#109: Black moods and coping mechanisms.
Anxious, grumpy, stressed brain, meet your new friend: noticing.
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Is there anything worse than being grumpy when you expected to be happy?
That’s how I felt this Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday — all the festiveness and togetherness and coziness and mashed potatoes but without the stress of gift-giving.
This year, I was elated to have the kids home, to have my family packed into the treehouse, to eat so much pie. But I found myself out of sorts.
I’d wake up each morning reset by the night’s sleep. I’d take in the trees and sunrise, read a little bit of my bedside book, The Book of Delights by Ross Gay, and look forward to the day ahead. But then the whirlwind would start, and my mood would slide downhill.
Why? I honestly don’t know. Maybe this is just how life is sometimes? Maybe I miss some of those old joys of Thanksgiving when Mike was around… All I know is, it was definitely made worse by the fact that I expected myself to be feeling great, and just wasn’t.
Saturday morning, I’d finally had enough of my own foul mood.
… But it was too cold to do my regular grumpiness-elimination routine: a hike in Great Falls Park.
… And of course I didn’t feel like reading any of my four in-process books.
… I didn’t even feel like writing. (Side note: It’s so crazy to realize that I’m really a writer now. When I can’t write, due to internal or external forces, I feel like I’m deprived of a key nutrient.)
So I just stared at the dark, pre-dawn sky out my window, feeling a bit like a testy teenager who may or may not be holding onto their bad mood on purpose.
I live close enough to Dulles International Airport that the sky over my house often includes an airplane or four. The highway of lights overhead might bother others, but I love the constant reminder of flight, travel, and having the world accessible from my doorstep. My previous international business trips, and current international for-fun trips, have created a web of friends, adventures, and aha moments that span the globe. So seeing a tictac with wings jet across the sky reminds me of moments when I was out of my routine and swept into the awe of being alive.
I’ve watched the planes enough to realize that that morning, one was on a different flight path.
Perhaps it’s coming from Montreal, or maybe Iceland! Wow, that must’ve been an early flight for them. Or maybe the pilot just took a different flight path because they like it better. Perhaps the view is different. Are pilots allowed to change course to get a better view?
The crankiness was gone, replaced by curiosity.
I often think of coping methods as types of activities.
Read a book! Go to a museum! Run as deep into the woods and as far from other humans as possible!
But that morning I wasn’t finding solace by either escaping my circumstances or escaping my mind. Instead I found a different way to just be in it. I dove into my senses and let the details of what I saw around me spark a new type of feeling. Yes, there was a part of me that still wanted to grumble. But I tuned my internal dial away from this part (we can call her the Judger) and instead handed the mic to the Noticer.
Turns out the Noticer has the Investigator, Dreamer, and Delighter on speed dial too.
Soon my mind was playing out possibilities for trips I wanted to take in the New Year, wondering about the lifestyles of international pilots, and happily diverted from my own crumby inner state. I think I even giggled. I’ve always been a fan of sinking out of autopilot and into observation (more on that in post #6 and post #55), but I hadn’t realized that it could be used in-the-moment this way. Which makes me want to smack my forehead with a “Duh, Deagle!” but that’s beside the point.
As the sun rose, I started to look around my room for other things I could notice, and my bedside book caught my eye. The Book of Delights. The premise is simple — each day author Ross Gay wrote an ode to something that delighted him. Ode to air quotes. A tomato plant. A silent nod of recognition.
Gay (I love that that’s his last name, by the way) was showing me how it was done — take my noticings to the next level. Pick a subject and tune the dial to delight. Choose to pay attention to the things that would light me up, instead of pull me down.
Now that the holidays are in full swing, it’s important to have coping methods close at hand.
When we’re out of our normal routines, sweating booze and sugar, and trying to stay cheery but our eyelid keeps twitching, we need all the help we can get.
Especially in the form of subtle coping methods — things we can do if we have only five minutes to hide in the bathroom, or while we sit in an airport arrivals traffic jam.
So I’ve started the practice of writing a daily Noticing Ode (Node for short). Everyday it reminds me that I have the power to tune my dial. So far I’ve written about a majestic eight-point buck standing at the end of my driveway, ponytails and their cousins, pigtails and man buns, and a fading dream about a painting of light.
This way my mind has something engaging and re-centering to DO, rather than being shouted down and told to take a literal hike.
It may seem simple, but for this widow, adding a new tool to her coping tool box is revelatory. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer now ;), but my inner ache craves more than simple distractions.
By creating something, even a short note on my phone, I’m reminded of who I am and what I’m capable of. I’m reminded of my past, as my Nodes often pull up memories (dad’s deer hunting days, Kendall’s toddler pigtails). I’m reminded of what still awaits me, realizing how much more there is to experience and discover. And most importantly, I realize where I am isn’t that bad.
Sometimes there’s so much going on, we get lost in the tornado of problems to solve. And the holidays take the normal stress we’re under and supersize it.
Noticing slows down my pace, so I can look around and remember that everything isn’t actually crapola. From there, it’s much easier to see the truth: Sure, I could’ve used more alone time this Thanksgiving, and definitely more time to write. But other than that, it was time well spent.
Good luck this holiday season!
For a while now I’ve spent time noticing as I wake up in the morning. I sit in a chair looking into my deck if it’s cold out, or actually on the deck if the weather allows. I marvel at the birds at their feeders, their differing behaviors and their beauty. I look to the trees in their magnificence, and the flowers in theirs, if they’re blooming. Contemplating nature and its immense variety and beauty calms my nervous system and prepares me for the day. I’m happy to hear you’ve found a version of this solace for your own days. Marveling is never-ending.
Enjoy your noticing!