time I start a new blog post. But I sit there uncomfortably and, eventually, starting to write makes the anxiety diminish...somewhat. That doesn't necessarily means I always like the words that come out -- often they embarrass me because they're too sentimental, too honest, or too amateur. But it feels good to confront something that scares me* and have something to show for it.


*One fear that will absolutely not be confronted here on the blog is the Silence of the Lambs basement. So if you're thought you'd stick around to read about that, I'm sorry to say: Not gonna happen.

It begins.

Selecting the first book for my project was no easy feat. There are gazillions of self-help books out there: How was I to choose between becoming the most habitually effective person of all time or getting the sexy body of a French woman while eating all the cheese I wanted? For someone who gets overwhelmed by the number of sugar substitutes offered at Dunkin' Donuts, (mental note: Read Don't Sweat the Small Stuff sooner than later), the task of picking one book to focus on for the entire month seemed intimidating and completely insurmountable.


But then one of my best friends suggested her favorite book, When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön, and thankfully for everyone who has to deal with me on a daily basis (basically, that's just the dog and the boyfriend), the obsessiveness stopped. So did the excessive sweating. The decision was made. 


Chödrön is an American Buddhist nun, prolific author, and resident teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. This book is short, to-the-point, and brilliant. It's funny, because when I first read the title I thought "when things fall apart" referred to overcoming great life tragedies like death, divorce, terminal illness, discovering you can no longer afford cable. But it's not at all. It's about how to get through an ordinary day and all the sunshine and shit it may bring.


Essentially, Chödrön is all: Hey, guess what. You can whine all you want, but life is always going to be challenging. You can try to distract yourself from the challenges or flee from them altogether. Or you can relax into the chaos and groundlessness and learn from them. And I kind of love her for it.


Because let's face it, I've have some chaos ahead of me this month: The dog and I are moving in with the boyfriend (and to a whole different borough to boot). And, I've got my baby brother's wedding back home thrown in there just to make it a little more interesting. Maybe to a normal person that doesn't seem like such a big deal. But to someone who prides herself on her ability to meticulously spread peanut butter on toast just like the mom in the Jif commercial, it's supremely chaotic and scary. And now it should be completely clear why this book is a good beginning.


Have you read any of Chödrön's work? Are you skilled at choosing between sugar substitutes and managing other life crisises?