In the Desert

Hello :) Hope you're having a beautiful Thursday. Yesterday, I arrived in the wonderful (albeit HOT) and sunny state of Arizona. I woke up very early this morning and took a walk to look around and stop at the grocery store, and thought I'd share some of my thoughts from that walk.

Being a mid-westerner at heart, I tend to embrace the summer thunderstorms booming as I fall asleep, detest the humidity, and revel in the sunshine. Out here in the "desert," though, it's different. The muggy, rainy environment I am accustomed to is replaced by what they call a dry heat. You don't mess with a dry heat; the sweat you normally feel on your skin that lets you know you need to go inside and drink some water is gone. This dry heat causes that sweat to evaporate so quickly you never even get a chance to notice it. Of course, some of you humid-weather dwellers are probably saying, that sounds SO nice--no sticky, sweaty, smelly skin. It can be dangerous, though, because dehydration is just around the corner, and so is a pretty wicked (and not in the good sense) sunburn.

The last time I visited, I took no precaution. I existed as if though I were still in the midwest; I didn't wear a hat, drink water (I drank soda and only rarely), or wear sun glasses, dutifully ignoring my partner's comments that I was torturing my body, for lack of a better description. I felt like crap all the time, too. My boyfriend seemed just fine, and I wondered how the heck he fared so much better out here than me.

So this time around, I decided to try an experiment. I took a walk in the morning (with temperatures already near 95 degrees, and the sun hot overhead). However, I went and purchased a hat, a liter of flavored water (!), and wore my sunglasses (as well as heat appropriate clothing!). All the sudden, I could tolerate walking around in the heat. It was wonderful! I think it was the first walk I enjoyed in Arizona, and I've visited about 4 or 5 times so far. The precautions I took allowed me to feel great in this dang near inhospitable enviornment. Surprising what some preparation can do, eh?

And so you might ask how this relates to anything important (or eating disorders).

The truth is that when you are recovering from an eating disorder, the environment changes. You can no longer do some things you used to be able to do when you were healthy (like exercise, for example). I mean, you can do them--but you can't do them SAFELY.

So heed the advice of your nutritionist, your family, whomever is helping you through this journey (or your better self). Take care of your body--the environment has changed, and you need to adapt to enviornment while you're in it. All the self denial in the world won't protect you from the overbearing sun or dry heat as you get better.

These Mexican Bird of Paradise plants sure know how to thrive in the desert.

A Challenge... of the "me first" variety

(photo credit to: amazon)

I think this week I learned a lesson on life that has been long in the making... a lesson that has left me solidified that time for myself (or myself in general) should be prioritized.

I have this perpetual fear of being viewed as lazy. So I try as hard as I can to be in constant motion. Literally from 7am (sometimes 8am) until about 1am - 2am I am doing something that is non-negotiable. I do try to squeeze an hour power nap in there, but most of my day is spent driving, at school, at work (on my feet), or doing work that resulted from one of the aforementioned things. I try to start my morning with a half hour walk, but lately that's not even been happening.

I should note that I am not doing it for financial reasons, it is purely out of this drive to be constantly going.  Bottom line? This is NOT healthy, especially since it means I work every day of the week.

I was planning on going into work earlier this week and telling them that I needed one day off each week, however, the same day I was set to do that, I spoke to my father on the 15 minute break we take during my Gender Across Culture class -- he told me that that's what it means to be an adult. Making sacrifices, sucking it up, and moving on. You're capable of doing it, so do it. I thought about it... and he was right that I am capable of doing it... I did it in high school (perhaps to a larger degree in fact), so I can do it now...

I didn't broach the topic at work.

But after I emailed my therapist to indefinitely cancel my appointments (I won't even have that nap-time option available to me come June 16th due to an additional three hours of class each day) it dawned on me that what my father told me could very well be wrong.

Being an adult does not mean making sacrifices and sucking it up, though it can involve those things... It does however mean taking care of yourself - be it by yourself or through knowing when to ask for help when you need it (and of course consequently asking for it). Just because you are capable of doing it, doesn't mean you should either. I was capable of doing a similar thing in high school, but should I have? Absolutely not. I wound up taking the living out of my life. That's not okay.

I'm not saying parents are wrong, I am however saying that parents, like anyone else, make mistakes. Like yourself,  they weren't given a manual of life. They don't know everything... they know what they think worked for them. There's the thing though. You are not your parent or guardian. You are, well, you're you.

Just as you are you. I am myself.. and I am my own expert. If my body is telling me something needs to give, I shouldn't allow my mind to be persuaded that I am wrong. That my body is wrong. My body knows what it needs and since it is my body and I am listening to it (truly listening to it) it can be ascertained that it is correct. And it is correct that I need a break... and no that does not mean I am lazy, it means I'm not a superhero.. that I am human. and that is okay.

As a challenge to myself, until I can straighten out this work situation,  I am going to try to incorporate "me" time into my weekly routine on the days I do have some spare time in the morning - those days where I don't have school in the morning, rather just work at night.

I am going to finally finish that green canopy I've been working on off and on. I'm going to take nice rambling walks. I'm going to relax and sit with myself.

I'm going to take a detour from my planned course and put myself first.


as a challenge to yourself, what can you do for yourself this week or each day? How can you make time for you?

(I credit the term "me first" to Kendra from Voice in Recovery)


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to continue my random self-discovery q/a :

A picture of my night:

 My Thursday night was spent at Anthropologie working. The above was our last window display -- it's a dress made of paper and dropcloth and of course thousands of clothespins that were individually placed/positioned on molded chicken wire -- the clothespin part has since migrated to the board you see behind the cash/wrap. They're in the process of taking the current one down (a wall made entirely of wine corks as part of the "Anthropologie Goes Green" theme), otherwise I would've put up a pic of that

Sun day [introduction]

Hello you divine creatures. I'm Rachel...
What do you need to know? I'm in my early 20s, I'm a musician or something. [that is not me. that is betty supple. go on, hit play!] Should I say "I've had an eating disorder since" or "I've been recovering for" ? A long time; a long time. I'm grateful for how much I've learned since I started trying to pull my head out of the sand. And I'm grateful to the founder and all of the members of this blog, and to We Bite Back, for being a part of that for me for the last 3 years.

I'm pretty stoked about beginning this blog, but I'll tell you straight off: I'm nervous, because I know I have trouble sometimes keeping my words in the realm of the concise and understandable, rather than turning out half-baked novellas and treatises, spinning around and around myself so much trying to figure out what it is I so urgently am trying to say that I disappear up my own navel. It's not terribly pretty.

But what happens is, it is urgent.
When I'm writing about something like recovery from eating disorders, or sinister forces in society, or oppressive ways of viewing yourself or the world, well, it feels urgent. It feels like life and death that it be figured out and communicated, and I don't understand why the whole lot of us humans aren't trying to figure out and communicate, too, so that we can save ourselves.
I think I'm not alone in this. Needing to figure it all out, needing to understand. Urgently.
And you know, speaking as someone whose personal understanding of the experience of loathing yourself runs particularly deep... I think I like this about myself.
I like that I take seriously the task of understanding and communicating, I like that as I go about my life, I'm not satisfied to let a lot of things slide without trying to understand them. (That said, protip: if you want to get me to check out of a conversation just make it clear you're going to start talking about mathematics and my brain will dive for cover for my own protection and I won't register a single thing you say after that point. "The square root of - " zap. Tuned out. Anyway...)

So if it's so urgent to write, to "figure out and communicate", if that is really what we need to do so that we can save ourselves, what more is there?
Well, there's one thing.
It's this:
Chill out.
Because words on a page are not going to save us. Me, you, anyone. What save us are actions.

Lately, I am into incorporating the wisdom of mindfulness; presentness; "being here now" more and more into my life and it seems to bear on this. I do like that I need to figure things out, and I don't think I would trade the millions of words I've poured out trying to understand living in this world for anything. But in the end, all that all those words can do is orient me to a very simple truth: in every moment, I have to be present, so that I can choose to do the right thing. In the end, if the urgent need to understand everything is presenting itself as an obstacle to the simplicity of a moment, then it is only an obstacle. Whereas if I chill out, and exist in a present moment, I can actually access wisdom I've achieved and apply it to that present moment. The urgency doesn't serve if it's interfering.

And so my take-home message to start off the week is just that. More urgent than anything is your participation in the moment you're in.

And once you're in that moment, you're faced with two immensely beautiful things: choice and possibility.
If I were to issue a challenge, it would be that. Throughout the week, try to launch yourself into the present, so that you can ask yourself " does what I'm doing right now align with my ultimate goals, my ultimate sense of the way I am going to live?"
it's simple.
Chill out. It's not the time to figure it all out. To figure out the goals, or morality. In the present moment, it's simple. Maybe I've had a stressful or complicated week, but today, the need to appreciate and employ the perspective of making things very simple seems, well, terribly urgent.

I appreciate my furious mind, and my words on the page. And I think that often, words on a page can fertilise the seeds of actions. And sometimes it's not the time for it to be furious. Sometimes, fury gets in the way of action. Both things are true.

(and ironically, i think one can learn a lot from asking that question and being present in moments.)

Until next week: chill out! We don't need to understand it all right now. :) In any given moment, we just need to act. I dare us.

Peace and CouRage,

Rache

p.s. enjoy this song by Betty Supple. She's from Hamilton! :) [ish.]