I have a lot going on right now. Somehow I thought since I wouldn’t be teaching this quarter, I’d have this wide, open expanse for dissertation writing. I imagined leisurely mornings of tea drinking, oatmeal eating, and writing. I have been doing a lot of writing, actually. I’m working on a paper for publication from the dissertation research and workshopping it in class. This week is a big workshopping week, actually. Monday, I workshopped the paper in the Animal Studies Working Group at the UW, which was great, and I got so many amazingly helpful suggestions for changes to make to improve the paper and places to expand when this paper is turned into a much longer chapter for the dissertation. There’s really nothing like sitting in a room and realizing with such comfort that these are your people. I felt so very grateful to sit there and know that they understand the work I’m doing, they understand why I’m doing it and why it’s important, and they understand me. What a gift! Today, I’m workshopping an outline for this same paper in my geography writing class. I imagine this may be a bit bumpier — my personal struggle and ongoing project always seems to be about making an argument for why geographers should care about this subject. The paper is definitely lacking a geographical theoretical frame at the moment and so my next big task is going to be figuring out how to frame it in the geography literature. I always find this a particular challenge.
But back to my extremely unrealistic vision of leisurely dissertation writing. In reality, I’ve come to know about myself that when I have more time in my schedule, rather than spending all that time writing, I just take on more projects. I say, “sure! absolutely!” to projects that interest me, I invent new projects, I expand the projects I’m currently working on, etc. Sometimes I wonder if there is a breaking point. And if there is, where is it precisely? And what does that breaking point look like, really? Is it one huge meltdown after we’ve fallen right over the edge or is it little daily or weekly fissures. I notice more regularly those little fissures. Like when I’ve been sitting all day at the computer and haven’t let myself stop thinking about a particular project all day long. I notice it when my mind gets fixated on solving a problem and won’t turn off until the problem is resolved. I also notice how that focus and inclination to take on more projects may be harmful to the psyche, the mind, and the body.
Given that I’m not interested in reducing the number of projects I’m doing, I’ve been trying to think of ways to diffuse some of the tension and stress associated with this kind of schedule. When it was just me and Maizy during the day, I would take walks with her to step away from the computer, clear my head, get my blood moving and fresh air in my lungs. Now, with Saoirse, walks are anything but relaxing. Walking the two of them together is, honestly, a huge test in patience. Maizy pulls in one direction and Saoirse pulls in the opposite direction. The leashes get hopelessly tangled. Saoirse tries to eat every piece of dog and cat shit she finds or any scrap of food or piece of bone dropped by the crows in the neighborhood. More than once, I’ve reached into her mouth to extract whatever she managed to grab off the parking strip only to find myself holding a slimy piece of half-chewed poop. Yup. Not relaxing AT ALL. Maybe someday we’ll work out a better system where walks with the dogs will be relaxing, but that is not the case now.
I’ve turned to thinking about other forms of relaxing, taking a break, forcing my mind and body to stop, pause and recalibrate. Standing up to stretch and do some deep breathing is good, but I’m also trying out a regular practice of closing myself in a room by myself for 5 minutes and doing Savasana. Savasana is the “corpse” pose in yoga. It’s a grounding pose, a pose where you make your body and mind neutral and still. In yoga practice, savasana has always been one of the poses that effects me most and that instantly helps me to feel calm and grounded. I thought, why not try to incorporate this into daily life, even if there isn’t time to do a full yoga practice? I’ll have to let you know how it goes.
Do you have any favorite tips or methods of relaxing and taking a step back in the midst of a work day?
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Swimming everyday does it for me. That and blinking alot when I get dry eye from sitting too long in front of the computer.
Wanted to let you know that I took the leap and converted one of my favorite muffin recipes into a vegan treat. It involved switching unsweetened applesauce for an egg and soy milk plus a teaspoon of vinegar for buttermilk or plain nonfat yogurt as I’ve been using. The texture is a bit smoother but the taste is great plus not as sweet as some of the vegan muffin recipes I’ve come across. What is it about all that sugar?
Gale, that’s great the vegan conversion was a success. Thanks for sharing! You’re right about the sugar content in a lot of vegan recipes…I really don’t know why some of them have such high quantities of sweeteners. I find that I can usually cut the recommended sugar in half and the recipe still comes out fine and perfectly sweet. What kind of muffins did you veganize?
And swimming sounds like a relaxing, low-impact form of exercise for getting away from everything. 🙂
It was a bran muffin recipe from Jane Brody’s Good Food cookbook. No sugar. Just 2 tsps of honey (do I need to switch that out–forgot about the bees!) and 1.4 c. of molasses.
That sounds great! You could probably just up the molasses a tiny bit or use some maple syrup in place of the honey. 🙂 Love that there’s not sugar in the recipe!
How about a gently placed nose loop placed over Saoirse’s nose, so she can’t quite get her canines and incisors around some unpleasant tidbit.
Look into Guided Imagery of Mind-Body Medicine to dump the built up stress that accumulates—breathing, relaxing each part of your body, asking each part of your body’s intelligence what you can do to let the stress go and allow your suppressed immune system to manage and heal the psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunological damage stress can cause on your body. Drs. Andrew Weil and Martin Rossman have a wonderful CD. If you are interested, I can place these audio files in my DropBox and send you a link to them. Do you use DropBox?
We arrived in Portland late Sunday night. Jeré’s CT scan to evaluate the radiation and chemo therapies she received in Oct-Nov went well. The tumor and lymph nodes were definitely reduced in size, if not inactive. Dr. Andrew Kee, our radiation oncologist, said he was pleased with the results. However, I think we need to query Dr. Louise Toltzmann, our naturopathic oncologist, we will see tomorrow (get her opinion of the CT scan), Dr. Robt. Raish, our chemo oncologist, on Friday, and finally Dr. Jordan Fein, our pulmonologist, next Tuesday. We really appreciate the books and DVD you sent which have given us much positive energy. Big “Hello” to Eric and the critters.
Thanks, Rick! First, I’m very glad to hear that it sounds like good news on Jere’s CT. I’ve been thinking of you both every day and sending positive energy and love your way, hoping that in whatever tiny way, it might help with her healing and recovery.
The loop around Saoirse’s nose might help with the walks, though oddly the last few days she hasn’t been eating as much on our walks. And we’re trying out a new housetraining method, which involves lots of regular trips out to the same boring spot in our yard to try to get her to stop going in the house.
The Weil and Rossman sounds very interesting. I do have dropbox, but I never use it and seem to have forgotten how it works. I’ll do a little investigation and see if I can get it up and running on my end.
Big hugs and love to you both. xoxo
I’m noticing this right now tremendously as I enter the final stretch of grad school and try to figure everything out. I’ve started taking Jack for walks regularly or going for a bike ride by myself. I’m planning on adding yoga one day a week to re-ground. One thing I am hoping to invest in is a home study program from Wilderness Awareness School called “Kamana” (check it out here: http://wildernessawareness.org/kamana/).
I am worried somewhat for when we add our puppy to our family in March this year; our plan is to provide individual time. Jack first, Kolby second and vice versa – that way with the puppy we can work on training and play and with Jack we can focus on exercise and spending time with him. Once the puppy is a little older and well mannered we’ll start putting them together more.
I wish you blessings during this time of working to find balance and harmony. Good luck with writing and balancing it all together!
Thanks, Rachel! The Kamana training sounds really interesting. I was particularly intrigued by learning bird language. I wonder all the time when I’m out walking around the neighborhood what all the birds are saying to each other!
When we introduced Saoirse, everything I read just said to lavish Maizy with lots of love and attention for two main reasons– 1) so she felt loved and not like she was being replaced and 2) so Saoirse could see us having a positive, loving relationship with a dog and maybe not be so frightened. Not sure if that will be an issue with your new pup, but it definitely helped Maizy ease through the transition a lot better.
Hope you’re doing well and that your thesis is coming along nicely!
I can totally identify with this post, Katie! I’m supposed to be working on my master’s project this semester but it is independent study so all of the other more do-able and fun projects seem to be getting done first while I procrastinate on the big one. I know I am doing too much when I wake up way too early and when I am so fixated on the computer that my cat has to put her butt in my face to remind me to feed her. I don’t have any words of advice other than I’m trying to get in my daily exercise for stress relief and keeping a sense of humor about it all. 🙂
Carrie! It’s amazing how many more fun things pop up when you’re supposed to be working on a big project. I find that even scrubbing the kitchen floor starts to sound fun, not to mention all the things that are ACTUALLY fun! 🙂 I can totally relate to the cat butt in the face thing. Our mister kitty loves to floof his fluffy butt in my face while I’m working and lay down on my keyboard. You’re so right about the sense of humor. I can get pretty gnarly to be around when I’m stressed without a sense of humor. Best to just laugh off the stress. 🙂
Katie,
Don’t forget about the joy of coloring. Your mandala coloring book might be enjoyable and calming. And every now and then, how about walk by yourself to Yoga? Jim says check out Parkinson’s law. Xxxxoooo
Coloring! I forgot! The mandala coloring book would be perfect! xoxo