Shifting Gears

I have never been more committed, convinced, and captivated to pursue a career in clinical therapy. Serious. People who know me I hope need no explanations or reasons why. I hope it’s evident in my way of being. I spend a very great deal of my time, energy, focus, and thought constantly analyzing and deconstructing the human mind, mainly my own. Analyzing the minds of others is a secondary goal which I admit inadvertently comes into play as a result of my sheer desire to understand my own. It’s a simple truth I’ve learned over the years, and I accept it.

I am influenced by people, and people are influenced by me. To understand myself, I seek to understand others. To understand others, I seek to understand myself.

For the longest time since far back into my youth, I’ve been very busy perusing the inner workings of my mind, experiencing a combination of both genuine fascination and confusion. I didn’t realize this back then, but I do now. My journey into working as a therapist started a long time ago. My first and longest client was, is, and will always be myself. I’ve acted as my own therapist in order to continue surviving, to continue thriving. I had to. I’ve learned how to rescue myself from my chronic dips into utter despair, apathy, and low self-worth. I learned how to sit with anxiety, to let myself experience it, and how to dissect it to expose the very core. I learned how I best relate to and with people. I discovered how much I thrive off of experiencing and witnessing authentic human connection with others through the power of vulnerability. I learned the mind truly is an amazing tool which can influence and reshape our bodies, its reactions, and its habits through practice. Throughout life, I felt my mind was trained to be in therapy. Finally, I want to face my fears and pursue the opportunity to leverage and refine this part of me.

The brain is a vast complicated world of possibilities, answers, and mystery. My goal isn’t to tackle them all, not by any means. I’ll leave this for psychologists and neurologists to dig through in their continued research. My focus and fascination lies primarily towards a specific portion of our human traits. Emotions. Though I'm intrigued to understand scientifically how or why we feel the way we do, I feel more drawn to gaining a stronger understanding and foothold around how best to cope with them. I know it’s a lifelong journey, but it’s one I’m clearly already on with no end in sight.

Therapy requires going back to school. It’s a two year commitment in a graduate program with multiple routes to choose from depending on what one wants to focus on. A long time ago, I promised myself I wouldn’t go back to school unless it was absolutely required and necessary to do so. The only reason fitting this bill is the pursuit of a career I’m genuinely and profoundly passionate about. To this day, I haven’t found or felt anything else which matched the same level of passion, curiosity, intrigue, love, diligence, and priority. I’ve found the reason. It’s time to act.

I’ve been mulling this idea over and over for nearly a decade if not slightly more. I’ve experienced the urge coming from my core, pulling me from the inside out, dying to get my attention. Finally it has it. The idea of pursuing a higher education around the field of human emotions, mental illness, and disorder is both incredibly exciting and slightly terrifying at the same time. On one hand, what am I getting myself into? On the other, complete liberation.

I’ve been training myself since as far back as I can remember. It’s second nature to me. A part of me knows I’m ready. I am ready, and the truth is I always have been.

Life

Life may often times appear simpler than we make it out to be, but it ain’t that simple nor is it ever meant to be. Life is complicated, difficult, and gray. We best serve ourselves by accepting this notion.

Next time you’re feeling blue, hurt, anxious, angry, nervous, fearful, stressed, trapped, burned, burdened, or pushed to the very limits of your own sanity, remember this. Life is not meant to be a walk in the park. Life is sometimes a slow stroll, sometimes a steady jog, sometimes an all out sprint to the finish line, and all the time everything above.

It is Life.

Group Meditation Turned Single Interrogation

I recently dropped into a group meditation class in San Francisco. The place was located in the Mission district, and the class offered to me as a gift from a friend. I booked my reservation ahead of time. I walk in and on time. Guess what? I’m the only person signed up for this week’s session. At the top of the staircase entered a young woman who greeted me promptly. She was the woman leading these meditation sessions. She was also overly cheerful and overly anxious to meet me. I couldn’t even walk up the set of stairs before being barraged with a plethora of questions and surface-level greetings from her.

“You must be Dann. How are you? Did you find the place alright? Hi, I’m ____.”

There was a certain aura about her which exuded mixed messages. It was slightly on edge, uneasy, and anxiety-driven. She was a tad overly perky, as if trying to overcompensate or overcome her own inner discomfort she was feeling. I felt her slightly forceful energy, filling the space with a subtle need to prove herself. Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was just this week. Maybe this is how it just is. Regardless. Give me a minute. Seriously.

By the time I reached the top of the stairs, I quickly realized I’m the only one here. Noticing my reaction, she reactively started to explain how I was the only one registered for this week’s session. The exact thoughts rolling through my head at the moment was “great” with an obvious sarcastic tone. Thank you for letting me know ahead of time. She told me I could come back the following week. I thought about it, but I was already here. I committed myself to tonight. I left work early and literally chased after the shuttle bus down in Mountain View in order to make it up here on time. After exiting the shuttle in SF, I walked at a brisk pace and hurried along the sidewalks. I arrived perfectly on time. Did I really want to come back and do this all over again the following week? I committed myself for this particular session. No, I can’t reschedule.

For the next 20 mins, I was getting hit with question after question after question. I kid you not. I was interrogated about my current feelings, goals, and aspirations in life. I was asked to describe my passion and how I was getting there. I’m not one to be shy about this information, but lately, I just haven’t been in the mood. Even still, I was completely bewildered by this woman’s tenacity, persistence, and lack of awareness. Anybody with the tiniest hint of intuition could have intuited my low energy, noticed the body language, and detected the disheveled tone of my voice. Bottom line is, I am fucking tired. Here she is, firing off questions after questions. She started at the surface level.  "How are you feeling? How are things? Where do you work? What do you do at work?"  Then she started diving deeper into more energy-consuming questions as followups. Looking back in retrospect, it probably would have been a better idea to have postponed the session till the following week.

What was I thinking?

I did not sign up for a therapy session! I have my own therapist, and you ain't him. I came here to meditate in a collaborative space with other people, with a shared energy. Instead I have only you. I was hoping for a beautiful experience regardless, connecting one to one instead of one to many, and appreciating the unique dynamic presented here. Instead, here she is, continuously putting me on the spot to socialize, to open up, to answer her questions. I’m convinced it was her own anxiety primarily driving this. Convinced. I tried to blame ignorance, but she wasn’t ignorant. She was well-aware, and it made the situation all the more frustrating. She was aware of my mental state and energy. She said to me multiple times, “Sorry I know I’m asking you lots of questions, and I know you came here to meditate and not be interrogated. [smile] Feel free to not answer them.”, which was quickly followed by “So what is your life passion?” Seriously? What the f__k. Her anxiety continued driving her actions while she continued firing off more questions even after apologizing for it. She would not stop. She could not stop.

Believe it or not, we eventually did meditate for 15 minutes.  We sat there afterwards, and she proceeded to ask me how I felt. Again with the questions. I was brutally honest. I told her what I felt, which by majority was tiredness and sheer mental exhaustion. My brain literally wanted to simply shut off. We debated on several topics such as medicine and about her practice as a “healer”, which I admit to be incredibly wary and skeptic of. Self-proclaimed healers can go hug a tree for all I care, but you won’t ever get me to. We exchanged views on mental health, the state of well-being, and the intricate power of one’s mind. She elaborated about her belief in the mind knowing no difference between fact or fiction. For example, if you imagined yourself running through a field of lush green grass or throwing the last game-winning pitch in the world series, your mind will receive the same intensity and level of stimulation as if it really was running or winning the world series. She proceeded onto her belief in being able to recover from any mental illness, even genetic diseases like schizophrenia and psychosis, by sheer mental power and willpower. She takes the quote, “it’s all in your head”, to a whole new level believing sheer will can set you free. I challenged her on these notions, mainly to support my own belief in psychotherapy and mental illness. Perhaps in some cases, these things appear to go away or lessen in severity over time, but is it really because they thought of happy sunrises and loving thoughts all day? A little bullshit goes a long way. I subtly called her out on it in my own way.

We have differing views. I can respect and leave it at that.

What's Going On? Not Much In Your Eyes

You hear it all the time at work, on the street, at home, at the local convenience store. “What’s going on?”, asks the clerk, the friend, the co-worker, the barista, the bus driver, the guy folding clothes at H&M, the stranger you accidentally glanced and linked eyes with momentarily. Well, I’m just a little tired of hearing it lately. I tried deconstructing the meaning behind the commonly used idiom to greet and acknowledge people, and seriously. What is going on?

Call it my rebellion. Call it my quest for truth. Call it my incessant need to be authentic and always mean what I say. Call it however you see it. I’m not perfect, and sometimes I’m just not in the mood to offer a predefined monotone automatic quick response to the question.

“Not much, you?”
“You know, the usual.”
“Eh, life.”
“Went to X bar and saw X.”
“Did this and did that.”

I’ve been feeling more irritable lately. There probably are a variety of reasons why, not all which I claim to fully understand. Lack of sleep is one large factor. There’s also stress, tiredness, and mental exhaustion from emotional turmoil. Pressure from work is building. Otherwise, life is life right? No, not really, but now isn’t time or blog post to discuss it. Point is, being asked this question or any other surface-level passing greeting (whats up, how you doin, how’s it goin) has lately stirred up more bothersome annoyance than usual.

Let’s start with this notion. Sometimes I just don’t feel like socializing. Period. When in public, I feel pressure to respond to anyone who asks me a question. Needless to say, this pressure is my own, but I do believe everyone deserves a response. I don’t care if you’re Barack Obama or a homeless person on the street. Responding to someone who’s asking a question is a fundamental acknowledgment of their human existence and worth. Everyone is worthy of a response, even if it’s a negative one. There are moments where I just don’t feel like being around anyone, and then there are situations where I have no choice but to be. The questions then come in, and I don’t always understand the point. Some interactions seem rather unnecessary. It’s a judgment on my part, but it irks me. After all, what is it really for? Rather, who is it really for? I say it’s more for them than for me. It’s so they can feel social, so they can satisfy their own personal needs to start conversation with anyone who walks down the street. Another time, another place. Someday I’ll again be in the mood to be chatty and exchange small talk, entertaining the questionnaire. For now though, please find and interrogate someone else to make yourself feel better.

These days, I generally have less things to say or rather less social activities to report I’ve been doing. When I was single, I did a lot to occupy my time. I engaged in a healthy mix of external activities. I engaged in yoga, climbing, happy hours, meditation classes, volunteering, one-to-one dinners, movies, clubs, bars, concerts. These activities seemed generally more agreeable or appropriate to respond with based on outside perspective. It felt more widely accepted as a productive way to spend time. It appeared I was living life to the fullest, embracing it, seizing the day. Well, my priorities have shifted. I’m no longer single, and I occupy my time very differently now. I spend much more time with myself, with my lover, and with loved ones. I meet less people. I do less social things. I don’t go out every weekend anymore. I drink less. I dance less. I simply do less.

Perhaps it looks or sounds like I’m not doing as much. The reality though is I’m always doing a lot. I’m always stretching myself thin, trying to do more, trying to be more, trying to ___ more. Am I really doing less, or am I simply doing more in the areas less visible or noted objectively by others? My point is, who says we’re doing enough? Is it our friends, our parents, our siblings, our coworkers, our boss, our local community, strangers in the neighborhood, Facebook news feeds, religious figures? Or, is it simply ourselves? I find myself constantly asking the self-imposed question, who am I trying to please? Who I am I trying to be good enough for? If I answer internally anyone other than myself, I immediately self-correct and realign my thoughts. The only person I ever want to be good enough for is myself.

What’s going on? I don’t climb as regularly. I don’t do yoga every week. I don’t volunteer anywhere. I don’t meet up with people as frequently. I don’t see as many shows, concerts, and movies. I don’t visit the local bars and clubs anymore.

What’s going on? I am constantly fighting and working hard to resolve issues in my relationship. I am constantly thinking about my future. I am taking proactive steps to realign my life towards the direction I want to go. I am improving my relationship with my brother, how better to relate, and how better to support and cope with his illness. I am undergoing therapy on a weekly basis, working diligently, and taking notes to uncover deeper truths about myself. I am writing, journaling, and now blogging more. I am hanging out with myself, giving myself the space to be creative, to rest, to relax in the moment, and to be free. I am learning to love myself more.

I’m doing more in the areas less visible, sometimes less appreciated, sometimes less understood, and sometimes less accepted by the demanding external world. It’s easy to connect with someone who does A, B, and Z every week and weekend. It’s not as easy to connect with someone who does C, D, and X on their own private time, alone. Subject matters focused around internal emotions, self-love, and self-acceptance tend less to be spoken of, less discussed, and less related to in casual settings. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it is at the moment, and I’ll object to it every time. Next time someone asks me what’s going on, I’m going to tell them. Depending on whether they want to hear it or not, I’ll probably feel rejected and judged slightly, at which point I’ll stop. The point is, I’ll always keep trying.

If you’ve been spending your time lately recuperating from work, finding your cave time, working out marital or relationship conflicts, grieving a loss of a loved one, working on personal growth issues, sleeping/staying in to replenish your soul, or simply taking private moments to yourself without jumping at each social opportunity which gets thrown your way, go you. I support you. I hear you. I respect you. I acknowledge your undeniable strength to stand up for yourself, to yourself, and with yourself against the world.

Be who you are. Do what you need. Always.

Jewelry Making 101

At the end of last year, I purchased an introductory class to making jewelry for Tricia on her birthday.  She’s mentioned it in the past.  She's even declared it as one of her dreams to do.  I thought it'd make a great gift.  I booked months in advance knowing how arts and craft events get booked so quickly especially here in the bay.  As part of her secondary gift, I purchased myself a class ticket to accompany her so I be in the moment and witness her live out a life-long dream.  Little did I know just how much I would fall in love with the art myself.

A random moment of reflection enters.  It never ceases to surprise me how good it feels to have something booked in advance ahead of time.  The longer you have to wait, the longer the excitement, anticipation, and ultimately pleasure gets accrued.  A long time ago, I remembered hearing a friend speak very vividly.  I heard him broach the subject of something potentially crude and crass at the surface level, yet inevitably wise and applicable to all aspects of life.  “If you’re gettin’ down with a girl and you’re about to blow, why wouldn’t you pull back, stop, and wait?”, stated bluntly without any shame, doubt, or uncertainty.  The meaning behind it is simple.  The point was to say, if something feels so incredibly good, don’t let it end so quickly.  We’d be doing ourselves an incredible disservice otherwise.  Instead, prolong it.  Enjoy the ride.  Don’t alleviate the discomfort so quickly to relieve the pressure.  Know the difference between good discomfort versus bad.  The pleasure at final destination is never as good or long-lasting as the moments building up to the apex.  This would prove to be another important life lesson told through the unexpected.  It’s a lesson I still hold to this day deep within me.  The journey is the destination.

The Introduction to Jewelry & Metals class took place this past weekend.  Tricia and I committed total 16 hours over the span of two days inside a warehouse, which felt like a second home for Burners.  The place called The Crucible is located just over the bridge in West Oakland.  It’ll go without saying, but this place is beyond amazing.  Woodworking, blacksmithing, moldmaking, enameling, glassblowing, ceramics, and the list goes on.  They even have a bike shop offering classes build your own bicycle from scratch.  Bike frame, wheels, spokes, chain, seat post, the whole nine yards.  Imagine riding around town.  Someone specs out your ride and asks you where you purchased it.  You respond back, telling them you built the beautiful thing with your bare hands from scratch.  Priceless.

Being inside The Crucible for 8 hours is like being outdoors for 8 hours.  The entrance way is through a giant warehouse-sized garage door, always left open to the public and large enough probably to lug 30 ft steel monster sculptures to and from the place.  There hardly exists anything equivalent to a standard door entrance other than to various workshops littered within the place.  Even still, those doors were always left open.  Point is, if it’s cold outside, then it’s cold inside.  It was really cold and brisk when we went.  It was really cold and brisk inside for 8 hours.

There was a choice to elect a class meeting up once a week for 3 hours for over a month versus a weekend intensive course meeting for 8 hours on both Saturday and Sunday.  Without a doubt, I chose the latter knowing how we both loving charging forward to new adventures with full-force.

Saturday, we had our heads pumped with basic fundamentals.  This included techniques like annealing, sawing, texturizing, filing, and my personal favorite, soldering.  We practiced creating a large variety of textures onto metals using a wide assortment of hammers and punchers.  We created fishnet and snakeskin textures onto copper using a rolling mill.  We learned how to solder butt joints, t-joints, and sweat joints.  We learned about flux and how it protects our metals when heating it up using a torch.  We learned how to detect metal as being properly annealed and how to clean the metal off with an acid bath immediately afterward.  It’s quite a lot to take in on one day, and I was completely wiped out by the end.  To be honest, I was slightly discomforted by the thought of coming back the next day for yet another grueling 8 hours.

Sunday rolled in.  Everyone had a task the night before to come in with a few designs for rings.  The idea was to spend all of Sunday to make them.  Tricia and I arrive late.  We had no designs.  We just had ourselves.  I remember my brain feeling fried.  I remember feeling tired, drained, and weak.  I haven’t slept much the previous week or nights leading up to the class.  I was feeling low and filled with an empty feeling.  Work motivation was up, but I was starting to feel the onslaught of apathy creeping in.  I was fighting my depression once again and was hard on myself for not being more excited about the opportunity at hand.

I sat down.  I isolated into myself and my thoughts.  Designs started popping up out of what seemed like nowhere.  I’d see a line there, a few holes there, a pattern there, words scribed across the middle.  I took a look at some sample rings to help brainstorm.  I saw a silver ring with a piece of brass and copper soldered onto it.  I relished in the idea of juxtaposing small pieces of copper against the silver band.  I thought about uniformity.  I thought about order.  I thought about patterns.  In the past, my designs frequently revolved around lines of symmetry and intricate repeating patterns.  I was conjuring up patterns in my head in addition to subtle but hidden words proving to be particularly special to me and potentially others.  I started thikning about the words perfect and imperfection.  I suppose it’s how I felt most in the moment.

We each received a sliver of silver and had the option of making two rings out of it instead of one.  I was determined to do just that.  I sawed the silver piece in half, then measured and sawed two thirds off the width.  The wider piece was my primary focus while the skinny piece served as my backup and stretch goal.  My motivation earlier was simply one ring, but I was now motivated to make something really beautiful and something which would carry lots of sentimental value.  I went from crafting a plain blank piece of silver to one with two lines bordering up the edges.  Between the lines, I cut out and soldered four small circular pieces of copper, all equidistant from each other.  I punched a pattern of small holes surrounding the copper simply because it just felt right.  After this, I couldn’t help but notice the seemingly perfect blank slate left for me to scribe two words along the ring, oriented in opposite directions.  There were the four slots between each copper piece and then the four copper pieces themselves.  Two words popped into my head almost immediately as if they were part of my plan all along.  They were the two most prominent emotions in my current and past life always dominating my very core.

LOVE - PAIN

There is no love without pain.  They go hand-in-hand.  The greater you love someone, the greater the pain you experience through it.

I fit this for the ring finger of my right hand.  Upon closer inspection of my ring, I’m tempted to draw an even grander conclusion from the design.  This isn’t the first time I designed something for myself only to realize much later on an even greater significance and meaning drawn from it.  The letters spelling the word LOVE is surrounded by lots of space.  The space is a metaphor for freedom.  It provides space to move around in, to be open, to be accepting, to be seen and free.  It rests directly on the silver band.  It rests at the core.  On the other hand, the letters spelling PAIN are trapped within the confines of a tiny copper piece.  The copper piece represents a prison.  It’s a holding cell accompanied by four punch holes carefully placed at each corner.  The holes are like watch towers keeping guard, making sure the prisoner, pain, doesn’t escape.

In life, I find this to be just as true.  We prison our pain.  We often hold onto it more often longer than necessary.  Some people choose to hold onto it forever.  For some, there is pain which will never, ever go away.  Love on the other hand shifts in, out, and around freely.  It comes and goes swiftly like the wind.  It dances around.  It sings.  It moves.  It frees.  Love is freeing.

The skinny ring was a pet project and was one I told myself I cared less about.  Looking back in hindsight though, I treated it with just as much care as I did the other.  If there’s another thing to learn through this experience, it’s knowing it’d be almost impossible for me to half-ass any task.  Even when I told myself the skinny ring didn’t matter, it truthfully still did.  It usually does.  I textured the metal by hand using a small wedge hammer, littering the small piece of silver with textures moving in every direction.  I stamped the letters i-m-p-ǝ-r-f-ǝ-ɔ-t along the band, making sure to flip a few letters upside down to highlight its imperfection.  Each letter was appropriately padded with an even amount of space on each side while its vertical orientation was all mixed.  I wanted this ring to be imperfect, even though I had to strive for perfection while making it.  I wanted this ring to remind me I am imperfect, to continue being imperfect, and to continue striving for imperfection.

I cannot describe the level of joy I have in my heart to be wearing rings I actually crafted.  Everything from the thickness gauge, to the design, to the words, to the meaning.  It’s all my own, and there isn’t a single piece of jewelry at the moment which can mean more to me.

Thank you Tricia.