Month: October 2022

If you’re a hugger, not a “don’t touch me,” kind of person, you’ve probably noticed at least once that when you hugged someone, they emitted a big exhale.  You know when this happens, they’ve been holding perhaps a bunch of stuff in.

Isn’t it about time to exhale?  The term, “bated breath” was first used by Shakespeare in his 1605 Merchant of Venice, and it refers to abating your breathing, stopping it or reducing it, in short, holding one’s breath in excitement, anticipation, or trepidation for what’s next.

Do you recognize any of these instances when you’ve held your breath:  Anything involving a timer; Under water, either literally or figuratively; Against the clock; Holding back your temper/anger; Concentrating on an intricate task; Passenger in a vehicle; Medical procedures; Rushing from one thing to another; Number two – enough said; Awaiting an outcome; Birthing a baby or a project; Waiting for anything; Afraid of something…?

Prior to about the last twenty years, I erroneously thought that when you’re out of breath, say when you’re exercising, it was the inhale that gave you more steam.  However, contrary to my common sense and the fact that inhaling when out of breath never worked, it’s the exhale that renews your energy.

It was from Leslie Sansone, the exercise guru, that I first heard, “if you’re feeling out of breath, blow it out.  That’ll give you more energy.” Or, “don’t hold your breath, ever!”  So, who knew that to exhale is the ticket to better fitness.

About fitness, are you aware that, at least in television and movies, the Brits call good looking, well-toned folks, “fit.”  As in glancing at a muscled man or woman, “they’re really fit.”  And we expect that fit people are healthy people.

Does it follow, in a blanket cause-effect way, that good-looking people are healthier than those less fortunate in the looks department?  I have a pet peeve with people who say things like, “why would he cheat on her, she’s beautiful,” or “why would she leave him, he’s gorgeous?”  Like it’s reasonable to cheat on a homely person.  Don’t get me started.

Back to the exhale.  I think our body’s natural reaction to exertion, or any kind of stressor to the mind which is reflected in the body, is to hold your breath.  One would think that breathing the way that is most beneficial to your health would be an instinct.

Au contraire, when our bodies are in flight or fight mode, while stressed, we tend to not breathe according to the original schematic.  And if fight or flight has become your usual modus operandi, you’ve taught yourself to breathe shallowly and to rarely exhale sharply.

It seems that learning to breathe properly when under stress or exertion, takes as much discipline as training our muscles, including the heart muscle, to work at their maximum potential for strength and endurance.

The feel-good chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins which are released during exercise, kick in big time when we exhale.  These puppies make us feel so good, we might be tempted to exhale constantly instead of going back to the rhythm of, breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the nose.

It takes discipline to learn to exhale sharply, once through the mouth, and then begin to breathe in and out as usual while we exercise.  I guess like any feel-good chemical, we want more of it, including the endorphins that our body produces when we exercise.  Some of us, then exhale, exhale, exhale – perpetual mouth-breathers, as we can’t get enough of that good thing.

It seems that the exhale is potentially an all or nothing kind of thing.  Either we are addicted to exhaling and that’s all we want to do because of how it makes us feel. or, we live with bated breath, holding our breath for eons.  When forced to exhale, the relief of it makes us realize “oh my, I should’ve done that a long time ago.”

Have you ever noticed that when you’re stressed you find, or hear, yourself “blowing it out,” sort of constantly.  I think your body is practicing the exhale, stirring up endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin, to get your mind back to feeling good.  So maybe instinct plays a part in the exhale, after all.

I’m no expert on all this physical stuff, but I am an observer of human behavior.  I’ve noticed an awful lot of people walking around with bated breath because I surmise that they feel if they exhale, they’ll explode, lose control, or die because there is so much pent up inside their vulnerable vessel of a body.

Given the stress of our current times, I’ve written these thoughts to encourage us all to just breathe, including the nice cleansing breath known to every birthing woman; and to exhale, letting all that bottled up stuff find a way of escape.  I’m reminded of a favorite Scripture, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

 

Sometimes it’s just utterly relaxing and peaceful to just concentrate on what’s in front of you.  Haven’t you got enough on your plate?

The constant vigilance in looking at the details in the periphery can be exhausting.  Working that machine at the ophthalmologist/optometrist office that tests the integrity of your optic nerve is shockingly tiring.  Concentrating on flashing lights in various degrees of strength and clarity, trying your best to notice all of them, can take it out of you.

You know how you must have peripheral sight in order to legally drive?  Well seeing peripherally means seeing the whole picture, not just what’s in front of your nose. 

Normally I’d be an advocate for socially peripheral vision, but I thought of another point of view on this.  Maybe sometimes it’s alright to just skip all that detail in the periphery and just look at what’s on the plate in front of you. 

Maybe it’s not a bad idea to cut out the periphery and give some space to all the rest of life going on around us.  There is so much going on, all the time.

Concentrating on details can be good and beneficial.  But, do you know the saying by Nietzsche, “the devil is in the details”?  On other words, something may seem simple but upon closer examination of the details, they may reveal problems.

So, if you’re going for simplicity in life, skip the details.  But if you’re the digging-deeper type, details will give you all the information you need or want.

The downside of those pesky details, is, in a word, anxiety.  If we review too frequently, can you say, constantly, in the case of overthinking the details, it does nothing but create unease about the “what ifs” of life in the future.

I’m reminded of a guy in a news story about the Prince and Princess of Wales and their mental health vision for young people.  He commented that we are forced by society to be “over-resilient” and we can’t relax in our vulnerability.  That’s an interesting concept, “over-resilience.”

A standard greeting as we pass one another in the marketplace is, “how are you?”  Most of us unthinkingly reply, “I’m fine, thanks.”

To be honest, I sometimes think before I reply to such niceties, and say forthrightly, “I’m okay.”  “Okay” is code for so-so; I could be better, but I’m resilient.  Most people get the nuance and nod with an affirmative, “yeah, me too.”

Occasionally it’s nice to just relax and let it be, “whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera sera….”  Thank you, Doris Day.

I must confess that I have allowed “the details” of a particularly challenging month, work me into a tizzy now and again.  Now that’s a word you don’t hear all that often these days.

When I looked up the word tizzy in order to confirm that it’s the right word to express my state on the occasional day filled with details that had to be worked out, during a difficult month, I came across an obsolete British synonym, sixpence.  Oddly, that word reminded me of a little children’s book, The Tailor of Gloucester.

In the story, the lesser known of Beatrix Potter’s animal-based tales and my favorite, The Tale of Peter Rabbit being her most famous, the tailor gets worked into a tizzy, or sixpence.  Long story as short as I can make it, the tailor becomes overwrought under the massive pressure to complete an important garment for an important person by a Christmas deadline.

The tailor gets sick and ends up in bed for a forgetful 24-48 hours or so, and the mice in the kitchen of his live-in shop, finish the embroidery on the mayors wedding waistcoat, except they run out of “twist” to complete the final details on the fancy formal vest.  His grumpy cat, Simpkin must go out into the night and spend their last coins on the needed twist so that the amazed and now cognizant tailor can finish the embroidery.

The moral of the story, to me, is that if we work ourselves up into the proverbial tizzy over all the undone details that come at us, sometimes daily, we may miss the good stuff right in front of our noses, and make ourselves sick, to boot.  And sometimes the details take care of themselves, if we back off and let them.

As it turns out, all the details in the periphery of your life might just include people, who are not in the least peripheral to your outcomes.  These people, or details may go unnoticed if you’re not a detail-oriented person.  Or you can acknowledge these folks as not just the details on the edges of your life but as vital support persons responsible collectively for your success in overcoming the challenges you face.

I’ve still got a keen peripheral vision and I want to thank all you “details” in my life.  I appreciate you.  Again, you know who you are.

There are a variety of personality types walking around this big ole world.  With some of these folks we can mount friendships as easily as we change our clothes.  There are others from every ilk with whom we just don’t get along.

The Caregiver personality is one which I admire but is simply not me.  I thought in a misty distant past of becoming a nurse-midwife.  In fact, I formally studied lay-midwifery while pursuing my post graduate degree.

It was the nursing part of midwifery that threw me for a curve.  I think it was partly due to my personality.

As it turns out the Caregiver personality, one of sixteen personality types identified in the 1956, less than scientific but better than a horoscope, personality questionnaire called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), is vastly contrary to my own personality.  I am more of an Idealist or Artist in personality type.

The Caregiver personality is one where the individual who possesses it is energized by interactions with others.  When I understood this simple little quirk of personality, I instantly knew “this is not me, no wonder that I struggle so much in a care-giving role.”

I’m the opposite, I de-compensate after too much interaction.  I need to get alone in order to recover from my outgoing endeavors.  Part of my introvert personality is to thrive for a time on one-on-one interactions, but to become energized by silence and nature.

I hope you never have need of the individual to whom I refer here as a Caregiver.  These human beings are in a category unto themselves.  And, before COVID, these people proved to be vital to our aging society; post-COVID, they remain a vital workforce.

Caregivers may include nurses of various degrees, nurse assistants, private duty carers and companions, as well as social workers; or even non-degreed humans who are called to work with folks in their home-setting.  Caregivers assist us as we age and don’t kid yourself, you may be younger than me or older than me, but we are all aging.  Sooner or later, you’ll need some assistance.

In discussing some problems of aging with a friend, I had to giggle at her sarcasm when she concluded, “golden years, my bleep.”  I get it.

I’m all about positivity, acceptance, and making the best of a given situation.  But I am also a realist who detests denial of reality and inauthentic living.

It is clearly beneficial for one’s mental health to acknowledge the odd blarney moment in life by shouting the f-word and smirking for a second’s relief.  Let’s be real, here.

But back to Caregivers.  They border on super-heroes, in my book.  I clearly can’t do everything, nor probably many things, well; but I am the first to recognize when people fulfill roles which are totally not in my wheelhouse.

Speaking of Caregivers, they have a special dispensation of “personality-grace,” if you ask me.  I’ve seen these folks accept personal psychological assaults day after day without burning out and giving up.

“This is how it goes,” they say.  The implication is, they’ve been there, done that, more than once, and they don’t take it as a personal assault when they’re yelled at, demeaned, spat upon, even hit.  The word, saint, comes to mind.

Caregiver-compassion is on another level than your ordinary understanding.  I feel like I have a good measure of compassion toward my fellow humanity, but my temperament is such that my efforts to care for others can be easily tampered with by ingratitude or hostility.  As an introvert, I withdraw and give up, even if just for a moment.

There is in my mind, a give-and-take of care; a back-and-forth, interaction, if you will.  I’m simply not equipped with the Caregiver personality, to cope, when the interaction breaks down into a one-way street of care-giving, only.

“Understood.”  This is a one word, concise and to the point, reply to a military order, I think.  It’s my belief that to be understood is the most meaningful of gestures from one human to another.   There are no sweeter words than, “I understand.”

“I get it,” is a simple way of saying, “I understand where you’re coming from.”  Caregivers have the miraculous gift of maintaining this kind of understanding with the strangers toward whom they dispense consistent and objective care.  I’m truly in awe.

French philosopher, Albert Camus, said “happiness is the simple harmony between man and the life he leads.”  It’s my full conviction that Caregivers are the divinely appointed people, called to apportion that harmony, and to help us who are aging, to find peace in the life we are now leading.  Thank you.  You know who you are.

It’s college football season, so if you’re not a football fan, please forgive my analogies, that follow.  So, a few football fouls, against the defense, which are relevant to my musings herewith are: “roughing the kicker,” “roughing the passer,” and “pass interference.”

While the offense is just doing their job, fouls perpetrated by the defense, such as contact, holding, pulling, tripping, hands to the face, or cutting off legally, offensively intended movements, are illegal and against the rules of the game.  Roughing the kicker is clearly a defensive ploy.

Surely, you’ve never been defensive, and rebelled against the rules that life has handed to you.  Or, you’ve never put off the unpleasant inevitables of life, by avoiding the rules put into place by the powers that be.

Have you ever been the receiver, blocked from doing what you want to, by pass interference?  Maybe you then found yourself raucously opposing the seemingly unfair rules of the game of life?

I’m reminded here of a form of bucking the system, referred to in the biblical book of Acts as “kicking against the goad.”  This was a literal agrarian concept of using a slender piece of timber sharpened to a point, to prod stubborn oxen into motion.

I don’t know if you’ve had any real-life experience trying to move a large farm animal when they don’t want to move, but I have.  I found myself at the mercy of one or two large rams which did not care to go in the direction they should have and needed to go.

When a stubborn animal foolishly kicks against that sharp goad, it can cause itself unnecessary injury and pain.  Isn’t it frustrating to find yourself unable to explain to that “dumb animal,” that it is in their best interest to move where you are directing them?

In fact, as is often the case in biblical literature, most text is a metaphor for you and me.  When Jesus said, when referring to the goad and the stubborn oxen, he was really speaking to self-willed, headstrong people, “You are only hurting yourself by fighting me.”

It’s often painful at first when we’re goaded into the right direction.  But kicking against the goad only increases the pain.  If we could just make peace with our direction in life and go with the flow for a time, perhaps the good in the new or the change will yield a surprisingly pleasant reality.

Jesus exercised compassion toward the oxen, aka the stubborn human when he said “it is hard for you.” Rebellion is a hard path.  It’s more painful than the path of peace and acceptance, forward.

Have you ever taken a path that you knew was right for you, but it was hard?  Let’s say, you plowed ahead and the difficulty eased, revealing the “necessity” of having taken that path.

I think none of us willingly take the narrow, rocky, or difficult path, in life.  In fact, Scripture reveals a truth in Matthew 7, that most of us gravitate to the wide, most-followed, crowded, easy path, when possible.

So, the next time you’re goaded into the “right direction,” perhaps you’ll do yourself a favor by not kicking against the goad.  Maybe, sit in the pain for a short time until the clouds begin to clear and you can see the sense in what seemed senseless in the beginning.

In your defense, stop roughing the kicker.  Those in your offense, in the game alongside you, are doing their best most of the time to usher you along the path you’ve selected.