Exhausting My Body, Calming My Mind

"Studies suggest that the brains of insomniacs may be in a constant 'on' state,

continuing to operate at high levels even when it's supposed to be dialing down ..."

-- Alice Park, "Insomniac? You Might Have A Hyperactive Brain," Time online

Self portrait 6-27-14

"If your dog has a lot of built-up energy, a really vigorous dog walk 

is another excellent way to redirect it where YOU want it to go. 

Once you've burned that extra energy away, your dog should be pleasantly exhausted 

and too tuckered out to jump and nip."

-- Cesar Millan, "How To Calm A Hyper Dog," Cesar's Way

I love The Dog Whisper.

I don't even have a dog.

I don't even particularly like dogs.

But I've discovered that you don't really need to have a disobedient, overactive dog to use Cesar Millan's helpful advice. 

I have used some of his common sense principles of dog psychology in parenting. I particularly like the concept that an overactive, naughty dog is much more likely to settle down and obey when it has been properly exercised -- when it is good and worn out. Same with overactive, naughty kids.

My kids are grown and no longer have behavioral issues. But this particular dog-rearing principle is still massively useful and effective in managing my own wildly disobedient, overactive mind.

"Overactive mind" is a real diagnosis that is often coupled with anxiety and insomnia, both of which I have. When you have an overactive mind like mine, it's as if the "on" switch is permanently stuck. And the more you try to switch it "off", the more "on" it gets. Imagine a light bulb that is being pumped with more voltage than it's supposed to conduct, so that it's constantly on the verge of shattering.

Or, imagine a hyperactive dog that is constantly barking, biting, jumping around and knocking all the tchotchkes off the tables (and then eating them). Now imagine that same dog racing around inside of your head, and every time you shout "No!" or "Bad dog!" it's as if you're encouraging its misbehavior, and so it just ramps up even more.

It's exasperating. It's incessant. It's constant. It's oppressive. It's maddening.

It makes you want to shoot the damn dog.

This is why I love The Dog Whisperer.

Thanks to Cesar Millan's advice on how to calm and quiet, rather than shoot, a hyperactive dog, I can use exercise to calm my overactive mind effectively enough so that I don't go off the deep end.

Cesar says:

"If you don't provide enough exercise, the dog's excess energy in its body will 

override everything else. That dog's mind will not be focused and its heart (or feelings)

will go completely out of control."

Mine too.

Yesterday, my yipping mind wouldn't shut the fuck up. It was barking, biting, jumping, scratching ... all that shit.

So I took Cesar's advice and used my body to get inside my head. I climbed on my road bike and pedaled, hard, for about 3 hours without stopping. I pumped music through my ears while I pumped out excess energy through my legs, and I didn't stop until my body was so exhausted that my mind finally came to heel.

The thing about overactive dogs is that they'll be overactive again tomorrow and they'll require their good, hard playtime again. And again. And again.

It's the same with my overactive mind.

That's why you'll find me out there pretty much every day, working my mind issues out through my body's tissues.

I guess that's why they call it a workout.

Anyway, I do it because Cesar says.

Sit. Stay. Good dog.

A Good Way To Let Off Steam

"Let off some steam, Bennett."

-- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Commando

Steaming tea kettle 5-26-14

"Sometimes I need to blow off steam and go dance really hard."

-- Kristen Wiig

Yesterday was one of those strange Bizarro World days where everything I tried to accomplish went to Hell in a hand-cart.

Nothing major happened. Nothing serious. It was more like a day-long accumulation of pesky little stupid shit.

It seemed like no matter what I did, or tried to do, I was stymied, thwarted, interfered with -- all of which left me feeling very tense, angry, volatile, combustible. 

Steamed.

Even my trusty, reliable, sure-fire ways to blow off all that steam backfired, which just made me more steamed.

By the end of the day, all I wanted to do was get blasted, shake my tiny fists at the heavens and scream "FUUUUUUUCK!!!" from the rooftop.

But I didn't.

Because I had an Ace up my sleeve.

After supper I left the dirty dishes for the boys, strapped on my helmet, leather and boots, and went out for a long motorcycle ride.

There was a hazy, misty quality to the atmosphere as I zoomed along the coastline of Lake Erie, watching the sun slowly sink through the clouds towards the water. 

A few miles in, my lungs uncoiled and expanded all the way down and I finally breathed deep, full breaths instead of the shallow anxious ones I'd been breathing all day. 

Anxiety, frustration, tension, disappointment -- all that shit from my shitty stupid day began to fall away, so I just kept riding until it was all out of my system and I'd left it behind like a greasy smear of roadkill on the pavement. 

I kept riding until I felt better.

I kept riding until I felt good.

Pressing Pause

"Flowers didn't ask to be flowers and I didn't ask to be me."

-- Kurt Vonnegut

Coral rose 6-17-14

"I get those fleeting, beautiful moments of inner peace and stillness --

and then the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day,

I'm a human trying to make it through in this world."

-- Ellen DeGeneres

"But this rose is an extra. 

Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it.

It is only goodness which gives extras, 

and so I say again that we have much to hope for from the flowers."

-- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

If only life had a "pause" button.

When too much is happening and its all just a confusing commotion of meaningless noise, wouldn't it be nice to be able to press pause and  put it all on hold for just a little while?

The bang and clatter don't have to be coming from "out there," either.  I've found that my inner racket can be louder and more bewildering than any external noise. 

Yesterday the noise inside got a little overwhelming, so I poured myself a fizzy and went outside. 

I sat at the patio table for a while and listened to the birds making a general fuss about things. I checked the progress of my vegetable garden: blooms on the zucchini and tomatoes, lovely florets on the broccoli, cauliflower doing nicely, peppers a little behind, weeds to be pulled, time to water.

I wandered around the backyard flower beds. 

The coral rose bush was covered in tight little buds. But a couple of blooms were just beginning to uncoil. I grabbed my camera, just to see how they'd look through the viewfinder, and a beautiful thing happened.

The noise died down.

Life paused.

I spent I-don't-know-how-long looking at buds and blooms through the eye of my macro lens. My breathing slowed and evened out. My mind settled and quieted. The confusing cavalcade of anxious thoughts diffused into the blurry background as I focused close-up on a single something else.

I didn't look up until my camera battery died.

The birds were still making a fuss.

The weeds still needed to be pulled.

My inner racket was still rattling around in its cage.

But the volume was turned way down and the noise didn't bother me nearly as much.

Now, if only life had a "mute" button.

Re-Emerging

"This world is clearly emerging before our eyes.

The shifts ahead, the opportunities ahead are massive."

-- Carly Fiorina

Tulip sprouts 3-21-14

"We all hope for breakthrough rebirth moments."

-- Dane Cook

Tulip sprouts (2) 3-21-14

"You raze the old to raise the new."

-- Justina Chen, North of Beautiful

Tulip sprouts (3) 3-21-14

A year ago at this time I was in a dark and scary place.

I'd kind of dropped out of my life. I'd gone underground, buried beneath the pressing weights of insomnia, anxiety and depression.

I'd stopped doing some things that, until then, had been very important parts of who I am. Most notably, I'd stopped acting.

In addition to my 365 days projects, I am also an actor. Theater mostly. But performing on stage and auditioning for roles, in my then-current condition, was out of the question.

In the last show I did, I was so exhausted and sleep deprived that I forgot my lines onstage more than once, which is definitely not something I am used to. During a scene in the show before that, my persistent facial spasm went apeshit and the other actor zeroed in on it, and it totally threw him off his game. In the green room afterwards, he teased me about it and I tried to play along with the joking, but it hurt. A lot.

I do most of my work an hour away in Cleveland, and there were nights I drove to and from rehearsals after 36 hour stretches of zero sleep, nights when I had no fucking business being behind the wheel of a car.

It all scared the shit out of me. It left me snake bit, gun shy, and super skittish about wanting to try again too soon, if at all.

The thing that scared me most, though, was how easily I was able to let go. I was growing ever more lackadaisical and apathetic about something that had once been a driving force and a passion. I didn't give a fuck. And even if I wanted to give a fuck, I didn't have a fuck to give. The passion, the drive, the hunger, the need -- vanished.

I was honestly starting to doubt whether I'd ever get back on the horse.

But yesterday I got a sensation that something was stirring again -- struggling to break the surface and re-emerge after its long, hard, dark dormancy.

I went on my first audition in almost a year and a half.

I think I did OK. I felt good about it. I was rested, calm, confident. The atmosphere felt familiar and right. My facial spasm was wonderfully obedient.

And whether I get the job or not is beside the point. The important thing is that I did it. I showed up. I went. I tried. I pushed back up through the packed earth and peeked out at a world I feared I'd never see again.

Guess what? It's still there.

So am I.

Antidepressants

"Be brave; be strong; take your pills."

-- Andrew Solomon,

  The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Self portrait, acrylic on wood panel 1-27-14