Pain, Grief and Showing up Anyway

Pain, Grief and Showing up Anyway

So here’s the thing…  I feel a whole lot better when I show up even when I feel awful, even when I feel things are rough and I’m tired, even when I don’t want to.  I’ve also learned that showing up anyway is the single best remedy for not continuing to feel that way. Except that it’s also really hard to do.  That’s the thing.  It’s really, really hard and sometimes… sometimes it feels impossible.  I know it technically isn’t, but it sure feels that way.

Marcus Aurelius wrote about pain a great deal.  And in his writings about it he consistently focusses on choice and responding, rather than reacting.  I’m a huge fan of Marcus Aurelius, not just because he was wise, but because this guy was one of the most powerful men in the world and yet he continued to do his best to remain humble, to avoid arrogance, to nurture self awareness and to treat others with respect and kindness.

So yeah, showing up anyway.  Easier said than done, so I have found ways to do so that aren’t quite so laden, that make it a tiny bit easier.  I call it setting myself up to succeed.

Here’s what I do:

  • Thread up a whole bunch of needles with different types and weights of thread.  I use both Chenille needles and Milliners Needles.
  • Grab a needle, any needle, it doesn’t matter which one, and begin stitching.  I have a couple of mindless go-to stitches that don’t require any thought.  They are the meditative stitches like french knots, bullion knots, colonial knots, seed stitch, chain stitch, fly stitch, straight stitch and then I riff on them, which means I start exploring every aspect of that stitch.  How many wraps can I make on a french knot before the whole thing begins to fall apart?  (It turns out a lot more than you might think!). What ways can I stitch a straight stitch to create different patterns?
  • Exploration
  • Investigation
  • And before you know it, I’m playing!

Stitching, more than anything, changes everything, even grief, even pain.

If you’re curious to know how I did this, I made a video about it and you can watch it here:

Controlling What You Can

Controlling What You Can

Today’s morning reading excerpt:

“While you don’t control external events, you retain the ability to decide how you respond to those events. You control what every external event means to you personally.”

The Daily Stoic

When we returned from Africa, I had a livestream scheduled for the next day and a Zoom meeting that couldn’t be rescheduled shortly after that.  As my computer had crashed and then been wiped out while in Africa, I really, really needed to get it working again or get a new computer, which is no small undertaking, especially if you’re someone like me who is basically computer illiterate and the very idea of migrating information leaves me in a cold sweat.  So I went to the nearest Apple store only to be told that basically I should hold on to the computer I had and try to migrate from my time machine. Only my time machine hadn’t backed up since last April.  WHAT????  I know, I know.  Evidently time machines need to be periodically checked to be sure they’ve backed up and do not always do so automatically.  News to me.  

So I went home and backed it up and then had endless problems resulting in tons of phone calls with various tech people, as well as realizing how much information I had lost, and then in the midst of all of this I was overcome with a combination panic attack, grief (my mother had just died) and despair; I went into our bathroom and sobbed.  To say I “cried” wouldn’t do it justice. It was more a cross between a howl and uncontrollable sobbing.

“While you don’t control external events, you retain the ability to decide how you respond to those events. You control what every external event means to you personally.”

And that was the thing. I was taking all of this personally. The computer, my mother, jet lag, grief, panic… All of it felt like an assault on me.  But it wasn’t personal. It was life. So I’m trying hard to remember that. It’s easy to remember when things are going along as I expect them to or when things happen that are unexpected, but are welcome events.  It’s much more challenging to remember when things happen that I don’t like or want.

And yet, here I am writing this post on my new laptop, which has taken some adjustments and came with it’s own set of challenges, typing away!

I’m teaching my last workshop, Improvisational Stitching, of the year and am making new Youtube stitching videos and am getting back to creating and incorporating my travels into my latest piece. I can feel my energy returning little by little.

As long as I don’t take things personally, I’ve got this.

Oh, and look!!! Remember I said I so regretted not purchasing some Kuba bark cloth while in Africa, but that I remembered there was a guy who sells African fabrics on the street?  Well over the weekend, I found him and here are the pieces I got from him.  This first was badly damaged, but I was able to repair it and even figured out and copied the stitch originally used to stitch the seams together.

Bark Cloth From The Democratic Republic of Congo

And look at this one!!  I just love the colors, all natural dyes, made in The DRC.

Kuba Cloth

And finally this one, which is by far the most typical, from what I’ve seen.

Hand Stitched Kuba Cloth made from raffia, hand dyed and sewn from the Democratic Republic of Congo

And here is my improvisational stitching piece where I’ve begun incorporating some of the things I saw and loved while in Africa using Pat Pauly hand dyed linen.

African Inspired

Life, Balance and Road Maps

Life, Balance and Road Maps

It all comes down to what you’re willing to say out loud. Which, one could argue, if you’re asking yourself this question it’s probably best left unsaid. You know?

However, never one to stay quiet, I did just post a video regarding The Ice Cream Situation. You can view it below.

So there’s that.

Do you ever feel like there’s so much going on you can’t really keep up and so you end up being less productive rather than the reverse simply because it all feels like too much? It’s all about balance, I think. That’s kind of what’s been going on around here lately. Nothing bad, all good things, but just a lot of things. So I’m scrambling, and feeling a bit like a hamster on a tread mill, moving quickly but not really getting anywhere. That’s how it feels anyway. I know this isn’t the truth, but it feels that way. Feelings are not facts. Hence the deep dive into The Ice Cream Situation. It’s okay, I’ve extricated myself and am now ready to face my never ending “To Do List”.

I’ve written about the To Do List before. It’s kind of an essential part of my day, a kind of road map to follow and then whatever doesn’t get done gets rolled over to the next day. Kind of like frequent flier miles or data storage on your phone, except there are no hidden costs. A win-win, right? Well, sort of, except that sometimes that to do list feels like an anchor so then one has to ignore it or make the decision that it’s a “to do tomorrow” list. But you can see where this leads, can’t you? Fortunately I don’t often procrastinate and my To Do list can be very bossy, but in a good way.

To Do List: email so and so.

Me: Right. I’ll do that in a few hours.

To Do List: follow up with a phone call.

Me: Yes, ok. I’ll do that in a few hours.

To Do List: Give it 24 hours then email again.

Me: Oh all right. I’ll send them an email now.

To Do List: Work out cost of thread kits

Me: Ugh.

To Do List: Work out cost of fabric kits

Me: Isn’t there anything on this list that is actually fun?

To Do List: Work on improv piece.

Me: Oh! I can do that!! That will be fun.

To Do List: Work on Abstraction piece.

Me: Oh, yes, another fun project. I’ll pull that out.

To Do List: Clear up sewing machine desk area.

Me: Right, now where is my improv piece?

To Do List: Website Issues – (and then a three page list of things that I need to learn, figure out or actually do)

Me: I love my improv piece. That’s what I’m going to work on.

And so it goes. I’ve found that if I put at least a few things on the list that I really, really love doing then I can usually start on that and then work in a few of the not so fun things in between. Kind of like when you’re hiking and get a blister and then keep going anyway because you know the view at the summit is going to be spectacular and you don’t want to miss it.

Just like that.

Blogging on my New Website!

Blogging on my New Website!

I just can’t tell you how thrilling it is to go to my website and write a new blog post! For those who may be confused, last week I was still posting on my old site, which now is housed under the umbrella of my new website! I know, I know, I’ve already talked about all of this at length and I’m not going to do another post all on the fabulousness of my new website, however I just have to say that as I sit here typing this I’m silently bouncing up and down and squealing with joy. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! It’s been such a long time in the making!!

So. Now that I got that out of the way, what are we going to talk about?

Oh! Before it slips from my mind, don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter. It’s just to the right of this post. ❤️

The other thing that leaps to mind is that I just released a new video on my YouTube channel.

The title of this video sums it up.

This video begins with an 8 minute riff on life, aging, Merlin, facial recognition, the results of my MRI and whatever else flew into my mind as I was recording. So yeah, there’s that. However don’t despair, I did some stitching too.

In other news… okay there IS no other news. This is my life in a nutshell. It’s evidently a very, very tiny nutshell. 😂 So I will add a few videos of other people’s lives that came up when I went to schedule this video. The first is my favorite Golden Retriever, Bailey and his new best friend.

And then I had to share this one, because going to Africa to see the gorillas has been on my bucket list for decades now.

I wasn’t familiar with Keith Urban and his music until I saw this pop up and hit play while waiting for my video to finish uploading. How great is he? And Nicole Kidman? Love them both.

Enjoy the weekend everyone and don’t forget to check out my upcoming workshops!

MRI’s & Inspiration for Stitching

MRI’s & Inspiration for Stitching

Yesterday I had to have an MRI because I’ve been getting headaches that often wake me in the middle of the night. I was quite sure I was fine, but it’s a precaution and being an adult and all, it seemed the responsible thing to do. So off I went feeling I’d prepared myself adequately. I don’t care for small, enclosed spaces, so I knew I was going to need to practice breathing and asked for something to put under my knees so my back didn’t begin to hurt. I believed I was on top of the situation and lay down, dutifully putting the ear plugs in and began counting my breath. Except once I was in the machine, I could feel my jaw shaking. As in uncontrollably and I was so freaked out that my jaw was doing this weird thing that I seemed to have no control over, I became convinced that it was so bad it would make my head move and ruin the imaging, which only made it worse. It took everything in me to breathe in and out, count my breath and eventually my jaw calmed down.

The upshot of the whole thing is that I’m fine. Perfectly fine. My neurologist called yesterday evening to tell me all looks well, “for someone your age” which of course gave me pause. “What does that mean?” I asked a bit defensively. He explained that you expect to see a few tiny white dots in “someone my age” and that this is also common in those who experience migraines. Evidently I have a couple of those white dots and also a tiny cyst, which is not in my brain at all, and is about 4mm. So another MRI in about a year to make sure that doesn’t grow. All in all the news is excellent and blood work is all good too. Whew. I knew I was as healthy as a horse.

After I returned home the skies opened up and the rain came down like some sort of end of the world scenario. That was when I decided to do a livestream, which you can see here if you care to.

And then I had to do a lot of work on my website, so I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening writing copy, learning how to input new workshops into my workshop schedule and create images for the workshops.

Every now and then when I needed a break I’d work on the piece below, which I’ve fallen in love with and that is inspired by plant and human cells. Pinterest is great for finding amazing images of organisms, cells and plant life that have been put under a microscope. I have a whole board where I’m saving such images.

This piece I’ve added some of my hand dyed t-shirting to and then stitched on top of it. It’s very relaxing.

My mother and two of my brothers are scientists: a chemist, an astro physicist and a bio-chemist. I was never very good at science, but I do love looking at the microscopic images of organisms and cells. They are things of such exquisite beauty.

The photograph below is of a coronary blood clot, horrible, but if you remove what it IS and just view it as an image, it is incredible.

Coronary blood clot. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a blood clot (thrombus) in the coronary artery, showing red blood cells (purple) in a fibrin mesh (threads). Magnification: x2500, when printed 10cm wide.
This is a microscopic image of a cactus (I think). Amazing.

Which took me to viewing images of brain cells. Talk about inspiration!

Microscopic image of neurons
Amazing, right?!

There is beauty in just about anything if looked at through a different lens. ❤️