Happiness of the week:
This feeling of having set the right priorities. My apartment is a mess and much dirtier than I like it but I took care of the things that really mattered this week and the rest is something my vacuum and I can fix in 1 or 2 hours.
My new boss and her clients. She’s the best and I enjoy working for a small business that serves the collective and not just the c-suite.
The library that I work in on Fridays now. It’s one of the many many public libraries in Berlin and it’s a very frequented 3rd place. It has many good and functional work places with power and USB outlets, you can print, you can read, internet is good and free, you can borrow books and magazines obviously, they have a fridge and shelf for foodsharing… I’m facing the window and look out over the street, into the sky. Sometimes the clouds move and I get a peek of the crescent moon. Next to me is someone who brought 5 travel bags and a small backpack. They’re working on a scrap book, or collage, or…lots of paper. Lots of books. Lots of pens. A glue stick. On the other side is a very old person using the library’s computer. I’m here with my crusty laptop with cat stickers in a panda jumper. People are friendly and considerate and everyone seems happy to be able to be here. What a blessing.
Join me in using this my phone background if you like it:
flower work is not easy. remaining soft in fire takes time. nayyirah waheed
This poem always reminds me of why I strive to deal with my issues in the first place. I don’t want to be consumed by them, I don’t want them to take over my personality, I don’t want to live in my oppression or the violence I encounter. I want to live in my freedom, in my choices, in my joy. I also don’t want to be soft all the time (I want to be fierce when I can, aggressive when it’s needed, strict when I like it) but there is power in being connected to my softness and being able to access it. Power is empty without feeling, hollow when it’s dehumanised, violent when it doesn’t strive to serve a collective good. Softness is kindness, and kindness is the power to stay connected. To find common ground in our shared humanity.
I did well this week regarding dealing with stress. I learned that even if we deal with a problem (the stressor), we still need to deal with the stress response of our bodies. Or else we’ll be “soaked in stress juice” and we’ll stay there. I did stay there over the weekend after some rather disturbing bureaucratic news last Friday, but then I was able to do something about the stressor on Monday and started actively handling my stress response on Tuesday.
Not ideal, given that I did sit soaked in stress juice for days (my freeze response), but much better than I used to handle issues like this: staying up until 3am and then getting 2-3 hours of sleep. I can’t even physically do that anymore. This week, I slept a fair amount, still not enough but around 6 hours, sometimes the 7.5h that I need. I moved my body and prioritised sex and social time over a neat apartment, even though I felt a bit guilty for that decision at the time. I feel all smug and smart about it now.
I also ate ok: on the healthy end, not always enough but better than at other stressful times. Here’s a good example how stress impacts physical health. I lose my appetite over stress and lived in stress for years. The stress response makes your heart go faster, muscles tense, sensitivity to pain diminishes…ultimately it’s a survival response to a perceived threat. Great and appropriate for the short term, destructive in the long term: in my case, I paid the price with my digestive system, namely reflux that got my oesophagus inflamed including an ulcer, stomach pain and nausea, and my gall bladder and I had to part ways (thank you for serving me for nearly 40 years. RIP). The nervous system regulates digestion, basically we only digest properly when we’re in a relaxed (parasympathetic) nervous system state; so not being there often enough burns out either those systems that are neglected (like digestion), or those in overdrive (more stress, more blood pressure, more risk of heart disease.) It’s been nearly one and a half years and my stomach is still not at a 100%, hence my determination to figure out this thing with stress.
The goal isn’t to not be stressed, that’s also not healthy, my goal is to move out of stress much more easily and to not let it ruin my body anymore. I’ve learned that a healthy nervous system moves between all states all the time, that sounds great to me. I hope to still train Aikido when I’m as old as my oldest Aikido friend who is in her 70ies. Our teacher in Japan is in his 80ies. Maybe I can become someone’s oldest friend in my own 70ies. Like her, always wearing perfume and lipstick. With papery looking skin and flawless technique that makes you happy to meet the mat. And able to laugh worries away. I adore people with that skill. My lover will tell me about the most harrowing workload he’s been having and then laugh at how much it stressed him out, with the softest of chuckles. Those chuckles in turn make me soft and by the way, a big part of Aikido is also staying soft, bending when we need to, meeting the mat instead of breaking a bone. The strength of a flexible spring rather than plain force, always moving, always creating spirals to flow through. And like in the poem, remaining soft in Aikido takes time. It’s the most difficult part of training. So I keep practicing, on the mat and everywhere else.
See you next week!
Leonie
This library is so cute:
